147. YES!

I knew it was coming. Oh I knew it =).

146. Black Girl Drama, Part 2

Sesame Street understands where I'm coming from =):



How cool is that?

Some undergrad with too much time on their hands should go ahead and mash this up with Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair". I'd bang that joint.

145. Ignorance and Bliss

As I was winding the day down and thinking of treating myself to some McDonald's french fries (we'll pretend they're not cooked in beef fat), I had the misfortune of coming across this. One of the homies shared an article on Facebook about an artist who's been photographing a McDonald's Happy Meal, waiting for it to decompose.  Six months and still nothing.

I knew McDonald's was no good for my insides, but I didn't really  need photographic proof.  What kind of potato never decomposes?  I mean seriously.  I watched a series on PBS about healthy eating where the lecturer said that you should never eat anything that won't eventually rot.  If it doesn't break down on the shelf, it won't break down properly in your body (so the thinking went).  Makes sense to me.  I've been gradually cutting out preservatives and partially hydrogenated otherness from my food for a while now.

But dang it!  Why'd they have to go and ruin McDonald's fries for me?  Stupid internet =(.

144. Abort This.

I was getting ready to do a post on my new veggie lifestyle when I decided to peruse my blogroll before I started writing.  I was two-thirds of the way through when I came across a Slate post on feminism.  The teaser said "Nora Ephron Defines Feminism in a Single Sentence."  How could I not click on that?  And so I did.  The piece actually includes short essays from five different women.  I never got past the second one.
From Ms. Ephron:

I know that I'm supposed to write 500 words on this subject, but it seems much simpler: You can't call yourself a feminist if you don't believe in the right to abortion.

And that was the end of my veggie post. 

My problem with this statement isn't that it defines me out of feminism (which it does).  It's that it purports to have the single best interest of women at heart and to have exclusive access to the right principle by which one determines that interest.  By this logic, if I understand it, the way to get to women's best interests is to start by securing their right to abortion.  That's the entryway.  As if abortion is the Jesus-figure of women's rights, and you can't get to the Promised Land without it.

That's wrong for the same reason that an immoderate belief in a "right" to abortion is wrong  It is not a rationally defensible argument.  Define feminism however you want.  But don't tie it to a person's position on an issue on which perfectly reasonable and compassionate people can have opposing opinions.  If the only arguments against abortion were religious ones, then okay.  Non-religious people might think the rest of us were ridiculous.  But there are other, perfectly secular reasons to reject the pro-choice argument.  Here are three:

One. The argument that it's a woman's body, and that she can do whatever she wants with it, is just factually inaccurate.  It's not her body.  It's someone else's body, inside of her body.  It's not her brain, it's not her heart, it's not her kidney's that will either be allowed to develop, or sucked out and thrown away.  We're not talking about a woman's right to cut off her own hand, or shred her own appendix.  And if we were talking about that, how many women would be as quick to do to their own limbs and organs whatever is done to a fetus when it is aborted?  Let us please distinguish between a woman's own body and the body of a child whose pain she may or may not feel.  There is a difference.

Two. Just because it's inside you doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with it.  Even if we concede that the unborn child is a physical being distinct from it's mother, there's still the argument that a woman has a right to decide what takes place inside her own body.  This is also (mostly) false for the same reason that we don't have an unlimited right to do what we want to people in our own homes.

For instance, you couldn't legally send out an open invite to a party, have someone you hadn't expected show up, and then panic and shoot them in the head. They broke no law, they weren't trespassing, they didn't force their way in.  You invited them, the way a person who has consensual sex without birth control invites a kid to be conceived.  Whether or not you desired for them to come is beside the point; you put out the invite and opened the door.  Their presence is your own doing.  You ought not be able to extinguish their existence for your own convenience.

Three. An unborn child is alive.  We can argue about what it means that it can't live on it's own outside the womb.  But at least we can all agree that the little thing taking up food, space, and oxygen in it's mother's womb is alive.  And reasonable people get to disagree on whether or not it's okay to kill living things.  Honestly, if rational, compassionate people can be vegetarians, it has to be okay for them to be anti-abortion.  It doesn't mean that they're putting the interests of the child above those of the mother.  It just means that they think the child's life deserves some consideration, that it has some value, whatever that may be.

Does all of this mean that abortion should be illegal?  From a religious standpoint, the answer is obviously Yes.  From a political one, not so much.  I don't have the heart or the religious conviction to tell rape and incest victims that they have to carry their abusers' children to term.  I also know that curious 14 year-olds make stupid mistakes and that it might be easier if they had a way out of them.  However, none of this means that abortion is a "right."  It only means that sometimes there are compelling reasons to do things we wish we never had to do. 

For those of us who don't fall into either of those groups, those of us who just thought it felt better without a condom, there really isn't a great grown-up defense for abortion.  We know where babies come from.  We know how not to get pregnant when we don't want to be pregnant.  But we're human, and sometimes we cross our fingers and try to get away with things.  When we get caught, we ought to be mature enough to acknowledge that our circumstances, inconvenient as they are, are of our own making.  We ought to be able to admit that it's not necessarily all about us anymore.  And if we decide to have an abortion, we ought at least to be willing to contend with the reality and the value of the life that we're ending, and not imagine and insist that it was nothing.

This is not a backward argument for a woman to make.  It is a perfectly reasonable argument for a woman who loves and respects and believes in women to make.  It is the argument of a woman who believes in the fierce intelligence and integrity of women, and who trusts them to exercise their sexual responsibilities as readily as they exercise their sexual rights.  It is a feminist argument.
 

143. The Basics: Flats

I don't have all the details yet, but there's been some serious deal-making going on in the world of women's shoes.  As best as I can tell, at some point in the last 2-3 years a meeting was held.  A bunch of women got together with American shoemakers and they all agreed that women under 40 would wear boots, and only boots, from fall thru spring for the foreseeable future.

I'll skip the part about me not being invited to the meeting.  That's beside the point.  The point is, WTF?  I was in DSW the other day looking for a pair of jazzy black flats, and what I found was 4 entire rows (which I'm estimating were roughly 120 pairs) of black and brown, leather and vinyl, ankle, calf, and knee-length women's boots.  Who needs that many effing boots?!

Can I get some oxfords?  Or maybe a pointy-toe leather flat?  Anything that's not a ballet flat or a boot?  (Sad face.)  Not all of us are rocking the skinny jeans and boots look.  Some of us still wanna wear our regular pants.  And we'd like to have shoes to go with them.  Cute, comfortable (enough), affordable fall shoes to wear with our extensive collections of unskinny jeans and fabulous wool trousers, which by the way do not go with leather boots. 

Boooooo to you all.

142. Mix-n-Match

 This is another element of style I really struggle with.  First of all, this chic is fabulous.  You may disagree, and I wouldn't argue with you.  But for yours truly, she is the epitome of casual, comfortable, I-Could-Get-Dressed-In-The-Dark-And-Somehow-I-Would-Still-Be-Fly style. 

Maybe she just came from yoga class.  Or maybe she's headed to lunch with one of her equally and effortlessly fabulous friends.  The look works either way.  Right down the fully functional bag, handmade scarf (you can see the little tails on the ends), and semi-messy, pulled-back curly hair.

But those aren't the hard parts.  The "hard" part is the jacket.  She's wearing a brown jacket over black pants and a cream top.  With a black bag and a grey scarf.  I would never have done that.  Because in my world the jacket, bag, belt, and shoes should all be the same color.  Black and brown do not co-mingle.  But they obviously should.

(Photograph copyright The Sartorialist 2010)

141. Black Girl Drama

 If there's a more integral and stressful part of a little black girl's identity than her hair, I don't know what it is. Hair care should be added to the list of lessons black girls get when they hit puberty.  By third grade I was wishing my mother would let me do my own hair. I was out of college before I actually figured out how.

For the first ten years of my life, my mother would wash my hair in the large sink in the basement. Then we'd spend the next hour combing it out and blow-drying it. Back then my hair was probably 24 inches long and I was tender-headed as all hell, so this was not my favorite process.  When it was over I was left with what my uncles called my "lion's mane."  I don't remember that I hated having it done, but I certainly never liked it.

In 6th grade my friend's mother told my mother that she got her hair pressed and that it made it much easier to manage. For the next 3 years I was faithful to the hot comb. Changed my life.  My mom would drop me off at the beauty shop on Saturday mornings and I'd wait my turn to press&curled up.  Strangely, I don't actually remember wearing my hair straight at the time, but I was definitely getting it done.

By the time I went to high school I had up/downgraded from a press to a relaxer. Again, life changing. The smell, the process, the time, the cost, the scabs, it's all some stuff you gotta experience for yourself to fully get it. But I was fond of my relaxer.  It made it possible for me to effectively do my own hair, really for the first time in my life.  I could wash it and blowdry it myself without reverting to the lion's mane.  So I was happy.

The first time I cut my hair, I was in tenth or eleventh grade. I had had the relaxer for a few years and I was used to having long, straight hair.I decided to cut the front into a bob and kept the back long. It was a huge deal.  At the time I couldn't conceive of cutting all of my hair short. This was a baby step. By 12th grade I had grown it all back.  I kept it long for the next 5 years.

My senior year of college, I decided to grow out my relaxer and go natural. After about six months of growth I cut off most of my hair. It was about 6 inches long. The first few months after the cut were the most baffling hair months of my life.  I had no clue.

I knew I had curly hair, but I had no idea how to get it to actually be curly. I mean it kinda was.  But I had a bit of a limp, curly 'fro going on.  Not cute. I still frown at myself a little bit whenever I look at my graduation pictures. Those were The Lost Days, as far as my hair is concerned.

Nowadays I think I have a handle on my hair in all its incarnations. I can rock the curls long or short; I can flat-iron it out and wear the bob when it's not too hot (can't handle the humidity without a relaxer); I've even figured out what to do with my hair when my curls have been flat-ironed to death and have to be re-grown from scratch, something I've done 2 or 3 times.  And of course there's an entire team of favorite shampoos, conditioners, and the all-important leave-ins that help maintain my hair in its various forms of flyness.  (Thanks to you all.) 

I say all this to say... It's happy hair times in my world... which I think is a special thing to be able to say as a black girl.

140. Post Secret

Don't tell anyone, but this blog has completely taken over my writing life.  On some level, that was the point.  Writing in public gives me something to be accountable for.  Can't not post for two weeks if you expect folks to come through on a regular basis and read your writing.  But I used to write in other places, and in other voices, and I'm not doing that anymore.

My original goal for the blog was to average a post a day.  Now I think that may be too much.  Not because it's difficult, but because I'm almost too willing to do it.  It's as if, given a place to write, I'll always find something to say.  Who knew?  I thought it would be a chore... something I'd have to discipline myself into.  It's turning out to be something I have to pull myself away from.  Not entirely, but enough to make some mental room for other things.

I'm thinking 10-20 posts a month should do it.  No more than 20.  It should probably be no more than 15.  No more than every other day.  That'd give me a bit of a break to think about and work on other things.  And it would free me to digest things without imagining them in paragraph form with Google Images attached.  I think I need that.

And on that note, I'm off for a week. 

139. I ♥ Macro

In terms of cost & equipment, photography is the artistic equivalent of sailing as a hobby.  If you don't have a lot of money, or know someone who'll let you use their gear, it's hard to get off the ground.  Anyone can take a lesson or have a basic appreciation for it, but to do it well and really enjoy it, you're gonna need a lot of free time and disposable income.

I didn't know any of this when I got into it.  My parents bought me my first "real" camera when I decided to study photography in college.  It was a 35mm Pentax SLR that I had a lot of fun using and burned through lots of film with.  A couple years later I bought myself an $800 telephoto lens to go with it.  That was it for the next eight years.  As everyone switched to digital I went through two or three pocket cameras and borrowed friends' digital SLRs when I wanted to really shoot something.

Then two years ago I decided to spring for my own fancy new camera.  After an obsessive compulsive amount of research, I sprung for the Nikon D300 with a 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 lens.  The camera's great and the lens is good for all-around shooting when I'm not trying to do anything special like shoot sports or things in the dark.  The first thing I shot with it was a dance show at my school that I had choreographed for.  Shooting the show was as much fun as working on it.

Now that I've had some time to play with the camera and use it in different situations, I'm getting a feel for lenses and other accessories that would help me get the shots I want.  For instance, a macro lens would let me shoot close-up portraits and still lifes with a nice blurry background that added to the atmosphere but didn't detract from the subject of the picture.  Like this:

I found this picture on Amazon.  Someone who has the lens I want uploaded it as an example.  See how the baby's face is in focus, but the rest of her body blurs in the background?  It makes the most important part of the photograph pop and the rest of it recede.  This is important in lots of situations when you really wanna highlight something.  But it's hard to do close-up.  The lens I have can pull it off if I'm five or more feet from my subject.  Otherwise I have to take what I get or edit the picture in Photoshop to blur the parts I want blurred.  That's not uncommon, but I have a principle objection to that kinda thing.

Unfortunately, a great macro lens is about $1,200.  Fortunately, a really good one is about $400.  I don't presently have that many dollars lying around, but at least it's a conceivable amount of money to save or earn or re-allocate from somewhere.  I definitely see this lens in my future.  It would make my food photography a lot better (not that I'll be doing it for that long), and it would just make me a more well-rounded photographer.

Granted, I've given up on doing photography for money.  So I maybe shouldn't be investing that much money in it.  But the heart wants what it wants.  And I already love it so much.

138. Photo Synthesis

In my third attempt at my newest hobby, I photographed my yummy vegan-y lunch today.  Vegetable relish and hummus on a pita.  Looking at the last pictures, I realized I had way too much stuff in the frame.  So this time I went for just the food.  I tried to pick up a pretty plate from Target, but they actually didn't have any (how is that possible?).  I think a pretty square plate would've looked nicer, but I worked with what I had.

To get some good light, I took the picture on the patio table in the backyard.  I used my dad's cutting board as a "background."  I may use some fabric or scrapbook paper to get some nice color in future pics.  I took 9 or 10 shots and settled on one to edit.  Here it is:

This composition isn't bad.  The picture is a little dark, and the veggies aren't that well balanced... there are too many cucumbers on the right side... But overall, a decent shot.  I wasn't sure what to do with the top piece of bread so I just kinda offset it.  I would've liked to get the hummus more prominently displayed in the shot, too.  You don't know it's there unless I tell you.

Anyway, I edited the shot to get my "official" attempt.  I cropped the picture to get a more flattering composition, with the food filling more of the frame.  And I upped the brightness just a teensy bit so it doesn't look like the food was in a shadow when I took the picture.  I think it came out well:

When it comes to food with multiple pieces plating is really important.  The folks on Top Chef are really good at it.  That's actually one of my favorite parts of the show.  Figuring out what size and shape your plate should be, what color the bowl should be, whether to put something in the center or off to the side, where to put utensils... all of that is up to the plater/photographer.  So I'm playing around with it.

I also found this pretty cool food photography portfolio by a guy named Michael Ray.  He gets in really close on some of his shots and composes things in ways that I probably wouldn't.  But he's a professional and I have no idea what I'm doing, so...  He has a nice picture of a basket of strawberries.  Maybe I'll throw some fruit in a bowl and see what I can come up with.

Of course it would help if I had the right equipment.  There's a macro (close-up) lens out there calling my name.  As soon as I figure out how to pull $400 out of thin air...

137. Fotography

I am currently having a fling with food photography.  We're not really cut out for each other, but it's a lot of fun, and who hasn't salivated over a picture of a steak or cupcake?  There's that Domino's commercial out right now about the weird things they do to food to make it look good in photographs.  I'm sure we have no idea.  On a smaller scale there's a handful of tricks of the trade of photographing food to make it look appetizing.

A lot of it is pretty basic.  Use good lighting.  Don't have too much clutter in the picture.  Get in close.  Not too much on the plate.  Have an attractive background/place setting.  It's not something I'm going to spend that much time on, but it's a kinda groovy hobby.  To be able to take a picture of a piece of chocolate cake that makes people say, "Ooooh... I want that."

I first tried my hand at it a couple months ago with a mango in the backyard.  Those pictures weren't really good at all.  Today after I had chopped up a bunch of vegetables to make this "relish" my grandma makes, I decided to try it again.  I left the scraps on the cutting board to add some color to the pictures and make them more interesting.

I think this isn't bad for a second attempt.  If I had it to do over again, I would put the relish in a more interesting bowl.  Or I could leave all the chopped vegetables loose on the cutting board and photograph them in a pile.  I don't like the way the lime came all, with the flesh all blown out and not really detailed at all.  But the pepper looks good.  And there's a lot of color in the bowl, though there's a lot of shadows, too.

I don't normally edit pictures, but I decided to play with this one.  The picture below is what I got after I took the original shot, cropped out the blank space at the top, increased the color saturation, and raised the color temperature a bit.  I suspect this is pretty standard stuff in food photography.  And I suspect they do much more than this.  

Food and fashion photography are actually two places I probably wouldn't mind a lot of editing.  One of the reasons I couldn't be a professional photographer is because I object to editing photographs.  I used to have a real beef about it.  Now I just think "to each their own" and it's not for me.  It's kinda like with film.  Some people write screenplays and hire people to play parts and make movies.  And we all enjoy those movies and the stories they tell us.  Other people prefer to point a camera out at the world and just record what happens, documentary-style.  I'm definitely a documentary photographer.  None of my favorite photographs is posed.  For me, they're the records of this or that great thing that happened, exactly as it was.

136. Into the West

#4 on the list of things I might like to do to earn a living (after writing, photography and teaching) is Painting.  I've painted once in my life.  It was required for an introductory drawing class I took in college.  Still not sure why, but whatever.  I wasn't very good at it.  But I've never stopped wanting to be.

In my head there's a collection of paintings and drawings I'd like to do someday.  Some fully developed, others only concepts or color palettes.  All completely inspiring.  Despite my early failure, I found myself in an art supply store last year spending an indefensible amount of money on paints and brushes.  They're in a bag in the basement now. 

Someday, when there's nothing waiting to be written, I plan to spend even more money on canvas, and get to work making a delirious mess in the middle of my living room.  I'll probably start with self-portraits and augmented photographs.  The ultimate would be painting the horizon over Lake Michigan.  Something about horizons is mesmerizing.

The painting in the picture is called Horizon of Hope and it's by Laura Harris.  This is the kind of painting I stand in front of and stare at for twenty minutes while I forget that there is anyone or anything else in the room.  I marvel at it and wonder how it is that someone has made light and depth and texture out of nothing.  It's incredible.  If art prices weren't incomprehensible to me, the walls of my home would be covered in paintings like this.  Couldn't you just see yourself getting lost in one?

135. That True Sh*t

I heart Stephen Colbert.  I may or may not be joining him to Keep Fear Alive in D.C. next month.  Haven't decided.  But I've decided that he's hilarious.  This isn't his funniest work.  But it's worth watching.  Truest sh*t he said:

"My great-grandfather didn't travel 4,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to see this country over-run by immigrants."

Yeah.  Think about it.


 

134. First Impression: The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

I haven't actually finished this book.  Not even close.  But it's cracked on the shelf, and pretty high on the list of things to do with my free time (whenever I get some of that).  I'm surprised it took me so long to find it.  The first page was enough to get it "classic" status in my library.

The narrator starts out right away with something provocative but easy to digest.  I don't have to try to imagine the strange world he finds himself in or how he got there.  He's just telling me what he sees, and I'm seeing it.  And then he tells me what he thinks of what he sees, and I want to know more of it.  I want to know why he's in this place and what he plans to do with life while he's there.  I want to keep reading.

----------------------------------------------------

       People come here, then, to live?  I should rather have thought that they came here to die.  I have been out, and I saw hospitals.  I saw a poor fellow stagger and fall.  People gathered round him: so I was spared the rest.  I saw a pregnant woman.  She dragged herself heavily along a high, warm wall, now and again groping for it as if to assure herself it was still there.  Yes, it was still there; and behind it--?  I looked for it on my map of the city: Maison d'Accouchment.  Right. They will deliver her; they can do that.  Further on, in the rue Saint-Jacques, an immense building with a cupola.  My map said: Val de Grâce, hôpital militaire.  I really did not need this information, but that does not matter.  On every side an odour began to rise from the street.  It was, so far as one could distinguish, a smell of iodoform, the grease of pomme frites, and fear.  Every city has its summer smell.  Then I saw a house curiously blind as if with cataract.  It was not to be found on my map; but above the door there stood an inscription still fairly readable: Asile de nuit.  Beside...

133. The Good 'Book

One of my more interesting personality traits is that I am essentially an addict in waiting.  I can't call the next thing I'll be "addicted" to, but I'm sure there's something on the horizon.  It's normally something benign like oranges or Subway sandwiches.  Sometimes it's a little more sinister.  But the cravings usually go hard for a while and then settle down into a respectable "appreciation" for whatever it is.  The only standing addiction I have is to ice cream.  I have actually had to talk myself out of a food court, concentrating step-by-step, to keep from jumping in a Ben & Jerry's line I knew I didn't need to be in. (Please don't think less of me.  I'm working on it.)

Anyway, because I know this about myself, I'm pretty careful about cultivating dependencies.  I figure if I wasn't born with a need for it, I shouldn't "need" it now.  When I find myself compulsively going back to something again and again, I start to think it's time to cut it off.  So as the summer approached, and I was rocking the standard 15-times a day Facebook habit, I decided to give it a rest.  No Facebook for the summer.  Three months ago I deactivated (there really should be a "delete" option), and today I popped back in.

Strange, strange times.  I should add that one of the bonuses of going off for the summer was that I'm not a huge fan of what Facebook does to relationships.  "Holler at me" does not mean write on my Facebook wall (just fyi).  Still, I had expected being back to be something like dipping in the cookie jar at the end of a diet.  All the pictures and the wall posts and the witty commentary on some completely banal thing that somehow becomes totally interesting.  At least interesting enough to keep me browsing and not writing for another 20 minutes.

But it wasn't that.  It was nothing like a cookie-fest.  It was just stuff.  Not particularly interesting stuff.  Just stuff.  Mike Greenberg once railed against Twitter because he said people tweeted the most mindless observations.  He pointed out a tweet his co-host sent that went something like, "On the couch watching the game. Thinking about getting a sandwich."  When I signed in, lots of people had posted lots of things that showed up in my Newsfeed.  Somehow it all seemed like, "On the couch watching the game.  Thinking about getting a sandwich."

That isn't to say that everyone's posts weren't totally interesting.  I'm just observing that something in me is clearly reading them differently than I was three months ago.  And reading people's wall posts... I almost felt like I was hacking into folks' email accounts and going through their personal correspondence.  So private, and yet not so.  Not at all.  And I'm not one to say it should be.  But something about it.... I don't know man.

Anywho... On the up side, the good 'book reminded me that today is the homie's birthday.  So I'll be sending that e-mail in a lil bit. (Good lookin out.)  After today though, who knows?  I've missed updating my Facebook status with the occassional "must share" thought about LeBron or Haagen-Dazs' newest Limited Edition.  But GChat statuses kinda work for that, too, right?  I mean... I don't have the audience I'd have on Facebook.  But I only had 150 friends, lol.  It can't make that much of a difference.

We'll see.  I still might wanna throw up the occassional photo album and get the homies' feeback.  Not really any good alternatives for that one.  Decisions, decisions.

------------------------------

P.S.  Since I'm throwing out Facebook fyi's, here's another one.  Putting something in your status does not count as telling me about it.  And posting something to Facebook does not count as sharing it with me.  Just for future reference.

132. Economy-Size

On a flight last month I chatted up a married couple about where we were headed and what I was doing in school.  Whenever I tell anyone I study politics I'm guaranteed at least five minutes of follow-up questions.  In this case I got about half an hour.  It was interesting stuff.

They asked me something about the economy, not something I study, and got me off on a rant about middle class economics.  The never-ending recession has some folks sweating the lack of jobs and falling housing prices.  But... what if (and I'm totally serious)... the economy isn't technically recessed?  What if we've just been riding a post-WWII growth bubble and it finally burst, landing us right back where we shoulda been anyway?  Or somewhere close to it.

Here's my thinking.  Let's say a bunch of businesses close down and we lose lots of jobs.  On the surface, this is bad.  Because those people need to work to eat (they actually don't, but this post isn't about welfare policy so I'll save that commentary for later).  Conventional wisdom is that we need to seed small businesses and recreate those jobs.

But... Imagine that those small businesses were retail businesses.  Places like Starbucks and The Gap and Pier 1.  And let's say that most of what people bought in those places can be considered "luxury" or "leisure" items, meaning they didn't need the items, they just wanted them.  And let's imagine that some not insignificant portion of the money people spent there was actually borrowed (on credit cards, etc.). 

I don't think any of these suppositions requires a terrible stretch of the imagination.  And if these things were true, wouldn't it be better that those places closed?  If there was never sufficient wealth in the population to consume the goods and services those businesses offered, should they ever have been opened?  They would only have existed to sell people things they didn't need and couldn't afford.  Should we employ hundreds of thousands of people doing that?

Of course not everyone who finds themselves un- or under-employed worked at The Gap.  But that isn't to say that their jobs were any less superfluous.  If you worked in banking in a country where the population actually has very little wealth to manage, or if you built houses in communities where residents actually lacked the financial standing to take on a mortgage, should your job ever have existed in the first place?

I'm not arguing that anyone is supposed to be destitute.  I just think we have an inflated sense of "middle" classness and comfort in the U.S.  What passes for necessity here is rather luxurious when compared to mean standards of living around the world.  The idea that everyone should have a job with a wage that maintains them in their own private home, with their own private car, and their own private creature comforts is a fairly fantastic one when you think about it.  What are we doing to generate the wages that pay for all these things?

It was long ago recognized that we no longer make anything in the U.S.  So what do we have to show for all the 4-bedroom homes and the plasma screens?  Whatever we're doing, we're paying ourselves a lot of money for it, and we're spending even more money than we're paid.  If, as a country, we were forced to live on cash, how would our lives be different?  Already the idea of my own 2-bedroom condo overlooking the lake makes me think I'll spend most of my time psychicly atoning for my privilege.

So what if this is the new normal?  I'm sure it's not.  The credit lines will loosen up and we'll all be upgrading whips and wardrobes soon enough.  But it might be better if we didn't.  We could prolly do without it.

131. The Basics: 36-24-36

One day in 12th grade, me and a couple of my drafting classmates somehow got on the topic of breasts and how unequally distributed they are.  One of the girls observed that this was particularly unfair because it requires all kinds of extra work from those of us who got the short end of the breast stick.  Specifically, we have much less room for error when it comes to keeping everything in proportion.

For instance, a chic with D's can carry an extra 20 lbs. around her waist and still be shaped like Coke bottle.  A 34A with an extra 20 lbs is all outta shape, in more ways than one.  Smaller chics have no choice but to keep it tight around the midsection.  This means that counting calories and burning through ab routines play key parts in developing my sense of style.

Loose-fitting tops help, and I have a stable of those.  But at some point, you wanna be able to step out in a nicely tailored 'fit without having to suck and contract your torso for three hours.  So it's off to the gym, or the track, or wherever you get it in.  For me it's the lakefront trail.  And soon, the yoga mat.  I'm about to be all about a yoga mat.  More on that later.

130. Bibliophile: Alfred Edward Newton

Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity... We cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance.

129. Fight the Power

After I finished college, I wanted to stick around St. Louis so I got a job hostessing at the Applebee's up the street from my school.  It's still my favorite job I've ever had.  Seventy-five percent of it was standing at the door listening (dancing) to music and smiling at the people who came in.  Totally uncomplicated and mostly very pleasant.  It didn't pay much, but I was having fun, and that was more important than making ends meet (Oh how things change).

What I remember most about that job was what I learned about life working double shifts and closing at 1 a.m.  That was how much of adult life either obliges or obligates us to do exactly what we need to do to fit into society as is.

I have total recall of the moment, late one night, when I found myself standing at the door of the restaurant thinking how nice it would be if there were someone waiting for me at my apartment when I got home.  I had never had that thought before in my life.  But in this moment of tiredness, of over-workedness, of needing some sort of relief from my own life, what I wanted most of all was to fall into another person.  To have another living, breathing, bleeding human being to plug into and recharge myself, like some kind of existential CPR. 

I've had that feeling at other times since then, usually when I'm exhausted from a job or working on something I'd rather not be working on.  What's interesting is that it only comes at times when I'm sort of separated from myself.  When what I want to do and what I have to do are in long-term conflict and that "have to"s are winning day after day.  On the other hand, when I'm doing my own thing, when I'm writing or reading, or just wandering through the world, I can go for days without needing or wanting to hear from a single other soul.  Me in bed with a book at 3 a.m., the only waking thing in my world, is the absolute best of life that I know.

Meanwhile, if I were sentenced to bag groceries eight hours a day for ten years, I estimate that it would increase my likelihood of marrying and having a children by roughly 300%.  Fortunately, I don't see that happening.  But I do have to eat, and because VISA wants its money, I find myself working for pay at things I might not otherwise do, and craving anything but solitude at the end of the day.  Not every day, nor even most days, but often enough to impress upon me that "This is how it happens."

The other half of this equation is the debt I took on getting that degree I enjoyed so much that I wanted to stay in St. Louis when it was done.  I'll never regret the way I handled that... I've profitted too much from my time there.  But it's interesting how much of our productive lives we owe in return for the four years (or more) we spend in school.  I told my grandmother I was going to "retire" at 30.  I've had to push that back a bit, but not by much.  I only have so many "working" years in me.  My actual life is already fighting for the bulk of my attention.  I don't see how I could hold it off for more than a few more years.

128. The Basics: Fitted Tees

My favorite piece of clothing right now is a black Timeless Crewneck Tee (pictured) from Banana Republic.  It completely captures my clothing personality.  I wanna be neat, but comfortable.  I want to be elegant, but not in any way that takes very much work.  And I want to not spend very much money.  This top accomplishes all of those things.  It costs $20 and has a long, sleek fit that's really flattering.

I also have it in green and red.  Any color over neat jeans ("denim trousers") or slacks makes for a super-simple chic look.  I don't wear skirts often, but the few I do wear go well with these tops.  They make for a good look.  There's something about pairing a t-shirt with a fancier bottom that says, "Yes, I want to impress.  But no, I'm not going to inconvenience myself too much to do it."  And that pretty much sums up my personality =).  Sidenote: This is also the reason you're not likely to catch me in heels in a club.  It's just not worth it (anymore).

I also go for printed tees with slacks.  I used to have a Mickey Mouse top that I wore under a blazer or nice jacket.  It got retired years ago.  But I plan on rebuilding my collection of graphic tees with some fun, cheap options.  I have my eye on that Tootsie-Roll "That's How I Roll" t-shirt.  It's so me.

127. Persona-fication

I've been thinking a lot about (my) style lately.  I've always been into fashion in theory, but as I've become an adult I've been thinking much more seriously about why I wear the things I wear and what I want my clothes to say.  For most of high school and college I shopped in the men's department.  Baggy pants and loose-fitting men's polos and button-downs were my staples.  My clothes were comfortable, stylish (to me), and I think they fit my personality at the time. 

Toward the end of college, I transitioned into women's clothes and filled out a wardrobe of Express, NY & Company, and Forever 21.  I wanted to be cute, but not fancy, and not spend too much money.  I'm also a lazy shopper and don't like to go to too many stores to find what I want.  So I tend to find a reliable source for my basics and then do 75% of my shopping there.  For the first couple years of grad school nearly every top in my closet had a NY & Company tag in it.

Now I've moved solidly into a Banana Republic phase.  For a while I just thought "I like their style" and figured they had good sale prices so it was a good match for me.  But I think my shopping there is mostly about my own style and what I look for in clothes.  I'm learning that I have a pretty distinctive, but exceedingly basic sense of style.  I like "clean" clothes that are reasonably comfortable and still somehow elegant.  Simplicity is key. Figuring out how to exercise that and put pieces together in a way that feels right has been more trial and error than I would expect.

For instance, we've all seen those lists of the "10 Pieces Every Man/Woman Should Own," or something similar.  Here's an example from Real Simple magazine.  The first few items on the list (and the pictures that go with them) could've come straight out of a GAP ad.  Black tank top, white tee, jeans, khakis.  But these pieces actually aren't for everyone.  I don't own a pair of khakis and I don't wear black tank tops outside the house.  They're both underwhelming on me.

I once asked a bunch of people, "What outfit most accurately captures your personality?"  For me, it was a pair of worn in jeans, a fresh fitted beater, hoop earrings and flat sandals.  That outfit is quintessentially me.  I feel great in it.  My style goal for the next couple years is to deconstruct that quintessential outfit to build a wardrobe full of pieces that make me feel just as good.  I've got a good number of them already, maybe even most of them.  But collecting them is the easy part.  Putting them together is trickier.  It gets the creative juices going though, and that makes it a lot of fun.

126. To Be Fair...

Today I came across a charming blog written by a New York City housewife.  She's 28 years-old, a college graduate, and spends her days at home cooking, cleaning, creating and blogging.  Don't tell anyone, but she kinda has my perfect life (maybe minus the married part).

Anyway, she has this post on how much she loves her Kindle.  As a sworn enemy of e-readers, I'd normally roll my eyes, make a gagging noise to myself, and keep scrolling.  But since she had already blessed me with this adorable post on the wisdom of dogs and this fritatta recipe complete with pictures, I decided to see what she had to say.

She made some good points.  And she inspired me to give a more generous consideration to the e-book.  For instance, if you read lots of books for fun, I can see the advantage of being able to carry a bunch of them around with you all the time without taking up any extra space.  Then if you're not gonna read them again, you don't have to trash them or bother trying to sell them.  And wouldn't we all prefer not to waste perfectly good trees on mediocre books?  And maybe people who read e-books also buy paper ones when they find something they love and wanna keep on the shelf.  I hope so (for their souls' sake).

So although I still don't expect to ever own an e-reader (someone recenly offered me one... I turned it down), I can understand folks who love them.  And no doubt there's a musical purist somewhere bemoaning the rise of the mp3 and the death of vinyl.  I don't own a single record, but I love music as much as the next person.  I guess the lesson is Judge not lest ye be judged, or something like that.  Go figure.

125. The Deep End

In my quest for sneaker chic style, I've been spending some time in sneaker stores seeing what's out there.  The purple and orange Air Force 1's I had my eye on didn't wanna be had in my size, so I had to come up with a Plan B.  I had heard that Creative Recreation has good options for ladies, so I looked into a pair.  I ended up with these.

I found the ladies' Galow Hi in a sneaker shop in the South Loop.  How ridiculously fly are they?!  I was in immediate shoe love.  I didn't try em on at the time cuz I saw the price tag.  But after mulling it over I decided to holler at em.  Go big or go home, right?  Rather than spending $60/pair on 2 or 3 more subtle "intro" pairs, why not spend a little more and start right at the height of awesomeness?  So I pulled the trigger.

Problem is this: 1) I don't have anything that goes with these shoes. 2) Hi-tops aren't particularly flattering on me.  Now I woulda known number 2 if I had bothered to try the shoes on instead of just ordering them online (where they were $20 cheaper).  Number 1 surprised me because they're essentially brown and white shoes.  Who knew they'd be so hard to match?  

I don't have skinny jeans to tuck into them, so that's not an option.  Wearing regular jeans that hang down over the tops would defeat the purpose of wearing high-tops (a) and would risk having the blue dye bleed onto my not-cheap new shoes (unacceptable).  That means shorts or dresses.  My limited dress collection is not at all compatible.  And I don't wear shorts.  What to do?

Since I'm not tryna buy new clothes to go with my new shoes (I have a quasi-strict no new clothes policy), I'm gonna have to pull a rabbit outta the hats I already have.  So I'm getting creative.  This weekend I tried the sneakers with some men's khaki cargo shorts and a ladies' white button down.  Not two pieces I'd otherwise put together, but desperate times...  I figure this is a good opportunity for me to get my Carrie Bradshaw on and step out wearing whatever the hell I want.  If I ever work up the nerve to wear the outfit out of the house, I'll post a pic.

124. Heavy Rotation

There hasn't been a whole lot of music listening these past few weeks.  This one snuck up on me.  I've never been into Moby or electronic music in general.  But I've always kinda liked the jazzy lounge music they play in fancyish restaurants while you're waiting for a table and ordering overpriced cocktails.  So now I have a Downtempo Electronica station on Pandora, and I downloaded this from Amazon.  Mostly intrumental with a nice soul sample.  Moby.  Who knew?

 One of these mornings... won't be very long... You will look for me, and I'll be gone.

123. Bibliophile: Henry David Thoreau

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will tax the reader... Books must be read as deliberately as they are written.

- Walden

122. First Impression: The Bell Jar

 I read The Bell Jar the year after I graduated college.  I was much more inclined to read fiction then and was averaging a book a year.  That's a lot for me.  It caught me from the first page.

I had heard or read somewhere that it's the true-ish story of a young woman's breakdown shortly after she graduates from college and begins working in New York City.  For some reason that appealed to me.  I think I'm attracted to writing that seriously explores the thoughts and feelings a person has when they're in the midst of those rare but critical soul-shaking and defining moments we all have.  That kind of writing, when it's done well, is always so true to me.

So anyway I picked up the book and never put it down.  Though I felt that the second half was less remarkable than the opening, I'd say it's worth reading.  I should probably add a copy to the permanent collection.

Here's the opening page for your reading pleasure.  The entire book is available on Google Books using the link above.  Something about this first page still gets me.  I find my eyes racing from line to line faster than my brain can even sound the words out to itself.  The writing just moves.  All on its own.

Maybe it's just me.

------------------------------------------------

        It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. I'm stupid about executions.  The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that's all there was to read about in the papers - goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn't help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.  
       I thought it must be the worst thing in the world.
       New York was bad enough. By nine in the morning the fake, country-wet freshness that somehow seeped in overnight evaporated like the tail end of a sweet dream.  Mirage-gray at the bottom of their granite canyons, the hot streets wavered in the sun, the car tops sizzled and glittered, and the dry, cindery dust blew into my eyes and down my throat.
       I kept hearing about the Rosenbergs over the radio and at the office till I couldn't get them out of my mind.  It was like the first time I saw a cadaver.  For weeks afterward, the cadaver's head - or what there was left of it - floated up behind my eggs...

121. Love Letters

It is no secret among those I rant to that I am in love with words on paper (... words not on paper can suck it, except this blog, which I one day plan to put on paper.)  There's something about the tactile element of printed language that awes me.  That I can touch it and even smell it makes a well-written word such a living thing.  When you print an idea you make it real, and extant, and evocative.  Printed words don't evaporate like spoken ones.  They aren't inevitably mangled with each repetition.  They exist.  They can be burned and destroyed, but so can anything.  So can I.  And yet here I am.

Because of all this I have a subtle fetish with the instruments of writing.  The things we use to write real words.  Simple pen and paper. I cannot remember a time when I didn't have a favorite pen.  When I was 12 it was the fine-point purple Pentels my sister used to take notes in grad school.  Now it's black fine-point Sharpies and RSVPs.  I dread writing with anything else.  I cannot write good thoughts with a bad pen.  I imagine that someday I'll have a favorite paper as well.  Probably something expensive.

In the meantime I hang out in stationery stores, eyeing loose-leaf paper and notecards, imagining the things I might write on them and who I might send them to.  My newest crush is on letterpress paper.  It's touch and texture on a whole other level.  Yeah, it's done by a machine, but still.  It's pretty cool.  One of my classmates once wrote that if she could do anything in the world she would move to California and open a letterpress shop.  I wondered at the time why she wasn't doing that. 

Now she has a daughter and a not-yet-written dissertation.  But I like to think that somewhere life may have tucked away a big noisy letterpress printing machine and a drawer of full of ink-stained linen shirts with her name on them.  Maybe one day, a long time from now, we'll be a writer and a letterpress printer, catching up in a little paper shop in California.

120. The Secret Garden

It's always fun to run in a new place.  You see the world differently when you're running than when you're walking or driving to a particular destination.  I have fantasies of running some of the best American landscapes at different times of day, á la Forrest Gump.  The mountains and the desert in particular are calling my name.  For now, it's mostly me, the lake, and the skyline. 

But last month while I was on vacation with my family I got to explore some new terrain.  I was running along the main commercial street to and from the resort where we were staying when I passed this thing off the side of the road.  I hadn't noticed it the first two days, but on this day it caught my eye and I decided to check it out.

Once I got up the first set of steps, it got pretty interesting.  You can't see it in the picture, but from here I could see a statue in the middle of the structure, facing away from the street.  I still don't know what this place is, but I figured it was some kind of awesome public garden.

It turned out to be a statue of a woman.  I assumed it was the Virgin Mary, can't say for sure.  I was a little disappointed that the area inside the structure wasn't kept better.  I thought if it had been tailored in some really precise way it could make for a pretty hallowed experience.

This was the view off behind the statue.  I didn't realize I was so close to the water when I was running, but I headed down the stairs to see what I could see.  There was a simple fence at the bottom that didn't open out onto the bay.  I supposed I coulda hopped it, but I wasn't up for that.  There's a little alter/gazebo at the bottom of the steps in the middle of the picture.   Imagined that it would be a lovely place to get married, if someone were into that kinda thing.

This is the view from the top of the stairs, looking back across the street.  The garden continued on the other side of the road.  I could see fountains and pools of water off in the distance.  It really was lovely.  I'm not sure if the land belonged to one of the resorts, or if it was public space. Either way... good stuff.

 

119. Bibliophile: Virginia Woolf

Now then we compare book with book as we compare building with building.  But this act of comparison means that our attitude has changed; we are no longer the friends of the writer, but his judges; and just as we cannot be too sympathetic as friends, so as judges we cannot be too severe.  Are they not criminals, books that have wasted our time and sympathy; are they not the most insidious enemies of society, corrupters, defilers, the writers of false books, faked books, books the fill the air with decay and disease? Let us then be severe in our judgments; let us compare each book with the greatest of its kind. … Even the latest and least of novels has a right to be judged with the best.

- "How Should One Read a Book?"

118. First Impressions

The other day I was browsing collections of the best book covers from the past few years.  I generally disagreed with the choices. But I like the idea of recognizing cover art as a critical part of the way a book is presented to the world.  Those of us who buy books in bookstores do, in large part, judge them by their covers, at least initially.

Book covers are invitations.  At least good ones are.  The colors and textures and layouts tell us that a certain kind of experience awaits us just inside.  They invite us to take part in that experience.  Once a book has caught our eye, and we've gotten past the blurbs on the back, it's time to dig in and see if what's inside is as promising as the invitation made it sound.

This is where I part ways with most books.  In academics, like in sales and writing and lots of other things, you hear a lot about the importance of having a good "elevator pitch" for your product.  Whether you're selling your research or a vacuum cleaner, you ought to be able to tell a stranger about it in the time in takes to share an elevator ride, in a way that makes them wanna know more.  We assume people are stingy with the time they'll spend listening to you pitch something they don't know they have a need for.

I'm this way with books.  My roommate once told me she would give a book a few chapters to catch her attention before she put it down and walked away.  Like getting to a party early and finding only a few people there.  You stick around because you expect it to get packed as soon as the clock strikes midnight.  I do that with parties.  But not books.

I'm just a hard sell with books.  Fifteen seconds.  That's all you get.  If you can't get me in the first page... if you can't make me want to turn the page, you're done.  Very rarely I'll force myself past an uninspiring first page onto page ten or twelve or sixteen.  This happens because I've heard that this book is magic, and that everyone who has eyes should read it.  But I've never finished a book that way.  They all eventually get put down.

In part I'm this way because, as I've said, I don't read for entertainment, at least not purely.  So there has to be something compelling about a book to keep my interest.  There can't just be the promise that if I stay with it long enough to become invested in the characters, something really interesting will happen to them.  And even then, I'm reminded of the best fiction I've read and how it captured my attention from the opening lines.

There's a stark difference (for me) between a voice that is telling me what is happening and one that is telling me what the writer wants me to imagine is happening.  The former makes for an effortless reading experience.  It's as if the author somehow managed to write in the native tongue of my imagination.  There is no need for translation.  The mind is scarcely aware that it is suspending any sort of rational disbelief at all.  What is there is simply happening.

This is very different than the way I experience most books.  I usually find myself trying to picture the characters - their hair, and bodies and facial expressions - just the way the author intends, so that I get the story they want me to get.  I put my imagination to work.  It feels like I'm doing the author a favor, in the short-run, expecting that there'll be some pay-off later on that makes it all worth it.  I'm never able to hold out that long.  Though I should say that I've long considered forcing myself through some well-loved work of fiction just to see for sure if I wouldn't enjoy it in the end and be glad I put in the work.  Maybe someday.

For now I hold out for the books that hook me with the opening line and pull me, almost in a trance-like state, from page to page, until I wonder where the last hundred pages went; the books whose pages turn themselves.

Over the next few weeks (and beyond that as I find new ones), I hope to share some of the opening lines/paragraphs/pages of my favorite books.  I can't exactly say what it is about them that makes them work for me.  Maybe me and authors shared a Myers-Briggs type or something, who knows?  But they are magic to me.  Maybe someone else will like them too.

117. Food Life

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
 - Matthew 4:4, KJV
 

I've had an interesting food life lately.  A couple months ago, I was sure I was developing a gluten intolerance (Celiac disease).  I know people who have it and apparently it's not all that uncommon.  I had been having weird reactions after meals and based on my intensive internet research, that was the most fitting self-diagnosis.

I've also had auto-immune symptoms in the past and been tested for everything under sun, all negative.  So the idea of going back to the doctor wasn't really a promising one for me.  I resoved to go gluten-free and cure myself.  I made that resolution about 5 minutes after I made the diagnosis, which obviously was not sufficient time for thought.  But it gave me an excuse to blow money at Whole Foods so I jumped at it.

The next day at breakfast I sat down to a plate of scrambled eggs, turkey sausage and toasted gluten-free bread with apricot preserves.  The eggs and sausage were their usual goodness, but that "bread"...  Well...

Let's just say that was the end of my gluten-free diet.  No offense to the gluten-free population, or the people who feed them, but you gotta be frikkin kiddin me.  As a fat girl, bread is my favorite food group.  Cakes, cookies, sandwiches, biscuits, muffins, toast, cornbread, cereal.... These are the things that make a meal.  A food life without them is no food life at all.  So we needed a new solution.  (Sidenote:  If you don't mind cooking from scratch, Bob's Red Mill products are not half bad.  They make a yummy pancake mix.  But I can't bake my own bread every time I want a sandwich, so...)

Back to the drawing board.  That's where my mom and her tv preachers come in (again).   While I was looking for the next magic bullet, one of the teachers she watches was doing a 5-part series on divine healing called "God Wants You Well."  Bits and pieces would creep in as I wandered through the kitchen in the morning getting ready for school.  One of those bits proved to be pivotal and completely changed the way I thought about being sick.

Since I love bread, and I see no reason God would want me to not eat bread, and since gluten-free bread is gross, I decided to not have Celiac Disease.  Done.

Of course there's more to healing than just being stubborn.  The last few weeks have seen some pretty intense changes in my thinking and behavior.  But the bottom line is that I've decided not to be sick.  Maybe when it's done, I'll let you know how I did it.

116. Impossible Choices

*minor spoilers ahoy*

“Learn well Jake Sully. Then we will see if your insanity can be cured.”

~Mo’at, Avatar (2010)

Overwhelmed with the need to write about Wench, I began this post on my iPod Touch notepad, on a flight from from New Orleans to Chicago. New Orleans, a city where, once upon a time, “wench” meant, as Dolen notes, “a black or colored female servant; a negress” but also where the ritual of sexual access, sexual labor, property in human bodies, domination and re/production ground to its ultimate conclusion. By the antebellum period, New Orleans hosted the largest slave market in the continental United States, an attendant continent-wide sexual traffick in “fancy” girls or light-skined female slaves, and le plaçage, a sophisticated social apparatus which paired affluent white men with local free women of color as consorts.

For years, the ghosts of slavery walked the bend of the Mississippi, whispered from the balconies of the Vieux Carré and slipped up through the steamy cement in Uptown or Marigny (they still do even though Katrina washed many into the waiting arms of their kindred at the bottom of the Gulf). I finished Part One in this context, on a weekday and in one swoop.

Afterwards, I forced myself to take a break. It was tempting to keep going because it was easy to look, hope and pray for the happy ending. But if Dolen continues to tell a story true to American history, or true to black women’s relationship to said history, then a happy ending may be long in coming.

There is a scene of visceral brutality near the end of Part One. Normally, I remember these scenes for the pose they strike within a story, the carmine brutality my mind plays and replays over and over. When this happens, the cerebral vanishes and I find it difficult to recall emotion or personality. I feel dizzy, a heavy pressure at the crown of my head. Or I want to vomit.

But I don't remember this scene for that. The physical reaction remained, yes. But under Dolen’s careful and unassuming hand, the violence of the encounter became less about the contours of a particular moment and more about the impossible choices women as slaves, as mothers, as raced bodies, as workers and as lovers, were/are forced to make over the course of their lives. Instead, the betrayal erecting the scene took my breath away as much as the result--the terrifying and impressive power of a slaveowner's retribution.

That power being necessary to maintain a system--in this case slavery--against the daily permutations of resistance and rebellion enacted against it--breaking dishes, brewing love potions, running away--but which seen in its raw form is still shocking. And effective. I empathized with Lizzie. I know that she weighed every move she made against the threat of violence against her light-skinned son and daughter back in the South. But a part of me also felt deeply for Mawu and affirmed her desperate fight to escape the regime before her stamina for resistance faded. And I know I may never forgive Lizzie for her betrayal. But I will want to. To choose your owner, your lover, the father of your children over your colleague, your sister, your friend...but don’t some of us do that every single minute of every day without feeling any need to justify it? That slavery as a legal institution in the United States ended in 1865 is beside the point. Segregation ended as a legal institution in the United States in 1964. And a contract, a law, a signed piece of paper does not unravel centuries of customary relations between white and black, male and female, mother and father and child.

Just as New Orleans “stank of the arousal of rape,” an aroma resplendent throughout the institution and which climaxed within the city's boundaries, so does the history of slavery unpack our current gender relations, sexual relations, color politics; strip us bare, naked, and raw; break the fetish down into its constituent parts--bone, teeth, hair, blood, earth. Dolen’s Wench reminds us that sex across and within color lines is never devoid of politics, never left to some amorphous feeling called love. And kinship is work, forged against all odds to save your own life because the consequence of failure is brilliant in its savagery. Love itself is political, is contested and is a battlefield.

X-Posted at Nunez Daughter

115. I'll Have What She's Having

As I was trolling for inspiration catching up on the homie's blog, I came across a post on the infamous G Code.  We're all familiar.  This is the list of rules that define men's boundary between acceptable whoredom and complete out-of-pocketness.  It's a quality read (as usual), and inadvertantly made me realize something I hadn't really put together before.

As the last rule, we get this:

thou shall take one for the team…as the old saying (that just came into existence when i typed it) goes…sometimes you get the breast and thigh 2 piece but sometimes you gotta take the wing…it is a man’s duty to run interference with the “personality” of the group so that other members may choose the fairer maidens when necessary…you always have to remember that it’s 10 times more painful to need a friend to step up and not have one around than it is to entertain an ill-tempered booger-wolf for a few minutes…so any interference you run is really an investment in your own future success…

What's funny is that I immediately recognized times when a dude "ran interference" on one of my homegirls so his boy could holler at me,  and I was jealous.  This is how ill-suited to modern dating life I am.

I can easily recall times when I've watched a handsome, intelligent young gentleman sit casually chatting up one of my girls while his homeboy pressed thirstily all up in my personal space.  For example:

Her dude: So what do you do?
My dude: So where do you stay?

Her dude:  Did you like that movie?
My dude: What's your number?

Her dude: Yeah I love traveling. What's your favorite country?
My dude: So what are you doing later tonight?

At moments like these (which happen often enough), I am always, without fail, 100% envious of my friend.  Why does she get an interesting, witty, endearing conversation and I get "Can I bone you tonight" dude? No fair!  I'm an interesting conversationalist! I can be witty! Especially when I'm cute and feeling all confident.  Talk to me! 

And to make it more ridiculous, I always walk away (my number still safe, secure and unknown to thirsty dude) thinking that if homeboy had chatted me up like he chatted up my girl, I would've spent the night wishing he would ask for my number.  I guess it's cuz at that point he would've demonstrated something other than a raging libido and a propensity to bang random chics (neither of which is attractive by the way).

I can't be the only chic who feels this way.  I mean I guess in the ideal situation, the dude who's trying to holler begins with decent conversation and only later, after laying some groundwork, makes his way to the digit/sleepover request.  (Sidenote: I've actually seen this done quite effectively.  Some of the homies are world-class groundwork layers.  I digress.)  But even then, real talk, a man who leaves me feeling like I was worth talking to (about something other than how I look) just because, has an infinitely higher sleepover potential than one who just went through all the motions to get to an end.

Maybe I'm a nerd, and my ego is extra tied up in my intellect.  I honestly don't know.  But dang.  Just...

Dang.

114.5. Inspired by a True Story, cont'd

I was gonna put this in the comments, but in an attempt to get my numbers up, I'm cheating and making it a semi-separate post.

I felt like I was a little hard on the "How was work today?" folks.  So I wanted to offer something constructive, to show that I respect their need for regular connection and communication.  Here it is.

A list of things that would be appropriate to ask, in an attempt to connect with one's mate after work:

1. Who you got in this game tonight?

2. What do you want for dinner?

3. You wanna get tickets to so-and-so?

4. What do you wanna do this weekend?

5. Did your day go alright? (Note, it's a yes or no question if they want it to be. Or they can make it a convo.  Best of both worlds.)

6. How was your run/workout? (I always enjoy answering this one.)

7. What do you wanna watch?

8. When do you wanna [thing you've been talking about doing for a while]?

9. Have you talked to [random friend's name] lately?  (Also a fan of this one.  It shows an interest in the health of their relationships with people other than you.)

I originally had 10, but the last one was weak.  Nonetheless, there you have it.  Nine super simple ways to get what you need while not annoying your mate.  They're not all guaranteed conversation starters, but they also won't cause your mate to clandestinely flee whatever room you happen to be in.

Just sayin'...

114. Inspired by a True Story

I was recently reminded that I have a blog.  So here I am lol...

This wouldn't ordinarily get a post, but in an attempt to get back in the habit, I'm reaching for straws.  I found one over at the homie's blog.  It's a handy set of suggestions on how a chic can rub her man the right way.  He impressively stayed away from the "this is when/how/where to have sex with him" and focused on the things women genuinely might not have thought of on their own.  Do peep.

One in particular caught my eye for a comment one of the readers left.

The Homie: [Don't ask how his day was.]  The only day that I want to come home and talk about work is the day that I get a raise/promotion/bonus…on the other 225+ days of the year nothing worth mentioning happened so let’s talk about something that will actually not remind me of the last 10 hrs (or the upcoming 10 hrs) of work I just sat through…

The Commenter:  I didn’t notice until my recent boyfriend that men do not like to talk about work. I’m always asking my man, so how was your day, what happened at work? And I always get the same answer, fine, nothing.  I’m not sure if this is more appropriate for another post or if you can answer here, but can you elaborate on WHY MEN DON’T LIKE TO TALK ABOUT WORK? (emphasis in original)

Seriously???

This phenomenon boggles my mind.  "Why doesn't someone want to talk about work?"?  You've gotta be frikkin kiddin me.  No question in the history of life has ever answered itself more obviously than this one.  But here it is again for good measure.

Answer: Because it's work.

We all need to vent when things at work are bad.  We all wanna brag when things at work are good (as The Homie pointed out).  The other "225+" days of the year, it was just work.  I went, I watched the clock, I came home.  Who are these people who get off work and can't wait to spend another 20 minutes talking about the work they just spent 8+ hours waiting to get out of?  I'm home now.  I'm free.  I have no intention of physically or mentally returning to work until I absolutely have to.  Deal with it.

And stop asking.  Just thinking about the daily re-cap I do not feel like having is enough to cause my car to blow by that highway exit I'd normally take to your place, and head right on home to my own spot, where silence lives.  True story.

Now... to be fair, I do know people who enjoy talking about their day and asking their partners about theirs.  These people need to be equally yolked with like-minded individuals.  This is one of those quality of life issues that can seriously salt a relationship.  I respect the folks who need that connection, and those of us who'd rather go without it should learn to listen when our partners want to talk to us about their day.  But insisting that the other person do the same, day after day after day, is a subtle form of torture that probably goes a fair way to explaining why he/she walks in the door after work, goes straight to fridge, palms the remote, and tunes you out.

They just wanna be free.

---------------------------------------

Disclaimer: I wouldn't normally take this tone with a reader/commenter.  Not even of someone's blog.  Chalk it up to my being rusty and rushing to get a post up before I ran it through the usual "What to say and how to say it" rigamaroe.

113. Quiet Time to Play

We seem to be on converging paths here on the blog.  I can't quite put a name to the change, so I wasn't going to write it out (yet).  But the homie hinted at it so I thought I'd second the emotion.

For two months I've been on a gradual downshift of my consumption of media and a (much more) gradual upshift of running, writing, and other meditative goodness.  Long story short: almost no television, very little music (almost all instrumental), and little to no internet.

Interesting times.

Post-Script: The New York Times thinks I'm onto something.  

112. A Day in the Life (Now Reading...)

This.

Hopped on the Black Pearl and watched Sunday's True Blood today. Great episode but I was surprised...normally that's a break for me. Normally, it's a little bit of pleasure in a long, stressful and heavy day.

But today it didn’t feel like that. It didn’t feel like anything. It felt like I lost an hour that I will never get back. In fact, I sat down in front of the computer and started to open up another movie almost as though I hadn’t watched it. As though I needed another “break.”

Weird.

But yesterday, as intense as communing with Alice was....it felt like pleasure to me. It felt like a break. It took me into sleep feeling fulfilled and whole and nourished.

Wonder why.

Hmm...New equation:

TV = cotton candy

Alice Walker = life

Conduct selves accordingly.

111. If I Were a Boy...

... I would immediately cease and desist from the following:

- Those kissy face noises men make to get women's attention.  Are you seriously calling me the way you would call your dog?

- Using my underwear as a fashion accessory.  There should be more than one layer of fabric between my eyes and your butt.

- Buying a woman dinner and then being salty when she doesn't come home with me, as if she broke the non-verbal sex contract.  Try this instead: Estimate the amount of money you'd be willing to spend if you knew there'd be no sex, and then spend that.  If your estimate is $0, take her for a walk.

- Asking a woman if she has a man, and then following up with "But is he here?"  Not charming.

- Beckoning women over to my car, and actually expecting them to come.  Unless this is a monetary transaction, you're gonna need a different approach.

- Catering to every insecurity a chic has, and then wondering why every chic I meet has those insecurities.  Hmmmm.... Let's think about this...

- Insisting that a woman has her domestic game on lock (cooking, cleaning, etc.), when I don't have my provider game on lock.  If you need her to pay half the mortgage, you should be going in on half the dishes, yes?

- Hard-core clubbing after 30.  Everyone's entitled to "get it in" from time to time, but when your favorite couch at your favorite spot has permanent indentations from your "club shoes", you're doing too much.  Get off the couch, pour your drink, and put the bottle down.  30-something dudes with overpriced bottles glued to their palms are like 50-something dudes in overpriced convertibles.  We all know you're compensating for something.  We all know.

- Acting like we're not appealing when we are.  You need to be cool... we get it.  But seriously, women have egos too.  And acting like you're not impressed (when you know good and well you are) will get you a big fat SKIP card.

And to my sista friends, I humbly request that you stop responding to any of the above.  I should probably blame you most of all =(.