hot pockets

we got the u.s. census in the mail today. anna wanted to fill it out and mail it back right away. cool. then she asked me, what do i consider myself.

?

am i hispanic, non-hispanic, white, what?

usually i answer that i am a typical californian. but the census doesn't have a tick box for that.

my own heritage is a rather mixed bag. i know for certain i am half norwegian. my grandmother comes from bergen. she fled norway soon as wwii was over and my mother was the first of her children born in the u.s. my mother's first language was norwegian. on my father's side i think i'd need a dna test to get a clearer answer. i know there is english, perhaps spanish, probably mexican. but no one knows for sure.

doesn't matter in my opinion. i made geof huth laugh once when we were talking about heritage. he cares very much for his surname and his own unique lineage. as for me i told him i don't really care. i am, i like to think, the person i try to make myself to be. my own name, lopez, is as common as dirt and perhaps that's as it should be. i think of myself as being fairly representative of a 21st c california, hispanic surname with a lot mixed in.

still, it's fun to create my own lineage. sometimes i am the kind that likes to eat hot pockets and watch professional wrestling. i've long thought poetry and comedy have much in common, timing, word choice, performance, the world viewed at a slant. take for example comedian jim gaffigan's essay on the subject of hot pockets. observe: