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Today is Friday, and I am supposed to go out tonight with S & L. Not sure when or where we’re starting, but we’ll end up at Wall Street for First Friday eventually. I haven’t been to FF for awhile, so I think it’ll be fun. I work 2-10 tomorrow. It’s Gallery Hop, and the weather is supposed to be fantastic, so I’m sure we will be incredibly busy. Should be fun. Must decide what shoes I can run around in for 8 hours. Must really go shoe shopping soon and find some flats to replace my grey ones whose soles are cracking in the middle. I wish there was a machine where I could put in an old pair of shoes and end up with a new pair just like them. I actually have several pairs of shoes right now that I love but are starting to fall apart, and it makes me sad. I think I’ll live though.
So, summary – this week was good – very active, not busy at work, slightly social (I went wandering around with S & B on Tuesday night, stopped in at U for one drink, and saw M very briefly on Wednesday at Coffee Table). Tonight should be social and fun. Tomorrow I want to clean and decorate for Fall before I go in to work. I love my fall decorations, but I just haven’t had the time to put them up yet, so I’m looking forward to doing that. Other than that, just working at the store this weekend.
Life is good. And random, like this little quiz:
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| Emily |
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| "I'm often imitated but never duplicated." |
| 'What is your personal life motto?' at QuizGalaxy.com |
- i am:at work
- i feel:
happy
I know I have been terrible about posting poems lately - it's all because I don' t have Internet service at home, which is where I write. But now I'm sitting in my favorite little corner table at my favorite little coffeeshop in the gayborhood and I have their free wireless Internet and my own laptop where all my poems are, so here is one: It's a first draft, so be nice!
Autumnal Equinox
Summer is over today, and I wish
I had seized it – my favorite
Season – more tightly
Embraced it more frequently
This year. I never made it
Out of Ohio, chained as I was
To two jobs, never went camping
Or canoeing, swam once in a pool
But never in a lake, no
Trucked-in sand between my toes
Imagining palm trees in place
Of oaks, maples, birches, pretending
A lake is an ocean.
It was easy to pretend
We were girlfriends when she lived
An hour away. We tested the water,
Talked everyday, strolled together
Along twilit sidewalks – not as romantic
As beaches but still,
Peaceful, and it was easy
To keep walking, wading in
Until we were hugging goodbye
Then kissing, sliding under
The surface, holding our breath
As we explored.
Let's see, updates...
1) belly dancing - I did my solo on Monday, and it went pretty well. I went way too fast at the end and had to keep shimmying for what felt like ever before I could spin around and pose, but it was okay. I got tons of compliments on my floorwork, and my flutter (which I'm quite proud of). I think those are my strong suits right now, the floorwork because of my flexibility. so it was fun. And there is a workshop in Toledo in November that I'm thinking of attending. I've been wanting for ages to go up to BG and Toledo for a weekend, and this seems like a great excuse. I'm also getting more and more interested in exploring belly dancing as an ethnic art, and also thinking of taking classes elsewhere. I'll give my current studio a full year (which will be up the end of February) and then see what I think. I shan't badmouth anyone right now though, sorry to disappoint.
2) work - we had a good fall quarter, got everything done on time, very minimal problems, and we hit our goals, which means I get a good bonus. It's tough cuz the quarter doesn't officially close till October 31st, so no bonuses until then, so I'm still scraping by financially, but I know there's light at the end of that tunnel.
3) running - I'm back in the running groove now that I'm done working crazy long days. I set myself a little goal of running 7.5 miles a week to start with. I'm at 5 for this week, so one more day will do it. I'll see how this goes in October, then hopefully go up to 10 miles a week in November. There's a 5 mile race I kind of want to do on Thanksgiving, so I'm trying to recruit friends to run with me, and work up to five miles. I've never run 5 miles straight although I used to get really close when I was running so much last summer and fall in Dublin.
That's all I can think of right now.
- i am:at the Coffee Table
- i feel: good
- i like:They Might Be Giants playing in the coffeeshop (ugh!)
I am really looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday, and I really would like to just stay in tonight and tomorrow night. Definitely no $3.00 Long Islands tonight! That was so much fun last week, but I am not feeling up to a repeat.
- i am:at work
1) a book I want to read: http://www.amazon.com/Four-Tenths-Acre-R
2) Read this yesterday in the course of my job and found it quite interesting:
There Is No Hierarchy of Oppressions
Audre Lorde
I was born Black, and a woman. I am trying to become the strongest person I can become to live the life I have been given and to help effect change toward a liveable future for this earth and for my children. As a Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, poet, mother of two including one boy and a member of an interracial couple, I usually find myself part of some group in which the majority defines me as deviant, difficult, inferior or just plain "wrong."
From my membership in all of these groups I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sexes and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression. I have learned that sexism (a belief in the inherent superiority of one sex over all others and thereby its right to dominance) and heterosexism (a belief in the inherent superiority of one pattern of loving over all others and thereby its right to dominance) both arise from the same source as racism-a belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby its right to dominance.
"Oh," says a voice from the Black community, "but being Black is NORMAL!" Well, I and many Black people of my age can remember grimly the days when it didn't used to be!
I simply do not believe that one aspect of myself can possibly profit from the oppression of any other part of my identity. I know that my people cannot possibly profit from the oppression of any other group which seeks the right to peaceful existence. Rather, we diminish ourselves by denying to others what we have shed blood to obtain for our children. And those children need to learn that they do not have to become like each other in order to work together for a future they will all share.
The increasing attacks upon lesbians and gay men are only an introduction to the increasing attacks upon all Black people, for wherever oppression manifests itself in this country, Black people are potential victims. And it is a standard of right-wing cynicism to encourage members of oppressed groups to act against each other, and so long as we are divided because of our particular identities we cannot join together in effective political action.
Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression.
It is not accidental that the Family Protection Act, which is virulently anti-woman and anti-Black, is also anti-gay. As a Black person, I know who my enemies are, and when the Ku Klux Klan goes to court in Detroit to try and force the Board of Education to remove books the Klan believes "hint at homosexuality," then I know I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the fronts upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, .wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.
From Homophobia and Education (New York: Council on Interracial Books for Children, 1983).
Rather insanely busy recently, but wanted to note while I was thinking of it, that I am currently reading three books at once, something I don’t often do: I have my own song for it: Modern poems of Ohio (various poets, famous and otherwise), Hunting for hope (essays by Scott Russell Sanders), and Sisters on the bridge of fire: One Woman’s Journey in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan (sort of travelogue/spiritual search memoir by Debra Denker). With fiction, I have to focus on one at a time, but nonfiction and poetry are easier to intermingle. I’m enjoying the Sanders book, and just started Denker so I don’t have an opinion yet. The Ohio poems I’ve been working through slowly, but most of it hasn’t grabbed me; maybe I am out of practice reading poetry, but I’ve found little that’s really impressed me. The last piece I read I did find interesting, partly because I’d read it before with less background knowledge than I have now, and I liked it much better with more background. Let’s see if I can find the full text online and post it here….
Meh, can’t find it. The poem is called, if I recall correctly, “The Black Cat” and it’s dedicated to Sekou Sundiata, from a book of Jeffrey Gundy’s called Deerflies (2006). I picked up the book for free one day while I was at the University of Dayton for work last summer – killing time in the English department and it was on one of those lovely free book tables. Gundy teaches at Bluffton College, for what that’s worth, and it’s a poem that’s basically about looking at Ohio through the eyes of a visitor (Sundiata), which is obviously more interesting and resonant when one knows something about that particular visitor.
Forgive the choppiness of this entry; I’ve been cobbling it together a sentence or two at a time all afternoon, in between fits of working. When I get annoyed with a dead end in my research, or complete a proof, or otherwise feel like taking a break, I’ve been coming back to it.
Life is interesting right now, I guess you could say. It’s not interesting in that anything much is happening. I am so far behind financially, but I really don’t care. I just can’t care, I guess. There’s no point in worrying about it because I’m doing what I can, and I know and believe that my finances don’t define me or my self-worth. I had a great weekend – was feeling a little down on Friday evening so stayed in and was working on my choreography for my solo, when L and S showed up at my door and made me go over to A’s with them for awhile. Drank some wine over there, then some of the girls went out to the club, and S walked me home and we sat on the stoop and talked for awhile. Saturday work was good, I walked in the rain, then took a bottle of cheap wine to the housewarming. We had such a great time; played cards, then Catch Phrase, much drinking, eating, and utter silliness. The pictures are priceless! Walked up to Union around 11:00 and ran into J, E, and J – so very happy to see them, and more silliness and fun photos ensued at the bar. Sunday work was good, and I did some good writing – also forgive me not posting the poems I’ve been doing – no internet at home and I haven’t taken the time to do it elsewhere. Monday, yesterday, good day at work (cake for D’s birthday), then a good belly dancing class.
That’s it : )
Oh, and the title of the post - no big meaning, but it's a line from "MacArthur Park" which has been in my head this week. I used to play this on the piano when I was teaching myself the songs in my mom's 1960's Songbook.
Float like a feather
free fall forever
let whatever be whatever
together we all become heavenly
-The Lab Rats
- i am:at work
- i feel: content
- i like:belly dancing music
