sup

“Grandma once broke up a knife fight in the neighborhood. She was quite proud of that. She kept the knife in a drawer as a trophy, and would tell the story to anyone who’d listen. Grandma was also very Italian. And very Catholic. She loved watching mass on the television, rosary in hand. And she loved the lottery. Big, big fan of the lottery. She was always on the lookout for numbers to play. Inspiration could come from anywhere: license plates, street numbers, radio stations. Then every night she’d watch the numbers roll out on Channel 8. But she hardly ever won. She used to split her winnings between her grandchildren, and it was never much. A couple bucks here and there. I remember getting $10 one time. Grandma was 89 when she passed away. On the day that she died I found a penny wedged into the sole of my shoe. Just a coincidence, I’m sure. But then I start finding pennies everywhere. But they’re pennies, right? They’re supposed to be everywhere, so maybe I was just grasping for signs. My academic advisor knew I was feeling sad, so she suggested that I study abroad. Of course I wanted to go to Italy, but even with scholarships it was like $10,000 more than regular tuition- so I didn’t even want to ask my parents. Fast forward a few months to Grandma’s birthday, when my family forces me to go to a remembrance mass. I’m not super religious so I’m sitting there the whole time thinking: ‘This is such bullshit.’ But then that night I had the craziest dream. I’m at a Cumberland Farms gas station near my house, scratching off a lottery ticket, and suddenly I start laughing because I won a bunch of money. The next day I text my friends that we’ve got to buy a lottery ticket. And when I met up with my friend Cassie after work that night, we headed straight to Cumberland Farms. I bought one lotto ticket. $5 Diamonds. I’d barely ever played before, and I’d certainly never bought a $5 scratch off. As soon as we got back to the car, I grabbed a penny and started scratching. Beyonce’s ‘Halo’ was playing on the radio. When I get to the third row of numbers, BAM. I had a match. $10,000. Enough to cover one whole semester in Florence.”

I can’t believe my 70 year old Abuela said BI RIGHTS

she had two separate scales of food judgement for men and women AT THE READY and there’s something inherently hilarious in “FOR MEN IT’S FINE, FOR WOMEN DO BETTER” 

“My mom said: ‘Val has something to say to you.’ I was sitting on the stairwell, crying. And he knew right away that I was pregnant. He didn’t yell. He didn’t say anything. He just started pacing. But I knew what he was thinking: I was eighteen years old, I was his only daughter, and he thought that having a child would ruin my life. When he finally stopped pacing, he told me: you can either get an abortion or leave the house. I knew then that I’d be entirely on my own. I started saving money from each paycheck to spend on clothing and supplies. But I had no idea what I was going to do when the baby came. My father wasn’t speaking to me. There was no eye contact. No nothing. Not that he’d ever been good at expressing his emotions. His mother had died when he was a baby. He’d had a tough life. From the outside like he didn’t care, but my mother told me that he was crying himself to sleep every night. After a few weeks he began to soften. He asked to see the sonogram. It wasn’t exactly a celebration, but at least he asked to see it. On the day of my C-section, dad spent that day drinking alone, which he rarely did. He was pretty drunk by the time I left for the hospital. He didn’t say a thing. My mom just looked at him and shook her head. But I was in the hospital for five days after my son was born, and every day my dad would visit. He’d bring us food. He’d hold my son for hours at a time. And when I came back home, there was a letter waiting for me on my bed. I’ve only read it twice in my life. Because it makes me cry too much. But he apologized for his behavior. And he said that we were going to be fine. My son is eight years old now. And whenever it’s Father’s Day at school, he brings home art for Papa. The two of them are inseparable. They’re always playing something. My son is always giving him hugs, and kisses, and saying ‘I love you.’ And Papa says it back. It’s the only time he ever says it to anyone. With my son he has no choice. It’s not in Papa’s nature to be affectionate. But it’s my son’s nature. He’s so open and natural with his emotions. He’ll give love for no reason at all, and his Papa has no choice but to accept it.”

“The adoption wouldn’t even have gotten approved today. But Mom wrote a letter to the Chinese government explaining why a quadriplegic man could be a good father, and the application was accepted. I’ve known the story my entire life. Dad got in a bad car accident when he was twenty-four. And Mom met him while working as a nurse in the ICU. She said his calmness was the first thing she noticed. Most people cry when they’re told they’ll never walk again, but Dad was silent. He was like that my entire life. So calm and level-headed. His parenting style was to ‘sit back and watch.’ He had no other choice. He could only guide me with his words. When it was time for me to walk, he just said: ‘Stand up and walk, Princess.’ And I did. He taught me to ride a bike by explaining the physics of it. My problems eventually became more complex, but he was always there in his same way. If I was panicking over a test, he’d bet me a dollar that I could pass it. That became our thing. Whenever I was feeling unsure, he’d bet me a dollar. As my anxiety got worse, he studied psychology. He’d walk me through coping strategies. He’d say things like: ‘Are you catastrophizing this?’, ‘Have you ever failed a class before?’, ‘What evidence do you have that this time will be different?’ I hated being the emotional one. I never wanted him to feel like the reason I was messed up. If he could handle being a quadriplegic, why couldn’t I cope with being the daughter of one? But it was so hard. From a young age, I had to help him with so much. And I was such a shy kid. I looked different than everyone else. It was a lot of stress. But he did everything he could for me. In the only way he knew how, by encouraging me, and believing in me. He started getting really sick in August of 2017. It was some kind of cancer, but we didn’t even get it checked. Because we knew he couldn’t survive the chemo. I sat at the foot of his bed during his final days, filling out my law school applications. Of course I was panicking. I was convinced that I wouldn’t get accepted anywhere. But he kept reassuring me. And he was right. Even if he didn’t live to see the results, he knew. ‘I’ll bet you a dollar,’ he told me.”

Marsha P. Johnson within the crowd at a New York Gay Pride (1982)

pink in the night

“I wanted to fly planes on an aircraft carrier, but my father had fought in World War I, and he told me that we’re a family who goes into the army.  So I enlisted in the infantry.  I wasn’t worried about a thing.  I was only eighteen years old.  I was too young and too stupid to be afraid.  The government sent me to Europe on the Queen Mary. I had two sets of dog tags.  One of them designated my religion as ‘Hebrew,’ which I planned on throwing away if I got caught.  I was sent to the Battle of the Bulge.  When I arrived at my post outside of Luxembourg, I learned that all the officers in my company had been killed, except for one.  He assigned me to be an advance scout.  It sounds like a glamorous job, but my orders were to walk in front and draw fire so everyone behind me knew there was danger.  At one point a shell exploded over my head and my ear started bleeding.  When the medics finished bandaging me up, they told me: ‘That will be enough to get you a Purple Heart!’  But I told them to keep it because I knew they’d notify my parents, and I didn’t want them to worry.  After I recovered I was transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp.  I arrived on my 19th birthday.  My new job was to guard the liberated prisoners so the Nazis didn’t come back and kill them.  These people were so emaciated from being starved to death.  I was helping to bury hundreds of bodies per day.  But I couldn’t cry.  Because I had be strong for the prisoners.  They needed my strength.  I would walk around the courtyard at night, and sing a popular Jewish song called ‘My Yiddishe Momme.’  It’s a whole long story about missing your mother, but the lyrics didn’t matter.  I’d sing it as loud as I could.  Because I wanted everyone to know that a Jewish boy was there to protect them.”   #quarantinestories

this was a great read. “Laziness Does Not Exist” by Devon Price

She gets it.

Photo:Seth McConnell, heyreverb.com

This is the third appearance of the Ballet Boy and his father. You can read PART 1 and PART 2.