regarding the past of the character Miss Rosie from lucille clifton's poem of the same name.
a student of mine had the following to offer the class as an explanation for Miss Rosie's fall from beauty queen in georgia to "wet brown bag of a woman":
see, she used to be bangin! cha-dig-it? then she got dropped by her man. no shit, nigga kicked her sideways. she started eating the haagen dazs, got all fat, started trippin' over her own titties. now that bitch is crazy homeless!my favorite moments here are as follows:
1.) "cha-dig-it" - i can only assume that this is supposed to represent: "ya dig it?" i'm only aware of the exact spelling because the student in question has used it repeatedly in his homework and journal entries.
2.) "nigga kicked her sideways" - self explanatory.
3.) "haagen dazs" - there are few things better than a kid wearing earrings and a necklace with the face of jesus on them name dropping mass-consumer ice cream brands in the same sentence as the word "titties."
4.) "trippin over her own titties" - i asked what he meant by this and he cleared it up, explaining that he means she got fat and crazy. that is to say that she was both trippin (in the metaphorical sense) and (literally) doing so over her own pendulous breasts.
5.) "crazy homeless" - similar to number four in that "crazy" indicates that she is both nuts and it serves as a substitute for "very."
i am daily astounded by their accidental acuity with language.
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