who sleeps?

Who sleeps? It's 4 a.m. and there are finally good programs on PBS after days full of endless Celtic women, Doo-Wop reunions and Laurence Welk retrospectives. I think, why am I up now, and maybe it's to watch the American Masters show on Sweet Honey in the Rock, to remember the earth, and sistah hood, and to sing to my slumbering kitty. I am drenched in sweat and shivering from a fever break, dizzy from the drug I just took, the one I hate to take to sleep because it robs me of more hours than it grants.

My friend told me she got rid of her tv today, her nighttime companion. I admire her greatly for this, ruled as we are by info, and analysis, the comfort of the noise of the thing in an empty apartment and blah-di-blah-di-blah fuckin' blah. The time, the precious minutes, for poetry and reflection and feet pampering and dreaming, and listening to a rock-n-roll version of Madame Butterfly. When I'm not paying attention those endless commercials for dental assisting schools and hair colleges can make me feel inadequate--"Get off the couch and become a pastry chef right now!" The commercials for hair straighteners, discount furniture, amazing space aged products that can shave your moustache and caulk your bathtub, singing pancakes...I saw one tonight about a penis pump--ouch!--are incredibly insulting to the most mediocre adult. "You ugly, hairy, stinky, fat, undereducated, bald, depressed, financially ignorant, fillet-o-fish lovin', saggy faced, tiny dicked, underinformed, Shamwow needing, limp haired, wrinkly, lumpy, person. What you need is a Dyson power vac, next-day-installation carpeting, and an exciting career as a medical assistant!"

Especially at 4 a.m.

I always feel like I should be doing something productive, like planting potatoes, or cleaning some part of my house with a children's toothbrush. I hear the roar of the early morning trucks and buses, entering a new workday. Even when I'm really sick and it hurts too much to move...I should be whittling down my pen collection or defrosting the fridge. After all these years, the compulsion is still there and maybe that's why the illness continues. The struggle is still against instead of through.

I just finished a book about an Irish forensic pathologist named Quirke and his morose and lyrical adventures in 1950's Dublin. Oy, the drear, and yet it was so wonderfully written I couldn't put it down. Maybe all of this early morning reflection will result in me being able to write about difficulties in such a winsome manner without having to result to Bombeckianisms and the occassional cuss word.

So, I'm awake. The kitty snores. Maddening.

Pissoir

another holiday season over. do I just resolve that they will always be painful? I saw a movie tonight about a French family--the dialogue is more lyrical but very familiar--cruelty, depression, love that doesn't see faults or indulges them, coldness, ruin from generation to generation, frosty blame -- cancers that eat from within and without. Some people just stand in place with their fingers in their ears, humming as loud as they can.

My kitten washes his ears with both paws.

FUCK

(a poem)

FUCK
abandoned children
begetting abandoned children
who tear up (their own and their loved ones) lives like Godzilla tore up Tokyo
(overandoverand0verand0ver)
andthefuckinsilenceKILLS.

is that all there is to it?

So Crazee

On election day I told anybody who would listen that Barack would win. I said "Black president" to an over-blinged bus driver on the #87, and to Geronimo, the security guard at the BSO shipping dock. I exchanged crossed fingers with several like-minded co-workers and made plans to hang with some friends to watch the returns. I was so surprised by the Ohio returns that I hollered an expletive and made everyone jump. And then...once he was declared the winner, I couldn't quite believe it. It's the strangest thing. Right after that my girl Amanda called me and she said I just blithered through the conversation. I seem to be frozen in disbelief, with tearful forays into joy, and a wonderful bus ride to work on Thursday morning singing the freedom songs that Mystic is performing in the upcoming concerts. But I still feel stunned.

So I've been watching Oprah and reading blogs and keeping up with the president-elect's new website, change.gov, the website of the transition, trying to get it through my head that this is real. Someone immanently qualified who just happens to be Black is going to lead the country. Grace, brilliance, and humane discourse won over lies, hatred and plain old ignorance and fear. I want to get to that state of bliss or perhaps a sublime feeling. I know, now, that I'll never be apathetic about the political process again. I know that I'm really willing to fight for what I believe and I know that human rights and the beautiful concepts upon which this country was founded are what I believe, what I treasure.

Just haven't gotten my brain around it. Maybe a bit more champagne...

images OH HAPPY DAY!

A little boy who just happens to have dark skin and who was born into poverty looks up today and sees someone who looks like he does is President.

Sitting with dear friends around a tiny TV, as one of us keeps track of what's going on the web, our faces shiny with hope and joy.

Watching pedestrians yelling for joy and hearing car horns blare in triumph on the way home.

Juan Williams on MSNBC, his voice cracking with emotion, talking about how this was absolutely impossible scant years ago.

Messy Jesse, his face awash in tears. Oprah cheering, squeezed between two emotional non-celebs.

Luke Russert reporting so eloquently on the young vote from an Indiana campus.

My mother's voice, rich and melodic, talking about the first time she voted.

Watching the people in line at the polls play with a little puppy.

My scrunched up, post-sleep potato face grinning in the mirror this morning.

Oh happy day, my loves.










Democracy by Langston Hughes

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.

I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.

Langston Hughes

woke up this mornin' with my mind

and it was set on Barack

As I walked across the municipal parking lot in front of my house this morning, the mists of early morning were just lifting, and the tress were kissed with golds and yellows and fiery oranges and reds. Each beat of my feet said "Black President." I can't say it doesn't matter in the historical sense, but I'd never vote for a President Alan Keyes or (shudder) Al Sharpton. As I joined the line at the polling place, a Black woman at the front of the line caught my eye and we grinned joyously at each other. It filled me up to see people in long lines waiting to vote--this is as it should be. A young woman came by with her Corgi/Labrador puppy (hmmm...imagine the conception) and he became the hit of the line, sniffing fit and illiciting giggles and being petted by almost everyone. People were sweet, and happy and the mood was patient and considerate. And I had no idea that so many Black people lived near me...there were at least 10 in line. I felt like saying, "where y'all been? I haven't seen you at Starbucks..."

Arlington voting is archaic...paper ballots with used privacy sleeves and heavy black pens, but somehow, I trust this more than the electronic voting machines. At one point a lady came out and said to us "it's really archaic in there," and then the toilet in the ladies' room we were standing next to flushed and the guy next to me said "That IS archaic voting."

The amazing singing storytellers of Sweet Honey in the Rock, who I saw on Sunday, made a great point...you get a receipt from the grocery store and the ATM...I want a receipt for my vote!

There was a lady who had her two daughters with her--about 5 and 7 years old--and I was reminded of the times I went with my mom to vote in those old style booths where you had to operate a giant lever to open and close the curtains. Mom and I talked last night about the first time we voted. She thinks her first time was 1960--the Kennedy/Nixon presidential election. I think mine was 1984, Reagan/Mondale.

Today is Mom's 72nd birthday. We were talking via icamera and she looks about 40 years old, lively, and animated. She said her best birthday present would be you-know-who in the White House. Hollaaaaaa!! (Maybe they'll change the name to "The Black House..." or "The Mulatto House..." ba HA!)

Now I eat toast and drink tea and look forward to an amazing day. I'm going this morning to get my shots for our trip to China. Tonight I'll go to Mystic rehearsal and sing Lift Every Voice and the Star Spangled Banner as imagined by Nick Page and then my friends and I will gather to watch history, an almost tangible thing.

Give your thoughts and your light to peace and love and a wish for a mutt puppy at every polling place.

The STFU awards

and the nominees are...

Tavis Smiley, who's participated in such homeboy discussions as "Is Obama Black enough?" The way you fawned all over Diahann Carroll last night made me throw up in my mouth a little.


Warren Buffett. So he's still investing in the stock market. Whoopdie doo! He's a freakin' bazillionaire. He could bail out an overextended mortgage company each month and still have enough investment interest to buy an atoll in the South Pacific. Or 30 acres of prime lunar landscape.

Condoleeeza. Trampin' all over the world trying to drum up some credibility, to get a good job review at the last minute. The only time I want to hear her deceptively melodious voice again is when she says "Goodbye." Silly bitch.

P Diddy, Jay-Z, Angelina Jolie or any other celebrity's political opinion. Just fundraise, damnit, and donate money to Jimmy Carter so he can make sure the voting machines work.

Suze Orman, Dr. Oz, and, by extension, Oprah. What do I care what the liver of a 70 year old alcoholic looks like when I don't have money for health care? Why do I give a toss what kind of retirement plan I should be investing in when most brands of bread are out of my budget?

The women of the View. Seeing Whoopi on a daily basis is nice, and Joy is pretty funny, but the rest of them, what a bunch of screech owls. Barbara Walters is so botoxed she can barely speak (though this seems to correct itself whenever she hawks her new autobiography), Sherri is dumb as a sack of hair, and Elizabeth is smug, ill-informed, and condescending (and therefore a perfect correspondent for the Fox News Channel).

Urine soaked wheelchair woman on the number 1 bus. You know who you are. Conning people into wheeling you into the liquor store when I've seen you walk many times. Stop it.

Lewis Fahrakan. Shhhhhhhhhh. Shush.

Fidel Castro. Stick a cigar in it.

My next door neighbor who has a voice like a high pitched machine tool, punctuated by cigarette induced coughing so violent I expect to see a lung in the garbage the next day.

Shut.
Your.
Piehole.