I am very, very mad at my home state.
For those of you who know me or have read my wikipedia entry know that I am originally from Oklahoma City. This is a point of pride for me, not only because I'm listed as a Famous Person From Oklahoma (along with Chuck Norris, Jim Thompson and James Marsden, who was in Sex Drive, which is a very funny movie by my absolute favorite screenwriters, Sean Anders and John Morris, who wrote one of my favorite movies, Never Been Thawed) but because it meant that I wasn't from Cobleskill, where my parents raised me and my four sisters (my older sister, Shaun, is also Oklahoma-born, but the other three are strictly Cobleskill).
Let me put Cobleskill in proper geek context: you'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. It's nothing but lobos and zipheads and they ought to tear the whole place down. If my friend Jay ever moves, the town will have not one single redeeming quality. It is a poverty-stricken hellhole filled with people who don't have enough money or sense to move someplace nicer, like Detroit or Compton. I go back only when absolutely required, and my niece's first birthday wasn't enough motivation for me to cross the town line. I survived on two mantras--I'm not from here, and I'm going to leave.
It's funny, people like my ex-boyfriend used to make fun of me for being from Oklahoma, like it automatically made me white trash. And when I say Oklahoma, again, I mean Oklahoma City. I saw my first Shakespeare performance in Oklahoma City. They have an art museum with a permanent installation by Dale Chihuly. They have a symphony, an opera and a botanical garden.
Cobleskill, by contrast, has some graffiti on the train tracks, a couple of park bushes littered with beer cans and the high school production of "Anything Goes!" as culture.
Cobleskill, however, is in New York, which gives it one current advantage over Oklahoma.
New York didn't vote for Rick Santorum in the primaries.
I am deeply, deeply ashamed, Oklahoma. I've spent years defending you, trying to be a good ambassador of literature and culture, and this is how you return the favor? Mitt Romney may be a rich dope, but I'm pretty sure that if Jesus Christ returned to Earth today, Rick Santorum would personally call for him to be crucified as a threat to our great Christian nation.
I know I shouldn't be surprised, nor should I care. Oklahoma traditionally votes Republican and tends to hover on the conservative side of issues. In the broad scope, I am not defined by soil, whether it be where I was born, where I was raised, or where I tread now.
But everyone longs for a place to call home, to be able to claim some land by which to help define their identity. And if I am a pro-choice, pro-health-care, Obama-voting, anti-fracking, Jewish-raised, Doc Marten stomping, OWS supporting, Betsey-Johnson spike-heel bootie wearing, MFA-toting, liberal, feminist geek writer, how on earth am I supposed to say, "I'm proud to be from Oklahoma."
For those of you who know me or have read my wikipedia entry know that I am originally from Oklahoma City. This is a point of pride for me, not only because I'm listed as a Famous Person From Oklahoma (along with Chuck Norris, Jim Thompson and James Marsden, who was in Sex Drive, which is a very funny movie by my absolute favorite screenwriters, Sean Anders and John Morris, who wrote one of my favorite movies, Never Been Thawed) but because it meant that I wasn't from Cobleskill, where my parents raised me and my four sisters (my older sister, Shaun, is also Oklahoma-born, but the other three are strictly Cobleskill).
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It's funny, people like my ex-boyfriend used to make fun of me for being from Oklahoma, like it automatically made me white trash. And when I say Oklahoma, again, I mean Oklahoma City. I saw my first Shakespeare performance in Oklahoma City. They have an art museum with a permanent installation by Dale Chihuly. They have a symphony, an opera and a botanical garden.
Cobleskill, by contrast, has some graffiti on the train tracks, a couple of park bushes littered with beer cans and the high school production of "Anything Goes!" as culture.
Cobleskill, however, is in New York, which gives it one current advantage over Oklahoma.
New York didn't vote for Rick Santorum in the primaries.
I am deeply, deeply ashamed, Oklahoma. I've spent years defending you, trying to be a good ambassador of literature and culture, and this is how you return the favor? Mitt Romney may be a rich dope, but I'm pretty sure that if Jesus Christ returned to Earth today, Rick Santorum would personally call for him to be crucified as a threat to our great Christian nation.
I know I shouldn't be surprised, nor should I care. Oklahoma traditionally votes Republican and tends to hover on the conservative side of issues. In the broad scope, I am not defined by soil, whether it be where I was born, where I was raised, or where I tread now.
But everyone longs for a place to call home, to be able to claim some land by which to help define their identity. And if I am a pro-choice, pro-health-care, Obama-voting, anti-fracking, Jewish-raised, Doc Marten stomping, OWS supporting, Betsey-Johnson spike-heel bootie wearing, MFA-toting, liberal, feminist geek writer, how on earth am I supposed to say, "I'm proud to be from Oklahoma."
Oklahoma still has the action figure museum and the pigeon museum, both of which I will visit if I am ever in Oklahoma.
ReplyDeleteI hear unborn fetuses get free admission to all crappy Oklahoma museums . . . but your non-person "woman" will have to wait outside in the "slut stall".
ReplyDelete