How's Married Life?

I have heard this question so many times since we got married in June and I never really know what to say to people. I mean I want to be like, “It’s great! It’s changed everything!” or “I don’t know. it’s getting a bit rough lately.” Well not the latter but at least something more definitive than “Well we’ve been together over nine years so… it’s not really that different.” LOL! But it’s true!

 I think the only part I can readily comment on is addressing him as my husband to other people. That kinds cracks me up, not because I don’t take it seriously but because it always sounds like something other people say. It also makes me feel old. And we’re just not the most “old” couple. I mean we’re just us. Am I different now that I’m a wife? I don’t think so but there are things that I’m doing just in terms of being a better more conscious partner that I suppose can be attributed to my commitment to being a better partner. But that word, wife…I don’t know. For myself, I tend to regard it from afar with a bit of skepticism. I’m still inching up to what it means to me to be a wife outside of the socially defined parameters of it that most of us are familiar with. I do believe there are things a wife should do for a husband as part of their vows but I guess I’m kind of private about that stuff. It’s different than the stuff you do just because you’re being a nice person. Whoa. That just unlocked something I haven’t thought about too much. Excuse me while I process that.

Married life is great. But here’s the thing. I’m not sure if it’s great because I’m married or because I’m married to exactly who I want, because in that case, I’d be happy either way. Married life might be different for me if I was with with someone I couldn't be my fullest self around. So I’ll just say that I’m probably not aware of the additional layer of identity marriage has applied to me with regards to how others see me as yet because I tend to be pretty private.  I don't walk around announcing to everyone that they should now address me by my married name. That was never my thing. And I'm not judging ladies whose thing it is.

Wife is a journey. Get it?

Ain't I clever?

Blast from the past from the future

Incidentally, because I'm into comedy, I came across the stand-up routine of the son of a high school classmate of mine this morning on youtube and I'm sitting here just totally tripping off of both his resemblance to and yet distinct generational departure from his dad. I mean forget about how old this may or may not make both of us feel. This guy is a whole other person, totally separate from his father, a man who I knew in his youth. In fact, he is the same age now as his father was when I knew him in high school! WHAAAT????

And he's doing five and ten minute sets at the Comedy Cellar. I am so proud watching him and so in awe of the way in which he (unconsciously or not) represents so many of the qualities I remember in his dad. Great sense of humor, timing, dry wit, sarcasm, cultural references and irreverence.

It's weird!!!!!

I guess I should mention that the only reason I'm not naming names or posting links is because I had a bad falling out with his dad years ago and have no desire to reconnect so that's that.

There was a lot he shared with me about his son during the times when were still in communication with one another and I remember so much of it. I think that men have a very unique relationship to parenthood, particularly men of color which is not something discussed very often in popular media at all. My classmate had a lot of issues, both in his own life and with raising his son as a single father while he was still a very young man himself. But I think that he likes son. I know that he was scared for him. Every parent of a young black man is probably scared all the time for their sons. I know that he brought him up with a lot of the same Black Pride, know your history mentality that his own father instilled in him and I can see that in his routine as well. It's trippy! Can you understand that we were the age his son is now (15 or 16?) when were friends? What happened to the time?

I also know that my classmate has a daughter who is also the spitting image of him. He showed me a picture of her once. So cute! Oh God! I'm becoming that person who checks on the kids of my friends and ex friends! UGH! I also get teary eyed watching kids stumble around on the lawn at Bryant park during lunch. Guess I better pop out a baby soon. LOL!

...no seriously.

The one I love

"An exercise in trust."

I love movies.

At the spur of the moment I can watch a movie that looks interesting at any time of the day just because of the power its storyline and or cast of characters holds for me.

Occasionally I will spend time in bed just watching trailers on my Trailers app. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I can star all the films I like that I want to see and prioritize the order in which I want to watch them when they hit theaters.

Around midnight last night I decided to watch “The One I Love” a film I've been trying on and off to watch with my husband for over a month now. No pressure. I knew I wanted to see it but I was just kind of waiting for him.

“Honey, did you still wanna watch that movie?”

“What movie?”

“That one, the trailer I showed you, remember?”

*blank stare*

“The one I love.”

Silence.

“The one with the guy from the Mindy Project, Mark Duplass. I showed you the trailer. You just forgot about it.”

At this point my husband has drifted away into the kitchen or the next room. He thinks I’m being vague. We have had this exchange like two times already. It's available to rent on iTunes so rent it and decide it’s safe for me to watch it alone.

Don’t watch this movie alone if you can help it. And if you do, don’t watch it at midnight.  It’s scary. It scared me. That’s not to say I didn't like it. But the creep factor is complex and hard to categorize which is what you desperately want to do with movies as a matter of general conditioning, particularly if you’re an American viewer.

The trailer kind of reads like a romantic comedy but I know Duplass’ work (“Safety not Guaranteed” another weird ass movie) and I knew the film was more layered than that. I’m pretty smart about reading movie trailers and I even knew what the “twist” was before it happened. I was just curious to see how it would be executed.  And ummmm…. yeah, it’s just way too on the nose for me. It’s up there with “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Prelude to a Kiss” and maybe even “Solaris” three other of my favorite films about testing the limits of how well you think you know the person you love. I’ll leave it at that. There is a weirdness that occurs when the questionably supernatural or metaphysical enters the realm of constructed special situation “normalcy” in these films that really kind of freaks me out in a way I like. It appeals to my love of the absurd, ironic and cerebral.  But I have to say that this film actually scared me. Like I didn't want to get up to pee in the middle of the night scared. Because it just really plays with the ideas of what you love about a person and what choices you would make if given the opportunity to escape from the things about that person you find you cannot handle in a way I have never seen before. It raises questions all over the place.  I don’t want to spoil it. I don’t think I can. If I tried to explain it, it would just be more confusing but I think that’s really the gist of it.

There is, by the way, no horror(not traditionally), no gore, no monsters or threat of monsters no gratuitous violence or explosions of any kind in this film. It’s just not necessary. 

Ankara Emrgence

This wrap skirt just grabbed me!

Today I am posting an audio blog from my Soundcloud account because I just had too much going on in my head and I felt like talking rather than writing because I just felt like my fingers would be to slow to catch up to my thoughts today. My thoughts are about the emergence of Ankara print design in New York. Above is a wrap skirt I bought on 125 in Harlem just a stones throw from where I live. And I have also included links below to a few places and people I mention in my voice blog rambling.

And here is my soundblog! Welcome to my voice! LOL!

Ankara Emergence: SoundBlog

http://plussizeprincess.com/
http://www.oceansandrivers.com/
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DemestiksNewYork
https://www.etsy.com/shop/whatisyourACCENT


This is super interesting:
http://museorigins.net/the-origin-of-ankara/

What weekends are for,,,

About 10 of us were at Fat Cat last night. We drank, played ping pong, talked, laughed, even ate a few slices of pizza together afterward. It was a really nice night. We played, not really knowing what were doing or really even keeping score. We we just enjoyed each other's company.

I have to say it was a successful afterwork outing and that it's nice to be able to hang out with people you really like and respect and comfortably take the edge off. It's a nice feeling when people make the effort to get together and have fun.

This afternoon a friend of mine, my husband and I took a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, something we'd been planning to do for months. It was an amazing day for it, clear, warm and with a nice breeze blowing on and off throughout the day. There was all this really sweet, inspiring and sentimental graffiti written on the bridge and even though I joked that it was way too enthusiastic to be good graffiti, I was actually kind of moved by it. The Brooklyn Bridge is a marvel. I'm so proud to have been born in Brooklyn.

I really have nothing bad to say. I'm experimenting with blogging about just being happy because there are times when I'm glad to report that I'm not judging, cataloging, worrying, panicking, or being cynical, suspicious or insecure. I'm just enjoying, enjoying fun, enjoying people, enjoying life.

That's what weekends are for.

Strategic Rage

This morning I attended a forum: "FROM PROTEST TO POLICY: POLICING IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR" with the Reverend Al Sharpton. Although I find that I cannot readily agree that the response of rioting as a reaction to the Michael Brown incident in Ferguson was useless, I do agree with Sharpton that any rage that is expressed as a reaction to injustice should be channeled in a strategic way if at all possible. The issue of who is entitled to rage or whose "strategic" rage gets responded to in this country is another story.

Black men are made to feel like monstruous threats whether they assert themselves or not. In affect they are seen as threats because they exist.  I am not a Black man but I am married to one and I have heard him recount stories of being approached, pulled over and harassed by cops. I cannot say for sure whether or not It would easy for me to respond to these situations in a calm manner. My husband has been a witness to my temper in way I'm pretty certain no one else has. It's not pretty.

I have a deluded sense of entitlement when it comes to what I feel I can get away with doing in public and do not take very kindly to being held to rules I consider petty which restrict that deluded sense of entitlement. I get that from my mom, a notorious rebel and rule breaker in her family. I still walk between train cars on the MTA. Never been pulled aside by cops for it. Never been pulled aside or handled by cops for anything for that matter. Do you understand?

However, as men of color, when you are treated from very young as a group whose potential contribution to society is limited to low paying undervalued positions, and as someone who is not intelligent enough to do better than drug dealer or gang banger, it is simply a matter of time before the pot will boil over, simply a matter of a series of inevitable systematical events both external and internal that lead to the possibility of looting and rioting and store windows being shattered, fires being started. It starts with slavery and continues to this day.

With regard to strategic rage, I think that there needs to be more work around undoing the violence that incites the rage in the first place before we can start talking about strategic rage on the part of people of color. This may be a reactionary comment because I have not yet learned how to sufficiently channel or diffuse my own rage and anger about a range of issues but I feel like asking Black and Brown men to be strategic about their rage is just.... to put it nicely, an uninformed request

The law of cause and effect with regard to the ways in which policy brutality is met with equal or surpassed violence from those who are oppressed by it seem to be in perfect order as far as I'm concerned. To apply this example globally, well...okay I won't go there now, but let's just say that when you attack innocent and unarmed people and or nations mercilessly, you got an ass whoopin coming to you that no strategy can curtail. These are the circumstances that have been created. These are the conditions we live in. People of color don't all have the luxury of benefiting from systemic racism and it's violence and then turning around and saying that those who are oppressed and brutalized by it need to back the fuck down and take it "strategically." So shit will hit the fan as it should and as is subject to by the laws of cause and effect.

I was watching Ken Burn's "The Roosevelts" last night and just found myself rapt with fascination over the documentation of the Great Depression and the ways in which Roosevelt unlike any other American President before him was able to connect with Americans, gain their trust and implement some programs and policy that seemed to really make a difference in the lives of Americans whose lives were devastated by the Depression. Now it's not to say that all the Americans who could identify as White or "non-black" were in total harmony with one another but they did benefit for the most part from these policy and program implementations, and when a majority of people who find are able to be relieved from the ravages of destitute poverty there is a sense of unity and camaraderie  that is uplifting and energetic, inspiring and just plain incredible to witness. The NRA parade was a perfect example of that.

And then there was the footage of the Black families and narratives of their written pleas to President Roosevelt for help and the torrent of resistance he was met with in his cabinet when trying to implement anti lynching laws into the Constitution. And my heart just dropped. Because they were Americans. But they were not treated as Americans. And it made me feel inexplicably helpless. Because this is still happening now. Red lining, racial profiling, lynching...

Rage has it's place.

Journal Nerd

I used to have a stationary and journal addiction that got a little out of control.  I would buy tons of stationary I never had the opportunity to use (nobody puts pen to paper anymore) and I would buy a journal, start writing in it, forget it or get bored with it, find and buy another one I like and repeat that process a few more times. One day I just had to stop altogether. No matter how pretty or smart the stationary, no matter how bohemian and inspirational the journal, I couldn't buy it. I had to use what I had.

Which brings me to the journal I have now which is not the type of journal I would ever normally feel inspired by and yet I write in it almost every day lately. It's not Bohemian, or themed or cute. And what you might ask do I write about in a journal that I don't blog about here?

Lots of things. You know, life. It's very different than blogging or typing on a screen. It's not for anyone but me. it's like...reading books. You have to focus. You can't do anything else when you're writing on paper but write. You can't do anything else when you read but read. I guess some people are dexterous enough to knit or maybe do the dishes or iron while they read but the focus is still primarily on reading. And when you're writing in your journal there really is no multi-tasking possible. It requires your full attention.

It's a very good thing to be able to give any one thing or person your full attention in a world like the one we live in now where using up every spare minute of your time to cram in as many errands and projects and notes and calls and emails and transactions and viewings as possible. We do and do like nobody's business. Being is rare. Reflecting simply for oneself. Does that happen anymore? Or is everything a blog/vlog or Facebook status?

It's good to seek privacy sometimes in a world like this, a world in which there essentially is no privacy at all. The smart phone, your eternal companion knows where you are at all times.

So I've been pleased to notice how much I've even wanted to write in my journal lately. I think I lost a kind of trust in it for years. It stopped really meaning anything to me. I lost the meaning of writing just for myself. I stopped needing it. But I need it again. It's important.