My first Vlog!!! Yay!!! It's a little primative, I know. But this is the first of what will be short, 30sec (+/-) clips of me on the move, doing what I do: the travel, activism, shopping, partying and socializing, etc. Hopefully I'll get better with it as time goes on, in the meantime tell me what you think.
I think there's a certain rhythm that accompanies the general movements of the universe. I'm sure there exists some kind of algorithm or equation that can give us an answer. In any event, when we go faster or slower than that universal rhythm things may come a little undone. Between the flu last week, and the speed I was going at the week before I think I out paced the universe and then fell behind. But things are coming on track and I'm finding my rhythm again...which included makes blogging a regular part of the my existence.
This weekend was relatively slow. I spent a great portion of it with my ex, String Bean (SB). Friday night the ultimate plan was to continue my absence from the DC scene and stay in. But, as only he could, SB pulled me out of the house and we went for a midnight walk to Anne's, a local diner that stays open late on the weekends. We ate and drank, kikied mostly and then eventually I crashed at home while SB took the late train back to north east.
I woke up Saturday morning and remembered that I'd promised my gay mother that we'd spend some time together, and I felt in my very soul that I need a new pair of black shoes. We ventured out to Tyson's corner to visit the Neiman Marcus and Saks. Luckily, my sister Quincy was working at Neiman's and I came across a beautiful new loafer, albeit outside my original budget. I thought about it, checked Saks and decided to gather my coins measly non-profit coins and purchase (re: invest in) these new shoes.
Those are my beautiful new pumps (with a bowtie and my Comme De Garcon wallet on my messy bed), and I'm considering them a personal treat for myself.I took them to the cobbler's today to have heel and toe plates add
Even though Saturday was Halloween I had no intentions of dressing up (more than I usually do) so Quincy and I decided in the evening that we'd go to the local strip join, grab a few drinks and celebrate Halloween among the things that really go bump in the night. We had a blast as you can probably tell here. It was chill and grimy, and the drinks got me together...I couldn't have imagined a better place to spend the night.
After time moved back and we headed home, SB keyed into my apartment while I was in the middle of conjuring left overs. We stayed up for a little bit and he ended up crashing on the couch after getting out of his costume.
We woke up to a dim Sunday morning. We dressed, both of us in all black and headed out for brunch. It was disgusting the amount of food we ate: steak, eggs, fries and french toast. I'm sick just looking at it now...but it was sssoooooo good.
We spent the rest of the evening watching "Unsung" on TVOne like two old fat black ladies. After SB left, I got some work done. I had busy week ahead of me.
I'm learning to pace myself though...not go to crazy and end up in the sick bed again. But also not to get lazy and let my work and my goals slip out of reach.
Monday, I testified in front of the DC City Council in support of the new marriage equality bill that they're working on passing. That's me all suited up to testify:
I'm working on a preparing a major grant proposal to the foundation of a billion dollar company. The grant award could be in the 100's of thousands, so the pressure is on. I'm launching the new HBCU program website this week, and moving students to write letters to the representatives in support of the Employment Non Discrimination Act. On top of it all, I'm traveling to Greensboro on Thursday to meet the new student leaders at Bennett College and to keynote a training at NC A&T. This doesn't include my promotional duties. Let's just say it's a busy week...
There's a lot of work to be done, and at this point I'm not getting much "play"...I'm afraid I'm becoming a work obsessed stiff. But, I'm just going to focus on finding that rhythm and hope that things I want eventually find me. _______________________________________________________ Song du jour: Yello feat. Dame Shirley Bassey- The Rhythm Divine
Excuse me here, I may be a little rusty. I know some of you may be asking, "A rough week, what about a rough 3 months?" I know, I've been missing for a minute. I honestly haven't felt like writing until about now. But, I think one of the continuing narratives of this blog is that anytime I have a difficulty it is one of the few places that I can come running back to and let it all out.
I didn't total forget the blog...I wrote this little excerpt when the leaves started to turn:
Summer was scarcely over-- in fact-- we had barely broached September. The leaves had already begun to turn and the first of them littered the city's sidewalks. Fall had arrived like some grim, dark horse driven chariot across the topaz colored cobble stone roads of the sky. Dark, billowy, grey clouds stood like Southern sentinels, obscuring the sun and heat of the weeks before. There was an eerie silence, one that always seemed to accompany the season of dying. It was as if a woolen blanket had descended across the rooftops and main fairways.
...a literary sputter, as it were. It was all I could get out.
After this week though, I had the urge to write. It could have been the 103 degree fever, the absence of a very special item (the Movado watch my father bought for me a few years back that I can't seem to find), or the news of significant damage to my knees that I've been walking around with for years. In fact, it could've been the stress with both jobs, the flooding in my apartment or the absolute confusion that ensued when I logged into my London School of Econ. admissions profile. Something that happened over the last few days has propelled me back to the blogosphere and I'm not sure if I'm happy about it. I'm not sure why I left to begin with.
Whatever the reasons were, those that brought me back and those that exiled me to begin with, I'm here again. Aside from the issues listed above,this summary should be an adequate transition to the now: I work a lot, I sleep very little, I am dating no one and I still love to shop.
Some things never change, and some things simply stay the same...it's been a rough week. __________________________________________________________________ Song du jour: La Roux- Bullproof (Acoustic)
In the interest of time, I'll make this brief: I won't waste your time like you have mine. There will be no more waiting, absence, or the inevitable excuses that follow. I am extraordinarily grateful for the lessons each of you have taught me, however-- at this time-- I must graciously and humbly take my leave. Without venom or vitriol, I bid you the best of luck, god-speed and happy days. Maybe, we'll see each other around. In fact, I'm sure of it...
In the interest of time, you've made this brief: too busy to return a message, or remember a date. Thinking it more important to gallivant elsewhere, you didn't even bother to send a note. You've found it easier to make it to the club than be by my side. Your priorities, I'm sure of it...all in the interest of time.
In the interest of time, we should've made this brief: a quick and torrid midnight tryst, something efficient and satisfying and simple. Instead for appearances, I can only assume, we pretended that it would be more. Let's think of it this way, we're both to busy, and work piles up, and class runs late, and hangovers are awful, and transportation doesn't always come when it should...over, and over again. That's why this didn't work...I'm sure of it...
So...in the interest of time, I'll make this brief: Goodbye... _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Song du jour: "Lovers for a Day (Les amants d'un jour)- Edith Piaf
On a night when he would normally find himself about the city’s crowds, at a posh lounge or steamy dark club he held close to home. He was anchored, imprisoned almost, by the inescapable memories of a lost romance. He had barely eaten all day…he languished between work and utter blankness. The nights before he busied himself with parties and spirits, but it was as if the entire city had conspired to drive him mad. Small things kept going wrong and he felt himself becoming angry, bitter and distant. Perhaps it was best he stayed in tonight…
He dimmed the lights in his lair, the small English basement studio apartment huddle neatly along a street lined with classic DC row-houses. He emptied the last drop of wine from a big glass bottle...the cheaper wine, the larger the bottle. Reaching above the refrigerator, he pulled down a roll of aluminum foil and began to pack his hookah with the fragrant, sticky French vanilla flavored tobacco. The routine was well known…line the bowl with the foil and delicately poke the holes so the sweet smoke could be drawn in the water below. And, as he went step by step, ritualistically preparing the hookah a feeling came over him.
Maybe it was the darkness of the apartment, or maybe the wine had begun to go to his head. It was probably the very memories that kept him at home. His body shook with a desire so strong that the walls of his apartment seemed to buckle beneath it. His temperature rose as if a glowing ember that laid dormant inside was lit once more into a terrible blaze. He licked his lips and then drew the bottom one into his mouth underneath his canine. He drew the slightest amount of blood, a crimson sphere that leaked onto his tongue. The room sweltered and by what seemed like some unnatural force his clothes were left strewn across the living room floor.
There he was…bare, ablaze and alone. He worked now to quench this fiendish flame; he had to put out this fire or it would that final thing to propel him into madness. His skin tingled with sensation, he could hear drops of water from the bathroom faucet and he felt every hair moved by the fan’s cool breeze. It was all so awakening, so profound, so prurient and wanton he felt very passion of the moment would pick him up from his settee and send him levitating above the moonlit city.
Without warning an actually blaze had started right next to him. In the heat the moment he’d kicked over the lit hookah onto the carpet. Not wanting to stop he tried quickly to snap out of it, there was a real fire that need to be put out. He ran to the kitchen to grab a towel and a bowl water. He quickly doused the flames and then smoother the burned patch of carpet with the towel. The floor steamed and sizzled…the moment was lost and the acrid smoke that filled the apartment would ensure that it was gone for good.
As he looked at the mess he’d made he blamed it on the one in memories. “It’s their entire fault,” he murmured to himself. The mishaps of the weekend, his cantankerous mood and now this; he hadn’t been able to shake them. That’s kind of love it was. Like plunging into liquid oxygen, he drowned in it before he was able to breathe…more dangerous than the cigarettes he no longer smoked, he resigned himself to the same slow, agonizing and certain death that he would face at their hands.
[Here you can find the first and second parts of "Downtown Kid". I have stopped trying to create a cohesive narrative...I'm just using the theme as a creative outlet. The stories...for the most part...are fictional. LOL]
I've always felt a strong attraction to Queen Elizabeth I. I remember coming across Cate Blanchett's riveting performance in the movie Elizabeth many years ago while home in the Bahamas. I watched closely as she proclaim "There will be one mistress, and no master!" She was strong, stalwart, and became cold as marble for her people, her empire and her own survival. She was married to them! While some artistic and dramatic license was taken in both the first and second movie, the history speaks for itself. Elizabeth Tudor never married and crushed every attempt by her all-male council and Parliament to force her to do so.
Over the last few weeks, I've been feeling a growing attachment to the narrative of Elizabeth, both the history and the mythology of who she was. I can relate to it as I've wondered whether to seriously jump back into the dating pool. A particularly Aquarian trait has begun to rare its head. We tend become "disappointed emotionally because [our]own high personal ideals cause [us] to demand more of others than is reasonable." That coupled with the Elizabethan fear of a loss of control and unwanted "foreign" influences in the governing of my day to day life has made the idea of a serious relationship less than desirable.
I can't say that I've been hurt by anyone in the last few weeks, but there is a cloud of disappointment that has lingered when it comes to dating recently. Promises not being held, appearances not being made, a general lack of consistency has pervaded my experiences. That an the fact that no one seems qualified: not educated enough or no curiosity about things that are different and new, no exceptional style or presence, nothing interesting, new or different. Maybe my expectations are unreasonable, or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough or not looking at all. Whatever it is, to say the pickings have been slim would be an understatement.
Concerning the Elizabethan view on marriage, of control and external influence, I have this to say: I have a lot going on. My day job is demanding, to begin with. I foresee over the next few weeks keeping late hours in the office and very stressful days at the end of which I probably won't be in the mood to talk or relate. I have the night job now which requires me to be out constantly either working at parties or trying my best to be the life of them. I am doing things that I love- that I truly enjoy- and I wonder how a serious relationship would affect my life as it is now. I don't want some one marching in demanding my time, or for me to slow down. I'm doing things that I find an immense amount of worth in and I don't want anyone controlling that or giving their opinion on it.
Elizabeth become politically adept at using courtship as a tool of strategy and governance. "Elizabeth kept the marriage question open but often only as a diplomatic ploy." I've been quoted as saying that between the activist work and my promotional endeavors, flirting has become an essential part of the job description. I have no issue with that, it's the nature of the beast. Once seriously tied down, my eligibility can no longer be used as an instrument of my success. I'm not sure that at this time if that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
All of this comes into even greater focus as I reflect on the move to London and that I have no desire to sustain a pan-Atlantic relationship or move someone with me at this point in my life...
I would argue that thought canonized as the "Virgin Queen," Elizabeth was not a virgin (lol). In fact, historians believe she courted three or four suitors seriously over the course of her life time, one in particular that was featured in the first movie. Still though, through her reign and the writing of history, the power of her empire and her various successes, she has become and icon and goddess through what seemed to be her unaffected and unblemished person. She was an anointed ruler who could not be touched by mere men.
I am no virgin either, but I for the time being I seem to be finding my own power, my own control in my singleness. Of course, I do miss the things a relationship might bring...especially the physical things. However, I'm questioning if that is worth giving up the power I've discovered. Besides, do you really need a relationship to experience the physical things that come with it? Even though I haven't been, I'm not so sure that you do. What you do need is someone that understands that the physical doesn't necessarily beget the emotional.
So not to "jock" on Lizzy's rep...but I'm proposing a new narrative for the "Virgin Queen". Someone who- perhaps- is not afraid to find power in their singleness. Who, shirking the influence and control of another, is busy with the work of getting their house in order; who for the time being is married to themselves and the things they find worthwhile. And, maybe that's where I'm at...the "Virgin Queen"!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________ Song du jour: "Successful" Drake feat. Trey Songz & Lil Wayne
I'm back! I can't say that I'm rested, or that the trip was "relaxing" but it was a much needed break from the everyday hustle and bustle of city living. And, luckily for me, it wasn't as crazy as my last trip home. Mostly quiet and uneventful, I spent lots of time with my fam especially my dad and nephew, with my friends and the Bahama Mama's crew (my favorite little bar in Port Lucaya) and watching movies. I snapped a few pictures, not many though. I'm sure there will be more as people post pics of me on Facebook. In the meantime...here they are, and a few words to go with them....
That's the little rascal himself, my little nephew Colon. We spent a lot of time together this trip, chasing after each other, watching Sesame Street and arguing. He's turning two next week and he's such a special and loving child. He already has his own little personality. He's bold, smart, excitable, easily frustrated and he doesn't mind pushing the boundaries. I'm deeply in love...
This is Felisha, one of my oldest and dearest friends. We've know each other since elementary school and she was my prom date. She's stuck by me even though I have "bad ways", typical Aquarian shit: I don't call, don't write...but the love is all there.
Mummy did a small dinner for me to celebrate my acceptance to the London School of Econ and PolSci for graduate school. She cooked Ox tails, seared grouper steaks, conch and rice, potato salad, cole slaw and she made fresh guava and coconut gelatoes. We had a few family and friends join us. The Glinton Sister (Meryl and Maurisa) came through and so did Ant (whose bday is was and Maurisa's bf). People ate until they couldn't move...
There's mummy and daddy arguing over the gelato...and that's my mom's little cafe on one of the main shopping areas in the Freeport.
The last night I was in Freeport, there were thunderstorms that pretty much kept me from going out. I couldn't sleep and ended up, driving to the beach to watch the sunrise.
There was still a bit of wind from the storms the night before, and the water was choppy and dark. I got there just as the East was lighting up, and the sun began to burn away the morning clouds. The purple flower on the beach against the white sand back drop caught my eye, and I saw a small sand crab rushing toward the water, trying to beat the morning sun. I've always had an obsession with sea-foam as well. Ever since I read the story of Aphrodite rising from the foam at the hands of Poseidon, I've always thought it to be magical. The beach I was on was so different when I lived in Freeport. Various storms have torn it apart and yet it's still so beautiful.
It took me 8 hours and 3 flights to get back to DC. I hopped off the plane, dropped my bags off, and head to our new party, Crash Sundays @ Efn Lounge. Before, I could put my feet to the ground properly, I was back on the grind.
Hmmmm....I think this post sums up my trip nicely. A picture of home...
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Song du jour: "Best I Ever Had"- Drake
Posts
