...consider me something of a miscreant, then...

The end, in more ways than one

2012-01-26T10:33:00.000-05:00

I've been pondering this for a while, but as it goes with mostly any decision in this vein, today is the day that I've finally decided to turn my ponderings into reality. This is the end of this blog. Today, as I sit here in this room, in complete silence, this is it. After I write this, I'll post my last link on my Facebook, and I'll head over and click that advertisement, allowing me to turn my blog into a book for my safe-keeping; a keepsake from a more confused time in my life.

No, writing is not done, as it will never be, for me. I have a lot of ideas for 2012, those involving a side business, a photo blog, as well as a new blog, probably on Wordpress. But this blog in particular, is a wrap.

There are a lot of memories here, but as it sometimes goes with memories, they aren't ones I really want or need to sit and review anymore. Musings on my college ex-boyfriend, whose silhouette has long faded to a small shadow in my mind; a shadow that sometimes passes over, like a cloud briefly over the sun that is at once there and gone again. That ordeal was so long ago that I now don't know him, but I also don't know the girl who was so enraptured over him. Maybe one day we'll meet again. (He and I, that is, for that girl exists only in memory.) Maybe actually get to know him for the cool person that he seemed to be, before my vision was lost to the fields of a first love.

My last ex-boyfriend/lover/silhouette is also gone, and so are my feelings for him. I tried so hard to make something out of the smoke and mirrors of us; convinced that one day, he would love me as I once imagined I loved him. He proved himself to me, many times over, and I finally allowed myself to see what he'd been saying all along--that his concern was rightfully with himself, and not me. He has disappeared; been lost to the wonders of the world abroad. Maybe one day we'll speak again, even if just so I can gain the closure I need to forgive my foolish heart for always having tried to be loved by men who were severely uninterested in the entirety of me.

In short, I'm in a different place in life now. I was 21 (I think) when I started this blog, and I'll be 25 this year. Might not seem like that many years, but that's a large mental stretch. I have different concerns, different ideas, different wants and plans now. The torment and melancholia and men that mostly comprised my every day musings and frustrated late night posts have gone--or maybe I've finally allowed them due journey. Though I will always wonder, always wander, always be curious about the things around me, love is a subject that seems to have finally found its rest. After writing about love and searching for love for what seems like an endless journey across the sands of my years, it finally came home to repose with me.

I told my God that I would wait on Him. I cried and I said to Him that I would wait thirty years if it took that long, but at long last, my words and my heart finally aligned when I said to Him that I was tired of fooling around, and that I would wait on the man He designed specifically for me. And, not too long after that prayer, that man and I found ourselves in inseparable company. And seven months later, we're still in inseparable company, and not a day goes by that I don't remind myself not to take him for granted. That no matter what other things in my life may not be up to snuff, I've got him, and a long-open void has been filled. The question of love is no longer a question for me. I understand it now, as I was starting to understand it toward the end of my lengthy season of discontent and travel. I have fallen in love with a man who truly is my friend, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

That all being said, anything else I could further write here just wouldn't fit the theme. Hence, it's time to go. It's been time to go for a while, but as always, I waited until I was ready. Until I had the words necessary to bid you a due farewell. For your reading of me, I will forever be thankful. Whether you acknowledged your presence or not, you have been a kind friend to me.

Look for me out there in the blogosphere. I'll be around.

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Tumblr: www.unreasonableexpectation.tumblr.com
Twitter: @thatdamnboheme

haunted

2011-09-26T14:47:00.000-04:00

I haven't written about Troy Davis. Yet. Part of that was purposeful.

I didn't want to write about Troy Davis the day after it happened, because I knew everyone would do that. It makes sense, of course--as a writer or journalist type, you write in the midst of things. You write while it's on your mind (and everyone else's mind). You write while it's pertinent. And let's be honest: with the rapid fire turnaround of news information in this country of instant gratification, pertinent news stories don't stay such for very long. Events happen, travesties occur, and then we all move on, it seems. Even my Twitter timeline, which was ablaze not so many days ago with people calling out for justice to be served, has now calmed to the usual Tweets about football, mundane occurrences, and random trending topics like #SomeWhereInTheHood. (Really?*)

It's only just, I imagine. Though an event may stay with someone for days, at some point, the world continues turning just the way it was before said event. Things always go back to normal, as people always say.

Well, though I didn't write about Troy Davis right after his execution, it doesn't mean the experience didn't stick with me. It's been on my mind. And today it was brought to the forefront again, by an experience that seemingly has nothing to do with Troy Davis at all.

I'm in my hometown, enjoying a nice break from the mean streets of Miami. I've been running around all day, taking care of some various errands, and the last of my errands involved a stop at my local Publix. (The best one in the world, as it has a Chinese kitchen AND a liquor store. Nope, no Publix can be better than mine.) As I walked up, I saw an older looking Black woman sitting on one of the electric carts outside of the store. When I started to pass her, she timidly asked me if I was active in the church. I stopped, and said that I'm not, hoping that if this had anything to do with a religious speech, me saying I'm not church-active would spare me.** She then simply asked if she could speak to me. Usually never rude, and usually never one to deny someone the opportunity to speak to me, I stayed in place and removed my sunglasses.

She introduced herself as Stephanie, and told me earnestly, it seemed, that I looked nice in the outfit I had on. I thanked her and smiled, and she asked me if she could tell me her story.

Before continuing, I must express my often perplexed feelings when I find myself in situations like the one I will continue describing in a minute. I have encountered many, many people who have asked me for money, as I knew that was where her story was going. I have encountered people with myriad stories, in many places, and always, it leaves me feeling a tad helpless, as well as frustrated, and on some level, guilty. Helpless when I sincerely would have given that person something, but I only had my card, and no physical cash, not even change. Frustrated when people get mad at me, or have an attitude with me simply because I cannot or will not give them anything. Guilty when I want to help, but think about my financial situation and how I'm struggling too. It's often quite the struggle. How do I know whether this person is telling me the truth? Am I wrong for automatically questioning whether this person is telling me the truth?

I'm a giving person, and I enjoy helping others, but I'm also a cautious person, and I, like many people, try to erect guards around myself so I'm not taken advantage of. So, whenever this situation arises, therein rises the epic battle between my logic and my compassion. Can they both exist simultaneously?

Stephanie looked up at me, and she told me that she was a dialysis patient, and that her and her family had just moved to a street not too far from where we were. She told me she had twin teenage girls, and that they were honor students, and she told me that their church had offered to get them a meal the other day, but she'd tried to convince the church to instead take them to the store, because a meal would only last for one day. She told me she had public assistance benefits, but being that she'd moved from a different state, her benefits weren't set to kick in for a couple more days.

As she was explaining herself, she did something that people I've talked to usually don't do: she started to cry.

Right outside of the store, she began to cry, and as she cried, I didn't feel sorry for her.

I didn't feel sorry for her, because I know that my least favorite emotion is pity. I don't want people to ever feel sorry for me, because it automatically puts them on a different level than me.

I didn't feel sorry for her, but instead, I imagined how much it took for her to stop me, ask me if she could talk to me, and then ask me if I could help her. I know that I have trouble asking people to do anything for me. Especially when it comes to finances. I imagined that if that were me in her shoes, I'd probably cry too. I know I would cry because I would feel ashamed.

As she was explaining to me that she was sorry that she had to ask people for money, and as she continued to wipe the steadily streaming tears from her eyes, I'd already decided that I would help. I told her that on my way back out of the store, I would make sure I gave her something.

And as I walked around the store, that was all I thought about. My groceries suddenly became of lesser importance, and all I thought about was that I needed to hurry up, get my cash back, and make sure I helped Stephanie. I didn't want her to think that I didn't mean what I said.

When I left, I walked out the same door I'd entered through, and there was Stephanie, still sitting there. I folded the ten-dollar bill in my hand, and I told her it was for her. It's not much, I said, and then trailed off as her tears started to flow from her eyes again. She thanked me multiple times over, and told God to bless me. She then leaned up for a hug, and I hugged her and told her I know times are rough, and she asked me to pray for her. Even as I put my sunglasses back on, told her to take care, and turned to walk away, she was still giving her thanks, as I bit my lip and walked away, starting to feel the tears welling in my eyes as they are again now.

Do I know whether Stephanie's story was true? Do I know what she'll do with that ten dollars I gave her? No, I sure don't, and it doesn't matter. I know what I was planning on doing with that ten dollars before I'd arrived at the store. I'd planned on wasting it on a sub, chips, and a drink, knowing that I didn't have to, because I had leftovers at home. Before I'd pulled into that parking spot, I'd decided that I wasn't going to spend that money on that sub, chips, and drink, no matter how good they would taste, because that wasn't financially sound. Good thing I made that decision.

As my mother always says, you never know where your blessings will come from, and I wholeheartedly believe that. I've been hustled for quarters by a crackhead before; I've been talked to death by seemingly delusional homeless people before, and I've even been criticized and called out of my name by panhandlers before. But my actions remain the same: I will not deny somebody the opportunity to talk to me.

I know that if it were me, and the shoe was on the other foot, I'd pray that someone would stop and listen to me. I'd pray that someone would believe me. And I'd pray that someone would be able to help me, just a little bit.

As I walked away from Stephanie, I knew her tears would stay with me, the same way I knew the thought of Troy Davis would stay with me as time moved on. The same way the man with a sign touched me so much, I wrote about him. The same way I think about Derrion Albert, and wonder if anyone still thinks about him.

The point of all this is to say: I worry about our collective humanity, sometimes. I know who I am, and how I am--I am the type of person who worries about strangers. I am the type of person who will pray for someone I see who looks like they are having a tough time. I am the type of person who sat on my boyfriend's couch, my head against his arm, and cried for the injustice I witnessed the night Troy Davis was made to wait four extra hours before he was murdered by the state of Georgia, a state that runs in my own bloodline. I am the type of person who spent the days leading up to his execution frustrated, and on edge with the society I live in. I am the type of person who believes in the possibility of Nineteen Eighty-Four (so much that I told my boyfriend to read it), but still hopes it will not come to pass.

I know that this is me. I know that I will stop and listen to strangers tell me their stories. (Because what greater power is there than being able to voice your own personal truth?) I know that I cannot witness a grown woman cry in front of me, a woman who looked like she had many years on me, and not try and do something. I know that I'm the type of person who doesn't believe in the death penalty, the type of person who would have given Troy Davis another shot at justice. I know that's me. Call me a fool, hyper-sensitive, whatever you want, but I know that's me.

But what about humanity? We live in a time when children are killing adults and adults are behaving like children. A time when the latest singing reality tv show is more important than what's actually happening in the real world. A time when injustices come, and then they go. Where's our outrage? Where are our movements? Where are our Black leaders***, and any leaders, for that matter? It seems like no one cares. Like Sonny said in A Bronx Tale, "nobody cares."

And maybe after reading this, you could step to me and ask me where my outrage is, and why I'm not out there trying to start a movement, or become a Black leader. Maybe you could ask me if I think just writing about everything is good enough. Sometimes, I may wonder that myself.

But I don't claim to have the answers, only a number of questions. And the image of Stephanie's tears, and the haunting remnants of her embrace.

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*--this is more evidence that though Black people probably still make up about 13% of the population, we must make up a hefty percentage of the population of Twitter. My first piece of legit evidence? The fact that as The Preacher's Wife was playing last night on BET, it was also trending on Twitter. You know damn well ain't nobody watching that movie on BET, at that, but some Black, Twitter using folks.

**--spiritual, not religious.

***--sure, we have figureheads like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, but are they leaders? Whom are they leading? I have yet to hear anything from them that swayed me and moved me like some of the voices I've heard from back during the Civil Rights Movement, and even before that.

What is Facebook, really? (A love/hate letter to the predominate social network du jour)

2011-09-22T17:03:00.000-04:00

Amid all of the things that have been going on recently via my social networks, I found myself alerted to the fact that Facebook has made yet another change to its interface, as my news feed was crowded with posts ranging from saying the interface sucks, to someone saying they would leave by the end of the day.

As a quasi-nomad who now has an apartment but usually only goes there for the necessities of eating occasionally and bathing (since there's no internet connection at my apartment and God only knows when the internet gods will decide that it's about time they stopped playing with our emotions), I have been relatively disconnected from what was previously a very active online life. I can only check my Facebook on my phone, since that's lately been the way I've accessed the internet 95% of the time. So, the new Facebook changes were lost to me, as Facebook mobile was still the same irritating thing it has been since I joined the smart phone world.

Even before checking the new Facebook layout, I started to experience commitment issues, and thought of leaving. I didn't even need evidence of Facebook's transgressions, I only knew how I felt: that our relationship was losing its spark, and that I needed something new.

Facebook and I have experienced such troubles before. Right before I went to college, we began our relationship, which was nothing but tame. In those days, I still had dial-up internet (what an ancient relic), so Facebook and I couldn't really see each other that often. Facebook was simple, and so was I. Facebook was just a page, with photo albums and profile information. No fancy things like status updates and chat functionality. It was a simple platform that allowed you to connect with people you were going to college with. I was a simple girl, still a teenager, really, with no smart phone, no Twitter rants, and no blog. Less Huey Freeman and more Charlie Brown. (Though in my adult life, I find myself existing within both.)

And then: I fell in love for the first time, hard, and Facebook was there. Hell, it was because of Facebook that it even happened. Facebook was there for me, allowing me to see pictures and the profile of the guy I loved, and Facebook even helped us send messages back and forth. What a great friend, that simple Facebook was.

But by the summer sun's dip in the sky, and autumn's leaves, that romance was forever through, and it was just Facebook and me again. I'm sure I pestered Facebook with my constant viewing of my lost love's profile and his pictures ~~and searching through his friends list, trying to take clues from a dream I'd had in order to find out who his new girlfriend was~~, and I'm pretty sure Facebook tired of me altering my profile so often, always trying to express the most pressing feelings of disappointment, longing, and hope. (And sometimes anger.)

By the new year, I found myself asking what Facebook had really done for me. After all, Facebook was the one who brought me to the love who now was happy in a new relationship. My now constant communication with Facebook (going to college also brought the wonder of always having internet access, and leaving your computer on all day, every day) had become too much for me, and I needed space. So that April, I left Facebook. We'd talked about it before the decision was made, and there was never any discussion as to whether what we had would ever be real for us again. I left Facebook with a picture of me, half my face in shadow, and half of my face in sunlight, smiling at the camera, ironically reflecting the daily divide of my spirit.

I left, and felt that I'd never return. I took up with other relationships, and found myself thinking about Facebook sometimes, but never thinking about returning to it. We'd had our time, and it was time for new things in my life. For MySpace and for Blogger to become new comforts in the midnight hour. Frequently, people reminded me of the relationship I'd once had with Facebook, asking me about it, but it prided me to tell them that I was without Facebook, and to see their shocked expressions when I said such. (I've always enjoyed doing what differs from the norm. Huey Freeman.)

Three years had passed, and I had gotten over Facebook when an old friend showed me what Facebook had been up to since that day in April. It seemed that both Facebook and I had grown. I was a young woman, with piercings and a tattoo or two, and a "take no shit" attitude, and Facebook was a fancier platform, with status updates and pages to be liked. My friend talked me into speaking with Facebook again, and I decided to give it a shot. What could be the harm, after all? We were older, wiser, and different than when we first began our affair oh so long ago.

So, Facebook and I became an item yet again. It seemed our relationship was much stronger, as Facebook offered me a lot more the second time around, with its status updates, increased capacity for pictures, and the ability to post stuff up for my friends to see. (Like my blog posts.) Facebook was there for it all. And when I got my first smart phone, I was able to take Facebook with me everywhere. We were like two peas in a pod, it seemed.

Until I changed. And Facebook changed. Repeatedly. It felt like every time I signed into Facebook, something was different. Suddenly, there were ads that seemed to know what I was searching for and what I liked. The pages and groups changed. News feeds changed. As a bit of a chameleon myself, I understood the desire to constantly be the different thing, but what was with all the rush? What was Facebook trying to keep up with, I sometimes wondered. Was it not enough that people couldn't start their day without checking Facebook, or that now everyone--not just college students--could use it? Why did it have to always change, and without warning, at that?

More Huey on a daily basis now than Charlie, I found myself troubled by all the changes. Why did Facebook seek to be so controlling? What joy could Facebook derive out of knowing my every Google search? What joy was there to be found in knowing where I was, and where I'd been? I resisted against the change that other people seemed to take in stride. Hadn't anyone read 1984 by George Orwell? Was no one troubled by the fact that at any given moment, anyone in the world could know what you were thinking, where you were in the world, or where you'd been? In a matter of years, Facebook had gone from the simple platform I'd once known, to an entity trying to be too many things--too much Twitter, too much MySpace, too much GPS. I just wanted Facebook to become Facebook again.

But in saying that, it leads me to ask, what is Facebook, really? I imagine, to each individual, it may be many things. For most of us, we say it's a way for us to keep up with our friends, and to see what's up with their lives. But, in my recent ponderings, I have found fault with this argument. Facebook now feels like an easy way to play out the role of private voyeurs. It's what we as humans love, after all--how else could reality television have become so commonplace? Though our satisfactions might not be quite sexual in nature, how many moments of our day do we devote to Facebook stalking? To seeing who's dating, who's fucking, who's sad, who's angry, who's pregnant, etc.? In the past couple of months, I have seen a number of Facebook friends' newborn children, whose naked pictures were posted via Facebook, in some instances merely minutes after they were born. In real life, I'd have to go to the hospital in order to see that. I've also seen posts about people having been proposed to... merely minutes after it happened. I've seen pictures of people's engagement rings, their newborn children, what they had for dinner, what they're wearing to the club, the argument they had with a significant other, etc.

Facebook has given me unprecedented access to things I otherwise wouldn't know, about people I otherwise wouldn't speak to. In sitting here, debating whether a more permanent leave of Facebook is coming for me, I wonder what Facebook really is, and why I feel some reluctance to leave, though I've done it before.

For me, Facebook is many things, good and bad. Facebook is an excuse for me to not keep up with people. If I couldn't return your phone call, I can always leave a message on your wall. If I have something I need to say to you that's difficult to articulate, I can always send you a Facebook message. If I miss you, instead of writing you a letter, or even sending you a text, I can leave a little heart on one of your pictures and tell you how gorgeous you look, followed by an "I miss you!!"

Facebook gives me the ability to play detective and figure out whether you've just ended your relationship, are having trouble in your relationship, or have started a new relationship based on the frequency of your posts to people, when you remove/add the "in a relationship" from your profile, when you remove/add certain pictures from your albums, etc. So what if the detective work is actually a bunch of assumptions confirmed by my brain as truth--it's fun, isn't it?

Now, with this new Facebook layout (I pulled it up earlier to look at it, and found myself staring at a foreign entity), I find myself asking, sincerely, why I keep holding on. It's no secret that I'm not a fan of Facebook right now. I find myself living in a world where it's a legal right of mine to voice my opinion, but I can still be penalized for said opinion. I wonder often if I've given too much of my life to Facebook. Given too many people I'm not truly friends with the opportunity to know my thoughts, see those I care about in pictures, etc. As a blogger, it seems strange that I would ever have a problem with people knowing my thoughts, as I have given my thoughts away free for anyone who would like to read them for two years now. But for some reason, something about Facebook doesn't sit well with me anymore. Confusing privacy settings, constant changes, and a generation that won't even show up to an event unless they get an invite via Facebook... it's all come to be a bit too much.

Maybe it's just the Huey Freeman in me, but I find myself wanting to be rid of Facebook. It's starting to feel too much like part of the norm for me, and if you haven't learned yet how much I don't like to be part of the norm, it would be useful for you to learn now. But, for every minute I ponder clicking "deactivate," what must be the sentimental Charlie Brown in me comes up with reasons as to why I shouldn't. I think about the family members I honestly wouldn't have really known of if not for them finding me on Facebook. I think of the associates I would have lost track of if not for Facebook status updates and photo uploads. And although it may seem silly to some, I think of the fact that after what seemed like a lifetime of dealing with men who weren't about the same type of shit I was about*, I waited my whole damn dating life to be able to date someone, and have it Facebook official, and have it say that I was in a relationship with... Seriously, I did.

Well, I'm in a relationship, and at the top of my ever-changing Facebook page, it says that I'm in a relationship with (insert my boyfriend's name here). Though, you probably wouldn't even know it was me, since due to a recent bout with Facebook spies** I have currently changed my Facebook name and profile picture. Consider it the witness protection program for the internet-active. Finally, I'm in a relationship, and I've said it out loud on my Facebook page, and now that I've been able to have that moment I felt was robbed from me time and time over, I'm... over it. Not over my relationship, mind you, as I am extremely happy and proud to be able to show my affection for my love via my Facebook page. But, I'm over the need to put in a relationship on my Facebook page in order to make the relationship any more "official" than it would have been if say, I didn't have a Facebook at all, or my love didn't have a Facebook at all. ~~Or if Facebook simply didn't exist at all... what a thought.~~ I realize the fact that the reason I was robbed time and time over of the ability to have that "Facebook official" relationship is because of the type of men I dealt with, and the type of situations I allowed myself to dwell in. Now that I have that relationship status I in the past wanted so badly, I actually now have the urge to keep details of my relationship to myself. Does every picture of every outing need to go up? Do I really need to have everyone know when our anniversary date is?

And in thinking about those family members I "honestly wouldn't have really known if not for them finding me on Facebook," do I really know them? Just because we're friends on Facebook, does that mean that I know any more about them than their name and the fact that we're related? Yes, I get to see their pictures, and sometimes that involves getting to see pictures of family members I've heard of, but never had the pleasure of knowing while they were living, but as my family members on Facebook are older, the pictures they do post are scanned on... meaning that if I took a trip to visit them (which is what I really would like to do), I would probably be able to look at a photo album and see these pictures in real life.

And as far as those associates go... well, Facebook is a nice way to keep up with them. But before we had Facebook, we had random sitings in the mall, or in the grocery store, and we had the phone. We've also always had letters, though we all know (and I lament) that no one writes letters anymore.***

That all being said, I don't know the fate of my off-and-on, love/hate relationship with Facebook. I won't sit here and tell you that I'm going to delete it tomorrow and never go back, but by the same breath, I also won't tell you that I won't delete it at some point in the future. And as far as what Facebook is to me, really?

It's starting to seem like more trouble than its worth.

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*--seemed better than saying "men who weren't about shit," but you know that's what I meant
**--have you ever been fired from a fuck shit job because your employer spied on you, lied about what you said on Facebook, and then tried to twist your words to make it seem as though you meant something you didn't? Yeah, me neither.
***--In recent times, the US Postal Service has talked about eliminating postal service on Saturdays, and I've heard rumor recently that they are talking about eliminating the postal service all together. As a letter writer and enthusiast of snail mail, I want the postal service to stay. But, if I live in country where schools and libraries and bookstores can be shut down, then clearly the postal service is doomed.

for whatever reason, today

2011-09-22T16:03:00.000-04:00

For quite some time, I had nothing to write.

I always have plenty to say, so much so that I sometimes have trouble settling into sleep, for all of the monologue running through my head.

But sometimes, I don't have anything to write. For extended periods of time. I settle into life, and life takes its hold of me, and I neglect to push myself to sit here and write. For sometimes, writing is a compulsion, something I have to do. I imagine, possibly like that addict that needs their next fix. They have to get their drug of choice. It doesn't even feel optional; it's like breathing, except that it stays on their mind. Generally, I imagine you don't really notice your breathing until you think about it. Nevertheless, much like the addict searching for their next high, when writing is a compulsion, I think about it, and think about it, and search for somewhere, anywhere to write; I search for something, anything to write on. Sometimes, it's like that.

But there are other times when writing is not a compulsion. Sometimes, that urge to write hits, and I think about it, think about it, think about it, and then let the urge go. Drop it back into whatever place it came from, as quiet as its kept. And then I keep it moving. Sometimes, the urge hits, and I say, "I'm going to write about this," and then life takes its hold of me, and nothing comes forth. Sometimes, writing is a thing I would have to make myself do, if I wanted anything to come from the urges that swell and recede, like ocean waves against the shore.

Writing has always been a friend to me, but just like with old friends, sometimes, you lose touch. You know that old friend is still living in the old neighborhood, and you tell yourself all the time that you'll pass by, that you'll say hello. You look at your phone and tell yourself all the time that you'll call. You make empty promises to yourself, halfway full of hope, and halfway full of knowing that you won't visit that old friend when you say you will. You pick up your phone to check your messages, but you know you're not going to call that old friend when you say you will. Writing can be like that for me.

I haven't posted a blog entry since July, and I haven't posted anything substantial since before that. I'm explaining my absence to you, but really to myself, because I feel like saying "I just didn't have anything to say" simply isn't enough. I said that last year, and the year before that. Truthfully speaking, with summer seems to always come a lag in my writing. Does life simply happen faster in the summer, too fast for my writing to keep up with?

Regardless of whatever time vortex may exist in the summer, I don't have to explain why I was denying my old friend a visit, though I will nonetheless.

Life happened, in a manner that seemed to be even a bit ridiculous for my taste. In short: I quickly fell in love with someone, and found that a lot of things I used to say and feel no longer existed for me. No longer was I the advocate for singledom, fucking before being fucked, and existing within the pain of that which had happened to me, and that which I allowed to happen to me. I was in love, with someone who was wholly in love with me, for none other reason than the fact that I was, simply, myself. (I'd never really experienced this before.) Suddenly, my relationship with this person had gone from business, to friendship and love, and I found myself gaining perspective and closure that I didn't know I was searching for. I found myself holding hands, spending nights, crying on shoulders, sacrificing without struggle, and feeling within myself that the thing I knew I'd been searching for all the while had come to me, as quiet as a shadow in the night.

I fell in love, and all else fell away.

It no longer mattered that the "love of my life" had moved on and didn't even leave a return address. It no longer mattered that the victory of a recent "conquest" rang hollow like the inside of a gutted log. It certainly didn't matter that an old "friend" found fault with me for not coming to pick him up during a visit so we could have an empty quickie, presumably, in my vehicle, and it didn't even matter that the ex I gave two unofficial years to moved back to the land he wanted so badly to fit into and didn't even return my Facebook message. In fact, everything became rather comical, because all of the mistakes I made and all of the experiences I had led me right to the front step of the man who now took my heart and spirit into his arms and held them tightly.

So, I fell in love. Became a girlfriend. Became a friend. It's been a lovely journey that I sincerely enjoy, but you understand, this kind of journey takes time and dedication. Hence, putting off that visit to the old neighborhood for yet another day.

And then, everything else happened. My roommates and I moved out of our condo. (There went my consistent internet access.) I was supposed to move to California. That didn't happen. (I'm never ruling you out, oh California fantasy of mine.) My City Year came to an end. I found a job with another AmeriCorps program that didn't start until a month after my City Year ended. So I had a job, but didn't have a job. My only sister graduated from high school and started college. After my roommates and I moved out, I didn't have another location set up to move to. (This time around, I will start looking for a new apartment when I still have six months on my lease. I've learned.) I took on two housesitting jobs for about an entire month. I stayed with the boyfriend. I moved the majority of my things into my future boss's house. I ate. (A lot.) Put on a little thickness. I cut my hair again. (Natural round 2.) Boyfriend and I made the commitment to start locs together. (December, I'm ready.) My car decided to pitch a fit and scrambling had to be done to ensure it would be fixed. Started new job and found myself dissatisfied before new job had really begun in earnest. Food stamps ran out and the office conveniently didn't get my paperwork. Finally found an apartment that was bug infested. Had to move into said bug infested apartment because roommates wanted to rush things. Job sucked. Was making no money. Struggling. Had bills. Struggling. Spent plenty of days lamenting the decisions I'd made (or hadn't made). Wondered why I couldn't just want to do something lucrative, like handle people's stocks or cut people's chests open. Wondered why I hadn't just stayed in school forever. Hated the city I was in. Wanted to go home but knew that wouldn't solve my problems or feelings. Prayed, prayed, prayed

for a resolution.

And then, the boss I never really connected with fired me on some bullshit logic and shady business practice. Surprisingly, the resolution I'd prayed for had occurred, but I was not in the business of realizing such. All I could think of was how livid I was that an employer lied in order to find a reason to fire me. All I could think about was how everyone that worked there or had something to do with them sucked, and how I shouldn't have trusted anyone. All I could think about was the fact that I graduated from a relatively big deal of a PWI*, in three years and cum laude, at that, and this job, that I still performed for even though it didn't matter to me nor my future goals, this job that wasn't even a real job, but an AmeriCorps placement fired me. I've never been fired from a job, barely received as much as a reprimand, and I'd been fired from a joke of a job on some 1984 shit. (Big Brother is real, ladies and gentlemen.)

But: I'd wished I could have time to actually read. (In my absence from writing, I also unfortunately hadn't been reading either. Completing Steven King's It clearly took its toll.) I'd wished I could be outside in the sunlight rather than stuck in a small cube. I'd wished I could make more money. Wished I could be doing anything other than what I was doing. And now, I sit here, in the middle of the day, writing, watching the sun shine on the palm trees outside this Barnes and Noble, beginning to feel slightly dizzy from the focus I've been giving this screen for the last half-hour, but I'm free. Free to do all of the things I'd been hoping I could. God may not answer the way we want Him to, or expect Him to, but He does answer. He does.

So, all that being said, I haven't written in a while. I've been passing the old neighborhood by, saying I'm going to drop in on that old friend, but every time I find the time to stop by, I find something else that needs to be done. Like plucking my eyebrows. Or taking a third nap. Or checking my Facebook.

I haven't written in a while, but today I got tired of passing that old neighborhood by, and thinking about the old friend I've been neglecting.

I'm sorry I took so long.

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

*--Predominately White Institution

21 + 3, and other things

2011-07-05T13:52:00.002-04:00

It's been so long since I've written, I'm surprised my blog remembers who I am. I almost expected an error message to pop up when I tried to log in.

I'm sorry, you are no longer recognized. Please start over and try again.

Thankfully, that didn't happen. My blog tells me I haven't written since June 8th. It feels like it's been much longer than that. Maybe it's simply because so many things have changed so quickly, maybe that's why it feels like it's been forever.

Well, to start, happy birthday to me :) I am beyond happy and blessed to have seen another year on this tumultuous land we call Earth; in this spacey place we call America. Twenty-four is solid. Not quite my mid-twenties yet, but I'm almost too far gone from 21 (in fact, this is probably the last year I'll include 21 in my age calculations), and getting ever closer to 30. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that I'm an adult. Since adolescence (in memory) wasn't that long ago, sometimes I forget that I can do whatever I need to do myself. That I'm legal, and don't need my parents there to do anything for me. You might wonder how one can forget that, but trust me, it's possible. Being an adult is an idea you have to get used to.

So, let's take a trip back in time, shall we? I feel it necessary in order to catch you up on where I am now.

These are the types of days that are going to make me miss Miami... Knowing that you are slated to go somewhere else aids in perspective shifting. ("prayer answered/perspective"; Friday, March 11, 2011)

So, around this time, I was working with the knowledge that I would be moving to San Jose, California, to pursue another City Year term. I was right: knowing that you're going to go somewhere else leads to perspective shifts, and usually an embracing of your surroundings. I wanted to get the most that I could out of Miami, because my time in the city was coming to a close. Well... not so much. In May, I believe it was, I was granted with a phone call from CY San Jose, regretfully informing me that the department I was slated to work in had been reduced to simply a management position, meaning that I no longer had a position. City Year giveth, and City Year taketh away. Just like that, the move that I thought I was going to be making was no longer happening. I'm a big believer in signs, so I took that as a sign from up above that I wasn't supposed to be moving, at least not to Cali. Maybe there was something left for me to find on the East coast...

I started looking for jobs at home in Orlando, not really giving much thought to staying in Miami. In fact, my first thought was that I would move back to Orlando. I started rallying the troops; telling my friends at home that I would be making an appearance back in the hometown... started setting up welcome back/birthday parties and all. (I unfortunately inherited the penchant for speaking too soon from my father.) As fate would have it, though, there were no jobs popping for me at home. Called my old boss, he couldn't really offer me any concrete answers; sent off resumes and cover letters, and wasn't hearing anything back from anyone. Time was drawing closer to my City Year term being over, and I was beginning to get antsy. I needed to find a job, but Orlando wasn't biting. It was suggested to me that I should look here in Miami. I had completely overlooked Miami, even though I was living in Miami. My mind was so set on getting out, that I didn't even consider Miami to be a resource.

As I thought about it, I thought about the group of friends I'd made. Started thinking about the fun times we'd all shared. Stood on my balcony and looked at that view and pondered deep. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't time for me to leave Miami yet.

That April, after having a like/hate relationship (mostly hate) with Gainesville for so long, I finally settled... and right when it was time for me to leave, I got the feeling that I have now: awww man, everything's finally fallen into place. That sensation is exactly what tells me it's time to go. ("April 2008 to 2009 to 2010"; Wednesday, April 21, 2010)

Something clicked inside my brain one day when I was at work (better late than never, I suppose). As the quote above states, when I lived in Gainesville, and found myself finally comfortable, it was time to leave. Though I was never uncomfortable at home, once I found my little groove in Orlando, it was time for me to leave. And here I was, with my little Miami groove, and I was preparing to leave it also. My sister said to me once, when I was talking to her about wanting to maybe move to New York because I just wanted and needed something different, "Well, what if you don't like it there either?" I have had a habit of living places, not liking them, and then moving to something else, only to find myself repeating the same type of behavior. At some point, I finally came to the realization that it had much less to do with the places than it had to do with me. This had a lot to do with why I decided to try to stay in Miami. I decided that at some point (no time like the present), I was going to have to stick with a place, and let it grow on me. Stop being so stubborn and try to accept someplace that isn't home. If I keep jumping from place to place, year to year, I'm never going to form any type of relationship with anywhere.

And go figure, as I had this realization and sent my resume to my boss for an open AmeriCorps position, I received a phone call the same day from the employer, and essentially got the job before interviewing and before meeting him in person. Man, when something is meant for you, it's meant for you. So, Miami and I will have another year to grow on each other.

Even now, I feel like I never get any reciprocity. Never. No one is ever on the same page with me, no one can ever emote as deeply as I can, no one feels and I mean really feels the way I do. I feel like whether I play the games or don't play the games, I still end up with the same result (nothing). Sometimes I wonder who I have to be in order to get what I want, but I don't feel like I have the energy. ("Jazz in the Gardens, feelings, and Lauryn Hill"; Sunday, March 20, 2011)

I want to love someone past the boundaries that even I'm comfortable with, and have them love me in return, and I want us to be happy. I don't want everything to be perfect. I don't want either one of us to be mental vegetables. I don't want us to have sex because we feel like that's what we're supposed to do. I want us to like each other quite a bit and be able to recognize it. I don't want us to be perfect, and I want us to love one another for our innate imperfection. I don't want any more fucking fool's gold. I want the real thing. ("'for me it ain't real... it's fool's gold...'"; Wednesday, March 9, 2011)

Maybe, quite frankly, I have deluded myself into believing that someone should, and will accept me for exactly who I am. Thus, since I believe in this delusion, I refuse to change myself... I am now genuinely considering whether or not this idea that it will all work out simply because someone will be marvelous enough to accept me as I am is, indeed, a delusion. Even if it is a delusion, it's one I believe in. Yes, I believe and hope within my heart that someone will come along and accept me as I am. Why? Because I believe I deserve it. ("I love me more than the thought of you"; Saturday, May 14, 2011)

Okay. Let's travel back a bit. That was a lot to digest. Essentially, before late May/June, this is where I was, with regards to relationships. I found that no one was on the same page as me, I was still only meeting dudes good enough for a fuck or two, I still could only trust and believe in men as far as I could throw them, my ex was still behaving like a piece of shit (I wonder why I imagined he would change), and I still wanted a relationship, though I wasn't sure how much I really trusted the idea. I started to wonder whether maybe I was deluding myself into believing that someone would come along and take me as I was. Well, it's funny how things work sometimes, because I met someone. Someone who accepts me exactly as I am. Someone who looks out for me. Someone who genuinely loves me--not just the pussy, not just the head, not just the way my ass looks in a pair of jeans. He doesn't love the idea of me, rather, the reality of me, the totality of me. He's a friend who's not afraid to check me when I've overstepped my boundaries. When I've gotten so inside my feelings I've checked out. He's a homie who's my road dawg. He's a lover who listens. He holds my hand, he holds my body, he holds my heart. He is that person who does more than tell me where my worth should be, he shows me where my worth is.

Funny, he was under my nose for a minute, and I never realized it. Never gave it a second thought, honestly, because as usual, I spent all my time focusing on the dudes that didn't give two shits about me. Trying to make this dude want to fuck with me. Trying to make my ex pay more attention to me. The usual mistakes that people make when they just need someone to care.

As I said in a previous post, I have become the person I used to stare at and envy. The person walking around holding hands and kissing their significant other. The person looking happy. My mother always told me to never look at others and judge because, being on the outside looking in, you don't know the reality of their situation, but I knew that those people I used to envy looked happy, and I wanted that. And I got it. And I'm blessed. Not boastful, not taking a second of anything for granted. Simply blessed, and happy beyond anything I have ever known. I am grateful. Grateful for fate working against my desires, because if I'd had it my way, I would have never known him, and probably would still be on the other side of my Facebook page, pining after an ex that does not care about me, nor for me.

That, is what has been going on with me lately. Traveling all over the place, in love, helping my sister with her transition to college, hanging out, enjoying myself, oh, and I picked up some thickness too... time to find another gym.

Oh, and I got rid of my cat. There are people out there who are better suited to be pet owners, so I made their dreams come true. I love a clean room more than her. I'm honest.

Oh, and it's time for me to move to a different apartment. My first year in Miami went by faster than I expected it to, even though I knew a year would fly by. A year is not a long period of time by any means, but so many things can happen in that short amount of time. I gained so much. So many lessons, so many great additions to my life.

I am blessed. Thankful beyond words.

I am at peace.

old thoughts meet new life

2011-06-08T12:18:00.000-04:00

I know. I haven't written in a while. Forever, it seems. Life has been moving faster than I can keep up with. As usual, I'm still here. You know I start to falter in the summer anyway. (Doesn't this happen every year?)

I found this note on my phone yesterday, a couple months shy of a year after I wrote it. I'm pretty sure I was sitting observing this couple, feeling wistful, feeling on the outside looking in at something I wouldn't quite be able to capture myself. Well, almost a year later, I can safely say I'm no longer on the outside looking in.
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Thursday, Sep 9, 8:21 pm

The most beautifully simple thing: sitting in a small sushi joint w/red round lanterns for lights, an older guy and slightly younger female are at the table diagonal from ours , and they are sitting almost nose to nose, and he is running his hands through the hair behind her ears. She smiles at him tenderly as he continues to rub the hair at her face's sides, placing it behind her ears over and over again. Trapped inside their own private galaxy, I imagine their hearts are smiling at one another, connected in a way I hope lasts for them, forever.
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I will never again underestimate the power of being trapped inside of a private galaxy with another human being. I used to observe people trapped inside their own moments with one another, and my inside parts longed for that feeling, while my outside parts met those hand holding, kissy face making, all in love and shit folks with silent vitriol.

I have become one of those hand holding, kissy face making, all in love and shit folks. And I couldn't be happier.

"If I don't, have you..." (what does that mean for me?)

2011-05-26T00:59:00.000-04:00

Share my life, take me for what I am
'cause I'll never change all my colors for you
Take my love, I'll never ask for too much
just all that you are, and everything that you do
Whitney Houston, "I Have Nothing"

I was going about my evening doing the usual: procrastinating on this cover letter I've been writing for approximately eight days, listening to Pandora, and ~~refreshing my Facebook page~~ thinking, when my need-to-write desires linked hands with some able-to-be-articulated thoughts, and here we are right now, in the low-light, together, at last.

Since the lights are already low, let's not beat around the bush: I love singing. If you believe in past lives (I'm pretty sure I do), in my past life, I was a nightclub singer. Slinky blue dress with sequins, lying on top of a piano in a smoky room, one white light focused on me, singing my heart out to men who are infatuated with the way my voice makes them feel, but don't actually love me.* (Yes, even in my past life, I'm pretty sure that love was a torment to me.) That was me. So, whenever I get the chance to sing along to a song, particularly a ballad, I do. Pandora helps me out with this often, and the ballad that was given to me this evening was Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing" from The Bodyguard soundtrack.

Now, I was some type of child when this movie came out, but I vaguely remember it. Creamy looking black woman (Houston) and white man who is presumably her bodyguard, hence the title of the whole damn movie. (Costner.) I remember them being someplace where it snowed, and him picking her up and carrying her. (Or maybe it was a child who almost drowned? Shit, I don't know.) I also seem to remember that they aren't together at the end of the movie, on some Casablanca ish. (Go figure.) Anyhow, that's what I remember. That aside, I've always loved this song, and so my Pandora listening wouldn't be complete unless I sang along with Whitney as she belted out her frustration and pain. Being that you can't sing a ballad without enunciating and articulating, and henceforth knowing all the words, I made sure to pull up the lyrics so I could be on point with my singing.

While singing the very first stanza, I realized that I must have never known what the hell Whitney was saying. The first stanza of this song articulates something I acknowledged in a former post, and something I was ruminating on tonight via Twitter. I am starting to accept the fact that my fierce loyalty to my ways of thinking and my ideals may leave me perpetually without lifetime partner.** Just like how I talked about deluding myself into believing that someone will accept me just the way I am, I suppose I also have to accept the flip-side of the possible delusion, that being that no one will be able to deal with me as I am.

In the first stanza of "I Have Nothing," Whitney pretty much shuts everything down and gives whomever she's talking to the reality of her emotions: she tells the object of her affections to take her as she is, and to be a part of her life, but she's not changing any-damn-thing about herself for this man. She's offering her love, not necessarily as an option--she doesn't say take it if you want to, she says take. She tries to offer the reassurance that she won't ask this man for too much of himself, until she tells him in the very next breath that she needs everything that he is, and everything that he does.

This is my favorite part of the entire song. The rest of the song is still beautiful and melodic, but these words resonate most with me, and they are the strongest, and thus, my favorite. It's very cliche to tell someone you can't live without them, or that you have nothing without them--I'm sure at some point in your life, you've either felt this way, or told someone you felt this way. But to tell someone that in exchange for accepting the love you're giving them, they will be receiving someone not willing to change anything about themselves, and someone who expects damn near the world from them? Well, that's some type of resolve. Such that may very well find someone perpetually without partner, as it seems was the fate of Whitney by the end of her ballad.

Never changing my colors for someone is an ideal I find to be very powerful, especially after what feels like a small lifetime of having been a chameleon for the sake of acceptance, but I think it's the smartest route to accept the possibility that maybe my desire to not change my colors will ironically leave me with no reason to change my colors at all.

*--Who, do you love?/Girl I see through, through your love/who, do you love/me, or the thought of me?/Me or the thought of me? --John Mayer, "I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You)"
**--before you say shit, stop: I don't care that I'm not that old yet, I don't care that you may feel that I have plenty of time, I don't care about any of the cliche shit that people like to say to you to try and talk you off the ledge of your emotions. Yes, I'm 23, and yes, I'm talking about love and relationships again. /rant. I am taking control over my own self-awareness and realizing some ugly truths that I would never have been comfortable acknowledging a couple of years back. Though I can acknowledge the fact that my loyalty to my ideals might not ever sit well with someone for long enough for us to have a legitimate future together, it doesn't mean that I'm wholly a fan of it.

fascination

2011-05-19T00:42:00.000-04:00

I can't help but think of how he touches me
as I sit in low light
trying to erase the thought
of the touch of his words,
snaking around my earlobe
slinking down my shoulder
creeping across the rise in my chest
trailing down the ring in my bellybutton
it pauses...
my passion rises
to meet
the thought
of your tongue
behind my kneecap

seis

2011-05-17T20:20:00.000-04:00

Spinning, laughing, dancin' to her favorite song
a little girl, with nothing wrong
is all alone

eyes wide open, always hopin'
for the sun
and she'll sing her song, to anyone
that comes along

Fragile as a leaf in autumn
just fallin' to the ground
without a sound...

Crooked little smile, on her face
tells a tale of grace
that's all her own

Spinning, laughing, dancin' to her favorite song
Well she's a little girl, with nothing wrong
and she's all alone
a little girl, with nothing wrong
and she's all alone

(Seven Years--Norah Jones)

Six--not quite seven--years ago today, I was walking around the park with my family, my graduation cap and cords still on, proudly beaming to the passers-by who congratulated me for my accomplishment.

Six years in the past, I graduated from high school. I thought about it this morning when I was at work, and I said it out loud, as though to make it real. Six years. Where has that time flown to? Where is it now hiding?

It seems like five minutes ago that I was in high school, suffering through many of the typical trappings of adolescence--crushes, friendships gone awry, pimples--and some of the not-so-typical kind as well. And yet, here I am, an adult (I suppose). When you speak the ages (18 through 23, almost 24), it certainly doesn't seem like that much. But when I think of all of the things that have happened, and how different I am from that girl then, I am almost astounded.

Kind of wish I could go back in time and meet that girl, and tell her about the fantastic young lady she'd become.

Eh, no need. I'm pretty sure she figured it out.

I love me more than the thought of you

2011-05-14T12:49:00.001-04:00

In examining this process, I understand more and more where I fail in the romantic game. I’m just not very good. Even worse is that I know how to be better but I just refuse to do what it takes because I’ve deluded myself into believing that a woman I am trying to convince as to my “wonderfulness” should accept me for who I am.

(Read more about Falling in Love, What is Love/Relationships on Naked With Socks On)

If you have never visited Naked With Socks On, go ahead and make your way over there. And then read the post from Rastaman. (From which the marvelous quote above can be attributed.) And then come back here. And then read my thoughts.

As a formerly diehard romantic, when I first fell in love with the ex, I truly thought he was "the one." I thought he was the one, and I half-way hoped, half-way expected we'd end up on a porch fifty years from then, sipping lemonade hand in hand as we told the story of how we met to our grandkids. Yeah. And when we began erasing our ties, it was simply a case of the right people at the wrong time.* But leave it to me, and I would have told you that life had ended, I would never love again, and that he was "the one" that got away. In fact, for quite some time afterwards, part of me struggled with the legitimate pondering of whether my chance at true love was indeed over. Sure, I felt he was the one, but the rational part of me, however small it was, was persistent in insisting that I couldn't have possibly exhausted my shot at love, all by the age of eighteen. I was too young, too naive, too dumb for that to have been my only chance.

I allowed my hurt time to exist and manifest (that's another story for another day), and came to realize that it was relatively improbable that there was only one person in the world who was meant for me. I do believe that there is a small number of people with whom I'll get along with well enough for it to turn into something greater, like a marriage. But even though I've grown older, as has my viewpoint, there is something that has not seemed to change about this entire equation: my relationship discombobulation.

For a long time ~~(i.e. forever),~~ I have stood by the fact that relationships and I simply don't agree with one another. I want companionship, it wants sex. I want sex, it wants friendship. I want forever, it wants tonight. I want tonight, and it wants never. Poetics aside, I usually always attest to the fact that relationships and I are always on two different pages. It's part of my acerbic humor, it is. How better to cope with something you see as a personal fault, than to joke about it often?

Lately, I've been wondering what part I've played in my perpetual disagreement with relationships. I used to say it was all its fault, but it would be remiss of me to not examine my role in all of this. Being as how I've done a lot work to reach a new level of self-awareness, I know that the problem isn't me being unaware of some ungodly trait or behavior. No, that's not quite it at all. It's the exact sentiment behind the quote at the top of my post.

Finally, I have reached a place where I have accepted damn near all of me. (And happen to like me, too.) The social smoking part, the entire bottle of wine consumption part, the irritability, the enormous heart, the worrying, the no-five-year-plan having, the I-feel-some-type-of-way-about-cooking-for-you, grudge-holding, fiercely loyal and loving part. There are a few things I know would probably benefit me and my relationship with relationships if I tweaked them. Sometimes I tell myself that I will tweak and change these things. But at the end of the day, I know I could change them if I really wanted to, but I don't. Because I love the traits and my embracing of them more than I love the idea of being up on the good foot with relationships. Maybe, quite frankly, I have deluded myself into believing that someone should, and will accept me for exactly who I am. Thus, since I believe in this delusion, I refuse to change myself.

After reading Rastaman's post, I am now genuinely considering whether or not this idea that it will all work out simply because someone will be marvelous enough to accept me as I am is, indeed, a delusion. Even if it is a delusion, it's one I believe in. Yes, I believe and hope within my heart that someone will come along and accept me as I am. Why? Because I believe I deserve it.

So, at least, if relationships and I aren't existing on the same page, I can't say I don't have an idea as to why.

*--he himself said this to me, in a conversation that has now been blurred by my own replaying of my memories. I'm not sure whether he said this to me when I was walking to the bookstore, but that memory is so strong in me that I'll believe that's when he said it. I believe we were on the phone, because I'm pretty sure I would have remembered walking with him. Regardless of how it played out, I remember it being a cloudy day in Gainesville, and I remember that classic line being dropped upon my consciousness. Now, I wonder if he was spitting game. Of course, my first instinct is to say no, but it would have been so easy to run it, that I can't be for sure that he wasn't, though my heart is inclined to say that wasn't a possibility. Life later taught me that anything, especially that which shouldn't be, is possible.

that moment when you realize it wasn't love, though...

2011-05-09T20:14:00.000-04:00

I can't tell you when it happened, so I won't lie and tell you I know when. But I do know that when I laid down with you, my mind got up with him.

7:05 pm, summer

2011-05-09T20:02:00.002-04:00

7:05 in a Florida summer's evening means that the breeze is warm and blowing relaxed through the trees, rustling the leaves to my pleasure. 7:05 means the sun is starting to lounge in the sky, illuminating my walls with orange sunray, broken into lines by my blinds. 7:05 is after-dinner conversation and Jeopardy; suds sloshing in the sink while I lean over dinner dishes. 7:05 is that first post-work margarita.

7:05 is the quiet storm; slow R&B making love to my ears; slowly sneaking up my earlobe. 7:05 is Florida brilliance, a first and last date in the park, resisting an inevitable end. 7:05 is the day's transition.

7:05 is memory. Past, present, future.

"Because it's the right thing to do..."

2011-04-20T23:59:00.000-04:00

Excuse my french, emotion and my passion/
but I wear my heart on my sleeve like it's the new fashion
-Lil' Wayne, "Dontgetit"

I'm going to speak right off the top of my heart tonight, so I apologize in advance. I'm not quite sure what the fuck I'm apologizing for, but for some reason, it feels like the right thing to do.

And that's precisely what I want to talk to you about. The "right" thing to do. All day long, all life long, we are conflicted. We're always trying to make sure that we're doing the "right" thing. (Well, some of us, I suppose.) But, "right" is just as subjective as "wrong." Think about it: what can we actually say is the "right" thing to do? We can't necessarily use the Bible--it's not the only holy book around, and Christianity is not the only religion, thus, what's right by Biblical standards will not ring true for everyone. Also, there are things that are supposedly* considered wrong in the Bible that I personally do not think are wrong. (i.e. homosexuality and premartial sex.) Okay, so what's next? Utilizing the law to determine what's "right?" Okay, well we do utilize the law, but laws are made by man, and man is a subjective creature. Remember, slavery used to be considered A-okay by law.

You glimpse my point, right? That "right" is technically subjective. What may be right for you, may not be right for me, may be right for the next person. And I say all that to say: how in the hell do we know what's right? Because it feels right? Well, if we go on the basis of this just feels right, how do we know it actually does? What if it feels right because we've been groomed by former conditioning of what "rightness" is supposed to be?

So, I wrote a couple of posts before this one that touched on issues essentially of nature versus nurture/"rightness": "Think as a lady, and be one, too" and "head game", specifically. In both of these posts, I attacked some very current threads in my life: the idea of programmed womanhood (how much is a result of our wiring and how much is a result of what we're told to be like), and consequently, the idea of what is considered "right" for a woman.

The reason I bring up this entire argument of what's right, and how you determine whether it is indeed, "right," is because this evening I was in conversation with my best sexy guy friend (we will start referring to him as BSGF) when I encountered an epiphany. As I was explaining to him my plans for a specific situation, I realized that my plans had no rationale. I planned on doing something I didn't want to do simply because I thought it was the right thing to do. It felt like the right thing to do. But truth be told... it isn't "right." Not to me, at least. It's not what I want to do, at all, so how could it be "right"? That being said, who is it right to?

So often, I explained to BSGF, I feel like women consistently make moves and try to prove points that often are illogical... but why? Because we feel like it's the right thing to do. Again, but why? Take for instance, what could be any girl's situation. You have sex with a guy once. You like the dude/think he's cool/whatever, and you don't want him to think you're "like that," so next time you want to ~~have sex~~hang out, even though deep inside yourself (no pun) you enjoyed the last time you hung with him, you try to make him jump through some type of hoop. (Like going out for dinner, or coming over at this particular time, or having that "I don't want you to think I'm a ho" conversation.) But why? You've already had sex... the deed has been done, so what point is trying to be proven? That if you have sex with him after a date you're not a ho as opposed to having sex with him when there's no date at all? (Illogical.) And better still, whom is the point being proven to? Yourself? Because I can bet, it ain't that guy.

I'm not sure why, as a woman, I feel the tendency to prove a point (clearly, to myself and no one else, because it's not proving shit to a dude since it barely proves anything to me) that is unnecessary. Is it my wiring in the sense of my innate nature, or my wiring in the sense of the fodder I've been fed from my surroundings on how to be a woman? Is it both? Essentially, I am acting under conditions of "right" that I didn't set. There have been many times when I have done or not done things because they were the "right" things to do, when they honestly didn't feel right, and weren't necessarily things I wanted to do. But early in life (as women), I feel like we're also taught that active self-denial of our own pleasure is just part and parcel of womanhood. It fits, right? Bear the brunt of humanity, deny yourself pleasure and desire in the name of what's "right."

*-I say "supposedly" because unless I'm going to quote directly from the Bible, I don't feel comfortable giving an affirmative with no fact. You're always suppose to quote your source, and since I'm not taking the time to do that, we'll stick with "supposedly."

Why Black men and not Black women?

2011-04-19T22:53:00.005-04:00

I have a question for whomever wants to answer it: why do Black women hold Black men to impossible standards? In this case, I mean one standard in particular: interracial relations.

Now, let me first clarify by saying that I technically can only speak on behalf of myself, since I'm very well aware of the fact that there are plenty of Black women who may disagree with me. But, in that speaking on behalf of myself, I'm going to speak on behalf of something I have noticed.

It's no secret that I love men. I have realized this year that I have an affinity for men that far surpasses what I originally imagined. I love damn near everything about men: the way they smell (when they smell good), the way their bodies are shaped, their ruggedness, the simplicity of them (sometimes)... shit, I love them. I love men so much that I pray in the future that I have a son or two so I can have a hand in the raising of a man. (Not to have my sex be outdone, however, I also want to have daughters. I hope to have twins first, because I can't imagine choosing either a boy or a girl to be the oldest of my family; hence, both of them could share the responsibility.)

That being said, I also have a very special place in my heart for Black men. (And by "Black" here I mean African-American. They are not one in the same, so I wanted to clarify.) I love to see them do well. I want to see them do better. I have tried to guide some of the young Black men I've come across, and Lord knows I've loved me a couple of Black men. My father is a Black man and without him, there'd be no me.

But... that all being said about my special place for Black men, there's another special place in my heart reserved for another kind of man. In fact, this place isn't even reserved solely in my heart, but it's more like in that fleshy, soft, tender skin behind my kneecap. A weakness, you could say. An intense infatuation. I've got a thing for Hispanic men.

As a child, I can remember having a fascination for two cultures: my own, and that of Hispanic culture. At the time, the most exposure that I had was Ricky Ricardo on "I Love Lucy" but it was still exposure, and I was still transfixed. I can remember enjoying when he would break into Spanish at the drop of a hat and then go back to speaking English. I loved the music. The drums. The costumes. The mythical place he spoke of called Cuba.

As I grew older, I found myself infatuated with other cultures as well (I've got me a thing for the cultures of the Romance languages), but the base of my childhood interest was in my own far-reaching roots, and, not long after, that of Hispanic roots as well. My first love being Dominican clearly cemented such interest.

Now, I said all that to say this: anyone who knows me, or has even had a bit of passing interaction with me, is probably aware of my weak-behind-the-knees-ness for Hispanic men. Although I've been the butt of many harmless jokes because of it (from my best friend telling me, "U can't deal w/ a real, african-american in touch w/ his culture to save your life!" and my father spending a season telling people he worked with that I fancied Puerto Ricans [though he clearly got the country wrong]), I have never been met with any real problems because of it. No one has stared at me sideways, my family hasn't been up-in-arms about it, and no one has questioned my "Blackness" because of it. I've even been met with approval from girlfriends, one of whom expressed her "being done" with Black men, and that she herself was going to date white men. (Though I won't elaborate now, I will say that her comment made me feel some kind of way. It's an interesting dynamic to look at, considering the questions that will follow this sentence.)

That all established, if I was a Black man, would I have that privilege? The same best friend who made the joke about me not getting up with an AA man to save my life, is the same best friend (who is a strikingly intelligent young AA male) who was joking with me one day about being infatuated with a white girl, and though I legitimately consider myself as someone who doesn't care who someone dates, I will be 100 and admit that it bothered me.

The thought of my strikingly intelligent, ridiculously handsome, young, promising, Black male friend getting up with a white girl bothered me. I even asked him if she was blond. God forbid if she was blond. Is it right to feel this way? (No.) Why do I feel this way? (That's up for debate.) Why is it that I could feel uncomfortable with my friend even joking about being infatuated with a white girl, but I don't consider it a problem--and no one else seems to, either--to be infatuated with, lust after, and even fall in love with Hispanic men? Why is it that I can think of wanting to have brown-skinned babies who speak English from their mom, and Spanish from their dad without feeling any trace of awkward obligation toward Black men, but I know if the tables were turned and my friend expressed this same desire with a white female, I'd feel some kind of way about it?

Is it simply that it's okay for me, as a Black woman, to want to venture out of my own box, but I want to keep Black men firmly in that box, vowing to be attracted only to women who resemble me? Is it because "exotic" women are trendy and I'm not exotic? Is it the need for me to be in control that causes this need for me to be able to walk away but not be walked away from? What causes it to become such a personal issue?

Why does it seem that Black men are vilified when they violate the sometimes-feels-damn-near-seems-moral obligation to pick Black women, but Black women are not?*

*--So, say ye, you don't practice this, right? Okay. Let's see. Say we have Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs, two should-be-well-enough-known-I'm-sure-you've-seen-them-before-in-some-damn-movie Black actors. (They are the first two that popped in my head.) So, take Sanaa's role in Something New, the movie that deals with a lot of what we're talking about. (She falls for a white male.) Now, the vibe of that movie is all like "you go, girl, you try something new and get you that white man who treats you right and is not looking at color." Great, right? Still supports your idea that this doesn't affect you, right? Alright. Let's switch Sanaa for Taye, and Simon Baker for some blond actress. Now, you tell me just how many of you and your friends would pay money to go watch a movie about Taye Diggs getting caught up with some blond girl. I can tell you right now, I'd probably catch it on DVD. Now, if this paragraph did nothing to you or for you, then I am clapping my hands for you. But I know there are people who would read this here paragraph, and have the same resistance inside your spirit that I felt writing it. I understand the resistance is incorrect; my desire is to understand what the cause of the resistance is. Because it's there. Oh yes, it's there for real.

"I'm living for the memories of right now..."

2011-04-14T23:34:00.003-04:00

Thank goodness for Twitter. It gave me an idea.

So, my time in Miami is growing ever shorter. This realization is leading to me getting all reminiscent and introspective and shit. I've been writing and tweeting all about how it's funny that we are constantly in the process of making memories we will long for later. It's something we don't think about in the moment, but it's absolutely true: at some point, every memory you have was something occuring in the present tense.

Anyhow, so I was sitting here, looking for an entry to re-post ~~because I didn't like what I was originally going to post and because I couldn't at the time generate any critical thought~~ when the waves of nostalgia and introspection came up behind me real slow like that dude at the end of Scarface when Tony Montana is flailing around all high and crazy and shit. (Okay, well that dude was walking for like a million frames. Maybe the waves came up on me a wee bit faster than that.)

I started thinking about a couple of the guys I know and how much I like them as people. Multi-faceted and deeply intriguing. The type of people I find sexier than a motherfucker. (Cue Prince.) Well, that thought led me to many other offshoots of thought: how they are the type of people I hope to always have around, how I wish I could take many of their characteristics and form one guy from them, how they make me damned happy to be single (how could one want to be booed up when there are multiple boos floating out there to be discovered?), but most of all, how this is a change of pace for me. Before, I frequently met people I hoped I would never encounter again in life. Now, I seem to meet people I hope stick around forever.

(I've still got my fingers crossed that some of the people in my past life will forget about me, change their names, and move to a remote island off the coast of Nowheresland, never to be seen again, but I know life doesn't work that way.)

Anyway, this sparked a thought in me. (As everything does.) Previously, I do believe I spoke on how you attract what you put out into the universe. I really didn't know exactly what this meant, because I'm not sure I was fully aware of what I was putting into the universe, or that how I was feeling actually created a vibration that the universe picked up on. But there clearly must be a difference in the vibes of then and the vibes of now, because the type of crowd you roll with tends to reflect who you are. Thus, the type of crowd you attract tends to reflect what you emit into the universe.

I can tell you now what I was putting into the universe: a bunch of really sad, insecure vibes. And I can tell you exactly whom I attracted: men who were nice and for the most part, decent people, but who were just as, if not more insecure than I was. Men who were interested in saving someone. Isn't it funny how people who can't deal with themselves are always trying to deal with others? It usually doesn't work very well.

I know for a fact that even though I have my many moments when I'm in some kind of emotional funk, I'm not that same person who was consistently sad; I'm not that same person who felt surrounded at times by people she didn't want to be. And the people that are attracted to me now are a reflection of that shift within myself. I'm confident. A hell of a lot more secure in myself than I ever was before. (Though I've still got a ways to go.) No longer the first person to put my own abilities down, but the first to correct your ass if you decide to put them down. Sexy. Wanting. Hungry. Challenging the mental status quo. I feel surrounded by people I genuinely want to be around. I know men who are sexier than I've ever seen. People who are more multi-faceted than I had grown accustomed to. People who challenge me. Men who don't have to save me, because I'm no longer looking for Superman to swoop in and save the day.

The type of people I hope I have around forever.

If you're not already aware, please monitor what you're emitting into the universe. You attract what you reflect. Don't believe me? You should.

I know these things.

Gainesville, we meet again my love

2011-04-12T00:32:00.000-04:00

Approximately two weeks from today, I'll be back in a town I once despised with all my immature, broken heart. I'll be visiting Gainesville, Florida, the home of my Alma mater, the University of Florida (Go Gators!), to attend a graduation ceremony. I'm curious to see what it's going to be like to be back in Gainesville as a grown-up, as someone that has been out of school for three years, as someone who's no longer heartbroken. You really don't understand. I feel like I talk about having been heartbroken so often, but that's because for years, that was my existence. So to not feel that way, and to truly not feel that way is... liberating in every sense of the word.

I have been back once or twice since I moved away, but I feel like during those times, I was still inevitably caught up and all inside my feelings, even though they weren't about the same ex from so many years previous. (Feelings are feelings, though.) And I certainly wasn't the type of grown-up I feel like I am now.

It will be nice to be back, to NOT be in my feelings, to be celebrating in all types of ways for many different reasons, to see some of the ladies that made my last year at UF something special, and maybe if a little sugar daddy* drops a stack on me, I can get another tattoo. *crosses fingers*

Anyhow, I decided to repost one of my favorite posts from the Halloween I spent in Gainesville. I don't know what it is about Halloween that has made it a social fail for the last three years kickin', but I'll try to do better this year. At least it's usually always a fail but with great company.

xo,
m.
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Thursday, November 5, 2009

Halloween in Gainesville

In the story of the life of Malorie, Halloween in Gainesville unfolds in this manner:

1. No work on Friday. This leads to great excitement, and driving to Gainesville.

2. Hair is behaving and looking fierce with no headband. This leads to further excitement.

3. Due to disgusting hangover earlier in the week, no alcohol is planned for consumption.

4. Best friend and many other friends are in Gainesville. They are all excited to see protagonist. This leads to great lengths of excitement and mushy feelings.

5. Once in Gainesville, protagonist meets other very cool friends of best friend. This makes Halloween party seem even more exciting.

6. Protagonist is tired and falls asleep on couch. Ends up sleeping on couch.

7. During middle of the night, protagonist feels swallows mass amounts of phlegm. Doesn't know where phlegm has magically come from, but continues sleep.

8. Morning. Protagonist feels like there is a rock inside skull. Congestion and lack of ability to breathe leads protagonist to Walgreens.

9. Buys sinus medicine. Thinks it is an allergy to best friend's puppy.

10. Day progresses... feeling gets worse.

11. Falls asleep on floor watching Florida Gators lacerate Georgia Bulldogs. Protagonist feels sleep will help. T minus 5 hours until Halloween party.

12. Protagonist awakens from nap. Feels worse.

13. Protagonist cannot breathe and still has headache. Decides to use steam inhaler to loosen mucus. Still T minus 5 hours until Halloween party.

14. Protagonist makes sudden movement and spills the scalding water from the inhaler on her leg. This proceeds to burn the protagonist through jeans.

15. T minus 4 hours until Halloween party: protagonist receives visit from friends. Holding ice to burnt thigh, protagonist realizes laughing is not possible due to condition of non-ability to breathe.

16. Friends leave. Protagonist decides to shower to assist with curing process before party.

17. T minus 3 hours until party: protagonist is wrapped in a blanket, now feeling feverish along with burnt thigh and headache. Protagonist decides there is no dog allergy, but contemplates whether it's swine flu, regular flu, or just plain death.

18. Protagonist decides party attendance cannot be completed.

19. Protagonist drinks tea and watches Coming to America complete in pajamas, head rag, and blanket.

20. Protagonist sleeps. Friends leave apartment to attend party.
-------------------------------------------------------

True story if you've ever heard one. I hope Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. enjoyed my ten dollar donation to their party I couldn't even attend.

(by the way, I didn't have the flu in any variation, I just caught a fierce cold which is now subsiding.)

*--no sugar daddy. Remember this guy? Once was enough.

thoughts on a weekend

2011-04-10T22:38:00.000-04:00

I had an entirely different post in mind earlier, but I'm no longer feeling it.

You know, even though she irritates me to no avail sometimes, I'm glad I have my cat during times like this, when I'm on my period and I feel unwanted/unloved/in despair/needy for affection. These are the times when I just pick her up and rub her belly. She usually rubs her head against my hand, and tonight she rolled over on her back and stretched against me like a baby. I needed that. If she didn't shed everywhere I'd cuddle with her in my bed.
I went to a free concert this weekend (Alexander and Albert Markhov), and it felt good to dress up and do something admittedly more on the adult tip. This wasn't my first time doing something like that; I used to do "random" things like that often enough at home.
When/if I get married, I want a string quartet playing. There is something some kind of classy and beautiful about string instruments, especially the violin. It sounds like weddings were made for the strings, or the strings for weddings. Either way, it's what I want. There will not be Stevie Wonder's "Ribbon in the Sky" playing me down the aisle. That became cliche almost twenty years ago.
I know who, but I'm not for sure on why.
While driving today, I found myself longing for days I'd already lived and places I'd already visited. The funny thing about it is that I can remember the moments and how I felt while they were occurring in real time, and they didn't mean much more to me than just being the fun of the moment. Every day we are potentially creating memories of days that we will long for in the future. Deep thought.
I don't like champagne, but no champagne tastes better than free champagne that you got at a church. Don't ask. You definitely had to be there. That experience was one of those memories I'm creating for future days.
Laying out at the beach was relaxing and I had time to think, but, just because I enjoy my own company doesn't mean that I always want to bask in my own company solely.
In thinking about the many things I did this weekend that don't necessarily fit evenly with one another in one box--getting dressed up, drinking, listening to classical violin music, going to the beach to bask in the sun, staying up late, waking up early, volunteering most of the day on Saturday, spending hours in silence, spending hours in conversation--I find that these things seem to be a testament to the varied individual I am. I am many boxes inside one person. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that to my next statement, someone would say "yeah, well everyone is just as you are," but sometimes I wonder if I'm going to be able to find someone who would be able to kick it with me on my level on the regular. Maybe my desires are unreasonable, and maybe I don't need someone to hang out with me all the time--maybe he can sit out when I go to the violin concert and he can watch some basketball, or something--but regardless, they're my unreasonable desires, dammit. What if I can't find that guy who is as many boxes inside himself as I am inside me? What if he can't find me either?
Thought that was going to be a longer post: cool people are everywhere, something *he* would say to me often, a way of him explaining why moving so often wasn't as unfathomable to him as the thought was to me. Though I still believe there was a little bit more to his description than meets the eye, the basis of that statement rings true. By this summer, I would have lived in three cities in three years, and will be working on my fourth city. I've got friends scattered everywhere myself. The reason I do, is because cool people are indeed everywhere. Here in Miami I have met some of the coolest people I have ever worked with; people I plan on inviting to those milestones of adulthood that should be coming up (well, I guess they should be) like weddings and baby showers. Hell, I wish I'd known some of the people I met here back when I was in college. Feel like I would have had a hell of a lot more fun. Regardless, cool people are indeed everywhere, and I pray the next leg of my journey involves some characters as well, though it's going to be pretty hard to top the characters I call a crew here in Miami.

"I wish that I could have this moment for life, for life, for life..."

2011-04-08T21:00:00.001-04:00

I may feel like Miami is all style and no substance, but sometimes, just sometimes, that style is something I know in the future I'll long for.

There is no place I'd rather be in life right now. Almost 24, floating with the breeze, going where life takes me, learning, learning, learning constantly about everything you could imagine.

This is the type of life I didn't know I wanted.

Youth is not wasted on the young.

I'm not trying to waste a minute of this shit.

Three reasons not to date me

2011-04-07T23:16:00.000-04:00

I was browsing the blog world today, and ran across a great post from one of the blogs I follow, Naked With Socks On. The post is titled "7 Reasons to Not Date Me (The Great Catch Myth)" and I thought it was a great exercise in keeping it honest with yourself. Though I doubt I will make it to seven, since I haven't been able to focus my thoughts on much since I sat down, I will definitely try to give you at least a couple. I am a huge proponent in being self-aware, and though I do stand by the fact that I am indeed a marvelous "catch" (if we would like to use such terminology--the sight of seeing that word and knowing that it is being used with me in mind actually makes me some kind of disagreeable), I know that there are some things about me that will not work for everyone.

1. I'm probably a lot more strong willed than you may want
Though I'm sure it may be very attractive to know that you have a woman on your side who can formulate her own thoughts, and is not shy about voicing them, I am very aware of the fact that I have quite the strong will. People like me are generally noted as "stubborn" or "obstinate." (A more formal way of saying stubborn.) I get it from my parents, both of them. I do not like to be wrong, and I will debate someone into the ground sometimes. I get heated, I raise my voice, I get mad expressive... yeah. I find it to be one of my more notable qualities, the passion I have, but it ain't for everyone.

2. I do not have a five-year plan
So don't ask me what mine is. I know it's a very popular question to ask people "where do you see yourself in five years" but I greatly dislike that question. Sure, I think about what I want to do in the future, and I think about what goals I have and want to accomplish, but no, I don't know where I will be in five years, and I can't say I know where I want to be, either. No, I'm not working to be the Senior Executive of x and y company, no, I'm not working to be a lawyer or a doctor at this particular level within five years, no, no, no: I have life goals, yes, but do they necessarily have a timeframe? Nope. Am I trying to necessarily give them one? Nope. I'm sure someone could easily see that as a lack of vision, maybe even as immaturity, but I see it as me being free and going where life takes me.

3. I'm a writer, so at some point, if you've affected me, I will write about you
Doesn't mean I'm going to put you on full blast or anything, but I do write about a lot of people, a lot of the time. People that come into my life consistently affect it, and more often than not, that appears in my writing. It has made people uncomfortable before, and I'm not beyond understanding how or why it could. But if you cannot be agreeable with the fact that I write, and that if I like you enough, I'm going to write about you, you might want to go holla at that chick at the bar that works in pharmaceuticals.

preguntas

2011-04-06T22:51:00.000-04:00

When's the last time you learned something about yourself you previously must have known, but never acknowledged?

When's the last time you stretched your muscles and body, slowly and gently?

When's the last time you ate for pleasure, not just out of the urgency of hunger?

When's the last time you let the sound of the rain coax you to sleep and the sound of silence gently nudge you awake?

When's the last time you sat back and observed someone--their motions, their words, their body, their spirit?

When's the last time you felt inexplicably pure joy for someone?

When's the last time you told yourself something good about yourself?

When's the last time you walked, drove, or let your mind wander with no intended destination?

What about the last time you told someone else something good about themselves?

Last time you said "I love you" and truly meant it?

Last time you had a good, soul-stirring laugh?

The last time something it was, turned out to be not at all?

flying amongst the skies

2011-04-05T22:27:00.000-04:00

I'm cheating. But I'm also tired.

Not tired of the challenge, but literally tired. And life keeps getting in the way. (Last night I wasn't at home until late, and if I'd had an iPhone or something snazzy, I could have posted. I'm going to check into this mobile blogging thing...)

Here's something from the vault.

xo,
m.
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Friday, April 10, 2009

"come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away..."

i feel like i'm ready to fly.
don't worry, i'm coming back
i'll always be coming back,
sandy white beaches
and turquoise ocean,
palm trees waving in the breeze
and balmy evenings--
my heart will always be here
but i'm ready to fly
and i'm not sure to where
but i gotta get away
from disappointment
from loving those who won't love me
from frustration
from self-doubt
from the ordinary
from the box that people have put their thoughts in
from who i was.
it's time for me to fly,
and it's not a selfish journey--
if only you want,
you can fly with me
i want you to fly with me
say the word and you're with me
but i guess your journey
won't include me.
but i will drop a postcard
from the skies of my flight
and on it, simply your invitation:
fly with me.

belief

2011-04-03T21:12:00.000-04:00

the point of believing

is to have faith

to believe in something i have no proof of--yet

to take a step onto a ledge i cannot see

to firmly believe that Someone is guiding the steps

that i clumsily take

not knowing which direction

is right

state of the mind

2011-04-02T20:03:00.000-04:00

There's something very common sense about relationships that seem to put them just beyond my grasp.

I think about the people I know who have been in relationships for long, long periods of time, or people who are consistently in relationship, and it is easy to see that they have the common sense that it takes to sustain in a relationship.

More likely than not, they are not neurotic, they have not been emotionally drained; they still view life with the optimism and non-melancholy hope characteristic of their type of person.

This is not to say that they are by any means not intelligent--no, not at all. They are some of the smartest people I know. Just in a different way.

I could be wrong, and I probably am, on many levels, but I do not contain this common sense. A person of intense emotion and frequent melancholia, I am intelligent, just as they are. But for whatever reason, I don't have what they have.

Doesn't mean that relationships and I are impossible. I think it just means that it's going to be a hell of a lot more of a struggle.

"I'mma take you on a trip... way back..." Well, not really. [thoughts on racism/prejudice]

2011-04-01T21:40:00.003-04:00

This could be considered cheating, but I never gave stringent rules on how my 40-day posting would go. So, today, for a lack of things I feel like speaking on critically (some days, I need a break from my own mental and emotional rigor), I will repost something for you. This is a piece I wrote last year on racism and prejudice, and it's funny: a person I used to consider a friend proved my theory right that a lot of people have lost the ability to think and process critically, and that we have become a society of first-responders to trigger words and thoughts. He read my post sensationally, not for critical thought, and came at me with shade on my Facebook, of all damned places. Needless to say, that "friendship" was ended not long after that scenario, and I feel my life is better for it. Why'd I tell you all this?

I don't know. Felt like telling you a story about an ass.

Continue on.

m.
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Wednesday, June 23, 2010: Why racism will (probably) never die
(This is something I wrote at work this morning. Yeah, you could be offended, but probably only if you don't actually read through the entire text. My suggestion is to read entirely and not partially.)
--------------------------------------------

I see how people become racist.

Not saying it's correct, but I understand how it occurs.

For starters, there's the lady who slammed on her brakes in this morning's traffic, even though I wasn't tailgating her, preceded to flip me off through her side mirror and talk shit to me. (Yeah, I called her a bitch inside my vehicle and laughed and smiled at her. She eventually moved to let me pass, probably to take down my license plate number or something equally as "professional." [I really wanted to say "something equally as white," but I figured that might be offensive.]) She was white. But, that could just be a coincidence, though I don't believe in coincidences.

Then, there are (some of) the people I live with, whose style of cleanliness is sometimes so different from mine that I wonder whether I've slipped into another dimension. (No Twilight Zone.) Garbage left in the house to stink up the living room instead of being taken out, dishes left for days, dishes put into the dishwasher only to emerge with food caked on them, bathroom trash never taken out, hair left in the drain, the absence of everything and anything good smelling, no vacuuming (ever), no sweeping of the floor (ever), no mopping, no cleaning of the countertops... I could go on forever. Well, they are white. Another coincidence.

There's the people in supervisory positions I've had mucho trouble with, who aren't that qualified to hold the positions they do, one who was even fired for her lack of professionalism that she took care to extend my way. (And this time, I actually mean professional, not "white.") Yep, they were and are white.

White people are always the ones cutting me off in traffic, always the ones slamming on their brakes to try to make me hit them, they are always the ones snitching on anything that doesn't fit their mold of "appropriate." White girls were always the ones at school getting drunk and screaming their way down Museum Rd., always getting drunk and throwing up on the sidewalk. White people are always dirty, white people always argue with the police. White people are always awkward, white people always need you to like them.

All white people are exactly as I just said.
-------------------------------------------------

Do I believe the generalizations I just listed? Not at all. Because they are just that--generalizations. You can insert a different race and different circumstances, and have an entirely new set of generalizations that seem to fit that race.

I listed all of these because I understand how people are prejudiced; how they become racist. The generalizations I listed are all things I've happened to observe or experience with individual people, all who happened to be white.

Being the knowing person that I am, I can separate individual white people from the entire group, just like I can do with any other group. But while I can do that, I understand how some people cannot--or choose not to--do the same.

If a person is continually exposed to negative experiences that all come from the same stimuli, they are going to be conditioned to believe that spoken stimuli will always cause them discomfort or negative experiences. They will lose the ability to tell anything otherwise. It's psychology, baby. If I pet someone's dog, and their dog bites me, I might be scared of their particular dog, but maybe not all dogs. But then say I meet another dog and that dog bites me. And then I see another dog and it bites me too. It's not going to take long before I associate the negative experience with all dogs, and probably not long before I decide that I don't like dogs all together. Is it right to judge all dogs based on the three I had bad experiences with? Is it fair? It may not be either, but it's going to seem rational to me, based on my experiences. Did I consider what breed of dog I was dealing with, or what the home conditions of that dog are like? Did I consider the age of the dog, or prior circumstances of the dog? No, I didn't, and logically, I wouldn't care. All I would know is that dog = bad, no matter what type of dog it is; no matter where it came from.

Although I like to consider myself knowing and educated, an intellectual, even, I have to fight against my natural human condition and remind myself when my white housemate is nasty as fuck or when a white sorority girl's biggest problem is a date for formal, or when that white, troll looking bitch with the muppet haircut taunts me while I'm just trying to drive to work, when all these things happen, I have to remind myself that it's not all white people. The same way that I have to remind myself that not all Asian people are smart, not all Black people are rappers, and not all short people are irritating.* But, it's certainly easy to forget this higher thinking when one particular stimuli offers the same outcome.

It might not be right, but it certainly is logical.

*--this has yet to refuted, but I put it in there for good measure.

epiphany

2011-03-31T20:37:00.000-04:00

Not much to say tonight

except that I know

that we aren't as comfortable

with each other

as I thought we imagined we were.

Familiarity often feels like many things

love comfort trust comfort need love

but sometimes

it's simply

the notion that

you've become used to me

and I've become used to you.

even though we don't have penises, women have needs too

2011-03-30T23:41:00.001-04:00

I don't want your number boy, just want your body
you can keep the conversation for some other hottie
I got a one-track mind, baby don't worry
no dinner dates or movies, just come on and hurry
-Jazmine Sullivan, "Don't Make Me Wait"

That's right, it's been a long time
since I've had a man that did it real good
if you ain't scared, take it out
I'll do it like a real live, nasty girl should

Tonight I'm living in a fantasy
my own little nasty world
Tonight, don't you wanna come with me
do you think I'm a nasty girl?
-Vanity 6, "Nasty Girl"

"Jazmine Sullivan's a freak, I ain't know." -one of my team members

The quote above is the preface I received before listening to one of Jazmine Sullivan's new songs, duly titled "Don't Make Me Wait." (And, if you knew better, you'd know not to make me wait. Anyhow.)

Let me tell you a little something about this word "freak." This is part of the male lexicon that has been inextricably linked to descriptions of me for as long as I can remember, and I have no problem telling you this because such lexicon has been tied to me on unfounded grounds. (You know, like when you hear some shit and even though it doesn't really make sense to you, you repeat it to someone else, and then it doesn't make sense to neither one of y'all? Yeah. Let us continue.)

Reasons why I've been termed a "freak" from my perspective:
A). because I wear glasses
B). because I wasn't having sex
C). because when I was having sex I wasn't messy about it
D). because I speak properly
E). because I read
F). because I write
G). because I'm smart
H). because I smile
I). because I don't wrinkle my nose at masturbation or fellatio
J). because I have a vagina
K). because I'm honest
L). because I'm naturally taller than most people
M). because I'm comfortable in my own skin and happen to think it's sexy as fuck

Now, if you notice, most of these reasons actually have nothing to do with sex. Might I also let you know that in most cases, in fact, actually all cases, I have been labeled as "a freak" by men whom, mind you, at the time of them saying this, I hadn't actually had sex with. And when I asked why they felt this way, I never could get much of a straight answer. They just seemed to "know." How can you know something sexually about someone you haven't had sex with? If you see a Beemer in a parking lot and decide that it looks like a smooth ride, despite whatever clues you may think you have pushing you toward this conclusion, you still won't know until you test drive it. (And if I had to be a Beemer, I'd be a white one with white leather. No self-hate. It's just fresh as fuck. Anyhow.) We'll explore the fallacy of this thinking momentarily.

So, back to today. I was sitting there, listening to Jazmine's song, instantly in love with the beat, and when I started listening to the words, and thinking about what my team member said about her being a freak, I grabbed a pen and started jotting down my thoughts, just knowing that I'd be writing about this later.

In all fairness to my team member, he was joking when he said she was a freak (based on the song), but his joke sparked my more critical thinking. The sole reason why women can even be regarded as freaks is due to our social constructs. Historically, women are to be many things: seen, but not heard (hence, assertive women quickly being labeled as "bitches"), driven, but still submissive to a man (hence, why so many women who have made it up the ranks professionally seem to be single), and, the big one, sexual, but only so much so. (Hence, women who explore the same sexual liberties as men being quickly labeled as "sluts" or "whores.")

The word "freak" struck such an immediate chord with me. She's a "freak"--but why? For expressing a normal human (not solely male) desire that a lot of people like to pretend doesn't exist? She's not interested in the common rigmarole that we all put up with (sometimes joyfully, sometimes not so much so) when trying to get to "know" someone*, she's interested in revelling in the joys of a man's physical manhood. Sometimes, it be like that. Sometimes, you don't feel the need to know someone any further than how they make your body sing, and is that wrong? Is it not a human necessity to be able to carry out our more lustful desires?

So many concepts in this life are based solely on societal norms--and who gets to determine what's "normal"?

Think about it.

*--the reason why I term it as "rigmarole" is because it is quite the ritualistic thing, so much so that we don't even question its necessity (or lack thereof). Yeah, it's good to spend time in the beginning getting to know someone, but the truth of the matter is that in that three month span that you spend getting to know someone, you still, believe it or not, don't actually know that person. You are now aware of their daily habits, how they communicate, how they may think (if you're deft enough to be paying attention), but you sincerely don't "know" that person. I can look back at my most recent ex and I. I remember what I thought of him and what I thought I knew of him when we were at three months of knowing each other. It doesn't compare to what I think of him and what I know of him after two years of knowing him. And I can further recognize that even after two years of knowing him, I still don't "know" him per se. It takes a long, long time to really get to know someone on a very real level. So, if you know that's not what you're interested in, why play the game? Just be up front and take it from there.

daydreaming, and I'm thinking of you... or not

2011-03-29T23:58:00.001-04:00

maybe I'm a dreamer
you're still my queen
your love's like a river, girl
it's running right through me

share my life, hey girl,
you can trust in me, baby
you're all I want, hey girl
you're everything I need, hey babe

I love midday radio, a fact only marginally unrelated to today's thought. I feel as though in the afternoon, the commercials are less frequent, there's barely the presence of talk radio hosts (at least, not until you are certifiably in the mid-afternoon, like 2 or 3 pm), and, if I'm able to catch midday radio, that usually means I'm in the car ~~escaping from being bored at work~~ taking a lunch break.

Anyhow, I was ~~escaping~~ on break today when Kem's "Share My Life" came on. I think it's a positively gorgeous song, from the arrangement, to the lyrics, to the flow--muted in places where it should be thoughtful and quiet; expressive and bold in places where it should be telling. I do fancy the song.

As I drove with my eyes squinting from the sunlight in my face (where the hell are my sunglasses?), singing along with the radio, I found myself smiling wistfully, thinking to myself that I would love to have a man feel that way about me.

Girl my sun sets/anywhere you are

I tried to picture a man singing those types of words to me, and then tried to picture a man saying those types of words to me, and then I realized that I found myself at the cusp of the daydream, unable to continue it through; unable to continue the thought that a man would say those types of things to me.

No, it's not an issue of me lacking in knowledge of my worth. Trust, I do believe that I'm worthy of being someone's weakness. I want someone to write a song because they need me. I want to be all that someone wants.* I am valuable, and I deserve someone who recognizes that.

So no, that's not the reason why. I can't necessarily say that it's even because I've never had a guy express such romantic sentiments to me. (I know. Believe it or not, there was a time when the romance I sought actually existed, though, in classic fashion of life, I wasn't really cognizant of it. Isn't it ironic, don't you think?)** Lately though, the guys I've been significantly interested in have not been the most romantic of fellas (letters, not wanted, candlelit lovemaking sessions, eh, not valued by all***) and maybe that's why I have trouble sustaining the reverie of a man being able to reenact the sublime nature of the song.

But, in the middle of this attempted daydream, I realized that my lack of visualization didn't end there--I also couldn't seem to sustain the vision of myself accepting or reciprocating the emotion in the song. At first thought, this doesn't make any sense. Not me, the moody Cancer, the hopeless romantic, the crier, the always-in-love-with-someone-or-something girl. Me, incapable of daydreaming about reciprocating or receiving emotion? Sounds like dirty lies.

Maybe, however, my experience with guys has made me awkward, or maybe I have always been awkward (it pays to be self-aware), or maybe I was just simply suffering from post-lunch/midday/it's-cloudy-and-I'd-rather-be-in-the-cut delirium that caused me to be incapable of imagining something that sounds sweeter than dutch apple pie and Blue Bell vanilla ice cream; regardless, in that moment, I couldn't imagine a man extolling my virtues in such a way, and I couldn't imagine accepting or reciprocating such compliments.

That being said, is it possible that I am not able to imagine such compliments because I am somehow preventing them from happening? If we attract the same type of energy that we put out into the universe, is it possible that I am incapable of attracting that standard which I actually want?

I have always been the type to really long for love and relationships: to want the steady boyfriend, to want the marriage, to want the romance, etc. Conversely, I also stand by the notion that love and relationships have not wanted much to do with me, whether due to fault of my own, the universe's own plans, etc. After what feels like many seasons of not being able to attain (or maintain) that which I so desire, I feel like I've reached the place where I don't care about the same things anymore. I don't care if I'm the "proper" girlfriend or wifey material; I don't care about having the steady boyfriend like I used to; I'm not sure if marriage is the option anymore. I am satisfied being me, and enjoying my life, and if "it" happens, then so be it, but I'm also acknowledging the fact that if "it" doesn't, it doesn't.

Despite the fact that deep down, I seem to still long for love and relationships, if more of me is saying "no" to that idea, then that is the vibe I'm putting into the atmosphere, the "no" rather than the "yes." And if we attract the energy we put out, then that means I am attracting men who also have the same nomadic emotions as I. Thus, creating an emotional set up when my more surface feelings give way to the deeper, less transient feelings that inevitably are less likely to be reciprocated, due to some variables.****

Is it possible that I'll never attract that which I want most of all? And if I seem to want one thing deep down and another thing on the surface, can it be said that I unequivocally know what I actually want after all?

*--paraphrased from actual song lyrics
**--before I recognize this moment/this moment will be gone--John Mayer, "Clarity"
***--there's always an exception to the rule :)
****--due to my age bracket, and the difference in feminine maturation versus male maturation, it makes more sense that a guy who doesn't seem to want to settle down is more likely to actually not want to settle down, unlike women who "don't want to settle down" until someone comes along to change their minds.

superstition

2011-03-29T20:05:00.007-04:00

I saw him, again, and again, I took no pictures.

It's not like part of me wasn't wanting to take a picture or two; friendly reminder five years from now of that perfect almost-summer day we had in the park, warm breeze blowing, sun warming our kisses. I had my camera at hand's length away, in my purse, purged of all its pictures, ready to add in some new memories, but I left it reposing in the bottom of my bag; I never even touched it or made mention of it.

When you pulled out your phone to take a picture of the view--some things never change, thankfully--I remembered my camera, hidden from sight, but I did not grab it. Did not make move toward my bag at all. Instead I sat atop the lime green comforter, my legs tucked beneath me, waiting for you to join me.

Again, I can't shake the fact that there is something I have come not to like about pictures and lovers. Superstition, you could say, but there's something so finite in the posing for a picture with a lover who is not really yours. Feels like I'm tempting the gods who preside over love--may sound crazy, but the first time my lovers and pictures coincided, he left and never came back. Old fears are hard to break.

nothing's ever promised tomorrow, today

2011-03-27T09:51:00.001-04:00

Life has no guarantees, and how could it, since life itself is not even a given?

Live it like nothing is promised to you. Enjoy the hell out of every minute, learn what you can from everyone, ponder deeply and thoughtfully about everything you can. Tell people how you feel, work hard for what you want, don't accept the status quo just because it's there.

I have said it many times, and I'll say it again today. We are living on borrowed time. I'm trying to make the most out of my unknown quantity of borrowed time.

"Hail Mary... la da di da di da di da...."

2011-03-26T23:23:00.003-04:00

Tupac was only 25 when he was shot.

25 years young.

I've been watching documentaries and footage of him all day. I'm not sure why they are on, but they are fascinating. I'm always into conspiracy theories/stories, and I'm always fascinated by famous people with troubled lives. Not fascinated in a happy way, but in the ways of irony. How ironic is it that you are famous, and have more pull and money than any of us regular folk, but end up probably much lonelier than any of us regular folk are? It's sad, but a fascinating study of humanity, quite frankly. (Cue Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, etc. etc. etc.)

But still: 25? I'll be 25 in about a year. I can't imagine having the type of life he had, and I can't imagine that he was still the youngest of young adult when he was killed. He seemed so much older, so, so much older.

My heart is heavy for someone long passed.

Saturday

2011-03-26T11:48:00.002-04:00

Missed a post, while I was sitting holding my "nephew." I knew it was going to happen. A). because I couldn't access Blogger from my phone, and B). because I couldn't let go of all his one-month old, good-smelling babyness to write. My fault, completely.

Being at home is inhibiting to writing. I'm not completely upset with this.

traveling bug

2011-03-24T22:04:00.005-04:00

I had another post planned, but I'm sleepy, at my parents' house, and wanting to go... somewhere that I won't be going because after I take this shower I'm going to fall asleep.

I just saw the Oprah episode when she went to Australia... I am wowed.

If there's one thing I know I have to do, starting now, it's travel. There are so many other places, so many people in the world. So many things, so many wonders.

As I was sitting there watching with my sister, she remarked on how the Prime Minister's voice was "funny." I told her that her voice wasn't funny, it's just that she (to us) sounds like she has an accent. I told her, think about it: in Australia, she sounds normal, and we (to them) sound funny, sound like Americans.

What a profound thought. Sounding "American" is not really a tangible concept to me. We have plenty of people here who speak other languages or have accents, but I bet they still sound American to others. That's part of the reason why I want to travel so badly. Though I've never had any experience living in other countries, I feel like when you live in America, it's so easy for you to feel like your little area of the world is all that there is. That we are all that happens, which isn't true at all.

Think about it: even living in Miami, I have told people that I'm from Orange County, and they have had no idea that Orlando was in Orange County, or that Florida even had an Orange County. (Like, seriously? I'd never been to Miami until a couple years before moving there, and I still was aware of Miami-Dade County, and not just because Miami was in the name.) If people can be lacking in knowledge of someplace that's less than four hours north, imagine what knowledge they may lack of places that are hundreds of thousands of miles away.

Think about it.

cop out

2011-03-23T22:36:00.001-04:00

Not much to say tonight. Inebriation has left me thoughtful, but speechless.

I promise, I'll be thinking of something harder to come with tomorrow, and the next day... and the next day.

(and the next day.)

gym flow

2011-03-22T22:05:00.003-04:00

There is no sexier feeling, than when I'm in the gym, and I step down off of that machine, and sweat is actually rolling onto my forehead, and my bottom half feels disconnected from my top half.

I live every gym experience for that feeling.

Curiously, when I was in Orlando (there are definitely gyms there), I never thought seriously about getting a gym membership, which is intriguing to me because I had more time, and more money. Hmmm.

I used to go occasionally when I was at UF, but usually late at night, and mostly when I was troubled. I saw results real fast though--my Freshman year (before my schedule got real; in fact, I do believe this may have been the only year I truly went) I did notice a reduction in my thigh size, though, back then they were barely big enough to be called thighs.

For whatever reason ~~that could be the fact that everyone I run in close circles with seems to be part of this gym but only two of us actually attend regularly~~, I joined the gym here, and I've worked it into my routine. I don't wait until I'm upset to go, and I don't go one week and then not go for weeks at a time. I go as often as I can. I even go on the weekends, when I can.

If there's one thing that's true, besides the fact that my body feels differently now that I work out regularly, my confidence has increased. I definitely wasn't expecting that. But it can be said that I was feeling a little uncomfortable with some areas of my body (forget Freshman 15, which didn't happen to me, let's talk about the City Year 20). Now, I feel like I even walk a bit differently. A bit more confidently.

Especially when I step off that machine and feel like I'm walking on air, sweat rolling and all.

Jazz in the Gardens part II (and The Isley Brothers)

2011-03-21T01:03:00.004-04:00

You know, I have work in approximately seven hours. But, I'm a creature that does not need a whole lot of sleep to function. If I can get at least five hours, four at the minimum (anything less will just make me cranky), I'm good. So, I decided it was more important for me to sit down and tell you about tonight's experience in the Gardens.

Tonight completely and utterly made up for last night, in every way that it could. Even though right before I left for the concert, I discovered I had a flat tire, everything worked out. My roommates changed it for me (living with guys is not always a bad thing, though now that I've seen a flat tire changed for the second time, I know I could do it myself), and then I was out the door. I got there in time to see the remaining acts of the day: Musiq Soulchild, En Vogue, Gladys Knight, and The Isley Brothers, performing together for the first time in years.

I was geeked about tonight's performance because I really, really, really wanted to see The Isley Brothers. Like, when I talked about me not having grown up a Lauryn fan or non-fan in my last post, this is the opposite. I had no choice but to grow up a fan of the Isley Brothers, because they were a part of my childhood's musical lexicon. (I grew up on old school music, I really did.) Not only that, but I started listening to their music for real for real once I hit eighteen. (Here we go with this eighteen foolishness again, I know.)

Let me take this moment to take you on a quick trip back into time. Yes, like I mentioned in my other post, there were lots of things I learned during my eighteenth year of life, and a lot of those things had to do with my college ex. I distinctly remember one of the conversations we had, this one about music. I remember him saying that one of his favorite artists was The Isley Brothers, and I remember being in a state of shock... why would this Dominican man know anything about The Isley Brothers? I was so used to people not being familiar with the music I listened to (and mind you, I'm talking about other Black people my age sometimes not knowing anything about old school music) that the fact that he even had the slightest inkling as to who they were left me speechless. (Again, extraordinarily ordinary things have more power than you may think.) "For the Love of You" was one of his favorite songs, understandably so--it's one of my favorites too.

One night, he was being silly and made a video for me of him vibin to the song in his room. I can't really remember the video that well; I remember it in a still frame, like a picture in my mind, but I'll never forget how it made me feel. Even now, when I hear that song, sometimes at what seems like the most coincidental* moment, I stop and take a breath. Sometimes I shake my head, sometimes I shed one tear, sometimes I smile, but I always sing along. That song was always special to me, but now it is representative of so much more, of a moment in my life when I experienced true love, and maybe even got a little back, without even recognizing it.**

So anyhow, I hope it makes more sense as to why I was so excited to see The Isley Brothers.

Musiq Soulchild started off quite well, and every act got better and better. His falsetto and lower register were to die for (he has a very solid voice). En Vogue came out and rocked the damn stage something serious. It was so good to see Dawn Robinson in the place. They sounded great, and they took me back to my childhood. (I was a 90s kid, and En Vogue was definitely big.) Ms. Gladys Knight took the stage and started singing without introduction--she can do that. She's Gladys Knight. She reminded me of why I love old school so much. Her performance and voice were flawless. To me, she shamed Lauryn Hill. Gladys Knight has probably been performing longer than Lauryn Hill has been alive, and Gladys can still get on stage and take the audience there, sounding just like she did years ago. Lauryn's only been gone for a few years and already seems to have lost it.

Gladys sang some of my favorite songs, including "If I Were Your Woman" and "Neither One of Us" and I sang right along with her, even though my voice is practically gone thanks to Camp City Year last week. The audio during the performances was sooo much better than yesterday, and the crowd seemed liver today, even though I sat in the same area I did yesterday.

Then: The Isley Brothers. They started off strong with "Between the Sheets" and performed all the songs I can play on repeat (as I am right now): "For the Love of You"; "Hello It's Me"; "Groove With You"; "Voyage to Atlantis"; "Footsteps in the Dark"; "Make Me Say It Again Girl" and more. I'm not going to be able to tell you how I felt, because words can't really describe the place you go to when you're in the groove of a song, but it was amazing to hear the songs in person that I've stayed up all night listening to on myriad occasions; to hear the songs in person that I've played on full blast when driving around in my car late at night under a creamy white moon; to hear the songs in person that molded a young girl's heart around an ideal almost six years ago.

Ron Isley's voice is the most unique gift I've ever heard, and Ernie Isley on that electric guitar was some kind of spectacular. I swayed back and forth, and I sang along to every word, transcending higher and higher until the night was over and it was time for me to head back to my room, to prepare to head back to the real world tomorrow.

If I try to explain any further, I'll become repetitive and still not be able to say what I want to say, but just know that I am so thankful to have been able to get there. So thankful to have been able to see them all. So grateful.

I'm off to sing myself to sleep now.

driftin' on a memory
ain't noplace i'd rather be, than with you, yeah
lovin' you...

*--If you know Miss Malorie, you know she doesn't believe in coincidences. There are no such things.
**--before I recognize this moment/this moment will be gone... (John Mayer, "Clarity")

Jazz in the Gardens, feelings, and Lauryn Hill

2011-03-20T10:15:00.006-04:00

How sad, how sad, that all things come to an end
but then again, I'm not alone
it was the sweet, sweet, the sweetest thing I've known
-Lauryn Hill, "The Sweetest Thing"

Is this just a silly game
that forces you to act this way?
Forces you to scream my name
and then pretend that you can't stay...
tell me, who I have to be
to get some reciprocity
'cuz no one loves you more than me
and no one ever will
-Lauryn Hill, "Ex-factor"

I wanna love you, and treat you right
I wanna love you, every day and every night
we'll be together with a roof right over our heads
we'll share the shelter of my single bed
we'll share the same room, yeah, for Jah provide the bread
is this love, is this love, is this love, is this love that I'm feeling?
-Bob Marley, "Is This Love?"

Don't even get me started on love and what a terribly confusing and unpredictable commodity that is. Maybe it works for some people, but when you are a person of intense, extreme emotions, it just doesn't seem to work very well. (This being said, neither does attraction, nor infatuation, nor fascination. They all end up feeling like love because they're all so damn intense. Or maybe the few people I'm fascinated by I actually love. I don't know and I don't care.) Love requires something that I really really really dislike, that being needing something from others. Sure, you can love people at a distance, and sure, you can say that you love them for being them and that you don't need anything from them, and sure, you can like people and be fascinated by people and have them not pay any attention to you, sure. You can lie to yourself and say that it's fine, but at the end of the day, at the end of some day, you're finally going to feel the dissatisfaction, and the feeling of rejection, and you're going to realize that you've been lying to yourself, and then you'll be questioning like Lauryn: who really do I have to be, simply to earn some reciprocity?

I'm in some kind of state of emotional dissatisfaction. Just in case you couldn't tell.

That aside, Jazz in the Gardens started last night. In case you're not aware of what Jazz in the Gardens is, it is a two-day concert featuring some really great acts in Miami Gardens, Florida. In the past two years, I've seen Teena Marie (R.I.P.), Frankie Beverly and MAZE, Anthony Hamilton, Common, Erykah Badu, Kenny G, Babyface, Mary J. Blige, etc. So, now that I actually live in Miami (and work a stone's throw from the stadium), I knew I had to go this year, especially since one of the headlining acts was scheduled to be Lauryn Hill, yes, the Lauryn Hill of past fame and recent musical infamy. So, after much financial stress (what else is new), I copped my tickets and yesterday was at the stadium, ready to enjoy myself.

I saw Charlie Wilson (excellent performer, excellent), and Heads of State (Bobby Brown, Ralph Tresvant, and Johnny Gill--all great performers and dancers too!), and was enjoying myself, just vibin. I was a bit perturbed that there were so many audio problems, and the crowd didn't seem as live as they've been in years past, but that could be because of how far back I was sitting. (I told myself that today I'd sit in the liver section.)

Well, the later hours of the night approached, and we were waiting on Lauryn Hill. I found myself anxious--I didn't grow up a Lauryn Hill fan or non-fan. She wasn't really on my radar, considering I wasn't really into music in the same way then as I am now. But she was a part of my childhood. I remember seeing her in magazines and that impressive Grammy run. So, I wasn't anxious as if I was seeing someone whom I absolutely adore, like Prince. (I'd probably cry if I saw Prince live. I really hope to in my lifetime. See him and cry, that is.) I was anxious because I've heard about her recent performances and how they've left a lot to be desired. I was nervous that she'd take forever to come out. (It was already around 11:30 and I was talking to a coworker about how when he saw her a recent homecoming show, she came on two hours late. I was freezing and vowed that if she didn't come out by at least 12:15 I was out.) Well, speak of the devil, right when my coworker told me that story, she came out on stage.

Now, before I even get into her performance, can I tell you a bit about those three songs whose lyrics I posted up there? Can I? Okay, thank you, I shall. In reverse order.

"Is This Love" is a song I actually never knew until my eighteenth year of life. I learned so many things in that year. I learned it--of course--from the college ex, when he told me we could share the space of his single bed. (Yeah, I know. Still makes me a bit tender even today, so imagine my melt-factor when I was eighteen. Contrary to popular belief, I have never been one to have men falling all over themselves to say nice things about me in any sincerely non-platonic way. Because of this, a lot of things that should not be so valuable to me still are, but that's a conversation for another day.) We shared his single bed for a little while and then went our separate ways, but that song will, for me, forever be linked to those memories. So it resonates with me. Plus, the idea of someone saying to me that they want to love me every day, and every night, and that we can take a single space and make it ours? Leaves me yearning every time. Men aren't out here saying things like that these days, let me tell you.

"Ex-factor" is... well, what woman anywhere near my age bracket doesn't know all the words to this song? Doesn't sing along whenever it comes on, wherever it comes on? What woman doesn't understand the fuck out of this song? The line of this song that always resonates with me the most, seemingly no matter what age I am, is: tell me, who I have to be, to get some reciprocity? 'cuz no one loves you more than me, and no one ever will. Even now, I feel like I never get any reciprocity. Never. No one is ever on the same page with me, no one can ever emote as deeply as I can, no one feels and I mean really feels the way I do. I feel like whether I play the games or don't play the games, I still end up with the same result (nothing). Sometimes I wonder who I have to be in order to get what I want, but I don't feel like I have the energy. When I say that, people always think I'm being melodramatic, but if they knew that I've been in some sort of emotional turmoil having to do with men that I care about/love/have had sex with/want to have sex with/am infatuated with/are fascinated by since age 14 to now (almost 24), then maybe they would understand when I say I'm tired as fuck. Tired. I honestly am inching ever closer to not caring. Not playing any more games, not trying to bait and fish and reel, not doing any of it anymore and just being by my damn self. For ten gotdamn years I feel like I have been loving/liking/wanting the fuck out of people and receiving nothing in return. Nothing. It was a hard lesson to enter into when I was so young, and it's still not easy to swallow. Thus: tell me who I have to be, to get some reciprocity....

"The Sweetest Thing" is one of those songs that just works. The melody, the tempo, the keys, the words... it all works for me. It's the type of chill song that I can really vibe to. Plus, I really connect with the idea of the innate sweetness in ordinary things. (Again, when you lack ordinary things in your life, when you do get them, you attach to them an extraordinary high level of value.) Forehead kisses, someone putting their arm around you and pulling you closer into them, locking fingers, lying with your faces touching--extraordinarily simple, ridiculously valuable. Another song with sentiments that resonate with me: how sad, that all things must come to an end... a line like that is hauntingly austere and reminds me that at the end of the day, all sweet things that we experience will, at some point, become sweet memories that we relive through daydreams. Not a nice feeling for a romantic like me, but it is a truth of life. And what does she mean when she says but I'm not alone? Does she mean that she has God? That she has herself? Her memories? Regardless, if any of these songs comes on, and I'm around you, please don't speak. Just let me vibe and sing.

Now that I've waxed poetic about these three songs, I can explain why I picked them.

I picked these three songs in particular because Lauryn Hill killed them last night at Jazz in the Gardens, and by killed, I don't mean she sung the fuck out of them, I mean she stabbed them in the back with an ice-pick.

She came out on stage dressed very strangely (long puffy black skirt, black shirt, red jacket, lots of makeup, a weird haircut/wig covered by a Yankees cap), and she came out singing some song I didn't know. She never really connected with the audience, didn't stop to talk or chat us up, just started singing. Or, well, talking, because it wasn't quite singing. She sounded out of breath the whole time, and she sang completely out of key/register... which is where our songs come in.

She performed the songs in the order I posted lyrics, so of course when I heard the melody to "The Sweetest Thing" I got so excited. I'd just been vibing to the song earlier in the day when they played it on the radio, and there's nothing that makes me happier than being able to hear an artist's live take on a song that I love. (When I heard Raheem DeVaughn perform "Mo' Better" I could have floated away, and it remains one of my favorite songs.) Well, she sang it in a completely different register and essentially plowed through it. Her live performance had none of the easy reminiscence of the actual song. In fact, I don't even think she was singing all the words. I gave up trying to sing with her because I was the only one on melody.

After a couple of other songs that she seemed to run through (the whole time she was performing, she never stood still and she continually motioned to her band and the sound people to fix audio things and keys, etc.), I heard the melody of "Ex-factor." At this point, I wasn't necessarily excited, because I was still talking to my coworker, and coincidentally, we were talking about the song right when she started to perform it. He told me that I'd cry when she performed it, because of how bad it would sound, and he was wrong. I didn't cry. But I was immensely disappointed. That is a song where you grab a stool, sit down, get close to the audience, show us your vulnerability. Cry. Sing the fuck out of it. I'm not a performer, but I've seen enough excellent performances to understand what you do at what time. I'm not a singer, but I know I'd sing the fuck out of that song. A few bars into the song, and I told the person I was with I was ready to go. I never leave performances early, but her performance of that song pissed me off. She sang it with zero emotion. She continued moving around, singing half of the lyrics, breathing/talking over them instead of really singing them. She didn't seem like she was appealing to me, asking me how she could gain reciprocity. She seemed like she was rolling through a song she's no longer attached to. She might not be looking for reciprocity anymore, but I still am.

When we were walking out, she started "Is This Love?" and I started walking faster. I in no way wanted her version connected to any memories I may have of that song. She plowed through that one too.

I'd heard that her performances had not been great, but I wasn't prepared for how much it was going to feel like a train wreck. Considering that I didn't even grow up with Lauryn like that, I can't imagine how someone who did felt if they witnessed that last night. I needed, I needed her to plaintively ask, just ask who I have to be, I needed her to, for me, for everything I'm feeling; I needed her to ask because I have too much pride to. But, she didn't, and my pride stood intact, while the question remains in me, swirling around but never uttered.

it ain't workin... it ain't workin...

Saturday

2011-03-19T09:56:00.003-04:00

Another day, and unfortunately I find myself without a lot to say. I mean, I could say a lot, a lot, but sometimes, contrary to popular belief, I do believe that some things are better left unsaid.

In a weird emotional place lately.

What is life, if not for these strange emotional states and consequent exploration of them?

Off to wander through my wondering.

damn, first miss

2011-03-19T00:32:00.004-04:00

First night I actually missed a post, and that was because I just got settled. Been out literally all day.

As I'm sitting here, on my balcony, underneath the full moon's light, the type of light that always makes me feel some kind of way, I think: I may not be your first, and I probably won't be your last. But I damn sure better be something that you can't and won't forget.

Not much of a post, but it is much of a thought. A definite thought.

infatuation

2011-03-17T20:09:00.002-04:00

Sometimes,

I wish people

could see themselves

as I see them,

and maybe then

they would understand

just why I

desire

.

Wednesday woes

2011-03-16T22:58:00.005-04:00

Short thought today. Disclaimer is that I'm currently in some kind of feeling, and I don't like it too much.

I need control. I would have never thought this about myself previously, but I need control. When I feel things that make me feel as though there is a possibility that I am giving off an air that I cannot control, this is what usually happens: I think too much, and try my hardest to act like I'm not thinking, which leads to me being quieter than normal, which leads to me giving off a different air.

Then, I get all in some kind of feelings and get cantankerous and remain quiet, thus giving off the air that something is wrong, which is indeed true, but not something I need everyone to know.

Hence, this time around, I'm going to try something different. Instead of succumbing to the neurosis caused by the uncontrollable feelings, I'll take control by doing something that takes a lot more bravery than it should: be honest.

The worst thing that could happen is that my actions could be met with a response I'm not seeking, and, let's be honest--in the realm of feelings, I'm no stranger to being met with responses I'm not seeking. That's part of the reason why I'm even having this slightly one-sided discussion with you now.

At the end of the day, I'm still a person who cares and feels more deeply than sometimes I wish I did, for people who don't seem to outwardly make sense, for reasons that are quite extraordinarily ordinary, and much faster than most people think is possible. And although I know these abilities were bestowed on me for a reason, that doesn't mean that they necessarily always work to my benefit.

random (as I do so well)

2011-03-15T23:08:00.003-04:00

:DST just happened. (Daylight Savings Time, not Delta Sigma Theta.) Although I know it's now 7 o'clock (at the time of my writing), when I stepped out the shower, while still being in my bathroom (which has no window), my body felt like 6. My body told me it was 6. When I looked out the window, due to the low, golden sun and Monet-like clouds in the sky, my brain told me it was still early, even though I knew it was later. This for me poses a deft question: how much of our reality isn't actually based on what we know, but rather how and what we feel?

:Epiphany: just got off from a long day being a camp counselor again (at the time of my writing), after being away from it (truly) for almost two years. My body is electric. I feel good. Great, even. I'm slightly tired, but not craving sleep. Sure, it could certainly be the fact that this is a break from the regular 8 to 6, and that's why I'm so excited, but, if I do recall, this is what I used to do every summer, and , once I moved back home, every day. And though it got old to me, it wasn't the job itself that got old, it was the fact that I felt like I hadn't explored enough outside of my job that got old.

Well, after some exploring (even though I've still technically been working with kids), I came right back up on my first love today. (At the time of this writing.) It felt better than great to be in charge of that group. It felt right. It felt like me, whistle around the neck and all. And when I looked up from what I was doing to see one of my babies looking around, so young, but with such a promising twinkle in his eye, I fell in love all over again. This is what makes me feel right and good. Now if only I could combine that with other things that make me feel right, good, and successful, we'd have ourselves a career here. (Clearly, I need to be my own boss and employee.)

Think as a lady, and be one, too

2011-03-14T19:59:00.004-04:00

The entire premise of Steve Harvey's book (Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man) is false, and I apologize to you if you ran out and snatched up a copy like it was The Bible and Jesus personally told you He was coming back and that He would autograph your copy. Yes indeed, I sincerely apologize to you.

I haven't read Steve Harvey's book, not because I didn't want to, but because I could never seem to get my hands on a copy. (Once I discovered the infamous hold-out-on-sex-for-three-months rule was in there, I realized I wasn't in as much of a rush to read it anymore, not that I was ever in any kind of a rush about it.)

I am now glad I haven't read the book, because it came to me in the shower (no pun) that the premise is indeed false, and I'll tell you why.

It's false because women cannot think like men. We're women. Whether it's due to wiring or training, we will think like women. The most we can do is "think" like the man who trained us in what his version of male thought is like, but, at best, we are pantomiming.

For instance, I always ask my best sexy guy friend for advice on situations with men, and I'm always picking up on his behaviors with women and the results of how he thinks. (Which are usually overwhelming in his favor.) I admire the way his brain naturally works, so, of course, I try to make my brain work this way as well. Even when I consider myself "thinking like a man," I still have to unplug my female thinking brain and plug the male one in.

Case in point: in thinking about another particularly sexy guy I know (Lawd, thank you for how you've blessed me with even knowing two sexy people at the same time *hand claps*), I found my brain naturally wandering to imagery of us dating, and then us, married. (You know if you're a woman you've done this, more than once. Show me a woman who hasn't and I'll show you a man.) Now, had I not been talking so much with my guy friend and trying to tune my brain onto his wavelength, I probably wouldn't have even paid any attention to what my mind naturally did. Tonight, however, I caught it, and here I am writing to you about it.

My supposition is this: the most we can do as women is continue thinking like women, but smarter. It's unavoidable, the thinking like women part. Your feminine plugs are in there, for sure. Mine are. I continue to think like a woman, but I take the parts of that style of thinking that don't necessarily work and make them play a much lesser role in my thought process. For example, with tonight's wayward imagery of being with a guy I don't even know like that (yet), I tossed it away as soon as it came, and instead of thinking, "Awww man, I thought about him like that, it's a sign!" (typical) I thought, "woman thought" (atypical recognition).

I understand Harvey's title and thought process. At least, it's easy enough to understand. Every woman can learn from man's natural disconnectedness; conversely, every man could learn from the female tendency to want to unite. We could swap intelligences a bit, this is true. but there is danger in telling women to "think like men," because he is asking us to pantomime and consider it actual, naturally occurring thought, and also because, what if we choose the wrong man to learn from? Now, we're not only "thinking" poorly, but now we assume that the fact of our incorrect thought is across the board representative of the typical male thought process. (Danger. No Mystikal.)

So, in essence, think like a lady, but just a wee bit smarter. Call it thinking like a man if you will, but I'd like to tell you to not limit the thoughts of womanhood to solely baking cookies and only having sex for love. I must believe that women can conjure raunchier, more disconnected (and somehow, still connected), smarter thoughts and desires than we've been told we can. Sex is not solely an arena for the male mind.

Don't regulate yourself to acting. Be a lady. And think as one, too.

Calle Ocho

2011-03-13T20:45:00.002-04:00

I never said how long these posts would be, you know.

Today I went to Calle Ocho. Saw Flo Rida (ugh), Trina, and some others. Had fun. Ate tostones and my coveted arepa.

Was not disrespected by any male, like I was told I would be.

Saw some basic looking bitches, and some generally ratchet looking folks.

That's what it takes to make the world go round, apparently.

Fin.

Why sex is the new handshake

2011-03-12T21:02:00.005-05:00

Sex is the new handshake.

Don't believe me? Think I'm wrong because you're in such-and-such committed relationship, or because you only have sex when you're truly in love, or this reason, or that reason?

Well, that's fine. Everyone doesn't have to feel as though sex is the new handshake in order for me to make this assertion. Besides, not everyone shakes hands anyway.

Speaking from experience, sex has moved to the forefront of personal relationships. It's gone from meet--date--get to know--fall in love--commit--have sex*, to meet--date--have sex with the other variables (get to know, fall in love, commit) possibly not even making an appearance.** Sex has become the way that we get to know each other; apparently, the way we relate to each other when understanding and words may fail. I have some ideas as to why.

1. The death of the pre-modern courtship

No, I'm not going to wax poetic about how I feel about the status of modern courtship. I'm not going to reminisce. But I will say that the matter and manner of courtship has changed, and that is undeniable. Many things have changed it--the times we live in, the advent of social media and technology in our lives, shifts in societal norms, etc.

Now that we've established that courtship is different than it used to be, it's safe to say that back in the day, sex was the reward of marriage. It goes back to the formula above; in that formula, sex was what came after fall in love--commit--marriage. Courtship was a grounds to marry, and even though courtship itself has transformed throughout the years, it's still a grounds to marry. But--and it's a big but--with the institution of the idea of marriage also having transformed throughout the years, marriage is no longer a societal guarantee. So, with marriage no longer necessarily waiting around behind courtship, it makes sense that sex isn't necessarily sitting grounded behind marriage anymore, either.

2. The de-taboo-ification of society

Back in the day, we were all puritanical, with a little bit of hedonism riding just below the surface, waiting for someone to engage it, so we could suppress it. Now, it seems as though society has greatly embraced our underlying hedonism... to the point, sometimes, that it seems like excess.

It seems like these days, society on the whole enjoys things that makes it feel good--as opposed to before, when society seemed more concerned with things that it made it feel right--and it's no secret that sex makes people feel good. It seems like society is more open to sex. Or, rather, to people who are open to sex.

I always thought it was rather stupid and, quite frankly, puritanical junk (just can't escape those roots) that sex was such a taboo topic. It should always be considered as very important (as anything that can begin and end life should be***), but it shouldn't be taboo. Sex can be a very healthy release of emotions and energy. Apparently, a portion of society feels the same.****

3. Children experiencing natural sexuality w/each other sans the components of societal fear or parental fear

People are sexual. This is normal. Children are sexual also. This is also normal.***** I was always sexual, and I was always aware that I was, but I experienced and explored my sexuality mostly by myself, but also through kissing and a bit of petting, not by myself. Though I was offered sex as young as middle school (I honestly cannot remember being properly propositioned, and I don't think he was serious about it, either, but I know it happened, the proposition, that is, not the sex), I wasn't biting, and can honestly say I wasn't the least bit curious about what I was missing. I happened to grow up in a time when society's grip on instilling fear/distaste of sex was a little firmer. There was no 16 and Pregnant when I was a kid. If you had sex or, God forbid, got pregnant, you weren't a television star, you were a trollop, a fast girl, which I knew I didn't want to be, because I also had the fear of my mother's disapproval instilled in me as well.

My mother had me when she was 27 years old, and she always told me the story about how people called her an old maid to be having her first child at 27, and she always told me how she didn't care what they had to say. She clearly took pride in not caring about how people thought she should live her life, and I picked up on that. (She also told me the story about how her younger sister had gotten married way earlier than her and had three kids [twins and another child] within two years with a man that wasn't really a good fit for her. My mother never told this story disapprovingly, but something in my mind let me know that this was not what I wanted to do.)

So, with no media portrayals of it being okay to have sex as a kid, and with my mother's silent disapproval, the urge to actually engage in sex didn't legitimately enter my life until I was a very young adult. However, kids in these modern times are growing up without the hold that society had on me.

Now, kids call each other "hoes"****** the same way they call each other "green" and "gay." They use all these words to call each other stupid, but I feel like the word "ho" for children today doesn't have the same dire connotation that it had for kids in my day. In today's times, kids can turn on the televison and find kids who were/are sexually active. (Uh, Britney Spears' little sister, Sarah Palin's daughter, any girl from 16 and Pregnant, even the show Secret Life of the American Teenager showed a relatively positive situation regarding the main character, who gets pregnant around 16. Is 16 the magic age? Oh yeah, and the other girl on that show gets it in like every episode. I'm an adult and don't even get it in like she does.) In today's times, kids are giving each other head in the back of school buses and having sex in school bathrooms. Not only has the media's/society's grip loosened tremendously, but I feel as though that parental disapproval probably isn't what it used to be. Parents are getting younger and younger themselves, so when it comes to that unspoken message, like the one my mother gave to me, what unspoken message are they sending their own children?

At the end of the day, I liken sex to a handshake not to say that it happens more frequently now than it did at any other period in time (well, let's just say I'm pretty sure people may have gotten it in a little more in the 70s, but that's just my assumption), but to say that sex has now become just as common as a handshake. You can disagree with me if you may, but when I have my 17 year old sister telling me about her classmates who are pregnant and/or who have STDs without even batting an eye, I'd say the whole lot has become pretty common.

As common as a handshake before a business meeting.

*--there is no scientific formula; this is just a supposition on my part based on personal experience and assumptions on how most other people probably conduct themselves.
**--for the purposes of this argument, we're talking about serious relationships lacking some of the latter variables, not more sexually-focused endeavors, not to say that more sexually-focused endeavors (i.e. hooking up) has to necessarily lack the aforementioned latter variables, but the assumption is that they do.
***--begin: pregnancy, end: AIDS. Never looked it that way until the idea floated to me today. It's true that something people occasionally treat quite carelessly can begin and end life.
****--Sex in the City changed my life. Even though I was watching the watered-down TBS version, it was still enough to implant a fierce image in my head. I wanted to be Carrie Bradshaw, minus her indecision and her dwarfish height. (Sorry, folks. At almost six feet tall, seeing how short SJP actually is frightened me.) I wanted to live in NYC with my little computer, but I also wanted to have the sexual prowess of Samantha. Miranda was too lesbian-like for me to want to be like (and, no surprise to me, she is a lesbian in real life, the actress whose name is slipping my mind right now), and Charlotte was too puritanical. Boring. That show showed me (before I went through this mental thing and decided it was all bullshit because they were all in their damn 40s and still having sex and being dissatisfied every episode) that there was power in sex and sexuality for women. That I could suck a dick and brag about it and not be a ho. For all it's worth, there is power in that awakening. And despite how I may have felt about the show afterwards, I never lost the magic of that awakening.
*****--notice I said sexual, not sexually active.
******--I work with kids. I would know.

prayer answered/perspective

2011-03-11T20:40:00.002-05:00

Before I recognize this moment/this moment will be gone...
-John Mayer, "Clarity"

Appropriate that the song is entitled "clarity." Once upon a time, whether it was a dark, starry night in East Orlando, or whether it was a sunny day on the road, moving, I prayed for clarity. I prayed to God to see things as they are, not as I want them to be. I can remember going to sleep numerous nights, murmuring that phrase to myself as I fell asleep, to remind myself of the prayer I didn't want to be in vain.

Today, I had a moment of clarity, which often happens before I can recognize it; hence, the perfect marriage of song title and content via Mr. Mayer. I've had moments like this before; I just didn't know what to call them.

I feel like my words are falling on top of each other unpleasantly in my attempt to describe what was visceral.

When I walked out of the building today, after one of our group conferences, and after my team did a phenomenal job on the presentation we had to do today, I realized that it all works. All of my crabbiness, all of the tensions of different personalities mixing, the problems between two of the members, all of my concern about whether all of the individual components would be able to come together well--it's all fine, and it all worked. Everyone did a marvelous job, and I realized that all of the worrying I'd done was for naught.

(I'm a worrier. I get it from my father. I've seen in the last couple of months just how true this genetic trait is. Parenthood is going to be some type of holy hell for me, because I'm going to worry about my kids every possible second; this I feel coming.)

They did wonderfully, and I cried, as I knew I would do (and tried to deny initially). I felt a surging of pride and love for them, unlike I've ever felt. They've always had the potential, but today I saw it executed, and the thing was that I saw it executed collectively. That's a big deal for a leader of a team. If you don't believe me, ask someone who is responsible for leading a team.

As I walked out of that building, with the award they made for me in my hand ("Queen Bee/el capitan"), and with the sun in my eyes and the breeze tossing a lock of my hair, I realized that these are the days I'm going to think of in a few months, and these are the days that are going to make my heart squeeze real tightly in bittersweet reverie. These are the types of days that are going to make me miss Miami.

For as much as I have complained, and as much as I've not liked, today my perspective made that final shift to a much better and different place than it was when I began this journey. I am proud of my team, my entire team (my manager included), and I am deeply appreciative for what they and others have done for me. Things may not be perfect, and they never are, but I have a family here in Miami. You may not always like them or want to deal with them, but you always, always love them. And I will always, always, always love the people I've met here. I'm hoping that we are forever friends.

Knowing that you are slated to go somewhere else aids in perspective shifting. It happened right before I was leaving Gainesville almost three years ago. A place that was so reviled by me, and knowing that it was all coming to an end shifted my perspective into that last critical phase: well, it's not so bad after all.

When I was first moving to Miami, the prevailing sentiment was that it's only a year; a year's not that long, which is true. But the year didn't necessarily fly by. Somehow that phrase doesn't get to the essence of what the feeling is. It feels like the year stealthily stole by us all. It feels hard to believe that a year ago this time, I was working in a middle school in my hometown, feeling perpetually troubled by the fact that I wasn't "doing" anything. Well, in thinking about the fact that I'm almost three years out of college (May 3rd), I've been doing exactly what I said I wanted to do. I said that I wanted to live and experience life. I'm pretty sure I've been doing that. I'll be able to say that within three years I've lived within three different cities. I'll be able to say that within the three years I've met 100+ awesome, awesome people, and that's not an exaggeration. Those are pretty significant.

I'm rambling now, clearly, but my larger point is that, I feel Your clarity, thank You. And that life is not about what you encounter, but how you handle each and every situation you are granted.

I'm in love. With my life. And with the people in it. The end.

double standards of Essence

2011-03-10T21:54:00.005-05:00

Making good on my promise... though tonight's post will be shorter than I anticipated.* I'm working on a presentation for tomorrow that I got more into than I thought I would. I've been sitting here for a couple of hours working on it. I have the tendency to get lost in projects when I get in the zone.

So, today: I was at work, scrolling through some websites, wasting time, when I stumbled upon Essence Online's photo album of "Naked Celebrities." (Seeing as how I just saw the Chris Brown penis pic this past weekend, I figured it couldn't hurt to find out what other naked celebrities there are out there.) Some parts of the photo album actually showed the naked photos in question (like Amare Stoudemire's HUGE frame jumping into a pool with one hand over his region**), whereas some just gave pictures of the celebrities in more typical fashion... you know, with clothes on.

Regardless, each picture came with a caption. I don't know what I was expecting, but when I gave the captions a second read-over I was disturbed by the messages behind the captions.

For instance, pretty much all the male pictures (which, by the way, were included in the photo album in all their almost-but-really-naked glory, whereas mostly all of the women were shown fully clothed) were lauded or treated like they weren't naked pictures. Don't believe me? Amare Stoudemire's lengthy nakedness? They said women across the nation got the magazine for the first time just to study his body, following all that up by saying "Damn." And not in the way you say "damn" when you forget your keys, either.

Jamie Foxx? Well they said he was a "gangsta" for leaking his own pictures onto the internet. (a. I didn't know he had pictures, and b. I think that kind of makes him a lame.)

Chad Ochocinco? (Whom, someone rightfully pointed out***, can't even get his made up name right. 85 in Spanish is not ochocinco, but, ochenta y cinco.) Well, they barely batted an eye at his picture, which involved him being booty, butt ass naked with just a football covering his manhood.

But Rihanna? They went "tsk tsk" at her for having naked pictures leaked on the internet. Cassie? They said hers were "very explicit!". Ummm, okay.

But then, they said nothing about Halle Berry, nothing about Garcelle Beauvais, and they even said that Naomi Campbell "gets a pass" because her body is a "work of art." Ummm... excuse me, but I think Rihanna's body is more attractive on any day than Naomi Campbell's.

And, why is Naomi Campbell's body a work of art, but not other women's bodies? And why do men's bodies seem to be considered okay to be portrayed naked (at least, for purposes of this list), but not women's? So, do we not bat an eye at men standing naked with a hand or strategically placed football blocking his penis because the juxtaposition of the photos with the commentary is an example of some writer's penis envy? (If I am to assert that the writer behind all of the commentary blurbs is the same person, and that said writer is a woman.)

Do we not bat an eye because it's one of those "it's okay if men do it" things? Is it because we still operate under the belief that women are supposed to be coy and chaste?

And why, operating under the unspoken and thus unknown restrictions on this list, why does nakedness seem to be allowable for models and actresses, but not for singers? Does this speak of how society views the hierarchy of "artistry"?

Questions seek answers. Go.

*--looking back, this ish wasn't short at all. Go 'head girl.
**--ummm... either his fingers are really big, or his shit is rather small. Just saying.
***--I wish I could remember who dropped this on me. I really hadn't even thought about the fact that this negro actually means for his name to be "Chad eighty-five" rather than "Chad eight five."

some good memories go unreviewed

2011-03-09T22:18:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, when the wind blows right in the sky
I'm reminded of the small joys of you
that I quietly clung to, unbeknownst to me--
standing in summer dusk, dark while still
glittering ebulliently.

Soft raindrops calming air's humidity,
leaning against your car
into the unknown, never-spoken-of safety of our arms
while our tongue whisper secrets,
the things we'll never say.

We hold each other
'til dusk becomes night.

"for me it ain't real... it's fool's gold..."

2011-03-09T21:03:00.005-05:00

I guess I can look back at all of the ~~mistakes~~experiences I've had, and understand that if there's any reason why I had them, it's so I could utilize them later in life to tell you stories.

Once upon a time, I was in this relationship. It wasn't a real relationship, and I wasn't really aware of this, sadly. (Looking back, I realize that I can no longer give myself points for cognizance. Though I knew it was an atypical thing, I think I sincerely thought we were in some kind of atypical relationship.) The man that I was ~~being fucked by~~dating was not a great catch. I mean, he was a wonderful catch if you wanted to clean up behind an overgrown man and make him sandwiches, and accompany him on cliche, non-inventive, awkward trips to visit family members you shouldn't be meeting, and if you wanted to watch him fall asleep sitting straight up in bed with SportsCenter on before your pussy had barely had a chance to lubricate itself enough to be moist-like.

Essentially, if you wanted a mental vegetable with a big dick that looked good, he was your man.* (Because he clearly wasn't mine.)

I spent most of my time frustrated and being stood up. I can remember how livid I was, sitting in the parking lot of a Carrabba's, not on my side of town, waiting on him, crying my mascara off, unable to go back home because I'd lied to my parents and told them I was going to see a movie. Sitting, crying in a parking lot. (That wouldn't be the last time I'd cry in a parking lot over a no-good man, go figure.) Stuck like chuck, driving around town trying to kill time, angry that I'd been stood up, but still hoping that he would text me back at the last minute, giving me any bullshit excuse as to why he ~~chose not to answer~~didn't see my texts, knowing that the second he did, I'd go running to the same house he was always in. Knowing I would do it, and praying to God all the while that he wouldn't text me; that I'd learn and take my ass home. (How's that for double consciousness?)

Fully inside the memory of the foolishness of him, the foolishness and youth of me, and the ludicrous absurdity of our not-so-clandestine ~~fucking~~pairing, I also can remember that Fall, when our "relationship" became long-distance, because I'd gone back to school out of town. I can remember sitting in class, doodling to myself, Mrs. Malorie ________, and writing thoughtpoems about him, and daydreaming about what it would be like to be married to him, and to bear his child.~~not like it would be any virgin territory for him since he already had two.~~

*record screeches* Excuse me say what?

Yes, I daydreamt about being married to the mental vegetable with the big dick. Of course, being all of (insert age here), I was sure that I loved him.... even though I didn't like him that much. I honestly didn't know him enough to like him. I didn't know enough of him to like him. He had no commanding presence, except the lucky genetic stroke of good looks and height. Pretty much all of his aura was comprised of what others thought of him. All of his swagger came from the women who pretty much put their pussies on display in front of him. (A lot of these women were married or involved, mind you.) In private, he was particularly insecure... or rather he played the "modesty" game** because he knew women just love a man who isn't actually aware of how amazing he is. (*vomit*)

Now, I say all this to do what? To tell you another funny story from my vault of stories that you probably don't even believe happened to me? (I know, they can be that ridiculous sometimes.) Just to have something to write?

Well, yes and no.

I was listening to Amy Winehouse this evening, listening to a song I'd heard before. I knew I'd liked the song, as I liked damn near every song on this particular deluxe album. But for whatever reason, tonight it resonated within me.

The song is called "Fool's Gold," and it is the story of me. Well, the me I'm leaving behind. The girl who won't be happy 'til she looks down and sees her engagement ring. I was that girl, without even realizing it. Without having a family who bred me to be "the marrying type" (whatever the fuck that means), and without even having the security of having grown up and been into dating/relationships (they weren't into me like I was into them), I was still that girl. The one who would be able to go back to school and daydream about a mental vegetable with a big dick simply because she's seen a dress [and] she has the flowers planned.

Well, for me, that's no longer real. It is indeed, fool's gold. I want to love someone past the boundaries that even I'm comfortable with, and have them love me in return, and I want us to be happy. I don't want everything to be perfect. I don't want either one of us to be mental vegetables. I don't want us to have sex because we feel like that's what we're supposed to do. I want us to like each other quite a bit and be able to recognize it. I don't want us to be perfect, and I want us to love one another for our innate imperfection. Sadly, though I'm pretty sure I've done this, I can't look back and say that anyone else has really done this with me. I have danced in the facade of this with a few people, but at the end of the day, where are they and where am I? I am inside my feelings, and they are pretending like they never had any.

I don't want any more fucking fool's gold. I want the real thing.

Listen to the song. It gives me chills. And, hold on to the gold you find. Make sure it's real. Life is too short to waste time.

------------------------------------------------------------------
*--to be fair, for him to have been a mental vegetable, he was nice. Until we got in a verbal disagreement while he was watching a boring Christmas special and told me I was disrespecting Jesus. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Never mind. He was an asshole.
**--you know, when you tell a guy he's attractive and he's like "oh no, there are better looking people than me..." Learn how to say thank you and shut the fuck up with the "oh no, not me" shit. Nothing is more unattractive than someone that doesn't know their own worth. Or doesn't value what they have.

hello, hello...

2011-03-09T20:55:00.003-05:00

I know, I know, I know. Before you even say anything, I apologize for being away. I shouldn't have left you without something to read. I should have said something before going away. I know.

I didn't know I was going away. This happens sometimes, you know. Sometimes, contrary to popular belief, I run out of things to say. When I'm not in a high-state of ~~romantic~~emotional distress, it takes effort for me to write. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that's when my better writing comes out, when it's not pouring from my fingers.

*shrugs* I don't know. I'm on this quest (which shall be lifelong) to enhance my writing. To make it better. To never be satisfied. To make sure I'm the best of the best at what I feel is my calling. If not the best, then what really is the point? I'm not saying I'm going to be posting every day (I still believe that quality overrides quantity, always), but I'm going to make a conscious effort.

Anyhow, so, some things have happened since I've been away. I've started going to the gym. I relaxed my hair. I'm moving across the country in a few months. You know, the usual goings-on in my life. Romantically, there's not much popping. That's also a usual going-on. I've got plenty of feelings, none of which I will share here. When I do share them, you won't really know that I have.

So, I said all of this to say hello. And that I'm coming back. I swear. There's going to be a post that pops up after this. I promise.

The other side of being natural... when you want to turn back

2011-02-12T19:12:00.005-05:00

Frequently, I find that others seem to be living in some type of blissful denial of some of life's realities. For instance, the organization I work for is known for telling people that the second half of the year (you know, the one that comes after the break when you got to go back to your real life and your friends and family and eat real food because you weren't broke when you were at home with moms and the pop) is hard, and granted, this is true. However, when I became cognizant of the fact that a lot of stuff about work blows, I found a number of people telling me that my discontent was a direct result of it being the second half of the year, and that everything would get better.

Well, that's not necessarily true. Stuff blows, and everything is better, simply because I give myself permission to acknowledge the blow-factor. Some things blew before break, so just because it's after Christmas, doesn't mean that's why I'm upset.

One of my least favorite things is when people respond to discontent by telling the disgruntled one that "[they'll] miss ______________ when it's gone." Um, what if I don't? Sometimes, people aren't taking things for granted; they simply aren't happy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I started pondering the idea of changing my hair before break. It's reached a point where something's gotta give. According to my mother, even when I was a child, my hair was frizzy and prone to tangling. And this is when it was relaxed. Now it's natural, and though I have dealt with the frizziness, the tangle-factor is ridiculous. I pretty much would have to detangle my hair every couple of days in order for it to not tangle. My tight, corkscrew curls do not stand out on their own. They don't define themselves much. They must be shy. They like holding on to each other and basking in each other's shadows. The only time they really stand out is when I do a wash and go. But that's not an easy everyday option. Plus, when I wash and go, my hair shrinks like Rick Moranis in the 80s. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're too young. Do some research, and get back to me.)

So, I started thinking about what I was going to do. I got caught up in the idea of locking (again), and this time actually did some research, and chatted up some folks. At the end of the day, I decided this wasn't an option for me at the moment. What I imagined to be low maintenance (locs) is actually pretty damn high maintenance, and I would have to cut some of my hair off in order to start them the way I wanted to. (Palm rolling.) So, I let that thought go. And then, I thought of the *dun dun dun* creamy crack. I actually envisioned going to buy a box. And after a few days of pondering that, I let the thought go back to wherever it came from.

Now, a few months later, I'm back there in my mind, envisioning what it would be like to have straight hair after two years away.

Honestly, I miss having straight hair. I miss being able to run my fingers through my hair. I miss ponytails. I don't want to spend an entire day twisting my hair anymore. I don't want to spend hours detangling my hair. Quite frankly, it's just hair, right?

Not so much. I feel like it's just hair only applies to those whom are leaving the relaxed land behind for the world of natural. But why doesn't it apply for the other way around?

In my mind, if it's just hair, then I should be able to buzz it, wear it natural, wear it relaxed, wear it texturized, wear it twisted, wear it loc'ed--I should be able to do whatever I want, without fear of reproach. But, for Black women, it's really not just hair. It's not. The fact that I'm even giving it this much thought illustrates the fact that it's not just hair.

The natural thing has gotten to be too much for me. The well-intentioned self-love can be a bit isolating. In thinking back on my time as a natural, I realize I've been trying to convince others (namely, my mother and sister), that being natural is the best way to be, rather than accepting them and whatever they want to do with their hair. Hell, the only reason I went natural is because I got bored and I was lazy, and didn't want to have to perm my hair myself. So I waited a month... and waited another month... and another... and decided I was going natural.

I had relaxed hair my entire life. When my hair was relaxed, I never felt like it comprised such a part of my identity as my natural hair does. My hair was simply my hair. But with my natural hair, I feel like it has become as big of a personality as I am. For a time, it was cool. (Of course, there weren't many "I'll remember you by your hair"/positive things when my hair was natural and short... but once the fro became much larger than my head, people started talking. [And it didn't involve ignorant negroes aka one former jump off calling me a "little African boy." Hence, former jump off. Told you the short natural hair didn't get too many positive things said.]) But now, it leaves me feeling boxed in. The other day, a man I conversed with at a gas station said he would remember me as "the lady with the big hair." I thought it nice at the time, but now, it bothers me. I really am not my hair.
----------------------------------------------------

Just because I have natural hair does not mean I'm deep. It doesn't mean I listen to Erykah Badu and wear patchouli. It doesn't mean that I'm a hippie. It doesn't mean that I'm an intellectual. It doesn't mean anything except that I have natural hair. In fact, I was deep with straight hair, and I was an intellectual with straight hair. I listened to Erykah with straight hair, and the first time I got my nose pierced, I had straight hair.

Just because I want my straight hair back doesn't mean I practice self-hate. It doesn't mean I want to be "white," and may I take this second to point out the fact that all white people don't have straight hair, and don't get me started on why taking on an assumed characteristic of another race is considered to be the end of the world. (By the way... when Black people say other Black people are trying to be "white" by straightening their hair, why don't they say Black people are trying to be "Asian" instead? Is it because that will never be as offensive as a perceived assimilation into the characteristics of the race that oppressed us?)

I'm on a rant here, because this has been bothering me, but mostly because I realize that I fell right into the trap. There's nothing wrong with embracing natural hair... but it's not the end all or be all. Why does going natural have to be a lifetime commitment? I don't think I'll ever make a lifetime commitment to something as transient as my hairstyle.

Why does going natural bring about an assumption of intellect, or depth?

Why don't we focus on healthy hair, regardless of whether it's natural or relaxed or texturized?

My decision on my hair isn't finalized yet, only because nothing is final until it's done. So, I won't say I'm for sure going to relax it, until I do, but I will say this: wherever my hair journey goes from this moment on, I'm going to work on unlatching my mind from my hair follicles. No one should have to debate with themselves on the "correctness" of what one wants to do to one's hair. It's just hair, and it does grow back.

I am a human, and I am entitled to change, and to change my mind.

Regardless, I am Malorie, and don't remember me as the lady with the big hair, or the lady with the twists, or the lady with the straight hair. Because as sure as the sun and moon, I get bored, and the next time you see me, I might not be the lady with the hair you remember. Don't remember my hair, remember me. Even if the hair changes, the essence of me stays the same.

Happy birthday, bloggy love

2011-01-29T15:10:00.002-05:00

I started my blog two years ago, on a whim.

My coworker was standing over the desk, almost-spying on me, breaking the barrier of my personal space bubble, and it got on my nerves.

I can't remember how I found this space to open my mind up to you... did I type it on Google, I wonder? Had I ever stumbled across Blogger before?

I can't remember, but I know that I started this two years ago, not imagining or expecting anything, and here we are, two years later.

I am thankful to those of you who read and comment, and I'm thankful for those of you who read-lurk. I'd like to know who you are, one day, but as long as you're reading, I'm appreciating you.

Thank you. Let's grow old together.

Not

2011-01-24T22:53:00.004-05:00

as i grow
i keep living this same moment
in different times--
socked feet awaiting shoes;
hair pinned perfectly;
pajama shorts under sweatpants, to be removed later;
staring at the tattoo above my high heel;
watch on my wrist and earrings in my ear--
it doesn't matter
because again i sit
waiting on the phone call that won't come
because you conveniently got tied up
with your oh so busy life
waiting on the text that won't come
because you conveniently fell asleep
without remembering i was waiting on you
waiting on the email that won't come
because you conveniently have your oh so busy life
that doesn't involve me
new day, same shit
and maybe that's because
life is trying to tell me
stop waiting
don't try
let it go
because that phone call
that text
that email
that man
you need more than you like to admit
to yourself
ain't coming
and maybe it's time
you gave that some thought.

up mixed days

2011-01-11T23:47:00.004-05:00

whole bottle of wine gone
ask me politely
fishnet pantyhose
can i...
sloppy urgent kisses
don't understand why
i want you
why this feels
so good i tell all my friends
over drinks
lunch
oranges and cookies
in the park.

head game

2011-01-09T21:21:00.003-05:00

I am writing in haste, let me first tell you this.

I usually always write in haste, but usually the kind that involves my fingers flying faster than I thought they would, because the thought is trying to press out of my skull with each word. The haste I'm writing in right now is because finally something popped into my head that I felt I should write about, but of course this happened in the midst of me cleaning, trying to get ready for my first day back at the school, and about half-an-hour before RHOA comes on. Go figure.
---------------------------------------------------------

You know, sex and sexual acts are generally very annoying to me. Well, let me clarify. I mean, they are usually great when I'm involved in a relationship in which I really care about someone, but we all know how often that happens. (*crickets* Exactly.) So, when I'm in the midst of single-dom, and not being in that I-care-about-you-so-much relationship ~~welcome to my everyday life, kids~~, navigating sex can be tricky, to say the least. I'm sure most people would agree with me when I say that it's always easier to have relations* with someone you know already. If you already know them, and obviously like them enough to engage in relations with them, that probably means you trust them with your body, which for a woman, is deeply, deeply important. (No pun intended.) I have a feeling that men don't have this same dilemma of having to trust a woman with his body. For a man, he makes sex happen. For a woman, sometimes it seems like sex happens to her. It probably has something to do with the fact that he sticks something in, while we receive something inside. Makes things a little more intimate. But that's another thought for another day. (Maybe I should do research on that. Maybe that could become some dissertation way, way in the future.)

Well, the option of having someone around whom you trust and know isn't always an option. Which leaves a few choices. A). don't have relations at all. (This is easy... for a while.) B). have relations with someone you don't know. (This may be appealing to some.) C). have relations with someone you know a bit, and can thereby enact some facade of trust. (Ehhh... not bad.) D). self-relations. (Quick and temporary fix.)

Most people would pick C. I would pick C, if necessary. But the problem with picking C, is the problem with myyour mind raking you over the coals of the decision you've made.

I don't know if this happens to other women, or if I'm alone in this matter, but I find that when I do have relations with that person that I kind of know, but not necessarily that I trust enough to be walking around the next morning booty-butt naked in the kitchen ~~if I even trust you or like you enough to stay over~~, my mind won't let the encounter die. Not even in a I'm-romanticizing-the-fuck-out-of-this, but in a I'm-not-sure-why-I-did-that type of way.

But the thing is: if I was a guy, would my mind even take me there? Would I even care? Would I even need a reason to have engaged in relations?

Part of me wonders if I even have these thoughts simply because society tells me that I should. Because my upbringing as a female tells me that I'm supposed to have a reason to engage in relations with a guy... a reason that cannot be simply because I'm enjoying the moment or simply because I enjoy the sexual encounter. Take one of my guy friends, for instance. I don't think we've ever had a conversation about a girl that he's slept with, and then had the conversation, "well, I'm not sure why I did that. I don't think it was necessary. Maybe next time I shouldn't do something like that." He doesn't have to feel that way. Men, traditionally, and even still, are the ones who are told to sow their "wild" oats, whereas we women who have some oats--yeah, we have those, and we like to sow them, too--are considered unsavory, not one you'd take home to mom, something that should be tamed.**

So, the problem should be easy. I should just go on about my business, relate with whom I choose, when I choose, and not worry about people and their little opinions. Well, that part's fine. I'm not worried about people's opinions. It's my own opinions that worry me.

And it's the possibility of why my opinions don't easily align that worries me even more.

*--relations means sex, or other caveats to sex, such as oral sex, making out and then engaging in oral sex, etc.
**--to be fair, not all men feel this way. I had a conversation with a busta I used to deal with, and he said that there was nothing wrong with a woman being very secure in herself and having sex with folk. I mean, I'm pretty sure he said this because we were driving to where we would thusly have sex, but still... I'mma count that.

hard

2010-12-30T20:07:00.003-05:00

Do you know how hard it is to write articles sometimes?

Maybe it's because I'm now no longer in a relationship, and because I no longer have frequent interactions with *him*.

Regardless of the reasoning, when I sit down to write something (not here, clearly), it just feels contrived. Artificial. Not good enough.

That's the reason why I stopped writing those relationship articles. Because it started to feel forced. Artificial. Not good enough. (If even good at all.)

That's all I wanted to say. That right now, it just doesn't feel good enough.

the years are rolling by too fast

2010-12-30T17:27:00.002-05:00

Nothing that I'm writing is satisfying me right now.

So I will keep it short and sweet.

For whatever 2010 was, it was another year that I learned, and lived.

Let us keep the tradition alive in 2011.

like William Faulkner taught me

2010-12-28T01:46:00.002-05:00

I knew this was going to happen I was going to sit at this computer and I was going to hear the sounds of my clicking on the keyboard and I was going to write write write until I exhaust myself and then I'll have nothing left to say but until then I'm going to just write stream of conscious and if anyone makes the effort to read then that's on them but I would greatly appreciate it because I really write everything so others can read it there's not a lot I keep to myself quite frankly I mean what would be the point of doing that I've never felt the urge to keep everything to myself

(inhale)

so I've got a lot on my mind like what happened the other night when he showed me that my body is loosening up its limitations and that he really can do a body good shit I'm almost embarrassed writing that out loud but I said it anyway because it's true and I was going to say something else but it's funny I can write about things that happened in the past effortlessly wax poetic about my blind first love or my latest real love but when it comes to this other him I can't really say too much because I feel like everything happens in real time and because he writes too for some reason I just clam up so I guess that's all I have to say about that besides I probably shouldn't offer you too many details anyway but I guess I'll just say brain grade A and leave it at that

(exhale)

so 2011 is coming up and I will make this my year and make every year following my year as well because I've got to live like I'm dying because I don't know when that will be true and since I don't know that I have to live accordingly and shit I just looked at the clock and I can't believe it's 1:51 am and I'm not tired I'm not tired at all but I've got to find a place to stop because I will continue this forever if I let myself

(inhale)

it's funny that I am so many things but the last thought word shift in my seat as I stop myself abruptly is going to be about you

(exhale)

.

photograph

2010-12-28T01:28:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, I see things, and think things that send my heart into overdrive.

Like, I can feel it, as I sit, with my left hand pressed firmly against my skull, I can feel my heart thumping in my chest, as the weight of reality settles in, dropping, ironically, like a feather, gliding through the air bit, by bit, by bit.

That is exactly it--that's what the settling of reality feels like.

When you are faced with something you can't exactly fix, something you can't change, something you have to accept. Acceptance is hard, and not for chumps. You may think you have accepted something hard; just swallowed it and moved on, but until you've sat there, feeling your emotions shifting into deeper channels; until you've felt your heart actually start to beat faster; until you've felt reality land inside you, well, until you've felt that, you've probably never accepted too much of anything.

As someone who has grown to need--without even realizing it--control over things, seeing my lack of control reflected in a picture of you, away from me, is hard to swallow. It settles, slowly like that feather, but roughly like an anchor, and continues creaking inside me, like a house at nighttime, settling into its foundation.

My breathing slows and my thoughts grow louder as I realize. As I simply sit back and realize. Acknowledge. Accept.

Accept.

holiday daze

2010-12-28T00:41:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and everything in between--

I'm so sorry. A lot's been going on. A lot of moving back and forth, a lot of time spent reading, spent laughing with friends and family, and spent thinking, thinking, thinking, as always.

I will be back. Probably right around the beginning of 2011, with something to say. I don't have too many thoughts right now (well, not ones I choose to share), as I'm sitting at the very poorly-lit computer desk in my parents' house, but I have been scribing a bit, off and on. Maybe I'll drop a little bit of that on you. Just depends on how my eyes feel in the next few minutes after I publish this.

Seriously though, I know we don't communicate, necessarily... it's really quite the one-sided relationship, you having access to my thoughts and all, but not always sharing your own with me... but it's cool, and I just want you to know that I do miss you. Just because I'm not writing, doesn't mean I'm not thinking about you :)

I'm just enjoying a break from the reality I've created for myself, and slipping back into the sweetness of what is my holiday life.

I wish it was always like this, but if it was, I wouldn't appreciate the holidays.

love love,
m.

if you want to fuck me, just do it and shut the hell up already, goodness

2010-12-13T21:34:00.004-05:00

This made my night.

I was reading along and discovered this post, and it's so true.

Why are people blurring lines so heavy?

If you are in love with my pussy and want to wax the fuck out of it, then you need to tell me that, and maybe I'll be foolish enough to let you do so. (Because hey, maybe your waxing is the fucking bomb, and maybe, just maybe, it's the best I've ever had.)

But, if you are in love with my pussy, then you have to talk solely to her. Don't lie in bed with me, don't cuddle with me, don't hold me close, don't rub my back until I fall asleep; find some way to prevent your eyes from looking at me, all boyish charm and bright brown diamonds.

If you are in love with my pussy, then don't kiss the lips on my face, don't make love to them, don't take showers with me, don't make jokes and make me laugh until I'm almost embarrassed that I've laughed so hard. Don't take me out to dinner, don't make me dinner, don't text me just to talk about anything. Don't call me, don't wait on me to get home, don't get excited when I get there.

Don't invite me to spend the night and lay all of your beauty down next to me. Don't mingle your toes with mine. Don't kiss me behind my knees until I get weak and almost fall on you. Don't blindfold me and make love to my body because you knew my shyness about a certain position was eating me up.

Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.

If you are in love with my pussy, do exactly what you could be doing now

(moving away and forgetting)

because if you do anything other than that,

you might be in love with me.

man with a sign

2010-12-12T21:01:00.004-05:00

He walked down the concrete divider separating the eastbound and westbound traffic, in between his small blue cooler, lime green container--a helmet, perhaps? or bucket?--and what I imagine to be the limits of believed efficacy.

He walks past my car, holding a small, humble piece of cardboard, a sign, with neat, printed letters. Something to the effect of "HOMELESS, PLEASE HELP. GOD BLESS." As he walked by, I regretted that I had my sun visor faced toward him, blocking my view of his face. I could only see him from the mid-torso downward, and once he got past my car, I could see his full profile, but with his face turned away, facing other cars.

As he approached once more, slowly walking past my car, paying me no attention, I tried to throw him a smile, though I imagine my smile wasn't what he was looking for. He pulled off his hat, humble sign tucked between his arm and ribs, and lifted up a ponytail of oily-looking, dirty-blond hair. He lifted it, and lowered it, and flung out the back of a dingy gray baseball cap a few times, until he could get it on in one fling.

In these last seconds before the light turned green, I wondered if he had been in the military. I looked at his legs, the muscle definition still apparent, and wondered if this was the life he lived as a veteran. I wished I'd had something to give him, not cash, but attention. Imagined me sitting on that concrete divider, atop his green helmetbucket, conducting an interview with a homeless man. Where are you from, originally? (I hope not Miami.) How many hours do you spend out here? How long have you been homeless?

And finally, before I lost sight of him as I turned onto the highway, I thought of my dad. What if that was my dad, homeless, the leathery golden-red skin replaced with taut brown?

I drove away, even more lost and searching, it seems, than when I started my empty journey through empty cities, containing much but still not having what I'm looking for, whatever it is that is banging back and forth, wildly, blindly against the dark walls of my reasoning. My eyes welled up with tears and my wires crossed and further frustration set in.

a heart on a search for that which is unknown

I continued driving, as he paced with a humble sign with neat, printed letters; me, no closer to my truth, and neither one of us any closer to home.

what's going on in the world, mine and the outside one

2010-12-12T18:44:00.003-05:00

On Friday, when I was waiting for the last minutes of the day to float by, my mom called me. I answered, prepared to tell her that I'd call her in a few minutes when I left, but she cut me to the quick, and informed me that she'd just called 911 for my dad, who was in pain and couldn't move his right arm or shoulder. She told me she'd give me a call and she told me to call my sister, who hadn't wanted to go to the hospital. (Her and I both have one thing in common: we can be intensely sensitive, and places like hospitals, where we imagine that emotions are on full display, all the time, are not places we are comfortable going, especially not with others who will be there to monitor our reactions, and ask us, if anything, that dreaded, means-well-but-usually-never-does-well question: are you okay?)

I sat at my desk with my head down, for privacy, and as everyone milled about in the room, laughing and talking as usual, I felt like the world--at least, my part of it--slowed to a crawl. Oh my God was the only thing I said aloud, other than okay, and as I got off the phone, I didn't want to talk to anyone. I wanted everyone to leave me to my own devices. I started, for lack of a better term, freaking out. I've been feeling emotionally strange all week, I thought. Was this what those weird feelings were leading up to? I started thinking about skipping the dinner party planned for Saturday in order to drive home. I started thinking about taking a couple of days off of work so I could be at home during this uncertain time. My manager wanted to have a typical long debrief at the end of the day; I was curt when I told her I didn't have time for that, I had to go call my sister.

In looking back at this scene, it is been proven that I am more my father's daughter than I like to imagine. Cut from the same cloth, I am every bit the worrywart that he is, every bit as ride or die as he is, ready to drop everything and make that three-and-a-half hour journey home just because he went to the hospital. Not only do we look alike, we are alike.

He wasn't having a stroke, and the doctors have run lots of tests to figure out what's going on. So, we're waiting. They think it's an infection. I just know that I'm prone to panic, and that just because someone goes to the hospital doesn't mean they aren't coming back out. (Thank God my mom is the level-headed nurse.) Please, keep us in your prayers. I can't wait to find out what the test results have to say, but I pray it's nothing grave.

----------------------------------------------------
In other news:
--I heard this weekend that Bernie Madoff's son killed himself. I can't say I'm confused as to why. His dad fucked up many people's lives in the name of greed, and he seemed to have fucked up his son's life in the process. That's so unfortunate. Suicide is certainly not the answer, but I'm pretty sure in the midnight hour, he felt like he didn't have a soul in the world on his side. May he be able to rest peacefully.

--Haven't heard from *him* since he left, and I doubt I'm going to hear from him before the year's out. Even if I do, I can't say I'm really excited about the possibility. Anyone who is willing to move out of the country and not make an effort to talk to you, doesn't want to talk to you. I've decided that I'm not going to waste my time talking to people who don't want to talk to me, and that includes people who think that they miss me when they really miss my vagina. Moving on...

--Last night, at a very, very nice holiday party, I had coffee and dessert. This is a big deal for me because I don't drink coffee, and have probably never had a cup of coffee in the years that I've been alive. (Seriously. I don't like it.) But after a few cups of wine, and with some delicious rum cake, it was great!

--I'm trying to figure out what it is about Miami that I don't like. What it is about South Florida that I don't like. I can't really put my finger on it, but it's there. I'm not exactly sure what it is I'm searching for, but I really hope I find it. And I really hope when I do find it, I know. One thing I know already is that I haven't attached to any of the places outside of Orlando that I've lived. I've downright strongly disliked them. I guess I'll just have to keep moving around until something tickles my fancy.

--Currently reading: It by Stephen King. I'm about 200 pages in (it's 1000+ pages), and I'm really in. It's very creepy, but I have to keep reading, even at night when I get super spooked. Mr. King can write the hell out of a scene.

--I've had my hair twisted for about a week now, and it still looks good. I'm trying to really do protective styling... meaning, twisting my hair, tucking the ends in, etc. Hopefully it helps. I used the famed Ecostyler gel (in the pink container) and I really like how it's holding my hair. My frizzy hair needs all the help it can get.

--Trying to figure out my plan for next year. Have a couple of ideas floating in the air. With a couple floating, if some don't work, at least there will still be some ideas left. We'll see.

--That might be it.

I'm going to not fall asleep in bed reading like I have done the past couple of nights. I'm in a writing mood right now anyhow.

Please please please, keep my dad in your thoughts, prayers, meditations, etc. And keep my panicky heart in your thoughts/prayers/meditations also.

bodily perception

2010-12-06T21:32:00.004-05:00

... me and those dreaming eyes of mine ...

For some reason, I have always loved things that suggest irrefutable impossibility.*

Don't ask me where I picked up the talent from, but even when I was a child, I could pick out the melancholy emotion as effortlessly as an orange in a bowl of rice. It's like I had an innate sense for it; like my body would have a physical reaction.

Usually, it would result in me launching inexplicable tears down my unblemished cheeks.

One of these instances--that I've been thinking of lately--resulted from a song. (As most of them did, and still do.)

My mother always tells me the story about me and the song "Forever Young." (No Jay-Z.) When I was a kid, something about Rod Stewart's raspy voice, and something about that song would send me into a world of sadness, and apparently, I would ask my best friend's mom if she could turn the song off, because it made me sad. (My words, at around 6 or 7.)

'Til this day, I can still remember the video (with that red-headed kid and Stewart sitting on what I remember to be a cliff, with the sun shining a golden yellow on them--I would be curious to watch the video in present time to see how much my memory holds up), and the feeling--more so than the lyrics, necessarily--come to me immediately, and I can feel tears well up in my eyes, as they are right now, as I'm writing this. (No lie. If you could see me, my eyes probably look as big as saucers and are probably shimmering like raindrops in the sun, full of tears that I will not let fall.)

There was something in that song, something about this idea purported by Stewart (or whomever wrote that song) about being "forever young," about a father, or someone, letting someone else go, but recognizing that they would always be forever young to them (but in my heart you will remain, forever young...) that still cripples me right at the knees. (The tears are welling again.) The fact that this could cripple me even at six intrigues me.

There were many unexplainable instances--I quit my ballet class when I was five, on the night of our recital, because the music made me sad. (Again, my words. I'm pretty sure my parents aren't making this up. Part of me feels like I can remember this.) I can definitely remember sitting on my mom's table (something she would have yelled at me for if she saw me) at eight or nine, listening on repeat to Prince's "The Most Beautiful Girl in The World," and crying. Just straight crying, and feeling the impossible swelling up within my heart.

What the hell was I crying for? I was eight. I'd never been in love, I'd been hurt, but not in the type of way that hurt gets you when you're older. (Though one should never underestimate those child-like hurts. Sometimes, the purity of them, and the lack of ability to understand their source can mold a person much more than anything you'll ever experience as an adult.) I was eight, and susceptible to my body's natural reaction to the impossibility in these songs.

Today, listening to them, or thinking about them, I can understand the impossible beauty in them. Asserting that someone will be "forever young" to you--we all know that time waits on no man, and no one will be here forever, and no one will be forever young. Prince waxing glory about "the most beautiful girl in the world?"

and if the stars, ever fell/
one by one, from the sky/
I know Mars, could not be, too far behind/
'cause baby this kind of beauty/
has got no reason to ever be shy/
'cause honey this kind of beauty/
the kind that comes from inside...

At eight, somehow my body must have recognized the rarity of such an utterance existing in real life. Maybe I was crying then, to prepare me for now. Maybe even then, I could sense the shy beauty inside myself.

The impossible in song, in lyric, in words, in literature, always causes that deep swelling to occur inside of me. I don't know how else to describe it, really. While my eyes well up with tears, something happens within me, something moves, and then, when it's over, my body puts it back wherever it came from.

Sitting in my room tonight, doing my hair and listening to D'Angelo's Brown Sugar (because it was the CD last left in the player, and because I did not feel like smearing coconut oil and gel all over my stack of CDs), a thought, a reality, something that I surely knew, but never took the time to think about smacked me right upside the back of my head.

As I sat on the bed, I looked across at the calendar hanging on my wall, and thought of *him* and the number of times I used to see him, back before I moved and he left. I acknowledged in my head that I used to see him almost every single week. Compelled, I got up, flipped the calendar back to January, and looked at the little hearts I marked on the days I saw him.

Almost once, or twice a week, hearts would appear, sometimes with comments. (Ever a writer, I truly document just about anything and everything you could think of.) As the calendar hit July, the hearts didn't appear for almost a month. (I was a G--being in Miami initially was the only time in my life living away when I stayed away for a month. I was really trying to play nice with Miami, at least at first.) They appeared at least a couple of times a month, until I flipped the calendar quickly past November. There was no need to look at the last set of hearts, placed in the middle of that month.

As I sat back down, I said out loud what I'd never thought of before: from once or twice a week, to once or twice a month, to not at all, and D'Angelo was steady crooning to me about those dreaming eyes of his, and the ostensible return of an impossible type of love I once knew very briefly, plus my body's reaction to the beauty in the concept of being an impossible dreamer (me and those dreaming eyes of mine, said in a way as if to say, oh, my eyes, they are wandering again, seeing things that I know won't be for me, don't mind them, I'm just hoping...) brought slow tears that turned into real tears. No sound, no nothing, just the hard scrunching of my face, as if to squeeze the rest of the emotion out, fast and hard.

The song ended, and I let it go, back to wherever it came from. I got up, wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, and washed the rest of the oil off my hands, so I could write.

And here I am, with you.

Maybe sometimes, I let my heart pay its weeping tribute to the realities that I so often choose to overstep, knowing that dwelling on them too often or too intensely will bring nothing but a barrage of melancholy I choose to avoid as often as possible.

And often, I wonder, if it will always be with me. A gift from beyond my reasoning that I will dutifully always carry.

*--maybe the impossibility that seems so unchanging isn't quite impossible at all. You see, I think that deep down inside of me, in fact, I know that deep down inside of me, I don't actually believe that anything is impossible. Which probably accounts for all my tears over my maturation--having a spirit that refuses to let go of hope, while being met with a world that suggests impossible is the answer. My heart's probably confused.

an update in my absence (I know, I know, this is familiar)

2010-11-30T23:05:00.003-05:00

I promise you, I'm still here.

I'm in such a damn good mood today, but I'm also quite tired. I've been moving non-stop since I got home, from a conference call, to trying to catch up with a (sleepy :) friend, to cooking dinner, to twisting and rolling my hair, to making lunch for tomorrow, to catching up with my roommates...

You get the picture.

But, I just wanted you to know that I miss you. My most productive time of the day (writing wise) is unfortunately the time that I'm at work. I used to have access to my blog at work, until the powers-that-be in their cozy district office decided to strip me of that pleasure.

So, often I'll be sitting at work, thinking about you, hoping that you're thinking about me. Staring at my computer screen, knowing that with a few small changes, I would have access to you.

I hope you're feeling well. Even though I'm sleepy, my body feels rather rested, and my mind is in a different place. A very good place.

Today is my parents' anniversary, by the way. They've been married for my age + 2. That's a long time to be with the same person. But for all the ups and downs, I'm damned thankful they are still together, and they are both still here. I am immensely blessed. Immensely.

It intrigues me that a few short years ago, I wasn't cognizant of my blessings. How time and experience has changed me.

Can you believe it's almost 2011? I can't. Time is moving faster than I like, sometimes.

He has been gone for a week, and while I'm used to it (not only have we gone for months without speaking to each other, but in my head it feels like he's been gone for a year already, rather than just a week), I think about *him* all the time. I pray for him. I hope he's having a hell of a time. And I hope he's thinking about me too. If there's anyone who understands a present absence, it's me. I've kind of cornered the market on that.

I could probably keep going, telling you random things from my stream of consciousness, but I still have things to do before sleep. I promise you, I'll be back soon.

love,
m.

(oh yeah, I'm freelancing again. I promise I'll tell you about that soon enough :)

Bonus: Hair truths or hair insecurities

2010-11-22T18:25:00.003-05:00

This is a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago and forgot to post. Fitting since I've been thinking hard about hair lately.

m.
----------------------------
She snickered.

And when I walked a step more, he snickered.

The line of students in the hallway outside of my classroom looked at me as I walked by them, and it could have been for any reason—it could have been because I stand almost six feet tall, as opposed to their small heights; it could be because they were stationary, and I was in motion; it even could have been because I had my keys in my hand, clearly going somewhere off-campus. My immediate line of thought was that they were laughing at my hair.

Don’t get me wrong—my hair is fly today. It’s super breezy outside, and my brown-red hair has been flapping in the strong breeze. My hair has been braided for a few days, and I decided to unbraid it this morning. When I initially braided it, it was after I’d detangled my hair in the shower, so the resulting braid-out was neat, and full of bounce. It’s much bigger than it used to be, and it’s hard to believe that a year and a half ago (which wasn’t that long ago), I had barely an inch of hair, and now I have this mass of kinks and curls flowing from my scalp.

Nevertheless, I’m a natural, and I’m sensitive about my hair. From the first day that I cut it, and even now, a year and some change later, I have heard some of the most interesting/ignorant/hurtful commentary surrounding hair. These comments are probably things that I’d heard before, but did not acknowledge, because they didn’t apply to me, and/or because I just wasn’t listening in the same way that I am now. Why’d you cut your hair? Why is your hair like that? Blasé blasé blasé about “naps.” So and so has good hair. Oh Miss Malorie you have that good hair. How do you get those little curls in your hair?

The comments don’t bother me as much. I can always have an educational moment with someone. I have corrected loved ones and friends when they have joked about “naps” or made commentary about “good hair.” (Whatever the hell that is.) When people asked me why I cut my hair, I told them it was because it was mine to cut. I explained to a coworker that I didn’t have to do anything to get the curls in my hair; that the curls are what God gave me.

It’s the stares that get to me. On occasion, I have noticed people looking at me. I’m well aware of the fact that people could either a). Not actually be looking at me (I bet you think this song is about you…), or b). Be looking at me for a reason that has nothing to do with my hair (i.e. because I am indeed almost six feet tall and walk with undeniable confidence, because of something I’m wearing, or for no reason at all). But whenever I see someone glancing in my direction, I immediately think that they are looking at my hair. Just like the little bad-ass girl in the hallway today, and the little boy at her side. (Don’t judge me, she is a little bad-ass who needs lots of love, and possibly a good ass-whooping.) When they looked up at me and laughed, I linked it automatically to my fro, flapping in the wind.

And although when I went to the restroom to check my hair, it was askew and a little messed up from the breeze all day, am I thinking that people are looking at me because I somehow have some insecurity about my hair? And if they are indeed looking at me, am I immediately linking their stares to negativity because of the fact that I have negative thoughts about my own hair?

Just wondering.

---------------------------------------
side note: today when i was walking into work, feeling not 100%~~due to those fucking nasty ass tacos from the fucking "authentic Mexican restaurant in the Cuban neighborhood that i live in--clearly, that food choice was a mistake~~ a little Pre-K girl, whom I've never talked to before, waved at me and said "I think your hair is pretty." Out the mouths of babes... she made my heart smile.

"I am not my hair" or am I?

2010-11-21T21:28:00.004-05:00

I'm going to tell you the truth. I've never listened to India.Arie's I Am Not My Hair. With my computer having no memory, and thus having no iTunes (ever since the crash, R.I.P. to my 3000+ songs), my iPod hasn't been updated since Nicki Minaj was an unknown to the mainstream world. (Man, I kind of miss those days.)

Despite my having never listened to the song, however, I'm very aware of the fact that it's an anthem for women who have gone natural. I'm assuming, having never listened to the song ~~and feeling too shitty right now to give you an external link to the lyrics, or look up the lyrics myself~~ that it has become such because of the fact that women going natural can ~~always~~sometimes encounter a lot of drama over something as simple as hair. You have to consistently remind yourself that it's just hair when people are asking you why you cut it, or why you would want to be natural. People can unintentionally pass a lot of judgment when it comes to a woman's choice to embrace her natural hair texture.

But, have those in the natural hair community ever thought about the fact that maybe we are passing judgment on those who do not have natural hair?

Today, as I was sitting in bed ~~feeling like a Mack truck had run over my back numerous times~~, I thought about changing my hair. I thought about either locking it, or even *gasp* going back to the creamy crack. (And yes, I have seen Good Hair.) And as soon as I had that thought, I shook it away, as though it was not an appealing option. Like it's something I'm not supposed to do.

Well, wait.... rewind. I thought Arie said I am not my hair. But it seems like that motto doesn't apply in every situation. It's fine for me to say "I am not my hair" when I'm going to chop it off and go natural, but if I'm going from natural back to relaxed, then the attitude that seems to be displayed is something like awww man, you gave up. It's disappointment. And I know this because on the couple of occasions when I have encountered women who were natural, and decided to go back to being relaxed, I felt kind of disappointed. But, why did I feel that way? Because they weren't embracing what God gave them? Because they gave up on the fight?

But why does it have to be a fight? If I am not my hair, then it shouldn't matter what I do with it, right? I should be able to shave half my hair off, I should be able to be natural, I should be able to wear it however.

This is not a dictation as to where I'm going with my hair journey~~maybe more like a hint~~, but I just think if I really am not my hair, then I need to act more like it. No matter what I choose to do with it.

hmmm...

2010-11-16T20:55:00.003-05:00

from the days of myspace. if you've never had someone make you feel this way, you need to get on changing that, quick.

m.
----------------------------------------------------

he thinks it's sexy when i'm just me.
i mean, he really digs the malorie he met
when she was drunk, stealing all the attention
from the center of the dance floor,
smiling through squinted eyes
and occupied lips.
but he really thinks it's sexy when i'm just me,
losing my balance when he kisses me
and saying things
wrong order spoken in the.
really, he totally loved the freakum dress
and he thinks my tight jeans are cool,
but he really thinks it's sexy when i'm me,
hair all disheveled from mischief,
sleeping in shorts and an Aunt Jemima head rag;
he thinks my glasses are sexy as fuck
and doesn't mind the pre-teethbrushing, morning-breath-still-kickin' kisses
that positively set my neuroticism aflame.
really, really really, sincerely,
he thinks it's sexy when i'm just me.

no title for memories

2010-11-16T19:56:00.006-05:00

I was going to get all argumentative and dig in to a topic, but... I don't feel like it.

Instead, I feel like telling you a story.

Once upon a time, in an Autumn passed, I was 21, and living the life. I made sure I was out every weekend, hanging out with girlfriends, getting my drink in--the usual. That summer, I'd been going out on dates with a really fly dude; sexy, I'm-trying-to-fuck-you-through-your-clothes-as-we-make-out dates, but with Autumn came familiar loss, and he was gone. Though I was mad, I wasn't as hurt as I thought I was, and I was just kind of chilling. Not really looking for anything, and not really caring about what happened. All I knew was that I was grown, a fresh college graduate, and that I liked the sexy, uninhibited girl I became when I sipped.

That particular night in Autumn, my girlfriend wanted to go to a club I'd never been to before. It was supposed to be 80s night, and for whatever reason, I wasn't feeling it. I wanted to head to one of the other clubs, the one bumping the more "hood" music. (Man, how times have changed.) For whatever reason that night, my girlfriend put her foot down, and we stuck with the original club choice.

I'm not quite sure why I was so opposed to staying in that particular club that night, but, never one to waste time, I went ahead and grabbed my free Cran & Vodka (again, man, how times have changed), and got to drinking. In typical fashion, I started knocking them back. I'm not sure how much I drank, but I'm sure I had at least six Cran & Vodkas. My vision was mighty toasty as my hips started to wiggle to the music. My girlfriend had been sipping on her own poison, probably tequila sunrises (bleh), and she was off, dancing with an interesting looking specimen. ~~and by interesting I mean he probably had gold teeth, wore sunglasses in the club, had dreads and wore a tall tee. bleh.~~

My toasty vision and wobbly balance lead me over near the railing, and that is where I danced, by myself, scanning the dim club with my particularly limited vision.

I don't remember seeing him approach me, and I don't remember feeling him touch me, or tap my shoulder, or my hip. I don't remember him saying anything, and I don't remember when our bodies touched for the very first time, but, suddenly, I found myself dancing with a perfect stranger. I'm not one to dance long with guys in the club usually because the sensation of their shit burgeoning through their pants doesn't appeal to me the way it did when I was fifteen and new to the world of dancing, male erections, and bodily contact of the opposite sex, but that night, I was vacuumed sealed to this stranger.

Before long, our lips were locked on each other. I also, prior to that moment, had never been a club kisser. All of the usuals were unusual. For whatever reason, my lips were locked on this perfect stranger, and we were practically the same being (we were that close in proximity), but I didn't feel uncomfortable, and he didn't feel grimy. I will cease in trying to explain how unnaturally comfortable it felt, because my words will fail me, and I will never be able to adequately explain that feeling.

By the time my girlfriend was pulling me off of my perfect stranger, telling me it was time to go ~~shit, I was the one with the curfew, I don't know why she was telling me to go~~, we'd rubbed our lips raw. Now intoxicated with the unfamiliarity of kissing a stranger, and the remnants of Cran & Vodka still flowing through me, I somehow had the composure to pull out my phone so we could exchange numbers. When we did, I told him, specifically, not to play games with me. In the darkness of the club and the haze of my impaired vision, I'm sure he smiled that smile, that I happened to miss, at that time, having never seen it before.

My girlfriend and I stumbled down Church Street, laughing and carrying on about the night's festivities, namely, the way my perfect stranger and I had stolen the show of the club by making out for hours (no exaggeration). I think we'd stopped dance/grinding and simply kissed each other, my life energy mixing with his, unbeknownst to either one of us.

Once inside her car, my phone beeped its familiar jingle, and I saw that my perfect stranger had sent me a text. With my name spelled correctly, my perfect stranger wished me sweet dreams, a phrase that would later, never be the same.

That night, I met him.

We were perfect strangers then, and never will be again. If I'd gotten my way that night, my friend and I would have never gone to the club we did, and while I'm sure I would have bumped to the deep bass line in the other club, I would have never met one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known.

If I could go back to that night, two years ago today, I would do everything the exact.same.way. The inebriation, the vacuum-sealed lips, the me thinking he had on a completely different color shirt than he actually did, the giggle-filled conversation my girlfriend and I drunkenly had while trying to remember what he looked like, exactly.

I would go back and meet my perfect stranger all over again.

i thank God for you, and i think you're great.
m.

"I don't need a man to have a baby"

2010-11-15T19:48:00.003-05:00

Today was a good day at work.

I find that I like my team more when I have the opportunity to debate with them, and listen to their many different viewpoints on different subjects, usually about relationships and sex. (We are split almost evenly between the sexes.) This is the first time that I have ever been on a team that has consisted of so many different variables: different ages (18-24), different races, religious beliefs/practices, different hometowns, etc.

Today, one of my team's members was talking about a friend who said that she can't wait to have a baby, and that she just wants to go get inseminated; that she doesn't want to get married. I was all on board with the wanting to have a baby (hey, I have some strong maternal urgings myself, though I am in NO rush to have a baby anytime soon, especially with my situation), but when my team member brought up the not wanting to get married, part of me frowned. Part of me frowned even harder when another female team member raised her hand in the air in agreement, stating that she also didn't want to get married.

I've been pondering off and on why that frown inside of me happened. It's not enough that we are told that you're supposed to grow up, get married, and have children. I'm wise enough to know that everything that is preached as should-be-practice isn't necessarily correct. So, my latching on to the ideal of the nuclear family isn't because I've been told that's what's "right" my entire life, at least, I don't think that's why.

I am the product of a nuclear family. Growing up, I had my mother and my father. Mom was the disciplinarian, and she was the one whose word was usually the final one. She was the one who risked my twelve year old angst and pulled me out of my black middle school and drove me across town every day to the whiter middle school so I could get an education worthy of my innate intellect when my father was more worried about my anger over being forced to leave my friends. (I've now caught up with most of them on Facebook.) Mom was the one who wouldn't let me get my nails done until I was 14, the one who wouldn't let me get my second earlobe piercing until I was 15. Mom always told me that she wasn't my friend, she was my mom. And because she took this stance in my life, frequently taking the risk of hurting my very sensitive feelings with her tough love, she is, now, my friend as well as my mother, and I value her opinion and want her approval. I love her beyond comprehension.

But what about my dad? His role can't be trivialized or overlooked. Yes, my father was more of the softy in my life. Despite his towering stature, and infamous attitude, when I look back over my childhood, that attitude was more frequently displayed toward things that caused me strife, rather than actually at me. My dad was the one who would take me swimming all day at the pool every summer, the one who would take me on drives just because. Daddy was the one who took me to the mall on my birthday when I was five, and daddy is the one who listened to my rants and raves via phone calls to-and-from class when I was nineteen. My dad would break himself to get me the Barbie doll I wanted, and to make sure I had extra money when I wanted to go to the mall. My dad is the one who gave up his own vehicle to make sure that I had a car right before I graduated from high school. My dad frequently babied me, and didn't want to risk making me angry, though usually his lack of risk made me even angrier. It is from him that I learned what debating was, because he gave me the floor to speak my mind, even when it was inappropriate for my age and position as his child. Even today, my dad would probably stick his leg through a campfire to make sure I had enough money to put gas in my car.

I think these are the reasons why I internally (and probably externally) frowned when my team member quickly said she didn't want to get married, and wouldn't mind having a baby with no father.

Once upon a time, when I was on the outs with him (which happened more often than it seems it did... in memory, the bad things eventually lose their ability to remain in your conscious, if you allow them to fly free), I felt like this. Rebelling against the system set up eons before me, I decided that I wasn't quite sure whether I wanted to get married. It just seemed so illogical, as I was getting older, and starting to see my parents' faults and their frustrations with one another, and it seemed so unsafe in a life that clearly afforded me no romantic guarantees or longstanding joys.

I, like the young lady today, would have raised my hand in agreement that maybe, just maybe having a baby by myself would be the best option. I pondered that for a moment. You know, on some fly pixie-cut Halle Berry ish. I could meet me a fine, fine man, and we could mutually decide that we liked each other enough, and we could get pregnant, and then we could have a kid, but be unattached to one another. Celebrities from here to the other side of the Pacific are doing it.

I don't quite know what happened to that rebellious emotion, but it dissipated into more centered thinking. As him and I got our ish together (like always, humans are such creatures of habit), I fell more and more into him, and I thought about how nice it must be to be with someone, and to declare your lives to each other, and to have a baby with that person.

And, back we are to where I started. What precisely makes me frown about the idea of a young lady deciding that she just wants to have a baby with no attachment? Well, for starters, it's selfish. And sure, someone could argue that the idea of deciding to have a baby is inherently selfish, since a child never asks to be conceived, but we conceive them out of our own desires/actions, but I think deciding to have a baby without a partner is selfish. What if I'd had only my mom or only my dad because one of them decided that they wanted to do it alone? Regardless of the reasons why, if I had only had one of them growing up, I would not be the person I am today. That does not mean that I would be bad, by any means (who knows what I would have been like?), it simply means that the things I gained from both of them, I wouldn't necessarily have, because I would have only been able to learn from one of them.

I also am (clearly) not sure how I feel about this generation deciding to flip what has (seemed to have) been working all.these.years. Now, instead of a culture of impassioned, empowered, single parents, we seem to have developed a culture of unaccountable baby mamas and baby daddies.*

I myself have said that marriage is simply a matter of legality, and that you can be with someone without necessarily taking that step, but I think that was a bunch of bullshit I said when my heart was hurting and longing, much like how when you talk to your friend, she tells you how done she is with so-and-so, and then she tells you she has to go, because he's on the other line. (I know. I've done it.)

All I know is that I'm not as free of the system as I thought. I want to get married. I want to be someone's wife. I want to be someone's mother, who has a healthy, consistent relationship with my children's father. I want to be able to interact with my children's father as my husband, not as the man I used to date, or the guy I used to fuck, etc. I want my kids to grow up in my house seeing their mother and their father, and I want my kids to go to sleep at night knowing that their mother and their father are both in the house.**

And don't get me wrong--if I were a lesbian, I would still want my kids to go to sleep knowing both of their mothers are in the house with them. There's just something about two parents over one.

And maybe that's just because I was blessed enough to have my mom and my dad. But I do know that my kids will have the same, God be it so.

*--that is a generalization; I definitely know people who are not married, but have children who seem to be on their grind and taking care of their family, and who aren't out there all loose and ish.
**--there's something indescribable about knowing both my mom and dad are in the house at the same time. I still don't sleep the same if one of my parents are at work. When both of them are there, I feel complete.

2010-11-15T19:39:00.002-05:00

before i recognize this moment

this moment will be gone...

John Mayer, "Clarity"
-------------------------------------

It made me quite sad that the moment is already gone, though I was cognizant of it.

Time is moving too fast for me.

Wine drinking, and how I'm doing

2010-11-15T18:39:00.003-05:00

Follow me on Twitter, if you dare: @missmaloriejm
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So, the day is finally over. It was a Monday, and I was worried about it before it began. In some type of funk, I slept on top of my bed's comforter, curled up in my other comforter, tossing and turning much of the night, and waking up almost an hour before my alarm, which is when my roommate left the house.

Being at home for four days straight took its toll on me: I grew re-accustomed to the quiet of my house, of waking up and looking out my bathroom window at the perfectly blue sky and my mother's fuchsia bougainvillea plant. I readjusted to the smell of my house, and its feel, and sound. So, this morning, and much of last night, I'm sure my body was disoriented. It's hard living in two places: never quite letting go of home, and never quite attaching to here.

However, today's Monday wasn't as bad as other Mondays I've had, and I spent much of the day in deep thought about the future, and now, as I sit here writing to you, I'm in semi-deep thought about how I'm doing, and how I haven't spoken to you much lately. So, before writing other things that are on my mind, I thought I'd catch you up to the present.

I've spoken a lot about this person that I call him in this blog. Let me tell you a bit more (than he would be comfortable with). Him is my ex-boyfriend, though ex-boyfriend is not sufficient enough to describe him. In fact, all that term does is describe the fact that for a period of time, we declared (or didn't, because I don't think we ever actually did) ourselves as dating each other, only, and at some point not long after that, we declared that to no longer be true. However, that declaration didn't stop much of anything.

Long story short, him is someone I talk about all the time, because he is still a very active part of my life. He brought HD technicolor to my world. And now, he is leaving.

Him has found himself an opportunity to be gainfully employed abroad, and he's taking that opportunity, and leaving the States. Part of me admires him for this, and part of me is clinging to his leg. This is a really big deal, the fact that the routine that has become him and me is getting ready to completely change. There will be no more visits, no more laughs in the warmth of his bedroom, no more middle of the night texts, no more waking up to see his drowsy face, eyelashes curled toward the ceiling.

Whenever I visit home, part of me will have to remind the other parts of me that there is no going over to his apartment, because he doesn't live there anymore. There's no more need to let him know when I'm coming home, or what time I'll be getting there. We won't be going out to TGI Friday's; we won't be going to Antigua. We won't be drinking anymore, and we won't be smoking anymore. (Not that we've done those things in quite some time, anyway.)

It has hit me, but it hasn't hit me, that in a few short days, part of me will live abroad, indefinitely. I'm not sure if that part of me will ever return, or whether part of me will live, forever roaming.

Maybe we'll share an email, or two, (or many more), or maybe we'll join the Skypers and get in a video chat, or maybe I'll even get a letter, though that's a romantic notion. Or maybe, we won't. Maybe, we will become for one another, a memory of lives we used to live, of fun times we used to have. Or maybe I'll just become that way for him.

In short, that's what's been going on with me lately. There were other things that I planned on writing about, but truthfully, this has been simultaneously at the forefront of me, and buried very deeply within me.

Once again, I am at the place where I am trying to numb some of the feeling away. Never again will I wish to be completely numb, but just a tiny bit, like when you hurt yourself, and you affix a piece of ice to the place of the hurt, but remove it when it gets too cold.

I could say many other things, but no words will really suffice. My emotions speak far further than my words.

until the end of time, i'll be there for you
you own my heart and mind--i truly adore you
if God one day struck me blind
your beauty i'd still see
love's too weak to define, just what you mean to me

.

In the advent that I don't see you again

2010-11-14T11:23:00.003-05:00

We walked downstairs in the blinding sun of midday, like we always do, and you waited for me to place my things in my car, and open the driver's side door, so we could say goodbye, until next time.

I stepped out from my door to hug you, and we kissed on the cheek as the sun warmed us. You told me you'd let me know whether we'd hang on Sunday, and I said okay, and wished you a safe trip.

Whether it registered in my mind that this goodbye could be the last goodbye is not a question. When I watched you walk away from me as I drove away, I knew that that was the best goodbye I could ever give. My heart will never fully accept that you're gone, and part of her will probably always wait for your return in her life.

A kiss goodbye would never be long enough; your embrace would never satisfy my skin. Our conversation would never cease; my tears would continue falling. I would hold you and never ever let you go. I can never say goodbye, because I can't say I believe much in them, unless for good purpose (like people whom should have never been in my life anyway).

What you received that day was the best I could give you. Pretending like our goodbye that day was just another goodbye until another day, when I would see you again, and kiss your fragrance; inhaling you into me, once again, in the warmth of a Fall's day.

love you.
m.

no title for truth

2010-11-07T09:42:00.003-05:00

As we stood in the small rectangle of linoleum in front of his apartment door, I tirelessly petitioned against the dismantling of comfort and familiarity.

He continued lifting bags from the floor, trying to ensure only one trip downstairs by having everything in his grasp, and I damn near grabbed it out of his hands to prevent him from throwing it into the complex's dumpster.

Logic was not a factor in me trying to alter the fate of the familiar comforter--of course, instead of throwing it away, he could have washed it and donated it to a shelter, or kept it for future needs. (You never know how cold those Asian nights may get.)

When he yanked the comforter off his floor and said he would throw it away, he yanked another of my heart's strings right along with it. I passively tried to fight for the comforter, simply repeating don't throw it away, instead of asking him if I could take it with me, and give all its old memories a new home.

It seemed too heavy handed to ask for the comforter, but reality is even heavier--for almost two years, that comforter has been our rug every time we've walked into his room. That comforter has seen our many metamorphoses--from familiar strangers, to girlfriend and boyfriend, to exes to lovers and friends. (Yes, you can have both, and no, it's not easy.) That comforter has been our platform for some of every event, from inebriated nights, to falling asleep mid-conversation, to tv watching, to playing poker and playing with each other.

That comforter is a part of his room, which is an extension of him, and to see him remove it was like a crumbling of a beloved puzzle. In the comforter's absence, sets in the hard-hitting reality that sooner than I would like, his room will be empty, and his place in the routine of my life will alter.

The removing of the comforter was the breaking of the glass--from here on out, pieces will continue to fall.

As he walked to the dumpster, comforter in hand, I watched him turn the corner, and silently, my heart began her goodbyes.

scenes from my notebook

2010-11-02T22:01:00.002-04:00

I've been neglecting writing lately. Not because I want to, of course. I've been writing snatches at work, but that is not enough, and I apologize, to you, as well as myself.

After starting to share something else with you, I decided to look deeper into my notebook, and found something more poignant to share with you. That other piece made me wrinkle my nose in distaste of it.

As always, it comes from the heart of me.

m.
____________________________________________
The thought lingers with me that I am lucky I caught him when I did...

There must be some explanation for why my life has been tainted with the color of him, forever altered. There must be some reason why when he exists inside of me, his stroke threatens to boil my skin off my body; must be some reason why my eyes overflow with tears from the beauty of him. There has to be a logical reason why after the dust has settled on our arguments and disagreements, why I still can't stand to be without him; why being angry with him seems such a waste of time.

Still searching, there's got to be a reason why the sight of his brown eyes, bright like a child's, bring a smile to my heart. Someone's got to be able to tell me why my world is simply more colorful as long as he's in it...

... I decide that maybe I was just lucky to have caught him when I did. This, coming from me, seems horribly contradictory--I say it all the time that I don't believe in luck; no coincidences. And I don't believe in luck. I firmly believe that that... night... well, I believe that was fate...

Yes, I do believe it was fate that brought us together that night, but maybe it was luck that we came together when we did...*

I've written about this thought before, but maybe there is nothing else for us. Maybe this is the end of the road for us together--maybe we were granted this short time together, like the quick flash of a beautiful sunset, to form a bridge together in order for both of us to reach our next road.

Often, I wish I could cheat the dealer of time; I wish I could have met him earlier in life, with the notion that I would have liked to see what kind of person he was then; to see how he looked, how he spoke, to have been his friend. In reality, all of that is true, but the most stunning admission of my heart is that I would have simply liked to have met him sooner because I would have liked more time to have loved him...

And, though our joined time may be ending for now, I pray it's not really the end. Nothing is really over until death. The thought still lingers with me that maybe I was lucky to catch him when I did. Like a shooting star, or a dusk's sunset, or a 4th of July sparkler, all are awe-inspiring in their own way, and so short lived that their marvel seems to transcend all other.

It seems that before you can blink, or catch your breath, or realize the moment--
--the moment is gone.
(September 30, 2010... before I could recognize the moment that was October, it was gone, and now it's November, and I'm going to try and recognize the hell out of this moment before it leaves me...)

*--has something so extraordinary ever happened to you, that it countered the very logic of what you believed? (like not believing in luck, but feeling like you were so damn lucky for getting the opportunity to know someone?)

Everglades adventure, part II

2010-10-24T10:24:00.005-04:00

Oh yeah, interesting indeed.

So, we're rowing our canoe out in the bay, and I'm pretty jazzed because I am rowing a canoe (something that I have never done before, ever), and my partner and I are moving along pretty swiftly. There was a solid breeze at our backs, which helped move us with the slight waves. The part of the bay closest to the shore was extremely shallow, and there were parts of the water that were comprised mainly of grasses, which caused our canoe to slow down as we had to push off the shallow ground.

The sun was out, the breeze felt nice, and I was guiding a canoe in the Everglades. I could see it now, me telling him about how I rowed a canoe, and him thinking it was hot. (You know, men like when women do things that are slightly masculine, like watching a football game and actually being into it, and women like when men do things that are slightly feminine, like making conversation about things that aren't necessarily critical to life, like an opinion on a dress. Shrug.) I couldn't wait to call my family and tell them that I rowed a canoe. I just knew this was going to be the most victorious experience of my life.

(mind you, we were set to row THREE miles to dock at a key, and we'd probably traveled all of half of .1 of a mile at this point when victorious thoughts started settling in.)

We'd almost made it past this island of trees that was to the left of a canal, and as we were approaching the end of the tree island, we noticed the thickening clouds back toward the shore. The sun was gone, and the wind was whipping around. It looked and smelled like a storm, even though there was only a 20% chance of rain. The decision was made that we should all turn around and start heading back to the marina. At this point, a few thoughts ran through my mind:

I thought of The Notebook. Yes, I was rowing with my coworker, not a frustrated love interest, but the way the sky clouded over, and the possibility that we could get rained on while in our canoe made me think of the movie. Don't ask.
I remembered another member of our canoeing party saying that canoeing back would be harder because we would be going against the wind.
Would we make it back before it stormed?

With these thoughts running through my mind, we turned around and started heading back toward the marina. The other two people we were canoeing with seemed to be making good ground, as we struggled in our canoe. My coworker and I were rowing as hard as we could, but with the wind and the waves, we were being pushed out into the open water away from the shore. Not only was it frightening as hell to be in the middle of a humongous bay, but there were extremely large sections of the water that were made up of the grasses floating under the water, which pretty much inhibit movement. As our canoeing partners seemed to get farther away from us, we were turned around by the wind, which left us facing the direction opposite of that which were trying to go. We kept rowing and ended up getting stuck in the other set of grasses, the one that came with shallow ground. The wind was kicking, and as my coworker said she didn't know what to do, the thought finally surfaced in my head that I had no clue as to what to do either, and that I had no experience whatsoever, besides watching Man v. Wild on the Discovery Channel. What would Bear Grylls do?

We sat there for a second in a bit of a silent panic. A few thoughts ran through my head:

Slave ships. Might seem strange, or even flippant, but during my short-lived rowing victory, I thought of the oft-used cartoon image of a ship of slaves having to row to the drum beat. During the victory, I thought, hey, rowing's not so bad ~~clearly because I wasn't a slave rowing a boat, but a idealistic tourist~~ and during my moment of quiet panic, I thought, this shit is hard.
What if we actually get stuck out here?
Did the other two make it back to the marina? Will they send someone for us?

As we tried to row again, the wind continued to push us aside, so we allowed ourselves to be pushed toward some trees, and then we stopped and pondered our options. My coworker decided to try getting out and pulling the canoe through the muck we were sitting in. Unfortunately, the muck was like quicksand, and we didn't get very far with this idea. You know when you're at the beach, burying your feet in the sand, and the tide washes over your feet? You know how it feels when the water gets down in the sand, and your feet get buried further? I imagine that's what it felt like. I didn't dare step out of that canoe; I was so terrified of what could be lurking in the muck. My coworker fell over in the muck, and we decided that pulling the boat wasn't an option.

We sat there, both silently scared, until we tried heading back out into open water again. When we got out as far as we could, we saw that our other canoeing buddies hadn't made it anywhere either. Relief crashed within me as I realized that we weren't alone. We all decided to pull over and dock our canoes in the muck until the breeze slowed considerably. At this point, it decided to rain. I sat there, life jacket firmly strapped to me (even though the canoe was stationary), legs and knees stiff as a board (canoes are not made for tall people), being rained on in the Everglades.

We all started to laugh uncontrollably.

We talked about being stranded, about how we should collect rain water so we'd have something to drink on day 35; I joked that it was ridiculous that my last meal might just be the ham sandwich I packed for lunch. One of our canoe buddies tried to step out of the canoe and her leg promptly sank about a foot in the muck, and we erupted into giggles. I snapped pictures of her muck-covered leg; of my coworker in the back of the canoe. We joked about Gilligan's Island, and about why the lady at the desk didn't question our experience before renting a canoe to us.

The laughs poured forth, because I think we all realized that we were only probably .3 miles away from where we started (and that number is probably 3 times reality), and because so many things were going wrong, that there wasn't much else to do but laugh.

At some point during our laughter session, the sun came back out, and the wind tapered off a bit. We decided to head out again, this time determined that we would make it back. My coworker and I got into a good stride, and made great progress across the waves, now shining a murky, minty green from the sunlight above.

We made it past the island of trees when the wind picked up again, though the sun remained out. The wind grew too strong for us to combat, and when it pushed us against a shoreline of muck that smelled like boiled eggs and poop, we decided that we had had enough. Right near a campground, we got out of the boat and tied it to a picnic table and decided we would walk the rest of the way back. It was at this time that my shoe broke (it was already on its way out, but the fact that it decided to break right then was hilarious to both of us), and a wave of people emerged from a path, on a nature hike.

The fact that we had gone from panic and fear of being lost at sea under a stormy sky to seeing 30 or so people emerge on a nature hike not far from where we thought we'd be lost forever was too much for us, and we laughed, and laughed, and laughed, as we all left our canoes anchored and walked back to the marina, to let them know that they would have to get the canoes for us; we'd had enough.

So, as I sit here today, with a neck that feels like I have whiplash and hands that ache like someone punched my palms repeatedly, I know I will always have a special bond with the Everglades, even though it wasn't quite the place I imagined it to be.

Not everyone can say that they were almost lost at sea and live to tell the tale.

My adventure in the Everglades, part I

2010-10-24T09:33:00.005-04:00

Good morning, good folk. I'm writing to you with a sore-ass neck, and with a headache because when I walked into my kitchen this morning there were fucking alcoholic beverage bottles everywhere and the trash was full but not taken out because I live with people who don't care whether something is clean or dirty and if I didn't love my hair so much right now I'd pull that shit right out and drop it on them in their sleep in revenge.. (Pray for me.)

Sometime last week, the idea was proposed by a coworker that we should all head to the Everglades, and rent a canoe, or something along those lines. I immediately said yes, even though I was chilling at home with my family and not even trying to think about anything that would happen after my arrival back in South Florida.

Now, if you don't know anything about the Everglades, here's a little info for you:

The Everglades are subtropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large watershed. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee. Water leaving the lake in the wet season forms a slow-moving river 60 miles (97 km) wide and over 100 miles (160 km) long, flowing southward across a limestone shelf to Florida Bay at the southern end of the state. The Everglades are shaped by water and fire, experiencing frequent flooding in the wet season and drought in the dry season. Writer Marjory Stoneman Douglas popularized the term "River of Grass" to describe the sawgrass marshes, part of a complex system of interdependent ecosystems that include cypress swamps, the estuarine mangrove forests of the Ten Thousand Islands, tropical hardwood hammocks, pine rockland, and the marine environment of Florida Bay. (http://www.wikipedia.org/)

I have wanted to go to the Everglades for a while now. It was a desire that had been on my radar for a while, along with things like going to Mallory Square in Key West and getting a puppy. Living in South Florida, I now don't have the excuse of distance preventing me from being able to go. So, without second thought, I agreed to the adventure.

I admittedly didn't know much about the Everglades. I knew about the forests of mangroves, and about all the water, but I formed my view of the Everglades based on what I'd imagined from stories like Their Eyes Were Watching God. I think in my head, my vision of the Everglades resembled a massive lake, with alligators close enough for you to touch (though you definitely wouldn't touch) and crooked trees covering most of the landscape.

When we arrived yesterday at the mouth of the national park, I wasn't very impressed. And that's probably because my expectations were formed based on my imagination (and because every square inch of the Everglades isn't necessarily similar). And you should know by now that my imagination is wild.

We drove the 38 miles from the mouth of the national park, to Flamingo, where Florida Bay is located, and where we would embark upon our canoeing adventure. As we drove through, we encountered plenty of sawgrass and birds, but no panthers or gators crawling out of the wilderness. We passed many different ponds and places named in the Native American fashion. (That's one of many things I love about Florida; most of the cities and lakes, etc. have Native American names.)

When we arrived in Flamingo, we were told that we had the option of taking our canoes down the canal, or that we could head out in the bay, and head toward one of the many keys, where there was a little beach located. It was decided that we would head out in the bay.

At this point, not even the least bit of hesitation or fear had kicked in, which is unnatural for me. This is the same girl who told you that she can't walk into the ocean without looking down, and the same girl who swam in the springs for approximately .2 seconds before swimming back because I was scared. (Don't judge me.)

In fact, I don't think it kicked in until a while later that I was getting ready to paddle a canoe (having had no experience) into the vast, open water of the Everglades (you know, where all those animals from my imagination actually do live, even if you don't see them all at once). But, I had nothing to worry about. Though it had been cloudy on our drive through the park, when we arrived in Flamingo, the sun was out and shining on the water, giving it that pretty look of diamonds bobbing in the tide.

The boat guy pulled the canoe onto the dock, and my coworker stepped in, and I held on for dear life as I stepped into the front of the canoe. When I heavily stepped into the boat, it hit me for the first time that I was sitting in a boat, on top of water, and that if it turned over, I was going into the water with it. Despite that second of panic, we were both in the canoe, and we started to paddle out into the bay.

This is where things got interesting.

unable to convey

2010-10-20T21:54:00.003-04:00

i sit here in the shirt i made you give me

and my eyes are so heavy from the tears

i can't even finish this sentence.

time is moving way too fast
for me.

Things I don't fucking get, part II

2010-10-13T08:38:00.003-04:00

Editing note: I am now posting this at least a couple of days after I initially wrote it, so I don't even feel the same about it anymore, but it was definitely at its funniest when I was sitting in my car, eating my lunch on a cloudy day.
-M

-------------------------------------------------
Part two of Things I don't fucking get. Not going to lie, I am writing this after having had an amazing evening with some great coworkers, and someone I really respect, so my sarcastic edge might not be the same as it was this afternoon during the frustration of work, but I'm going to give it all I got.

11. My simultaneous love/dislike of my womanlike¹

I'm 23 now. When I was 17, I was slim. I'm still slim, but I was slimmer. My thighs were barely enough to speak of, and my breasts were petite handfuls. My booty had sprouted enough to spark conversation from those who had nothing better to talk about (i.e. little boys thinking they were men), but I definitely wouldn't have considered my body womanlike, not at all. Looking back at pictures, I definitely wouldn't consider it womanlike.

Like I said, I'm still slim, but the womanlike has definitely made its arrival. My thighs are definitely soft--not like a tub of lard² soft, but like a firm pillow soft, and my breasts are thicker handfuls these days that bounce when I'm walking at a fast pace. My booty is now my ass, my ass that I can feel moving up and down as I walk. Occasionally, I'll take a glance when I'm walking out of my bathroom at all the mass that now belongs to me. Sometimes, I think it's sexy. Really sexy. Like when I'm throwing it back on him--yeah, I said it--or when I'm walking naked around in my room. It feels powerful, sometimes.

And then, there are other times when I am self-conscious. Like when he's running his hand down my stomach, and I worry about whether he'll be turned off by the softness. Or when I saw that picture of me from one of the first events I went to in Miami, and immediately thought damn, that's how big my legs look when I sit down? I love these moments of powerful embrace much more than the moments of oh my God, that's me much, much more. Especially since I'm still definitely in the category of slim.

12. Still wanting to have a baby after working with kids for 5 years

Well, in looking at this list, I realize that I do really get why, and I'm going to spare you all the details of why. I was just being snarky when making my lunchtime list and yelling at myself for being so damned honed in to my maternal instincts that my breasts practically lactate when he lays his head on my lap. #Justsaying

13. Why people see email as a representation of yourself (i.e. need to use proper grammar, etc.) but not texts

I am a proper texter. I hve nvr txted ne1 a msg tht looks lke this. I judge people when they send me a message that looks like that. (Thankfully, 99% of the people I text never send messages like that.) I just don't understand. If you wouldn't send an email that looks like you were typing with one hand while trying to fight off a bear with the other³, then why would you send a text like that? Just because it's immediate doesn't mean it should be stupid-looking. (Maybe people really do email like that, and I'm just blissfully unaware.)

14. Why people can't fucking write

You can blame it on my bias because I am a writer, but I really take offense when people can't write. And I don't mean, when your handwriting isn't up to par. But I mean when people are asked to write something to be seen by others (in most cases, by many others), and it reads like shit. Incorrect punctuation, terrible grammar, missing words, ADD of writing style... it really pisses me off. I understand that writing isn't everyone's thing, but if you are writing something that you know is going to be read by at least ONE other person, I would think that you would take the effort to make sure it is up to par. Clearly having never learned the rules of writing is one thing, but appearing as though you didn't give a shit and just excreted all over the paper is another.

15. Why I chew on ice when I'm always cold

*sings* I get it from my momma. Next.

16. Why things operate the way they do

Oh yeah, I was definitely on it at lunch time. Just spewing shit on to the paper as I held on to my hamburger in the other. I generally spend a lot of time wondering why things operate in the manner they do. Why do schools operate the way they do? Why are kids taught for the FCAT and not for anything else? Why do teachers make shit so boring? Why don't people care more? Why do we have to work for money and not for the passion of what your job entails? Why does cash rule everything around me? Why are kids so angry?

I could go on and on, but I spend a lot of time pondering these things.

17. Why schools are built on tons of land but barely use a third of it

On my way home from lunch, I saw a school yard with so much grass; so much space... you could have a small circus on the amount of land that was being unused. The school I work at is the same. I'm sure they probably have at least an acre--keep in mind, I have never physically measured an acre, and probably don't know what an acre looks like, but I know it's a lot of land--of land, and they barely use it. Children should have the experience of running through the grass, being silly and enjoying themselves... especially if they have plenty of grass with which to make this happen.

18. Why people bitch about unfixable things

I don't like to say things are unfixable... but, some things are. Some things are out of your control, and that's a fact that is good to know. Can I fix the fact that I tried to think of something really clever to say but was ultimately unsatisfied with my effort so decided to write this sentence instead? ~~possibly, if I just sit here for a long time and keep thinking~~Probably not. Does it help for me to sit here and bitch about it, or just keep writing? Exactly. Bitching without plan or ability to fix is simply complaining.

19. Why people ask people to do shit when the latter group of people have to do shit

My father actually brought this to my attention, during one such day ~~when I was actually holding a hamburger from the same place, sitting in the parking lot, considering the status of my life~~when we were having a chat. He said that an old boss told him to never ask people to do you a favor when it was something they had to do. I had never considered this before. I'm sure I have vocalized something in that way... it just seems lighter than telling someone that they have to do something, but in my current role as a supervisor, this is something I have to give significant thought to. I'm glad my dad dropped that nugget on me. I will make sure to not ask anyone to do me a favor if it's not actually a favor. Hell, it's hard enough to get people to do things when they are mandatory, let alone when they are favors.

20. Why I like kids better than adults

No need for thought here. I get this shit. Kids are cool. Adults frequently are not.

¹womanlike is a term that's really not a term at all, but something that he said to me one time when we were hanging out... he said that I was "getting all womanlike," and the term stuck (with me).
²is lard even soft? I've never touched it to see.
³don't ask. I don't even know where I was going with that.