oblivious nerd girl
hood chronicles

In my head there is only one Selena. She's the one who made Bidi Bidi Bom Bom a staple in my life. 

Then there's Dreaming Of You. 

And lastly the song that I have to sing every time it comes on the radio. 

RIP Selena Forever. 
My 15 year old self will always be sad about losing this talent. 

Growing up the bff Jen was just as oblivious as I was. It is why we are bffs. To put it bluntly, we were not the cool kids. However, I always thought Jen was slightly more oblivious because she really didn't care about being a part of the cool kids. She was more into theater, singing, and art, being cool was not something on her to do list.

In high school Jen wore Nike Cortez sneakers in PE class. Now most of us knew that Nike Cortez sneakers were worn by cholos, cholas, or kids trying to be cholos and cholas. As a bunch of Filipino kids, we were far from fitting that status. Sure we knew a bunch of them in school. Sure we wore only lipstick liner and no lipstick. Sure we had crunchy permed hair and really high feathered bangs. Sure we had super thin eyebrows. But we weren't cholas. It was the 90s, all those aforementioned styles were fashionable things for a teenage girl in the 90s to do. 

In high school we had a uniform. We wore either light blue or white button down shirts with a horrendously ugly pleated skirt. The only thing you could jazz up in your uniform was your shoes, which had to be black. All black. You couldn't have a Nike swoosh visible or you would get detention. I had to put electrical tape on top of the Nike swoosh, but when it would fall off and a teacher saw it I got detention. It was ridiculous. 

PE was the only class you could change your shoes. You could wear whatever you wanted and not get in trouble with your PE uniform that consisted of a grey shirt and grey shorts with St. Genevieve screened on it. So most of us had a different pair of shoes for PE. If you played another sport like basketball or volleyball, you usually changed into the shoes you'd wear at practice. Jen didn't play sports, so she wore Nike Cortez because her dad got them for her. They were on sale. She needed sneakers. Problem solved. But we were dickhead high school kids who pointed out she was wearing "gangster" shoes. 

Jen and I were both in the honors track, which meant we were the "good" kids. Were there gangsters in the honors track? Probably. But we were not them. So when she busted out her Nike Cortez's the other honors kids laughed. We all knew what the shoes meant and Jen did not fit those shoes. 

The funny thing was we knew who did. We knew that THAT life existed. We simply were not a part of it. I found writing and sports. Jen found art and music. The kids with gang affiliations were more than the crews they claimed. They were also kids we had known all our lives.

When we talk about college or work places there tends to be the thought that "it's just like high school." But for us "it's just like high school" means so many oblivious things. For me it's the memory of my BFF Jen wearing Cortez's and not even thinking that those were gangster shoes.

Seeing this ad for Nike Cortez sneakers making a comeback is interesting. I saw it thought, "Nope still don't want to rock those." Why? Because I'm not a gangster. Never was, will never claim to be. Those shoes mean something that I don't want to fake. If and/or when these kicks become the latest hipster find, I will be totally sad. My memories are tied to an era where those signifiers really meant something. Am I saying it's sacred? Not really, but sometimes I wish some things were.

Truth be told. When hipsters start rocking these I will be unable to hide my side eye. That is an oblivious fact.

Yesterday I left the house around 9:30am to get breakfast. Then spent the morning journaling, which I'm happy to say I have been decently consistent about. In the past a week would go by and I'd go back to fill in the details. This year one or two days will pass before I jot down my gratitudes for those particular days.

I had a goal in mind for the day. Finish two writing assignments that were due the next day. I hunkered down, had House of Cards Season 3 in the background, and wrote. In the process Mike and I finished 10 episodes. We had seen two the night before. I would stare at my notes, at my research, then at the blank word document and it was at that moment I recalled how solitary the process of writing is. Eventually I completed the writing assignments and Mike and I finished season 3 of House of Cards. 

This process reminded me of my goal for 2015 is to complete a writing project I have been thinking about since October of last year. The ideas are outlined, but I have fallen into the realm of distraction that allows me to ignore it. Disney Tsum Tsum, 3s, Monument Valley. Games that kill time. Or tv shows like Fresh Off The Boat, Empire, and anything on the Bravo schedule.

On Thursday I got to participate in Family Reunion, a storytelling show. I performed or read anything in front if an audience for a while. The space was inviting and I felt truly honored to share the stage with these storytellers.

One of the storytellers really inspired me. Why? Because she had seven novels under her belt. Her story? A hilarious encounter a bout the process of writing and the assholes you may encounter. Also that writing is such a solitary process.

I absolutely adore the fact that she also falls into to the twitter trap. I mostly ignored my twitter and it was a hub for my cross postings on Instagram and tumblr, but recently I've started to try and workshop jokes and random observations. The medium provides an easy distraction from the larger writing goal.

Also in my imagination we are destined to become bffs and she'll mentor me about writing. And seriously if she finds this post I swear I'm not that much of a weirdo. I believe Jenny Yang can vouch for me. But in all honesty I think the Family Reunion show came at the right moment. Hearing her story was the random, kick in the pants reminder to work on my shit.

This space, ObliviousNerdGirl.com,  let's me workshop my oblivious observations, hosts my podcast which I swear a new episode will go up soon, and remind me to practice the lonely craft of words to a blank screen.

Here's to more words and more stories.

Stay Oblivious