how I am

It seems like ages ago since last I posted here. Since I'm on myspace.com a lot more these days I don't find as much time as I used to for posting here. I guess I didn't have space for much blogging in my life these past couple months. And really, it's not like you would have wanted to hear about me anyway since I was mostly kind of down.

I told you about finally breaking up with Josh and then moving on and meeting this new guy B... I dunno if I said his name so we'll just stick with B. for his privacy's sake. Anyways.. Things with me haven't been so great. I was kind of shaken to my very foundations with stuff with Josh, and our association with each other came to a most abrupt and painful ending. I haven't been completely truthful with the people I care most about, and that's probably going to be my undoing.. and for that I'll have to pay. I just hate knowing that people are upset with me, or hating me. It's something I struggle with so very often it's not funny.

*sigh* I lose sight of the good things in my life so easily. Maybe it's because right when I start feeling like there are good things about me, something bad happens to remind me once again that things aren't great, and I'm not great either. For someone so young, I have so many regrets. I wish I knew how to make all that go away. It's just that this painful time comes on the heels of something that was so beautiful before, which makes everything so convoluted and messy for my emotions. On the one hand I've become cold and calculated, and on the other it's like my heart is so raw, covered with these open wounds. I'm just suffering, and I don't know how to stop it. Everyone keeps saying that it wasn't my fault, how I would have prevented it if I had known, but the truth is none of that matters.. whether I beat myself up over this or not, it doesn't change the fact that I was violated in one of the most horrible ways. And I can't even bring myself to say the word.. I only whisper it because it's that bad. I've just tried so hard to be okay this year, to make 2006 something wonderful.. it was well on it's way to being so until I got careless and thought that the happiness would last forever.. or at least a little while longer. But I'm here, torn completely in two pieces: the part of me who understands that this time is busy and I have to keep all my wits about me to make it through, and this other, simpering weepy part that just wants to curl up and hide and spend the day isolated and alone. And that's just not possible. So I end up neglecting my studies something awful while I try to make sense of what's left of my life. I'm so sorry for all the things that I've done that have led up to this point.. and I feel so incredibly guilty that maybe I caused it.. I don't know. Shame is a big thing. And self-blame, and a lot of self-hatred. I just wish I had more time, but I don't. And I wish I had what I had before, where I felt comfortable being weak for at least a little while. I have no time to recover. Life moves on, whether you're fully involved in it or not.


So, anyway... yeah. That's pretty much it.

haven't ranted in awhiles, so...

I haven't put a rant up in awhile, and I just wanted to make sure that people knew I'm still alive and there are still things that displease her majesty, her majesty being me. :)

Let's start from the top of the list of things that have recently been buggin' me:

1. Ugg Boots on college campuses

This is a widespread epidemic. It seems as though unsuspecting young college women have stepped in colorful piles of dogshit and have been brainwashed into thinking that said colorful piles of dogshit are stylish/cute. As a lipstick feminist, I'm offended at the new generation of chicks who now believe that comfort must equate with ugliness. We're raising a new breed of women who refuse to wear heels, however low, or shoes that feature neither steel toe nor any point whatsoever because "they'll make my feet hurt!" Yeah, but come this summer you'll still be wearing pink dogshit with your miniskirt. That makes sense. I'm sticking with the Facebook group "all those wearing uggs should have their legs severed at the knees".

2. PDA

No, I'm not talking about your Blackberry or any other Personal Digital Assitant. I'm talking about the compulsion some people have to openly tongue, grope, or otherwise mangle their significant others in public. I care not if you are straight, gay, or just a slut.. I don't need to see that. It doesn't get me off to see you playing hide the salami with your gf on your lap in broad daylight. As a matter of fact, it's quite repulsive. That's why we save that stuff for dark, alcohol-fueled parties on Saturday nights--that way, by Monday we've forgotten all about it.

3. Sorority girls

This one's tricky because not all sororities are the same. Some sorority girls I've met have been very sweet. However, I am reserving this category for the whore-ority girls with giant fruit fly glasses and no sense of sisterhood. These ladies' (term used loosely.. just like them!) have the super powers of: cattiness, bitchiness, promiscuity, the ability to talk exceptionally loudly on a pink rhinestone-studded cell phone(I sincerely do not give a shit if Tracy drank so much last night that you found her in her underwear on the balcony of Chi Psi Tri. I'd care more if she'd jumped), and of course the ability to get themselves in terribly funny alcohol-related mishaps. As an RA, I'm privy to lots of things like that. But I don't find it remotely amusing to be awakened at 5am on a Saturday morning because you totally can't find your key and you have nooooooooo idea where it is because you totally had it in your pocket when you went out last night and you must have left it when that really hot guy totally had his hand in your back pocket and you knew you shouldn't have but you let him anyway cuz you were soooooooooo totally drunk! omg omg
Yeah, save it.


I know this one was mostly about me griping about my fellow women, but I've been holding that in for awhile. And having Bruce in my life is making me a little more sympathetic toward guys since there's at least one sweet one out there :). I'm sure I'll have rants for them soon enough.

Other than that, just chilling, taking my time with this whole school thing. Things are going relatively well. How are you?

I wouldn't change a thing now that you're here

I haven't been on here in ages, it seems, and I know it's not that people are reading this regularly anymore, but I just felt the urge to come and update somewheres to switch things up.

So yeah, Josh and I broke up, again.. and I'm dating a new and wonderful guy that I met on the internet. No, your eyes did not deceive you. I said the internet. And he is really wonderful. I can't begin to describe all the great things about him because part of me is just aching to get to what happened last night. Heh, before you get all worked up, let me tell you there was no sex involved. Feeling better? Okay.

So, B. is this great guy. He drives all the way from Westland to see me on his day off.. and he brings his laptop to show me a tv show that he thinks I'll like. So he comes in and we watch together sitting on my bed.. and then we end up making out, as is kind of the norm for us these days (yesterday being the second occasion for us making out). And it's great, and he makes me laugh and smile, and he turns into this completely different, sexy person who makes my palms sweaty and gross. It's just amazing to me how different he can be at different times. He's completely surprising in so many ways.. I'm like wow all the time now. Especially yesterday. And he promised he'd leave at one instead of 12 because I always want him to stay, and we began making out at like 12 minutes to 1 (because I was compulsively checking the clock hehe) and when it's like 15 after he's like, "I really have to leave." And I'm holding him above me and just whisper, "But it's so easy to stay..." and he kisses me again and he just is like, "Okay, but I'm staying until 6 and I get to take my shirt off!" Which made me giddy in the schoolgirl way. When I asked him why he decided to stay even though he made me promise not to give him a hard time about leaving earlier he was just like, "Well you're here and not there..." And I was just like :-D.

I recognize that the use of so much "like" is annoying, but I really cannot help myself. I've been giddy and amazingly happy for what seems like ages now but in real time has only been a few weeks, and it's all because of him. He takes the hard edge off everything and tinges it in a rosy glow. Everything he says is sticking with me.. :) I can't wait to see him again. It's just the lack of complications, and the fact that I only have such a limited time with him that's making it all so much sweeter so quickly, but also makes me feel safe since when I leave, it's over. So I'm just enjoying myself immensely. He's such a sweet talker that I can't wait to see him again. It'll probably be next week so I should just settle in for a long wait... :) It's all good.. He's not currently dating anyone, and neither am I, so who knows what could happen?

:)

You know for you I bleed myself dry..

I haven't played Coldplay's "Yellow" in so long.. it's the ringer that comes on when Josh calls. So I play it today and I just start crying, you know? Like so hard I can't stop.. and my throat hurts.. we haven't broken up and I'm already feeling like someone has died. Cuz someone has, and it's me.. and it's all that stuff from the past 6 years that has, like all that romance and all the specialness of feeling. What makes me saddest is that I know I will feel them again, maybe for someone else or something (cuz I don't think I'm the kind of person who will ever be alone for too long--I'm too weak). And that makes me sad because if feelings can be repeated, and if I can really feel for someone else the way I feel about Josh, were the feelings I have real? And that is what I will ask myself from now on. It's better never to have loved at all because then there will never be any comparison.

I wish I didn't know what love was.

I'm usually happy on his birthday.

transmissions from the margin

I've never claimed to be a perfect person, and I don't expect that other people will be either. I've made my share of racist jokes at one point or another, and there's always a small part of me that cringes in spite of the laughter, knowing that it's not right. Despite these shortcomings, however, I consider myself considerate enough of other people not to really go there unless I'm comfortable enough with them to make that kind of remark.

The sad part is that, in this world, I'm constantly reminded that I'm a black person. The problem isn't that I don't want to be black, but that I have to be reminded of it constantly. Whether people are actively doing things to me or not, I still have to think about it. That's what's not fair. I try to get some people to understand that the fact that I bring it up to them doesn't imply that I believe them to be racists.. and it's really sad that all arguments about difference are reduced to that point. I don't believe that all white people are overt racists, or even the vast majority. I believe that a lot of white people (and other races as well) are guilty of buying into the system because it serves their purposes. And even though those purposes aren't always for the good, I believe that going along with the system is much easier than pushing against the mob.

I think that it's really sad that some people feel that me having a problem with something that affects me personally as a black person is a sign of weakness. I am not a weak person in need of constant reassurance, and it is wrong for a person capable of sensitivity to ignore or assume that sensitivity is unnecessary. It is wrong to assume that we are all on equal footing; we are not. Despite all the gains that society has made to equalize, women are still shortchanged with pay and nonwhites are just that: nonwhites. We are marginalized against a standard that uses white people as the normal. It is unfair that people think that this argument is a position that should be held by blacks, and that my blackness is the only reason I hold these beliefs. It seems as though because of that fact, this argument becomes trivialized. Life's not fair, but I shouldn't just have to "deal with it". It should be made equitable.

Sometimes I feel like white people have "allowed" us into "their" world. I want to feel entitled to a space where I am, as a person, legitimized--not because of my skin tone or my vagina, but because I am me.


Thus ends my rant for today.

these things I believe

I thought about writing something but I just don't feel creative as I used to. Couple that with the fact that my teacher apparently thinks my writing is shit, so.. I just don't have the motivation. These days I don't have much motivation at all.. Perhaps it means I'm realizing that life doesn't have as much sparkle as it once did. As I age, my illusions dissappear, returning to wherever they came from.

I believe that people want to be good but are inherently self-serving. I believe that love can be extremely selfish, and that it doesn't conquer all unless you allow it to. I believe that parents undertake great risk in bearing children, and that such a decision ought not to be taken lightly. I believe that everyone has regrets, but also the things that we have done make us who we are. I believe I wouldn't trade that fact for anything. I believe in family. I believe in trying my best. And I believe it's alright to feel shitty once in awhile because things will get better.

Eventually.

I don't think it's a sleep-deprived epiphany, but pretty close.

Obviously there wasn't much sleep to be had last night, but I've still had some time to think. I didn't fall asleep until around 4 and couldn't get all this stuff out of my head. To make things worse, in that short resting period I even dreamt about a guy I have NO desire to dream about ever again, really.

If I ever needed more proof that this is not just something that I can handle on my own, that was it.

But I was thinking that if I ever decided to break up with Josh for, like, the 7th or 8th time, it wouldn't be any less painful. There's part of me that senses that I'm trying to make things up, you know, reasons why I'd be unhappy, so I can excuse this all to myself when I really hate to admit that I want more out of a relationship. Is it wrong to think that there might be more out there? Is it dumb to risk something that is very nice and comfortable sometimes and extremely frustrating other times for the possibility of getting something that's very nice and comfortable sometimes and only marginally frustrating other times? Maybe I am fully responsible for the tough times that I feel with Josh, you know, because we're too different. And then I fell in love too fast because the initial sparks we made (because we're so different) heated things up for me and I couldn't wait. I thought we had time to get to know each other and accept everything, and I do accept who Josh is as a person, and he's a wonderful person... I don't think, though, that wishing he would change is appropriate to do, cuz I'm sure that he doesn't wish that I would. And it's not fair for me to do that.

On the other hand, maybe that means that people shouldn't be so different when they get together. Opposites might attract, but do they stay together as well as two similar people?

I like that Josh is physical in a nice way, like when he holds me and when he lays down with me when I take a nap even though he's not tired. And he always stays until he thinks I've gone to sleep. I like that he cooks. I like that he isn't afraid of my stinkiness, and that he kisses my feet even though feet are completely gross. I like the way he smells and he's cute. And I like when his confidence comes out in good ways. I like that sometimes he does really listen.

I wanted that all to be said.. Josh is a great person, it's just that now that I'm growing up and am ready to make plans for lifetime relationships, if we get together and, say, got married, there's no guarantee that I wouldn't end up in this position a few years later. So the question is, do we postpone the inevitable by hanging out and then make a tearful goodbye in April (when I graduate and go to D.C. for an internship, then to wherever law school in the fall), or do I let him follow me wherever and then try to make this work?

I don't want to be hurtful or unloving, but I do want to be realistic. If that makes me a bad person, then I will spend the next phase of life trying to learn to accept it. *sigh*

I don't like to think I know, but maybe I always did.

it's times like this, when I can't sleep, that the futility of some aspects of my life is really clear to me. Well.. I can't say some, because I really mean just one: my relationship with Josh. It's been so hard to be together these pst few years, and whether it's my fault exclusively or he and I share the blame, it'll end up the same way. I just want to not be burdened with love for a while, to not think about it.. maybe even to go back to the way things were before I even knew what it was like to be in a real relationship. Things now are just too hard.
This summer I knew it would be like this, but I hated being alone so much that I gave in to that sensitive and sweet part of me that urged me to come back. Even on every level I knew that it would end with me frustrated with myself and with him, but I didn't care; those sweet months that followed were, at the time, worth any residual ugh-ness that would follow. And now I'm in the ugh period, feeling stupid for being so insecure and needy.

I just can't keep myself from wanting more out of a relationship than I'm getting. And maybe I'll be persuaded to try harder when I feel more satisfied. Because a relationship is more than nice sex and good cuddling... It's dancing at a wedding and going out and making compromises to watch football on Saturday morning if you can watch cartoons together on Saturday night. And he and I just aren't doing that. I'm reminded of what the Bible says, ironically:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. I Corinthians 13:4-8

I wish he hadn't gone to bed on me like that without even commenting on all the stuff I had said. I needed to hear back from him, even if it was just regurgitation. I think I might cry for the first time in a few months tonight.. maybe that will help. 'Night.