I am African-American

Quick Thoughts from my ever-churning mind (these thoughts still need to be developed and researched so, please, give me your opinions- and any books that you think might enlighten me)

It seems as though there are so many ppl trying to wipe away the African connection
They no longer want to be thought of as African Americans. They will now be referred to as Black Americans
Distancing themselves from the history and culture that was once theirs. The time when they were more than Black. They were Ethiopian, they were Egyptian, they were Nigerian. The stigmas attached to being a dark-skinned person in America is all that they want us to know. They want us to forget that we were abolitionists before European slavery even came about. Forget the ancient freedoms we've fought for. Forget the empires we've built, the nations we've conquered, and the complex societies we've developed. Forget that there was once a time BEFORE we were slaves for light-skinned people. Make the next generation forget by leaving out the "African" in African-American.

I am called Black, not because Black is all that I am, Black is simply all that you care to see. I am also chocolate and caramel and cherry wood (depending on the season and my recent sun exposure). I am the daughter of a domestic goddess and a hard-working minister. I am a Stephens College graduate. I am a woman who melts into a pool of hormones when i see a man in a well-tailored suit. I know from whom i've come.... Royalty and slave alike.

My people built this nation. From the ground up. The monuments that you attribute to the genius minds of the greatest white architects were constructed by MY slave ancestors, brick by brick, and inspired by the monuments found in MY royal ancestors' homeland. The art, math, and science that is so widely used and admired by the western world originated in Africa (where MOST things originated); so i cannot understand how the western world can demonize and degrade its people while hijacking its culture and accomplishments.

But never mind all that. Ultimately, I want to be seen as a daughter of God. And judged on my accomplishments and character. Not on my skin color, or my ancestry, or my family name. I only point out the accomplishments of African people to show all who believe in white supremacy (both dark and light-skinned people) that such concepts are stupid and can only be sustained in the most unreasonable minds.

Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it Holy.

Keeping the Sabbath Day holy has been a trial for me lately. I used to be good at this- I’d listen to gospel music in the morning as I got ready for church at 2:30pm. Sometimes, I’d go to another ward’s church service just so that my day was action-packed with gospel goodness. I would come home from church at 6, eat dinner, shower, and go into my room and watch past General Conference talks on TV until I fell asleep. And then…before ya know it… IT’S MONDAY and the SABBATH DAY was AMAZING!!



I think all these complacent Utah Mormons are affecting me. I stay up waaay too late on Saturday nights- talking on the phone, watching Hulu, out with friends, etc. and I don’t wake up until MAYBE 30 mins before I’m supposed to be leaving to go to church. After church, I eat and shower and then summarily proceed to watch SOMETHING secular. Apparently I can’t be alone with my own thoughts. I take so much joy in reading the scriptures on any other day. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for me to pick them up on Sundays. Id much rather eat while watching desperate housewives and then fall asleep at 5am after ive exhausted my list of meaningless activities. What’s wrong with me these days?



I’LL TELL YOU WHATS WRONG WITH ME! A supreme lack of faith! Satan tells me that its ok to watch tv on the Sabbath day for an hour while im eating. I mean, no one would possibly expect me to sit in silence while I eat dinner alone! That’s too depressing! And watching wrinkled old men talking about the Lord isn’t very appetizing! So DevilDude tells me that its ok to do it b/c no one REALLY expects me to keep the Sabbath Day holy. And then the second that I give in and watch TV while I’m eating or listening to secular music on the Lord’s Day, Satan retracts everything he said and contradicts himself by telling me that I’m sooooo horrible and I totally failed that test YET AGAIN! He tells me that he’ll leave me alone for the rest of the week (which I know he wont) because he knows that ill always be subject to the will of the Devil when it comes to the Sabbath.



But THE DEVIL IS A LIE!
(and according to previous drug-induced hallucinations, loves pink lace. Sooo gay).

I know that I can keep the Sabbath Day holy because ive done it before! When I heard that Hinckley had died, I had just finished watching a General Conference session and had told my mom about how great he was a few minutes before JR sent me that horrible txt (I mean, REALLY! Who the heck sends news of the death of a loved one via TEXT MESSEGE!?!?!?! That was the second time somebody did that crap to me!) SO I know that Hinckley is looking down on me hootin n hollerin tryna tell me that he has faith in me cause he saw me do it (picture old Hinckley making a pit stop at my mom’s house to check up on me before he reports for duty in Paradise- awesome).



Jesus tells me that all I have to do is “remember” and that will enlarge my ability to fully understand what Abba wants for me which will, in turn, strengthen my resolve against the adversary. The spirit is supposed to be the one who brings things to my remembrance. All I have to do to make sure i can constantly chitchat with the Spirit is stand in holy places and consciously invite him into my mind/heart/spirit/body. Often, I can very clearly hear what the Spirit is saying but SOMETHING always distracts me and makes my emotions go CRAZY! When this happens, I can barely think straight and I withdraw from the Lord into my own flawed reasoning (tinted, of course, with a whole lotta nagging from Satan). FRAK! ME!

So I guess I need to learn to recognize when the devil is tryna distract me and deal with my emotions in a more positive and productive way. How the heck am I posed to do that?! Dunno. But I’ve decided to practice keeping the Sabbath Day holy by keeping all the other days holy too- so that I don’t go through the early stages of withdrawal from Netflicks when I’m posed to be reading scriptures on a lovely Sunday afternoon. Besides, the scriptures say that Mon-Sat are days to work, not days to let the Devil creep into your life. All the days are posed to be holy anyway. The only diff is that on Sunday, you don’t go off to work. Let’s try that and see how it goes…..Starting……………………………………………………………NOW!!!!!

Tales of ZerLina and Laura-Denise (part 1)

Lina knows me prolly better than MOST including Annie, Merritt, Laura, and Genny COMBINED.
We were living in Roblee (technically she was in Wood Hall- but it was in the same building) at Stephens College. I was in her room more than my own. Mostly listening to John Mayer and talking about randomness. On one of the many occasions that I was in the hospital, she brought what I needed, gave me pertinent information and left. She is the only one who does that and that’s why I love her. I hate when ppl come to visit me in the hospital. So she keeps them away and tells them that I don’t want any visitors. Anyway, my visiting teachers took me home after I was discharged and I immediately sat down in front of the TV in the common room with my Apple-cinnamon Pop-Tarts and V-8 Splash. I got up to potty during a commercial break and when I got back I was told that Lina went upstairs to look for me- so I ran upstairs to meet her. But she wasn’t there so I went upstairs to her room. She wasn’t there either, so I made my way back downstairs to the common room. A few seconds later, I saw a blonde streak coming at me. She was screeching “YOURE BACK!!” She tells me a comical story of how she had come home and spotted the tell-tale signs of Laura-Denise Maxwell- poptarts and juice in front of the TV. When she didn’t see me in the common room, she ran upstairs to my bedroom and knocked on my door for a few minutes. At the same time that I was going up to see if she was at my bedroom door, she was running up to her room to see if I was at HER bedroom door. When I was running up to her room, she was taking the elevator back down to the common room. We both finally ended up in the common room grinning at each other.
She knows me sooo well. I love her. No homo.

The Road to Success isnt paved with gold. its not paved with blood, sweat, and tears. Its paved with 30 Rock and Battlestar Galactica.

Jesus told me to go to Utah: Done

Jesus told me to wait for a business opportunity in Utah: Done

Jesus told me to be diligent in my efforts with my fledgling company and get out every day and MAKE THAT MONEY LIKE AN ADULT: not so much.

It seems that, because I don’t have a traditional job that has me in the office working for someone else every day, I stay at home watching TV, eating Chinese food, and morphing into a general slob.

I wake up at noon30ish. Call a few friends and family members. Stretch for 20 minutes (I mean, REALLY, who the heck stretches for 20 frakin minutes?!) and then go eat some cereal- IF I decide to put clothes on. If I have yet to put on clothes, I sit there in total defiance of social convention refusing to put on a shirt and pants because I pay rent in this biAtch and I don’t have to wear clothes if I don’t want to! I open up the scriptures online in an effort to start the day off RIGHT with a little bit o Jesus. But something distracts me- like the realization that theres an episode of Vampire Diaries on sidereel.com that I have yet to watch. I figure I should prolly just get that outta the way before I start my day so that im not thinking about it and wishing I was watching tv while I read scriptures. So I quickly watch Vampire Diaries and as soon as the episode ends, I think about that episode of Burn Notice that I didn’t get to see last week and I open a new tab for hulu.com. I watch EVERYTHING in my queue and then proceed to Netflicks.com.

By this time I have ceased pretending I will be productive that day. Because it is now 6pm and I still don’t have clothes on. My stomach starts to growl at me and I reluctantly put on clothes so that my roommates don’t instantly turn into lesbians when they see my in all my caramel-coloured splendor. But why should I put on clothes just to make a bowl of cereal? NO!! I take the clothes BACK OFF and wrap myself in a big fluffy yellow towel and hope my roommates aren’t escorting people with penises into our apartment in the 3 mins it takes me to make my breakfast/lunch. When I get back into my room, I take the towel off and throw it to the floor with dramatic flourish because I DO WHAT I WANT! The giant bowl of cereal is delicioso and I contentedly fall asleep until 7:30ish when I get up again and see what the friends are up to. Theyre usually pretty boring so I end up going back home and watching more netflicks and playing sorority life on facebook. All the while, the online scriptures tab is still open because I feel too guilty to close it but I know I wont be reading my scriptures anytime soon.

Im not going to hell. I just might not be exalted.

new blood!

soo, I got new blood. they took out a whole bunch and put in about 10 units of the good stuff. I dont know exactly how much 10 units is supposed to be but...whatevs.



the nurses kept asking me if i wanted something to drink and i kept telling them no. i didnt want to have to get up to use the pot with tubes and such attached to me. gross and unsanitary, unsanitary and gross. So about 10 mins before the blood lady was done, i felt REALLY weird. Im thinking maybe i got a bad batch- like somebody was standing in the back of a dark parking lot selling their Hep-C blood for exactly 73 cents (Why 73 cents? I dunno. ask my nonsensical brain and the dirty bum who's selling blood)

so i finally went to the bathroom and thought i was going to pass out on the way there- but my mama taught me that whenever you feel sick, go sit on the toilet and it'll make you better lickettySPLIT! But the magical pot didnt work. and i walked slowly back to the room where my nurses were waiting and told them that i felt like i had stood up too fast but that the feeling wont go away. So they checked my blood pressure (which was waaaaaaaay too low) and marveled that I was able to come back from the bathroom and didnt collapse in the hallway. I say it was Jesus... and the magic pot... but mostly Jesus.

hipster Utards

i can understand why everyone in this town wants to be considered a little different. Most people think that mormons are pod-people and i admit that i can see why. most attempts to be different fail and end up being just another Hot Topic reject. And then theres the guy with the PORN-STACHE. come to show these utards how its done! No one else has succeeded in looking so creepy and all-around huggable at the same time. Heck. YES!

Lutha

so theres this guy. we'll call him Dude. he is absolutely adorable. At the beginning of the semester, I saw him by the elevators in a maintenance uniform and thought that maybe the elevator was broken. so i asked him if the elevator was ok or if he was fixing it (right before i noticed that all he was doing was wrapping a cord around a floor waxing machine). he said that the elevator was fine- then he said he liked my bag. I said "I like your face" and hurried through the elevator doors as nonchalantly as possible. Anyone who know me also knows that i say odd things all the time to amuse myself. But this time " I like your face" was completely unintentional and i was completely horrified. Dude is a god among men. his facial features are PERFECT and i dont care how beautiful a woman thinks she is, his butt will always look better than her face. Anyone would want their boys and GIRLS to look exactly like him. So i went home after i got out of classes for the day and hoped i would never see Dude again. but as luck would have it, I saw him everyday by that elevator on the way to class. Sure i could take the stairs, but im a lazy bum and would ride the elevator to help me stand up if there was such a device available to me. So I saw him and admired him from afar hoping that he wouldnt remember me and my embarrassing "I like your face" comment.

About a month later, I went to the Motown Dance sponsored by the Black Student Union in celebration of Black History Month. I was cute. had new weave, new clothes, super amazing make-up. I got there early to help out and the DJ was seriously hitting on me. ok, whatever. So I danced with my friends and made sure the DJ could see me dancing at every angle (no booty dances, mind you. partly because i have no butt and partly because thats just gross and inappropriate). Then Dude walked in...

I made sure Dude could see me dancing at every angle (forget the stupid DJ) and i was supa-fly, if i do say so myself. Every time my group of friends would move to a different part of the dance floor, he'd sorta migrate too. At first i suspected that he was friends with someone that was dancing with us. But im pretty sure he wasnt friends with anyone in my group. and every time i looked at him, he was looking at me (Heck YES!). I tried to make conversation and be witty and i said "I see you everywhere. Are you stalking me?" and he responded "why, yes I am" and i just kinda smiled. so it was pretty crowded and everyone was kinda squished together. he kept bumping into my back and i think it was on purpose- so I just went with it and danced with my back pressed to his. I KNOW RIGHT?! Dream come true, right?! after the dance was over, I thought he was already gone and i went to talk to some other members of the BSU. while im talking to some girls, he saunters around the corner lookin all luscious and pretends to stalk me in live action-mode. I thought it was the cutest thing. then i asked everyone for their names (i didnt really care about anyone's name but his- so that i could fantasize about having his last name attached to mine) and then asked for his name last because i wanted to seem all nonchalant. he said that his name was Lutha. One of his friends said "And you wonder why everyone calls you a liar!" Be still my heart! he lies about his name too! I have at least 6 different names circulating around this campus as i type (Sheba, Cookie, Nefertiti, Boomsheeka, Haylie, and Laura-Denise). He lies to amuse himself at the expense of others just like i do! we will lie together and live happily ever after!!!

All of this happened about 4 weeks ago. I have since stalked THE HELL outta that boy. not the regular super-easy Facebook stalk. I mean the old fashioned google stalk. it takes a lot of obsession (I lovingly call it dedication) to go through EVERY single google page to see if his name shows up. Last week, I finally added him as a friend on FB at 1am. I wasnt thinking straight and I didnt realize until the next morning that I forgot to delete all of the posts that i'd made referring to him. he's not that into FB so hopefully he didnt read my posts that said something along the lines of "I wanna have his babies!" He still waves and smiles when he sees me so maybe he isnt too freaked out.

A few more weeks have passed. I obsessed and now i think im over it. I saw him by the elevators again today. whatevs. We'll see what happens. Ill keep you informed.

Update: He would totally make my day when he smiled and waved at me. I finally went up to him and tried to start a convo and realized too late that i didnt have anything to say to this man. I couldnt ask him about his basketball days or his mission bc i wasnt supposed to know where he served or that his father is kinda famous in UK. Im not supposed to know about how his sister looks exactly like him or that his brother is kind of a jerk. So i just asked him his name again as nonchalantly as possible to make it seem as though i had forgotten and tried to pretend i didnt realize he had an accent.

Once i came to the conclusion that i would never be able to actually talk to him without revealing my stalker tendencies, i gradually lost interest. im taking this semester off so i fully expect to never see him again. thats cool.