taking a field trip to the marina- no dancing tattoos to be found

It was familiar, yet it seemed strange as I walked in to this yoga studio. Away from home. Neighborhoods beyond my reach beyond my comfort zone. I enter the yoga studio on union street. I walk slowly up the stairs unsure of what will be the scenery at the yoga studio faraway from my mission home. My roots of home easier to stand upon that mat. There. So as I find myself in the population of unfamiliarity, I find myself there because of a friend and a great deal. I couldn’t pass up. Great deals allow us to forget the rolling eyes and annoyance that can exist for the dislike of what a neighborhood of pleasant richness ville that is so cookie cutter you feel something begin in your stomach and move up. They welcome me and I sign up. But they give you freebies here unlike the studios I call home. Free towels. And oranges.
I walk into the room. I am in lake of blonde. I have never seen so many blondes in one place in years. I feel safe among my fellow brunettes. I don’t dislike blondes. But I do hate so blonde. So blonde. Platinum. There is still warmth that exists from the class before. It is like walking into the steam of someone else’s shower or entering a room after someone else’s romp. It being your own shower or sexcapade it doesn’t feel foreign but walking into someone else’s heat makes the humidity of a stranger unbearable. Many ladies in this room are small child make. Skinny here is not like skinny elsewhere. The chatter shakes among the voices of predominantly white folks, mostly females, a token male here and there. They seem less gay then the guys I see at the mission spots. White and female I can’t pretend like that is an oddity. The privilege of practicing. Shouldn’t be. But is. Still.

There is a loud noise around me. And for once I want to sit quiet. Breathing in and out my back pushes into the mat as the mat presses into me. My feet find home on each other and my knees reach for the distance beyond me. The air travels slowly from the bottom part of me to the top. The noises of the radio of others dims. At least for now. Me the talker quiet. Quiet. The rarity. Exists. But really I am usually quiet during yoga. Don’t speak. I once sat next to a couple that kept on talking in yoga and I almost laid into them. Me the non-stop talker. But even I need breaks. And yoga is one of them. I am upside down and seeing my fellow yogis. No tattoos dance around their parts as my home. I am usually the odd man out tattooless. But today. Today in this new studio. I just move. Move and pretend I am home.

rewind- don't call me baby, call me snowflake.

The first time as I walked home, walked home when I was in 6^th grade down the curvy bike path towards my F section home, in my suburb of Rohnert Park, someone started to honk, someone started to yell at me in the four wheel truck motor vehicle. And I was startled. I didn’t know was going on. But little did I know as I begun the brink of adolescence, through my teenage years, and into adulthood, that this thing would never change. Never. The catcalls never have stopped. It didn’t matter if I was a kid, if I didn’t even have boobs or a period. Men began to yell at me. Fucking perverts, I thought. Still do. I used to get really angry. In my head saying is that how you would talk to your mother, your sister, your aunt? Your female in your life that might matter. Matter to you. I remember the first time because I didn’t know what was going on. Anger is now mixed in a cocktail with amusement shaken over the ridiculous.

Now I’m prepared for it to happen. It doesn’t matter if I haven’t showered in days. It doesn’t matter if I am in my PJs. Awfully matched PJs. It doesn’t matter if I am riding my bike and sweaty with my dorky pink helmet, actually the sweat might help with the calling. It doesn’t matter if I’m crying, baby just smile, baby don’t cry your beautiful. Excuse me as I barf. Am I beautiful while I hurl? Probably. It doesn’t matter what I look like, not really. It’s more about power. It’s more about it working one out of million times. I sometimes wonder who would be drawn to the hey baby, hey sexy, hey beautiful, so much they hail over their car and stop for the construction worker or the guy and provide their number, their address, or much more. I think it might be fun to play along and call their bluff but truthfully I’m just too fearful to do it. Part of me thinks it must work or why would they keep trying, trying again and again to no avail. But is it about working or just doing it? Doing it.

So here are some of the highlights over the years:

Animal Noises: Barking

Until last year the only place a man had made an animal noise at me was in Marin County. That made it more interesting that in living in 4 urban cities the only place an animal noise was directed to me was in Marin County. Who would have thought that such harassment would ensue in one of the wealthiest counties in the country? While I was walking my aunt and uncle’s dog, the middle aged man with grayish hair pulled over his bike perfectly helmeted and basketed and said roof, roof, roof, slowly and seductively. Seductively. I couldn’t help but bust up laughing. That being said I told him if he had pegs, I’d be down for a ride. No I wish, I just laughed and walked away. Later I told my aunt who was outraged- that someone in her neighborhood- in her neighborhood would do that. What a travesty. Take notes- there is more.

Animal Noises: Meowing

So then the animal noise happened again. Years later, I was walking down the street in the Mission. The cat calls, the snickers, the clicking noises are pretty frequent in this hood probably because the dudes are actually as taller than me. Probably because of many a reason. As I walked by a man who sat in the storefront window, he said meow, meow, while mimicking a cat's mannerisms and blowing kisses. I felt special. I felt pretty. I felt important. I skipped the rest of the way down Valencia.

Snowflake:

While living near Harlem, I got a lot of attention when walking to work probably because I was the only white girl in the 10 or 20 block radius. My whole life I wanted to be exotic growing up in a predominately white suburb I was the norm and guess what finally I was. Exotic with my white clad skin. Yes! Little did I know what it would entail. Hey snowflake, hey panda, can you be my white panda bear, can you be my snowflake. Hey snowflake, the first time it happened, I looked around, I guess since I was the only white girl it must be me. Me, snowflake. At least it was creative. At least it was more creative than the animal noises or grunts or the sexy baby bullshit.

My Response:

No, I am not here for a modeling convention. No, I can’t smile for you. No, I am not moved by the trivial attempts at your prehistoric noises coming from your mouth. Yes, I have a boyfriend. Yes, I have a husband. Yes, I have a wife. Yes, I have an overprotective father and brother. Anything to make you go away. Go away.

My Unsolicited Advice:

What happened to hello and a smile? So here’s my advice men, men of the world, either make it witty or stick to the standard hello and smile. Don’t’ call me baby, call me snowflake or don’t bother at all. You will go a lot further with that one. Mark my words.

Oh Shit:

My words- still as I stand on this soapbox of femininity, I wonder what would happen to this woman (me) decorated in degrees and pretty enough to be yelled at if as I walk on the catwalk of life it was cloaked in silence. Would the silence be deafening? Would I long for the noises of the populace as I stroll along welcoming me along the way? Is that cheer enough to make me believe I am pretty enough, I am desired enough, I am wanted? Maybe it is easier to complain when men harass you. Maybe it would be harder if I was invisible. And no one could see me. As I melted on the ground falling lightly away spreading into a tiny speck of water. A snowflake forgotten or maybe never seen at all.

gentrification is the new cocaine

The secret that would have ended everything. Everything. Brought it all to the end. Was. Was the emptiness of this party. This lifestyle-this work hard play hard. Play hard work hard life style. Lifestyle. See some can be appeased by the big paycheck and the limitless lines of coke or the bottles of whiskey passed amongst friends or any of it or all of it. Because. Because. Because. As I looked around at this party, party it wasn’t a big blowout at night of some great celebration because I can get that but on a Sunday afternoon, at 2:30pm, in the afternoon at a barbeque, I am indeed at a loss. I mean call me crazy but a good bbq for me is two hotdogs, some chips, and maybe a guy’s number. I didn’t realize that it would entail the not so secret bumps down the hall. The whisper in the ear, the ear so very not a secret, but then the smile and wrinkle of the eyes and the familiar walk down the hallway. They always think it’s a secret but it’s not. Never is. Back before you know it and the rubbing of the teeth, the twitches.

The secret that would have ended everything is that it is not a secret at all. We are in this glass house of late twenty something’s thirty something’s, I shouldn’t throw rocks I know I shouldn’t. The secret that would have ended everything is that this is as empty as you can get. Can get. It all means nothing but it somehow has became their everything. I almost played a game of stand on one foot and pick up a paper bag with your mouth. But then I thought of the dentistry. The tooth I just got fixed and I passed. A guy named B, my formers _____ name, tried to tell me I was special and touch my ass. I passed on that too. I glanced at the couch to see the gloss glaze of too many beers wrapped in a bow of some type of drugs overpriced like their time and I know I could bang each one and I pass on that too.

The secret that would have ended everything is that meaning, meaning, meaning meant everything. Everything and this meant nothing. Nothing at all. Because let’s talk about how I am helping the neighborhood (deep in the Mission) the host announces at 150 lbs wet and in his khaki shorts- how his gentrification ways are good for his brown neighbors because they are rich now because of me. He then takes a bump up his nose. Alive again. So dead to me. Dead to me. I bite my tongue until, until I say do you believe in Adam Smith too. Half the circle gives me crickets. Adam Smith is confused by someone else they met, they laid, they bought something off of. Invisible to them. Then one lawyer guy tall and goofy and somewhat ogre like who had cilantro in his tooth until I told him. Said I believe in the invisible hand. Of course you do. I say you are a lawyer you have to. A woman asked if we had a tampon- we didn’t, she said this always happens when I roll. If something made me bleed from my vagina other than my womanhood- I might stop. Just saying.

The secret that would have ended everything. Ended everything. A guy told me in his plaid. Plaid- that is was unique for a hipster it was from barney’s. The secret that would have ended everything. Everything was the secret. The secret. The secret that they all were searching for. Searching for sobriety. Sober to see it all. It all. That a search for the freedom in this type of freedom would be. Would be a bunch of people pretending. Pretending. The secret that would have ended everything. Everything. I was throwing a rock. A rock in their opaque houses. I didn’t care. Care because my house was glass. Glass translucent. You can see me in it. I couldn’t see them. Them at all.