Merry Christmas! and more capitalist blues

I will reluctantly be receiving an iPhone for this holiday. My mother called me today from work and said, “Gracie, do you think I should get an iPhone?” and I said, “Mom, I just came back from Cuba, you know what I think, that it’s completely unnecessary.” Turns out, it was her tricky way of asking me if I wanted an iPhone for Christmas. Once I found this out, I told her emphatically to PLEASE not get me an iPhone, I don’t want any presents, I don’t need anything, the last thing in the world I want is an iPhone, please don’t feel obligated to get me a useless expensive gift just because America is telling you its your patriotic duty to be a consumer right now.

Unfortunately, my dad spoke to me later about this, and the bottom of the dealio is that if we get two iPhones (and Mommy needs one because her Blackberry doesn’t work, but Daddy doesn’t because he has a Blackberry that does work) we can get a better monthly phone rate than the one we have now, so it will be a money saver in the long run. I decided it would be hypocritical of me to refuse the phone just because I don’t want to identify with rich iPhone-carrying youngsters, and because the idea of having everything I could ever technologically need in a little metal square in my pocket terrifies me a little (already with free WiFi 24-7, I am a little overwhelmed with internet addiction/endless-possibilities-stress, and wish that I didn’t have such readily available WWW), also I hate having a cellphone anyways, I hate feeling it vibrate endlessly all over the place, never really pick it up, and love it only for its alarm clock function. But I guess for the sake of economic necessity, and practical necessity (having a cp in america counts as practically necessary, right?), I will switch in my little 6.5 year old Samsung number (the buttons were starting to stop working) for a sleek piece of unbreakable magic metal which I will most likely scratch up and ruin within the first week. The one thing that I am excited for, though, is having a decent–by decent I mean functional–camera with me at most times, because then I can take pictures of things that surprise me.

Today, I also got my nails done (bubble gum pink, its kind of disgusting, but they look good with my mustard yellow arm warmers), went to a giant grocery store, went to Blockbuster, and watched an American movie ‘Julie and Julia’ the one with Amy Adams and Meryll Streep about cooking with my parents. In the grocery store checkout line, I read tabloid and trashy magazine covers with my parents, and looked at the pictures of all the beautiful celebrities with their beautiful airbrushed skin and plasticked bodies, and started to feel all the insecurities of trying to feel beautiful in America. I am re-learning daily how fucking complicated this world is, with all its plethora of distractions, inventions, things to read, things to see, and things to buy. America, America, why are you brainwashing me again? Today I have started to feel bourgeois urges rising inside me, urges that truly did not appeal to me the past few days at all, urges I thought I had overcome. For example, I want to own fun colors of nail polish and another pair of arm warmers. For example, I ate beef, and when I was at the grocery store, I found myself wanting to put far too many things in the cart–brownies, flan, green peppers, oatmeal, yogurt, soy milk, cookies, pies…unnecessary bourgeois food cravings! For example, when I looked at the magazines and saw something about THE BACHELOR I felt an urge to watch it. When I entered Blockbuster, I dreaded picking a film, because all the escapist movies that my mother would want to watch seemed utterly repulsive to me at first, but by the end of my stay there, I could imagine myself watching a romance comedy. Already, everything about this world is making me feel much smaller, and because of it I feel myself turning cynical and pessimistic again, especially in the face of all these adults telling me what a young optimist I’ve become. America is TURNING ME INTO AN OBJECT AGAIN, or rather making me believe I am one, a pin in the system of everything who can do nothing but let the world create me and move me through it, Oh Lord, Heavenly Father, who sent us His only son this day 2009-ish years ago, on this day please let me not forget everything I discovered in Cuba about my position in this world as SUBJECT AND AGENT, please don’t let me cower in the face of all these images and messages flying at me from every direction every instant and become immobile, please give me courage to continue believing fervently in the creative imaginative potential of humanity and by extension my own as well.

Okay kids. Merry Christmas.

America

Being back in America is still confusing and a little overwhelming.

Last night, at around 3 AM, I turned on the faucet in my bathroom and out came a gushing, strong torrent of water, and in less than 5 seconds this gush of water became scalding hot, which I forgot that water could do, coming from a tap. I thought about how I used to be hesitant drinking the tap water from my bathroom, and then thought about all the Cuban tap water I’ve drunk and chuckled a little.

Last night, at around 12:45 AM, I was heading down to the baggage claim from my airplane and almost stepped onto the escalator. Then I remembered that before I was in Cuba when I was in America I was morally against escalators (unless I had a big chunky suitcase), stopped, and took the stairs right next to them. I think I saw an escalator once in Cuba, but it wasn’t working. If it had been working, I probably would have taken it, for the novelty of things. Anyways the point is that this was a decision that I hadn’t had to make in 4 months. Remember that I had to walk 11 flights to my Economics class two times a week every week, and that my blind professor would sometimes walk those 11 flights as well.

This morning, I opened up my refrigerator to look for something to eat, and promptly closed it. The quantity and variety of comida it housed was frankly alarming. Looking around my kitchen, I thought that I probably hadn’t seen this variety of food in any Cuban store.

It is very hard to focus in America. There are distractions, advertisements, colorful and noisy things flying at me from every direction constantly, even in the peace of my own bedroom (free, fast internet!). Everything I need and don’t need is available right here, right now, it’s as if all the doors are open but all I feel is an incredible stress to go through all of them as quickly as possible, before they disappear, or I forget about them, or something terrible like that.

Also, things cost a lot more. I’m going to Chicago tomorrow, and I looked online to see about museums and stuff, and tickets are a whopping $16 or something to get into the Art Institute. Fuck that shit. Someone needs to talk to Obama about subsidizing culture in this country, so that supply can never outstrip demand.

Everything seems a little more unnecessary and exorbitant than it did before, but overall I am rather ambivalent. Half of me feels extremely guilty every time I turn on the faucet because I know really don’t need that much water coming out of there, but half of me (figuratively, not physically half) stood under the hot hot shower (my first in 4 months) for more than a couple of minutes, not soaping or anything, just letting all that water run over me.

Also, its extremely cold here. Everything is covered in a dusty, unbeautiful layer of snow, and its extremely hard to tell the passing of time because the day is perpetually grey.