As they start to creep up on the other troop, they soon realize that the white girls’ group is mentally handicapped. Arnetta says that they should fight the white girls. The person making this accusation is named Arnetta. During this story, apparently one of the people in the white girls camp called Dina’s group the N word. The African American girls are too grown up for those types of things and label the other girls as babies. The white girls also show up with stuffed toys. The white girls are described as “babyish”. In this camp, there is a group of African American girls, and a group of white girls. This story is about a group of girls at a Girl Scout camp. One of the stories in the book is called Brownies. I think this just made Dina feel more like an outcast. The dean was probably trying to help Dina, but this situation certainly didn’t help Dina at all. This is Dina’s way of showing that she doesn’t want to deal with the dean’s “punishments”. Dina starts showing up naked to make the counselor feel uncomfortable. Dina initially deals with the counselor, but that doesn’t last long. Packers first collection of short stories is rich with unexpected turns, indelible images, and penetrating insight that belies someone so young. One example of this is when the Dean starts sending a counselor to Dina’s dorm room. Dina doesn’t like or respect the authorities. During the book, Dina also has to deal with being African American in a predominantly white school. This is because the whole book focuses on Dina and her process she goes through to find her true identity. The main themes of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere are issues that relate to identity, race and authority. That’s all I’m going to say because I don’t want to spoil the main events in the book. Later, Dina is starting to question if she is attracted to Heidi or not. This job makes Dina and Heidi grow closer and closer every shift they have together. The job is standard, but sometimes Dina has conflicts with people who she talks to at the dining hall. Dina and Heidi both sign up for jobs at the dining hall as dishwashers. Dina doesn’t think too much about Heidi’s jokes, but later starts to question her sexuality. Heidi lesbian, and sometimes jokingly says that Dina is lesbian too. Over the next few days, Heidi and Dina become relatively close friends. An edition of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: Stories (2003) Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Stories 1st Riverhead trade pbk. When Dina asks why Heidi was crying, Heidi says it was because boys were calling her derogatory words. Dina realizes that this girl has the same poetry class as her. Dina opens the door and is greeted by a white girl, who is crying. Later in the book, Dina hears someone knocking on her door. Because of this incident, Dina is forced to go to psychiatric counseling and meet with the dean every week. Dina responds the way that she did because she hates most of the students at Yale because at one point, they were all slave owners. The dean overhears this, and doesn’t appreciate her response when she is playing the game. ![]() Not amused by the games, Dina says that she would be a gun, so she could eliminate everyone off the face of the earth. I really hope Tia made it home.During the next game, students are supposed to describe an object they would want to be. Packer just brings it to the forefront of your mind. The unfortunate truth is that these stories happen more often than any of us would like to believe. It seems that Packer confronts many scenarios and though it should be expected or not surprising when you come by such events, but somehow it still manages to shock the reader. Yes, my mouth actually dropped while reading this passage. As I imagined this young woman in my head being taken advantage of by a thirty-two year old man I felt sympathy, anger, frustration, and most of all shock. In the scene when Dezi begins kissing and undressing her I experienced a mixture of feelings. Her strength and brevity seemed admirable until you realized that it wasn’t really strength, but foolishness and naiveté that landed her at Dezi’s apartment. In the story “Speaking in Tongues” we meet Tia, a young church-going and naïve teen from the South running away to Atlanta to find her real mother. ![]() ![]() But, if there is one thing that has become obvious about Packer it is that she is not concerned about making her reader feel comfortable with the subject at hand. The rough and tough subject matter that is being faced in the second story couldn’t have been easy to write about in a way that would be easy to read. ZZ Packer’s “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” and “Speaking in Tongues” were edgy yet sentimental. I really enjoyed the two stories in this week’s reading.
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