I wish.

god. i want these. then someplace where i can wear them and someone to enjoy them.. urrrghhhh

                                            

Fingers crossed...

Thank you

I was reading someone else blog..or saw a t-shirt..or something..
It said, my real friends read my blog.
I never express this but I live it.

I know you read because you mentioned something I wrote but more importantly you told me I wrote something well. Some of you will read this this weekend, others (hey lela) won't read this for a month - - but you will read it.

That means way more to me than you realize. I just completed my paper and gave it to my mentor and I liked what I wrote and I was not embarrassed by what I submitted.

That's because you were silent when I sucked :) hehehe and praiseful when I was good and that helped me find and refine my writers voice. You can't pay for that (I'll buy you a drink - if you mention this post though....) that's priceless -- or cost alot of liquor (do we drink too much??). blessing abound...all around.

besos.

Last thoughts on MSW....

growing growing grown.

As you know, MSW was kicked to the curb unceremoniously a couple of weeks ago. After I abruptly canceled our date I received a voicemail from him the following Wednesday. Now I don't listen to voicemails - text is the only way for me.

I can't exactly pinpoint my annoyance with voicemail. They are so slow and convoluted. With a text message we get to the point and quickly. I appreciated the briefness of a text. The ease in response. And with emoticon what can't you communicate this way?? Nothing! Seems logical to me -- we don't need voice mail anymore...its a relic of the past!

Anyhow, last night the ex- mentioned that I should be over my aversion to voicemail because we now have visual voicemail. Point taken -- being able to see who I am not listening to is very helpful, additionally; I can better ignore voicemail because I can see you called and know how important the call was based on how long you talked...(this does not work for moms because the 5 minute voicemails she regularly sends me are just butt dials)... so when I deleted the latest butt dial from Leah I noticed a 1 min and 36 sec voicemail from MSW...

Curious...this is a significant entry. I vacillated between listening and not -- listening won out. This was definitely not a throw away dude - honestly, it was very sweet. He noted that he knew that he probably would not hear from me again (true), that he would have called me sooner but his grandfather had died and he was in Jamaica (the never call again button had been hit long before the bout of no call, no show -- but pffff) but hopefully I'd get the message that I was wonderful and unique (hmm lovely words - put that in my pocket for a rainy low self-esteem day) and should we never talk again I should know he thinks that of me.

Beautiful, no?

I almost called him. Ugh, guilty for not calling during a crisis (he was there for me with mine). Yet I am certain romance was not in the cards - no time to depatriarch anyone. But had I been a younger women-- oh wait I did that ALL through my twenties..right right.. I almost forgot getting men to grow up and be accountable was a fucking vocation that I have left far behind -- that shit will age you.

I think this demonstrated a maturity in myself that I had not noted previously. Honestly, five years ago I would have either tried to make it work or known it would not have worked but done it anyway for shits and giggles. Seriously I don't mean just hang out with a known non-congruity like 7 seris - fun and monied but too dumb to take seriously. I mean how 'can we be together' make it work. To be able to toss out a pretty okay guy who just wouldn't fit longterm is cool. I was swayed to ignore the baby gut by the graduate degree; and the slight leaning toward sexism (90% of 'em have it to some degree...98%) by his ability to fully express his emotions and a healthy and mature interaction with his sizable ego.

Now you over there on 8th street I see you -- questioning -- but did you hop so easily because the ex had showed up? I will tell you the same thing I said to the silent questioning of d.c... I had already made the decision and begun implementation prior. I will admit however that it made the paracute ride much smoother. (smile)

Definitely going to file him away in the positive memories section (although that might not be recipricated).

Off to convince someone to have friday afterwork skip the gym and wobbly instead... have a great weekend!

Whhhoaa

Ahhh....

Can you get ready for summer eating this crap?

Godtalk.

I talked to god today.

I was looking out the window - full of agitation -- and I said, "dag god, you keep taking care of me. why?
every time everything is falling apart and it just isn't going to stretch to meet this time I find an extra piece to tack on there...dusty with with pocket lint... just in the nick of time...I owe you for that right? saving my life? that can't be free - right?"

I'm thinking, with fear, that doesn't this mean I'm supposed to do something, some more, at sometime? If I don't -- will you stop caring for me, if I don't see that hidden turnoff and do whatever obscure job I'm arrogant enough to think I am supposed to do for you -- what will happen to me?

So when my gramps said put it in God's hands she really meant it...cuz obviously I can't do this alone? Forever the toddler waiting for you to take my hand and lead me because without you who knows where I'll go stumbling off to...

Cuz laughing is healthy...and KH is like vegatables...ruffage and shit...

and you don't feel like working right now anyway...

REAL RAP RAW!!!

Got ur ass eating face on *choke...

Laziness kills...

Today is a bad writing day. Although it was my day to get EVERYTHING done, I started the morning going through every piece of paper I have from my freshman year of college to now. There were old papers, and pics (you'll see them soon), and transcripts. Ugh, I think being lazy is ruining my life. I mean, I can't decipher why I accepted such crappy grades or papers with that amount of grammatical errors.

smh.

Sigh, I keep saying 'don't look back' appreciate the now, appreciate the growth. But I was saying to a friend of mine a couple of nights ago that it seems that we - or maybe just me - when tested, I seem to make the same mistakes over and over. I always get number 13 wrong, and end up with a dam B+, okay...C+, instead of the grade I want.

and here's where Rocky, Rocky IV to be precise, comes in...



The training...



The Triumph...

So wouldn't it be nice if life were full of the adrenaline of Rocky IV? Somebody kills your black friend and you train your ass off and then go kick his soviet ass? But life isn't like that...You see him up there on his knees pulling that sled? That's life...I know exactly how he feels (my trainer made me do it). There are beads of sweat dropping in his eyes so he can't see.  The muscle at the top of his shoulder and the one going up the sides of his neck are burning and his elbows are threatening to buckle. His hands are shaking and he probably just broke a nail - well I did anyway. His calves and ankles and lower back -- everything -- are stinging. In that moment you just want to stop. They made it seem so easy in the movie...15 minutes and he was in the best shape of his life...but I learned from the gym...there is a certain pain in moving forward. When I'm running all I can think is "How can you betray me like this? YOU want me to run so I can be healthy and yet you send out these terrible feelings of burning fatigue that take everything in me to keep going? WHY, body, when you could just as easily NOT do that?"

The glaring piece of the puzzle is that Rocky had a push, that dude killed his friend; he can pull that dam sled because somebody murdered his friend! But that's cinema for you, most of the folks I know, when somebody murders their friend, they sit down on the side of life and struggle to ever get up - and rarely do they get to the sled pulling part... Nobody murdered my friend - what the hell is going to make me strap myself to that dam sled and FINISH THIS FUCKING PAPER.

There will be no clean finishes to this blog. No lessons learned. No cute affirmations. I'm in the weeds.

New piece (s)/ New project

I have plans for my life...

really I do.
the next stage is going to be awe.some.
all i have to do is write a 4-6 page paper.
or rather, rewrite the 8 page paper i've already written.
today is wednesday.
did you know that?
i thought it was tuesday this morning.
tonight's tv lineup is Top Chef and Iron Man.
i totally left my earphones home and couldn't go to the gym.
but i can go tomorrow.
i just finished watching Globetrotter, my favorite show.
it was on Madrid.
Ugh, going to go there.
almost made me give up on my desire to learn french.
i could work on my broken spanish instead.
that's a thought. i still wanna go back to france.
that would be cool.

entitled*: "On procrastination"


*or it would be were I a poet and if this were a poem.

Ugh snowday but at work...

Holey tights and flip flops say I don't care, don't they?

My head is spinning...

I'm not sure if I should write five separate blogs or try to hastily update you on everything all at once.  Fantasia is rocking in the background and my desk piled up with work while my stomach is full of ... butterflies. I've had too many realizations in last week that  I can't process it all and I feel like the wheels of my life are skidding forward and I'm tense waiting for that final brake hoping my teeth don't get cracked on that face plant.

I suppose if I tighten my back muscle I'll make it through...

I'll go in order and do tiny slice.

1. Level 3 Friends. Fuck 'em. So a 'good' friend of mine fucked me. Royally. I was supposed to have a certain famous (in her circle) and ageing academic write a recommendation for me. I have been discussing this with this friend for over a year. The last week of December, after I check in on the progress -- she tells me it's not going to happen. Now I know you want to ask me...why didn't it happen? Did she forget? Was the woman too sick?  Guess what? It doesn't matter -- I'm still fucked so I didn't ask. I have a backup plan and luckily had an additional reference in case but I did not want to use it. I don't fully trust this person (my current boss) and wouldn't want to put my future in her per view. (She will be turning a preview copy prior to it being sent out -- I'm grown, we are beyond that whole send out a secret reference..seriously people...) So there is that....

2. I reread my discovery draft of my statement of purpose -- aka, the most important thing I've written in my life -- and it sucks. So I'm currently procrastinating getting back in the weeds....

3. Dating. It's confusing and I wish there were a manual. I had written someone off but they decided to call me this morning and surprise me. Oh shucks, I'm being vague. Sexist David called me early this morning and was like so... I just wanted to know if you were planning on calling me if I hadn't called you (thought bubble "No"). I haven't called you because I needed to take a step back and think about what was going on between us (two pressurized debates on women's issues) and I want to say that this is not happening the way I want it to. He continued, We have more in common  than you think and I really needed sometime to process the idea that I had met someone who was as passionate as I was and respond accordingly. (eyebrows raised) He goes on, I want you to know that I really like you and I want to spend some time with you. (eyebrows raised shocked face)  I was certain that I had scared him off -- was that Tiffany's* plan all along? That bitch hates me. Buuuut apparently I didn't. So. Uhm. Yeah. Well, I will say this -- I respect his gangsta. ttafn.

4. Life: dating/ growth. Last week I either saw or talked to two of the most significant ex's in my life. By accident...I think. So the man I was going to marry invited himself to a dinner with myself and the friend that I stole from him...(wink, what up bean). I got to look at him (losing 50 pounds and looking good), look in his sad eyes, (he had just found out his grandmother had passed) and feel nothing. It was like he was a good friend and not the man who tore my heart out of my chest and smashed it on the ground and absent mindedly shoved it back into the hole in my chest as he walked off to find his ex. Seriously, that's what it felt like, you know what I'm talking about...? I didn't have the urge to say mean things to him...it was serene. I guess a decade later, I'm finally fully healed??? God, I hope so.

5. The other one (and I'm being vague on purpose BECAUSE I know he's going to pop by here sooner or later....looking for his name FAHEEM...)...After not talking for ughm three years I somehow end up on the phone with him, twice, and then in public on a date. Yeah, not a meeting but a date. It was (pause) perfect. When I pulled out his file from the basement of my mind all of these feelings that I had no idea existed fell into my lap. I spent all morning looking at them surprised that they hadn't expired wondering what the hell to do. Drink the kool-aide? Jump off the cliff? I've never been in this position (giggle) and well...yeah.

Yawn, this post is too long. Toodles.

Hey if you want details on something post a comment!

*Tiffany is my subconscious and is always making me do stuff that isn't healthy for me!

Shoes. Tiny toe boxes. Monday morning...

These aren't as comfortable as they look.

Aint it though?

question...(on the race tip)

These are the moments when I wish I was on a first name basis with one of the ivory tower sociologist, theologian, smart people. Y'all notice the new fashion trend with white folks wearing head wraps?

she's got the wrap with the big bobby pins and everything under there. whoop whoop...

Now, I may be being sensitive (I've been known to look deeper than I should* - occasionally) but why does this get to be cool now? Because it's in a fashion magazine. Prior to that - when black women did it - it was a sign post of the ghetto and poverty...

So the chick coming out of the do.mi.ni.cana spot is now the height of fashion?

Harrumph...

So popular culture can take somthing they previously deemed negative and now make that dough on it...?

WTF.

* I don't actually believe that. I'm making concessions to other peoples shallow beliefs and feelings in 2011.

I was a victim of sexual harassment.

Actually, I have been sexually harassed in my work place twice. It always comes as a surpriseto my students  when I reveal this during my monthly sexual harassment trainings. They assume that I would never allow such a thing to happen to me because I'm so 'strong'. They assume that people are afraid of me and would never try such a thing. They also assume that I will always know exactly what to do in every situation. It is a great tool to be able to reveal to them that it can happen to anyone, at anytime -- make a note...the key to sexual harassment is that it has nothing to do with you and your actions. Your life has been  invaded by a hostile party and you are a victim to their hostile intentions. Period.

The first time I was sexually harassed I had my first real job out of school and I was completely bewildered in total. I had the misfortune of being employed at one of those fly by night, holding on by the tips of their fingernails non-profits that wouldn't know the law if it smacked them in the face. This guy was a classic harasser, asking for dates repeatedly despite firm and defined 'no's'.  Honestly, I was a kid and believed in my own immortality or rather the goodness of my fellow man - fresh from seminary and excited about changing the world one delinquent child at a time. He told me that I would be in trouble if he ever realized that I meant what I said about not dating him. I knew that I was not worth all of that drama  but he certainly followed up on his threat and when a new manager came in to take over he made sure I was terminated. It wasn't until years later that I learned that I certainly did have a case (actually an open and shut case) of sexual harassment, water under the bridge? Not emotionally.

What no one talks about is the guilt and the communal and self blaming. I blamed myself for allowing that to happen, I blamed my community for erroneously telling me that I had no recourse, and I blamed this man for his misogyny that negatively impacted my emotional and financial health for years to come.

Now I am an adult,trained, and with the responsibility of training others about sexual harassment --

--and it happens again. (I can't believe this is happening again)

A month ago on an overnight retreat, a co -worker, came to my 'dorm' door after working late wanting to talk. During our talk he decided to tell me about sexual things he wanted to do with me and other discussions that were obviously out of bounds for a married man in the religious arena. Well this time, I was no young innocent wippersnapper who didn't know what to do. I followed the procedure as I knew it to be properly laid out by the city and set unseen things into motion.

Throughout the process, it was extremely disheartening to hear my friends (and the HR manager at my place of employment) victim blame myself and express surprise at my actions -- but I understand that people really don't understand the nature of sexual harassment and I am too tired to train anyone else. It added an annoying layer of gilt that required me to attend to [diverted energy]. As I mentioned a few days ago, I knew that their statements, though innocent, were soul killers and they were appropriately filed away in the dangerous bullshit category. I weep for the people, men and women, who deal with this type of thing everyday, in unsupportive environments, in environments where they are told they are responsible, or they contributed to the situation an abuser placed them in. Stand up in defiance.

At the end of the day, my place of employment is no rincky dink thrown together non-profit and I was recently informed that the perpetrator was terminated from his place of employment today.

My heart is stretched on either side of fence. Did I want that to happen? Was his termination  the appropriate response? How will this affect his family? How will his co-managers, my manager, interact with me? Will I be seen as a trouble maker? Will people resist working with me? Did he deserve what happened to him?

I suppose right now I'm still numb to the news. I forgot how hard it was to be courageous. Even when you win, you can still be afraid of repercussions and you can be uncertain about your future. I am worried about myself too. What will the emotional fall out be of realizing that this has now happened to me twice?

I recall in graduate school that a close friend of mine had been sexually harassed twice in one year at both of her internship placements and people (myself including ) had begun  to wonder if she was a part of the problem.  I can only imagine how isolated she must have felt in that situation, without the full and unshakable support of her community...  I know many women that this type of harassment has happened to and they stayed quiet mostly out of fear of rocking the boat. I wanted to do that so bad and to be honest the only reason I spoke up was because I would have felt like a fraud -- training people to stand up while I sat down in fear.

James Cone says that the only righteous suffering is the suffering that takes place as a result of resisting oppression. Because when we resist oppression and fight hegemony will we suffer. That idea has never had more meaning to me than this very moment.

God I hope I did the right thing.

Here's hoping...

I received my 2011 calender at work today...should the universe bless me I hope to not finish out this calender at this job...but in school or rich, not dead...gotta be specific....

Revelation is a stingy master...

Today I realized that the human spirit is a fount of strength, a reservoir of get up and go, if you will. It is a mirror of truth within which one can turn to when the evil in the world tell you lies.

They say you are pretty but not beautiful.
They say you are worthless, a bitch.
You are fat and unlovable.
You are too skinny and not sexy anymore.
You don't give enough, love hard enough.
You are arrogant, too confident, "not as fly as you think".
You have a mouth on you...you must like weak men.
You belong behind someone else, a husband perhaps?
You can have it all from me...but first you must give everything with no assurances.
She is better than you.
You are stupid.
This, he, is the best you can do.
Infidelity its what they do, make peace with it and be happy.
You ask for too much, more than you are worth.
You are impossible to please.

When you and I stand up in defiance of a soul killer, the strength in our knees is invisible. Like the heat flowing from the top of a flame, our hearts beat with indignation, with defiance at what our spirit identifies, reveals, calls out as a lie against the love of the universe that created me, and created you. I finally realize why my mom, all moms say, God loves you. God would not bother loving something that is worthless.

So if the soul has the power to save, to be a soothsayer, what is our fate should...when... the spirit be broken, withered, starved - murdered?

How do we feed the soul? How do we heal the soul? How do we resurrect the dead?

I'm starting to understand the images and the meanings...in due time, I suppose.

A deadly situation for a people, a person, you and me.

Quality time.

Me and beaucat spending lady time. All dates canceled for the evening.

(watching stargate the movie, not the tv show)