all of the lights

kanye and i are having one of our many moments as i write this post. i'm just sayin'.

as i come to the end of the portion of my weekend that belongs to me (sunday belongs to lesson planning and grading and cooking and, hopefully, cleaning), i am sitting in my apartment peering at this screen and wondering if it is finally time to face my fears. there's this essay i've been writing for about 6 months now that continues to torment me because it deals with some of the most vulnerable and truthful things i've ever been able/willing to put down on paper. it's about me and all of the aspects of myself that have made me feel less than. it's the truth.

scary stuff, people. and there's a scary deadline attached- february 18th. in part, my return to this blog was not only for its own sake, but specifically for the sake of this article and the anthology it will (hopefully) eventually belong to- if one exists, maybe the other will too?

so now it's time, with my sierra nevada in my hand, for me to attempt to reconnect to 7-year-old me, and 12-year-old me, and 27-year-old me...and talk about all those things that make me question my intelligence and my sex appeal and my "me"-ness. i'll tell you how it goes.

oh also, i planned this whole food post that exists only on a legal pad in my backpack. i promise to make that happen this week because it has a lot of recipe links that "winter you" wants and needs to make your tummy happy.

there's a lot going on in this post: on mlk and blackness and wanting

jalylah over at hello, babar/she real cool is always teaching me shit. this morning is no exception. her post commemorating dr. king and discussing her own body politic is insightful and feels painfully familiar. the way black women's bodies are simultaneously hyper- and in-visible is one of the most painful aspects of my personal struggle against oppression- sometimes it just feels impossible to change the way people (can't) see you.
anyway, beyond providing an incredible chance for reflection, jb's post also sent me to this link on the kerner report by bill moyers. it's worth a watch. structural racism lives on.
***
on another note, i want to say something about the theorizing blackness conference put on by the africana studies group at the cuny graduate center yesterday. finding the words, though, is the hard part.

i'll start by saying that the 12 pages of notes i wrote speak to the absolute profundity of many of the presentations yesterday. mark anthony neal is amazing. there were two concepts that stand out amongst the many quotes of his that i scribbled during his keynote, and i'll share them here:

1) we need to, when we think about "blackness" in 21st century USA and in the diaspora, think about the distinction between african-american and black.

we cannot continue to assume a shared history around the civil rights movement in the US if we hope to truly galvanize movement toward dismantling structural oppression. our blacknesses are distinct though connected and we have to learn to be comfortable with learning the topography of our differences, not just those between our race and others.

this idea leads to the second i can't really let go of:

2) "unity is a myth. solidarity is a strategy." ~m.a.n.

i think this is so deep. deep! and obvious. and true. but it is also something i think we often forget. standing in solidarity with one another has always been the strategy of successful civil rights movement. there was nothing unified about the american black community in the 50's- there has always been and always will be class/color/location stratification. we never have been and never will be a monolithic, homogeneous group. we have to choose to stand up with one another to make change. solidarity, though, begins with knowledge of one another and ourselves. you have to know who the other is in order to trust her.

as i try to wrap up this post i find myself at a loss. i want to talk about the paper on lauryn hill and madness, the one about transnational translation of black feminism in english, the one minstrelsy and madea, the one on something new and cheryl dunye, the one on racial uplift in the 21st century. i want to talk about bill cosby and oprah winfrey and how they are irrevocably human and how they are rich and how they've been rich for a really long time and how that means they don't know much about the reality of the lived experience of poor black people in the 21st century at all. i want to talk about the ways that tokenism (and the inability for wealthy black people to remember how difficult finding success can really be) works to make solidarity across class lines in the black community almost impossible.

i also want to talk about black women's literature and the importance of our voices. i want to talk about the cute boy i met who i also saw at the black feminism conference. i want to talk about my own ignorance that led me to question the "blackness" of a black man who didn't strike me as being "black enough" at first glance.

i want to talk. to you. and to my former students. and to my family. i want to hear what blackness means to us, and start a conversation about its power.

i want to start a school where visiting scholars come and speak to young students of color about these issues. i want to build the ties between and among black people so we can then start talking with our other allies with confidence.

iwantiwantiwantithinkiwantiheariwantihopeiwant.

that was my day off :).


**funny last note- i google image-searched for "black enough?" and the first twenty images were all barack obama (dr. nassey-brown of hunter college had some awesome things to say about barry at the closing plenary yesterday, btw. keep your eye out for the journal of af-am studies, because some of the papers from the conference will be published there?)! oh wait, you're not surprised :).

the women's history month blog carnival has got me going

it's happening (at least partly) over at what tami said. today's carnival post got me, so i thought i'd share it here. it's by christina springer:

rambles on rage

1.

i hope
the rage turns

into a cherry blossom, so
I can brew

wine from sunset ripened fruit

2.

obama, with great delicacy and care
i put my white liberal friends in the dark

drawer of hurt where i won' t see them
again for 15 years. maybe when you have

more than 152 pieces of passed legislation
to her 20, or mice nibble the experience

of your fluffy words
into a victory confetti.

i'll feel safe. see desperate
lives bouncing "Yes, we can!"

3.

little girl inside
screams
"fair! just

want every
simple thing
fair!" just

hear.

4.

why do faces that I love
hate my salvation?

doves of broken handlers
crack aspiration.

sugar smart smile, divine be
gentle and calm all of me.

rage and rage and rage
'til loved ones can not see

how oozing hapless happy
froth consumes identity.

5.

the equation for soul height +
vision size divided by spin control

seems weighted, specialized.
give me your equation for my destiny?

liberty city= a havestrength homecoming

i saw april yvette thompson's play on sunday night, the night before my aunt deedee's wake, and it fed my soul.

my great-grandmother largely raised my grandmother and her brother, my uncle george, in liberty city. uncle george and his wife, dee dee, made her house their second home throughout my childhood. it was in my great-grandmother's bathtub, while drying off from a bath, that i asked aunt dee dee to be my second grandmother (because my father's mother passed away soon after i was born). liberty city holds a special place in my heart.

i love seeing/reading/hearing/experiencing expressions of other people's loves for the places i love. i love having that venn diagram moment when you realize that there are things about yourself that you share with others. i took a friend to the play, someone that doesn't know me or my rituals very well yet. afterwards he commented on the way i reacted, audibly, to the references to homemade corned beef hash and hamburger patties with green peppers and onions and cornflakes, wrapped in foil. the way my eyes lit up with recognition when she spoke about a woman's husband taking the boat back and forth to nassau every weekend. the tears in my eyes as she recounted the mcduffie riots, and i imagined my parents, my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, and where they must have been during that crazy time.

i called my mother on monday morning to tell her about the play. as i explained what thompson addressed, my mother began asking questions about her name and where she went to school- "did she tell you her mother's name? i bet momma knows her family!" it was a homecoming for her through my telling as much as it was a nostalgic journey for me. my mommy wants to take her mommy to see the play. we're just waiting for it to make the journey to liberty city.

you should see the show if you can. it's playing at the new york theatre workshop. 20 buck tickets for all seats on sundays at 7, cash only.

for more information, check www.libertycityplay.com.

the child in the room

i started to write a really obnoxious post trying to "unravel" why it is i'm always the youngest person in groups of people from work/activist circles. luckily, though, i managed to get my head out of my ass before pressing the "publish post" button.

feel free to secretly (or not-so-secretly) hate me for being an asshole. i deserve it.

one ferry, three men, lots of anger

**sorry, long post!**

i took the staten island ferry and to and from SI today for work. both trips started calmly, with my head buried in reading material, and both ended with me in the midst of a good amount of anger. the first time (on the way there), i scribbled a poem in the back of the book i'm reading, almost running into the two men that inspired its writing (it needs revision, badly); the second time (on the way back), i wrote a blog post angrily on the margins of a piece of paper i found in my bag. i'm going to share both pieces here.

i don't know what's up with me and anger lately. there's something, though, about constantly feeling like me and mine are being openly dismissed/used/abused by others that just makes my blood boil a little bit. i bite my tongue, i don't fight, but my silence doesn't erase my anger.

i write my anger, and hope that it will resolve itself.
(there)

tears of rage, or
my brother always says i cry too easy


90 miles,
they say

two white(?) men.
the Staten Island ferry.

90 miles?
yeah, yeah
90 miles from Miami to
Coo-ba

yeah.
so close, they get
here
and their feet are
still
wet!

yuk, yuk.

90 miles.

as a tear of rage
seeped out of my eye,
i neglected to share
that cuba is 90 miles from
key west,
not
miami,

and when they
shouted out
the aryan nation
as the only
"solution"
to miami's
"problem,"
i didn't say
that the problem is
ignorant bigots like them,
wearing 9.11.01 tee shirts.

i didn't say that
i'd prefer
wet feet
over
ignorance and hatred
any
day.

i didn't say
that our country
was built with
wet feet,
or that

it would seem that
along with
drying feet
come
shrinking brains and narrowing
minds.

i didn't insult the
man's
accent or
intelligence,

i didn't make
sweeping generalizations
about the group of
people
i believe he most resembles.

i didn't blame him and
his "kind"
for my lack of
comprehensive health insurance
or my
$60,000 in
student loans.
.
.
.
.
i didn't expect him
to understand
my tears
or my
language.

///
there are just so. many. things. i
didn't say.

*****
(back)

why is it that black middle aged men so often consider my body their property? at least once a week i am confronted with men old enough to be my father commenting on/trying to touch/eyeing my black female body.

there is something in their attention, too, that is about my youth. the way they comment and gesture suggests that i am, at once, their daughter and their concubine, simultaneously innocent and deviant.

today, one man decided that his avenue to interaction with me would be schooling me on manners. after he sat next to me, staring at me for a number of minutes, i yawned without covering my mouth. i felt warmth near my cheek, and i realized he had raised his hand to almost touch my face! "cover your mouth when you yawn," he said. "you're so pretty!"

i gave him the stinkeye and went back to reading. after assuring me that he wasn't "trying to teach me anything," he decided to model the correct yawning "procedure" with his newspaper. i asked him to leave me alone and promptly called my mother, telling her loudly that there was a crazy man next to me. he continued to stare openly and smile creepily throughout the (too long) SI ferry ride, and to place his coffee cup as near my thigh as possible without actually touching me. he protested when i rose to move away.

why do men, black men who are supposed to be supports in my community, alternately ignore and abuse this idea of me? i can't get the attention of an educated black man under 35 for my life, but granddaddies are in large supply for the position of fetishist.

i don't understand what is both so alluring and off-putting about me. is it my independence? my unwillingness, as one friend put it a few weeks ago, to "pretend to be weak"? is it my personality? my expectations? because none of those things are on display. i don't know how to erase myself enough to lose the attention i don't want and to gain that which i so desire. to be honest, it depresses me to think that i will never be fully attractive to the men that are most attractive to me as myself. it depresses me to think that in order to find a life partner i have to deny parts of myself. it depresses me to think that i either have to give up on finding love, or be willing to define love as old men touching my face without permission on a ferry, or young men cheating on me and refusing to call what they feel love. youth breeds man-boys unready for relationships, and age breeds man-boys who want 25 year olds like the woman i am now, "ripe and fresh."

ugh. what a freaking day.

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?

what privilege do i have?

answer: a lot. before i even complete this "privilege meme" that has been circulating (and which i picked up from what tami said via racialicious, which originated at social class and quakers), i know that i will stepping forward quite a bit.

i am an african-american woman who was born to two "upwardly mobile" black professionals who themselves came from what would be considered the black upper crust in their towns of origin. not doctors and lawyers, mind you, but highly regarded people in their communities. my grandaddy on my mom's side was the first black mayor of his town (this is especially impressive because he was an ex-con). my grandaddy on my dad's side was the contractor that built much of grambling, louisana (go tigers!). i have privilege up the wazoo. my family had to work for it, harder and probably for longer than our white counterparts, but i have it.

what does this mean? i dunno, but it reminds me of the exercises i used to facilitate in college (PDAC, stand up!). go figure.

my "meme" below.

and yes, i'm a month late on this, but i don't care. i wanna!


Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family


**
so i've had a chance to think about this a bit more, and what i think is most interesting about this privilege exercise is what is left out. for every relative i have this is an attorney, physician, or lawyer, i have at least one who works for UPS, is a high school or college dropout, or is sick with an illness that will probably kill them, even though it shouldn't. i don't want to go into a lot of "excuses" for the privileges i have, but i do think that this exercise, and others like it, do little to usefully complicate discussions of power and privilege. it was interesting to think about these markers of "class," i guess, but i'm not sure what it really tells me about the things i have access to that are important. as usual, what interests me more is where these things intersect with markers of other aspects of my identity. that checklist might take awhile to put together. anyone have any suggestions?

may i be happy

was the mantra for yoga practice tonight. i am so glad that my beautiful friend tati decided to make yoga class part of her birthday party tonight! there is nothing like yoga to settle the mind and the body. as i have gotten out of practice with yoga i've forgotten the transformative nature of the practice-- i walked in exhausted tonight, and full of nerves, and walked out rejuvenated and stretched but tired and sore, all at the same time.

the incredible change that comes over the body during a yoga session is unbelievable-- your last downward dog is nothing like the first, your last chattaranga is a 180 from the first, the three closing oms feel like you're speaking a different language than when you opened the session. for $18, you can change your life!


yoga tonight even embodied my challenge to myself this week. i, historically a fearer of inversions, did a shoulder stand tonight. SO proud of myself, and when i released my legs i felt a million times stronger. shoulder stands aren't that hard. they aren't. but i am a coward in a lot of really nonsensical ways (hence the need to face my fears!). my stand wasn't the straightest or the most intricate, but i tried and i felt liberated of the fear that i'd somehow be hurt for good by trying. letting go of fear, that's what it's all about.

so i bought another class, to be used sometime within a month. i'm thinking friday yoga might become a practice of my own.

unlikely suspects

i'm sifting through old files tonight, feeling a little crazed and a lot stressed, and i found this poem i wrote almost three years ago (!) about my boys. i think this file found me because it knew i needed some sustenance. i don't know if i'd write the same way today as i did back then in '05, but i believe in honoring the past so i'll share it with you (again, if you're an old-school reader from back in the lj days):

unlikely suspects

no one thought they would want to be cheerleaders.

they surprised us all

smiling their beautiful smiles,
backflipping as easy as they walk,
giggling as they are caught unawares actually enjoying themselves,
they treat the girls, their friends and sisters and cousins, with a respect that is catching:
they are my little and not-so-little gentlemen.

laughing and playing,
silly they are

at once like (in the comradery) and unlike (in the self-hatred) the
gun-toting
curse-throwing
hypnotiq-drinking
destroyers
that they will be
in so many a mind’s eye
sooner than i would like to think

simply,
happy.

little black boys see the world as their oyster.
they see the world as
jamaica
and the bronx
and DR,
as kingston and santo domingo,
as EBAFF and room 213.
as they grow, so will the world, and it will change them.
if only they knew to be careful
if only they knew to stay happy

i don’t ever want to forget you,
little black boys.

i don’t ever want to forget you,
just like this.

how do you say "skin" in science again?

oh yeah, yeah! epidermis.

well today i made my first trip to the dermatologist, ever. funnily enough, i actually used to work at a dermatologist's office back in high school (at the height of my acne challenges), but i was one of those feminist grrrls that didn't know they were feminist at the time but still managed to ignore most of society's misogynistic messages about who girls should be, how they should want to look, and what makes a girl "worthy." so even though i worked in a superstar miami dermatologist's office, where the dr. was actually featured on the news every week to give skin advice and star's relatives came in for botox (while still in high school!), i refused to take any of the free/discounted treatments i was offered. i figured that the world should have loved me simply because i was a nice person, had lots of extracurriculars, volunteered, never had sex, and scored really high on the SAT. what are a few pimples and acne scars in the face of all that, right?

um...a deal breaker basically. :) so 7 years later, here i am. going to the epidermis doctor to see what we can do about making me the clear-skinned fabulosity my fellow receptionist at dr. c's always hoped i would be.

she was cool! and black! and young! and totally got my concerns! i've never been huge on requiring that my doctors share my race, but i have to say that working with a black dermatologist made me feel comfortable in her suggestions for treatment. she gets what's going on, and knows how to help.

cool!

if you're looking for a black dermatologist in new york, check out dr. jamal. you'll be glad you did...

shh, don't tell

i know a blog is not a good place to share top-secret information, so i won't share it (all) here.

but i will say that sticking up for yourself sometimes brings its own (somewhat flawed) rewards. come february first, my job will be a little different. not necessarily better, but different. you could say my talk with the boss worked, or you could say i've dug a bigger hole for myself. we will see when i can explain the whole thing here, for real.

what a way to start the new year

new year. what does it mean?

1. latoya over at racialicious linked to this article, "make a list you can't miss," and my list of ways to improve/organize my financial life is well on its way.
2. i called the ex and squashed the nasty non-thing that has cropped up between us over the last six months. or at least i squashed it for me. i apologized for ugly things i've said and done, and secured a "virtual handshake," and i for one feel much, much better. i think my forgiveness process has come to an end, and just in time for the new year.
3. a healthier me. i'm committed to being a healthier me this year, incorporating good food and exercise all the time, not just when i think my ass has gotten too big (though the ass is shrinking at a good rate right now, thanks very much).
4. feeling good about myself is at a high priority this year. that means dressing well and thinking even weller (;)) about who i am and how i look. it means seeking out opportunities to make me proud of myself. 2007 was a little lacking in that department.

i would love to sit down at this computer at this time next year feeling strong and uncompromised. i would love to take stock of the coming 12 months and think about how positive they were-- that i did good things for myself and others. it feels good to have a challenge. :)

p.s.! one last thing! i am going to go to nicaragua to visit my friend bk-j! i need to make it happen.

yellowface. and black hair politics. and my first french braid.

saw yellowface by david henry hwang tonight with jac. good shit. (the review i linked to there is not particularly reflective of my thoughts, it was just easy.)
dhh took us for a ride down "who am i, and what the fuck does who i am mean?" lane. as a person who tends to rock uneasily between identity politics and...um, non-identity politics(?), i felt that hwang's questions sat particularly heavily with me. in a treatise on the questions about what identity means for politics, what doing "good" work constitutes, how identity interfaces with personal relationships, and the meaning of family and legacy, dhh threw me for a loop. at the end i think everyone watching, including the playwright, is left wondering what it is they think and why it is they think whatever it is they think. confusing, right? i think so too. in sum, a good night at the public.

***
so. my hair. my mom straightened it over the weekend when i was home, like she always does. my mother is my mother, so i let her "tame" the afro when i go home, and i answer the always tantalizing question that lingers in the back of my still-white supremacist mind, "how long is it?" because the length means something. validates me as a beautiful woman. validates my attractiveness and desirability. even when i wash it back into my "halo"tomorrow i will have tucked away the truth of its length and told myself, for another year, that who i am is okay. it's long. and today and yesterday, i spent way too much of my precious time at work explaining the process to my white colleagues who just can't believe how long and pretty it is. oh the fucked-upness of my life. and why were my father's last words to me as i entered the airport in vegas on wednesday the following? "i know you don't like us to help you too much, but we would be happy to pay for you to get your hair done every week. i know you don't like it so straight, but it really looks nice..." why didn't he offer to pay my student loans? straighten my hair? i guess i know his priorities.
as long as my hair is straight, i figure i might as well practice my hair skills. i don't have many, so i have to practice when i can. my first self-french braiding attempt:

reclaim my game

so i'm feeling somewhat disoriented as of late. i'm no longer totally heartbroken (the crying only happens every once in awhile, when my mind happens across something that it shouldn't), but somehow i just haven't gotten back to the way i used to feel. back when i met him.

the confidence i had about myself and my worth and my appeal went missing in the midst of the worse with him, and i have yet to locate it and bring it back. i'm trying. i am. i'm trying not to go out looking busted, i'm trying to think about the way i react to people, i'm trying to be open. i'm making new friendships and new connections, working hard, and trying to be reflective. i think i'm doing what i can.

the difference between now and before, though, is that i always feel unsure. i've lost my key to my self-worth. i gave it to him. i let him have control over how i felt about myself. he doesn't want it. he never did. but somehow i think i've let him hold on to it. now i realize it's time to go out dorothy-style and find the wizard to get a ride back home to kansas.

where's toto when you need him?

not so good

so i'm considering ending my consumption of red meat for awhile. yesterday/today represent the third or fourth time in the last few months that my stomach has revolted against red meat i've eaten, and i'm starting to think that it's a bit of a pattern. funnily enough, the only thing that is holding me back from crossing it off of my list of foods is the thought of my favorite ethiopian dish at the neighborhood spot, zoma. :( i like my tibs wett. i want to have a last hurrah with it, but i'm in too much pain to want to chance it.

maybe swearing meat off will help with my dieting/weight loss goals. i sure hope so.

me? quirkyalone?

maybe this is the answer to all of my recent angst.

i think, maybe, that the reason this whole simon thing is so hard for me to get over because i am a quirkyalone-- i don't enter relationships just for the sake of being with someone. i so very rarely find people of the opposite sex palatable (i have troubled relationships with men in general-- starting with my father. i just don't often find them tolerable. they can be funny, or attractive, or smart, but rarely do those things come together to create someone i can't get enough of. those people are almost always women.) that finding simon seemed almost too good to be true.

healing is difficult because beyond all of the societal forces working against my ability to find a partner, so is my personality! how do i move on after i found someone i thought couldn't be found to begin with?

the thing about simon is that he's probably as far away from a quirkyalone as is humanly possible-- the man is always with someone. it's probably (scratch that, definitely) not as personal as i feel it to be, but to me, the quirkyalone, moving on immediately means the person before had no significance. that's the only way i can move on quickly, and i don't understand any other way of being.

stumbling across the quirkyalone.net site today was like a huge revelation for me, crazily enough. i think i'd even seen it before, but today it resonated, like oh yeah.

i've been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately. i met with a chaplain at an episcopal school uptown yesterday and she told me about a curriculum she teaches to eighth graders that is focused on the concept of "gardens of forgiveness." she talked about the reality of forgiveness, and the idea that forgiving someone isn't for the transgessor, but rather for the transgressed. that the pain of being hurt only holds the victim back.

these are things i knew. and i know. but to hear it from someone again brought it back to me. that i have to find a way to forgive him for hurting me if i ever want to stop hurting myself. not sure how to do it yet, because i feel so wronged, but i know it has to happen. i can't help but think that some force out there is trying to get my attention, trying to show me a way out of my sadness. showing me through a random meeting with a chaplain, of all things, who was supposed to be talking to me about a conference proposal, mind you, not forgiveness, that there is a way out. there is a way to let go. a way to be quirkyalone, maybe, or to at least accept my status.

one thing i know doesn't work-- going out with weird, funny-looking people from nerve because they say nice things about me. not it, joy, not it. :)

the chosen

so there's this personal phenomenon i'm experiencing, and i'm wondering if it's a broader experience than just my own. i think someone, somewhere should do a dissertation on it.

first, let me explain the title of the post. "the chosen" refers, in my mind, to the handful of "gifted" people of color in this country that are given passes, through a variety of avenues, into the white supremacist capitalist patriarchal system. they/we are the trespassers, the ones that slip through the gate in invisibility cloaks of test scores and "correct" speech. we are the ones that dominant culture seeks to blot out by cleaning us up. if intellect like ours was left to itself, we might actually think up a way to take over the whole damn show. so they co-opt us. it works pretty well. it's a very clever way to keep us confused and wondering about who we are and what we deserve.

it's also the realm in which i exist. the definition of the group, while interesting, is only tangentially related to the question i have. the question i am asking is, does being part of "the chosen" mean that love can only be found within the group? as i move through the world, seeking to build a life, i find my love options being limited. i wonder, though, if i am limiting myself, or if one of the unwarranted side effects of my elite membership card is this difficulty in relating. or is the level of difficulty relative to how early the system found, tagged, and co-opted you?

i was taken over pretty early. at the age of four i was marked as gifted, and i haven't seen a neighborhood school since. the "good" and "bad" parts of me were tagged for the world to see, and i memorized their locations, their meanings. i have spent the better part of my life navigating my way through different settings, and the results are shoddy. not a surprise, considering i started my journey as a toddler. i had very little time to put together a cohesive sense of myself before the tags arrived, and now, 21 years later, i am on a search to find people of the opposite sex that can fill my myriad needs and i constantly come up short. hard to find someone with as confused a journey as mine.

everyone i have ever spoken to about my taste in men has the same reaction: "joy, you really have a type, don't you?" or, "little bit snobby, eh?" i have questioned my taste in men, but at the end of the exploration all i've ever found is a long, plain corridor pointing me back to "the chosen." i'm afraid there is no escape.

so, what's the dissertation topic, you ask? here goes:
are members of "the chosen" really served by their chosen status? does gaining membership in this group really afford more options in terms of the personal/emotional as opposed to the professional/economic/social? are we happier than those that are "left behind"? and what about love? what does being chosen do to our ability to find matches? are "the chosen" most likely to find love within the group? or do we find love outside of it, with people that define the dominant culture? or is love found in all sorts of different places, with no definite trends?

quantitative research. that's what i want.

the beat goes on

just finished the GRE. again. and this time i'm done for good. the score got slightly better overall, much better in Math, and a bit worse in Verbal. That's okay. I'm at peace.

growing up sucks

i am on the first of four business trips that will be happening in the next two weeks, and i am feeling the burn of this whole "grown-up" thing. it's 5 am pacific time and i'm reviewing project materials and waiting impatiently for my room service to arrive (which it won't for another 2 hours because i for some reason thought i'd be able to sleep until 7).

i'm hungry, on the wrong time, and not excited about my presentation at all. everyone else came to this conference with 5-6 of their colleagues, and i'm here solo, with two wonderful hyatt regency beds (REALLY COMFY, by the way), endlessly tweaking my powerpoint presentation and studying for the GRE. not cool.

if this is what a quarter century looks like, i guess i'm ready, i just wish i were making more ;).