Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Uncle Sam is a selfish bastard who only cares about himself

I was late for my internship at WJFK on Monday because it took forever to get our taxes done. My poor grandma didn't realize what a circus she was in for. "You'll be out of here in like 40 minutes," she said, but NO DICE. With five W-2's between the both of us, as well as two 1099's from Thanasi, we were there until like 11, trying to knock down the monster debt to something a little more manageable. This meant I didn't fall asleep 'till like 11:30, which led to my not even reacting to my alarm when it rang to wake me up at 4 AM. I woke up in a panic about 5 minutes before the Junkies went live, and called Bret the producer, and of course, always being the sweetheart that he is, he said it was "Cool". I wonder if "cool" really means "I don't give two shits whether you're here or not, your presence is felt so little". I rushed over there anyway, with ragged hair and almost no make-up. I felt really out of sorts all day.

After listening to my show on Sunday, my parents complained that I made them look bad by confessing to the audience - all 10 of them - that we were very poor when we came to the US and that I had horrid, mis-matched clothes from thrift stores and the salvation army and kids made fun of me. In fact, they accused me of lying and exaggerating, claiming that I never wore second-hand clothes. It's amazing how little they remember about those times. I know they were busy working and trying to improve our situation, but my sister and I DID live through some frightening times. I even have a shirt that we got at some thrift store, or that the Jewish Community Center donated to us, still folded in my closet. I still wear it sometimes! My mother demanded I show it to her as proof, but I know that they won't acknowledge the fact that I was a complete and utter loser, mostly through no fault of my own.
"But we brought over our own clothes with us, that we bought in Turkey and Italy when we used to travel for our business back home!" they said defensively.
Yeah, well, the problem with those clothes was that they looked absolutely nothing like what the American kids were wearing, probably because everything I had was meant for adults, hung strangely on me, and by that point was obviously outdated. Every time I see old photos, I literally cringe, and I got to do a lot of that on Sunday! My parents are in the middle of remodeling their entire house, so all my old albums and yearbooks have resurfaced. I'll try to scan in some photos sometime soon so everyone can see what the fuck I'm talking about! It isn't a joke. I'm traumatized, damn it! And the yearbooks are the worst. All the inane, superficial comments, just so we don't have to feel alone... *sigh*

Oh well. Life sucks. Feeling alone is a permanent state of mind for me and I've come to accept it.

So, like totally K.I.T. and H.A.G.S. y'all!

2 comments:

Bloominggirl said...

K.I.T and H.A.G.S? I'm lost

MariyaWrites said...

In yearbooks children would write K.I.T. for "keep in touch" and H.A.G.S. for "have a great summer", and so the entire yearbook entry would look like a series of letters and symbols with generic meanings.