Things You Should Know about Me

[an exercise in spoken word]There are some things you should know about me.I am going to tell you those things because if I don’t, no one else will.My father will not.My mother will not.My brother might, but he’s not to be trusted.Brothers are after all, the shadows of our most devious selves.I am the one that knows my story best. So I will tell you some of these things.

1. 1. I hate the taste of papaya.  I only eat papaya in the Philippines.  I only eat papaya in the Philippines because those are the only ones that do not make me vomit.

1. 1. I find comfort in really good procedurals but am embarrassed by most sitcoms.

1. 1. Some days I am brown, most days I am a semi-distinct shade of olive.

1. 1. I was darker when I was a child and spent all of my summer mornings in a swimming pool.  I was very proud of the fact I had a pristine racer-back tan from approximately six different one-piece Speedos I owned in the same style.

1. 1. I hate direct address.

1. 1. My mother does not like to be addressed as “ma’am.”  She thinks it’s condescending.

1. 1. I am an Asian-American, Filipino-English, first-generation hapa.  I live my hyphens. I am constantly stuck living as a transmitter between two worlds that don’t understand each other.  

1. 1. If you’re wondering what that’s like, it’s like being forced to be a cultural translator when everyone knows you’re not fluent in either.

1. 1. Shakespeare is for lovers.

1. 1. I would like to take a pen name—Liz Lorenzana, after my grandmother—but I am afraid of being typed as a Latina artist.

1. 1. I am not Latina.  I do not speak Spanish—did you think I did because I am brown?  The answer is no.

1. 1. I have no intention of learning to speak Spanish unless it becomes incumbent upon me due to my job, my research, my love life, or my neighborhood.

1. 1. Some days I hate white men.

1. 1. Erasure is my inheritance.  If you cannot understand that—if you cannot at least hold the empty space that makes me sweat in agony—then we can no longer be friends.

1. 1. Touch is my first love language.

1. 1. I spend an inordinate amount of my money on handbags and hardly anything on groceries.

1. 1. I would rather sit through a bad play than a bad sermon because only after one of them is it acceptable to drink.

1. 1. I have spent my whole life using the same Hitatchi rice cooker that’s older than my parent’s marriage.

1. 1. I eat rice with my meals sometimes.  Sometimes I just eat bread.

1. 1. I do not speak Spanish.  No, I will not make you tamales.

1. 1. Kale belongs in peanut butter smoothies and nowhere else.

1. 1. Yes, I have eaten balut.

1. 1. Yes, I enjoyed it.

1. 1. I also enjoy solitude amongst many.  Locations include cafes, bars, cheese shops, and grocery stores.

1. 1. I firmly believe one should always be kind to service people.

1. 1. If I make you breakfast, it does not mean I want to marry you.

1. 1. Be not inhospitable to strangers.  Instead make them stay for dinner. There’s always more adobo in the refrigerator.

1. 1. I refuse to go to the gym.

1. 1. I will not recreate unless strictly housed in a studio class, but I am afraid that makes me a hypocrite for participating in the western industrial yoga complex.

1. 1. My father is a soft man.

1. 1. My tears are my most precious gift to self.  I think it is better to cry a little bit every day than to have your soul shrivel from dehydration.

1. 1. When I want to feel skinny, I sleep on my stomach, but I regret it in the morning.

1. 1. I spend most of my afternoons searching for the stranger that hides behind my whiteness.  If you ever find me in this state, eyes glazed over with fury and skin crawling with goosebumps, do not, I repeat, do not wrap your arms around me and whisper sweet platitudes.  My goosebumps are all I have, so please, just leave me be.

1. 1. I do not have a taste in music, though I love music dearly.  My “taste” is but a compilation of everyone else’s “taste,” haphazardly recommended to me on road trips and bad first dates.

1. 1. Some days I imagine God as a woman.  Some days I call her Venus.

1. 1. Touch is my first love language, but dance was my first liturgy.

1. I will cook you adobo, but don’t expect me to pay 12$ for longanisa at that gentrified food stand in Grand Central Market when I can just as easily have it for 2$ when I go home to see my grandmother.

I am an Asian-American, Filipino-English, first-generation hapa.  I live my hyphens. I am often stuck living as a transmitter between two worlds that don’t understand each other.  If you’re wondering what that’s like, it’s like being forced to be a cultural translator when everyone knows you’re not fluent in either.There are some things you should know about me. I will tell you those things because no one else will.  I am the one that knows my story best. So I will tell you those things.