Smith & Wesson

I bought a new drill today and you were the first person I wanted to tell. I wonder when that urge to tell you something will go away. 

It's not fair to want your attention anymore. You're not mine. But memories of you flash like neon signs in my brain with images of cuddles, smells, cars, radios, texts. You're my past tense now and I'm struggling to accept that. 

It's been quiet since you've been gone. The sounds of your silence are haunting. The sound of you not texting me good night before you go to bed. The sound of you not calling me after a meeting--it visits me every night. You now fill other rooms with laughter--rooms occupied with other people. Rooms where I'm not welcome. Do you cuddle her on the same couch you fucked me on? I shouldn't focus on her. I'm surprised is all. That someone else is your girlfriend.  It's a tough jagged little pill to swallow. Does she swallow?

I wonder if you do the things with her I always wanted--or do you just act in the same self-obsessed way? I awaited your curiosity. About me. About anything. You never asked me questions or tried to get to know me. I know I was hard, but you were hard too. You kept forgetting that I love cherries but hate cherry fizzy water. And you'd get mad but wouldn't communicate it. Did you know that you're moody? You should know that about yourself. I'm moody too, but I admit it. I don't hide behind a cowboy hat of bravado and self-righteousness. Your life philosophy that "if you don't mind it don't matter" was idealistic but inaccurate; you are the most uptight and serious person I know. As Aristotle said, you are what you repeatedly do--our actions form other people's opinions of us, not our thoughts or intentions. Your actions were hard sometimes. 

I'd been starving for your attention for years. I was emotionally parched waiting for you to offer me even a crumb. And then...suddenly, you let your guard down--at year 7 of 9. And you know what's weird? I had grown so accustomed to your emotional unavailability that when you finally showed up, it was weird as shit. I felt so alone in that relationship that when you finally decided to show up, it felt like there were too many people involved. Because it was too late. You kept yourself kempt in a fucking fortress of self-preservation and when you finally came down it was so fucking eerie and misplaced that I didn't know what to do with it. 

Could we have made it work? Do you think? I really don't know. All relationships have issues, but ours were too quiet-- we never fought. Which means we never worked out our differences--we just buried them further and further down. Cruise control is easy and comfortable, but it's also stifling. We weren't headed anywhere. I guess taking the risk and seeing how our future played out just didn't make sense; the logistics made it impossible. Yesterday someone told me that if we really wanted to make it work we would have found a way but I honestly can't see a path that led to us staying together forever, at least not happily. Even if we got engaged or married, it would be like, ok now what. Where do we live? What about my sister? And what about all your stuff? Your garage is a thing of nightmares. No, we played it out as long as we could. But it's still fucking hard to accept. That you're not in my life anymore. And I never for a million years thought we wouldn't be friends. Because we're not, and you should know that. Friends don't ignore and ghost their other friends. You know who does that? People with black hearts. 

So it's really over? I need to let you go? OK. I'll do it. I know it's hard but not impossible. It just takes time. That was how you got through it, right? See, I wouldn't know because you didn't text me back because of your black heart.

I'll leave you now, but not before I say...

• You're dreamy

• You're really smart

• Your job is fucking hot

• Your taste in movies and TV is shit but your music selection is fantastic

• I only want you to be happy and fulfilled but I don't think I could handle seeing you ever again

• Sometimes I felt like you didn’t like me

• Your reactive nature scared me and I often walked on eggshells around you

• I appreciate that you finally welcomed me into your family

• You work hard, not smart. It's infuriating because you could literally be as successful as some of those guys you admire 

• I loved holding your hand

• I think your childhood really damaged you and by not addressing that pain and trauma, you are unable to be emotionally present 

• You have great hair

• I melted a little hearing you speak Spanish

• I love how you treated Abby

• I miss your smell

• I regret that we never had break-up sex

• I considered us an AA power couple

• I hate that I can't call you right now

And on and on and on and on...

That’s it. It’s time to let you go. Goodbye my sweet Baboo. I hope they make good banana bread on your side of the break-up.

oxox

 

Alchemy

You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays.

- Max Schumacher, Network

Wizards tried for years to convert stone to gold, a “science” called alchemy, which essentially attempts to create something valuable from something shitty and worthless. The futility is laughable and I'm almost embarrassed for those bearded warlocks, until realizing, while staring into the cold truth, that I do this every day. My less avaricious but just as futile gestures-- instead of changing tin to gold--attempt to process awful things from the past into a positive present as I try to glean wisdom from recurring and unpleasant thoughts.

Did you know I do that? As I retell our stories, relive our adventures, and rehash our journeys? I tirelessly manipulate our time together to make it educational. Something to learn from, grow from and apply as a warning with the next boy?

It’s a criminally easy act, “entertaining” thoughts, and I don’t know what else to do when they arrive. I provide so much time and energy to keep the fuckers around. Lately, a freshly ended relationship tirelessly stops by to say hello. Although it leaves when I ask, it keeps returning with new stuff. Last night, it came over with vacation photos and a bottle of vodka. This afternoon, it brought a warm blanket and some food. And now it comes with funny stories and ice...making the vodka more palatable. I hadn’t thought about him in a few hours, so when it came, I knew what to do: we sat together for hours and had tea. We’ll drink the vodka later, I’m sure. 

Sadly, I can’t turn this into gold because alchemy is hard--just ask those stinky medieval doctors. Maybe I let his thought stay too long, but instead of having a positive outlook, I’m actually wallowing more. Is there a version of alchemy where metal converts into a shittier metal? That’s what’s happening. The dark thoughts have become destructive, and every visit leaves me more empty. Like a dirty aluminum can.

I wrangle my inner cowboy to lasso the ghosts out, but thoughts can be relentless guests; they never get full. And its slow, reluctant, almost turtlelike exit gives me plenty of opportunity to pour another cup of tea and have it stay a bit longer. Also, if these thoughts leave, others will just take their place, and I don’t have the wherewithal to entertain another guest. At least I know what to expect with this one. As with all thoughts, I know it will eventually depart on its own, maniacally leaving destruction in its wake and stealing my good china on the way out.

We Are Not Tall

Maybe today I'll be perfect,
And there are only a few days to be perfect;
But, I'll do it better than everyone;
and be perfect at it.

But all of these restrictions! 

In truth, I can't control that my body 
stopped growing
at the five feet and
reluctant five inches following them;

And I can't make my chubby fingers perfect;
no matter how skinny I get.
I can't get them right--

Hair! Why must you be curly?
Smile--Why so surly?
And dear teeth, Won't you chew something more healthy?
Brain--please, oh please, think of something to make us more wealthy.
Heart: start trusting...but not too much. When will you learn to trust just right?

I'll continue to fight perfectly perfect and win this perfect fight. 

Mrs. Lincoln Slept Alone That Night

I want to begin with Yeats,

There's not a woman turns her face

Upon a broken tree,

And yet the beauties that I loved

Are in my memory;

The next line is profound;

The next line explains why I wanted to begin with Yeats.

40 years old; in 2 days, I will be 40 years old. 

And I can’t help but remember that 40

Is Was my suicide age. 

When I decided that I would drown myself in the ocean at age 40

I was only 27. 

At the time, it seemed like the right decision. 

Time.  

Most of life was lived, I figured. Would have been lived. 

Should have been loved. Hasn’t been lived. 

Suppressions creep out on my birthday;

The expectations and pressures and hopes that I never 

Let myself think about. They come to play on May 14. Every fucking year. 

All of the other days, my unadorned finger 

and childless womb 

are just fine;

I want to be alone most of the time anyway. 

But today, 
all I hear is the silence of the non-baby. 
And all I feel is the loneliness 

left by the man who never wanted to marry me. 

All of those men. 

All of those bars. All of those beds...

I accept nothing. 
I expect nothing. I am profoundly sad. Blue. 
A case of the gloomies. 
Eeyore. Charlie Brown--All the pathetic ones. But,
God don't make no junk, right?

And me. I’ll companionize with those pathetic ones. 

There:
I just turned companion into a causative verb. 

And through a crudely placed squiggle below my brilliant creation, 
spell-check says I’m wrong. 
Fuck you spell-check. This is all I have. 

Words.

I can create words--so forget the babies. I’ll make the words. 

They’ll keep me warm in my 2 score. 

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Liger Rides

If desperation were a cat,

I would be a tiger. 

If eagerness could play pretend,

I would be a liger. 

If waiting is like eating

Then my daily bread feeds ten,

If dried fruit is all you’ll offer,

Best to hydrate before then.

If loving you means scorching pain,

Self-flagellation occurs daily;

Like a Muslim during Muharram,

My devotion is unfailing.

Because I drink from our cup every night,

Thirsty lips jut from my face

This lying liar lies to herself

Riding ligers in a daze.

Why We are Small

You’d want me to start by thanking you so

I’ll obey. Thank you,

For tucking us in with pomegranate-scented sheets,

And lining our cribs with imported expectations;

For hiding your inflated hopes 

Under our pillows, 

As they seeped into our soft skulls 

To guarantee:

They will be perfect.

Under the guise of tradition

You protected like wardens, 

You predicted like witch doctors, 

You brainwashed like imams.

We learned that good Persian daughters are small. 

With tiny waists and tiny hands, 

Clasping the tiny paint brushes you handed us,

Meant to color your bleak lives vibrant--

Is that why you made our cribs so small?

We grew only as big as our cages.

The paint brushes were your weapon… or your tool:

Cover the picture of mother,

Before she sagged into her gowns. 

Hide the image of cuckolded father,

The one mother created with broad strokes.

We painted over it with our chastity;

Taking cover, but no husbands.

While eagerly wondering,

Are we perfect yet?

Now, we are only part of a person.

Sadly for us, the remaining part--

The adult part, 

Our part

Was the part you stunted;

Sadly for you, that might have been the perfect part.

So, I won’t say

Your brushes were coated in failure.

I want to, but I won’t.

You taught us to be more obedient than that.

 

Seven Phones

When I drank, I clung to men. When I drank, I refuted religion. When I drank, I surrendered to any carnal whim.

The particular night I’m going to describe is when I drank and took my primitive understanding of feminism too far and called him….but I couldn’t reach him--instead I got a hold of his aloofness...and it broke me. When he hung up, I stared at the dot matrix screen on the Nokia thinking it would ring any second because maybe he’ll call back? He really wants to see me...he said that he just needs to check his schedule. 

When your self-worth is based around a phone call, things can get pretty dark, pretty fast. I’d been waiting for weeks. Had he thought about me even once since my hungover legs draped over his dirty bed in this dirty desert town? I mean, we had so many laughs, right? Every second looking at the puke green screen waiting for it to light up slathered hurt atop another layer of hurt...so, I hurt the phone back. I responded to its abuse and broke it into 7 spiky pieces of plastic--each piece telling me, in a very specific way, what a fantastic piece of shit I am. 

When my still drunk fingertips felt for the phone the next morning to check the time, I touched only the sleeve of an unwatched Netflix movie (DVDs?). Where’s my phone? Oh yeah, I broke it. The clock in the kitchen told me that I had hours before my teaching job (as a doctoral student in the Middle East Studies Dept, I paid my tuition by teaching Persian 101 to a bunch of Iranian jack-offs seeking an easy A). The day unfolded as usual; while on campus, I futilely reached for my phone to check the time, went to class and gave those dickbags their lesson on the Persian past continuous tense. 

Because of my untiring habit of checking the time, I realized the primary function of my phone: to display how many anxiety-filled minutes remain between “now” and “the next thing”. I appeased and contributed to this anxiety by asking strangers on campus for the time—scary and peculiar strangers. Yet, when I walked away from each of them (three total) I liked it. 

It was like we shared something--our world space interacted with our shared world time; right now, in this location, we are both here. You stand in front of me and I see you; I can touch you (but won’t), you can touch me (but don’t), if there was a flood we’d be washed away at the same time, if there was a car accident we’d probably see the same thing, if it started to hail, we’d feel it at once, and if someone was baking bread we’d smell it together. I can’t explain the solace I felt in that moment...or in those three moments, but there they were:  connecting me to people, even though we were just exchanging common minutiae. And I realized that THIS was the source of my ennui and isolationism I sought at the bottom of bottles or the mouths of fleeting and flittering men. I suddenly realized how lonely I had been and how filling it with dick and whiskey was making it worse. 

But the encounter turned sour; once the stranger told me the time, the power dynamic shifted. They had something I wanted: information. It belonged to them and meant so little that their offering felt like charity. I wanted to stop feeling this way, ashamed. Alone. And then I wanted my phone back.

But I didn’t buy a new phone for nearly two days. I liked the quiet and felt lighter. Those seven spiky shards of plastic were stepping stones...to a new me? I'll fall in love with myself now! Nah, shedding all this toxic humanism and weak attempts at self-love, I actually didn't buy a new phone because if it didn't exist, I wasn’t forced to see the zero missed calls on the screen from him, breaking my heart upon every screen unlock. I was able to delude myself into a power shift with the mindset that he's calling me every night; with no phone who’s to say I was wrong? It gave me relief, so I guess the demolition was worth it. Even just for a minute. 

When I got the new phone a few days later and saw two missed calls and three texts my heart jumped a bit with hope, and immediately plummeted with disappointment when I saw my father, sister, and former college roommate’s names on the Missed Call screen. What a funny little brain fuck is this thing we call perspective. Despite the lovely tone of my best friend’s voice or my sister’s dry wit and compassion, nothing but ugly and dark stomach aches circled my belly when I saw their names on the phone screen instead of his. In the company of my phone, I’m ugly, undateable, unmarriable, unwanted, and boring. That’s why I took a hammer to it, but then I bought another one and repeated the cycle, eagerly giving away my power...like a modern Mrs. Havisham...cell phone collecting dust next to the wedding china in that cobwebbed room. 

x

Bouncing off the dive bar

What we did at the bar was dumb--
(the floppy dancing and the singing,
the sloppy kissing then the fingering.)

I went outside
After learning your little name;
the sky in its Eeyore-gray,
was more interesting
than any stupid words you had to say.

You followed me out--
Mumbling something with your gin-laden mouth,
About small dippers and major bears;
While your salty fingers flailed about,
Making a poor man’s classroom of the starry sky.

I settled on Capricorn
when you wanted me to guess your goddamn sign...
No? Maybe Leo? Is Cancer streaming within?
It was definitely worming its way
In this conversation
So, I headed to the knotty-pine walls of the bar
To drink more gin

But before I got inside,
Other creepies emerged from your mouth,
Closed-minded creepies creeping about--
Keep those little creepers out!
Yet, you held them so close while outside,
Kissed them and offer them a ride.

Your fledgling world trumped
the tiny bit left of your flickering light.
Your mouth was, indeed, so stupid that night.

Why did I keep you around after that?
Watching you visibly molest
your ignorant creepers
In...
Plain...
Sight…

Book review: Native Son

Native Son by Richard Wright
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not since Anna Karenina have my conceptions about a book been so mistaken (one that I definitely judged by its unwelcoming and intrusive cover). This went beyond a story depicting race relations in 1940's Chicago; Wright posthumously speaks to what poc deal with on a daily basis today, this one included.

I realize that as a Middle Eastern woman in the Bay Area I don't face the level of oppression as I would/did in the south, but there remains a haunting sense of self-loathing which penetrates the bridge between my olive skin and the white skin of others. A self-loathing captured in Native Son's jarring and disturbed main voice, Bigger Thomas. Wright's masterpiece is self-conscious without stuffing it down my throat; I relate to Bigger, even feel for him at certain points, all the while disgusted by his abject behavior. Zero sympathy, mild degrees of empathy. These are landmark feats.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

-The car sped through the Black Belt, past tall buildings holding black life.
-His being black and at the bottom of the world was something which he could take with a newborn strength. What his knife and gun had once meant to him, his knowledge of secretly murdered Mary now meant.
-This white man had come up to him, flung aside the curtain and walked in to the room of his life.
-Why this black gulf between him and the world: warm red blood here and cold blue sky there, and never a wholeness, a oneness, a meeting of the two?

Not Plath's Metaphors

I've drawn a picture….metaphorically speaking, 

Of the man who claimed my poetry 

was ‘neither good nor bad,’ 

and wrought 

with ‘typical metaphors.’

According to him,

I managed to say nothing

that 'hadn’t already been said.’

So, here are a few words about him--

That may not have already been said. 

He’s like...

A cigaretteI fixate on pressing my lips onto him, and make a worthless vow to stop once I do

A pillow

I can’t stand other people touching him

One old sockI keep him around, even after realizing that the defects from years

of wear-and-tear may deter his primary function of comfort and warmth...

hoping that his softer and lesser-used half may show up and create a whole 

Hands

I can't get him soft enough. No matter how hard I try

A telephone

Provides an outlet for exchanging communication,

but incapable of conveying actual feeling

A telephone call

I was excited by the promise that

it delivered when I first heard it, but disappointed when I heard what it had to say

A tear

He seemed cathartic, but just made my eyes red and puffy

A bruise

A destructive and painful event in my past that lingers on my personThe Italian language

I don’t understand him, but I’m convinced that my previous experiences and former training will assist me to do so (they don’t)

The province of Xu Xi

He’s distant and intangible

Hair gelHe seems like a good idea, but always ends up making me look stupid

Plath did this better

Doesn’t matter anyway.

According to him, 

I wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

Book review: Push

Push by Sapphire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been going through a YA phase (you know, the Lemony Snickets and Harry Potters of the literary world), and decided to read something adult to shake things up a bit. WTF.

I'm still recovering. While being slightly tempted to call this book emotionally manipulative, all it really does is present the truth. I found Hosseini's Kite Runner far more manipulative with its provocations of false emotional response--making me feel terrible and sympathetic but leaving me curious as to whether or not those feelings were my own or just manipulated and elicited by the author. But this? "Precious" or "Push" or that other super long title it has...this shit fucked me up to my core. If you're in need of throwing a wrench into your literary fire, you've found the one. But stay away if you scare easy. These monsters don't have masks; they're all around you.

Sidenote: not since "Catcher in the Rye" have I read a book cover to cover in one day (and that was in high school-- a hundred years ago)


View all my reviews

Dog Days

For Iranians, forget about cleanliness being next to godliness; it's everything—God and the universe times infinity. Basic sterilization norms frame the daily routine: take off your shoes at the front door, never shake hands with the left (because that’s the hand you use…well, never mind), forbid ‘outside clothes’ on the bed, keep your pillowcase covered at all times—so as to rest your head on the cleanest surface possible—and never, ever allow animals in the house as they will burn all sterilization to the ground.

My parents knew two things: germs=bad and manners=good. They plunged me and my sister into the giant above-ground swimming pool of Iranian cultural expectations and social graces until our fingers got pruney. And we didn’t just listen, we fucking obeyed. I experienced the purgatorial trap that second generation kids encounter: I was never enough of one thing. Not Persian enough or American enough. With no sense of self, I suppose self-respect would’ve been a magical tool. But while enforcing house rules, like standing up when an adult enters a room, my parents forgot to teach me how to stand up for myself.

My lack of confidence left a hole inside which I filled with all the wrong things—during adolescence it was school, in my teens it was food, and in my 20s it became men and booze. And when those wrong things ended? Enter: suicidal thoughts. It came crashing down one night, after someone who I thought was the one broke my heart and I had to meet that post-dumped version of “me”. Since the first boy at age 15 (who I didn’t even like that much) till now, the routine goes that my world crashes when someone breaks up with me.

I let my friends drag me to a party that night becaus
e I knew it was better not to be alone. While outside with a glass of wine, cigarette, and misanthropic ennui, a white puffy creature helped itself to my lap and licked its paws. I looked down at this weird dog-creature and my self-pity slowly began to evaporate-- and in its place: a puffball with black buttons for eyes was making me feel something positive. I won’t call it hope because that’s bullshit. It was new (because literally this was the first time a dog ever sat on my lap) and it was real (because it was the first time any living thing had touched my body for weeks). I didn’t know what was happening but I can attest that the empty feeling was gone.

Is this what animals can do? Was I so inundated with sterilization propaganda that I’d been robbed of this connection (and perhaps so many other amazing things) for years? What else were my parents wrong about (spoiler alert: almost everything). That night I learned the error of my parents’ ways and got my own brain and set of standards. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but that’s no god I want to believe in.

A few weeks after the party, I invited a scrappy Yorkshire Terrier into my life. I named her Eleanor Roosevelt to remember the words “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. How did I suddenly have the nerve to start sticking up for myself? Wanting better? Being worth it? Never had I understood the joys of motherhood until Ellen came into my life. I know this is not the same thing as a human baby. But considering my complete lack of interest in human babies because they’re gross, this is as good as it gets. And it’s pretty great. Women attest that motherhood made them stronger and more compassionate. That’s been my journey with this furrball.

I only thought about myself before, like what I’m saying, who I’m fucking, what I’m eating. Now I put a lot of this energy to...no, wait. I’m not going to write about how getting a dog made me into a goddamn saint. I’m still self-centered, but I’ve opened up parts of my heart sliver by sliver. The past has shown that I didn’t let people in because I didn’t know how to cope when they would leave. It’s cliche but it’s real. Ellen is the first--the very first-- unconditional love I’ve encountered. Things like vulnerability and the blanketed term “care” make sense now and my heart skips a little when she prances into a room. I completely let my guard down because I never had one up with her in the first place. Human rules don’t apply with animals. I couldn’t play games, shut her out, ignore her but secretly vie for her attention; I was just me. I loved without thinking about what I could get and I let her love me which is a first. I am valuable. She values me. Not only because I give her food but sometimes, yes, that’s why.

That’s how she gave me the option to get out of my own way. And wherever that empty hole was inside of me that kept me so meek as a child? She filled it. So, Eleanor and I sign off from my bed—in my pajamas, and definitely after I’ve had my bath. Some things don’t change. And that’s ok, too.

Letterman's Jacket

An object that anchors a memory, an idea, an obsession. That’s what this is about; an evocative object—turning and burning in my brain.

Part 1

Like many second generation kids, my adolescence was marked by unease towards my family’s foreignness; my immigrant, Iranian parents were the exact opposite of the American girl I so badly wanted to be. The differences in their speech, behavior, and overall mannerisms positioned them as the other and plopped me right next to them. I grew up embarrassed by my parents’ thick accents and my dad’s blackened fingernails from the oil changes he did at work.

The relational construction of identity-- American and Iranian, sometimes too little of one and other times not enough of the other-- produced a sense of shame as I constantly compared myself to the person I was not--unconsciously cataloging differences, which I defined as deficiencies.  Truthfully, I am no longer oblivious of the linguistic and cultural gift that my parents gave me through their enforcement of a “Farsi-only” household--but growing up, it was a nightmare. The cultural purgatory of Iran at home and America “out there” created a fragmented reality and a disconnect between me and the other kids; it seemed to me that they had perfect lives with white parents and orange cats and golden dogs. I had brown stinky kebab wrapped in tin foil between two pieces of tandoori bread packed by my doting father in the morning before fixing some rich guy's transmission. My frequent desire to be white had manifested from feelings of alienation and not belonging--feelings which followed me into adulthood. This self-loathing is the stuff of second generation kids.
I remember when I touched the fabric in the shop, I was transported to a different identity; the gorgeous, tall, and wanted All-American beauty queen. Yes, in the store, the jacket delivered a sense of whiteness and belonging; it was a beautiful emblem of the high school experience I always dreamed about. But this jacket in front of the Christmas tree depressed the hell out of me. That morning, I looked down at the gold accordioned fabric on the wrist and felt no urge to rub it the way I did in the store, because this jacket was not part of my fantasy. This was just a really expensive jacket my immigrant mother bought me with no connection to Johnny or my insane would-be popularity as his girlfriend. And the one time I wore it to school, people asked me why I was wearing a letterman’s jacket with no letter...as a freshman...who didn’t play sports. My response: school spirit. They bought it, but NEVER AGAIN I told myself.
The look on my mom’s face when I screamed “NO!” after she suggested I wear it again compounded misery upon misery.

I grew up watching Molly Ringwald struggle with crushes, body image, and popularity in the John Hughes cinematic classics...but when I was 14 I didn't handle it as gracefully as she did. The idea of high school--more than attending the school itself scared me. The pre-freshman doom and gloom encircled my head like a committee of vultures forever reminding me that I wasn’t ready, this wasn’t my time for high school--I didn’t know how to “teen” the way it was in the movies or magazines.

The fear manifested to full out terror at the uniform storm where i had to buy PE clothes for the ever-dreaded first day of school. But my excitement for what I saw next eclipsed the dread; there it was, hanging before me: a letterman’s jacket. Before that, I’d only seen them on TV donned by Johnny Football Hero or on loan to his beautiful girlfriend. There in the store, I could touch the coarse felt of the torso, smell the leather sleeve, rub the wrist ends between my thumb and index finger. I was enraptured by this symbol of all I wanted to be: Johnny Football Hero’s girlfriend. She was wanted and beautiful, and I...wasn’t. Because, you see, in this fantasy, I was white--the unPersian.

Part 2

Truthfully, high school was not the way John Hughes made it look--everyone was much shorter in real life and the cafeteria didn’t have a buffet. Also, I went to school in California which is way different than the snow-bound winters of Illinois. My high school looked like a bunch of cabanas strewn together in front of a forest. One thing that was accurate, however, was the prominent role of popularity and social status, of which I had none. I was a funny looking freshman and mercilessly bullied. Thus, my frizzy-haired and gap-toothed self was eager to enjoy three weeks off at Christmas. Like most Iranian families in the States, the holidays are celebrated with a tree and gifts because parents know that their children expect it. And when Christmas morning finally arrived, opening the big present under the tree was fueled couldn't have been more tragic....yep, the jacket. My mother went back to the uniform store once she had seen me admiring it 

Until that moment, I was accustomed to her ignorance to very American things like an Easter egg hunt or a debate on the 2nd amendment. But her obliviousness that this jacket has more meaning--that it wasn't something you just purchased-- depressed the hell out of me. Worse, her self-congratulatory state was heart-breaking. And it kept getting worse: my name stitched in cursive, and below it-- the word “Swimming. I tried to find humor and instead of horror thinking of that the moment when the clerk asked my mother what I had “lettered in.” I'll bet it was met with silence, because she doesn't have any fucking idea what it means “to letter”. 

To my mother, this thing had no context—she didn’t know why it was blue and gold or its self-aggrandizing purpose. The entire metonymic association of this jacket with lettering in a sport is nonexistent, let alone my fixation on it being a symbol of high school popularity. Whatever exchange those poor saps had in what I can imagine as an incredibly awkward conversation--it resulted in her understanding the question as ‘what sport does your daughter do’ to which she responded with something all Californian kids do in the summertime. But if we were simply talking about what I liked doing in swimming pools, it would have been more accurate to inscribe “handstands” or “Marco Polo.” I knew nothing about swimming. I mean, I wouldn’t drown if you threw me in water, but I didn’t know strokes or laps. Also, I hate being cold, the smell of chlorine, waking up early, and team activities. All in all, I'm the worst person for the swim team. In an effort to stray from complete self-abasement, I’d be great for a Marco Polo team. 

Struggling to accept my Iranian-American identity was exhausting but vital to the development of my self-concept. I have a handle on it today because I’m 40 and a product of therapy, self-help books, and meditation. But as a kid this duality was purgatorial.That jacket represented so much of what I wanted and verified so much of what I didn’t have: that American life. Chevy, Corvette, apple pie. And with it hanging in my closet, next to all of the clothes emulating all of those girls I was so far from being, the jacket transformed from a beacon of popularity to a prophet of guilt--they were companions now: the jacket and the shame. Inseparable. In my fantasy, the jacket evoked a childhood dream of Americana life. Today, it’s just a harbinger of shame.  Did a jacket ruin my life? Don’t be ridiculous, of course it did.