Anything you can do...I can do

You know how when you're trying to prove a point and you end up getting yourself into something you can't handle, but you're so committed to getting the point across that none of that matters anymore? I have this thing about family. As you know ever since Rick and I got together I've been in awe of the tightness of his family. Considering that it's pretty much tradition in my family that once you move out of the house, you move out of the state and are rarely heard from again; I seriously envy the fact that all of Rick's family lives within about a 7 mile radius of each other and they gather at the drop of a hat. Same for all of his friends, only even closer, with several generations living on the same block or - even better - in the same 3-flat. I want to cry real tears (of joy) when my parents are able to make it in for Thanksgiving. How sad is that? It didn't use to be like that. We were all very close before my Grandfather passed away. Back then my parents still lived here and times were much richer - both figuratively and literally - so it was easy for people to fly in or to fly people in for holidays. With money tight our family ties have loosened. It shouldn't be that way. It should be the very opposite.

A Hispanic family of 6 could be living in a one-bedroom apartment and they would still gladly welcome a long-lost Aunt from Mexico with her three kids to move in for an indefinite amount of time. It would be nothing to them. To my family, we could be broke, damn near on the streets, and no one would come home. We would just keep struggling. I want that to change.

My niece is having trouble in school...well in general. I've tried to be there for her long-distance (she's about 400 miles away), but it's just not working. It's a loaded tale, but the simple fact is that she hasn't grown up in anywhere near the ideal environment for a child and now she's taken on the type of defensive, negative attitude that her environment demands. I want to show her a different life. I want to show her that this is not how things have to be. I want to bring her back to Chicago for the school year. She would have to live with me...and Rick in my 1 bed/1 bath condo. This isn't the Ritz...she'd be condemned to an air mattress for the time being. This would technically be punishment, so I'm not going to feel bad about that. But note, I said "the school year" this would require me taking custody of her to get her enrolled in classes. Obviously, this elicits strong pauses when I first run it by Rick, my mom, and friends. So I ask Rick, what would you do? Or better yet, would you do this? He has to admit that if he had to he would. It's in their blood. It's time my family valued real family values. Am I crazy? Is a 26-year-old taking guardianship of her 15-year-old niece completely insane?

The Anniversary and Love

Today is our 3-year anniversary. Which in and of itself is a shock to the dome because you realize that once you hit the anniversary you actually start the next year. So as of tomorrow Rick and I will be in the 4th year of our relationship. Ah-ha...bet you never thought of it that way did you? Well I did and now I do all the time. I was thinking yesterday that I was 23-years-old when Rick and I met. I was fresh and fancy free, just out of college and full of potential. And now I'm 26...not to say that I've lost any of that potential or that I've gone bad. It's just...it's just that it's been 3 YEARS! What is he waiting for???? Ooops did I say that out loud.

Anyway, I caught a glimpse of another interracial couple giving each other a kiss good-bye this morning in the in the tunnel Jackson (woo woo Blue Line!). It wasn't their interracial status that caught my attention (of course), it was that he was a very attractive (albeit short) guy and she was a dumpy, badly-dressed (though I'm sure sweet as pie) girl. That got me to thinking about love. When you fall in love it doesn't matter what love looks like, or what love says, or does because whatever it is, well you love it. Then the years go by and love puts on a few pounds, starts dressing in hippie-esque mu-mus and dingy sweaters, love stops styling its hair all nice. And there's nothing you can do about it because it's love and it got you a long time ago. Love rolls over on you in the morning and sometimes you wish it would just move over a little bit. Love is waiting at home for you and you want to spend time with it, but you need to go to the gym or everyone is going out for drinks after work. Then Love makes you feel bad and selfish, and then when Love wants to go out part of you wants them not to, but that only reminds you again of how selfish you can be. Love has a way of doing those things. Love never felt that way when it first came along. It never dressed that way, or smelled that way, or cooked dinner that way. But at least it's still Love, right? Right!

It Becomes an Event

I find myself encouraging Rick to get involved in Hispanic events in and around Chicago. I've taken him to plays that I couldn't understand half of, but that reminded him of his childhood. I just like being there. I like knowing that I brought a part of him back to him even if I had no idea what was going on. I don't give myself enough credit though. I a good reader of people and things. Even if I don't understand the words coming out of the actors or musicians mouths I can decipher what they're trying to tell me and what I should be feeling. If I should be laughing, looking at them thoughtfully or with disgust.

This weekend there's an event that I'll put Rick on to. The Hola Mexico Film Festival (http://www.holamexicoff.com/). I hope he'll want to go because as much as I love it as a culture I can't imagine how I'd look going on my own. I can only hope that my light skin and jet black hair would convince some onlookers that I have some sort of Hispanic blood in me. I bank on that more than you'd think.

The Cultural Fascination

I am both terribly intrigued and infatuated with the hispanic culture. The language, the music, the art, the entire state-of-mind. Most of my friends would taunt that I've only become so entirely enveloped with these feelings since my heart was enveloped by Rick. But that's not true. After I saw Mi Vida Loca back in 8th grade I took on a wardrobe of dego tees, baggy pants, and anything with an Adidas logo on it. I became known for my dark lipstick, though thank God I didn't shave off and redraw my eyebrows. Sad Girl was scrawled across every notebook I owned in high school. And it seems that the hispanic cultured was just as attracted to me. I managed to make good friends out of all of the Hispanic women that I worked with at the car dealership where I worked throughout some of high school and most of college. Maybe it was because they were the closest thing to another black female in the building, but I connected with them. Years later they're still my friends. In college this obsession was slated if only for a bit. By senior year I had reconnected with a few of my Mexicanas from the dealership and had started frequenting Mexican clubs. That's where I met Rick so I guess it was all for the best.

Here I am still, if not more, disgustingly consumed with a culture that is not my own. The more I learn, the more I discover, the more I am entrenched. It is not entirely unhealthy though because I don't fantasize about being a Latina. To them, I am the different one and I like that. I just wish I was the different one that spoke their language *smirk* or cooked their food or better understood their family dynamics. So I bought a Mexican cookbook the other day. Nothing too intimidating, as it boasts only 100 of the recipes core to the Mexican food culture. I've also convinced my friend to take Spanish classes with me because I don't care how many vocab words she can recite she doesn't remember any more than I do from high school Spanish class. It's a good start. That is, if a 10-year in the making fixation can be considered a "start".

Where is my culture?

Sometimes I get so jealous because of the culture that Rick has. I'm starting to realize that we are so opposite in every way. Rick's ancestors hail from two different Mexican states, both of which he knows and has visited. I don't know where in Africa my ancestors hail from. And by the color of my family's skin it's too far back in any of our pasts to know it for sure. As an African-American my family, of course, came from the south. And I could go around cooking southern food and speaking in a southern dialect, but that's not really me or my family.


So I'm bound to all of my American-ized ways. I make a better spaghetti sauce than I do a cast iron skillet corn bread. I make salsa like I was born and raised on it, but it takes me an hour to prep a couple of yams. The only other language I know besides English are bits and pieces of the Spanish I was taught in high school. I go to the Mexican grocery regularly. I've bought and cooked fresh cactus before. But I consider the African convenience store by my house a foreign land. Do I need to get immunizations before I try to purchase anything? It's really sad. Do I just not have a real culture? I embrace everything about being African-American. I mean I love it. I get to say what I want about who I want and don't have to put with the slack. People want to give me jobs and small business loans because hey my people were slaves for 200 years right...


So is that my culture, slavery? I don't want to wear that on my back, I don't want to go to the store to purchase that. But that's where all this came from. Our food, our history, our names, our family, it's all we have. This is why I sometimes envy the culture that Rick has. I want a language, I want a homeland, I want native food, I want a family tree that doesn't start in the states.

And so it starts...

I started this blog because I feel like no one is really REAL about interracial relationships. Everyone has their qualms, prejudices, or preconceived notions about the subject. Even if you are in an interracial relationship, everyone has different experiences. My feeling is: the more insight the better. Another thing is that everything in my relationship is a story. It really has nothing to do with us being interracial, it's just that we inadvertantly end up on adventures.

So here goes...

We've been together for almost 3 years. It will be 3 years on June 24th. We met at the let-out. If you're not black and on some sort of club scene you probably don't know what "the let-out" is. It's the crowd the congregates in the parking lot of the club after it closes. I've come to realize that no other culture calls this the let-out. It IS an entire culture. It's the time when all the people that were trying to impress each other in the club, try to impress each other in the parking lot. I have friends who don't actually go to the club, but instead have get togethers at home then go to the let-out as if it's an event. That's how much of a gathering it is. As a point of reference the last let-out I witnessed was by complete accident. I was led there unknowingly by my bestfriend after a bachlorette party. I saw the glitter painted Caprices, 20-inch rims, cop cars, and half-naked women and thought to myself 'thank God this was never my hobby'.

Anywho that's where me and him met. I thought he was a joke because he came out of nowhere asking if he could walk my friend and me to my car. He's a very fair-skinned Mexican and I was pretty drunk so I thought he was white. Plus he used to wear black-rimmed glasses that made him look like the Verizon wireless guy. So just looking at him I felt like he wasn't my type, therefore I couldn't have been his. I figured he was just another drunk guy at the let-out.

He stood outside my car chatting me up while his friends honked the horns of their cars across the street calling for him to vamos. If you've ever been to Studio 63 (http://www.studio63nightclub.com/) in Chicago you can get a visual of this scene. I told him 'if they're giving you a ride home you better go because I'm not taking you anywhere'. This was my response based on the type of guys that I was attracted to at the time...losers (for lack of a better word). Matter of fact, at this time I'd restricted myself from getting into any so-called 'relationships' based on the fact that I apparently was too immature to be attracted to a decent guy. Then he came along. I gave him my number and about 5 minutes after driving away from Studios (as it's called) he calls me. My girl and I were on our way to Huckfinn's, the 24-hour diner and doughnut shop and usual let-out after "party". Yes, I taken back by how quickly he called back, but in hindsight he was drunk so it kind of made sense. As my friend pleaded with me not to (because no guys would try to talk to her if he came with us) I ok'd his offer to join us.

At Huckfinn's he and I talked for hours. Later he would tell me that he knew I was special because I chose to share a Philly croissant with him (yes this is Chicago, we take the fattest of all sandwiches - a Philly - and put it on a croissant) instead of just ordering it for myself. Truth is back then I was skinny and it mattered so I didn't want to pig out. I guess everything happens for a reason because he accepted my - still drunken - invitation to Great America the next day. (I had a buy one get one free pass and whatever loser I was talking to at the time had bailed on me the day before.) Well by then it was maybe 6am, so I guess it wasn't the next day anymore, but more like a couple hours later. Although I'd only met him hours earlier he accompanied me, my best friend, her - at the time - boyfriend, and her nephew to Great America that morning. He was known throughout the day as "stranger-insert name here" since no one knew who the hell he was. It was just like me to bring some random guy I'd met the night before (at the let-out of all places) to Great America (of all places). The rest is history. A history that I've chosen to share with you.

Did I mention that the night of the let-0ut was his birthday? His drunken birthdays will come into play annually in this relationship...