where the hell have i been?

to tell you the truth, i've been a lot of places.

for one, i've been at the gym a WHOLE lot. the cutest boy is there when i am now. and at the laundromat when i go on sundays. and suspiciously walking his (VERY CUTE) dog on my corner when i'm on my way to work. go figure :p.

for two, i've actually been doing my work? i've realized that the fact that i'm quitting in two months means that if i don't want to fuck the over whoever comes after me, i should wrap up all of my loose ends.

for three, i've actually been cooking. like breakfast, lunch and dinner, 7 days a week (and even dessert sometimes. michelle's blondie recipe, halved, makes perfect dessert for two with some left over for snacks for a few days, if you're interested). it has been a minute since i went out to eat, and my bank account has quite a bit to show for it :).

for four, my extracurricular life has gotten busier, with a new project on deck for the summer. again, social justice related, but this time with a focus on mainstream media. fun, but SO MUCH WORK.

for five, my brother graduated from grad school this weekend and will be attending georgetown law this fall! i went home to vegas to celebrate with him and the fam. jon is a nice boy, or an "IBM" as sanaa lathan might say :) (yes, i finally watched something new and i have yet to rinse the bad taste out of my mouth).

and don't worry, my google reader hasn't been getting any more love than flying solo has, so i'm behind all over the place. i will be back...

there goes the freaking neighborhood

a friend called from 126th and 5th the other day to tell me that nubian heritage (boma) was closing down. the doors were open and shit was being moved out, and there were no signs on the windows. i was devastated. big fat sad face.

i was going to write a whole post about the importance boma has had in my life here in new york, how my friend dave's face fell when i told him the news, how i just had a whole conversation with a neighbor the other day about the fabulousness of the business and the owners, and then i found this post over at uptown flavor. they aren't gone for good, they're just moving! that's the good news. the bad news is that the current space is being replaced by an applebees? boo.

there goes the neighborhood.

preparing myself

career day at my old school is april 17th. i haven't seen my kids since last june. i am ready. i miss them.


i'm already thinking about what i should bake to bring.




it feels like yet another homecoming.

aunt deedee

these are the only words that came to me tonight as i sat at my great-aunt's wake. i don't really know what else to say.


st. john's was
full
tonight
my aunt deedee is gone.

every pew packed.

lord i care not for riches
neither silver nor gold
i would make sure of heaven
i would enter the fold

it's hard not to believe in heaven
when you've lost
when those you cherish are no more

speaking of amazing women
and men
means speaking of deedee and george
of
virgie and albert
it means speaking of my family
and the beauty we hold

my heart is heavy tonight
like it has been before
this is one of the times
i would (almost) enter the fold

a few thoughts on cuba (kinda)

i grew up in miami, florida in a section of town called carol city. carol city was mostly black. some caribbean, but lots of african-americans too. carol city sat right next to opa-locka and hialeah. opa-locka was mostly black as well, while hialeah was known to be largely latino (i didn't know the term latino at the time, and the assumption, at least in my family, was that most, if not all, latinos were cuban, so we said hialeah was cuban. i have no idea if that is actually true.)

i went to school in two major areas, neither of which was my own neighborhood. i went to school first in aventura, a section of north miami beach about 20 minutes from my house. the school i attended had a gifted program. in order to get permission to attend the school, i took an i.q. test at the age of four and then had to go in for a one-on-one interview. i had to prove my worth to a very kind woman named ms. hagan, who told me i was very bright and helpful, and buzzed around like a little bee. that interview sealed my fate. if i had not impressed ms. hagan, i don't think i would be where i am today.

i then went on to win a scholarship to a prestigious private school in 6th grade. throughout my middle school and high school years, i was surrounded by the cuban privileged, people who chanted "castro no, cuba si!" in p.e. i heard stories of houses seized and midnight flights to new york city from havana, tales of jewels left behind.

it wasn't until i was in college that i realized that cubans could be black, too. this was not from a lack of understanding of the caribbean, mind you. but there was something about the way that cuban rafters were always allowed to stay, and haitian rafters were always sent back, that suggested to me that cubans were always lighter and "righter" than people like me. my family was lucky-- our relatives lived in the bahamas, and coming to america always seemed easy enough, as long as they went back to nassau eventually and only spent their time here scrubbing floors/laying concrete/curling hair. my cousins would come through for year or two, sleep in an extra room, on the couch, convert the garage, while they made some money, and then they would head back, never to really be seen again.

i went to college in california. it was there that i learned that all latinos are not cuban or brasilian or ecuadorian or puerto rican or colombian. not all latinos ate black beans and white rice and danced samba and merengue and hicieron lechones in the backyard. it was in california that i ate my first tortilla and had homemade salsa for the first time. these were not things "we" did. it was in california that i got the crazy (according to my family and friends back home) idea to study abroad in cuba. i decided to see if things were really as bad as everyone said they were.

what i learned in cuba changed my way of seeing. i don't agree with everything fidel castro has done, or, even, the length of his rule. there is also something to be said about the people that remain in a country that has been neglected by the rest of the world for so long as a result of our american bullying. there was structural inequity in the capitalist cuban state that, as a matter of course, transferred into the revolutionary state in certain ways. there was no mistake about who was left behind to suffer at the hands of a capitalist, cold-war usa. i will only say that more current cuban nationals look like me than did any of the kids i knew back in miami.

i wrote my grandma a postcard from havana. it pictured three cuban girls in school uniforms. i told my grandma that i couldn't believe what i saw.

"cuba could be our country, grandma," i said. "i see you and me all around."

cuba could my country. and for that reason more than any other, i hope this transfer of power is simple and sound. i hope my friend yordis is released from prison, and that the embargo is lifted. i hope that the capitalist world will not take advantage of a country of young people that are so naive in so many ways. i hope those people who could be my people survive.

si se puede?

book learnin'

had my kick-off session of an Inquiry to Action Group (ItAG) with the New York Collective of Radical Educators tonight. i am SO READY to get my brain in gear and engage with other like-minded kid-lovers. so ready to learn and stretch my mind, to stretch my expectations, and to stretch my understandings of myself. ready to make new friends and new connections.

for monday:
freire's letter to north american educators,
chris vine's interview with augusto boals,
and donaldo macedo's intro to "pedagogy of the oppressed"

it doesn't get much better than this.

OMG! and another one bites the dust...

yet another of my little whiteboy star crushes of the nineties has died of an apparent overdose!!!! :( what's wrong whiteboys? what happened? oh, brad, if only you had made it onto "dr. drew's celebrity rehab" in time!

i know i sound really shitty right now, and like i'm mocking this, but i'm not. i'm actually really serious. i'm actually really emotionally kind of shaken up. brad renfro is dead, and it makes me sad.

what is happening to our generation?

mentally fatigued

i've spent the last week and a half working really hard. my coworker kinneret and i have been editing/revising/rewriting a conflict resolution curriculum nonstop, and we were starting to go a little crazy. the project wrapped up around 2, and i've been useless ever since.
this job...kind of sucks. i was working on christmas morning. i was working on christmas eve.
it's time for me to hit the lists.
i was on idealist just now and started to try and remember the last time i was actually really happy with the way my life was going. i realized that it was probably 2 years ago. before pam left new york, before i stopped loving teaching, while i was happily single and dating. that was a loooong time ago.
i need to claw my way out of this rut.

i don't know if you pray

i don't, generally. but if you do, please pray for my cousin william. he has leukemia and he was placed in the ICU today. he's 12. he's a great football player, very silly, and he is quite the big brother to his little sister. the cancer came out of nowhere and has come on very strong. things don't look good, and i don't think my grandmother (or i) will be able to deal very well with his leaving us. so i don't want it to happen.

some of you know i had the chance to be a blood marrow donor recently for an anonymous patient. i was advised to say no because i am missing a kidney. writing the marrow donation organization to say no was the hardest thing i've ever done. i feel horrible about not being willing to save someone else's life because of an unknown risk to my own. i feel so selfish. and now william needs someone's help and he doesn't have it.

anyway, again, please pray if you do. think positively if you don't. and maybe think about adding your name and a sample to the national blood marrow registry if you haven't already. you never know who you might be able to help.

starting the new year with a heavy heart and with tears in my eyes.

also, thanks to sonja for this

link, but what i want to know is, where is my (white) dude? i know that's a controversial statement. granted. but this whole black men thing is getting real difficult when we're outnumbering them 7-to-1 on college campuses in this nation. i think i need to branch out. anybody have suggestions?

visiting L.A. is dangerous

cuz the minute the plane touches the runway, i miss the houses, the trees, the freeways, the smog. i miss the friends i left behind. i miss the music, the food, the atmosphere.

i don't miss the loneliness i felt most of the time, or the traffic, but there's something about LA that does call my name. hence the danger. new york is good enough for me when i'm there, and most places don't lull me away, but wow. LA.

i'm planning on returning to new york. will that really happen? physically, yes. probably. mentally? maybe not.