Is Hanging In There

When I was 19 I had an apartment on Brooklyn Avenue in Oakland. On a very steep hill. Every morning I'd walk down the steep hill to wait at a bus stop for a bus that would take me to the train station for a train that would take me to another bus that I'd then take to my job answering phones in Pleasanton.

When I got to work I sat at a desk all day doing just about whatever anyone asked me to. I greeted people, I signed for flowers I could never afford in a million years, I cleaned up after sloppy work lunches, I laughed at stupid jokes and humored frat boys who'd never known any black people in their whole lives.

If I wanted to go somewhere for lunch? Another bus ride for fifteen minutes to get to a fucking strip mall that I couldn't stay at for longer than twenty minutes because I had to be back in exactly one hour or else I'd get yelled at by a lady who was really weirded out in general by all of the vibe I had with me everywhere I went.

I wore these awesome vintage old lady shirts and skin tight black slacks with teddy bear backpacks and pimp jackets but always the fucking SHOES. The goddamn mandatory slick soled dress shoes. And banging hoop earrings, of course.

But it's the shoes. The slippery ass shoes are what I'm getting at. One morning when it was misty out and I was walking down that treach ass hill I lived on I slipped and bit it hell of hard. But in this crazy James Brown dance move position that made the story funny enough to tell my moms when I called her that night after getting home and smoking my Friday blunt.

A few weeks later and it was storming out. I was on my balcony drinking tea, talking to my moms again. We were joking about the James Brown sidewalk splits and I said

It's a bad day to have to go to work.

beat

But it's a worse day to be homeless.

My mom told me that story tonight. In the middle of a conversation that had me crying like a little old bitch when it was done. It's been that kind of day. Very intense.

Not sure why I'm telling you this except to say that I've pretty much always been this practical, and that I love my mama very much.

Sweet dreams.


this is what my lunch break looks like now, after 16 years of hustling