i think i'm going to have to do this better justice tomorrow

but tonight i'm going to share with you some of these unformed thoughts that i've scribbled in the margins of this week's new york magazine article on hillary and barack. i saw chimamanda adichie again tonight, and spoke to her (somewhat gushing- and embarrassingly), and i thought i'd be able to focus on something else on the way home but i just couldn't. tomorrow i swear i am going to make this better (and actually coherent), but for now, a few key points...

an open letter to cnadichie:

dear chimamanda,

• the way you graciously ignored my insanity tonight was truly touching. i know i kinda-sorta had tears in my eyes when i tapped you on the shoulder and babbled incomprehensible nonsense about your writing, and that those tear-filled eyes widened perceptibly when you asked my name and complimented my hair, and that all of those things combined must have struck fear into your heart. but this gift you have, this gift of words, is amazing to me. i envy it. and i'm so glad that it is yours, because i think you use it with a wisdom that eludes many in this world to whom is given much power.
• "my american jon," like half of a yellow sun and purple hibiscus before it, scares me because your sentences are my thoughts, my feelings, my heart on paper, expressed more eloquently that i ever could. between you and zadie smith i feel like my deepest feelings, the good, the bad and the ugly, have finally been expressed and restored to me and all of the beautiful women out there like me the power that has been stripped from us by the myriad negative forces out there in our world. you speak back! and your speech is all that i need it to be, and more.
• finally i have to say that i will be back tomorrow to try and make this sound less crazy and more casually admiring. you know, just in case you happen to google yourself tonight and find this. because i know if i were you i'd be googling myself constantly.
  

things that rock about today

1. today is the day after the second meeting of my ItAG (and the first that everyone attended). we played games from "games for actors and non-actors," introduced ourselves, and started to get a taste of what we all bring to the super-positive, awesomely radical educators' table. i left at 9:15 feeling radiant and expansive, and exhausted. good talk about good books is like crack to me, without the horrible post-hit crash :).
2. my promotion (as lukewarm as i felt/feel about it) was announced at work today. it's good to have it finally out in the open. it's also good to have a great officemate to make sense of it all with.
3. restaurant week dinner at amalia with heather and nicole. FAB! from caldo verde to balsamic-glazed short ribs to warm chocolate cake with vanilla foam and caramel ice cream, fancy dinner was worth every single penny. add the pinot/cabernet/syrah blend to that, and you've got near-perfection. good eats and good conversation-- a great way to end a wonderful 48 hours.

what's up next in this oh-so-blissful week?

• a pan-african literary forum reading at the new school tomorrow featuring our friend c. n. adichie
• maybe first fridays at the bronx museum?
• maybe first saturdays at the brooklyn museum?
• maybe a kinda silly obama-love event at piano's on thursday?

i dunno. but having to decide between this many awesome choices is priceless.

a heartbreaking work of staggering genius

a few thoughts on tonight's reading at the 92nd st. y:

1. chimamanda ngozi adichie is as beautiful as she is talented as she is well-spoken as she is thoughtful. all around admirable soul. when norman rush asked her about the "african village" in "the african novel," she told him that the words of the question were meaningless, and she therefore had no answer. when he asked her how she felt about dave eggers, as a white man, writing the story of a black african one, she said that when she first read the book she was annoyed with herself for liking it as much as she did (ummm, can i get an amen?), and that in the end the worth of a novel lies in how the story is told, not who is telling it. in sum, she was WONDERFUL.
2. dave eggers was a bit of a bumbler, which i guess at the end of the day isn't really that much of a surprise. but he's humbler than i thought he would be too, and more thoughtful. and he called rush on the "africa" versus a specific african country commentary on more than one occasion. gotta love that.
3. quote from tonight's discussion that makes me want to go back and read "half of a yellow sun" all over again: "this is not my story to tell."

if you're wondering to whose novel the title refers, i'll say that dave eggers is more brilliant than i thought in coming up with that phrase. he and chimamanda both have something that makes me stagger, just a little bit.

the only words that i really loved from rush's mouth tonight:

"both novels stand for memory and knowing the truth."

there are just some things that are worth reading.
**

in other news, the talk with the boss went better than expected today. not wonderfully, mind you, but i think she heard me and the message that lurked behind my words. i cannot be tethered to my chair at work. i will not be there until 7:30 or 8:00 at night when i can have a life outside of that office. i want to live, and living at work doesn't do that.

i know that as a twenty-something i have to pay my dues. i know that. even if i knew what i wanted, i'm not necessarily empowered to make "that" happen. but i do think i have the right to feel like my hard work is taking me somewhere, and that's just not the feeling i get at my current job. it feels like a lot of hard work for nothing. and that's not how i want to feel/what i want to be.

my boss told me that sometimes what is needed is time. i told her that i don't have the kind of time she's looking for. and i told her i need alternate ways to make money this summer that are going to make my time of the absolute essence. the next few months are going to kick my butt.
***
a little additional reading:
c.n.a. in the morning news, oct. 2006
"half of a yellow sun" as a short story in literary potpourri
uzodinma iweala, my favorite young black author whom i've actually met on more than one occasion, and with whom it might be said i've had a conversation, in the morning news, march 2006.

familia

okay, blocking the crazy now :).

the sisses are in town, and my legs are feeling the burn. we have been up, down, and around this borough, and it's tiring me out! back to work tomorrow, and the minis are on their own. we will see if drama manages to find them.

being a host is tiring, but i love that family brings no pressure. they are okay with sitting on the couch watching t.v. for 5 hours. also, interacting with my sisters outside of the family home makes for more authentic interaction. it's been a long time since it's really been just the three of us. it's growing on me. :)

as for this coming week, i'm feeling the burn before it even starts. i have to have a difficult conversation with my boss tomorrow, and i'm not looking forward to it at all. keep your fingers crossed, and will me the strength to stand up for myself for once. the "standing up for myself" thing is one that i really need to get to work on this year. no matter what happens, though, i will enjoy the 92nd street Y reading tomorrow night, and enjoy my last day with the sisses on tuesday.

bring it on.

half of a yellow sun

i will be glad when this emotional precariousness is gone; i am better, but i am not yet whole. thankfully, i think i am happier and more fulfilled than i have been in awhile, but that only shows how unhappy i was in the midst of things with him.

this evening has been somewhat depressing- between the rain and the body bag i witnessed being removed from the 72nd street station on the way home, there haven't been a whole lot of pick-me-ups.

one plus, though, is the book i'm reading, half of a yellow sun by chimamandda ngozi adichie. long quote, but as i read it for the first time it caused one of those moments when you know you're not alone in a feeling that makes you curse your humanity and your weakness. it's those moments that make me such a voracious reader, always looking for the line that will make me feel like i belong, like i'm not alone:

She walked over to the stove and ran a sponge on the warm surface, over and over, her back to Odenigbo. She felt as if she had somehow failed him and herself by allowing his mother's behavior to upset her...But she was upset, and made even more so by Odenigbo's expression, as if he could not believe she was not quite as high-minded as he had thought. He was making her feel small and absurdly petulant and, worse yet, she suspected he was right. She always suspected he was right. For a brief irrational moment, she wished she could walk away from him. Then she wished, more rationally, that she could love him without needing him. Need gave him power without his trying; need was the choicelessness she often felt around him.
...
She shook her head. She would not let him make her feel that there was something wrong with her. It was her right to be upset, her right not to choose to brush her humiliation aside in the name of an overexalted intellectualism, and she would claim that right. "Go." She gestured toward the door. "Go and play your tennis and don't come back here."

- p. 128-129, Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie


another:

This was love: a string of coincidences that gathered significance and became miracles.

-same source