Penthouse

Time is running away from me tonight. I keep grasping at it but my hands are covered in butter - because I was masterbasting. There were so many things I wanted to write about today but I've lost the scent of most of them. Ah, here's one from this morning while I was riding the bus to work. Because I'd forgotten my headphones at work on Friday, I had to suffer the injustice of pedestrian conversation; which is always spoken at a volume that is far too loud, especially in the morning. Today I was lucky enough to board a nearly empty bus, save for a black woman with a stroller, a few white and hispanic people in the back, and another black woman who was alone toward the front of the bus. I sat down a few seats behind the woman with the carriage. She had been talking to the other woman, who sat a bit too far away from her to shroud the conversation in even the slightest shred of privacy. They were talking about fatherhood and race. She was trying to dispel the notion of absentee African American fathers by pointing out there are Caucasian men who orphan their children too. I wasn't sure what her point was exactly, but I'm sure she thought she had one.

Soon the bus filled up and I heard a hushed commotion bloom into a distinct civil discord. From what I surmised there was a disabled woman asking for a seat. People had to spread out and make room so that the people who were sitting could stand up and surrender their seats. The woman who wanted the seat decided that as people were clearing out space she would make her demands more forcefully known by quoting the law which mandated they relinquish their seats - as though this would somehow make the process faster and more convenient for everyone. Then, caught up in the fervor of discontent, the other woman with the stroller began to call out to the boarding woman. She said something like "yea, and just look how long it takes them to get out of the way and give up that seat; look at them roll their eyes, too." Her implication was that some sort of discrimination had taken place. Hearing this, the disabled woman responded with a type of birdsong war cry and they began parroting strange parables and righteous indignations into the air in the most aggressive passive-aggressive way possible. Her inviolable honor had been besmirched, and she wasn't going to stand for it - that's why she asked to sit down.

In truth, I wasn't close enough to see any eyes rolling, but I was still pretty close to the scene. I didn't notice anything racist or ill-intentioned happen. The bus was crowded, and it did take a few seconds for the space to clear, but I viewed this as more of an indictment on the public transit system in San Francisco than an act of collective bigotry perpetrated by a couple of young, middle-aged white women living in a wildly progressive city. The two African American women didn't stop there though. They continued perfuming the air with awkward victimhood, tacitly scolding all the "entitled" white people on the bus. I thought a race riot was about to break out. I could've sworn I saw the shadow of Reverend Al Sharpton running madly toward the bus to try and capitalize on the moment. There were some choice phrases uttered by these two women which I told myself I'd remember now, but I can't. Something about how they were "doing y'all a favor by allowing us to partake of understanding." Mainly, they were trying to impart on us how they're unjustly targeted because of the color of their skin. Oh, the irony.

A thought came to me in that moment, of just how insidious racism really is. It isn't just a weapon to be hurled at a target, it is more of a kind of toxic radiation which spills out in all directions. Racism is the hate speech equivalent to nuclear warfare. It mutates and warps the mentality of both the perpetrator and the victim, helping to further estrange the two people from kindness, trust, empathy and understanding. The victims of racism, after suffering countless bouts of discrimination, begin to become prejudiced in a generalized way against the people who have expressed bigoted sentiments. In this case, the women on the bus perceived an act of racism when there was none, because they've been taught by experience to expect it from people who looked like the women sitting in those seats.

There is great power in keeping people focused on difference, distracted, fighting amongst themselves. A house divided cannot stand.

On a more light-hearted note, I asked a French woman to clean my apartment yesterday after she remarked that it was quite clean, but messy. I told her that if she felt that way she should take it upon her self to improve the situation - I have a lovely way of empowering women. It is a gift. After all, it was women's day! And she was French! Who better than her to be a maid? I was shocked, shocked, when she gave me the middle finger. I'll excuse her unladylike behavior though, because she was clearly drunk from the Mexican cocktail we'd had at our rooftop bungalow in the sunny Mission.

I'll leave you with our ascent to the roof deck, told in play form:

Enter myself and my French comrade, joining two hispanic women in an elevator. As we enter, a man wheeling a baker's rack full of fresh baked bread exits. Buttons are pushed and the doors close.

Me: Mmmm. Bread smelled delicious.

Woman 2: Haha. Why yes, it did.

Conversation softens and slows. The doors open at the 4th floor.

Woman 1: Ok, Nadia, nice seeing you, talk to you soon.

Woman 1 walks out. Doors close. My French cohort eyes the buttons on the panel. A circle next to the letters P.H. are illuminated.

French: P.H. What do you think it stands for?

Me: It's where we are going.

French: I know this, but what does P.H. mean?

I look around the elevator at the other woman who looks at me for a response.

Me: ...penis hole.

Both Woman 2 and Frenchie look at me, aghast.

Me: Penthouse. It stands for penthouse.