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sunday in loisada
May. 25th, 2003 02:31 pmMostly we don't buy groceries at the Avenue C supermarket -- mainly because it sucks. But I do buy my eggs there (note to roommate: today's discovery, they have the organic eggs you like for half of what you're paying for them) and my corn muffin mix, as it's $.39 as opposed to $.45 and yes, that matters.
Said supermarket, unaffectionately and perhaps inappropriately known as the ghettomart, carries fruits and vegetables I've never heard of and parts of the pig I either didn't know the pig had, or that people ate. It's always interesting and always makes me feel both naive and ignorant.
I'm not a naive girl and in some very peculiar ways have seen a lot more of the world and human nature than a lot of people. But the fact is there are certain universes where I will always be an alien, almost entirely because of my body language and the way I pronounce words -- or so I've been told, screamed at by strangers for supposedly thinking I am better than them, because of how I walk, for, I am told, acting as if I am rich.
At any rate, it's Sunday -- and there's a street fair up the avenue, with cotton candy and Mexican ices and salsa music. There's a funeral a block over in the projects -- I saw the procession -- coffin in the back of a pick-up truck with flowers piled onto it two feet high -- and then about 20 rental black sedans, following it, as it turned the corner down to Avenue D, Chinese writing in the windows.
In other demographic news, I am reminded of my sudden but hardly inexplicable desire to go to Paris (I was opposed to it through years of laborious language education in private school and several disasterous trips to Quebec to practice said French) by an article in today's New York Times. I note this only because my parents vacationed there regularly for a while over the last decade, but have recently decided to stop going, because my mother says she's read that they are anti-semetic. I have no idea if this is true or not, but it struck me on a number of levels as I bought latke mix at the supermarket today.
People ask me what I am a lot -- am I Greek? am I Italian? am I even white? Am I French, am I American? Those seem to be the most common questions, well if you don't count the number of cab drivers, homeless people, and new New Yorkers recently arrived here from somewhere in-land who ask "you're not a Jew, are you?" It's always a slightly fraught thing you see -- especially for someone who is as many things as I am, and I never know which answer is right or safe. Most importantly though, that grammar is rude, and for me, it's not a yes or no question anyway.
In high school, my parents didn't let me apply for a study abroad program in Berlin because of the Jewish thing, even when so much of the art and music and stuff I had learned to love through my family was from that strange city, that I have also never visited. *shrug*
Maybe I sound naive again, but oh, we do not need to go looking for things to be afraid of and offended by. And I would still very much like to go to Paris.
Said supermarket, unaffectionately and perhaps inappropriately known as the ghettomart, carries fruits and vegetables I've never heard of and parts of the pig I either didn't know the pig had, or that people ate. It's always interesting and always makes me feel both naive and ignorant.
I'm not a naive girl and in some very peculiar ways have seen a lot more of the world and human nature than a lot of people. But the fact is there are certain universes where I will always be an alien, almost entirely because of my body language and the way I pronounce words -- or so I've been told, screamed at by strangers for supposedly thinking I am better than them, because of how I walk, for, I am told, acting as if I am rich.
At any rate, it's Sunday -- and there's a street fair up the avenue, with cotton candy and Mexican ices and salsa music. There's a funeral a block over in the projects -- I saw the procession -- coffin in the back of a pick-up truck with flowers piled onto it two feet high -- and then about 20 rental black sedans, following it, as it turned the corner down to Avenue D, Chinese writing in the windows.
In other demographic news, I am reminded of my sudden but hardly inexplicable desire to go to Paris (I was opposed to it through years of laborious language education in private school and several disasterous trips to Quebec to practice said French) by an article in today's New York Times. I note this only because my parents vacationed there regularly for a while over the last decade, but have recently decided to stop going, because my mother says she's read that they are anti-semetic. I have no idea if this is true or not, but it struck me on a number of levels as I bought latke mix at the supermarket today.
People ask me what I am a lot -- am I Greek? am I Italian? am I even white? Am I French, am I American? Those seem to be the most common questions, well if you don't count the number of cab drivers, homeless people, and new New Yorkers recently arrived here from somewhere in-land who ask "you're not a Jew, are you?" It's always a slightly fraught thing you see -- especially for someone who is as many things as I am, and I never know which answer is right or safe. Most importantly though, that grammar is rude, and for me, it's not a yes or no question anyway.
In high school, my parents didn't let me apply for a study abroad program in Berlin because of the Jewish thing, even when so much of the art and music and stuff I had learned to love through my family was from that strange city, that I have also never visited. *shrug*
Maybe I sound naive again, but oh, we do not need to go looking for things to be afraid of and offended by. And I would still very much like to go to Paris.
