fly on the wall

i'm only starting to realize that most of my life has been shaped by an acute awareness of being the 'other'. always being the new kid in school. being one of 3 asians in a white suburban texas high school. arriving at art school and finding that no one else dyed their hair or wore fishnets. unconsciously, i've always expected other people to be not like me, because that had been the truth of my education. i hadn't realized this about myself until i moved to california, the state of plenty-and we're not just describing the avocado supply. people of modge-podge identities glide on by without stopping to think about the strangeness of their modge-podge world. i wonder often what it would've been like to grow up with this unfettered mentality. would i have felt compelled to be an artist?