Seattle Cafe

It's the post-drunken-Friday Saturday coffee stop after errands have been run, food has been eaten, and sleep has been deprived to make me drowsy enough to be light-headed, but not enough to continue my sleep. I chose Stumptown today to keep on checking out what may become a good cup of coffee and on a friend's recommendation, but the french-press coffee is a bit grassy, like it's still a raw bean. I guess it's kind of refreshing tasting, but it lacks the deep aroma of Vita or Vivace. The layout is two benches with cushions, my little part on a slight incline for whatever reason, adding to my daydream prone delirium.

I take a look outside at the club that I've frequented quite a few times during my stay in Seattle as it is one of the few places where you can be a person of color and not feel surrounded by a sea of whiteness. Of late I've had a deep anger towards that sea of whiteness, and for good reason of course. My Portland visit last weekend revealed beautiful coastlines, to which my friend noted that it must have been even nicer before people showed up there. To which I corrected them, noting that people were here before the current populations. Another instance of the disappearance of the native americans become reality.

I sometimes wonder if it's possible to not think so much about these issues, about society, about the ills that pollute our minds, clutter our thinking, and misguidedly lead us to a wakeful nightmare that we frolic in. I want to stop being so self-righteous, trying to convince people that they are messed up in their thinking, that asians hating darker skin is an attack on ourselves, and that the moment of good feeling we delight in will haunt us for our whole lives.

I stepped into the Portland restaurant late last weekend, waiting to have my name put down, when my white friend sauntered up next to me, and the dumbass white waiter/host asked my friend for her name after scanning both of our faces. To the west coast liberal that finds the west coast enlightened and easy going, I say up yours for living your delusional "liberal" dreams.

The anger almost explodes inside your stomach, eating at your organs like so many worms, feeding on themselves once your body is left no more. Thank goodness for bell hooks' outspoken hatred become maniacal murder in the face of racist occurrences. The light shines through the leaves outside, a cool wind blows down Pine, and the busses and people move about. Two months ago a white boy in the elevator greeted me with "Hi there, Asian dude." And he rubbed it in with another "Goodbye, Asian dude," as I left the elevator where he and three other friends now occupied. Two phrases that he will forget the next instant will haunt me til my dying day. The fury in me wants to lash out, strangle him, beat him, assault him, for the pain that is now forever impressed in my soul, in the darkest corners where your hatred seeps and festers. My assault would become a crime, an act against law, an act against proper procedure. But the cancerous pains that puncture my stomach every day have no law to uphold their wronged tissue. The law will keep him safe from my fist that itches to puncture his stomach, grab out his beating heart, and ingest it with such mad and furious laughter that would make you tremble in fear. I move past the pain and anger, but it is impossible. I try to think happy thoughts and believe in the goodness of man, but it is difficult. Life is not easy, and never have I thought that it might be, but the injustice of it all is heavy.

Thank you to all of you that can share this burden with me as we try to find ways to cure this disease.