After coming back from AAWW Open Mic once again (it was probably my twelfth time going), I felt incredibly angry at something, someone, anything, anyone. It was clear I had repressed emotions and repressed traces/stimuli that I could probably point out. I do remember that when I went up to present my piece, I congratulated Jen. But she completely did not hear me and I felt at a complete loss. I was pretty much shunned. Because it is in my nature to feel received and to feel that others must listen to me when I speak, I was pretty backhanded when she didn't hear me. I felt a tinge of red flood my face because I feared that the audience realized this and this might have embarrassing on my part. The thought ran through my head: OH NO! Did they hear me congratulate her but it fell on deaf ears? I would have been devastated if someone picked that up. Not that that would matter. Besides how would I know anyway and is that really so important? Jen genuinely didn't hear me so why do I feel so backhanded and shunned? I am ridiculous. So I read my piece and I felt my piece grow into me; I felt that I started empathizing with the main character I wrote about and I ended up being in the shoes of this character who condemns his father for being a wayfaring guardian who plays lotto every day of his life. For some reason I ended up identifying with the character more than I wanted and it became clear to the audience that this piece might be autobiographical. This situation got me slightly distanced at Sin Rostro three months ago when no one came up to me after my reading because they feared my onslaught of emotions or they were completely distanced from me because I distanced them from me by reading something that is extremely difficult to handle or to deal with. Shane told me that people loved my piece but they just didn't know how to talk to me about it or to even refer to it because it's difficult. To my understanding, what Shane means to say is that people don't want to deal with personal issues with that, so they don't talk about it especially during the first meeting with someone. You can compliment someone but it will only go so far, therefore people don't even compliment because they are afraid that it will steer towards awkwardness if they don't have any appropriate way to take the conversation any farther than just a bare compliment. I hate to be the odd one out who has emotional issues or issues in the family that has just been made public on stage. I hate to be the one who sounds like he's writing something autobiographical when it really isn't something based on my life entirely. What made me the most fretful was when the open mic was finished and I got up to talk to Jen, I felt like I had done Jen wrong because I was completely awkward, distant and stranger-like to her. What was worse was that no one approached me after the open mic was finished. I felt like if people clapped for me then why don't they approach me now and compliment me in person? Well it is obvious that no one is obligated to appreciate my performance or to compliment me. The way I put it is that I should be lauded and I should be crowned the king of kings. This kind of attitude is scorching and caustic because it is narcissistic and insistant on having people like one-self. I left that night wondering why I was so full of steam that I entered my apartment and ignored my mom six to seven times when she asked me a question. I ended up plopping onto my bed and pretending to be in an extremely bad mood and feeling like killing myself. This kind of feeling vanished within the next one or two hours when I snapped to reality that I have two finals and a final paper due in two three days. I had to snap out of it before I waste more time and sit ducks.
I feel ridiculous because I have wasted my entire day moating and gloating and being lethargic when I should be glad that I am alive and healthy and breathing and not failing any of my classes. I am rather happy that I got to meet up with at least one of my classmates today during the study session. I was expecting to see Chen but she didn't show up. I supposed I scared her off yesterday. She is an especially attractive girl who has only been in America for four years. Her english is 50/50 but her accent is rather attractive because it has a certain flow and smoothless and alignment that fits perfectly. I can't explain it; I hope I'm not exoticizing her to the point where I think that fobs are attractive because of their inability to speak fluent english and their inability to be completely ABC gangster which makes them ungangster which makes them pure and unchanged by Western values. This type of polarity creates an exotic factor that separates one group and makes them clearly more attractive based on their pureness or innocence. There is something about a fob that makes her especially interesting, maybe because of her capability of being imperialized or commandeered. I am likening her to a state not because she is a thing but because men try to do that to women; they try to change them or to teach them in certain ways. In my interest I want to teach a fob english so that I could get other things in return such as companionship, etc. It seems that fobs are attractive because they have a certain type of innocence in them that America has not swallowed up yet. Also their cynicism has not built up just yet so their thoughts are a certain way that keeps them healthy from the typical New Yorker and tired and complaining-all-the-time-Negative-Nancy type. I feel like fobs are either more open or more closed but if they are in between then they may not be that interesting. Fobs seem to be interesting mostly because I can teach them and direct them in a certain direction, once again pointing to my desire to be someone that does something for someone. I want to be known as the doer or actor that influences other people just like Xia said that she is the provider and best friend who fulfills this very role of being the best friend for her friends and being there and serving them; she sees it as her "job" while I see myself teaching and colonizing fobs as a potential job as well.
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