Hajmola chewing queen of the Jalebis!!!

This week's popsicle assembly marks my first full month of living at home with my family and maintaining high levels of time machine realness!! For example I'm still trying to get over my MSNBC hangover from last week. Or for instance sometimes when my mom asks me to put away the dishes I feel hectic lethargy from the mere thought of organizing the utensils, just like when I was a kidster - is poetry no? Like gewd indian garl  I've been keeping shop at my family's indian sweet store and bringing jalebis and masala chai (don't tellum it's Lipton luls) to the people/paying customers. I do very well behind the counter as a part time samosa fryer, part time hajmola chewing bad attitude biotch, and am gaining some notoriety amongst the south asian strip mall frequenters. Particularly inspired by these queer bully bloggers, I write this post to simply acknowledge my preference for failure and also give cheers to a promiscuous life of in-home living and destabilized independence.


"it is less a question of choosing failure than choosing what to do with the failure that has chosen us" - Tavia Nyong'o


Sometimes I want to repeat this quote when the uncles come around askin what my "5 year plan" is and how I will get the success. "Oh so you are interested in Wimmins Rights? Will you be doing Public Policy? Law eschool?" I don't know how often this happens to people who study gender in the U.S. but I'm beginning to think that there's a poorly ventilated rumor going around that women's studies means we sit around all day ruminating over how American women make 70 cents to the dollar. For some reason whenever anything Hillary Clinton-related comes up my dad looks to me for shared acknowledgement over his #1 white lady love in a post-Princess Di era. I made the mistake of breaking this news to my mom and she cut her eyes at me! Oh noes, are yew cutting your eyes at me too?? I like this quote from Tavia Nyong'o because I think it helps me clear up some confusion around my life goals and dweams and what it means to not have many professional steaks but stakes nonetheless. If you are more interested in success stories, allow me to redirect you to here. 


Recently I had to look up what the U.S. holiday July 4th was actually about besides exotic star spangled car dealership commercials and this is what the US government website said: "On this day in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress, setting the 13 colonies on the road to freedom as a sovereign nation. As always, this most American of holidays will be marked by parades, fireworks and backyard barbecues across the country." Honestly I do not know what "sovereign" means just like I don't know what "excellence" means except that people use it a lot like it means something. Anyways moraloftheangst is that my parents are throwing a barbecue birthday party for Amrika and inviting all their brown frands so it is going to be looking bengali american dreamz up in here tomorrow night. Now that I've complained, is that gonna stop me from gettin down with some potato salad?? However in preparation, I read this piece on How To Write About Pakistan in order to inform party guests that I think that they are doing it wrong and supar racisty also.


Moving along, I came across this interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak which includes a pic of her making an awesome face but also answering the question, "How do you see yourself? As an Indian or someone from America?" by failing to answer the question and even seeming totes bored by it:


"I don’t really know. I don’t know how a person actually thinks an identity. I think it’s probably something that came about from this process of national liberation. You were thinking that you belonged to this nation and that you should be free but I am truly not very concerned about questioning myself about my identity and so on, so I can’t give u a fully-fledged answer to this question. I think one manufactures a stereotype for oneself and I don’t think that’s a very interesting thing  one’s own stereotype about oneself, so I don’t spend very much time thinking about it."

Yay to GCS for failing both Indian identity and American identity and failing the eclipsing cultures question very well. I decided to misuse it by reflecting on the stereotype I have of myself as a Leo (Pisces rising!) which is a fairly authoritative thing that I happen to think about a lot. I will probably still keep thinking about it seriously especially if it makes me look irrational and like I practice lite witchcraft. 


Did this blog post really have a point? What is the need to be so self-referential? Y ur not protesting potato salad??? Is just sucha promiscuous life, y'all.