Confession

I have a confession to make.  I’m a tech geek with a tech degree and I don’t like the internet.  I don’t like twitter and I’m not a blogger.  Let me specify, oh wait, I was being specific, I don’t like the internet.  I don’t like using it to meet my social jones.  Ok, yes that is more specific.  I like to talk to people one on one in person.  I like to go to social gatherings and interact with real live people.  And once I’m done with my outings, I like to be left alone.  I’m not big on talking on the phone, I do prefer text messages, but this isn’t about my hatred for the phone, this is about my dislike of the internet.  So anyway, I don’t like social sites like myspace, facebook, blackplanet, downelink, yet I’ve had accounts on most if not all of those sites.  I’ve deleted most of my accounts too.  

 

I don’t like the people I meet online either.  I mean I like them when I don’t have to see them, but once the internet façade is gone, and they have to present themselves to me, I can see right through all of their petty little coverings.  I can see all that they are trying to hide, quite clearly.  I usually cant tolerate what I see either.  Now I will say I have met about 3 people over the past 6 years that are real and true and I talk to all the time, but 3 people over 6 years, you do the math, its just not worth it to me.

 

I don’t twitter and I don’t like to blog.  But Tiha, you say, you write 2 blogs and make guest appearances. Yes, yes I know.  They are a means to an end for me.  I created my personal blog, for the third time, as a platform for my art, I needed something to get me writing again, and it worked!  The blog I cowrite is my therapy for my work, and I’m not giving that up. But I’m not a blogger.  I don’t even like reading other people’s blogs.  I only read certain ones, I’m so picky, just like the people I choose to keep around me, and just like the food I put into my body, oh so picky. 

 

So I write all of this to say my visibility online will become minimal.  I’m staying true to me, that means I don’t need online attention, I don’t like online attention, so I’m turning the spotlight back onto those who deserve it.  Not the kid.

 

And for all those hyper sensitive online junkies who straight up got their feelings hurt over this blog that had nothing to do with them, bite me!

Short Story: The Emerald City

The Wandering Poet took the little black girl into the emerald city, which was made up of parks, city buildings and neighborhoods. A microcosm of the place she’d been banished from. As they passed through the city the poet pointed out places of interest. To the east, far off in the distance there was what looked like a castle perched on top of a mountain. Was that castle made of ice? She wondered aloud. The poet told her that yes the castle was made of ice; it was the home of one of the oracles, The Ice Queen. The Ice Queen and The Alliterator were the founders of the Emerald City. They too were banished from there and set upon establishing a place where they could be themselves without scrutiny or persecution. They had the forethought to plan for others just like them, and here you have The Emerald City. The poet pointed to the west to where there was a crowd gathered around a podium. At the podium was a woman, fantastically dressed, giving a speech to the crowd. The little black girl strained to hear what she was saying, but all she could hear was the ooohs and aaahs from the crowd. The poet told her that the woman was the other oracle, The Alliterator. Just ahead of them was a man approaching them quickly. The poet called the man the Albino General. The man was clearly an albino, skin pale with curly blond hair, and eyes covered with a pair of stylish shades.

The poet introduced the little black girl to the albino and disappeared into the crowd. He had just passed her off. The albino general picked up where the poet left off. He took her to his condo, a courtesy he extends to all new arrivals. She found that hard to believe, but accepted his invitation nonetheless. He let her stay there for a few days, then told her that she was to meet the oracles.

The city, so far, had been a wonderful place. People were free to speak their minds and express themselves as they wished. They showed her around the city, took her out to eat, and exposed her to all kinds of events she had only dreamed of attending, back in the other place. So when the general told her she was to meet the oracles, she knew she had nothing to fear, but fear was exactly what she felt. The woman at the podium seemed nice enough, although she could never get close enough to the podium to clearly see the woman. The Ice Queen, however, made her shiver with just the mere thought of it. She had not seen the woman, nor had she been to the castle, and the people around the city would only say a few words about her, most were good things, but it was almost as if they were afraid to say anything else. She would find out soon enough about both the oracles.

To be continued in: The Oracles

More Inspiration

My SO decided to send me some inspiration and a swift kick in the butt about my art and the direction of my career. Sometimes forces bigger than ourselves need to come together and shove you off the cliff, before you would willingly push yourself off. So anyway I read the blog and was so inspired that I'm going to share. Since my life kinda parallels this guys life, complete with getting a gun shoved at me, I'm feeling a connection to him. So please, read and be inspired.

It's only Life or Death. It's always only life or death.

The best thing that ever happened to me was the night an angry, messed up cab
driver pulled me into the back room of a 24 hour diner and held a huge handgun
to my head for over ten minutes, all the while describing in intricately
fetishistic detail exactly what would happen when he pulled the trigger.
Why?
Because it changes you, staring down a nutjob holding a gun. After that, the
small stuff just doesn't get sweated. You either break, or break through to a
mandatory satori of keeping things in proportion that most people never get to
walk away from. It's an ice calm I wouldn't trade for anything.
The second best thing that ever happened to me was when the dot com crash of 2000 wiped out most of the design industry at the peak of my career as a freelance print designer. I went from turning away work every week to working exactly 7 days of the next year. I lost my girl. I lost my loft. I lost part of my thumb in an
accident moving out of the loft. I pretty much lost it all.
Of course, the only reason I was working in offices was to fund the art career I wanted… materials, space, tools, etc. I worked eight hours in the office and ten in the
studio, sleeping when I passed out involuntarily. I decided that if my industry
had tanked, I was damned if I was gonna retrain to do something else I didn't
want to do. I chose to make the art be my sole means of support. I built some
monumentally scaled commissions working out of borrowed shop space, with
borrowed gear, sleeping on borrowed couches.
It worked. I've been making my
living as an artist ever since, and these days I earn triple the income I ever
did from the best corporate gigs.
The third best thing that ever happened was the day my studio building collapsed under a load of snow while I was standing on the roof shoveling. I rode that roof to the ground like a gut-shot rodeo pony. The building and some pricey tools were completely destroyed, but I was unharmed… until I spent the next three months (December, January and February)
without heat, running water or a stove because the natural gas line into the
house had been severed in the collapse. The gas company refused to fix the line
until they could bury it in the spring. I lost a few brain cells, I'm sure, by
running an unvented kerosene heater inside the house to stay alive.
How was that good? The bank came out to assess the damage, saw my work and suggested I do a $10,000 commissioned sign as the down payment on the remaining two buildings I'd been leasing with an unlikely option to buy. Getting this place
had a lot to do with making the art career fly. I had affordable space to work
and a place for customers to find me. I don't think the deal would have happened
without the disaster… They didn't want to take a loss on the property (or hold
it) and I was willing to take it on at the cost of the mortgage before the
building fell.
Bottom line:
The only way you can tell the difference
between disaster and opportunity is to decide to make an opportunity out of
every event.
Postscript:
During the second and third disasters, my friends
were pretty evenly divided in their response to my choice to make the world work
on my terms.
One camp said, "Dude, you're so brave to just bail on the day
job and do your own thing. You're my hero. I wish I could do that." The other
camp said, "Look, don't be crazy. Just take whatever work you can get until
you're on your feet, even if it's fast food or something. You're never gonna
make it without some cash." Really, both camps were wrong (though I love them
all dearly).
I wasn't brave. Not the least bit. I was frickin' desperate, is
what I was, but not terrified. I was back to that ice calm… you learn that it
just ain't over till it's over, and that giving up never got anyone out of a
jam. I didn't want a life of stability if it meant I had to do digital layouts
of junk mail for a living. I wanted to do what I was best at, what I loved, and
get paid for that. It was worth the risk. It was the only real way I could see
to better my situation.
I wasn't crazy either. By the time I figured out that
the design work wasn't just in a slump, that it wasn't coming back any time
soon, I had about $5 in cash and $20,000 in debt. There was no way that a
subsistence level job was gonna fix that… I ran full tilt towards the art career
because I knew if I did it right, and worked my ass off, I could probably make
enough to get out of the hole
I had to think about it again when the building
crashed. That time, I almost did pack it in. It felt like my dream was a stupid
idea after all, that I had just run everything into the ground betting on a long
shot. But in the rural economy here, few jobs pay well enough to escape the
poverty line and there are fewer and fewer jobs available anyway every year. A
job wasn't gonna save me. It would just suck all the time and energy I needed to
realize my dreams, while keeping me alive enough to resent it.
I remembered
other businesses I had started on a shoe string earlier in life… each of them
ultimately failed the first time something major went wrong because I hadn't had
enough cash to keep them going. Or had they? Had money really been the only way
to get them back on track, or was it a failure of creativity and nerve? Had they
really failed because when faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, I'd
believed it to be what it seemed, bought into it, walked away because I didn't
feel able to do the so-called impossible? I decided that what I really couldn't
afford was to waste all the time and energy I had put into building an art
career that was just on the edge of being sustainable. I'd come too far this
time to back down.
Having weighed the pros and cons of sticking to my guns, I
decided to force a positive change out of the crisis. Within a month, I
unexpectedly sold a few major pieces, paying off the last of my old debts with
the money and having cash left over. From that moment, the art has sold
exponentially better each year. If I'd given up at the moment, none of the great
things that have happened since would have come about.

Short Story: The Wandering Poet

The little black girl wandered slowly on the outskirts of the city. She hadn’t seen a person since the driver had dropped her off 45 minutes ago. She was just about to give up when she heard the faint sound of someone strumming a guitar. She picked up her pace and followed the sounds until she came upon a man sitting on a bench near what looked like an abandoned park. She didn’t want to sneak up on him, so she moved into his line of sight, walking right in front of him, slowly until she was in speaking distance.

He looked up at her blankly, hand in mid strum.
“I’m, I’m looking for someone called The Truth?” she muttered, looking intimidated. The man began to sit up straight as she started to talk, then he smiled and stood up. At his full height he looked like he belonged on someone’s football field, protecting the qb. But football was part of a life she no longer belonged to, another place, another time. The little black girl took a few steps back to make room for his presence.

“So it’s the truth you seek, that’s why you are here?
Well then it’s the truth you meet, have no fear.
I am who you want, you have caught me, my dear
your search you can stop, the answers are near.
But before you mention my name again,
over there they know me as another man
I have to keep my cover, let me tell you before I forget,
I’m known around these parts as The Wandering Poet.”

The man lifted his arm and gave a great bow. Seeing a man of his size bow so gracefully was funny to the little black girl, and for the first time in awhile she smiled. The gentle giant, she thought to herself, and allowed herself to relax a little. The Wandering Poet told her about how he was initially banished from the world they knew, just as she had been. Then he found a way to sneak back in and pass messages from the world they knew to the city they had been banished to. He disguised himself as a crazy artist, a babbling poet that wandered from city to city. No one ever bothered him, because they thought he was crazy. He would take the secrets he found in the world from the past and tell them to the people in the new city in the form of poetry. The others never gave the arts the importance that they deserved, so they didn’t take the time to decode The Wandering Poet’s words. The perfect disguise. However, this meant that The Wandering Poet ALWAYS spoke in prose….

“Freedom you will find
and a sense of self
a lot of people, if you don’t mind
but they will give you help
you are ready to join your people
you are ready to be among the free
so follow me up this path
to The Emerald City…”

The Wandering Poet picked up his guitar and all of his notebooks. A few pens spilled out of his pockets. She quickly bent over to pick them up, and as she stood back up she saw The Emerald City. She hadn’t seen it when she first walked up on him, but it had been there the whole time. Lined with evergreens, bushes, and vines, the gates began to open and the city unfolded right in front of her.

To be continued in: The Emerald City

no title

running through the forest clutching my macbook pro, I dare not look back, gotta keep moving forward. I finally figured it out, I finally figured it out! I shout to myself as I leap over a fallen tree trunk. I’m not running along a path, but cutting through the forest, making my way on my own terms, trying so hard not to twist my ankle or stumble over tree branches. as I side step an elm, I enact a basketball move I saw Iverson do a very long time ago. I step and spin around the tree, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose with my index finger. I know the clearing is up ahead, it just has to be. on google maps it said the clearing was only a few feet from my point A. trying not to gasp for air, daring not to pause for a moment, I can see the clearing bouncing in front of me, just past a few more trees, I’m almost there. Yes, I made it to the clearing, I slow down to a fast walk. I’ve reached a cemented side walk that is alive with the movement of people bustling to the jobs. I straighten out my clothes, brush the leaves and dirt off my shoes and loosen my grip, slightly, on my macbook pro. I look behind me briefly as I stand in front of a towering building in the city center. I made it before they did. I wipe the sweat from my brow and give a sigh of relief. I step forward into the building, but wait something isn’t right. I feel a tug on my heart. my macbook pro suddenly becomes heavy. My legs become stiff and my shoulders are weighted down. I bow my head in frustration, take another deep breath and force myself through the glass doors. Shaking my head I say to myself “I know, I know”.


This is an example of the voyage of a brilliant idea being sold to the highest bidder.

getting my groove back

I didn’t have to fly all the way to Jamaica to get my groove back. Let me back up. I’ve been sticking my toe in the kiddie pool of painting for a year now. Holding myself back afraid of, who the hell knows. I’ve bought canvases, paints and been sketching and doing a painting every 4 months or so. Then I started to surround myself with artists and been talking to them and just about everyone about painting and stuff. After a brief but encouraging conversation with an oh so naturally talented brother, I’ve finally got my groove back! Now everything I see is a painting waiting to happen. I’m just doing what feels right, so to speak, with me and laying it on canvas. And I must say, it feels good. Any artist can tell you that once you get into your zone of creativity, you almost become possessed. You eat sleep breathe whatever project your working on. I’m skirting my zone, but when I get there, it is so nice. My escape from the madness.

In my zone there are no cell phones, no text messages, no emails, no place to be, no people to please. There is just me and my creativity and my product. Just me and my art. My art lets me do whatever I want with no judgments. My art doesn’t criticize me, not like the criticism I give to myself. My art has no expectations, except to be completed. My art doesn’t care that I make mistakes, and it gives me plenty of chances to fix them. My art believes in me so much more than I ever could believe in myself. I’m starting to think my art is my great love….

I’ve neglected my art for far too long, but it was still there when I came back. It didn’t try to make me feel guilty for being away so long; in fact, it showed me that I’m even better than I was before I left. Dang, I’m so happy that I have my art and my groove back!

*above is a painting by my all time favorite artist. I could blog heavy about my love for Salvidor Dali. This is called Impressions of Africa- Salvidor Dali

Short Story: You think too much!

The little black girl lifted her head from the table, her mouth dry, lips cracked. She had been trying not to take a sip of the water in the paper cup that was put in front of her, but she couldn’t take it anymore. She reached a weary hand across the table, grabbed the paper cup, and sipped long and hard. The water tasted faintly of cardboard and it was lukewarm. The taste was horrible, but the refreshment was to die for. She finally looked up at the two men seated across from her. She looked at the recorder perched on the edge of the table, where it had landed after she had smacked it aside.

They had been grilling her for hours about what she thought about everything. Her views on politics, politicians, the government, and her people. She couldn’t understand what they wanted her to say or to admit to. After awhile of being asked the same questions a hundred different ways, she started to make stuff up. The more she fed them, the more they wanted to hear. She was tired of the interrogation, and they wouldn’t tell her where she was or what they wanted from her. She eventually just put her head down; she was convinced that they weren’t going to let her out.

“Have I committed a crime? Why am I here?” she asked in a last effort to get some clarity.
“We are not the police.” There was a tap on the door and one of the men went to answer it. After a brief discussion, another man entered the room.
“I’m sorry ma’am, there has been a case of mistaken identity. You are not who we are looking for, you can go now.”
“What?!” she shouted as she stood up. She knocked over her chair in the process and sent the men reaching for their guns. She quickly put her hands up in surrender, knowing how quick these kinds of people were to shoot someone like herself.
“We’ll escort you out, ma’am.” The third gentleman took her by the elbow and led her out of the room. They put her in the back of an SUV, similar to the one they had snatched her in. The third man talked to the driver, the driver nodded, locked the doors, rolled up his window and sped off with her so confused in the back seat.
“Where am I?” She asked the driver, who happened to be a black man.
“Girlie, I can’t tell you that.”
“Well where are you taking me?”
“They want me to take you to the place where they drop off all of the people they want to keep away from the general population.”
“Excuse me?”
“Honey, you think too much! I don’t know what you said, or who you said it to, but they have you listed as one of those thinkers. They are afraid of what you know, and they are trying to keep you away from everyone else. They don’t want someone like you giving everyday people ideas about what’s really going on.” The little black girl sat back in a daze. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, she couldn’t believe what was happening to her.
“Look, I’ll drop you off right outside of the city. It’s up to you whether or not you go in. If I were you, I wouldn’t go in there just yet. Walk up the road a little, around the city. Don’t go up the obvious path. Seek The Truth, he’ll help you out. And please, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. These people aren’t ready for what you have going on up there.” He tapped his temple with his index finger. She looked out of the tinted window at the passing scenery. What in the hell had her big mouth gotten her into this time?

To be continued in: The Truth aka The Wandering Poet

Short Story: Kidnapped!

One night, as the little black girl threw back drink after drink with her cronies, she saw a flash of news come across the TV in the bar. CNN reported something about the upcoming election that meant absolutely nothing to any of them, but sparked fear in the mush heads just the same. In her drunken state of loose lipped liberation, the little black girl let rip, unceremoniously what she felt about the election and the people running. Once she saw that she had an audience, she began on her commentary about the government and how she felt about the entire democratic system. Many of the patrons laughed, many didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, and some cheered. To her, it felt great to be able to vent and get her opinions out there for once.

Not everyone was so pleased to hear her diatribe. The next morning, on her way to work, a black SUV skidded up to the curb in front of her building. Being half awake, she didn’t react fast enough and two big guys in suits snatched her up, leaving her dunkin donuts glazed donut on the side of the road.

To be continued in : “You think too much!”

Short Story: The Land of Hot and Heavy

In the land of Hot and Heavy the little black girl found everything she had been hoping for, and much much more. She spent a lot of her time catching up on all of the parties and socializing she thought she had been missing back in the banker’s box. She eventually found out that in the land of hot and heavy all there was was more of the same. More of the same parties, more of the same kinds of people, more of the same bs that she thought she’d left behind. That was all hot and heavy had to offer. She began to chafe under the weight of the superficial life she had bought into. She realized that her focus, back in the banker’s box, was to escape from what she couldn’t handle, what she felt she had no control over. She escaped by emerging herself into the frivolous things that people do to make themselves feel better. The parties, the drinking, the drugs, the after hours activities, were all tools of the escape. They weren’t what she needed. What she needed was a purpose, something to fulfill her, something to motivate her to become what she was supposed to be. Hot and Heavy had none of that. It was the escapist’s dream, superficial distractions for the lost and aimless. It was time for the little black girl to move on…

To be continued in: Kidnapped!

Short Story: The Bankers Box

Once upon a time in a land as hot as the fiery pits of hell, with cockroaches (waterbugs) the size of kittens, lived a little black girl. Her height, just short of the model cut off, build slight, with an ever lingering pouch around her midsection, a place to hold her stress, and hair locked as a symbol of her freedom from the chemical lie. This little black girl had escaped to the pits of hell, running from a trap that placed her so tightly in a box that she’d just about forgotten how tall she really stood. The little black girl was looking for a way out, to a place far away from the box, a place that at that time would be, just had to be, better than the cramped bankers box she had been residing in. She craved excitement, invigorating adventures, reckless abandonment and maybe a little something to appeal to her darker yearnings. What better place than hell? She had heard rent was cheaper down there, and everyone was the complexion of the sugary sweetness found in a Russell Stover’s chocolate candy box. Yes this was the place for her, hot and heavy and oh so different from where she had been. She broke out of her box, leaving no forwarding address, informing no one, and burned up the road to her next destination…
To be continued in: The Land of Hot and Heavy

Cubicle Crusaders

I’ve been asked to join an exciting new blog that will concentrate my genius into focused, organized chaos. This blog is co written by my partner in artistic exclamations, Naturally Alise.

Cubicle Crusaders: IM Revolutionaries “Penning pages of pent up pain, (and funny IM’s & sh*t too)…”

The blog is a place to discuss our day to day adventures being office workers, and our plans on how to get out. It is our playground for revolutionary thoughts and all of the things we enjoy, such as poetry and music. Our agenda is as follows:

Monday - 'The Revolution Will Be Blogged', brought to you by Tiha
Tuesday - 'Cube Speak' selections, brought to you by Naturally Alise
Wednesday - Poetry Collaboration
Thursday - ....randomness/day of peace
Friday- Hip-Hop/R & B Amber Alert w/ commentary

With randomly added blogs that we see fit to submit. Enjoy!

I need an easy button!

In this world of multitasking and corner cutting, finding the most efficient way to do something has been bred in to me. I don’t know how to do stuff the long and difficult way. However, this way of doing things is not lost onto the bureaucratic nation of working for the state and cube life. In my efforts to get something done by my always impending deadline of “yesterday”, I always feel the need to move quickly. My superiors always find a way to throw a monkey wrench in my project fast track, which leads me to respond, out loud, with negative close ended statements. These statements fly from my mouth with such speed and accuracy that if you weren’t listening closely, you would swear I’d just called the recipient an idiot or stupid. This, as you can imagine, does not endear me to the management team. So what is my salvation? A big round red button with the word EASY written in white across the front. When this miracle button is pressed a phrase is uttered “that was easy”. In my mind, the voice is laden with sarcasm, and sounds just as good as saying “you idiot”. I get a kick out of it every time I make my coworker press it. I love this button! I think if I had my own button, I wouldn’t have to say anything after management sends me on a wild goose chase to find something that a) was already on their desk, or b) no longer exists.

I just want to say thank you to the marketing geniuses at staples for perhaps preventing a lot of name calling and employee employer brawls on my behalf.

That was easy!

Eureka!

Cable tv has made it extremely easy to get sucked into a new or ongoing series and be caught up just in time for new episodes by way of series marathons. I am a sucker for a Sunday day long marathon. Last Sunday, as I was flipping from HGTV and Jon and Kate plus 8, I landed on my favorite channel for escapism, Sci Fi. Sci Fi was showing a marathon of the show Eureka. I will admit tat I’d seen it before, during the last marathon at the end of the summer, but I’d only seen a few episodes, not a days worth, so I was geeked that I could catch it from the beginning of second season.


Why does this show deserve a write up? Yes its full of sci fi techie science stuff, and yes its funny and imaginative, but best of all it has Salli Richardson! Need I say more? The show is set in a town called Eureka that is populated by a bunch of geniuses. They work for a government operated experimentation center where there big brains get to flex. They are balanced by an average joe Sheriff. Eureka is complete with smart cars, Prius’, automated homes and a diner that serves whatever you have a taste for. To complete the haven called Eureka are the strong, super smart women in high positions that are HOT and just so happen to be minorities. Salli Richardson and another hot tamale by the name of Erica Cerra make this show worth watching, at least for me. It’s also a plus if you like sci-fi and are sick of reality tv. (packing my bags, Eureka or bust!)

Conversate is not a word.: The Thirty Worries

Conversate is not a word.: The Thirty Worries

Independence Day

The 4th of July is upon us once again. For many years I didn’t take this holiday seriously. It was a day off from work and an excuse to crash barbeques. This year, as I read countless blogs containing mixed feelings about the fourth, I’ve come to a realization about this country and the celebration of independence. It has been a long hard continuous struggle for African Americans in this country. Sometimes we don’t feel independent, free, respected, or tolerated. We feel like second class citizens in a country we helped build against our will. We are bitter, frustrated and disgruntled about the view of independence, especially from our perspective. However, this year, this time around I feel something else, I feel HOPE. We have an African American of great intellect and leadership running for presidency. Not only is the man bad, but he stands for and exudes all of the things we want to celebrate in this country. He is unifying the country just by running. He’s unifying the world by giving EVERYONE something to believe in. YES HE CAN and he will and I see so many people getting excited that their contribution to democracy may actually evoke CHANGE this time around. So this 4th of July, I’m proud of America, I’m proud of Americans, and I have faith that with the independence this country grants us, we really do have the power to illicit change and that this is OUR country. All of us.

Yet To Be Realized Potential of a Creative Class Superstar....

by Tiha and Alise

There are the bullies and the bullied
There are the popular and the socially awkward
There are the Bes and the wanna-bes

Some time after high school class culture meets real world life stressors meets survival of the fittest the lines blur and roles change.

The bullies become leaders or dictators (depending on the country)
The popular become entertainers
The Bes are being happy

And the bullied, socially awkward and wanna-bes are in management.
Welcome to cube life!

I think, therefore I am......an outcast in this cubicle nation
Weirdo among automatons scared of recreation...
Not satisfied with status quo and placation
But it is I who is the skeleton key to workplace rejuvenation...
Yet when I cross the cubicle borders I am faced with condemnation,
New ideas faced with scoffs and irritation....


Even complacency is complaining about the tedium of my cubicle existance.
Going against it's very nature, it has planned a mental revolt.
It kidnapped serenity and left a note saying:
give us fulfillment! give us challenge! give us free! or the bitch gets it...


I am a wolf in business casual attire
Ribs are touching..... so I am stalking, staking, slithering, & scoping....
Shuffling around in sensible shoes searching and salivating for something worth sinking my fangs in
Trying futily to fit in with the flock.....
A time bomb with teeth.... tick.... tock....

Conversate is not a word.: Child-Free and Fabulous! The C & F Club

Conversate is not a word.: Child-Free and Fabulous! The C & F Club

My Inner Man: Part 2

Nora Vincent has me steeped in the world of a lesbian trying to pass as a man in a man’s world doing man things. I felt compelled to do my own experimentation. In the middle of a paragraph about dating women as a man, and two ice cream sandwiches later, I jumped out of the bed, got into my car, and sped off to Target. Enough with the talking about it, I was going to get me some guy gear and explore this repressed side of myself.

At Target I made my way to the men’s section and straight to the sale rack. There was no need to invest more in this phase than I would in my regular wardrobe. I put together, rather quickly, some vintage wash jeans and a matching t-shirt that had a picture of a squirrel holding up two acorns saying mines are bigger than yours. You know this shirt spoke to me. I reflected back on my days in high school and remembered how much my jeans sagged, so much so that I wore out my belts trying to keep them strapped to my lower waist, and wore out the bottoms of the jeans from having them drag on the floor constantly. That wasn’t the look I was going for. I wanted baggy, but classy, so I adjusted the waist and length to give me room to move, but stay controllably off the ground. Since I hate changing rooms and trying on clothes in public, I bought the outfit, less than $30 total, and took it home planning on giving my girlfriend a drag fashion show.

Back at home, during my prep time before the show I discovered that how big I was in my mind and how big I am in reality was definitely NOT the same. The sizes I’d chosen had me looking like a gay man, one of the train boys*, waaaayyyy tighter than a metro sexual. I didn’t know men’s clothes could cling to the female form and be so flattering. This was something I had to ponder further at another time (I could get nice jeans, cheaper than woman’s jeans, that didn’t have the pouch in the front and left my crouch with room to breath, hmmmmm). Tight was definitely NOT the look I was going for. So back to the store I go to try again. Stay tuned!


*train boys- in Atlanta’s subways I used to observe boys, young men, who wore tight men’s jeans, hanging halfway or completely off their butts and little t-shirts and tank tops. They were showing what they were selling, I’ll blog more about this later.

My Inner Man: Part 1

I’ve had a secret, or maybe not so secret fascination with transsexuals, or more specifically the fluidity of which some people can go from one gender to another, with or without surgery. I’m fascinated with living like the other and have been wanting to try my hand in passing as a man. As a teenager I dressed “hip hop”, with the baggy clothes and baseball caps. It was the style in the 90’s and my friends and I loved it. Being a former tomboy, I wallowed in the men’s section and wouldn’t be caught dead in the women’s section. I didn’t really learn what my size was in women’s clothes until I got to college and felt more at ease flaunting my sexuality. Later on in my early twenties I cut off all my hair and wore a short natural, again the current style for all hip sistas attending college. Because of my short hair and slim physique, when I put on a hat and a hoodie, I had quite a few older folks mistake me for a boy. Back then this enraged me, after all I was trying to be sexy! However now-a-days, age, weight, and a second puberty has caught up to me, leaving me with curves and a DD rack. This makes it damn near impossible for me to pass as anything but what I truly am.
When Oprah did her show about the pregnant man, a number of good books about transsexuals started to get some buzz. One of these books is called “Self-Made Man” a women’s year dressed and living as a man by Norah Vincent (that’s not exactly how the title goes). I’m still reading the book and am so enthralled. Her experiences as a man are so far hilarious and enlightening. However some of her reactions and transitional issues are some that I’m finding I wouldn’t have a problem with. The more I read the book, the more I think I could pass as a guy. Specifically communication style and mannerisms. My pops must’ve rubbed off on me in more ways than I thought. Something is to be said about little girls that 1) have a natural inclination to be a tomboy and 2) are raised by their fathers who perpetuate the tomboy because they don’t want to see their little girls in dresses.
So as I’m reading the book, I’m leaning more and more towards donning some homeboy gear and getting my swagger back. Stay tuned!

Cohabitation and the Swinging Bachelorette: It’s not so bad after all.

This former die-hard-super-single-commitmentaphobe has been blessed with the opportunity to share her home with her girlfriend for the summer. With being an introverted only child, I definatly had a few hurdles to jump before I could become at ease with the idea, an idea that I thought of to begin with. I consulted many people for advice, some paid, some not paid, on ways to cope with my inability to share my throne with my beloved. I’d even switched around a few people to my fav 5 for emergency purposes. I just knew that this cohabitation thing was bigger than anything I’ve had to overcome, and I just knew that getting over it wasn’t an option; it was the path of getting used to it that I chose instead.

And what was the result of all this prep work?

The result is that it isn’t so bad after all. That preparing for this transition was more stressful that just going through it. I learned that fighting an invisible enemy, the enemy being myself, is like swinging a bat through the air. All that energy wasted, expelled into nothingness, leaving me with pulled muscles and sore joints. Swinging at phantom balls. The Zen master in me is laughing her ass off, she told me to just go with the flow. An internal “I told you so” moment.

The Pace of My Life

As I get off the train to go to work, I’m lost deep deep in my thoughts, I’m caught up in the drafts of the rushing bodies around me. I didn’t know I was moving that slow, or maybe they are moving too fast. I find that I stroll a lot, while the world around me, or rather the people around me are always in a rush. I wonder briefly, what are you rushing too? Often we say the world, life, is passing us by if we move too slow, but really it isn’t the world, or life, it’s the inhabitants that seem to have their speed button pushed on permanent fast-forward. So I ask again, what’s the rush? Rushing off to jobs they hate? Rushing off to engagements they reluctantly committed to? Rushing off to relationships and people they wish they could get away from? Once they get to where they are going, do they slow down or do they rush through that too? I’ve stopped rushing a long time ago. Which is funny because I’m from a place that has its own sense of time. Ever heard of a New York minute? Well, I’m not from New York, but I’m from a place who’s minutes are just as fast, who’s culture consists of hurry up and get there, get outta my way, I have no time ever. Ironically still, I had always felt that things moved too fast for me, even though I had lived there all my life and hadn’t been anywhere else. I couldn’t wait to leave and just slow down………..

And so I did, and I slowed down, but I found that it doesn’t matter where you live, or how fast you physically move, its ultimately up to you how you set the pace of your life.
The pace of my life now is slow and I’m working on it being carefree. I’ve stopped fighting my instincts and just let myself be me and be at ease with the pace of me. This, of course, frustrates those caught up in the speed racer approach to life. I take too long to answer questions (because I think before I speak which causes a brief pause in conversation, aww yes SILENCE), I stroll instead of walk, I set ALL of my clocks ridiculous amounts of minutes ahead so I’m never late as I take my sweet time living life. I simply refuse to rush and anyone around me learns that quickly. And with all of that I still manage to be eerily punctual and HATE waiting for people, hey I choose to move slow for ME, not for anyone else :) , but I also have learned not to lose my mind when things don’t go as planned either.

So my message, as a constantly reforming high strung, type A personality is, slow down, and enjoy the pace of your life!

Beaten down, but not broken

I finally had the chance to see the documentary “Rize” about a style of dance coming out of Cali called Krumping or Clowning. To get it right, it was started by a guy named Tommy who called it Clowning. From Clowning came Krumping, a more raw, ancestral form of the lighthearted Clowning. For anyone who has no clue what this style of dance looks like, I advice you to wiki it. The documentary showed the perspective of Tommy, the “founder”, many of his dance students, and the perspective of those who branched off and created Krumping. Then the documentary went into tracing the dancing style’s roots and showed comparative footage of tribes in African performing similar dance rituals. The dancers from the inner cities of L.A., Inglewood etc. described Krumping as a form of storytelling, something that has been said about the tribal dances found in Africa as well. This really fascinated me, that these inner city youth, often labeled as something less because of their lacking quality education and low socio economic status, have found a connection, a deep connection, to their roots, something I don’t think they were aware of. So this brought a question to mind, well a series of questions, but is culture or customs, something that is breed among the different ethnicities? If you have no one to teach you, is it possible to retain your heritage through DNA? This connection between Krumping and the tribal dances of Africans brings another occurrence to mind. While I was in undergrad, I took an art history class, an African American art history class. This content began in Africa, of course, and brought us all the way to contemporary art by African Americans. African art history depicted certain customs of the tribes in Africa, I hesitate to say their names for fear of getting it wrong. One of the customs was the way they built some of their dwellings. Pictures and drawings have been taken of these crude architectural houses, and compared to the dwellings created by slaves and early freed slaves in the south. The dwellings were almost identical, even though they were an ocean away and built hundreds of years apart. These dwellings are more familiarly known as “shotgun” houses in the south. I couldn’t believe how the slaves in the south had retained their heritage, their roots, so to speak, and were able to duplicate in such a way. Even after being separated and assimilated in to the “American” culture, their heritage remained intact.

The documentary also shined a light on what the dancers, mostly teenagers, thought about dancing and the movement that seems to have started. Over and over again I heard that they had nothing better to do with their time. That other than school their was nothing for them. If they weren’t into sports, something they felt was specifically targeted towards African American youth, then you had nothing left but to gang bang. I can only imagine what would have happened to me if there weren’t after school programs and things like that available/free for me. I agree that children/teenagers need something to do after school, and that the worst thing in the world to do to the youth is to get rid of their extracurricular programs. This is something that isn’t new, and has been a real problem in inner cities, cutting programs, cutting funding, building more prisons, and labeling the youth as slack underachievers. A recipe for disaster.

And through all of the hardships the youth face, what saves them in the end? An inbred need to survive, a biological link to a positive side of their heritage. There is hope, there is always hope, and apparently, it comes from within.

Where were you when the tornado hit?

I received a text message from the Ebay King asking if I wanted to go to the Hawks game. Sure, why not, it was Friday and I had nothing better to do, besides who can pass up cheap tickets procured by the Ebay King himself? So off to the Hawks game I went without a care in the world.
During the fourth quarter, with the Hawks score surpassing 100, my legs started to cramp and my knees began to lock from being scrunched up in those game seats, cheap tickets never guarantees comfy seating. I looked at my watch, listened to my body and knew that I would begin a mini tantrum if I didn’t get out of there quick. I leaned over to my companion and whispered in his ear “anytime you are ready…” the nice way of saying “I’m ready to go!”
10 minutes later we were making our way down to the MARTA station, I had insisted we take the train in because I refused to deal with Friday night traffic in the city, especially during the ACC tournaments. As we made our way down the long escalator to the east/west line, the lights went out in the station, only the backups were on which gave the place an eerie feel. There weren’t that many of us down on the first level. I looked over at the lady on the escalator next to us and she looked back with alarm. She started to mutter something about them taking better care of the station and how this shouldn’t happen down here. I just replied with a heartfelt “oh hell naw!”
The MARTA workers looked calm and the MARTA dogs didn’t even raise their heads off the ground, so I shrugged and kept it moving. The escalators to the bottom level where the trains came in had stopped working, so we walked down them, mildly wondering where the other steps at the station were.
As we waited for the train the station began to fill with people coming from a number of events that was going on in the area. Adults, children, teenagers, all of us were down there not so patiently waiting for our train. The train on the opposite side, going the other way seemed to keep coming, every 5 to 10 minutes, but our train was nowhere in sight and the station was getting crowded.
I thought I heard the train coming, finally and I looked down the tunnel. I saw something that looked like a dirt cloud, but I wrote it off as blurry contacts. I turned my head and began to rub my eyes. When I looked back I could feel wind and assumed it was a train, even though I didn’t see any lights. The wind started to get stronger and the dirt cloud got denser. At this point we could feel what felt like sand being blown in our faces as we turned to cover ourselves. We were battered by a strong, consistent burst of wind and dirt that left just as fast and mysteriously as it had come.
And still no train…

The rest of the trip home was mildly uneventful. They ended up taking the trains off line, right as we were getting to our station where the car was parked. We were lucky. During the ride the train kept getting delayed, a couple stops down the line a passenger said something about severe weather and a tornado warning for downtown. Severe weather I could believe, but really, not in the city, because tornados don’t strike in the city. Tornados NEVER strike in the city, so I scratched that off and chalked it up to hyper vigilance by the weather people. I mean after all, the weather people said it was going to rain (which it never really did) and that was all for the night. No severe weather (or else I would have never left the house) and definitely no tornado watches or warnings.
So now I’m counting my fingers and counting my toes, counting my blessings and deleting my woes, its great to be alive!

The Introvert's Rights Revolution

I read an article today about "Caring for Your Introvert", in it I found some good material for my pamphlet about me. You see I'm an Introvert. This, for anyone who knows me, comes as no surprise. I had spent many years trying to suppress my introverted nature, just to blend in and get people to finally stop calling me weird. In the process of my suppression I'd lost myself and ended up depressed which isolated me even more than being an introvert ever could. But in a world over populated by extroverts being "depressed" is more acceptable than being an introvert. Depression equates to a "rough patch" in extrovert speak where as being an introvert means your just plain weird, antisocial, and down right rude.
I’ve heard an extrovert go on and on about a fate worse than death when she was mistakenly called an introvert. And as she obsessed on and on about hoe being an introvert was the worse thing in her world to be, I could do nothing but mumble the usual "umhmm" and wait patiently for her to run out of air. For all the energy it takes an introvert to deal with extroverts, a world filled with extroverts, I would like some reciprocity. I would like for extroverts to just shut the hell up and be still for 10 minutes (preferably away from me) before, during, and after conversing with me. Yeah that would be a nice line item to add to the introvert's rights revolution. The right to be silent and left alone without persecution. Let’s get this revolution started!

Generation X, yeah we’re still here

Generation X is in their 30s and 40s now. So what does this mean for the world? Well I’ll tell you what it means. It means good things, better things, it means hope. They said we got the world handed to us, I say they dangled it in front of us, to secure our subservience, then they snatched it away. We were the first experimentation group of the baby boomers. Crash test dummies in a way. All the moving and shaking, rabel rousing, and fussing the baby boomers did, in their free time mind you because most turned into corporate stiffs overworked and some grossly overpaid, gave way to many changes on the face of society. But they left it at just the face. It didn’t go that deep. And we were left with the botched face lift, false sentiments of unity and power to the people, and an all too real sense of authoritative fraud. Yeah, they said the world was ours, and for some of us we had it for awhile, and then it got snatched away, along with our jobs and our national security. Some of us graduated to the ruin known as the U.S. of A. Some of us never came back to graduate at all. We were built up to be kicked down, laughed at and labeled.

Lazy...isn’t that what they said, misguided, non-committal, moody, I mean really what the hell were we so mad about? Then we kind of fell off, you didn’t hear too much from us. We were incubating. We were giving those who think they run stuff enough rope to hang themselves. And the nooses are tightening all over the place. I’m smirking at what the future will bring. We are moving on up the chain, after all, isn’t that what you told us to do? We’ve had to find our way, our OWN way, all by ourselves and we did. We’ve had to learn how to be patient, and we have. So sleep with one eye open, don’t blink, or you’ll miss it, and before you know it, you’ll have a bright red X branded on your forehead, compliments from the generation they tried to count out.

How many Huckabees does it take to screw in a light bulb?

The Iowa caucus has come and gone, leaving us with two distinct front runners. Some food for thought, some material to blog about, and some research to occupy my time at work. The Iowa people have spoken, and they said Obama and Huckabee.
So who the heck is Mike Huckabee?
Let me just put this disclaimer out there; I hate politics, and am not up on what offices these talking heads hold. I’m also not that religious savvy either, don’t know the proper titles for those talking heads either. So my descriptions will be vague, but I’m trying to show respect.

Back to Huckabee. He’s a Republican conservative from Arkansas. He has done some good things as far as education reform, tax cuts, and unemployment is concerned in his home state. He is also pro-life and anti-gay marriage. I guess we can’t have it all (or can we?????) His religious background doesn’t bother me, nor does his beliefs about marriage and abortion, in fact Huckabee doesn’t bother me. Now that’s a surprise. I’ll be keeping an eye on this guy, and doing more research. His caucus speech didn’t do much for me though, all and all, he’s your average bible belt politician, who talks a good game, and may be able to produce, but I’m not sure how well he’ll do across the country. Because believe it or not, outside of the south, they don’t beat bibles, they exercise free thought and they actually DON’T like to be told who they can marry and what they can do with their bodies. I believe the people are more concerned about worldly things, such as the war ending, universal healthcare, education, energy independence, and what the hell is going to happen to my damn social security. Ok those are my main concerns, and I’m looking for the candidate that can address them the best, and I don’t care about what color, sex, or religion they are.

I’d also like to give props to Barack. Every time that man speaks he sends shivers up and down my spine. Even reading the transcript of his caucus speech had me jumping up and down inside. Obama makes me want to learn more about politics. Now that’s powerful…

2007-2008 Reflections, Expectations, and Forecasts

Last year I predicted that 2007 was going to be the year of change. For me, that meant doing big things in a big way. I felt I had to make a significant change because I knew the big 3-0 was going to arrive in 2008. I had to condense the 5 year plan I’d made when I was 25 in order to reach most of my goals by thirty. In my efforts to set this change into motion, I created a tsunami for which to usher in this change. I needed a big enough wave to carry me to my new place, the next plateau in my personal growth. As I stomped the ground and stirred up the water, I handed out surf boards made up of dreams and goals to all of those around me, I figured this wave would be big enough to carry me and anyone else who wanted to come along for the ride.
So with the tsunami in full motion, my dreams, goals and expectations building as the wave traversed the earth, it crashed me right into a place I should’ve been years ago! I won’t go into the details, but in the end, I’d made it to a place where I felt I could progress further, and I’d accomplished my goal for 2007.
And now it’s 2008. I predict that 2008 will be great! 2008 is the year to LET IT GO. What do I mean by this? Well with change and new things comes a lot of self exploration. I had to get over some things to initially make that move. I also came face to face with issues or things that I didn’t know I had problems with, but they had been the things that had impeded my growth to begin with. So in finding out my issues and in trying to continue to progress personally, there is a definite need to let some things go. I know that the issues that have continued to hold me back have no place in my present life. I know that holding on to certain feelings and perspectives may have at one point been good, helped me to survive some hard times, but that I don’t really need them anymore, and they are not helpful. So I’m working on letting it go!
In conclusion I would like to give a round of applause to all those who made changes in 2007, whether big or small, and I would like to encourage you to keep progressing in 2008 and work on our issues that may be holding us back. Just to name a few changes that took place in the ’07, I moved, someone got into Columbia and is working on her PhD, someone took a chance and moved to Austin just for the sake of having a life experience, someone moved out of their momma’s house, people got divorced/separated, people came out, people got married, people had babies (yay for twins!), people stopped smoking and people graduated from college!