For the first time in an incredibly long time, I woke up this morning feeling angry. And I don’t mean vaguely angry, I mean one of those hissing, hot, solar plexus originating streams of lividity. I don’t remember the last time I actually felt anger like that. Mostly I wake up feeling happy, sometimes sad, usually tired but not angry. I don’t actually even recall the last time I even felt anger that strongly, no matter what the time of day. I get pissed off a lot at work by stupid clients and their, generally, even more stupid leeching families, but it passes after I have let off a stream of profanities to The Foot or The Geegy Monster…

I really had to question myself because I didn’t understand why I would feel so angry still and what, why and who was I truly angry at..?

Tuesday just gone, I was in the middle of writing an email to my Engerlish pen pal about my Americanisms, when I suddenly found myself feeling pissed off. It took me a few days to come to the mediocre understanding that the answer lays somewhere in the fact that I feel I have overstayed here and some certain critique I have of American culture that I can’t seem to articulate properly. When I start thinking about this country and it’s culture, not it’s people, I get angry.

“This is a country that does not represent it’s people”, I said to Reek once meaning that the general consensus of foreigners toward Americans is correct in a cultural sense but not in an individual manner. I have been lucky enough to meet some amazing human beings in my stay here, so very lucky, and I will carry those people forward with me forever, at the very least in a fond remembrance of beauty. But when I start thinking about this country as a whole and it’s habits, I start feeling angry…

The question is, who am I directing the anger at, me or it..?

Yesterday I went to Slam-You-Up-Against-A-Hard-Object mannie’s house, (who will now definitely be known as Fabulous Mannie, since I noticed that everything was fabulous to him, which is, if you ask me, fucking fabulous!), for a barbeque. It was fine, it was dandy and populated, for the most part, by lovely people.

Let me back up a minute, in “Nobody Knows My Name”, James Baldwin notes that the perceived differences that American’s feel toward each other would be obliterated were they to travel extensively outside the US. There is an imbricating American culture that it seems to me, and James intimated, that American’s themselves do not want or seem to claim. They, in my and James’ opinion, are grabbing at the layers further down, the nuances and colloquial idiosyncrasies, the idioms of a place rather than the general pervading culture that is very definitely their birthright. As I said last night, they are grabbing at “echoes of cultures” as opposed to the blanket of their civilisation…

I am presuming it was the “echoes of cultures” line that pissed off one gentleman last night. It’s probably my fault for even getting into this discussion with a stranger because American’s are a funny lot when it comes down to matters pertaining to their culture. They fiercely fight for things that do not belong to them, but conveniently ignore, perhaps because they feel powerless to change, the pervading source of their shape. On top of that, my complete feelings are not shaped yet and it is dangerous to talk about things that are not formed in their entirety in your head, but as we all know, I’ve got a big gob and so echoes of culture’s comments I made…

So homie asks me where I have been in the US and after getting out three cities, (I only got as far as DC), he asked me for street names in the capitol. I don’t know, because I went for visits, not a move, and as I explained to him we used to go regularly for gigs there. “So you’re a musician”, he says. “No,” say I, “I worked for them.” “So, you’re a groupie.” “No,” say I, “I worked for the artists.” “Yeah, you’re a groupie, a fucking groupie”, he spits…

Now, for all my cunt loving and wild drunken babbling, I do in fact, have a large measure of decorum that my parents supplanted and for which I am eternally grateful. So, after he spits out his bitchy comment I decided, in order to keep the peace, that I would back down and so I sighed, “Fine, I’ll be a groupie if you want.” And somehow, by someone, the conversation was changed…

Do you remember my entry about authenticity over nicety? (Have you even read this far down the page Miss and Mister ADD of Our Generation?) Did I fail myself or did I not? All I know is that I sat there deep breathing and swinging my locked jaw from one side to the other and I thought, I could go at this man and hurt him, (I’m nice because I have a particularly unpleasant gift of seeing people’s weakness’ really easily), or I could swallow this anger right now, wait a few minutes and then leave…

I chose the latter and this is why I woke up feeling angry as I chose nicety over authenticity. Which means that fundamentally, I am angry at myself…

But god I was livid last night. I waited about half an hour and then told Fabulous Mannie that I would like to go now. He walked me to the door and since he is Fabulous, or maybe because I am not so good at hiding, he sensed something was wrong. I marched the 7 blocks home with my back straight, my eyes fixed forward and my arms grasping and tearing at each other behind my back. He had asked me to call him when I got home, which Stubborn Bitch Tank kept moaning about because “he’s not my fucking father and why the fuck should I care if he cares and blah, blah, blah, bitchy moan, moan, moan”. I ignored her, which I think was a smart move, and called proclaiming, “See, I’m not dead.” And this time when he asked me what was wrong, I told him…

So back to the anger. Think of a hissing stream of water, a geyser, a roaring Woman who swallowed a particularly childish and nasty insult in order to keep the peace. And think of that Woman questioning herself because she really doesn’t understand why she feels so angry still and what, why and who was she truly angry at..?

In retrospect, I wish I had told him how childish his comment was. I wish I had told him that there are prettier ways to end a conversation than resorting to name calling. I wish I was far enough along in my journey to express my anger without my temper taking control of the reins. But I’m not and so I have two choices of exploding or suppressing. I’m still not sure I should have taken the latter…

In retrospect, I wish I had never entered into that conversation because my feelings on the matter are not fully formed. I wish I had kept my big mouth shut because I was already aware that something about the topic of American culture pissed me off. I wish I had been a little bit smarter, but yet and still I am glad I went…

September 1st, 2003 | Category: Blood and Guts, Philadelphia | Subscribe to comments | Comments are currently closed | Trackback URL