my dear miss sharon jones

i haven't been feeling 100% lately. i've been in and out of migraine hell since friday, and my brain keeps doing that thing where i have ALL OF THE THOUGHTS about subjects that i don't really need to ponder all that much and then i can't focus on what really needs my attention. this morning, i woke up out of a nightmare around 5am and felt another headache coming on. if that wasn't bad enough, said nightmare sent me down a mental rabbit hole of things that happened back when i was in high school and led to a slew of anti-epiphanies. this is not an optimal way to start a morning, let me tell you. i really could've used that time to sleep, instead of tossing and turning and trying to get my brain to settle down.

needless to say, being at work today was challenging, especially since i have a giant project going into production tomorrow and therefore it's been a lot of emails and calls and IMs and feeling like i'm juggling 5011 balls in the air while simultaneously herding 5011 cats.

i got back to my desk after a meeting this morning and decided to catch up on instagram before i settled back into work. this post about sharon jones' forthcoming album broke me. i didn't actually cry at my desk, but i came pretty damn close. i did the math on the release date and realized the album will be out right before thanksgiving, which means i can spend the holiday eating and drinking my feelings with this as my soundtrack. is it weird that i'm looking forward to having time off around thanksgiving because i may just decide to veg out the whole time? no? good.

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?

and now, a selection from the poetry committee

We Wear the Mask

BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

       We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

But let the world dream otherwise,

       We wear the mask!

remembering our dear miss brooks during national poetry month

gwendolyn brooks, that is. i've written previously about winning her poetry contest in 8th grade, so that should tell you how highly her work ranks with me.

i discovered "when you have forgotten sunday: the love story" during my senior year at northwestern in a performance studies class, and it's still one of my favorites.

"—And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes on a Wednesday and a Saturday,
And most especially when you have forgotten Sunday—
When you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed,
Or me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon
Looking off down the long street
To nowhere,
Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation
And nothing-I-have-to-do and I’m-happy-why?
And if-Monday-never-had-to-come—
When you have forgotten that, I say,
And how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell,
And how my heart played hopscotch if the telephone rang;
And how we finally went in to Sunday dinner,
That is to say, went across the front room floor to the ink-spotted table in the southwest corner
To Sunday dinner, which was always chicken and noodles
Or chicken and rice
And salad and rye bread and tea
And chocolate chip cookies—
I say, when you have forgotten that,
When you have forgotten my little presentiment
That the war would be over before they got to you;
And how we finally undressed and whipped out the light and flowed into bed,
And lay loose-limbed for a moment in the week-end
Bright bedclothes,
Then gently folded into each other—
When you have, I say, forgotten all that,
Then you may tell,
Then I may believe
You have forgotten me well."

for some reason, the poem popped into my head this morning, so i figured i might as well share it. happy monday. :-)

random reminders and remembering

try to meet people where they are. try to be ok with leaving people where they are.

engage in crazy faith and angry prayers.

find the go(o)d and grab it.

find the p(r)etty and praise it.

"they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and i keep on remembering
mine."

--Lucille Clifton, "why some people be mad at me sometimes"

happy national poetry month!

one of the last books i read during the 1st quarter of 2015 was this volume of poetry. i found myself nodding in agreement in certain places, and jotting down verses in others. seriously - if you're into poetry, check this book out.

one poem in particular, Heaven is No Recompense, really stuck out for me. i think it's a piece that applies to quite a few of us right now, so i'm posting it here.

Heaven is No Recompense by Angela Jackson 

Who ever you love you will lose
Sooner or later. Even you.
And you will grieve for who
Ever is lost. Even you.
How can you lose unless you hold?
And how can you hold without
Touching, being touched.
Each stroke a stroke of luck
Pity us. And love the luck.

here's to a great month for all of us.

books that have left me reeling - summer 2012 edition

it's no secret to anyone that i like to read. a lot. there's a book club/contest thing going on at work this summer and more than one person has dropped out after seeing just how many books (and accompanying points) i've added to my list since i started.

according to my spreadsheet, i've read 98 books so far in 2012. most of them were pretty uneventful. a few nonfiction ones introduced me to events/historical information i wasn't previously aware of. two novels in particular, though, made me ask some variation of "what the fuck?" and/or "are you fucking serious?" at least a dozen times while reading them, and i'm going to share those titles with you now.

the first: "gold" by chris cleave. i remember alternating between laughing hysterically at one page and within that same chapter, wanting to throw the book across the room and scream "what the fuck is going on?" not in a bad way, mind you - more in a "did this guy (meaning the author) really put these words in this order and omg i can't believe s/he (meaning a particular character) went there and i think my brain is going to asplode" kind of way. i like books that have that kind of impact on me.

i just finished reading the 2nd book, gillian flynn's "gone girl," a few minutes ago. oh my fucking fuck this fucking book is so fucking twisted that it fucking makes me want to say (ok, type) the word fuck in as many fucking ways as fucking possible in one fucking sentence. a couple of people on my twitter feed have read this and noted that it was definitely not a sunshine and kittens and lollipops kind of beach novel. i'm not exaggerating when i say that there are hundreds of people waiting to get this book from the library. last i checked, the wait list was at 1,500+ and counting. if i had to put money on it, i'd say that i've checked out and returned more copies of "gone girl" than any other book since i started at the library. and now i know what the fuss has been about. holy fucking shitballs. these characters are twisted and i kinda want a sequel even though no good can come of it whatsoever. and in about 9 hours, i'll be at work and my co-workers will want a review and i'll have to think of a sentence that doesn't involve the word fuck. i'll probably fail. fuck.

meanwhile, somewhere in my "waiting to be read" pile there's a book called zombies vs. unicorns. yes, i checked it out solely based on the title. i hope i'm not disappointed.

if you've read "gold" and/or "gone girl," please feel free to leave your proverbial two cents in the comments. read any other books lately that elicited a visceral reaction from you? let's talk about those, too. not right now, though. right now i need to go the fuck to sleep. g'night.

poet and didn't know it

i'm reading this book of essays about zora neale hurston , which is exciting in and of itself, b/c y'all know i'm a huge fan of zora and her work.

so far, i've read essays about zora being a choreographer, and about her being an environmentalist before such a term really entered our lexicon, and of course about her fiction and plays, etc. one essay in particular stood out b/c it discussed zora's poetry and how a lot of people (myself included) don't really think of her as a poet. the essay closed with 2 poems of zora's that i hadn't read before, and one of them really hit home:

This Year Has Been

This year has been
a great trial of endurance
for me.

I don't mind saying
That more than once
I have almost said:
I can't endure.

I shall hold on,
But every time
I see a cat slinking
in an alley
fearing to walk upright
lest again
she is crushed back
into her slink
I shall go to her
and acknowledge
The sisterhood
in spite of
the skin.

and now i have yet another reason to swoon over zora, as if i needed one. :-)

*swoon*

y'all know i'm a zora neale hurston fan. you also know that i love reading. the fact that i didn't scream with happiness when i saw this pic a few minutes ago? pure self-restraint. (also, i need to save my screaming/yelling for the bowl game in a couple of hours. go u!)



source: awesome people reading, a site i just found while clicking through vintage black glamour, another swoon-worthy site.

happy saturday!

poetry mashup

i'm not quite sure why these poems were stuck in my head late last night, or why i started transposing lines from them as if i wanted to create the aforementioned mashup, but here they are:

We Wear the Mask
BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

Harlem
BY LANGSTON HUGHES
What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

i'd offer some sort of analysis, but i'm currently operating on ~5 hours of sleep and my brain isn't quite up for it at the moment. happy friday.

my dear miss brooks

if you've ever heard me talk about my undying love for gwendolyn brooks, then you know that i was way too excited when i saw this photo on sjb's tumblr. of course i had to share it with y'all, b/c that's just the kind of girl i am. :-)

were they saying "boourns?"

this new york times article caught my eye yesterday - the author wonders if it's ok to boo at the theater:

You hear it at Bayreuth and at the Met. Some places in Italy are so famous for it you’d be disappointed not to hear it. Booing at the opera may seem like a breach of protocol, but for better or worse it’s a tradition. In some circles, it’s even a sign of good taste.

So I wonder … if we hear booing at the opera, why don’t we hear it at the theater? And — dare I ask — should we?

this intrigues me b/c i've NEVER heard booing at the opera. in the, oh, let's say, dozen or so operas i've attended at the lyric, i have never heard booing. sure, there's been some groans, but that's usually due more to the plot/character than to the actual performance. i was actually unaware of this "tradition" of booing at the opera until i read this piece yesterday.

as for booing at the theater - i can't say i've ever heard it there, either, and i've been to way more plays/readings than i have operas.

booing at concerts? sure, i've done it. for some reason, though, i wouldn't dream of doing it at an opera or at a play. i'll withhold applause, i'll stay seated when ovations break out, but actual booing? not so much.

i should also point out that i've only booed at "popular" music concerts. something seems very wrong about booing at symphony center or ravinia. house of blues, though? i've been that person yelling "get off the stage!"

(although now i'm remembering a "popular" concert i attended at the civic opera house where i might've booed the opening act...)

i say all of that to say that i don't see myself booing at the opera or at the theater anytime soon. i'd love to hear from y'all on this - have you booed at an opera or at a play before? would you? why/why not?