Today

Today I got my hair did. While she was doing my hair I read two articles so I felt accomplished.

 

After I left I returned my mother’s phone call. I told her about how I am turning in a draft of my empirical proposal tomorrow by 5 and then I will be done with the semester and my coursework.  I told her about what my paper is on and told her about my last conversation with my advisor. 

She told me that she had bad news and that I shouldn’t “get excited” about it.  I know it was one of those times where mom wasn’t sure of the right words to say so she said “get excited” but she meant “get so upset where I have to worry about you.” I realized then why she had first asked if I was done with all of my finals.

 

Then she said that Nana was in the hospital (something I knew) and that she has heart failure and renal failure. I heard her. The thought “this will be Nana’s last Christmas” hung in my head.

I was in the car and just as she was telling me I was passing a QT and noticed that gas was now 3.19/gallon and a few hours ago when I first passed that same QT gas was 3.09/gallon. I could still feel the burn on my tongue from the coffee I bought there that morning. 

I told mom about the gas prices and she told me that gas was 3.17 in St. Louis. I told her I was hoping it was under $3 there because I imagine everywhere was cheaper than Atlanta prices. 

I don’t know why I chose to talk about gas prices. I think she was a bit confused too but went along with it because it was nice having a normal conversation.

We had both dreaded having the one we were replacing with talking about gas prices.  Every time I had a missed call from Mom in the last few years I thought about this conversation. Every time she left a message for me I listened for her tone to see if when I called back we would be having this conversation. 

I didn’t have a problem with the conversation I just wanted to know when it would happen.  Would I be out of town at a conference or would I be stressed out trying to write a paper or would I be drunk and dancing at a bar? Would I be in public? Would I be on the other line? 

I’m happy I was in the car and I’m happy I just got my hair done.  

 

Update

I was in a bad place for a while there.  I think I am in a better place now.

I am going to DC this weekend with some friends. I always tell myself to take lots of pictures but I rarely do.  So we’ll see. I am just excited to have something to do.

There are no words

Well, there are a few.

 

I always feel a little bit of shame. Shame because I am always assessing whether I make these situations “situations” or if they would have happened no matter what I did.  Shame because in protecting myself I no longer care about the person I am protecting myself from in the slightest. In fact I want them to feel pain. Not physical, but emotional stressful pain. In their pain I want them to retreat into themselves and wish that they had never done anything to wrong me.  They should remember that I am right and if they comply their pain will end or at least lessen.  I just got back from seeing X:Men First Class which has nothing to do with what I am talking about but probably has influenced my language.

My room mate moved out. Here are reasons why.

I sent her a series of emails asking her if she planned on renewing her sublease and if so suggesting that we sit down and discuss a few more house rules.  I listed a few I had in mind but made it clear that we would both follow them and she would have input as well.  The email started all smart and fair like that.  Then when she didn’t respond in weeks I began to get annoyed.  Then other escalating events warranted more emails that were not answered or acknowledged. Then I got more angry. In the final email I told her that I needed to know by the end of that week if she was staying or not.  This was not answered and I didn’t know the answer until I asked her point blank. She said yes, she was planning on moving out.

Reasons why I was pissed off:

Several (more than 5 less than say 20) times I have had to remind her that she left the oven or burner on

Several times I have had to remind her that she left the door unlocked.

She gave a key to the apartment to her boyfriend without asking.

She refused to give the key back to me when I asked.

She mysteriously lost my ipod (long story).

She continually disrespected me and communal space.

Months after living together she seemed to decide for herself that she didn’t have to pay rent until she damn well pleased.  It wasn’t an issue of not having the money.  She just really didn’t think of it as a priority and always seemed surprised after I had to ask about it. After one month fighting about the due date we agreed that she can pay by the 5th of the month.  The very next month she insisted that we agreed on the 7th.

(After she decided to move out)

I came home Saturday, went to bed, got up in the middle of the night to a weird light on in the kitchen. I followed it and found that she had left the refrigerator door open for several hours (she hadn’t been home since the afternoon).

Sunday I come home from church and again she has been gone for hours and she left my back door leading to the balcony wide open. As in anyone could have walked up the back steps and into my apartment.

The next day we sat down to settle up and talk. This talk went a lot like other talks I’ve had.  She got to slowly go over her list of grievances and even if I *looked* like I wanted to respond to something she said she would pause and say something patronizing like “Amber, I don’t want to have a two year old conversation.” So I had to sit and listen to her tell me that I was mean and that being nice never hurt anyone.  ”Being. nice. never. hurts.” She said as slowly as possible like they were words in a foreign language I was just learning.  I could feel my pulse in my eyeballs. I kept myself from screaming curse words when she finally allowed me to talk and for that I am very proud. Basically she refused to respond to my emails because it was finals time and her mom’s friend had cancer, and she was fighting with her boyfriend even though he was still there every day. Oh, and all of the things I listed like forgetting to turn off burners were all because she was off her ADD medicine.  For the missing Ipod that she swears I must have thrown into her room and has no idea where it could be she gave me just over $100.  Everything was on her terms.  It upsets my stomach to say.

I didn’t make her feel pain. Basically she left thinking I has just some bully that deluded into thinking that I ever deserved respect from anyone.  She has enough excuses and people willing to accept them to get her by. Honestly, I don’t think anything will ever stick to her because she have far too many reasons to never be responsible.  She is going to live with people who aren’t like me.  People who will accept bullshit about when she thought she had to pay rent that she made up herself. If she burns the house down it was her poor ADD. If your things were mysteriously in her possession and they are gone now then you needed to take better care of your things.

It all doesn’t matter and I am sick of thinking about it. I am sick of being in this situation. Knowing that no matter what I feel and what I see it will never mean anything.  It doesn’t mean anything that I feel disrespected.  It doesn’t mean anything that I think disrespect is at the center of so many of my conflicts in life.  It is not something that I can prove and I can’t even call it what it is when it presents itself.  I am sick of people who, when challenged (or even just presented with an opportunity) find no problem with making me less than a person.  The things I care about don’t mean anything.  I find it funny (in the cry cry way not the ha ha way) that in these situations my first reaction is to extend the olive branch.  To discuss. To come together as two people with a disagreement  and find some middle ground.  The problem with that situation is that is presumes that both parties are on equal footing.  Every time I have come to sit at the table as a person no one has come to meet me.

Maybe I just had to get the words out of me.  Maybe I don’t really believe it.  Maybe I just don’t want to. Maybe I just want the right to get angry and push people away and them not go away. Maybe I test people on purpose. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.

But I do know I don’t want to talk about it.

Off your shoulder

I wear my faults on my shoulder. When I meet people I’d like to think I give them small doses of the best and worst things about me. I am very friendly but I am also very awkward and a little crazy. I am very loyal but that means I am loyal to lots of people even the ones that suck. (UGH I sound like a dog, on the other hand I (must) love dogs).

Anyway, I like for people to have an idea of what my worst qualities are. Maybe being this way is one of them too. I don’t know what I am saying. I figure that part of the reason why I want people to know bad things about me is I spent a considerable part of my life listing all of my terrible qualities (to myself) and using them as an excuse for why I was unhappy and why I would never be happy.

That was jibberish. Here is the real post.

So one of my good friends says I try too hard all the time.  Like I try to get peoples approval and I try to keep them happy and if they are sad I try to make them happy like one person can do all of those things.  When I see someone even if I just saw them I am always happy to see them again. I am always interested in how their day was.  I’m a dog again. I’m nice but I’m non essential. I can’t mean something to everyone because the things that mean the most to people are special.

This wasn’t meant to be sad. I’m not sad just always thinking about the person I want to be. I haven’t talked about all of them on this blog but I have actually changed a lot this year.

There aren’t sufficient words but suffice to say I don’t feel the same. Things that I thought I would never get over, would never be able to think about without crying, would never be able to forgive, I have. For the longest time I thought that it would take a lot of counseling or praying or something but literally one day I woke up and I felt different. Actually it was in the middle of the day and I was in public and I just realized I didn’t feel the same. I realized I could breathe. I realized I didn’t have to be that Amber anymore. I had told myself that before but this time I knew it wasn’t a lie. Maybe it was a mixture of time and just deciding to.

I don’t believe in definitive answers to any of life’s really important questions. Not the kinds of answers that you could write out or even communicate to another person. Just something that is or isn’t. Or something inside that is there or not.

I think about some people now. I think about them and I think that maybe they are thinking of me too and maybe they don’t even realize it. But I am there.

Twice?

So I survived that day and now I am preparing to survive this week.

I will let you know how it goes.

Driving my advisor to the library was really nice.  On the way there she said she wanted to be productive so for the 40 minute ride we talked about where I want to go with my research.  She always makes me feel a lot more competent than I would ever feel on my own.

So Basically my research interests have changed….well they have not changed so much as I feel like some stories have to be told before I tell others.

When I started this program I wanted to study some intersection of black masculinity, history, and education.  I have waffled back and forth on what all that means for me.  I have written papers on progressive black masculinities, black power masculinities, historical constructions of black masculinity et cetera ad nauseam. My advisor had approved me doing a project on how black males have constructed masculinity in different spaces and times…..and I could have done it fairly easily….but it didn’t feel right.  It didn’t feel like the kind of research that will mean just as much to other people as it did to me.  I didn’t want to abandon what I was doing but I needed my research to mean something more.

I have always had a deep interest in the process of desegregation that has blossomed since I have been in this program.  The conversations had in class and being surrounded by so many great minds focused on education has filled me even more with a sense of urgency and the need to think clearly about problems and trends.

Naturally, part of the way I process all of these things is to think of my own experiences in education and in communities.  As I have been reading about how desegregation plans unfolded in different areas I was curious about what I could find about my own little place in the world.  On my first google search I found this document: http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12d4516.pdf

No need to read it all but to summarize it is a US Commission on Civil Rights report on desegregation in Kirkwood, Missouri.  I don’t want to go though all of the details that intrigue me but basically it is a very cheery and praising report.  What really stuck in my head is the discrepancy of how this report depicted the place where I grew up and how I experienced it.  Not everything was different but there is so much that seemed odd that I want to find the whole story.  I’m not doing a very good job of explaining what all I want to study (because I’m lazy) but basically I think there is a story there that I didn’t know growing up and I think would mean a lot to my community if I could uncover it.

This summer I will be spending a little more than a month in STL/Kirkwood doing some preliminary research.  It all matters how many of my ducks I can get in a row by that time.  I have lots of stuff going on and I am happily freaking out about it.  Depending on how much I can find this subject could be both my empirical and dissertation study. Ultimate upside? I can get Emory to pay for me to go home! Yay

Thank you to everyone who called/texted me after my last blog post making sure I was ok!

Not Waving

Very overwhelmed right now so I think I will write a blog post.

I got more sleep last night. I woke up with enough time to walk Smokey. I had breakfast. I wasn’t (too) late to class. I’m not behind in my studies. Yet I feel kind of panicked today.

Maybe because I really suck at planning my life? Maybe because I JUAT REALIZED TODAY. That I have been planning on being out of town at a conference during a day I am supposed to be presenting in my advisors class? Yeah. Not sure what I am going to do. Maybe if I take another nap it will just solve itself?

Also, so I have been spending a lot of time at the AUC library doing research for my advisor and tomorrow I am picking her up at her house and driving us there.  She will read. I will get things for her to read. If she wasn’t the coolest best advisor ever I would be scared.  But I do need to make my car look less like I live out of it. And everyone knows I am a way worse driver when I am trying not to be a bad driver. Shit.

Weird shit recently:

Years ago I had a nightmare where a little kid was choking me while my friends and family laughed and waved at me.  A few weeks ago it kind of came true.  I will not publish the rest of this story in this venue.

People keep touching my hair because it’s fluffy and amazing.

For a class I may go to this “Dialogue in the Dark” thing where you spend an hour in complete darkness and try to find your way around. I don’t want to go because I don’t like people touching me.

I’m laughing at the thought of someone who doesn’t know me reading this post and thinking I am a total freak.

 

I think I want to make this blog more vain

I want to upload more pictures of myself and talk about myself and my innermost thoughts like they are fucking shakespeare…..more

Here are some pictures

 

You can’t see the whole outfit but it was really cute that day.

This is where Smokey wedges himself whenever I am lying down and watching netflix on my computer. It is so cute I can’t stand

it.

Other things going on in my life. I have been using “conferences” as an excuse to buy lots o’ new clothes.  I plan on posting my “conference looks” ASAIRT (as soon as I remember to)

Feb 17-20 I will be in Chapel Hill presenting at the New Perspectives on African American History Conference.  I am presenting my paper on the Black Aesthetic and black masculinity. We’ll see how that goes.

March 7-12 I will be in Columbia South Carolina at the National Black Graduate Students Association conference.  I should be presenting something but I will mostly be having fun and wearing cute clothes.

March 31-April 4 I will be in Kansas City Missouri presenting at the American Men’s Studies Association Conference.  I am presenting almost the same paper as the African American History Conference only I plan on discussing sexuality a whole lot more. Also, planning to meet up with people duhhhhhh.

April 7-12 (yes later that same week) I will be in New Orleans at the American Educational Researchers Association conference. Going to at least one training session so Emory will pay for my week of mostly playing in NOLA!

All while this is going on I am enrolled in classes and trying to do shit with my life.  I feel so tired just thinking about it.

Vanity

So I haven’t updated in a while.  I wish I had a better excuse (and I wish all of my posts didn’t start like this) but I haven’t been up to anything special.  School. Work. School again. Things are about to get super busy so I figured it was about time to check in.

Smokey is currently trying to lay his head on my left hand as I type and he is getting mad that I keep moving.

I got new glasses that mostly everyone has seen… This is the first pair that I am absolutely in love with.

I wear this pair more often though because I feel like I look less show-offy…

As you can see I am also growing my hair out. I can’t wait to have a rockin’ fro. Here are some bonus vanity pictures… (this song is about me right?)

Also I had a party not too long ago…

This is the girl I lived with this summer and due to us both running into sucky room mate situations she is moving back in in December. I am happy because I already know how to live with her and its better than having to sue someone.  She is Brazilian and really pretty but also really nice.  I really don’t know what to say about the rest of my life.  It’s that time in the semester where I am kind of scared to talk to other people about projects and work because then I will realize how screwed I am and how little sleep I will be getting in the next few weeks. All I can do is hope to not completely forget about the important things and try to not ruin the things that mean a lot to me.

That’s all I can really hope for.

Press On

Now that school is starting again (today) I should update more because there will be more work to put off for just a few more minutes.

I’m posting now because I just had a weird reflective moment and even though I don’t want to share what the moment was about I do want to share other things.

I wonder what we have wrought? Now when we have “moments” whether full or devoid of emotion we (maybe I just mean I) feel that it isn’t complete until it is completed with something. Int his case a blog post. Or twitter. Or a text to a friend that understand you want to talk about it but you don’t want to talk about it.

Whoever would have thought that our devices that are made of nothing organic can be extensions of our “selves”. The part of us that wishes to communicate. That part of me that just wishes to get it out and in front of me so I could look it in the eye.

I wish I could remember somthing I read last semester when we discussed written and verbal communication. How so many scholars (Noam Chompsky comes to mind) have argued that the two have been enemies. That one destroys another. Written language bought about changes in our own minds on how we relate, tell stories to, and reach other people.

I wonder who is doing the research on how our new media is changing things all over again. Does it still work on a continuum now that I can go to a diner by myself and text people on the other side of the country to keep myself company?

In my life

I went to Baltimore for a conference that ended uo being much more fulfilling than I had imagined it woulf be. It was the Colloquy on Minority Males in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). It apparently was a big deal. Only 40ish people were invited to go, 6 of which were grad students. Instead of having sessions where people presented their research we literally just had small meeting where we all sat in a room, were given a prompt, and talked about it. It was simple and beautiful.They fed us well all day and night and I got to rub elbows with amazing scholars one of which was a mentee of W.E.B. Dubois another was the 3rd black woman in the united states to receive a PhD in Physics. I thought it was a little disgusting that it was possible to know the 3rd black woman in the US to get a PhD in Physics. Dems the brakes I guess.

When I left for the conference I didn’t realize (or remember) that everything in the north east is pretty close together and one night one of the other attendees mentioned we were only a few hours from Philidelphia. At which point I realized that my Dad lives only a few hours away and I should probably give him a call.

I called him that night and told him I was close by. He seemed almost giddy that I had thought of him and wanted to see him. As giddy as the man can get I assume. He said he would drive up with my grandmother the next day and we could have dinner. I remember that night I went to bed nervous. It was stupid. They were my family. But now I had to think of the clothes I had brought with me and which ones of them would make me look grown up, sophisticated, like someone you couldn’t make feel small or insignificant. And most of all you couldn’t tell that person they were fat.

The next day they came. My dad got out of the car to greet me and grandma stayed in. Dad wasn’t giddy in person but acted as if this was normal. Like he hadn’t seen me since graduation and how there were no current plans for a visit. Well, no plans I had told him about. I felt good and then I got in the car. I said hi to Grandma and she said hi back but didn’t say anything else on the way to the restaurant. I started feeling nervous because she was so quiet.

We drove to the restaurant where all of the other attendees were eating that night. When we got out of the car I started walking up to my grandmother to hug her with a big smile on my face. She gave me a look that said “pause” so I did. So did my Dad. She stood there looking me over and it got harder and harder to keep the smile on my face. And then she broke the silence. “I’m going to put you on a diet.” The tension subsided. I could smile again because it was not like I hadn’t heard it before. I went in and hugged her still. While my ear was to her mouth in embrace, “A starvation diet.” I was offended but only for a second. I may have said “Oh really?” In a playful tone just so we could move on to the next portion of the evening. My Dad walked ahead. I couldn’t see his face but I would like to imagine that he was going over all the things I yell at him about in his head. One of which is that he never protects me from her. He just lets her say anything to me. But what do I really expect him to do? I act as if he is allowed to talk back to her. As we walked I found myself thinking “well at least we got it over with early.”

Afterthat Grandma was normal. At dinner even though we were at a table with the other attendees they didn’t really engage anyone with conversation. Every once in a while someone will come over and say “You know your daughter is really smart and it was a big deal that she was invited here!” My Dad’s first reaction is “Yeah, we try not to tell her that often….it goes to her head!” After an awkward silence he caves and says “yes we are really proud of her…” Grandma does the same thing when a mentor of mine from Illinois comes over and gushes for quite a few minutes about me. He was obviously trying to illicit a response but my grandmothers first reaction always is to poke fun before she says she’s proud. It doesn’t really matter to me. I know how they feel even though they mask it.

At one point in the evening my gradmother shows me a copy of my senior picture that she keeps in her wallet. I smile. My Dad looks and goes “Now that was a good picture. I always liked that picture.” I could have cried. I complaIn a lot (A LOT) but I could tell that my Dad was trying to say that I looked good in the picture. I looked good. And he noticed. That memory will be tucked away as one (of three) times in my entire life where he tried to tell me I was pretty in so many words. It was almost like he was trying to apologize for his mother telling me to starve myself earlier. He’s growing up.

On that note

When they went to drop me off at my hotel again my Dad got out to give me a hug and I went to my grandmother (still in the car) to say my goodbyes. Iwas almost home free. I went in to give her a hug and she held on really tight. While she had my ear to her mouth again she said “I know I said to starve but….you know I don’t want you to go overboard right? It’s just, the weight. It’s hard on your heart and… well after what happened to your Aunt Pat. I just don’t want you to go overboard, Okay?”

“Okay Grandma I understand”

My Dad was standing there. I gave him another hug and went back to my room.

That was weird. Grandma has never issued an addendum to her criticisms… She has even told me to go on a “starvation diet” before and never went back and told me not to kill myself or anything. Maybe she is growing up too? But really, she should know that in the 13 years she has been telling me to lose weight I’ve never taken her too seriously.

After they left I called my mom but she was out. I just sat in my room and watched TV for a bit. Then I went to bed and only cried a little before falling asleep.

I had originally planned on spending Thanksgiving with them this year. I hadn’t told Dad about it yet but it was on my mental calendar. I’m not sure if I will now. Not because I’m mad. I’m not mad. How could you be mad when people act even better than they usually do? I don’t want to visit now because….I guess I just don’t want to test the odds.

So I was thinking about LOST….

And I still really wish we could have found out what exactly would happen if the Man in Black got off the island. Because they failed to answer that question, I think it is entirely possible that the “Mom” that raised Jacob and the man in black was just mean and nothing would have happened if he got off the Island.  So I really do feel bad for the Man in black because Jacob could clearly leave the island but he just had to wait around getting more and more angry.

Anyway I just got a dog and I decided to name him after the smoke monster….

His name is Smoke Monster Jones…..Smokey for short.

You can also call him the Man in Black

I’ve taken him on like 3 walks already and he hasn’t pooped…..but all he does when we get back in is sleep so I think he’s ok…. I think I will take him on another walk

like now.

ps. His name when I adopted him was Edward….after the twilight series.  I had to change that right away.