of thee i do not sing

(with apologies to langston hughes)

i, too, lip sync america.

they do not send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes.
a table has been prepared for me in the midst of my enemies.
my place is to smile through my wincing as they point to me
as an example of how hard work and resilience can pay off.
would that i didn't need that resilience to get me through each day,
but such subjects aren't discussed when company comes.

they see but won't acknowledge how beautiful i am.
they will praise me for being so articulate
even as they ignore my pleas for them to stop killing us.

i am the token symbol of progress
as schools are underfunded or closed altogether
as mental health services fall by the wayside
as community-based initiatives are stretched to the breaking point and then snap
as our demands for more and better jobs and economic equity
are met with "get out of the streets and join the police academy"
as if that has ever solved or will solve society's ills.

they will wonder why i, you, we, us
why we are unsatisfied
after they have "given" us so much

oh, we are far from satisfied
we are not satisfied, nor sated, nor appeased, nor content
we are, to paraphrase miss fannie lou,
beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired

our hands are up
not out
our eyes are open
not shut
our voices are loud
not silent
our hearts are heavy
but still beating
even as you pick us off one by one.

and so i lip sync america.
i kneel or sit or raise a fist and delight in your horror at my "disrespect."
"how dare you? after all we've done?"
how dare i not, after all you're continuing to do?

see as little evil as possible

9/27 7:19pm

"don't read the comments. ever." i occasionally break this rule and i almost immediately regret it every time. people are terrible and internet comments bring out the worst of the worst, so i try to avoid the comment section whenever possible.

i also try to avoid watching footage of police encounters gone horribly awry - beatings, shootings, murders, etc. i personally gain nothing from seeing that on screen. it upsets me. it was hard enough watching "fruitvale station" and "the black panthers: vanguard of the revolution" (to name a couple) in theaters. i knew how these stories ended and i still found myself in tears and kicking the seat in front of me out of sheer frustration.

needless to say, i try to turn my head or leave the room altogether if quasi-landlord's watching tv and there's video of the latest police shooting(s). i don't post them. i keep scrolling whenever they make it into my feed. i don't need to pay that kind of witness. i do not gain strength from watching them. it saps me of what little strength i have left on any given day.

i went to a lecture tonight and there was a short film as part of the presentation. footage from various police shooting and other altercations was included in the film. the tears started flowing before i could even think of keeping it together.

i'm writing this on the train ride home and while my eyes are dry for now, my head hurts and my heart is heavy and i feel like a goddamn broken record because sweet jesus haven't we had enough? haven't we endured enough? haven't we been through enough even though we're not considered to be enough?

recipe* review: chili-rubbed tilapia

not even gonna lie to y'all: it feels weird as all hell to be posting a recipe review after my most recent post. i supposed this could also be considered part of the work - the attempt to resume pursuing normalcy in the face of heartbreak and chaos. i am still heartbroken, but i've only cried once so far today and i feel like that's progress. on the other hand, i am sleep-deprived as hell and my sinuses have been acting up all week and when i tell y'all that i am so looking forward to taking a benadryl later so i can get some relief and hopefully some sleep? my body is ready. literally.

anyway - got a text on tuesday afternoon from quasi-landlord while she was grocery shopping, saying that tilapia was on sale and asking if i wanted her to grab some for me. sure, i said, grab about a pound. i figured i'd cook on wednesday since i already had dinner plans on tuesday.

well, i wrote about what happened on tuesday, not knowing that wednesday was going to break me even more. my head is still reeling and my heart is still broken and after i'd written about wanting/needing a safe space for me and mine, the near & dear friend i mentioned in that post wound up staying here on wednesday night b/c everything was just too much at that point. one bright note, though - one of the library books i picked up this week is the companion piece to the kerry james marshall exhibit that the guy on the train & i discussed on tuesday night. gotta love that kind of timing.

while i was at work on wednesday, i remembered that i'd seen a photo of this recipe on instagram and it looked easy enough. i didn't want anything that required the oven because it was still a bit too warm for all of that. i walked in wednesday and realized that my friend and i were both starving, and this preparation seemed easy enough that i could handle it in my exhaustion.

i thought the fish was a bit too salty, but i didn't actually measure the salt so much as i eyeballed it, plus i was using freshly ground pink sea salt (s/o to costco), so your mileage will more than likely vary. i did not make the asparagus because i am weird about asparagus - i only like it when it's mixed in with other things, like soup or risotto, but not as a standalone vegetable or side dish. quasi-landlord took a whiff and declared the tilapia delicious even though she didn't actually eat any of it. it helps that the seasonings (as well as the fish itself) aren't things that will make her sick, so i'm sure this will end up in one or both of our rotations. i'm currently pondering a variation of it with lemon pepper instead of chili powder. i'll let you know if/when that happens.

the good lord works in mysterious ways

the title of this post is brought to you by the musical version of the color purple.

today was a doozy. i was exhausted when i left the house this morning (thanks, monday night football!) and the news did fuck-all for my well-being or disposition. i think i made it through maybe 2 hours at work before i was ready to just curl up under my desk and cry for the rest of the day. i didn't, because such behavior is frowned upon in the workplace, but a bitch was done. the wall had been hit and i wasn't entirely sure how the fuck i was gonna pull through. past me made reservations for a wine dinner at wildfire with a friend tonight and that was the only thing that kept me more or less upright. seriously. i lost track of how many times i caught myself just sliding down in my chair at work and realizing that no, i couldn't just fall out. stupid "open workspace" environment.

whatever. between the murder by police in tulsa and a judge's decision in a certain rape/sexual assault trial involving a certain nba player, i could barely keep it together. but i did, somehow. made it through pre-gaming and the aforementioned wine dinner with the homie even though he was feeling all kinds of ways. i've said more than once that i just want the people i love to be safe and happy and free, but that is oh so very difficult for the black men in my life. like, wtf am i supposed to tell them at this point that doesn't sound or feel like an outright lie? one of my nearest and dearest friends looked at me tonight and said that his life doesn't matter to anyone, and i looked back at him and said that if his life didn't matter to anyone else, it matters to me, his mother, and his son. i meant it. that was the truest thing i could say.

i felt my tenuous grip on being ok slipping away by the time i got on the train to head home and whatever tears i'd been holding back for the past, oh, i dunno, 12 hours started to fall. it's not the first time i've cried in public and therefore i wasn't really bothered. my humanity's barely seen as it is, so a few tears won't really make a difference. the hell with the strong and/or angry black woman trope that i get to wear unwillingly the majority of the time. if you saw me on the train tonight, you saw me in tears. to hell with it, as teedra moses would say.

while i was on the brown line, i saw a white man wearing a "black lives matter" button. i texted my friend to say that if this guy was still on the train when i got ready to leave, i would say thank you because my spirit needed that recognition in that particular moment. sure enough, he was still on the train and i said thank you and he said you're welcome, and we were both getting off at the same stop and he asked if i'd seen the kerry james marshall exhibit at the museum of contemporary art. as a matter of fact, i'd gone 2-3 weeks ago, so we talked about the exhibit and how amazingly powerful marshall's work is and how we both wanted to see it again and would possibly plan a trip to nyc or l.a. while the exhibit's on tour, and then we parted ways and said goodnight.

needless to say that i was expecting none of that and it is possible that i cried some more while walking home. oh, who am i kidding? i totally cried some more on the way home and went into full ugly cry mode once i closed my bedroom door and got ready to start typing this.

theoretically, i have to get up tomorrow and go to work and be a functional adult. my next day off isn't until november and i'm not sure i'm gonna make it. working from home isn't all that feasible b/c i'd still have to deal with quasi-landlord and the dogs and the wonky internet connection (seriously, comcast, get it together). at one point tonight, i kept thinking that all of this is another reason why i need my own place. i need a safe space for myself and for my friends if they don't want to go home for whatever reason(s). don't misunderstand me - i could show up with any of y'all and explain to quasi-landlord that you needed somewhere safe to be on that particular night and she'd be cool, but i need a place of my own so those conversations don't have to happen and instead i can focus on the difficult conversations about why society at large refuses to acknowledge or hear our pleas to be allowed to alive.

i'm tired, y'all. i am so goddamn tired that i can't even articulate how tired i am. my heart is in pieces and i honestly don't know how it's going to be repaired. the accuser in the aforementioned rape case is about to have her life destroyed even more than it already has been and the thought of it makes me nauseous. i can't join the cacophony of #sayhisname or #sayhername or #saytheirname because there are too many names and i will break all the way down because i do not have the ovarian fortitude to do that.

i tweeted earlier that i/we should do what i/we can, where i/we can, and how i/we can, and that it's totally ok if i/we can't at any particular moment, which i'm really feeling right now. i honestly don't know how much more of this i can take without really reacting and possibly putting myself and/or others in jeopardy. i've accepted this empath/caregiver role, but i am so ready to flip all of the tables, metaphorically and literally. i'm here for y'all as best as i can be in any given moment, but holy christ am i exhausted.

but for right now? i need to try to get some sleep and brace myself for whatever tomorrow might bring (hi, femi kuti). i love y'all. good night.

leaning into a week of yes

why yes, i did have a nice trip visiting my friends a couple of weeks ago. as much as i love this city, it was good to get out of chicago for a bit.

we all know i was going to see "purple rain" at millennium park last tuesday. it'd been on my calendar since the movies in the park schedule was released. of course more people than usual were going to be there after prince's fatal overdose (no, i still can't say or type his name and "death" in the same sentence. shut up), but whatever. i had my lawn chair and my individual box of wine and my snacks and i was fully prepared to be by myself in a sea of people.

but then some of my monthly brunch boos said they were going, and i figured, oh, why not join them? it gave me an excuse to buy macarons from sugar bliss and re-up my levels of #blackgirlmagic and since i'd seen "purple rain" twice since april, i wasn't worried about missing a moment of catharsis.

i'm glad i went. it didn't matter that most of us had just seen each other a week prior at brunch. we caught up as if months had passed and we laughed and we sang and we drank and we ate and it's not as if i have a steady sleep pattern anyway, so who cares that i didn't get home until after 11 and still had to be functional at work the next day?

that very next day, one of my dear friends asked me out for wings and/or pizza. i'd had to decline a previous invitation because i was doing all of the things and needed to come home and do as little as possible, but that evening was clear and so i accepted. we ate and drank and caught up and one of her friends invited me to go sailing. more on that in a bit.

we're on...thursday? thursday night i took myself to the art institute (hooray for free evenings!) and spent some quality time with this exhibit before it closed. i also bought a pair of earrings at the gift shop because they were on sale and i really liked them and sometimes saying yes to yourself is a very good thing.

friday after work, i ran into a couple of girlfriends as i was walking to the train and decided to join them for a drink. they didn't believe i would only have one round and be done. i knew i still needed to pick up dinner and run a couple of errands and go home and tackle some laundry, and i did, and it was great...

...because saturday i'd already said yes to meeting friends at the bar to watch the cubs game and then go check out some live music. i got home at a decent hour, which was important because sunday morning was for sailing!

back to wednesday night. my friend's friend owns a small boat and during dinner, he turned to me and asked "what are you doing sunday?" i said it sounded like a trick question and he should just tell me what i was doing. "you're all coming out with me on the boat on sunday." ok. sure. turned out to just be the two of us and i actually got to steer the boat for a bit, which wasn't scary at all (it totally was!) and it was a gorgeous morning and i would totally go back on that boat again as a "passive sailer," aka someone who just sits and looks out on the water and doesn't actually do anything helpful. then we had lunch at the club, as you do, and i had a hibiscus mimosa and a couple other drinks with lunch and it was delightful.

this all happened because i decided to say yes and be willing to hang around people. obviously this does not always happen (she said while typing on her laptop at home on a friday night), but sometimes it's nice to be surprised by the results.