Madness To The Method

Puppies.

2011-02-21T12:32:00.005-05:00

Today's post goes out to my lady friend, who I think really needs to see some puppies this week. There's just something about puppies. I think they're one of the true forces of good in the world. I mean, only a complete Evil Overlord could look at a puppy and say it wasn't cute. People abuse them sometimes, and people give them to shelters sometimes, but even THOSE people can't say puppies aren't cute.

Here's a Labrador puppy, 'cause those are my favorite.

Behold.

Here's a French bulldog puppy.

Some of you may wonder why there's no diversity in my puppy pictures -- why I only post pictures of puppies that will grow up to be large dogs.

That's because I don't care about small dogs.

It's fall.

2010-11-08T11:53:00.002-05:00

I LIVE in Little House On The Prairie. (Minus the blackface, the racist comments about Native people, and the bonnets.) You know how in "The Long Winter", there's this huge blizzard and they spend all their time in one room of the house because that's the only place they have heat?

Well, I'm doing that now.

I reference Little House On The Prairie way too much.

Anyway, my favorite housemate and I (that's a lie, they're all my favorites for different reasons) are sitting in the living room. We live in an old urban style rowhouse -- if you've ever been in a house in DC you'll know what I'm talking about -- and we have those glass doors in the living room that can close if off from the rest of the house.

We're sitting here having a grand old time with Aunt Nellie's Afghan, laptops, a guitar, and tea with Special Herbs in it. A space heater is working overtime in the center of the room. I'm wearing leggings, two skirts, my Underarmour (best Christmas present ever, Ma), a sweatshirt, and rainbow-themed toe socks. Aunt Nellie's Afghan (which is a collection of granny sqaures so garish that it looks cool) is wrapped around my feet, which are still cold.

What I'm trying to say: my house is freezing. It's only November. By February -- I don't even want to think about February.

But I like living in a place with four seasons. And fall means it's time for potato soup, sweet potato excess, pumpkin pie, chai, and apple cider.

Awwww yeah!

In other words, here is a list of things I've been doing to procrastinate on writing my novel:

1. Eat.
2. Talk to housemates.
3. Talk to my lady friend.
4. Clean. This is actually a good procrastination method because you NEED to clean, so you don't feel bad while you're doing it. I even washed the windows.
5. Work on stuff for work.
6. Go to happy hours.
7. Read.
8. Research things that are vaguely, but not really related to my book.
9. Blog.

I reached thirteen thousand words yesterday.

Still 37,000 more to go.

In Which I Become A Famed Novel Writer

2010-11-02T16:46:00.002-05:00

So I've had the same problem with all the epic novels I've ever written: I haven't written them. I get really excited about writing them, and sometimes I'll write the first five chapters, or that scene where the captain of the guard finally hooks up with the queen, but I've never actually finished a novel.

So this month I'm doing NaNoWriMo for the first time.

By the way, my Halloween party was epic. At one point I peered through the weed smoke at all the drinking and dancing and making out, and I was like, I can’t believe I’m at a party this awesome. Then I was like, I can’t believe I THREW a party this awesome. Nobody threw up, but one dude fell down the stairs. My personal party philosophy is that the more injuries people sustain, the awesomer the party was.

Anyway, for the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It's an informal challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It's always in November, which is a great month to just sit under blankets in your pajamas and fool around with your laptop. NaNoWriMo has grown hugely in the ten or so years since it started -- last year more than 160,000 people did it.

The problem for me is that I'm one of those people who likes to spend a week on 500 words. So I'm going to have to get over it and write my novel. I'm counting on my competitive spirit to help me beat other writers. See, you sign up on the NaNoWriMo site, and then you can friend other people who are doing it and see their word count. I populated my writing buddies page with people I know from a fantasy writers' website I've been a member of for four or five years. I know some of them pretty well. At the end of the first day yesterday, I was vastly pleased to see that my word count exceeded theirs.

We'll see what it looks like next week.

And to answer the question everybody's asking, my novel is gonna be about this really cool boi princess who's kind of a fuck-up but very likeable, and she lives on an island where they have these really cool flying machines that operate with pedals, and then her father's evil twin murders both her parents and exiles the princess. But the princess' best friend grows up seeking revenge, and when she's old enough she goes on a quest to find the princess. She finds her and they have sex and then they come back and overthrow the evil aunt and live happily ever after.

The end. Except it has to be 50,000 words.

My current word count is 4,055. Not bad for two days. Apparently you're supposed to write 5,000 words every three days, or 1,667 words a day. And you can't write at work. (I made that rule up.)

Halloween Plans

2010-10-17T18:34:00.004-05:00

Tell me why I just spent twenty dollars at the dollar store. That's a little excessive, I think. And I don't even have twenty things!

I didn't know it was even possible to spend twenty dollars at the dollar store when you're only picking a few things up.

Most of the stuff was for my house's crazy Halloween party. We want to hold one of those parties where everyone gets so wasted that they crawl around on the floor in other people's vomit. I've never been to one of those parties, so I thought it might be fun to take it to the next level and throw one in my house.

Unfortunately, though, the people I know aren't really the sort to vomit. Or crawl around in other people's vomit when they see it.

But, I did get one of those black lightbulbs. Maybe that will induce people to vomit, if I can figure out a way to strobe it.

Holiday Weekend Issues

2010-10-07T12:13:00.002-05:00

I just wrote this letter to Barnes and Noble's website, after they sent me an email with this subject line: Columbus Discovered America. You'll Discover Great Savings.

Dear Barnes And Noble Customer Service:

Your last promotional email to Barnes and Noble subscribers had the subject line, "Columbus Discovers America". I want you to know that that is a huge FAIL in the customer relations department. Besides the fact that Columbus didn't discover America (I won't insult your intelligence by going into those details), the IDEA of Columbus leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many people whose cultures were negatively impacted by Columbus and the rise of colonialism.

In fact, it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I just unsubscribed from your list. You clearly weren't thinking about your Native American customers, or any of your customers who don't like celebrating a man who allowed his men to rape young girls, cut off people's hands, and set off the genocide of an entire people.

I know you didn't make up Columbus Day. But you don't have to jump on board with it like you think it's a legitimate holiday. If you're going to talk about Columbus, you need to talk about him in a serious and analytical way. Don't trivialize it into a freaking sales pitch.

I'm just saying. I work in web stuff too, so I know it's a pain in the ass to find the right angle. But playing up Columbus Day like it's just a harmless holiday is absolutely the WRONG angle. I think you just lost any cultural competence points you may have had.

I am unsubscribed from your list.

Have a nice three-day weekend.

I think that about sums up my problem with the upcoming day off work.

The obstacles between me and my dream band are diminishing every day.

2010-10-04T14:37:00.001-05:00

Nobody’s blogging. Not even me. And I’m not apologizing. I hate logging onto somebody’s blog and reading some drivel like, “I know I should be blogging more….I’m such a bad blogger….sorry guys.”

I’m not sorry. I didn’t feel like blogging and that’s that. Also, I’ve been writing for other publications. Some are super secret because they have to do with activism that might endanger my lady friend in the place where you don’t ask and she doesn’t tell. Others are less secret, like National Public Radio. If you want to read blog posts by me that are under a month old, go to their new blog, Deceptive Cadence. You will see my name on posts if you scroll far enough.

So that’s my job. I’m living it up in DC, becoming an official writer and producer person and of course living the Bohemian lifestyle with five hippies.They would probably be pissed if I called them hippies, though. For some reason, people who are part of a counterculture hate admitting that they are conforming to anything, even though my house clearly works daily to cultivate its indie-vegan-feminist cred.

I do my part by painting pictures that look like vaginas.

I’m also becoming a Guitar Expert. One of my housemates is a classical cellist, and we both have guitars. We’ve become complete experts. ALSO, she just got an old accordion that came from the 1930’s. It’s in ridiculously good shape, too. So as soon as we write a song of our own, we’ll be starting the most insane band known to humankind. These are the instruments the house (mostly me and the other musician) possesses:
-Three guitars
-A harmonica
-Soprano and alto recorders
-Two didgeridoos
-an accordion
-a tiny drum
-a cello
-a piano, which isn’t actually in the house right now. I’m still waiting to see if I should ship it out here.

I mean, you can make any NUMBER of band combinations with those instruments. I really wish we had an electric bass, but I’ve got my eye on craigslist. One will come. Or even a string bass. It wouldn’t be hard to learn that. I mean, there’s only one melodic line, for goodness’ sake. When you’re a pianist used to playing four and five lines at a time (I’m looking at you, Bach), the bass looks ridiculously easy to learn.

But maybe I’m speaking too soon.

They Tricked Me.

2010-09-02T19:54:00.000-05:00

So basically, if you work in an office, it's just like school. There are differences in the details, but basically, it's just like school.

I was in the Real World this whole time and I didn't even know it. It's the same thing -- you have to get up at a certain time in the morning, and go and be polite, and be extra polite to the people who might write you a recommendation letter. You bring your lunch in a little bag and when lunchtime comes you go to the little refrigerator and warm it up. There are cliques and feuds. There are even field trips (like the cookout the office is supposed to be having).

You have someone who tells you what homework to do, and then you do it. In a job, less of that homework is done at home, but they make up for that with the eight-hour work day.

My lady friend was saying that in the place you don't ask about and I don't tell about, they have direct orders, where people tell you to do stuff, and then implied orders. Like, if you're supposed to be somewhere at eight o'clock, it's implied that you'll have to wake up sometime before eight to get there.

There are a lot of implied orders in the work world that I don't think I would pick up on if I didn't come from a segment of the ubiquitous "middle class" that is used to going to school and working in offices. For instance, if you have a math class, it goes without saying that you skim the chapter they're lecturing on the day before so you can take better notes. If you have an all-staff meeting, it goes without saying that you check up on what everybody's working on at the moment so you can sound informed if they call on you to talk. I might not have known that if I hadn't listened to my parents talk about their days. I might have thought they were going to tell ME what was going on.

Anyway, it's interesting to think I'm entering a new game only to find out that it's the same one.

An Interesting Encounter

2010-08-27T10:47:00.002-05:00

Possibly mature content ahead. So I met an interesting person last night. She came wobbling up onto our porch, completely strung out. She told us she used to buy weed at the house (before we lived there) and wanted to get some more. She had on ridiculously high heels and wasn’t sure who we were, but she looked exhausted.

So of course I invited her in. We sat down and I gave her the things she needed. She was so happy to have met us. It was hard to get her story out of her because she was completely out of her mind, but basically she grew up in McLean, VA (that’s like the Bellevue of DC, for my Seattle readers) in “a good family” (she said this several times) and left for DC at fourteen. Since then she’s turned tricks and stripped and taken online college classes.

I told her that was great (the classes, not the tricks) and that I had confidence in her ability to get a degree.

Then she grabbed my skirts and offered to blow me.

“I’m actually good,” I said.

She came out on the porch with the rest of the housemates and was like, “You don’t know how glad I am to have met some white, middle-class----“

My expression stopped that sentence in its tracks. After that I decided she had to go. So a house friend and I walked her to 14th St, where we hailed her a taxi and sent her home.

Taxi driver, I’m sorry.

But you wanna know what the weirdest thing about this encounter is?

I think I’ve met her before!

I wrote about it here, at the end of the post. Three winters ago, I was waiting in a restaurant for some Indian takeout. This woman came in and after rudely ascertaining that I liked the ladies, started grabbing at my scarf like she wanted to make out with me. She made all kinds of ruckus until the manager came and kicked her out, upon which we discovered that she had been there for a job interview.

Oops.

If it was her, she’s actually improved a lot since then.

I saw something cool.

2010-08-03T10:52:00.001-05:00

I saw something totally awesome on my way to work. Arnold Widowmaker and I usually leave around 9:30, and that’s at the tail end of the peak morning bicycle rush. The route I take to work is almost never gridlocked, so I do the two-and-a-half miles in about fifteen minutes. That’s pretty good for rush hour.

One thing that gets my time down is the giant hill in northwest DC. (Well, giant for DC. Seattle and San Francisco bikers would probably bike up it as a cool-down.) On 14th St, it’s epic. It’s like a roller coaster. I come right off my relatively quiet block onto 14th, right, and I’m looking back and forth gauging space between the cars and trying to get my speed up to keep up with the traffic. The road begins to slant and my center of gravity starts shifting as Arnold picks up momentum. Just as the hill gets steep, I reach over and pull my big gear shifter, the one I almost never use. After several rotations it falls into place with a satisfying clunk, and I take OFF.

So that in itself is probably one of the most legitimate ways in the universe to commute to work. But today I saw something even cooler. I was on the hill, right, and I had just shifted gears and bent low over my saddle, when I saw another biker go past me like I was standing still. Which shouldn’t have happened, because I was going very fast. Even Lance shouldn’t have passed me that fast.

So I look, and this dude has one hand out and is holding onto a TRUCK! He’s not even pedaling!

I've never seen anyone do that outside of a professional bike race. He held onto the truck until the bottom of the hill and then let go and shot off into the distance. I had gone into a sprint so I could catch him at the next light and tell him how legit he was, and ask how he did it, but there was no way I could catch up with him.
Tomorrow I’m adjusting my helmet and waiting for a truck!

A Beast On The Bike

2010-07-23T07:57:00.002-05:00

Also, I’m becoming a bike nerd. (Do they have bike nerds? It’s kind of borderline.) I’ve had bikes since I was old enough to crash them, but until I came to DC I only used them for fun, not transportation. For the past four years, though, my bike has been like a trusty steed of fire that bears me across all manner of terrain.

My current bike is named Arnold Widowmaker. I call him Arnold for short. I got him from my piano teacher at Howard, and I’ve had him about a year and a half. This is me on him. I looked a little skanky in the photo, so I changed it to black and white. Even the skankiest things look classy in black and white.

But it’s only been in the past month or so that I’ve decided to become a bike expert. I always wanted to be one, but that’s easier to do when there are resources around me (there weren’t at Howard). Once I graduated, I got two things that set me on a path to cycling greatness. First, I moved into a house full of bikers, one of whom is pretty serious – more serious than I, anyway. Between her and me and the other two bikers in the house, we’ve transformed our dining room into a bike parking garage/repair and maintenance shop. She also hooked me up with people she knows who love to go touring, which is a fancy way of saying they like to go on long-ass bike rides.

The other thing was that before she left to be all that she could be, my lady friend got me one of those omnitools that you can use to fix just about anything on your bike. And she got me some tire levers and a pump. Once I had those rudiments, I was ready to do just about anything. I decided to embark upon a season-long project: I would slowly make Arnold Widowmaker into the pimpingest bike ever to touch pavement.

These are the things I’ve done to him:

1. Singlehandedly changed his tires and tubes.

6. Installed a mirror and a taillight.

2. Singlehandedly changed front tube again when it went flat on a day-long bike adventure two weeks later. It got punctured on this crappy trail. I was pretty mad – but I had everything I needed to do the job in my little bag. Dudes on the ride came over and gallantly offered help, but I shrugged them off.

3. Cleaned and relubricated his chain. It was insane how much quieter he ran once I did this. It made me feel ashamed that I hadn’t done it before.

4. Taken apart and cleaned the pedals. That’s a lot harder than it sounds because, as I found out, each pedal has two sets of thirteen miniscule ball bearings, which are basically just tiny-ass balls that roll everywhere.

5. Taken apart and cleaned the rear hub and axle. This was also harder than it sounds, for the same reason. Who knew a bike had so many ball bearings? Counting both hubs and the pedals (and wherever else there might be bearings that I haven’t discovered yet), that’s almost a hundred ball bearings.

When I was fixing the hub I had to go to the bike store to get some heavy grease and some quarter-inch ball bearings. The dude at the store looked at me skeptically and said, “If you’re doing something to your bike and you need to buy ball bearings, you’re probably in over your head.”

Really? I think what he meant was, “If you’re doing something to your bike and you have a vagina, you’re probably in over your head.”

Fool. Arnold is running like a dream as I type. (Well, actually he’s parked downstairs. Unless he’s up to something with my housemate’s bike Cecilia again.)

I know the more expert I get, the more I’ll have to deal with dudes trying to do shit for me. I hate it when dudes try to do shit for me. The author and historian Liz Stanley (whose book and research I might talk about in my next Book List post), has this to say about dudes doing shit for you:

“Chivalry depends upon and derives from inequalities in power, privilege, and material possessions and resulting images of the social groups involved. It is an important way of oppressing people, because it denies the existence of oppression under the appearance of service to the oppressed group.”

It’s one thing when a dude opens a door for me. That’s just being polite. I could do without it, but I’m not gonna give him a dirty look. But when a dude asks if he can fix your bike for you, that just shows that he doesn’t think you can do it.

Anyway. My next mission in the pursuit of expertise will be to go to this bike coop in DC and learn everything by doing things for other people’s bikes for free.

I’m pretty much ready to enter The Tour (which is what cool people who know about bikes call the Tour De France). Except yesterday I found out that I can’t enter it as a rider because people with vaginas are barred from it permanently. I’m not making this up!

Absolutely Scandalous.

2010-07-07T12:45:00.004-05:00

Classical news topic for the day: Mikhail Pletnev, esteemed conductor, pianist, and composer, founder of the Russian National Orchestra, just got arrested in Thailand for child molestation.

Oops!

I guess I should say “alleged child molestation”, because he’s denying that he did it. His exact words are, "I would jump from the 26th floor [of a building] tomorrow, if I could believe those news reports.”

Methinks the lady should jump. I mean, Thailand? Any Westerner who hangs out in Thailand is automatically sketchy in my book. Yeah, they might just be enjoying the cheap hotels and cheaper liquor, getting full body massages from grown women, and basically having good, honest fun using someone else’s country as their playground. But there’s also a pretty good chance that they’re headed towards the special playground set aside for pedophiles.

It’s widely known that kids are abused in Thailand every day. The Health System Research Institute in Thailand estimates that 40% of all prostitutes in Thailand are children. (Wikipedia told me that.) And if you can afford to visit Thailand, you’re the prime demographic these pimps are marketing to.

Not only does Pletnev hang out in Thailand—he owns a house there. Enough said.

Now, I’m not saying he did it. I would never say that unless I had proof. I’m just saying, though – he probably did it.

This is pretty shocking to the classical music world because overall, we’re not accustomed to public scandals such as this. Nobody was shocked that Lindsay Lohan went to jail (although the picture of her crying in her lawyer's face cracked me up in a way that few strung-out stars have). Pop culture figures do things all the time. But classical musicians just don't attract paparazzi in the same way. You never hear of concert pianists going into rehab, or string quartets engaging in massive orgies at Aspen.

That’s not to say it doesn’t happen. I’ve seen and heard of many things that would make Lindsay look like a saint. (I, of course, remained journalistically aloof.) But, with a few exceptions, classical music figures just aren’t as widely covered as pop culture figures. We hide our wild (and even criminal) sides with a veneer of whiteness and nerdiness. And it's probably safe to say that people who aren’t interested in classical music aren’t interested in classical musicians' lives, either.

But if you screw up as big as Pletnev did, you're gonna get covered. And not in a good way.

2010 Booklist Episode 2: I Can't Believe I Never Read This

2010-06-25T17:13:00.004-05:00

You all probably forgot about the first episode, but basically my plan was to post about books I’ve been reading. The problem with this, though, is that I’ve read way more books than I am able to post about. So I’m just gonna post about some. The theme this episode: books that are so bad-ass that I can’t believe I went through life without having read them.

1. Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent. As a drag king, I can’t believe I never read this book. This dyke is awesome. Basically she hooked herself up with male drag and instead of just walking around looking manly like I do, she infiltrated all these male organizations (bowling club, strip club audience, monastery). She really made me rethink the way I treat guys. She figured it’d be easy to bag ladies as a straight guy, but she ended up finding out that dykes have it easier because with men, women put up a wall of self-defense the second they see you coming (for good reasons). I realized I do that with dudes. Sometimes I’m perfectly nasty to dudes who just ask me the time of day, when really you can’t blame a guy for trying. I’ve been making an effort not to automatically be nasty unless the dude says some stupid shit. Then, it’s ON.

Twelve stars. She talks about race and class and is aware of her privilege, but doesn’t go much beyond stating that awareness.

2. A Scanner Darkly by Phillip K Dick. I can’t believe I never read this book. It’s basically about this cop who goes undercover to catch people who deal Substance D, this really cool drug (that it can kill you). But, he has to take the drug to pass as a druggie, and he gets to where he’s not sure if he’s a cop or a regular guy who does D. You can tell that Dick (haha, I said dick) has had a lot of experience doing drugs and having psychedelic experiences. The story is in no way a cautionary tale against doing drugs. It’s a way more subtle meditation about the nature of reality.

Every psychonaut should read this book.

3. Angry Black White Boy by Adam Mansbach. I can’t believe I never read this book. It's INSANE. It’s a postmodern Invisible Man. It calls out every problem we have with white people today, and then it calls out every solution people have come up with to the problem. It’s basically about this white kid who gets so clued in about who and what he is that his mind runs around and around in circles and he has to take action. He starts out by robbing white people in his taxicab, but then is appalled when people assume the robber’s Black. One of my favorite moments is when he pulls a gun on two white dudes and screams in their faces, “WHAT COLOR AM I???”

“White! You're white!”

“THANK you! I thought I was going insane here. Now hand over your watches and your wallets.”

That’s just the beginning. The novel has two Black characters. Between the three of them, they narrate the most hard-core and incisive commentary on race in the 21st century that I’ve ever read in a fiction.

The author also does really well with the character’s flaws – the main one being that he’s really really conscious of his whiteness and is always trying to prove himself and fit in with Black people.

My only complaint about this book would be its narrow focus on Black and white issues. He doesn’t talk about other races.

But you need to read this book today. If you even read the rest of this post, you’re wrong, ‘cause you need to be at the library.

That’s enough for today. Next time, I’ll talk about the Native American books I’ve been reading.

Life After Graduation

2010-06-22T07:48:00.002-05:00

Update: I took the plunge and changed my blog! Consider this an interim redesign, 'cause there are just too many options for me to find my final design. This one's actually pretty basic.

Anyway:

So things are going pretty standardly over here. I’ve started my new job, and seem to be doing okay, even though I am still working on becoming the story-pitching machine I want to be.

I’ve moved into my new house, which is pretty cool. I live with five other hippies. All of them have bikes. All of them are vegetarian or vegan. Food is communal. There’s no TV in the house (thank god). Most evenings, we chill on the porch smoking hookah and talking about Issues.

I’ve pimped out Arnold, my bike, so that he now has new tires/tubes, a new light, and a mirror. Also he has reflective tape cut into awesome designs. I’ll post a picture when I’m finished with it.
From living in the hippie house, I’ve mostly adopted a vegan lifestyle, and between that and taking various supplements, I feel very healthy and am probably going to continue with this diet. Really dairy is pretty bad for you. People are all like, Oh, you need calcium, but really you don’t need calcium from dairy. There are lots of places you can get it (like kale). Also, the only people who AREN’T more than 50% lactose intolerant are white people.

Plus, think of the baby animals.

I also have learned to cook many things. Since I’ve been part of the hippie house (which we call MADUSA, for reasons I’m not yet sure of), I’ve cooked:

1. Saag paneer with tofu instead of paneer (it’s basically the same)
2. Cilantro-lime beans and rice (ridiculously delicious)
3. Banana curry
4. Miso soup with the whole refrigerator put in it (except the sweets)
5. Muffins.

All from scratch. All vegan.

I’m a freaking Iron Chef.

Tonight I’m cooking saag chana.

So things are going great since I got that little degree in my hand. There’s only one downer about my post-graduation life: my lady friend left. And I don’t mean we broke up or anything (it’s disgustingly cute how we never have serious fights). What I mean is, she left to go do the job she signed up for before dental school.

Don’t ask me.

I won’t tell you.

It would be illegal.

Plus, I know They (by which I mean the people she’s working for) are probably reading my blog as I type. So I’m gonna keep y’all updated, but y’all gotta play your part by not mentioning any names or places if you know them. It’s important – partly because They’re reading, but mostly because I really like sounding like a secret agent. Cause let’s face it, if you wanted to find out who she is it wouldn’t be impossible. I’ve found out who people are before just by doing stuff like pinpointing times and locations. But the point is to not be a flamer. So if I’m not officially telling, no one’s gonna take the time to do that.

Like, I’m pissed about the laws, but at least you get to sound like a secret agent.

Anyway, she has to do this thing for four years ‘cause that’s how many years of dental school they paid for. People ask me if I’m worried, but I’m not really ‘cause I grew up in that environment. Really it’s more of a pain in the ass than anything. I’m gonna have to pull so much money out of my ass to stay in a hotel when I visit her instead of just staying with her. Also, I’m wondering how many other people are in this situation – even blogging cryptically, as I am, maybe one url away—and don’t know how many other people are too. I mean, you can’t exactly make an online forum. I’d be scared to go on one if there was one.

So that’s the only bummer. Other than that things are going well. This weekend the DC Folklife Festival starts. It’s not as good as Seattle, but you can bet I’m gonna be there.

Time To See Some Puppies.

2010-06-18T07:52:00.000-05:00

As we all know, puppies are one of the true Forces Of Good in the world. Chaotic Good. If enough puppies aren't seen by the masses, the balance of the world will be overturned.

All of these puppies are shamelessly downloaded from The Googles.

This is a little corgi puppy looking cute.

Here's a French bulldog. The only thing cuter than a French bulldog is a French bulldog puppy.

And lastly, here's an adorable black Lab puppy. So cute! I dare you to look at this puppy and not say 'Aw.' I couldn't do it.

You learn something new every day.

2010-06-15T08:23:00.001-05:00

Anal bleaching? I had no idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_bleaching

Like, I thought regular SKIN bleaching was bad.

I don't even have to say much else. This thing kind of speaks for itself.

Too much!

2010-06-11T12:12:00.001-05:00

There are too many new backgrounds in Blogger.

I literally don't know what to do with them all, or how to choose which one I want.

That's why my blog still looks exactly the same.

Boycott the boycott!

2010-06-10T13:21:00.002-05:00

I'm glad that all these people are boycotting BP. That's just freaking great, considering that a shizillion barrels of their oil are pouring out into the Gulf this very SECOND.

But really? Really it just HAPPENED to be BP. The same thing could've happened to Shell, or Exxon (oh wait, it already did). So what you're boycotting BP. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Backstreet Boys (who just announced that they're boycotting BP) are still using SOME kind of oil to travel around to their little concerts.

You know what, just freaking don't even boycott anything at all. The baby seals won't be able to tell the difference between Shell and BP. What's it gonna get anyone? Say everyone boycotted BP and they were run into the ground. Your money's still gonna go to the other oil companies. Change your freaking LIFESTYLE. Ride a bike. I bet none of the Backstreet Boys could even get to their next gig on a bike.

I'm sorry. It's just that this is the dumbest thing I ever heard of.

Yahoo Answers Winners

2010-06-07T15:37:00.005-05:00

Another gem from one of my favorite sites, Yahoo Answers:

I just recieved my equvilency high school diploma, what options do i have now as far as furthering my educatio?

I'd say none whatsoever.

2010-05-15T09:16:00.005-05:00

So I told y'all I was gonna have a kaleidoscope for a graduation present. I wasn't lying. That very same day my father and I went to my favorite kaleidoscope store in Union Station and picked one out. This thing is so legit. Any kaleidscope you ever had as a kid -- forget about it. This is an adult kaleidoscope. I tripped out on it for like three hours the first night I got it. I can't even tell you how psychedelic this thing is. So I'm just gonna post a video of it. Just so you know, the panting you'll hear at the beginning of the video is my lady friend's German short-haired pointer (we're in Maine visiting her mom). He's a weird-ass dog. He often runs around in circles for no reason at all. He was doing that at the start of the video. So if you don't wanna hear any weird-ass panting, mute your volume BEFORE you hit play.

It's so flowy because the reflected pieces are suspended in oil, allowing them to fall more slowly than if they were suspended in nothing like a loser kaleidoscope. For those of you who can't see the video (or in case I uploaded it wrong), here are some pictures of this kaleidoscope action.

Its star has fifteen points.

This is my favorite piece of glass that's inside it. It's lavender.

It looks like a stained glass window.

So legit.

The end.

I have a degree now.

2010-05-09T13:49:00.003-05:00

Yay, I graduated! But I still can't conjugate the word "alumni" -- if nouns can even be conjugated. Anyway, I are an alumni now.

The graduation ceremony went off without a hitch -- unless you count the musical theatre queens dancing across the stage like the lunatics that they are. To music majors, they're the embarrassing members of the family that no one talks about and you cringe when you see them come into a party. I certainly have nothing to do with them.

The cool thing about graduating Howard is that random Black people in the community walk up to you and congratulate you on the street. Also, because I'm the oldest person in my generation, I'm also the first to graduate college. I feel relieved because I felt like I was supposed to be an example to my siblings and cousins -- and now I am. They can do what they want, but at least now I know that I won't be leading them into a life of crime.

Anyway. I'm now the proud owner of a little piece of paper that says I'm more eligible for a job than people who don't have a similar piece of paper, even if those people have vastly more experience with life in general than I.

I have entered a new stratum of privilege.

But, with great privilege comes great power. Or responsibility. Or --whatever Spiderman said. Anyway, my point is that I can now insinuate myself further into the dominant society to retrieve valuable resources for people who don't have them.

My first thing that I'm gonna do when I get paid at my job is donate to my cousin's mentoring program in California. Because I have no reason NOT to now -- which feels good.

But now, I have to go receive a graduation present from my daddy! It's gonna be a KALEIDOSCOPE! I love kaleidoscopes. Like, I go to the store in DC just to LOOK at these things. I gotta say, that's a pretty sweet present.

I didn't think I would miss the cafeteria....

2010-05-08T07:56:00.002-05:00

...and I was right. I went in for my last meal there yesterday, and I was feeling slightly nostalgic as I greeted the nice servers whom I've known for four years ---until they heaped a pile of soggy pasta and brown broccoli onto my plate.

Last time I checked, broccoli was supposed to be green.

Anyway. Today I graduate! I'm sitting right now with my family in the giant hotel suite that they got in McLean, Virginia. My dad always likes to get these hotels south of the line, even though the traffic is the worst. He was like, "Oh, I'm only eight miles from Howard!" I'm like, yeah -- eight miles times the amount of cars trying to get into DC for one reason or another.

Anyway. Everyone's starting to get ready. My mother and brother came from Seattle, and my father came from Oman, and a random cousin who I just met (but is really cool) came from California because she might go to Howard and wants to see the campus. They're all getting ready now.

I'm pretty psyched to graduate. I liked Howard, but you get kind of bored being in the same place for four years. Plus, the cafeteria was killing me.

I definitely enjoyed the privileges I got from having a full scholarship. That was insane. I'm so glad I didn't go to Oberlin -- I'd've been super in debt by now.

The Grand List Of Cool Classes I Took In College

2010-04-29T13:21:00.003-05:00

I was thinking back again on my college experience, and I was thinking that I took some pretty legit classes. Well, some were legit. Others were complete bull. But I thought I got a pretty well-rounded education -- for a piano major, anyway. Obviously my main classes were stuff like Piano, Piano Literature, Vocal Accompanying, Piano Pedagogy, Keyboard Harmony, Piano Trio, and Student Recital. I had to take between two and eight semesters of all of those.

But, because I had a scholarship, I signed up for some interesting non-major classes too. Probably half these classes, I didn't have to take. But I was like, What? Free tuition? So behold, in more or less chronological order, the Grand List Of Cool Classes I Took In College:

1. Judo. This class was insane. It sucked. First of all, we had to be at the gym by eight o'clock. I was a freshman, so I thought it would be cool to get all of my classes done in the morning. Boy, was I ever wrong. It sucked. On top of it starting so early, we had to exercise every time, before the real judo even STARTED. The professor, who's a world champion million-time Olympic medal winner, thought I was a complete pansy. He always said I looked like an old lady.

Never take judo!

2. Arabic. I took two semesters of Arabic from a very metrosexual Syrian professor. I want to continue it sometime. I learned enough to have a conversation with someone in Arabic when I went to Morocco, which I'm still proud about. Learning a language in a classroom is no joke.

3. Sociology. This was one of those hundred-person freshman courses. The professor was really cool, though. The only thing that gave him a black mark in my book was that he wrote this book that had absolutely NOTHING to do with sociology (it was about coping with academic stress) and then forced us to buy it and actually took points off our grade if we didn't.

Lame!

4. Blacks In The Arts. This was where I first met the renowned Professor Randolph. It was his first semester at Howard, and I happened to hear him lecturing on the first day of class. Everyone's always enthralled by his dynamic style. His class is SO exciting. He has a way of painting history. He's a bit of a drama queen, but no one begrudges him that 'cause he's so legit. Anyway, I signed up for the class that day. Which was great, because the next day he was "discovered", and now you pretty much have to have sex with the dean if you want to get in his class.

No joke.

5. Music History. This was a series of four courses taught mostly by the indefatigable Dr Norris. He just had his seventy-somethingth birthday, and he's still going strong (though he often cleans his ears with his baton). He's really, really knowledgable about music. My favorite semester was when he made a special honors section for me and five or six other students (including my best friend Andrew), in which we had to write a paper for every class and present it. It was a lot of work, but I learned so much.

6. Black Aesthetics. They say you shouldn't leave Howard until you've taken a class with Dr Carr. He's insane. He's basically the incarnation of the Black Arts Movement. I feel like there is no book about Black people that he hasn't read. I read so much that semester. His is one of the few classes for which I kept the textbooks.

7. US History to 1877. The teacher of this class was lame, but you can't go wrong with the material. For this class, I consolidated my previous research on John Brown and wrote a paper saying basically that he's the most legit white person ever.

8. Painting. The professor was left-handed like me! It was the most elementary painting class -- I signed up because I'd never painted before. But I ended up being good at it, and the professor REFUSED to believe that I was not an art major. Like, I'd tell him, but he would forget the next day.

9. Swimming. I got along with Professor Fogan, too- mostly because I'm a freaking DOLPHIN when I get in the water. I had no problesm testing out of that class. Also, Fogan liked me because I had helped Andrew eke through his class the previous semester. I still see him sometimes because he frequents the bar that my lady friend tends.

10. African American Philosophy. This was actually a hard class -- the professor graded my papers hard. I even got a C on one of them. I was so mad. But I learned a lot. We read a lot of books -- My Bondage and My Freedom (by Freddy D), Up From Slavery (by Booker T), The Souls of Black Folk, and also a lot of Aristotle, Ida B Wells, and Anna Julia Cooper.

11. Folklore and Fairytales. This class seemed like it was gonna be cool, but it was actually very lame. But, I got to suck up to that professor because I speak (some) German.

13. Intro to Psychology. I just took this to satisfy my science requirement (even though it amazes me that they consider psych a science). It was lame. I just called it Freshman Orientation, 'cause that's who was in it. And it was taught by a bumbling grad student who thinks gay people are caused by childhood abuse. (I set her straight -- no pun intended.)

12. African American Literature since 1940. I just finished this class. It started out decent but moved up to awesome the more I went to it. The professor of this class is basically the antithesis to Dr Carr -- he thinks the Black Arts Movement (and other similar movements) is bullshit. He's like, how are you African if you're sitting around in a European-style café talking in English about how African you are? He's not dissing or negating Blackness; he's just keeping it real. Actually I have a lunch appointment with him on Sunday to discuss this further, because such a stance raises a lot of questions for me. Also, he did his Fulbright in Hungary! When I asked him, "Beszél magyarul?" he was like, "Whoa. I thought I just heard you speak Hungarian." And then when I told him that I had, in fact, just spoken Hungarian, he was pretty psyched. So we're gonna talk about that on Sunday too. Actually I'm pretty happy that a professor asked me to lunch (with his wife too!). I feel so legit, and more like a teacher's pet than ever.

While writing this, I realized that I was the teacher's pet in most of those classes. What can I say -- it's a role I've cultivated since childhood. Every semester I have at least on professor who thinks I'm the best thing since flushing toilets.

Anyway, now the final totals. I will be graduating with

140 credits (which is four credits over the amount I needed to graduate, so Howard better not pull anything when I go to get my clearance slip next Tuesday)

507 quality points (whatever that means)

and a 3.73 cumulative GPA! (I had a few mishaps in my first year or two. But the past several semesters I've gotten straight four-ohs.)

So show up for the party next weekend!

Grand List of Things I Did In College

2010-04-24T13:04:00.008-05:00

Listening to Philip Glass' Metamorphoses. They're so legit.

Anyway. Now that I'm about to graduate, I'm thinking over my college years with a mixture of nostalgia, horror, amusement, and sometimes disgust. Here's my grand list of things I did in college:

1. Lived with other people besides my nuclear family. This included my roommate freshman year. She sucked. To this day I barely say hi to her. I think she joined a sorority. And then last summer I lived off campus in a house full of potheads who sometimes puked on the floor.

7. Joined the workforce. My first ever job was as a server/busboy at an Indian restuarant.

18. Became an urban biker. The first time I set out in DC, on my trustworthy steed Trigger (goddess rest her soul), I was petrified. Now, I know how to weave deftly in and out of traffic and cut off other vehicles. There is NOWHERE in the city limits that I can't beat you to if you're in a car.

3. Played two solo recitals. My qualifying one was forty minutes long, and then many of you were at my senior one, which was the real deal. That's my sophomore one in the picture. (I thought I should post pictures because I heard most people can't focus for too long if you only put text.)

8. Witnessed Barack Obama's inauguration. It was incredibly legit, even though Obama sucks as much as Clinton.

19. Had my first date! It was adorable. I've been around the block since then, though.

5. Left the Western world. You can't really say you're well-travelled if you've only been to Europe. 'Cause the US is BASED on Europe. I travelled to Ghana, Togo, Morocco, and China with people in the music department. It was epic.

6. Discovered the Green Fairy (and I don't mean absinthe). I feel like everyone who plays an instrument or draws or writes should tap into this muse. Can't wait for the vote in California.

2. Became a pansexual playboy, or a big old dyke as my Aunt Donna puts it. Not that I wasn't a pansexual playboy before, but you don't really learn the culture and norms of queerness until you get old enough to go to clubs.

11. Had my first office job (which, as I've detailed before, I will be picking up again). It was interesting because the whole time I felt like I was inside Dilbert.

4. Had my first relationship. My lady friend and I have been together for more than a year now, which is insane. Everybody who knows me knows that I would much rather be single than attached -- it's a testament to my lady's legitness that I stick around her. But, it's cool 'cause you get to learn compromising and sharing and other stuff you supposedly learned in kindergarten. Also, whenever you want action, you can get it.

10. Saw the Ring Cycle in Toronto.

9. Acted in a student film. It was very low-budget but I loved it.

25. Got in a giant bike accident and got stitches in my head. It was epic!

12. Became a socialist, then a pinko, then a green, then a skeptic. This evolution of my political values came from realizing that socialism/communism/communalism is necessary for change, but is not relevant (at least, not Marxism). That's a paradox that nobody talks about. Instead they're just like, Uh-huh! Socialism is TOO relevant! It's the only way! Or else they agree that it's irrelevant, but don't agree that it's necessary. Read Richard Wright's I Tried To Be A Communist. He had a very similar experience to mine. But it was great while it lasted! I have such fond memories of wrestling with the cops and thinking it mattered.

13. Slept in Penn Station. Another thing that every artist should do is travel around with no plans at all. That's how you end up sleeping in Penn Station when you miss the last bus back to DC from New York. I definitely saw a woman get robbed that night. And then another time I travelled to Ocean City because I couldn't survive another hour without seeing the ocean, and I slept in a mini-golf tower.

14. Took the train across the country. I hope my friend Carina remembers this as fondly as I do. My favorite part was going through Montana.

15. Went to my first funerals/memorials. Both my grandfather and my lady friend's father died this year. All I can say about that is, the services were really very nice.

16. Went to Harpers Ferry and Mt Vernon and other historical sites. I love history.

28. Took lots of African American studies courses, and basically learned about Black history.

17. Sang with a feminist chorus for two years. They say they're not a gay chorus, but they have rainbow stoles. Nuff said.

20. Learned to contra dance. I'm not as legit as my brother, who apparently knows like three different kinds of swing dancing, but I don't care. It's fun.

21. Had mononucleosis. Don't contract it.

22. Had all my wisdom teeth removed. Don't get that done either.

23. Made friends. My friends Danielle and Andrew will hopefully be my friends for a long time. Danielle doesn't live around here, but she's a beast. She's a poet and a revolutionary. If she asked me to help her lead the revolution I would quit my job and do it, right down to its inevitable suppression.

24. Broke up with my former best friend. (That's right, Sean. Former.) Normally I'm pretty chill, but my friend pulled the one thing that's unforgivable -- he let his roommate say the n-word when they were talking about me and then wouldn't allow me to demand satisfaction because he thought he'd get evicted. (I wasn't actually even gonna duel the guy.) It's kind of sad because he still doesn't understand why I broke up with him over that. We'd been friends for a long time.

26. Became a drag king! I haven't dressed up like Randy Bull in a long time because my current haircut isn't very manly, but once I get paid this summer I'm gonna get him some new clothes.

27. Tried to join the Navy. Most of you didn't know about this 'cause I didn't wanna tell something nobody asked. I might still join but I don't really care about telling. Anyway, you know I've been dying to be a pirate since birth. I realized that the Navy is the most legitimate gang of pirates out there. The only thing that stopped me from joining is that I got the job I already told you about. But I'm still gonna run away to sea.

That's all I can think of for now, other than just becoming a bad-ass.

April 2010 Cool Thing Award

2010-04-23T17:04:00.004-05:00

This month's Cool Thing Award goes to this insect! I didn't know about this insect! Did you know about this insect? It's called a wetapunga, or a Little Barrier Island weta. It lives in New Zealand, and it's the heaviest insect in the world! It can be up to 70 grams. Also, they're nice and eat only vegetarian things, so you can approach one if you see it. It looks like there'd be some good eatin' on it.

Its main defense is looking large and spiky.

I never want to hear the words "volcanic ash" again.

2010-04-21T12:10:00.004-05:00

So, I'm not in Paris. I should've been there right now. But due to the actions of certain volcanoes (I'm looking at you, Eyjafjallajokul), the trip was CANCELLED.

This volcano is a criminal! This is a picture of it erupting.

I knew I should've kept an eye on that thing. I don't care how pretty it looks erupting, either. I'm still mad at it. It's just straight-up rude of it to spew all its ash over half of Europe. I at least cover my mouth when I sneeze. This volcano has no home training whatsoever.

I should've been in Paris right now, rehearsing with my singer for the concert tomorrow, looking forward to some escargot-stuffed crepes for dinner. Now, nobody's going to the concert. The singer got a possible rain date, but it's after I start working, so I won't be able to play for her.

I mean, Eyjafjallajokul doesn't even care about the other volcanoes around it. Apparently half the time it erupts, its eruption is so bothersome that its neighbor Katla ends up erupting too. And that volcano is apparently even more of a loser than this one.

News flash, Eyjafjallajokul: it is not the time of the DINOSAURS anymore. The world is civilized now. We're so over that. We don't wanna see that shit.

I'm pretty pissed, but I did get to celebrate the spring greenery yesterday (April 20th) with my lady above the Potomac instead of going to Dulles and sitting on a plane all night. Plus, it's kind of cool that the weather can still control us. It shows me that humans are not actually in charge, which is cool because I sometimes believe we are, and that's scary to think of. I'd much rather have Mother Nature in her rightful place as ruler of the multiverse, even though she doesn't care whether humans live or die. It's kind of nice that she doesn't. Then you don't have to go around doing silly rituals to curry favor with her.

Plans for April!

2010-04-11T12:16:00.005-05:00

So, aside from graduating and landing a Legit Job, I have two other things going on that make me look like an actual member of society. One, I'm getting my first publication in a journal. I wrote a paper about synthetic scales, and it's going to be published in Howard's academic journal on music theory. The less said about that right now, the better, 'cause the deadline is by close of business today. The other thing is, I got my first professional gig!

By professional, I don't mean I play for them and they give me money. I do that all the time. I'm practically loaded from doing that. This is way more hard-core than that. I mean, the singer and I have a MANAGER.

I'll be performing with a soprano named Shelby -- in le belle city du Paris!

I know Shelby from inauguration. She got a gig at New York Ave Presbyterian (Lincoln's church), and she called Howard to ask if they had a pianist she could use. My teacher recommended me very highly, and I had a great time playing for her and her friends Tremayne, Ty, and Nielah. I sang with them too.

In the year since inauguration, I've kept more in touch with Tremayne than with the others. He's sort of a male counterpart to my Aunt Donna -- he's a like a younger uncle who you could go to if you needed a condom or something. I always call him if I'm worried about something with my lady friend, or if I'm making a decision or applying for a job. He loves me to death. Also, he's practically a gourmet chef.

Anyway, he and Shelby called me on a conference call a couple weeks ago. Shelby was like (she has a really sweet-sounding voice that's kind of high) "So, would you be interested in playing a gig for me?"

I never see Shelby but I've told her I have her back whenever she needs it, so I was like, "Sure. When is it?"

"It's April 22nd. Are you free then?"
"I think so. I guess I could try to get my grades in early. Is it in DC or Philadelphia?"
"It's in Paris."
"Paris, Kentucky?"
"You're funny. No it's in Paris, France."

I pretended to think about it just so they would value my services, but the fact is, I've always wanted to go to Paris. I haven't beeen to England, France, or Spain, and I've felt like I should check them out at some point. I didn't wanna pay to go myself though because I feel like I could go to Africa or India and see way cooler stuff than I'd see in Europe, where I've chilled on and off since birth.

But if it's a paid gig -- here I come! Also, Paris is absolutely PACKED with Black history and classical music history -- two of my favorite things. Chopin hung out there with Liszt and Delacroix. Henry O Tanner painted some of his most bad-ass stuff there. And Josephine Baker tore up the stage in the twenties. Also, Paris in April is supposed to be super legit.

I've been trying to learn French. I thought this before, but now that I've applied myself to actual investigation into the language, I still think that French is the only language dumber than English. I hate to think how many millions of tons of paper they waste every year printing consonants that AREN'T THERE. In fact, whenever you see a consonant and you're not sure how to pronounce it, don't pronounce it at all. Words like lait, which should be pronounce 'late', are instead pronounced 'lay'.

Dumb as hell. And then I don't know why people think it's such a pretty language. It's actually very nasal. I think Arabic is prettier-sounding than French any day.

But, it's fun to go around saying stuff like "Je suis végétarienne!" and sounding like a complete snob.

So, I bounce out of here on the 20th. I have to have my grades in before that, because after that I'm graduating!

I have my life worked out!

2010-04-02T13:06:00.007-05:00

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. It's well into the seventies on Howard's campus, and the Yard is teeming with fratboys and freshmen.

I only have a few more weeks to enjoy fratboys and freshmen, because soon I will be graduating. (I have to hear every time I talk to my mother and her coworkers about how they can't believe I'm graduating and the time went by so fast. Well, believe it. The time went by at a regular pace for me.)

Apparently now I will be entering what I heard somebody call "the Friends years" (from that show with those people who were really good friends and had nothing to do but hang out). I'll be out of college and working, but I won't be settled down yet. (Hopefully I'll never be settled down, but my lady friend loves the idea of it, so I might settle for a little bit to keep her company at some point after I sail around the world.) I'll have endless time on my hands to drink fine wine, smoke shishah, read books, hang out with people, and make endless witty quips worthy of primetime television, while holding down a job that pays well enough to finance said books and fine wine.

So, the job. Through some strange quirk of fate, I have been offered a job -- a job in my field, right after graduation. In this economy? No way. But it's true. You know how I interned at NPR last summer? They apparently liked me, 'cause they called me and said they want me to work again for them through September.

But first I have to find a place to live. I wanna live in DC proper, so I don't have to do a ridiculous commute on the train. Did you know DC has the longest commute in country? Also, 670-some thousand people work in DC, but only 28% of those people live in the District. Our commute is so ridiculous that we made up slugging! (It's a cross between hitchhiking and carpooling.)

So yeah, I gotta live in the District. Which means I've been consulting the oracle known as CRAIGSLIST. Craigslist is hella sketchy, but it's the best venue around for someone who's looking for month-to-month shared housing. (I could get my own apartment, but I don't see any reason to waste money just 'cause I'm loaded.)

Basically, you find listings on there and email the people, and then if they feel like it (most don't, it seems) they write back and tell you when to come look at their place. You go to look at it, and either the person's there or they aren't (that's how craigslist folks roll). If they're there, they show you the place and ask you questions like, "Can you pay rent on time?" and "Do you need parking?" and you ask questions like, "Will cigarettes ever be lit in this house?" and "So...is someone gonna fix that roach problem?" Then in a few days, if the other occupants liked you and didn't find anyone else to move in, they'll hit you up.

Out of at least twenty-five emails I've sent, I've looked at three places. Two fell through and one seems to be falling through as we speak. I have a tentative viewing lined up with some hippies near where I lived last summer. They're feminists and have cats and stuff, so I knew just what to say to have them swooning over me. They're supposed to get back to me at some point.

And then there's an extra thing to consider when you're looking for a place and you're a pansexual playboy — you have to know that the people you're moving in with are down with that. Which means you have to out yourself repeatedly to random strangers and ask stuff like, "So....is this house queer-friendly?" which can be awkward when you're sitting in a room with a bunch of dudes who might be decidedly unfriendly to the gays. People have mostly been cool (and I've been able to weed out the ones who arent' through email), but I still don't enjoy it. I mean, straight people don't have to ask if potential housemates are cool with THEM, even if they're moving into 69 Gay Street in Dupont Circle.

I'm also thinking about starting a new blog, since my college years are almost over. (At least, until grad school.) I'm thinking about calling it The Bachelor Pad, and renaming my online self as The Confirmed Bachelor. And I'm gonna do it all up in black and white and grey.

Also I'm gonna go shopping for business clothes! They always say you should dress for the salary you want, and since I'll have the salary I want, I'll need to get some new clothes. No more intern jeans and sandals for me. (I just really didn't care by August.) I'll be getting some blazers, some slacks, some button-downs, and some nice-ass shoes.

And I will enter the world of the young professional, not without some trepidation.

Spring Break

2010-03-24T10:30:00.002-05:00

So I just had spring break. That's why I didn't write all week, 'cause I was partying in Miami and Cancun with the white people.

Not.

The weather was really nice though. These are the things I did in spring break:

-Went to the zoo with my lady friend and saw the one-year-old BABY gorilla
-Went on an epic bike trip including Arlington Cemetery, Georgetown, Bethesda MD, and Rock Creek Park (probably 20 miles total)
-Went on an 8-mile hike with my lady friend to a nature center in Wheaton, MD, where we saw a million turtles and lots of geese and some skunk cabbage
-Went on another epic bike trip which included the DC Marina, Anacostia, the Suitland Parkway Trail, Southern Ave Metro station, and the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail.

-Went on the most epic bike trip, 45 miles round trip to Mt Vernon. Which I'll post about another time.

March 12th

2010-03-12T17:06:00.004-05:00

I haven't posted in a long time! Which is too bad, 'cause I have more books for you be interested in. But I don't feel like posting them now. I also want to post about my obsession with Crazy Horse and the Lakota resistance in the 19th century, but I don't feel like doing that either. Maybe it'll happen soon.

I've been in Maine with my lady friend for what seems like forever. Except it wasn't a hanging out visit -- we were there because her father died. Which is very sad because he was a great guy and my lady friend loved him so much. He was always there for her track meets and karate matches and he took her hunting and was basically a really good dad.

You can see his obituary on my facebook page.

See, I didn't want to write too much about it 'cause it's depressing, but now that I started I can't just mention it in passing. He died of ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, which there's literally no cure for. He was diagnosed in January but they think it started the summer before that. Basically what happens is that all your muscles are unable to work anymore. It's what Morrie had in Tuesdays With Morrie (which, I have to disclaim right now, I hated before this ever happened. It made me puke. They should've made a movie about it and put it in a double DVD set with The Notebook, which also made me puke).

Anyway, he deteriorated pretty fast. It was the night of the 25th that he died. My lady friend's sister called in the middle of the night. It was one of those things where you know what's going on the minute the phone rings.

The other really sad thing is that he's been married to my lady friend's mom for almost 40 years. That's almost twice as long as my life. I know it'll take her a long time to figure out what she's going to do. And my lady friend's mom is really nice.

So that's what I was doing, was going to be with my lady friend for all the...proceedings. I tried to help them out with some of the stuff, like editing and formatting the obituary. Lots of her family came and stayed and drank and talked and cried and laughed. At one point I made pancakes for like fifteen people. It was the giantest stack ever.

There was a wake and viewing, which my lady friend and I set up really nice with pictures and music. My lady friend read the obituary, which just broke my heart. It broke hers too but she read it with a steady voice. Also a reverend who was a friend of the family spoke. The funeral itself was a military funeral, because he'd retired from the Armed Forces. It was the whole deal, with taps and the presentation of the flag.

I liked my lady friend's dad. I still felt a little shy around him (unlike with her mother, who told me pretty much everything the first night I met her), and I'd been hoping to get to know him better. But it was not to be. Still, I'm glad I got to meet him before he was sick.

Anyway. Maybe I'll post books soon. I also need to post about my grandfather, who also passed recently. Unfortunately. I haven't uploaded the pictures yet. It's coming.

2010 Book List: Episode 1

2010-02-18T12:45:00.005-05:00

I've been meaning for a while to make you all read some books, or at least tell you about some books so you can impress your friends by pretending to have read them. I do that all the time. I guess the biggest book I do that with is The Color Purple. I never read it, and I could never get more than two pages into it when I DID go to read it. I can't stand that book. But if I told people that, I would get my Blackness card taken away. So I went on wikipedia, and now whenever people ask me about it I'm like, "Yeah, it's such a touching story. The dyke action is really great."

So I'm not being condescending when I tell you to pretend you've read books if you don't feel like reading them. I just wanted to tell you what I've been reading. My buddy Alexis does this all the time on her blog -- like she kept track of what she reads every month. So since 2010 started I've been (mostly) doing that.

Here's some of the stuff I've been reading lately.

Running With Scissors: by Augusten Burroughs. It's basically this memoir where he talks about crazy stuff that happens to him, like his having a 33-year-old boyfriend when he's twelve, and his mom giving him to this crazy psychiatrist who has a Masturbatorium in the back of his office. You don't really know whether to laugh or feel sorry for the kid.

The Hunger Games and Catching Fire: by Suzanne Collins. These books are CRAZY good. Like, you can't stop reading them, and if someone makes you stop, you just attack them. They're about a future America where 12 districts are controlled by The Capital. To keep the districts in check, every year they take two kids from each district and make them fight to the death on live TV -- the Hunger Games. It's kind of a cross between the Olympics, Survivor, and that one Greek myth where the minotaur eats teenagers every year. Isn't that crazy? The books center around a chick named Katniss who takes her sister's place in the Games. The third one's coming out in August. These books are so sick.

Mourning Dove: A Salishan Autobiography: by Mourning Dove. She basically talks about her life on and around the Flathead reservation in the late 19th century. You learn so much about Colville customs and traditions, and you see how much has already been lost by the time she's an adult.

The Lightning Thief: by Rick Riordan. I read this book 'cause I wanted to have read it before the movie came out. It was alright. I wouldn't give it that many stars because it's basically a copy of Harry Potter -- kid finds out he's more than he seems to be (a Greek demi-god, in this case), goes to a school for kids like him, and teams up with a smart girl (a daughter of Athena, in this case) and a charming but average boy (a faun, in this case) and saves a magical object from the Dark Lord (Hades, in this case...or someone darker who isn't fully discussed till the second book, which I'm probably not gonna read). So see the movie if someone pays for your ticket, but you could be reading more exciting things this season.

Linden Hills: by Gloria Naylor. I figured I should read something of hers besides Mama Day and Brewster Place. See, when you read an author's well-known works, you're just on the level of everyone else, but when you read their more obscure ones, you can pass yourself off as an expert.
Anyway, in Linden Hills, all these loaded Black people live in a gated community named Linden Hills. It's owned by a really rich dude who secretly puts his wife in the cellar. The main protagonists are two guy friends -- one who as born in Linden Hills and left it, and one who grew up on the other side of the tracks. Each day, they do snow shovelling and yard work in Linden Hills, working their way closer to the secret in the big house at the bottom of the hill. It's not as exciting as it sounds.

Winter In The Blood: by James Welch. Welch lived in Missoula, Montana, which is where I've wanted to live ever since I went through Montana on the train a couple years ago. He's Blackfeet and Gros Ventre, and he writes about the history and life of people in the area. This book is about a dude who lives on the Fort Belknap reservation and has had a really shitty life. I mean, his dad's dead, his brother was killed horribly when only 14, and whitefolks are encroaching everywhere. Basically he goes around drinking and having meaningless sex and wondering who the people around him are. It's pretty good.

Sag Harbor: by Colson Whitehead. This just came out last year. It's about a rich Black kid who goes to a white school, but stays in a rich Black resort town called Sag Harbor every summer. It's about him finding his identity and growing up. The book is cute and sentimental, but I have to warn you that the entire thing is one giant digression. Like, nobody can even say "Let's get a soda" without the narrator talking about his experiences with soda for three or four pages.

Pride And Prejudice: by Jane Austen. I don't know why this book is still so popular. I really don't. I do think it should a Mozart opera, though. Like, I get that it's supposed to expose the prejudice of the landed classes, and I liked it and thought it was funny, but I really had to slog through it. It took me days and days to finish it. I only read it so I could read:

Pride And Prejudice And Zombies: by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. I don't know why this book isn't more popular. I really don't. It was hilarious. And supposedly in March they're supposed to be releasing a prequel called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. I can't wait! Read this book today, but only if you've read the original, cause then you get extra enjoyment in watching the part where Elizabeth ninja-kicks Mr Darcy.

The Picture of Dorian Gray: by Oscar Wilde. Yet another book which I wiki-ed and then pretended to have read. It's way gayer than I ever thought. People always told me it had gay undertones, but they were wrong. It has gay OVERTONES. The whole book is a giant compendium of faggotry. It's about this young twink who gets his picture painted and then wishes the picture would age instead of him. Surprise surprise, that's just what happens. He goes around under the influence of this sugar daddy, and then becomes an opium-doing sugar daddy himself, right until the dark conclusion of the novel. Most people don't know that there's a 1918 Hungarian film based on it.

I have more, but I guess I'll post them later 'cause I want to eat lunch. In the next episode of 2010 book list, look out for drag kings, time travellers, and weird-ass Victorian maidservants.

Day Five Of The Giant Blizzard

2010-02-10T13:42:00.004-05:00

More snow.
More school closures.
More men trying to tell us how to shovel a car out.
No more frostbite.

More snow is falling as I type.

The Blizzard of 2010!

2010-02-07T15:10:00.004-05:00

I have two problems today:

1. Snow.
2. Dudes.

For the first one, the radio or television, or just looking out your front window, has probably already alerted you to the fourth-largest snowstorm in DC, ever. I haven't seen this much snow since I moved to the States. (It happened every year in Hungary though.)

It started Friday night, and it didn't stop until Saturday afternoon. Most people got like 26 inches. Also, it's frigid, so it's not gonna melt before Tuesday, when we're planned to have another storm.

I love the snow, but there are a few things that I missed out on doing because of it -- namely, my art gallery opening. I forgot to mention that I got my big break in the art world with the accpetance of three of my pieces to the Student Art Show here at the Number One HBCU. The opening reception was supposed to be Friday, but they had to postpone it. I'm not too bummed though, because secretly (y'all aren't supposed to know this yet) one of the trustees has already purchased one of my pieces. This is exciting because when I made the labels for them, I charged lots and lots of money so they would look legit. 'Cause whenever you go into an art gallery you always see tiny-ass paintings that cost like eight hundred dollars. So I figured I should follow that tradition. Once you get your foot in the door, you can do whatever you want. Little did I know that someone would actually buy them.

Anyway, the snow officially postponed that triumph. My lady friend's car was completely buried, worse than in the last storm. We got the jump on the other people in her parking lot by going out early Saturday morning and shoveling it out while the snow was still falling, which cut our work down to like an hour today. But the only problem with that was that we got FROSTBITE from shoveling without gloves. No lie. If you've never had frostbite before, make sure you don't get it, 'cause it'll probably be up there in the top fifteen creepiest things that could ever happen to you.

That's not my hand in the picture, but that's practically what my hands looked like. Maybe not quite that bad. But basically like that. I didn't even know I had it until we got inside (and we were all warm anyway from shovelling) and I decided to put some hot water on my hands. Once I was running it my hands started to feel weird and I looked and half of my fingers (two or three on each hand) were swollen up so bad they felt like they were about to bust right open. That's a creepy feeling, take it from me. Apparently it happens during second-degree frostbite 'cause your fingers fill with edema (which is a medical way of saying fluid) as they begin to thaw.

So after running around and screaming that I was never going to play the piano again, I finally immersed my hands in a bucket of warm water, where I sat there complaining for an hour or so. My lady friend had it on her hands too but she's from Maine so she didn't bat an eye. She was like, "Oh yeah, that happens to me all the time."

And you didn't think it was a major PROBLEM?

Anyway, my hands were back to normal by the afternoon. I was glad about that 'cause if it had gotten any worse I would have ended up looking like THIS!

I don't know how that dude held still for that picture. I would've been running around screaming for them to get it off me.

Anyway, we got the car shoveled out just fine. Which brings me to my second problem of the day: dudes. Not to sound like a man-hating dyke or anything. I like the gentlemen very much, especially those whose names begin with "J" and end with "ohhny Depp". But I still have a problem.

For one, why do dudes have to act like I am five? There were two dudes standing by the door as my lady friend and I went out to shovel, and they were like, "Be careful, baby! Shoveling will hurt your back!" (This as they sat on their asses.) Like, last time I checked I was fully grown.

And then they think that having lady parts excludes you from that category of people who can wield a shovel. After we dug out the Rabbit (my lady friend's car), we got started on this neighbor lady's car to do her a favor for lending us her ergonomic shovel. The two dudes came to sit on their asses outside, and they were like, "Careful now! Do you guys need a break?" They actually thought that that was all we had shoveled in the last hour.

My lady friend just looked at them and was like, "THAT'S my car."

That shut them up immediately, but not for long. Why do dudes assume women don't know anything about how to keep a car? Once they stopped exclaiming over how well we'd shoveled the car out, they started in on how my lady friend's car would deal with the snow and how much gas was in the tank and how she should really start it up so it wouldn't freeze and cause her to have car problems.

I mean, my lady friend's from Maine. I dare say she's encountered snow before.

It's weird 'cause I know this stuff is unconcsious for a lot of people. Many women and men would think it's just polite and neighborly for them to be watching out for us. It's only when you live outside the structure of women and men, or read extensively about that structure, that you start to notice the daily BS that people pull.

I have to go watch the Superbowl now.

I'm not alone in the world....

2010-01-24T14:42:00.003-05:00

... I have Yahoo Answers.

Why do I have urges to hurt small animals? I don't know. But maybe you could be president one day.

How can I get my mind off MJ when I miss him so much and when he's constantly inspiring me by the second.? It's been five months.

Is it fair to call my dad (70yrsold) a pu**cake when he actually says things that only a giant pu**y says? No.

Isn't being a virgin a better achievement than getting laid? No.

Where can you rent/buy mexicans? White people always think racism's okay if they meant it as a joke. If I had a dime for all the times I've heard a white dude say, "It's okay, 'cause I insult everybody equally!" No. It's not okay. And it's not even original. Has this dude ever gotten laid?

Why do Finnish (Finland) people stare at foreignors? It annoys me as hell! Is this their natural behavior? Welcome to my life.

I found out that my 11 year old sister is a lesbian and she's dating a 13 year old...? Oh snap! What a little pimp. That is a little young to be dating, though. At least they can't get pregnant.

Is it weird to want to have sex with your father? Yes.

How to distinguish a gay from a transsexual? Read a book.

How did European culture influence the Vikings? Last I checked, the Vikings lived in Europe.

Parents took my Xbox, what are other good ways to entertain myself? Please be reasonable, I'm a junior in high school and a boy, I'm not going to read a book or volunteer or stuff like that. Okay then.

And today's winner:

What side of the civil war was abraham lincoln on. North or southern?

Since he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, I'm gonna hazard a guess and say it was the North.

Week Two Of The Last Semester

2010-01-20T16:06:00.004-05:00

Chilling in illustration class again. I'm not sure what's going on yet because the professor's talking to some people who decided to add the class at the last minute. I think he's telling them to drop.

A dude just showed me how to use the scanner. I've never scanned anything, which is pretty sorry considering I've been posting on Deviantart for like three years. It's actually not hard. It basically acts like a USB device -- like, it pops up once you turn it on and the computer does everything for you. So maybe I'll scan some things at some point.

I had my piano lesson today, and my teacher told me that I was only gonna get to have one lesson a week this semester because he's teaching a graduate course at the U of Maryland. I was like, whatever. I wasn't too disappointed 'cause I don't think he gets paid to give me two lessons, and I've had two lessons every semester except the first one. Also, my recital's done, so basically I'm just chilling until May. I'm doing the Prokofiev D minor sonata, and then some stuff from Schubert's Faschingschwank Aus Wien, and then some Scriabin. All I have to do to graduate is pass a jury.

I'm definitely starting to feel like someone who's worthy of a bachelor's degree. Like,

my psychology textbook stops to explain things that I now feel are elementary. I'm not getting as much as I used to from class discussions. In the past I might've walked out of a discussion or lecture completely psyched and with new things that I'd never thought about in my head, but now I just feel like we should be discussing more in-depth things. (That's probably because some of my classes are filled with underclassmen.) For instance, I didn't join in the discussion about "good hair" in my psychology class the other day, because I've already had that discussion. I've already thought about what "good hair" is and isn't (mostly isn't) and it's not a revelation to me that we're deluded about it. Next topic.

Not to sound like an intellectual elitist (which I am, but I wasn't trying to be in that particular paragraph). I'm just saying, I feel like I learned something in four years in school. Which is good.

I've decided that I want a scanner. I'm still checking this one out that the dude next to me is using and I can't get over it. Like, it copies your drawings into the computer. I'm trying not to act too amazed by it though, because everyone else in here is like a design major and uses scanners in their sleep. Also, I barely got in the class as it was, what with my lack of prerequisites. If I freak out when I see a scanner, that's just gonna tell the professor that he made a mistake.

What else is going on. I spent almost all my book voucher for the first time ever. My books have never been so expensive! My literature class has a giant 1900-page anthology, and a 25 dollar novel. But it's my psych book that I'm really pissed about. The book is 80 dollars, and it's unbound and three-hole punched. AND, it doesn't even come with a binder for you to put it in! And then, on top of THAT, it acts like they're doing you a FAVOR by giving you a ream of pages instead of a book! On the front of the pages it has a glossy page that has a photograph of what the cover would be if you'd been offered the book in BOOK form, and then under that it says: This unbound, three-hole punched version of the textbook is much easier to use!

Bee-yitch! If I thought an unbound, three-hole punched version of the textbook would be easier to use, I would tear out the binding and punch holes in it!

I've already ripped two pages by accident. I'm gonna be lucky if I can GIVE that thing away at the end of the semester. I can't imagined how pissed I would be if I had to actually pay for it.

Anyway. It's time for me to go 'cause the professor's about to come look at my sketches.

In Which I Enter The Home Stretch

2010-01-13T16:47:00.004-05:00

I'm sitting in my illustration class. I know, right? That's an awesome class to be taking. For those of you who are just tuning in, this is my last -- I repeat, last -- semester at good old HU, the nation's number one university. I've already heard from a million people (mostly parents, grandparents, and other people who tend to look upon me with a sentimental tear in their eye) about how quickly my undergraduate career went by and how they can't believe I'm already twenty-TWO! (Wish me happy birthday.) Which is touching, but really. Try practicing a million hours a day and sitting up all night for finals eight semesters in a row, with other things like partying and new friends and relationships and jobs and living situations thrown in. I should HOPE I'm 22 by now.

So, I'm sitting in class. The professor is consulting individually with some of the other students on our first project, which is to illustrate "the days of the week". That's a pretty hard assignment when you think about it. I thought it was gonna be, Illustrate an Anansi story. Illustrate the Olympics. I dunno, something that has concrete imagery associated with it. When you think about it, the days of the week are pretty elusive. Most people are going with a labor/work setting -- blue Monday, T.G.I.F, and all that. I had an idea of a series of illustrations showing a woman slogging through the work week, but then I realized that in almost all of my sketches, she's drinking something. So I cut it down to the bare bones of the thing and made a series of sketches depicting drinks: coffee on the weekdays, going from black on Monday to mocha (with cookies) on Friday, beer on Saturday, and communion wine on Sunday. (My rationale for that last was that the week is a ritual, and nobody's more into rituals than the Pope and his shizillion followers.)

The professor seemed to like it. I felt like an idiot when I came to class on Monday, 'cause I didn't know that there were hella prerequisites for this class. The professor kind of paused when I came in, 'cause apparently he knew all the other six people in the class, and he was like, "Who are you? Why're you in this class?" and I didn't know about the prereq's, so I was like, "Hey, I'm a senior, I thought it'd be cool to take another art class!"

He was just like, "Okaaaay...we need to talk."

Then I realized there were probably prerequisites. Luckily, I had some of my art in a sketchbook. "Do you wanna see my art?" I asked. "'Cause I have some right here. You wanna see it?"

"I like that she comes with ammunition," said the professor.

So after class I went up and was like, "I didn't introduce myself very well. This is the type of art I do," and I showed him my latest little Sharpie drawing. The professor was like, "Oh." And then, "You're in."

So I have gained the privilege of doing nothing in illustration class. I really wanna see the other students' days-of-the-week sketches, but the professor said we have to have fresh eyes when we look at each others' finished projects.

I'm also taking Intro to Psychology (so I don't have to take a real science), African American Lit. since 1940 (basically Richard Wright onwards), Piano, Piano Pedagogy, Piano Trio, an independent study with Doc (THAT should be interesting), and of course Student Recital.

After this I gotta go meet up with my lady friend at the bar. She's gotten a mixologist certification and has become a bartender during the time before she goes off to the place that you don't ask about and I don't tell about. So most days I go and see her at the end of her shift. It's pretty cool to have a bartender girlfriend because:

-You drink for free.
-You learn all about what to order to maximize your money when you're NOT drinking for free. For instance, ordering a double of vodka will, predictably, cost you double. But if you order an extra-dry martini, you get a double shot of vodka for the price of one drink, 'cause an extra-dry is just straight-up vodka.
-You get to impress your friends with your vast knowledge of drinks and drinking that you obtained helping your girlfriend study for her certification.
-It's sexy.

In fact, I hate to say this, but as far as social status goes it's way cooler to have a bartender than a dentist for a girlfriend. 'Cause when I tell people that my lady's a dentist people are just like, "Oh, I HATE going to the dentist. This one time I was there and I almost passed out 'cause it hurt so much."

I'm like, So....what does that have to do with my lady friend?

But if you tell people that your lady tends bar they're like, "Really? That's awesome! Where does she work? Wow! I wish I dated a bartender! You're so lucky!"

and I'm like, "I know, right."

But I gotta not party too much 'cause this is my last semester. There's really no room to screw up 'cause my scholarship runs out after this. It's not graduation I'm worried about (studies show that fewer and fewer people are finishing undergrad in four years), it's paying for anything I might fail after I'm supposed to have graduated.

I mean, it's not like I'm gonna fail. I'm just paranoid, I guess. But still.

In paradisum deducant...

2009-12-25T21:25:00.005-05:00

I haven't written yet about this 'cause I was gathering my thoughts and being a little sad. Perry Lorenzo, my opera mentor, died last weekend of lung cancer. For those of you who don't know, he was the Director of Education at Seattle Opera from 1992. He revolutionized the education department there with his witty lectures and youth programs. I worked under him all the summer of 2oo5 as an intern, and when I came out of it I was a Wagnerite for life. Even becoming an Afro-commie didn't change that.

I first met Perry in high school when I signed up for a Lohengrin program Perry was doing for students. Basically, you went to his education program, and he told you what you were gonna see, and then you got tickets to the dress rehearsal. Thus I became acquainted with his style.

Perry had sort of an eagle look, by which I mean his eyes were really piercing and his features were sharp. He had sandy hair that he wore artistically, just a little long. He was a hottie for his age. When he talked, you could tell his mind was working on about twenty other levels even though he was devoting his full attention to the subject at hand. Instead of posting a picture of him, I'm posting one he posted on his own blog one time -- it depicts him better. It's from Wagner's time. He liked to talk about Wagner as a tortured artist on a desperate quest for the meaning of life. I think he saw himself in that.

By the time I was in line to pick up my ticket on the night of the dress rehearsal, I was psyched. From what Perry had told me, I just knew this was gonna be the coolest thing I had ever seen. And it was. It was my first opera ever. I loved it. It was like Lord of the Rings with music and magic swans. I couldn't believe it.

So in 2005, I knew I had to get one of the coveted internships in Perry's department. This time, we would get to work all summer with him, developing and facilitating the week-long youth education program, and then we would get tickets to the dress rehearsal of the whole Ring Cycle. Ever since the Lohengrin experience, I'd been dying to see the Ring. Since Lohengrin I had seen Rigoletto, Manon Lescaut, and Tales of Hoffman. But nothing was as completely sick as Wagner.

Perry can't get me in trouble anymore, and if he's looking down on us then he already knows, so I'll say it: I lied to get that internship. I was only seventeen, and you had to be at least 18 to qualify. I totally lied on the paperwork.

I think Perry knew the whole time. One morning I went to coffee with him and he was asking me about school, my friends -- he was all about young people; he loved teaching but he also loved just chilling with us -- and out of the blue he was like, "How old did you say you were?"

"Eighteen."

"When's your birthday?"
"June sixth." (I had decided to move it six months back so I could remember it easily.)

"What year were you born in?"
"Nineteen-eighty-seven." I was sweating by now.

A feline smile spread over Perry's face. "Good," he said.

I knew I had to be Perry's best intern after that. Actually, I had the honor of making Perry a PowerPoint presentation that he used in several of his own lectures. I was so psyched when he looked through it and said, "This is good! Could you make me a copy of it?" I carried the libretto of the Ring around with me everywhere. Every day I talked with my then-best-friend and fellow intern Sean about what we were learning. We rented the Met production and watched all of it in his living room. I met opera-lovers that summer from all across the world, and I'm still friends with some of them.

Before the internship officially started, Perry called us together for several sessions of training. It was portentive of how awesome the summer was gonna be. We would meet in a tiny conference room at the Uptown Espresso near the opera offices, and once we were all coffeed up (often on Perry's largesse) he would tell us lots of things that I still use today. One day was dedicated to Wagner's life. Another was dedicated to the music of the Ring. On another day, he instructed us in the basic skills of public speaking.

Sometimes, as I roar into a bullhorn at a protest, I think of him.

Perry had an especial soft spot for my friend Sean. He mentored me in a musical and career way, but he gave Sean a lot of advice over the years about navigating life when you're young and gay. He and Sean would meet up at (the now-defunct) Manray and just chill. Perry always had a minute for him. And I think that's really important. When you're gay, it's hard to find mentors even if your parents are supportive, because they don't have your experiences. I like that Perry took the time to chill with young queer folks.

Perry was a good pianist. He used to sit down and play Leitmotifs, talking loudly about them. When I played in the mini-lectures the interns did during the youth program, he shook my hand afterwards and voiced his approval. I was glad he did, because I knew he wouldn't have said it if he didn't mean it.

He loved the word "Sehnsucht." You could sum up his whole Wagner lecture with that word.

I should mention that he was Catholic, because it was a big part of his life (even though it didn't come up much in my interactions with him). I feel like he was a real Christian. Leading by example and all that. The service is gonna be at Saint James, his church. It's next Wednesday.

I was in awe of Perry and thought he was a bad-ass not only because he knew everything there is to know about Wagner and opera, but because he was a verbal dude. He was witty and sarcastic and articulate. He had a way of making you feel intrigued 'cause he was saying stuff that resonated with you, but you were never sure what he would say next. Sometimes he was almost manic with excitement; other times he was more dark and moody. He could say exactly what he meant, so effectively that not only did I get what he meant, but I could then turn around and communicate to the students what he meant.

I was supposed to intern again briefly for him in 2007. We had several meetings, but the youth program ended up getting cancelled, so it was nothing like the Ring year. But that was probably the last time I really chilled with him -- eating Pagliacci's on a cool summer day before the Flying Dutchman rehearsal, with the smell of the sea coming in the open doors.

And one swell night at the theatre.

Perry

you were always tripping on Wagner
ever suave and sarcastic
your hands articulate on the keyboard

you singlehandedly made Siegfried breathe
in the minds of thousands

you talked about the Liebestod in the coffee shop
and the other customers stared in wonder
they didn't even know who Tristan was
but they saw your vision

of opera as a metaphor for humanity.

And you were a good friend.

That is my praise song for you.

Racist Christmas Song Of The Year

2009-12-24T14:28:00.003-05:00

I'm gonna go ahead and post the full lyrics of this song. It's by Band-Aid from 1984, and it's supposed to bring attention to famine conditions in Ethiopia. Except it doesn't say anything about Ethiopia. I always heard it on the radio but I never really heard it, you know? But this is the most imperialist little-brown-brother white-man's-burden shit I have EVER heard IN my life. As usual, many things other than race play into it. Here:

It's Christmas time, there's no need to be afraid
At christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade

Boy George
And in our world of plenty, we can spread a smile of joy!
Throw your arms around the world at christmas time

(Phil Collins on the drums)

George Micheal
But say a prayer - pray for the other ones
At christmas time

Simon Le Bon
it's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window

Sting and Simon Le Bon
And it's a world of dreaded fear
Where the only water flowing is a bitter sting of tears
And the christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom

Bono
Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you

And there won't be snow in Africa this christmas time
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life

Where nothing ever grows
No rain or rivers flow

Do they know it's christmas time at all?

Here's to you
Raise your glass for everyone
Here's to them
Underneath that burning sun

Do they know it's christmas time at all?

Feed the world
Feed the world
Feed the world
Let them know it's christmas time and
Feed the world
Let them know it's christmas time and
Feed the world
Let them know it's christmas time and
Feed the world
Let them know it's christmas time and
Feed the world
Let them know it's christmas time and
Feed the world
Let them know it's christmas time

Now I'm gonna post it again with my comments.

It's Christmas time, there's no need to be afraid
At christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade. These words are okay, except in context of what's coming.

And in our world of plenty, we can spread a smile of joy!
Throw your arms around the world at christmas time Wait for it.

But say a prayer - pray for the other ones
At Christmas time What other ones do you mean, exactly? And what does that make you?

It's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window So now he's just assuming that all white people just sit around and chill at Christmastime. Like it's impossible for an American to be poor.

And it's a world of dreaded fear I think he means fear for white people, not the people of that world.
Where the only water flowing is a bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom Uh....can anyone say melodrama?

Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you Ho-LY shit. Seriously? This is the worst line in the song. I don't think there's anything in the Bible about thanking God for other people's suffering. That's so callous. And typical.

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time So that's what it's about. Africa, the country. Not Ethiopia. The entire continent. It actually does snow in Africa, but I don't think the singers have ever heard of those regions.

The greatest gift they'll get this year is life. Dang. I guess I should tell my fellow Howard students Rotimi and Chioma that they shouldn't even bother writing to Santa.

Where nothing ever grows, Um...Africa has some of the most verdant landscapes ever. They have a freaking rainforest across half of it. Here's a picture:

No rain or rivers flow. Um....have you heard of the rainy season? Where it rains for months in most of Africa? And as far as rivers, I have two words for you: THE NILE. Wtf?

Do they know it's Christmas time at all? Um, I think the centuries of European missionaries made sure that everybody in Africa does, in fact, know it's Christmas.

Here's to you
Raise your glass for everyone
Here's to them
Underneath that burning sun Way to go guys. Taking the fall so the rest of us can chill.

Do they know it's Christmas time at all?

Feed the world As an afterthought, an admonishment to help those poor people before you go back to having fun.
Feed the world
Feed the world
Let them know it's christmas time and
Feed the world
Et. Cet. Er. A.

One question: Why is this still played on the radio?

A Snowstorm

2009-12-21T09:20:00.005-05:00

Happy snow day on the east coast!

I'm rotting at Thurgood Marshall airport in Baltimore. I rotted here all day yesterday, too. I'm trying to get to the City Of Excessive Precipitation for the winter holidays, but there's too much winter fun going on here. By which I mean, the Mid-Atlantic Snowstorm Of 2009 (as the news has dubbed it).

Basically it started Friday night. My lady friend and I went home and we could smell it coming. It went on all the way through Saturday, finally stopping early Sunday morning. Both DC and Baltimore got record Decomber snowfalls of 16 and 21 inches, respectively. It was pretty sweet.

Except now there are all these passengers backed up at the airport 'cause pretty much all their flights were cancelled, and now the airline people act like they're mad at ME because I have the audacity to try and get myself rebooked. When I came back today after hours of waiting in line yesterday this loser told me, "Well you shouldn't have come. We told people not to come if they didn't have a reservation."

I mean, where else should I have gone? The dorms are already closed. If it weren't for my lady friend I wouldn't've had anywhere at all to stay.

Anyway, now I'm on standby for a flight to Charlotte. It leaves in about six hours. Through some corporate promotion thing they have free internets in the airport -- which means they don't want people to completely flip out and go into a rage, so they amped up the entertainment.

But it allows me to post pictures of the snowstorm:
When it stopped snowing Sunday morning, the parking lot where my lady friend lives was completely stuffed with snow. That red car in the middle there isn't driving. It's been sitting there since last night.

I trudged through the parking lot and dug out my lady friend's car for her, because it looked like this:

Then I went on an Expedition Of Adventure And Wonder to photograph the snow. First I got a cute fire hydrant:

Here's a giant tree stump:

and a little fence with an evergreen next to it.

And here is a winter wonderland near the creek behind the building:

Now let's just hope I get on this flight.

Merry Christmas, Mr President

2009-12-09T13:08:00.007-05:00

Two things that make being a musician worth it:

1. Barack.

2. Michelle.

I mean, it's ridiculously hard to hang out with Obama. If you wanna go to any of his parties, you have to get an invite first, and then you have to be practically strip-searched at several different checkpoints in the The House Formerly Known As The White-People House. From now on, it will be called The Crib.

But if you're a musician in DC, there's an off chance you might get to go chill with him. 'Cause the dude likes music at his parties.

In fact, while I'm talking about this, let me just say that any time you need to know info about Obama's likes and dislikes, I can tell you about them. I'm pretty much an Obama expert now. Because yours truly and a few select members of the Howard choir just finished chilling with Barack and Michelle for three nights at The Crib's Christmas reception, where we were invited (read: summoned) to provide background music. (That's me and my pal Andrew.)

First off, let me say that the The Crib doesn't fool around when they do Christmas. That's their Christmas tree down there. Their decorations are so legit. Like, all the little garlands and holly berries are real. They have these miniature dried pomegranate things, and garlands everywhere. All their Christmas decorations this year are made from recycled materials, which is good because there were definitely a lot of decorations. This tree you're looking at it probably probably twelve feet high.

And then they had an entire nativity scene in an alcove:

If you look at the well-known picture of the back of the The Crib (with the rounded columned porch in the middle), we were on the first floor to the left of that picture. There's a ballroom there. This is what it looked like on the inside:

Here's a detail of that action:

We had to sing for a couple hours each time, but each time we got to go chill with the guests afterwards. And our choir clothes are pretty fancy, so a lot of the guests just thought we had been invited. One dude talked at my for a good while about how I was so pretty and didn't I look just like his granddaughter, who's half Black too. (It was just assumed that her other half was white.)

Obama feeds his guests well. This is what his tables looked like (yes, that's a real hunk of birch in the middle):

These are some of the things he had at his shindig:

-shrimp with cocktail sauce
-lox (which is basically raw salmon, for those of you who don't hang out in the Northwest much)
-oysters on the half-shell
-a whole wheel of San Andre cheese (my particular favorite)
-Gruyere, brie, and lots of other cheeses I don't remember
-lots of interesting crackers to go with the cheese
-assorted dead birds and mammals
-assorted sushi with Asian dudes nearby for authenticity
-miniature potatoes the size of cherry tomatoes
-asparagus and other veggies
-pumpkin pie (THE best)
-a berry cobbler (THE best)
-lots of sugar cookies with thin layers of glaze (including one shaped like a Black Lab)
-a cake that was cold with frosting that was warm
-little chocolate truffles

Also, Obama isn't stingy with his liquor. He had a full bar with Ketel One vodka. And when I tried the egg nog, I almost choked because it was straight-up rum. (On the last night, I thought I'd be slick and chug one while we had a short break, just to make the second set more enjoyable, but Doc saw me and got mad. I still drank it when he turned his back, though.) So no one can say the President doesn't like his guests to have a good time. And they did. One lady had such a good time that she came and stood by the choir, singing all the words to our spirituals and practically jumping up and down every time she applauded.

I mean, we're good, but we're not that good.

And then, Obama was so hospitable that he came down himself to talk to us all three nights. A voice would come over the loudspeaker and say in a queeny voice, "Laaaadies and gentlemen, the President and Mrs. Michelle Obama!" And then everyone would flock to the main gallery, where Barack and Michelle would come chill with the guests for a while.

Barack would say a few words about what a shitty state of affairs he'd inherited, and how he hoped he was gonna fix things up. Michelle would grin and bestow the gift of her presence on all the guests. She had on a different dress every night. Obama might have had on a different suit (at least, I hope he did), but you couldn't tell because dude clothes are so boring. Then they would go into the crowd and hang out and shake hands. It was hard to get a picture because everybody was mobbing them, but here's a picture I took just so you can tell I'm not lying.

Yeah.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm a sucker for Obama. His administration sucks only slightly less that that of the first Decider, but whenever I see pics of him and Michelle I'm like, Yay! A Black President! He and Michelle look so good...they're definitely the sexiest Decider and First Lady I've ever seen. Yay Obama!

Now get your ass out of Afghanistan.

But anyway. I had hoped to get near him so I could lecture him about Afghanistan and queers in the military, but whenever I got close he started talking to someone else like he was avoiding me or something. It was cool though. I didn't take it personally.

So basically we had a great time at The Crib. We set that place on fire, yo.

And I don't mean with our performance.

We literally set the place on fire.

Basically Doc, the conductor, and one of the singers were inspecting the arrangement of dried flowers on a table, and alluva sudden it got too close to the tealights and caught fire. Like, it was BLAZING. There was smoke everywhere. We were like "Oh shit! Oh shit!" Some people started blowing on it, which only made it bigger. Doc kept trying to grab this one chick's wine glass so he could douse it with that, unmindful of the fact that alcohol is flammable. It was horrible.

Finally a bartender ran over and put it out with a pitcher of water. You can see the blackened parts on the side of the flowers, and the parts that dropped off onto the tray. And those white things on the table are the holes where the tablecloth was completely burned through.

This picture doesn't even do it justice. The whole thing probably only lasted ten or fifteen seconds, but the same thing was running through all our heads: the smoke alarm was gonna go off and the whole Crib was gonna have to be evacuated.

Luckily, it didn't happen. But seriously, Barry needs to think about that next time he sets up his house for a party. Who puts dried flowers next to candles?

The Monster Is Back!!!

2009-12-01T22:04:00.005-05:00

It's that time of year again, ladies.

By which I mean the return of the one they call DELILAH.

In case you missed or forgot my post about her last year, Delilah's this major loser who has a nationally syndicated Christmas radio program. Actually it's year-round -- it's just that it's only at Christmas that people listen to it. She has about a million Little African Babies in her house, and her staff screens her calls so that only the most boring-ass old white people can reach her.

Or maybe it's just that no one else wants to reach her.

Like, this loser's on there now saying how she got presents for all her friends and put white confetti in them so when they opened them it looked like it had snowed, hee hee!

Like, is that the most exciting thing that bitch DID this Christmas?

I'm rehashing the Delilah subject and posting about her again because I hate her so bad. Mean people annoy me, but people who are sugary sweet and nationally loved but are still DUMBASSES are right on the top of my hit list. Like, millions of people love Delilah and think it's great that she does this show and has Little African Babies.

GAG me with a ten-foot pole! Delilah is a xenophobic loser!

This year's choice bit of info about Delilah: she's written a BOOK. It's called, predictably, "Love Matters." I mean, just the name itself should make you throw up. It's basically a compendium of her favorite listener stories.

Guaranteed to put to sleep any Little African Babies who are fussy.

Movie Review of 2009

2009-11-29T18:49:00.001-05:00

I've only written like two movie reviews since I started this blog. But if you haven’t seen Precious, you should go online and stream it illegally right now. It’s all the rage.

This movie is the next Color Purple. And I mean that in a good way and a bad way. Both films contain a hero who’s had everything done to her that you could possibly imagine – mainly, being impregnated by her father. Both heroes come out on top against all odds, making you wanna jump out of your seat and go, “Yes! Yes!” at the end of the film. Both movies portray living incarnations of every imaginable negative stereotype about Black men and women. And both movies have queer characters portrayed in a positive and bad-ass way.

Hella people have already written reviews of this movie – mostly white people who were brought to tears by how true it rang for them. They're all up on the Internets saying stuff like, “Precious is not a story of a black girl, but a story of a teenager/mother/learner/friend.”

Last time I checked, it was the story of a Black girl.

Time even said: “it is of enormous credit to Gabourey Sidibe — an unknown actress making her screen debut — that we feel an obligation to catch every confusing piece of dialect or distorted sentence out of Precious' mouth.”

I mean, dang. That must have been some powerful shit. That movie was so transcendent that it made white people take the trouble to understand other versions of the English language!

That was the response I expected.

The movie was great. But a few things are worth noticing. Some of these things haven’t been discussed in depth at ALL by mainstream critics, mainly that:

One. The teacher who helps Precious gain a new step up in life is gay! I mean, how awesome is that? She’s the person who teaches Precious what a loving family and a normal life is, AND she’s a homo. The message here is that gayness and a loving family life are not mutually exclusive. Not only is she gay, but I have to rack my brains for another film that shows a lesbian character not only as a non-victim, but in a long-term, loving relationship. Precious stays with her teacher and the teacher’s partner for a while, and the scene where all three of them are chilling in the living room is a victory for Black dykes everywhere. Precious is like, “I wonder what my mother would say about Ms Rain? I say homos not who rape me.”

Bam! Also, there is at least one other obviously gay minor character in the film. Just wait till you see her; you’ll know who I’m talking about. Also, the director’s gay.

So the film gets five stars for portrayal of queers. But

Two. Color politics. A recurring theme in Precious’ fantasy life is that she wants a “light-skinned boyfriend”. One scene shows her looking in the mirror, with a reflection of a white girl looking back at her. Obviously the audience is supposed to feel sorry for her because she’s internalized this self-hatred to the extent that she thinks lighter is better. I mean, we all know Black is beautiful, right? Color doesn’t matter? But the film gives an unspoken message that color DOES matter. What is Precious supposed to think, when all the good guys in the movie are light skinned as hell? Like, the gay teacher is as light as than I am, and I’m freaking biracial. What happening here is that the white savior is replaced by the somewhat less offensive light-skinned savior.

News flash: IN THE BOOK SHE IS DARK-SKINNED AND HAS DREDLOCKS!

Seriously? And you’ve all seen Mariah Carey. Seriously? Seriously?

As far as the main character herself: I hate to say Hattie McDaniel, but Hattie McDaniel. Which I mean in a good and bad way. By which I mean, something like this is rare, possibly nonexistent, in mainstream film. Since when has a dark-skinned, overweight actor been the star of a blockbuster? Since when has she been on the cover of New York Times Magazine? Gabourey Sidibe plays a character that embodies many stereotypes, but at the same time her stellar performance goes a long ways towards countering the propaganda of light-skinned, skinny actors.

On that note,

Three. I hate to bust people’s bubbles, but it’s painfully obvious to me that the only reason this film is getting the acclaim it richly deserves is because it’s about Black people who embody negative stereotypes. I mean, really. The mom’s a welfare queen who lets her husband rape her daughter. She can’t stomach her pig’s feet without collard greens. And seriously – why does Precious steal a bucket of fried chicken, of all things? Armond White, the Black dude who tore the film apart in his review, said that the movie’s so popular because Black pathology sells. He’s like: “Worse than Precious itself was the ordeal of watching it with an audience full of patronizing white folk at the New York Film Festival…too many white film habitués casually enjoy it for the sense of superiority—and relief—it allows them to feel."

And a film about Black stereotypes where the hero extricates herself by the bootstraps out of the situation through sheer power of will? – well, that’ll gross about 32 million dollars in its first month.

I’m not saying the movie doesn’t deserve the rave reviews it’s getting. It’s probably up there with my top eleven movies of all time. I thought the matter-of-fact way Precious’ reality is laid out is really chilling. The character has absolutely nothing going for her, but she’s one of the most likeable characters out there. You just wanna get in the screen and kick some ass for her. And the mother’s monologue at the end is devastatingly effective. All in all, it is bad ASS and you should stream it illegally today.

I’m just SAYING. Other movies about Black folks deserved this acclaim and didn’t get it. This story was told well, but there are other stories being told well too, and still other stories that aren’t being told at all.

December is just around the corner!

2009-11-28T19:51:00.003-05:00

And so is the end of the semester. I'm supposed to be writing a paper that was supposed to be due last week. I'm sorry. I just didn't feel like doing it.

I'm more likely to get a bad grade in a class that's too easy for me than in one that's too hard. That was why I hated kindergarten, too. It sucked. Those losers were working on the letter 'A'. I already knew the letter 'A' inside and out. It was featured multiple times in the chapter books I read. And then I had to deal with this bitch named Bonnie who would yell, "Oooooooh! I'm TELLING!" whenever you picked your nose or broke a crayon. I was much happier when I got moved up to first grade.

Anyway, it's the same with the German Folklore and Fairytales class I'm taking this semester. I thought it was gonna be awesome. Ever since I got obsessed with Wagner I've loved reading anthropological stuff about the origins of myths and folktales. Since I was little I've liked folktales. I had collections of Irish, Russian, Native American, Hungarian, and Japanese folktales, aside from the usual Grimm and Andersen.

But the class is full of losers. They always stop the lecture to ask the meaning of basic words, like "juxtaposition" and "misogyny". I mean, how did these people even get into this school? Are four syllables too much?

Also, the professor seriously impedes any analysis of the stories by limiting her discussions and assignments to the rampant sexism present in the works. She even branches out into racism where appropriate. I mean, that's nothing NEW to me. I am aware that the treament of women in Grimm reflects an oppressive patriarchal system that silences women when it can. I am also aware that "The Jew In The Brambles" is racist.

No kidding.

All in all, the class sucks. It's boring. And the professor thinks I'm the best thing in it, which I am ever since my German major friend had to go home for the rest of the semester. But that takes away all the competition. I have nothing to strive for.

So I've skipped the last four classes.

Now I'm struggling to get the paper done because the professor just sent me an email that addresses me by last name only. You know that's bad. And I do care about my GPA, because I'm eventually going to go to grad school.

So I have to answer her leading questions about "the patriarchal practice of weakening powerful females or female figures".

Boring.

In other news, my senior recital went well. Really the less said about it the better -- not because it sucked or anything, but because even thinking about it exhausts me even a week after it's over. It was cool, though, 'cause my family came from Seattle. They got to meet my friend Andrew and my lady friend, and everyone got along swimmingly.

I'm enjoying Thanksgiving Day weekend with my lady friend now. We've been hiking the past two days. Today we found a Nature Center that had a live toad in it and a Box Turtle and Delmarva Fox Squirrels, which are giant squirrels that are so lazy and chill that they climb to the bottoms of trees and walk to the next one instead of jumping from tree to tree like a normal squirrel. They can be up to three pounds!

My lady friend and I spent Tofurkey Day at her sister's house. I chilled on the couch watching football with her sister's husband while my lady friend and her sister slaved in the kitchen.

This is why I have a girlfriend and not a boyfriend.

Since my lady friend reads this I gotta give props to her macaroni and mashed potatoes, or else she'll think I treat her like an object or something.

Only one more semester after this.

2009-11-20T10:37:00.003-05:00

So today's my senior recital. That's why I haven't been posting for a while. Those things are no joke. Like, you have to play for an hour, and you can't just play the same thing over and over again. It has to be different music, for an hour straight. Also, if you fail the recital you have to stay extra time at Howard 'cause you can't graduate. And then you have to print programs, and organize a reception, and invite people and make sure they come -- it's just a mess. I've known for a while that I do not plan on being a performer. So I'm not psyched about jumping through this hoop.

But I already learned the pieces, so I might as well play. Plus, if I don't do it now I'll just have to do it later, or else I'll have to stay at Howard and my scholarship will run out.

My family - by which I mean my mother and two bouncing baby siblings (at least, neither of them can drink legally) arrived in town last night. Right now the siblings are crammed in sleeping bags on the floor of the senior room and my mother's taking a shower in one of the nasty-ass showers my dorm is known for. She didn't understand that you have to wander the halls until you find a shower that works. She came back and was like, "How do I turn the lights on in the showers? I tried two." And I was like, "The lights don't work in those ones." Then she proposed going to this other shower that she saw, cause the lock was broken in the second one, and I was like, "No, the faucet doesn't work in that one." And then there was another one that has stuff falling from the ceiling all the time.

She just came back to the Senior Room. "Well, that was an experience."

"Yeah."

"Like, something doesn't work in all of them."

Welcome to my life.

Anyway, I have to wear a dress and stuff. Luckily my dress only cost six dollars at Value Village. I would've been hella pissed if I'd had to get up off a lot of money for it. 'Cause you know I'm only gonna wear it once, unless I get invited to some kind of Christmas party or something. It's kind of a Christmassy dress. Like, it's black and velvety.

Anyway, y'all should come to the recital tonight 'cause it's gonna be bad-ass. I heard a rumor that Vladimir Horowitz was returning from the dead to see it. Also, there's gonna be free food afterwards.

Halloween With Randy Bull

2009-11-01T18:18:00.005-05:00

It's that time of year of again: the very witching time of year, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.

By which I mean Halloween, not Shakespeare in the Park.

Of course I went as Randy Bull. But Randy decided it was lame to go as himself. So he revived something which dedicated readers of my blog will be familiar with: the Alien Villain mask.

The cool thing about being in drag AND in a costume is that it eliminates the question of what sex you are. People only wonder what you're supposed to be. I tried this out in my dorm before my lady friend came by. I just walked around in the hall, and the first girl I saw kind of smiled at my mask. I said in Randy's voice: "Hey."

She laughed. "Who are you? I wanna know who's under there!"

I said in a super femmy voice, "You know me! I live right down the hall!"

I have never seen such a drastic reaction to drag. She jumped back about three feet and put her hand over her heart. I think she even shrieked. "I thought you were a guy!" she said. "Omigod, I thought you were a guy!"

Randy smirked, even though it didn't show from under his mask. Then he walked on down the hall. Another girl opened her door and saw him. "Hey," said Randy.

She laughed and called to the first girl, "Oh, I thought that was a girl. I thought I heard a girl!"

"It IS a girl!" she shrieked back.

"No it's not!"

"That's a GIRL!"

"That's a girl?"

"It's a girl!"

As their voices died away Randy approached the stairwell door, where he saw a girl in a schoolgirl costume with long stockings. "Lookin good," he said suavely.

She giggled. "Who's under the mask?"

"It's me. From the senior room."

Her smile froze like I had pointed a gun at it. "Um...." said her friend.

Randy nodded politely and went into the stairwell.

I went out with my lady friend, who came dressed in a long black dress with slits up the thighs and a plunging neckline. (Randy felt a stirring in his socks.) We went to the dyke club, which was cool, but what kind of sucked about that is that even in a jacket and tie, I was still assumed without question to be a woman.

Randy didn't care, though. He bought himself and his lady a drink and chilled, restraining himself admirably when some dykes came in dressed as a cowboy and an Indian. It's not right to hit women, he kept whispering under his breath.

But they pissed me off the whole time. Those women were making a damn FOOL of themselves, and they didn't even know.

Michael Jackson came on, though, and Randy knew it was time to bust out the moves he'd been working on in the Move Lab for the last several months. He went out alone onto the dance floor with only some Amaretto in his system, and he broke it down like the debonair dude he is.

I guarantee you, you won't see these moves anywhere else.

October at its best

2009-10-28T22:22:00.003-05:00

I took a little walk the other day in Rock Creek Church cemetery. It's right in northern DC, only a few blocks away from where I lived over the summer.

I like going in cemeteries because it's calm and quiet there. I feel surrounded by people but I don't have to say anything to them or put up with their inane conversation. Also, it looks really nice with the leaves falling.

The leaves were really bright. One of the cool things about the East Coast.

I don't know what that little stump thingie is. If you put that over me when I go, I will haunt you.

There's a squirrel on top of that stone over there.

Some of the stones are really old.

The sun was kind of setting.

More University Life

2009-10-25T20:11:00.004-05:00

I survived Homecoming weekend at Howard. For those of you in the District, you know that that's no mean feat. I tell you, every year Homecoming becomes more and more lame to me. When I was a freshman and sophomore, I about passed out with excitement when it came up. I had never seen anything like it-- a parade, famous people, a giant football game, and events of every kind in the week leading up to it. Plus, I had school spirit for the first time in my life. You kind of get a warm fuzzy feeling towards any school that was founded to counter discrimination AND gives you a full ride.

But now I feel like it's a lot of modern-day minstrelsy. All of middle-class Howard uses Homecoming to be as Black as possible, and instead of something bad-ass and revolutionary that makes the whole city turn its head, the city turns its head because we have the loudest music in the northwest quadrant. And shitty music, too. Last year we had freaking Soul-ja Boy. I do need not to hear live in the middle of my campus about how that loser is gonna "supersoak that ho." I doubt that fool has ever supersoaked anything besides his bedsheets.

Also, Homecoming is unecessarily extravagant. Especially in a recession. Like, how much does it cost to set up an entire street festival on the quad? And how much does it cost to shut off all of Georgia Avenue? And I KNOW it's expensive to pay for all the extra police you need for that day. I know 'cause I had to practically fight one of them to get into my own practice room. I was like, "I am a student. My recital is in a month. I have to practice every day, got that? Homecoming doesn't change that." And the lady acted like I was voluntarily going into solitary confinement.

The only thing that even got me excited about Homecoming this year is that my swimming professor promised me I could finally test out of his lame class after Homecoming. Everyone in the College of Arts and Sciences has to take swimming. That's why Andrew had to go through all that unfortunate action last year with that class. All I'll say about that is that he passed.

This year I have to take it. Luckily, I signed up for the same professor Andrew had, which meant the dude remembered me and knew I was a killer swimmer. But you still have to take the class until October before he'll let you test out. Which is a joke when you have someone in your class who's a multiple prize-winner of the Yost Cannonball and Bellyflop Contest.

But he kept evading me on the issue of testing out. So I have to go to the pool every Tuesday and Thursday at eight o'clock. When I get there there are all these older women in the locker room changing from the seven o'clock class. Invariably, they're talking about what the professor made them do that day and how hard it was. But you can tell they liked it. I think they all have a crush on him or something.

Also, I'm in the ROTC class. It was the only one I could fit in, and I had to override into it. I thought this class was gonna be really hard-core 'cause its members are training for the military, but I was wrong. Basically we just have to swim laps.

There are two dudes in the class who annoy me to no end. They're buddies, and they spend the whole time drifting lazily around the pool and trying to talk to the ladies in the class. Their game is so tired. I'm so mad that the chicks think it's funny. There's this one super hot freshman on the swim team that they're always trying to talk to, and they're like, "Hey Autumn. You know we stay in Cook Hall? You ever been there? We could show you around." And instead of laughing in their faces like I would if they tried to talk to me (somehow they haven't -- I think my vibe discourages them), she's just like, "Oh, hee hee, maybe I will."

I mean, why? It's not like they impress her with their swimming -- she's on the freaking swim team. She owns everyone in the class.

Also, every time I'm swimming laps, they always get in my lane and splash in my face. The professor's always on their cases: "Hey! I thought you all were in the Army! Why're y'all hanging on the edge of the pool like that?"

I just don't feel very confident that they will be able to represent our country abroad as officers.

But it's cool. Every time I finish (early, 'cause I always get my laps done in good time) I go in the locker room and towel off.

Then I go in the shower and check out Autumn's boobs.

Bad-ass Of The Week: Henry Bibb

2009-10-14T20:28:00.003-05:00

I'm sure lots of you were assigned in school, or have read in your efforts to educate yourself, Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. This is an incredibly legit book if you wanna know about the daily realities on slavery in the upper South.

I don't know why people assign it, though. My Bondage and My Freedom (Freddy D's second and more detailed autobiography) is way more bad-ass than the Narrative. You can tell the dude has his ducks in a row by then. You get to find out about his escape from slavery, his activism, and his trip to England. It also contains way more detail than the Narrative.

I mean, if you're going to assign the Narrative, you might as well assign any slave narrative. Why does it have to be Douglass?

I just read a slave narrative that blows Douglass out of the water. You hear? It blows him out of the water.

It's called The Life And Adventures of Henry Bibb. Henry Bibb is a guy who was born around the same time as Douglass and had a similar career after his escape from slavery. (I'm not arguing that D was the more effective abolitionist. Bibb's speeches just didn't get people on their feet, according to noted Black historian Benjamin Quarles.) His narrative, while lacking the introspective, spot-on analysis of slavery present in Douglass's, gives us much more detail about day-to-day and year-to-year life as a slave. You could even say Douglass's philosophical digressions detract from the factual and historical value of the work. Bibb's account has much more detail just because he went so many places. I mean, this is a dude who first ran away when he was only ten years old. You could not count the times this dude ran away. Nothing stopped him.

Here are the things in Henry Bibb's narrative that don't show up in any other antebellum account I've read. For one, he didn't stay escaped once he escaped. He went back to the South multiple times to try to get his wife and daughter out of slavery. (You'll know whether he succeeds when you read the book.)

For two, he worked in the Deep South for a time. There are few firsthand accounts of conditions there because few slaves got out of there alive, much less survived to write a book. Although Bibb had what my girlfriend calls "the complexion for the protection." He passed for white several times during his escape attempts.

He was owned by a Cherokee man for a time. People don't really remember that assimilated Cherokees often owned slaves. This is what Bibb says about Indian slave ownership:

"I found this difference between negro slavery among the Indians, and the same thing among the white slaveholders of the South. The Indians allow their slaves enough to eat and wear. They have no overseers to whip nor drive them. If a slave offends his master, he sometimes, in a heat of passion, undertakes to chastise him; but it is as often the case as otherwise, that the slave gets the better of the fight, and even flogs his master; for which there is no law to punish him; but when the fight is over that is the last of it. So far as religious instruction is concerned, they have it on terms of equality, the bond and the free; they have no respect of persons, they have neither slave laws nor negro pews. Neither do they separate husbands and wives, nor parents and children. All things considered, if I must be a slave, I had by far, rather be a slave to an Indian, than to a white man, from the experience I have had with both."

Bam! This is how people of color have always practiced slavery. This is why your argument that white people didn't make up chattel slavery is bullshit. The slavery that existed in Africa, Europe, and the Americas before whites started having auctions is more akin to indentured servitude. You can't compare the two, and you STILL can't compare the two even after the Cherokee had been socialized for years by whites.

Bibb's account takes you through Kentucky, Ohio, Canada, Louisiana, Missouri, and most things in between. His narrator's eye takes you through plantation slavery, house slavery, slave jails, and the Underground Railroad. The major conflict is the delicate balance between his desire for freedom and his desire to keep his family. And at times his writing is just shiveringly good. This is my favorite excerpt. It's when he's escaped with his family and has been wandering in the swamps of the south for days and days, when he's caught with his family on an island and, to top it all, savage wolves are trying to kill them. He says:

"The wolves kept howling, and were near enough for us to see their glaring eyes, and hear their chattering teeth. I then thought that the hour of death for us was at hand; that we should not live to see the light of another day; for there was no way for our escape. My little family were looking up to me for protection, but I could afford them none. And while I was offering up my prayers to that God who never forsakes those in the hour of danger who trust in him, I thought of Deacon Whitfield; I thought of his profession, and doubted his piety. I thought of his hand-cuffs, of his whips, of his chains, of his stocks, of his thumb-screws, of his slave driver and overseer, and of his religion; I also thought of his opposition to prayer meetings, and of his five hundred lashes promised me for attending a prayer meeting. I thought of God, thought of the devil, I thought of hell; and I thought of heaven, and wondered whether I should ever see the Deacon there. And I calculated that if heaven was made up of such Deacons, or such persons, it could not be filled with love to all mankind, and with glory and eternal happiness, as we know it is from the truth of the Bible.

"The reader may perhaps think me tedious on this topic, but indeed it is one of so much interest to me, that I find myself entirely unable to describe what my own feelings were at that time. I was so much excited by the fierce howling of the savage wolves, and the frightful screams of my little family, that I thought of the future; I thought of the past; I thought the time of my departure had come at last."

I mean, damn.

Luckily for you, the whole thing is online. I'm telling you, this thing makes Douglass look like he's never been anywhere (at least as of 1845).

In Which I Go Camping

2009-10-04T10:57:00.004-05:00

So my lady friend and I went camping in the Shenandoah this past day. We'd been planning to go next week, but then we remembered that next week is the National Equality March, which every queer person and wannabe queer person has to go to if they want to be able to get married and tell things nobody asked. So we decided on the spur of the moment to ditch school and do it this Friday and Saturday.

Shenandoah National Park is a giant hunk of land that goes for like 100 miles north and south. There's one major road through it, which is called the Skyline Drive. You pay 15 dollars to get on it, and then you can drive all down and in it. There are four campsites in the park, and we went to the smallest one, which is still pretty campsitey. There were definitely some RV's. But it was a little less family-friendly than the last place we'd been camping. It's on mile marker 58, so we had a nice drive getting down there. The first day, it was really cloudy and windy and foggy. The mountains seemed high and lonely, and walking in the forest was eerie and weird.

There were all these little pull-off areas so you could see the views, and they had little signs and markers.

I was pretty psyched to be there.

At the campsite, we met a nine-week-old Labrador puppy named Daisy. I seem to run into puppies all over the place with my lady friend.

But Daisy wasn't the only animal we saw. Aside from scores of chipmunks, squirrels, and other forest friends, we ran into some deer that clearly had no fear of people or cars. This is the mother. Her baby was foraging on the other side of the road, but I didn't get a good photo of him. He wasn't that cute, anyway, as far as baby deers go. I mean, he was adorable, but you're not really missing out by me not posting the picture.

In the evning we lit a fire and had burgers and s'mores, which are pretty delicious. The next morning, the sun came out.

The leaves were just beginning to turn. We went hiking down a trail

that led to Dark Hollow Falls. It was a 440-foot, .7 mile climb on the way back. Not too bad.

And then we went out to a place called Crescent Rock, which is only 100 meters from the road but seems like it's in the middle of nowhere. It's a really steep cliff, like the kind you would hang-glide off of. It had a bad-ass view into the valley. The towns of Ida and Luray are down in the valley. Nearby is Hawksbill Mountain, the highest peak in the park. (Which still isn't that high compared to real mountains like the Alps and the Cascades, but hey. They try.)

And, for those of you who complain that I don't post enough pictures of my lady friend, she's on the right in this picture:

Seahawks 28, Rams Nada

2009-09-13T22:20:00.003-05:00

Today was a very important day, ladies. It was a day that will live in my mind for the next three months. Today was the first day of the NFL season!

Seahawks RULE. And they ruled today over the St Louis Rams.

Being in DC, home of the most vile and racist team name in the entire NFL, it's a pain in the butt to watch a Seahawks game. Even going to a sports bar isn't always reliable, 'cause NFC west is like the last thing anyone on the East Coast wants to see. So you have to make sure you're at a bar that plays all the games (unless the Seahawks are playing the Team With The Most Vile And Racist Name In The Entire NFL (TTWTMVARNITENFL), in which case TTWTMVARNITENFL's disgrace will be broadcast live on every screen in the room). I usually go to the Adams Morgan area, 'cause they have three decent bars.

Actually until this season there was only one bar I could even go into, owing to the forced social segregation of people under 21. They kicked me out a couple times, but we eventually reached a stalemate where I would stand by the door and not order alcohol, and they would pretend not to notice me.

Now it's like that time never existed. I just waltzed into Ventnor's with no problem at all. Then I ordered beer even. Except the beer was for my lady friend, who maintained that the beer was the best part of the whole experience. It's actually an interesting thing about my lady friend -- she doesn't watch football. I was a little nonplussed when I first found this out 'cause I thought watching football was like, a requirement to be a dyke. But apparently it's not. Who knew.

My mother thought that too, 'cause she was like, "So what's your lady friend's team?"

I was like, "Well, actually -- actually she doesn't have one."

My mother, after a pause, was like, "How can that be?"

"Well, she doesn't watch football. At all."

Another pause. "Oh. Oh. Wow. I was prepared for her to be a Patriots fan, but -- wow."

Although, my lady friend had a point when she was like, "But there are no women in football. Why would a dyke wanna watch men?"

I mean, that was a legit point. Which makes me think that the only reason dykes watch football is because they feel like it's a requirement for being a dyke. People do a lot of stuff just 'cause they feel like they should. And I do concede that the only thing that would make football more bad-ass than it already is is for it to be played by the ladies. (And be broadcast on national TV.)

But, my lady friend at least wasn't the kind of loser who refuses to even look at a game. She came to the bar and enjoyed the beer. I'm hoping it will grow on her. "You never know what might happen," my mother said. "If she keeps watching games, you just never know. She might become a fan."

I'm praying for her every night.

Even though she doesn't have a team, having my lady friend along made me feel like a pimp. I mean, not only is my team the WINNING one, but also I'm surrounded by ladies. It doesn't get much more bad-ass than that.

And it's not even like it was a close game. Seahawks owned the Rams 28-0. I mean, yeah, it wasn't a perfect game, but it was a helluva lot better than last season.

In fact, I'm just gonna try to forget last season ever happened. It's a new day in Seattle.

Not-so-radical resistance

2009-09-10T00:29:00.003-05:00

I have no reason not to post, 'cause I have a computer actually in my room. Imagine that, in my room.

Actually I do have a reason not to post. The reason is that it's going on two in the morning and I still haven't done this assignment that's due tomorrow. That's a very good reason not to post.

Reverse psychology works on me every time.

There was a protest at Howard the other day. It was sponsored and planned by HUSA, which is a fancy way of saying Howard University Student Association. They're like....the ASB, for those of you who went to high school in the states. When HUSA backs a protest, people show up.

The protest was about ongoing problems with the administration. By ongoing I mean they've been going on since at least the sixties. There were two big protests in 1969 and 1989, both of which dealt with similar issues (and the 1989 one was particularly necessary 'cause Howard had just appointed not only a white dude to the board of trustees, but Lee Atwater, then-chairman of the Repugnican National Committee. We're just gonna pretend like that didn't happen). The problems are too long and boring for me to list here, but it's stuff that's fixable and should have been addressed by now - for instance, why doesn't the whole campus have wireless, and why do the libraries close at midnight. Stuff like that.

I thought the protest was a bunch of crap. For two reasons:

1. It wasn't even a protest. It was just a bunch of students chilling outside the administration building, chanting at intervals. People were laughing and joking and dancing and talking about how hot it was.

I feel like a protest just isn't a protest unless there are arrests, or at least unless arrests are threatened.

Basically, students stood out in the sun for three hours, tops, and then for the rest of the day all they could talk about was how a revolution was coming and how they made history, just like when they rallied to elect Obama as Decider and protested the treatment of the Jena 6 that one time. In fact, our student newspaper's next issue was devoted entirely to self-congratulatory back-patting.

I have to roll my eyes. I should hope they were at the protest, since most of the student demands concerned them directly. But nobody at that protest, despite all their talk, was prepared for the long haul. No one had brought food or water. No one had rain gear. They were going on and on about the sit-in in '89, but nobody there could have sat in for long. And once the cops showed for real, things would've gotten ugly, 'cause most of those chicks were wearing heels.

I'm just saying, Howard is filled with upper-class kids who would shit their pants if they had to see someone get firehosed.

Now people might get mad at me for bad-mouthing Howard in public. It's understood that while you may have your problems with Howard, you keep that in the family, as it were. Which is the other problem I had with the protest: the mainstream media jumped all over it. There are stories in the Washington Post and on Fox.

The dynamic of that would be different for a white school. You get a protest like that at a white school, and you're like, oh, that university needs to get its act together. But an HBCU represents all HBCU's (just like a single person of color ends up representing their entire race, while a single white person is seen as an individual with no specific perspective).

So when a protest happens at the number one HBCU, it just doesn't look good. Especially with all the crap going on about, "Are HBCU's even relevant in this post-racial society?" It is none of the Washington Post's business what goes on on our campus. I'll tell you what's not relevant in my society -- the Washington Post.

Most students shared that view. The Fox reporter went around lugging his camera, calling out, "Has anybody here had a personal problem with the administration?" Student conversations about the administration problems just kind of melted away wherever he went. No one would meet his eye.

Anyway, the student demands were supposed to have been presented to the president today, and if he refuses to acquiese (which I bet he will 'cause some of the demands are pretty unrealistic) another protest is supposed to be planned. We'll see how hard-core things actually get. Several students I've talked to pointed out the irony that when a left-wing student organization planned this exact same protest last year, only a dozen came, but when HUSA plans it, suddenly "history" is made.

For the record, Howard is awesome.

The Return of Radical Resistance

2009-08-31T20:08:00.004-05:00

So this article was in the student newspaper today -- on the front page, no less, which tells me someone on the Hilltop's staff is probably sympathetic to this cause:

The Nation of Islam Student Association Returns to Campus After More Than 10 Years

For those of you too lazy to click on the link, the lengthy title gives you a good idea of the article's content. The Nation of Islam was big in Howard during the last wave of the struggle, in the seventies and eighties. I still see them around, but it's all old folks. I am more psyched than anything that they are coming back.

A lot of people wanna get hung up on the "Islam" part of it. I refer you to this quote from the article:

"Brother Tariq Muhammad X said their job is not to convert people to Islam but to try to make a difference in the communities. In his own community, Muhammad X said that drug dealers were taking over until he and his brothers banded together in an effort to clean up and preserve their neighborhood."

I am all about the Nation of Islam. Any organization that can save a community ravaged by drugs, or provide male role models for our boys, or get a man to respect a woman, is pretty alright in my book.

I read the book, Manchild in the Promised Land, which is an autobiography of a boy coming up in Harlem right when heroin was starting to decimate the population. The author (a Howard grad!) says that Black Muslims took over Harlem. They encouraged people to buy black. They brought people up from doing drugs and made them into respectable Black people. He says they made a huge difference in Harlem.

It gives me such a thrill, in this increasingly dark racial climate, to see the Nation rising up again. Just when I was wondering what on earth was going to happen to us if someone doesn't step up. Every since the current Decider got elected, whitefolks have been going batshit crazy. I was talking to a woman who helps run my dorm yesterday. She works at Walter Reid hospital as well, and every time she goes in to take out the trash of a certain colonel, he starts spouting off racist bullshit to her. He says, "Why do you people eat so much junk food? I've been reading about you. You eat so much junk food, but you don't have jobs."

She says, "You have a nice day."

Tell me that is not some Jim Crow bullshit.

The article about the NOI reminds me of this paragraph in the Chronicles of Narnia, when they find out that Aslan is about to come in and save the day:

"At the name of Aslan each of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter suddenly felt brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell of delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer."

I get a little shivery feeling down my spine when I think of the Nation of Islam returning. Sure, it's a small step, and it may be preliminary to get this excited about it. But the article shows you that the climate is changing. Howard is just one of many places where people beginning to come together. I like that not only racists are coming out of the woodwork (to use my mother's phrase of choice), but also radical resistance. The new wave of the civil rights movement is coming -- has been coming since the last one was put down -- and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. I stumbled upon on of their meetings this very evening (they've met at Howard for a while, which I don't think many people knew about), and for the first time since I've seen them there were children there. There were young people, the new blood of the movement.

I feel like NOW something's gonna go down.

The Senior Room

2009-08-25T16:34:00.006-05:00

This evening's broadcast comes to you live from Our Nation's Capital, where the nation's number one Black university is gearing up for another fabulous year.

This is gonna be the awesomest year ever. For one, I'm graduating at the end of it. So I have to do everything awesome that I haven't done yet in DC, like go to Monticello and egg the White House (although I might put that off until the white folks have taken over it again).

For two, I'm doing my senior recital. I have to act psyched about it because if I don't then I'll start getting nervous, and it's still three months away. You are all invited on Friday, NOVEMBER 20th, around 7 PM, to this recital. DC folks have no excuse to not be there, since I just told you three months in advance. Out-of-towners - the first two people who call me get to stay with me. The rest of you, keep your fingers crossed, 'cause if I bomb this I'm not graduating. Ever.

The other thing that's cool about this year is that I have pretty much the best room it's possible to have and still be in a dormitory. Once again, I had failed to sign up for the Towers, the super nice upperclassmen dorm. (I think I was hanging with my lady friend and forgot.) I was stuck in lame old Lucy Diggs Slowe (who names their child that?) Hall, for the third year in a row.

I'm not really complaining about Slowe, 'cause it has all single rooms, and ever since the roommate fiasco of freshman year, I've been happy just to have a place to lay my head, ALONE. So I never minded it that much. But the fact remained that the rooms were only about eight feet wide, and there's no internet. (They claim that there is, but that doesn't count if it's only up for five minutes a day.)

All in all though, I was psyched to get back to dorm life in general. Sure, the cafeteria sucks - but hello. IT'S FREE. After a summer of instant macaroni and dubious cooking experiences, free food, no matter how crappy, is unadulterated bliss. Also, I was sick to death of living with straight dudes and seeing their pee drops on the toilet.

So - I'm trying to tell you how I got the best room ever. I go into the dorm and all the RA's are sitting around at the desk. They're like, "Oh, you're back!"

I'm like, "Yup. This'll actually be my third year here." (This is impressive because most people just use Slowe as a jumping-off point to get into the Towers.)

They were like, "Oh, what year are you?"

"A senior," I said. "A graduating senior." (This is an important distinction.)

The RA kind of raised her eyebrows. "Oh yeah? We'll have to give you one of the senior rooms then!"

I was about to say, "Look, you don't have to make fun of me." But then she reaches down into this hidden compartment behind the desk and pulls out this whole other set of keys. "These are for the senior rooms," she said. "Why don't you try this one?"

I was amazed. Two years in this dorm, and I had no idea that a such thing as a senior room existed. So I hurried upstairs with my lady friend in tow and followed the number on the key to the very end of the hall, to the corner room. I had always wondered what all the extra wall space was by those rooms. Maybe a chimney, I thought. Or a generator.

Then I went in and was pretty much blown off my feet by the senior room. First of all, it was GIANT. It was pretty much as big as my lady friend's bedroom in her apartment (not that I spend too much time there, but I've gotten a glimpse or two). It was twice the size of the room I stayed in over the summer. It was bigger than the rooms in the Towers even. And the other rooms in Slowe Hall looked like closets compared to this expanse. (They look like closets compared to closets, too.)

But the number one coolest thing about it was that it had TWO windows. One facing east and one facing north. The room was just filled with light and air (or, it was once I turned off the AC and opened the windows). It was just so much better than my former room. I mean, look at this:

and then look at this.

Extra points if you can spot how many items are in both pictures (like the purple mug on the desk). I realize that my sense of style and decor hasn't changed much over the semesters.

It didn't take me long to settle into the Senior Room. But as with most things Howard has given me, I don't quite believe it. I STILL think that one day they're gonna call me up and say, "You know what, we never meant to give you that full scholarship. We thought you were actually qualified." I definitely think they're gonna come up and say, "Oh, we never meant to give you the Senior Room. We didn't realize you weren't paying for it."

It's so crazy to have to walk across the room to get to the bed or dresser, instead of just leaning over. My whole objective in arranging the furniture has changed. My former rooms were organized to maximize the space. This year, my space is already maximized. So there's nothing else to worry about.

If I can get an apartment this size when I graduate, I'll be psyched.

Also, I have the Internets. My brother reset the RAM on my computer, and it works now. So I have it here. Also, I have internet - no thanks to Slowe Hall. Because I'm at the edge of the building, I'm piggybacking off some other network. I don't know whose it is, but it's fast and accurate (or has been so far).

Time for me to go. I have to sit around and enjoy the Senior Room.

It's All Good.

2009-08-11T12:11:00.004-05:00

So Obama's been the Decider for about eight months now. I'm not gonna really get started, but as an aside I'd like to say that so far in this regime he HAS invaded Pakistan, and I haven't seen any queerfolks running up to the civil-union altar lately. That really blind-sided me. That was the biggest surprise I've had this century.

I'm dripping now.

Anyway.

I was pretty much a lone voice of dissent during the election. I mean, I wasn't alone, but when my candidate's votes can be counted in the thousands, that's basically a lone voice of dissent.

People got really upset when I told them I wasn't voting for Obama. Some of them almost cried because they couldn't get me to see the folly of my ways. It was definitely the most political strife I've ever had with my mother, an ardent Democrat at the time. "You can't say there's not a difference between him and MCCAIN!" she would say.

"Yeah maybe there is but there's not enough!"

This is some of the stuff I wrote in my blog:

"I WANT to take votes from Obama, that's why I'm giving them to McKinney. If I wanted to give him votes I'd vote for him. By the time you get that far up in either of the capitalist parties, you've sold out."

In the Zeitgeist of the election, it was sacrilege. I had disagreements with Howard students every day. It was one of those things where you're the only person doing the right thing and the opposition is so huge that you're always wondering inside if it really IS the right thing, but you know it's the right thing so you don't give a shit.

Cut to eight months later. My mother's on Facebook (that's another post entirely), networking with the kids who attended Freedom School this year, and she's like, "Oh yeah, you should meet this kid! He's really cool. He voted third-party! I can't believe he's only eighteen."

Uh...since when is it suddenly cool to vote third party? When did this reversal happen? When did my mother start going up to people and saying with pride, "Yeah, my daughter voted for McKinney too!"

She's not the only one. All kinds of people hear me say McKinney and they're like, "Oh, cool! McKinney's great. One of my friends knew a guy who voted for her."

Where was this support when I mailed in my ballot? I was like, "I mailed my ballot today." My sister was like, "Did you vote for Obama?"

"You know I didn't."

"I can't believe you."

But NOW it's all cool. I have no fear of bringing up my vote in conversation. People are just like, "Oh, really? What party is she with? That's cool!"

Then there's the inauguration. Here are some of the things I said as it approached:

"It's all about Pretty-boy Obama and his "hope". It's okay to keep queers from getting married, if Obama does it. It's okay to invade Pakistan, if Obama does it. It's okay to fund Israel with 215 million$ a DAY, if it's Obama. When did hope ever fix an economy, is what I'd like to know. Sure, we CAN - doesn't mean we will."

Again, people acted like I was Satan's evil twin. Here are some of the comments I received:

"You don't have to agree with the man 100%, that's beside the point, but damn, some of this came across as being near dismissive of it."

"Since this is something my generation never thought they would live to see, it is a VERY IMPORTANT OCCASION!!!" (That was my grandmother.)

I was like, whatever. I made some concessions to the he's-Black-so-it's-awesome camp. The inauguration was indeed something I never thought I'd see. But that still didn't make me shut up. I mean, I knew he wasn't gonna help queerfolks. They're all up in arms now about Why hasn't he fixed dontaskdonttell, Why don't we have civil unions -- I TOLD you we weren't gonna get any of that. I stood up in a queer public forum and I TOLD you that.

But now you're all surprised.

So I was resistant of the inauguration jubilee. The ONLY reason I didn't protest that inauguration was because the new Decider was Black.

But now I'm in Seattle. People come up to me and they're like, "Oh, where are YOU visiting from?"

And I'm all, "Yeah, I go to school in DC. It's pretty cool to live there. I'm really close to the monuments and stuff. Also, you know, it's cool when inaugurations happen."

"You were THERE for the inauguration? That's so cool!"

"Yeah, I saw the parade and the speech and everything. Just walked down there from my dorm. It was pretty epic."

And to my family: "Hey, I got some commemorative buttons of your main man. I've been meaning to bring you these since inauguration. Pick whichever ones you want."

I brag about my presence at the inauguration all the time. People love hearing about it, and it makes me look like a bad-ass.

It's all good.

In Which I Go To Church

2009-08-10T11:50:00.003-05:00

Good morning, gentlemen. For the next two weeks we're broadcasting live from the City of Excessive Precipitation. To everyone's surprise but my own, it is cold. Apparently it happened to get cold just as I flew in. When I left DC I was wearing a sun dress. Now I'm wearing thigh-high socks, flannel pants, and a sweater, and still my fingers feel stiff.

I won't be settling here.

Basically I'm chilling with my family for two weeks before I start my final year at The Real HU. I never feel like I have anything to write about in Seattle. Most of my activities are mundane things that can't really be spiced up enough to put on my blog. (My blog may be exciting. But that's 'cause I only post when something exciting happens. For every exciting thing that happens on here, there are at least a hundred non-exciting things I don't write about.)

Let's see. I went with my brother to the Unitarian church the other day. He's started checking them out, and I saw fit to support him in his quest for knowledge. Unitarians are pretty chill. You would never catch my name on a member list (I've never met another person with my name in my life, even on Google), but there's a lot worse out there. Unitarians like things like rainbows and signs saying they're and "accepting congregation" -- by which they mean they like gay people, in case you didn't figure it out. They also like orphans in Africa and building houses in Colombia. As far as beliefs, I saw Christian science, Protestantism, atheistic Satanism, Buddhism, and a healthy dose of Phyrrhonism (at first glance, anyway).

Even in the Unitarian church, though, I felt like a heathen. I think there's something about me that just radiates heathen. Probably it's because I have a slight inner disdain for all human rituals. I'm like, Can't you see that for what it is? If you know that lighting that candle thingie is merely symbolic, why do you do it? Basically everything we do, socially, is done to make us feel better in a world filled with uncertainty, roadkill, and dumbasses. Rituals and beliefs just help us ignore the uncertainty, roadkill, and dumbasses, and they don't answer the eternal question, WHY. They just help you be okay with there not being an answer.

I figure I'll either find all that stuff out when I die, or else it won't matter because I'll be dead. Either way, resolution will come in the afterlife. No reason to wake up on a Sunday - unless you're chilling with your brother, which is what I was doing.

Then later we got my sister some cupcakes for her birthday. She turned 20 last week. From August to December, we are only one year apart, and from January to July, I am two years older. And year-round we are eighteen months apart. You have to get her really fancy cupcakes to impress her, because she makes her own fancy cupcakes. She works as a cake decorator at Top Foods.

Bring in the gas masks -- Batman just farted. It was epic.

Land of the Free

2009-07-27T16:37:00.001-05:00

Sometimes it hits me really strong: I am living on stolen land.

Diversity Sucks.

2009-07-22T15:55:00.005-05:00

No, no, hear me out. What do you think of when you hear the word 'diversity'?

Some people think of something like this:

I mean, seriously. Where would you ever see that in real life? It reminds me of those stupid post-apocalypse pictures of the lion laying down with the lamb.

In fact, here’s one that combines the two. (Look at who White Jesus has actually deigned to hold in His arms.)

I’ll tell you what I think of when I think of diversity: I think of white people. Which is funny, because that’s exactly what you’re NOT supposed to think of when you think of diversity. But it’s true.

‘Diversity’ should be number one on the list of White People’s Favorite Words. It’s a word that people bandy about when they’ve noticed that their organization is overwhelmingly white, but aren’t really sure why or what to do about it. In the words of a former teacher of mine (one of the few clued-in white people I know), “Diversity basically means ‘let’s talk about black people’.” He means that when people speak of ‘diversity’, they rarely get to the meat of things.

White people’s IDEA of diversity is skewed. Like that picture. It’s a freaking melting pot up in there. Heads up, gentlemen: only white people talk about a melting pot like it’s a good thing. For me, ‘melting pot’ is synonymous with ‘assimilation’.

In a white organization’s eyes, no “diverse” place is complete without a Latino, an Indian, an Asian person, a Muslim, a Black person, a gay man, a person in a wheelchair, and an old-ass person. Preferably in cultural garb where applicable. This “collect them all” mentality actually takes away from diversity. What impact is one Latina gonna have? Inevitably, this is an unintentional form of an old white standby: divide and conquer. And the end result is that once again, white people get the largest representation. The organization is still overwhelmingly white, even if they are technically outnumbered by POC’s.

Not only that, but white people also think an organization can’t be diverse without white people. I know this because I go to Howard. On at least three separate occasions, white acquaintances have asked me if it bothers me to go to a school where there’s so little diversity. I’m like, “Yeah, it would bother me if I went to a school like that.” I mean, Howard’s got people from all fifty states and at least a hundred countries. We have a sizeable African community and a giant Caribbean community. We have Latino and Asian students. We have more lower-class students than white schools do. But, because most students have black skin, that cannot possibly be “diverse”.

How can you tell me you don’t see color when all you’re seeing here is color?

But the thing that really gets me about “diversity” is that it’s such a euphemistic word. I hate it when people scoot around race. If you weren’t raised or immersed in American culture and ways, you would have no idea that when people say diversity, they mean race. Yeah, they throw in gender (meaning white women) and orientation (meaning gay men) every so often, but really mostly it’s about race. I am continually and completely amazed by the complicated dances Americans perform around racial issues without even knowing it. Diversity is just a header -- there’s a whole list of vocabulary that’s required to perform those dances.

White organizations everywhere create entire commissions and councils surrounding diversity. Their mission statements usually say things like, “We believe the University environment is greatly enriched by the presence of people with diverse backgrounds and cultural perspectives.” They have a lot of pretty words. But what they really mean is, “How can we reach out to people of color and make them want to join our organization?”

The question that logically comes next but is rarely asked is, “Why would people of color WANT to join our organization?”

If you asked THAT question, things would get interesting.

I had this experience when I first decided to get socially/politically active. I knew vaguely what I wanted to see happen, but I didn’t know the first thing about how to go about it. So I joined an organization I had read some about in my historical research: the National Organization for Women (NOW). (I didn’t know that they were once anti-dyke under Betty Friedan.)

NOW was thrilled, absolutely thrilled to have me. For a couple months freshman year I went around campaigning for abortion rights. I carried signs. I even got to meet Hillary Clinton. (It was back when I still considered myself a Democrat, so I was elated.)

But something creeped me the hell out. I knew it had something to do with the lack of POC’s, but that wasn’t all of it. I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time. Now, as a radical left-wing critical race theorist, I can jam my finger straight into its fleshy white stomach: NOW only wants people of color on their terms. Sure, they wanna hear what we have to say, but when it comes to making policy, you better be on board with them. They used to ask me, you know, “Why aren’t other Howard students interested in NOW?”

Because NOW doesn’t represent us. White organizations don’t want to represent people of color; they just want to include them.

So in a way, ‘diversity’, like ‘melting pot’, is just another word for ‘assimilation’.

Whenever somebody says that word, you can bet white people are calling the shots.

It's like Jim Crow crawled into a Pennsylvania swimming pool and died.

2009-07-10T08:45:00.005-05:00

"State officials will investigate accusations of racial discrimination against a suburban Philadelphia swim club that allegedly reacted to a visiting group of minority children by asking them not to return."

See title.

The gated club is on a leafy hillside in a village that straddles two townships with overwhelmingly white populations. It says it has a diverse, multiethnic membership.

Yeah. So does my high school. That doesn't mean it's true.

"[Amy Goldman, a member of the swimming club] said there had been black members at the club in the past, though she couldn't remember seeing any this year."

But they have a diverse, multiethnic membership.

"Club president John Duesler told Philadelphia television station WTXF that several club members complained because the children "fundamentally changed the atmosphere" at the pool but that the complaints didn't involve race." Source: AP.

So how else would you describe the change in atmosphere? Were they... loud, maybe?

I have nothing more to say. I always hate it when something like this goes down and all the bloggers get into a tizzy of righteous anger that goes something like, "Oh my GOD, can you believe this? It's 2009!" It has been repeatedly proven that the calendar year has no influence whatsoever on the number of racist incidents in this country.

Your shock and surprise is just another unconscious way of denying racism.

Or, to look at it from another angle, your shock and surprise reveals how successful you've been at denying racism.

Wake up, man. It's 2009. Things are getting worse. After the terrorist attack on the (Jewish) Holocaust museum, do you need any more proof?

Update: Here's the email address of the swim club. Help me blow up their inbox!

info@thevalleyclub.com

A Cemetery In Maryland.

2009-07-08T14:59:00.001-05:00

I took this when the sun was going down. The grass smelled sweet, and there were deer and foxes around the perimeter.

Puppy Update

2009-07-06T16:00:00.008-05:00

Attention, all puppy lovers. Below you lies the mother of all puppy updates.

Do not view this at work unless you can keep yourself from squealing.

This weekend I went to Maine again with my lady friend. I had to bring a sweatshirt, of course, but other than that it was nice. I like going to Maine. First of all, there's the drive - ten hours through all the New England states (except Vermont and Rhode Island), with the wind blowing in the windows. We usually bring lots of music and stop for food sometimes. Second of all, it's nice to get out of the city (even though you need a parka half the time). My lady friend's parents live in a pretty woodsy area. I've seen lots of wildlife there, including BABY wild turkeys. It was adorable.

But the thing I love most about going to Maine is the dogs. The LF's parents have nine dogs at the moment. They have a male German short-haired pointer, and two female black Labs (one of them, the daughter, is actually my lady friend's dog but she got too big to legitimately live in the condo). The mother black Lab currently has six puppies.

The puppies are eight weeks old now and very healthy and robust. For each picture you'll see, there were about ten that didn't come out because they're always running and rolling and tumbling and jumping and yipping and biting.

When we came, they were sitting in their little puppy cage.

They would look piteously at you until you took them out to play.

Like their sister, they had an unhealthy fascination with coffee.

They like to crawl up on you any chance they get.

At one point they discovered a rope toy, and spent a long time fighting over it.

Then one of them came away victorious.

But each of them got a turn.

They aren't supposed to have names because they were bred to be sold, but we immediately started with nicknames. My lady friend named this one Thriller.

If you called to them and ran away, they would all follow you as fast as they could, tripping over their own feet at times.

They also enjoyed playing with sticks.

Of course, arguments and games broke out.

They loved being held, though. Except you couldn't hold them too long or they would start biting and nibbling.

Their favorite place to play was the porch.

They had trouble getting up the steps, but they didn't let that stop them.

Their big sister had almost as much fun as they did. She was very gentle with the puppies, and she loved to get them riled up by running back and forth.

They were very inquisitive. It was hard to get a shot because they would come running up to the camera the minute you put it down on their level.

Dinnertime was a very frenzied moment for them. They crowded up against their puppy chow, pushing and pushing until they started going around in a little windmill formation.

A piece of cloth. Nobody knows where they got it.

I gave one of them a little belly rub.

You can see how much he's grown since his tiny days:

And now, the two cutest puppy pictures:

Doesn't it make you want to take them home?

I'm Not Convinced He Molested Kids.

2009-06-26T14:39:00.003-05:00

As a musician – as a drag king – I am wearing black today.

It would be a stretch to call me a fan of Michael Jackson. Even before my computer crashed, I didn’t own any of his albums. But if you asked me who the most influential pop artist of the 20th century was, I’d’ve probably said it was Michael.

It certainly wasn’t Elvis Presley. Don’t you forget that Elvis’ entire style was ripped off Black artists. He was Black music without Black people. He may have been an icon in the public eye, but he didn’t revolutionize the face of music because he was taking from stuff that was already there.

Michael was a beast. I mean, you see him dance, and you’re like, Man, I would sell my soul to have moves like that. Can you imagine if Randy Bull had moves like that? I would be the number one drag king in the universe.

One thing I’ve noticed, while watching hours and hours of coverage on TV last night, is that overall, Black people tend to go on about what a legend he was, with a nod to the pedophilia accusations. White people tend to say how unfortunate it is that he went out a pedophile freak – with a nod to his musical legacy.

My friend Danielle says, via Facebook:

he was the change before Obama
and whites can't really handle that

As a semi-professional conspiracy theorist, I have to say that Michael Jackson was possibly framed about the little kids. I mean, the minute you look up the actual facts of the trial, you see that the evidence is iffy at best. The only reason so many people assume Michael Jackson is a child molester (besides the sleepovers he had with little boys) is because he doesn’t FIT. He doesn’t fit a gender, he doesn’t fit a sexuality, he doesn’t fit a racial category. Obviously he molested little kids, the reasoning goes, because he’s a freak. That’s just the type of thing someone like him WOULD do.

Whether he did it or not (I wouldn’t be terribly surprised either way), there’s some serious homophobia going on there.

And on that note, that’s why I think MJ is a bad-ass. He transcends gender and sexuality and race. By race I mean musically- I’m not saying he’s not Black.

My lady friend is like, the biggest Michael Jackson fan I’ve ever met in person. She has dozens of albums and concert DVD’s and LP’s. She even has a doll of Michael Jackson that someone got her, smiling at you from his little box on top of her CD/bookcase. When she picked me up she was all silent. “It’s the end of an era,” she said a couple times. Besides the election and 9-11, this was pretty much the biggest event ever to her.

We stayed up all evening watching old concert footage and old music videos and the news, which as you probably saw switched to constant coverage.

It’s the coolest thing to be working at a radio network while this goes down. First of all, you get to know about it before anyone else in the world 'cause you can see the news wires. Also, you get to see exactly how things work and how they get stuff up so fast and how they make the decisions. And you get to help the public find out about it.

Actually, being an intern, I don’t personally get to help inform the public about Michael Jackson. The most I’ve gotten to do is streamline his artist page so you can navigate it more easily. What I’m mostly doing is picking up the work everyone had to drop when the news came in. “You have to start somewhere,” the photo editor told me.

My lady friend’s kind of right. It’s the end of an era. Who knows where music will go after this?

Morning in DC

2009-06-23T09:16:00.002-05:00

What up, people. This is Randy Bull, live and heavily medicated from Our Nation’s Capital.

Nobody’s in the office yet, except yours truly and this one chick who always shows up ridiculously early. It might be because most folks don’t get in till around nine-thirty anyway, but more likely it’s because of the giant Metro crash which I’m sure you heard about.

There are many benefits to having a bike, including zero transportation costs and infinite gas mileage. But I gotta say the number one perk is not being on the metro when the most epic collision in its 33-year history takes place. I usually take the green line, so unless I was tired of waiting for it or headed up to visit my lady friend I wouldn’t have been on that red line train, but I can only imagine how long it took everybody to get home last night.

Everybody was calling everybody last night to see if they were on the train. One of the women in the choir I used to sing with sent an email saying she was okay, but barely. She’d run five minutes late and gotten on the train behind the one that crashed. It took her two-and-a-half hours to get home, but given the circumstances, she wasn’t too bummed about that.

Commuting, I hear, is a bitch today. Not only is the red line split in half and only operating at limited stations, but there are also random delays on the blue and orange lines for unrelated reasons. Everybody’s operating their train on complete manual because the computer system clearly can’t be trusted, so that’s slowing things up. The streets and highways are filled with cars that aren’t usually there, and one of the commuter trains (an actual train, not the metro) is cancelled today for unrelated reasons as well. They told everyone not to take the Metro because you have a better chance getting to work on time from Maryland if you walk.

I gotta say, I’ve always been a little skeptical about the DC metro system. There are all these rumors that it’s falling apart and needs millions to repair. The cars always make weird screeching noises in the tunnels. They’re always needing repairs, especially the red line just south of where the crash happened.

And just to change the subject, Microsoft Word is pretty against vernacular English here. When I said just now, ‘I gotta say…’, it told me ‘gotta’ was spelled wrong. So I look in the suggestions bar and it wants to change it to ‘got to’. That shows me that it obviously knows what I’m trying to say. In fact – I’m gonna do a little test here – it also changes ‘wanna’ to ‘want to’ and ‘gonna’ to ‘going to’. So it KNOWS what you’re trying to say. It just doesn’t like it.

Clearly I’m not using proper English, even though I know more about spelling and grammar than alla y’all. This whole thing about ‘proper English’ is a whole other post. I used to be obsessed with proper English. I still am. But I realize that what’s “proper” in one context is straight-up wrong in another. “Proper English” is an excuse to widen class divisions, is what it is. And dare I say race. It doesn’t want me to use ‘be’ for ‘is’ in “United States English”, but there is no option for AAVE or any other dialects. Just United States and British.

Losers.

Alright. Everyone’s coming in, I’m gonna get some stuff done here.

I look like a hamster.

2009-06-22T12:50:00.002-05:00

Greetings, earthlings. For the second time in my life, I’m sewn up like a teddy bear. (The first time was when I wiped out on my mother’s bike last summer and had a gushing head wound.) This time the stitches are in the back of my mouth, where I used to have four beautiful molars. They were unceremoniously ripped from my head and deposited in the hazardous materials bin, before I even got a good look at them.

So, the “procedure” was almost as traumatizing as I had expected it to be. I had to go and wait with the other patients, even though they’d told me to come at 1:30. My lady friend ditched her patients and her lab work and her paperwork and came to be with me, too, which I was grateful for. I mean, Andrew was all ready to come, but it was nice to have someone who’s practically a dentist.

Finally they called me back there. I knew where to go ‘cause I’d accompanied Yanick to get his wisdom teeth extracted last semester. I say I accompanied him, but actually nothing ended up happening because when they took his blood pressure it was racing, like he’d been eating McDonalds for the last seventy years. Poor dude was just too freaked out. So they told him to come back another time, ‘cause you can’t put someone out when their blood pressure is that unstable.

I was hoping something like that would happen to me. I mean, it certainly felt like my heart was racing. I sat down in this giant chair (which I noticed had arm straps on it, for losers who struggled) and the doctor and the assistant started asking me all kinds of dumbass questions, like, “Do you go to Howard?” and “Do you ever teach piano? ‘Cause I have five kids, they’d love to learn piano-“

Normally I would have given a shit about the five kids, but I was a little preoccupied.

And they were asking my lady friend questions, too, like, “Does she have the IV form?” “She’s your patient?”

“Yeah,” said my lady friend (all sexy in her scrubs, I didn’t fail to notice, even though I was a little preoccupied).

“Then you can assist me. I’ll show you how to hook her up-“ So luckily my lady friend got to assist in the surgery. I don’t care that she still has a few more weeks of dental school and Dr Mohammed has been doing oral surgeries for years; I would have rather had my lady friend extract all my teeth if it had been legal for her to do it. I mean, I had never laid eyes on Dr Mohammed until that moment.

So she hooked me up to the oxygen thingie and the heart monitor and the blood pressure monitor and it was discovered that my blood pressure was, in fact, normal. Actually, it was better than normal. So there was nothing to prevent me from getting anesthesia. The doctor put the IV in my arm and taped it down so it wouldn’t fall out. “Are you giving me anesthesia now? Are you giving me it?” I demanded.

“No, I’ll tell you when it’s time,” he said. I didn’t trust him and kept following them both with my eyes, determined to catch them if they tried to slip it in there without me knowing. You just never know. But after a minute he said, “Okay, I want you to put your head back and go to sleep.” And slowly it became harder and harder to see and focus on things. I struggled to stay awake and was doing pretty well, until I realized that if I was successful in my struggle I would be present for the “procedure”, which I didn’t want to be. I kind of conked out when I realized that.

Except they don’t give you total anesthesia, ‘cause they want you to be just awake enough to obey their commands but not awake enough to run or struggle. I closed my eyes, but I could still hear the doctor giving orders to my lady friend, and the little whir of dental instruments, and the hideous cracking of my teeth as they wrangled them out of my mouth. I was very afraid and wanted to jump up out of the chair, but I couldn’t muster enough energy to move or open my eyes.

Luckily it didn’t seem to last long. After what I thought was about ten minutes (but was really an hour and a half), the doctor said through the haze, “I’m gonna put in some sutures,” and then he was like, “Hey, hey, wake up. Wake up.” It was like being hypnotized. I opened my eyes and they were there, putting stuff away. “Lift your head a bit so I can see you’re awake,” said the doctor. I raised my head and dropped it when I saw little bloody splinters of teeth littering the tray beside the chair. I also saw that my arms had been strapped down to the chair. According to my lady friend, I had reached up and tried to bat their hands away, even under anesthesia.

I was a mess for the rest of the afternoon. I stumbled down to the recovery room on my lady friend’s arm and sat there with little tears coming out of my eyes. “All my teeth are gone,” I whispered (and the room was swirling). “All my teeth are gone! I liked those teeth – I really liked them-“

“You’re still high,” she said.

Then she took me to her house and I lay spread-eagled on her bed, staring at the ceiling, ignoring her suggestions for me to change out of my work clothes and take the gauze out of my mouth and start taking the pills I’d been issued. After a while she just left me alone. I did get up eventually, but it wasn’t pretty. It still isn’t pretty. My tooth sockets look like Frankenstein’s monster and my mouth smells like a hazardous waste bin, except when there’s fresh clove oil applied, in which case it smells like clove oil, which isn’t that nice. And my lower face is swollen, like a rodent that tried to fit too much food in its mouth.

I spent the weekend applying clove oil, popping pills like a Hollywood actor, eating mushy things like mashed potatoes, and watching The L Word, where none of the characters had a face that looked like a giant mutated hamster.

I thought I was ready to go back to work, but I got almost nothing done today.

So my final analysis is: Don’t get your third molars extracted unless they really really need it. And if they do need it, be sure to bid them a proper farewell before they get pulled from your head. Because you won’t ever get to see them again.

Countdown to Doom!

2009-06-18T10:41:00.001-05:00

There’s a problem, people: I’m hungry. I’m so hungry. All I can think about is toaster waffles (which have become an addiction since the cafeteria closed and I had to make do in the Real World).

The reason I’m hungry is this: I’m getting my wisdom teeth extracted today. I’m not supposed to eat anything from midnight the night before. I meant to pig out at eleven, but who really gets that hungry at eleven? I was like, Oh, I’ll be okay. I go without breakfast all the time. It’ll just be...like finals week.

Cut to the next morning – I’m wasting away. It seems like everywhere I go I smell food. And it’s not even like I’m that hungry. It’s just the knowledge that I can’t eat that makes me super hungry. There’s all this FREE FOOD in the office from some kind of soiree that was held the other day, and it’s just sitting on the table with no one to eat it. I’m talking brownie bites, chocolate chip cookies, corn chips – it’s a veritable smorgasbord, gentlemen.

I love food. I love it so much. By all rights I should be a balloon, the way I eat. Life has no color without food. I didn’t realize how much of my excitement in the office is centered on the sandwich I usually have in the little refrigerator.
And I probably won’t be able to eat this afternoon, either. I mean, I’m getting all four of my wisdom teeth taken out. I know it’ll be just my luck that they’ll be stuck in the bone or something and they’ll have to smash my face in to get the whole root out. I mean, you just never know what might happen.

I’m so not excited about this it’s not even funny. And the people I depend on are being less than supportive about it – namely, my mother and my lady friend. I told my mom the other day, “So, yeah...I’m getting my teeth extracted on Thursday.”
She was like, “Oh, good!”

Really? Good? Good that I’m going to be a bloody, pulpy mess? I understand that it is a “good” thing that I am getting my teeth extracted at a place where the procedure is fully covered, at a time before my bones have gotten too hard to do it comfortably. I understand that. I also understand that it’s good that I have finally gotten off my ass and gotten it done, considering my usual aversion to western medicine in its entirety.

But “good” is not what I need to hear right now.

And my lady friend. She’s a dentist, so she doesn’t even blink an eye at the thought of her girlfriend being laid out unconscious while people pull her teeth out of her head. She thinks that since she doesn’t blink an eye, nobody else should, either. “The more of a wuss you are about it,” she said to me this morning, “the more of a wuss recovery story you’re gonna have.”

Not surprising, considering her ... occupational specialty, shall we say. Just typical.

Mother. Lady friend. I understand that I am being a wuss. I’ll say it loud and proud: I’m here. I’m a wuss. Get over it.

But I wish people would humor me for just a few hours. I’ve never had a tooth extracted and I’ve never had anaesthesia. I’m not gonna lie, I’m probably gonna think about crying. And I’m definitely gonna worry about having my jaw all crushed up and my nerve permanently numbed. I don’t care if all the dentists in the world tell me that’s not gonna happen. The way I roll, I’m still gonna worry about it. And I have a message for alla y’all out there who think that worry is unnecessary: I know. But humor me. Act like it’s a valid thing to go on about. When I confess these worries to you, I don’t want you to refute them. I want you to say, Oh, wow, that’s gonna suck! You’ll probably never walk again! I’ll be like, Thank you. Finally someone understands.

But the thing I’m most worried about now is that I’m never gonna eat again.

I went to the movies!

2009-06-17T10:07:00.003-05:00

If you haven’t seen Star Trek yet, take off work and go see the matinee today. You don’t have to be a trekkie to enjoy Star Trek. I’m not a trekkie. I’ve never been to a convention and I don’t speak Klingon. But I love seeing gigantic starships fire photon torpedoes.

I was raised on TNG. My sister and I had little action figures. I loved Klingons and I love Captain Picard. Still love him. Even though Picard clearly owns every other captain in all Starfleet, forever, this movie gave Kirk more points than he had in my book before. Like, now I can at least see WHY someone might pick Kirk over Picard. You’re still wrong, but I can at least see where you’re coming from now.

The plot was your basic space opera: a motley cast of characters bands together and goes to infinity and beyond in order to save the world. There are bad-ass fighting scenes, witty banter, a great (though at times monothematic) soundtrack, and enough sexiness to go around.

I went with Andrew, who’s the same as me – he’s not a trekkie, but you can bet he’ll see that movie while it’s still in theaters. We cheered when the title came on the screen and we cheered again when they closed with the opening sequence to the show. And, I hate to admit, we held up our hands in the sign of live long and prosper. (Or maybe that was just me.)

I mean, you just can’t touch Star Trek.

As always, there’s some stuff you just gotta ignore if you wanna not walk out of the film. Just a few of them:

the miniskirts all the women wear (I don’t care if it’s canon. There were a lot of things in there that weren’t canon; women in pants should have been one of them)
the fact that the Romulan terrorists looked a little off-white to me – by which I mean, they looked a little Middle Eastern
The blatant disregard of paradoxes in time travel.

I mean, don’t even get me started on the scientific inaccuracies. I know it’s science fiction, but if someone who’s only read one-and-a-half books on time travel can tell you your premise is bullshit, maybe that’s a problem.

So it was typical Star Trek – a little progressive for its time (which is 2009), but really nothing to write home about. But Star Trek with modern special effects is really something to see. And I’m gonna go see it again tonight. And I’m probably gonna get the DVD if I get the notion in my head to get a television and DVD player.

I wonder what Wagner would look like set in the Star Trek universe. There would be so many new ringheads.

Pride Profile: Dr Sara Josephine Baker

2009-06-16T16:44:00.004-05:00

I was gonna do THE Josephine Baker for this Pride Profile. But really there’s not that much written evidence to give her a Pride Profile, even though everyone pretty much knew. Just like Emily Dickinson. Obviously she was queer. But you can’t prove it on her. You have to be reasonably out during your life to deserve a Pride Profile, ‘cause the whole point is about being proud. So I gotta know you’re a dyke. With Dr Sara Josephine Baker, there is absolutely no doubt:

I mean, case closed.

These are the things you need to know about Dr Baker (1873-1945): 1. She was the first woman to get a Ph.D. in public health, 2. She was an inventor whose sanitary methods saved hundreds of thousands of little babies in New York, and 3. She was too gay all day.

Her mother was one of the first women to go to Vassar. Her father, a lawyer, had hoped for a son, and he made her go out for sports. Also her Aunt Abby encouraged her in all her intellectual pursuits. (I think I have an aunt like that...)

She didn’t decide to become a doctor because she liked the game as a kid. Both her father and brother died of typhoid when she was sixteen. She figured she could feed two birds with one seed: support her mother and sister, and keep other people from dying. So she boned up on her science and entered the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children) which was directed by Dr Emily Blackwell.

A little aside about Dr Blackwell: she was rejected from 11 med schools just for having a vagina. But she finally finished up at Case Western and founded that infirmary with her doctor sister and another woman doctor. She was also gay.

Now when Baker finally got her M.D., she did a year-long internship. Her first serious lady friend was another intern, Dr Florence M. Laighton. They had all these ideas that they were gonna set up a practice and live together forever, but when that actually happened, it fell on its face because they were women. I’m assuming Baker had some kind of trust fund income or something, because she only made 185$ during her first entire year. That’s about 4,700$ in today’s dollars. http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

So she took the civil service exam and became a health inspector. By 1907 she’d been made assistant to the commissioner of health. She inspected a lot of houses and I guess she probably inspected a lot of ladies, too, just to make sure everything was working properly. But the number one thing she inspected was little babies in Hell’s Kitchen.

If you lived in Hell’s Kitchen at the turn of the century, that was about as broke as you could get and still be white. People were dying left and right because it was hot and dirty. The infant mortality rate was about 1500 a week. So Baker got together a posse of trusty nurses and had them spread out around the city giving people little hints about wiping asses and opening the window once in a while. Result of this was, the death toll of babies dropped in one summer from to a mere 300 a week – a whopping 80%.

In fact, she was such a bad-ass that they set up a Bureau of Child Hygiene and put her as the director. Once she made sure the men under her knew how to act, she started implementing stuff. She provided training to girls who had to take care of their siblings. Lots of little kids were going blind ‘cause their mothers had gonorrhea. Baker fixed that by putting silver nitrate on their eyes when they were born. (Silver nitrate’s an antiseptic that you can even use as an alternative to laundry detergent.) She also invented little containers to keep the eye drops in so they wouldn’t spread disease.

Like, I don't even have room here to put down all the awesome stuff she did in New York. There's so much info that won't survive the average attention span, especially if you're just perusing this on your way to the parade like I hope you are.

There was a time when bureaucrats tried to have her dismissed. But the ladies loved her too much for that to happen. All kinds of mothers whose children had benefited from her methods came out into the streets and saved her job. She lived happily ever after with a writer and a certain Dr Louise Pearce. She always stood up for stuff like white women’s suffrage. She was also a Unitarian.

She was already an M.D., but she added to that in 1917 by being the first woman to get her doctorate in public health. She got it from the school she lectured at for 15 years, NYU-Bellevue Hospital Medical School. There was a problem with that because they wanted her to lecture, but they didn’t admit women for taking classes. Finally when she continued to refuse to lecture, they admitted her.

There are probably a lot of New Yorkers who wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for Dr Sara Josephine Baker. And that’s why she’s my #2 Pride Profile.

Pride Profile: Gladys Bentley

2009-06-15T16:09:00.004-05:00

I know I said the other day that Pride was about sex and leather and fabulosity. And it is. But I always enjoy it when people take some time off their usual pursuits during the Pride season to investigate the history and culture of queer people everywhere. To help you do that, I’m doing a Pride Profile series. Depending on how lazy I am, you might get several entries.

Number one is Gladys Bentley (1907-1960). These are the things you need to remember about Gladys Bentley: 1. She was a drag king, 2. She was a pianist, and 3. She didn’t give a shit.

From an early age, hanging out in Philadelphia, Bentley knew she was queer. Maybe it was the fact that none of the boys liked her – and that suited her fine. Maybe it was the fact that she had been wearing boys’ clothes since before she could remember. Or maybe it was the fact that she was absolutely in LOVE with her teacher.
Either way, she was queer. And Philadelphia was too small for someone as fabulous as she was.

So she went to the place where queer people were fostering a new Black movement. She went to the place you could find Alaine Locke, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Bessie Smith: she went to Harlem. She started doing drag (which I don't think was really drag to her; she was about as studly as you could get and still be a bio woman) at the Mad House in a place called “Jungle Alley”. She sat there playing piano and singing about lots of things, mostly about how much she loved the ladies and the ladies loved her. As with many Renaissance artists, her career skyrocketed when Carl Van Vechten (and other white folks) started patronizing her shows.

A little aside about Van Vechten: he was a white dude who brought Harlem into the white mainstream with his controversial book “Nigger Heaven.” (Can you see why it was controversial?) Also, he was gay.

Anyway, Gladys Bentley started out making 35$ a week, but she ended up making 100$ a week. That’s 1064$ in today's dollars. I’d like to see me, or even Ken Vegas, make that much in a week just from performing.

So she had enough money to take ladies out. And she did. If you saw her show and you didn’t know she was gay, you probably had mistaken her for a guy. I mean, you just didn’t ACT that out at that time. Even the other gay Renaissance artists were amazed. Langston Hughes said she "was something worth discovering in those days”.

But things weren’t as fun when she moved out to the West Coast. She went there ‘cause Harlem was kind of dying down, and besides, her mother was out there and she was kind of sickly. Bar owners had to get police permits to even allow her to show up. I think this was in the days when you had to be wearing at least two articles of clothing that corresponded with your biological sex to keep from risking arrest. So many people hated on her that she ended up recanting, just completely retracting her lesbianism. She stated that she was cured and happily married to a guy. Maybe people believe that. But I know without having to do research that Gladys Bentley was proud every day of her life.

Then she died in a flu epidemic when she was only 53.

For some reason, Gladys Bentley never became a big recording artist. Your guess is as good as mine as to why THAT was.

But she remains an inspiration to studs, bulldaggers, and kings everywhere. And that’s why she’s my number one Pride Profile.

I got this info from Biography Resource Center.

Puppy Update

2009-06-15T14:52:00.004-05:00

Remember those incredibly eensy, incredibly cute puppies I posted a couple posts ago? Well, they've gotten a little bit bigger. They can stand now and do bad things. Apparently one time my lady friend's dad couldn't find some of them, and then they turned up in the bin of dog food, fast asleep 'cause they were too little to even eat it. Whenever College Sweetheart calls her parents she always hears them yipping in the background.

Unfortunately (or fortunately for College Sweetheart's frazzled parents), there are already several buyers for these babies. So soon some of them will be gone. They have a good pedigree, too, if you give a crap about that type of thing. One of their close relatives is owned by the Kennedys. Their mother's grandfather was the first chocolate Lab ever to win this one gigantic hunting title. And their mother has special training in hunting. College Sweetheart's dog is from her first litter, and people are always trying to buy this dog off her. Of course she would never sell. So these little ones are pretty valuable if you want your dog to go to Yale and have a debutante ball.

It's possible that we'll be going up to Maine again for the 4th, so if that happens you will get another puppy update.

Also, it turns out College Sweetheart won't be leaving for her job until October. I was pretty psyched about that 'cause I thought she was leaving in July, and I've kind of gotten used to having her around. So I might get to see the puppies' further growth on Labor Day or something.

Uranus, the Magician

2009-06-11T16:27:00.003-05:00

So this one time I was at Jim and Dee’s house with my friend Carina. We were visiting them during one of our breaks. We used to get together to sing there at least once a week when we were both in high school.. Jim and Dee are like the liberal grandparents I never had.

Anyway, we were there. Jim and Dee had just been to this concert where Holst’s The Planets was performed. That’s basically this suite where all of the planets have special music written about them. (It used to be all the planets except Pluto, but now it’s just all the planets again.) They were telling us all about it. All the planets have different little title, like, “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity.” We remembered all of them except Uranus and Neptune. Dee went to get the program. Jim was like, “I particularly liked Uranus.”

I said, “I liked your anus too, Jim.” Jim chuckled slightly, but Carina just looked at me with polite disgust. I cracked up. Like, I couldn’t even breathe. For some reason her friendly condescension made me laugh way more than the original joke had.

Just then Dee came back into the kitchen. “Uranus is the magician!” she exclaimed.

I cracked up again. “Your anus is the magician!” I laughed so hard that I had to go to the bathroom to compose myself. The others were laughing because I was so out of control, but they didn’t think it was funny. By that time I was embarrassed, cause I didn’t want Jim and Dee (not to mention Carina) to think I was a complete juvenile.
But I was.

Fast-forward to today. I have an assignment at my internship: build a story about – guess what – Holst’s The Planets. I almost cracked up when I was given the assignment. But I didn’t. I was so good. I wrote the whole story. It’ll be up on the site next week. But then my fellow intern asked about the planets. She was like, “Which is your favorite planet?”

I meant to say Saturn. Saturn has always been my favorite planet. But in slow motion I heard myself saying, “Your anus!”

She was like, “Oh- ha.”

I said, “Yeah. Your anus is a gas giant!”

I wasn’t exactly looking to get promoted.

Anyway. There are more exciting things to worry about this week. Namely, Pride. In fact, that’s why that giant rainbow picture is on the top of my blog. It’s for those people who didn’t know (or somehow forgot) it was Pride week.

Around Pride week, there’s always a lot of discussion about what Pride is really about. I’ll tell you what Pride is really about. It’s about sex. I mean, it’s a little bit about leather, and a little bit about drinking and dancing, but mostly Pride is about sex. It’s about sex, and it’s about being beautiful, and it’s about being fabulous. If you really, really want to get political about it, you could say that it’s about the queer community giving a gigantic rainbow screw you to everyone who does male-female missionary position once a week because God said so. Anyone that doesn’t apply to can be included in Pride.

My lady friend and I are going shopping for Pride this evening. I mean, you can’t just wear anything for Pride. I’d shop for Pride before I’d shop for a ball, wedding, or any other holiday. Not that I care what people think, but it’s nice to join the festivities. Just like you like have new clothes for Christmas. If my siblings ever have kids then I’m gonna make sure they get presents for Pride.

I can’t decide whether I’m going to go in male or female drag. There are merits to both. I actually do male drag more often. Female drag is a bitch with a capital W. I went to my lady friend’s white coat ceremony last month. That’s what you do when you finally become a dentist and can wear one of those sexy lab coats instead of just scrubs. All the students got these coats with their names embroidered on them. It was great. My lady friend mentioned politely that it might be nice if I wore a dress or something, since it was going to be incredibly fancy. I was like, great. I’ll go in female drag.

But I didn’t realize how much effort you have to make. I realized why chicks are never ready when their date calls to take them out. It takes a lot of work to do ‘woman’. When C.S. called me (already running a little late), I was in a panic cause I was trying to paint my nails, fit in my heels, not snag my dress, put on my earrings, and fix my hair at the same time.

But I looked awesome, though. And that’s what I have to decide for this weekend. Do I wanna look awesome, or do I wanna look awesome?

Either way, I can’t lose.

Cool Events of the Week

2009-05-21T12:30:00.002-05:00

Number one cool event of the week: my brother has swine flu! I know that's not something to be excited about, but it kind of is. Whenever people talk about epidemics and stuff I'm always thinking about odds. What're the odds that you'll get the disease? What are the odds that someone you know will get it? What're the odds that an immediate family member will get it? Now, someone's gotten it. So the odds of the rest of us getting it automatically go down. Plus, I get to go around telling people, "Guess what, my brother has swine flu!" and they're like, "No way!" "Oh my God!" "Jesus, is he gonna be okay?"

That's what the media hype has done. Even people who know better kind of think swine flu's an instant death sentence. The thing about swine flu is that it's just the flu. So, my brother has the flu. In fact, they're not even sure it's swine flu 'cause they didn't bother to further subtype his infection past Influenza A. But since his area is a little pocket of swine flu right now (one of the deaths occured right in Lynnwood), they're assuming it's swine flu without having to test further.

I'm not too worried about him. I mean, I feel bad for him, but my brother's a strapping young lad. He's already reviving, according to our mother.

Number two cool event of the week: I finally found a place to live and moved in. It's a house about five minutes as the bike flies north of campus, and maybe fifteen minutes' ride from where I'll be working this summer (which is the NPR national headquarters. DC's great like that 'cause they have lots of national headquarters). There are four other people in the house, all post-Howard professionals in their early/mid twenties. Only one of them's a woman, and she's on vacation. I thought it might be pretty bad-ass to live with guys - they're not hung up on cleanliness, they say stuff straight out instead of bitching about it, and they like football (not that it's the season or anything, but still). There's always the chance of them getting pervy, but that's their issue and not mine.

The best thing about my room is that it's the sunniest room in the house. The window faces due east, but even in the afternoon it still gets a lot of light. It's one of those white walls, tall ceiling, hardwood floors type of rooms. The whole house would be really nice if it were painted. The saddest thing about my room is that it USED to be lavender. You can see spots of it under the crappy paint job the owner did before he rented it out to these guys a couple years ago. All of you readers know that lavender's my favorite color in the world.

I think I'm gonna paint. I don't care that I'm only there for the summer; I'm gonna paint at least one wall lavender. The landlord said it's no problem (though I should probably wait until I meet him officially to confirm this). Plus, if my scholarship lets me live off campus and the girl I'm subletting from doesn't come back, I might stay here next year. The housemates seem nice. There are three - Caleb, Howard, Brandon, and then Brandon's girlfriend who's visiting her family at the moment. It feels really weird to move in to a situation like this 'cause you feel like you're visiting. This morning I was all tiptoing around, peeking carefully into drawers to see if I could put my stuff there. The guys are doing their best to make me feel welcome, but underneath my bad-ass exterior I've always been a little shy, even as a kid. In fact, the bad-ass exterior isn't even that old.

Anyway. Painting can wait for later. I have a more pressing problem on my hands: food. I have none. It's been ten days since the cafeteria closed, and I am having to forage for my own survival. I'm having to live in the Real World. It's really scary. I don't have any groceries yet. I was eating at College Sweetheart's place for a few days (I bought her some groceries), and then I was sick for a few days so I only drank tea. Now, I'm out on my own. I have some Kraft macaroni, but no milk. I need to go shopping. But I don't even really know what to buy (besides milk). I haven't eaten yet today. I'm thinking about doing one of those hippie vegetarian fasting deals just so I won't have to find my own food. They say your stomach shrinks after the third day.

I guess I'll get some pasta. That's always easy.

Baby Puppies!

2009-05-17T10:15:00.004-05:00

I thought it was time for you all to see some puppies again. Puppies are one of the true Forces of Good in the world, so it's good luck for me to post them on my blog. These puppies are only about two weeks old, making them the babiest puppies I've ever seen in my life.

They're the puppies of my lady friend's parents' dog. We traveled up to see them this week.

Basically there are six puppies, and they're all Labs. There are three chocolates and three blacks, and three are girls (two of the chocolates are girls).

They're so tiny that all they can do is slither around their little whelping box with their eyes closed, crying for their mother with little mewling piglet sounds. Sometimes they kind of growl and play with each other. They're so baby. When I first got there, only College Sweetheart got to go in and play with them, on account of them being so tiny and delicate and the mother having only met me once. But then when it was clear that she wasn't gonna tear my face off, I got to go in and say hi too.Then I gave one of them a little tummy rub. He just squeaked.

Yo.

2009-05-07T14:41:00.004-05:00

I have a bike! I knew I was gonna get a bike this summer, but between finals and finding housing I hadn't really turned my thoughts to transportation, even thoughI was just raring to go ride. What happened was, Dr Timbrell heard that I needed housing and stuff and he was like, "Why don't I just give you my old bike?"

I said sure, 'cause an old bike is better than no bike, and even though I have money set aside for a bike, I was wary about spending it. But he called me later on that night and told me he was so sure about the plan anymore 'cause he forgot that the bike had been sitting in his basement for going on fifteen years and it didn't have any air in its tires and was covered with cobwebs. He had this idea that he was gonna take it to the shop in Dupont Circle and get it looked at. I was like, "Forget it, Dr Timbrell. I don't want you to go to any trouble on my account." But he insisted on taking it to the shop and getting it looked at. "What time can I call tomorrow?" he asked.

"Uh...afternoon, I guess."

"May I call at five?"

"Yeah, sure. Five's good. Sure."

"Alright. I'm putting it down in my planner. 'Call student'."

Sure enough, I got a call at five o' clock the next afternoon. Dr Timbrell said he was having second thoughts about just giving up his trusted bike, 'cause he'd ridden it home from the shop and forgotten that biking really was the coolest thing in the world. "You can have it at least until graduation," he said. "Then we'll see." Apparently he had gotten all excited about it and gotten its tires pumped and its brakes and gears fixed and gotten a portable pump and a U-lock for it (not cheap) and had all kinds of stuff done to it. I felt kind of bad because he had spent all this money on it, but I didn't feel too bad 'cause he's tenured and he knew he didn't have to do it anyway. He just likes me.

So now I have a bike! And to be honest, I think I could keep it past graduation if I wanted. People always get psyched about biking when they mount up, but give them a month and they can't remember what was so great about it. I'm sure Dr Timbrell'd let me buy it off him for the cost of repairs if that was what I really wanted.

'Cause it's a pretty cool ride. It's a male bike, a ten-speed, if you can believe that. It's so old that the gear-switchers are at the base of the handlebars, not on the handles. It's one of those real slim city bikes with the thin tires, and it's kind of a dark orange burgundy. He has one of those racks in the back where you can attach a basket and put your grocery shopping.

I immediately christened him Arnold. He just looked like an Arnold. Like a guy who's quiet but sturdy and dependable. You can just call him Arnold, or you can call him Arnold Widowmaker or Arnold The G. Whichever you like.

I rode him to go see a house I'm trying to stay in and, besides figuring out the gears, it was a real smooth ride. I'm so psyched about taking him everywhere. The only problem with a road bike is, you can't really go on trails with it.

Anyway. In other news. My lady friend took me horseback riding last weekend. It was one of those things where anybody can come and ride on the trails for an hour. That was pretty bad-ass 'cause no one had ever taken me horse riding before, unless you count my parents paying for lessons when we lived in Hungary. They had a real nice stable out near where we lived and lessons are nothing like as expensive as they are in the States. Shannon and I rode for probably five years. We were in a few of the little competitions our instructor organized. We learned most of our stuff not through competing but by just hanging out at the horse farm and doing everything with them, from seeing the babies born in the spring to grooming and training the three-year-olds and riding like three hours a day in the summer. I hadn't ridden but once or twice since I came to the States, so I was super happy to go last weekend. It was like riding a bike. I hadn't forgotten anything. My lady friend did pretty well too, considering she had had no formal training. We mostly walked and trotted on this really rocky trail in the rain. Even from that I was sore; shows you how out of shape my riding muscles were. Back in the day I'd've used that hour as a cool-down from the real riding.

Anyway. So that was fun. In other news, I'm still trying to find a place to stay for the summer in DC. I was supposed to stay at one place where the residents were really green-conscious and they were mostly queer and all Howard students, but at the last minute the chick rescinded her offer, saying that so-and-so's cousin wanted to move in instead. I was kind of pissed, but there was only so much I could do. I went to look at another house but the chick gave it to the dude who looked before me and then didn't show up when I came and knocked for twenty minutes. Yesterday I had a sort-of interview with some housemates at another place, but they have a friend who wants to move in too, so I'm not too hopeful about it.

Now I want to practice.

Five down, five to go-

2009-04-27T10:21:00.004-05:00

I just realized as I titled this post that I'm actually playing ten juries this semester. Besides my own, I'm playing for four singers, four flutes, and a trumpet. It's about 11:20 now, and I'm taking a break in the computer lounge. The music building is especially busy this morning - not just 'cause of juries but because we're finally, finally getting some new pianos. The deal has been in the works since last summer but it's only just now happening. Dr Timbrell would always tell me when I came to my lesson, "We're supposed to be getting the new pianos next week." I never actually scoffed, but I would usually raise my eyebrows a bit and he would say, "Well, supposedly." And other times he would be like, "No, really. They're really bringing them." I would just nod, and at the next lesson he'd be like, "Something happened with the piano contract..."

So now the pianos are here - just past the nick of time for juries. We've got at least a dozen new Bostons (that's the cheap version of Steinway) and lots of uprights, and by the time they're tuned nobody will be here anymore to play them 'cause juries are pretty much the end of the semester.

I played my own jury today at nine-thirty. It went middling well - I always stumble on scales 'cause I'm not used to doing them in public. I can do them at 120 in the practice rooms, but put me on stage and that speed goes down to like 90. My pieces went pretty well, though. I playedthe D major from the Well-Tempered Klavier and the second movement of the Mozart A minor sonata (the only one I like). Now I'm avoiding Dr Timbrell 'cause he told me to hand in my final project today for piano literature but I didn't finish it 'cause the weather was nice.

The weather's nice. And by nice I mean beautiful, beautiful, enough to make you spring out of bed in the morning. It's been in the 90's the past three days, which is unusual even for DC. I slept with no clothes on next to my window and was still a little warm. College Sweetheart and I went on all these nature walks and got all sticky and muddy and wonderfully dirty. It was too bad her dog's in Maine. I liked that dog, even if she did get into things. They weren't MY things.

So yeah. It's still hot today, and where am I? Playing juries. And I'm not even getting paid. It's not like I'm getting paid. I'm just doing all the work for the staff accompanist, who decided she couldn't be here until 2. Must be nice. And these singers - I had only rehearsed with one singer by yesterday night. I put up a sign in the hall. I put it right under the little typed sign they made for the staff accompanist where you could sign up for rehearsals with her. I said, text me so we can rehearse. Only one singer texted me. The rest of them didn't hit up up till this weekend, and their texts went like this:

singer1: Hi its me, I wasn't able to get with you to t rehearse...will u still be ok to play for my jury?

singer2: Im also doing a spiritual, is it too late to give u the music? [Yes.]

Haven't heard jack from singer3. It'll be interesting and amusing to see what happens. Right now I gotta go rehearse with singer 1, even though their juries start in an hour.

Blood Must Be Spilled!

2009-04-20T17:27:00.002-05:00

Yeah. Blood must be spilled. I don't know whose yet, but somebody or something must pay for the loss of my term paper for history. All seven pages of it.

I know sure as hellsnow that I'M not responsible for the loss of it. The computer deleted it WHILE I was in the process of saving it. I clicked save - I even went to the little "save as" window so I could be sure it was the right spot on my flash drive. And bunches of little windows started popping up saying they couldn't read the file, the file was bad, the file could not be saved. I said, Alright. This is creepy and suspicious. As soon as those little windows stop popping up, I'm gonna copy and paste this straight into my email. And then I'm gonna save on the desktop just to back this bitch up.

But I never had a chance. A little window popped up saying that my paper wasn't valid. And then Word completely closed, deleting the entire paper. And it's not even like I had the old version. The freaking i-lab computer reached into my flash drive, removed everything there having to do with John Brown, and deleted it so completely that the administrator and the technician could find no trace of it after an hour of concentrated searching. Nobody knows how or why.

I didn't even get to say goodbye.

There are times when you wanna get on a train, go to the Grand Canyon, walk until you find the deepest and most echoing part of it, and scream the f-word at the top of your lungs.

This is one of those times.

I have 38 hours to rewrite this paper.

I shouldn't be blogging.

China, part 4

2009-04-14T18:30:00.005-05:00

Not much from China today simply because I didn't write much in my
journal on this day. But I'll try to post some more pictures. It's a pain in the
butt.

Good news: I got a summer internship that I applied for! I'll
be THE classical music intern at NPR's national headquarters in DC. I'll
make a pretty decent stipend, for an intern- hopefully enough to live in DC
for those few months- and I'll be helping to produce all the stories
on NPR's classical music website. I'm pretty psyched about that 'cause I
knew I couldn't spend another summer fooling around in Lynnwood, WA. The
last two summers I've just rotted at home. Which was great- I love being
with my mother and siblings and dogs, but I gotta get legit if I wanna have
a job when I finish my degree.

What I really wanted to do was go to sea - or at least work on one of
those cruise boats that tours Puget Sound - but practicality won out. When
I was twelve I wrote all these letters to myself telling myself not to do
anything that would jeapordize my college career, and basically not to be a
nincompoop. I was pretty prescient for a twelve-year-old. I would say
stuff like, don't think just 'cause you're older than me you know
better - I probably have more sense than you. Don't get married,
don't do drugs, don't have children, and don't go off on any quests or
adventures until you've finished college.

That's some legit advice. And for the most part I've followed it.
(Weed doesn't count as a drug, okay.) It's funny to see myself telling myself
not to get married. From today it kind of looks like a babydyke moment,
but really it wasn't. I just really, really didn't (don't) see the point
of getting married. In fact, I even planned to wear a ring so guys wouldn't hit
on me. And I was also gonna have this rabbit that I was gonna name My
Husband John. So when dudes approached me, I was gonna say, "I have to go
home to My Husband John."

Yup. I was a pretty weird kid. But I had a point in the letter
about the madcap adventures. Going to sea definitely isn't advancing my
career or degree, and definitely is a quest or adventure. So,
though it kills me, I've postponed it until at least the minute I
graduate. Maybe after grad school. I applied for more legit
jobs this summer. Actually, I'd only gotten two applications out when I heard
back about this. So that was pretty great to hear. I'd been afraid I
wouldn't be able to get a job this summer at all, due to my non-existent work
history. (You wouldn't work either if you were on full scholarship.) I mean, I
couldn't really put that Indian restaurant on my resume. But it worked out
- not only did I get a job, I got a preprofessional internship, not
some loser job slinging coffee or burgers.

So that starts in June. I have until early May - June if
College Sweetheart doesn't mind me crashing at her place - to find some housing
and figure out what's what.

Anyway. I promised more from China.

2009. March 18th

I ran upstairs at the last minute 'cause I'd forgotten this notebook - and realized I'd stashed my 200 dollars in there, too (that the State Dept. gave me. I changed 100 of the 300). I made it last on the bus and have had to sit next to Micah, who seemed less than thrilled. [I've never liked Micah. He's just a mean person sometimes. I think he doesn't like me much, either - either that or that's just how he acts with everyone.]

Breakfast: French toast, 5 mini-pancakes, hash browns, miso soup, fried noodles (until I bit into a hunk of bacon and almost puked - that was my own damn fault, though, 'cause they were big-ass pieces that I should've seen. This is the second time this month that I've done that), congee - which I'd never had before; it was a little bland, like grits - what else...three glasses of mango juice. Packed away: 2 croissants, a mango yoghurt, a chocolate muffin, two boiled eggs, and apple, and a sandwich made of Edam, cheddar, and sprouts with cream cheese.

I needn't have hurried - Andre's [the surly but cuddly manager of the choir] been chasing after a suitcase or something and we're only just pulling out. It's hard to tell in Beijing whether or not it's sunny; the smog coats everything.

Shenyang, 1345: We're in the next city. Shenyang has 7 million people. It's the 4th largest city in China. In the States that'd be pretty huge, but there are many of these cities here. It's not the 4th largest by much. Shenyang looks really grey and weatherbeaten.

It's just as smoggy as Beijing. If I don't see a blue sky or at least some well-defined clouds soon I'll get really antsy. Here and in Beijing, people wear those surgical masks over their faces. Not all of them, but it's not uncommon to see. The buildings here look kind of Soviet-inspired - blocky and a little dingy.

They look like all the buildings the other communist countries didn't want, smashed randomly together - especially on the outskirts coming from the airport. Downtown looks more structured. Again there are hordes of bikes (how can these cities be so much smoggier than New York?), but the four-wheel traffic looks a bit tamer.

We're late for our concert. We were late coming from the airport and only had half an hour to check in (another opulent five-star hotel), get our shit together, and eat. Concert starts at 3 at a university where there are a lot of English majors. I feel ashamed that we none of us speak Chinese. Here they are learning our language since first grade, and we just know what we learned in electives. (I mean, I'm an exception 'cause I lived overseas. It doesn't count.)

"Whatever you do," said Andre on the bus earlier, "don't mention tomorrow night to the old man."

"Why?"

"'Cause the hall seats fourteen hundred. If he finds out about that, he'll worry, and he'll make your life hell."

Our lips are sealed.

Doc's at the front of the bus announcing the plan: 10 minutes onstage, then a rapid change, and forgodssake project more.

We just passed a square with a giant terracotta-colored statue of Mao. I don't care what you think about the PRC - Mao was a beast. The Long March? Epic. And even more epic was the way they captured his wife and son and tortured them and he STILL didn't waver. Sure, there were some assholic things in the Cultural Revolution..but he was overall a beast.

Chinese people wear a lot of blacks and greys and browns and navies. Younger people, especially women, sometimes wear pink or yellow. I saw the most beautiful girl on the bus the other day - she was medium tall, and pale, with hair that framed her face. She was texting, and you could tell she was texting somebody she loved because she had this great crescent moon smile on her face. And she wore this butter-colored sunshine coat that was simply radiant among the other passengers. She was so nice that when I saw her I said, "Danielle look! Look at the girl on the bus! Isn't she cute?" Danielle, sitting next to me, was of course considerably less excited. I snapped a picture, but missed, and then our buses turned in opposite directions. I'd've loved to talk to her.

Anyway. So a few people wear pink or yellow, but the only other really widespread color is, of course, red.

Today's program should be a little lighter. Concert's at 3, so - arrrgh, freaking Gregory. "May I have your attention please? We're about twenty minutes from the university. I'd like to encourage you all to rest your voices..." etcetera ad nauseam. I'm gonna brain him one of these days. Permanent vocal rest for Gregory. And Kierra, too. The plane seats must be in alphabetical order, 'cause I was put next to her yet again. She started going, "Oooooo.....whooooo, oooo, oo-" And I restrained myself, but later when she started in on Mulan again I burst out, "Can you NOT?"

"Oh," she said. "Okay..." Then I felt bad for her ass, so I explained a little about Mulan and then said, "Your solo sounded good last night." Which it did. Whatever I say about Kierra, I can't diss her voice.

Anyway. So our concert's at three, which is before we tend to crash from jetlag, and then we get to talk with the students for an hour, and then there'll be a reception with fancy people. Consulate something-or-other.

Huh. Some people are painting their shop front - red paint over cobalt ceramic bricks. That's funny.

[Here's a toilet. Ciao.]

Yo.

2009-04-13T16:10:00.002-05:00

I ought to be practicing but I'm super tired. No post from China today; I'll get back to that later. Anyway, you should still be enjoying the last one; it took me forever to upload all those photos. I could do with a little thanks. Y'all never comment. And I know I have hella readers. It's not right that my blog looks like one of those ones where the writer's just talking to herself on the internet. I know I have at least fifteen regular readers and probably twenty irregular ones. I know this 'cause y'all talk to me on the phone.

Anyway. College Sweetheart and I went to Maine this weekend. I had forgotten Maine was part of the Union, so it was a surprise when I found out she was from there. But long story short, she can't keep her black Lab after she finishes dental school, so she had to go and drop her off at her parents' place. That was sad but she's gonna come back and get her again, so it wasn't too bad. I tagged along. I love road trips, and I've always felt destined to go to Maine. It was pretty sweet. It was like a mini Seattle except on the east coast, and with lobster instead of crab. I did eat a crapload of lobster. College Sweetheart bought about 25 pounds to take back to her professors and stuff. In fact tonight she's having a dinner at her place with lobster and dental people that I'm supposed to show up at, and probably supposed to look presentable at. Sometimes I think she'd rather I didn't wear my mismatched socks and Value Village sweatshirt and flowing skirts. She even brought it up one time but I was like, "I'm gonna wear what I wanna wear." But that said, I will put on a femmy shirt or something 'cause I like her. That's how this stuff works. Concessions and compromises and give-and-take and all that. And cuddling.

So y'all should go to Maine sometime in July when it's not freaking freezing there.

I need to be practicing. There's this composition recital on Wednesday that I don't wanna bomb. I'm playing my own piece that I wrote for Form and Analysis last semester, and I'm also playing the piece of another student. Dr Randolph didn't want anybody to play their own piece 'cause he wanted us to be able to hear our compositions, but I figured I'd be able to hear mine a lot better if it was played right. 'Cause let's get real - playing a student composition is gonna be at rock bottom of any pianist's to-do list. I know that's true 'cause this other student's composition is at rock bottom of mine.

China, Part 3: The Great Wall and the Forbidden City

2009-04-08T22:15:00.003-05:00

Sorry I've been a - you know what, I'm not gonna apologize for
being a crappy blogger. I don't get paid for this. I only do it when I have
nothing better to do. Can't help it if I've had better things to do this week.
Plus, I don't even have a computer. You gotta admit I do a lot of blogging for
someone who doesn't even have a computer. I feel like I should've been blogging
every night before my computer became a vegetable. I don't even remember what I
used to do on that thing. Probably surf the net, look at baby animals and stuff.

Anyway. We continue with the trip to China. You get both the sightseeing
trips in one in this journal entry, if I remember right. The Great Wall and the
Forbidden City. Two of the most badass things I've ever seen. And you get more
photographs than ever before!

The Great Wall was built off and on
between 221 B.C.E and the 1400's. Different invaders, different dynasties, same
story. The Mutianyu section of it, which we went to, is built on the ridges of
"lofty, cragged mountains". It's about 7 meters high and 4 meters wide.

The Forbidden City is basically the imperial palace. It's forbidden
'cause only the emperor and people he thought were legit (like his concubines
and eunuchs and princes and dukes) could come in. Built from 1406 to 1420, it
has 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 7,800,000 square
feet. (Wikipedia told me that.)

Alright. Here we go.

2009. March 17th

08:15: I woke from strange dreams and was disoriented to find myself in China. I went to the window and flung open the curtains, drinking in the sight of Beijing beneath me.

Breakfast: French toast, several mini pancakes, a waffle, steamed rice, miso soup with half a bowl of seaweed, daal, mango juice, and raisin bran. Stowed away: a chocolate muffin, a bagel-and-cheddar sandwich, an apple, a tangerine, a mango-flavored yoghurt. What royal accomodations. I don't think I've ever had anything like it- definitely not on tour. [Hotel lobby at morning.]

The Great Wall! Of course we didn't see the whole thing - we saw the Mutianyu section of it. I want so much to go back there. I've got the pictures, but I like to go to a place a couple times to get the feel of it. It's more than an hour out of the city, in a place filled with fruit orchards and little farm compounds and lodges. The mountains begin suddenly at the end of the long flat land. As we climbed into the hills, you could see all these little temples at the tops of them. (That was where I had to put on my headphones to block out Wh*taker - someone asked about the religious breakdown among the Chinese and he started gassing about how Christianity is restricted by the government and Christians have to worship in secret and expat churches are the only free place still holding out. What does that have to do with the temples on the hills? When I complained to Alex about this unbalanced view, he said, "Well, the Chinese wouldn't tell us what's really going on, 'cause they'd lose face." Are you kidding me? What bullshit kung fu movies was he raised on?)

The entrance to the Wall is surrounded by little souvenir and fruit vendors. They all came up to us as we walked up in a group - women holding t-shirts and stuff. I was impatient - I had to stand through the requisite group photo, taken with nine cameras,
and then had to wait at the ticket booth while everyone fumbled with their money and student ID's. As soon as I got my ticket I took off on my own again, started up the path. It was very peaceful and quiet. The mountains reminded me of a parallel-world version of the Cascades - it's just that the plants were so different, yet the same. I pattered up the stairs, breathing in the fresh air. The view of the valley below expanded as I went up. Everything was slightly more brown than green, but then, it's only March. There were still patches of snow in the rivers and in the crevasses of the Great Wall. The path was steep, mostly stairs. I stopped to rest a couple times and was annoyed to see Gregory overtake me as I neared the top. We merely nodded at each other.

Once you get to the top of the mountain (a 20-30 min hike, depending)you go up the stairs and you're on the Wall. The Great Wall of China. As far as your eye can look, it extends along hte ridges. Then you crane a little farther and see yet another tower on the farthest visible peak. The top of the wall's about four meters wide (six or seven soldiers could walk abreast, as Tolkien would say), and it's not level. It slopes with the hill so you feel like you're on a ramp, and the steeper parts have stairs. The parapets were big, and you could lean your entire body out (later I heard Brian's dumb ass had been standing on one). The towers have little rooms inside them, then you can walk to the top and look out over miles and miles. The ancient vastness of it makes you stand back and think, ...China..., and the image of an almost-invincible empire comes half-formed to mind. I was amazed. At the top of one tower were three British dues and they were like, "I simply cahn't comprehend it! Four thousand miles - that's like from the south of France to Cape Town!"

And the other said, "The Grand Canyon is something like this-" but the third one replied, "But the Grand Canyon occured naturally. We made this! We fucking made this!"

"It's one of the Seven Wonders of the World..." They were articulating my thoughts. I've never seen anything like it. Apparently it's one of the only human-made structures you can see from space. What emperor could conceive of that? They must have privately thought him a fool...and he wasn't proved right during his own reign.

And then Professor Eichelberger told me when I passed her that on the other side was Mongolia. Mongolia! I never in my life thought I'd see Mongolia. The mountains on that side were darker, more rocky and rugged and sinister. There was a little town down there, not so different from the Chinese town. And that's said to be the ancient home of the Hungarians.

I wandered by myself among the other tourists (most of the graffiti, I noted with embarassment, was in English), breathing it in and taking pictures of the Wall. I would have been sorry to go down, except that they had this gigantic toboggan path. I almost wished my father could have been there for the toboggan - he loves that kind of thing. It was a metal track that took you down in two minutes what took twenty coming up. What a rush of air and adrenaline! I went first, with Brandon close behind me.

And I got a little chess set from one of the vendors. It's not terrible nice but it's really cool, and it'll be fun to play it with College Sweetheart.

So that was yesterday. Today we went to the Forbidden City. I must say, I am completely in awe of it, completely blown away. It's so well-preserved! It's so vast and beautiful!

First was Tianenmen Square, which I learned is the largest open square in the world. And it's so open. It's 100 acres. There were thousands of people milling about in it, mostly Chinese tourist groups from other cities. It's amazing to think the uprisers could have held it as long as they did.

You could see the imposing buildings of the Palace at the north end. And then came the embarassing part: somebody was all, "This is where Mulan happened!" I agreed that yes, this was the place where Mulan completely owned Attila the Hun - but then they started singing. "Scarier than the undertaker, we are meeting our matchmaker....Please bring honor to us all!"

I was appalled. I walked away from them as fast as I could, but it was hopeless to pretend I didn't know them because we were, after all, the largest concentration of Black people within a thousand-mile radius. I could still hear them, though - Kierra's loud voice harmonizing, and Alex and Ariel and Danielle - maybe Amber, too. It was definitely most of them. And no one else walked away. "We are MEN! ...my-ster-ious as the dark side of the moooon!"

Are you fuggin kidding me? Is this really your only cultural reaction to Tianenmen Square? Singing songs from fuggin Mulan? Even Micah (whom I never would have described as culturally aware) called it "slightly offensive". It really made me appreciate the women I travelled with to Ghana. They would have never dreamed of such a thing. I wish people would get over this vacation mentality and actually try to learn something for a change. The world is not your playground. Shut up, listen, and take some notes. Or else leave me alone. (Later I found them in the gift shop and said sarcastically, "I should have known I'd find y'all here." Except it wasn't veiled enough 'cause Alex replied in a similar tone, "Nice to see you too.")

Anyway. I pulled on ahead of them, kept half an eye on them the whole time so I wouldn't miss the bus but mostly did the City by myself. I wanted to cry because we could only stay there an hour. It extends for blocks and blocks, all in the old pagoda style,with so much intricate designs and carving.

The buildings were absolutely huge. And it went on and on. I didn't see half of it, not even a quarter or an eighth of it.

[I don't know what this little structure was. But it was so intricately carved, and it had this little door in it.]

[This is the door.]

Thousands of people were swarming the place. They get 20,000 visitors every day. All the railings had little dragons, and there were those giant gateway creature dragons, those fatty double ones that protect you. Like gargoyles except nicer-looking. Can you imagine being a concubine? It must've been pretty sweet, especially for the dyke ones. But, bound feet and constant enclosure...better imagined than lived. It was so Imperial. I was so excited- I was leaping up stairs and peering around all the corners - it's the greatest shame in the world, in the world, that we only had one hour; I promise myself, if I possibly can, that I will return there and spend at least a day in the Forbidden City.

And at the north end was the Imperial Garden. It was simply exquisite. There were all these rocks and pavilions - Versailles can't touch it. The Hall of Floating Greenery...[that's the ceiling inside it]
There were twisty trees and ponds...oh, I couldn't stand leaving.

There were all these little "stations" for the emperor - one building was simply for him to rest in on his way to the next place. And there was another where he would have dinners with his princes and dukes. Can you imagine what fine banquets they must have been - lit by lanterns, talking and laughing, dish after gourmet dish - they must have certainly felt like the chosen ones.
I was so sorry to leave.
If it hadn't been for lunch, we could've stayed another hour. Who could think about LUNCH? I should have joined the others later in a taxi...but that would've only given me an eighth of the time I wated there. It was better than all the castles and museums I've ever been to. What have I ever seen that could touch it? Not Pannonhalma [an ancient monastery in Hungary]. Maybe..no, I've never seen anything in the world (and I can begin to say I've seen the world) as wonderful as the Forbidden City in Beijing, as far as historical content goes.

I've been a little out of sorts since we left there because I forget we're on tour, not on a study trip. I don't want anything to do with concerts and lectures just now - I want to hit the books and learn everything I can about the Ming and Qing [pronounced Ching] dynasties, and find out what's in each one of the 9,000 rooms in the Palace. I wanna spend days at the Imperial Palace and then go and stay in one of the lodges near the Great Wall and hike that for days until I know what it was like to be a sentry there, or an imperial official.

Mmm, it was so wonderful. If I die without going back there it'll be pretty high on my list of regrets.

When we got out at the north end, the bus hadn't come (I was so mad, I could've stayed a couple more minutes), so we stood on the sidewalk. The Chinese tourists clearly thought it was the best show they'd ever seen. "I'm starting to get sick of this," said Alex. When he said that, I noticed people were actually stopped on the sidewalk to stare open-mouthed. (And in the City, I'd seen people mob Amber and Jeremiah, wanting to take photos with them.) I made a "What?" gesture, but maybe it didn't translate.

Micah made a spectacle of it. He started shouting out loud, "Look! Black people! Real live Black people! I'm from Switzerland, actually - I just came along to explain them to you. Here's one!" (He pointed at Amber, who's 6'2.) "She was born that size. In fact, she was born yesterday!" He went on in this vein for several minutes. We were cracking up. Maybe it was rude and maybe it was typical American, but staring's pretty rude, too. "And here's another one!" he called, grabbing me. "This is what we call mixed. See how her hair's different? Yeah. And there's another Black person over there!" He pointed at Professor Eichelberger [who's full Black, but super light-skinned].

"That's what we call a recessive gene," I said drily. Micah, for the moment outdone, broke character and cracked up. When he recovered he started jumping around wildy (as part of the "show", I assume). And that's when the cop car next to us turned on its siren.

Night: Yeah. The cop only stuck his head out the window and glared at us, but it shut us up quick. "It's just like home," people joked.

I'm dead tired, and there's no end in sight. We just got back from a concert at Minzu University - and a workshop before that. We worked on two songs with their choir. The concert was long, we're losing our voices (almost), the stage was far too large for sixteen people, and Doc was glaring at us the whole time. Also, we did the Barber Agnus Dei with their 32-person string orchestra, and none of them could look at Doc. He cut it off at least three times, in concert, before the concertmaster got his point. The whole orchestra - well, it would be rude to say they sucked. But I will say that they sucked ass. And we didn't get to talk with the students much. It had nothing of yesterday's glory and acclaim. I mean, we were well-received, but it wasn't our personal best.

On the way back Kierra started her hooty singing and Ariel snapped, "Let's go on vocal rest, please!" (Gregory had gone on some stupid tangent earlier about resting our voices. I almost rested his eternally after five minutes of it.) And when Kierra shut up, everybody fell asleep and didn't say a word until the hotel.

It's only ten, but I'm going to sleep. I don't know how much longer we can keep up this schedule. And from now on, the nice cultural excursions we've been having morning will be replaced by plane flights. We leave for Shenyang at 0800 tomorrow. Something's got to give - we've got to get used to the time change, or...Andre said he was gonna push for Doc to cut something from the program. But it's only Tuesday. I think we'll get it together.

I hope I dream of the Forbidden City.

China Part 2: Our first performances

2009-03-27T16:38:00.005-05:00

The recap of the trip to China continues. Everybody's still jetlagged
here. I didn't even try to go to class on Tuesday, which made me kind of
miss out because Dr Carr apparently announced that we were having a guest
speaker on Thursday. On Thursday I walked in and this random dude was
lecturing (Dr Carr was nowhere in sight). I was like, "Who's this
loser?" and they were like, You're the loser, that's Lucius T.
Outlaw. Dr. Outlaw is not a character from a comic strip - he's one of the
foremost philosophers around today in Africana.

And I have so much piano to catch up on. I'm supposed to be
practicing this minute.

Anyway. We continue with: the first concert, the American
Embassy, and other observations about the trip and the people on
it. There are no pictures from the Embassy 'cause they confiscated all our
cameras (and phones and ipods and passports) at the door. You know.
In case the commies attack.

2009. March 16

17:30: Breakfast: steamed rice, miso soup with nori and tofu, croissants, sweet bean samosas, pineapple rolls, fried bread, steamed vegetables, four kinds of cheese with crackers, potatoes, and zucchini. And that was just what I ate - there was a whole lot more to choose from. To drink: orange juice, grapefruit juice, ice water, pineapple-ginger juice. And that was just what I drank. I stashed away in my bag 2 muffins, a croissant, an apple, and bread & cheese.

The sun's well up, and we're on a little bus on our way to the Great Wall. I woke at 2 in the norning thinking it was time to get up, and then again at 4 and at 6. But sunrise over Beijing...that's something I wouldn't've missed, even though it's still smoggy.

I can't believe I'm on the other side of the world. What a beautiful country.

Things' I've noticed: all the bridges have bike ramps alongside the stairs. The smog is very real, but Beijing doesn't smell as bad as you'd think. It's just... there. Cars are mostly in blacks and greys, with fewer old putt-putt cars than you see in Eastern Europe. Taxis are green and yellow. I saw where a car had hit a biker yesterday (cops and crowd). People have dogs but only small ones, and they pick up their poop. [Random picture of the city.]

Just now I saw a dude practicing with numchucks by the road in a grassy area, and earlier I saw a dude practicing with a long stick.

Oh - the mountains in the distance!
Frank Wh*taker [I'm *-ing him 'cause I want my mother to go in the Foreign Service, and I want to avoid government spies] just got on the bus. I don't like him any better, even though I'm the only one who feels this way. One girl even said he was kind of cute. She must've been high. He got on at an intersection and immediately started going on about "the average Chinese".

"You know, the Chinese always talk about us wanting to 'contain' them, but we have no interest in..." Come on.

The "crows" here are black and white, like the reverend-minister bird in Ghana.

en route to the first round of performances: I knew I didn't like this Wh*taker dude. He's going on about the maid he had in Shanghai.

16:30: The first lecture was a success, for the most part. It was at the Beijing University for Foreign Studies, and was attended by 40 or 50 students (most had class). I enjoyed it more than I usually do Doc's lecture, because the students were so interested, and interesting. All the girls were really cute and friendly. We got to talk to them afterwards, which I feel like I never get enough of in other countries - hearing about the day-to-day experiences of people my own age. [Us and some of the students.]

The university system is similar to Hungary's - an exam to get in, and specialties. They all live 3-5 to a room in the dorms - oh, here we are at the American Embassy. A bunch of white dudes just came out. If I wanted white dudes I would've stayed in DC and gone to Capitol Hill.

Game face.

later: The Embassy is bullshit. They put us through security worse than an airport, and we'll be singing in the George Herbert Walker Bush Auditorium. ("We just call it the program room," said a slightly more legit woman when I loudly voiced my displeasure about this.) The place is huge and new and smells like McCaw Hall. Most of the soldiers are Chinese, though I saw an American one. I always feel strange when I see American soldiers because my first reaction is, Oh, agents of empire. But my real first reaction is a sense of familiarity and comfort, from being a military child and having your dad come home in his BDU's and stuff. Sometimes they hit at the same time and I don't know what to say. That's why I'm more silent on the issue of the military, even though I formally and officially have to say it's a bunch of crap.

I'm not excited about this concert, and I'm even less excited about the hobnobbing that's sure to follow. I'd've rather done a concert for those students; they were disappointed to have only gotten the lecture.

One cool thing about China is that everybody exercises. There are everywhere these outdoor metal exercise equipment things - pedal machines or weight-lifting or leg-swingy things. And people use them, too. "That's what a socialist country can do for you," Eichelberger observed. (Frank said, "Mmm.")

And they just exercise in general, too. After we finished the lecture and went outside, the students had finished with classes and they'd all come out into the spring air to exercise and play. [Brian challenged a guy to table tennis and got creamed.]

More than a hundred of them (mostly men) were playing basketball and table tennis and just biking around in circles. [Me and soprano Danielle on the monkey bars.]

That's why there aren't any fat people here.

The men are rehearsing their calypso and it sucks ass. Men are always deficient in every choir I've ever been in.

We stopped for lunch at McDonalds on the way here. I refused. This is the 2nd country I've been to where it was the only option and I still enforced my boycott. Points to me. But then, this time I did have muffins.

Here's an arch I wanted you to see.

22:31: The concert turned out to be a rousing success. It was one of those ones where you think you're at your last bit of energy and don't know how you'll possibly go onstage. We were falling asleep while dressing, because of going to the Great Wall and general jetlag. I was pissed about the pompous Embassy folks. But Doc came in and gave us a pep talk. He may be old, but he's still got a few good pep talks in him. He even took hands and prayed, which I used to get another wink or two of sleep. When he'd finished talking we were ready to go. I realized the necessity of performing well even if you don't like the audience.

We weren't awake, but we were ready. It was one of those concerts where you feel so bad going onstage that it can't possible get any worse, and the choir summons up its last reserves and does really splendidly well. Doc's speech had put some spirit in us, as had the full house. Doc had said, No other Black choir has had the honor of being invited abroad by the State Department. This is the first performance ever in this new Embassy, and it's one of the most important concerts on the tour. You have to suck it up and get happy to be here.

Which we did. The guys' calypso went wonderfully - Leon really got into the solo. Reincarnations was a dream. We bowed and bowed and bowed. In the back was this Black couple (I counted maybe 8 Black people there, besides us) who couldn't stop smiling and moving and wiping their eyes. We were mostly performing to the two of them. The woman had that joyful yet serene effervescence that I've noticed in a lot of African women. We got an encore and a standing ovation.

And the real treat (besides the pizza Frank got us): Doc came into the dressing room with tears in his eyes and announced shakily that we'd been invited to South Africa in 2010: for the opening of the World Cup!

Not much on this earth can make me shriek, but that did.

China, Part 1: Beijing

2009-03-26T14:35:00.007-05:00

So I'm back from China. I could've written yesterday or the day before, but I
didn't feel like it and I was busy.

I'm gonna type up some of my travel
experiences, along with pictures. Except this time I'm gonna do it with the
director's commentary before the entries, 'cause when I did it for Ghana people
(namely, my little sister) were confused about whether it was happening in real
time or whether I was recounting something that already happened. So for the
record, the stuff you're about to read is not happening now. That would be
silly. It happened a week ago.

2009. March 14

08:30: Here I am in the shuttle bus that will take us to the airplane that will take us to Beijing. There are the usual last-minute calls and preparations. 'Did you run back for water? -a Band-aid?" "Where's Brian?" [This was to be a recurring question throughout the trip.] I think I'll be alright on the trip as far as friction between characters goes - everyone seems pretty well paired off, and so shouldn't bother me.

Somebody actually just asked how to spell Beijing.

Everyone's all tired. Oh, snap. We're leaving Brian behind. That's Andre's style - we knew Brian had only gone to the practice rooms to get something, but he was late and it was time to go. That's how Andre rolls.

Later: Now I'm at the gate. Brandon just sat beside me. He's the only other out queer person in the group (though not, by any means, the only other queer person. I suspect two tenors and a bass). I secretly call Brandon "Doc's bitch", 'cause he lives with him and helps him out. And he's queenier than anything. I hope he gets into it with Gregory [the student conductor]. "Why's Greg walking around like he important?" he just snapped to Andre. [Left: Brandon shopping for clothes in Beijing. Sound byte: "Why do all these jeans looks like they came from 1970?"]

As we came to the gate, people took notice of us. Even in Chocolate City, most airplane passengers are white. It's not often you see a giant loud group of Black folks in the airport. The white people just did the usual thing where they look up quickly and then go back to their laptop/paper/book with a fixed expression that wouldn't change if you snapped you finger in their face. But this one Chinese woman with her kid stopped reading his book to him and they both just stared like Europeans do. Then they moved. I wonder if they were American of Chinese, and whether that reaction is portentive of our reception in Beijing. I guess they can't get too many Black folks over there.

I have a factual knowledge of what's going on in China (thanks to the socialists, in whose eyes China can do no unpardonable wrong), but I don't have the slightest idea of what everday life is like there. Again, I'm feeling like I'm truly going somewhere new, like I did to Ghana - Europe and the West are just representations of what I already know. Asia, on the other hand, I barely know anything about. I'm a bit worried that I don't know a single word of Chinese. I've never gone into a country like that. In Europe I do well with English or German, and if I have to I can falter through some Italian and understand some Dutch, and of course Hungarian. In Africa it was English or Arabic, and even a little Twi which I learned from a packet - I mean, at least I can read Arabic. Chinese - it's Greek to me. I guess I could do worse- we'll have a translator with us constantly, thanks to the State Department. We'll be put up in Western hotels. Everything is arranged to minimize cultural discomfort. (Anyu said Anthony Bourdain's going to China today as well. I doubt we'll see him any where near us.)

They handed us each 300$, courtesy of the State Department. I wanna keep it, but at the same time I'd love to know what it'd be like to blow that much money. On gifts, of course. "I wanna get some shit I can put on ebay," says Brandon. "Marked up like five or six hundred percent."

"Right!"

DC to Beijing, hour 3: Note to the vegetarian traveller (or any traveller who thinks soggy chicken and boiled vegetables are a bullshit lunch): If you're on a plane, order halal food. I complained to the flight attendants that there was no vegetarian food, and they said, Oh, lemme get you this halal meal we've got. So they plunked it down and upon investigation I found it contained basmati rice and little pockets of aloo gobi, daal, and saag paneer. I mean, it was crap saag paneer, but it was definitely better than the shit Gregory was scarfing next to me.

I've been trying to see how long I can go without saying a word to Gregory. At least Janay happened to trade me so I wasn't next to Kierra. Although I'm not sure if that's better. Kierra's at least a woman (or - well, anyway). But he and I have been studiously ignoring each other. I had to grunt at him when h e woke me for food, though. It's too bad - the only thing keeping me and Greg from being cool is his insufferable priggishness.

I'm trying to ration Flo's brownies for myself. I already offered one to Brandon and not only did he take a big one, he also dropped half of it. Come on, people. Get it together .

hour 7: We're over the Arctic! I went to the back of the plane ,where people can congregate with the flght attendants, and through a little window I saw nothing but endless, endless ice. How do you like that. The top of the world. Andre kept fooling people by saying, "Look, a polar bear!" We're about above the very top of Alaska. There are these huge fissures, like rivers, in the ice, with smaller pieces breaking off. Global warming in action.

Hour 12: Nearly there. We've crossed the International Dateline, which was a strange feeling even though it's a made-up line. Sort of like being in a time machine. Of course there'll be luggage and customs and all that, but really the trip's beginning finally. [Beijing airport. One of the biggest in the world. Bigger than Frankfurt.]

17:31: We're here. "Here" is one of the nine Marriott hotels in Beijing. The number one difference we noticed coming in on a little bus was the roofs and the flora. There are trees like birches but not, conifers similar to firs but different. The public buses are nice.

20:37: I'm sitting in the first floor by the exit of a market/department store. The jetlag's finally caught up with me. Everyone else came immediately to this place (that's so Howard, only been in China three hours and all you can think about is shopping). It's known as the Silk Street Pearl market, though I've seen no pearls. Basically it looks like an upscale flea market. All the vendors speak English, and it's definitely a place where people call out to you, "Want to look at some skirts? I have top quality skirts!" I got some green and some jasmine tea and some boxer shorts - ostensibly for Randy, but really to wear tonight.

When everyone first left, I told Adrian and Ariel I was going with Professor Eichelberger, and then I doubled back and escaped the hotel. Five stars are all well and good - I won't pretend I don't enjoy it - but they can be a little stifling. And with the restrictions the Embassy's probably going to keep us under, I figured I should get out while I had the chance. So I went off on foot and wandered through Beijing for a couple hours. The capital, at least, it quite westernized - skyscrapers and cars and banks and such. There was little difference between beijing and Budapest - the bikes were all on the roads and the cars were small. [Below: The Beijing Railway Station. One of them.]

The actual driving was worse, though. My first time crossing a road, I had to turn a flee a bus, even though I'd thought I'd judged carefully. And then there was one major street I didn't dare cross at all. I got as far as the first lane, then went back and walked to an overpass.

Farther on, though (I'd been hoping to get to Tianenmen Square, but couldn't locate myself well enough on the map) I turned off the main road and came to a bunch of little side streets, and those were nice to see because Beijingians were just chilling, and it was alluva sudden quiet. The evening was warm enough, and there were little pubs and eating places, very informal. There were lots of old-looking doors and such. Then I saw a park, and wandered round the outside of this naval observatory from the Ming/Qing [pronounced Ching] era.

It was coming back that I ran into Brian and jumped into a cab with him to catch up with the others. He agreed to meet me here at nine, but -

bit later: he came up just as I checked my ipod time. We haggled with a taxi driver for passage back to the Marriott - he wanted 50 yuan, which was crap 'cause we'd paid 37 on the way there (1$: 6.8 yuan). I was willing to settle for 40, but Brian obstinately refused and paid 30.

Adrian just changed into her swimsuit. Not gonna lie, I'm a little distracted. Luckily I was put with her at the last minute instead of Kierra. I think Andre knew how cruel he'd been, 'cause he didn't even bitch much when I begged him to change it.

22:41: Swimming didn't last long 'cause the pool closes at 10. Now I'm in the room listening to my ipod on the the dock they have. Adrian's out. To save the 300$ (more like 270, after all that tea and the shorts) I'm eating some ramen-style noodles I saved from the plane. It should show you how hungry i am that my mouth was watering. But it's better than US ramen - it's got scallions.

The Great Wall tomorrow morning! Bus leaves at 7:30. I want to be eating by 6:50. I don't care - I'm gonna stock up as much as possible on breakfast so I don't have to spend that money. I need to remember to take more pictures. [Left: the pool. Below: the Marriott lobby.]

It's funny, taking pictures. In Ghana, and through my conversations with my photographer friend Bill, I realize photogrpahy is just like the written word in that it often tells you more about the photographer than the subject matter. I don't like to include cliche shit that supports stereotypes, like African women with baskets on their head or Asian schoolgirls. You can tell from my photos who I am by what I think of as a legit photo.

We perform at the Embassy tomorrow. We were met at the airport by a man named Frank Wh*taker, whom I disliked immediately. I'm not sure why. I came out in the front of the second half of the group, and he said to me, "Are you from Howard too?" I couldn't resist quipping, "Yeah. How'd you know?" He did that whiteguy lip tightening thing. But that's not why - well, I guess indirectly that's why i dislike him. He's definitely got that American personality, that let-me-school-you-about-the-Chinese, that assumption that his words, from one American to another, are way more legit than anything anybody else could say about China. It was the US party line; be careful, remember we are in a communist country - of course he projected the unspoken assumption that all Chinese are yearning to be "free" and we just have to hold out 'till the Party falls...I'm just saying, he said it all a little smugly, to be a citizen of the biggest imperialist power around right now. That would be like if a Roman citizen went to Central American and said the Aztecs were bad.

Anyway. I ought to get to sleep, before I wake up. It's 11:13 in the morning in DC.

There'll be a tiny hiatus.

2009-03-13T15:15:00.004-05:00

I know I take unannounced hiatuses longer than this all the time, but I figured it would be more fun if I told you beforehand that I won't be blogging for ten days or so. In less than 24 hours I'll be on a plane to China. We're leaving tomorrow for Dulles airport on a bus. The flight'll be fourteen hours. I can't remember, but that may be the longest flight I've ever had. There was Copenhagen to Seattle once; that was a bitch. But I didn't have the dubious joy of having fifteen other people my age around me. So this'll be different. I've definitely been on a bus with a choir for 22 hours straight though. Hungary to Belgium. But there was landscape, and pee breaks, and people moved when the drama got bad. And we could sing raucous songs. This will just be...interesting. But my lady friend made me brownies to take. That will be a comfort in the dark hours ahead. Actually they probably won't be very dark since we're leaving at noon and crossing the dateline going west. I think we'll be facing the sun the whole time. But still. Brownies are a comfort.

I'm crazy-excited to go to China, but kind of worried about some of the drama that's probably gonna happen while we're there. Any time you get a group of singers together, it's gonna be a bunch of queens and divas. Doc and several of the sopranos are in the latter category. Doc's minions are almost all in the former. Pray with me that I won't bitch-slap the student conductor.

I'm emptying my camera's memory card right now (on my teacher's computer, as usual). I hope to take plenty of pictures. I got a little notebook, too, for a travel journal like I kept in Ghana. I'll probably type it up for you like I did the Ghana stuff, along with photos.

Good news: the White Monstrosities aren't coming with us to China. Somebody finally got it into Doc's head that the white clothing he'd gotten for us to wear in the warmer provinces was hideous and that it might be actual official abuse for him to put us in them. So now he's been going around like it was his idea. He's like, "I decided not to put you in those white things. They look like pajamas."

Andrew just texted me to ask if I could smuggle a woman back for him. That's kind of a running joke we have. He was supposed to bring me back some Russian folks.

I would tell you all what flight I'm gonna be on and all that, but really I just laugh when I think of that. As if choir administration could ever have it together enough to give us little information like that ahead of time. Please. So if you wanna know, tell me and I'll text you at the airport. Other than that, don't expect to hear from me until at least the 24th.

Alright. It's time for me to bounce out of here. Be good while I'm gone.

Sacrificing My Body For Science

2009-03-11T17:03:00.004-05:00

So I never told you about the dental students. I got to be a test subject for their exams. See, if you're a dental student and you want to be a Real Dentist, you have to take the National Board exams to show that you're legit and weren't just screwing around for four years. Part of it's written, but then there's a practical part where you have to work on patients and then examiners tell you whether you drilled the right tooth or not.

So I, lucky me, got to be a test subject in this thing 'cause I accidentally got a Class II cavity. Somebody else had a better one, but my lady friend called me at six-thirty the morning of the exam to say that the person hadn't showed (even though they live in the same place) and if I could make it over... "You're lucky I like you," I growled after I'd hung up.

If you go to a dental school on the day of boards, you better stay out of the way. First of all, there's a horde of scared-looking patients in the lobby. Second of all, when you go in the back all the dental students are trying to get their paperwork together and half of them are about to puke 'cause it's apparently the most important exam they'll ever take in their life. Thirdly, examiners are walking the floor like riders of the apocalypse. Also, those little spit-sucky things are whirring and drills are grinding and voices are telling assistants to get it together and grab stuff. (You can apparently have an assistant, if you're willing to pay them. Dental students as a whole seem pretty loaded. Which I think is an unfair advantage. My lady did everything herself.)

I just plunked in the chair and tried not to be scared that I was about to get an injection in my mouth and little drills put in there. I'm sacrifcing my body for science, I told myself as my lady friend cranked the chair back. Sacrificing for science. Science. Yeah. I didn't wanna complain or anything 'cause College Sweetheart was already nervous enough. Not visibly - she's pretty hard-core- but she definitely took a deep breath or two.

The examiners are bitches. They treat the dental students like crap, and they treat the patients like only their teeth exist. When one came to check whether I had a legit cavity, he looked at all College Sweetheart's carefully prepared paperwork and snapped, "Get me some gloves!"

"What size?" was all College Sweetheart said. When he'd stuffed his hands into them he pried open my mouth without so much as a how-you-doing and poked me with his pokey thing. Then he nodded. That meant it was okay for the drilling to begin.

The less said about the drilling the better. I hate being stuck in a chair with people touching my face with a drill in places I can't see. And I'm always afraid the anaesthetic is gonna miraculously wear off and I'll suddenly feel a drill in my brain. I just breathed slowly and tried not to do anything distracting that would make College Sweetheart fail, like cry. Sacrificing for science. Yeah. The fact that my lady friend was doing the drilling didn't help much. I mean, there was still a drill in my head.

You'd think board exams would be a good day to be a patient. Not only do you get free dental care, but you also get to be double-checked by three licensed dentists.

No. The examination part was the most loser part ever. The dental students don't even get to be there for that part. As a student, once you've finished drilling your patient, you have to set the tooth up in a dental dam and send them off with your paperwork to another wing of the clinic with their mouth hanging open and a gaping hole in their tooth. Then three people examine them, and then your patient comes back and you can fill them up. After the filling you have to send them back again.

I'm telling you - never use a dental dam (in a dental setting). It's the most uncomfortable thing ever. You can't close your mouth. I had to sit there waiting for the examiners to be ready. I had never seen so many old white men at Howard. I felt like I was on Capitol Hill or something. And they didn't say anything to me - I guess they thought I'd repeat it to my dentist. Which was true. I was carefully filing away everything that happened in the examination room to tell College Sweetheart later (whenever I got this thing off my mouth). They at least asked how I was, but later I found out that that was just so they could make sure your dentist hadn't been mean to you, 'cause they can get marked off for that. I'm glad I gave exaggerated thumbs up.

So finally after I got poked with the pokey thing by four people (they randomly called a proctor over), I got to go back. Except they gave me a paper to take with my tray. It said something like, remove stain on the distal something. Deepen floor of something or other. I hated to bring that back to College Sweetheart because I was sure it meant they hadn't approved. I really wanted to shove it in my pants and pretend it hadn't happened. But obviously that would've made it worse. So I took it and gave it to her. She looked a little dismayed when she first saw it, but once I was comfortably (not) in the chair again she said, "It's not a follow-up form. You have to get a follow-up to fail."

So then she filled me. After that, I could leave. But College Sweetheart still had to be there all day. I was only the first of many parts of the exam.

I think I was a pretty good patient. You should hear dental students talk about their patients. They joke about them all the time. They'll be like, "Yeah, and then I had this gigantic dude, and I couldn't see anything 'cause his fat-ass tongue was in the way. And then I have to stop every two seconds 'cause he wants the damn suction!" That's the only one I can really repeat because most of their talk is filled with jargon. I'm slowly beginning to understand some of it, but not well enough to speak it myself. Although I do know what anterior and ...was it posterior? teeth are.

Anyway. I was kind of psyched to have sacrificed my body to science, until I got a text from College Sweetheart. All she said was: i didn't pass this morning. Apparently with one of her later patients, she'd been issued the dreaded follow-up form.

I felt so bad. I mean, here she was at the most important exam ever, and they'd failed her. I knew those examiners were jerks, too. The whole time they were talking about getting a yogurt break and when could they get out of this place. And they didn't know anything about College Sweetheart or how carefully she'd checked and rechecked her work.

But this has a happy ending. Yesterday was her birthday, right, and we went to dinner with some of the other dental students. College Sweetheart picked me up and when I got in her car she was practically bubbling (I say practically 'cause she's not the bubbly sort). "I passed!" she said. "I passed the boards!" Apparently her professor had just congratulated her in the hall and she'd been like, what do you mean? And the professor showed her her scores, which were just as high as they should've been.

The thing is, you fail if you get a follow-up form. But there's a catch: the chief examiner has to personally come out and give you that follow-up form. All the students had seen him walking the floor like Death, but he never came near College Sweetheart's chair. Some no-account loser gave her hers. And it didn't mean anything. But here she was thinking all weekend that she failed.

We had a nice birthday celebration.

Madness To The Method

Puppies.

It's fall.

In Which I Become A Famed Novel Writer

Halloween Plans

Holiday Weekend Issues

The obstacles between me and my dream band are diminishing every day.

They Tricked Me.

An Interesting Encounter

I saw something cool.

A Beast On The Bike

Absolutely Scandalous.

2010 Booklist Episode 2: I Can't Believe I Never Read This

Life After Graduation

Time To See Some Puppies.

You learn something new every day.

Too much!

Boycott the boycott!

Yahoo Answers Winners

I have a degree now.

I didn't think I would miss the cafeteria....

The Grand List Of Cool Classes I Took In College

Grand List of Things I Did In College

April 2010 Cool Thing Award

I never want to hear the words "volcanic ash" again.

Plans for April!

I have my life worked out!

Spring Break

March 12th

2010 Book List: Episode 1

Day Five Of The Giant Blizzard

The Blizzard of 2010!

I'm not alone in the world....

Week Two Of The Last Semester

In Which I Enter The Home Stretch

In paradisum deducant...

Racist Christmas Song Of The Year

A Snowstorm

Merry Christmas, Mr President

The Monster Is Back!!!

Movie Review of 2009

December is just around the corner!

Only one more semester after this.

Halloween With Randy Bull

October at its best

More University Life

Bad-ass Of The Week: Henry Bibb

In Which I Go Camping

Seahawks 28, Rams Nada

Not-so-radical resistance

The Return of Radical Resistance

The Nation of Islam Student Association Returns to Campus After More Than 10 Years

The Senior Room

It's All Good.

In Which I Go To Church

More From Yahoo Answers: Stuff You Could Have Found On Google

Land of the Free

Diversity Sucks.

It's like Jim Crow crawled into a Pennsylvania swimming pool and died.

A Cemetery In Maryland.

Puppy Update

I'm Not Convinced He Molested Kids.

Morning in DC

I look like a hamster.

Countdown to Doom!

I went to the movies!

Pride Profile: Dr Sara Josephine Baker

Pride Profile: Gladys Bentley

Puppy Update

Uranus, the Magician

Cool Events of the Week

Baby Puppies!

Yo.

Five down, five to go-

Blood Must Be Spilled!

China, part 4

Yo.

China, Part 3: The Great Wall and the Forbidden City

China Part 2: Our first performances

China, Part 1: Beijing