Sudden

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[wewillnotflyapart]

I hate bedbugs, now I know why NYC is infested, and some photos and tips

I know why because my dad told me a story just now.  When he was a boy he had to clean the entire house, inside, outside and underneath, every three months. First, they'd sweep, mop, and wax the floors. To wax they'd mix up Simonet and kerosene, and polish with a stick that had a rag on the end. Then sweep boric acid into every crack and void and run a damp mop over it all.  No clue how they treated underneath the house.  Inside-strip the house-curtains, bedding, sofa, cushion covers and in those days you'd have to boil the water, soak everything and wash it with soap by hand. Dry in the sun.

Mums was a single mom with 8 kids by the time my dad was eleven.  So she used to "send us all over the house, underneath too, because you know they built the houses up away from the ground."  It wasn't just to keep the insects away like the bugs and ticks (ticks were worse), it was to clean; it looked clean and it smelled nice.   This happened every three months and we didn't know it at the time but the old people had strong reasons for it.  One time Ms. B missed a cleaning for some reason and the whole neighborhood had to go and clean all over that house, all of us, because of the big infestation and Mums had us do ours again too because we were next door and those ticks were going to die and some were going to to run.

Present day. Brooklyn.

Super: You have bedbugs again?  Why it's only by you? Me: ...I don't know... Lisa had them a couple months ago. Who? Lisa down the hall. O she brought them with her.  Before her there was a nice lady from Guyana and she never gave no problems. ...So you're saying  I brought them to my apartment? No, but why it's only you? Me:You should seal up your apartment. Super: Why should I?  This building has no bugs. 

My place is 6 floors with 72 units and the buildings on either side of me are infested according to the exterminator.  The bedbug registry says the whole neighborhood is more like one giant bug. My neighbors look nervous and/or laugh when I let them know I got the apartment sprayed again.  They say buy the poison at the pharmacy that poison, seal up your mattress that brand works good, spray rubbing alcohol in the corners every 3 days, etc., no we don't have bedbugs.  The last bug I killed the exterminator said it had been poisoned already, then a strange silence.

I hate bedbugs and I'm starting to hate my neighborhood, my building, and I already hate my super.  I wish I was a boy in Trinidad in 1950. 

More hate-ignorance, shame, bullying, selfishness...being allergic to fucking bedbugs.

Negativity expressed, now for a light photo essay called:

Lessons from the Bedbug/Waiting for Exterminator.  

Tangible is overrated.  TRASH EVERYTHING.

  See above.

  Avoid Avoid Avoid. 

  Paint around outlets or wish you had.

  Perscription hydrocortisone and Benadryl works.  Benadryl helps you sleep.  (Day 8 of poison treatment-Are you paranoid, Sheila asked me.  -What does that mean?  They are here.  I still sleep with the light.  Wearing white. On plastic.)

Hide your plants or they will die.

  When your friend does your blood test for you because you have no insurance and she is a nurse, take home the "just in case" tube of blood she drew  from you.  Set blood bait.

  Kill the bug.  Or just set out bowls of blood every night so they won't bite you.  Pets.  Bedbug pets.

Photo Essay Over

Useful tips maybe:

I've sealed the wall voids with silicone caulk and silicone foam, the cracks with paint, the gaps in the hardwood floors with with minwax, the couch seams, corners, radiator interiors and gaps again with boric acid, my storage bags the 2nd time around were clear, my bedding is white, my roommate who had way too much stuff (it's hard to imagine just how much stuff) and way too little (no) desire to vacuum, mop or sweep is gone.  

(Mobile Phone) Photos by Annelisse Fifi.

[wewillnotflyapart]

What are you? What am I? Ethnicity and Nationality and Everything

As far as I know I am Chinese, Portuguese, Corsican (or French), a Trinidadian and a naturalized citizen of the US.  Regarding ethnicity and nationality, that is me. I know only one other person with this mix-my sister, and I’ve never been assumed to be this mix by anyone. And this is what it’s taught me so far.

The exception is my rule.  Paying attention to what is and not what you think it is, is necessary. Unfortunately we make assumptions every day, based on past experience at best. We do this to speed things up, so we don’t have to spend time wondering, observing and processing.  We must get it right often enough or think we have, since we keep doing it. We must get it wrong often enough to have racism, bigotry, homophobia, sexism, ignorance etc.

When we replace observations with abstractions, we save time and we harm others and ourselves. We lose sight of the exceptions to the rules we devised, and actually, we are all exceptions.

Who are you? Spend a moment here if you have the time.

If you answered with words, what do each of those words mean to you? Is it complicated?

From my experience, ‘Trinidadian’ to many people means at least a darker looking person with a particular accent. If they hear the word, they hold that thought in their mind and then move on. When I appear, I don't match that, so whatever I am to them, Trinidadian is not it. It’s a shock, that the abstraction they subscribed to isn't the reality in front of them if I let them know. 

As great as our thoughts and imaginations are, they are smaller, simpler and less than what is actually here. But to see what's here we have to be curious and open. We have to know that we don't know. Since my nationality is generally a surprise to others, unless they too are of mixed race and dual citizenship, I wonder if being mixed on many levels teaches you inherently to be open and curious.

For me Trinidadian means all the memories of my childhood, like the sounds, smells, the sunlight, the houses we lived in, my family and our friends. And the thing is when I moved with my immediate family at age five to another country, a lot changed in my life, but a lot didn’t. And even though I was in the US, my mom’s cooking, my snacks and my need for the ocean, the music in our house, Goong Goong’s voice in my head, and yes, the reactions of others to me as a child - my accent, my demeanor, even my spelling, it’s all wrapped up in being a Trini, to me.  

I am part Chinese, so, many people have guessed Asian, more so when I lived in Texas. But what does Asian mean? In Austin I was often identified as Vietnamese or Filipino. In Brooklyn, when a man called out to me “Me sucky, sucky,” I’m sure Asian, and female, meant something specific to him.  For most people who’s ethnicities are hard to place, their identity to others changes depending on where they are. (I'm aware of how the way in which others identify us can change the way we see ourselves in general, and  I wonder how the absence of being identified as one thing or anything repeatedly by others might affect us.) 

I identify as Chinese because of my grandparent’s cooking, like chicken feet and pillow soup, the incense we light, the sound of Cantonese, Goong Goong’s dreams he shared with me, White Rabbit, the yellow yellow gold, like the ID bracelet on my wrist, inscribed with the name my grandfather gave me and not the one on my birth certificate - Lai Fong.  It’s why I feel guilty every time I fall asleep with my hair wet. 

All the words I share, like "half Chinese" or "woman," to communicate my identity are just doorways to a history made of moments that I know are mine alone. I might share a version of most of these with another Chinese person, a Trini, an American, etc., but I would have to ask you to know.

Being mixed has taught me the importance of careful listening and observation and the assumptions of others has taught me the importance of sharing the details.  I’m afraid we want to simplify and move on so much so we don’t see others as they are. We don't see a lot of things. We need to help open the eyes of others.

A friend asked me as a Trini, if I identified as North or South American, as if the world existed in only continents.  She was adamant that I choose one. Sure, most of the land on earth are continents but there are exceptions. They are smaller, but they are.  It just is. As an aside Trinidad seems split evenly by corporations who want to include the Caribbean in either their North or South American markets.

Science teaches a meaningful lesson. We create theories to help understand what we observe, and it’s only through observing and exploring the exceptions to these theories that our understanding deepens-new theories, new laws, the earth now revolves around the sun, and the universe may be a hologram. We can’t ignore the pieces that don’t make sense, rather, we should be searching for them, around us, in others, and in ourselves.

I believe we are all exceptions to the simplified abstractions that are the words we use to identify ourselves.  I’m not interested in shorthand. I’m inspired by the universe of details around me and in every person I meet. If I ask you what your background is, it’s not so I can place you in a word or two, it’s me asking you to help stimulate my mind, so I can wonder and grow.

How are you an exception, mixed or not?  What are your rules?

[wewillnotflyapart]

Yes I Can

My life of leisure started tonight with rap lessons. I'm learning to speak on the beat because the only way to sound right is to sound confident. No, more like crazy arrogant. You have to feel like I am me, yeh me, and me is fucking awesome.  Not in an obviously jerky way like I'm more awesome than you, but more like I'm so busy feeling how great I am I don't even see you.  But I bet I could if I tried cause I can do anything I want to.  So maybe one day I'll want to see you and my seein will be like a giant sunshine ray like all the sun in one ray beamin down on you.  But not now. Now I glow with all that shine in me. The intensity of my glow is fucking awesome. And it seems like you got to get all that to come off sounding like a proper MC. And since I've been told it's like my insecurities seep from my pores, I've decided to incorporate my rapspeak into everyday conversation.  I don't really change the words just their order, and my tone.  I was talking that way when I realized I sound just like my neighbor! And my neighbor's sounded just like this DJ I met this past weekend who was super confident and genuinely shocked when I walked away, he said something like, seriously?  The guy's married. He was wearing a white headband. 

Which by the way I thought was awesome, I did like him,  because he obviously just chose something and went with it all the way.  I don't care what you choose just go with it really and I'll be your fan even if I'm your fan from very very far away. 

[wewillnotflyapart]

Bedbugs and being in love

It's almost 3:30am and all my lights are on. I'm wrapping everything in plastic again. Yes, Barney is back. I was beginning to think of them as individual creatures but now they're just all one blood sucking bug.

I am tired, NYC. I haven't slept with the lights off in 2 weeks now. My electric bill sucks. I can't sleep at night. I itch, I get hives. I can't afford to move. When the bugs bit again last week I called the property manager to tell her fuck you and your I must have allergies crap and do something do something do something. So they're spraying again.

Turns out here in New York, the bugs are even more rampant now but people don't panic anymore. I'm not panicked. I am tired. But I don't want to talk to you about bugs. I meant to talk about being in love. Because I've been making this list of things that blow my mind every time. And that's how I fall in love. It's this list of love I've been adding to and this morning I was in Rockaway watching the surfers. I took some photos of the overcast skies and misty housing projects and then my phone died. Really died. No photos. So I put the phone away and unmediated I got lost in the waves. Is it always like that? Grey blue and grey green and layers of white, it's the crests of the waves and when they crash, one's always crashing, white foam everywhere. That's how it was in South Beach when Brian and I waded out past the double red flags but it was raining then. Thank you Brian for jumping in just to keep me alive and for looking like you got why I couldn't not jump in. We stayed out there awhile. I think it was the first time I swam in the ocean in a storm. No lightening, just grey skies, the waves and the rain.

There are no people on my list. And today on the beach when I realized I'm not in love with people but I am in love and it feels reciprocated, I got worried. One time I told Sarah I'd figured out a way to float away. To keep rising, never touch the ground again. And later when I realized she believed me, I told her I'd been joking. And she said well I figured if any of my friends could just float away, it'd be you.

I'm not going to sleep tonight.     

[wewillnotflyapart]

Hey Bedbug

I got the pot and kettle for my bday! Now i'm all Le Creuset. And since the bugs are back I can cook nice dinners for all of us in 6B and chat about stuff like what'd you dream about today and hey guys, what makes me so delicious?  One's still alive in the pyrex tupperware so we could really hang.  I'm kidding. Half kidding. I'm not kidding.

It's like Being Human, when Josh serves dinner to  his vampire and ghost friend even though they don't eat.  So that everything will seem ok.  There's two bugs trapped now. Which makes me more like an unusually twisted serial killer.  Still it'd be heartfelt, but funny. You know, kinda dark but like you can relate?  Unless I've lost all perspective and this is just sad.

BB Barnie.