adrienne maree, the luscious satyagraha

you're getting sleepy

pilates means never having a pain-free laugh, sneeze, or cough. pilates and allergies just don't mix!
but i also kinda love knowing there is a muscle under there!!

warning: i am once again feeling like i may be done with the blogging phase of my life. or perhaps just a bit like the world is too imbalanced for meaningful commentary. oo many posts these days are written by the pensive patty part of me!

maybe i need new glasses. rose colored ones...

today i got to feel the role i play in life as standing between things. i went to the anti-war march which no one seemed to know about, there was a festival on foley square where i'd been invited to sing and emcee a bit. i found out when i got there that we had no sound permit, and thus only made it an hour and a half into the show when bored cops found something to do by shutting down our little sound system...

when i arrived at the square tho, i saw such a gentle gathering. i drifted between protestors, sweet people and cynics. they were all speaking critically, and i daresay they were all correct in their assessments. bush is fucked up, peace is the answer, and this type of gathering isn't going to have the deep impact needed to stop this administration in their wars or incompetencies...

i've been in the mind lately of the end user, since i learned about this idea of end user metrix, determining what your client or participant or audience most wants/needs to hear/see/feel for you to be successful in whatever your effort is. the perfect action in life, big or small, hangs in the balance between your deeply understood purpose in life and your end users' needs. i now watch protests with my deep purpose of wanting to end the violent injustice of war, but from the mind of someone on the fence about this administration, or as a shareholder, or as someone against the war but scared or unsure of how to act against it...what doesn't work is violence or hatred - in words or actions. i saw a lot of signs that were massively unclear, or seemed to be made only for the pleasure and amusement of the signmaker. i want to do a movement makeover!

visited janine and jalen today, who have moved into a nicer bigger apartment in which jalen has bunk beds with a star specked canopy and a special nightlight with stars and moons and planets and a special chair that closes over his head if he wants - the delight of small things for small people always beats out the acquirement of big toys for grown ups in my eyes.

then had a late dinner with my college roommate adriana, who gets more stunning each year. she has just spent a year teaching in india, and starts nyu ph.d in education program in the fall. so together, she almost makes me want to do my hair.

almost!

tomorrow i have a climate justice meeting, this issue that is sort of clawing at me, more desperately than so much other work.

late night news drinking game: can you count the number of times mainstream media makes the connection between 9-11 and the tribeca film festival?

for the visual learners, i have a picture of me with my new necklaces on, just posted it on myspace, they are my current bartered pride and joy :)

marching in solidarity with immigrant justice on may 1st? holla if you want to!

top 10 ways to detach

so i am here in ny with the knowledge that i should be crafting a dope plan to move across country. unfortunately, i think i am experiencing a sort of detachment depression! lifted some-much cuz i had a fabulous visit with my mom, and one post soon will be a photo journal on our shopping excursions!

but back to my severe DD....i think its official, i got the DD!

how do i know you might ask?

10. can't seem to pack anything now that i have taken some decorations down. i love this little room!

9. don't want to respond to any questions related to when or how i am leaving

8. no desire to go out to ny parties full of people i know, because that will jsut remind me i am leaving them

7. tired all the time but can't sleep very well

6. have this itch all over me that won't go away, just moves from spot to spot randomly. my therapist says its psychosematic. i concede: i DO feel like a psycho scratching all day!

5. i'm having my overwhelmed-by-issues moments. this occasionally (spelling?) happens to me...since i regularly valiantly and somewhat self-righteously contend with what is happening in the world, its a constant risk that at some point all the battles to be fought make me think the war can't be won...then i think - why such violent metaphors? deprogramming starts inside! then i say om and levitate. its a cycle...

4. all i want to read is maxim, us weekly and people. still no respite. in the (feminine) folds of an old maxim i ganked from my sister's bathroom (don't ask) i found a devastating story about young veterans facing depression and homelessness upon return. maxim gets it...the blip of consciousness between nekkid ladies...luckily in two pages i found '100 things you should know about women" (a piece which infuriated me, cause it proved that men know all the shit that makes us mad and still act a fool.)

3. i feel like i should avoid, rather than engage, with the people i love. this harkens back to an old habit of mine...if i suspect someone might really adore me i want to push the emergency stop button on depth. i feel like i should macy gray-ify a dress and have it say - "permastop: freezing devotion in its tracks since 1978". my latest theory in brokeback lingo: i am so much more heath than jake. who knew?

2. i keep saying i'm almost 30, which i think sparks from the sense that this next stage of life is locked in for at least three years. the funny thing is, objectively, i am so amped for this next stage. this is just the pre-awesome grieving process for my dark years perhaps...

1. the song 'breaking up is hard to do' keeps playing in my head. to leave new york, once you have lived here twice as long as anywhere else in your life; and/or you fell in love with it at age 9, is much like a break up. you have to start to see the ugliness, the imperfections, the way it doesn't really listen or support you like you need, the walls it leaves intact in your independent heart, its silly overt style and desperate vying for attention. it could work out down the road but we both need to mature a little...

there's a minimum of 5 parties i committed to rolling through this evening, pero i am wearing my house dress through a headache and not budging. its times like these that i curse star trek for introducing me to the idea of beaming particles. i know from whence cometh my pain...if i can't beam into the next phase of my life then how the hell do i get there?

on the other hand!

what does get me fired up right now is any opportunity to work. perhaps i am entering the celestine benedictine monk/nun part of my life...i'm revelling in this experience with self-induced near celibacy (can you be celibate AND have an orgasm a day?).

i am getting good at no! no. no. no means no. whats nice is noticing how often i get to say no...oh the reluctant mack/playa/party-attendee...where were you seducers when i was panhandling for charity compliments? everything about how you interact with people when you withdraw your flirtatious gaming self is different.

tomorrow i am going to the anti-war march. i am not normally a fan of marches but any show of opposition to the current occupations strikes me as absolutely necessary...just as, though i am not into money, i can see myself doing finance and development work for the ruckus society because any show of people in protest right now is the only response to the world i really understand, and i will support in any way possible.

ah - the travelin itch has ceased - let me get to bed before it reappears on my ankle or elbow or wherever. its either psycho, or from getting hella dry and cold in colorado...the answer is in that scientific realm of dermatologist anatomy, and that, dear readers, is a realm in which i tread with the trepidation of a guesser. i prefer self diagnosis, the possibilities there are endless!

nighty night!

hating macromedia flash

first i have to air a deep concern:

every time i come here to blog there are dancing ducks, clowns or flies making horrible noises, or advertisements that won't stay within their borders or go away. my initial dislike has advanced into the hatred zone. i removed the program from my comupter. i can seem to remove the advertisement that now shows up right under my first listed post on here, often showing legs that are clearly not mine. this is MY blog. i only want images i approve on here!! so i am thinking when i move to cali i may upgrade to a different blog service as well! suggestions?

in other rather BIG news, today i emailed one of my favorite funny bloggers, michelle collins!  i emailed her about a post of hers and she added my email to the post! what racks my nerves now is...did i email her a correct correction or was i just a giddy kneejerk fan?

today my mom and i kicked it all day, which meant we went to target, then she grabbed a tea while i was in therapy with my stunning therapist, who is also my sister's therapist. i feel like i am doing pretty good these days, but its still kind of great to kick it with her. then my mom and i had a lazy afternoon, before being late to dinner at spoonbread TOO...catfish mmm mm mmm!

i just had an hour of me time - time when i write letters of love to myself and then sing love songs to myself and then dance and dip me and then pledge to be true. or at least play with myself.

scrabble that is.
yeah.
super awesome scrabble.

so i am blogging in a super satisfied peaceful zoned out state. let's just say i bested myself with an awesome word that used every letter i know...

in a discussion about my move to cali recently, a dear friend said she didn't know how i could ever live in this little studio anyway. i smiled politely but inside i thought: er...negatory!

the secret is, other than the sharing of the bathroom and the less than total kitchen, this is my dream home. tiny, simple, clear where everything belongs. i love the idea of living in a sparse room somewhere, mattress on the floor and few belongings and close to good food and park and public transportation. its the ideal city dwelling for a wannabe minimalist. i am going to cherish every hour left in this room!

now i am watching the beat my heart skipped, which was given high praise from friends, none of whom informed me that it was subtitled and FRENCH! so hard to blog and read subtitles, plus its reminding me i should have never stopped plaring piano.

i almost wish i knew french.

i have (had) a grand plan to secretly learn french and unveil it to my parents. this was going to be an anniversary present but...its hard out there for a...language challenged. their anniversary was april 1st.

si si si that april 1st.

cinco de mayo is coming and i hope you are all taking it off! but before that if you're in ny this saturday come through the major mobilization against the war...you know how i feel about marches in general, but festivals of artists against war i basically adore, they beckon the baez/dylanite in my very soul. i'll be mcing and performing from 2-4 on foley square.

my rocky mountain bloody nose is gone! woo hoo!!

some nice things for a day take 2

I landed on home soil early this morning - made that direct red eye from

Denver

and slept the entire three hours of the trip. Then when I was heading to the subway with blurry eyes and too much to carry, I found a shy, lost woman. Her name is Amanda.

She decided to come to

New York

after a professor put her onto Jonathan Kozol books about education and brown kids. She's a white woman with a bachelor's looking for work with kids in impoverished communities - she's never taught before but she wants to see if it could work for her. Since graduating from college in 2003 she has tried a few careers but nothing reaches her.  So here she is, scared she might fail, but certain that her passion could better be met by service in the South Bronx, or maybe India, or New Orleans even, than Colorado.

While one part of me wanted to react with haughty righteousness to her 'helper' approach, the other part of me was moved. A virginal whiteous visitor...normally I would say go start the work at home, but she was already here, in NY, with one suitcase and a week to find experiences and change her life.  She was so genuine and despite her quiet fragility, she was doing something so brave, such a huge leap that she hadn't even told her family.  I think if I hadn't run across her she might have just taken a subway to the Bronx and started walking around...I put her in touch with some folks who I know have taught in the

South Bronx

and then some teachers organizations I know of.

Yes, for both of us it was a show of naivity - several times she said maybe it was stupid, or a mistake, and I thought to myself what do you expect you can do. It made me think again of relativism, what is it that makes someone wake up from a life of class-based inattention and navigate the rush of guilt and wanting to make up for time lost, how quickly can one come to an on point analysis of justice after that? Its not my job, never has been, but occasionally, you have to let your heart be moved.

She looks like I imagine my aunt might have 30 years ago, on her first trip away from home, I took pictures to send her. I mean...look at her:










I slept much of the day, intermittently trying to delete a shit ton of emails that have piled up. Although it might be bitchy I kind of want to change my message on my phone to say - just text message me! Its easier on the sidekick to get a text or email or instant message than check voicemail. Perfect for me...

No hair on me today! Sadly, a travel rash all over. This happens sometimes for me with a quick weather shift. A slight feeling all over that my skin is still in the snow in

Colorado

, aka reason number 12 I need to move to an island. Of course, with the rash and chin hair this might all secretly be a top 10 list of ways Adrienne unmackifies...or this is the new sexy! Stratch and shave...remarkably I still smell fantastic!

Watched some science fiction and now have the Constant Gardner in with The Beat My Heart Skipped still to come. My mama's in town, tomorrow I get to see her!

Now - the thing I sent and posted all over today:

words from  Hopi Nation  Elders     Oraibi,

ArizonaWe have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour
And there are things to be considered.

Where are you living?
  What are you doing?
  What are your relationships?
  Are you in the right relation?
  Where is your water?
Know your garden.
  It is time to speak your truth
  Create your community.
  Be good to each other.
  And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
  This could be a good time!
  There is a river flowing now very fast
  It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
  They will try to hold onto the shore.
  They will feel they are being torn apart and they will suffer greatly.
  Know the river has its destination.
  The elders say we must let go of the shore, and push off and into the river,
  Keep our eyes open, and our head above the water.
  See who is in there with you and Celebrate.
  At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally.
  Least of all ourselves.
  For the moment that we do,
Our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over, Gather yourselves!
  Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.
  All that you do now must be done in a sacred manner
  And in celebration.
"We are the ones we've been waiting for..."

superbloggin from d'aeroporte

hello and hello

i feel like i've been away from this lovely blog and thus all you lovely four people.

i just had a moment of absolute singleness, it was pretty tight! i am more single now than i have been in years, like, nothing pulling on my heart in any desperate way. its a different kind of freedom than i can even remember, no pain. when longing for something i don't even think you can imagine this kind of calm heart as a goal. is it lack of attachment, that zen like heart, could i be in that zone?

perhaps that's why i can say it is with no macking intent that i face a certain horror of horrors:

i have a hair that has started growin out of my chin!

just one, and it grows slowly, but it won't go away? everytime i mention this to another woman they are like girl please, that is just the way of the world.

NOT MY WORLD!

i have been a decidedly unbearded lady. i met a lovely bearded lady today at our protest against newmont mining, and it worked for her, and thats great. but i am not that. that is not me. what comes to mind are witches and old ladies. am i socialized? prissy? ignant? HELP!!

in other news, i have spent mmmm several hours now in a bar at the denver airport. thats always fun...am trying to see if i can get on a direct flight blah blah

so the real thing is, i am so fucking excited about this ruckus job. i mean, the opportunities/ challenges already abound. the position of executive director is a deep one. its one thing to have a vision for every aspect of an organization, that is this deep feeling of infatuation and awe...to actually be in a position to implement it all is something else entirely, something wonderful and frightening akin to marriage, finding a work/life partner. mostly wonderful, because the folks i am working with are so talented and capable. but i have to catch myself sometimes like - is what i just said executive directorly or totally unacceptable? or am i just gonna be the best adrienne i can be at all times?

here are some photos of the lovely people i spent the week with at this indigenous people's power project training (cy, hannah, lily, satya and marty with the some folks from the colorado american indian movement):

more to come...oh and here's the snowstorm we were caught up in:

no joke fall down if you're wearing cute boots type snow.

i wrote an amazon review for bryant's book grub - have y'all got yo copies yet? GRAB GRUB! www.eatgrub.com

wow...somehow 7 hours have passed! let me go try to hustle this journey. heads up - kyung-ji has started crafting a goodbye party for my may 13th...open your calendars and spread the word...

snowed in!

I got snowed into colorado mountains! Its so beautiful, but oooh scary coming up the mountain in the dark, pretty deer chillin out...hopefully no more snowfall tonight tho, its time to fly home. Now, off to protest newmont for their dirty gold practices, check out www.stopnewmont.org All my love!

wowza

just got a tour of this amazing program/building in denver where all these environmental and social justice 501c3 orgs are housed...1536 wynkoop if you're ever in the denver area. check it out. later am heading to a teach in on this newmount mining company which is doing damage all over the world. there's an international delegation in town because of the newmont shareholder's meeting, to try to show the human impact of their enviro-damage.

i know this is short....its that deep right now! oh but check out this jeff chang article where he loves all over the league: http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/35077/

down from the mountain

damn y'all! i have been up a mountain with no service here in colorado, unable to blog or do any of the lovely web stuff i normally center my output life around...

everytime i think my life is falling into place some other huge section shifts, opening a door to more work i want to do, and its better. i just spent a week with the ruckus society doing a training for one of our programs, IP3 (indigenous people's power project). it was a training of trainers, giving folks the skills to teach their communities direct action skills.

as a side note, once the training was done i had to do the dishes of like 40 people one day, and clean a group bathroom. ah...living mah values ain't no joke! plus its so high and dry here that i (and everyone else) were having nosebleeds every night.

on a more serious note, the training was amazing. the ip3 director marty brought together indigenous youth from the u.s. and canada, different regions, people, but similar struggles all over. the battles in which these young folks are involved (for sacred sites, for fishing and hunting and land rights, against the canadian and u.s. governments which have repeatedly shown a lack of humanity in their dealings)...i feel so inspired and moved.

it was deep, being part of the non-native training team. especially since we were specifically addressing the fact that indigenous communities should be past having to rely on non-natives for this type of training. i was so proud of ruckus for being the type of org that would make space for this, the program is going to be incredibly powerful.

being around so many native women in particular made me really want to press my parents to trace my lineage back. the nature of my family has always been that we haven't looked back, my parents rejected the racism of the deep south, so its been the five of us against the world. in more recent years we've gotten reacquainted with the extended family, and its been amazing, but i still have this rootlessness, when i think of family i am mostly a story teller...everytime we've gone down i've listened and taken notes on all the stories. now i want to go deeper. i want to know which of the rumors are true, i want to know. to hear people talk about their connection to land, reminds me that as i do more and more work around the earth as our most common struggle, i need to reconnect my personal story to land.

another deep aspect was the no drinking policy. alcoholism has had such a devastating effect on the communities the participants came from that we had a dry camp, which meant i had a dry week for the first time in i don't know when. you don't know how much you drink till you can't. the similarities though, between the effects of colonizer culture on native and black communities was deep. the spread of ideology was as wide here as it is when i speak with black revolutionaries - the sense of what a victory that is realistic to what is possible now was as hard to pin down. where does discipline enter into cultural identity? i couldn't help but think of the battles my family has had with alcoholism and drug dependency. i welcomed the straight edged experience, though it is not mine. 

i am looking forward to the end of plastic wrapped mattresses - this camp used to be for christian youth and the bunk bed culture is a fairly new experience for me, i missed the whole camp thing as a kid. i also wouldn't hate on a razor, some junk food, and a whiskey before we head back up the mountain. so i'll leave this post here.

am still trying to figure out my plan for moving across the country, now i have to go to canada for much of may so...maybe i will have more time in ny? hee hee!

coming to u ice cold!

Ok I got 2 bars on my sidekick lets see if this works! I wrote a long post but can't find it. Am in colorado cold as hell with the best young native organizers in the country hella honored to help them with training skills. There's wild animals and its cold. Nature! Shnap down to 1 bar! Um thanks for the love on email from all these folks, can't get to phone messages so far but email it comes thru every few minutes! I wrote a lot more, especiallyabout angelina and dave chapelle, but later 4 that. Sleep tight beloveds...no elks or bears tonight inshallah!

in colorado

Ah denver...my second time this year up against these mountains. I am here this week for the training of native trainer...very exciting! Its the first of its kind, I've been told. I let the world beyond the blog know m going to be the e.d. Of ruckus in the bay to thunderous epplause. Now I'm at my girl nora's in denver, she fed me some good ass veggie indian food. I asked for good routes to cali and received 40 days and nights of journies, and hopefully a passenger or two for the ride. Those should be fun blogs. My pet peeves in ny right now: People who let their dogs shit in the sidewalk. Holes in my house. $5 for the airtrain at jfk. Manhattan. The whole thing!! That's all for now...lets see if this will work from my sidekick!

first round of goodbyes

last night was my first going away party, little intimate thing with the ladies (thank you to kat for the hosting and the cooking and da muzak) - i just realized we've all known each other since college. 10 years now. these little odd ways to flip and observe time can make it seem so long. i've only been on my own a third of my life, and yet already feel so independent. no looking back except to smile.

mia herndon brought her baby, the little miracle name asani. she patiently let us ask every sort of question about her nearly 50 hours of labor and as we had some journalists in the midst it got pretty deep. but then there is this very serious and alert and focused communicating tiny girl. miraculous.

i texted myself this the other night from my new sidekick (which i just downloaded sudoku onto!!):

"I love like anyone else does. Madly. Anything else cld be rt in frnt of me and I couldn't see it if My Love is near. I had a mmnt recently where I thought of love I had received w/o meaning to, w/o prpr shame and humility...with no knowledge how to. wht if i mssd the lv of my life? Now I see all this love evrwhr, and i see it, I feel it. I have a frnd, our main activity is fndng amzng exprncs and shrng thm w each othr. Bt I nvr ntcd ths love ths wy b4, nw I am so grateful."

if you can decipher, enjoy!

i have started the packing process and here's how it goes:

first lets take down all the decoration, to help with emotionally disconnecting from the place. then...lets go through all my clothes and get rid of stuff we don't want to wear. now bedding. i have an unreasonable amount of multicolored jersey sheets. maybe i should take a nap.

mm.

ok now...let's put shells into ziplock baggies. throw away some buttons. lets take the blankets off the windows and reflect upon this rather mild winter. now my jewelry.

now. that's all i really care about. i can't really consider getting rid of any books. or dvds. or vhs tapes. or cassette tapes of me singing when i was 14. or oh my god is that my paula abdul cassette? i can't seem to get rid of pretty things :)

a couple of thoughts i noticed today...

- i love people en masse, but very few specifically. this seems healthy to me.
- can black people handle it if this political moment is not about us?
- i love my own company...

am off to see my sis become a catholic now!

holy exhaustion

when i facilitate something, generally, its as if each participant is hooked into me, pulling in their directions, and its my work to feel who is strong and weak and sensitive and brash and keep a balance throughout, know when to push and when to hold back. i learn the most about facilitation in reviewing a situation that is particularly difficult.

we finished three days of organizational strategy and development with the new orleans network today, and it was a great session, made a lot of work very clear, but i can't remember the last time i was this exhausted after a session.

to get people in the place of vision again is to ask them to find a middle ground between trauma and dispair for some optimism, to remember how to love their city in this groundbreaking way - knowing that hurricane season is right around the corner...to take a little space when there's not enough space anywhere and people are rumored to be sleeping in moldy abandoned cars under a bridge painted with the memory of trees.

what anyone person can do feels so small - here is some structure in the chaos, a reminder to hold each other and feel things, and for what's worth - you are amazing. this is the echo in my head, sheer stunned amazement at the humble, deflecting nature of these beautiful folk who have chosen to come be here when the understandable choice is to run; who choose to work when the understandable choice would be to lay down and just sleep...who laugh when anguished screams ride the wind, still.

tonight my coworker lee, a fundraising wiz with the look of a 70s pin-up girl, sat with me as i got lost after our dinner (and after i found the credit card i'd left behind two night ago and only noticed the absence of today). a wrong turn and suddenly we were coming over a familiar odd bridge into a zone of darkness and i remembered the lower 9th and i tried to hide it from lee but oh i got spooked, all that darkness and spirit there...i 180'd and we had to wait for a drawbridge, a boat crossing, i could feel this pressure behind me, i felt weak by it. here there is katrina cough, and then katrina brain - no short term memory - and i felt, today, katrina soul, the collective spirit of a murdered people, a domestic genocide.

i had to get home and get alone, which for me is turning on my music and put on my head phones and there i am, safe in sounds that fill the cavernous dark and chase out the ghosts. after all, knowing the ghosts are all around and the mold is near and the time is short and the work is hard changes nothing - a good day's work is all you can hope for. supporting the work of new orleans folks for self-determination and the power of owning their own information is a humbling honor.

tonight's sleep pulls my eyelids down. do something nice tomorrow - donate to the network - www.neworleansnetwork.org/donate -

love love -amb

a strategy for new orleans

we just finished our second day of organizing and storytelling in new orleans. everytime i come down here i want to just stay for months and just toss myself into the work. nothing i've ever seen in a space quite compares, this doesn't have the sense of totality that a hood has, its a random, neighborly chaos. everyone here says hello, keeps moving forward...but i can't overemphasize how little desire there is to think about exactly where to, to think too big. the idea that tomorrow isn't promised, but that there is a good and honest way to exist today permeates this place.

and there's a numbness, and under that a great seething sense of the many many layers of wrong. looking at the sides of the buildings there are multiple water lines, layers upon layers of evidence that this city was drowned in a toxic flood. that sense of toxic lines crossed, residue...resides in people, so that if the door opens into the room where injustice is being piled up, things start pouring out, pret-a-porter. each small story i hear, in a normal world, would be its own incident to organize around. immigrant day laborers abandoned and unpaid, insurance denied, abandoned empty miles of projects barbed wired against homeless squatters, rushed ridiculous elections, and the MIA black folk...altogether it is becomes a wall, and moving forward requires flying, or leaps and bounds, or some other kind of magic. so i am here, organizing some humble magicians, falling in love with some more people.

in the backdrop there is work to finish for the league, and  i have to figure out how one moves across a country anyway. i am almost too excited about ruckus to start thinking about it, and then last night i slept with a CAT. i've always been allergic, and thus a dog person...but if i could do the cat thing then maybe, just maybe, i could have a pet again!

{note to self: single with cat is not something to jump for joy over!!}
{self to notetaker: f-u! i want a pet!}

the league here is going to do a voter guide, so we pulled out all the old ones, and i felt really nostalgic for the early gritty work we did, when no one quite knew what to do, to look at all these community owned voter guides. shana and i had some reminiscing to do - remember the first this and how that happened and then remember l'il sarah? and naina! and jen and keisha! we agreed that birthing is the only word to describe any of it...

i have a full day tomorrow, may it be some of my most focused and productive work ever.

i am now listening basically nonstop to a country classic women's mix - emmy lou, dolly parton, loretta lynn, then gillian welch and lucinda williams - calms me.

sleep come easy!

so sleepy

checking in before i pass out completely.
am in new orleans, doing a follow up strategy session. there's not much to think about here, you have to just sort of plow forth with what's in front of you. anytime the discussion goes wider, a feeling of hopelessness starts to creep in.
had tasty tapas tonight, and this conversation in which this woman who is also staying here was making the case that it was no easier for wealthy people to break free from their experience than for anyone else, and to have empathy for that experience. i was making the case that resources make it easier to have a variety of experiences, and that i have empathy to a point and then i get impatient at the impact wealthy peoples' learning experiences have on others.

i think it was the first time in a long time i've had anyone encourage me to have more empathy. generally i think i am a sucker for that shit...

i might have had more patience for the conversation, but i feel like of late the impact that wealthy peoples' guilt and learning curves have had all around me has been glaring and upsetting. i have perhaps plenty of empathy, but just no room at the inn right now...and am glad there are others, others from similar experience who know what that whole breaking free of the burden of privilege and figuring out how to give back, they know what that's like.

there's a very cool cat here, which makes sense to be the cat that found shana and abram, who never fail to set new standards for natural cool. i am allergic to cats, but can't seem to send this one away.

i am getting to spend a bit of time with lee, a co-worker at the league who is quite remarkable. i like when that happens, unlikely time to build...

and now, to build with the bed!

oh silly girl

this morning i heard my alarm go off - i glared at it, squinted at it, pushed snooze, fought with myself, threw an arm out from under the covers, spent about ten minutes in this battle with myself. it wasn't yet 5 am. when i got out of bed i did some early morning math and figured i needed to walk out of the house in no less than half an hour. might as well take a shower. oh god that's warm. i just want to stand here...that's me, thinking and leaning into the hot water for at least 5 minutes too long. then coming out i decided i should change all the bags i had packed to a different set of bags. and grab my vitamins. and spend another 5 minutes literally standing confused and half dressed in the middle of the room. i rushed out, now ten minutes later than no-less-than time. i realized then it was bad math, and i need at least ten more minutes to do this comfortable. but no use getting troubled, that will only make me clumsy. i get to the c train, got, whatever grammar it was is then, and sat reading octavia butler while precious minutes slipped between the tracks, until at least twenty had come and gone. finally, an a train comes, cause its not yet 6 am, and its the one to the airport. this might just save me...i thought zen thoughts, i moved briskly but not breakneck cause experience has proven (literally) that i am more likely to sprain an ankle or fall on my face than make it quickly. not to mention that the baths + personal trainer + fire yoga + dancing + om yoga (LEAH IT WAS SOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD) has my thigh muscles and hip flexors screaming for mercy...i got to the jetblue desk and tried my usual:

HI!! i am running a little late...
what flight?
new orleans!
the 7:15?
yes
do you realize it's 7am now ma'am?
no way! the train was...well - can i run through?
no. it's closed.
i can't run? i have no bags to check.
yeah but its closed.
if you rush me through security maybe...
ma'am its 10 minutes till it takes off. the doors? of the plane? they are closed.

(i know that tone. i use it with people i think need the old kindergarten try.)
(dang.)

when's the next flight?
let's see - that'll be 2:15 ma'am!
that's 7 hours from now.
yes ma'am. i can pre-check you through now, you can't check in till four hours before.
is there wireless?

and that, my friends, is how i came to be sitting here with four hours left on my wait for the afternoon flight to new orleans.

there is an insane and beautiful 5 year old next to me. his mother seems mostly shocked at his behavior and he ignores her - not maliciously, just completely. so far i have watched him run into 17 people and break two people's plastic utensils which they were about to eat with and didn't see him creep up. his mother, check that, she just told me she's his grandmother - is this decked out black woman - a thong flasher.

one funny aspect is watching the judgement ooze from the white family next to us, who have their wild ones in matching harry potter stripes on leashes. there is also a set of hasidic badasses running around with their little yarmulkes on while their daddy's curls flow back from his face. apparently 'brat' is a universal language!

the grandma just told me he acts like this 'cause his white momma don't know to train him. he only listen to his dad, his dad in texas and make him cry, i'm right here but he don't listen. that's bad training. i would beat his little ass.'

last night i was sitting with one of my favorite mamas in the world while she contemplated variations on discipline, what works, what doesn't, what she won't do. her kid is hovering on a cloud compared to what i am seeing here, but overall i am sooo convinced i am not having babies till i find a stay at home writer-papa.

update - i left this blog and did some other stuff and now me and the grandma are best buddies and the kid troy - we're working it out - he is so cute! omg! he just came over with big wet eyes (long crying phone convo with his dad) and told me that his dad is in texas and that's where he is going but he is 'not really' excited because 'he is going to give me a really big spanking with a belt.'

i let him cry on my shoulder.

grandma said she doesn't want him spanked, just sometimes 'what is a woman to do?'

thank god i have tons of backed up work to do, because the perky jetblue folks just told me i am only on standby, so i may wait here all day and still not get a flight. i am thinking back to the battle in bed. to that hot water over my scalp. curse this fresh feeling.

OUCH!! the most severe cameltoe i've ever seen just walked by. i still haven't mastered my sidekick to get it fast enough to get a picture. GROSS. how embarrassing for the crotch height children.

this isn't even what i wanted to write about, i wanted to write about how lately a lot of people, including some close friends, have been asking me for advice on ways to compromise with being miserable. i am just not the right person to ask.

i think people feel that because i am a broke pleasure activist, that i am casting judgement on whatever they do. on some level, i'm sure i am, instinct...but on most levels, live and let live. i do what i do because it makes me happy and i am good at it. i am mostly past the naive beliefs i once had, that mine was somehow a noble career. its grimy, its part of the balance, so far its part of the non-profit industrial complex, and its beholden to the same dynamics as any other career in this capitalist imperialist racist patriarchal system. everyone i talk to in every field is facing the same shit, complaint gets cyclical - its about finding good work to do and good people to do with it.

my goal in life is not that every one does what i do, its that everyone find joy and uplift those around them in whatever they do. do what you are meant to do and find real satisfaction in it, be the best at it that you can possibly be.

as with most things i say, this is all in my self interest. i hate watching brilliant minds overcome by bitterness, people who think that some outside forces are converging to make them miserable. especially when its people whose existence brings me such joy. i hate when i get stuck in that rut. when i look outside myself for answers, for backbone, i only ever feel lost and spun around. then i put that energy into the world and it manifests. when other folks bring me their self-imposed broken dreams, it's hard to shake off, i find myself speaking with a bitter tongue, the hater in me comes to the surface.

my boy bryant keeps affirmations all over his house. i used to go over and see them and in my little virgo head i'd be all: 'who needs those, just do what you're going to do!' but more and more i am thinking this type of thing is necessary, some little hooks for the soundtrack in your head, which lift you up to where you are meant to be, wherever that is. homework for the week, put something up in a private place in your home that reminds you of your dreams.

my sister april quotes steve prefountain to me, 'i don't run to see who is fastest, i run to see who has the most guts.'

how's that for californication? at least i am laughing at myself every yogic chakra'd step of the way :)

that's what i meant to write about.

jumping the broom and the country

ok i was told last night that i can tell people officially my new title, but i had to sit with it, sip a whiskey over it, meditate about it, lean into it, giggle about it and dance around. i had to tell my family and close friends, my folks at the league...

i'm going to be the next executive director of the ruckus society, in oakland!
i'm moving to california!

do you ever have the experience of standing in a room and someone puts on an album and the music is so tender and right that it feels more like coming home to a new sound than being enlightened to it? or is that what enlightenment is?

anyway i recently had that experience with emmy lou harris' album wrecking ball - the sound of her voice and these songs. i heard it and felt faint, felt like i wanted to make those sounds in my throat, felt exposed. i love music when it does that.

that's the only way to describe the experience with ruckus over the past year, going from a place of distance respect and awe to being invited into the family, joining the board, trusting my instinct as my instinct fell in love. hearing the values of the organization, the history, the challenges it has faced and the fearlessness of good intentions, the desire for order and stability. it felt like finding a home. the organization is 10 years old and focusing its resources in on people of color and poor people, folks who most need the capacity to act strategically. the biggest challenge is letting folks know what ruckus is now, and how it ties back to its enviro roots through environmental justice work in communities where that is priority - particularly indigenous communities in the mid-north and southwest...and they are doing peace work through the not your soldier campaign, which brings me to the root in many ways of where my need to organize comes from, my military childhood, my recognition of the impact poverty draft had on my life and that of my loved ones. can you hear me spinning about? how happy i am?

and, in what once seemed impossible, i am leaving the league on good terms. anyone who knows me knows it has been a beautiful struggle from the beginning, but what i have learned is that it is the appropriate struggle for a birthing process. it was like that, grunts and groans and bitter resentments and then ebullient joy at the sight of the beautiful thing you couldn't have imagined, then the terrible twos!!, but now its walking and talking and has opinions and is making friends and being lauded as a genius child, and its so big you can't believe it was once just in the hearts and minds of individuals. i recently got an email from billy articulating my role in the organization and it made me cry. its easy to forget how hard you worked once the pace picks up and the team grows, its easy to forget how it felt making space for that.

the enlightenment feeling also happened these last couple times i was in california, liking all the space, the pace, the emphasis on health i saw everywhere.

i have been in new york for ten amazing years, i chose to come to new york when i was 9 and we drove through to visit some of our displaced southern family in queens, and i saw all the people and a mcdonald's with a grand piano inside it and i just knew i wanted to throw myself in. then i had to wait till college and my only choice was columbia cause i'd been told it was the best school in new york.

i love new york, and i miss it and i expect i will be back, but it isn't the best place to transform your life towards health, that even sounds like a cali phrase. a true yogi could do it anywhere but i am a child in this effort, the energy here is so desperate for achievement, its so easy to find nights of joyless debauchery. this last little time here has been the best, hermited in my studio, having brunch, my sisters and close friends nearby and a weeky visit to jalen's 5-year-old viewpoint, daily gym ritual and keeping plants alive for the first time ever. oh i'll miss it...

but i've got my sidekick and very few belongings that i need and i am on my way.  i feel breathless with excitement.

i even had drinks with my number 1 intellectual crush last night - how satisfying! the crush is fully intact, and if we can have drinks like once a year indefinitely then i'll be able to maintain my faith in the charm and wonder of black power phd types.

fire - aren't you in cali? can we kick it when we're neighbors?

ok must run to the girls congress conference and talk about organizing and politics.

amazed and amused

some things that never fail to amuse me:

1. me!

yesterday i went to the russian baths and in a freak accident this other chick broke the glass container holding my favorite sea jelly from carol's daughter - which, to be honest, is the only thing from there i like. (cd is a block away from my ft geene studio, so i go in there and then feel everything is too expensive and smells kind of similar. the anita baker of personal care products, you know? is it anti-black to even utter these words? am i uttering them by writing them? but i love the awesome sea jelly, which feels like perfumed vaseline! mmmm!) so it breaks and me being me, i am going to try to use the rest of the jelly. i put a lot in my hair, and later rubbed it, glass and all, into my skin. on the walk home i had to repeatedly reach down into my pants to pull a sliver of glass out of my thigh or buttocks. HOT!

today, the jelly is still in my hair after two washes. here's a limited edition pic of me with jellyhead and a clay mask on (top 10 reasons working from home is awesome: i. can. wear. a. clay. mask. and. nothing. else. atall!)

2. the power of capitalism. there is now an ad in my blog (see below). i can't figure out how to get it out without paying some money to friendster, which defeats the whole purpose of me starting my blog on here, which was to have it be free and thus indicate that i am not invested in my self-absorption. also, if you pay then there are stats and you have to see how few people are actually reading. ugh! the conundrums!

some things that never fail to amaze me:

1. my landlord! today she wants to look at the chimney and may need to see my 'fireplace'. my fireplace is a tender place that is bricked up and covered with a precarious gate that falls into four pieces when touched the wrong way (much like me!), all tucked behind a plethora of books and my gorgeous coffee table and pillows (also much like me!). when i got the message i glared, thinking of the work i was going to have to do to let them see this dead fireplace. now i am sitting here glaring through the door as the landlady and chimney sweep systematically go thru the other apartments. more passive than aggressive, i do not plan to comply with this unnecessary viewing.

2. the connection between how productive i am and how many orgasms i have in a day. if it was quantified i think it would be a one to one ratio. i think i have struck upon something! (top two reasons working from home is often: unlimited. breaks.)

some other things i just want to draw your attention to:

www.thebreastcancersite.com, thehungersite.com - i just love going and clicking those...

Lake Champlain chocolate - Raspberry Truffles! Might be the best tasting thing ever.

and then - do you ever get the sense the news you are watching is bullshit? IT IS - check it:

Read the report here:
http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary

And then tell the Federal Communications Commission that fake news must stop, by clicking here:
http://action.freepress.net/campaign/fakenews

 that's all today sweeties...

y'all BETTER be at bryant and anna's book release tonight, 6:30, Coliseum Books.

lambs on ice

it snowed today, and then it was all - balmy. march had no real lion moments that i recall, wen out like a punk, and now april is all lamblike but...we might have to put the environment on meds. this AIN'T RIGHT!!

today i went to the baths and then to therapy - then i had to take a nap. today ny looked a bit grimy and gray to me, a bit overwhelming. i can't stop smiling in life right now, but ny sometimes acts like it might sully your shine. i am happy that summer is coming.

i am looking around my house mentally preparing for the spring/summer cleaning that is coming. i want to get rid of things right now. books that i liked and will never read again, knick knacks i only partially like, collages i made when i was a little depressed. hats that are only cute in theory. postcards of places that no longer conjure calm for me, just remind me i am long overdue for a real vacation.

the only things i have i want to keep all of are musical instruments, my cds, my extensive collection of sex toys, my collection of soaps and delightfully smelly things, and some of my clothes. oh and my rainbow collection of jersey sheets. they just feel better.

anyway - i just put half my shoes in a bag, and next is going to bags of other stuff that i can give to goodwill. i highly encourage anyone and everyone to do this 4 times a year. it makes whatever is in your home much more manageable.

annimout! make sure to check and recommend folks to the league blog - www.indyvoter.org/blog - and comment, trying to bring it to life!

form is immaculate

le horror!

that's all i could think today as my personal trainer did the measuring thing - it was the time for the measuring. he measured me. i have been measured. the thing about measuring that makes it even more excruciating is that they wrap the tape around a part of you, and you send shrinking vibes to that part, then they adjust to find the widest point of whatever part they are measuring. amazing. THAT is the shit that will have you eating fish and naked salads instead of oreos for lunch!

now because david is the Best Personal Trainer Ever, he then told me that my form on the leglifts was 'immaculate' and that i had the 'best motor skills' of any of his clients. he had another client wrapping up as i started and she kept quitting at stuff. then he would be like - watch, see how adrienne pops her hips off the ground? like that.

ahem, besting someone at hip-pops? i'll take a little more of that sir! i even overpopped one of my hip flexors which i thought you could only do while...thinking...really fast and hard. later i had to grimace through the hip stretches. pain becomes a point of pride! honestly, i do a pout-lipped grimace which probably looks hella sour, but part of the whole dynamic with David is he can see the fierce inner moi.

oh the pain.
but was it worth a Superior Physical Moment?
YES!!

I don't know if y'all know this but...other than cheerleading, I was always on JV or second string - in volleyball, basketball, soccer. i just wasn't real competitve, but i think largely because i was already kinda screwed in the head about my body by then and didn't want anyone looking at me, so i couldn't really abandon myself to a sport where things might be exposed, or jiggling/bouncing/moving. which is deep cause i look back at pics of then and i looked fabulous! but anyway, physical insecurity was set early.

now i do squats in front of a mirror and think of my ass as an objective thing to lift and tighten.  watch out now! my goal: brick house with actual bricks in the trunk.

speaking of which: http://www.theultimatefatlossguide.com/index.html

my friend hipped me to this logical thing to help health and i say, go for it!

in other news, i am in talks with all the people, the white people. who love the whole 'whiteous' thing. they want to start a site. possible names: www.whiteous.com. www.ithinkimightbewhiteous.com. www.whiteoussupportcircles.com. its really a fun and love-filled project. i think i have coined a term...let me check wikipedia!

woah! i just took a harmonica break.

yup. that kind of harmonica.

so i am also now ON myspace. i have been on there for a while with no passion, but jessamyn convinced me to really commit to trying it and...its so fun! its like the early days of friendster! when you're just finding people! i am finding all the same people i have on friendster but...still. its a fun distraction.

i started reading fledgling today - octavia's last book. problem: it's about vampires. reading about any blood suckage makes my stomach turn. still, its here last book and i must thus read it. FUCK!

to relax relate release the nausea, my girl leah sent me yoga passes. thanks darling leah!! leah is this stunning redhead doing yoga in the far north of california. i am going to fire yoga tomorrow. its ALL conNECted!

oh, bryant is going to be here for his and anna's book release party thursday - let me know if you want to roll wit me. or lean wit me. or rock wit me. they are about to shift the whole food movement!

also - i am enjoying the option to buy single songs on i-tunes. what is your favorite favorite song you think i should download?

that's all for tonight...next post: intellectual crushes and should you ever actually have a drink with them or keep them in the boys-with-perfect-brains box?

home again

took the redeye from oakland last night. i am not so secretly falling for cali, it appears resistance is futile...

but my plane ride was slightly annoying cause there was this Crotchety Jerk Asshole next to me with bad breath.

you know how you have to share armrests with people? but if one of the people is an old CJA then you can end up in elbow wars? that is exactly what happened last night.

i was in the middle seat, gorging on the 'flavor of the month: after the loving' and 'the gauntlet ii' reunion specials on my jetblue personal tv, but every time i put my arm on the the armrest, within a few minutes i would feel him trying to push my elbow off. sometimes he succeeded, giving me that little bounce balance moment which is always awkward, even if no one sees.

i gave him disapproving looks, but he didn't look up from his New York Times. the next time he elbowed me, i emitted loud sighs to no avail.

then, the seatbelt sign came on right as the woman in the window seat realized she had to go bafwoom. i tapped CJA indicating we need to let her out and he leans his onion dragon breath over me to say: 'the seatbelt sign is on.'

window woman got a look of extreme sarcasm right around her left nostril: 'are you telling me you aren't going to let me go to the bathroom?'

inner child adrienne: 'mud fight! mud fight!'

instead, a burst of passive aggression took over everything and the woman squeezed out over us with lots of sighs going in every direction. then...THEN CJA DUDE followed her and went to the bathroom with the seatbelt sign on!!! hypocrite!

THEN he came BACK and commenced pushing my arm off the arm rest. now we were all seated and watching our tvs again, with him eating the Doritos snack pack as crunchily loud as possible and then sucking his fingers between bites! funky tongue medina. his remote control was in the shared  armrest, which was a small armrest, but its like take the front or the back and stop TRIPPING!!

so finally, about three hours into it, i said 'stop pushing me!'

at which point he pulled way over on his side and was like 'you are coming into my area every time you fall asleep!'

playing the victim, eh? i glanced over at window woman for some shared sarcastic nostrils with a little necksnapping eyebrow action too, then countered on factual grounds:

'let the exhibit show that i haven't fallen asleep yet once. what is happening here is that everywhere i put my arm you start pushing me and you need to stop it. which part of the arm rest do you want?'

'none of it!' his tone was roughly 7 year old boy saying 'FINE!' or 'I Hate You Mommy!', and i realized that most likely he had that going on inside of him. empathy overwhelmed me, and tho i spent the last hour and a half or so with the whole armrest to myself while he cringed in a repressed ball in his chair, i left the remote control area clear. he was having none of it, and was thus stuck watching and listening to the map which shows how close you are to home.

lucky me got to come home to jennifer kidwell angelically sleeping in my bed. the guy i share a bathroom with apparently spent the last week without toilet paper, or bringing it in and out when he went numero unodos...we've had a little note exchanging around the state of the bathroom. once i cut my hair in there drunk and didn't clean up RIGHT away and he slipped a note under my door. i replied that we should talk about a cleaning schedule and tp-buying, he never responded. i am considering a pre-emptive strike, maybe slipping the receipt for my last 4-roll charmin purchase under the door...

all this to ponder and more!

Whiteous

A new word? The white and righteous - whiteous...

I was talking today with a friend in New Orleans about the new demographics of the first black city, and she was like - its the white sometimes anarchist organizing well intentioned kids who were at WTO and RNC and white and many of them are privileged and all of them are moved to serve and its this really complicated thing. The most complicated part, we agreed, is the lack of self-reflection that often makes service seem intrusive. No one I have talked to there wants the kids to go away, everyone appreciates them, and yet there is a common feeling of deep knowledge of what the city was and what it is becoming and the economic and cultural factors that allow some to be there and others to be kept away. Then I had another New Orleans conversation around supporting displaced survivors - the clock is ticking on securing a commitment from displaced survivors that they will come home.

i also know a lot of people of color who have whiteous tendencies, but are perhaps paying more attention. and then what about people of color who earn their chops by exciting and legitimizing the whiteous? it's easy to fall into, people who aren't inside your circle gassing you up.

can we talk about these things though? when and where?

This week folks are in the N'awleans streets around voting rights. Later this month there's a white privilege conference in St. Louis (www.whiteprivilegeconference.com). Where does this conversation start and stop?

I have recently become close with two women who are Arab but look white. with one i discussed the frustrations of other people's assumption, which didn't line up with her experience at all. with the other i discussed how she doesn't like labels. i was raised for quite some time in a house where race was not one of the highlights for how we looked at the world, and then my parents chose to drop us into the lion's den and make us learn. 

it's made me reflect on this whole white thing: what does culture mean anyway, how much is choice, how much is assumption, how much is specific to class, how much you can shift culture in a lifetime...your internal culture, the culture of your generation. i've started to see in people very fast and deep transformations. can we expect a dot.com pace of expansion for self-reflection? 

future 5000 and some boobies!

hmm - i started postin and perhaps its gone. never mind...i will go again! unstoppable so please don't try to...hee hee. remember how mariah carey rapped on her first album? i feel that undauntable today. the moon is hiding the sun but you still feel the light - if that isn't the moment we're then at least we know such rhythms of dark and light exist. a dear friend says its diurnal. i can't argue with her...since that word is above and beyond my comprehension! like that chic from sopranos says - 'my character uses all these SAT words!'

i've been running into everything (head into ski rack on car, back into bedside table, ankle into pavement, booty into everyone). i am too excited right now - just spent two days with manju, shaunna, ibrahim, and sam with the guidance of jessamyn delight - developing the future 5000 project. soooo exciting and inspirational and visionary. it's nice to get in a room where everyone is free to think really hard and be a geek with some fearless cool on the side...and so soon,  with a little hope and extreme perserverance and faith, we'll all be networked and anything will be possible. the team of people at the table is amazing, everyone is thinking above and beyond the current day, while still so present in this moment we're in - what is your dream for how we build movement online? where are all the entry points into movement?

manju was coming off of non-stop persistent response to a racist sexual assault at Duke University (read more on this at www.feministing.com - scroll down for samhita's post), where she helped pull together a response of action and message. it was deep to be around her and feel how that violence gets carried forth. it made me want to make sure we tighten our network and our ability to support activists involved in such efforts.

in general, it was two extremely intense days and i am sooo tired, all the creative input pouring out...whew. and since i landed in the bay its been non-stop go go go go meet dream think talk share remember explain go. i got to talk with amazing thinkers from www.colorofchange.org and www.wiretapmag.org and www.blocnetwork.org and CJNY and it was all just quite stimulating. tomorrow looks like a go go day too, and sunday i suspect will be like church, in that i may have cause to pray a lot. but tonight, i am letting the days pour out of me and sitting in the quiet, taking care of myself a bit. mud mask, no stress, no noise. lord of the rings? perfect friday night! funny how that can happen anywhere in the country if you need it enough. a room of one's own...

now, as a backdrop to all this, i vaguely remember writing something really funny about my recent extended bout with constipation. i did a cleanse, then i was traveling and in response to sort of limited eating options and whatever, my body rebelled and so i then came up with all these names like bloatasaurus, backedupadactylus, and fullashitosaur, and so on. then i took 'get regular' tea and experienced the total freedom of full body commitment to an act of release! hallelujah!!! and...flush! :)

i'm warming up to california - although what i am clear on is the deceptive cold and wetness of this place. no insulation in the houses + a smile = the facade of a warm place. that's an Illusion. this bay thing is cold as hell, i have been getting my bundled-up on.

i heard from someone yesterday who had rediscovered her lover, it was a beautiful story. i love to hear a woman put her foot down to be treated marvelously, and then i love when a partner goes above and beyond the challenge of showing love. i can't remember the last time someone wouldn't accept my walls and fought to love me in spite of it all, and i see romance everywhere, in everything. i can honestly say at this moment that no one stands a chance without some outrageous, surprising, mature magic game.

have y'all heard of fertility awareness?

and finally...today i'd like to pour some out for the leftover parts of shirts that are cut out to make v-necks. it's all boobies all the time, i am getting really happily familiar with my cleavage. what fun! breasts are quite wonderful to play with if you notice them and i can basically get away with fondling them most of the time.

speaking of which...