Angel writes me;
I agree with you when you say that it’s the poor upbringing to blame for the way people tend to turn out. That’s how it goes here too. As I’ve mentioned before, I lost most of my childhood friends since I dropped out but I do keep in touch with some of them. The thing is we don’t have anything to say to each other because we don’t have much in common. They’re now all about drugs and alcohol and well of course I am drug-free. I don’t go out and party every weekend like they do. I’d rather stay inside and educate myself by reading or something.
Well I have to say that Native Americans are no different than other human-race. Ok what I’m going to write is based on how I live and what I see everyday. The reservation that I live on is full of drug addicts & alcoholics, a load of drop-outs, a ton of teenage mothers, abusive relationships, and tribal members who say they will create a “better” reservation when really they don’t do shit. I really have to classify a majority of the people on this rez as lower-classed because most don’t have jobs but you know it’s not as if there are masses of wonderful opportunities sprawled out before us. This reservation is 100% different than a city or town. It’s incredibly tiny; it only takes about 30 minutes to drive around the entire place. Everywhere you look you are sure to find something that is tagged. People also have no respect around here; whenever the tribal members construct something that took months it only takes about a day or two for some dumbass to ruin it. For example, the store has been broken into about 5 times since it first opened. The rest area (built last summer) has been tagged numerous times and the windows also been shattered plenty times. The post office has been broken into also (that’s retarded; I mean who would want to break into a post office?)
There are no fast food places and they barely built a gas station back in September. There are two bars about 15-20 minutes away from here so that’s where the winos go. Also, they are finally done building an alternative school. So students can enroll there but get this they opened up back in February (in a nearby building for the time being) and there were a lot of students who signed up probably about 60. But now there are less than 30 students who continued to attend the school. (So about half of the students dropped out in less than three months) I was mad about that but happy because my brothers stayed enrolled. So that’s the first high school ever to be built on the reservation. Before that school was created, everyone had to go to the school that’s about 30 minutes away from here which is programmed by some Mormon white people. [That’s the school I used to attend.]
Three weeks ago, a shooting took place right by my house. One of my neighbor’s friends (who were drunk) shot at the police so that caused a great commotion. We were trapped inside our houses because they occluded the roads while they investigated for the entire day. It was so stupid too because the shooter(s) didn’t take anything that the officers were saying seriously. They kept laughing, cussing horribly and constantly talking back. *sigh* that’s a day in the rez life.
That’s the first time I ever been mistaken for a black female… I find it rather funny…. So, I don’t know if I gave you a full glimpse to my world but I tried to illustrate the background and history to kind of help me out……
You see Atara; I was the girl who grew up being the “smartest” one in class. I took advanced tests and I was involved with the HOTS program which is Higher Order Thinking Skills. By the time I was in sixth grade, a few of my teachers told me, “Angel, you’re going to graduate by the time you’re sixteen.” I loved that. A lot. My family also told me that I’d grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer and I loved that too. But man when I hit Jr. High that pretty much altered my frame of mind. I wanted to be “cool” you know? I tried to fit in for some stupid reason. I began to slack off and become reckless in a way that everyone never thought I’d be. And the rest was history. I was no longer known as the “smartest” one by my peers; in fact I was categorized as one of the “dumb, careless” kids; the so-called “cool” students. People also made rumors about me; saying that I was at parties and slamming up 40oz when really I wasn’t. I mean sure, I attended the parties but I never ever drunk. I just went to watch because that’s when I used to think of alcoholics mannerisms as hilarious. I always was the “baby-sitter” meaning that I baby sat my friends every time.
I was always known as “the Native trapped in a white girls’ body.” I was like the “Twinkie” of school; ha-ha meaning that I was brown on the outside but white in the inside. I still am known as that but I love it. I don’t care. You see the reason for me being known as that is because my lifestyle is very different than everyone else’s. I don’t drink soda and I also don’t eat many Native foods because they’re full of grease and all that ugly stuff. Have you ever heard of fry bread? That’s the most known food around here. I also don’t watch a ton of “stupid” movies; I’m much more into the intellectual shows. Basically, I am very, very, very, 100000000000000000000000% different than EVERYONE here.
Ok I think I got carried away; I tend to get lost in my thoughts =]
Anyway….. Since I gave up junk food (I assume they all contained high fructose corn syrup) I have lost weight and also my face cleared up a lot. When I was in Jr. High I had bad acne but not anymore. I gave up soda two years ago and I love it! But it wasn’t ‘till recently that my face gotten better. The thing that sucks though is my family worries that I am starving myself when really I’m not. I eat a ton of organic bars, drink organic milk, drink all natural juice, and snack on pistachios and seeds all day long. They sometimes force me to eat what they eat and I always end up with a terrible headache that lasts for hours. A few times after I’m done eating their food, I’ll just want to vomit. It’s almost as if my stomach can’t handle it anymore….. I sometimes have to cry myself to sleep…. I take about four to six aspirins every time that happens and they have the nerve to tell me that I am trying to overdose. I’ll admit it; sometimes I just want to overdose on pills just to escape their constant criticism. Sometimes I can’t handle it… but then my inner voice always reminds me that it wouldn’t be worth it but I fear that one day it may just get the best of me….
P.S. Don’t be silly, I would never stop speaking with you for the reasons you listed. First of all for the rumor part, it may take a while for me to get over it but I will always end up forgiving someone for it. That’s my problem; I forgive too easily and people just love to take advantage of that. Second of all, I would never quit communicating with someone (especially someone extremely wonderful) just because we debated over something. I am full aware that we’re all entitled to our own opinions and its nothing to really stress over. I can guarantee you that I’ll never stop speaking with you after all you seem to be my only real friend these days.
Thursday, May 15th 2008 at 8:27pm
I write Angel back;
Angel,
You know it lifts my spirits to know that there are other young people out there who keep themselves away from drugs. I did my time dabbling in weed, and alcohol and I found out that it really was just as bad as I suspected it was as a kid. It took time to realize the toll that it took on me, but I’m glad my wake up call came. I find it hard to talk to my peers for the very same reason: drugs and partying. I don’t like doing drugs and going to parties. I find it such a waste of time. Even worse is that the alternative that most kids seem to prefer is TV. Why watch TV when I could read a book, or write my own story, or draw my own artwork?
Your reservation sounds surprisingly just like the ghetto I lived in. When I said I believed you were a black girl, I probably left out the fact that I imagined you in the suburbs or something. Problematic families live everywhere after all. I was thinking suburbs because usually intelligent young women do not spring out of the ghettos, especially not with fathers who have issues with drinking problems. The only reason I live in the ghetto is because my family can’t afford to live somewhere better, and at this point we can’t really afford to leave this house behind because the neighborhood brings it’s value down to less than half of what was paid for it over twenty years ago.
My ghetto is mostly Puerto Rican. You may or may not know this, but Buffalo is a huge immigration city. We have immigration facilities as well as an international school (which I attended for 11th and 12th grade). These immigrants come to America and they never see America outside of Buffalo, and sometimes they never see anything besides their own ghetto. They learn English from the local low-class blacks (or whites for that matter since sounding like an ignorant gun-packing drug addict in this city includes all the races even if it is more frequent in the “minorities.”) Then after receiving their education, or rather, their street smarts, from the local idiots then they hit the streets with their guns and their drugs and then they are there for the fresh immigrants of their own race.
The result? A wealth of different ghettos. There is the white-trash ghetto which is probably one of the worst to live in just because there tends to be more beatings. The more harsh gangs don’t do beatings, they do shootings, which are of course left often because of the risks. The Puerto Ricans’ ghetto’s most annoying factor is the music and parties. They pay no mind to the time of day, and if you are unfortunate enough to live next to one of the people who hosts these loud all night parties than you may hear music from 6:00pm to 5:00am.
Honestly though, I prefer the reggae music to rap. So I’ve covered North Buffalo with it’s white ghetto in Riverside, and the Westside with it’s Puerto Rican ghetto which is worst on the “lower” west side, closer to downtown (where my father works) and that leaves the Eastside and the South-towns. The Eastside is the black ghetto. Some say it’s the worst area in Buffalo. That’s where the worst stuff happens supposedly. I wouldn’t know, being that I live on the Westside and always have. I know that here we have heroin and crack and weed, and that they have the same there. We have shootings here, they have shootings there. We have dysfunctional schools, and so do they. Perhaps they’re equal in their suckage?
The South-towns is past downtown, and down there is where the white hookers grow up. The parents there usually do as much dope as their kids, sometimes more. They let their children run wild. I’m not familiar with the predominant race in the area, but I know two different white girls who live down there who are heavily into drugs and whose parents don’t really give a damn about them. Of course there are small better neighborhoods in between these ghettos, but the ghettos are much larger. Only North Buffalo (aside from Riverside) has a large patch of middle-class and upper-middle class families who prosper, who stay out of drugs, who send their kids to good schools and so forth. My brother, my nephew (son of my other brother), Crusifer’s mom and a lot of Crusifer’s friends all live in North Buffalo.
So I understand where you’re coming from in terms of living in a bad area and having to deal with people who have no respect, who have no real futures, who have nothing good to talk about, and nothing to look forward to but the next time they can get “fucked up.”
What sucks about my neighborhood is that there are opportunities for a lot of these kids growing up, but they wouldn’t notice if it was slapped in their face. Most of them don’t even consider college. I can’t fathom the parents who don’t even encourage their kids to try to make something of themselves. The number of youth programs to try to help kids in Buffalo is insane. They sprout up everywhere from concerned parents and young people like me who want to help, but it’s always the same. They can never get enough funding, they can never find enough teens or children who are interested enough or willing enough. At best you’ll find a handful of kids who at least are destructive. Only a few programs survive throughout the years and only through the sweat and blood and pockets of one or two determined individuals.
In terms of driving about the place in thirty minutes, that is sort of hard for me to comprehend. Either mall is a longer drive than that, even on the highways it takes about thirty-five minutes to get to a mall. My brother’s house is a twenty minute drive away and I don’t even consider him to live that far away. Far away is the people out in the south-towns, or out in the suburbs, or across the bridge on grand island... In other words, people who live about forty-five-minutes away I consider to be far.
You’re lucky that there are not any fast food places, that’s never good for anybody’s health anyway. There are three fast food places within walking distance from my house, and I think it’s disgusting. On the bright side, there are also two co-ops that sell fresh fruits and vegetables nearby. (And all five of those locations are pretty rampant with people’s poor excuse for art sprayed on every available surface.)
What’s a wino?
You know, first reading this it didn’t hit me that you said sixty kids enrolled for the new school and that only thirty kept going. But damn that’s tiny! I went to DaVinci my Sophomore year, which is considered a very small school in Buffalo and they had about four hundred students! Grover Cleveland, the international school I went to for my Junior and Senior year had about two thousand students enrolled, (and room enough for all two thousand of them) but only one thousand or less showed up everyday because of so many high school drop outs and kids simply cutting school.
I understand the terrible circumstance of having to go to a religious school too. Mormons are some of the worst. I hate when people try to convert me! My mom thought it might be a good idea to send me to a school called “Catholic Academe” for sixth grade. It was just terrible. The kids were some of the worst little devils. The boy across from me would never stop kicking me in the shins, and the teacher always thought I was “up to something” and she thought that I was stuck up because I didn’t like the other children (because they were so mean to me). I was there for two months before I adamantly refused to go back. My parents home schooled me for the remainder of the year, and they finished sixth grade curriculum so quickly that they went right on to seventh grade curriculum. I ended up entering eighth grade the following year in Riverside, located in the white ghetto of Buffalo. Needless to say, it wasn’t much better than Catholic Academe, but at least religion wasn’t be forced upon me.
I always want to be popular and liked, but I always wanted them to like me for me. I never wanted to behave the way that the other students did. I was thought of as the smartest in my class until fourth grade when I was sent to a private school. One of the students was better at me at math, and I couldn’t stand that. He was also better at chess. Several of the students were more artistically inclined than I was at the time, since my art abilities were yet to be discovered, and while the other students flourished with playing the violin and recorder, I hated the lessons. We were supposed to learn Japanese and German and I struggled with both.
And on top of that (not sure if I told you this before) I was always getting sick at the age of nine. I got sick constantly as a child. Being too cold, or being too worn out, or any stress at all would get me sick up until around thirteen or fourteen (incidently the same year as the house fire, the same year Jeremy moved in with us, the same year I made friends for the first time in my life, and the year I attended DaVinci) but before then I was always sick. I got mono four times. I had chicken pocks twice. I had strep throat once or twice a year my entire life to date save for two years since I was fourteen when I didn’t have it at all. I spent months in bed as a child. So as you can imagine I hated sports, I hated recess, I hated gym, and I hated my gym teacher who always thought I was capable of more than I was. I also got my period that year, and I also started liking boys, and I was constantly distracted with wanting a boyfriend. So my “smartest child in the class” went to hell in fourth grade in leu of wanting boys and feeling “beaten” in all my favorite classes and my least favorites too.
I didn’t start doing well in school again until Freshmen year, though I was never a straight-A student. It never was worth it to me to be that good in school really. I put forth enough effort to make me feel good about myself, and that was about that.
I understand about the movies too. I hated “scary movie” and “borrat” and “jackass” and all those other things that are “funny.” I find them disgusting, pointless, and a blight to humanity. Why with all this stupidity are the movie makers creating more stupid things to fuel them? (Of course it’s for the money, but that only makes it even more sickening.)
I was so mad when a friend told me to rent “scary movie” for my fourteenth birthday. I was so disgusted that I left the room and slept in the dining room because I disliked the movie so much.
Anyway, when I read this part: “Since I gave up junk food I have lost weight and also my face cleared up a lot. When I was in Jr. High I had bad acne but not anymore. I gave up soda two years ago and I love it! But it wasn’t ‘till recently that my face gotten better. The thing that sucks though is my family worries that I am starving myself when really I’m not. I eat a ton of organic bars, drink organic milk, drink all natural juice, and snack on pistachios and seeds all day long.” I thought to myself that you sound just like me. Not just kind of like me, but exactly like me. I love pistachios, and I eat all sorts of organic snacks and almond milk over seed-filled, nut-filled granola. And you know what? People think I’m starving myself too! But I suppose that is because they never saw me eat a heaping plate of potatoes and lima beans and follow it with a package of rice-crisps!
And then when I read this part: “They sometimes force me to eat what they eat and I always end up with a terrible headache that lasts for hours. A few times after I’m done eating their food, I’ll just want to vomit. It’s almost as if my stomach can’t handle it anymore….. I sometimes have to cry myself to sleep…. I take about four to six aspirins every time that happens and they have the nerve to tell me that I am trying to overdose.” I felt so bad for you. For me it’s not headaches but rather stomach aches. I don’t eat that crap on purpose, but sometimes I eat mash potatoes at someone else’s house without thinking so I don’t realize all the crap they put into the mix. Or I used to eat guacamole without realizing that miracle whip had high fructose corn syrup in it. I’m much more careful now though. I take “enzyme pills” before eating meat, or I eat a large salad before eating meat. That helps me digest the meat which isn’t bad for me (unless you’re counting the steroids fed to the animals). When it comes to salad I make my own dressing and bring it with me. When it comes to mixes I either ask, or I don’t bother even trying it. If I eat at a restaurant I order water (because usually their orange juice is “orange drink” or some form of orange juice that tastes disgusting) and I don’t use their dressings or dips for anything and I take my enzyme pills.
All of those measures taken have stopped the stomach aches completely, except for when I mess up now and then. I don’t make even small excepts anymore. The last time I made an exception was on New Years day, and I ate this desert that my mom makes which contains white bread and some white sugar, and it’s topped with heavy cream. (It’s called blueberry pandowdy.) I ate one small piece and within minutes my palms began to sweat, and my stomach began to hurt, and my head began to pound, and I ran to the bathroom three times, and after no luck in feeling better I forced myself to vomit until all the pain was gone. I had never forced myself to vomit before (and have not since) but it was a terrible experience and was very difficult to manage. I will never again make an exception. I have learned since then how to make completely organic deserts with gluten-free baking mixes, and using honey and berries for the only source of sugar. A little dairy I can handle, since there is nothing wrong with it, I just need to either eat fiber first (like a salad) or take the enzyme pills.
Anyway, back off the topic of food; I forgive too easily as well. Perhaps why Crusifer and I are still together. He told me today that he believes he has a drinking problem and that he needs my help to quit. I’m so proud of him for that, I could just burst with the pride. Silly to forgive him for everything he said, but I’m so pleased just now.
And other another topic, when I said I hoped you would never stop speaking to me because of a difference of opinions I meant on something you felt strongly about. I’ve had people stop talking to me for religious reasons, for moral reasons and all kinds of things. The root reason is always that they believe I’m twisted in some way for feeling and thinking the way I do about things, and often these people are rational and fun and interesting, all up until they discover something about me they don’t like. But if you can read every journal entry I’ve ever wrote and never find yourself thinking I’m disgusting then that will likely never happen since I’ve written some pretty wild stuff!
Heck, you think you got carried away! I wrote you a letter twice as long back!
Tater,
It’s nice to hear that you’ve felt your sister quite a bit after her death. It shows that you’re open to that sort of thing. Some people close their senses down because they don’t believe it’s possible, and they dismiss so much richness from their lives when they do that. I believe that “the other side” is an inverse to this plane. That we are on the opposite side the same as we are now in exact reverse. For example, when you take an algebra equation and you move a component of the equation over the equal sign you change it to a positive if it was a negative, or you change it to a negative if it was positive. I think we cross our own equal sign when we die. I believe that there is some pattern that is equivalent to DNA, and that karma is a simplified concept that shows the “physics” of the “other side.” I believe we have a “body” on the other side, but it’s made from the inverse of our bodies on this realm. Not the opposite, but the inverse specifically.
Hallie,
You know, I like you more and more as I grow older and wiser. I think our values on a basic level are quite the same, even though our outer defining traits are likely quite different. I told Crusifer he had to give me three consecutive months with no drinking, no more than one argument in a week, and no more hanging with his friends outside of the Friday-Saturday agreement without us discussing and agreeing on it first. If he can complete three consecutive months of this, then I will propose to him again, and we will return to assuming that we will spend the rest of our lives together. If he has failed to give me three consecutive months under those conditions within the next six months, or if things just get really bad in general, than I will (of course) give up.
Saturday, May 17th 2008 at 1:22pm
Crusifer says that he doesn’t really want to hang out with people anymore than I do. He says that it’s been about the drinking all along. This does add up, since he’s always said, “I miss the environment, just chillin’ with the boys, sippin’ on a beer, having a good laugh.” The “environment” being created (of course) by the beer. Whenever he is out and he’s sober he tends to not enjoy himself very much. I’m not sure why I couldn’t have added this up myself, since I hung out with people too while I was getting high and drunk. Now that I’m sober, I find little reason to “hang out” anymore.
Interesting timing, my dad is ready to build my bike with me now. I guess I’ll put off posting this even more. Heh, heh, heh.
I’m not sure what to do. What else is new?
I had a bad day yesterday. I spent the entire day trying to put my bike together so I could ride to Crusifer’s work and visit him on my bike for the first time. After waiting for it to arrive for three weeks, and then assembling it, the air tank at the corner was busted, so I bought an air pump, and then it didn’t work. How silly to get held up by a stupid air pump.
Crusifer is still talking to Rocsanne. This makes me angry beyond reason. I don’t know how to express this any better than I already have.
My head hurts.
No comments:
Post a Comment