Monday, July 09, 2007

I Eight It!




TheFreeSlave has spoken and, being as he's got it like that, I respond accordingly with eight random facts about myself or habits (ahem!) to which I am attached.

First, the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Second, the "secrets":

1. I'm getting ready to move in three weeks to a state even more known for its "Southern-ness" than the one I've been in for the past eighteen years. This is a major move for me, as you can imagine, and I'm nervous about it on maaaaany levels.

2. I've only had a mind or mood-altering substance in my body three times in the past sixteen years -- twice right after major surgery and once six years ago when I lost my mind for a minute.

3. My only son died seven years ago (two weeks before his twenty-third birthday) as a result of his addiction to heroin. I suspect it was murder, but I'll never know.

4. My favorite form of physical exercise is swimming laps. It used to be sex, but that was before I got tired of all the drama. I don't do relationships well. Or maybe I just pick badly. It's been a while, so I really don't know. Maybe I've/it's changed. In any case, I haven't yet been willing to take a risk and find out.

5. An audience of nearly four hundred African-Americans gave me a standing ovation two years ago when I performed a spoken word piece entitled "You Called Me A What?!?" The word "what" stood for "nigger-lover." It was raw and I'll never do another spoken word performance because that was my first time and when you start at the top, you can only go down from there.

6. I decided this week to begin looking into the possibility of finishing my Ph.D. and publishing some things I've had in a file cabinet for-ever.

7. I've already written a book on race. A couple of authors who are highly published on the topic of race liked it very much, but it crosses genres and I don't know who would publish it. The working title is Reduced to Equality: My Odyssey to Renounce Racial Privilege ~ and Find Myself.

8. The last thing I bought hasn't even arrived yet. It's a collector's item: one of only three hundred copies of an epic poem published in 1964 and written by a man who eventually became my friend, Calvin Hernton. If I'm not mistaken, Calvin, who died a few years ago, once told me he was only nineteen when he wrote "The Coming of Chronos to the House of Nightsong," the story of a White woman thinking on her hundredth birthday about her Black once-lover for whom she bore a child. The lines that knock me out: "The double dying of she who rides in the middle of the wind will reign in the world like an idiot fire and every woman sees in whichever man she gives her sex the potentiality of her whorehood." Whew! I first read these lines more than twenty years ago and they still make me think.

Lastly, the eight bloggers I tag. This meme has been around to most of the bloggers I read, I think, so if I tag you and you've already done it, you can just let me know, pass on the tag, or do it again (you know you've thought of eight more things to tell us!). In no particular order, I'm tagging:

Charles at Kill Bigotry!, dna at Too Sense, Sokari at Black Looks, Stephen Bess at Morphological Confetti, M.Dot at Model Minority, Kyle de Beausset at Immigration Orange, Professor Zero, and The Angry Black Woman.

13 comments:

  1. I will definitely do this. I'll have to see if I can get it done for tommorow's post or Wed. I'll let you know when I finish.

    By the way, your facts are interesting. The one about your son was mind blowing. I'm sorry to read that. Thanks for sharing. Peace~

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  2. I'm on it!

    Thanks so much for sharing. I'm very sorry to hear about your son.

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  3. My sympathies on the death of your son. I know it's been years, but that is something one never really gets over.

    You're leave us? Oh no! Alabama? No matter what, it's a great, great loss for this state. I wish you well and good wherever you go.

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  4. Thanks, all, for the condolences. Yes, one never fully recovers, but one learns to accept, which is a great learning, indeed.

    I do have a beautiful, talented, and super-savvy daughter who is the light of my life (gosh, what a surprise). I mention her on this blog from time to time, but I know she prefers to stay incognito especially since her mother is craaaaazy. :^)

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  5. Anonymous3:05 PM

    I'll do or revise the meme but I want to find the version I did before of it first ...

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  6. Anonymous3:14 PM

    This was it:
    http://profacero.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/six-peculiar-things/

    It was six things - to which I gave more - didn't really know what to do with this meme since I already say on my blog what I feel like saying on my blog about myself.

    I'll add two more though:

    7. I love Mexico DF.
    8. I am a private person and I reveal what I feel like revealing.

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  7. Anonymous4:40 PM

    CS: I'm very sorry about the loss of your son.

    I remember reading parts of Hernton's 'Sex and Race in America' hope that's the right title. I was a kid and titilated by the sex part. Need to read it again to check out his analysis of both dynamics.

    What about emailing me the poem to read?!

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  8. P.S. this is a great post - good use of the meme. I've got comments on 6 and 7 but my batteries are going - greetings from Cafe Momo in Mex DF!

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  9. Holy Sh*t.

    So Glad you loved Walt's "renouncing whiteness post".

    OMG at being tagged.

    SUPER OMG at how personal yours is.

    Jesus christ, I already put SO MUCH of my business on my blog, but I will honor your code and follow suit.

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  10. PZ: I definitely did not mean to jump in the middle of your vacation with this mess. I don't know what I was thinking. :^D Thanks for participating and not cussing me out.

    Max: Yep. That was Calvin. Actually, Sex and Racism in America. Fine piece of work. He has others, too, worth looking at. In particular, The Sexual Mountain and Black Women Writers. "When Chronos Came..." arrived today, but the text alone (and there's a lot of it per page) is 29 pages. Email me and we'll work something out, though.

    m.dot.: What's a little confession among friends, huh? It's good for the soul. ;^) And love Walt's rant? I've been telling everybody who'll stand still about it. I don't know how to reach him to let him know, though.

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  11. You're strong. And I'd love to read your book.

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  12. Anonymous7:40 PM

    yes, change, I would also love to read your book. If you are tired of waiting, i hear that nowadays there are ways to easily self-publish, or sell as an e-book. After rethabile, i'll be next in line to purchase a copy.

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  13. Thanks, Rethabile. Strength comes with the opportunity to develop it, I think.

    Charles: I consider it from time to time. But then you have to deal with distribution and everything. I don't know...

    I'm told it's a page-turner, though. One reader called it a "wonderful examination of Whiteness."

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