Monday, October 31, 2005

Arnold's Neighborhood...Welcome to California

With elections coming up on November 8th here I thought this was quite appropriate....

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Moving to the Windy City

Yep, getting ready to make the big move from the temperate Bay Area to Chicago...in December. Anyone have any suggestions on my baptism by fire, er, I mean wind?

Naturally, or maybe not for some, I have some anxieties over moving. I've been in Oakland for almost ten years and although my immediate family is centered in Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Detroit I've created a support system for myself here that for the most part, has lasted through the years and sustained and nurtured me through some very tough times. As the child of a preacher, one would think I would be used to picking up and moving cross country. That is not the case. As a child, it's a bit different. My parents were the ones who had to coordinate, prepare, pack, and bear most of the burden of figuring all the logistics out. But I do know that some of my anxiety that has appeared is connected to this.

The first major move that had a clear impact on me was from Kansas City, Missouri to Pacific Palisades, California. I was going into the sixth grade. Imagine a girl, too tall, lanky, huge glasses, had just started her period and hated having to deal with all that, and was a complete tomboy to boot. I had no concern over my appearance and was more than happy to go outside in shorts and a t shirt, coordination of colors be damned. In short, I had no fashion sense whatsoever, no interest in makeup, and was just beginning to feel uncomfortable in my body. When we moved to Pacific Palisades and I saw those girls in their tank tops, shorts, flip flops and lip gloss I felt like a complete country bumpkin. While I made friends fairly quickly, we weren't in the same class and often I found myself sitting on the bench at recess trying to hide my out of style clothing.

The second move that had such an effect was from Berkeley to New Haven. When I left UC Berkeley, I was in disgrace, on academic probation and the disappointment I felt from my parents across the U.S. was immense. I was hardest on myself and moving from a freewheeling town like Berkeley to a hardcore Italian burb like North Haven was traumatic at the very least. While I beat up on myself, my father's disappointment and anger rained down on me even harder; making it near impossible for some time afterwards to really forgive myself. My mother, who's anger towards me was justified, took a much more moderate approach, at least from what I could tell. I hated North Haven with the exception of one woman who became my best friend there and had travelled well beyond the town limits.

The third, it was the move from New Haven to Orange County in California. My brother and I decided to move back with our father while our mother and sister stayed behind. For Joshua and I, California seemed like a beacon of civilization that we had been accustomed to. We were wrong. We were the housekeepers and secretaries of the household and if our father's expectations had been high of us in North Haven, they were doubly and unreasonably so in Orange County. Joshua was going to school and having trouble adjusting, I was working and going to school full time and there were of course, the usual expectations on us to display a certain public image as the two children of a black pastor in a largely white, affluent and conservative area.

My move to freedom as I think of it sometimes was when I decided to go back to school. I applied to Mills College, was accepted, and even though I had to live with a friend of my father's the first year, I enjoyed what freedom I had. I've stayed ever since. So in the past couple of weeks I've started boxing up books, cleaning out drawers and closets which really doesn't long in a studio but there's still a sense of being unsettled in a space of controlled chaos and knowing that I won't be seeing the Oakland Hills for some time...

Then again, I was born in Evanston so this is going to be a strange and foreign homecoming. I'm excited about it but sometimes the thought of learning the geographics of a new place overwhelms me (I am one of those unfortunate people who are geographically challenged). To new beginnings and hopefully, an end to the fear of change that's haunted me for so long.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

When An Ex Resurfaces...

It has been the most surreal of days lately. My ex, whom I was engaged to after a four year relationship and a bad breakup resurfaced in the oddest way. My coworker is an internet dating junkie, particularly when looking for good salsa partners so she places ads regularly on various boards. I had recently returned from my trip to Ithaca and was sitting at my desk, attempting to recover from the sinus/tension headache that threatened to split my skull in half, complete with a deadpan look with my sunglasses on.

The coworker walks in and begins to fill me in on her various exploits that occurred in my absence (I have to say, they are funny as hell). She starts talking about a guy she's been speaking with, texting, etc. who is a VP of HR at a company. Okay, no issues there. Then she says, "Oh yeah, it kind of freaked me out but he's got the same last name as the owners of our company." Wait. Stop. Red flag starts to wave behind my veiled eyes. I ask her nonchalantly while checking the 300+ emails that have accumulated what his first name is. She tells me. I hear bells clanging in my ears. I stop, turn my chair around, "That's my ex." I turn back around and continue checking the ridiculous amount of emails.

Coworker about falls on the floor and says "No wonder, he's so needy and clingy. He called me fifteen times the first time I gave out my phone number." Nice to see some things in the world don't change. I just had to laugh. We had a longer discussion about my past relationship and she asked some very pointed questions and confirmed for me that ex had indeed cheated on me during our relationship and due to ensuing drama, he lost his job. No surprise there either. A company doesn't just fire their head of HR for nothing. While talking, he texts her, she freaks out, telling me she feels like she's going to throw up. She calls him and tells him under no uncertain terms does she want to talk to him and that she's learned some disturbing things about him. Of course, in true ex style he wants to know what was said, who said it, etc...the funny thing is, he mentioned me to her, not by name of course.

And of course that is when the neediness psycho stalker aspect came out. He proceeded to text her through the rest of the day and two days later, still is. She's changing her phone number. She did tell him that she knew me and was a close friend of mine, he of course saw no conflict of interest and that he hadn't done anything wrong. Consistency is a wonderful thing with narcissists isn't it? I told her there were issues on both sides but the bottom line was he wanted some pretty exotic trophy wife to bend over for him and take his bullshit along with his kids. And obviously, he had serious boundary issues. It took about six months for me to completely extricate myself from him even after I moved out. If I had been smart I would have slapped him with a restraining order and told his ex wife how much he was cheating her out of child support.

I did tell her though that he can't salsa to save his life much less do the white boy shuffle. It is so strange how people come in and out of life. Somehow, I have a feeling that I'll be posting about this more in the future.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Eyes Wide Open Exhibit at Cornell

These are some of the pictures I took at the Eyes Wide Open Exhibit at the Cornell quad on the 5th. The count for soldiers killed that day was 1,945 but I believe it went up by at least five to six by the end of that day. The link in the post title can provide more information but there is of course, no "official" information as to how many civilian deaths have occurred since the start of the war. I find both circumstances around the totals equally tragic, unnecessary, illegal and immoral.












Thursday, October 06, 2005

Welcome to Ithaca, NY

Well, it has been relatively hot my first couple of days here.....and humid....it's raining pretty heavily as I write this post on my boyfriend's computer. The leaves are beginnning to change and different shades of red and yellow break up the greenery around his apartment. There have been a couple of really nice experiences I've had during my visit. The first was a pretty good dinner at Maxie's Supper Club which was decent...although I felt sorry for our server's facial muscles because I thought her cheeks were going to atrophy into a permanent smile.

Then there was the question of coffee...now that I have been going to Peet's regularly for my coffee and tea, anything else seems simply uncivilized...however, there is a place here called Gimme Coffee which is good but missing a certainn subtelty...a layoring of flavors in their roasting process. All in all, I'm having a grand time, simply being in the same room with my boyfriend is frankly, enough for me as we haven't lived together for a good ten months. More photos later from the Eyes Wide Open Exhibit that was showing on the quad of Cornell...overall, a sad and striking experience.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Playwright August Wilson passes away..

I was lucky enough to see the play "Two Trains Running" with Laurence Fishburne...it was wonderful.


I'll be gone until the 12th on a much needed vacation. My last day at work is of course filled with last minute projects which more than likely will not be completed before I go...oh well.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

More On Being A PK...Part II

Pops always stressed to me, still does, that I should "...get connected with a black church. The black church will lift you up like no other..." Understand, I have no beef with the black church itself but growing up as a PK, organized religion in itself, particularly Christianity is a wall I'm not ready to scale back over at this moment. Maybe never. He wanted me to have an all encompassing "black church experience." I think in some ways this was to legitimize my blackness being that my looks are somewhat ambiguous to others.

The irony of the situation is that while we were a black family, the churches my father was always appointed too were largely white. Usually affluent and in very white areas. It was odd. The only time I remember being grounded in the black church experience was as a child in Kansas City, Missouri. The church was downtown and seemed huge to me.

Three sets of pews filled the sanctuary and red velvet cushions covered the seats. The ushers, women dressed in white, patrolled the aisles, catching those who fell gracefully to the floor in the throes of the holy spirit. The pulpits sat on either side of the altar, a stage for the men to speak their word and convey the message. I remember watching my father up there, telling the congregation to pray for me and my scarred knees. (I was a shameless tomboy, much to my paternal grandmother's chagrin.)

My mother would sit patiently, listening, sometimes jotting down notes while my sister and I squirmed, turned around to see where the other kids were sitting, or just annoyed each other, provoking a stern look from our mother. After the service we ran downstairs for the reception in the large hall with its own industrial sized kitchen. I wove in and out of the crowd, around men's dark pants, brushing by women's chiffon and silk skirts and would pause momentarily to look upwards at the hats...the hats always kept my attention. I remember the music of course, the music that I listened to above all else. That was my experience in the black church. Colors of reds and blues, greens and purples with textures of velvet and satin and smells of incense, candle wax and old ladies'pocketbooks with mints and kleenex and choruses of Amen and Can I get a witness?

After that, the churches my father was appointed to were largely white, wealthy and as you can (or maybe can't) imagine, a very different experience. The music was different, there were no impromptu outpourings in the middle of a sermon, the food was certainly different (I miss the KC barbecue) and dress sense was much more informal, something I could definitely appreciate. While many parishioners became family friends, there was still that whispered feeling of being on the outside, of being the other. While I don't remember race being an issue in Kansas City (just poverty and unemployment)it always seemed to be an issue in the white churches.

When a Korean church community wanted share a space in the church my father was at there was an uproar. When we housed a homeless family in the church for a time there were "concerns." When efforts were made to ease the congregation into reflecting a more, er, umm...diverse population, there were many "discussions" that occurred at late night meetings. When the churches he was appointed at started celebrating the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday there were hate calls and nasty letters sent...and I'm sure a few parishioners disappeared from the rolls or contributions to programs ceased.

Sundays were an interesting experience and as I've been told, the most segregated hour(s) in America.