adrienne maree, the luscious satyagraha

me and my backbone

i am becoming one with my backbone. it's really quite a delightful bone! if you rely on it, when you're heart is breaking it will prop you up.

today autumn was telling me some lessons from a class she's taking that were perfect for now:

- the original sin was inauthenticity...when people gained their fear of being right, to be as god made them. inauthenticity creates deep insecurity, and to counter that lack of self, you have to have power over the other, to justify yourself. and that to conquer inauthenticity you must face everyone, every person, even those you consider the other (other interests, other foundation, other motivation, other values) with compassion and love. you have to see a real self in there, look into the authentic self. that's the god in them.

- some thought from robert pollack about how the ability to learn, in humans, is constantly evolving. we are constantly incorporating new thoughts into our understanding. he also said the natural human tendency is towards cooperation, pooling resources and working together towards outcomes. we only turn to competition because we are living beyond our means...that we have over populated beyond our finite resources in terms of time, food, space. and we don't have an instinct to slow down and provide, when we have too much we want more.

what my heart says when i am working for change too fast and without enough thought: slow down. there's no way to put a blinder on the people and guide them to freedom like its a big surprise birthday party. you can't use a globalization model for democracy...

hmmm, what else...i think my next article will be entitled: "the non-partisan industrial complex: can we afford our values?"

spending time with loved ones this weekend i thought and wrote down: heart born whole, life breaks it, the people who become pieces of your heart teach you that love is boundless and the whole is constant.

the state of the union was tonight. i find i can never watch it. at dinner with the ny local league, someone said commander in chief was on...and i just thought it was great that a tv show with a woman president was on at the same time as a tv show of the bumbling president, and more people probably watched her.

am off to denver tomorrow for the PR for Progressives Conference, the to Pittsburgh for some strategy session and then the Superbowl!! Gooooooo Steelers!! now do i even know what other team is playing? hell to the naw.

my motto this week: 'stop acting like a bitch already, be a visionary.' talib kweli

getting through the day

ah i had the best company tonight. clarity is flowing through me...

someone asked me a general question today, with a smile: how are you getting through the day?

i get through most days the same way, feeling what i feel somewhere deep inside and trying to go all up in the feeling and get to know myself.

i apply the four agreements fairly consistently:

don't make assuptions
don't take things personally
be impeccable with your word
always do your best

you have read this book the four agreements i hope - it posits that the world is simply your dream, and the way to keep balance in that dream, beyond understanding that you constantly determine the dream through your perspective (yes someone beat me to the perspectivist movement!), is to make these four agreements with yourself. in times of deep stress or joy or chaos or grief, i find that any or all four work very well.

i also have adopted one more in the past year of my life as my addition to not taking things personally, which is that generally when a violence is done against you, it is born from a violence done before you came along. it is hurt people who are able to hurt, it is damage that empowers the dangerous. when you recognize that, you can feel sad about the amount of damage out there, but you can also refuse to let it become your damage, you can draw the line around your heart even when it's breaking, and reject it, or as my girl karynn says, forward the karma.

your challenge is to love, to make your love and heart and integrity even bigger, move closer to your core values, not further away. that is the deep truth of non-violent organizing. believe in the people and in the possibility of the heart and they will not fail you.

and so on i go, any given day, living it up.

i had an idea today...well many many. but this one that excites me more as i write this and feel the beginnings of carpal tunnel syndrome taking up a comfy home in my fingers, up my arms and into my shoulders (and please tell me if this exists! cause i want to own a set). the idea is a set of gloves that attach to your computer so that you don't have to type on a keyboard, but can apply your fingers against any surface, your body, a desk, the wall...and you'd be typing. it would plug into the computer like headphones. the challenge of expressing the whole alphabet on only 10 fingers has been solved by the use of a phone key pad for texting, and is advanced by the word fundtion on phones where you type the letter combo and the computer assumes the word and you can correct if the wrong one pops up. this function would have to have a super wide constantly evolving vocabulary but...you could stand, sit, walk around, and be typing. y'all sittin on this in the pentagon? (i know by even typing that word someone there will see it - whoever you are, get me the gloves!!!) nasa? holla. ship them to my office.

one of the best songs to walk around ny to: just like a pill, by pink
one of the best gyros in the world: gyro II on 7th ave across from penn station. its all about the sauce!

and finally, a thought i have been having. trey songz has a new song out in which he basically says 'i don't wanna leave, but i gotta go right now, the streets is calling me." and while i really enjoy the song's melodic composition, i can't help but think each time that if that was my dude he wouldn't be coming back. you're trying to get some from your man and he's like the streets is calling? well i hope the streets can do it better than this, cause the lock's gwon be changed when ya get back. that's just rude.

ah another night and i'm up at 3am. what do you do when your brain's getting all cleared up? you think and write and think some more.

sigh

first and foremost, hi meighan davis, of the nj seiu and the league board! thank you so much for suggesting i do a sex column, looks like its going to happen at wiretap - sex and relationships for activists. for tranparency, it should be called the successful single activist...but maybe pleasure dome or pleasurevolution or something. ideas?

had a wonderful morning meeting with the campaign to end aids, getting back in touch with that aspect of my work and interest - they are soooo cool. www.aidsvote.org! and then had a long meeting and walk with heather box, part of the league's new fundraising team. such a force of energy, such an exciting addition. i love when you meet someone who has a truly different life experience from you who gets it, gets why this work is all so important.

now...i am shamefully addicted to a song i know is a bad song, 'love', by sista keyshia cole. i hate when this happens, i listen to my ipod furtively in public...she straight mangles this vocal thing at the end, and the lyrics are corny and desperate. as a singer, it hurts me. and yet, i keep having to play it and get into it.

and i was going to discuss the word "stragedy", as used by jamie foxx in his single unpredictable, and how he should have a huge team to keep him from sounding that dumb, unless he was trying to be funny which he shouldn't mix into the singing sexy songs with luda bringing it...i was going to, but i don't even need to.

camron vs jay-z: TIRED
nas signing for jay-z: what's next, peace in the middle east? i love when capitalism forces reconciliation, how could that happen more often?
beyonce boinking jay-z: appropriato!

i can't write about anything deep today cause i am doing mad work to prep for our staff and board weekend starting tomorrow. lots to see and do! if you're in ny this weekend i hope you come out to manjinga at sputnik friday night!

the public sphere: some things i love about ny

i love that there's a ms. subways, whose sole purpose seems to be having her picture next to reminders to give up your seat for pregnant and elderly people. she ain't even all that. how do you get to be ms subways?

and i love that you can overhear two young white hipster people completely seriously having this convo:

guy: the first thing we close in on is you
girl: oh, that makes sense
guy: and the wind is blowing
girl: oh, sadness
guy: then, you step forward
girl: oh, and they all come walking after me?
guy: oh no no, not yet, he just stands
girl: oh, that's powerful
guy: oh, and the whole time its chopin, chopin!
girl: i love the implications of that! oh, and then there's the personality of the slave?
guy: oh yeah, they have to behave like they have no idea, just no clue about anything, mindless slaves, the essence of slaves
girl: oh that whole dark dark energy, that dark vibe
guy: yes and then you walk in, all beautiful
girl: and then there's the sex scene?
guy: with your personality. oh, and the shots are set up so it's, you know, very deep.

then the whoosh off into the world.

i love when i am listening to my ipod and slip up and sing along out loud or just have a wildin' out listening moment, and someone nearby knows the song or recognizes the feeling and we vibe. in general any moments of stranger vibe in ny make me happy.

i wish y'all could see me right now trying to get this crick out mah neck. after the magical moment with tony the masseuse last week, i then had a few nights of not enough proper sleep and then slept wrong on my neck and now when i try to cock it to the right (which i had no idea i do all the time, its how i listen, or effect the air of listening when reading emails) the left says hell to the naw! so i am using all of my personal massagers on it, and a hot pad which i have affixed to my neck by tying a scarf around it. wearing just that and my new african power legwarmers has me laughing my ass off everytime i catch a minute in the mirror.

what else what else...have you done all you could to stop alito yet? or have you done...nothing? don't feel bad, just exert a little pressure if you can, now is the time...today is a good day to call your senators as the hearings are done and now folks are gonna be voting.

a little funny:

This year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address fell on the same day.  As Air America Radio pointed out, "It is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication, and the other involves a groundhog.

there's a sexpert on wendy williams today, fun fun fun listening! have you done your kegel exercises today, friends? she recommended doing 100 a day. and squeeze, release, squeeze, release!

ahem.

ok, a promise...no more drunk blogging!

while i won't take last night's post down because i try not to do that, i will say don't read it too carefully, and apologies to anyone whose etiquette i called 'funny'. how judgy of me! and while that post makes me seem un poco hoocho, chances are very high that most of that list will only stroke my ego, not my...anything else! i often like the idea of living a samantha existence, but in real life its all getting to be a bit much, managing all this flirtation and delight. too many aggressive libidos to keep track of, the mojo is getting a bit overfueled! how else can you explain getting piss drunk on a sunday night?

perhaps i was raging against the sounds from behind the fridge, which i am fairly certain are caused by an unwanted rodent visitor. on the off chance that this is a New Rodent Visitor, and not the one i asked to leave last year who promptly disappeared, i repeated the request: 'NRV, please go now and i won't take any measures to eradicate your small life.' now, fingers crossed that mice can understand words like NRV and eradicate. my past experiences with mouse traps have been grievous. still, my bed is on the floor and i just can't share the bed or the room or anything else with a little dirty ass mouse.

or perhaps this is further evidence of my subconscious acting up. i have to meditate and find out what is troubling her so. she's smoking, drinking, it's uncouth.

this morning i had a little meeting with lisa witter, who has started this thing called shesource.com which places women primarily on television and works to create a culture of female experts in a world of male dominated political television. i first came to know lisa as the competition of my girl malia on american candidate, which was on showtime leading up to the 04 election. but time has shown that she knows a lot about strategic media, candidate development and other nifty tools i need.

we also spoke for a while on how scary this winter is. lisa was saying that the gulf stream has actually shifted lower, this rapid shift from the deep cold of last winter to this strange, wet, mild one this year is really cause for concern. the flowers are confused, the birds are confused. time to bloom? to sing? to fly away?

with that in mind i ran down to drop off the stargate netflix to my sister, who is as obsessed as i am with this sci-fi isht. her office - new york disaster relief interfaith services, looks out over the world trade center site, and i stood with her looking out the window and was surprisingly overcome with emotion. its a pit, with lots of construction stuff in it and the path train running through the middle, but no construction is happening. as my sister said, it's appropriate somehow that it is a space of contention, that it is so stagnant. looking into it i just saw this massive spiritual graveyard, piled with the deaths of that day, and of all the war that has been waged as a supposed response to that day, a graveyard of strangers. god it made me feel so sad. we work so hard but the onslaught of despair is so tangible.

and then seeing a bad picture of myself from a day when i thought i looked cute...blah!

life has tested me so much recently and i am excited by the strength i see, by how i'm being true to my values. but it's hard. maybe that's what my subconscious is reminding me of - how hard she is working too, how much she too is holding so that i can do me, and not to forget or to think its easy simply because it is working, because i am working and feeling productive and/or sexy and/or smarter than i've felt in a while.

what a funny mood i am in today. i think i will feel significantly better if i go drop off my laundry. so that's what i will do.

drunk blog number whatever

hee hee
whoo
ok so...yes i admit it the dewars is holding me prisoner!

but today, which was an awesome day anyway, i got two bits of news which i just have to revel in...

1. two of my old lovers had a bonding session last night in which they realized who they are vis a vis me, and decided to proposition me for a threesome! now. generally my rules on a threesome are: a. i have no rules and b. both people have to be hot in my book. check and check! lol...lucky open minded girl gets the wormhole.

i recently have been in full target mode, with every ex i've had over the past 10 years taking aim. the great thing is, i've made good choices, so there's no one on that list i wouldn't go back to. maybe one person...but just cause he's ridiculous. actually there's a few ridiculous people. the encounters were still good...but i hadn't been thinking about this one other person as a viable candidate. but, clearly, no stone can go unturned, and thus no lover un-turned out...

and

2. i can't even really explain the second bit of news, except that a random hottie is possibly going to be around me a bit more, and me being me, i can't think of anything being too wrong with that. oh i am naive, i am sure some complications will arise. but not from me, because drama got nixed on jan 1 06 and thus i am in the hinterlands of harmony, internally.

but something else i've realized is that people i know have some funny rules around the etiquette of hook-ups. for me...there basically is no etiquette. you just go for broke and hope it satisfies all parties and everyone is a free agent. and going for broke entails meeting people who you know are trying to do good in the world and making them feel good.

this is the dawning of the age of the free agent. the person, sometimes in the shape of adrienne, who does what she wants purely because she wants to! and maturity comes in the form of hurting no one's feelings, creating no unnecessary drama, but valuing the full person in each little hot and bothered interaction.

and

3...did i indicate there were only two? its the whiskey i swear...but in another conversation it became clear that a close encounter with the the hottest person i know in history is eminent. you don't even know what that means, but i do, i know it means that something good is coming to me.

4. four adrienne? four??? yes...there is someone i have been flirting with for many years who, a while back, sent me pictures to plead the case that i should consider said person as a lover. the pictures were convincing and the game has backed it up and - 06 may be the year of realizing fantasies. or not. i hate giving up fantasies...who is with me?

what else can i say...my sister and i ripped target to pieces today - i got a desk lamp and a chair for my 'home office' and some lightbulbs that won't hurt the earth and more jersey knit sheets because they feel really good, and some brita water filters cause dirty water scares me. i spent too much and now i must repent by fasting.

AND i called adam! and he sounded great and i get to see him and karynn this week - they are one of those couples that, by their very existence, gives you hope in finding someone out there that aligns with your vision for changing the world and mutual respect in the context of love.

um...and...i forgot to drop off my laundry. damn. and...i talked to my mama in japan, she is doing well. japan is too far. i am glad this is hopefully their last far away assignment. i miss my parents. theirs are the only messages i save on my phone to listen to over and over again. do you like your parents? not only do i like mine, but i find that my little self-analysis game only works when i factor them in and let them know about it. but then again i think i have an unprecedented honesty with them.

i am at the peak of my peak right now - i know saturn returns is supposed to come soon and f it all up but, to be honest, when you realize that every single experience is a learning one, it changes the whole game up.

oh i wish i could kiss you right now, so you could feel beyond my words to this marvelous mood i am in. but a girl can only travel so much. so i owe you all deep lovely kisses. i'll hold up my end of the promise ;) i promise!

sunday sunday sunday. time to pray!

ohhhhhh tony

this weekend is going so well. i must have done something good y'all.

started off at breakfast with dani, my chale chale sister in strength. it's constant learning with her. then rolled up to the popular education conference at hunter's school of social work. lots of lovely folks in the house - swati, bryan, arif, bacha-bach. i watched a documentary on the landless worker's movement in brazil, mst. so inspiring. a series of compromises i feel are strategic for now have me currently in a work situation that isn't a collective, which is hard for me because i so fundamentally believe collective work yields superior results. but this documentary gave me hope that time, perserverance and work can still lead us all out of our socialization.

then i went to the session on how popular education models work in the senior advisory board of state senator liz krueger, which was cool, these powerful older sisters talking about their ongoing civic engagement and what its like to have an elected official who actually listens. as the league evolves, candidate accountability models become more and more important, so i learned a lot.

i accidentally left my sudoku puzzle book at home and had to walk up to a bookstore and by two more. i love sudoku. i'm finally reveling in an addiction that won't give me cancer!

then i got to walk across central park, the path that goes in front of the met and past the great lawn as the sun was setting, so gorgeous, blasting my trey songz 'gotta make it'. my ipod right now is the perfect mix - jay-z, raekwon, gillian welch, bob dylan, mariah carey, mary j., song after song i love. met up with my sister, her man sam, and their friend nathan for some catfish and collards at spoonbread. in the middle of that, the hot little package kate rhee called to tell me she was going to see tony, our masseuse, so i called and booked the session right after hers.

now please understand that tony is a demi-god, with hands that are always warm and so strong and he knows exactly where it hurts and what to release. kate was sitting in the waiting room, and she said if she didn't know it was a massage she would have thought i was getting turned OUT in there. the truth is, the tony touch is better than most sex. $35 for an HOUR of deep acupressure. i have all these special points - work stress sits just to the left of my spine midway down my back, heartbreaker has his own little area on the lower right side...touch it right and i still cry. tony touches everything right, takes you to the edge and brings you back. and the ills of the world take over my left shoulder and neck. tony takes it all away. afterwards i have to hug him. he makes me want to give Him a happy ending. he's that good. may the good lord find it in her heart to give you a tony.

called my other sister april, who is doing her first night temping as a concierge as her second job...love that girl, she's so no nonsense. she says if i write a sex column she probably won't read it, but she still thinks its a good idea. i think so too, if this works out it will be so much fun!

one of my band of courting exes sent me his picture and he is looking finer than ever. i have to say that when i look over the short list of people who have actually made it all the way, their common denominator is that they are fine and rocked it. i think i've mastered the fine art of taking lovers and keeping good relationships over a long time. and sometime in the next 10 years, i plan to get good at love :) but for what i have mastered, i think i've earned the right to pontificate and do a sex advice column. god knows my isht is mmm-mmm good. i think i might...oh well let me finish the blog first.

so i'm home in time for mad tv and saturday night live and if they are less than hilarious i have more stargate to watch. and tomorrow i am going to call you adam, i promise. i love that you find hope in your dreams, i am about to start a new spiritual movement called perspectivism, centered on the truth i have found in setting your own perspective towards the light and racing your psyche to the finish line.

autumn is coming through tomorrow, and i have no other plans which happens so rarely and is so precious. wishing you all some aimless time before the weekend ends!

smokin an L with Jesus

i have realized, at the ripe old age of 27, that there are a couple of versions of heaven:

1. there is the heaven for people who love harps and choir music. they bop on elevators and often wish their hair was more flowy-er. i can't get around to aiming for this one, and it keeps me from bowing my head often enough i'm sure.

2. there is a heaven that involves one long, perfect, magic hands massage. i dare say i pray for this one daily.

3. there is a heaven in which we humans finally evolve to a place of inner and outer peace, and treat each other with respect, live in trust and freedom, and want for nothing but good work. i act like i live there and hold no small measure of pride in my surprise at proof to the contrary...

4. there is a heaven which is a beach in the marshall islands where i healed once...where the sand comes out against the ocean and in every direction, as far as the eye can see, you can look. you can watch the rains come hours away, and you can watch the far side of the sunset, and you can see the very first glimpse of the earth turning towards that same sun but we call it new and it constantly amazes, and the wind is warm and the sharks are near and when night comes, she brings a million stars to tell you her stories.

5. and then there is the one i have found on earth - a friday night, with a late night date with myself, watching science fiction shows, eating oreos, with a sip of whiskey and a bit of puff and a new red light and no clothes anywhere near me and no work and no phone ringing and nothing, absolutely nothing, in this room that i don't want here.

6. and then there is my penultimate heaven, the one in which i get to spend a lot of time on the beach, in peace, often sitting alone to think, but sometimes getting to choose someone to sit back and smoke an L with, and ask my big questions to. my short list includes every major martyr or religious figure,  writer of perfect songs, prophet,  revolutionary and lover i've ever known or known of.  i would like to start with jesus, given the great obsession and oppression of my time, based on poor interpretations of his short life. and then nina simone, to ask how she was able to keep singing when some days break you of sound.  and i would probably want to sing a song with her, because i've lost all shame and besides, its my heaven. and then a panel of inventors, to ask what it feels like to have a completely new idea in a world that runs from change. and then i would love to sit down with the creation force, in whatever form i can handle, just to say why 50 times, for closure.

and that is my list of heavens.

i was going to write something that would be hilarious, at least to me, about men hollering at me on the street. recently i have gotten the following commentary:

"mami, why you even trying to lose weight? if i was your man i would appreciate all of that, every inch."
"yo ma you beautiful, really."
"ah pretty xtra large, i like that."
"can i suck your titties, please, just once?"
"do you have the time? no, not that time - the time to talk to me?"
"i have a car, i have a job, and now i need you."
"i'm older than i look, i could do it right."

unfortunately these men have holla'd at me in the context of the bob dylan song i can't stop repeating on my ipod, which i think might be the only fresh game that could ever be kicked to me on the street (sexy people who carry around guitars take note):

Tell me, I've got to know.
Tell me, tell me before I go.
Does that flame still burn? Does that fire still glow?
Or has it died out and melted like the snow.
Tell me.
Tell me.

Tell me, what are you focused upon?
Tell me what I'll know better when you're gone.
Tell me quick with a glance on the side.
Shall I hold you close?
Or Shall I let you go by?
Tell me.
Tell me.

Are you looking at me and thinking of somebody else?
Can you feel the heat and the beat of my pulse?
Do you have any secrets that will come out in time?
Do you lie in bed and stare at the stars?
Is your main friend an acquaintance of ours?
Tell me.
Tell me.

Tell me, are those rock and roll dreams in your eyes?
Tell me, behind what door your treasure lies.
Ever gone broke in a big way?
Ever done the opposite of what the experts say?
Tell me.
Tell me.

Is it some kind of game that you're playin' with me.
Am I imagining something that never can be?
Do you have any morals?
Do you have any point of view?
Do you long to ride on that old ship of Zion?
What means more to you, a lap dog or a dead lion?
Tell me.
Tell me.

Tell me, is my name in your book?
Tell me, should I come back and take another look?
Tell me the truth, tell me no lies.
Are you someone, anyone?
Tell me.
Tell me.

My favorite of these lines are those about having morals and a point of view. This is the answer that cannot be attained by any amount of focus on my ass or eyes, any brief and offensive designs on my breasts. The statistics are stacked so deeply against you kind sirs. Resist. The. Urge.

Yesterday was National Make Adrienne Think Of Babies day. Besides the dream, which I will not recount, and before my visit with the graceful and divine Mia Herndon, who awaits a February child, I had brunch with this cool woman Ilene who used to run progressive salons in ny, and now does fertility awareness classes that teach women how to track their times of fertility so they aren’t slaves to the pill. www.fertaware.com. If anyone can help her with the website, she's looking for help so holla.

Now, I’ve managed to stay off the pill thus far in life, but have watched many friends go through the crazy ups and downs of it. Interesting evolution to consider – the body does tell you so much. Today my body told me unequivocally that I am not pregnant. And I was glad :)

Tonight I had dinner with my doppelganger, Alea Woodlee. Everyone who has met us both swears we look alike, and it's true. Sitting at dinner with her I couldn't help watching to see what I might appear like to others, since I have long held the theory that I have a non-sensical appearance. But she looks great. I'm taller! She's also a military brat, an organizer, a singer, a communicator, we could speak each other's sentences. It's uncanny. And she's great, which in a not too odd way makes me feel good too.

Now, for those who need someone to love, to care for, and find no one willing to take this sweet burden on, here's a little blast from closet animal lover Yahonnes Cleary, my friend:

The West Jersey (

Pennsauken

,

NJ

) Animal Shelter is closing at the end of this
month. There are currently 31 dogs and 5 cats on the premises that are in desperate need of adoption. The West Jersey Animal Shelter is open for adoptions Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. and from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Phone (856) 486-2180.

Tomorrow I'll be at this popular education conference at Hunter all day. Roll through if you're in NY.

why my sub-conscious totally sucks azz

yo my sub-conscious is killin me right now!!!

why did i just wake up from this dream: i was having some perfect day where i was in a fabulous hotel for some special occasion, and i had lined up dates with three old lovers in one day (even in dreams yo soy freaky), and then the heartbreaker showed up, and then we were shopping for baby onesies with my mother!! what the balls is that? i woke up wanting to promptly eat something gross for the express purpose of vomiting it in my face.

this made me realize that i am not smoking, it's my sub-conscious! operation Quell My Sub-conscious's Crazy Self is ON!

in real life, the heartbreaker's romantic crusade lasted roughly two weeks ending with a very classic miscommunication of the type we Always have in which i say something reasonable and he gets angry. shane says to think of it as an issue of perspectives, not right or wrong. but my perspective is, the disgust i have at the idea of having a baby in my life extends to relationships. get to steppin! or at the very least, don't expect me to keep trying.

today we have a Very Funny Boondocks to share (by we I mean me and Aaron MacGruder, who doesn't even know about this partnership but he would adore me, i just know it):

wow - that came out small. hmmm...well click on it to see it, it's worth it...

in other news - i got this email from my dear friend kate cortesi, from soviet georgia:

---
Whatup Adrienne! I was just reading your blog, which makes me so homesick I can't even tell you, and you had this funny typo which I think we should all use on purpose:

someone who will rename nameless

I don't know why I like that so much. I guess because withholding someone's name is like renaming them?

Does withholding really have two h's in a row?

Alright, I gotta get back to writing, but just wanted to say: miss you!

xo
K
---

ah typos. i had another one a while ago, where i meant to say something like mojo begets mojo, but i said mojo begets moho, which was just too funny to fix. never look back.

had a series of excellent talks yesterday:

1. with my mentor who is a leader from the young lord days on movement, sexism, contradiction (recommended reading: on contradiction, by chairman mao), having a vision and values and having a line you can draw, a place where you stand. really enlightening.

i left my wallet at the spot where we ate and by the time i got back to it someone had jacked me for my monthly metrocard! sigh. i will not let this put a damper on me, but rather see it as an opportunity to learn about the metrocard warranty system where if you purchase it with a credit or debit card you can get a pro-rated credit to your account. chale yes.

2. with my homey dani mcclain about how growth is shaping our radicalism in a great way.

3. with a dear friend who has been through a hellacious 5 months and is coming through it all with so much grace and bravado that i wish standing ovations were common in the real world.

4. with a dear friend who is realizing she is seriously depressed and needs help. we gonna get help honey, i know you got all it takes to get through this.

5. with someone we were interviewing who i really wished i could kick it with over tea.

and THEN, joshuagabriel came over to bring me my artwork and make some music. we did an original song i've been working on, he tuned my guitar, and then we did a duet cover of that dylan song, 'i threw it all away'. So Fun and So Good. there are people you're just born to make music with.

here's a picture of my mom's two new students:

they wear school uniforms and roll up the skirts, which reminds me: I did this all through high school, among other things, to make myself look like a little ho-bag (a.k.a. ‘cute’). Ah, to think there was a time when I wanted to show as much leg as possible!

my family is in a period of firsts. I shifting roles in the league to work that much better suits me, my mom started teaching English to two these two students in Japan, april started her communications practicum, and autumn started her job at the

new   york

disaster relief interfaith services. my dad is still obsessed with golf, but he had his first hole-in-one the other day!! Go family!

ok, now its time to go walk off this bad encounter with my sub-conscious. have a day of sparkling wit!

from rock bottom

ok, today i have to admit publicly, or at least blogospherically, that i have hit rock bottom of the slippery slope called 'adrienne's nicotine addiction'. i am actually sitting at the bottom of that slope, leaned back on the incline with a cigarette in my mouth right now! i am smoking like samuel jackson in jurassic park.

i have been a smoker in denial for about a month now. just one. and then, just a clove, for stress. and then, a pack of cloves, which i know are harsh but don't smell like cigarettes and take a long time to smoke so fake me into thinking i am still only dabbling. to help me from screaming on people. when i am called upon to rise above my current circumstances i always turn to smoke, which also burns and rises...and other things.

but then this past weekend, i ran out of cloves in d.c. on a sunday night, which apparently is a official 'Close Down All Convenience Stores in the Downtown Area' Night. who knew. and i realized i was actually not just slightly perturbed, i was wringing my hands and had to ask someone to bring me whatever they could get please that was in the shape of a small long cylinder of that sweet stinky shit i love so much.

so i know i posted earlier today but its technically tomorrow so i felt that i could share this realization officially.

also because at my voice lesson i couldn't hide the tell tale smoker's cough, and my voice teacher just looked at me and said, i know you've had some stress, i know that. now you have to quit again. and celeste today said - cigarettes! and shane last night said NO YOU CAN'T and i still couldn't not smoke, shamefully, in front of him.

luckily i know how to quit, or at least know i can. i quit all of last year, and i was a self-righteous preachy little non-smoking high and mighty brat. and now i have to stop again, which for me means going on a total and complete cleansing fast and cutting everything - nicotine, alcohol, bread, sugar, meat, etc. then easing into the other stuff and leaving the cigs out. cigarettes and bread are the bars and floor of my particular prison.

and i don't need anyone to tell me how bad it is, i know. i know it's wrong, self-abuse, stinky, dangerous, reversing the work of my whitening strips - which i only remember to do every third day anyway - i know the Truth.

ugh. i am so ashamed but also secretly enjoying this little lapse for as long as it lasts...why is there NOTHING else like cigarettes and why can't someone figure out how to make ones that are AS SATISFYING AS THIS without a cancerous stinky effect?

here's a small photo of my current addictions. one is deadly. the other is nerdy. oh me oh my. well, admitting it is my first step towards quitting. so here goes! um. tomorrow. CONO!

in other news though, the ny league had a second meeting of the year and something is starting to form from the thinking aloud that could be really hot. if you're in ny and want to get down with it just holla...

and i did have a moment of singing with my old teacher and she said my voice is still there, which made my heart heat up. also met this woman who is going to become my sometimes student in developing a vocal style. fun fun!

in terms of a sex column for organizers - karynn, i like that suggestion. let me think about it, pitch it around.

ok. let's see if i can make it from here to the bed without a cig tonight!

women presidents

geena davis won a golden globe for playing a woman president on t.v. on the same week as chile and liberia welcomed new women presidents into power. this is all reinforcing my recent education on the mayan calendar and how women are coming back into a space of leadership in the world. bout time, aight?

i was told i should write a column on sex and hotness for cosmo. NO. lol.

i had a miscommunication with someone and it's just annoying me, cause i'm ready to move on but they still need to sulk. sigh. is saying it feels like time wasted is disrespectful?

i am singing today! that's exciting...and ooh, the covert radical bloggers and viral online marketing parts of my brain are all flustered with anticipation!

check out biko's post on www.indyvoter.org for a little mlk-day book review!

ooh! last night someone called to ask me for money. i felt bad saying no, but what everyone should realize about adrienne is that she lives paycheck to paycheck, hoping to meet a dope radical black science fiction writer sponsor someday and live off that. until then, no dough moves for the non-essential! but it was funny cause wendy williams had spoken earlier in the day about things to look out for when seeing new people, and this was the number one thing. not that i'm seeing anyone. i'm not. but, just sayin...

let me be quiet now. whew...

oh wait no no first i have to just say that shane jones is the best future therapist i know. last night we had another near professional level of mutual moments of a-ha carefully or laughingly guided by each other and i rarely enjoy conversations as much as i do with him :)

ok, now that is ALL!

content of my character

someone who will rename nameless just asked me if i am the mlk poster child, all black and white and happy together.

happy mlk day - i hope you engage in some little ritual that makes you consider the content of your character. it's such a ludicrous demand, to have to ask to be considered for who you are. and yet its so internalized, we've learned the lesson of judgement so deeply that we almost never take people for their content. we take them for whatever works at the moment, on their race, or gender, or how someone like them treated us at some point long ago, or - anything that will make it easier to store them in our minds. we shy away from the work it takes to build deep knowledge of other people. getting to know people is looking in a mirror and oh we don't want to look, but we can't not look. hence, love.

i've made a major advance in my sudoku puzzles! first i had a breakthrough to being able to see the number lay-out in my mind and not having to make notes to myself, and then this weekend moved into medium level! the girl next to me on my plane from d.c. today smiled and pulled out her book of sudoku and we compared strategies - she uses a pencil! never considered it, she was very impressed. joy joy.

got to kick it with khari, ibrahim and tanji last night. excellent fun in our suite, but i felt bad cause some of our neighbors were upset by the...party atmosphere we created. ugh, trying to set a good example and not able to explain that having a great time IS a good example of living right! (because i was having such a great time it was hard to get the words together?)

is it just me or is being a mystery shopper a little creepy?

ok ok, it's just me!

i'm off to rice to celebrate one of the greatest anti-war activists of all time with shane, the kind of person who makes me so happy there is no draft.

dimepiecin' in d.c.

just got hugged by the ultimate dimepiece malia lazu, a-shiver!

so first of all (though clearly second of all when you think about it, and maybe including third) - thanks karynn for the cheekbone love, and gavin, all i'm sayin is this ihop will put the chocolate chips onto the hot pancakes to melt with the butter. that's good service!

and coming soon: my completely random list of the things i most love doing/eating/seeing/avoiding in ny.

but now:
a few thoughts on venus in retrograde, phone sex {parental warning: don't look mom, no!}, this sick hotel suite i'm sitting in, one world youth project, my sister's stunning face and a special goodnight!

venus in retrograde:
it is! and apparently that means old lovers come back into the sphere. whew, talk about it! asking for babies, dinner, leather bags and a second (or is that 43rd) chance. no babies, yes to dinner, i'll buy you one if you buy me one first based on prior experience with going first in giving shit to you and...jury's still out on chances. sample of deliberations:

jurist 1 (represented by witty but pessimistic altar ego juwanonadat): how many failures does it take to screw a fool?
jurist 5 (represented by shane jones): when is being objectified enough?
jurist 7 (represented by jen kidwell): hell naw!
jurist 9 (anonymous): ooh, tell me more. he did what? girl...at least wait a month befo' you hit it again!
jurist 11 (represented by lovesick): y'all are so getting married.

verdict? we require more evidence. perhaps in the form of dinner and a quality poem.

phone sex:

how hard is it to focus on overanalysing blasts from the pasts when new kid on the block, who is so sexy he is getting a nickname (dr. turn-out) made me retract all pre-blog hateration on phone sex. my previous opinion: silly, wasteful, poor substitute, faux-hot, and generally a sign that its time to knock on mojo's back door. evolved opinion: that voice, those memories, that state of drunkenness, and damn i am good. (whistle while you work, whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whooooooeeey!)

this sick hotel suite i am staying in:

this hotel suite i am staying in is SICK! dinings room, full kitchen, living room, bedroom with king-sized bed, walk-in closet, bathroom stocked with aveda rosemary mint products! in addition to other things, young people for... is for good digs! i'm at the summit for fellows surrounded by inspired young folks who are about to do some smart strategic campus organizing this year. if i can stop running between the two t.v.s and ordering french-inspired cuisine from room service i will give a great training on sustainability in activism. one thing to add to the training: occasional weekends in spots that are three times bigger than your busted but beloved apartment.

one world youth project:

i'm the featured guest for the one world youth project's website this month, dope program to check out - match folks up for community work in different parts of the world. check it at www.oneworldyouthproject.org. just went up today.

my sister's stunning face:

just had dinner with april, who has moved to d.c. for her 'practicum' to complete her communications masters from u.s.c. she got in yesterday and we got a nice long sister to sister dinner tonight. she is so happy these days, her life is literally stunning, so together and she is doing exactly what she wants. and it shows in every way, and while we were sitting at dinner i got to really look at her, the adult emerging from her face, and just was amazed by how stunning she is - lovely lips, teeth, gorgeous nose, those eyes, those eye brows, that hair. all aglow. and my sister autumn is just as stunning. sigh. at least i am smart. :) (not digging, not digging!)

and a special goodnight!:

i have a gift for you - the peter pan link to the right. he has now put up original recordings. :) sleep tight kiddies.

silly silly things

not much today but...

why is there marijuana flavored incense? someone help me to understand...isn't the incense to cloak the stench of heaven? is it for posers? faux-heads? placebo effect for pain relief? what??

and did you know that ba-tampte means tasty? i saw a truck the other day with that written all over it - ba-tampte means tasty! i pay attention to things like tasty cause that's fun to drop at a good time. you know, a line in the club: you want to come back to my place for a little ba-tampte?

one of my favorite places in the world is...the ihop on 135th street with all the black gay male waiters!! yummy, its one of the few good ihops in the world. (in the sense that all ihops are bad bad bad). there's also this big white lady who gives the best service ever, think her name is bobby. place just makes me happy - they always have luther vandross or tina turner playing in the waiting area, old tapes.

heading to d.c. tomorrow through monday for the young people for... fellowship summit. fellows from campuses all across the country being put to work, now that's what i am talking about! i get to see tanjila islam, my world traveling wildest friend ever, and khari mosley, sage homey from the pitt.

are you in new york tonight? come out to the freedom party at starfoods on 1st street - i'll be the one swiveling in the back :)

and finally, dani has given me the perfect gift! a combination of beyonce and funny white boys dancing! WHAT??? yes! enjoy your weekend by starting it off right! http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=WVZmS88Q1iE

getting ready to go out music (other than check on it) is donnie's the colored section. i so so so hope you know! kiss kiss.
 

my world, vs the world

hmm, i regularly add things to the lists on the right (like this blog lifeinthemuddle, or the funny white guys dancing) that i think are awesome and should be consumed by y'all. i hope you notice. in my world they are worth experiencing.
in THE world, they are another way to waste small parts of a day.

the theme today is - my world, vs THE world.

(in my world that comma goes there to indicate how i would use my hands in a convo to make that distinction)(in THE world, that comma might just be wrong)

in my world, i indulge the two shades of my current mojo by playing beyonce's check on it and then mariah's don't forget about us.
in THE world, i am in that tender place between a nice girl hoochie and a pensive love-fool.

in my world, i am extremely private and hard to get to know, even after years.
in THE world, i bare my soul, or at least my tangents, to strangers daily and people i've never met feel close to me and see themselves in my bizarre journeys.

in my world, its unironic that i love oreos so much.
in THE world, mixed girls loving oreos is always a laugh. (hence my long suffering avoidance of said cookie before i finally realized that its just tastier, that white cream, that crunchy chocolate. i'ma get one now!)

in my world, i have cheekbones and am tall.
in THE world, particularly as represented in photos, i clearly have no cheekbones  and always seem shorter than the others in the picture unless its one of the folks from my team of almost-little people (from college until now, i have kept a circle of folks who are under 5' close by. perhaps, just perhaps, because it perpetuates the MY world sense of height which life is proving to be a false construct.)

in my world, people should recognize when they are sounding completely defensive, or pushing only their own agenda, or being remarkably hypocritical. and they should at the very least acknowledge and try to stop, as opposed to saying: 'not to sound defensive' and then being defensive. {i am guilty of this too, even in my world. damnit.)
in THE world, people hem and haw and being polite almost always beats out calling folks on their shit.

in my world, women engage in important symbolic rituals to help them clean their hearts of hurtful love - we erase the phone numbers and move folks off our aim list and burn their love notes and throw away all but one little reminder of the passion they inspired in us. and that little piece, that heartthrob time capsule, is just to whip out later in life like tiffany's 'i think we're alone now' and laugh cause once you loved everything about it.
in THE world, women who are hurt are portrayed as mad and vengeful in feature films advertised with cross dressing grannies because justice in matters of love is simply too insane to contemplate! lovesick men, on the other hand, are often portrayed by handsome actors who just aren't quite right for action or deep drama flicks {some jude law, adam sandler, ben stiller)

in my world, perspective is queen. you control your own mind and aim for looking at every way to move forward against impossible odds with the fundamental belief that to be able to love and forgive IS to perservere, and besides is the only way to survive and enjoy this little fragment of life. i even have fragment tattooed on my body to remind me of my place in the whole thing:

in THE world, people are in a constant state of manipulation and distrust in which to critique is to survive...even to win. (this i particularly don't get - who are you beating with this knowledge that it's all fucked up? and to think you have the answers? like what, boom god, in your face, this shit is wack? is you know a better way, just do it that way, strategize the outcomes and get to work...but anyway...)

in my world, i can do any dance i want to.
in THE world, as represented by the mirror in which i caught myself dancing today, i can NOT do the laffy taffy. and that's just fine.

in my world, you just say what's on your mind to the best of your abilities and handle what the truth feels like...unless you are in a situation with a heartbreaker who makes your tongue completely forget how to expel the words your brain and breath know they want to say.
in THE world, folks are constantly struggling with how to say something, anything, that will keep them from having to just name a thing. because then you have to hear it, and know the response, and be responsible for it.

in my world, when i see a wall, i start thinking about if it needs to come down, and if it does i start learning how to do that and pulling at it, bloody long-term work as it may be.
in THE world, too often, people come to a wall and drop their shoulders and walk away. oh don't do that. soon there will be no where to turn but walls baby...

in my world, there have been no heros for some time that are older than like 8. there are brilliant people, and accomplished people, visionaries and talents and folks i truly admire for their spirit and courage. but i've met too many now to really keep pedestals up. the flaws and lessons are so much more intriguing to me than the medals, bells, whistles.
in THE world, i watch folks constantly either scrambling for the top of a rhetoric pile, or lauding others as the next great whatever it is...i often think that lauding only comes from our need to know we're important by association.

in my world, my upstairs neighbor is a dashing and mysterious german architect.
in THE world, by the evidence i've compiled (the sounds of very rote quick sex and occasional arguments with a woman who just says 'Say Something!' in a central european accent) he's just an unimaginative tall guy.

in my world, i am exhausted.
in THE world - i am going to bed.

woah. SYNERGY! I AM IN the WORLD AT THIS VERY INSTANCE.

in my world, that's odd.
in THE world, i'm odd.

sigh...

amb

Excellent Day

I got the best news today!! I have been accepted into the Rockwood Year-Long Leadership Program!! Leading from the Inside Out...this is a great honor, and I am so grateful to all the people who advocated to get me in, and I'm going to work hard to deserve it :) WOOHOOOOOOO!!!!

I started the day off by walking across the Manhattan Bridge again (what a MARVELOUS way to start a day - that moment at the middle of the bridge where you feel you can see the world, the fat round old skool grafitti on the Manhattan side...), this time to breakfast at NOHO Star, which Laura Flanders intro'd me to the other day - yummy. This time I was there to meet with Frida Berrigan from the World Policy Institute. She's dope, brilliant, just google her. Even her boyfriend is dope - he runs Added Value, the community farm in Red Hook. Frida and I spoke at a Bluestockings event  together late last year and I was so impressed with her that I determined to have conversations with her.

Today's convo completely satisfied me, we talked about impeachment, acts of resistance, the military. She was telling me Hugh Thompson just died - he was the man who stopped and then exposed the massacre at My Lai during the Vietnam war (for which the U.S. military leader William Calley served but a few months once he was finally punished). The conversation reminded me of thoughts on the military I've had - my father is a U.S. ARMY officer and so I've grown up and been politicized with this discourse ongoing in my head. The military originally came into being as a protector of a new country against the founder-oppressor of Great Britian, and the constant push and pull in the military is between those who believe it should exist to protect and defend the peace, and those who believe that war is fun, challenging, is what makes men, and what keeps a nation in a superpower role and that a constant state of war is thus desirable. My father was stationed in the Pentagon during the years we all watched Rumsfeld, clearly from the latter camp I just described, rise to the top. A Rumsfeld military in the hands of an imperialistic and irresponsible administration is more dangerous than any weapon ever created. And what is a more logical conclusion than impeachment for the leader of that administration at this point? I think its fair...censure for blowjobs, impeach for huge wars that have immeasurable costs in dollars and lives. Who is going to organize that effort? Oh it was a great talk.

At the end of which I got the bill and it had the tipping thing on the bottom and - wow. I have been way overtipping.

Then I walked up for a media meeting with the one and only, the very great Tony Newman of the Drug Policy Alliance and the brilliant D-Willis whose going to be helping the League get media up to speed. Inspirational and challenging.

Then walked back down to Union Square - walking fool!! - and got on a climate crisis coalition call and then a catch-up with Malia Lazu, who was just in Venezuela with Harry Belafonte and Hugo Chavez. What a life force that woman has.

And on home for some great calls and some chats that made me really smile.

The Ruckus Society seems to be doing pretty good which warms my heart cause I think their work is some of the most important in the world at this point in history.

New Orleans Network is ROCKIN it down there - in spite of the fact that the Mayor dropped a really horrible and unrealistic plan today that entails communities having to prove they are economically viable in 4 months. Folks were expecting 3 years, maybe 1 year at the edge of sanity. 4 months to track down people and figure out - without offering them anything - if they want to return...its heartbreaking and counter to logic. The adage goes if you build it they will come. Looks like the firestarter who moved us with his calls for help during Katrina is looking to build something that isn't for the people of New Orleans. Send all your love and support to on the ground NOLA organizers, they'll need it for the battle to come.

Other sad news, one of my peeps in Milwaukee told me a little girl got shot in the neck at recess today - their work at the Campaign Against Violence is truly the deepest sort of uphill battle. I can't think of words for that particular prayer, its just too incredibly sad.

The other day, in a good talk with a friend, she posed the question: how do you tell children who have grown up around constant violence to put down their guns? And the only conclusion we could come to is that you show them the world of possibilities beyond the world they know, the possibilities for their own people. The one thing our remarkably punitive justice system can't master is real gun control, and we've globalized the madness in our international affairs, while socializing our own kids with the most realistically violent video games man can produce.

Oh I'm going on, but this day just created so much energy and thought in me, I love days like that. I'm feeling so on top of my game right now - I was telling friends yesterday that I can tell I am in a good mood cause now when i toke the good lord's greens, instead of getting pensive and sad and calm, I get funny and uplifted and joyful. The nothing is always coming, for those of you who know the ideology of the Neverending Story (one of my favorite movies ever!), but it is our dreams that keep the world moving towards the light.

And so, on towards the light beloveds!

mah knee

friends, i have officially 'Done Something To My Knee'. yes...i don't know where i DSTMKed, but i woke up this morning and its all tight behind my right knee. i decided, with this problem, to throw on some work-out clothes and walk across the manhattan bridge and up the east side to veselka (goat cheese and arugula peirogis!) for my morning meeting. i thought if i walked it would loosen up, and it did, but then i sat down and when i stood back up it was tight again. so tight i had to limp. i can't do my check on me dance! dr, dr - any drs in the room?

also a heart dr would be good - how nearly impossible is to be treated spectacularly by someone who broke your heart and not start dreaming about them again? my daytime thoughts are purely rational - don't take it too seriously, this comeback isn't about you, he hurt you for too long to get back in the sweet spot with a smile - but my dreams? NO COMMON SENSE!!

brief convo between day amb and night self:

day amb: get yourself together!
night self: fuck you this is nice!
day amb: you are a sucker and a fool, you are a silly ho, look at all these super cuties kicking ill game at you!
night self: if you called wendy williams right now she would put on the sound of crickets! if you could see me inside your head you would see you are talking to my hand!
day amb: i refuse to let our brain engage in any dreamy hollywood fantasies.
night self: him harry, me sally!
day amb: this conversation is over honey. this thought process is done!
night self:  honey? don't be condescending with me! any way, this whole night realm is one you have NO control over. bitch gotta sleep! c ya when i c ya!

sigh.

so here's a thought i've been having. i often think of how much i love ft green because of the prominence of food with goat cheese in it. i heart goat cheese - its soft, its a calm food...just marvelous. my block is a combo of section 8 housing, packed folks in little brownstones segmented up for students, artists and non-profit folks who cyant pay mucha more, and a few new lofts that go at ONE MILLION DOLLARS. but i realized that my goat cheese fetish is serviced only by the capitalistic parasites of gentrification. a perfect moment of gentrification. how f'd up.

and the reason this came to mind is because just yestiday i was sittin on mah stoop with asif the great filmmaker when marianna and her sister came walking by (marianna who i met years ago at a harm reduction conference but have spent years denying i knew to a mutual friend because i didn't connect that it was the same marianna...silly me) and we were talking about how amazing the weather was, like 60 degrees...but that warmth is only a by-product of a planet gone abused. too deep! back up off it!

ooh i can tell i have been org'd. i just went to offer someone some vitamin c and what came out was 'want some c3?'  org'd is my new phrase to deal with being non-profited to death. that can mean a variety of things - losing faith, being overprocessed, being over structured, languaged, being all integrity'd out and stuff. you forget that c3 doesn't really translate to anything that can be explained in less than 4 complex federal govt'ish sentences. my response to being org'd? to bury myself for the evening in a little futuristic fantasy..stargate here i come!

me and my mojo

wow i am in a good mood...

the weekend was dope - starting with an amazing dinner at paola's and ending with an amazing dinner with the local ny league organizers to start thinking about our 2006 work. well actually ending with the sweet good morning of jalen kai. you can never really see enough jalen:

and now i'm in the midst of a super productive day after a little stoop session with young d-zy, my girl dani mcclain.

this recent period of being a little pursued is so nice, has me having little 'me? hot?' moments all over the place. my phone is blowin up in the best kind of ways. mojo in effect, and as you all know mojo begets moho.

now there is a line, where pursuit becomes scary...too. i got chased out of the train this morning by this guy who was coming off when i was getting on, turned around and followed me asking for my number the whole train ride home. i finally had to say i was going to authorities if he didn't stop following me. nasty man. but the caller has stopped calling as much, which is a good sign. ick!

but anyway, yeah mojo is all in effect and as usual, beyonce has just the song for me. with just the video for me and for everyone else. go to music.yahoo.com and look up 'check on it'! that will tell you the place i am in, in case you are curious.

and i am about to launch my career as a team of covert radical bloggers in the blogosphere - who's with me? there's so much to write about.

i have to take a moment to express my sadness at the huge number of iraqi civilians that have been killed recently - its just getting worse and worse and that was starting from horrifically bad. but it made me think to ask myself, what have you done recently in the anti-war effort? why not do something today. choose whatever you can do, whatever you feel is the best little thing, but we must continue to engage and deepen our dissent and make the anti-war voice louder. so i called a few senators to remind them that this shit is unacceptable. and i saw a dope shirt i'm going to buy - go to www.cotam.org - one that says 'stop wars', looks like the star wars logo. i think the league is going to build with them.

now - monday is mojo day. get yours on.

can't stop won't stop

this weekend is dedicated to the god of suckers and small things.

i was off to d.c. for another day trip, this time to organize with the hip-hop caucus as they gear up for 2006. in a room full of mostly college students, the gathering was a passing on of power and leadership from the eloquent reverend yeardwood to an earnest and energetic group of mostly d.c. and ny campus organizers.  i was reminded of my college organizing years, when i spoke of revolution as if it might erupt the next minute if we could convince enough people to dream it.  like all the work that's happening right now, the success of the caucus rides on its ability to collaborate with others, which is a great place for us all to be.

meanwhile, on the other side of the world...remember a few posts back i wrote dreamily about watching a dude pull up in a car in the rain for his girl? and spoke of higher standards? so what do you do when an old flame is suddenly that dude, the sweetest gentleman ever, pulling some movie star game out of some hidden back pocket? i can only liken the experience to...the sun coming out after an apocalyptic explosion. i'm peeking through the boards nailed over my bunker's door and i know that sun is too bright and hot for my tender heart, skin, whatever. it's still so fucking gorgeous though - not the look of sun but that feeling, that closed eye feeling when the sun is all over you. i can only thank god for my stockpile of ice queen and current selection of sexy bunkmate options - i hope this makeshift shelter can hold up against the heat. i believe that's the far end of that metaphor.

and now i'm in the presence of the most perfect 5 year old, mr jalen kai, who is dressed up in his halloween ninja costume and wants me to go sword fighting. i am holding up the whole day!

but i just had to note that some days, the idealistic and perhaps egotistical (anytime we think that something has to happen cause we're alive to see it) and perservering faith of others - students, heartbreakers, gorgeous children - can make you believe anything is possibly, even love and revolution (those two shades of change).

wendy williams

i am listening to wendy williams (woh i LOVE) and knocking out mad work today!

i love new years, like when a year begins and everything can be totally new. i work best during the month of january...and i also love when people in your life who you have written off as heartbreakers try to make a comeback. and when you are sure they won't succeed because you are sure you know the truth about them, and have your fingers in some other hot hot bowls, but its still great to watch.

tomorrow i will be in d.c. for the hip-hop caucus national student and youth meeting. it starts at 9 am, at University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law (www.law.udc.edu) Building 39, 2nd Floor, Room 201 4200 Connecticut Ave., NW Washington, DC. Come thru if you can!

8 hrs on a plane makes amb insane

poor poor me.

i woke up at the crack of dawn this morning, just a leetle teeny beet hungover thanks to a healthy mix of jen and jameson last night, and cabbed over to la guardia to hop on a 6am flight to dc for the 'stop alito' (dat bastard) press conference. we don't need to discuss how i was almost late turning my house upside down looking for my book of sudoku puzzles. i found out on the plane that you can make your own sudoku puzzles! so there...sudoku puzzle book maker..

i also napped on the plane and had my little speech all written out and wouldn't you know, we get over dulles and the fog is all over it and we can't land, so we end up flying to pittsburgh for fuel! now i love pittsburgh, and for a second i thought i might get to check in with khari, ruthesha, nish and tony, but they wouldn't let us off the plane. hours later, my early morning wisdom to not eat till i got to d.c. suddenly seemed like mid-morning idiocy. at some point as i savored the mystery salted 'snak', the press conference happened with the statement i was able to text the guy from the plane. so we finally flew to dulles and then i hopped on a plane back to ny.

and i have to be in dc again this weekend. sigh.

people are liking the sustainable activist piece up on wiretap! check it at www.wiretapmag.org. speaking of sustainability, i had to tell the aggressive caller today that he was scaring me and needed to stop calling so much. he was like ok - when are your meetings? eek! and, speaking of eek, did i mention a part of my ceiling fell in from the dripping the other day? i woke up to see little white spots across the floor, and following them i found a pile of plaster. see:

my landlady said its an easy fix. then she tried to take my closet door. i'm going to start calling her 'the creep'.

in other news, my feelings on a certain recent conversation with a certain unnamed person can best be expressed by one of my favorite bob dylan songs, transcribed here:

"i once held her
in my arms
she said she would always stay
but i was cruel
i treated her like a fool
i threw it all away

once i had mountains
in the palm of my hand
rivers that ran through every day
but i must have been mad
i never knew what i had
until i threw it all away

love is all there is
it makes the world go round
love and only love
it can't be denied
no matter what you think about it
you just won't be able to do without it
take a tip from one who's tried

so if you find someone who
gives you all of her love
take it to your heart
don't let it stray
one thing for certain you will surely be a-hurting
if you throw it all away"

and that's all there is to say about that. moving right along...

some wonderful quotes for t-shirts from my friend who can only be called d-willis:

- she's just one of those people that needs to shut up
- sorry, i just don't associate with ridiculous people when i don't have to. you know what i mean.

and one from a relative:
- my best friend is a pathological i don't know what!

i am finally home with mary on and found my sudoku book and feeling better. day be gone!

another top 10

top 10 reasons not to give your cell out over the radio!

10. because apparently when people hear the combination of 'pleasure activist' and 'call 917 --- ---- for more info' their mind falls into a dirty little gutter of hope.

9. and then they call you from the public library. and they seem like normal nice folk who just haven't done much organizing.

8. and then when you try to put them in touch with the local organizer, they ask if you are present at all the meetings. and they don't ask any questions about the politics or content.

7. and then call again from their home to ask specifically about pleasure activism.

6. and then call again to tell you they are also into partying.

5. and then a couple more times with no message, but choosing the URGENT TEXT option that just says please call. even though at that this point you are no longer picking up the phone.

4. then call again to ask when is a good time to call?

3. and just when you are ready to leap off of the nice positive organizer boat and swim back to that shore called fear-of-strangerland, you hear that tone in their voice that just sounds like loneliness.

2. and then you try to be nice while indicating how busy you are because the sound of that specific kind of loneliness is scary.

1. and then they call again.

this is really becoming a problem...

i can't focus on my new book of sudoku puzzles, or my manic start-of-the-year housecleaning and rearranging - i've unpacked the desk part of my armoire and am using it as a desk AND put a lamp in my closet to encourage matching!. i can't get into the rhythm of the water dripping from my ceiling where my upstairs neighbors' guest left the radiator on (and which my landlady feels is not crucial enough to deal with till tomorrow morning), or reflect on my current favorite solitary indulgence (key word: tantra: http://www.tantra.com/expand.html), or reflect dreamily on how much i admire bono, or reflect pensively on how i feel about bill clinton's aggressive push for funding for africa's hiv+ population. i can't just drink mad water, or avoid eating bread, or celebrate jack abramoff's coming forth as a corrupt GOP lobbyist whose going all whistleblower, or work on the League's piece of the Campaign to Stop Alito (i'll be in d.c. for the press conference this thursday 9am - more info to come), or any of the other myriad ways i could spend the day.

in the back of my mind my new friend is thinking of ways to get at me. ick. hopefully he isn't reading this. but if he is - dude its not gonna work out the way you think. at all.

thankfully i got to chat with my first love, the mysterious 'yugoslavian' who stole my heart with kisses in the park 10 years ago this may. international chatting is so cool and modern feeling. i also got to chat with my last love, and the for the first time the friend box didn't feel like a damp cramped waste of a space to occupy...it felt aight. AND i got chat with my dear sofia who is in transition in miami. miss you girl!

last night after the family stone-king kong excitement, jen and i were awaiting our cab and this car pulled up. the man got out with an umbrella in his hand, and the girl next to us ran out to meet him. he hugged her close, then opened the car for her and kissed her on the cheek before closing the door and running around to drive her home. jen and i looked at each other and smiled - out with the old and in with the new, standards that is. 2006 is the year for being treated like an angel on the run - cherished and holy, but so much fun.

in the meantime, i have been enjoying my preview copy of grub, byrant and anna's new book from penguin. its a dope collection of essays around healthy community food and dope recipes, many of which i have tasted and are now immortalized! here's a picture of the book amidst my indoor garden:

i rarely do a double mention of an album, but mary j's latest is such a solid listen from start to finish and has me in a good mood despite the distracting potential stalker. this good mood could also be because of my love note from shalini kali, filmmaker-thinker extraordinaire! hi shalini, love love you!

and have y'all checked out sharda's org, nesri? http://www.nesri.org/about_us/index.html

tomorrow gavin and i's pieces go up on wiretap/alternet. check www.wiretapmag.org to read and let us know what you think...

ok back to hiding under the covers from the phone!

the dark side

on the boombox: mary j's brilliant new offering 'the breakthrough'.

i just had a talk with the brilliant professor lester spence...some highlights:

- we need to create a survivor culture, where in addition to any other training, our folks are certified in first aid and emergency response. time to pack our octavia butler bags.
- the new orleans network, one of the orgs i am proudest to have worked with in a small way this year - is one of the best ideas to emerge out of the wreckage of katrina. mapping grassroots orgs with the strongest roots (hold) in the community is a model for how to approach emergency response in the future. we should be mapping every 9th ward in america...you can't count on a country that sees you as an expendable work/fighting force to make sure you get to come back to your home, even (especially) if its one of the oldest african american communities in america. its america at the end of the sentence, and the money is in disneyfication. you can only fight that with the power of information and people willing to act on that info.
- we don't know how to move beyond our capitalist socialization, even in our fantasies and in the future. our heros are always superhuman, chosen ones (neo, frodo) or chosen people (jedi, morpheus et al). only the talented 10th can save us? we don't have enough of a belief in the actual skills and power of normal people to overcome their circumstances, its always a counter human existence we prize - the discipline of the monk, the genius of the superfighter.  but spence turned me on to a socialist sci-fi writer, china mieville - i'll keep you posted...
- what if darth vader had actually been revealed as james earl jones and the pre-quel was the story of a young black boy maligned by the universe?

this all came about because after watching the very cute ensemble flick 'the family stone', jen and i decided to sneak into another movie. first we tried the ringer, but it was too offensive to stay. in the previews somehow i thought it would redeem itself but sitting in the theater as folks all around us laughed every time one of the special olympians came on the screen just felt icky. so we walked out, past all the staff, and went to the king kong that was just starting.

i am hard-pressed to say which of the films is ultimately more offensive, though king kong was much more enjoyable. cut an hour and a half and you would have had something. watching it you can feel peter jackson desperately trying to make up for the absence of tolkien-level writing. the scenes with island savages made me feel sick to my stomach, but i love that naomi 'my eyes can get yet wider' campbell just can't resist king kong's big old hands. the closing line - it was beauty that killed the beast - made me want to vomit on the first pretty person i saw. luckily i was checked by the fact that it was jen i saw and i would never intentionally vomit on her!

i guess the challenge with a remake is how to capture the spirit of the original story and time period, not give in to politically correct blase, but not perpetuate the ignorance. the movie wasn't even about racist, it was about general across the board ignance, not to mention the line between badass and fool. i took a nap after the dinosaurs and bugs part, but i am pretty sure they skipped the whole middle passage section where they brought the dark beast for the chain-n-shackle show - somehow he just magically appeared in times square tossing blondes to their death in his search for that soulful white lady who could really hold some eye contact. and juggle. be still dark heart.

started off the day with an exciting meeting with marilyn clement who is heading up the healthcare now campaign, working to get congressfolk to sign on to a single payer healthcare bill (hr 676) that would involve the government paying for healthcare for all which is privately provided. its a smart bill, with a smart timeline, and i hope i can help to get some more candidates signed on and elected to sign on this year.

stay black and sleep!

post ravishing

ah

the planned unplanned time. i spent yesterday doing personality tests with shane, jen and justin - i am a narcissist ocd infj nympho according to the tests. whatever - through the twin lenses of mimosa and hot toddies it was aight - got a great foot rub, gave some back rub, yum yum yum. AND played spades and what!

got a plethora of wonderful new year's wishes, wonderful wonderful. went to a party where the esteemed rabbi darkside was spinning cause my boy dennis is the restaurant manager and it was free and i had my flask and it was quite a gathering. and even kate and arie showed up to glam out. some horrible person handed out those loud noisemaker things to people too drunk to make a good call and not blow them repeatedly.

but then i got to go to veselka for my first meal of the new year - arugula and goat cheese pierogis and kielbasa - its gonna be a polish year damnit. at some point i ended up between a jamaican and four frenchies in a cab ride home - 'peace jah mon, bon anninni!'

i was told i looked ravishing, and cute, and that i felt as good as i smelt and looked. i was quite whiskeyed up, but the compliments stuck.

lesson learned? in 06 - tell people when they look, smell, or feel good, particularly if you can find a reason to use the word ravishing!

and then of course there's post-ravishing...of which i happen to have pictures because i think self photo shoots during hangovers are really revealing!

post ravishing can actually double as present day drowned racoon! yes i even wore a bit of make-up which i never do...but please notice the excellent work my sister did on my eyebrows. april is the bomb. she celebrated with my mom and i think extended family, and autumn is in cold minnesota with her boyfriend's family, while my dad is home in japan watching football games. sofia is in miami - we called each other several times through the night to acknowledge is was weird to be away from each other and then put smiles in our voices and scream happy new year some more!

now i want to...shower! mmm shower with my buffy the backside slayer exfoliation bar from lush. oh have a good day!