She get it from her momma...

Maybe thats my problem- i cant make up my damn mind.

My mom is the same way. Whats insanely crazy is that when my mom was 23- she lived on the same street i just found a house on here in atlanta...before that- between 19-21-she lived in Berkeley.Sometimes i feel as though im retracing her steps- and if all goes well- im destined to live in DC in about 2 years.

Some people stay on top of things and me- well i stay at the bottom of things. I don't know how ive managed all these years. Sometimes my mind is so far ahead, looking at the big picture that i forget the basics. Like getting dressed and forgetting to put your underwear on.

Sometimes i wish the world would slow down so I can get it together- yet if it did- time would be frozen forever.

I don't know what i want...

...and so it is

i dont believe in good- and perhaps i don't believe in bad. Things just 'are'.

my friend says im a pessimist for thinking that way, another just says that i'm indifferent.

After the storm rattled the ground- a rush of frigid air rushed through the door. I thought that even after the storm- the weather might be warm. I lay there shivering and freezing in silence- looked around for a nice warm spot. Settled for another place.slightly warmer.

I guess thats what i get for not weaing a jacket...

alii

misc.

I need to actually move into my place today. Even if i have to sleep on a mattress on the floor. Get it movin...

i also need o do some shopping for my new place-this should be interesting given that i hate shopping- especially for myself.

i went to a gathering with 'Jocelea'. Old faces new faces. I wore a long flowey skirt courtesy of alysia(if yall don't know- i'm alysia's closet rat- i take her clothes and bring them cross country and take pics of other people in her clothes)Smiles and laughs and a sip of a martini. We honored ourselves, our bodies, some chicken wings and pussy williams.

Golddigeer has a video- looks like the twin video to David Banners 'play'. I love lingerie and bikinis so im really feeling the vidoe.

Moyas coming back tomorrow! Yay. Guess its back to no meat...

I live in the West End and the West End lives in me.

I want to leave comments on Delaines blog but i dont think im deep enough


okay i gotta go now..peace.

Bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yay

So this morning I lost Hafeeza's (my new roomie)dog. I was showing Alysia around the house and I opened the back door and the dog just sprinted out. It was gone for like 20 minutes while Alysia and I frantically tried to search the neighborhood, hitting our thighs and whistling.I didnt have my phone and I tried to call around hoping people had Hafeezas number. 20 long minutes later, the dog just popped up next door. Wagging his tail and looking at me bemused. Nigga- this aint hide and go seek!

Him and I are going to have an interesing relationship. And as long as he and i are in the house together- he will never(and i repeat never) see the light of day.

don't worry- he got a window.

Never leave me alone

It's so hard/
to say goodbye
to yesterday

Sure I sound like a whiny kid- but damn- did y'all all have to leave at once?

After one semester of meeting some of the most beautiful,not entirely grounded, intelligent, thoughtful, women centered individuals-y'all are just gonna get up and fuckin go?

What the fuck!!

I feel like a kid who came to the playground, having all the fun i could muster up- then 5 minutes later y'alls momma called you to come home. I'm sitting there alone in my diaper in the sandbox, looking at the castles y'all built and wondering what i should do with them.

Okay so i suck at metaphors- but im just trying to tell y'all how i feel right now..


Fuck y'all with your mass exodus away from me. Baby, i'm a melodramatic selfish biyatch, you guys were MY friends. Y'all got some nerve leaving me on this campus with all these people...

I've only been here a semester. I'm just now starting to purge the misogyny out my system. Shit- i got here not even knowing what the word misogyny meant-I had to look it up after the first SisterFire i attended. I have only recently started reading Hill Collins and understanding all of this stuff that y'all learned waaaay before me. I'm new to this and I'm not a very good feminist, In fact I suck at it. But im still trying...

1 semester and I have learned so much. I hope it wasnt in vain- I hope I don't let y'all down. I promise I'll try not to let anyone step on your sand castles...



and ill take/with me the memories/
to bring back the sun after the raaaaain
ooooooohhhhhhhhh yeaah
It's so hard, to say goodbye
to yesterday

Oh yeah, I forgot, I live in the coloured section

So after a few days of hiding out in Moya's posh Decatur pad, I ventured on over to my new neighborhood, my new home...

After an obnoxious stint on the Marta and a few pit stops at the West End Bank of America and Post Office, where the lines are ridiculously long for no reason.

Its a working class area at the bottom of Bougie Avenue(a.k.a.Cascade) near abouts Abernathy. Its a black neighborhood with old peple who still sit on their porches and wave as I walk by.( Old people make for good neighbors-they got the police on speed dial in case some riff-raff' and nonsense comes into the neighborhood). I walked up my porch to hear my new dogs 'don't have a name' and 'i forgot his name' running to greet me...It was beautiful.

Still don't have a bed...let me rephrase that-'I still dont have someone to bring my bed across town for me"

After my soul basked in the heat- I walked over to Krogers( a popular grocery chain over here). This kroger in particular has a barber shop- a nail salon, an athletes foot and tax services. No thats not an exaggeration. It is probably the ghettoist shit i've seen in a loooong time. I had been craving spinach- and the night before, i attempted to make what i thought was spinach and turned out to be lettuce(fuck you- they look the same). Of course i didn't realize this until i had a pot full of boiled lettuce...ANYWAY I purchased some spinach and since I live in a cloured section- there were two checers open in the entire store. So i decided to try out those self checking machines, which i abhor. The machine shortchanged me of a precious quarter i needed for my trip back. I stood in the long customer service line for 15 minutes to get my quarter....


After an exhausting day of waiting in line then waiting...i walked all the way to castleberry to see my friend Tam. Shes rooming with 3 morehouse dudes which i think is taking a toll on her whether shes conscious of it or not. We twisted her hair which took like 2 hours while listening to Young Jeezy in a room filled with weed smoke. we left and attempted to get some food on campus with the SOL
s but despite all of tams smooth talking social skills, we got kicked out the caf looking like two homely ashy-kneed kids.

So I'm back in the white neighborhood. Back to where the supermarkets are brightly lit. Where i can call sushi and it comes to my door. Where i can walk across the street without running for my life. Where I'm not surrounded by chicken on every block. Where people don't lean out their cars 'hey shaaaaawty', where some nappy headed somebody approaches me liek 'hey dred-or better yet-my beautiful african queen of earth mother...shut the fuck up.

Lol- but they still make me smile inside

and like Mr. Rogers says
it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood....

Please wont you be, my neighbor?


alii

First things first

1. I love that song 'georgia peach' by Rasheeda

2. No Moya- Arkansas is not in the south. even if every map i looked up says that it is...lol

3. Congrats A. I'm so excited for you!


So the other day i was aquainted with my new place. Its a spacious beautiful old house with high ceilings and hardwood paneling throughout the house. My room is bright with an old fireplace in it. Very spacious kitchen with counters for days. The bathroom has a tub with feet/paws(my favorite kind). Its really cute. Great house for hosting people/company. Huge flat deck with plenty of seating for an outdoor party and a place for gardening. My only complaint is the distance from school and the price is a bit steep. But my roomate seems cool. I have some new pets too. Can't wait to get a turtle or a frog. Can't wait for a lot of things. I'm really excited.


Well thats all in aliiland-

a very happy and blessed woman,
Alii

I love pictures

I see pictures all the time. Most i can't take. And not just a picture- but a real candid one, with natural lighting. There are laws against taking picutres of people you don't know and publishing them- which is why if you hang around me long enough-you'll end up in my photo log of over 2000 pictures. I like to practice with my friends, some photograph real well- others don't. Photogenicity(my word for 'being photogenic') has a lot to do with ones confidence in front of the camera and less to do with their physical features. When i say someone is photogenic, i mean that they have an honesty about themselves in front of the camera. Its actually a lot harder than it looks. I love photgraphing people like that, but they are few and far between.

Oddly enough I hate people taking pictures of me. I smile in most pics- its my default camera face. It makes me look nice or sweet. And suppose for the most part i am. But i have yet to see a pic of me that really shows me. I'm not sure I'd want to see that picture.

So on an unrelated note- i'm back to atlanta. I hate flying and two shots of vodka (courtesy of the man next to me) fixed that problem. I got off the plane and was greeted by moya who drove me home in her new one. She has a beautiful car and a lovely apartment. We went to see Alysia- it was so great to see her. We watched being bobby brown but i was knocked out within minutes. we drove home amidst a crazy storm- swearving to avoid trees that were knocked over by the sudden lightning storm. A huge tree had fallen and blocked the road and we watched as the power line sparked...

Blackout- i couldnt sleep. I can't sleep in silence, i hate to hear thoughts running through my head. I've trained myself to drown out my loud thoughts with the sound of alughtracks on the tv.

back here- gotta make it happen. Want to take more and more pics, want to share my visions with others.

Sigh...

alii

Dance like nobody's watching

A few shots from my weekend. Yes some of us were more drunk than others...

I was going to grace yall with some pics from my weekend

BUT WHEN I GOT MY DISK BACK-IT HAD SOME RANDOM WHITE FAMILY POSING AT YOSEMITE!!!!!


SCREAM!!!!!!!!!
-love, alii

Fresh Meat

So theres some new 'family' on its way to spelman. A transfer student, 22 from the Bay, and her name starts with an "A". (sound familiar).

I peeped her yesterday at the club, talked with her a few times on the phone. Though statistically we sound similar, we aren't anything alike. But I don't care. I would type more but I don't want to put her on blast.

She's cool, i hope she likes spelman and vice versa. Its gonna be an interesting transition for her, and you know how im always worried about that. A new transfer...remember that Bettina?

Transfernites represent!!!!!!

Nothing compares to you

I havn't laughed in awhile- being here without my her leaves me with only half smiles and chuckles. Sometimes I scowl when i walk, i know this because people tell me.
Especially lately.

Went running around the lake

I ran 3.5 miles, my last mile was 7:05...im trying to get back into the 6's. My knee is still bothering me-- I hope it doesnt prevent me from playing soccer next semester. The bay is in the midst of a 'heat wave' as defined by weather over 70 degrees for more than 3 consecutive days. (They dont know heat..if im wearinbg a sweater at noon- it is not a heat wave)

Running is a great way to think, i don't like running with people- its distracting. So it was me alone with my thoughts.

My friends blog had me thinking about New England, where i was raised. I had the classical new england childhood. I lived in a 'town' of 26,000. Bundles up and went sleeding in the winter, jumped into the golden leaves in the fall. My brick school had a bell on the roof. It was a safe area, we could walk through town without incident. In middle/high school(my middle school burned down) I would walk 2.3 miles to school, and 2.3 miles back. Though cold, walking became like meditation. Seeing my tracks through the fresh driven snow as i cut through the park and on my way home they were frozen over. If it was quiet enough, you could hear the snow hit the ground. I can still feel my jeans heavy and wet, squeaking as i trekked into the school. Taking my snow boots off and changing into my regular school shoes, and a fresh puddle at the bottom of my locker.



Seasons, something that actually exists in New england, treks the passage of time. There are 4(not two) and they each come with their surprises and annoyances. Summers are 95 degrees and 180 days later its 5 degrees. Spring(birth) and autumn(passing) are in between, reminding us that nothing really lasts forever.

I have not returned to that particular home in 3 years. My house is no longer there but its still living in the back of my mind. A big yellow two family house that changes like the seasons.

Its funny how in july- running and sweating, i could only think of winter. I wonder if my mind purposely blocked out the memories of swealtering humid hot summers punctuated by an occasional hurricane. My mind longed for a blizzards, nor'esters, snow days. The loud humming of snowplows scraping the cement through the night, the snow blowers doing the sidewalk in the morning. The dead silence that snow brings. If i could i would make me a snowman right now and dance with it until it melted and my dream ended.

Back to sore legs and ben gay...

Her name is alysia

My first day of spelman, first class, I recognized her from her friendsterpic. I was too shy to say anything to her. It would have sounded something like "hi im ali and im gay".

she went away for awhile, far off to South africa- i thouht i would never see her again. thought i missed my chance to say hello. I was wrong.

she's special, special to me. She let me come in her room even when she wasnt there. I miss standing outside her window and shouting through the screen to let me in. Walking in her room and turning on the TV and kicking my shoes off like i live there.

Because without alysia I would see Charis a lot less, i wouldnt look at flat booty at the Vortex, No one would drive to compton to see me. no one to go to inserrections with. no one to compare locs to. My dance buddy at queer girls parties, my friend and sister...

So happy birthday to you and our locs,

alii

Me in the Deep Blue

Cooling off from the heat Wave in Lake Berryessa.

Went on the trip from hell yesterday

I knew i shouldnt have gone/ my instincts told me to stay in Berkeley, but i thought- hey alii, youre a square, why don't you go out and actually do something?

It ended up being one of these trips where i got stranded with these random people miles away from home. Alcohol and weed all over the place.

I would really go into the details but thinking about it makes me nauseus and irritable.

The moral of this story is- theres nothing wrong with being a boring square...

Alii

p.s. Someone please download that kanye song golddigger and send it to me. I hate to admit it- but i love it(for no particular reason)

Only the good die young

Last year during my second season of track, we had about 5 new girls join the team. One was this beautiful young woman named stephanie. A lifelong oakland resident, she was in her first semester of community college with aspirations of becoming a nurse. I liked Stephanie, during track meets while waiting for the races, she would braid my hair, twisting them into these elaborate designs that lasted maybe a week, then she would take them down. She worked at a hair shop, and i would sometimes stop in to say hello, trying on bright purple wigs and posing in the mirror. Right before my 21st birthday, I asked her to pick out some hair for me but instead she flat ironed it. I was going to Atlanta to see my best friend at morehouse. She laughed made it real cute and wished me luck in atlanta.

I made it to Atlanta, and while i was partying away in the morehouse suites, celebrating my 21st, she was shot. The next morning I get a call that she was dead, "accidently" shot in the head. fuck accidents. I understand there are no accidents but damn, one that leaves a 18 year old dead is painful to swallow. She was at the wrong place at the wrong time...

Sigh, i think of her often, almost every week. I imagine the anguish her family is going through as milestones past. Theyll never have her back.

Last week another 19 year old girl was shot dead in Berkeley. She was president of her high school Black Student Union, and had just completed her sophmore year on a full ride scholarship to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. She majored in Black studies and was using the summer to intern in a womans shelter. She wsa shot dead in front of her friends alledgedly by another friend. the details are still sketchy, but the fact that she is dead isn't. Her funeral is today, the sight of her face almost brings tears to my eyes and i didn't even know her.

And i dont really know what i want to say. Don't know why im writing this . We all know violence is real, that it affects a disproportionate number of black males. I don't have any new words to offer. No new insight or perspective except for one who is completely saddened everytime we lose someone, especially someone who was doing everything right. but damn its sad. And i think about it all the time.

You can find me at the club...

bottle full of water

because im cheap like that and its free.

Last night Bea(Another one of these shared friends from Atlanta), Angel and I went to the Cafe, this bar/club in San Francisco. Though angel and I were not impressed, Bea found her way straight to the middle of the club, doing the most with anybody and everybody there. Meanwhile Angel and I got stuck with this strange girl who somehow kept migrating with us. Unlike a real friend who will rescue you from wierd people who push up on you in the club, angel just sat there and watched grinning. So i did what any good friend would do, told the girl to go dance with Angel and left her ass while i went somewhere else.

Unfortunately my plan backfired and she was waiting for me to get back.

Damn.

But wyhatever, kickin it wih Bea was real cool, we had a lot of fun. I'm glad she came.


Thats all,

Another attempt at breakfast

Todays menu was eggs and grits(Still broke). I got the egg done and i boiled some water for the grits. But when i looked for the grit box- it was nowhere to be found. So i was stuck with some boiling water and an egg.

when will it end.

But life can be much worse, i really can't complain. I often think of other things in the world and realize my issues don't even compare. People burying loved ones in Iraq, London, the US, and i'm complaining about there being no grits. Some people can't walk their own streets, dont have a stove, and im compalining about grits. Again there are worse things in life, and i generally pride myself in my ability to keep some sense of perspective. So i had an egg and some boiling hot water and my life goes on. Furthermore, boiled water is a luxury- especially if youre abroad and are fond of drinking lake water in india and end up with guardia.

I'll be heading back to atlanta soon, got a call from someone i hadnt heard from in a few monthes. It was pleasent. I'll have someone to practice soccer with so we can shine like powder blue jaguars.

But first i should actually get in shape.

-alii

Just one of those days

Today is starting out like one of those days.

Case in point-

I'm broke- as usual.
This morning i looked in the refrigerator and there was(and this is no exaggeration)

Malt liquor
eggs,
spaghetti sauce(mind you with no noodles)
condiments from McDonalds and KFC
I can't believe its not butter
Diet Mayonaise

in the icebox there was
frozen wet air(i.e. ice)
some frozen greens
and some other unidentified freezing objects.

Now with a refrigerator like that- i had to do something inspirational for breakfast. So i looked and found some kool-aid in the cupboard and decided to make scrambled eggs and koolaid for breakfast( i know y'all are jealous). This meal covered my 2 favorite food groups, meat and sugar, and looked somewhat promising.

So i crack the egg and as it was cooking, i prepared the koolaid. I put the egg on the plate and poured a nice tall glass of red kool-aid(I know your salivating now). I took a sip of the koolaid and wouldn't u know, instead of sugar I had made the koolaid with salt.

Now most of yall know i hate water, so there was 1 other option left. So i had an egg and malt liquor for breakfast. It really isn't funny. AT ALL.

So the moral of this story is ?
a. I need some money bad.
b. I need to go grocery shopping.
c. I'm a burgeoning alcoholic.
d. Sugar or salt- its all white powder to me.

I'll settle on A.

send your tax-deductible donations to the hungry alii fund. No amount is too small.