The Writer's Bloc Party

Clinging to Ignorance is Bliss

2009-03-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

So my novel is put-putting along like a Yugo on the freeway. I've been setting and missing word count goals daily since the month of March began, yet somehow I am confident that I'm moving forward. I really want to be finished my first draft by the 31st. I expect to spend months revising and editing, commenting and receiving critique, before shopping it around for a couple of months in the summer.

In preparation for all of this, I went to Barnes and Noble and picked up a couple of writer's magazines based on nothing but their cover art and advertised stories. I've read them both now, and my head hurts! Information overload and stress create a furrow between my brows as I type furiously. I value my sanity, and they have threatened me! I've lost my ignorant bliss. How dare they? Instead of my manuscript sailing across an agent's desk, being picked up, seen for the jewel it is, and immediately sold to a publisher willing to invest not only in print and sales, but also in marketing and advertising, it is likely to rejected over and over? Mais non!

Alas, that is what I am reading here. According to what I've learned, it is a lot more likely that I will need to bust my ass and endure hardship for some time to establish myself, no matter how talented of a writer I am. But something in me refuses to accept this. You see, I have had many experiences in life in which the likely thing has never happened for me. Hard things have proved effortless, easy things have claimed my soul. Maybe getting published could fall in this category? Please God!

And so I will continue the writing, carving out an ending to my story, reading, revising, and editing in a vacuum because the alternative is too much for me.

Malaise

2009-02-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

I should be working on my novel but instead I'm doing this... filled with malaise today. I'm blaming it on my monthly.

So much has happened since the last time I've written, but I'm not in the mood for one of those long posts that chronicles everything that happens in my life. Suffice it to say that there have been a lot of changes big and small, internal and external. Points of light on the horizon so to speak.

I've begun meditating on change -- working through this current nasty job struggle change, and moving into positive change, like finishing my novel, paying my bills, dating someone nice, etc. I had been thriving on the feeling of control, of having changed on the inside, but today I am impatient and anxious.... AGAIN.

Getting a little weary of the emotional rollercoaster, and a lot weary of my "lot in life", but how to break free? I am very well aware of the fact that I am moments away from something wonderful, from breakthrough, but lacking the power now for the final push. I haven't even really helped myself by writing this, but at least I can check something off of my lengthy to do list!

T&C Photos!

2009-01-16T12:57:00.000-08:00

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Decompression

2009-01-14T08:29:00.000-08:00

I am writing this from the ship still, and I am ecstatic that when I planned this trip I gave myself time to decompress. Just as when I sailed originally, Semester at Sea has ripped me open, shoved a painful light inside, and sealed me shut again. It takes time to absorb. I am vital again.

My day @ sea was lazy, footloose, and fancy-free. I stayed uncommitted to most of the Sea Olympics activities, and settled for judging one of the contests and playing some games with fellow passengers. I can't decide which was the best game though: Crainial Battle of the Sexes in Trivial Pursuit of Scattergories (a game I made up that was an instant hit) OR the Epic Scavenger Hunt of the Seven Hundred Swords (a game I played with 4 1/2 year-old Reya after the Captain's Reception).

The sophisticated Captain's Dinner was followed by a quick change and then another hot sweaty no-holds-barred Caribbean party on the swaying deck. The Caribean Crew, the ship's in-house band, is the ish, full stop. I'd love to see them play New Orleans, or even Essence Fest!

Yesterday was a wash. I spent most of it lollygagging and napping. The night, however is another story....

Turks Today!

2009-01-11T17:29:00.000-08:00

I skipped writing about the day @ sea... so sue me. I basically spent it napping, sunning, and napping while sunning. That and marveling over my instantaneous transition from dazed and confused to (as Oprah says) "living my best life". After dinner, I spent the rest of the night trying to alternately sweat out my non-existent perm, and do a mean electric slide on a swaying deck. I was forced to go to bed by a combination of boredom and stern-faced conduct officers. Boo.

On to today. Got up early to the sight of the opulent, and more than slightly ostentacious gigantic cruiseship "The World", where bazillionaires not feeling the economic recession own condos and timeshares on a maritime vessel!!!!(Take that middle class Orlando timeshare!) I decided to put it on the list of completely unattainable wealth goals along with a black American Express and official US Mint dollar bill giftwrapping paper. E, LJ, and I went to the deck for breakfast with Turks & Caicos waiting, building anticipation by just being there in plain view!

We had an afternoon beachfront horseback riding excursion planned and paid for, but we spent the first part of the morning @ the Grand Turk Cruise Center, an impressive and pristine "little slice of America" just off the boardwalk of the ship's berth. I was more than slightly annoyed to travel so far and need my passport to visit places like Margaritaville and Ron Jon's Surf Shop, so 20 minutes later, we were on the beach again, the ship in plain view, grand conch shells littering the rocky, gravelly sand. The ocean was like a glimmering blue-green shield, and the world was my oyster.

The tour guide spent the entire ride to the beach and back giving a running commentary on the Hurricane-ravaged islands. Hurricane Ike left the island severly damaged, with rubble, wreckage, and blue tarps dotting the landscape as far as the eye could see. It was the least welcome feeling of recognition that I have ever experienced. I cannot escape the storms, no matter where I go. When will I accept?

The horseback riding was fun. The ride was easy, the horses docile, and I had more than one City Slickers flashback while riding, but the experience was all that. The beach and sea from horseback made me feel more majestic, more elevated. We even rode bareback into the sea, no saddle or stirrups, and raced the horses through near waist-deep water. I still can't believe I was surprised that floating horse apples were a part of that package! Good thing I ain't squeamish...

After the riding, it was back to Margaritaville. Um, how can I put this? We closed the place down. Half sophisticated pool bar networking, and half Spring Break re-lived. Boo, I know, but what can you do? Enjoy it! So.... that's what I did. But niggling in my brain all the time was the knowledge that I was dancing the pain away.

@ 8pm we sailed away....

And I spent the rest of the night locked in on one of those "champagne chronik nightcap" conversations (sans the weed, of course:)... We all know those convos, right? The ones that swing like a pendulum from the meaning of life to the smell of farts. It was deeply enjoyable.

And after that, good night moon.

Ocean Rock

2009-01-09T21:01:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this from the MV Explorer's stellar FREE internet station! I can't believe that I'm here. Things went so smoothly and uneventfully for me to get here. Besides being gouged out of 40$ at the ticket counter for American Airline's baggage fee, I "sailed" through everything it took to get here, forgive the pun.

I'm not going to be super boring and catalogue every little move I made to get here, but I will log some higlights. The cab driver on from the airport turned out to be a spunky Cuban guy named Danny. I knew that I was in good hands when he told me "if don't want to think, just become Republican!" We spent the drive chatting about the system, the man, an extortionist veterenarian he was taking his dog to see, and the ridiculousness of blind patriotism. Please note that these were his choice of topics. This cab ride comes in 2nd only to the midnight Jack in the Box Run in Hawaii where the Chinese driver told us the entire saga of Bruce Lee's confrontation with his master that led to his death, complete with sound effects and random spates of Chinese.

The lifeboat drill today was another high point. It's the first time I felt again the familiar community that SAS builds and fosters in people. The friends that I am with are cool, but the new people I meet are just as exciting. I'll never forget the "lifeboat shuffle" and the ex-navy safety officer charging up and down the line mean-mugging everyone with a stern "Be quiet, please!" I had to suppress every juvenile high school instinct in me not to make faces at his back.

Lastly, there was the opening presentation tonight, where the steel drum band kicked off the ceremony (and I danced and shook on stage -- I was pulled up, it was out of my hands!), Les McCabe made nice remarks, Dean Lewan (yay) made some more, and a guy (whose name I didn't catch) put on the slideshow of a lifetime! I learned so much about the history of the program. What a story.

Well, that's it for tonight. I feel like I haven't done a thing to capture all that's taken place in my heart and in my head, but there is a life to be led. More going on tonight, thinking of rising with the sun tomorrow to watch it happen over the water....

Turks Tomorrow, Turks Tomorrow, Turks Tomorrow...

2009-01-08T16:47:00.000-08:00

I've been neglecting this blog lately to take care of this one. Surely that can be forgiven?

I'm packing tonight to hot salsa, dancing around the room, and I can feel my spirits lifting... on my way tomorrow to Miami, and then cruising roundtrip to Turks & Caicos for a Semester at Sea All-Voyage Reunion! Fall2000 forever! These islands are technically in the Atlantic, but I can't wait to feel the Caribbean breeze and sip on something intoxicating. I've been so deeply oppressed by my circumstances that the very thought of this weekend is like a pressure valve steam release!!!

Things I plan to do:

1) Meet old friends/make new ones.
2) Stay up late and laugh.
3) Catch the sunrise over ocean either going or coming.
4) Tequila shots & all manner of drinking.
5) Flirt like the coquette I am... and maybe find some island action (?) I am NOT a slut, I am NOT a slut, I am NOT a slut.
6) Dance (dancehall, salsa, club) until I've sweated more than I've cried this year.
7) Take lots of pics and vids.
8) Go for a beach horseback ride
9) Not think about what's waiting for me @ home.
10) Stay if I find a new home.

Goodbye, cruel world!

Post Theme: Letting Go by Janelle Monae

Happy New Year?

2009-01-04T07:43:00.000-08:00

My, my... look at the date. It's 2009 already. We've arrived. I should have put up a post @ 12:01 am on January 1st. I didn't. I should be writing with a boundless spirit of enthusiasm. I'm not. Am I the only feeling like the year hasn't really started yet? I mean, what's really changed here?

I guess I should record this year's goals for posterity. These are NOT to be confused with "New Year's Resolutions", which by rote are categorically doomed to failure in my life. In fact, far from feeling a sense of airy hope, I am feeling the blunt pressure to complete my task, full stop. I CANNOT AFFORD TO FAIL. I CANNOT AFFORD TO FALTER. I MUST NOT and WILL NOT.

1) Push toward weight loss goal unceasingly. I am dedicated the entire year to this.
2) Run Crescent City Classic this year. That means training from now until April.
3) Get certified to teach Zumba.
4) Finish novel. Revise/edit novel. Shop novel.
5) Find job. Get out of debt (except for student loans).
6) Grow out my hair napturally. Mix homemade products. Keep up hair blog. I have a separate, more detailed list of goals there.

Whoop there it is.

Quote of Note

2008-12-28T11:53:00.000-08:00

I saw this in someone's signature on Nappturality.

"Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole."

I am a Writer

2008-12-20T09:55:00.001-08:00

Attention, everyone! I need to say this one more time, and never again. To all the well-meaning, amateur job/life coaches out there that think my (relative) unemployment is an unvoiced cry for their ideas and opinions:

NO, I AM NOT A SCHOOL TEACHER.
NO, I AM NOT GOING TO BECOME A SCHOOL TEACHER.
NO, I AM NOT GOING TO "THINK ABOUT IT".

YES, I KNOW I AM GOOD WITH KIDS. I LOVE KIDS.
YES, I KNOW THAT TEACHERS ARE NEEDED.
YES, I BELIEVE THAT TEACHING IS WORTHWHILE.

BUT...

I'VE HATED THE EXPERIENCE IN THE PAST.
I AM UNWILLING TO GO TO SCHOOL AGAIN.
I AM UNWILLING TO PAY FOR A SINGLE CLASS, CERTIFICATION, OR TEST WITH 85,000$ OF STUDENT LOANS TO PAY FOR THE TWO DEGREES I'VE ALREADY EARNED.

BY THE WAY.... I KNOW THERE'S A RECESSION. I DON'T CARE. I'M NOT CHANGING MY MIND ABOUT THIS.

LASTLY...

I AM A WRITER. ANY TEACHING I DO IS INCIDENTAL, ACCIDENTAL, OR ON A VOLUNTEER BASIS.
I AM A WRITER. THAT IS WHAT I AM. THAT IS WHAT I CHOOSE.
I AM A WRITER. PERIOD.

...AND AS AN ANONYMOUS, LONG DEAD, COLLEAGUE OF MINE ONCE WROTE:

THE END

Finish @ the starting line

2008-12-19T12:50:00.000-08:00

I went to the local World's Gym today with friend to take a class called Turbo Kick. She's 3,000 times more fit than I am, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up...

But I kicked ass at the class, so much so that the instructor asked me to come up and work out beside her, and people in the clas wanted to know where I taught!!! I am proud of myself, and even though right now I have a headache, I feel good.

I am taking this as confirmation that I am meant to do this, to encourage, nourish, and cultivate my athletic side. I pledge to renew my commitment to get certified in Zumba, complete the couch potato-to-5k running training I started this week, and run the Crescent City Classic in 2009. I've walked long enough... it's about time I started running!

PS: I am doing pathetic @ finishing my novel "on time" (I set a goal to be done Dec 31st with a word count of 2k/day, and have written precisely 2k since Dec 1st.) This hair obsession needs to be put away, and I need to dig in to finish my goals so that I can have something to say for myself at New Year's. Wouldn't it just be absolutely pathetic to have the exact same list of resolutions a whole 12 months later?? I refuse.

Open Letter to Amex: What more can I say?

2008-12-16T10:43:00.000-08:00

Dear American Express (and other Bill Collectors Worldwide),

So I just got off the phone with you, and after 25 minutes of back and forth, I have one thing to ask: What more can I say to make you understand?

You know, there is something about hitting the rock bottom of powerlessness, a place where you are under no illusions about the fact that you have not the slightest, merest shred of control, that things are completely out of your hands, that you are not capable of complying with a request, no matter how reasonable, not able to make good on a debt that you owe, period. A place where shame and fear give way to boldness and baldness, like digging straight down into the earth, through the darkeness of shame, into the hot, burning, purifying core, and emerging on the other side of the world naked and uncovered, no hiding truth. That's who I am right now. That's where I am right now.

Now, as a corporation and not an individual, I know that I will not be heard. But when you hire people to call me, over and over, trained to coax/warn/threaten me into paying, you offer me a human interface to communicate with the company. Frequently, cyclically, I am telling my story to a new voice over the phone, each one completely unfamiliar with my case but for the brief preparation summary screen that their automated call center ticket system software gives (Oh, I know all about how a call center works, having worked one myself). Over and over, I confront the powerlessness not only of myself, but of the caller. Each and every one tells me that they lack the power to negotiate with me, to work with me. How dare you send them to me so un-empowered, so ill-equipped, so desensitized to humanness? What's the point? I can't be browbeaten into paying you if there is no money, and none on the way. I can't make something from nothing, and if I could force someone to hire me, we wouldn't be talking on the phone. You force me to shame myself over and over with no result, morphing my measured explanations into begging. It's impossible to forgive, and there's no place to direct my anger but an open letter that I'm sure you're not even reading.

I'd love to work together to preserve my good name. You've no right to trash it under these circumstances! Reporting to the credit agencies, selling debt to collections, and suing me are all tantamount to harassment and torture when I am completely incapable of settling even the portion of the debt you originally asked for, let alone the exhorbitant king's ransom produced by the total amount due + fees and penalties. Why single me out among the many that are suffering in today's economic crisis? As a customer in good standing for all those years, why throw away a wonderful, once healthy relationship for circumstances out of my control? Why not negotiate? Take my small, good faith offerings, and give me a responsive interface encouraging me to continue chipping away at the debt until it is all paid. That is what I'm asking for. We both want the same thing, and only you have the power to make it happen for both of us. Help me help you help me! I know with the credit crunch and the wall street instability you're probably just passing the buck, but could you at least have passed it to someone with hands? You're beating a dead horse with me. I have basic math and several physical laws, including the law of conservation of matter, on my side. I can't make 350$/mth total earnings = 450$/mth payment to Amex. If you find a way to make it work, let me know though. Until then, don't call me, I'll call you. What more can I say?

Post Theme: The Recession (Intro) by Young Jeezy

Dying to Shout

2008-12-14T10:14:00.001-08:00

What do you do when you can't say the thing that you really want to say because "out loud" is too public a place? When even the internet blog is too public? Inside my head isn't good enough -- nobody's listening in there but me, and I know if I could just say it, there'd be somebody out there who understood. I'm looking for a commiserative conversation here. Fruitless and futile, I know, especially when I can't talk about what I'm talking about...

I hope reading this is pissing you off and confusing you. Because then, you might get annoyed. You might even get a little frustrated. ^%$#!*$#)$%@(@&$^)$^)(@^#%$@%%$(&$^*&#%%(@%%)@&? Was that a little hard to read? Seeing a little red now? Great! Welcome to my motherf*cking world friend! Thanks for understanding.

Woo sah. Goosfrabah. Relax, relate, release. Now that you know where I'm coming from, here's a random list of things pissing me off in no particular order today:
1) Living @ home
2) Having less than a little money
3) Having a menial retail job, no healthcare, and being a part of the working poor with a Stanford education
4)Commercial Christmas decorations and pop music
5)My boss's boss has no education
6)Writer's block is closing in on me with 1/2 my novel left to complete
7)My clothes are old and out of date
8) The list of things I can't afford includes things like groceries
9)I'm having motivation problems with diet and exercise
10)The expensive hair and nail vitamin (55$ a pop) I tried gave me breakouts and set my crotch on fire (not kidding)...I did get it for free if you're wondering...
11)I may be over the weight limit for the horseback riding beach adventure I signed up for next month
12) I lack the willpower to do low carb again
13) I hate my parent's church but can't do anything about it
14) My family is all going different directions for the holidays and after Christmas I will be left alone in this house while everyone else lives their life
15) Lack of employment is forcing me to consider applying for the police department. I will have to submit to extensive background checks, polygraph, multiple interviews... but at least it's a salary + benefits
16) You probably didn't even read this far and I'm probably talking to myself

Grrrrrrr!

Post Theme: Papercut by Linkin Park

New Hair Fotki!

2008-12-13T23:25:00.000-08:00

I've become obsessed with my hair and all thing naptural. After three days of hair information gathering, learning, and stalking girls with fierce natural curls, I've set up a fotki to document my long journey to the African tigress mane I was born to wear. Watch me work, hey!
You can visit here.

Resilience

2008-12-06T18:43:00.000-08:00

Been thinking a lot about this quality lately and what it really means. It's everywhere I look, hiding around every corner, breaking into my thoughts at unexpected times, even woven into the fabric of my manuscript.

Maybe, just maybe, that's what this year has been all about. As anyone that knows me knows, this year has been a train wreck for me, especially on paper. I never managed to find a job, I have less money than perhaps ever and more bills! I am 28, single, unmarried, and about as likely to do anything adult (buy a home, have good credit, date, marry, have sex, kids, etc) as your average 6th grader. Chances of that changing anytime soon? Slim to none. I've managed to finish out the year having re-gained the weight I lost, quit the job I got hired for after a month, attended 3 funerals in another month, traveled to Atlanta 4 times for my grammy, and unwillingly cut off all my hair.

But that's not how I actually feel. And that's the amazing part. Astoundingly there is happiness and joy in my life. Most importantly there is peace. God told me that I would lay aside every weight in 2008 sometime in December of 2007:

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us...
Hebrews 12:1

I thought it was a joke, a word game, and I prayed that if it wasn't He was talking about weight loss. (Yeah, no.) I was short-sighted and simplistic. (Big surprise.) In lieu of pounds, I've lain aside huge portions of:
1) pride
2) false sense of control
3) dependence on anything but God to provide for me
4) apathy about the political process and my ability to affect change in the world
5) blocks and obstacles to my creativity and motivation for writing
6) materialism, consumer culture, and the technical imperative

Those are some pretty big weights! I still have more things to set down before I can run completely unfettered, but I am happy with this, because with each stone I set down, I get lighter and lighter, and can run faster and faster, fly higher and higher. This direction takes me so much closer to God.

The end of the year finds me still @ a crossroads in life-- that's the running with patience part-- and I am possessed of resilience, joy, peace, and a more unshakeable faith than 12 months ago. It occurs to me that these priceless lessons are taught by the experience of living. There is no class, no preparation for these tests. The test just goes on and on until you pass it. That's about as exciting as a lifelong pop bar exam, but it worketh resilience in me. Maybe this really has been the best year ever. And to God I say: "thank you.

Hair Coup!

2008-11-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a milestone in my personal hair history. A terrible milestone. A hair coup d'etat. Here is what I posted to the nanowrimo message board:

SUBJECT: I CUT ALL MY HAIR OFF!

Did you see the subject? Yeah. It's true! *headdesk*

As of last Friday, I was rolling right along, nanoing like a champ. Then my great aunt died. And there was the funeral, and the house guests, and a big family Thanksgiving, and everyone making demands on my time, and getting scheduled to work every night until midnight at Blockbuster.

So... I determined that I would be able to work on it this weekend since everyone's gone home today and I have the weekend off. I had planned to get 10K today. I had not planned to CUT ALL MY HAIR OFF!

This is what happened: I spent the morning seeing everyone off. Then I need to take a moment to take care of my hair. Without getting into all the intricacies, I removed a braid style and washed it. Imagine my surprise WHEN MY HAIR FORMED A MASSIVE DREADLOCK! Yes, just one. (Yes, I'm black.)

After I spent two hours calling my hair stylist, drenching my hair in oil, conditioner, and other disgusting and greasy substances, I came to the conclusion that my hair was done for. I panicked at missing the whole day for my nano. I had a big cry. THEN I CUT IT ALL OFF! I went from shoulder length hair to 3 inches of hair in a teeny weeny afro. There are no words... only tears. *cries*

These are the things that I look like:
1) A swan hatchling
2) A refugee
3) A wood-chipper hair accident victim
4) A base-head
5) Don-isha King (Don King's daughter with shorter hair)
6) A puppy
7) GI Jane
8) A dude

Note: none of these things are flattering because I look a hot ass mess. For real. There are no words. *plays taps for dead hair lying in clumps on bathroom floor*

Lastly, as you can see, my nano is late and behind. I am going to give it my all to get across the finish line, but I feel like my plot is stalled. I know what is supposed to happen, but have no idea how to execute. Maybe I should cut all my main character's hair off? Help!

____________________________________________________________________

Okay, I could talk about this all night and day, but that would be soooo obviously procrastinating from my nano, and I have 15K words to write before midnight tomorrow, not to mention 2/3s of my plot to write. I did want to say thanks a bunch to my Sisterhood that stepped in to cry, pray and cut along, and that have helped me recover to see this as a good thing, the threshold to another long period of wonderful natural hair. Portia, Sara, Brittany, Mommy -- don't know what I'd do without you! Your spirit will travel with me when I get to a hairdresser to get it cut all even!

See below: a moment of zen!

Blog Neglect...

2008-11-14T23:16:00.000-08:00

If it were a crime, I'd be tried, convicted and under the jail by now. My only excuse: it's for a worthy cause.

First, I'd dedicated it all for the Obama/Biden '08 campaign, and you see how worthy that was -- yes we can! I refuse to apologize.

Second, I'm competing in Nanowrimo this year -- just the immense production (complete with 120K+ participants, websites, forums, prizes, jokes, and cheering support) that I need to get me launched into the massive noveling and screenplay career that I've been dreaming of for a few years now. I mean, what was holding me back? Shit all, to be honest. I was stagnating in ridiculous dead-end, soul-sucking, and under-earning jobs. I have been ever since I started working, with few notable exceptions. The only solution for me? Never working for a boss again, breaking the yoke of stale routines, becoming an independent and self-supported businessperson, selling my word art and living by the pen (which is mightier than the sword, though I probably don't need to remind anyone of this).

My role model: Barack Obama. I've come to realize that the man is many things, one of them a fantastic writer. Most of his income up to this point has come from book sales. He even has a Grammy from one of his books on tape! This revelation has galvanized me. I shouldn't be surprised. The man is a consummate overachiever, an ivy-league egghead and his own worst critic, certain that with enough hard work he can save the world, or as much of the world that will cooperate. In way too many ways, the Obamas are like looking into an enchanted mirror for me. They're self-actualized (and thin!) in a way that I hope and pray to be when I get to that age.

But enough hero worship from a woman old enough to know better. This was about guilt and confessions, and so we come full circle. I've been guilty of blog neglect. But maybe this is the end of the trend (no bailout necessary)?

Before I go, an update on the noveling: I'm about 23K wds in, slightly behind goal, but confident I'll murder the 50K finish line by the end of next week at the current rate I'm writing (about 3500 wds/day). I've been hanging out @ Bankhouse Coffee in downtown Long Beach. I've been taking a page out of Oprah's magazine and doing my best to live my best life, riding my mom's old beach comber bike the 3 miles or so and back everyday. Camping out in the corner, enjoying the perfect weather, the breeze, the sunshine, and the custom playlists on my ipod. I'm poor as a church mouse, but feeling more in control of my life and fulfilled than I've felt in years and years. There's really nowhere else to go but up and nothing to lean on other than God who goes before me as a banner of victory. My faith these days really is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of which is (currently) unseen. My heart is also filled with joy which is His gift of strength to me while I navigate this labyrinth.

Lastly, a prayer for the soul and memory of my friend, the late Nju Njoroge, a classmate of mine from Stanford. His memory is real, and so is the grief, and his presence will surely be missed. He was such a beautiful soul, a vital presence, that for many the sun is obscured today and in the foreseeable future. May God send a massive outpouring of peace, ministering comfort, and love to every single person that needs it, and bless us all to lean on each other, and keep each other lifted and moving forward while the sadness is debilitating, and until we can be reunited on the other side. Amen.

PS: Post Theme: Home by Bilal

Dr. Wicked is Saving My Nano!

2008-11-11T10:36:00.000-08:00

	1461

63

lab.drwicked.com

Hail To The Chief: Obama Party Playlist

2008-11-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

Feeling the Hand of God

2008-10-31T13:30:00.001-07:00

My grammy is amazing.

"Our mother is so happy for having voted. She is proud to know that her vote went in and when the tallys are counted that hers is there. I talked with her today and she talked almost 30 minutes about how happy she was and she just thanked everybody that had any part in making it happen. Thank you for being serious enough to follow through. It is the only way that the elderly can vote and maintain some dignity about their life at that age. Mom is a blessed women at 88 to have seen all the major events of the 20th Century and then to vote for someone of color. She feels as though she has felt the Hand of God!"

When I saw this email that my mother sent to the family to thank them about being so vigilant in fighting to keep my grandmother's name from being purged after being displaced by Katrina, and getting her ballot shipped so that she could vote absentee, I cried. I've read the moving human interest pieces about elderly black people across America getting to the polls for this election, but this brings the story home for me.

My grandmother was born in New Orleans in 1920. She was so poor that she spent time in an orphanage even though her parents were alive, so poor that she wore two left shoes-- mens size 10, orange-- that her family bought at a rummage sale to school. Her story is the story of many, the story of a frontliner to the life I of privilege that I lead today. She didn't finish high school, but she's finishing first in life. After raising 12 kids, some of whom (like my mom) were PRE Brown vs. the Board of the Education grade school de-segregators, and some of whom (my mom's 4 older siblings) fled the Jim Crow South never to return.

What a life! I can't imagine it, and that was precisely her goal. That a granddaughter such as I would have a different life, one protected from such experiences, where such abject poverty and oppression would exist only in my imagination. As I place myself in her shoes -- her two left shoes -- I am moved by the long race she's run with such a handicap. I am moved to feel the full gale force of this revolution in a way that I never could without her example. After such a life as she has lived, the things that she has seen, the things that she has felt, this bone fide wise woman has cast her vote, and feels the very hand of God on it. Who am I to argue with that? Go grammy! I bless God for the gift of you.

Hurricane Katrina Videogames for Kids?!?!? WTF?!

2008-10-17T16:05:00.000-07:00

"Tempest in Crescent City is the second game developed by Global Kids, a not-for-profit that provides after school programs to involve inner city youth in new media. You play a teen in New Orleans during Katrina ut sequelae, trying to find and save your Mom.In each level, the water level rises; in the first, the levees haven't broken yet, in the second you can wade through the water, and by the third you have to swim. Obstacles you must avoid lose you health, and you have a limited number of lives. However, you can gain "hero points" by interacting with characters you encounter -- e.g., by the second level, you have a hammer you can use to break open the roofs of houses where people are trapped. Enough hero points earn you extra lives."

This is so fucked up! At this rate, there'll be an amusement park ride in no time. I don't know what to say, but Richard @ Metroblogging New Orleans says it best.

To quote Rachel Maddow, I'm looking for someone to talk me down on this one. But I'm not you can or should.

Post Theme: Killjoy, by N.E.R.D.

Billo the Clown Raps!

2008-09-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

Ya'll know how much I effing hate Fox News, and of course it's stupid ugly face, Bill O'Reilly (Bill oh really?, billo the clown, bill o'LIEly, etc.), hence I found this vlog by my new hero Jay Smooth @ illdoctrine.com to be beyond clever. Watch and learn, people.

Never the Two Shall Meet

2008-09-09T00:05:00.001-07:00

After Countdown and The Rachel Maddow Show, I have something to say about the separation of church and state: thank God for it! Both Keith and Rachel covered Palin's church, complete with clips of her taking pulpit time to solicit prayers and support for all of her politics, virtually equating her will with God's. There's nothing more mortifying to me than when the world can rightfully convict the Christian community for bad behavior (In many cases it is more people leveraging Christianity's "brand" than actual bible-led disciples.)!

It's so hard to watch secular critique and criticism of my faith. The fact that their ham-fisted swipes strike home many times is a testament to the imperfection of Christians, no matter how well-intentioned. They are a harsh mirror, exposing our human frailties, even as we worship our deity, God made flesh. Somebody turned in church service videos, and bam! Here's Palin soliciting prayer for all her governmental decisions to succeed, uncontested, without input from anyone else, because it's God's will! What a presumptuous... I have no words! This is a familiar feeling... I am reminded of Reverend Wright, another man whose political pulpit set my teeth on edge. Prayer 101: You're not supposed to pray for things to go your way. Hence, Jesus's not my will but thine prayer.

Why aren't we studying and teaching the bible and the practical application of its guiding lessons? How do we have time to postulate on God's plan for global politics? How dare they pretend that He needs our help to get the job done, or beseech His throne for a rubber stamp to our plans? This idiot seems to think that God has to be on America's side because she lives here! Doesn't she and her congregation realize that there are Christians in every nation on earth, people of different races, nationalities, denominations? Thank God for grace to cover this multitude of sins!

As for the "pray the gay away" deal, I am embarassed at this as well. A feel good party for people to justify their homophobia. Sheesh.

For every crazy policy position Palin holds, for every single action, self-serving prayer request, and her herd of political lemmings church congregation, there is a biblical rebuttal using actual scriptural references, in many cases more than one. Ironically, Palin the super saint doesn't seem to have a fondness for scripture (not surprised, people like this never do, and only are angered by scriptural rebuttal).

Rachel had the best point of the night: does Palin believe in a separation between church and state? It's not immediately clear, but she'd better: that's something about the US that's not going to change. Laws are something we decide for ourselves, for the good of all. The bible governs our behavior. Besides, I'm grateful that God transcends politics. He only ever led one nation: the tribes of Israel in the Old testament, and that was essentially a big family. Then they demanded a king, a secular leader. And that was that. Now God has a kingdom, and it includes all of His people. And there's your world unity!

In the end, though, this is all more white noise drowning out the real concern: the issues. What are we to do about this country? Palin's the white noise, let's turn her off!

Post Theme: Ammunition by Switchfoot

Talisman

2008-09-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

Apparently I'm not the only person slogging through angry mob of voices in my head. As a talisman against quitting the struggle and letting them win, this works.

Crazy: Failure to Launch

2008-09-07T20:42:00.000-07:00

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It's true. I can testify to the fact that the road to my personal hell(destination: Cr@zy!)is paved with my mother's good intentions and her efforts to realize them, each and every single little one, in its entirety, without delay. I am daily splayed upon The Grill -- her critical words, probing questions, fussy rants, and laser-beam stares. I roll around like a gas station frankfurter, trapped, writhing in agony and basting in the juice of knowing that she's never 100% wrong (most times far from it in fact) and therefore cannot be 100% ignored. Tepid small-talk conversation is a a dangerous spelunking adventure -- morphing instantaneously, starting out as an exploratory walk and fracturing into a black shrieking cacophony, like startling a cloud of sleeping bats. I emerge a wreck, barely alive, trembling, tussled, scratched....and smelling of guano. Hence my fear of cavernous conversations.

I live with my mother. There is no nearing escape date. Today, after ironically crowing to some woman after church about great it is to live here (based on how much worse it could be), this is Alcatraz, and I am inmate MXB001, a stranger to freedom.

Everyday, using a secret playbook of henpecking strategies, she is trying to whittle me into an image I cannot see inside myself, maybe her image. I sincerely hope not. Doesn't she realize that I'll inevitably become just like her, and sooner rather than later as I am well past adolescent angst and whinging? It's the law of the universe. I'm not even trying to fight it in the cosmic sense -- that's a losing battle with destiny. But all things should come in their due time, right? It's not my time. Just now it all feels like a reverse prism, like some cold faceted crystal smashing my spectrum into a sterile, bland beam of white.

Frankly, I used to be better at dodging these outrageous daily slings and arrows, but I'm getting tired and suffering them instead. With little endurance left, I am being eroded... slowly unmanned. What is the feminine counterpart for emasculation? I'd like to give this terrible phenomenon a name. It already has a face.

Post Theme: Crazy by Gnarls Barkley

Happy Birthday to Me

2008-09-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

I'm really only writing this because I should be writing something... I mean it's my birthday and I should have some statement to make. But curiously, I don't.

This is mainly because of the glaring, gaping chasm between what I am feeling versus what I should be feeling or want to be feeling. The day of one's birth is a day of reflection, like New Year's. I don't like what I'm seeing in this annual mirror; I'd rather it be a day of fun instead. Self-reflection these days is nothing more than a curse of voices in my head. Someone cure me!

Instead of Maya Angelou, I am Edgar Allen Poe, dreary, dark, and sad. It's not how I want to be! It's just what is.

I find myself wondering if anything can pull me out of this funk; right now, if someone showed up to my door with a lottery check with my name on the payee line, would it make a difference? Not immediately (but I could buy some smiles within the hour I bet). This emotional problem has become deeper than circumstance. This is a bottomless pool of melancholy and nameless regrets. Not happy with where I am, not knowing who I am anymore. Fighting to hold on to the me that I want to be, trying not to despise the me that I am forced to be right now. Warring to implement biblical lessons of contentment and joy in reprehensible circumstances. Exorcising worry and fear every minute, bailing out buckets of dark emotion while trying to row against the current. Sinking fast.

It's because I feel completely ineffectual and powerless to effect change in my own life. Out of control, moving nowhere, achieving nothing. What have I done in the past year? Nothing worth writing about! Nothing worth remembering.

Strangely, I feel better now. At least I can pour my secret sadness somewhere.

Happy Birthday to me.

Post Theme: Private Party by India.arie

Live from the Crab Bucket!

2008-09-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

RANT ON: I HATE THIS ABOUT THE BLACK COMMUNITY!

Who the FUCK cares about Obama mentioning Martin Luther King in his nomination acceptance speech?! How is he "running from history"? He's running toward history! And calling Hillary's concession speech incandescent?! Her speech was lame, but clearly all Malveaux heard was Harriet Tubman; she clearly spent her entire time watching the democratic convention holding a score card for mentions of accepted black heroes. How long will they expect Obama to be "the Black people's president"? These people are delusional -- if he was going to mention Dr. king, white supremacy, and Jim Crow in every speech, he wouldn't be accepting the Democratic nomination, he'd be accepting funding for his next research paper as a Af-Am studies professor. Or worse: dimes in his cup as just another scraggly, ignored zealot on the street corner !

And where is this damn "baton" that King passed to Jesse Jackson and then to Obama? How is Jackson in the middle, with his Hymie-town and nut-cracker gaffes? He's not even close to Obama as a black leader in my opinion; Jackson is rhetoric, Obama is LEGISLATION. They need to stop trying to make Obama into a mythical black messiah figure, expecting him to feed black multitudes with a free catfish dinner w/ hush puppies complete with water to wine!

These people don't get what it means to be a biracial person either. (Might I also point out that although Barack is, his father was NOT african-american. His father was African .) You can't erase the fact that he is both black and white, and furthermore that his white relatives raised him and were there for him more than his absent father. And why does the fact that people weren't crying on camera mean to them that people weren't moved? The final night of the convention was electric. West and Malveaux are like those two old-ass white geezer muppets sitting in the balcony on the Muppet Show: same crotchety dialogue, same sticks up their asses...except they aren't funny.

I'm glad there are only 2 comments -- I hope this show is unilaterally ignored; it deserves no ratings. As for Tavis, he has had it out for Obama since Obama missed his little forum at the beginning of the primary. He needs to sit back, keep his mouth shut, and let Obama really give his something to smile about when he wins. We certainly can't afford to take this crap seriously!

However, this certainly does give me something to wonder about for when he takes office. What will this self-appointed cabal of black inquisitioners expect from an ideal Obama presidency? An MLK shout-out in the state of the union address? "Lift Every Voice and Sing" instead of "Hail the Chief"? Slave reparations instead of the promised tax cuts for 95% of us? Preposterous!

Post Theme: U Black Maybe by Common

Notes from the Underground

2008-08-31T20:11:00.000-07:00

I'm only posting in this blog right now because I feel like I should, but I have no idea what to write or how to log my thoughts down. It's because I have no idea what my thoughts are. I can't even wrap my mind around what's happening. What is happening?!

Tomorrow by noon, Gustave is supposed to hit. Katrinaville is in the critical path, on the strongest side of the storm. I live with my parents in Long Beach, MS since April. Most of my clothes and things are scattered between my aunt's house in New Orleans, my parent's house, and my storage unit around the corner from there. I am poised to lose my things again, just like last time. I don't have a job or car to lose this time, however.

My feelings of failure and inadequacy, that sense of life having come to standstill since Katrina and being stuck in the mire and unable to rebuild, are personified in this eerie repetition of events. What am I do? How am I to make decisions on where to go, what to do? No one can help me; I am a face among many, with no unique thoughts of my own. Oh, my people!

Bottom line: am I stupid for my decision to move back after Katrina? Will my blocks get knocked down like a Jenga tower? As apt as the example is, my life is not a game! As my sister says, this is a new nightmare that starts the same as an old one; as much as you want to believe that things can end differently, you can't avoid the flashbacks and echoes of old pain.

So here I sit, my face a frozen mask. Waiting, waiting.

Post Theme: Tsunami by Res

Palin for VP.... WTF?!

2008-08-30T08:23:00.000-07:00

I tried to resist posting a note about this because IT'S TOO DAMN EASY. John McCain picking Sarah Palin as a running mate is the equivalent of abandoning a baby wrapped in bacon and drizzled in honey in a forest filled with wolf-bears. Horrifying, pitiless, and wrong.
WTF, man.

I've spent all day blogging, googling, gossiping, and best of all... giggling. When I found out about McCain's VP pick, it was a giant "WTF?!" moment in my life. After the slack-jawed silence the last night of the DNC pressed on me, I did not expect to be reduced to silence again by this election. Two periods of silence sound alike; however, there was a world of difference in the quiet. Before, I was too full, too impressed. Now I am stupefied! And for good reason...

1) Who is this lady? He's picked a complete nobody. He might as well have picked me! After all, I was almost senior class president (lost by 8 votes), publicity chair of Stanford Gospel Choir, a graduate chapter SGA representative at Tulane, and interned in the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness. I, however, would have declined, as should she, if she were responsible. Making a gimmick dark horse pick worked in Head of State with Chris Rock, but the movie took place in Hollywood, aka Fantasyland. Need proof? Bernie Mac was his VP and Nate Dogg was his official hype man!

2) This is a gimmick hoping to pick off women voters who may be undecided or have supported HRC. Speaking as a woman voter, there is no undecided or disappointed woman out there worth her salt that isn't completely insulted. Hillary was qualified! This pick shows that McCain thinks anyone with a vagina will appease our quest for true equality. For another thing, feminist voters are overwhelmingly pro-choice. Palin is not. How does this make sense?

3) Palin has no experience pertaining to any of our country's fore-runner issues: the economy, foreign policy, etc. For that matter, she has no experience in any of the lesser issues either. Besides passing sweeping state-level ethics reform legislation, she's never passed a law in her life. She did, however, try to move the state capitol of Alaska from Juneau to Anchorage. What a legacy! Her acceptance speech sounded like me trying to get hired as CFO of Microsoft! It was laughable, with her referring to her time as a MAYOR of a Alaskan town with 9,000 people and calling herself "commander-in-chief of Alaska's National Guard". That deserves nothing less than a "bitch please!".

4) She's under investigation. And make no mistake, she did it. She did exactly what they are accusing her of: abusing her power to get her sister's ex fired so that she could swing their messy custody battle towards her sister. Miss ethics will probably get away with it, however, because she is a good baby Republican and got some minions to do all the calling and dirty work. She suspended some people and.... bye bye scapegoats. They won't be able to pin it on her.

5) McCain is 7,000 years old and has battled cancer four times. He, like all humans, will eventually shuffle off his mortal coil. It could happen in the next four years. How will Palin lead this country? How can she, who has never performed any governmental work in DC, be ready to lead as Commander-in-Chief? It's simple; she can't. I'd sooner expect Bin Laden to show up on cable as a Christian televangelist. I'd sooner expect America to be annexed by China. I'd sooner expect a 10th season of Flavor of Love!

How out of touch can one party be? And let me be clear: it is not just McCain that has done this. He has an entire VP selection committee to prevent any "senior moments" that may lead to something like this being decided by him independently. In doing this, they have single-handedly dismantled all of their arguments for why Obama is a bad choice and why Mccain is best, namely experience and being ready to lead. They can never go there again. Gramps and the GOP may have just gift-wrapped the election for Obama. Thanks guys!

Post Theme: We Are the Champions by Queen

DNC Historic Montage

2008-08-29T20:14:00.002-07:00

I just had to preserve this for safekeeping. I guess it's the scrapbooker in me!

DNC Historic Montage

2008-08-29T20:14:00.001-07:00

I just had to preserve this for safekeeping. I guess it's the scrapbooker in me!

Notes from Katrinaville

2008-08-29T13:10:00.001-07:00

As Gustave stares us down, memories from Katrinaville are inevitable. Today is the third year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and here in the Coastal South, you can cut the tension with a knife. The real question is less what's going to happen than is it going to happen again, and so soon. Can we handle being wiped out again, or will we become an American Pompeii after these storms are through?

What a way of life! We sit at the end of nature's natural lane in the sea; we wait like striped pins for God's bowling balls. Every generation of people who has built a life here has had one storm story, but global warming has given us the dark gift of two or three this generation. Older people from New Orleans will tell you about Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Gulf Coast residents will tell you about Hurricane Camille in 1969, but now those same people have more than one catastrophic storm in their lifetime. How are we to adjust?

As New Orleanians our families are already scattered, our recovery in its infancy. There is no end to the depth of emotional and psychosocial damage we've sustained. We are a resilient and strong people, but there is arduous and unexplored territory ahead. It's like hacking your way through a new jungle with an old machete.

Yesterday the displaced portion of my family was interviewed by a local news station in Atlanta. They spoke on memories of Katrina and the oncoming storm, and possible onslaught of evacuee relatives, of which I am one. I couldn't speak as I was seized with emotion. How strange to see relatives you know and love once in awhile, or on television, living in another place, when just three short years ago, they were seen so often we took it for granted, daily even, living around the corner. That is Katrina's greatest, most merciless theft, and Katrinaville's most haunting legacy: ghosts of memories.

Post Theme: Black Rain by Ben Harper

Open Letter to Fox News: Enough is Enough

2008-08-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Fox News,
On behalf of myself and all the other thinking people in the world that are aware of what you are doing, enough is enough. Your super-biased "news coverage" is an affront to the size of our cerebral cortices. The sting of your condescension and the magnitude of your insults cannot be exaggerated. It is a simple fact, and by constant repetition is made into law: Fox news is not news at all and cannot be counted on to provide a factual account or objective commentary on anything.

Time and time again, you have failed in your solemn charge as a member of the fourth estate. Instead of policing our leaders, you are bought and paid for -- the drooling, mindless minions of rich men with despicable agendas. For the unaware, Fox may just seem a bit cheeky and make a lot of "errors" for which it inevitably fails to apologize, but I am not one of the unaware. Like many, I have had enough of Fox and I'm making it my personal mission to challenge every single one of your patrons and viewers to wake and up and demand better.

How much lower can you sink? I'm not going to tally every single one of your outrageous lies, slipshod reports, or racist statements, but I will talk about the one that pushed me over the edge. For the duration of this election, Fox news has insisted on painting Barack Obama as Osama bin Laden, a despicable, racist mud-slinging tactic. But wait! Crawling around in the muck and mire is not enough, and so you get on your belly and slither. Obama/Biden = Osama bin Laden?! What are you implying? That Osama has a way of possessing certain senators' parents and forcing their hands in the signing of their birth certificates, the choosing of names? That with this time-traveling evil plan he has fixed decades of elections and votes, and will now infiltrate our country and somehow perpetrate his jihad without our notice? In what universe is this supposed to be possible? These wild, astrological conjectures and conspiracy theories are pathetic, and unworthy of any American. Even implanting these ideas, like a faux-Shakespearian Iago, is a crime.

Which brings me to my conclusion. I am fighting you, Fox news, with everything that I have. I am challenging every person I know to do the same. Far from being a mere complaint, this has become another theater for the great battle of right vs. wrong, good vs. evil. What I'm trying to say, what I've said over and over again, is: Enough is Enough!

Post Theme: Sly Fox by Nas

Talkin Bout a revolution: Proud to be an American

2008-08-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

As I was watching the Democratic National Convention tonight, I had a totally sobering and honest thought. A thread of conscious consciousness separated itself from the 90+% of me that was paying attention to Gov. Mark Werner, and I realized: I have been far more inclined to be embarrassed to be an American than proud. How debilitating but true! I would never have made the discovery, as I had not ever made a habit of examining my state of allegiance to America. Frankly, I was too busy wrestling with the mandatory bi-cultural identity I needed to develop to survive. I don't mean to make my life out to be some lost episode of Survivor, because I had it really good -- I didn't struggle with being black or being female as a rule until I got exposed to the way other people think, and that didn't happen for me until high school. I was protected; I had quite the blissful childhood. Nevertheless, I never thought of myself as an American first per se. Sounds weird, but I am sure some of my sisters and brothers out there can concur.

My revelation took place not because I suddenly noticed my embarrassment, but because I suddenly felt its complete and utter lack. That is to say, I was suddenly fiercely and unapologetically proud to be an American. Not from a song, a poem, a speech or a flag either. (In fact, corny displays like those often provoke the embarassment.) Not from learning the white man's history lessons, or the African-American version in college.
It was the sight of so many different people, gathered together under one roof and one cause, engaged in the political process, for the purpose of changing this country. It was hearing my own thoughts and feelings echoed by so many people with different accents and ways of living that made me feel like the patch in the American quilt that I truly am. I understood that it was this and only this that had the power to lock me in willingly. I am unable to feel patriotism looking at images of war and destruction, and feel more proud as a black person than an American when I see or hear Obama speak, so I'm sure you can understand the fact that it took this long to make me feel good about it. When I traveled around the world (literally) I could not escape my nationality, but it was less a proud denomination than an albatross. I had seen our global image, heard horrible tales of previous interactions with Americans from during my travels, and saw war-torn countries unable to recoup or rehabilitate after coming into contact with our "war for peace". At those times I would have traded in my American passport for a Canadian one in a heartbeat.

I realize that I am supposed to feel guilt or shame for my admission, but I can't help but feel that it is what it is; I am a generation late to the culturally confused, label-crazy baby boomers, and there is no draft-dodging, protesting, and flag-burning in my past. And so there is no sense of shame, no pointing fingers, no embarassing pictures. It's simply a cloud of identity confusion out of which I've walked today, whole and proud, American and strong. There are people all across this nation who look and think like me, who've been shaped by the same set of circumstances, of values, of faith. They are not all black people, not all women, but they are all Americans. It is to this nation that I proudly belong. That's right: I am claiming this problem-ridden, bloody historied, effed-up foreign policied, racist, classist, age-ist, discriminatory, materialistic, mindless, God-less nation as my own! (My country is a fixer-upper!) And so, today...

I pledge allegiance
to the flag
of the United States of America

and to the Republic
for which it stands
one nation
under God
indivisible
with liberty and justice for all.

Obama/Biden 2008

Post Theme: Talkin Bout a Revolution by Tracy Chapman

They Got Me Pegged

2008-08-24T22:23:00.001-07:00

The Wind Says Soon

2008-08-24T12:35:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Fay is just kissing Long Beach, Mississippi today, and I am here. The breeze is blowing every which way, and the rain is so light that the drops swirl into mists like Starry Night. There is no sun, but no angry clouds either. The temperature is just right for a windbreaker, although if I had my druthers I would select a violently patterned, swirling caftan. It's a day for drama; the gulfcoast equivalent of a Cornish moor. It makes me contemplative, and a little sad.

I have opened the all the doors and the windows and the blinds, and I am inviting the weather right in for a chat. It's been whispering secrets all day and night, and I can't help but think that if I were a better listener, a dearer friend, I might learn a powerful secret. It will be a night for spells, I can already tell.

Without a car I must scheme and deal for a ride to the beach. I long to be there today, walking in the sand, my caftan blowing about, the scritchy grains dusting my toes and between. I'll stop to pick up rocks, shells, and other detritus, all while getting the pedicure I can't afford. It's there, at that time, I'll sit and stare and The Story might begin, might take me over. It's become not only a dream of mine to write, but also my salvation, the swift boat rescue after years adrift at sea. When will it come? I must admit, probably not during my fanciful imaginings.

The wind frees the strands of my hair from its queue one at a time, and they blow against my face in time with the breeze, and ghostly fingers skim my cheek. Comfort and hope bloom while patience grows. "Soon", Fay says. "Soon."

Post Theme: Clarity (acoustic) by John Mayer

Come the Storm

2008-08-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Fay, come blow your horn!
the boards on the window, the cows in the barn
where are brave citizens on coastal streets?
"under their blue tarps starting to weep."
Will you help them? "No not I;
I'll wash all away, with none left dry."

What is the nature of a storm? Is there an evil sentience, or only the focused energy of a thoughtless minion of higher principalities, of deities? Is it sent, or allowed? Believing either is your choice, and the only thing you can control.

Bring it on.

Sisyphus Speaks

2008-08-20T17:43:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile, but I've been busy at my task you see. I have become my namesake, Sisyphus, cursed to a backbreaking, soul-stripping, ubiquitous task... survival. I don't even ask why anymore. Or when this will end. It feels like they've got me right where they want me, impervious to well-meaning exhortation, to pie-in-the-sky notions like "someday your prince will come". It's funny, I've never been defeatist, but I don't know what else to call this.

I'm not unaware that my problems and situation are laughable, and that makes me laughable. It's been great for my self-image. I mean, what am I really complaining about? Joblessness? Quarter-life crisis? Even knowing the meaning or spelling of the words marks my place as pampered and middle class. I'd love to pull myself up, but I sold my boots, and so I have no bootstraps.

Nowhere to turn, nowhere to run, no rescue plot afoot. There exists only this continual uphill battle. What kind of mountains are these, with no peaks, no valleys, no sheltering caves, just inclines?

Tonight I feel...

2008-06-05T20:03:00.000-07:00

Tonight I feel like the last person standing after a war. The only sane one in the room. And after writing that I can't help but think: how emo! That was the equivalent to a childish whine, "no one understands me!" Crisis averted by my inner wit.

Tonight I feel like there are a lot of stupid people out there, and all of the smart ones are incommunicado, or maybe can only be reached by ham radio, which I don't know how to operate.

Tonight I feel cabin fever crawling up my legs, my back, and through my scalp, like the flesh-eating red ants in the latest Indiana Jones flick.

Tonight I feel frustrated that everyone that I want to talk to, to take comfort in, all the people that I call to get a lift from a funky mood, or a fresh perspective on my dreary circumstances seems to be living a more interesting and fulfilling life and is unable to be reached at this time. I hang up before I can leave a message. I don't want to say something that I will regret, or be unwilling to clarify or discuss tomorrow.

Tonight I feel angry and ashamed of my unwavering penchant for comparing myself to others and envying their accomplishments. However short I may have fallen, or short-sighted I may be to do it, it's like I can't stop. I am certain this isn't why Facebook was created!

Tonight I feel like I am on a giant wheel of fortune, and I keep landing on bankrupt and losing my effing turn. This game is rigged!

Tonight I feel like human nature is a dark thing, and no one does the right thing anymore. An example: I think that HRC is "suspending her campaign" instead of conceding because she plans to wait in the wings in case "something happens" to Barack Obama. It's not too far a stretch for me tonight, especially in light of her bizarre and malevolent statements about Bobby Kennedy's assassination a few short weeks ago. All the evil conspiracies seems totally plausible tonight.

Tonight I wish it were the future. The place where this is a fuzzy memory, chucked into the bucket of melodrama, of bored self-indulgence. The time where my life is so full that there is no room to remember these times as anything other than the desert journey toward an oasis destination. And it would also be cool if Barack Obama were president at that time....

Tonight, I see, will be tomorrow in a matter of minutes. Although not far enough in the future to forget tonight, it is better than nothing.

Post Theme: Sometimes by Bilal

I am transformed!

2008-03-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

I am transformed! I got an offer yesterday, and I'm grabbing it with both hands! This blogger is now GAINFULLY EMPLOYED! Ain't God a wonder? Right on time.

This means:
1) I am moving to New Orleans. This once seemed unattainable.

2) I am working in entertainment and publishing. I get to start a magazine! Did I mention this is my dream job??

3)I will receive a regular paycheck. 'Gasp'! This means that I can pay my bills! I can buy a house soon, maybe even this year! It's times like this when one thing changes my entire world that I am convinced that I live in a snow globe, occasionally given a good shake by a Divine Hand. Miraculous!

4) I can help rebuild New Orleans. This has become my passion. I don't have to give it up!

5) I was right. This is my year! It will be the best ever. This is proof.

6) Everyone else was right. All of those who encouraged me, supported me, listened to me whine and cry, gave me advice in my time of need, believed in me and were vocal about it -- each and every one of you is and was an angel sent to me in my time of need. I appreciate you more than I can express. I can only promise to reciprocate and to pay it forward.

That's it for now. I have a major move to execute this weekend, a lot of goodbyes to say, plans to make, and a busy week ahead at my new job!!

Lovely! Will post more later. I'm so excited I can barely type. My brain is doing cartwheels!

Post Theme: Hallelujah! by A Soulful Celebration

Racing to the Finish

2008-03-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

Easter weekend, New Orleans. Besides all the Passion Week activities and the last minute shopping for white gloves, parasols, and anything pastel, you can expect one thing in New Orleans: the Crescent City Classic. HELL YEAH!!!! I finished it this past Saturday, for the second time! The Classic is the best race in the world, I'm convinced. Starting in Jackson square, it goes up St. Peter, across Canal St., down Poydras, right on Rampart St. across Canal again, left on Esplanade all the way to the end, and into and around City Park, where it ends at Tad Gormley stadium. I always have the best time, well worth any sore thigh muscles or minor blisters that I may nurse afterwards. It's a race that literally anyone can and does do every year. Now, I have to apologize, because at the last minute I chucked my heavy camera in the truck, which may well be the worst mistake ever. There was enough stuff for a photo essay there, so many sights to see, and I wish that I could just post a flickr slideshow and be done with it, but I now have to polish off and use my amazing powers of description, even though we know how many words a picture is worth. So here goes: a mile by mile recount of the race, and the rest of what turned out to be a fantastic, quintessential New Orleans experience...

To the starting line
We started out by waking early, piling in the car, and driving to city park, where the race ends. After stopping by the table for late people to pick up their racing number and having a memorable port-o-potty experience (something I haven't done in years and hope NEVER to repeat, please God), we piled on a good ole RTA (pronounced "Rita") municipal bus, and for the nominal fee of 2$ we were taxied to the starting line. Unfortunately our definition and the driver's definition of the start line were somewhat different, as he dropped us some 10 blocks away. We, smart accomplished women that we are, decided to wait right there and not walk the route backwards, and then forwards again, just to start at the actual starting line. One of the main rules about the Classic is that there really are no rules. So we waited. Besides who wants to miss the rushing wind that signifies the group of professional racers (mostly Kenyans) actually taking the whole thing seriously? Boy, they were a sight! My mom got right beside them as they zoomed past while her friend tried to snap a picture. Of course, she missed the pic because her camera was too slow!

The starting shot... mile 1 begins
Once most of the people running the race went past, we began to see some walkers. That was out cue to slide on in. Mile one was mostly jostling for space. My mom and one of her friends pulled ahead quickly, damn them with their long legs and mobile-hipped strides! That's okay, more time to smile at the first well-wishers camped outside the hotels on Poydras to watch the racers pass. We saw lots of funny people: super tall, super short, super old, super young (even in push strollers), super ugly, super cute, super fat, super skinny. And let's not talk about people who moved strangely -- some runners actually caused me pain to watch. There were also lots of disabled people walking along... the spirit of togetherness that marks New Orleans filled the early morning air.

Mile 2
During mile two, things got interesting. I saw my favorite pizza joint (yay!) but it was closed (boo!). A little old Latina lady, who I nicknamed Tia Rosa, was handcuffed and being led away by a 5 foot black female cop. My mom pulled so far ahead that I attempted a cell phone check; this included me calling her phone and watching her ignore it and ultimately dig around in her fanny pack to pull out her phone. She then proceeded to call someone else!! This let me know that she could not be reached, and I made sure not to let her leave our sight from that point on. A group of people ran while dragging red wagons filled with beer in coolers and a giant subwoofer booming 80's tunes. They were wearing afro wigs and carrying beer cozies. They made quite a convoy. A little boy was crawling under a truck while his dad screamed "come out from there! I think you're freaking people out!" Some marines ran past singing drill songs. I saw lots of people wearing bunny ears and some wore tutus as well. A cop got more than he bargained for when he asked a lady sitting on the side of the road "you okay, ma'am?" While I passed she held forth, embarking on a shrill, whining diatribe about her cruel family which signed her up for the race that seemed to have no end. Poor guy. A cowboy man with a giant ten gallon hat stood on the neutral ground and hula-hooped with a giant rubber ring; must have been 4 or 5 feet in diameter!

Mile 3
Down Esplanade. This is a great, historic street with some of the finest homes in the city. I was all agog, especially because lately I have been fixated on purchasing a home in New Orleans for my very own, and I'd love it to be one of these (that being said, I have 25$ to my name as write this). It's impressive that I didn't bust my skull, since I barely looked where I was going. During this leg, my feet began to burn, my socks were too thin, but like I said before, blisters don't matter. People stood their balconies and waved. The smell of breakfast filled the air. Some sat on chairs facing the street and sprayed racers with refreshing water from their garden hoses, a much appreciated impromptu community service project. A bunch of old rockers, including one Steven Tyler lookalike, threw Mardi Gras beads. We also passed the first of the "free beer" stands. There were as many of those as there were water stations. A big brass band played classic New Orleans songs like "When the Saints Come Marchin' In" under the I-10 overpass. There is also a big donut shop on Esplanade and Broad. We didn't stop for donuts (like we've done in years past), but we did use that point to regroup and catch up to one another.

Mile 4
At this point, the end of Esplanade is near... but the sights don't stop. A man set up a huge sound system on his porch, blaring Creedance Clearwater Revival, and shaking his arthritic hips. A group dressed in band uniform tops, hats, and matching boxers gave out free hot dogs. More free beer stands. We passed a huge DJ station playing 70's funk. A group of people wearing crab hats got pissed when people keep calling them crawfish. The colorfully decorated Hare Krishna house is always a favorite sight. Most times they come outside and dance and chant with tambourines. I guess we were too early in the race this year. Lots of hot guys without shirts.

Mile 5
By mile five, you are entering City Park. You may think it's over, but WRONG! There's still 1.2 miles to go. By this time, the banana that I'd had for breakfast had evaporated in my stomach, causing a headache. Also, the blister on my right foot had made my acquaintance. But...City Park is beautiful in the spring, and there was a delightful breeze to stir the air and take down the heat. We passed the playgrounds and oak trees that I played in during my childhood, as well at the New Orleans museum of art.

Mile 6
This mile isn't about anything but finishing. That and reading the funny t-shirts that people wear and chatting with your friends and random acquaintances. Some memorable slogans:
Angola: A Gated Community
In My Heart I'm Kenyan
I Can Rest When I'm Dead
In It to Win It
There's a place where the ground is painted and 3 photographers sit on a giant scaffold and take pictures of everyone. It looks like the finish line. Syke! You have .2 miles to go!

The Finish Line
This is the best part. This is where you pass go and collect 200$!! Into the stadium to get your gift bag, free t-shirt, and all the free food (tasty) you can eat! Drink all the water, gatorade, beer, and smoothie king you can handle! Stuff your guts with fresh fruit, chee wees, jambalaya, red beans, etc! There's also a huge concert in the middle of the stadium with lots of people dancing and eating. Just a great big group of merrymakers. It needs to be seen to be believed, like most parties in New Orleans.

After the race, we don't race home. We go to whole foods and use that healthy momentum to shop for overpriced but sustainable goods. Riding high on that feeling, we cruise down Magazine Street and hit the Lakefront for lunch. Sitting out on the deck at Landry's, we watch the sailboats, seadoos, and jetskis at play while gorging ourselves on seafood etc and laughing until our sides hurt as much as our knees and legs!

Still not done. We go to Metairie and hit Shoenami, then finish up at Morning Call, a beignet house established in 1870. White powdered sugar dusting my body like sand from the sandman, I doze with my mouth open the whole way home to the Coast. Good thing I didn't drive.

Sigh... there's no place like home. Can't wait to reclaim it permanently.

On another note entirely, Christos Anasti (Christ is Risen)! Happy Resurrection Sunday! Remember that IT IS FINISHED. In today's sermon, I learned that when Jesus said this, He was speaking of His suffering, service, and His gift of salvation. We are now equipped with every tool and have been given every gift we need to complete the race that is life because of Jesus's victory over sin and its death sentence. And as I keep reminding myself, this race is not given to the swift... but to he (or she) that endureth. He is risen!
Post Theme: Da Funk by Daft Punk

Blown Away... A week's recap

2008-03-21T09:07:00.001-07:00

Boy have I been neglecting the blog... can't believe it's been a whole week! It hasn't been a particularly good week either, so there really is no excuse...

Last weekend: My brothers girlfriend (read: almost fiancee) came to town for a visit. I know that I said that I would be hard and fierce, but I can't help it -- I love her! So it was a lot of fun. Plus, she's become a friend, and I have a real dearth of those around here. I mostly live my life by teleconference these days, and for an extroverted people person like me, this is a travesty. Lots of fellowship and good eatin' ensued, and I needed that, because last Friday I got some horrible news from a place that I was interviewing with. Out of nowhere in particular, the head guy decided to put the position "on hold". This is what I was told, curtly and unapologetically, by the person that I interviewed with when I followed up. Frankly, this devastated me, because I had been certain that I was at least going to have two additional interviews.

Monday: Nothing much happened. I was pretty busy buying time until Wed, when my friend and I were meeting up in New Orleans. She was flying into town for a conference from LA, and I was making the hour plus drive from the Coast. We were planning to have dinner, go out dancing, and then stay up all night! I know, I know, who convinced us we could relive a night during freshman year? All I can say in my defense is that this friend does that to me. She's so high energy, and when I'm around her she takes me right up there with her! I also had a big breakthrough on the aforementioned job. I found someone in my network who could make a call on my behalf, and find out what was going on at this company, and why things got so weird. This was big news!

Tuesday: I made the call in the morning, spoke with my guy, and he promised he could help and that I could expect to hear back by the end of the week. That done, I twiddled my thumbs and did a lot of waiting.

Wednesday: Yay! Fun Day! I heard from my guy, pretty much first thing, and he was able to speak with the hiring manager at the company in question. I found out many surprising things, the most surprising of which is that my candidacy was never brought to his attention! My resume, recommendation letter, and hour and a half of first interview were headed to the Mariana Trench! It was only my sudden and fierce determination to NOT TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER that saved it, and me, from being lost. I am not sure what is going to happen with this, but I do know that I WILL drive this candidacy to completion, whatever that completion may be.

I went to New Orleans. I hung out with my aunt a bit. I met up with my friend. We had a fun dinner, but I didn't stay the night, because her conference turned out to a be a disaster! It was a conference for HIGH SCHOOLERS and she was a COUNSELOR! How could she not tell me that! It was awful, and my summer camp worker days are over, so I high-tailed it out of there. But not before I got a friggin ticket on my car! I can't afford to pay shit like that! I was mad.

Let's see, what else? Oh yeah... a lot happened on Wednesday. Snapshots: someone slammed the phone down in my face. The wind was so high it almost blew my car off the overpass. It also almost blew my aunt's weave off (mine is sewn in, so no worries:). I tried my first banana daquiri. I actually had three daquiris total. I got chased out of a cultural arts center by some Afrocentric granola-type sentries. I saw Brian J. White walking down the street. I danced salsa on the street. I almost talked my way into the Chrisette Michelle concert at the House of Blues for free. I got my intelligence insulted by a gay guy on the phone (not sure anything is more humiliating). I saw a fat girl in high heels trying to walk on the cobblestones (made for laughter). I chatted up the cuties at the concierge desk at the W hotel. A NOPD officer seated me at Mother's, where I almost ate dinner. I actually had a Cafe Maspero's burger at the bar.

Can't you see why I love my New Orleans? All that stuff can only happen in the greatest city ever!!

Thursday: Back to boring. I spent the whole day in bed feeling crappy. What the hell, right? It's not like I have a job to run to. I got my first of many hate mail letters from American Express. I did find out that I've lost weight, which is uplifting. I also renewed my commitment to eat right and follow the rules. Barack Obama rocked my world on Larry King, and I think he is emerging victorious on this Reverend Wright thing. His speech on race let 'em know, and I like how he's gone on the offensive as far as foreign policy and experience is concerned. I know what Obama's doing, but I don't know what Hillary is doing right now. I think she's laying low and hoping that Rev. Wright does her dirty work for him.

Friday: Well, that's today, and it officially hasn't happened yet. I think I'm all caught up!

Post Theme: Champion by Kanye West

Read this DEEP poem I found in Oprah Magazine!

2008-03-16T23:03:00.001-07:00

________________________________________
Prayer
by Marie Howe

Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important
calls for my attention--the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage

I need to buy for the trip.
Even now I can hardly sit here

among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside
already screeching and banging.

The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.
Why do I flee from you?

My days and nights pour through me like complaints
and become a story that I forgot to tell.

Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning
to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.
____________________________________________________________________

Deep, huh?

March on...

2008-03-15T14:42:00.000-07:00

Today I am deeply disappointed. I had the ominous feeling that I had been presumptive in my joy, and loosed-tongued in my overconfidence, and yesterday, I fear, I was proven correct. I would have loved to be wrong in this!

What am I talking about? Well, I had a great interview this week, was positive that I was moving on the last and final round of interviews, was certain that I would receive an offer, allotted less than a week for salary negotiation, and started planning my end of the month move to New updating my financial goals, mapping out a budget, and looking at homes for sale on craigslist! Whether this is a case of healthy success visualization and claiming God's promise, or gun-jumping at its finest, I do not know.

Not to mention all the people I told... people that are going to want to know what happened with the job and when do I start. People who will attempt to encourage me or comfort me when I tell them that I am back to square one. So heaped onto a crushing sense of disappointment and weariness in being disappointed is a sense of shame. No good news to report guys, nothing to see here. Let's all just get some sleep... Isn't that what the police say when they're shooing away the gawkers at the scene of the train wreck? Why yes it is... how apt.

I received an email telling me that the position that I was certain that I would be offered is "on hold for a month or so". I don't even know what that means, and it can mean so many things. What happened to the strong sense of rapport that I built with my interviewer. I thought for sure that I could have depended on her for more of an explanation than that, no matter what the outcome. A terse, two-sentenced brush off what outside of the realm of my expectations.

Of course, not all hope it lost. I have to keep on trucking, keep on looking... I mean, what else is there? It might even turn out that I will eventually be handed what looks right now to be impossible: this job on a silver platter. There's really no excuse for me giving up now, particularly with the amazing support system that I have in family and friends that are behind me, with the number of people offering themselves: money, time, favors. I appreciate you all more than I can say.

I just can't help but wonder how much longer I will have to wait. The bible says be ye not weary in well-doing, but the negative emotions and thoughts, bruised feelings, and tough circumstances weigh down on me like baggage, and it's baggage that I can ill afford. Today, with a sigh and a tired smile, I soldier on.

Post Theme: Bag lady by Erykah Badu

Celebrity Deathmatch: Racism vs. Feminism

2008-03-12T21:02:00.000-07:00

Ferrara can't help herself; she's tangled in the clotheslines of bitter, vintage feminism, baby boomer era deep-seated racial resentment, and the White man's business-as-usual double standard. It's a psychotic cat's cradle that allows one to delude oneself into believing that no matter what a person does, regardless of the outcome, whether soaring achievement or complete failure, the reason is race. It is the existential antithesis: you are nothing but your blackness (smirk, smirk). Embittered by the failures of feminism, and the pressures of being a woman in politics, she is angry that a Black man will snatch away the pinnacle of feminist achievement: the presidency. In her untouchable, bourgeois, whitey arrogance she refuses to recant. Even getting so hysterical (yes, I understand the snub) as to face the challenge by implying that she is a victim of "the race card" too, that she is being attacked because she is white. Sorry to inform that no, she's not being railroaded as a woman, she's being attacked because she is a deluded psycho, implying that being black in America is a cool fad, easy, or lucky, that there is an affirmative action effect. I missed the memo, the transition... here I was thinking that life is hard and even harder as a black person, and the whole time Obama is sliding down an easy shute to the Oval Office like a diseased cow in a meat packing plant! Thanks for the heads up, Geraldine!

I laugh uproariously at the image of white people as bugs mesmerized by Obama's brown-skinned "bug light" effect. There's a lot of stuff white people like, but black people in power is not one of them (so far). You lose... good thing you quit Clinton's campaign before she had to "denounce and reject you"! Too bad, so sad. Now go sit your ass down and think about what you've done!

This is why black women have always struggled as feminists; it all breaks down because there is the tension of competing and conflicting interests. Our feminism is often restricted to within the race or subjugated altogether in many cases, ostensibly for "the good of the race" philosophy with which we are so often socialized. I have mixed feelings about this, but mostly I just have to accept it, and it's work within me. I feel it keenly when I read and see this. I admire HRC and Geraldine Ferrara for representing the fierce competency of women, and the successful and skilled power brokering and politicking that we can do. Yes, they've paved a way. But I cannot accept or allow that respect to deafen my ears to racially charged statements and behavior. The facts say it all. Sad to say, but Callejo and Ferrara have said the most racists things in the campaign to date, not some white guy. Something to think about!

Post Theme: Hate On Me by Jill Scott

I'm So Excited!

2008-03-12T05:13:00.000-07:00

Break out the 80's music! I am so excited and full of energy that I hardly slept last night or the night before! I mean I'm really soaring...it's some combination of nervous energy, excitement, and endorphins (since I went walking this morning at 5:45 am). It's the kind of thing where you jump on the bed, or run out into a hard rain yelling Shazam! The feeling of invincibility is a welcome change, believe you me!

I've been laying low because I didn't want to over think it any more than I usually do, and therefore jinx it, but I had my first face to face interview in 6 months yesterday, and it went swimmingly. No details here, but I am moving on in the interview process and think that I just may have found something even better than I job I can tolerate -- I THINK THAT I'VE FOUND MY DREAM JOB, IN MY HOMETOWN!!

Do you know what this means?!? It means an end to my crisis of faith, an end to placing fear-inspired limitations on God or myself. It also means an end to the unending, foggy valley that was my mid-20's. Talk about your quarter-life crisis! I can live EXACTLY where I want to, how I want to. In other words, I am perilously close to getting my heart's desire. Hosanna!

In other news...I volunteered for the Obama campaign and he won MS last night! Another reason for shouting out (it's moments like this that I miss my giant trampoline)! You da man, B!

Also, I am hysterical with ironic, maniacal laughter at this whole NY governor situation. Methinks it was a case where he doth protest too much against hookers! The guy is the main prosecutor of prostitution rings and then leaves a neon-glowing money trail back to himself! And then the main pimp daddy running the whole biz is an IRS official! So that's why he never thought he'd get caught...it never fails to amaze me. I also can't help noticing that this scandal broke in NY, where HRC is "from".... where there's smoke there's fire. *rude snicker* It's about as much to go on as they have on Obama, and I think turnabout is fair play. I can see the mudslinging posters now: pix of Hillary shaking hands with Gov. Spitzer while Bill Clinton slides his hand up some intern's skirt in the background. The slogan at the bottom reads... "WTF?!?!" Then she can spend lots of valuable campaigning time explaining away the behavior of unfortunate acquaintances in an attempt to dispel the ludicrous and vague aura of guilt and scandal that she finds herself surrounded in. I can see the email chain letters now: don't vote for Hillary, she hangs with philanderers and whore mongers. And she's got a black person somewhere in her family tree; she will have to be sworn in singing Lift Every Voice and Sing instead of The Star Spangled Banner. People would totally believe it, too.

Post Theme: Neutron Dance by the Pointer Sisters

So Life Ain't No Crystal Stair... Keep Climbing Anyway!

2008-03-06T21:43:00.000-08:00

After such a melancholy post yesterday, you might be worried about more whinging today... congratulations! You've been granted a reprieve. I pretty much did nothing all day, and it was everything that I thought it could be!

Taking a break for a day was really what I needed. I can't believe that I'm stressed enough these days to actually need a vacation from the "job" of looking for a job, but that's the case. Now where am I going to get a ticket to somewhere tropical for five dollars or less without winning the lotto? (Forgive me, it's taking awhile to adjust to the rhythm of being poor; it's been so long)

I saw two great movies today: The Jane Austen Book Club and Death at a Funeral. JA book club is one that I will be sure to buy, for the obvious reason of me being a devoted fan of Miss Austen's, and also because I thought the movie was quite smart, smarter than the book actually (which I have actually never said before -- don't know what's got into me). The way the movie displayed the interaction between Austen's characters and novels and the modern day characters was expert and amusing, and the casual discussion of scintillating opinions between Austen aficianados made me hunger for my old book club days. Ah Bluestockings, how I miss thee! Go see it if you can. I know that it will be making my collection as soon as a dvd purchase is not analogous to a home purchase in my checkbook.

Death at a Funeral is one that I have been hungering to see, as the trailer was included on several movies that I've rented from Netflix over the past months. It was absolutely hysterical and there were several times I had to stuff my sleeve into my mouth or risk bringing down the wrath of all the sleeping family members above stairs. Think big fat black funeral as performed by a British cast full of starched accents. Definitely recommended for fine family fun! Go see it soon!

In other news, is anyone else fatigued of the damn election? Hillary please go home! You're ruining everything, can't you see that? The stupid Democrats are also giving Repugnicans (yep, you read it right, it's not a typo, and if you see it anywhere else on the web they stole it from me) a huge advantage with all the squabbling and fighting. It's clear that the only solution to the Florida-Michigan problem is a complete Do-over, and I wish they would stop stalling on that announcement. Even so, no one is going to get all the delegates that they need to clinch the nomination, so it's going to be an outside decision. I just know that it better be fair! I just can't believe that being silly and non-strategic could lose the election to McCain -- and what a loss! He's unveiled himself as Bush 3.0! It's like updating your crappy 2000 macbook laptop to an original Charles Babbage model T computer. It's not an upgrade obviously! I mean, just take a look to the left -- is that old white guy man love or what? Talk about being in bed together! Is it too much to ask that we leave the old administration behind in its entirety? Let us ask ourselves this question: why is it so hard for America to break up with her exes? First the Bushes and now the Clintons... seems to me like America need to pick up a copy of He's Not That Into You and give it a good read. Bump the chump girl! There's a good man waiting in the wings!!! And once you go Black...

Post Theme: I Gotta Get Thru This by Daniel Bedingfield

Access Denied

2008-03-05T22:11:00.000-08:00

Today was a resounding chorus of ACCESS DENIED in so many ways. How did I get locked on the outside of the bubble?

I got a rejection email from a company that I didn't even want to work for, and yet I am still a bit wounded. Is this how low I've sunk, that I want to be wanted, regardless of whom is doing the wanting? I could be a heroine on Lifetime. Cue montage of attitude change and resultant success please, because I am tiring of this uphill battle. I would be so pleased if the weeks flew by to the tune of some insanely upbeat music, snapshots of me working hard, working out, losing weight, changing my image, getting a makeover, and relocating would sail past my nodding head and snapping fingers bump-free, only to arrive at me, a completely different person. A successful, confident person. Not the disaster I am today. Right now, that is my fondest wish, to be in a fairy tale. What does that say?!?! I need a break.

My wishes are very simple, actually. A renovated double shotgun in New Orleans, and an uncorked writer's brain to write my stories and sell 'em to whoever wants to read 'em. How did trying to get there come to involve rewriting my resume fifteen times and searching ardently for jobs in Atlanta or Washington DC? I feel like I'm in the center of a tornado, all turned around and holding on for dear life. What happened to true North? Is that why this isn't working? I'm so blown off course... was it heeding the pushy chorus of helpful voices, or my deafness to them? It occurs to me that there is only one voice that I need to heed, and it is not the voice of the crowd. It's a still, quiet voice that speaks to the broken, listening heart.

I wish that listening and waiting were as easy as typing these words, but there is the small matter of what I might hear when I finally do hear something. Hearing a no might break my heart, and would certainly hurt my feelings -- another access denied. Courage is scarce today, and faith locked away in a mustard seed, but tomorrow brings the dawn and joy cometh in the morning.

Post Theme: Open Up My Heart by Yolanda Adams

Goodnight Moon...goodnight stars

2008-03-03T19:30:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this to you from a dark room filled with the portent of soon coming thunderstorms. The lights are all out, and the curtains billow in the wind. There are no stars tonight. Strangely, this perfectly captures my mood. I could go either way.

The day was strangely productive. I worked out, cleaned up, washed my hair, applied for some jobs, and emailed. I watched CNN, Beowulf, and cooked a huge dinner of rotisserie chicken with all the trimmings. I did not dwell on my circumstances.

In other news, today in a stroke of laughing irony, life walked up slapped my back in friendship, leaving a kick me sign. I spend most of the days now waiting for the phone to ring from unfamiliar out-of-state numbers, waiting to be asked to interview at any of the many places that I've applied. Today the phone rang, and it was an unfamiliar out of state number. Full of expectation, and putting on my best business persona, I answered the phone saying "this is Danielle". It was American Express calling about my past due amount and wondering whether I would be able to make that payment by phone today. And so it begins. The calling, the gentle and friendly voice "reminding and encouraging" you to make your payment. It's amazing how it all comes back to you and how quickly one adjusts to having money in hand and on the way at any point. I realized today that I have to re-learn phone evasion techniques. But how to balance the need to screen calls with the need to conduct business and be available for my next employment opportunity? And so I end the day with a bank account balance of 5 dollars.

My head pounds. It's not frustration... this time. This started with Katrina -- I can sense the onslaught of a severe weather system through my magical, malfunctioning sinuses. There's one on the way tonight; some shelters even opened in New Orleans for people who live in Fema trailers (more irony!). My forehead screams with pain at the abrupt, plunging pressure change. I remind myself of those coal mine canaries; good for a warning in a crisis, but at great personal expense. Maybe I can turn a profit with this. More on that later.

Time to lay me down to sleep for now. Ta-ta.

Post Theme: Hopeless by Dionne Farris

After the Party

2008-02-29T23:40:00.000-08:00

It's 2 am and I'm not tired, so I thought I'd give you the skinny on the Fashion Fair. It was fabulous! The models looked great! The lights, the hair (the weave), the makeup, and the collections. It's the most fashion forward one that I can remember. I'll tell it to you in observations:

a) It's great to have a network! I loved being there, right next to the runway at a reserve table. And attending the VIP party afterwards with the models and all that was stellar.

b) Black people, my people! Ya'll know you be dressing up for the fashion show like it was a church pageant! Not to mention the people that dressed for the red carpet at the Oscars. My absolute favorites though were at one of the runway-side tables across from us. A group of hard-faced older ladies with the worst weaves that I have ever seen -- the cheap ones that look like you put em in the dryer after a week (but people wear them for months)! They were overdressed in tacky formal dresses. A hot mess, I tell ya, but not as bad as the church lady with the white tights sitting in the first row of the glass-fronted balcony with her legs open!

c) There was champagne and liquor at alot of those tables, which I have never before seen. Which is why people were getting loose in the second half...one lady ran up with some money when the men dropped their sarongs and show off those tighty trunks!

d) Speaking of hot guy models, one of the models had four nipples! I kid you not! It's like I'm the only one who noticed!

e) I can't believe how many of the models were tatted up -- girls and guys! I thought it was tacky...

f) They let a person volunteer to walk the catwalk, and of course one of the trifling MILFs trampled the other one getting up there. She walks out, blinking like an owl at the lights, and immediately trips and almost breaks a hip. She would never have left the stage if it she hadn't almost been run over by the REAL models starting up the second half! Maybe she was implanted in the crowd as comic relief.

g) Some white guys whose company was sponsoring were hilarious... they were immobilized by all the black beauty on the runway. I've never seen a man stay frozen like that, like he'd been lobotomized. They were having a mountaintop experience -- especially when the plus sized model walked. Too much sex appeal! The drool pools were creating a walking hazard.

h) In addition to such bumpkinisms as the "volunteer catwalk", "the presentation of plaques", "the greek roll call", and the "old people dignitaries filibuster", there was also the "announcement of the VIP reception, location, and the invitation for EVERYONE to go." That's right. People who paid 50 dollars for their ticket and the reception were now obliged to share the reception with all the people who headed the announcement, and that's exactly what happened. The food got gobbled up, and there weren't enough seats.

i) This did not end the fun, however. I gobbled up my plate of treats (which is currently sitting in my stomach like dog food) and hit the dance floor. I was able to get in the bus stop, cupid shuffle, and a few others before we left. I would still be giving myself shin splints on the dance floor right now if not for my mom telepathically projecting her exhaustion to me; she had to will me off the dance floor.

So here I sit, not even tired, but knowing that this is a complete illusion and that I need to hit the sack as I have an early call in the morning. Good night!

Post Theme: After Party by Koffee Brown

Supermodel!

2008-02-29T11:39:00.000-08:00

I can't talk long, I've gotta go... headed to the Ebony Fashion Fair tonight!

I don't have a thing to wear, either, so it's going to take Project Runway-esque last minute creativity, poise, and miracle working to get me fashion forward, with my butt in the seat on time!

Of course, just like any epic battle, there's an arch enemy: the constellation of fiery red zits that appeared on my face the day before yesterday and haven't calmed down yet! On the advice of a good friend (who may prove to be a frenemy if this doesn't work), I have been bathing this area with mouthwash hourly all day. She swears it works and she got the tip from a guy at the MAC counter who she said was whipping the makeup, so I guess it does work!

More on the details of the show and the VIP afterparty when I get back, but for now, it's time for a beauty revolution. Onward christian soldiers!

Post Theme: Work It Girl by Ru Paul

Laundry List

2008-02-27T21:10:00.000-08:00

I'd just like to say right off that I'm totally over myself today, so no worries about encountering another sniveling whinefest post ala yesterday. You can exhale now.

Some random observations:

1) It's cold here -- I'm still using the electric blanket. It might sound unreasonable to complain, but this is the Deep South! I haven't been able to feel my toes all week, and I never realized how attached to them I was until they "disappeared".

2) I've noticed the gloves have really come off with the attacks on Obama. The ugly, ignorant, racist, and xenophobic underbelly of our American compatriots is becoming obvious. It really steams my clams to say the least. Little puffs of steam leave my ears when I think about it, because these very fundamental ideologies, made up of generalizations, stereotypes, and outright untruths, build one on another like a really effed up game of jenga. It's why our situation is so shaky. One minute we are a country proudly embarking on a historical presidential term (IT WILL BE EITHER A WOMAN OR A BLACK MAN) and the next we are "maligning" a person by using their middle name and digging up pictures of them dressed in native costumes. This "proof" only speaks to the suspicious and ignorant mind. The fact that it speaks at all is reason to educate, educate, educate!

3) Another thing about that... I see accusations of the media unfairly supporting Obama and cracking down on HRC and McCain. This seems to be primarily based on the fact that there have been no past issues of concern being released. Allow me to be Captain Obvious and say that just because there is no major issue as yet, does not mean there has not been an ardent search for one. I mean, anytime Barack's kindergarten paper is quoted to prove his intention to be president, people are digging. It's not that I mean to imply that there are none, but what if no one found anything? It would be scary, because it would be the most powerful and eloquent statement against politics as usual for this generation. Think on it.

4)Have you seen the video of the bus fight between some students and the driver that hit the news today? It made me mad just watching it. Mad enough to fight. Which is why I could never be a teacher in the school system, and I don't like to work with large groups of kids, despite the masses of people who press me to change careers in that direction. "You're amazing with kids" they say. "The youth need people like you" they say. I agree. But I also know that it's a pressure cooker of a thankless job, where I would be fired at the least and jailed at the most, because I do not like to be censored, questioned on my methods, or to follow rules. I also have a zero tolerance policy on disrespect. I threaten (they're actually more like promises) and I will also beat a teen down. And so you see, you don't want me in the classroom. I would be terrible with parents, as I lack finesse to deal with difficult or disengaged ones. I would be a disaster. I'm a rock star tutor though (one on one is totally different). Suffice it to say that little Courtney Love in the vid would have been injured. Badly.

5) A friend of mine is dealing with a international adoption. It pisses me off that it's so easy to kidnap, abuse, enslave, prostitute, kill, sell, starve, and mutilate children all over the world. They are made into prostitutes and soldiers every day, bartered and spent like paper money. It's so easy. No permission needed, no process followed, no law enforced. Even American children are not completely safe from this. Yet it's so hard to take one in, raise one, protect one, love one. It takes international lawyers, spectacular diplomacy, bribes, fees, cash, and a whole lot of patience to adopt. It's unfair to say the least. I've heard people say that a child needs to go to the right home, but really any home at all is much better than the aforementioned alternatives. What's a mother without a spouse that sometimes has trouble juggling it all compared to be living your life as someone' s property?!??! One is heaven and one is hell, the disparity is so vast.

There's nothing to be done but fall on my knees and say a prayer for her and the baby she wants to adopt, but impotent fury fills me all the same.

Post Theme: Man In the Mirror by Michael Jackson

No News Is Good News?

2008-02-26T21:22:00.000-08:00

"No news is good news." (Rant On) Whoever said that was not trying to find a job when they said it. They must have been waiting for something impossibly wonderful, something that would devastate if not the desired outcome. It couldn't have been something as two-edged, as cursed a blessing, as gainful employment. No way. (Rant Off)

'Sigh'... I guess you can tell from reading this that nothing happened today of note. No one called, no one wrote. They are maintaining radio silence in an effort to drive me mad. Still writing from the location of Screwed, which is just North of Forget It, East of A Rock, and West of A Hard Place. (Now that made me smile). Why does the job search have to be so brutal? If I were a tech person, I would have already written a virus that made my resume and a flashing "hire me or else" banner into pop-ups. I would have already uploaded it to the world at large, and would currently be conducting a prolonged salary negotiation in which I bartered not only the cessation of the pop-up, but the technology itself. Unfortunately, as Napoleon Dynamite would say, "I don't have any skills".

What accounts for this frowny, angsty post? Here's a hint: the bills come on time, even when the checks stop!!! I got no loot, and no ends neither. This will be such a riveting story to tell when I'm sitting on Oprah's couch and she is trying to wrap her mind around what a superstar I am, but right now that is thin comfort, like the newspaper duvets that homeless people use. Ugh. Okay, I am depressing myself and wallowing. I wish that I could change the subject to something impossibly stimulating and interesting, but I have nothing else on my mind, nothing witty or brilliant to say, and that says enough. I'm calling it a night. Forgive me!

Post Theme: Hostile Gospel 2 by Talib Kweli

A Good Hair Day

2008-02-25T22:00:00.000-08:00

I'm no longer feeling trapped. I guess a new day brought me some empowerment, and a sense of hope. I've been mulling over my job situation and I came to the conclusion that I can't do anything at this point but continue to push forward and having done all I can do, stand. Whatever happens, happens. It's in God's hands now, and I am not trying to take that particular burden back. Good riddance.

I've got new hair! I braved the worse fog I've ever seen anywhere on earth this morning to drive to the salon, and boy am I glad that I did, because I look fabulous!

Post Theme: There's Hope by India.arie

I Feel Trapped

2008-02-22T20:59:00.000-08:00

After my telephone interview today, I'm feeling trapped. Now before I get into this, I do realize that I may be overreacting and that next week I may feel foolish about writing this, but I gotta be me.

It's not that I didn't do well. In fact, I think that I did very well, certainly well enough to be called in for a face to face interview. Fact is, after finding out more about the job, my suspicions are confirmed. It's a sales job going back into an industry that I don't care for and that I gratefully escaped when Hurricane Katrina gave me the opportunity. The prospect of being forced to take it by my financial circumstance and sheer pragmatism (I mean it's not like I'm getting offers or even calls from anywhere else) fills me with impotence and frustration. My hands feel tied, and the irony of my situation does not escape me. After determining to revamp my resume, my angle, and my career direction in an effort to avoid being unfulfilled, I stumble onto a job just like the ones I couldn't get last fall when I was actually trying!! What does it all mean? What am I supposed to do?

The feeling of being herded in down a chute, like a doomed heifer at a meat packing plant, is achingly familiar. A feeling of doom is rising within me like the tide, and I didn't realize that I was cycling back around. You see, each time I've started over it's been like this. Forced to take a position that I didn't actively decide to take. It's like this: if I had come to the conclusion that this was my best option, then no regrets, but if I fall into this by default, then all my struggling has been for naught, because it has been a struggle for control, for power, for the chance to choose my adventure like one of those damn comic books in middle school. I didn't realize then that the ability to choose would be stripped from me at a later point in life, or I would have read those books more. Whatever happens now is a choice that I must stay committed to; to change positions in any less than three years would be career suicide, and to leave the industry a second time would consign me to being labeled "unfocused", and you can't trust an unfocused person in management. "Unfocused" people don't get promoted. So whatever my new direction, it is a weighty decision of some permanence.

As I stated before, however, these are reflections of my thoughts at this point in time. In another week, the present snow globe may have been jostled by the Divine Hand, and I will be looking at a completely different landscape. That is to say that I have concluded (wisely, if I do say so myself) to put this away, to wait and see, to stand and believe. Every step I take is ordered, and each action takes me closer. Selah.

Post Theme: Closer by Goapele

Time to Let My Hair Down

2008-02-21T21:37:00.000-08:00

Just a few things before I'm off to bed, since I have a big phone interview tomorrow morning...

1) First things first... my eminent hair crisis has been averted. I have consulted my war council, redistributed my very meager budget, and now have a hair strategy for the upcoming round of flights and interviews. No time to deal with bad hair days, and no chance of looking less than fabulous either. The appointment is made and my stylist is a life saver!!!

I will go from this... To This!

All thanks for this miraculous transformation go to my stylist, The Joan, without whom public interactions would not be possible, let alone interviews. It's technically civically irresponsible to be seen like this, so it's actually my duty as an American to have this taken care of. Congratulate me. No wait... just doing my job, folks. *shy grin, awkward chuckle*

2) Speaking of hairy, I watched the debate. I'm glad that the commentators were able to get them to pull the gloves off, even for a millisecond, because for a minute there I thought Obama and Clinton were going to play footsie the whole time, patting each other on the back and agreeing with each other's arguments. Obama was a cool cat, standing on the higher ground of his lead, and making HRC look petty for her plagiarism accusations. I felt vindicated when she sniped on him with that "change we can xerox" comment to a chorus of boos. I only wish the camera would have panned to the audience. All that was missing was shaking heads, fists, and furrowed brows. All in all, the debate was a dud for Clinton's camp -- no foothold in the race to lead again. The upcoming primaries are locked in a dead heat and that's that.

2) Stanford rocks! I saw the announcement today that Stanford is leading the pack for endowment funding reform by pledging to use a larger of percentage of it to subsidize its students. It will no longer charge tuition for students with a combined income of 100K a year or less, and no room and board charge for 60K or less in addition to an overall increase in financial aid across the board. Since Stanford has a huge endowment, but still trails Harvard and Yale, I do hope that their actions spur the ivy league to take a look at what they can shuffle around. At best, it could lead to a sweeping reform to make any college a feasible choice for any student that wishes to attend. It's too late for me, but at least someone will benefit! Go Card!

'Ahem': Needless to say, I will be actually opening and reading those fund raising letters that I get from The Stanford Fund from now on. I'm behind any school that pioneers a significant lowering of secondary education costs, especially my own alma matter!

That's it for tonight... getting my beauty rest so that I can knock their socks off tomorrow. Maybe I'll get a job offer before I even get off the phone!!

Post Theme: I Am Not My Hair by India.arie

Autism Breakthrough: Girl's Writings Explain Her Feelings

2008-02-20T13:42:00.001-08:00

Carly Fleischman has severe autism and is unable to speak a word. But thanks to years of expensive and intensive therapy, this 13-year-old has made a remarkable breakthrough... (Also, check out the very moving video linked in the article.) See the links below.

I joined a great website, digg.com, that is very cool. It's a meta feed made of videos, new stories, pics, etc, that people want to promote or share. It's like net surfing with a crowd -- all the benefits of everyone looking around at once. I found this cool story. I was awed and amazed at this -- quite possibly the most wonderful effect of technology that I've ever seen to date. Autism, a condition shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding for doctors, scientists, and even family and friends of the affected, has lost a lot of it's power to entrap the afflicted. This is a real victory. Computers have given them a way to communicate their feelings and emotions!!!

What must it be like to be trapped behind a wall, unable to express yourself in any way, consigned to a life of being perpetually misunderstood? I can't even imagine. As a really emotive person, it's a unrelenting hell to even consider. Carly Fleischman is a hero. God bless her and her family.

read more | digg story

Hello Again...

2008-02-19T23:54:00.000-08:00

Hello again. I've been in a very reflective mood lately, traveling back in my mind to various "eras" in my admittedly short, but full life, and examining the curving road that has led to my current situation and the person that I have become. I've done a lot so far, although I must admit that I mostly think only of the things I missed, or could have done better. Even so, I like the person I am, the person I've become, and I couldn't be that without all the friends along the way. You can learn, grow, and blossom so much from the people you come to know while living your life. Collecting friends and nurturing relationships with others is a huge priority for me. Whenever I lose touch with a true friend, it never leaves me. Inevitably at some point I think of them, wonder where they are, what they're doing, and make an attempt to contact them with a simple hello again.

Over the past few days I've made contact with some old friends through the internet -- alumni websites, facebook...even google. I'm surprised at my success, and surprised at my technologically impaired attitude as well. I could have searched long ago! I guess that with life as slow as it is now, I would connect the dots eventually. It's nice to say hello again.

One friend I found from ten years ago, a guy, has come out and is in a relationship (his boyfriend is hot!). They seem happy, with pics of tropical vacations and huge grins on their facebook pages. Only thing is, I can't help but be disappointed; in my tender, untried, 16 year old heart, our friendship might as well have been a grand passion, with him cast as Triston and me Isolde. It was a courtly love; we shared doubled stuffed oreos and he gave spine tingling foot rubs. Although nothing ever really happened between us, he always held a special place in my heart reserved for the sweetest, most sensitive guy. He sent me flowers on my birthday; we spent hours on the phone pining for each other. What does that all mean now? Suddenly those feelings are one-sided and foolish, and I can't help feeling bitter about it. This always happens to me. Guys that get past my new millenium titanium defenses, my weapons-grade plutonium level self preservation instinct, ones that I genuinely feel for, no matter how innocently, turn out to be bad choices for one reason or another. In my entire history, I've never crushed on a guy without feeling like a fool (or worse looking like one) later. It may take years, but inevitably I will be made a clown. This could be positive however. When I finally do find "the one", there will be no ghosts in my head. I am truly free to love!

I also reconnected with someone dear to me this evening by phone; it's been a year. We talked for hours, and it was great. I love that about friends; how you can reconnect after a long time and simply start where you left off, how each friend's rhythm and conversation are different yet equally deeply satisfying, how laughing with someone you've missed is a special ecstatic release, how you smile for hours after the conversation ends. I can't get enough! Hello again.

Post Theme: Wheel by John Mayer

Am I High?

2008-02-18T20:25:00.000-08:00

I've been in a weird, psychadelic place today. Is this what magic mushrooms make you feel like? I've been giddy since I took a benadryl in response to an allergic reaction brought on by a sinister, though innocuous, english muffin. Imagine my surprise that there were walnuts listed in the ingredients! All of a sudden that "health nut" label took on a new meaning. What was once a cheery encouragement became a dire advertisement: WARNING! POISON INSIDE.

Ever since then, I've been staggering around, eyes too bright, slurring my words, and nursing a champagne headache without the bubbly stuff, not to mention the three and a half hour mandatory nap that ensued once the medicine kicked in. How can a little dissolving film strip, pretty much an identical sensory experience as a breath mint, cause so much trouble? If I had been operating heavy machinery today, I might have been killed. As it were, other hijinx ensued.

I opened a can of evaporated milk today, fresh purchased from the store. It wasn't until a few disgusting sour clumps plopped onto my special k that I realized it was completely sour. When does that happen?! The whole point of it being evaporated and sealed in a can is to preserve the damn milk! The answer: NEVER. Further proof of a world gone sideways. (You have to be good at reading the signs)

I sat down to watch the end of Larry King and some of 360 with Anderson Cooper, and that's when I really knew I was on the other side of the looking glass: the "mudslinging" in the democratic primary resembles nothing so much as toddlers rolling around in the sandbox. The accusation of plagiarism by Hillary Clinton is both laughable and pitiful. McCain made the unbelievable gaffe of saying "no new taxes" while simultaneously accepting George Bush's endorsement (for someone calling themselves most experienced, he's acting like a rookie). Michelle Obama, feted as God's gift to the position of first lady, is now being attacked on her patriotism. What a wild ride! Someone get me off this merry-go-round before I'm sick!

As I sit before this glowing screen in the dark, blood rushes sluggishly through my body and my tongue feels thick. I am floating through en ephemeral brain fog of the mind. I know my eyes are rolling around in my head, and I am joyfully anticipating the landscape of dreams to follow my head hitting the pillow. There's a perfectly good explanation for all of this -- it's the drugs. But it feels like life. Bring on tomorrow.

Post Theme: Then I Got High by Afroman

I Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans

2008-02-17T21:35:00.000-08:00

I went to New Orleans yesterday with my mom to return an expensive purchase and visit some of my relatives who remain there. It was a great day, and I returned home with memories of laughter, smiles, and of course beyond delicious food, but my heart was heavy with wistfulness. I miss New Orleans, deeply, in a way that a bi-monthly weekend visit cannot remedy.

It's been two years since catastrophic Katrina, and I am literally still exploring the wreckage. I feel in turns a developed bitterness, a shocked shame that I'm not "over it", especially considering how well I made out compared to so many others, and a frustrated and futile yearning to turn back time, which is a completely hopeless (and therefore pointless?) desire. With every corner that I turn in my struggle to cope, I encounter another part of what has become, quite obviously, a maze. The question is, am I navigating this maze with purpose, or wandering aimlessly, blinded by tears and a mind full of the unhelpful detritus of a full life abruptly destroyed like a fussy toddler's block tower? I must admit that tonight I am the wanderer; purpose is hard to find.

When Katrina hit, there was no thought but of the immediate survival of myself and others. It was in the wake of the storm that damaging epiphanies buffeted the shores of my consciousness like residual storm surges, continually destroying my ability to understand how my life had changed, was changing, and would continue to change. I realized that my career was over, as was my home, my community, my routine, my possessions. In essence, my situation in life, a tangible construct resulting from the execution of plans, realization of dreams, and achievement of goals, was immutably annihilated. This has translated into: not holding a job for more than a year, long bouts of unemployment, loss of health benefits, living in communities to which I do not belong, starting over financially an average of once a year, changing addresses every six months, scattered family members across the country, seeing my grandmother once or twice a year instead of weekly or more frequently, and just plain old missing my hometown like a phantom limb.

I told my mom yesterday that New Orleans fits me like a pair of old pajamas. I've never meant anything more. This is something that I should have known. I've been around the world, and never understood how fundamental that home base was to me until I'd lost it. I left for months, years at a time in pursuit of an education, of cultural immersion, of adventure, but also counted on it to be there when I was ready to return. And it always was there. It still is there, a testimony to the fact that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Something in me aches, and the irony of living an hour and a half away and being forced to move farther away to support myself does not escape me.

Sadly, I am not unique in this. So many people know what it means to miss New Orleans, and so many will not return despite that. I just can't stand the fact that returning is not beyond my reach, and yet it is. I won't waste time trying to articulate what makes New Orleans special, describing the sights, smells, sounds, events, and the like, because greater writers than I have done that for literally hundreds of years. I'll end by saying that I want to go back, and am determined to do so eventually. It's like a piece of myself is missing, and I know precisely where to find it.

Post Theme: Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans by Louis Armstrong

A Modern Freedom Struggle

2008-02-15T22:24:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me today that it's Black History Month. Duh, right? I should know that, should have realized earlier, should have paid attention to the one month of pseudo-solicitousness that I am entitled to per year. Somehow I missed it.

Last month I attended a certain Sunday morning's services at my parent's uber-traditional Baptist church. I remember being mortified as Sister so and so (complete with hat that could be seen from outer space) asked all the "youth in the church 10 to 15 years old" to stand. She then asked them to come to the front of the church. They slinked forward, barely compliant, disgruntled to be interrupted from their Sunday morning social hour activities of texting, flirting, eating, and other assorted nonsense. The good sister lined them up at the front of the church and shoved a packet of papers into each hand. It turns out that last year's church-sponsored MLK essay contest only got 5 entries, so this year she was obliged to trick and shame them into entering. The essay question: "Has the civil rights struggle and heroes of yesterday influenced your life as a teen today? If so, how?" I was struck by several things at once:

1) What have we come to when the substance of a month of reverence and remembrance is reduced to this? African-Americans have always had a rich culture of oral histories and collective consciousness. We've honored our ancestors through libations and dances, stories and traditions. Now our children, indeed our young adults, can hardly be bothered to remember any but the most "commercial" black figures. You know what I mean: Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, and of course, Martin Luther King. What about the less popular heroes? What about the still living local heroes, scattered in communities across the nation? I have often found it sad that we have not mined and preserved the still living civil rights story being carried in the hearts, minds, and memories of our elderly. Even baby boomers were a part! The crux of the Civil Rights Movement was barely 50 years ago!

2) Why are we still asking the uninspired question, "how has this affected us"? An essay question that boring is asking for nothing beyond a recitation of black history facts and firsts and a few platitudes of gratitude. It is a moot point to ponder, how history has affected us. Why aren't we leading kids to analyze, to think critically? The struggle isn't over. Every day another news blurb proves that the frontier of the struggle is barely explored. What about the inextricably linked aspect of class? What about the rights of other minority ethnic groups in America?

As I watched the church debacle from the fourth row, I felt conflicted. I was happy there was a contest at all, and also happy that someone was passionate enough about it to put in the effort, but I also felt a burning desire to stand up and say something. I wanted to write an essay of my own, give a speech, do something to steer everyone from the rutted, oft-traveled road they were mired in. But I was silent instead. I realized that there was nothing to be done at that point, and I held it all in. I may not be able to affect ironclad Baptist tradition at a church I don't belong to, but I can make a difference in my day to day life, and I can certainly teach all the people I get my hands on differently. And so that is what I am doing.

This Black History month, think differently. Know that Black history is American history. Learn a cool new fact about Black people every day. Watch an edifying "black" movie. Think about the issues in our current cultural paradigm that comprise the current racist or classist problems in America. Set out to pay more attention. You'll begin to notice them everywhere. Lastly, stand up where ever and whenever you can against them. If we all strive to cherish each other, then change gon come sooner rather than later.

Post Theme: Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud) by James Brown

Rooting for the Underdog

2008-02-14T21:26:00.000-08:00

Have no fear, underdog is here! It seems like 2008 just may turn out to be the year of the underdog. I can't help but note two fine, recent examples: Uno the beagle, winner of this year's Westminster Dog Competition, and my favorite candidate, Barack Obama. Both of them have recently raised eyebrows and blown up skirts by leading the pack and whipping the competition's ass, giving a big leg up to "lesser breeds". Their glossy coats, smooth lines, proud stride, and high energy win best in show hands down!

It's so awesome to see the momentum behind Obama's campaign increasing, restoring my faith in Americans as a thinking people!! Could it be that we are disengaging from celebrity gossip, red carpet reviews, and reality tv long enough to turn our attention to the political race of the century? And not a moment too soon. I thought it was the method of the Republicans to steal an election, but apparently not -- recently the Clinton Campaign has made great strides, with the current debacle over Michigan and Florida's delegates and their right to representation at the coming Democratic National Convention. Better pay close attention, America!

I know personally I'd better the see the vote of the American populace count for something, and not be superceded, overruled, or countermanded by some damn superdelegate. What the hell does that even mean? Are you telling me that in the end, my vote doesn't count for anything? We shake our heads in pity at how corrupt and devious other countries' elections are, and the whole time ours are just as rigged, full of rules and contingencies -- a veritable insurance policy against a straight up race for the popular vote. God forbid if the people actually decided free and clear who our leader should be!

And yet... there is hope. Uno and Obama are showing us that all too often there is nothing common about a common breed, whether man or animal. I look forward to the debate next week (nothing more than another type of dog show if you ask me). I'm anxiously anticipating the details for these plans of change that are being promised by all the candidates. I can't help but love watching Hillary, who started off as top dog, bugging out at her losses, pinning her win on the state of Texas, and slinging the first mud in the race.

It is said that no matter who wins these next states, this race for the nomination will be a real prizefight (or should I say dogfight). Some speculate that in the dust cloud of flying fists, McCain could run away with the presidential office. I say that fate couldn't be so cruel as to send Bush III into the fray. I'm rooting for the underdog!

Post Theme: Atomic Dog, by George Clinton and the P-funk Allstars

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T11:26:00.000-08:00

My brother's girlfriend sent me this Valentine's Day card, and it made my day! I got a mysterious red envelope in the mail yesterday, and I didn't recognize the return address. Luckily, I am not a fan of the American campaign of fear, or I might have thrown it away out of fear of anthrax! It never crossed my mind either that it could be a Valentine's Day card, because the only V-day cards I have gotten since the tear off elementary school ones are ones that my parents sent. Yep, you heard correctly. I have never been mailed a V-day card by someone not sharing 50% of my genetic code. Needless to say it couldn't be a card from my parents, since I live with them. Besides, these days everyone does e-cards and quick text messages. Even my parents sent text this year! What is the world coming to?!??! This is momentous, if for those reasons alone.

So I open the card, and there it is -- pretty much the funniest card that I have ever received! I had to hold my stomach! I was in tears. And when I got to the inside, it was over. I was no good for the rest of the day. I spent it giggling. Because the universe is against me, I was over my cell minutes for the first time in years and couldn't call anyone, but I sent mad text messages! I also spent most of the night on the phone describing the card for the masses. I am keeping this forever. How clever!

As you, astute blog reader, may have guessed this card ain't that damned funny in and of itself; it's the inside joke. Which I will now divulge because I can't help myself (I will strenuously DENY this if asked about it by any person or in any situation that makes me uncomfortable). After the Zulu ball earlier this month, I went to sleep and had a slutty dream (and that is as much as I will elaborate) about a certain underdog Presidential candidate, which I related in detail to several friends, one of whom sent me this card. Get it now? Good.

Hope your Valentine's Day is as filled with laughter as mine this year!
xoxoxo
D_Luv

PS: Starting a new blog tradition -- the blog theme song. Can't guarantee one for every post, but listening to the playlist today is a dead giveaway!

Post Theme: Happy Valentine's Day by Andre 3000

The Money Pit

2008-02-12T21:18:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I am listening to bluesy jazz (Charlie Parker, All The Things You Are), and listening to rain pound the window. I am writing from the money pit. It sucks down here. There's no funny Tom Hanks to make me laugh by falling down the stairs.

I have come face to face with my own dire and desperate straits. Each day that passes I am cognizant of the bills due, the bills on the way, and the lack of money in my pocket. It's either invent something brilliant in the next twenty seconds, win the lottery, or get a menial job and tread water until the first paycheck. Even as I submit my resume for six figure jobs, I'll be scrubbing floors somewhere soon. I can't believe it's come to this. The only thing worse that not having a job is having one like the one staring me in the face.

Oh well. Better hit the streets tomorrow, trolling for open positions. Thing is, down here in the land that time forgot, the open positions are the equivalent of sharecropper gigs. Needless to say I am highly resistant to letting my life turn into a remake of O Brother Where Art Thou?.

I am Dust

2008-02-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

Check out my man Van Hunt singing today's anthem, I am Dust.

I had a mock interview today, and am ready to begin my spam campaign on all the Fortune 500 companies with marketing job openings... but I know the one I really want. Send up some prayers for me!

Our Love

2008-02-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

Our love is gleefully silent
like a teen sneaking home
in the morning hours.
It has passed the time
sweetly, secretly
whiling away years
on the whim of a stroll
with a handsome suitor.
When I let go of your hand
I had your heart.
And morning never came.
The sun never rose on us,
burning its harsh light.
We made our home instead
in the balmy bosom of night.

It's Official! Yes We Can

2008-02-10T09:00:00.000-08:00

Why does it seem like my life, as insignificant as it may be on a global scale, is so reflective of our current times? It seems like at this juncture, I am continually skating a cliff side road bordered on crisis. Is the same not true, with our nation, our world? During these times, I know that God is sovereign, but it doesn't stop the maelstrom of thoughts in my head. I am reminded that the Chinese character for crisis is also the one for opportunity. (I'm not even sure that's really true, as I don't read Chinese, but there's something so poignant and wise about it that it doesn't even matter.) And I am comforted by the quiet still voice in my own spirit that rarely speaks, but was heard to say a few weeks earlier: "THIS IS YOUR YEAR." (How does it seem to scream yet be so quiet? That's the nature of God. Simple, yet divinely complex in His simplicity.)

And so, to the American nation, I say: I can't help believe with rising certainty, that this is our year.

I read a great article that started all this called Why Obama Matters. It was a link from a friend's status message on Gmail. A friend that I will always be grateful to. I, like so many in the nation, feel really disenfranchised. It could be a youthful, generation Y thing, but I don't think so. I think that the current government that we live under is non-reflective of the real country in which we live. I believe that it's current voice is not my voice, not our voice, and that we are under-represented. After all, what's the alternative? To believe the opposite? That's enough to send me emigrating to Canada for certain, no joke. If I imagined myself for one minute, even in Mississippi, which I believe to be the very bowels of America, to be surrounded by the kind of smug, supercilious ignorance, and fundamental disregard of human dignity that I see (and hear) every time I watch our leaders on television, I would WALK until I got away from it. No matter how long it took. I would take a Rabbit Proof Fence walk, people. I might end up in Asia. I say all this to say that I was not paying attention to the upcoming presidential election, certain of a few things:
1) that the current dissatisfaction that people are expressing would lead to the certainty of Democrat in office.

2) that I would be picking the Democratic ticket.

3) that therefore my candidate would win.

4) that Hillary Clinton is an equal choice to Obama.

5) that having either a "first woman president" or a "first black president" is enough to prove our desire to progress and our willingness to do so.

All of these are wrong assumptions, and dumb too. Read them carefully and you'll see the problem. These assumptions are ignorant and born of apathy and laziness! (Yeah, I can be really tough on myself can't I?) I was thinking these things because it was the easiest thing for me to do: wait on the world to change while doing nothing to change it, certain that it won't really change and ready to be "surprised" and disappointed. I'm glad that I got shocked out of this, and that I am now rallying. If you change nothing, then nothing changes! (That sounds really good, so I know I couldn't have just made that up...anybody know where that's from originally?)

Recently, there have been some changes in my mindset. I have been convinced over the past few weeks that we need Obama and the grassroots, radical can-do ideas he represents. I am convinced he is the best presidential candidate, bar none. I am convinced that we need out of the baby boomer cultural identity confusion that has been driving our political dialogue and disagreements. I am convinced that the next president needs to be "free" in a way that no one else is. We need no pre-established political machinery, no network of secret contacts, lobbies, and scorecards of favors owed and favors due. I am convinced we need to do immediate and effective diplomatic damage control in our relationships with other nations. We also need a shocking, undeniable statement of our LACK of racist, religious, and/or sectarian agenda (even if that's not exactly true... yet). What better way than a black man with a Muslim name? Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to reduce Obama to only that, although God knows he must be used to it and get it a lot as do I as a black woman in America. I just mean that he is refreshing: the face, the name, the family, the religious outlook, the policies, the lack of scandal, the prospective plans. THE POTENTIAL. THE HOPE.

As I walk towards a time of triumph and radical change in my personal life, I pray that my country would too. I know that I am on my way out of a valley, and We, the People, can and should do the same. Get out and vote, and make it happen. Barack the Vote, 2008!

Sick and Tired of being Sick and Tired

2008-02-05T20:35:00.000-08:00

Feeling crappy -- my nose is swollen and full of that nasty stuff. As I am one of the nation's millions of working poor -- no wait -- make that unemployed poor, I cannot afford to pay for health care, and I don't have overpriced insurance. I hate this! Every time I have the least sniffle I can't see a doctor right off, I have to try and manage. It's only when it gets to the point that I either get some antibiotics or go into a Victorian decline that I go to the free clinic, mostly because I feel bad to use those services when I am so eminently employable and others really need then, but also because I am ashamed to show my face in there all the time. Universal health care. Really, am I the only one that can see the perfect sense this makes?

We need a revolution in this country. I can see myself, a Che-like figure. Out of my mouth pokes a thermometer, and my eye is patched. I scream around a mouthful of medical grade glass: Give us free care! Thousands rally around my cries.

Who's the bad guy in this? Money is. Our system is a capitalist market and health care is the valuable property. Only one problem: health is a right, not a good or service to be exchanged. All of the rest of the civilized world sees this and operates accordingly. Why can't we?

Enough of this, or I really will buy a beret!

Zulu Ball Tonite!

2008-02-01T12:36:00.000-08:00

Going to do the Zulu tonight! I'm bought to get my jocomo fina neh on some too!

Okay, enough Louisiana patois. I frivolously spent the whole day getting ready for a ball. That's right. Deep down south we still do truly formal occasions. I will be attending the 2008 Mardi Gras Ball of the Zulu Krewe! It's my first time, and that's saying something considering I'm New Orleans born and raised. At least I still remember how to get my Nola party on. I can't wait!

Being as poor as I am, I had to fall back on the formal gowns I keep for just such an occasion. I even surprise myself with just how much of a Southern belle I can be. I will be, regretfully attending minus the long gloves and tiara that I am envisioning and will have to make do with the old and borrowed. I am comforting myself by telling myself that I am so NOT the focus of attention, it isn't funny, and no one will be paying me any attention whatsoever. There's the king, queen, and court to be worried about.

I will, however, eat my face off, imbibe too much free liquor, and then dance off the calories to the sound of the famous local DJ Captain Charles, and Doug E. Fresh. Lodi Dodi, do we like to party!!! Maybe I can squeeze an invite to the Nomtoc parade on the West Bank (one of my faves, and I am sure that I can find at least one block party full of old familiar faces). It turns out that the friends I expected to be there won't be here until next week, so if that's a no go, I'll probably be leaving in the morning.

Well, gotta go... the readying for a ball is a long and drawn out process. I must:
1) Give myself a spa mani/pedi. (normally I would just go to a salon, but $$$ is a BIG object)
2) Take a Deluxe Shower. This is the type of shower that wets the windows, even in the room down the hall and hikes up the water bill. I must exfoliate, depilify, and wash and condition my hair. (which, of course looks like a schizophrenic rooster's)
3) Deep condition, spa facial with hair removal.
4) Put on pantyhose and foundation garments.
5) Style hair. Deluxe makeup.
6) Glitter powder on decolletage.
7) Steal best scent in house (no matter who it belongs to) and spritz on.

Wish me luck!

Back to Blog

2008-01-31T22:20:00.000-08:00

I have decided that this is going to be a general blog from now on to record, for posterity, what will the GREATEST YEAR EVER (or at least the best one in a long time).

Here I am, writing from the proverbial pit:

1) Unemployed since September (read: no paychecks, spent savings, etc)
2) Living with parents in coastal MS
3) Victim of Identity Theft
4) Overweight
5) Pathologically single, apallingly chaste, chillingly inexperienced

But I know all of that is going to change. In fact, it already has changed where it counts: on the inside. There's a person inside this body just BURSTING to be let free. This person is an achiever, a conqueror, a warrior. This person gets exactly what she wants. And she is familiar and has been missed. I am happy to reconnect with her, and will welcome her with open arms when she does break free. Woman, thou are loosed!

Update... Even further behind, if you can believe it!

2007-11-12T13:09:00.000-08:00

So, I am so behind right now it's laughable. By my count, I have to write 14,000 words tonight to catch up! How much you wanna bet the gap won't be closed tonight? At least these days it's less because I'm afraid to write and can't think of anything and more because life keeps getting in the way.

I'm so far behind, but somehow it still feels better than when I first started, and I'm not worried just yet.

Big week ahead, but lots of opportunity to write. Just gotta give up on the telly, netflix, gtalk, etc. for awhile and I'm set. How hard is that? (sarcasm!) This weekend I am headed to the coast to visit the parental units and meet bro's new lady, so automatic deduction in the amount of words possible without staying up all night staring at the computer screen.

It's getting to the point where I literally have to take computer breaks. I get tired of staring at the screen and sitting all hunched over. I can feel my skin losing it's color! Am I in jeopardy of turning into one of those 24-hour study room freaks from college? Pretty soon I'll devolve into a mole woman, no longer in need of solar energy to survive, having adapted a mimicing process to photosynthesis from flourescent lighting. Eww. I'm grossing myself out. Enough of that.

And enough of this. Time for a break. Court tv, anyone?

Wild Goose Chase!

2007-11-07T11:55:00.000-08:00

I've been on this wild goose chase all day like a damn buffoon! I'm so pissed I could spit. Bottom line, after driving around like a moron for an hour and a half to find the unemployment office, it turns out to be right around the corner. Literally!

How could someone with a documented excellent sense of direction and a reputation to uphold let something so plebeian as the location of a government office beat her, you ask? It would be hard to do, but google maps gave me completely and totally wrong directions. It basically might as well have sent me through the stargate to a parallel dimension, because there is no way in hell those directions were correct. They took me out of town, goddammit!

So I get to the office, sign in, and prepare to wait and to be patronized. Nope, not me. As a big dunce cap finale, the receptionist informs me that filing for benefits is now done by phone. She gives me a card with a phone number and goes back to typing and answering the phone. Class dismissed!

So basically life is giving me a swift kick in the pants, and I don't know what for. That which does not kill us makes us stronger, right?

It's getting worse, not better

2007-11-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

I feel sick. This is not working. I just looked at where I'm supposed to be today. At least 10,000 words. I have just over 2,000. And no plot still. I have a headache just thinking about it. Maybe I should start over? Maybe just write small chapters, snapshots of life, a memoir? It would be alot easier than the project that I am working on now. Maybe something like the broke diaries format or something like that. I could just flow, not worried with accuracies, not worried about plot, as it's completely autobiographical.

Am I supposed to be this stressed?!

So I'm at the library, and it's a great place to concentrate. Got the ipod, the WiFi, and not alot of visual stimuli. This is perfect, because as a veteran people watcher I am always getting distracted watching others. That's one positive thing done today -- I discovered this place. But I'm leaving for today. Praying for something better tomorrow!!

So...

2007-11-05T22:03:00.000-08:00

Maybe I didn't write a thing today. Maybe I spent the whole time trying to sync my ipod to this new laptop. Maybe apple sucks and microsoft too, because vista doesn't work right with itunes, and they know it and they don't care.

As I type I am finally syncing up, and it's no time to celebrate because I lost every single playcount. I'm not sure if you know what that means, but suffice it to say that alot of my smart playlists are gone, and my ipod is no longer smart about which songs I like to listen to. For someone like me, this is an unutterable tragedy. Some other ish went down with my external hard drive too -- I'm thinking I have dummy copies (or maybe even two) of most of my music somehow, because it's so much I couldn't load it onto this laptop. That means that I am stuck listening to my music on the ipod only, since I can't travel and take my music with me! What a crock!

I'm so steamed.... headed off to bed, hope I won't have nightmares about this itunes mess, and hope I can be productive tomorrow since I basically wasted today.

Boredom Christening

2007-11-05T16:24:00.000-08:00

What a time for me to decide to start blogging again, eh?

Let me start out how I mean to finish -- honestly. I'm only writing in this freaking blog because I am dreading going back to this novel manuscript that I started last week. I'm officially competing in NaNoWriMo, but this is really an attempt to break the dam on my creativity.

What it's about: it's about me stopping the meandering madness that I've been infected with, just stopping the erratic movements and standing still and saying enough. I've wanted to be a writer for years now, and I know that I can do it -- that I have the talent and the drive. No more moving where ever, doing whatever. From now on, my moves will be filled with purpose. So it's back to New Orleans!

Two years after Katrina and now I realize that I've only just now made a major breakthrough. And after all the agony of indecision, it's this, it's full circle. Don't tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor.

So let me tell you about my novel (the irony of writing about what I am supposed to be writing about does not escape me).... or maybe I'll save that for the next post. Suddenly I am feeling confident again!