“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.” ~Audre Lorde
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
New Year
Happy New Year All!!
Friday, December 18, 2009
If my life were a paranormal romance novel
Monday, November 30, 2009
Bad Videos
Let's start out with Sheena Easton "The Lover in me"
She already can't dance, but she also has the weirdest expression throughout the whole video which I can only guess is the sexy face. Oh you can't forget the random girl pour water all over herself. She's wet, you get it ::Black girl Eye roll::
Then we have the Whispers "Keep on Lovin' me"
Which is more like your dad and uncles strolling around.... I really love it lol
But the creme de la creme of bad videos has to be "Ice Cream Castles" by the Time
Not only is the video bad, but the song is just as horrible. My favorite line "You are white, I am of color" sung by the Pimp lead singer to the white girls bopping around in the background. Don't forget the white girls playing patty cake in matching outfits. I wasn't sure if this was the time or Flash and the Ebony Sparks.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Pain
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Stay tuned
Monday, November 02, 2009
Book review
I didn't forget about you all or this lovely blog. Things have been crazy in my life and I'm trying to get them all figured out. I have a lot I want to blog about, especially my DC trip, but this past weekend I read to books with Black lesbian main characters and I figured what the hell I might as well review them for you all so here we go. Since you're supposed to give stars and shit when you review something I'm going to give stars(or asterisks since I don't know how to get stars on my Blog) and its out of a possible five.
The first book I read was Manjani by Freedom Speaks Diaspora. ***1/2
Coming from a Black Studies background, I really wanted to read it because it was about a Black Lesbian fighting for the revolution. So I dove in head first anxious to read about a politically aware Black Lesbian, and I have to say overall I really liked it. The story is about the coming of age of a young Black Lesbian named Manjani, now I mention that she's a lesbian, because that's what attracted me to the book in the first place however, she doesn't come out until towards the end of the book. But, sexuality is definitely an issue that is dealt with throughout the whole book. The book really speaks to how gender and sexuality fit into a Black Nationalist paradigm. I have to be honest, that when I struggled with the book a large part of it was because of the heavy Black Nationalist perspective that Manjani was a part of. My own vision of what true liberation means for us as a people and it's not exclusive to the Black community, and therefore not in line with Black Nationalism. However, that's another post for another time. Back to the story, the book carries you through the emotional, spiritual and even physical journey of Manjani as she deals with a family crisis, and tries to live out her socio-political ideals. The story is filled with tons of quintessential Black Nationalist rhetoric that is both refreshing, and entertaining. I was often annoyed by Manjani's attitude, but also loved how she dealt with the "well meaning" White racists she encounters. It highlights a lot of the short comings in Black Nationalist organizations and what happens when your idealic view of the Black community is confronted with the reality of human nature. All in all it was a good read, I felt like the book dragged through her transformation and she went really unchanged for a large portion of the book and then all of a sudden her eyes are open.
This might be due in part to the spiritual journey she is also on throughout the book. I have to be honest I find that part of the book the most riveting and exciting, but also confusing. You are thrust into her world which is completely like ours except that she sees things in the spiritual realm that most people don't. It is such an ingrained part of her life that the author doesn't really give full explanation of. In the beginning she talks a lot about second sight and her journey, but you're not sure if she's speaking literally or metaphorically. I found myself frustrated at times, but ultimately I was rooting for her and eager to see where her journey would take her. I wished that the author would have included more of a lesbian community, rather than just references to other Queer people, but her sexuality really wasn't the focus of this book. It isn't a coming out novel, but rather a coming of age novel and I appreciate the boldness that Manjani possesses and the novel as a whole.
The next book I read was She Slipped and Fell by Shonda. **1/2
I came across this book the same way I did Manjani through Sistah's on the Shelf; really the only resource out there for Black Lesbian fiction. She slipped and fell seemed like it would be a departure from much of the Black Lesbian hood lit that's out there. Which, if you like it then more power to you, I just prefer something different. Anyway, I've had this book for a few months and hadn't gotten around to it until today. I tried to start it a couple of weeks ago, but was turned off by the very first scene where one of the characters is taking a shit. I'm sorry that just grossed me out too much. That may just be my issue, but it definitely made me pause.
She slipped and fell is in short about two friends who fall in love, and try to figure out how to love each other openly. I have to be completely honest and say I absolutely did not like this book for at least the first half of it. I felt like the author was slipping into a lot of the same tired descriptions and notions of beauty concerning the characters. *side rant* I'm so sick and tired of authors having to make one of the characters have light eyes, skin or hair in order to make them extra special and beautiful. My family is filled with people of varying shades of hair, skin and eyes and it adds to their beauty in the same way that anyone else's hair, skin and eyes do. It doesn't make them extra special, and they shouldn't be exoticized because of it! Ok rant over. Back to the story the two main characters Tina and Kendall were refreshing in that they were middle class Black girls, not extra rich and not struggling through the drug game. They were both good students with goals and little to stand in their way. They fall in love and that predictable throws their worlds for a loop, but for me the most interesting part of the book was seeing who they became as adults and how they handled the decisions the made and the tragedies they were dealt. It was a nice coming out story in that you got to see the whole spectrum of coming out, acceptance of self, acceptance by your family and also dealing with being openly gay in the world. I was troubled with the book in that I felt like the author invalidated butch identity, by inferring that because the two main characters were both femme, they were some how not like those Lesbians, and she also played into a lot of the stereotypes surrounding Butch women.
Their emotional maturity that they showed towards the end of the book made the beginning more bearable and even worth it. I found myself going aww at the end instead of throwing the book. I definitely recommend reading it; however don't expect any profound revelations or your world to be changed. It is a nice book to just sit, read and maybe even commune with a story that may or may not have resonated with your own coming out story.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Freaks and masks
But, later when I was walking back to my hotel, all of these thoughts came to my mind, about where I'm at in my life. Where I wanna be, how I'm sick of being single, sick of being a virgin. I was thinking about how much I've changed since High School, and I still feel insecure about it all. I still feel like a freak 90% of the time. So I get back to my hotel and I start to look at my books that I bought, and I stopped at Lambda Rising and bought the 2nd edition of Does Your Mama Know? Which when I was first coming out was my life saver. I clung to it like it was the last bit of air on earth. So I was looking at some of the new stories and I stopped at Olive Demetrius', and you all know I love me some UPeople lol. And I identified so much with her story I felt so much better, instantly. It was the same feeling that I got when I was in KY watching UPeople, or reading the first edition of the book. Even though I've come a long way, there are still times where I fear that my world is going to come crashing down, because I'm gay, where I fear for everythiing and I think that I'm truly a freak because, no one else seems to have the same issues that I'm having. That's why these stories are so important because even though you can be surrounded by a million people you can still be lonely, and these stories help me feel a little less lonely.
WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Let's connect!
Our lives and experiences are real and important and making connections with one another in real life can't compare to the best of online conversations. Oddly enough Bruce Willis' new movie surrogates reminded me of that. It got me thinking would I want some robot out there living my life for me? The answer is a clear no there is just something about being out there and living life for real that can't be beat. Especially when it comes to activism its important for us to have an online pressence as well as a physical one. So this weekend I'll be in DC marching for equality, cold and all. So if you're gonna be there too and want to meet up let me know, because I'm heading down there by myself. I'll see you there.
Friday, October 02, 2009
My greatest addiction
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Pursuing my dreams
I'm nervous for several reasons, the main one is that I've never had any type of training, I've never even taken a creative writing class. I feel almost like a fraud an imposter trying to enter into a circle where people have worked long and hard for years and hear I am saying yes I want to be one of you. But, I realized that I feel better when I write. Even now this free flow of ideas and thoughts feels good, it releases some of the pressure from all the other bull shit I have deal with every day. Tonight I've been feeling very creative and in the zone. I got 3 pages out on my novel and more that were just random notes. So hear goes nothing I'm throwing my hat into the ring let's see how this all turns out.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
silent
So I said nothing, swallowed the bile that was rising smiled, called her by he nickname and watched her walk out the door back to him. I watch her sit proudly next to him as if half of her beautiful face wasn’t marred with bruises. As if she wasn’t hiding two knife cuts underneath her clothes. She told her daughter she fought for the first 2 rounds but not the last one, because she took a hard hit. As I hear her daughter re tell this story I can’t help but wonder if she’ll leave him before that final too hard hit comes. But, I’m silent, because I’m helpless in this situation. I can’t make her see the beauty we all see, I can’t make her realize he’s scum and isn’t worthy of him. I can’t’ make her tell the truth to the police instead of lie to cover up for him. I can't make her see that if she doesn't leave him he'll kill her before AIDS will. So I’m silent and its killing me, watching him slowly kill her.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Internet intimacy
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Damsel
(start at about 4 mins in)
I've been obsessed with Crystal Monee Hall since I saw her at Rivers of Honey a couple of weeks ago. She's amazing and has this song called Damsel which I've been listening to non stop on youtube (since that's the only place I can find it). In her song she tells this woman, that she can love her, show her love and asks her to open her self to her she'll save her. I love everything about this song, her voice, her words and just the groove of it. I would absolutely melt if a woman ever sang this song to me, and I have to admit that the idea of being the Damsel is appealing. How often do we get the opportunity to just be and have someone say don't worry I got you? Now of course, I don't want this all the time 24/7 I want my own agency, but wouldn't it be nice just for a little bit to be able to sit back and just be, and have someone say they're gonna take your distress. Especially as QWOC who in the hell is really offering that?
I guess what really appeals to me about this song goes beyond my own aspirations to have someone save me on some level, but it rekindled the idea that I can still have my own version of a fairy tale. But, My prince doesn't have to be a blond white boy but, a thick beautiful Black Princess with locs and an amazing voice. Oh the possibilities!
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Stations
Stations
by Audre Lorde
Some women love to wait for life
for a ring in the June light
for a touch of the sun to heal them
for another woman's voice
to make them whole
to untie their hands
put words in their mouths
form to the passages
sound to their screams
for some other sleeper to remember
their future
their past.
Some women wait for their right train
in the wrong station
in the alleys of morning
for the noon to holler
the night come down.
Some women wait for love
to rise up
the child of their promise
to gather from earth
what they do not plant
to claim pain for labor
to become
the tip of an arrow
to aim at the heart of now
but it never stays.
Some women wait for visions
that do not return
where they were not welcomed
naked
for invitations to places
they always wanted to visit
to be repeated.
Some women wait for themselves
around the next corner
and call the empty spot peace
but the opposite of living
is only not living
and the stars do not care.
Some women wait for something to change
and nothing does change
so they change
Me
I'm also not one of those extra granola dykes. I care about the environment and what's going on with the earth, but I also like my degree deodorant. If that makes me a hypocrite then so be it. I'm a meat eater and I'm not gonna change that, I even, gasp, eat pork! I know scandalous right? I also like to get drunk every now and then. I reserve the right to be all of this and so much more and I'm not changing any time soon, and if I change it will be my choice and not because I felt pressured.
Yes I'm 25 years old and still a virgin, no I'm not happy about it, but I'm not ashamed either. I'm also not a puppy to be put on display as the 25 yr old virgin. I've also been out for 3 years and haven't been in a relationship with a woman or even kissed a woman, and it has nothing to do with me being unsure about my sexuality. Sure I wish things were different, but they're not. This is my life, these are my experiences. I guess this is all apart of reclaiming me, because this is who I am and I'm tired of feeling bad for it. Hopefully this won't mean that I'm single for the next 30 years, but you know what if changing who I am is what it takes to find someone fuck it! I'll be single.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Crystal Monee Hall
Amazing right?! She says she has an album coming out in 2010, and all I know is that my ass is going to be first in line to get it.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Energy
This post probably doesn't make much sense, but I'm definitely writing very stream of consciousness right now, so bare with me. I've been trying to get all of my thoughts out. This is my latest mission, because I find when I hold too much in, it gets to be too much. So I'm releasing all my hopes, dreams, fears and nightmares and hoping that with this release I'll gain some peace. I've even started journaling in an effort to really get it all out. I even bought a nice new journal from Barnes and Noble that is supposed to be eco friendly, fair trade and made by a women's co op in Nepal.
I really feel like it's inspiring me to write more. Anyway I think that I've definitely verbally vomited enough on this blog for tonight.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
From Staceyann Chin
Many of you have already heard about our film, Baby Makes me. For you, this is an update. But for the folks who have not heard Tiona and I are making a documentary together.
For years, I have wanted to become a mother. But the timing has never been quite right. Either my partners weren’t ready, or I was scared, or I couldn’t find a donor or something. There was always something. By the time I rolled into 35, I was tired of being afraid, tired of waiting for the right woman with whom it would be the right time, tired of watching every Christmas roll over another Birthday, tired of watching my peers get knocked up and months later appear with the most amazing little bundle of potential—I was tired of waiting and ready to make the leap, and I was ready to make it alone.
I began the research with great heart—only to discover that there were little no resources for women who either wanted to, or had to embark on the journey of motherhood in the solo. There were one or two essays and a few books on artificial insemination, and some were even directed at lesbians—but most, if not all assumed that the mother would be operating from inside of a partnership, be that partnership heterosexual or homosexual.
The idea for the film came out of a conversation with Tiona to film the pregnancy/labor, assuming that there would be one—because no one, least of all me, knows if my body will cooperate in doing such a thing as conceiving. I envisioned Tiona asking a couple of heartfelt questions and spinning the light to create a high-end home-movie I could show my child at eighteen. She agreed and we began to flesh out some ideas. That conversation, coupled with the lack of resource material out there spurred the project now known as Baby Makes Me.
Baby Makes Me, a feature-length documentary, will explore the challenges and triumphs of Single Motherhood, particularly in the lives of women of color, lesbians and women who make a conscious choice to be mothers in the absence of intimate/romantic partnerships with men.
The film will use as its narrative skeleton, the journey of activist/writer/performer, Staceyann Chin, as she navigates her personal choices with reference to motherhood. Author of the memoir, The Other Side of Paradise, Chin now brings her talents to the medium of film as writer and Executive Producer.
The Director, Tiona McClodden, is a champion of promoting positive images of women in media. Her last film, “Black./womyn.:conversations…”, garnered much respect in both accolades and awards. She now brings her attention to the issue of women and motherhood.
It is our intent to interview a series of women from all the demographic cross-sections. Issues of financial, ethical, medical, cultural, and political relevance will be fore-grounded. We hope that clinics, hospitals, families, children of Black lesbians, straight Black women who want children, mothers of gay women who lament the loss of grandchildren when they discover their daughters are gay, and anybody who seeks to have a clearer picture of the family that includes gay women will see that our lives go on, that women who are single, be they lesbian, or Black or poor, can and do have babies, and that we are simply another group of people who live and laugh and grow. We hope to paint the subjects in the film as human and likable characters who, though they are dealing with slightly different challenges than the women we traditionally see as mothers, are not very different from any other group of people considering parenthood.
We are going to need all the help we can get. We need help in reaching out to folks who would like to be interviewed; other single mothers, women who have been inseminated, women who are thinking about it, women who work in the medical field, women who work in the administrative world of policy etc. We are on the hunt for the all the voices that could represent our story in the film.
We have recently been awarded a grant from ASTREA Lesbian Foundation for Justice and are set to move forward. We write to you now, in the hope that you will want to be involved in this groundbreaking project in whatever capacity you choose: we need space to host fundraisers and screening and other events connected to the film. We need people to fundraise, to promote the film, to host community talks, to suggest topics for discussion in the film—we need to secure additional investors, we need the help of people who are experts in the business of making films, and we need the counter-perspective of people who have never made a film. We are hoping to make this a community effort; from start to finish we want the ideas to be representative of the various factions in our diverse village of the women who mother our children. If you are sure you are unable to do any of the above, we only ask that you make room for our fliers, questionnaires, invitations, and other promotional materials for the film.
We would be honored if you would join us as we attempt to break more ceilings, level more walls to make room those of us who are too frequently left out of the history and imagination of the world we live in. We look forward to a spirited journey with you, from the opening shot to the ending credits—complete with your name listed among the most stalwart of our supporters.
Thanks again to the women who have already offered assistance. We look forward to your being a part of our process.
Staceyann Chin
Executive Producer/Writer, “Baby Makes Me”
Tiona McClodden
Director/Producer, “Baby Makes Me”
Please send all inquiries and requests to: babymakesme@gmail.com
*I love Staceyann Chin! Is it bad I considered having a baby so I could meet her? Yeah, you're right, too much lol*
Friday, August 14, 2009
Crazy
I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place.
Even your emotions had an echo
In so much space
And when you're out there
Without care,
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Possibly [radio version]
probably [album version]
And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that's my only advice
Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are,
Ha ha ha bless your soul
You really think you're in control
Well, I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
Just like me
My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them
Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it's no coincidence I've come
And I can die when I'm done
Maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably
Uh, uh
“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.” ~Audre Lorde






