adrienne maree, the luscious satyagraha

its a b??

see that's wack - how come no one told me its haBana outpost, not havana outpost?  

i just spent a few hours with 2 shanes and james the jetblue airline attendant (who doesn't love jet blue! and who else will sing mariah with me before the real juice even starts flowing?) and jen (oh right that's who will sing mariah:

 

if i could recapture
all of the memories
and bring them to life
darling i would
hear the distant laughter
wasn't it you and me
surviving the night
your fading out o my sight swiftly
you're vanaishing
drifting away. 

 

and lopetti the lovely was there, even ling-lang the great comic and sofia 'angela davis dreamed of my hairdo' santana made an appearance. even on fridays, habana is better. none of that stuffy closed in are my high heels stupid-cute enough for you brouhaha...

 

met a boy named needles - an ex-marine (doesn't think war is cool, worry not) who winks and djs. totally charming. he was with paul, a knit capped non-drinker who was a musician and quite nice, but his other companions were that sort of belligerant (sp?) straight male that is hard to hold a long conversation with. i always find it interesting that very cool and sweet guys flock to these alpha males who no one in their right mind would want to bed or bemuse.

 

i think i may have bruised my foot bone or something. it really hurts, its numb and a little bruised and swollen. but when? how? not to mention i itch all over and i think it may be stress! no scars, just momentary hives. its just keeps moving over me, i want to remove my skin for the summer.

 

what else - i was telling my friend of a good book i'd just read, my life as emperor. what she heard was 'my life as a zipper' - which i may now have to write on principle. but whose?

 

i'm having a legendary romantic correspondance with a certain special someone who is calling me out on my isht! its deep! get out my head :) - no don't go...

 

what else?

 

nothing....

 

oh congratulations larisa and bryan! married and moving to turkey to teach. now that's a life story!!!

 

its less than 12 hours now till Dani R. McClain arrives and i can't tell you until she comes all the fabulosity about to ensue...

 

tequila, don't make it bad.
take a sad day, and make it better.
the minute, you slip your numb in my heart,
then i can start, to feel slightly better (better better better!)

 

oh oh oh - and i saw op miller, better known as opopo, he who has thrilled audiences from south africa to south portland with his hip-hop smooth stylings. he always smells good and i cannot impress upon you how important that is to me.

 

eat at madiba friends - corner of dekalb and hmmm....carlton maybe? yummy.

walking your power

i had breakfast this morning with the reverend mistress hummingbird, who told me that the evolutionary period between cat and human probably didn't look that good, or feel that good. she was saying this because she is moving from 'human' consciousness a little higher, and i wonder with all these weird dreams if i am not battling with some lesser divinity myself. i envision a little pint-sized orange fairy with a fat booty and an attitude constantly sucking its teeth at me like, girl you know better.

still, R.M.H. says that divinity - higher and higher, is what we're all evolving towards, and that every soul will get there - we have eternity. i thought that was lovely, and needed to hear it, cause some days i feel like it will take eternity for me to figure out how to connect my intentions with my actions.

i think that sometimes when skipping along in the realm of the possible a mirror pops up and catches you off guard. you throw rocks at the image but they skip the surface and flow through. you hear that love is unconditional and you don't believe that so you fling yourself at it and away. your own little madness is wild in you, no one is to blame. having said no like a mantra it trips my spirit up to need/have a moment of yes. i realize that everyone has been going through their hard times, and i feel like they suffer in drops and i stand by and catch the drops in cupped hands and now my hands are overflowing with sorrow, though my own sorrow is the tipping element.

oh nevermind me. its the middle of the night again. the heat broke and mercury is in retrograde.

i'm being dramatic, i just have to make grown decisions. like my friend jen says, when you feel you have no agency, you become vulnerable. walk your power (she is quoting this, possibly from an iyanla like character swathed in brooklyn orange and the scent of sandaltchouli.

vague enough for you? plus i still haven't closed the parenthetical statment off and the closing curve has lost all meaning. but here's a brilliant piece from one of my favorite stories of all time:

I give myself Very Good Advice
But I very seldom follow it.
That explains the trouble that
I'm always in.
Be patient is very good advice,
but the waiting makes me curious.
And I'd love the change,
should something strange begin.
Well, I went along my merry way,
and I never stopped to reason.
I should have known there'd be a price to pay, some day.
Some day.
I give myself very good advice,
but I very seldom follow it.
Will I ever learn to do the things I should?

i am eating mushrooms and running through a valley of grins. and today i was asked to write a book with a new urban vision, the city politic, the human to come. i see it, but its wearing no clothes, and i can't help but laugh.

sleep. come.

all hail shane

happy birthday shane!!!!!

last night was shane's birthday party and we celebrated with red wine, tiramisu, and an impromptu dance party of inebriated joy! i have never seen the movie 'camp', but this song from it called "here's where i am" really opened up the floodgates. i will not recap all the details of the marvelous evening, suffice it to say that i am still beaming. and that the dancing was so off the hook and grindy that i had my first all out bout of penis envy. freud, you dirty old man - how did you know?!

talked to the heartbreaker yesterday - i've realized he's become like a second bloody cycle in my life. once a month i ache and ache and no medicine can numb me, need for him bleeds me and the knowledge that he can in NO WAY be what i need does not have an effect on the fact that in most ways i still want him more than anything. still - though the torture is no less intense, it is less often.

but back to real life. in real life i eat breath and sleep this conference i am planning, this amazing trip i am taking for the month of august in which i will work tons and see both my sisters and grandparents - i haven't seen my grandfather since his heart attack. and my grandmother has been having a moment, as her man had the heart attack and is a stubborn healer, and her mother, my great grandmother, has alzheimer's and bouts of dimensia. we all got to be together once, four generations of women driving my great grandmother around - she was like who is that girl? lol - there's too much to remember in the world to pay much mind to a colored great granddaughter. but she is spunky, and my grandmother is fierce and takes care of business - matriarch, selfless, ambitious. and my grandfather is falling for a new jesus, the jesus of the poor. i can't want to see them all. and my roommate for all for years of college is getting married to the man i advocated for! august promises delights.

but why am i on that tangent?

the REAL news is that i meet for coffee with the voyeur/photographer on friday to discuss the possibilities of me as a subject. this is in direct opposition to my inner truth that i am not photogenic!

no the REAL news is i am meeting with a publishing house tomorrow afternoon about a book project!

no the REAL REAL news is Dani's Eminent Return occurs on saturday morning.

and keep in mind, all of this is to keep my mind, just for today, off of the real real real news, cause i already have one broken heart for the summer, and bombay is under water...

this made my day!!!

yoma3jane is my MOTHER who lives in

JAPAN

...enjoy:

yoma3jane: got to watch a special on walruses and polar bears
lusciousmsbrown:
yoma3jane: and penguins...
lusciousmsbrown: you are like a kid
lusciousmsbrown: i think you should go back to school
lusciousmsbrown: you love to learn
yoma3jane: got to see all of them "doing it"!
yoma3jane: hahaha
lusciousmsbrown: LOL
lusciousmsbrown: mom!!!
lusciousmsbrown: LOL
yoma3jane: it was so funny!
yoma3jane: like where is that penguin hiding their stuff... but you knew they were having sex
yoma3jane: and they mate for the summer but not for life!
yoma3jane: while albatrosses mate for life
yoma3jane: dad is like how can they prove that?
lusciousmsbrown: oh cool
yoma3jane: but they do - put devices on them to track
yoma3jane: but all the instinct inborn in these animals...
yoma3jane: it's a wonder!
lusciousmsbrown: well then you and dad are like albatross
yoma3jane: well - sort of!
lusciousmsbrown: what animals only mate from a distance or for a few months at a time?
lusciousmsbrown: LOL
yoma3jane: we are not spending the rest of the year apart
yoma3jane: that's what the albatrosses do - they fly off their separate ways and meet up

yoma3jane: like how can they do that?!
yoma3jane: find each other and they live close to 80 yrs!
lusciousmsbrown: well you just did that
lusciousmsbrown: for several weeks actually
yoma3jane: i know but seriously
lusciousmsbrown: and yet you know how to find dad
yoma3jane: well - i put a tracking device on him!
yoma3jane: animals are amazing though!
lusciousmsbrown: humans are animals though 
yoma3jane: yes we are...
yoma3jane: and some are good beasts and others are just beasts....
lusciousmsbrown: thats why those shows are truly so intriguing
lusciousmsbrown: we get to watch the behavior of our hearts and instincts –

yoma3jane: i know
yoma3jane: and the fact that there are people dedicating their entire lives to watching the habitat of polar bears!
 yoma3jane: can you imagine the tedium of that life... i mean all told it's fascinating
lusciousmsbrown: someone once told me we had no instincts. scientifically. but i think he had no heart!
yoma3jane: but to do that day in and day out...
yoma3jane: really
yoma3jane: oh but we do have instincts....
yoma3jane: and very strong ones...
lusciousmsbrown: well its tedious to us but those folks watching polar bears probably think looking at a computer or tv all day - watching metal and glass - is tedious. (to which I’d say, true, true)
lusciousmsbrown: lol
yoma3jane: true dat!
yoma3jane: but balance...
yoma3jane: is important....
lusciousmsbrown: wicky wicky word

another fabulous ft green weekend

ok sorry for the pensive pot post yesterday – this weekend was actually pretty f-ing fantastic considering all the thinking I was doing…the news of the world is currently really wack, so i had an escapist's weekend, which i think all activists should do as much as possible!

evansito came to town for I think what was supposed to be a moment and became a weekend and he is always fantastic to have around. we started off the weekend at a karaoke bar on 2^nd ave, but the folks I was with kept running next door to a bar called cock?  I demurred, how scandalous! ;) rumor has it there was a hot boy-boy dancer and someone tipped him by grabbing his most valuable accessory and wrapping her dollar around it!!

Yahonnes, my handsomest friend with a car, came and got me for a while to do my number one favorite thing (exaggeration but not by much) – driving around ny on a friday or saturday night watching people. we got pommes frites, listened to music, laughed at the stylish and then went back to find the cock-ers. this night in almost every way mirrored one of my favorite nights I ever had with my heartbreaker, and I remembered that the date I keep in my head as our beginning, the first night we ever hung out, had just passed. the whole thing ebbed and flowed and came to an end in less than a year. I found that both depressing and efficient. I hate watching people mill about in bad relationships, or bad non-relationships - and yet I would have loved more time with him. two years. another month. another day.

 so saturday, evans was still there and regaled up with stories that made me laugh harder than I can remember ever laughing as an adult. ever. his skill at storytelling is flawless and constantly improving. I was beside myself, and by the time I got back my entire body was devastated by laughter.

saturday we were on a mission. a dear dear friend of ours had somehow made it into her mid-twenties having never experienced an orgasm, and to me that is an emergency and calls for an all out assault. we had brunch at the newly reopened café lafayette which is now called café babouche – still the best scrambled eggs and goat cheese and Canadian bacon and coffee on a saturday; and then took off for toys in babeland (www.babeland.com).

there, we purchased this dear friend my favorite two toys for basic daily needs – one is the silver bullet, or double silver bullet when they have that, and the other is the wahl – this plug-into-the-wall wonder with 7 attachments including a scalp massager. I think every woman and some men should own this combo. the wahl is good for deep muscle massaging as well. then I coached her as to how to best use them, and other little things she might like to have around…long story short, it all worked! this dear friend’s life has now changed! she is in the realm of pleasure!!

I also splurged and got the space invader and I am remarkably pleased and give it two thumbs up. or one thumb, cause the other hand is busy!

we then went to some ridiculously wonderful expensive soho spot, then uptown for 6 hrs of monopoly! I love playing board games with grown ups – their real selves come out with a quickness. ambition, greed, control, desire, all of it just bubbles up to the surface marvelously.

then sunday I was in my head all day, but got a lot of work done and had a lovely brunch with evans who I never get enough of. but sunday evening became a bit super fabulous – jenn and shane and sofia and i went to havana outpost,  which is becoming a habit, and they were showing ‘do the right thing’, which is a deep movie to watch with a bunch of black people in Brooklyn. the corn yummy, the hot dogs irresistible, and then we got lucky and the man who I guess hosts the whole thing joined us and I gave him an interview like we were inside the actors studio, plus asked him repeatedly if jenn and I could have a cabaret night there sometimes. don’t you think you need more cabaret nights in your life?

ryan gosling was there – have you seen the notebook? randomly, mad people I know have. I saw it cause it seemed to be the only watchable thing in the collection at the home of my grandmother (who has been known to walk out of the theater because of too much cursing or vivacious sex, to give you a sense of the type of movie this is, and yet, I liked it - very romantic real-love-cannot-die type story – I’m not going to close the parenthesis and I just realized that. my bad…so the lead in that film is there and I told him he was fantastic in it and then he came over and sofia promptly said: “I hated the last 20 minutes of that movie though, what happened?” which is great because – while it wasn’t the most polite? it was the most honest.

so at some point I realized I’d reach my tequila input limit and headed home. several hours later the doorbell goes off and who is on my stoop but a smiling glowing shane, who’d been kicking much game for the past couple of hours to a nameless handsome hottie. he couldn’t get in his place cause some people were passed out and unresponsive? so I took him in, and it was delightful, cause as much as I hate to admit it the bed has felt mad empty since heartbreaker bounced.

let’s see – I don’t know why I am writing up this whole weekend except it was fabulous…oh and this morning I had an awesome breakfast with laura livoti who randomly bought me a bag that took my breath away on the street. I heart laura.

hey hector – I know you’re reading and I love you!! was so good to see you!!

ok, back to working on smackdown 2005 (www.indyvoter.org I hope ya heard).

 

no straight lines

i think the lesson for the week is: there are no straight lines.

i've been going through this moment - all these people coming at me but none quite...eh, i don't know. i think swimming post-heartbreak is like, yes there are other fish in the sea. but you've come to prefer one and everyone else ends up in your pool. its hot hot hot, and you maybe go into that world and find some satisfation, but then you giggle and you keep it moving.

and finding out all these new ways that you can be right and wrong about people - you're surprised because they are greater than you expect and disappointed because...the same people, but they're human and thoughtless. and communication - you think out what you need to let folks know and then they are there in front of you and some other words, true but not what you intended, come out of your face, and some other faces get made to back up those words and before you know it the whole relationship has changed - deeper or shallower, clearer or wonderfully less clear.

lately i've been a little all over, somehow reconnected with everyone i ever met, and then new ones, and its fulfilling and its exhausting. i'm laughing but i'm never joking, i'm moving but very present. but i have to focus in though - too much zha zha zha all over.

not to mention, time stripping people down in this way can be remarkably sad, and unveil yourself to you, then you end up half balanced on a sunday afternoon. la la in my head...

but work is a respite, perhaps i should do some more...

ladies, go buy a space invader tomorrow at toys in babeland. for your health!

i can't sleep

so here's a chat i just had with ibrahim abdul matin who i asked to help me think of a reason to go to sleep, and then a gnostic creation tale that makes me happy and which i am going to attempt to artistically render for my friend sofia: 

salihmatin1@mac.com: its almost daylight and you're not a vampire
lusciousmsbrown: true
lusciousmsbrown: i'm so tired, but i keep not sleeping at night
salihmatin1@mac.com: its called insomnia
lusciousmsbrown: ah
salihmatin1@mac.com: many of us have it
salihmatin1@mac.com: but deny it and say we are night owls
lusciousmsbrown: true
salihmatin1@mac.com: how are you?
lusciousmsbrown:
salihmatin1@mac.com: cheers to smily faces
lusciousmsbrown: i have been going on many dates and having lots of energy
salihmatin1@mac.com: dates, eh?
salihmatin1@mac.com: you coo them with the shisha? 
lusciousmsbrown: i coo? everyone with shisha  
lusciousmsbrown: i think i am sitting up because of big decisions and realizations in my head
salihmatin1@mac.com: what are the realizations?
lusciousmsbrown: oh everything from what i believe to how i make love to what i want to what i don't want to maybe where i want to go...
salihmatin1@mac.com: anything specific jumping out at you?
lusciousmsbrown: yes. i want to get paid just to write.
lusciousmsbrown: i want to write political erotic science fiction and draw the pictures to go with it 
salihmatin1@mac.com: damn...
salihmatin1@mac.com: you rock
lusciousmsbrown: i keep talking to this british muslim man and thinking i want to learn islam   - i think the interest is not him but the path to god
salihmatin1@mac.com: you'd be a catch
salihmatin1@mac.com: if you were muslim
salihmatin1@mac.com: to muslims
lusciousmsbrown:  i feel like that is in a way god saying come find me this way.
salihmatin1@mac.com: wow....
salihmatin1@mac.com: adrienne... you realize that this is the time of night when revelation DOES happen
lusciousmsbrown: have u ever read the gnostic creation myths btw? very beautiful. am i always wowing you, or do you just say wow to everyone? 
salihmatin1@mac.com: and very close to fajr, the first prayer...
salihmatin1@mac.com: you often do
salihmatin1@mac.com: and yes, i have read some gnostic creations s

tori

es
salihmatin1@mac.com: very fascinating
lusciousmsbrown: well then. i am being revealed everything at night th

ese

days. the last three nights i have awoken at like 5 with clear dreams in my head which manifested in the day, i am trying to be ok with it and not expect it
salihmatin1@mac.com: something is shifting my dear
lusciousmsbrown: indeed. i thought it was purely my sexual energy, but i was wrong. i feel like if folks could see my aura it would look like
salihmatin1@mac.com: yes...
lusciousmsbrown: a glowing thing, with fizzures of a much brighter light coming through all over, particularly around the head and sacrum.
salihmatin1@mac.com: its def not just sexual nRg
lusciousmsbrown: nothing ever ends up being that
lusciousmsbrown: that's just what i always turn to in my head for comfort
lusciousmsbrown: lol
salihmatin1@mac.com: i am amazed at how well you know yourself, you are in constant state of reflection...
salihmatin1@mac.com: comfort is what we humans love
lusciousmsbrown: i love to think about how humans operate, and the closest lense i have is myself. i'm gonna be in the bay soon for baby's wedding and spin academy btw. 
salihmatin1@mac.com: who's baby?
lusciousmsbrown: college roommate
salihmatin1@mac.com: nice, sign o' the times
lusciousmsbrown: marriage is happening all around me, marriage and break up, heart wrecks and new buzzing love.
lusciousmsbrown: i have been so fortunate in flirtation that i have started to matchmake others for all types of unions.
salihmatin1@mac.com: the cycle of it is interesting... what is fascinating is that we never actually lose hope
salihmatin1@mac.com: we (communal we) keep pluggin away at it
lusciousmsbrown: what good is a network and a deep belief in love if you don't generate love in the network. we - come close to losing hope don't we? but those of us who value the whole lesson are tireless and fearless, aren't we.
salihmatin1@mac.com: you ask questions with answers inbedded in them like a professora
lusciousmsbrown: i love this conversation.
lusciousmsbrown: so glad i got up from non-sleeping to look into the universe through this window at this moment!
salihmatin1@mac.com: look into the universe through this window -- poetic!
 lusciousmsbrown: dear god please let me go into space
lusciousmsbrown: i am almost done with the ultimate hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, and am feeling re

mark

ably earth bound, limited by three dimensions, by linear time.
salihmatin1@mac.com: yes, yes...
 lusciousmsbrown: ok darling
lusciousmsbrown: i am going to try and read myself to sleep
salihmatin1@mac.com: ALLAH wanted us to talk this morning...
salihmatin1@mac.com: i send blessings your way...
lusciousmsbrown: will you give me lessons sometime?
salihmatin1@mac.com: lessons?
lusciousmsbrown: learnings about allah
salihmatin1@mac.com: inshallah (God willing)
salihmatin1@mac.com: yes
salihmatin1@mac.com: indeed, it would be a pleasure
lusciousmsbrown: ok - i'll try to think of something comparable to god to give you as exchange
salihmatin1@mac.com: fantastic...
salihmatin1@mac.com: i look forward
salihmatin1@mac.com: help me get published with fiction someday...
lusciousmsbrown: i met someone tonight
lusciousmsbrown: who publishes fiction
salihmatin1@mac.com: interesante... 
lusciousmsbrown:  i will introduce y'all when next you come to nyc
salihmatin1@mac.com: bet
salihmatin1@mac.com: woah...
salihmatin1@mac.com: see, like i said, i think you have the means right in front of you...
salihmatin1@mac.com: we both do
lusciousmsbrown: lol
lusciousmsbrown: life is actually ALWAYS like that
salihmatin1@mac.com: yes...
lusciousmsbrown: any path could unfold before you if you wished it
salihmatin1@mac.com: yes...
lusciousmsbrown: anything in the world is yours if you want it
lusciousmsbrown: thats how i live, and i get everything i need, plus abundance
salihmatin1@mac.com: and this time right now is when the angels are especially looking out for you
salihmatin1@mac.com: sleep tight
lusciousmsbrown: i will love. thank you!

AND HERE IS SOME GNOSTIC CREATION FOR YOU - this beautiful beautiful writing was discovered by sofia, who also discovered all the nobel prize winner's speeches online and regularly sends them to us. note - we've all known sofia = wisdom since we met her, this is just cherries or whatever other toppings you prefer on that knowledge:

It seems that once there was only the Fore-Creation, invisible, without form or gender, all-pervasive, filling the depths and heights of what was and which, desiring to manifest an inward potential gave birth to many holy dyads...that is, pairs, the first of which were the Abyss and Fore-thought. Then a desire arose in Fore-thought and it meditated on Silence who conceived and gave birth to twins: the first visible female form called Truth and the first visible male form called Mind, in turn they together gave birth to Life and Word...Life was the form-mother of the Pleroma and Word was the form-father of those manifest within the Pleroma. The Pleroma is the fullness of the spiritual world, uninfluenced by matter, energy or light.

Many other dyads were born, called Aeons, or sacred powers, the last of which was the divine Sophia, or Holy Wisdom. Of all the Aeons, the divine Sophia desired most intensely to know the origins of Her own creation, that is, the nature of the Fore-Creator. Though Mind told Her that such knowledge was impossible, nevertheless, Sophia began to search high and low, after Mind was restrained by Silence. None of the Aeons comprehended the Fore-Creation other than Truth whose perfect reflection was a transparent presence invisible to Sophia. She separated Herself from Her consort, ranged the vastness of the uncreated Immensity, and far out- distanced all the other Aeons.

Sensing her separation from the other Aeons, and lacking a clear knowledge of the Fore-Creator, She felt pain and sorrow, She wept and grieved deeply, She desired with all Her Heart to comprehend the vast, unending totality of the Fore-Creator, also called the Abyss. But the Abyss was vast beyond comprehending, and Her sorrow increased and Her passions flowed out of Her in waves and She risked utter dissolution into the Abyss as She radiated forth a turbulence into the stillness of Immensity. Then, suddenly, She encountered Horos, the Limit, Boundary, and understood that the Fore-Creation was unknowable, holy and profound, beyond the comprehension of Mind, Word or even Truth. This was the First Gnosis.

But now, the manifestations of Her intentions and passions remained as viable presences in the Immensity, they overflowed the Pleroma and began to take on a more substantive appearance. Sophia beheld these manifestations, the consequences of Her passions, and was again stirred with grief, fear, uncertainty and sorrow because She understood that these were the manifestations of Her own ignorance concerning the Fore-creation. A dim, barely light-like haze began to appear, first manifestation in the Primal Void, the concatenation of passion and desire unfulfilled, slowly evolving into manifest forms--the stirrings of light, energy and chaos.

All the Aeons together were concerned about the appearance of Chaos and so they, with the divine Sophia, prayed in depth and a new dyad was manifested: Christos and the Holy Spirit, his female counterpart. Together, they calmed the Aeons and soothed their fears, also instructing them in the unknowableness of the Fore-Creation while simultaneously revealing to them the inner unity, harmony and illumination of the Pleroma--this was the Second Gnosis. Yet, th