A cool ten-minute film about female taxi drivers in NYC

This may slightly contradict my comment on Choosing Pancakes's post the other day, but I still think that good in bed is a valid concept--just that it does not necessarily refer to the physical aspects of being in bed directly.

Sex is not a goddamn performance. Sex should feel as natural as drinking water. It should not require confidence. Sex should happen, because the moment is ripe. Ripening lips, ripening labia, ripening cock, ripening pupils, ripening state of being. Ripe and augmented and brimming. Your energy goes to your pumping heart, then to every external nerve, then to theirs, on fire. You bask, roll, play in it. You sigh, moan, laugh. It’s not about being “good in bed”. It’s about being happy. One should never worry if they’re doing it “correctly.” Sex is not factual. I don’t want your cookie-cutter sex, I don’t want your meticulously crafted, calculated, fool-proof fuck. I don’t want a show. I want you. Let your instincts, urges and whims define that. It’s enough. What do most girls like? Forget about it. Statistics are meaningless when there’s only one. Hello, here’s me. Here’s you. Don’t worry about taking it too slow. We got time. We got infinite rhythms, combinations, possibilities. Explore each fuck. Take our time. We can do a different one later. Don’t worry about making me come. I’m here. Right where I want to be. I am overwhelmed by wanting; you don’t have to convince me. I want you because I like you. So don’t put on a front. Don’t taint this. I’m frustrated—it’s just authenticity I want. It’s originality. It’s passion. It’s joy. Don’t say that something I like is ugly. Don’t compare yourself to the rest. You will live and die with and within your experiences like everyone else. If someone thinks you are amazing, they are not wrong. Their universe is as real as any other; it is forged through perception. I don’t care if you accidentally slammed my head into the wall, if you slipped out, if my arm cracked, if the delightful pressure of your wet lips on my anything made a silly sound. There is no right way and no wrong way. “Good in bed,” what. You’re good in my bed. I’m pleased you’re there. I feel it suits you. Shove your technique. Let your memory swallow it. Fuck me like you’d fuck me, fuck me like you feel. This isn’t a test.

(via come correct)

Towards the bottom, I feel like she was losing agency, and I don't feel like technique needs to be thrown out the window from the get-go. Maybe what has been pleasurable to other girls will be pleasurable to me. Maybe it won't. Try it--I'll tell you.

Usually, I will cosign Emily Dickinson in a heartbeat...

but I came across this a few minutes ago on Peace, Love, and Pretty Things, and I had to vehemently disagree.

I want to dwell in action. In experience. In the moments themselves, rather than in hoping for chances of them. 

So last night/this morning, I finally caught up on a webseries I've had bookmarked for ages.

It's called The Unwritten Rules (that's a link to the first episode), and it's about this Black female Brown graduate who starts at a new job where she's the only Black girl. In fact, only Black person. In fact, only person of (visible) color. 

I don't know if I've made it clear on here that, while I'm far from the only one, I'm one of few in my workplace of 300+. That becomes one of very few if you discount the secretarial staff, Copy Room and Mail Room employees, security staff, etc. I'm both the only Black person under age 30 and the only Black female in my division. 

And I mean, those of you who have a good understanding of my history know that being a rarity is far from unusual for me, which is probably why I haven't really mentioned it. I've made fast fantastic friends at work--the young people in my division and recent hires in other divisions are seriously awesome people, and they're just one part of what makes my job le awesomest.

I get compliments on my various hairstyles, but no one has ever asked to touch my hair. I've never eaten Black ethnic food at work (when RG's mom gave me leftover fried chicken, plantains, and chilli, I decided to bring the chilli to work and eat the chicken and plantains at home, lol), so all of my "Mmm that smells good" instances aren't particularly egregious for any reason. I'm sure that once it gets colder and I start making mac and cheese, that's gonna get some attention, though. And my Nana's pies? PLEASE. The episode that really got me, though, is number 5, in which Racey (yes her name is Racey, which I just adore) tries and fails to bond with the other Black people who work in her building (in security and at the front desk, while she's some sort of manager). Their playing of dominoes (which I didn't learn were a Black thing until recently, actually) and her eating of asparagus don't really mix well...   

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't noticed that I haven't really become close to any other Black people at work (though that's starting to change with the guy closest to my age in my division). Granted, most of them are considerably older than me, but still something seems...off. When I see a Black person I don't recognize at work, I will go out of my way to introduce myself to her. Like on campus, I don't pass a Black person in the office without acknowledging him or her in some way. But it occurred to me that I only know the name of about four Black people outside of my division. I know the others by face, know them enough to wave and ask how their weekends were, but I do not substantively know them in any way. There are small clusters of Black employees who regularly eat lunch together, and I don't eat with them. Granted, I've never been invited. But on the other hand, I've never asked either. 

I want to make more legitimate attempts at forming friendly acquaintanceships with other Black people in my office. Like, the next time I see a cluster eating or chatting, instead of just waving as I walk by, I'm going to wander over and chat for a little while. #babystepstonotfeelingliketheonlypocinmydailyworld  

GPOY

Reblogged from Serenity in Perspective

The planet does not need more ‘successful’ people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.

--David Orr

(via Square Dancing with Giants) 

I don't even really like her music, but this is on point:

SORRY GUYS. I’M PRO-BLACK GIRL. I’M NOT ANTI-WHITE GIRL, BUT I’M ALSO NOT HERE FOR ANYONE OUTSIDE OF MY CULTURE TRYING TO TRIVIALIZE SERIOUS ASPECTS OF IT. IN ANY CAPACITY.

--Azealia Banks 

(via Tudo Bom(b)) 

Art.

The artist's name is Richard Schmid.
Reblogged from 18° 15' N, 77° 30' W

I want this. 

One of the coolest things I've seen on the internet in a long time:

These people are in half-drag. Gender is such a performance.

These images were taken by photographer Leland Bobbé, and reblogged from Sociological Images.

I've been thinking about the word "angry."

Synonyms "mad," "upset," "pissed the fuck off." I've been thinking about these words as parts of my personal political vocabulary. I've been thinking about them in relationship to how everything prominent members of the Republican party say makes me feel. I've been thinking about them in relationship to the tears that fell from my eyes on the Red Line Wednesday while I read the introduction to Professor Perry's Sister Citizen, reliving the disgust and bitterness at the total lack of regard for poor Black American lives in the days before and after Hurricane Katrina. I've been thinking about them in relationship to how I felt about myself when I got an email last night from Change.org commemorating the one-year anniversary of Troy Davis's death and I momentarily could not remember who Troy Davis was.

I don't think angry fits. I don't find mad to be an appropriate expression of what I feel about these things. Upset is too paltry a word to encompass what I mean. Pissed off does too much work separating the meaning from the message.

I'm not angry. I'm outraged.

Let us presume for a moment that the opposite of outrage must be in-rage. In-rage is seething, festering, the-world-doesn't-give-a-fuck-about-me-so-I-don't-give-a-fuck-about-the-world rage. In-rage is starting to believe the lies the world tells you about yourself. In-rage is internalized racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, fatphobia, ad infinitum. In-rage is fighting to fight instead of fighting the good fight. In-rage is the self-esteem issues of a whole people. In-rage is living in the now because you have no reason to believe in next year, or 25, or 40, as a reality which you will attain. In-rage can be bloody and violent. It can be quiet and cold. It can be fast, a million things all at once that don't make sense together or apart. It can tear a person, a people, asunder. 

I refuse to be overtaken by in-rage. I refuse to soak up all of the world's bullshit like a sponge and just carry it around, being heavy for the sake of being heavy. I deserve to be full of better things than these. So, I will exist in the world. And existing in this world means yeah, racism and sexism and classism and heteronormativity and you're-not-like-me-so-you're-wrong-ism will be flung at me from every imaginable angle, sopping wet and eager to soak me. I am porous, so not only will I be coated and covered by these things, but I will take them in. I have no choice. But when it becomes too much, when I am oversaturated by everything wrong with the world, I can make a beautiful choice. I can wring myself dry. Expel these things from the depths of me, wholly and irrevocably changed. I will expose them for what they are, spread their innards across these pages so that I can know my own. This wringing is outrage. It can be violent. It can be loud. It can come off as harsh or even militant. Those who don't know might even call it angry.     

A riot is the language of the unheard.

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

(via Square Dancing with Giants) 

I need to own things like this:

Reblogged from Indie. Radiant.

Well John [Stewart], if they are not going to make a distinction between Muslims and violent extremists, why should I take the time to distinguish between decent fearful white people and racists?



--Aasif Mandvi

(via Lavender Labia)

Nail. Head. Bang bang bang. (Hahaha all of those are euphemisms for sex.)

The problem comes not with casual sex in and of itself, but with people who engage in casual sex without exercising the prudence that it, just like ANY OTHER behavior, merits.

It becomes clearer that this is a misguided reaction when you realize this: when someone gets burned in dating/love/Relationships, (outside of the idiosyncratic college age bracket,) you are much less likely to hear, “OMG love sucks. You should try sleeping around. That works out A LOT better.” So much less likely!

--Choosing Pancakes

This whole post, really. 

Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.

--Andrew Boyd

(via Indie. Radiant.) 

The half-life of love is forever.

--Yunior de Las Casas, This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz 

(via Choosing Pancakes)

Photo

Reblogged from The Write Curl Diary

I don't change. I simply become more myself.

--Joyce Carol Oates 

Dear Libido,

I know, I know...sometimes we go through dry spells. It's unfortunate for everyone involved. I'll think about you as two months turns into three and hope you know the neglect isn't intentional. I want better things for us! 

Then as soon as a hot guy we barely know but are wholly intrigued by comes along and kisses us on the back of our neck and licks his way up to nibble on our earlobe, WHY do we lose all sense of decorum and make out like we're highschoolers in the backseat of a borrowed car in the middle of the club? Someone else's tongue touches our skin and we're like, kisses and squeezing and hands in places they shouldn't be publicly, wheeee! 

And then we go home alone feeling quite satisfied with our accomplishments, but by the next night I'm laying in bed trying to watch The L Word and you're thinking about things that only got to be felt through pants and wanting to feel them/let them be felt with less restriction. I'm trying to pay attention to this lesbian strap-on scene and you're this constant WAIT BUT PAY ATTENTION TO ME! I'M HERE AND I WANT THINGS! I WANT KISSES AND TOUCHING AND GROPING AND STROKING AND NIBBLING AND LICKING AND WHY DID WE FORGET HOW GREAT SEXYTIME IS?!?! LET'S DO IT AGAIN!

You are going to lead us to make possibly bad but definitely fun life decisions. I can feel it.

All of this is to say, I'm glad you're back.   

I like art, and by art I mean music, poetry, sex, paintings, the human body, literature… All of this is art to me.

--Hunter Reveur

(via Serenity in Perspective)

Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.

--Henry Miller

(via happinessruns...) 

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.

--Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

(via Square Dancing with Giants)

Probably surprising fact: I've actually never read this book. 

Related: I really need to get a library card. Except there are already so many unread books on my bookshelf. And I want to get into the used bookstore scene in DC so I can fill the shelves! 

Photo

Reblogged from Serenity in Perspective

I don't own enough sheets for this...

Reblogged from Square Dancing with Giants

#nevertoooldforpillowforts

I don’t believe in safety. I wish I did. I am not brave. I simply know what to be scared of; I know to be scared of everything. There is freedom in that. That freedom makes it easier to appear fearless—to say and do what I want. I have been broken, so I am prepared should that happen again. I have, at times, put myself in dangerous situations. I have thought, you have no idea what I can take.

-- The Illusion Of Safety/The Safety Of Illusion - The Rumpus.net

(via Choosing Pancakes) 

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.

--Alan Watts

(via Serenity in Perspective)

#KatWilliamsStayWinnin

Reblogged from come correct

So I've been throwing around the idea of watching HBO's "Girls"

when I finish The L Word, even though I've been reading that there's some controversy because there aren't any Black people, but there's no Black people on Sex and the City ever either and I didn't let that stop me from being entertained by it while I'm waiting for Without a Trace on weeknights when I'm in a place with cable. I have been places where I am the only Black person in a crowded room, and so it is not inconceivable to me that the group of friends that the show follows could all be White, or that I could enjoy such a show. 

What IS inconceivable to me, however, are the beliefs of the show's writer. I cannot, in good faith, or even under any form of irony or curiosity I could drum up, under any circumstances, watch this show (even if finding it online does little if anything to support the writer).

 
I'm not sure you can read that. I wasn't turned off yet in the beginning. She was reported to have said that she doesn't have any personal relationships with black people, and thus can't create a black character. I hoped that this would go off into her saying that she didn't want her own ignorance to contribute to harmful stereotypes, or to go the opposite route and so totally whitewash a character of color that she loses any cultural authenticity. I would have accepted reasonings of that sort, even if I'd rather see people of color on the show. I would have seen that she was coming from a place of...understanding of her lack of understanding, and that kind of a place is honest enough that I could probably have still watched the show.

But then, she continued. The bottom paragraph reads, 

"Writers are supposed to write what they know," Dunham told a reporter. "I don't know any black people, so how do I write about them? I'm not sure how they think. I'm not sure what they feel. I'm not even sure they exist. Is there any conclusive evidence that people can really be black? I don't see color, so I honestly don't know."

YEAH, RIGHT, BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY YOU, WHITE PEOPLE, ARE A HUGE MONOLITHIC GROUP THAT THINKS AND FEELS THE EXACT SAME WAY ABOUT EVERYTHING AND WE, BLACK PEOPLE, ARE A SMALLER  MONOLITHIC GROUP THAT THINKS AND FEELS THE EXACT SAME WAY ABOUT EVERYTHING BUT OUR EXACT SAME WAY IS WHOLLY AND FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT FROM YOUR EXACT SAME WAY EVEN THOUGH EVIDENTLY, WE MAY VERY WELL NOT EXIST IN THE WORLD BECAUSE YOUR PRIVILEGED PORCELAIN-COLORED FACE HAS NEVER HAD TO "SEE" COLOR. #ICANT #IMDONE

Big girl purchases:

I made two significant purchases that make me feel like a big girl this weekend:

1) My very first piece of art. As in, you know, something three dimensional and not a poster that an artist spent hours of sweat and struggle and creativity on.

From this etsy shop. It's wooden, painted black and glossed over so it will shine.
It is FIERCE and I can't wait to have it on my wall!

And 2), a comforter for my bed! It cost the same amount as my prom dress (which was under $200--I wasn't one of those crazy girls with dresses that must have been diamond-encrusted for the money they cost), which I balked at at first, but then rationalized was worth something I'll use daily for 8-9 months a year for at least a few years. And it's GORGEOUS and bright and fun and funky and will complement my mauve walls wonderfully.  

With these items, my bedroom shall finally be complete!

Take a look! It's in a book!

I officially have my copy of the undergraduate research journal that published a version of my junior independent work!!!

Yup, this makes me an author, rather than solely a writer. And I'ma play up those semantics, haha.

I can be cited: 

Reid, Maya Ange'le. "Learning to be Adults: The Effects of University Structure on Students' Transitions to Adulthood." Sociologicsl Insight: Undergraduate Research Journal. University of Texas at Austin. Vol. 4, May 2012. 73-95.

The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.

--Peggy O'Mara

(via Choosing Pancakes) 

I took an impromptu break from my ever-so-busy social life this weekend

I was supposed to go to a friend's birthday surprise dinner on Saturday, but then a freak tornado in Fairfax and the accompanying rain in DC that had me hiding in my downstairs bathroom (the smallest room in my house, which still has a window) with a blanket, a thermos of water, a box of honey nut cheerios, and my computer, cell phone, and mp3 player charging in case the power went out) convinced me to stay in the house. Day of deep conditioning my hair and watching The L Word on my couch in sweatpants #1. I had long leisurely conversations with EY on Skype and CC on the phone in the middle of the night, during the course of which, in having effectively stopped for a day, I was able to recognize the holes in my life in DC. 

Keeping myself too busy to recognize that I'm unhappy is a tactic I've used before with great (if temporary) success. I'm not sure, however, that I've ever done it unintentionally before...

Okay, unhappy is too strong a word. I am far from unhappy with my life in DC. I love this city. I feel like I'm adjusting well to most parts of adult life. I have a more-than-well-enough-paying job (at which I recently got a "salary adjustment") that I enjoy on both the day-to-day and deeper-purpose levels. I have a core group of people I'm cool enough with at work to eat lunch with, be Facebook friends with, and do some sort of fun thing together once every other week or so with. I don't want to kill my housemates, and even hang out voluntarily with one of them somewhat regularly. I'm getting involved with Princeton alumni stuff (don't even pretend this surprises you). I've been to 10 bars, 9 concerts, 9 restaurants, 5 Meetups, 4 baseball games, 3 museums, 3 movies, 2 barbeques, 2 Jazz in the Gardenses, 1 festival, and 1 cupcake shop. I am unabashedly and undoubtedly having fun. 

...But really all I wanted on Saturday night was someone I could call to come over and watch TV with me. Someone with whom an evening spent together does not require any planned activities. Someone I could touch in little intimate non-sexual ways without needing to ask permission--someone with whom head rubs or massages are welcomed. Someone to snuggle with. Someone to bake cookies with or have an entire night constructed around Disarono sours and conversation. 

I love my work friends, but I don't ever really see developing that sort of easy intimacy I had with my friends from middle school or high school or college with them. I think they will forever be activity partners, which is great, but I need relationships that are deeper than that with people beyond RG (who really does deserve an appreciation day, btw). 

...It turns out I still don't know how to make new friends.    

I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.

--Anais Nin

(via Serenity in Perspective) 

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.

--Federico Garcia Lorca, Blood Wedding and Yerma

(via come correct)

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.

--Robert Fulghum

(via happinessruns...)

I fall in love with people's passion. The way their eyes light up when they talk about the thing they love and the way they fill with light.

(via happinessruns...)  

Your task is not to seek love, but to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have build against it.

--Rumi 

(via Clutch Magazine) 

Find someone who will tremble for your touch, someone whose fingers are a poem.

--Janet Fitch

(via happinessruns...)

*audibly moans in her office*

Reblogged from sex is not the enemy

I wish I could find this and hang it in my office...

Reblogged from come correct

Our grandfathers had to run, run, run. My generation’s out of breath. We ain’t running no more.

--Stokley Carmichael

(via Square Dancing with Giants)

GPOY

Reblogged from 18° 15' N, 77° 30' W

#currentlycausingissuesinmylife

The epiphany of orgasms or infatuations is a consistently sought after reward for leading an otherwise reasonable life.

--Ntozake Shange, "The Love Space Demands (A Continuing Saga)"

(via The Crunk Feminist Collective) 

If we needed more reasons I can't fuck with the GOP...

32,000+ pregnancies from rape every year: "Really rare"

10 cases of voter fraud over 12 years: An epidemic that must be stopped by any means necessary, constitution be damned!

--La Belle Vita

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.
 

--Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment 

 

(via Serenity in Perspective) 

Photo

Reblogged from Lavendar Labia

Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness.
 

--Ram Dass

 

(via Serenity in Perspective)

"'But I don’t want comfort. I want poetry. I want danger. I want freedom. I want goodness. I want sin.'"
 

--Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

 

(via Indie. Radiant.) 

For a woman, self-acceptance is civil disobedience.
 

--Miss Plumcake, Self Praise and Other Endangered Species 

 

Increase tenfold for every way in which said woman varies from hegemonic White, wealthy, straight, thin, Christian, married-with-children womanhood.

Don’t ask for permission to do what you need to do. Don’t invite people to make your choices for you.
 

--AJ Pacitti, Thought Catalog 

I think I spent too much time in recent years

consciously letting myself miss shots I knew I wanted to take. In fact, often actively preventing small vocal parts of myself from taking control and taking those shots. I sat around on my haunches and continued sipping at people I wanted deeper tastes of, or just breathing them in from across the room. Somehow, I let all of my 'What if...' wonderings be negative, ignoring the possibility that something good could come of my curious wanting. I out-hesitated hesitation and out-stalled stalling, moving straight into consciously ignoring. This eventually led to sort of taking what I could get, moving only when interest had been expressed. 

Making the first move was a silly risk, too big a gamble to take. I wasn't pretty/thin/smart/funny/sexy/cool/into-X-thing(s) enough for the person(s) in question. He was probably like that with everyone. It probably didn't mean anything. He liked White/short/slim girls. I didn't want to jeopardize our friendship. I had a nearly endless litany of excuses.

...I no longer want my feelings to be things I am embarrassed of or make excuses regarding. I don't want to push myself into a corner full of nos before I even ask my questions aloud. I don't want to keep cheating myself out of potentials. I don't want the only shots I take to be at myself.

I am far from being a supermodel, but I think I can be my own brand of exquisite from time to time. There are lots of things I don't know, but lots of things I know enough to have extensive conversations about. I make people laugh all the time. My sexiest place isn't necessarily the dance floor, but sensuality ripples in me. Like humor, I'm coolest when I'm not trying to be., I think I am full of flaws, yes, but I am just as full of fabulousness. It's not fair to everything I have worked and am working to be to discount one or the other when it comes to feelings I might catch.

This is all to say that I recently randomly met a person in real life and felt the strongest all-around interest I've ever felt in a stranger. And I want to uncharacteristically do something about this, because being chickenshit should not be characteristic of my life in any aspect.   

The US loses more of its soldiers to suicide than to combat.






...I'm just gonna let that sit there.

Random young fairly non-sketchy seeming guy outside the Center City subway station last night, to me

I just wanted to say that you are absolutely beautiful, and if I was a little bit taller, I'd be all over you.

I thanked him and kept it moving, as is my general strategy when I am approached on the street by reasonably non-sketchy seeming men I don't know, but I'm not gonna front--he put a little pep in my step.


*cue feeling like a bad feminist*