This semester has really been kicking my butt. I feel like I'm constantly playing catch up, and now just when I thought I had finally gotten it together MID TERMS! This translates to 2 huge midterms due in a week. I'm trying to figure out what in the hell I'm going to write my thesis about, and the other papers I have coming up. I'm so thankful that I decided to go for my masters and then the PhD because I am no where near ready for a PhD program yet. I think I'll be ready by next year. However, what I'm struggling with now is my lack of motivation combined with my procrastination. Instead of blogging I should be working on my presentation for tomorrow and the one I have coming up in about two weeks at the National Council of Black Studies Conference. I'm very excited to be presenting, and hearing all of the other presenters.

In other great news, this past Sunday I went to church. It’s an affirming church that I've been to a few times but always skipped out rather quickly. But this Sunday was different, first it was packed so I couldn't get my normal hiding seat in the back, so I sat very exposed on the aisle. While at this church I've never taken communion because I'm a slight germaphobe and they place the communion wafer in your mouth with their unwashed hands, and to be perfectly honest that kind of freaks me out. What is really beautiful is that people don't take communion by themselves they go up with their friends and family, and it just touches my heart to see all these beautiful Queer families together taking communion and feeling really accepted. So I really wanted to take communion because I haven't in a while, but my germaphobia just wouldn't let me budge. Then this week an usher says he'll go with me and gives me the push I need and it really touched me. This church also has little snacks/pot lucks and this time I went and met some nice young black lesbians and I felt good, I felt accepted. For the time that I was at church I felt like everything was going to be alright. I had hope, I felt like I could still be connected to God and a Lesbian. It was a beautiful thing, and then I got to see my future wife win the Oscar so all is well!

I probably won't be able to post until after mid terms in a week, but send me lots of positive vibes and any spare motivation.

PISSED!!!

I'm swamped with work right now so this is going to be short. But in my department there are a few constant debates the main one is on hip hop, the good the bad and the ugly, and the other is Alice Walker's the color purple. I check out of the hip hop one, but am always involved in the Alice Walker one, especially once I hear the arguments. The debate isn't about whether or not The Color Purple was good or not, but rather how Alice Walker made Black men look horrible. The men arguing against her are upset because to them Black men treating Black women so horribly is almost unheard of. To make it even worst a professor today said that he had found no proof that Black men beat their wives and rape their daughters! ............. I CAN NOT BELIEVE THAT!!

To make such a bogus statement is ridiculous. I wasn't there when the professor made the statement, but my question is has he talked to any Black women? EVER!

When are people going to open their minds and stop denying the fact that Black men do in fact cause harm to Black women.

Because you all LOOOVE when I put up pics of beautiful women, and I'm also procrastinating to the nth degree...

Introducing my new obsession Rose Rollins better known as Tasha on the L word

Grow up!

I am so sick and tired of the competition within academic settings. I don't know if it’s just me but it’s really ridiculous. This past week I have had to deal with all sorts of ridiculous petty drama, mainly because I called someone out on their homophobia and it didn't go over so well.
But back to silly competition, it’s crazy! I made a good point in class and got complemented on it and the supreme kiss ass in class couldn't handle it and got all testy. He tried to take away from my point and said he had already said that... come on! When are people going to grow up! I am too old for this bull shit; I'm not in to competing over who makes the best point in class, and who writes the better paper. I'm here trying to get the most out of this program so hopefully I can get in to a good PhD program. However, these idiots just want to fill my life with drama. Well I'm done! I'm done with people, I'm done with foolish competition, and I’m just staying focused and ignoring everyone around me. There is competition over assistantships and who can present first. I foolishly thought that in Grad School people would actually act like adults, silly me.

Thanks to all those who posted nice encouraging words , I haven't had enough time to respond, but I really appreciate it. Darkmind I'm actually taking some of your advice and I just cut someone out of my life.

My Journey thus far

One of my favorite songs from Dreamgirls is "I am Changing", I'm in love with Jennifer Hudson as it is, but when she sings this song it’s so powerful. I feel this song every part of it, I get it. I'm so reflective, I'm constantly in my head, and over the past few months I definitely hit a down spiral in my acceptance of my sexuality. The Audre Lorde quote that I have on my page really fits what I’m going through so much

"I remember how being young and black and gay and lonely felt. A lot of it was fine, feeling I had the truth and the light and the key, but a lot of it was purely hell."

When I first came out, to myself, and then to friends, I was elated! Everything just made so much sense. Then, I started to experience the hell part, the little comments, the realizing that some of the places and people that I love don't accept me, and that Hurt like hell! I can't say that I'm not still feeling that now. Me and one of my friends who I love dearly are in a weird place now because she doesn't want to talk about me. She only wants the me that she finds acceptable. Being in this weird place with her is really causing me a lot of pain. She represents so much more than just our fractured relationship, she was my spiritual support. I depended on her and now she’s made the choice to ignore a large part of me and not be there for me spiritually. A lot of the stuff that I’ve been going through has to deal with my faith. I feel like I can’t be a Christian and a Lesbian. In my head I know that’s not true, but I can’t seem to convince my heart. I’m terrified that all those people who say that I’m going to hell are right. I’m terrified of living my life a part from God. This alone has really sent me in to some bad places lately, and more than anything I’ve felt so alone. Like no one understood. Then last semester I wrote a kick ass paper on Black Lesbian Identity. In some respects I felt like a fraud writing that paper. I kept thinking I just came out, what do I know about anything. In writing that paper I was searching for something that let me know that I wasn’t crazy. That paper really helped me. I really got to work out some major issues and had hope that I wasn't completely alone in this all. It even prepared me for what was coming ahead and for that I'm truly thankful. I look at women like Jewelle Gomez, Barbara Smith, Audre Lorde, Mignon Moore, I felt like they were my family, my sisters preparing me for the difficult road ahead.

I've gone through so many different emotions, I've been beaming with pride, I've been terrified, I've wanted to go to one of those ex-gay places, I've wanted to hide, I've wanted to cry, I've cried, I've wanted to live, I've wanted to die, I've been through it all and I know its not over. I feel like I've reached an important place, I've come to realize that this is me, and it’s not going to change. Now I'm working on completely loving that. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not there yet, but I'm working on it. One of the most difficult things about being out, for me has been dealing with people’s expectations. In the beginning I was so afraid that I wasn’t really a lesbian. I knew I wasn’t straight, but I thought that I was asexual. Because I wasn’t like other lesbians, I didn’t feel a part of the queer community. I found myself going trying to fit everyone’s conception of Lesbians. As I think back on it now, I realize how little sense this all makes, but at the time that’s where I was at. I’m finally reaching the point where I’m comfortable, I know my sexuality and no one can dictate that to me. Last week I was at a party and that girl that I mentioned earlier was there (it was great we had a moment, but that’s a whole other post) Anyways one of my friends bought her boyfriend (who had previously made a side comment about homosexuality being an abomination) and the girl I’m in to, we’ll call her Lee, dresses more masculine. Later when discussing Lee with a friend who also thinks that she is hot. He asks if she likes Lee because she’s a woman and she likes women or is it because Lee dresses like a man. He then says well if I see the same thing as my friend in Lee then I’m not really a lesbian! I was so pissed when I heard he had said all this. It pissed me off that I can’t be attracted to a masculine woman without some idiot questioning my sexuality. It pissed me off because no one knows my sexuality like I do. Its mine and I’m not going to let anyone take that from me. I think that’s what’s making the difference now, I’ve reclaimed my sexuality. Its idiots like this guy, who feel like they have any say over my life, like they from the outside can tell me about what’s going on, on the inside. But I will not let him or anyone else question my sexuality. I love women and that’s it. Things are different now, when I watch logo and here people’s stories I identify with them. I feel a part now. I was listening to one guy’s story about how his mother told him to either change or get out and never speak to her again and he left. He choose to be honest with himself, and I know what that’s like, because when questioning my position with God. I thought about repenting and praying for forgiveness for my feelings but I can’t. I can’t pray that I’ll change because I have no control over this, I can’t not be a lesbian. In my mind I’m risking a lot but I don’t feel like there’s any other choice. So this is where I am. This has been my journey thus far, and I’m interested in where it’s going to go from here.

Because I'm procrastinating and Vegankid is my hero

Okay I went a whole entire week without doing anywork so I'm swamped now and am not seeing myself getting any sleep in the next 3 days. So before I buckle down and do some work please head over to VeganKid's site and check out some little known Black History facts! Black Americans as illegal immigrants

oh just in case it wasn't clear yet Vegan Kid is my new HERO!

Welcome to my mind

*Welcome to my mind with a lil stream of consciousness writing for you all hopefully you can follow it... my mind is scary place lol*

I’ve gained new words in my vocabulary. Words that I had never even thought about before are now a part of my life. Before if someone would have said the word stud to me, I would have thought of a man. Pride means something new to me, pride no longer means one of the seven deadly sins, but it’s something that I have yet to obtain. Where did my life go? Where did this life come from? What does this all mean? I find myself questioning things that I had never questioned before, but it’s necessary. I need to figure out what it means to be a woman who loves other women? Where is my femininity where is my identity as a woman? My whole entire life I had been taught that a woman is incomplete without a man, but now I find myself looking to a life that does not involve a man in my life romantically. But it does not necessarily mean that the love of my life will not be masculine. What does this all mean, if I am with a masculine woman? I must find an answer to all those who wonder why I just don’t go for a man. I know have to find the words to explain my attraction, something that came so natural to me, I had no control over. I can’t explain something that I did not create, but I just feel it. I feel it so deeply, but no one really understands that. I feel for women, I want to feel women and only women. I want to spend my life with a woman being pleased by a woman and pleasing a woman. Its so much more than sex, if it was as simple as sex things would be different. If sex was everything it would be easier but its more than sex. The erotic is more than sex, but that is not understood, that I desire I feel for women. Things change and things stay the same, essentially at the core of my being I am unchanged, but I am just finding new ways to express my essential being. I have to go through each day of my twenty two years and undo the lies, the hatred, and the pain and replace it with truth, love and healing because that is the only way to true liberation. I can not be angry for the rest of my life; I can not live my life for others. I do not wish anyone pain, but I will not suffer pain so that you can not because my life inconveniences you. I am me; I am complex, flawed and incomplete but always searching for completion. I wish I had the words to describe it, I wish words were enough but they’re not, they are incomplete they are flawed they are created by those who did not have me in mind. Words will never be enough and can never be enough, but they’ll just have to do.