i know i know…if it ain’t one thing its another!
but i’m in search of a place to put my stuff (and self) and buddies in the bay area. on the buddy part i’m not too picky but for the housing i am a bit…i love the old 1920s buildings out there, with hard wood floors and bay windows…if anyone knows of a place in oakland that is safe enough for a single woman and not too pricey (which i realize is relative if you live anywhere but new york for comparison) i’d appreciate the hint.
i begin work on october 8 and would love to have a place to live before then…call me silly but the prospect of sleeping in my own place makes me break out in giggles!
Tags: transition
oh my dear sweet goodness i am so back…
that means i am now EMPLOYED! i’ll be moving to the bay area in october and i hope to force myself into writing on this thing more often…
thanks for the love and the patience…
Tags: transition
It amazes me how quickly the reminders come…whispers of a world sprawling with majesty and horror, creating a murmur that grows into a din. it is easy to fall into a routine. Rehashing the points of my life that haven’t gone according to plan and inflating their importance. Until…
Sitting in a darkened theater on SMU’s campus with hugh masekela’s music reverberating through the air (even as he sat two rows in front of me – a living south african legend) as soundtrack to the truth and reconciliation commission story – truth in translation.
The trc is revolutionary and groundbreaking. Never before had such a thing been undertaken. And for all its flaws and successes, it told the stories of south africa…the truth in various degrees, from politicians to farmers, mothers and surviving sons.
And for its part, truth in translation undertakes the enormous task of re-telling those stories. Wether to make sure the world remembers or with hopes of passing such a sentiment on…forgiveness. Such power in giving or denying. Power to free others, to free self.
Tags: arts
Everyone says that searching for a job is full time work. And on the surface I shake my head in agreement. It, like work, consumes my thoughts even when five o’clock rolls around. It, like work, forces me to spend long hours in front of the computer screen typing out memos of sorts. But it, unlike work, does not pay. Instead of at least the neutral affirmation of a job done (well or otherwise) be means of a check bi-weekly, I find a dwindling bank account and a reminder that student loans come due in November.
I am not unaware of the luxury I find myself writing this from. With a sister and brother in law with big hearts and a roomy home to match, I type this tirade from an air conditioned home with a room at my disposal, cable, and a refrigerator chock full of food I didn’t pay for. And so once again I find myself in a conundrum much like after hurricane Katrina…bad isn’t so bad when you are experiencing it among folks who care and with minimal upheaval to your day to day. How dare I complain under such luxurious conditions? And yet I do.
Don’t get it twisted, the genteel nature of my circumstances do not change the fact that I need a job. It isn’t a matter of wanting. I am a grown woman with a desire to act as such. I don’t want to live off the hard work of others, I don’t wish to piggy back on their lives – taking their accomplishments and treating them as if they are my own…from material to the less tangible.
People continue to congratulate me on my newest niece. “Congratulations!” people gush at me. Trust me, I know that there is a lack of much else to say that plays some part in such comments to me…but there is also the idea that this miracle of creation and life is somehow mine through proxy.
I didn’t carry my sweet round headed niece for nine months, neither did I deliver her as her father did a little over a week ago. I did bathe her sisters when their mother’s belly made it uncomfortable for her to do so but…that is merely my guest appearance, I’m still waiting for my starring role.
And so I find myself in front of this computer again – finally. I am pushing back the stress and strain of the last few months and trying to persevere despite the ego thumping that ensues each time I open my email to find no inkling of interest or request for interviews. Instead, a dwindling number of jobs for me to apply to and rising apprehension that whatever I’ve done is not enough without a true idea of how to somehow build on it and make it more.
Tags: family, future, transition
i’ve been gone for a moment…so much going on – good and bad. mostly it is unknown.
among them, searching for employment. as such, i’ve decided to put this thing on restricted viewing until i am gainfully employed (starting wednesday). if you aren’t in the system so i can add you and you’d like to be please just send me a quick email and i’ll be happy to do so.
i hope to be back to my usual writing frenzy…i’ll see how that goes!
Tags: future, transition
i’m not sure i’ve ever really been sad to say goodbye to a place. i always have people i’m going to miss…but usually i can substitute one place for another and never think twice. sure i missed mexican food when i left texas…but then i traded that in for new orleans cuisine so it wasn’t too bad.
back to the point though…
today my roomie and i wen to brunch. i really enjoy my roommate, but we don’t get to hang out much. but she asked me last week what i thought about doing commander’s palace and i was all about it. so we diva-ed up and had brunch – and then to continue the day we wandered out to the park and walked around a little and talked. all in a delightful time.
and i had to confess to her as we rode home…i’m going to miss this place. i’m going to miss the random jazz music that erupts from pretty much any place that has more the 10 people. i’m going to miss the compliments by men that aren’t revoked when i say thank you and keep walking or inform (when asked) that i already have a man. i’m going to miss food that although in no way good for my body is amazing for my spirits. and i’m going to miss my sense of community.
its still forming but…i actually have a world here. i have friends in all the places i visit and live…but i have finally experienced a sense of community. i finally realized that it doesn’t just happen one day – that i have to be active and involved in the process.
so when i moved here in january i looked for a part-time job. i ended up with two, one paid and one volunteer. that volunteer time turned into two different volunteer opportunities – one in the office and one out in st. bernard’s parish (an area still devastated almost two years after katrina). i joined the cast of the vagina monologues. that turned into this ring of friendships that i never expected. i started french class. that introduced me to people i wouldn’t normally know but who have been funny and interesting.
thrown all together and it is a sense of community. i know where to eat, what grocery store is more expensive, what roads have the biggest potholes (ALL OF THEM). and i like it…this knowing…this sense of being apart of something…
not enough to endure another hurricane season (we had a storm a few days ago and st. charles flooded past hubcaps and i could feel the anxiety building) but still…it will be difficult to say goodbye.
i still don’t know my what next…i still don’t know where i’ll be or for how long. but i do intent to take the lessons of new orleans this go ’round…jump in with both feet and enjoy it…le bon temps roulet!
Tags: food, friends, transition
there are days and then there are days. yesterday was an event.
my friend Z was in town and for once i had activities planned. the big one being jazzfest, an enormous event here in the city.
saturday we woke up late, after going to bed really late, and began preparations for the day. i was feeling a little under the weather but figured it would pass. so we ambled out into the beautifully transformed day (it poured and flooded on friday)…came upon a deal for parking and tickets and the day was looking rosy.
our first stop was a zydeco band. as we stood there i began to feel ill…so i sat down and waited it out. later…feeling better, we headed to food – but i didn’t eat much (a true sign something was off). by the time we got to stephen marely i was truly beginning to go downhill. i went from standing, to sitting, to leaning to lying down on the grass. people passing by began to stop and offer me water and shelter from the sun.
Z finally managed to cart me through the crowd to a bathroom and then i collapsed in a heap beside it. worried, some of the festival staff called for the medical team. meanwhile i was transported a few yards away to the shade of a tent.
by this point i’m sweating profusely and shaking and really unable to care what else is happening around me. at the urging of a duo of sweet older women at a booth Z bathed my face and arms in cold water and then everyone urged me into a chair. now i was freezing. so despite the 90 degree weather they managed to find a quilt for me and wrap me up. after being fussed over by these two older women – urging me to suck on a mint, to drink some iced tea – i was truly feeling better. but of course by then the medics were there, they strapped me to the gurney and carried me to the medical tent.
there they managed to spritz me down with cold water…AFTER i told them i was freezing…and sat me in front of a cold blowing fan…AFTER i told them i as freezing. with little other attention there, and already successfully cared for by the folks at the tent (and the multitudes that stopped by to check on me while prostrate in the grass – i really do love southern friendliness) i was well enough to get up and out again.
my first thought was to go home…but feeling sturdier and the day near end anyway…i found some food to give me strength and wobbled over to the john mayer stage. he is AMAZING in concert…almost a different genre then his recorded stuff…from there it was home to ponder public displays of sickness and the company of friends.
Tags: friends, music, neworleans
despite what i thought was a rock star second interview, i did not get the hunger center fellowship.
my post-graduation search continues.
Tags: transition
ever since the imus comments and the tirades and pseudo conversations that followed, there has been serious discussion about words. more accurately, about censorship. the reasoning in these otherwise thinking individuals is that words have power.
true.
if words didn’t have power poets wouldn’t string them together to describe love and non fiction writers wouldn’t reconstruct the truth. writers give power to their words and we give them power through our understanding. that is the point.
so what about gaining power by taking words? what about censorship as an answer to the degrading references to women and the racism and dividing language that comes from all sides at all times?
the argument is compelling. people call “me” degrading things and it becomes normal and it affects me and everyone around me because we start to internalize it – it becomes normal. but here is the kicker…
if imus and gangsta rap and comedians refer to me as a “curly haired woman who has sex with a plethora of men and a real professional at fellatio” is that ok? seriously. that is what a nappy headed ho is. and yeah imus would have had to have come up with something different since that doesn’t describe the women of the rutgers basketball team but would we have all been up in arms if he had just said they were ugly. isn’t that an irrelevant and purely subjective point that was misplaced in a commentary about basketball?
but that said, are we really trying to deny is right to say it?
where does it end? who decides what words are off limits? and what venues make it ok?
i used to be a poet, a writer, a reporter. i’m still a blogger. i write because words have power…my words have power. for me the key is to make sure my ideas are powerful, my arguments strong, my words powerful in themselves and the way that i string them together.
taking away nappy or ho or even nigger won’t take away their power – in some ways by trying it makes them more powerful. there will be other words, new ones or old ones or differently arranged words that will say what people want them to say. as it should be. because words have an accessible power and i use my power often.
second guessing decision making is an american past-time. after any major event (or not so major) be it sports, politics, or planning, people after the fact always know they could do a better job.
after 9/11 bush was criticized for waiting so long to do anything – heck i joined in on the ribbing. after katrina there was enough “you should have” to go around to everyone from the local to the national level…and rightly so given that there had been warnings and research done on this very event.
but i’m hesitant to jump on the blame bandwagon for the virgina shooting. people are already shouting for some kind of action – criminal?- against the school itself for not calling or emailing students sooner. and while from where we sit now that is the obvious choice – i don’t know if i believe it was such a clear choice then.
someone on tv who was outraged kept saying that someone should have set the fire alarm…all i could think was “why?” so that everyone on campus could have run out into the quad in true panic…
i’m holding my tongue for the moment. saving judgment for more information. either way, the folks on campus will be living with this guilt – their fault or not – forever.
Tags: soapbox
Recent Comments