Perfect

I'm taking a Public Speaking Class. I had to deliver a Narrative Speech last Saturday. I made up this story. I got a video of my performance. I haven't decided if I'll put it up here.

Perfect

A year ago I moved to a new neighborhood. A week after my move I met Cathy Miller. She was my next-door neighbor and she was perfect. Now she didn’t show it off. She was very humble and modest in a perfect sort of way. But I knew she was perfect and that bothered me. She was married to Paul and they had the perfect marriage. They were so happy together. He had a good job and they didn’t have to worry about money. They had the nicest house on the street. They just had a baby boy and named him Ashton.

In morning I would make my coffee and sit by the window. Every morning, without fail, I would see Cathy on her daily jog pushing little Ashton’s stroller. She was healthy and full of life with a perfect body after giving birth only six months ago. Of course, she was pretty too. No, she wasn’t pretty. She was beautiful. All her features were in the right proportions and her teeth were straight and they were white.

I wanted to hate her so much but she was one of those people that are impossible to hate. She was always smiling with her white teeth and always had something nice to say. She was very friendly and everyone knew her in town. Everyone probably felt the same way I did. Everyone wanted to hate her and they probably did at first, but once she talked, they couldn’t help but like her.

Cathy and I became close friends. We would go everywhere together. I would, once in a while have dinner with her and Paul. Dinner that she made and it was delicious, of course. As I got to know her better I couldn’t find anything wrong in her life. Secretly, I envied her. Here I was in a little rented house with a job I hated, living paycheck to paycheck, no boyfriend and no kids. And my friend Cathy had the perfect life.

One day she let me know her secret. When she turned 15 her parents took her on a vacation to Florida and told her she was adopted. Ever since then she has always wanted to know who her real family was. She would always consider the parents who raised her as her family but she had always that feeling inside that she wanted to meet her biological family. She talked to Paul about it and he told her that she should hire an investigator to see if she could find anything out. The next day she did. She hired Michael Hamilton. He was highly recommended.

Weeks passed and I would get little updates on the case. Nothing significant. But almost every day Michael would call Cathy to tell her what he had found out. One day she got an email from Michael. He is from England. He had a family emergency and had to leave the country but he had made a major breakthrough on her case. He had found out Cathy had a brother. He would mail her a letter with all the information. It was strange that he didn’t call like he did every other day. It was also strange that if he had time to write the email why didn’t he write the information in the email?

Every day Cathy expectantly would go to the mailbox and every day she got junk mail. One afternoon my doorbell rang. I open the door and it was Cathy. She was crying like I had never seen her cry before. She couldn’t speak. She could hardly breath. Even when she cried she was beautiful. I asked her to come in but she couldn't even move. In her hand she had a crumpled piece of paper. She extended her hand and gave it to me. It only had a name. Paul Miller.

Don't talk to me in Spanish

I wrote this a few eeks ago and read it at the writers group last Friday. It is the first creative writing I have done since High School. I know this because the last writing class I had to take was in college in Massachussetts and I didn't feel like writing so I translated Spanish songs to English and handed them in as my writing. Not very ethical, I know. But this one I wrote, I swear. Everything here has happened to me.

Don’t talk to me in Spanish
by Aynex Mercado

If you see a short brown girl walk in the room
That looks like her name could be Maria,
Don’t talk to her in Spanish.
If your mom didn’t teach you to dance salsa when you were growing up
Or you didn’t have tortillas for breakfast this morning,
Don’t talk to me in Spanish.

If I only had a dollar for every time I have heard
“Oh, so you speak Spanish…I can practice my Spanish with you.”
Don’t.

We then proceed to half an hour of you
trying to remember what your high school Spanish teacher said twenty years ago,
when was probably a gringa by the way
and taught you wrong. anyway.
I can’t understand shit of what you are saying.
Don’t.

I really don’t want to know about your last trip to Mexico
Where you learn so much Spanish
and you realized that tater tots burritos from Taco Johns
are not authentic Mexican cuisine.
I don’t need to hear when your funny Mexican friend
Taught you how to say “Puta, chupame las bolas”
Or “Chinga tu madre”
I really don’t.

I really don’t want to spend the next hour of my life
Teaching you how to say
“Bring me the check, please”
or “Gracias por el burrito, Jose.”
Then I have to spell every word that comes out of my mouth
Thirty-two times
and then write it down so you can finally understand what I’m saying.
I really don’t.

I really don’t need to know that when you lived in California
Some Hispanics friends of your taught you how to say “Que pasa, pavo?”
Did you know you just called me a turkey?

Don’t butcher my language,
we do a good enough job of that ourselves.

Dance, Monkeys, Dance

Every Friday night the Paducah Writers Group meets at Etcetera Coffeehouse and they have an open mic night where people read poetry, do some spoken word and play music. As I said one time to my friend Teri, "That's not the way I roll." It is not my thing. But for other reasons (that I'm not going to publish to the whole wide web), I started to go. Then that reason stop being a reason but I kept going. I was enjoying myself. Plus there isn't that much else to do in little old Paducah on a Friday night.

Then I was feeling a little guilty for just sitting there and listening and not contributing so I decided to read a poem. I wasn't planning to ever do it again. This was a one-time thing. I didn't read poem that I wrote, because that is not the way I roll. Really. I read the only poem I have ever memorized and I only memorized it because I had to for some school thing. It is called Majestad Negra by Luis Pales Matos. It went well, I think, even thought most of the people there couldn't understand a word of what I said. Which was a good thing because if I messed up, which I did a few times, nobody noticed.

But after that, I got a taste of it and like my music god, Colin Meloy said once "I was meant for stage" and I couldn't sit there in the corner and not be the center of attention anymore. I had to get up and read every week. So that very same night when I got home I searched the Internet (what would I do without the Internet) for some spoken word piece that was funny because that is more my style and decided to read it this week.

It wasn't easy to find spoken word in the Internet but I found Ernest Cline's web site and there I found the piece Dance, Monkeys, Dance and that is what I read. So if you didn't get to see it, which you probably didn't, here is a flash animation of Dance, Monkeys, Dance read by Ernest Cline that is probably 100 times better than my interpretation. Even thought I got a standing ovation... Ok, almost everybody did.