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.

Damn

Okay so I'm joing the band wagon of DAAAAAAAAMN!!! Serena's arms!! Oh and Congrats on the Australia Open

I'm getting Married

I'm getting Married!!!!!!!!!



okay not really, but I'm taking applications. I've got it all figured out. Its going to be a small wedding on a beach in South Africa. All I need now is the woman....Actually This woman

the lovely Staceyann Chin
Isn't she gorgeous?! But I'm not so shallow as to only go on looks, but she's sooooooooooo smart and outspoken, and political, and passionate, she's perfect!!
Now all I have to do is meet her and make her fall madly in love with me. Not like thats hard or anything, have you met me? ... Okay most of you probably haven't but trust me I've got it going on! LOL in all seriousness Staceyann Chin is absolutely amazing! Her poems move me, she's so honest about everything she writes about, its almost too much. So if anyone is best friends with her and wants to set us up just let me know :D

books and blogs

Hi, My name is Journey Woman and I'm addicted to books and blogs.
Its Midnight and I have a bunch of reading to do for tomorrow, and I have to get up early which I HATE! What am I doing? Reading for class tomorrow? Sleeping? No I'm reading blogs, posting on my blog and contemplating which of my new books am I going to read. I get a new book in the mail and I get excited! Help!

What I'm supposed to be reading:
African Philosophy

What I want to read instead:
Fledgling
Self Organizing Men
Two Thousand Seasons
Spoils of War

I wonder which group will win the fight? okay enough procrastinating and off to do some work. I seriously recommend you pick up any of these books even African Philosophy good stuff!!

Thanks again Vegankid for the recommendation, I'm only a couple of pages in and I already love it!

I would like to write

*This is from a journal entry I decided to try and turn in to a poem, I'm not a poet but I'm trying something new*

I would like to write

something

anything

that could adequately convey my emotion.



something

anything




I am lost.


the perpetual outsider
constantly
searching
for home.

floating in space
never at home.
Never accepted.

a loveless heart
torn a part

My heart longs for my former life.
My heart aches for my God.
My heart aches for a life that I was never destined to have.

Where do you go?

Where do you go?

when you are rejected by everyone?
Where is home?
Where is safety.

the words won’t allow themselves to come out
they are caught
in my throat
in my heart,
in my eyes
begging for release.

power?
authority?
for a life that I have yet to fully accept?

stuck

I don’t know how not to be me,


Pride?
where is my pride?

one mask for another
The pain is ever present in my heart
and I have no idea of how to expel it.
I would really like to see where I made my choice?

Dear Mr. President

I know I know Pop stars=Evil but I really like this song by pink. If you check youtube you will see a lot of videos made to this song, this is one of the best.

I'M IT! I'M IT! I'M IT!!!!

WooHoo Vegankid tagged my in my very first meme WooHoooo . Okay now that the celebration is over. A love story in Six words hmmmmmmmmmm............
ok
ok
I got it
We gazed, talked, and loved deeply.

So I tag Anacoana, Jason and Diana (maybe this will force her to post!)

Southern Comfort

Today I cried, and I don't cry. I cried because I watched this documentary on logo called Southern Comfort. Southern Comfort is about a man named Robert Eades who died from cancer because he was Transgendered and no one would treat his ovarian cancer. They told him that they weren't taking any new patients; they told him that he would make their other patients uncomfortable. No one would treat him because he was a Trans man. When he first transitioned he wanted to have a hysterectomy, but they said he didn't need it and he died because of it. No one cared whether he lived or died, but he was a wonderful man. I just saw how loving and caring he was and how he cared for so many others. In the documentary he kept talking about his chosen family he showed so much love and the ones who could help him didn't. He said he was turned down by 20 doctors. 20 doctors are responsible for his death, and no one will be held accountable, and even if they were it wouldn't change anything he's still gone, he didn't get to see his grandson grow up like he wanted to, he didn't get to marry his girlfriend. All because he was Trans and I'm just so angry, I can't stand to see this happen, and the worst part is that I know that he's not alone, and he probably won't be the last Trans person to die because no one would treat him. I hate how people like to get in to little arguments and grand discussions about another person's life. They like to discuss whether or not they think that it’s okay with them to be him. And I have to admit I'm guilty of the same thing, I used to think why do you have to have the surgery, but I was wrong it’s not up to me or anyone else.
Recently there was a whole huge discussion about Trans folks on several blogs and some said some really horrible things. I just want to know where the fuck to do you get off? These so called liberals, open minded individuals who would rather see people be hurt rather than be inconvenienced. They want to argue about whether or not they should be allowed to use the same bathrooms because they would be uncomfortable with someone of the opposite gender or even non distinguishable gender be in the same bathroom with them.
I've wanted to write this post for a while especially after I saw Beautiful Daughters about an all trans woman cast of the Vagina Monologues. I love the Vagina Monologues and I love how they always manage to tell the personal stories of the women and their lives. I watched this documentary I saw all of these beautiful women and just admired and appreciated them. We need to go beyond ridiculous conversations and remember that you're not discussing an issue, you are discussing people's lives and there are real consequences for this. Brownfemipower did a great job at calling people out on their shit; I just hope that we can improve as people if this world is ever to have any hope.

a note on lust

I never thought that I'd be happy for lust. It’s really odd, growing up the good Christian girl in church they always talked about the evils of lust and when sitting around with my friends and we'd talk about the guys and how they had lusted after them. I would act like I knew exactly what they were talking about I'd co sign and add my little tid bits the whole time knowing that I had no idea what they were talking about. I would look at a guy and say oh he's really cute or ooo look at his chest, I was a great actress I knew how to fake attraction well. But, the whole time I knew in actuality I did not want to have sex with these men; I didn't even want them to touch me. However, I was very mindful of watching anything with female nudity because that was a problem. I think that the reason that I'm so prudish and that I never allowed my friends to be naked around me because I didn't want to tempt myself, but I had no problem with having pictures of half naked men around. I even remember saying to my friends, during one of our many conversations about men, I said “I don't really want to have sex with them" and I was waiting for them to be like yeah me too, but instead I got a chorus of I do's.

So this past weekend while at a party and meeting this girl who I was like WOW she's really sexy, I was happy. It was more than a desire for a girl it was the beauty of being free to be me. Now I'm not saying that I'm going to pursue this girl (I'm much to shy) but there's potential, there's space, and most importantly I'm no longer faking to fit in.

Between Ourselves

Between Ourselves
By Audre Lorde

Once When I walked into a room
my eyes would seek out the one or two black faces
for contact or reassurance or a sign
I was not alone
now walking into rooms full of Black faces
that would destroy me for any difference
where shall my eyes look?
once it was easy to know
who were my people.

If we were stripped to our strength
of all pretense
and our flesh was cut away
the sun would bleach all our bones as white
as the face of my black mother
was bleached white by gold
or Orishala
and how
does that measure me?

I do not believe
our wants have made all our lies
holy.

Under the sun on the shores of Elmina
a black man sold the woman who carried
my grandmother in her belly
he was paid with bright yellow coin
that shone in the evening sun
and in the faces of her sons and daughters.
When I see that brother behind my eyes
his irises are bloodless and without color
his tongue clicks like yellow coins
tossed up on his shore
where we share the same corner
of an alien and corrupted heaven
and whenever I try to eat
the words
of easy blackness as salvation
I taste the color
of my grandmother's first betrayal

I do not believe
our wants
have made all our lies holy.

But I do not whistle his name at the shrine of Shopona
I do not bring down the rosy juices of death upon him
nor forget Orishala
is called the god of whiteness
who works in the dark wombs of night
forming the shapes we all wear
so that even the cripples and dwarfs and albinos
are sacred worshipers
when the boiled corn is offered.

Humility lies
in the face of history
I have forgiven myself
for him
for the white meat
we all consumed in secret
before we were born
we shared the same meal
when you imaple me
upon your lances of narrow blackness
before you hear my heart speak
mourn your own borrowed blood
your own borrowed visions
Do not mistake my flesh for the enemy
do not write my name in the dust
before the shrine of the god of smallpox
for we are all children of Eshu
god of chance and the unpredictable
and we each wear many changes
inside our skin.

Armed with scars
healed
in many different colors
I look in my own faces
as Eshu's daughter crying
if we do not stop killing
the other in ourselves
the self that we hate
in others
soon we shall all lie
in the same direction
and eshidale's priests will be very busy
they who alone can bury
all those who seek their own death
by jumping up from the ground
and landing upon their heads.

For the 17 in New Delhi

I just read this disturbing story on CNN.com about Women and children who were brutally raped and killed in a poor New Delhi neighborhood. These women spoke out about how the Police ignored their reports of missing Children they told them to stop having so many children. When one woman reported her grown daughter missing they told her that her daughter had "loose character". These women did not gain any recognition until they found the remains of 17 women and children buried in a rich suburb in New Delhi.
It is ridiculous that these women had to lose thiner children before anyone would pay attention to the serial killers that were preying on them because they were poor. These killers knew that no one would believe them because they were poor, and they were able to get away with kidnapping and killing these people for at least 3 years! My question is when will our lives count? When will the lives of poor women and children be important enough to investigate when they are being attacked. If the police had seriously looked in to these cases they would have realized that there was a pattern. Instead all these self righteous classist, misogynistic police saw were women who couldn't keep their legs closed and couldn't keep track of their children. They didn't see their mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, friends and lovers who were pleading with them to help them. But these women are rising up they are fighting this neglect, they are not allowing their silence to be bought but they are speaking out, they are fighting. I just pray that their please will be heard.

VOTE

I love this video! Hanifah Walidah is really doing great things for Lesbians of Color, please go support her and vote on logo for her video. I don't know how long you have to vote but every vote helps please go and vote!

**The banner will also take you directly to where you can vote**

Music is great!

Youtube Music day!
Here are some artists that I can't get enough of lately

We have Corinne Bailey Rae, I absolutely love her music I just bought her album.



John Legend is the Man, his new album is GREAT!


I'm really feeling Alice Smith, the music isn't that clear in this clip but you should buy her album its worth every cent!



I just saw Dreamgirls and I am ABSOLUTELY in LOVE with Jennifer Hudson! This is one of the songs that she sings in the movie.



Oh and I don't know why but I love this song by Amy Winehouse

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

I wish you all a magnificent, prosperous and Blessed New Year!

I don't like making resolutions because they rarely stick, but I like the new beginning that a New Year brings, I like the thought that hey things are going to be different this time. I'm going to make a change I'm going to do something different. So in the spirit of the New Year, I plan to embrace myself more and be more true to me. I plan to continue to grow and learn and pass on my knowledge, I plan to let go of my baggage and my hang ups in this new year. Of course I could say these things any other day of the year, but I like the spirit of new beginnings that the new year brings, and I'm done with all the old silly resolutions that no one ever sticks to, but I'm all for the inner push. What are your plans for the New Year?