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Title: Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's by Tiffany Midge
Details: Copyright 2019, the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "Why is there no Native woman David Sedaris? Or Native Anne Lamott? Humor categories in publishing are packed with books by funny women and humorous sociocultural-political commentary-- but no Native women. There are presumably more important concerns in Indian Country. More important than humor? Among the Diné/Navajo, a ceremony is held in honor of a baby's first laugh. While the context is different, it nonetheless reminds us that laughter is precious, even sacred.
Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s is a powerful and compelling collection of Tiffany Midge’s musings on life, politics, and identity as a Native woman in America. Artfully blending sly humor, social commentary, and meditations on love and loss, Midge weaves short, standalone musings into a memoir that stares down colonialism while chastising hipsters for abusing pumpkin spice. She explains why she doesn’t like pussy hats, mercilessly dismantles pretendians, and confesses her own struggles with white-bread privilege.
Midge goes on to ponder Standing Rock, feminism, and a tweeting president, all while exploring her own complex identity and the loss of her mother. Employing humor as an act of resistance, these slices of life and matchless takes on urban-indigenous identity disrupt the colonial narrative and provide commentary on popular culture, media, feminism, and the complications of identity, race, and politics."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I'm on record as being a fan of the genre (that far precedes but is undoubtably made far more popular by David Sedaris) of books made of funny, relatable memoir-essays, perhaps some fictional, most not. While they aren't all winners, most are at least entertaining and some are even brilliant. This pinged my radar and looked interesting.
How I Liked It: CONTENT WARNING! THE BOOK DISCUSSES RACISM, TRANSPHOBIA, SEXUAL ABUSE (INCLUDING OF CHILDREN), POLICE BRUTALITY, GENOCIDE, AND A BRIEF MENTION OF ANIMAL DEATH AND THE REVIEW MENTIONS IT: PLEASE PROCEED ACCORDINGLY.
Sometimes when you finish a book, if it's done right, you'll honestly wonder why you haven't read it before. The book just makes so much sense. This has happened to me more than a few times, and it happened with this book. I'll explain why.
But first! The book is indeed a series of essays, apparently written in (based on various cultural touchpoints we'll get to later) the mid to late 2010s. These include some straightforward memoirs of her family and upbringing, some outlining the author's thoughts on feminism and Native justice, some satires and parodies, and even a poem. The election and Presidency of the 45th President, particularly his views on and thoughts about Native people, plays a significant role. The essays are both humorous and serious, impassioned and silly, matter-of-fact and tragic.
The author opens the book with two quotes:
Gag me with a coup stick. -- NDN Valley Girl
Me: How do you say pseudo-intellectual in Lakota?
Sherwin B: Siouxdo intellectual.
--exchange on Facebook
Puns on Native terms abound, but the humor from a Native angle is more than that.
The author might crack
When another Native person unfriends you on Facebook, you're like 7-Up-- the un-kola. (pg 52)
But she's also got
For Halloween I wore a Disney's Pocahontas outfit and went as a racist. (pg 52)
More than just quips, though, her sincere explorations of both her Native identity and all that goes with it as well as her forays into feminism are some of the most affecting and compelling parts of the book, easily putting into words what books and books of academic text can't quite. Her humor is quite funny in places, even if some of the jokes fall flat ("The crucial difference between having children versus having pets is that when your sister's cat gets run over by a car, you can say things like "She never was very bright.", pg 4), but her commentary is mostly sharp ("The term Indigenous feminist is redundant." pg 50).
In some essays, the author reads like John Waters (more on him later), in others, she's bell hooks, but mostly, she's her own distinct voice staring at the horrors unfolding and still cracking jokes and commentary, not afraid of puns nor feminist dissection. She's a compelling, at times fascinating writer, and I kept coming to my initial question, the very question put by the publisher on the book jacket. Why the dearth of Native authors, especially for this type of book?
Certainly there have been Native humorists and comedians, so why is it this particular popular genre seems to lack a Native woman voice? Well, until now. Tiffany Midge is a distinct and appealing voice, who might call others to mind others in the genre and her explorations, but always retaining her own unique quality.
Maybe the objective shouldn't be to question where this book has been until now, but to be grateful it's here.
Notable:
The author is excellent, but she's human and she makes some truly unfortunate missteps.
I mentally list the pile's contents. A black bustier in a child's size 2M; a wispy blouse that appears at first glance to be leopard print but is actually owls; Ziggy Stardust shoes; acid-green poly-plaid golf pants (real beauts, Jimmy says, but too small for him) and a matching green Nebraska Tech College T-shirt; a purse with tags still attached; a red faux-leather trench coat à la Audrey Hepburn; tennis shirts from the Bruce Jenner Collection; assorted western-style shirts, the snappy kind. (pg 15)
Here's the thing about deadnaming, which means using the name a trans person had before they transitioned: don't do it.
Even when talking about something they did before they transitioned, use their correct name. Caitlyn Jenner was on a serial box in the 1970s. Caitlyn Jenner was a famous athlete in the Olympics.
Given that this is references a specific brand name clothing line, I think it's better to just leave it out altogether. We're already getting it's a mishmash of vintage clothing styles, why wade into tricky waters?
The author pays a visit to her father living in Thailand and unfortunately encounters many sex workers and escorts.
I see the girls everywhere. So often they are paired with the homeliest of men. Men without teeth, brash-voiced Aussies, the over-loud Germans; the jaundiced and decrepit, men with copper hooks for hands, men with spinal injuries. And half of the prostitutes aren't even girls but beautifully made up trans performers-- a very lucrative industry of the area but one that makes my father livid. (pg 38)
Ouch. Drag queens (in this example, men dressed up as women) aren't the same as "trans performers" and trans women (sex workers or not) are women. I'd argue the term "prostitute" being one you shouldn't use ("full service sex worker" or just "sex worker" will suffice; you do no help to those trafficked by further stigmatizing them), but the author has thoughts on that too:
I've never had very strong convictions against prostitution, yet I'm not ignorant to its perils either, especially in the third world countries, where the reality is more along the lines of white slavery and not the almost noble sounding "world's oldest profession." (pg 34)
Oof. Sex trafficking is very different from sex work and de-stigmatizing the work as I said actually helps both those trafficked and sexually assaulted (shame and criminality is used to keep victims in line) and actual sex workers (who face hazardous conditions largely based on shame, and criminality). Also, absolutely no advocates I've ever seen point to the "nobility" of the phrase "world's oldest profession", so much as the practicality, meaning this has been happening forever, let the workers control it.
There's a chapter where the author's humor doesn't quite land. Buffalo Bill (from Silence of the Lambs) dabbles in cant of the oh-so-easily-co-opted body positivity movement.
Guys, rethink what society has told you that you should desire. Desire me. I'm hot. A real woman is not a porn star or a sewing mannequin or even a living, breathing biologically born female. She's real. She's me in a skin suit made out of a crazy-quilt of a lady parts and stitched-together hides I hunted and kidnapped myself, replete with authentic stretch marks and cute little dimples on the booty. That's real. (pg 69)
Given that it's meant to be over-the-top humor, I won't critique the way I would other passages, but it does skirt uncomfortably close to transphobia in places. You could argue that the original character did (in both book and film) and critics have, but this particular author is producing this content when knowledge about trans people and transphobia is quite different than it was for either iteration of Buffalo Bill.
Did you see Melania's erotic photos? A friend said that the photos are actually progressive. I would agree. But a lot of people don't remember that centerfold spread featuring Barbara Bush or those tasteful nudes of Lady Bird Johnson in Juggs. Melania, our future First Naked Lady. Right. It's said that Americans have a short memory, and I believe it. Except, of course, when it comes to Hillary's emails. (pg 163)
Ooof. I'm no fan of Melania Trump, but the fact nude photos exist of her is neither here nor there. I'm far more concerned with her racism, her complicity in her husband's life in general, and her grifting.
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A terrifying undercurrent runs through the book, same as the (probably purposely) jarring undercurrents that run through Sedaris's and Jenny Lawson's works, among others, respectively.
A kooky character of a friend who sounds somewhat like if Seinfeld's Cosmo Kramer was written by John Waters (him again!) suddenly has a very disturbing turn when recounting various scenes from his life.
He often referred to his sexual encounters as "untying the Boy Scouts," a euphemism meant to corrupt what's wholesome or innocent, as in, "I took this high school girl who works in the store to a fancy party, a fund raiser, and after we drank wine and sampled the cheese platter, we went back to my loft and untied the Boy Scouts." I think he must say these things for the sole purpose of gauging people's reactions. Or maybe he's actually serious. I asked: "Oh, did she wear a backpack? Did she color at the table?" Jimmy once said that when he visited schools to present his poetry, his wife at the time, Marilyn, insisted on accompany him. "Like she was afraid I'd run off with a cheerleader or something." He joked about a junior squad cheerleader being too old for him. (pg 23)
More distressingly in the chapter entitled "Ghoul, Interrupted", the author remembers the fifteen-year-old foster child her parents took in when she was eight-years-old. He's a prankster and loves horror movies, where the author finds a feminist footing, but more distressingly, he sexually molests her.
Not a day would go by when Jerry didn't pin me down and torment me, when my developing breasts weren't the topic of discussion, when roughhousing always seemed to serve as just an excuse to feel me up. I developed early for my age, and Jerry taught me that it was not a casual event but that it should elicit special attention. A lot of special attention. (pg 56)
If that wasn't enough, the author had been molested before. She recounts that she thought Jerry's behavior was normal because during visits to her mother's reservation, she was left with her much-older teenage cousin who touched her inappropriately while snuggling up to her in her sleeping bag. She laments:
Maybe if sexual predation was a Judy Bloom book, I would have known differently, known it was wrong. Maybe if it was an Afterschool Special or an episode of the Brady Bunch, I would have responded differently-- told my mother, for instance, told anyone. We were not having those kinds of conversations when I was growing up, and despite my sixth grade class introducing sex ed in the curriculum, only the basics were ever covered. I always wondered how my parents could sit in a theater for two hours viewing a film with a demon girl masturbating with a crucifix but broaching the subject of sex was off the table for family hour. (pg 56)
(Incidentally, this make a great argument about why we need this to keep being taught in schools.)
Only after Jerry is sent back ("to whatever puppy farm he was rescued from," pg 57) and years go by does the author tell her father about his abuse. She comes to see the main character of The Exorcist, Regan MacNeil, as a symbol for her lost childhood innocence. In that vein, she suggests a new franchise.
What if instead of the perfect Princess franchise, Disney launched a campaign for the Anti-Princesses. Rather than fearing Regan MacNeil's possession and all the other possessed girls from the oeuvre of possessed prepubescent girl films, Disney capitalized on reality for a damn sec. Imagine the merchandise! The Anti-Princess Theme Park. Ugly Stepsister bedsheets. Regan lunchbox complete with twist-off cap thermos. Carrie White tampons and training bras for those "dirty pillows." Nightgowns with your favorite possessed girl printed down the front. Give me the underbelly of disenchantment, the un-glittered, un-pink, un-speckled. As much as I wanted to be a Disney Princess, as much as I admired Cinderella and Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, a part of me was ruined for that. I never identified with the Princesses, preferring instead the stepsister, the wicked queens, the Ouija Board-curious girl. As repellent and frightening as they were, I must have known I wouldn't be, or couldn't be, the otherwise untouched, unspoiled, perfect tiara-wearing Princess. (pg 57)
She elaborates on horror movies and feminism:
Do we fear demons? Or do we fear possession? I remember scenes in The Exorcist: demon girl creeping down the staircase like a spider; demon girl's head spinning like a top; demon girl announcing death to all, then peeing on the floor. Demon girl clearly out of control. Demon girl is prepubescent, premenstrual, hormonal! The patriarchy is powerless and must pronounce demon girl demonically possessed. But is she? What's the cultural message? (The patriarchy made me do it?) The social consciousness's fear of burgeoning womanhood? Women on the verge; girls with urges, hormonal surges, and sex splurges? It is the horror of the whore, the female body in revolt, boy toy exploits? Feminine foibles. (pg 54)
I have read feminist critiques on movies like The Exorcist, Carrie, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and they all seem to view the "demon" as a symbol for female sexuality-- "Demons are a girl's best friend," one article surmised. The critiques point to the terror men throughout the centuries must have felt when confronted with feminine power, which explains the Salem witch trials, which explains honor killings, which explains foot binding and corsets. Not to mention infanticide, veiling, and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. (pg 55)
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If I got a John Waters vibe from some of her writing, it turns out it might be intentional, given her references.
If John Waters needed to cast an understudy for Divine, he'd choose Irina-the-Hun-Kaas, student-director of Sam Shepard's The Unseen Hand, performed by the Footlights Ensemble at Bellevue Community College. (pg 25)
You might be surprised to learn that Gremlins is listed as a holiday movie. And in case you're like me and didn't already know, Die Hard, and Lethal Weapon are also considered to be holiday treats, right up there with It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.
While these holiday gems might trigger ALL of the feels, they don't come anywhere near to warming the heart's cockles more than the Yuletide classic Female Trouble, starring the late great Divine, a family favorite also listed as a holiday go-to. (pg 142)
Female Trouble has one of the greatest scenes in film history, and it is indeed holiday-themed.
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Our regular Towne Theater crowd was instructed to dress up as pagans and peasants for the Saturday night May Day Celebration. (pg 27)
Just a reminder that "Pagan" has had a long history as a word. Probably should use stick to the modern version to avoid accidental offense, though.
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A round up of some of my favorites from this book:
How many white supremacists does it take to change a light bulb?
a. The white supremacist has to want to change.
b. Society has to change.
c. First, you need a ladder. (pg 48)
The State of Alaska's epidemiology bulletin titled Hazards of Stalking the Wild Mushroom lists common myths about mushrooms. The first old wives' tale being poisonous mushrooms tarnish a silver spoon. I've been with men like that. Men who tarnished confidence, tainted weeklong intakes of breath saved just for them. Men who were listed in all the field manuals but were overlooked or purposely disregarded just like the hapless characters from a Lifetime movie. It should be that easy: tasting your potential mates like scraping a diamond across glass or placing a canary into a mineshaft. (pg 64)
She can do both humor and prose.
The author has some thoughts about the late 2010s phenomenon of pussy hats, made famous by the 2017 Women's March.
I don't have the luxury or the class status to use appellatives like "pussy" or "nasty". They're not re-claimative terms for someone like me. "Pussy" hats speak liability. "Pussy" hats speak caste system. "Pussy" hats speak privilege. A carefree embrace that lurks without threat.
"Pussy" hats are not transgressive. "Pussy" hats are an emblem, a tool of privilege. When my people march and organize, the cops and paramilitary are deployed. At the Women's March in Washington the demonstrators were free from authoritarian presence. I don't enjoy that same carefree, flagrant luxury my white sisters take for granted. (pg 91)
Linguists who study American Indian English describe the dropping of final voiced obstruents in standard American English. They call this final devoicing. It is commonly known among social scientists that the loss of a language is on par with the loss of a species; when a language dies, a piece of humanity dies with it. Indigenous languages are in danger of extinction. Native American languages and culture are inextricably linked because the ideas of a culture are anchored within the language; it is not just a reflection of a culture but is the culture. Native cultures have their own set of realities, their own particularities of expression and distinct perceptions of being in the world, and those realities are conveyed through language.
I still do not speak my tribal language. Just a smattering of worlds. (pg 99)
The author goes in a bizarre and hilarious direction, criticizing racial scammers ("Pretendians" in this case):
Some ways that pseudo-Indigenous authors have sought to capitalize on their careers is to disguise themselves as things that they are not. The biggest culprit is the stick-insect-- also referred to as walking sticks and stick bugs. Fraudulent Indigenous authors have acquired esteemed literary awards by camouflaging themselves as stick insects and mimicking branches and leaves. (pg 132)
The author imagines a very different Hollywood for Native actors:
Hollywood needs to stop stereotyping Native Americans. Every time I see a new movie come out that features Native Americans, we're either wealthy hedge fund managers with a penchant for Italian automobiles or we're depicted as sexy surgeons who moonlight for Doctors Without Borders and adopted handicapped children from war-torn countries. Just stop it already! We're so much more than that! (pg 139)
If I see another sensitive and compelling biopic of Princess Diana or another Movie-of-the-Week portrayal of Marilyn Monroe played by [insert famous Indigenous actor], I'm going to totally lose my shit. (pg 140)
I mean, I know someone might bring up the Cuban Spanish actress Ana de Armas who played Marilyn Monroe in the regrettable Blonde in 2022, but it's not quite the same thing, and even if it was, that'd be one for how many characters of color played by white actors?
A good point about famous Christmas stories:
There's How the Grinch Stole Christmas [as a Christmas story], except Natives have been living out that timeless ode since Columbus first set foot on these shores. A more apt title might be How the Whites Stole... Well, Everything. (pgs 142 and 143)
In an essay titled "Post-Election U.S. Open in Racist Tirades Competition", wherein famous racists critique non-famous racists (for instance, a woman hurling slurs in line at the store), the author has a devastating Ann Coulter impression:
In my new book Adios America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Shithole, I very clearly state that America needs to secure the border! And it starts with JC Penney! There need to be blockades set up at all area resident shopping malls, like yesterday! I rate [racist] Gladys's first move a solid 10! Can I go higher than a 10? That grandma is tip-top in my book! Although she could use some styling advice-- would it kill her to wear heels. (pg 145)
I'm sure that fans of the 45th President will accuse the author of being a "Democrat", but she's got a pointed critique of the 44th President, Barack Obama:
Recently, when President Obama proclaimed the month of November to be National Native American Heritage Month and then the very next day in an interview about the Dakota Access Pipeline and para-military police waging war against citizens at Standing Rock-- stating that he was going to "just let it play out for several more weeks"-- well, that hurt. Maybe it didn't hurt as much as the mace and pepper spray or the people who got shot with rubber bullets, but still, dude, so not cool. (pg 155 and 156)
The author proposes some alternatives to racist Halloween costumes:
Sexy geisha. Alternative: Caucasian fusion food truck owner with a topknot who owes over a hundred thou in defaulted student loans but will still buy artisanal truffle oil and imported bird's nest from intrepid caves in Southeast Asia. (pg 165)
Romani person mistakenly referred to as a "Gypsy." Alternative: Mrs. Roper from Three's Company but a conceptual version, like just Mrs. Roper's housedress and a completion certificate from DeVry University in personnel management. (pg 166)
And with this, the author presents the only acceptable use of "spirit animal" as a joke:
Lately, there's been no shortage of despair. I count myself among those who are mourning-- it's as if my spirit animal slayed and consumed my emotional support animal. (pg 169)
A satire of Mike Pence contains this passage:
Pence's spokesman said: "Mike Pence is a politician with the soul of a poet, and deep down he's hardcore emotive. A lot of people don't know that Mike spends his free time writing fan fic and posting it on his LiveJournal blog. A lot of his stories involve erotic situations between characters from X-Men." (pg 181)
As we move firmly in the 2020s, some of the 45th Presidency has been buried and forgotten, but at least one aspect, his admiration for Andrew Jackson (as prompted by his advisor, Steve Bannon), deserves especial commemoration:
On the same day, January 24, 2017, when Trump was looking over the White House art collection and deciding to hang the portrait of what many Native Americans equate to Osama bin Laden, in the Oval Office, he also signed off to go ahead with the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL pipeline, even though tribal leaders and attorneys have stated time and time again that the pipeline infringes upon treaty rights and threatens to poison the water source for the tribe as well as seventeen million other Americans in close proximity. (pgs 186 and 187)
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Christmas 1971: Her name was Tamu (Swahili for "sweet"), and I had picked her out of the toy section of the Sears catalog. [...]
But what I didn't know were Tamu's origins. She was created by Shindana Toys, a division of a company called Operation Bootstrap, Inc., founded as part of a set of initiatives in South-Central Los Angeles in 1968 following the 1965 Watts Riots. A goal of the company was to raise black consciousness and improve self-image. (pg 103)
I was not expecting to see this here, a mention of Shindana Toys. Were you aware that Mattel (of Barbie fame) helped finance Shindana Toys? And was otherwise involved with the company? A excellent and abbreviated history can be found in MG Lord's breathtakingly brilliant Forever Barbie, wherein she pretty much spoke to anyone she could about its creation, founding, rise and fall, and it could easily be a book in and of itself.
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No one would ever suspect the non-descript, guileless rhododendron bush-- why, even former communications director Sean Spicer endorses the efficacy of the bush. It's not just for evading the press core anymore! (pg 126)
Did you forget this had happened? It's been a long, long, long six years. How was 2017 not at least fifteen years ago?
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If you're up for some adventure, head over to the East Wing. You will pass through the west and east colonnades, the perfect place for hiking, animal watching, and mining for gold. Be on the lookout for ghosts and haunts-- the East Wing's Jackie O. Garden is built on an ancient Indian graveyard! (pg 150)
Maybe just me, but I'm coming to cringe at the term Jackie O. As First Lady, she was Jacqueline Kennedy or Jackie Kennedy and Jackie Onassis was her latter married name. "Jackie O." always seems reductive.
Just a rant, not a knock on this author. This is from a chapter about the 45th President's selling of the White House as tourism, where such a reductive term for the famous First Lady would be absolutely appropriate, and he's even used it.
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I'm the Ron Jeremy of Native American literature-- I'm that good. Fight me. (pg 52)
Ouch.
But whatever your response [to the Inauguration of the 45th President] or lack of response may be-- pants shitting or fetal positioning-- it'd be super if we could just fast-forward and montage the next four years into a series of brief clips in which nobody gets hurt.
(pg 169)
I get that the whole point is that SOMEONE would get hurt, but still, ouch on that alone.
A satire chapter of Mike Pence's quirky online activities ends with this passage:
White House officials are considering stripping Pence of his security clearance, and souvenir retailers are now selling LOCK HIM UP T-shirts and tote bags on the National Mall. (pg 182)
I mean, "LOCK HIM UP" is better than some slogans about Mike Pence.
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I noticed a recurring name in the author's essays:
It seems like everyone and their great-grandmother wants to be Indian. This is nothing new. There's a name for folks who give off these mixed (smoke) signals: pretendians. From Iron Eyes Cody, Shania Twain, Justin Bieber, and Ward Churchill to Elizabeth Warren and Andrea Smith. (pg 134)
We hope you enjoyed the special luncheon with Frederick Douglass in observance of African American History Month. Mr. Douglass is doing a terrific job! Visit us again next season, when we'll be hosting a banquet in honor of Native American Heritage Month with special guests Elizabeth "Pocahontas" Warren and Andrew Jackson. (pg 151)
And if valorizing Andrew Jackson and signing pipeline orders on the same day isn't enough evidence to prove that the president holds no regard whatsoever for Indigenous people or the law or treaties or the environment, he also flagrantly tossed around racial epithets during a White House meeting with senators in early February [of 2017]. Like some Yosemite Sam with a pair of six-shooters, Trump fired off, "Pocahontas is now the face of your party," referring to Senator Elizabeth Warren. Trump has been calling out Senator Warren's questionable claims to Native ancestry for a long time now; however, in previous instances, he wasn't representing the office of POTUS. (pg 187)
I had to doublecheck, but this all would've been written before the controversial DNA test and subsequent blowback and apology (abridged version: white-passing Warren grew up hearing stories about Native ancestry and identified that way on some occasions which was used by her political opponents; she apologized for identifying that way and under challenge from the 45th President, she took a DNA test that suggested a possible Native American ancestor and definitely an Indigenous one, and when it was pointed out that wasn't the same as her being raised in any kind of Native culture and heritage, she apologized again and agreed).
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There are many versions of the scenes that take place inside my head-- a dying mother instructs her daughter with her last wishes-- but the one I remember the most is poached from a meme making the rounds online...
"I want my remains spread at Disneyland," my mother says. "But I don't want to be cremated. Just leave my parts."
"Okay, I promise."
"You can bury my heart at Chuck E. Cheese's."
"Okay, you got it."
"Bury my heart at Sea World."
"I will, Mama."
"I will fight no more about putting the toothpaste cap on, forever."
We were two Indian women, laughing until our bellies ached, spitting death right in the eye. (pg 6)
And we have a title!
Final Grade: A
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