bedtime reading

One of our seniors at "current college of employment" presented her thesis on Baldwin's Another Country. I am an avid Baldwin fan (actually he's one of my favorite writers) but haven't read AN. I enjoyed said student's presentation so much, I decided to take Baldwin to bed.

The only time I tend to pleasure read these days is on the way to bed, on an airplane or on the stationary bike at the gym. Typically, I'll have three or four books beside my bed and will pick up one before I nod off. Currently I have an appropriately titled chick lit read Good in Bed on my bedside table as well as Baldwin's AN. For the past few nights, Baldwin has occupied my final waking hours. "Rufus," AN's protag, has kept me turning pages. So far he's shaping up to be a really dark, emotionally complex character with some wicked ass violent tendencies. I'll see how he continues to unfold.

good things

Remember how Martha Stewart used to have those annoying segments on "good things"? At the end of the segment, she'd say something ridiculous like "Making your own candlesticks in 5 minutes, that's a good thing." My good things have little to do with Martha Stewart, with the exception of my use of the phrase, but here goes ...

So in an effort to shift my bluemood of late, I've been focusing on good things like:

My latest CD discovery, Brazilian Girls, this really cool kinda electronica, downtempoish group with no Brazilians and only one girl. One of my favorite ways to procrastinate is searching and downloading music from I-tunes. It can get a little addictive and expensive but now I-tunes has this feature called "Just for You" and though some of the music is really not for me and I'm wondering how they're compiling this list based on my library, the I-tuners did recommend Brazilian Girls "just for me" and I quickly downloaded and burned the grooves to a blank CD. I've been listening to it for days, while working of course.

on lockdown

While I've managed to miss most of Lil' Kim's reality tv show "Countdown to Lockdown," (writing diss, not watching tv) I came home from work Thursday evening beat down from the demands of academe and really all I could ingest was a couple of hours of bad television. So lucky for me, I got to watch the last two installations of "lockdown."

And I really felt badly for Kim. The 2nd to last episode spotlighted her going away party. Her friends and family (including folks like Mary J Blige and Swizz Beats) approached a microphone and sent Kim off with love and well-wishes. In what actually appeared to be a show of real emotion, Kim also broke down in tears as she recalled the sacrifices she's made for her "friends" (including going to jail by the way), and the lack of reciprocity a lot of folks have shown her. And you know what? I actually believe her. She lives by "the code of the streets," one aspect of which is loyalty to those you call your own. Now I'm not endorsing the "stop snitching" code that has become more pronounced in besieged communities nor am I saying everyone from the "hood" is genuine and loyal (hence, Lil' Kim taking the fall for some ole wanna-be gansta bullshit), but in my experience growing up in lower-working class digs, there was certainly a sense of community and family in some senses with the folks from your neighborhood. As for people coming in from other hoods, well ... they had to watch their backs.

I think perhaps the most real footage from "lockdown" may have been the last few hours of Kim's life outside. Lil' Kim had to peel off the weave, the fake nails, fake eyelashes and who knows what else and Kimberly Jones really had to go to prison. Her mom, her cousin and other friends and entourage accompanied her on the busride from New York to the Federal Detention Center in Philly. And viewers and fans watched as Kim entered the facility where she would serve her sentence--a year and a day. Female inmates banged on the windows in support of Kim. The building shook.

black female sexuality and white (male) privilege

While I haven't crafted an eloquent response (or lament) about the recent happenings at Duke, Duke University professor and avowed black male feminist Mark Anthony Neal offers a suggestive critique of the situation at Pop Matters.

bogged down blogger

Okay, so I've fallen off on my reportage for Countdown to Lockdown. I haven't screamed into cyberspace my disgust about the scandal with Duke's LaCrosse team. I haven't weighed in on the current cycle of America's Next Top Model (and my obsession with Nnenna) or this season of The Sopranos (which is weird as hell, right?). In other words, I've been a bad blogger or rather a blogger bogged down with dissertation revisions.

Now on the wire, between the end of a long ass journey through academe and a tenure-track job, I'm tired, anxious and I look and feel like a hot mess. (My version of a hot mess: fallen off at the gym and it shows! Need a haircut and an eyebrow wax and let's not forget those feet! It's almost springtime afterall. And, can I um wear something besides pajamas and sweats? Oh, that would require me dropping off my laundry! Yes -- dropping it off. I do live in NY afterall.) I answer about half my phone calls, return my e-mails on occasion and go out even less frequently. These are all signs of the end, I'm told as are my highs and lows, crying fits and desire to take a nap in the middle of the day or sometime as soon as I wake up.

But the diss is not my sole tormentor. It's almost the end of the academic year and my students are freaking out and becoming increasingly needy: they need to drop the course (cuz they be failing), they need extra credit (not going to happen), they need need need. And I wish I could accomodate more of their needs but most of the time, showing up and leading discussion for an hour and forty minutes (for three classes by the way) is all a girl can do. As well as grade papers, chair senior theses and actually prep for those three classes.

But as the elders say "trouble don't lass always." And I know that to be true, but sometimes it's hard to look forward to the end when you're bogged down in the muddle of it all. Ah well, for now I'll settle for looking forward to my Sunday tv break aka The Sopranos.