Out the Way, Guero!

Yesterday I was awarded the prize for most domestic living boy in New York.

After completing my 8 hour workshift in Midtown I patiently rode my subway to Williamsburg and stopped at the hip health food market (you can buy organic on-the-vine cherry tomatoes individually...) like everything in Williamsburg, full of torn jeans, designer t-shirts, tattoos, and facial hair. I made my way home, whistling appropriately 'We Belong Together' all the while, where I promptly put my groceries away (the Haagen Daaz Chocolate Chocolate Chip even more promptly, after eating half of it).

I then put together a large spinach salad as I marinated some teriyaki chicken broiled. In going to such effort in preparing food it's rather ridiculous to cook only enough for a single meal but in my attempts to cajole someone into having dinner with me I received nothing by incredulity.

It was one thing to be eating in, but to be actually cooking the food myself: this concept was foreign to everyone, and considering the number of people I've stayed with so far, thoroughly ubiquitous. The only time I ate at home while staying with someone, we ordered Indian.

When the chicken was perfectly broiled (and it did turn out perfect, an anomaly for me) I put Dave's Greatest Nina Simone Hits Volume 1 on play and finished The New York Times while I ate. After dinner I immediately cleaned all my dishes (yet another anomaly John will concur) then the kitchen istelf (yes, John), and gathered my laundry.

The laundromat was a wonderful experiment in modern Brooklyn, dichotomous between caucasian urban hipsters living there so they can pursue their 'art', and minorities. The laundromat was large, and each group selected a distinct side of washers and dryers with little overlap.















I (perhaps mistakenly) lingered along the yet realized border between the two sides, when a Latina woman came by with her rolling laundry cart. There was plenty of room for both my legs and her basket, yet she chose to run over my feet with her cart and say 'scusme' and then under her breath, 'guero'.

Now, 'guero', is not only the name of the new Beck album, but a derogatory Spanish word for 'white boy'. I gave her a slightly knowing smile and then under my breath responded, 'you won't be here much longer', drawing a battle line.

I'm not sure if she heard me, but I think she did.

It's not that I wish to promote the gentrification of Brooklyn, but she fucked with me first, and I simply hope she has been able to buy something somewhere in Brooklyn because if she's just renting and not progressing in career or education she will, very easily and rather soon, be displaced somewhere closer to West Maryland.

[Great: I just checked the meaning of Guero online, journalism reflex, and turns out it is generally used in a friendly context. Oops. Oh well. Nevermind.]