My personal (de)evolution of caring has ranged from caring way too much, to caring as a means of understanding, to not caring at all, to now caring in the spirit of academia. I was sensitive to what others thought about me to the point of going out of my way to put others on blast and consequently, showed my own whole ass. I took up the mantle of "The Personal Is Political" and fought with anyone who was a heteropatriarchal and classist holy roller. Then I attempted to shift my reactionary outbursts into understanding why people do the terrible things that they do, and why their actions do not align with what they say they embody: Christ's love. It was exhausting and when I hit my thirties, I stopped wanting to understand because excusing garbage behavior with daddy issues, personal insecurities, or willful ignorance under the guise of religious supremacy is total bullshit. I am not here for self-identified grown folks who have toddler tantrums and navigate their lives as mean girls. Maybe y'all need to work out your sociopathy with the assistance of a shrink and perhaps integrate the concept of the apology into your lexicon and personal philosophy. I digress, I am not a psych major.
Where does that leave me currently? Having to care enough about a topic to spend almost a year researching it and then presenting my results in order to complete my degree. Do I side with a topic that I researched last semester that resonates with who I am, but I am kind of burnt out on? Or do I jump into a topic that I am unfamiliar with, but excited about — especially with an ethnographic goldmine rolling into town in the spring?
I saw Beach House live for the second time. They were louder than I remembered and I left the venue with a face fully melted and my liver in need of replacing. Teen Dream will always be my favorite album and it was kind of a bummer that they didn't play more of it. Minor complaint aside, I can only describe Beach House live as a spiritual experience. There is no other band that gives me the ghost. Coupled with the company of someone that I have missed immensely over the years, this was a nice summer send off — especially considering how hilariously tragic it began. I'm sure there could be some poignant way to end this post, but not without sounding too eat, pray, and love-esque. And that ain't me.
My cousin and I had a brief conversation about our shared attraction to the caucasian persuasion and its roots in a white supremacist and hetero-patriarchal society that upholds Eurocentric beauty ideals as the epitome of hotness. I have a bad habit of overanalyzing. For example: is my tendency to open doors for others or step out of the way connected to the subservient Asian stereotype? Maybe. I consider myself an equal opportunist, however, my track record has been overwhelmingly white. Trust, in high school no Filipino guys were checking for me — maybe because I looked like a junior lesbian instead of a car model. As an adult, the same can be said about any person of color. Or perhaps my brain has been colonized to the point that it created a POC blind spot causing me to gravitate towards wypipo with yellow fever. That's not entirely true:
When I was nineteen or twenty, the Filipino fitting room attendant at the Ralph Lauren outlet store told me I had cute dimples. I bought two polo shirts and continually drove 45 minutes outside of town in order to bump into this guy because I didn't have the nerve to ask him for his number. The thirst was very real and very embarrassing. Also embarrassing is the seemingly decade-long crush on a non-white guy that I cannot shake. I am always doing something stupid in front of him in addition to transforming into a giggly teenage girl at every interaction. In summation, my boner is not as racist as John Mayer's.
In an attempt to decolonize other parts of my body, AKA my ears, I have been seeking out music made by POC. I gave Emily King a break to overload on Yuna. Interestingly, or not, I found King by going through Yuna's Instagram account. Her duet with Jhené Aiko is at the top of my Body Roll Summer 2016 playlist.
The live performance gives me goosebumps. I can't YASSSSS it enough. So much Asian slayage. I hope Yuna releases a video for it involving an '80s themed mall with glamour shots and eye rolling at exes at the food court. Also of particular interest is Yuna's duet with Usher titled Crush. Yuna has been making music for some time, so I do not have a good excuse for slacking. I would like to see her a) live in Las Vegas and b) do a buddy cop film with Esther Quek. Slay, Asian ladies, S-L-A-Y.
Radio is easily my second favorite Emily King song. At times I am salty about the fact that I possess no musical ability besides decent scores on the ol' Magic Mic. Most of my cousins on my mom's side are musicians because their parents are musicians. Perhaps what I have inherited from my mom is a real affinity for hoarding.
When I heard Distance, I thought I was going to combust. Shame on me for not being in the loop earlier because Emily King was in Las Vegas weeks ago. The last time I experienced music on a religious level was when I was introduced to Beach House. It has been years since I have been excited about music. Distance gives me the (gay) ghost. It makes my heart explode and fills me with optimism amidst the hilarity of my own love life in tandem with the horrors of police brutality, domestic terrorism and presidential campaigns. Its video is as visually pleasing as it is ear delicious (shout out, Neil Sedaka). And hello, BYIMM is EV. REE. THING.
In my past life as a devout Mormon, I became friends with another single woman and she was the older sister I wished I had: the kind that would sit next to me at church, the kind that would take me to Sephora and urge me to buy things that I did not need, the kind that let me talk incessantly about the bands I liked, the kind that had a filthy car and did not flinch when that I told her that she was gross, the kind that met the dudes I was into and gave me real talk. Some Sundays, she would lean forward as a signal for me to scratch her back and I hated doing it because I knew it made me look really gay, but I did it anyway because I loved this woman like she was my sister. This memory of scratching her back during Sacrament Meeting and subsequently, my mom shooting daggers at us, made me laugh out loud because of the absurdity of same-sex back-scratching equating to lesbianism. Whether or not I wanted to admit it at the time, I was already on the queer-er end of the sexuality spectrum stemming from an intense crush I developed on a brunette I met my third or fourth year at Girl's Camp. Scratching another woman's back was not my sapphic catalyst into lezbroism. That's all Tegan Quin...and maybe a dude that burned me so bad that it caused me turn my back on men entirely. But that's all water under the fluidity bridge because not all men, am I right, ladies? You live, you learn, and you invest in pharmaceuticals.
Occasionally, I am reminded of the time when I kissed someone who I was really into for the first time and we got caught by a mutual friend. I do not know why this memory pops up every now and then. I am not nostalgic for it, but I do not regret that it happened either. This person and I are well past those feelings, and when we do interact, I like to think that the vibes are relatively normal. However, when this memory pops into my head and says, "Remember when this happened?" I become embarrassed to the point that my face flushes red and I am moved to scream into a pillow. Maybe I am embarrassed because I got real handsy real fast. And perhaps what I am nostalgic for is the consequent rush that is felt after a first kiss. Either way, does this mean that my mourning process has reached its end? Let us do the math: 5.5 years / 41 days later = DTF *insert smiling emoji with sunglasses here*
