See Below

I put together a little collage above to explain how I've been feeling. Not really lately but for a long time. Like forever! I know it's not really a positive thing but an honest thing. Emotional pain really does hurt. It hurts physically, mentally, and spiritually. Your in a fog and you can't see what's in front of you. A very scary feeling. I have my little kitten sitting on my lap right now and I'm not feeling any pain. Even though Peyn is my new spelling for it. Looks cooler. Means something more. Until I find a better way to post stuff please click on image above and understand my Peyn.

PEYN

Massa N'em

The Van Leers


(my spelling Van Lier)
My research has taken me back to this Swiss Mountains. Of course this is Massa's people not necessarily mine but I do have the "Van Leer" last name so my ancestors definitely worked their land. At one point A.W. Van Leer had 114 slaves which means he was doing very well for himself (because of my ancestors). I may or may not have the Swiss/German and even Russian blood the "Van Leers'" did but then again we don't know who was Massa's chillin either. It's good to know your history but what I'm finding, a "Van Leer" had a hand in clearing out some of the Midwest including Western PA which means he raped, killed and destroyed the Native Americans who were already residing in this area. But anyway that's just 200 years ago and a couple million savages just wandering around. This is also so eerily my history also because my ancestors obviously did a lot for middle Tennessee and I believe a lot of PA in the Philadelphia and Reading, PA areas. Stay tuned for my research and anger. Here is Massa's website www.vanleerplus.org

A Change is Going to Come

This is from my horoscope recently. Lately, it's as if you've been riding a roller coaster on which you're forbidden to scream. It's as if you've been trying to suppress your laughter as you watch a series of the funniest stand up comedians on the planet. It's like you've been ordered to sit stiffly in a chair and keep your feet motionless while your favorite band plays the dance music you love best. I hope you won't put up with this predicament any longer, Taurus. Either scream, laugh and dance, or else escape any situation that's keeping you clamped down.

This horoscope is really scarey because I really do need to get off of my ass and do something. I hate this job I'm sitting at right now but can't seem to get motivated. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME? Maybe not taking care of my Diabetes is one of them. I am a living example of bad eating, sleeping, and everything else habits that really do make a difference in your body. I don't have one ounce of energy and wonder why I'm not doing anything productive. Don't be like me: START MOVING!

Mi tattoo

Hey guys. I know ugly pic but I got my first tattoo. Im so excited. It's the symbol for Taurus the Bull my zodiac sign. I already want more. this is a big step for me choosing to do something that will be so permanent. Wait until I cover my whole back!!!! Hahaha just kidding...maybe.

Saying hello after long time

Hey there! This is for the -10 people who view this blog. I haven't said anything in a while. Probably because I've been depressed. Not because of anything specific my hormones just don't like me very much. To the left is the ring I wear everyday celebrating being a woman.

Give me some time I'll be back. Soon as my seratonin decides what it wants to do. Hopefully the levels with start to go up now that it is nice and sunny out.

April is Poetry Month

Celebrate Poetry Month

I would like to share this poem I thought was a good one. By a black woman Gladys May Casley-Hayford

My Lips

My lips were buds of innocence until you came one day
And drew a fountain from my heart and careless went your way,My lips were hungry, eager flowers curved in ecstatic bliss
To gather the soft sweetness of my next lover's kiss.My lips were luscious ripeness of a crushed and poisoned vine
When you bent your lips upon me and my soft ones clung to thineMy lips are withering fading flowers, full weary unto death
Dew without moisture is thy kiss; wind without heat thy breath.A fugitive tear wells up from my eyes and is secretly, silently shed.
Are lips that once were innocent, so withered, so parched, so dead?

Where's Spring!!

Is anyone else wondering when the earth will decide to explode? A little chilly out O.K. Freezing cold. Hell No!!! This bunny is in desperate need of spring because he is ready to make little bunnies and he's too cold to procreate. Yes we do need more purple bunnies running around. We need more diversity.

He was so cold he couldn't even deliver my easter basket which really infuriated me. I know my teeth hurt and the last thing I need is candy but it was EASTER!! Thanks for nothing Mr. Bunny.

FOUR YEARS TOO MANY

This is my very generic version of a chart. But I hope you see the numbers. Over 3,ooo have died (just on our side) in this war. Over 100,000 Iraqi's have died. Even though I'm sure no one cares about them. The numbers are beyond staggering. I haven't even put the Cost of the damn war up here. I can't wrap my mind around 378 Billion. But there isn't enough money for healtcare. And let's not even talk about when I retire. There will be nothing. For me or no one else. So what are we going to do about this useless, frivilous spending and draining of resources that the people we "elected" are doing? We have to have more of a collective voice. Especially us black ppl who has forgotten about fighting the good fight without resources. And now that we have some resources we act like everything is ok. Please look at the statistics ppl. Everything is not o.k. Far from it!!!!

Celebrate Women

After reading Alec's blog . I realize we need more female Super Heroes. Where are the ladies of history that we are in awe of for their courage. In celebration of Women's History Month please take a moment to honor or remember a woman who you know is a Hero even if not celebrated my the masses. I do love Wonder Woman even though you have to wonder if she can breathe in that corset. Can a female hero be sexy? As long as she's smart, who cares. As long as she does'nt dumb herself down to make her hubby happy. Celebrate a Super Woman. A woman of strength, courage, intelligence!

Stop the War!!!!!

I have a feeling this war isn't going to end soon. But I guess the trying is worth it. Sometimes even within the protesting I wonder is anyone really listening. I go to some peace and justive events and I see the same ppl that were at all the other ones. And I have to ask myself where are the people who could really benefit from this information. They obviously are'nt seeking out the movements meanwhile are the main ones who should. The ones who are coming out know all the BS already so I feel like their preaching to the choir sometimes. But please take some kind of stand. Vote, shout, sing, dance
DO SOMETHING"

Kittyscopes

For those with way too much time on their hands. I believe the kitties are "Gemini's" (yes they have split personalities). It's scary because they are just like their signs: Intelligent and talkative!! I know PJ's won't shut the hell up but she is pretty smart. Now Pups on the smarts......hard to say because he's such a bad assssssss! Or maybe he's a smart ass! I obviously have to much time on my hands too!! I wish they could have been born a month earlier and they could be a Taurus like their mommies! Then we would really have trouble with them :)

Lesson in Patience

My little kittie puppies is a "handful" and yesterday he decided to poop on the pants on the floor instead of the litterbox. Yeah I lost my patience a little and tossed him and he was hurt a little. He was limping around on his paw which turned me into a ball of mush because I thought I was a kitty abuser and felt like hell. I let anger overcome me and I took it out on an innocent kitten who yes, was exhibiting undesirable behavior but can't communicate with me like another human can so I decided he needed to "pay" or "learn his lesson." Well I learned my lesson in realizing I took on a responsibility to take care of these kittens even when they are not cute and cuddlies. Like children we cannot give them back or abuse them like so many people do out of ignorance and impatience. Sorry again Puppies for being a miserable human who thinks the world revolves around her. I have to love you even when you don't act or do what I want or how I like. I will be a sucker for about a week and give you alot of treats and neck rubs which I'm sure you will love and take advantage of.

Do animals take advantage of "situations" or is that another undesirable human trait that we feel we have to push on other "beings" just because they are breathing? Or is it undesirable? Isn't "taking advantage" of situations a capitalist attitude.

Love you Pups!!

My Meanderings

Happy to be Nappy....

As I make my way around this growing diversified city, I notice more proud African-Americans wearing natural hairdos. But I still see the majority of my sista’s with red, blue, and purple hair weaves. I love that we are creative and stylish people but enough is enough. I think it’s time to start the revolution. The hair-a-lution or the solution of our shame. I yearn for the day when little black, white, and Chinese girls can look in the mirror and want this nappy hair. No matter how beautiful or exotic black women are supposed to be we hate this cursed hair of ours. Are we that ashamed of ourselves that the way to show our beauty is with fake blond weaves hanging down to our asses!

Trust me, it took a long time for me to decide to let the relaxer go and start locking my hair. It’s not the easiest hair to run your fingers through or jump out of the shower and swing it and you’re done. But is it that awful that the majority of the black women I see aren’t wearing their natural hair? Not that relaxed hair is au natural either but at least before it was just about taming our hair a little not wearing a complete disguise. Have we completely bought into European standards of beauty that we don’t even know what ours is. I thought black was beautiful. It’s ok for American society to start talking black and acting black and listening to our music and tanning themselves to a crisp but We sho’ don’t want that hair.

Growing up with these humid ass summers, I loved to swim. I went damn near everyday and by summer’s end I was usually ten shades darker and my hair was usually frizzled and fried from the chlorine reacting with the chemicals in my hair. But I didn’t care because I loved to swim. The coolness of the water, the freedom of feeling like a fish, and playing in the water with friends. Yet, so many of my friends didn’t want to go because they didn’t want to get their hair wet. “Your eight years old, who cares what your hair looks like”, I wanted to yell? Or even when we were required to take swimming at our predominantly white High School so many girls were willing to get an F because of their hair.

A guy I worked with so eagerly shared with me how he was lucky for not being black because we couldn’t go to the beach. Excuse me? Oh so I got this rich brown skin blessed with melanin from cowering in caves for all those years? I came from the sun, the heat, the dessert, and yes even the jungle.

When I told a friend of mine that I was beginning to grow locks, she said, “They probably look good on you but girl I would look like Tracy Chapman.” “Well what’s wrong with Tracy Chapman?” But of course, she has dark skin, full lips, and that dreaded nappy hair. Oh stupid me, how dare she be considered beautiful.

All my life I’ve had to hear the term “good hair” used. And my question still remains what the hell does that mean? Does it behave when you yell at it? Does it have the good manners this nappy hair doesn’t? Because that’s definitely the problem I have with this “bad” hair. It just doesn’t act right or obey me. I don’t know what to do other they call Dr. Phil and ask him to please help me with all this unruliness I can’t seem to control.

I don’t know why God decided to give African people coiled and kinky hair. My question is why do I have to be ashamed of it?

One day a white girlfriend while pregnant with her son actually mustered up the gall and said to me, “I hope his hair doesn’t come out all nappy”. Is that so? Will you love him any less if he does? You rub up against his father’s nappy hair every night without complaints. Living in this still prejudice world there are no other issues concerning you about your half black child other than if his hair is nappy?

Even though I see a lot of bi-racial children blessed with curly, wavy, and silky hair, I’m sure to their mothers delight, is there anyone telling them they are beautiful not because of their hair and light skin but of being a product of two worlds that found love for one another in spite of. Or are they being told they are more beautiful and special than their nappy headed all black friends?

I remember my fifth grade black English teacher explaining to a white teacher how black hair is actually more delicate than silky hair. Now I know that is hard for all the silky heads to believe but it’s true. Years of my hair falling out from hot combs, jherri-curls, and relaxers kept in too long to get that ultra straight silky shiny head affect I thought we were all supposed to achieve. I couldn’t get my hair to grow past my ears from globs of hair coming out as I picked at the scabs on my scalp.

I came across another regal earthy sista with locks one day and she complimented me on mine and she said, “I say it’s the truth.” I didn’t ask her what she meant but I know she meant the true us, the true me, our true beauty. And I know the lie is that nappy is ignorant, ugly, and backwards.

White girls may think it’s fake breast and Asian girls may think it’s a crease in their eyelids to look more western and black girls think it’s synthetic strands that swing, but I’ve finally found the true secret to beauty. And it’s just loving me.

Damnation

On one of my many sleepless nights I came across a television evangelist vehemently preaching about God’s word and his great expectations for our poor souls. I usually pass up such spewing but I decided to give the pastor a chance at his persuasion. And as I likely figured I could have my soul saved and my prayers answered if sent a thousand dollars to this ministry.

As I child, I was a faithful Sunday school goer and member of a church I loved. I know it takes money for utilities, building and the benevolent fund that I hoped reached needy members. But am I supposed to give into the fear of burning in eternal damnation for not emptying my pockets or back account

I’m sorry that I can’t completely believe in the bible telling me how I’m supposed to live. I don’t think the bible was written by as circus freak but it amazes me how we are so afraid of the unknown that in order to keep ourselves in order we throw a book that has been manipulated and misconstrued to explain the meaning of life. I’ve always had trouble with this structured existence of what I’m supposed to be doing and how. Life didn’t look so bleak when I was younger. It wasn’t perfect but I definitely didn’t take heed to adults telling me to stay young and never grow up. Because being responsible for yourself and your actions and your life and future is not easy. I’m trying my best to make sense and happiness out of life full of pretense and plasticity.

My very best friend growing up went to a radically different church than I did. She completely terrified me one day when she invited me over to listen to a tape of a woman who God let go to hell so she could come back and report to our lost souls that eternal damnation is real and if you don’t pass out in church, speak in tongues, be obedient to what God tells you and give your 10 percent of your income to the church your going down and it’s bad.

Now after I left her house needless to say I was afraid of my own shadow. After sitting there for two hours and listening to evil persons screaming and crying for help I needed to figure out how to please this almighty God. But I couldn’t help wonder how at the age of 14 knowing I had never killed anyone, stole anything significant, or cheated and lied for self gain I couldn’t understand how I could burn in the same eternal fire as Hitler and Charles Manson .

So going to Sunday school way too early every Sunday morning and obeying my parents and being a good little girl for my teachers didn’t score me any brownie points? God must be a very tough guy. (The fact of him being a guy is a complete other rant.) Which scared the hell out of me because I may have been an obedient child but I definitely never liked doing what everyone else did, think like everyone else and here I realized God had all these damn rules and regulations I just didn’t agree with.

My friend went back and forth being saved then unsaved then in a couple months after she had been suspended a couple times or after she stole money out of her mother’s purse she would be swept away to the pastors house and prayed over and the next day in school when I wanted to about the newest video on BET. She couldn’t because she was saved last night. Again she swore to stop all her evil ways and would no longer steal from all the stores she wasn’t allowed in anyway because of her reputation, or talk back to her mom or all the teachers she disrespected in front of as many students as possible.

Well, okay great but please remind me why I’m going to hell when I’ve been doing all that shit anyway. So just because I don’t read the Bible that I really can’t comprehend or at least make up my own meaning to be pushed on more naïve individuals, or go to church four times a week and on Sundays sit there until about five o’clock when I desperately want to be out in the fresh air that God has so made for us, my flesh will burn and my pain will be unbearable?

So is this fear the reason why George Bush can preach about morals and values out front while destroying countries in the background and no one says anything because those horrible people over there don’t believe in our God?

Well hopefully before I die I can start making some real money because God sure seems expensive and a little too demanding.

Self-Worth

How do I find self worth without a degree and a million letters after my name MD, PHD, RN, Ed, BBD. I know my worth doesn’t exist in what college I went to or what sorority I should have pledged. But as the bills pile up and I realize all the mistakes I’ve made it’s hard to see that happy ending. The mistake of not knowing what I wanted to do at the age of 18 fresh out of a High School. Fresh from a small town that thinks Pittsburgh is a fast city. I want to know why the world is so fucked up and while no one has the answers it’s supposed to be so obvious to me that it is God’s plan and I shouldn’t question it.

What exactly is God’s plan? For black people to still remain the most disenfranchised, demeaned and uneducated people in this country. As if it’s not this country’s plan. His plan must be for white men in blue suits with privileged lives and educations to shape my life and my community and my self worth. No one should be in charge down here. That’s why I can’t sing I’m so proud to me an American because at least I know I’m free. Free from what. Ok so I can say what I want (sometimes) and (supposedly) love who I want and (possibly) even live where I want. But things haven’t always been equal here not that they still are. Why can’t I be of the earth and from the earth? I don’t feel like this is my country, I feel like it’s my world.

This can't be life right?

I'm sitting here participating in being a mindless drone. And if you haven't guessed miserable. Figuring out what to do with this blog. Maybe this can be for People Against Mindless Work-The PamW's or Black Bitches Pissed At Everything-BPae's!!! Yeah! Or me posting useless tidbits about my life and opinions of life. Or me talking way too much about my kittens who are way too cute. You be the judge or I'll be the judge since I'll be like one of the two people looking at this. Hahahaha!