I have a really awesome sense of direction and can find my way in new places with little help. My mother remembers me giving her driving directions at the age of three.

I have a really awful memory. Really. Awful. I depend on my friends to piece together events for me and they think my memory is selective. I do have a keen memory for being disrespected tho, but that doesn’t happen often.

I attended seven schools before High school and I see the impact it has made on my ability to start and maintain friendships. I hope to change that and have more long-term, real friendships

I am content being single because my President and First Lady are so damn loving and real together. Truly. — I don’t want it if it doesn’t look like that.

I want to be a critical race theorist (I think that I already am) and sometime I think that also want to be a critical race theorist talking head on CNN, with sexy Anderson Cooper

I want to start a foundation that links artists with other artists for collaboration and support, links artists to youth in the communities and links artists to patrons. Rich people need to support arts and culture. How many vacations can you take, rich people??

I think that my brother is the best writer in the world. And I read more than anyone I know, so I consider myself an expert.

My life goals are: To Travel, To Eat Well and To Have Love in my Life

I would love to be able to support myself off of my writing alone, and have the money and the schedule where all I do is travel, write, speak and meet new people.

I love books more than some people I know, but sometimes I think that they ruined me by showing me lives and places that, at least right now, I can’t live or visit.

I believe in fairies and other worlds. (Sometimes I wish I lived in a place where there were mermaids and magic)

I love and believe in the power of naps. I love to nap and hear people and voices in the other room. It makes me think there will be something interesting to wake up to.

I am most peaceful, content and excited when I am writing.

I wish that I had a family that was more closely knit.

I am super independent and I’m starting to think that that might be a weakness as well as a strength.

I wonder if I will ever have the money or the relationship to support having kids. I wonder if I want them, even tho I think about them a lot.

Even tho they have turned on me in the past, I wish I had a big clique of friends right now, although the ones I do have kick ass!!! Definitely high quality.

I love my puppy, Kharmajon more than many, many things.

I love to be by myself!!

I have really good self control/will power. Especially when it comes to restricting myself from things. That probably has deeper meaning, but I try not to analyze it.

I love ideas and information and people who think about the world beyond their own lives. These are also the only things that really interest me.

I have four other novels living in my head, waiting for me to have the time to write them. They are my favorite secret

I am not very thoughtful. I don’t remember birthdays or anniversaries etc. Most of the time I don’t care that I am this way.

I intend to live in many places. NYC, East Bay, somewhere out of the country. I hope this will calm my restless spirit. Or give it room to play.

25. I LOVE storms. Thunder and lightning. The louder and more violent the better.

You always loved the smoke more than the reality

and the truth of that sometimes hits me like hard rain

sharp and dead

I starry eyed and in love

chased tail lights back to the big city I craved

and the town I always hated

 

in the midst of things

twenty stories up

I cleared the smoke and

learned that all my hard earned theories

would save me no heartbreak

 

that all of my preparation

had nonetheless brought me to this place

 

a symbol by your side

a vessel for your words

an audience to your drama

 

not living and feeling

until I was screaming with rage

 

my words

unused and unasked for

stumbled over my feelings of being ignored

unwanted, forgotten

as images on the tv screen cooned and laughed their way in

to a life I no longer recognized as my own

 

A trade was made 

a deal was had and broken

and I thought love was involved

until it drifted away in the smoke that always filled the air

 

And I who never believed 

thought I had found

the one

until I realized my place

 

then remembering my place

I mourned us in November

living the loss daily by your side

 

i am complete in my decisions

confident in my path

but even these things

do not protect me from the failure

or from regret of all kinds

 

from wondering if, again

and when and who

praying I will be ready 

praying it will be real this time

and hoping it will be soon

 

But until then 

there is this

thousand miles between your endless 

hollow words about yourself

 

there is this

two hundred days away from

your idea of connection

so simple it is almost sad

 

there is this

enough months 

for me to breathe clean air 

and to know that

I am not alone because

 

in my life now

there is this 

Bliss

To all the kind people who read my blog I just want to offer this warning:

This is only the beginning.

My love affair with President Obama began many years ago the way most of my rare love affairs begin, with his book, Dreams of My Father.  That affection has only grown to include Michelle, who I think is brilliant and beautiful and real. So again to my readers, please brace yourselves, this is an Official Obama Love Zone. 

This sweet song was produced by Myisha Cherry, someone I know. Please Enjoy.

Thank God for the Obamas and for this vision of black love!!! AT LAST.

I love how white people are upset that President Obama is referred to as black. Cries of “he is 1/2 white” and calls for black people to “get over claiming him as if he only belongs to you” appeared repeatedly in the Facebook feed during the inauguration. These comments are a testament to the lack of education, and certainly of any comprehensive education, dealing with the truth of slavery in this country.

The one drop rule was created by whites to forbid even the most light skinned blacks from claiming their whiteness. It stated that even one drop of black blood was enough to make someone black and it was used to allow white slave masters to sell their own children. Just one drop of blackness tainted these children of slave masters and denied them free lives as white people. This rule, though ancient, is an integral part of how we judge each other to this day.

So for all the white people who want to make such a big deal of President Obama’s whiteness. I acknowledge that he is half-white, but let’s be real, none of you would have been claiming him had he not been elected president. While we would have and always have embraced him. Its funny how now you want to change the rules you created.

I wonder if you would be so angry about and eager to claim just any 1/2 black man on the street.

CONGRATULATIONS PRESIDENT OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am not being a hater…well not completely.

I want to merely raise the question about a trend I noticed a while ago that seems as if it has quietly become the status quo. I am talking about the fact that African-American men who have lead roles, or even supporting ones, in mainstream movies are more and more being paired with Hispanic women as their love interest. Don’t get me wrong I am one of the few that believe that Hispanics are pretty much black and that might be because I grew up in NYC and most of my males cousins marry Hispanic women.

But the real question here is, Are there no black actresses interested in working anymore?  As I am pretty sure that this question is absurd, I can’t help but question the intentions of these black male actors many of them who have risen successfully to co- production status on their films.  I can only think back with nostalgia for the days when Denzel declared that he would not work with love interests who were not African-American. *Sigh.

 

Personally I thought that Rosario Dawsons performance and the chemistry she had with Will Smith in Seven Pounds was very good. I am envisioning Oscars, particularly for him. But I digress. Although the actress chosen to play his first wife was black, but she had about two lines and 3% of the screen time that Rosario did. I am now flashing back over more of Will Smith’s movies, Hancock – white wife. Movie whose name I can’t remember, but it involved a lot of him running around in a suit – Indian girlfriend.[Disclaimer: I am not hating on Will Smith. First of all he seems to be getting more handsome as the minutes pass. Geesh.  Secondly we have all followed him since Fresh Prince and I am thrilled at what he has managed to achieve as one of the top actors, of any race, in the world today. That is why he is mentioned so much because he has achieved and is in a unique position of having decision-making power on his movies.]

 

Anyway, I am actually not one of those black women who is upset by interracial dating. Whoever floats your boat gets my vote. I am just concerned that black actresses are not getting their due which simultaneously affects my opportunity to see myself, as a black woman reflected on the big screen. Where am I? I wonder all the way until the credits roll and I realize the answer is, not in this movie! I am excited that our brothers are hard working and talented enough that they have built and strategized their careers to success. I am glad for them and proud of them. But it is a true fact that the role of women in Hollywood is harder, as too the role of black women is compounded as usual by race.  A director might switch the race of his main character to blockbuster black actor, but the likelihood of that happening for a black female is slim to none. Note: Will Smith’s career versus that of his stunning wife, Jada, whose last movie was the voicing of a cartoon character. No disrespect, but I think we can all agree that this is not a women who should just be a voice.

 

So is the greater public not ready to see black love and relationships on the big screen within mainstream movies?? Will I be able to tell what type of movie is being advertised merely by checking for the race of the main characters and their relationship to one another? Are black actresses going to forever be relegated to best friend roles, never to be considered love interests again?? Will I ever see myself media-wise anywhere other than a music video, in which I am half-naked and being disrespected in any number of ways? Will our black actors with production power show us some love? Or are we on our own, as usual?

 

I loved this man and his books growing up, The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk ends… This is the perfect visualization of what I am experiencing right now. The bumping and flopping stage at least and I have never felt better in my life.

Janelle Monáe :: Home :: The Chase Suite :: In Stores Now .

I am In Love.

Often I find myself craving the promise and passion of the Harlem Renaissance. The perfect storm that brought brilliant, young black people, proud of their culture, un-crippled by the convoluted and painful past we share  and eager to bring themselves and their creations with the world. I wish that I could be part of something made up of my people that is inspiring and challenging and beautiful. FYI: My novel, The Weight of Snow, is my offering to that energy and my hope that I can join the few alive today who are living and breathing and creating with intention in this same way.

Today I came a step closer to believing that there is just such a community in existence.  At the behest of jumping on a much loaded bandwagon, I have to add Janelle Monae, as one of the strongest inspiration for me right now. (particularly since I have begun writing a sci-fi novel- check out her site and you will see why.)  

The contrarian in me is wishing that I was not head over heels for her.  But I am. 

She is energetic, beautiful, obviously thinking about something beyond herself and finally, thank God, unique. Self-described as being from another planet, she overwhelms me and inspires me.  My mantra, stolen boldly from Steven King-Dark Tower Series, is that There Are Other Worlds Than These and finally there is someone who appears to believe that too. She makes me feel better about the fact that most of the time I don’t feel like I belong.  

I truly believe that black music is dead. This is not a statement that I take lightly. I am tearfully sad that the songs, melodies and lyrics that sustained us since we got to these shores has become crippled and commodified within an inch of its life. There are positive outliers, of course. but the living host that is black music is in a coma, barely on life support and being left for dead, buried beneath bling, empty lyrics and the pursuit of money.  The only thing we have ever truly owned as a people has no value.  

Janelle Monae is oxygen to a pitiful dying thing and to me. 

I tend to romanticize things and in hindsight the Renaissance is surely a more polished thing than it ever truly was, and I only know of Janelle Monae of what I have seen of her via the internet, but I rest easier knowing she is out there and sharing her voice.

Please support and encourage her young, gifted and black self.

The Daily Beast.

 

So I have no television and streaming CNN can get very annoying after awhile. A very short while.  Anyway I use this site (coupled with my Newsweek) to stay abreast of whatever is happening out there in the world.