They're Called Boobs, Ed

We who have them know the looks, the leers, the sidelong glances. The porny-corny fantasies that run through men's minds when they see us, that you think we enjoy being poked in the chin with your pinga (don't get me wrong, in the right moment, sometimes we do).

I've had them since I was about seventeen, when my body finally caught up with my hormones. My sister who had moved to Tokyo and returned after two or three years away, greeted me in the airport with a screech, "My God! Where did you get those tits?" My adolescent self squirmed in self-consciousness as travelers turned to see -- who was the girl with the tits? There was some envy in her voice -- I have three tall, flat-chested sisters.

Somewhere along the way Mom's DNA got so watered down as to be virtually indistinguishable in my physiognomy. Only in certain lights, at certain angles, do you see the Ryukus etched in my face and body, and it's at those times when someone will invariably ask, "What ARE you?" My favorite answer is: "American." It's so indubitably true, with the mishmash of cultures and ethnicities painted across my features, but it has the effect on the asker of both frustrating them and embarrassing them. It brings them up, makes them see that there is something vaguely impolite about the question.

They try to redirect the question. "Yes, but where are you FROM?" Don't they know I've become expert at answering this question? "I'm from Pittsburgh." They grow more frustrated and know perfectly well that I'm being deliberately obtuse. I'm not going to play along with their game of needing to know. And that's what it is. People feel that they need to know these most personal details about you -- strangers in bars have asked me this question as if it is perfectly normal conversation. I think people have a need to identify, to classify, to pigeonhole you into a category, because this makes them think they know who you are, what you think, how you will behave.

I've come to love the game, because before I become bored (which I inevitably do) and walk away like a cat that's through tormenting the mouse, we've gone through all the questions finally getting to, "Where are your PARENTS from?"

Ask right out, kids. "What is your ethnic background?" I'd appreciate it more.

But back to the boobs. So the mishmash of ethnicities that make up little ole me, Okinawan-Slovenian-German-English-Irish (I could throw in a little Cherokee, because it seems like every person in this country proudly throws in a little Cherokee-in-the-woodpile -- does it just sound cooler?-- but that would be an exaggeration and a lie), the petite Asian influence seems to have passed me by with the exception of maybe an almond tilt to my eye and a certain Oriental flat-assedness. You could drop a plumb line from my mother's shoulders and not hit anything till it gets to the floor. I did get that from her. Maybe occasionally there's a certain Asian inscrutability to my expression, but I attribute that to hours watching how Mambo sometimes just looks at me and mimicking it.

What was left was all the robustness of Eastern Europe and the Austro-Hungarian empire -- peasant stock that's made for work and birthing. That means carnal appetites and hips and lips and boobs and a definite nose on my face. (My mother's nose is a thing of doll-like beauty, the epitome of elegance and perfectly-flared hoity-toity nostrils). I have my father's proboscis, a proud, straight nose, a senorita nose, a nose that may very well have wandered out of the middle east at some time in the distant past. One of J's lovers, a fey young Syrian boy, barely out of his teens, upon meeting me, exclaimed "You could be an Iranian princess!" A compliment. I arched my neck and smiled a Cleopatra smile at him.

I keep wandering away from the boobs. I can't do anything about them. They are there. I've accepted that it is useless to try to hide them. I've stopped wearing camo-clothes to disguise their abundance. I call them "The Girls." They even have names. Louise and Ramona. (get it?) They love the moment when I arrive home at night and release them from their underwired bondage and lovingly massage away the scars and marks of brassieres. You could build bridges with my brassieres, there is so much structure in them.

But I see you looking at them, even if you don't think I see you. We who have them are experts in the looks you give them. Even the most politically correct among you have to cast a glance at them. The least politically correct among you can't seem to control your eyes. You can't help it, we know. We who have wit and intelligence and sass, we know that you are looking, and we look at you and catch you in the act and don't pretend that you haven't done it to make you feel better about doing it. We stare into your eyes as if to say, "Go ahead, look. But know I see you looking." Sometimes you look and we see avidity and hunger and from the right person we welcome that look, it brings to our minds all the promised sensual pleasures we will enjoy from this flesh. Sometimes you look and we will call you on it directly..."Hey! Asshole! My eyes are up here!"

And in the right moment, you will be looking into our eyes and what you see there will be much, much more fascinating and sensual than any part of our flesh, but we both have the anticipation that what's in our eyes and our brain and our soul is projected outward to be shared in a fleshly, sweaty connection of concupiscience and physicality and every now and again, love.