A Very Sarah Jessica Parker Moment a la The Family Stone

She screams “Does nobody in this family love me?” before running out of the room.

Today I came to work hoping to avoid thinking about my personal life and the story for my class that I should be finishing. While settling in and reading the forum board for people in my industry, I was surprised to find a thread with my magazine’s title in it. There had been so many responses, that two pages of comments were now filled. Clicking on it, I saw that the original post was reaming a short FOB piece I wrote (which wasn’t bylined) that had an accompanying risqué photo. Others chimed in on their surprise at my magazine for running it, but eventually it led to a ream into the huge feature I’d written in that issue (yes, the one on Vietnamese techs that I’d been excited about and had spent much time researching).

OK, I knew the feature would not be received well by all in the industry (that was part of the motivation for writing it), but really now. There was no need for the thread to eventually become a tear-into the writer topic.

I don’t regret writing it. I’m glad I did it. But I am saddened that perceptions of race and nationality control so much of people’s thinking. “Xenophobia is rampant,” one tech told me (in thanking me over the phone last week for writing it). Yes. It is. But it sucks that other people’s fear of the unknown and unfamiliar makes me feel like poop.

It is days like today that I wish I would marry some stupid chump for his money, write quietly in a journal that nobody ever sees, sit around half the day watching CMT and take runs along the beach.

Instead though, I scream into the void of this blog, “Does nobody in this world love me?” before walking out to figure out my place in this world.