Primordial Chaos

At least somewhat. Namely this post is all me, baby. :P

P, I know you were being obnoxious but dear jesus god can you get in touch with your inner myspace negro NOT on my blog and on, say, myspace? I know you were just trying to get at me, but your post was hard to read. And stop trying to make Ryan jealous. Troublemaker. :P Though that's probably why we're friends.

Ryan, you're good. You are free to post more glowing adorations of me at your will. :P

Ok, so I started tweeting about this but decided it really merited being in a blog post. To catch some of you up, I'm in Mustang, Oklahoma...the town where I grew up. And it's depressingly weird. This town has the same name, some of the same streets and schools, some of the same people, but it isn't the town where I grew up if you get my drift. It's quite blatantly a town where white flight meets interstate culture and it's an ugly mix.

The white part isn't new to me, I grew up here with these people and their bullshit. Seeing a place that was the setting and defined a large part of my life turn into any old town you could find off a major highway is a downer. A town you just pass through, and those who are here seem to be trapped...that's all it is. Maybe all it ever was. I feel like I-40 poisoned what little was worth remembering of my youth though. Interstate culture.

Repeating myself, but this is now just a pissant town with a Wal-Mart and an Applebee's as stark reminders that now this town has been assimilated into a place like all the others where close to the highway there's a Wal-Mart and an Applebee's. Actually, for the two major exits west of the one for here...there's a Wal-Mart and an Applebee's at both. Less than 10 minutes apart from each other and this exit.

Highways seem to breed this type of place relentlessly. I-40 is major because it spans the country but also has some meanings in my life. Using my Droid, as I do, I decided to head east and west on I-40 looking for Wal-Marts and Applebee's. This bullshit repeats itself both east and west of me fairly often. Even the exit for my mom's house in Albuquerque...right across the street from each other an Applebee's and Wal-Mart. It's easy.

Easy exits, easy food, easy shopping, easy to get on your way. That's all it really is. It's really kind of a fucked thought that the cement ribbon that binds me to a lot of other people or  maybe used to is the exact same thing poisoning my childhood home. I-40 was a symbol, a way, or a scene of many things that shifted my life and who I am. On both ends of I-40 are friends who turned into loves who turned into gaping holes in my life. Heading east on I-40 still turns my gut a little. Both of my parents live just down a street you can exit to from I-40. I found out my parents were divorcing while on I-40. I have 4 people I know other than my parents I can name off the top of my head who live just off of an I-40 exit. This fucking thing binds me in ways I can't shake and in memories I can't forget. And not usually happy stuff. It already had a poisoned grip on me. But to see my hometown turned into just another highway exit just makes the poison that much stronger and corrupts most of my childhood memories. This isn't the town I grew up in. This could be almost any major exit on I-40, except I know some of the streets, a few people/places and the name. This place sucks even more than it did when I was younger.

So I really just said to myself "fuck this place" and exacted my revenge on the locals, many of whom I recognized...and many of whom gave me static in the past about my skin color and atheism. All of those who are not familiar with me are being punished for apathy and/or complacency about the town they live in. Growth does not equal progress. I hop in my del Sol, turn on some really obscene rap music, crap I don't even like, and then drive around town and through church parking lots with bass thumping and dirty words blaring. I get yelled at, dirty looks, some hand gesture I think means I'm number one, people shake their heads at me, roll up their windows, tell their kids to cover their ears...and I love it. I'm mischievous as is, but this time I'm the only one in on the joke. Even knowing the joke and the punchline, reading this doesn't let you in on the joke.

In a way it is revenge. The way I was bullied and tormented regularly while not even school officials gave a shit, the racial slurs and skin color comments...everything they used to label me a pariah and then used to make me one. Outsider, outcast, not one of us, stranger...an enemy. Over stupid shit like good grades and skin color. Ignorance had to be bliss because I was miserable. I had no recourse. I was just a kid.

Now things are different. I'm still definitely an outsider with my New Mexico license plate, still a bit of an outcast over skin color (the local Wal-Mart had THREE employees follow me while I went to get some Dial soap), I'm still not one of them, so I am a stranger and an enemy. I'm still labeled as a pariah and treated as so. But I'm not a kid anymore, I can torment them and get away with it now. I get to be the one laughing while they are upset or annoyed.

I have my del Sol, Superbass equalizer setting, a very nice sound system and vulgar rap music. So I go for leisurely drives through towns and around churches with this pretty offensive music absolutely hearable outside of my car. All windows down. Evil smiles. Remember how I said I can only affect people as much as they let me? I learned that lesson about how much you can affect people and people can affect you through the bullshit I got dragged through with these assholes. Now I'm teaching the class so to speak. Not the fastest learners, but that's ok it makes it much more fun for me. Here I am in a small town full of christians, country hillbillies and conservatives. And I know how to get their goat. So I do it, repeatedly. Last night/morning at 4 am I did this while driving through neighborhoods. Slowly. I got to watch lights flick on as I drove by while Dr. Dre  is informing them "bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks".

I'm self confessing this is an asshole thing to do and immature. But I'm pariahed already so fuck it, I'm going to have some fun. This town means nothing to me anymore and neither do all of the people in it. I'm the one left laughing. That part I REALLY like. Introducing small town Oklahoma to complete inexplicable ridiculousness, AKA me.

So, every god damn time I go into Wal-Mart I see someone who I went to school with at one point or another and dear jesus god did they age like milk. Even just as lumpy and chunky. I've actually dropped a bit below my ideal weight range, which is 165-175 and am in the mid 150s. I look straight fucking hot, really. They don't. Hell, despite being a few pounds over what I was in high school, I'm 2 dress sizes smaller than I EVER was at a nifty size 8. More muscle, more strength, more confidence, more ego and more attitude problem. Less fear and less reason to care what people think. I honestly think that when I was overweight, no I was OBESE at almost 100 pounds MORE than the body I'm rocking right now, that what kept my ego in check was the body image issues and complete lack of confidence. I didn't look or feel how I thought. That problem is solved a few times over. My ego is rampant. I'm having fun with it, but apparently others don't like my free concerts.

So now I feel pretty powerful. I'm not the shy girl they would hit or kick until she cried...the girl who went to the ER for stitches in her head because some racists hit her with a brick...the girl who never spoke up or fought back. I'm so completely different, I'm stronger, smarter, faster, wiser, fearless of other people, confident, cocky and kinda pissed off about the past.

Welcome to my "chip on the shoulder" party. Enjoy your stay. And some bass heavy explicit rap music.

~A.