Coco Higgins - Television is Real: The First-world Whinings of an Art Historian

This semester I am taking a Theory of Knowledge class in the philosophy department. I am an art history graduate student and am required to take two classes outside my field. I’ve never taken a philosophy class before, and have only been exposed to such topics tangentially through looking at art. So I thought, hey, why not beef up my elitist resume (nay, CV) by taking an actual, official philosophy course? The best of intentions, I swear.

Since this is an outside-department course, I am allowed to take it at the undergraduate level. You know, because art historians are in fact idiots who pretend that they are interdisciplinary but in fact know nothing else outside of the world of art objects. In any case, I am in a class full of undergrads who have all taken philosophy courses before. (That is a requirement that I weaseled my way out of by virtue of the fact that I have graduate standing, which should theoretically mean that I am an intelligent person.) These undergrads, however, are ten years younger than me and are much more well-versed in the mumbo jumbo that is philosophy.

Then you have the professor, who is habitually late to this god-awful 9:30AM class (did I mention that I am a nocturnal creature who abhors the thought of waking up before noon?). He barges into the classroom all in a tizzy, the residue of his morning coffee forming Frankenthaler stains on his pants, and a wrinkly unlaundered shirt. His hair is uncombed of course, because he has no time for such trivial niceties. He drones on and on in his velvety but low British voice, mumbling most of the time, and occasionally cracking lame philosophy jokes. Of course he’s disheveled and couldn’t care less if we understand him, because of course he’s probably been contemplating some serious philosophical problem all night that OF COURSE caused his brain to implode.

Meanwhile the smarter undergrads (this is such a degrading thing for me to have to admit) are all sitting there just listening, barely taking notes, because OF COURSE all they have to do is absorb this man’s jargon and contemplate it for the rest of the day and all is perfectly fine. Then they name-drop various dead philosophers, “Oh didn’t Martin “Card Carrying Member of the Nazi Party” Heidewhogivesafuck say that consciousness of blahblahI’mshowingoffblahblah?” Whereas, here I am writing feverishly about shit I don’t know and am now realizing I don’t care a lick about.

What is the nature of knowledge? Am I real? How do I know I am real? How do we know that we know something?

Okay, I don’t give a rat’s hairy ass. I know that “I’m not real. I’m theater. And You and I are just rehearsal.” Said Lady Gaga, the contemporary philosopher. Ever hear of HER? Right, didn’t think so, because you live in (Plato’s) cave and haven’t ventured out into society to decide that you probably don’t like her.

Okay, maybe this sounds like sour grapes from someone who can’t hang in a philosophy class. Maybe that’s true. But you know what, I don’t care. In the art history realm, I am probably more engrossed in theory than my peers (and have been criticized for it, but this is not the time or place to get into methodological politics). I’m not gonna talk about my thesis project here, because I’ll probably just be accused of being a pretentious, insufferable academic asshole. And that’s at least 70% true. Okay 90% true. Alright, let’s be real here, 100%.

But it’s absolutely jarring to me to be in a well-lit class with people just TALKING. Especially about bullshit questions in la-la land. I sometimes can’t even stand just sitting around with friends just TALKING. There needs to be something else going on, namely the (ab)use of one or all three of the following: cigarettes, booze, pot (in that order), perhaps in conjunction with a movie or at least music. Call me socially mal-developed, but I need some kind of distraction for my eyes, ears or hands. And art history classes provide that. The lights are turned down low, grainy images are projected on the screen, and we all start masturbating. Ok that last part isn’t true, but that’s where that sentence sounded like it was going.

Art historians look at and analyze images. I need to LOOK AT something. I can’t just talk about NOTHING. I’m not Seinfeld (thank god, he wore the ugliest pants). And I’m not interested in thinking of the origin of thought and knowledge. Who cares about the origin of anything? Logocentrism is soooo passé. (1 – pun intended. 2 – again with the pretentious asshole bit.) I am alive today, and I’d rather think about lived experience TODAY. (Wait, am I really alive today??? No, I must be in hell because I have to go to class at 9:30AM today.)

So anyway I am tired of the mumbo jumbo and it’s only one week into the class.

And I just wasted a bunch of time writing about it just so I can procrastinate on doing my reading. Who cares, I don’t care, a horse’s ass is better than Descartes’. “I think, therefore I am.” Well, monsieur, I THINK the class is boring, therefore I AM dropping it.

And I’d rather be watching television, because television is REAL. (Actually, no it isn’t, it perpetuates representation, which conceals that which is real. But the actual physical object of my television is real. It’s sitting there on a stand. I’m having a phenomenological experience with it now. Oh my god, one week of that dumb class and I’m already brainwashed into thinking like this. And that last sentence is a conscious realization of my own mode of thinking. Ugh. I hate myself. I hate philosophy. Holy shit, maybe I shouldn’t drop the class. No, drop the class. Join the world of the living.)

I also realize that this whole essay is pot-calling-the-kettle-black. But I have to draw the line somewhere in the sand of bullshit wackadoo pseudo-intellectualism. And I draw it at art history. I think that’s far enough.

Coco Higgins - The Self-Indulgent Whines of a Total Weenie

April 29, 2011

Tonight I was at my usual coffee shop haunt with a stack of 75 undergrad papers to grade. A friend and fellow grad student shared my table. She pointed out that one of her students was sitting on one of the couches, and unfortunately this student may possibly be dumber than a box of hair. She wasn’t in my view so I stood up and performed the most obvious ruse to disguise my true intentions of having a look at this supposed dunce: I pretended to stretch. Upon doing so, I looked over and I saw a super cute girl.

Sure, she was looking slouchy in some weird sweatpants. This reminded me of George Costanza from Seinfeld. Did she give up on life and the world? Who wears sweatpants in public? Okay, they weren’t thick cotton drawstring sweatpants. They were black, of a thin fabric. But still – these aren’t pants that one would normally wear in public.

But she had short brown hair and a pouty face kind of like Kristen Stewart. Yes, go ahead, judge and psychoanalyze me all you want, but I like that angsty look. And of course it belonged on this girl. She’s an undergrad and probably at least eight years younger than me. (Good god, I feel old.) So despite the pants, I became a little smitten. Not twitterpated or anything, but you know, enough to get distracted from the monotony of grading endless papers about Egyptian sculpture. (“This sculpture was made by a human,” wrote one student. My comment: “as opposed to aliens???” True story. Okay, if you were an art historian you might haughtily say, “Maybe she meant that it was an acheiropoietos,” but I highly doubt that she even knows what that is, and this line of thinking should be saved for my term paper, and not this blog.)

The night went on and I continued to read the thoughtless, never-ending essays. The kid came over to our table to talk to my friend to ask something about the upcoming test for their class. They talked a bit, and my friend (god bless her heart), introduced me to Kristen Stewart. We shook hands, I smiled. Then she left.

As a side note, this is the same gregarious friend who, after the Lady Gaga concert, kept asking strangers, “Hey do you know any lesbians???” She was drunk and did this for me, to my embarrassment (not really). The point is, she looks out for me, in amusing ways, and I appreciate it.

Anyway, Kristen went back to the couch and I continued to grade my papers.

Then another girl came into the crowded coffee shop and got in line to order. (Not even gonna go into detail about the hot barista.) She was probably about fifteen feet away from me. Short girl, short brown hair. Totally adorbs. She sat outside, and eventually my friend and I went out there to smoke. We had eye contact for half a second and that’s about it.

Friend and I went back inside and continued to work. Eventually both girls left. Nothing happened. Outside-girl was probably straight, so I’m not feeling any sense of loss. But the other girl was slightly more promising.

What prevented me from going up to her and talking to her more? I constructed the following reasons, which ultimately paralyzed me:

1. I haven’t done laundry in 5 trillion years and I don’t like the clothes I’m wearing.
2. I’m a grad student and she’s an undergrad, and we were explicitly forbidden to have friendly interactions with these plebeians.
3. She’s apparently not the brightest crayon in the box.
4. I’m a weenie.

Let’s think about these again and why they’re irrelevant:

1. Who cares? My hair is still cute. She was wearing sweatpants for Chrissakes, so what if I’m wearing a ratty old shrunken flannel shirt and hole-y jeans?
2. Who cares? Not like I’m the one grading her (less-then-stellar) papers and tests. Besides, the department doesn’t need to know, right?
3. Who cares? I’m not looking for a life partner, just some fun.

So really it all boils down to this:

I’m a weenie.

I’ve lost all sense of game, if I ever had any to begin with. IF I ever approach girls, I’m usually drunk. Or it’s a gradual process that involves introduction by mutual friends. In a shared social situation, I can be funny and endearing. But as a first approach, I absolutely fail.

What the hell happened? I got out of my long-term relationship two years ago. I haven’t dated anyone the whole time I’ve been in grad school, and that’s approaching the one-year mark. My excuse is that academic life precludes me from having a social life outside my small circle of colleagues in the department. And I have very little time to devote to such endeavors because I’m too busy researching, reading, writing and grading student exams and essays.

But the truth is: I have all kinds of time to sit on my ass and watch tennis matches and follow all kinds of useless information on the internet. Okay, most of all this is done in the wee hours of the night/morning, so being an inverted creature forces the misanthropic behavior. But hey, Kristen Stewart likes vampires right? And I’m a vampire dandy!

But if I have all that time to do useless things, why can’t I get off my ass and do laundry, go to lesbian bars and hit on girls and get laid? This is really quite pathetic.

One of my friends has managed to date a few guys and is now in somewhat of a serious relationship. Granted, she went and looked for it, and clearly wants one. But if she can make time for it, why can’t I? I’ve been telling myself that I don’t want to be in a relationship, yet I am now beginning to question that line of reasoning.

I certainly don’t want a suffocating 24/7 relationship like the last one I had. Yes, true. But not all relationships are like that. I can casually date, or find a better relationship, a better person. But then I tell myself that I can barely take care of myself and my cat, and I’m too used to being single – set in my ways of being a slob who doesn’t do the dishes or vacuum, keeping erratic sleeping patterns revolving around class times and tennis matches, and engaging in pointless internet behavior.

No I wasn’t always like this. When I was in my last relationship, I was completely domesticated. Kept a job during normal business hours, ate healthier, made enough money to hire a maid, and stayed away from the internet. I seriously only discovered Facebook and YouTube in 2007, I think. But then while that all seems like a healthy lifestyle, I felt like a caged animal.

But is my life that much better now? I get to do what I want, certainly, and that makes me happy. But shouldn’t I want something more? The truth is, I enjoy being a nocturnal slob who trolls around the internets, lives in the land of art historical theoretica, drinks and smokes with friends and watches sports. Is that so wrong?

You want to know the ironic part of all of this coffee shop missed connection shit? The barista (not the hot girl) dude has become pretty friendly with me. He gives me free pastries in the middle of the night when there aren’t too many customers around. He also got my friend a shot of whiskey when I told him it was said friend’s birthday. One night I even got him to play the Xanadu song in the coffee shop. He’s been kind of flirty with me and went so far as to say “this better be worth my while,” before playing the dumb song. He’s also called me “so darned cute” and engaged in really childish flirting by consciously and openly trying to annoy me. I don’t think he knows I’m a lesbian. (Moral question: should I tell him, or just continue getting free pastries? Is that a soft-core form of prostitution???)

What the hell, MAN!!!!!!

I really need to get out more.

Coco Higgins - Fortuitous Fate

3:00AM

They met at a hospital in the early ‘70s. Tom was a doctor and Connie just arrived as a new nurse. He asked a friend who she was and boasted that she’d be the girl he would eventually marry. Some mutual friends tricked them into running into each other at the bus stop, and he asked her out on a date. She immediately noticed the pack of cigarettes he had inside his breast pocket.

“No,” she said. “I don’t date smokers.”

Tom was a chain smoker who picked up the habit in medical school. At the time he had been smoking like a chimney, but he really wanted to go out with this girl. He told her he would quit. As a gesture, he threw away the Benson and Hedges and they started going out.

Six months later, Tom and Connie got married. They knew that they wanted to have lots of children since both came from large families – he with nine siblings, and she with seven. The birth of their son in 1974 was a complicated one, delivered through a Caesarian section and with a tremendous loss of blood. The doctors removed a small part of Connie’s uterus and told her that they should not try for any more kids. It was disheartening news, but they were happy to have had at least one and life moved on.

Seven years later, there was a recession in the Philippines and Tim was forced to look for work elsewhere. The country’s main export was the services of its people so it was not uncommon for the breadwinner to go abroad to earn money and send it back to a family at home. Tom was promised a teaching post in Libya. Gadhafi was already in power, but money is money, and that’s certainly better than receiving fruits, chickens and promises of favors from patients at home. When he got there, however, he ended up providing medical services in a desolate rural outpost.

After some time, a friend of Tom’s told him that the government was secretly planning to send him, a Philippine national with no actual ties to Libya besides this temporary medical post, to the front lines of battle in Chad. Having no military or combat experience (save the one-sided boxing matches he fought as a kid – he lost most of them, by the way), Tom high-tailed it back to the Philippine embassy the first chance he got and booked a one-way flight back to Manila.

Nine months later, Connie gave birth to a baby girl on Tom’s birthday. You might call my conception a mistake, or even an accident. But I like to think of it as a miracle. So something good did come out of Gadhafi being an asshole, but even that’s debatable.

Yes, they’re still together. And no, he hasn’t smoked since the day he asked her out on a first date.

3:30AM – sorry, it was 10 minutes longer than allowed.

Coco Higgins - The Illustrious Life of a Graduate Student

3:10AM

At the moment, I am in one of my city’s 24-hour coffee shops, sitting here with other nocturnal creatures at 3AM. I have a stack of 80 undergraduate exams I have to grade – some are quite impressive, but sadly, I question whether or not some of these students bothered to show up to any classes. At the risk of violating FERPA, I might even say that some of these kids are dumber than a box of hair. How unfortunate.

As I’ve implied above, I’m currently a grad student. This semester I’m taking two independent studies, which means that I have practically no structure in my life. Most of my time is spent napping, dicking around on the internet, and watching tennis matches that very few people care about.

A few weeks ago, I was in line for a concert when all of a sudden I became extremely fuzzyheaded, nauseated and almost fainted. I left the concert and hobbled over to my friend’s car. After a few wrong turns, I made it home and ate a salad. My dad told me that I might be hypoglycemic, which is a precursor to the diabetes that runs on both sides of my family. Sure, he’s a licensed physician, but I think maybe he just took this opportunity to tell me to stop smoking and drinking.

Suffice it to say, I started caring more about my health recently. I stocked up on protein bars and decided that I should start exercising. I wore some shorts and started putting around my neighborhood, looking the utter complete fool running for five minutes and gasping for air and crawling for the next five. Also disappointingly, these short shorts do not have pockets for cigarettes. Or a flask. (Note to self: should I start wearing cargo pants when I work out? Hmm.)

To echo my poor health, my fat cat Mr. Weatherbee (sometimes known as Creamsicle, Creature, Animal, Weatherpants, Puppy, etc.) has an ear infection. I’ve been putting drops into his ears the last week or so and now the poor guy looks like a drowned rat. I’ve also started calling him Mr. Soggy-Ears. I don’t think he’s all that pleased.

But to get back to my illustrious life as a grad student – I’ve come to realize that I suffer from impostor syndrome and a form of academic bipolar disorder. I’m waiting for the day they discover I’m a hack who doesn’t deserve to be studying at this fine institution. I keep losing motivation, coming up with reasons and excuses not to do research, and overall I become paralyzed by self-doubt. This leads to extreme laziness and procrastination. Witness exhibit A: hours on the internet, tennis obsession and a permanent imprint of my butt on the couch.

But the other day I had a fantastic conversation with my advisor. I presented some of my work to him and he used the O word on me. He said it was ORIGINAL. How fantastic is that, right?! He said it was refreshing, and that I could turn it into a thesis. BOOM. Euphoria. And just a few hours before that, I was wallowing in self-pity about how I’m not producing anything of value. I’ve been riding this high for about 36 hours now, and I’m not sure how long it will last. I bet by tomorrow, I’ll be feeling sorry for myself again and not doing anything. See – small academic validations produce a few highs, but for the most part, grad school is a place for self-loathing.

Why am I doing this again? Oh right, I want to teach one day. Get kids excited about art and learn about themselves through the application of rigorous critical thinking. How lofty. I’ll be lucky to get a post-doc in Nebraska, or some underpaid no-benefits gig as an adjunct prof in Wyoming. But hey, with all my physical training recently, maybe I’ll look into becoming a luchadora. Who doesn’t like masks and wrestling boots, right?

Back to grading.

3:30AM

Coco Higgins - Unmasked

I admit I’m a little rough around the edges. Sometimes my mouth doesn’t have a filter. If you’re actually ever around me in person, you might even witness a mind-->out verbal excoriation of sorts.

Once upon a time, I was with a group of girls in gym class. It was the end of the period, and a girl I (secretly) didn’t like announced, “I think I’ll go change now,” to which I immediately and thoughtlessly responded: “INTO A BETTER PERSON?”

Oops.

I’ve also been known to rip new assholes into employees and strangers.

Exhibit B: Back when I was a business tycoon/captainess of industry, I managed about 150 peons. I was quite demanding at first, before I mentally checked out and stopped giving a shit. I used to hold weekly collections meetings with my account managers in which I would ask for status reports of when we could expect customers to make progress payments against their contracts. I would routinely run down the list of accounts and the minions would update me. The expectation, obviously, was that they would be prepared with answers.

Well, one time, an account manager had the audacity to come into my office ill-prepared.

Matt was one of the nicest guys in the company, which says a lot because I was otherwise surrounded by a bunch of misogynists. It was the construction industry after all, and my employees were about 95% male. Never mind that Matt’s co-workers complained that he farted at his desk, or that one time I caught him napping in his cubicle. For the most part, he was always amiable and had a strong work ethic.

He came into my office with a bunch of “I-don’t-knows” and “I’ll-get-back-to-you-on-that” type of responses. After hearing about five of these in succession, tendrils of smoke issued forth from my crimson ears and I exploded. I yelled at the poor kid, something along the lines of: “How dare you come in here and waste my time with these useless answers? What the hell have you been doing this whole time? This is completely unacceptable! Don’t come back in here unless you have something useful to report. But you better do it by this afternoon. Now get the hell out of my office!”

After being subjected to a few minutes of verbal abuse, Matt walked out of my office with his tail between his legs. Am I proud of this? No. (Maybe.) Did Matt’s behavior warrant a tongue-lashing? Not necessarily. Reprimand, yes, but not in the way I delivered it.

Then there was this other time just this past summer. I was at a coffee shop with two friends when a stranger came up to us to bum a cigarette. Anthony offered the guy -- let’s call him Douchebag -- an American Spirit. Douchebag declined it and asked for one of my Camel Crush menthols. How dare he. But I gave him one, thinking it was because he preferred the minty taste. And that’s fine because I can relate to it.

But then Douchebag said, “Yeah, I like these better because these are real cigarettes.” Something then clicked in my brain, unleashing a monster.

This sub-human creature inside of me then pointed at Anthony’s pack, glared at Douchebag, and exclaimed, “Oh, so you’re saying those aren’t REAL cigarettes? Those are as real as you can get! They’re organic!”

Douchebag was a bit flummoxed and said something about how the Camel Crush cigarette was fun to smoke. So then I thought, “Okay, he likes to squeeze the filter and hear it pop, just like me. Forgivable.”

But then he didn’t even pinch the cigarette. Instead, he proceeded to rip. it. OPEN, essentially rendering it unsmokeable, to which I asked, appalled, “What the hell are you doing? Don’t you know how to smoke a fucking cigarette?”

Apparently not. Douchebag responded, “I thought these were those cool cigarettes you can take apart and smoke. But I guess not. Man, these cigarettes suck!”

That was it. The floodgates opened, and a rushing torrent of verbal whitewater came out of my mouth to drown the dumbass. “First you come here asking for a cigarette. Not just a beggar, but a chooser. Then you insult my friend’s American Spirits, and then you fuck up one of mine because you don’t even know how to smoke one. Then you say my cigarettes suck. WHAT KIND OF AN ASSHOLE ARE YOU?”

I had at least three opportunities to bite my tongue and let the issue slide. And most people probably would’ve just let it go to avoid confrontation. But for some inexplicable reason, I decided that the best thing to do was to cause a scene. In a coffee shop. In broad daylight. With a complete stranger. Yeah.

Well maybe it’s not so inexplicable. Just the other night, I was with a group of colleagues (yeah, that’s how we obnoxiously refer to each other now that we’re in grad school). Anyway, we were at a coffee shop and it was past midnight. Half the group was getting ready to call it a night. I guess no one else has a near-inverted sleeping pattern and is a vampire like me.

I jokingly called one of them “a big fucking baby” for wanting to go home so soon. Then one of my other new friends, also lightheartedly, said I was “so mean.” I smiled and admitted that I was, and she replied, “Yeah, it’s because of all your self-loathing.”

SELF-LOATHING.

This made me think of a few things. First of all, we’ve only known each other for a couple of months, yet she was able to make this psychobabble assessment of me that kind of hit like a dagger to the heart in its precision. Is she that perceptive, or am I that transparent? I mean, it’s taken some of my other close friends at least a year or so to figure that one out. Quite impressive, really, if you think about it.

More importantly, just how true is that statement?

Well, I do engage in acts of self-loathing. I revel in agonizing episodes of unrequited love, and along the same vein, stay in terrible relationships longer than I should. Then there’s the addiction and general lack of moderation - cigarettes, awful food, alcohol and other substances. And again, I can be a bit of a reclusive nocturnal creature. At times, I envision myself as a decadent bohemian in fin-de-siècle France, wallowing in my self-pity and ennui. I brood to Fiona Apple on repeat. It’s a sad and pathetic existence sometimes, but I love it in its own twisted way. It makes me feel alive.

But I’ve just been talking about acts of self-loathing. To take it to a more literal definition - do I actually really hate myself? I don’t think so. On the contrary, I feel like sometimes the exact opposite is true. I know I have minor freak-outs about my insecurities, but I actually love myself to the point of megalomania sometimes. I won’t elaborate on that here because it will probably just alienate me further from friends. Just take my word for it for the moment. So why do I subject myself to acts of self-loathing when I am, in fact, a narcissist?

Now that I’ve identified the dialectical tension between self-loathing and sheer narcissism in my personality, what next? Nothing really. I’m not up for trying to figure out the root of that right now, nor do I believe my personality will or should change. I just am.

Oh right. You’re probably wondering what this has to do with this week’s theme of buildings and food. Well, I started thinking of all this when I was at a coffee shop (a building) with people who were eating sandwiches and pizza (food). Also, my friend who pointed out my self-loathing, an act that served as the impetus to this entire inquiry, is a huge Talking Heads fan, and she probably loves their album More Songs About Buildings and Food. Truth.

Coco Higgins is an aspiring art historian, post-hipster, obnoxious Twitterer, proud owner of delusions of grandeur, has a knack for remembering useless trivia of all kinds, all in all an extraordinary machine.

Coco Higgins: Waking Up

Livejournal Extract:

Saturday, August 5, 2000: (18 years old)

Yesterday, we saw Coyote Ugly and it was actually a really good movie! I liked it a lot. Hopefully that doesn’t make me a lesbian.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coco Higgins was born into a fairly conservative Christian family. She was forced to keep her hair long and to wear skirts on Sundays. She hated these things.

There was something a little peculiar about Coco, and she did a commendable job of hiding it for 20 years. An integral part of her identity remained concealed behind a facade of heterosexuality during this time, all while the two voices of Jess and Min conducted an internal power struggle unbeknownst to anyone but Coco.

Curiosity: 10 years old

A new girl transferred and joined Coco’s class. They didn’t become very good friends. In fact, Coco hardly spoke to her, choosing instead to observe her from afar.

Min: Why do you keep staring at her?

Jess: She’s very pretty.

Min: No she’s not! And you shouldn’t even be having those kinds of thoughts. It’s beyond wrong.

Coco didn’t tell anyone that she was fascinated by the new girl. Min won.

Discovery: 11 years old

Coco’s older brother was 18 years old and hid Playboy magazines in his room. He stashed them in a secret cache under his bed. Since this wasn’t a very clever hiding place, and Coco was naturally a nosy little sister, she stumbled upon them one day. She was immediately captivated.

Min: What the hell are you doing?

Jess: Umm... being aroused for the first time in my life...?

Min: But you can’t be! This is disgusting! How could you even look at this? These are women. And plus, if you were ever caught doing this, you’d probably get into so much trouble from Mom and Dad. You need to feel DIRTY and ASHAMED of yourself because this goes against nature!

Jess: But...

Min: No “buts,” IT’S WRONG.

Coco “read the articles” just a few times more, but ultimately listened to Min and stopped. She never spoke of this to anyone and even suppressed it from her own memory for ten years. Min won.

Conformity: 13 years old

Everyone in junior high started having their first relationships and experiencing their first kisses. The school was filled with pre-teens holding hands.

Min: You should have a boyfriend too.

Jess: But I don’t want a boyfriend. I’d rather have...

Min: Oh shut up. Everyone else is doing it. Don’t you want to fit in? Besides, it’s natural.

Coco “went out” with a cute Mormon boy. He was a Kurt Cobain wannabe, and she liked Nirvana, so this was tolerable. Her first kiss tasted like cinnamon rolls. He walked her home from school, tried to show off with tricks on his skateboard, and even sang “Interstate Love Song” to her. It was short-lived though, as all junior high relationships are wont to be. Kurt broke up with her. He couldn’t look her in the eye, and he uncomfortably told her that she wasn’t “feminininine enough.” Nonetheless, Min won.

And Min won time and time again in high school too.

While Coco was dating boys to fit in, Jess was quietly harboring secret crushes on girls. But whenever Jess tried to say anything about it, Min would throw a hissy fit and condemn those thoughts. Jess’s voice slowly diminished until it was completely silent. Min won.

For the six years encompassing high school and the first half of college, Coco forgot that Jess even existed, until one day a boyfriend broke up with her.

Failure: 19 years old

Coco was in what she considered a serious relationship. She actually even liked him as a person. But after about five months of dating, meeting each other’s families, and “taking it to the next level,” he broke up with her. Coco was devastated. She sequestered herself in her dorm room and cried for weeks.

Min had no reason to speak because she saw this extreme reaction as confirmation of Coco’s heterosexuality. But a soft, whispery, familiar voice did venture an opinion.

Jess: You’re only sad because the relationship itself failed. You’re crying because you desperately wanted this one to work out just so you’d be normal. But these tears are NOT for him. They are for the lost idea of him. You know the truth.

Min: Don’t be ridiculous...

For once, Min didn’t have a strong enough counter jab. She could no longer play the morality card because Coco had stopped going to religious functions years ago and had since been exposed to a wide variety of people at her liberal school 400 miles away from home. She was even a fag hag.

Coco heard Jess’ voice but was too afraid to admit it. Jess won.

Standstill: 20 years old

Coco became really good friends with Shane, a lesbian. They had several classes together and would even wait for each other after classes that weren’t shared. They would sit on patches of grass on campus, smoke cigarettes, people-watch, do crossword puzzles, and genuinely just enjoy each other’s company. After the school day, Coco and Shane would regularly go to coffee shops to study, followed by a night of unwinding in true Berkeley fashion: altered states of consciousness, Fleetwood Mac, Fiona Apple and Junior Mints.

One night, Shane slept over because the two of them were to attend an event early the following morning. They slept on Coco’s twin-sized dorm bed together. And the shouting match between Min and Jess raged on. There was a cacophony of heated voices fighting in Coco’s head as she lay there centimeters away from Shane.

Jess: She’s RIGHT THERE. Do something!

Min: NO! Why would you do anything at all?!

Jess: You know you want to. You’ve wanted this for months and you know it. It’s true!

Min knew it was true, but took a different angle to discourage Coco. She came up with other excuses to prove that this was a bad idea.

Min: But she thinks you’re straight. What if she’s not even into you?

Jess: There’s only one way to find out! Make a move!

Min: NO! Think about this long and hard. If you do something now, you can’t take it back. It will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Jess: But you’ve known your whole life. This is who you are.

Min: That is most definitely not true. What about all those boys you dated?

Jess: That was a lie. This one is real. You LOVE her.

Min: ...

Jess: Admit it. You’re in love with her and it’s not wrong to love someone.

Coco finally fully acknowledged both voices in her head. It was overwhelming and incredibly confusing. She admitted that she did indeed love Shane, but did nothing at all because she was too afraid. Making a move, in addition to this newfound self-realization, was too much to consider all at once.

Both Min and Jess were quiet, and it was now up to Coco to synthesize this 20 year-old mental exchange. Coco herself dared not tell anyone until she could figure it out. Jess and Min reached a stalemate.

Dreaming: 20 years old

While her friendship with Shane was developing, Coco was also taking a class on 19th Century French Art History. For the course, she read Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project, a complex work that dealt with the dialectical nature of modernity, commodity fetishism and most importantly, the development of consciousness. Coco spent an excessive amount of time neurotically obsessing over this reading because she too was finally coming to terms with her own consciousness.

“Representation is dreaming,” Benjamin wrote. “Dialectical thinking is the organ of historical awakening. Every epoch, in fact, not only dreams the one to follow, but in dreaming, precipitates its awakening.”

For 20 years, Coco was was putting up a representation of a straight person, pretending to be something she was not. Acknowledging the opposing voices was the first step in her dialectical thinking. She realized she was dreaming and something must be done.

Awakening: 20 years old

Coco woke up. She admitted to herself that she was a lesbian, and has been her whole life. She told all her friends, and subsequently her family. Some friends were shocked, and Coco’s mother wept. But in the end, Coco experienced only love and acceptance from her family. They ultimately knew that Coco was just being herself.

The voices stopped bickering.

Coco won.

Coco Higgins is an aspiring art historian, post-hipster, obnoxious Twitterer, proud owner of delusions of grandeur, has a knack for remembering useless trivia of all kinds, all in all an extraordinary machine.