The Writers Block Booth Project

All I Want For Christmas...

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:20:00 -0500

George Orwell’s unabashed & confrontational approach to writing, thinking and living
Sigh. The courage, motivation, work ethic, time, money, to acheive my myriad dreams.
Vintage Fur vests like the one Diana Ross wore in Mahogany. (the whole wardrobe is amazing down to the hair) I wish I had gotten one years ago when I first started obsessing over it and now EVERYBODY is rocking them. Oh well, its still fabulous.
The end of mass produced fashion (people, get your own sense of style please!)
A study in my house filled with books and a big table for me spread out and collage, write, sew, and be myself.
Albert Camus’ straightforward yet descriptive and powerful prose. My favorite Camus work right now is the “Artist at Work”. Inspiring and maddening at the same time.
For somebody to please, please, please find a way for me to watch the PBS documentary “Doc”. The film is about Doc Humes, a member of the Paris Review camp of writers that included people like Truman Capote. I need to watch this film for fodder for the short story I’m writing about a writer/artist teacher who takes advantage of and gets a little too close to a couple of his students. Trust me, it gets pretty weird.
My dad’s vinyl. It won’t happen. But I put it on the list every year.
A new cd to bump in my car that evokes the blues, hip-hop, southern soul vibe I have been feeling lately.
The perfect New Year’s Eve outfit replete with all my favorite friends and loved ones present to share a night of dancing till the satin sticks to your back, your shoes come off, and somebody says Hallelujah!

I hope that everyone has a relaxing and fun-filled holiday. I, for one, plan to try to work through my current sense of lethargy and winter doldrums in order to get back to some kind of creative spark that translates to my writing life, art life, work life, and personal life.

Lumière de vous, sera de retour verve

Photo

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:15:00 -0500

When I Typed In "Silence Is My Portion"

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:31:00 -0400

Piedad Bonnet

ORACIÓN

Para mis días pido,
Señor de los naufragios,
no agua para la sed, sino la sed,
no sueños
sino ganas de soñar.
Para las noches,
toda la oscuridad que sea necesaria
para ahogar mi propia oscuridad.

PRAYER

For my days I ask,
Lord of shipwrecks,
not for water for my thirst, but thirst,
not for dreams,
but for the desire to dream.
For the nights,
all the darkness that will be needed
to drown my own darkness.

Photo

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:49:26 -0400

Praise God for Womack & Womack! This song defined my Labor...

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:36:49 -0400

Praise God for Womack & Womack! This song defined my Labor Day/Birthday celebration with my best friend. This is what you call a “slow burn”. I caint understand it baby……

Im too rich for this and i will be richer still i am unbought...

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:26:52 -0400

Im too rich for this and i will be richer still

i am unbought and unbossed

if u cant support me or cant endorse me get out of my way

"My life seems to be an increasing revelation of the intimate face of universal struggle. You begin..."

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:41:23 -0400

“

My life seems to be an increasing revelation of the intimate face of universal struggle. You begin with your family and the kids on the block, and next you open your eyes to what you call your people, and that leads you into land reform into Black English into Angola leads you back to your own bed where you lie by yourself, wondering if you deserve to be peaceful, or trusted or desired or left to the freedom of your own unfaltering heart. And the scale shrinks to the size of a skull: your own interior cage.

~ June Jordan

”

It Ended… I’ve unplugged,put on my favorite...

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:19:08 -0400

It Ended…

I’ve unplugged,
put on my favorite shoes
and my kohl eyeliner

Into night,
I go.

I am going to STALK this DJ Oskido when I get back to South...

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:16:37 -0400

I am going to STALK this DJ Oskido when I get back to South Africa. This mix of “Talkin bout a Revolution” is sick!!! And I’ll be back with some photo compositions soon….I’m on hiatus right now.

I have a spiritual connection with the Clark Sisters. This past...

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:10:03 -0400

I have a spiritual connection with the Clark Sisters. This past week I have been feeling disconnected, angry, raw, busting at the seams. I know the sources of my stress, but what I have had to remember is that God’s power and plans are greater than my own, beauty will come, beauty is present even in the most crippling situations. He will bring you out! And please peep how HARD they are singing…Its not for the faint of heart!

I have insomnia and I have been awake sine 4:30 AM. I started...

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:50:33 -0400

I have insomnia and I have been awake sine 4:30 AM. I started reading some Rumi:

Now I lay me down to stay

awake. Pray the Lord my soul

to take into your wakefullness,

so that I can get this one bit of wisdom clear:

grace comes to forgive and then forgive again.

Of course I had listen to E. Badu’s “Master Teacher”…

Dream in Thai: 4.23.08peep show two gorillas, one boatthe...

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:19:02 -0400

Dream in Thai: 4.23.08

peep show
two gorillas, one boat
the elephant arrives with more European menus
what the hell are we doing here?
camera in my bag,
two-headed woman
kleptomaniac twins laughing in the street
dropping contraband in my soul

it is almost as though I can hear them saying
pick it up, pick it up fast girl
as the din cymbals
gold get dried up
and u caint hear it no more

"I am one beautiful and powerful son of a bitch…Smart as a whip, respected, prosperous, beloved..."

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:15:41 -0400

“

I am one beautiful and powerful son of a bitch…Smart as a whip, respected, prosperous, beloved and valuable. I have the right to be healthy, happy and rich, for I am the baddest player in this arena or any other. I love myself more than I love money and pretty women and fine clothes. I love myself more than I love neat gardens and healthy babies and a good gospel choir. I love myself as I love the law. I love myself in error and in correctness, waking or sleeping, sneezing, tipsy, or fabulously brilliant. I love myself doing the books or sitting down to a good game of poker. I love myself making love expertly, or tenderly and shyly, or clumsily and inept. I love myself as I love The Master’s Mind.

Toni Cade Bambara, “The Salt Eaters”

”

- Im reading Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Salt Eaters”. The book is hard to get into but once you do get in deep you realize that its about all the myriad ways that healing comes to us and the struggles that we must undertake in order to acheive it. I’m still learning…But please believe that I stand in the mirror and recite this passage. It makes an excellent incantation.

the voice of weirdness stretching out like a pair of pantyhose...

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:20:14 -0400

the voice of weirdness stretching out like a pair of pantyhose over pipes…

my cousin used to call me Medusa.

Medusa,
many headed woman
caller of male death
and female jealousy,
that renders you to stone.

my cousin used to call me Medusa.

which,
may have been a euphemism for defiant
complicated
crush-heads-in-your-hand womanhood.

my cousin used to call me Medusa.

my braids flopping in the DC summer sun,
as I made-believed in my grandmother’s red dirt yard
turning rope alone/talking/always talking
retreating under grandma’s quilt that I no longer remember the story to,
under it
strange,
just as strange as i could be.

"My journeys to South Africa are akin to pilgrimages that begin with ambivalence, are punctuated by..."

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:14:11 -0400

“My journeys to South Africa are akin to pilgrimages that begin with ambivalence, are punctuated by moments of sobering clarity and end with a sense of humility. South Africa is where I found kindred spirits as well as broken spirits. It is where I found a genuine sense of home., Kameelah Rasheed, WireTap Magazine”

- Everyone has been asking me about my trip to South Africa and today I came across the words that I have been unable to find and articulate for myself. Any travel outside of your home country renders you simultaneously excited and crippled. Excited for the experience, and yet strangely crippled by your otherness in ways both obvious and innocuous. This trip reinforced what I know to be true about many things: blackness can be a totally diasporic concept, colonialism bore witness to some of the most depraved acts of human beings, the master/slave dichotomy is alive and well in all parts of the world, etc. Those things I have long known to be true. But how this visit challenged me was through the unexpected feelings of ambivalence, the connection with others like myself, and the disconnects inherent because of my American-ness. Its heavy. More musings to come….

"ca’line’s prayer i have got old in a desert country i am dry and black as..."

Thu, 29 May 2008 10:48:48 -0400

“

ca’line’s prayer

i have got old
in a desert country
i am dry
and black as drought
don’t make water
only acid
even dogs wont drink

remember me from wydah
remember the child
running across dahomey
black as ripe papaya
juicy as sweet berries
and set me in the rivers of your glory

Ye Ma Jah

”

- Lucille Clifton, “ca’line’s prayer”

I am completely in love with this video. It was produced by...

Thu, 29 May 2008 09:56:00 -0400

I am completely in love with this video. It was produced by Zulema Griffin (Project Runway Season 2) to showcase her Fall 08/09 line. First off, the imagery recalls literary things for me like “The Blacker the Berry” and “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Secondly, coming from the perspective of one who gets their spiritual wisdom through synchronicity, this video expresses the depths of loss, being lost, wandering in search of God, and ultimately the ways in which we mask and cover up that journey even as we are going through it. I heart this. Enjoy.

P.S. I knew that I loved Zulema for her “You can cry, but you better cry and cut!” moment on ProjRun, but this seals it in there like swimwear.

One more week of school. I’ll be leaving to go to South...

Sat, 24 May 2008 22:44:34 -0400

One more week of school. I’ll be leaving to go to South Africa on an adventure in about a month. This school year has been a hot mess and a blaze of glory of sorts. Through it all my friends have kept me together. I am sure there is no coincidence that most of my friends are teachers as well. Thanks for holding my hand.

This is off topic I know. I know. But this is a thought that...

Sun, 11 May 2008 11:15:00 -0400

This is off topic I know. I know. But this is a thought that consumes my life:

Here lie the prefect sunglasses for my life.

I once owned a pair,

perfectly round,

offbeat and orange

in the recesses of my purse

they met irreversible brokenness.

My love for these sunglasses cancels out the fact that they are manufactured by J.Lo. I have tried on lots of others but they are either too predictable (Read: Obviously purchased at Urban Outfitters) or too plain (Read: Mom Sunglasses). Sigh.

Invoices, First Names, & Commissions

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:56:00 -0400

I don’t like callin and botherin people. “Hello this is Darnell calling from EastLine Asset Management…” It’s the job I never wanted. “Hello this is Darnell calling from EastLine Asset Management…” Sometimes calling a invoice is like trying to get with silly girls in high school. The kind of girl who would say she was goin with you and then switch once she fucked a basketball player. Those are the ones who fake like they’re gonna pay and don’t until 20 or more phone calls later. “Yes, Ms. Ingram we’re showing a balance of $868.83. How do you intend to pay for that? Check? Money Order?”

I know how she’s going to pay. If she got kids she might ignore it. She might pay for their school clothes, a birthday party, a pair of shoes for herself. Of course she tells me the check is in the mail. Of course I tell my supervisor that Ms. Ingram is gonna pay and I’ll get my commission from closing the account. But I know better. “Hello? Oh this isn’t Natasha? Can you tell her Darnell called?” You get to first names when its time to get serious. Call 33. Promise 50. Natasha is always nice when I call. We talk about her job, her other bills choking her bank account. She tells me that she feels embarrassed that I have to call. I feel quietly embarrassed because I haven’t paid my fees for my cooking classes, embarrassed that my glasses are cracked on the right lens and I haven’t had insurance since undergrad. I’m embarrassed that I even went to undergrad…

“Hi, oh, is your mommy there? She’s not? Can you tell her Mr. Darnell called?” Its all a game. I wake up everyday and wear a suit full of lies, drive 40 miles to the call center where our supervisor gets dumb fucks hype by telling em they’re “debt professionals”. Ms. Ingram, Natasha, might never answer the phone again. I probably won’t get this commission. My supervisor will wear pants that are too small and his feet are gonna hang over the sides of his shoes like overstuffed fanny-packs. I know he’s gonna make us do a cheer before we go to our desks and pick up the phones that are damn near warm from the night before. I will do my shift. “Hello, this is Darnell…” Natasha answers. She asks me if I have any other payment options. I smile before I reply. That is one thing I don’t know.

This is my attempt at flash fiction or micro fiction My central quandary was: How does a bill collector feel? Is it possible for them to like a job that is truly based on an elevated form of hunting and harassment? How does the survival of one almost always mean the non-survival of another?