on the outside still

I have a fairly large extended family, mostly on my father’s side.  His parents never married, so I have two distinct branches on that side, situated in the South and Wisconsin.  The Wisconsin branch I didn’t even know existed until I was in my teens due to estrangement.  My mother was an only child and contact with her mother’s people was sporadic at best and I know nothing of her father’s people.

The point is that none of these people were really a part of my life outside of church doings (dad’s mom’s folks).  I had cousins around my age, but never connected with them since I never saw them outside of church as we lived across town from them.  No effort was made on my parent’s part to foster a connection, most likely because I believe that my mother never really cared for them.  Either side, really.  Once we stayed with one of my father’s half-sister’s family (WI side)  for a couple of days on what was probably our last family vacation and fell instantly in family love with her son who was about my age.  He was like the brother I always wished I had.  (I do have a brother, but that is another story altogether)  Years went by and I spent Thanksgiving with the WI branch and talked to him on the phone.  It was like we’d never been apart.  The sad thing is, I can’t remember his name to look him up on Facebook or anything.

Which brings me to the inspiration for this entry.  I was surfing friends’ photos on the ‘book and came across an active link to a cousin on the SC side.  I perused his friends and found that he’s friends with all of my cousins.  All of a sudden, I felt like I had when I was plopped down in the 1st grade in public school outside of the military.  Who were these people and why wouldn’t they talk to me?  I’d never seen self-segregated social groups, so when I went to the white people who were afraid of me, the black people sneered when I tried to turn to them.  All of these cousins of mine by blood didn’t know what to make of me either and I suppose that their parents’ attitudes towards my mother and family as a whole colored their perception as well.  I even went to school with the one that I found first and we never clicked.  I came across one female cousin who also was a performer; in fact her mother seemed to want to foster competition between us even though we had very different voice types.  So on a midnight whim, I dropped her a note.  She answered, offering condolences on my mother’s recent passing and called me “cuz”.  So I sent a friend request to see what would happen next.

*crickets chirping*

Yeah.  I thought so.  Back to the Island of Me.

Long ago and not so far away

I first entered the workforce as a full time grunt at the tender age of 26 or so.   I worked for a cellular service company that still exists in some form or another as a “customer care” representative.  We were mostly responsible for outbound calls to new customers, renewing current customers and attempting to save disconnecting customers.  This was back when call centers were still stateside for the most part which always surprised people…and also made us targets for angry customers.  Those of us that gave good phone often ended up with customers who would only talk to/deal with their favorite CCR.  Nice at first, but sometimes it became a real PITA, especially when we were slammed at the end of a billing cycle (“WHY IS MY BILL AFU????”) and all someone needed was the smallest tweak that any doofus could do.  And even that would be the least of our problems sometimes.  Like when a particularly interested customer found out that we were situated locally.  One gentleman was insistent upon meeting me, he was that entranced with my voice.  I promised him that whatever he was envisioning was most definitely not reality.  He asked every question trying to put together what I looked like in his minds’ eye except for…yep, you guessed it.  My ethnicity.  He was so certain that I was a pink person that it never even dawned on him to consider that I wasn’t.  So, fine.  It never dawned on me that the possiblilty might exist that it wouldn’t be an issue, but unfortunately for me, my assumptions were correct.  I was even all dolled up for a photo op for the local newspaper reporting on a symphony-in-the-park event I was going to take part in the upcoming weekend.  He showed up towards the end of my shift and I strode toward the side door, seeing him waiting expectantly.  I think he assumed I was someone else until I opened my yap and said “Hi, Whatever his name was”.  His jaw dropped and was still hanging in unpleasant shock when I let him off the hook.  Never heard from him again.

I transferred to a different position and geographical locale within the company about a year later.  I was officially an admin assistant on paper, but I was actually performing the duties of an office manager including all HR functions, payroll, sales support, helping to build new retail stores, etc., etc.  When we participated in local events as a sponsor, it was up to me to handle the particulars once my boss had made initial contact.  I think-no, I know-that he got off on saying “Good, call my assistant; she’ll set everything up.”  And that really did mean everything from procuring the appropriate amount and types of collateral (aka corporate logo swag) from the corporate office to cutting the check and delivering it to getting the logo tent where it needed to be on site.  For one event, I dealt with a delightful and charming lady via phone for months prior to the event.  She’d gush that she just couldn’t wait to meet me (apply honey-laden Southern belle accent here).   The event was an old, stinky family money affair, a horse race of all things; a mini-Kentucky derby with all the trimmings from ostentatious hats to mint juleps.

So we’re at the event and all dolled up when I spy the woman.  She’s had a few and is just…sparkling.  I know it’s her as I made her voice ringing out clarion style across the grassy knoll on which we’d set up.  She’s looked past/through me as if I weren’t there enough times that I knew what was coming should we be introduced.  Turns out she’s been looking for me and she nabbed my boss and demanded that she be introduced to “that wonderful girl of yours!”  He brings her over, smiling all big and says “Laney, this is Terioso!”  She still hadn’t adjusted her vision to include melanin-tinged people and was brought up completely short.  Stunned, she stammered a hello, ignored my proffered hand and hightailed it down the hill.  My boss just stood there, jaw-hanging at her rudeness.  I shrugged and moved on.

A year later, I moved to the big city, grateful to leave that madness behind.

I think of this now, as I am working to find gainful employement and having initial contact via phone or email only.  We shall see.

Going where the old songs take me

This entry courtesy iTunes surfing.

It’s old school night in the house.  I am apparently now old enough for the music I devoured during my formative years to be deemed “old school”.

Vinyl.  When a 12 inch remix was merely an extra minute or two added on.  Shalamar’s 12-inch of “A Night to Remember” clocks in at 5:02 of delightful joy.  Jody Watley, Howard Hewett and that other guy whose name we never knew.  It’s one of the many tunes that takes me back to Soul Night at the local roller rink.  Yeah, I did the skate roll bounce with a vengeance.  I used to go on Saturday afternoons with kids from children’s choir practice.  That’s when they’d turn on the lights and do the Hokey Pokey and the Limbo.  I don’t know how I discovered the heat of Wednesday nights…wait a minute.  Yes, I do.  I graduated to the youth choir and…well, you can imagine the rest.  Some of my most interesting outfits were born during that time.  In retrospect, I was way more ambitious with my fashion and hairstyle choices then I realized.  I’m not saying it was good (remember the asymmetrical ‘dos made popular by Salt-n-Pepa?), I’m just saying I was ambitious.

Oh.  Oh.  Terence Trent D’Arby’s first album.  “Let’s Go Forward”, first.  1987.  I was dating the boy who would eventually propose, then crash and burn.  I was alllll about it.   D’Arby’s voice had this stunning combination of throbbing, vibrating need.  As a fervent hormonal teen, that’s all I heard.  That’s all I felt. “Sign Your Name”.  So sweet, so nearly silent.  Shh.  Just listen.  It’s what I felt.

1986 saw the Loose Ends album Zagora.  The only song that causes twinges is “I Can’t Wait”.  by the time I turned on to this one, it’d been out for a few years.  So the longing of a long-distance relationship (different universities) blossomed around this song.  A quiet storm mix tape staple.

My tape and vinyl collection at the time reminds me of how much I stood apart after deciding to attend a small private nearly all pale people school in the middle of freaking nowhere coal mining Virginia.   I had a better-than marginal console system with big floor speakers that my dad had gotten for me half off from Sears where he worked part-time (employee discount, too!) that traveled with me.  When I was alone, I’d crank it.  I think it was Guy and Heavy D and The Boyz that got me into trouble the first time.  “Groove Me”.  “My Fantasy”.  “Teddy’s Jam” (1 & 2).   “D-O-G Me Out”.  “You Ain’t Heard Nuttin’ Yet”.  “More Bounce”.   Those coal mining kids had NO idea what to make of me, whatsoever.  Read an article today in the NYT about how interracial roommates can reduce the prejudice in one another.  While I identify very strongly with the ideas the article puts forth, I must say that I wasn’t very helpful in those early semesters/years.  I had no idea how bereft I’d feel.  It wasn’t that the other students were white, no.  It was the fact that a very large percentage of them had never even laid eyes on a real live black person in their entire lives.  To them, I was either a Cosby kid or a welfare mother because they didn’t see anything else on TV.

In order to promote class unity or some snot like that, each class year was required to take the same class together at the same time.  Four days a week we’d be in little groups taught by all of the faculty no matter what their specialty, one day we’d meet up as a class for special lectures.  Freshman year was basically western civ and by the time we worked our way up to the civil rights movement in the second semester, I was feeling pretty comfortable with things for the most part.  Until the professor, who also happened to be head of the music department began pointing himself at me.  I guess he felt more comfortable doing so since he knew me well-he assumed-out of class (tiny, tiny, tiny music department.  I was one of maybe a handful of voice students).  But the “Terioso, what do you think about /insert black folk related topic du jour here/?”  all of a sudden, I was the Voice of All Black People.  I was teen controlled by my baser urges, that was pretty much it.  So one morning after getting too little rest, I finally, sleepily snapped.  He or someone else in the class made the mistake of phrasing the question in the worst way.  “How do black/your people fell about…?”  “I don’t know”, I answered. “I can only tell you how I feel about it and right now, I don’t feel like it.”  At that point, I didn’t care about lifting it up for my race and eradicating stereotypes.  I just wanted to stop feeling like a butterfly pinned to a cork board.

I transferred after a group of drunkards thought it would be a good idea to “string that nigger bitch up” towards the end of my third semester there.  That’s a story of which I do not particulary feel like illustrating the details tonight.

huddled ’round the fire

Listening to my Fugees station on Pandora and ruminating.  I wonder how being my rambunctious brown self affects/will affect the current hunt for employment?  The hammer fell some months ago at the last SnakePit; merely a casualty of the ‘last hired, first fired’ syndrome in spite of what some of my brown colleagues may think.  Presenting the fact that my pale colleague in Boston who was hired at exactly the same time as I was also laid off seems to be of no consequence to them.  It’s gotten to the point to where I’m avoiding talking to at least one of them.  I’m  sure there’s conspiracy theories that are valid, but seriously, just leave it alone, okay?

And while I’m on the topic, a tip or two on having conversations with an unemployed acquaintance, friend or colleague.  Do not plop down next to me, turn to me and open the conversation by brightly saying “So, how’s the job hunt going?”  It’s been about three months now and believe me, if I have any successes to report, I will be the first person to trumpet it from the rooftops.  As it is, I’m usually a polite person and mutter something inconsequential.  But after a few times of this, I’m just going to stare at you.  If it comes up in conversation, I’ll certainly discuss it if I’ve anything to discuss.  But don’t act like I couldn’t possibly have anything else to talk about, mmkay?  While none of this or the effects of said unemployment are tasteful topics to me at present, you will score mad extra points for asking me how I’m doing instead.  So far no one’s said anything abysmally stupid.  Another tip: you have a crappy job.  I’m sure your friends know it and have even commiserated with you about it.  No matter how bad it is however, you’ve got one.  Best not to holler about it to your unemployed friends who also had crappy jobs before they were suddenly unemployed.  I had a crappy job but I complained about it as little as possible because I believe in karma.

So I did have an interview a few weeks ago.  Pre-contact went well, everyhing seemed set for a good interview and a teaching presentation.  In the past, I’ve usually been very good about what my chances of advancing to an offer are in an interview process and I was fairly certain when I left that even if they did make an offer, I’d have a hard time accepting it.  Did.  Not.  Fit in.  Small team, small town meets me.  I wasn’t introduced to anyone on the professional level of the org chart who wasn’t a pale person.  Mind you, I wouldn’t ever assume the rejection (a very nice one, I might add.  Basically distills to “you were fun!  but we want more of X and X even though we didn’t say so in the posting, kthxbai”) was based upon my ethnicity without good cause and there isn’t any here.   The fact that when I was finally sprung from the interview, I didn’t have that walking-on-air feeling that I get after good response to a presentation, be it performance or mainstream business was enough for me.  It wasn’t a bad interview.  Just not a merging of the minds synergystic intellectually flexing flight of fun like some of my other interviews that ended in offers.

Still have to be careful.  This will be the first time I’ve been interviewing with local yokels.  Don’t know what I’ll find.