Good writers should have favorite words, I think.
They're not necessarily words that one uses all the time—just something to be savored, I think.
My favorite word is "fuck."
I mean I fucking love the word "fuck." Mostly, "fucking." With that -ing at the end. Not about the sexy times. Just, you know, to give emphasis. (Speaking of words, one of the only things I remember from my eight years of Spanish is "dar énfasis." Fitting.) I know a few people who thinks that using such a word makes me less of a writer, makes me give less of an impression. (Namely, my father.) I don't fucking care. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I am honest. This is part of that 99. Maybe that makes me less eloquent. Don't fucking give a fuck. I can be eloquent when I need to be. I'm a fucking boss like that.
I'm lucky enough to be trained in a skill that brings out my voice no matter what. And my voice is harder than I am as a person. Which—I think—is necessary. Doesn't everyone have to have some kind of shell? My gooey insides are right below the surface, I'm like a chocolate fucking truffle, but there's gotta be some protection against the weather.
Thank God for favorite words.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Friday, December 4, 2015
We Mad? Oh, We Mad: POCs in the Acting World
Last night, something glorious made history. Let me show you.
Need it spelled out? That's cool, I got you. Little Black girls everywhere watched a Black woman—several, in fact—be a magical, beautiful queen. On live TV.
I loved The Wiz as a kid. I inherited it from my mom; she and her girlfriends loved it too. Of course, I loved The Wizard of Oz, because what little girl doesn't? (I assume.) But this was something special. This was for me. The Black stars that I knew from music, from TV, from my parents—they were all doing this age-old story. It meant that I could, too.
I didn't necessarily know I wanted to be an actor. In fact, I was kind of the opposite of a future actor, personality-wise. All I wanted to do, really, was sit in my room and read books. (Living the dream is real. I didn't think I would be broke when I grew up, but I'm still hiding in my house reading, so we good.)
But then I had that moment. I was standing center stage in a corset, where I'd been for about 6 hours for cue to cue, stripper heels totally destroying my feet, and the light hit. I opened my mouth and my ass-tired voice was like, "There's only now. There's only here. Give in to love, or live in fear."
And I had this burst of energy. Suddenly, I knew what I needed to be doing with my life. I'm amazed that I had that moment. Do people have those sudden come-to-Jesus moments? I don't know, I've never thought that kind of thing was real, but either way, "NO DAY BUT TODAY" is permanently etched on my arm in ink to remind me to be true to that moment.
So, okay, so I had that sweet moment, that split second where I knew what my purpose was. And so here I am, five years later, having just watched some leaders of my community completely own this show that I watched as a kid—and I know they watched it back then too, just like that little girl with the Afro puffs. Just like me.
I went to the best liberal arts college in the country, and I have an interdisciplinary degree in music, theatre, and creative writing. I studied at Harvard with top professors from Moscow Art Theatre. I've paid my dues playing terrible parts and doing shit for free and letting the few Equity points I have expire, just like every other sad non-famous actor in the theater world.
So someone tell me why I work in a bookstore for minimum wage. Younger Kyle is thrilled to be alone, surrounded by books, but adult Kyle is broke and not pursuing her career.
I absolutely accept responsibility. I know I don't hustle enough. That's really the long and short of it.
Mostly.
The other teeny, tiny little aspect is that I am a Black woman. We all know by now that slightly obese Black bitches don't make bank, but it's not just about the basics of being overlooked as a minority.
The opportunities, both on stage and on screen, are shit. Hands down, they are shit. And we have people working hard every day to make less shit, for sure, but it's still a problem. A big one.
First things first: the Internet blew up last night because The Wiz is an all-Black cast (except for that one white dude in there who was WORKING). "How is that not racist?" is what people are essentially saying. (Check out this little gem on Queerty to see the actual idiocy.) Let me shut it down real quick.
THE OPPORTUNITIES ARE SHIT. The Wiz is not about excluding white folk. The Wiz is about creating opportunities where there are none. It is about every little girl with Afro puffs who wants to be Dorothy and about every little girl who is going to grow up to be strong, to do something, to exist in this world. It's not just about the art. It's about the example and the representation and the possibilities and the love.
Twitter be throwin' shade because ignorant folks don't know that I needed that. Mad about it.
So there's that, and then there's more. Obviously.
A few people I know around here want to do The Wiz. The show has been pitched a few times, but it gets turned down because leaders in our theater community are worried that we don't have enough POCs to fill out the cast. I could go either way on that. Some people think that new folks would come out if the opportunity were there. Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn't.
Then there's the one white guy that thinks we should do it with white people. Love him, but he wrong. This is how our conversation went.
Him: We should totally do The Wiz!
Me: With what Black folk? We goin' to Springfield?
Him: Psh, it doesn't have to be all Black anymore. We're past that. The country is past that.
Me: N**** don't you know that we ain't anywhere NEAR past that, because—oh wait right. Welp. Gotta go, love you, see you soon!
(I didn't actually use the N word at a white guy. This mess is complicated enough.)
The point is, even with sympathizers and allies, the few opportunities that exist get taken. There's a new play going up about rape that was written for an all-Latino cast (with the exception of one random white character). Guess how many POCs were cast in it? One, and he ain't even Latino. Guess who he plays? The rapist. The drunk, angry, Black rapist. This was an opportunity created very pointedly for POCs, and yet that opportunity is now gone. It was an opportunity to explore a difficult topic for women, and it was cleverly engineered so as to not make race an issue. Now race is an issue, in the worst way. It's The Emperor Jones. It's even Training Day. It's the Black brute. It's yet another innocent blonde that we have to feel sorry for, because there's not even a question anymore: the Black guy done did it. And it's typical.
And let's not even mention the Kent State University production of The Mountaintop, a play about Martin Luther King...in which some fool cast a white man to play one of the most effective seekers of justice of all time. Okay, I mentioned it. At a college? A college? This is infuriating for all of the above reasons, and now we're passing this behavior deemed as acceptable on to our students—passing it right on to the future.
So here I am in my bookstore. This is not about playing the victim. This is fact. That show will go up, and no one will say anything, because the audience will be so blissfully ignorant that they don't even know that it's wrong. Idiots on Twitter will be outraged because there's no white version of The Wiz. (Literally, what. The. What.) White men will continue to be cast over Black men. And we will hunt for those opportunities that there are, and hope to God that we get the ones we deserve.
Also, sorry Queen Latifah, but you did not deliver. Love you, mean it, cast me instead.
 |
Need it spelled out? That's cool, I got you. Little Black girls everywhere watched a Black woman—several, in fact—be a magical, beautiful queen. On live TV.
I loved The Wiz as a kid. I inherited it from my mom; she and her girlfriends loved it too. Of course, I loved The Wizard of Oz, because what little girl doesn't? (I assume.) But this was something special. This was for me. The Black stars that I knew from music, from TV, from my parents—they were all doing this age-old story. It meant that I could, too.
I didn't necessarily know I wanted to be an actor. In fact, I was kind of the opposite of a future actor, personality-wise. All I wanted to do, really, was sit in my room and read books. (Living the dream is real. I didn't think I would be broke when I grew up, but I'm still hiding in my house reading, so we good.)
But then I had that moment. I was standing center stage in a corset, where I'd been for about 6 hours for cue to cue, stripper heels totally destroying my feet, and the light hit. I opened my mouth and my ass-tired voice was like, "There's only now. There's only here. Give in to love, or live in fear."
 |
| That Beyoncé wig tho. L to R: Michael Lorenzo, Kyle Boatwright Photo credit: Kait Rankins, 2011, RENT, Exit 7 Theatre. |
So, okay, so I had that sweet moment, that split second where I knew what my purpose was. And so here I am, five years later, having just watched some leaders of my community completely own this show that I watched as a kid—and I know they watched it back then too, just like that little girl with the Afro puffs. Just like me.
I went to the best liberal arts college in the country, and I have an interdisciplinary degree in music, theatre, and creative writing. I studied at Harvard with top professors from Moscow Art Theatre. I've paid my dues playing terrible parts and doing shit for free and letting the few Equity points I have expire, just like every other sad non-famous actor in the theater world.
So someone tell me why I work in a bookstore for minimum wage. Younger Kyle is thrilled to be alone, surrounded by books, but adult Kyle is broke and not pursuing her career.
I absolutely accept responsibility. I know I don't hustle enough. That's really the long and short of it.
Mostly.
The other teeny, tiny little aspect is that I am a Black woman. We all know by now that slightly obese Black bitches don't make bank, but it's not just about the basics of being overlooked as a minority.
The opportunities, both on stage and on screen, are shit. Hands down, they are shit. And we have people working hard every day to make less shit, for sure, but it's still a problem. A big one.
First things first: the Internet blew up last night because The Wiz is an all-Black cast (except for that one white dude in there who was WORKING). "How is that not racist?" is what people are essentially saying. (Check out this little gem on Queerty to see the actual idiocy.) Let me shut it down real quick.
THE OPPORTUNITIES ARE SHIT. The Wiz is not about excluding white folk. The Wiz is about creating opportunities where there are none. It is about every little girl with Afro puffs who wants to be Dorothy and about every little girl who is going to grow up to be strong, to do something, to exist in this world. It's not just about the art. It's about the example and the representation and the possibilities and the love.
Twitter be throwin' shade because ignorant folks don't know that I needed that. Mad about it.
So there's that, and then there's more. Obviously.
A few people I know around here want to do The Wiz. The show has been pitched a few times, but it gets turned down because leaders in our theater community are worried that we don't have enough POCs to fill out the cast. I could go either way on that. Some people think that new folks would come out if the opportunity were there. Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn't.
Then there's the one white guy that thinks we should do it with white people. Love him, but he wrong. This is how our conversation went.
Him: We should totally do The Wiz!
Me: With what Black folk? We goin' to Springfield?
Him: Psh, it doesn't have to be all Black anymore. We're past that. The country is past that.
Me: N**** don't you know that we ain't anywhere NEAR past that, because—oh wait right. Welp. Gotta go, love you, see you soon!
(I didn't actually use the N word at a white guy. This mess is complicated enough.)
 |
| Yes. Yes, we irate. |
And let's not even mention the Kent State University production of The Mountaintop, a play about Martin Luther King...in which some fool cast a white man to play one of the most effective seekers of justice of all time. Okay, I mentioned it. At a college? A college? This is infuriating for all of the above reasons, and now we're passing this behavior deemed as acceptable on to our students—passing it right on to the future.
So here I am in my bookstore. This is not about playing the victim. This is fact. That show will go up, and no one will say anything, because the audience will be so blissfully ignorant that they don't even know that it's wrong. Idiots on Twitter will be outraged because there's no white version of The Wiz. (Literally, what. The. What.) White men will continue to be cast over Black men. And we will hunt for those opportunities that there are, and hope to God that we get the ones we deserve.
Also, sorry Queen Latifah, but you did not deliver. Love you, mean it, cast me instead.
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Before/After: A Brief Flirtation with Toplessness and Philosophy
JUNE 6, 2015
I have to take my shirt off in front of a bunch of strangers in two weeks for several nights in a row.
Just so we're abundantly clear, this is not a stripping situation. Nor am I back in Vegas, lookin' like topless Gertrude McFuzz with sequin-y feathers on my ass. I already have a side hustle at Booklink Books, so I'm not too worried about having a hundred extra $1 bills in my wallet. Nay, it is an acting situation.
I'm in this play called Seminar at New Century Theatre, for which I am painfully excited. Fittingly, it's about four young writers taking a fiction seminar with a crazy dude (originally played by Alan Rickman). Also fittingly, I am the slut. (I am always the slut. I am ALWAYS the slut.) And AS the slut, it is evidently my responsibility to shake dem titties.
Here's the thing. It is unclear as yet whether it's straight up boobs or if there's a bra involved. The former might traumatize some of our older audience members, so I'm hoping for a bra. REAL hopin' for a bra. Sometimes I feel like an African woman in a damn National Geographic magazine. I'm not quite ready to share that much with the world...but so help me, I will do it for the Actors' Equity Association.
Either way, when I told my gentleman friend about it, he was like, "....WHY?"
"ACTING," I declared defiantly. "A real artist makes sacrifices for her trade."
He looked at me like, stop being a pretentious bitch. (He knew better than to say it, though.)
So I'm down to make the sacrifice. I was especially down 15 or 20 pounds ago, when I was chosen for the part. However, I fell all over myself this one time and ended up in a neck brace, and have not been allowed to go to the gym ever since.
All I can say is, I hope my father doesn't come.
JUNE 23, 2015
I'm in the midst of my run. I love this show, but I am having an AWFULLY hard time getting behind my character's philosophy of "be a stone cold bitch."
That said, after five performances, I have received exactly two pieces of feedback on the topless scene (bra is involved. Everyone be relieved.):
"I mean, you looked better than the older guy who took his shirt off." —Guy I Used to Date
"You must be so secure with your body!" —Very Large Gentleman Who I Have Never Seen Before
Well, at least there's that.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2015
It has been three months since I whipped my shirt off and shook my titties at poor Myka Plunkett.
My mother was stressed. My godmother took illegal cell phone pictures of me and put them on the Internet. My girls in the front row cheered for me. And an old man who I was SURE was Donald Trump's dad took his glasses off, cleaned them, and put them back on. Then gasped.
Let me be clear. According to my BMI, I am overweight. According to myself, I am a big bitch. According to anyone who looks at me, audience members and friends alike, it's science: the majority of my poundage clearly lies in my chest.
Body image, body image, blah blah, I've examined it fully before, 8,000 other people have already picked over all of it, I have nothing new to contribute at this time about it. But it's there, and all of this is to say: I won't wear a bikini in public. For the sake of my peace of mind, those days are over.
But I will take my damn shirt off for a sold-out house.
I think I heard someone say once that actors are whores. Was it a movie? I don't know (brownie points for anyone who can tell me where this is from, because it's bugging me). What I do know is that if this is prostitution, give me more.
I will do what audiences want me to do because it is empowering. It means that I get to take all of my insecurities and throw them the fuck away for two hours every night. It means I am in control of myself. Let's be real: I wouldn't have done it, taken my shirt off, if I didn't think I had the chutzpah somewhere inside me to do it. But I'm proud of myself for this small thing (or these two large things...if you will...). It was nerve-wracking and I did it, because if I hadn't, I wouldn't have done my job. Not in terms of, I wouldn't be doing the thing that I was getting paid to do, had been hired to do—but in terms of, I would have put a limitation where there didn't need to be one, simply because I was scared. My pretentious ass wasn't wrong: an artist makes sacrifices for her trade. An artist makes sacrifices for herself.
I don't know if this applies to everyone or if it's just a thing that I need, but I don't much care. I will do the thing. I will be brave. I will do my best to make the art what it needs to be, because it does things I alone could never do for myself.
I'm saying this because I'm making this promise to myself. I'm bad at a lot of things, and I am dumb about a lot of things. I dropped out of my philosophy class in college because I couldn't do anything except be overwhelmed. But I think that now I know this one thing for sure: we, who are fundamentally insecure and afraid, deserve to make these promises to ourselves, and we deserve to follow through. Because contribution to the "universal All" aside, to society or to the zeitgeist or whatever, what is even in this life for us as individuals? Why the fuck are we here?
To show our tits. We are here to show our tits. Metaphorically.
I also took my pants off for that show. There were a lot of leopard print undergarments involved. Not sorry about it. Never will be.
I have to take my shirt off in front of a bunch of strangers in two weeks for several nights in a row.
Just so we're abundantly clear, this is not a stripping situation. Nor am I back in Vegas, lookin' like topless Gertrude McFuzz with sequin-y feathers on my ass. I already have a side hustle at Booklink Books, so I'm not too worried about having a hundred extra $1 bills in my wallet. Nay, it is an acting situation.
I'm in this play called Seminar at New Century Theatre, for which I am painfully excited. Fittingly, it's about four young writers taking a fiction seminar with a crazy dude (originally played by Alan Rickman). Also fittingly, I am the slut. (I am always the slut. I am ALWAYS the slut.) And AS the slut, it is evidently my responsibility to shake dem titties.
Here's the thing. It is unclear as yet whether it's straight up boobs or if there's a bra involved. The former might traumatize some of our older audience members, so I'm hoping for a bra. REAL hopin' for a bra. Sometimes I feel like an African woman in a damn National Geographic magazine. I'm not quite ready to share that much with the world...but so help me, I will do it for the Actors' Equity Association.
Either way, when I told my gentleman friend about it, he was like, "....WHY?"
"ACTING," I declared defiantly. "A real artist makes sacrifices for her trade."
He looked at me like, stop being a pretentious bitch. (He knew better than to say it, though.)
So I'm down to make the sacrifice. I was especially down 15 or 20 pounds ago, when I was chosen for the part. However, I fell all over myself this one time and ended up in a neck brace, and have not been allowed to go to the gym ever since.
All I can say is, I hope my father doesn't come.
JUNE 23, 2015
I'm in the midst of my run. I love this show, but I am having an AWFULLY hard time getting behind my character's philosophy of "be a stone cold bitch."
 |
| from Seminar by Theresa Rebeck New Century Theatre, 2015. Photo credit: Carolyn Brown |
That said, after five performances, I have received exactly two pieces of feedback on the topless scene (bra is involved. Everyone be relieved.):
"I mean, you looked better than the older guy who took his shirt off." —Guy I Used to Date
"You must be so secure with your body!" —Very Large Gentleman Who I Have Never Seen Before
Well, at least there's that.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2015
It has been three months since I whipped my shirt off and shook my titties at poor Myka Plunkett.
My mother was stressed. My godmother took illegal cell phone pictures of me and put them on the Internet. My girls in the front row cheered for me. And an old man who I was SURE was Donald Trump's dad took his glasses off, cleaned them, and put them back on. Then gasped.
Let me be clear. According to my BMI, I am overweight. According to myself, I am a big bitch. According to anyone who looks at me, audience members and friends alike, it's science: the majority of my poundage clearly lies in my chest.
Body image, body image, blah blah, I've examined it fully before, 8,000 other people have already picked over all of it, I have nothing new to contribute at this time about it. But it's there, and all of this is to say: I won't wear a bikini in public. For the sake of my peace of mind, those days are over.
But I will take my damn shirt off for a sold-out house.
 |
| from Seminar by Theresa Rebeck, New Century Theatre, 2015 Photo credit: Carolyn Brown |
I think I heard someone say once that actors are whores. Was it a movie? I don't know (brownie points for anyone who can tell me where this is from, because it's bugging me). What I do know is that if this is prostitution, give me more.
I will do what audiences want me to do because it is empowering. It means that I get to take all of my insecurities and throw them the fuck away for two hours every night. It means I am in control of myself. Let's be real: I wouldn't have done it, taken my shirt off, if I didn't think I had the chutzpah somewhere inside me to do it. But I'm proud of myself for this small thing (or these two large things...if you will...). It was nerve-wracking and I did it, because if I hadn't, I wouldn't have done my job. Not in terms of, I wouldn't be doing the thing that I was getting paid to do, had been hired to do—but in terms of, I would have put a limitation where there didn't need to be one, simply because I was scared. My pretentious ass wasn't wrong: an artist makes sacrifices for her trade. An artist makes sacrifices for herself.
I don't know if this applies to everyone or if it's just a thing that I need, but I don't much care. I will do the thing. I will be brave. I will do my best to make the art what it needs to be, because it does things I alone could never do for myself.
I'm saying this because I'm making this promise to myself. I'm bad at a lot of things, and I am dumb about a lot of things. I dropped out of my philosophy class in college because I couldn't do anything except be overwhelmed. But I think that now I know this one thing for sure: we, who are fundamentally insecure and afraid, deserve to make these promises to ourselves, and we deserve to follow through. Because contribution to the "universal All" aside, to society or to the zeitgeist or whatever, what is even in this life for us as individuals? Why the fuck are we here?
To show our tits. We are here to show our tits. Metaphorically.
I also took my pants off for that show. There were a lot of leopard print undergarments involved. Not sorry about it. Never will be.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
And Just Like That, I'm Addicted
I have always thought of myself as someone with decent self-control. I'm careful with cigarettes, turn my nose up at hard drugs, and avoid even drugs I'm supposed to be taking.
But then I had one cup of coffee and my whole world fell apart.
If I'm completely honest with myself, I have terrible self-control when it comes to exactly one thing: food. I love snacks. I will not put them down. If a snack is available, I will eat it. Despite the fact that I am a wretchedly picky eater, I will make a damn snack work, because let's face it, a Triscuit dipped in bleu cheese dressing is better than nothing at all. (I hate both of those things.)
And all my life I've hated coffee. I love sitting in coffee shops and get most of my work done there, but when I leave I hate the way I smell. I hated the way the kitchen smelled when I got up for school every morning. I hated my father's thermos full of coffee in the car. I hate when my partners have coffee breath. I hate it.
Yet here we are. It started, like it always does, with just one. One tiny mug of coffee, which itself was drowning in milk and sugar. It was a necessity. My parents and I went out to dinner for my dad's birthday, and steak and mashed potatoes were involved. Ordinarily I would just succumb to the food coma and pass out early, but I had a show to do, and the Eastside Grill sure as hell wasn't serving sugar-free Red Bull.
I. Flew. Through. That. Show. I was delightfully awake, unbelievably focused, and effectively lording over the stage as Edna Krabappel, mistress of Cape Feare. (Mr. Burns. Anne Washburn. Look it up.) And the next night, coffee-less, I might as well have been a slug in a polyester pantsuit.
That Thursday night show broke my heart. Everyone else had a great show, and I was a train wreck. The previous night, I'd been seeing the world through light brown lenses. Now, the spell was broken.
At the bookstore where I work, we have a little cafe upstairs. We pride ourselves on our tea, and we do serve coffee. And us staff members get a free cup of coffee or tea every shift.
On my Friday shift, I realized that I had access to coffee. I also had a chocolate cookie, and who eats THAT with tea? Coffee it was. Needless to say, I was at the top of my game for Friday night's performance.
And so was born the monster. Playing a gig? Coffee. Driving home from Vermont? Iced coffee. Lunch break? Vanilla mf'n latte. Goodbye, Ginger Darjeeling Peach. Goodbye, Spiced Masala Chai and Irish Breakfast and Vanilla Almond Cookie. My new beverage of choice has become coffee.
I didn't even know until about halfway through my shift at work today, when I realized that I actively wanted coffee. I wanted the creamy, bitter goodness to compliment my lunch of Fudge Stripe cookies and a Lemon Zest Luna Bar. I wanted that smooth heat. But most of all, I wanted the high.
The problem with all of this is that I'm not quitting. Nope. Even though I am now painfully aware of the side effects (terrible breath for hours, awake until 2am, incessant pooping) I will not quit. Three days ago I opened myself to a bitter-tasting world, and now I'm here for the long haul.
But then I had one cup of coffee and my whole world fell apart.
If I'm completely honest with myself, I have terrible self-control when it comes to exactly one thing: food. I love snacks. I will not put them down. If a snack is available, I will eat it. Despite the fact that I am a wretchedly picky eater, I will make a damn snack work, because let's face it, a Triscuit dipped in bleu cheese dressing is better than nothing at all. (I hate both of those things.)
And all my life I've hated coffee. I love sitting in coffee shops and get most of my work done there, but when I leave I hate the way I smell. I hated the way the kitchen smelled when I got up for school every morning. I hated my father's thermos full of coffee in the car. I hate when my partners have coffee breath. I hate it.
Yet here we are. It started, like it always does, with just one. One tiny mug of coffee, which itself was drowning in milk and sugar. It was a necessity. My parents and I went out to dinner for my dad's birthday, and steak and mashed potatoes were involved. Ordinarily I would just succumb to the food coma and pass out early, but I had a show to do, and the Eastside Grill sure as hell wasn't serving sugar-free Red Bull.
I. Flew. Through. That. Show. I was delightfully awake, unbelievably focused, and effectively lording over the stage as Edna Krabappel, mistress of Cape Feare. (Mr. Burns. Anne Washburn. Look it up.) And the next night, coffee-less, I might as well have been a slug in a polyester pantsuit.
That Thursday night show broke my heart. Everyone else had a great show, and I was a train wreck. The previous night, I'd been seeing the world through light brown lenses. Now, the spell was broken.
At the bookstore where I work, we have a little cafe upstairs. We pride ourselves on our tea, and we do serve coffee. And us staff members get a free cup of coffee or tea every shift.
On my Friday shift, I realized that I had access to coffee. I also had a chocolate cookie, and who eats THAT with tea? Coffee it was. Needless to say, I was at the top of my game for Friday night's performance.
And so was born the monster. Playing a gig? Coffee. Driving home from Vermont? Iced coffee. Lunch break? Vanilla mf'n latte. Goodbye, Ginger Darjeeling Peach. Goodbye, Spiced Masala Chai and Irish Breakfast and Vanilla Almond Cookie. My new beverage of choice has become coffee.
I didn't even know until about halfway through my shift at work today, when I realized that I actively wanted coffee. I wanted the creamy, bitter goodness to compliment my lunch of Fudge Stripe cookies and a Lemon Zest Luna Bar. I wanted that smooth heat. But most of all, I wanted the high.
The problem with all of this is that I'm not quitting. Nope. Even though I am now painfully aware of the side effects (terrible breath for hours, awake until 2am, incessant pooping) I will not quit. Three days ago I opened myself to a bitter-tasting world, and now I'm here for the long haul.
Monday, July 27, 2015
What Really Matters: An Open Apology
I did something stupid.
I'm not going to make a list of the abundance of stupid things I've done, because it would invariably end in me hiding out in my bedroom avoiding any interaction with anyone for several days lest I inflict more stupidity on the world. However, this one is really, really stupid.
I uttered the words, "ALL lives matter."
Let's get one thing straight. Clearly, they do. I'm not going to get into that.
But that is not the point.
I've already posted a bit about my history—Hide your wife, hide your kids—but I'm reminded constantly of it during this particular situation. I learned to read when I was three. I cut my teeth on books about African folktale and books narrated by Danny Glover. I read books about little Black boys and girls that were heroes. I had biographies that those boys and girls who grew up to be bigger heroes; my favorite was one about Harriet Tubman. I read it over and over. It was blue and had a painting of her creeping through the woods at night, bandana pulled low over the scar on her forehead.
Then I got sent to private school.
Princeton, NJ. Home, naturally, of Princeton University—home of Cornell West and, for a brief time, Michelle Obama. Also home of a TON of white people. Rich ones. Collar-popping Republicans.
At Princeton Day School, I didn't learn to play double dutch or hopscotch like my mother did at her school in the city. I learned how to do my hair in a messy bun, how to love Hanson, how to pop my own collar and wear sweatshirts that said Yale. I had a North Face jacket and I shopped at American Eagle. My closest friends were Jewish girls and rebel white boys, and I was in love with all of them.
It should come as no surprise, then, that all lives matter to me. They matter deeply. Best friends, boyfriends, ex-fiancés, guys I consider to be my brothers, mentors. These are the people I think of when I say all lives matter, because they are people that I cannot live without. The large percentage of the population that is not sociopathic feels the same way. People matter. And—AND—I said something stupid.
Because it's not the point. These lives matter and it is not the point. The point is: Black people are dying through no fault of their own. It is literally. That. Simple.
I was not going to write about this. I stay away from the news because I'm already pretty freakin' suicidal. It is selfish but I can't take it most days. I don't want to hear about it. I know terror exists, and I know people I love and people I don't know are at risk. And I know my own limits, and they are small, and I am ignorant, and it is a fault that I hope I can fix.
But what irks me so, so much is that my own selfish stupid thoughts made me miss the point. Black lives matter. That is the cause. It doesn't mean that other people, other things don't matter. It means that finally, we are acknowledging openly, loudly, that police brutality toward the Black community is frighteningly and heartbreakingly real.
Stephen A. Smith, a brother who has already made many sexist remarks during his time in the spotlight, has now posted on his Facebook, and I quote, "Where is all the noise about #Blacklivesmatter when black folks are killing black folks? There's nothing wrong when a presidential candidate [Martin O'Malley] says 'All lives matter'!"
Yes, Black folks are killing Black folks, Smith. Yes, all lives matter, O'Malley. That is not the point.
There is a (white, relatively well-off) guy who I deeply respect. Let's call him Bernard. Bernard is a friend, and I love him. Bernard is smart and talented and giving, and he is one of the most empathetic people I know. He is the one who called my attention to Smith, who I didn't even know existed to this point. Bernard called my attention to Smith, because HE posted Smith's comments on HIS Facebook page, saying, "I stand with Stephen A. Smith."
No. No! That is not the point.
I did something stupid, and I know now that I was wrong. And I'm sorry for what I said. I encourage you all to take a look at this. I encourage Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley to entirely withdraw the statement and actually think about what he's saying, and I encourage Jeb Bush, who thinks this statement needs no apology, to sit the fuck down. Police brutality toward Black folk is the point of this cause. Supporting the American Cancer Society doesn't make the American Heart Association any less relevant. Our country has several illnesses. This is one of them.
Go ahead. Start with Trayvon Martin. Find the pattern in the illness. Say the names. I say them every day, and I'm sorry.
I'm not going to make a list of the abundance of stupid things I've done, because it would invariably end in me hiding out in my bedroom avoiding any interaction with anyone for several days lest I inflict more stupidity on the world. However, this one is really, really stupid.
I uttered the words, "ALL lives matter."
Let's get one thing straight. Clearly, they do. I'm not going to get into that.
But that is not the point.
I've already posted a bit about my history—Hide your wife, hide your kids—but I'm reminded constantly of it during this particular situation. I learned to read when I was three. I cut my teeth on books about African folktale and books narrated by Danny Glover. I read books about little Black boys and girls that were heroes. I had biographies that those boys and girls who grew up to be bigger heroes; my favorite was one about Harriet Tubman. I read it over and over. It was blue and had a painting of her creeping through the woods at night, bandana pulled low over the scar on her forehead.
Then I got sent to private school.
Princeton, NJ. Home, naturally, of Princeton University—home of Cornell West and, for a brief time, Michelle Obama. Also home of a TON of white people. Rich ones. Collar-popping Republicans.
At Princeton Day School, I didn't learn to play double dutch or hopscotch like my mother did at her school in the city. I learned how to do my hair in a messy bun, how to love Hanson, how to pop my own collar and wear sweatshirts that said Yale. I had a North Face jacket and I shopped at American Eagle. My closest friends were Jewish girls and rebel white boys, and I was in love with all of them.
It should come as no surprise, then, that all lives matter to me. They matter deeply. Best friends, boyfriends, ex-fiancés, guys I consider to be my brothers, mentors. These are the people I think of when I say all lives matter, because they are people that I cannot live without. The large percentage of the population that is not sociopathic feels the same way. People matter. And—AND—I said something stupid.
Because it's not the point. These lives matter and it is not the point. The point is: Black people are dying through no fault of their own. It is literally. That. Simple.
I was not going to write about this. I stay away from the news because I'm already pretty freakin' suicidal. It is selfish but I can't take it most days. I don't want to hear about it. I know terror exists, and I know people I love and people I don't know are at risk. And I know my own limits, and they are small, and I am ignorant, and it is a fault that I hope I can fix.
But what irks me so, so much is that my own selfish stupid thoughts made me miss the point. Black lives matter. That is the cause. It doesn't mean that other people, other things don't matter. It means that finally, we are acknowledging openly, loudly, that police brutality toward the Black community is frighteningly and heartbreakingly real.
Stephen A. Smith, a brother who has already made many sexist remarks during his time in the spotlight, has now posted on his Facebook, and I quote, "Where is all the noise about #Blacklivesmatter when black folks are killing black folks? There's nothing wrong when a presidential candidate [Martin O'Malley] says 'All lives matter'!"
Yes, Black folks are killing Black folks, Smith. Yes, all lives matter, O'Malley. That is not the point.
There is a (white, relatively well-off) guy who I deeply respect. Let's call him Bernard. Bernard is a friend, and I love him. Bernard is smart and talented and giving, and he is one of the most empathetic people I know. He is the one who called my attention to Smith, who I didn't even know existed to this point. Bernard called my attention to Smith, because HE posted Smith's comments on HIS Facebook page, saying, "I stand with Stephen A. Smith."
No. No! That is not the point.
I did something stupid, and I know now that I was wrong. And I'm sorry for what I said. I encourage you all to take a look at this. I encourage Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley to entirely withdraw the statement and actually think about what he's saying, and I encourage Jeb Bush, who thinks this statement needs no apology, to sit the fuck down. Police brutality toward Black folk is the point of this cause. Supporting the American Cancer Society doesn't make the American Heart Association any less relevant. Our country has several illnesses. This is one of them.
Go ahead. Start with Trayvon Martin. Find the pattern in the illness. Say the names. I say them every day, and I'm sorry.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Baby Fever
It's spring in Massachusetts, and I have baby fever.
Every time I pass a woman with a baby, I grin wildly. The child smiles half-heartedly at me, like, "I don't know what this is." The mother either grins wildly back or tightly clutches her child to her chest because I might be a psychopath.
All of my friends have children. I can't even visit their houses during the day. The chubby cheeks and hilarity and ridiculous energy are too much for me. I have to sneak in at night and pretend there's not a beautiful angel resting upstairs, and I am VERY disappointed when Maxx can't get to sleep and has to come downstairs and watch RuPaul's Drag Race with us. Because then I just want to take him home with me. His damn sister too.
It's true. I want to steal babies.
My friend Abby is pregnant with her second child. When she told me, I immediately responded with all of the necessary squeals and OHMYGODs and cooing and relevant questions. And as I asked how far along she was and if they were going to find out the gender this time and so on and so forth, I squeezed the #2 pencil I had in my hand so hard that it snapped in half. Purple shards flew through the air. The cat fled at the sudden noise. I bled a little bit.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
I want a baby so hard. And this bitch gets two. As the conversation evolved into a serious assessment of mac and cheese recipes, I envisioned myself present at the new baby's birth. The first thing the child would see would be Abby's beautiful smile. Mr. Abby would lean in for a kiss and hold the baby's hand, and then child #1 would gather round with Momma Abby and there would be a complete family photo.
THEN they'd pass the kid on to Auntie Kyle. But I wouldn't be cooing. No, sir. All they'd see would be me darting out the door, an umbilical cord flying in the wind behind me.
But, well, then I'd have to go into hiding, I'd lose two friends and Auntie status of the first kid, people would wonder about the whole race issue and I'd have to make up some story about having an albino child, the kid would grow up listening to Rachmaninoff and Lauryn Hill and Johnny Cash and Maroon 5 and somehow have all of my issues even though we weren't genetically related.
So then I briefly entertained leaving the house with kid #1. But I knew I wouldn't be able to get out without a brutal fight against scrappy, smart Abby, though, and once Hubby came home from work, I wouldn't stand a chance.
So now I'm back to this: WHAT. THE. FUCK.
I'm all in, guys. I'm in for the weird-colored poop and the spit-up and zero hours of sleep and the lice the child will inevitably bring home from school and having to watch my language until 8pm every night. Because tiny shoes and Goldfish crackers and love from someone who will undoubtedly be an asshole for at least 5 of the next 18 years.
There are several problems with this.
1. I cannot be a single mother. It would be an absolute train wreck for everyone involved. And since right now I'm batting 0 for several of the long-term relationships I've been in, it's hard not to picture that as being the case.
2. I do not want no stranger's ass sperm. NOPE. One of the reasons I was so into having Paul's babies is because I knew what I was in for. We would've had awesome kids. Great eyes, great thighs, great if not perfect pitch. Midnight train to brilliant, those kids.
3. My chances of actually carrying to term are slimming every day. I grow uterine tumors like the CSA down the street grows asparagus. But actually though. The last one I had removed looked like a holiday ham, and my surgeon hung a picture of it up on the bulletin board where she kept all the photos of babies she'd birthed. (I imagine her clientele has slimmed somewhat since she posted that. "Is that a child?!" new moms would ask. "DO THEY COME OUT LIKE THAT?") Which means...
4. ...I have to harvest and freeze some eggs, and then find some poor unsuspecting soul to carry them for me.
5. I kind of want the whole pregnant experience. Or at the very least, a kid with my genes. The Colemans are endangered. It's up to me to pass on the snark. I do feel slightly guilty about the concept of contributing to the whole overpopulation issue. But. Yknow. Cross that bridge when I come to it.
6. Again, what if the kid turns out like me?!
7. If ever there comes a child, my father will make the kid fat, and then I will have to wrestle with childhood obesity in addition to my own ever-fluxing weight.
I do not know what the future holds for me. But I do know this: if I turn 40 and have no child, that Tina Fey movie will not just be a bizarre movie any more. It will be a KB biopic.
In the meantime, watch your damn back, Abby.
(Love you, mean it, kiss your daughter for me, see you next week or something.)
Every time I pass a woman with a baby, I grin wildly. The child smiles half-heartedly at me, like, "I don't know what this is." The mother either grins wildly back or tightly clutches her child to her chest because I might be a psychopath.
All of my friends have children. I can't even visit their houses during the day. The chubby cheeks and hilarity and ridiculous energy are too much for me. I have to sneak in at night and pretend there's not a beautiful angel resting upstairs, and I am VERY disappointed when Maxx can't get to sleep and has to come downstairs and watch RuPaul's Drag Race with us. Because then I just want to take him home with me. His damn sister too.
It's true. I want to steal babies.
My friend Abby is pregnant with her second child. When she told me, I immediately responded with all of the necessary squeals and OHMYGODs and cooing and relevant questions. And as I asked how far along she was and if they were going to find out the gender this time and so on and so forth, I squeezed the #2 pencil I had in my hand so hard that it snapped in half. Purple shards flew through the air. The cat fled at the sudden noise. I bled a little bit.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
I want a baby so hard. And this bitch gets two. As the conversation evolved into a serious assessment of mac and cheese recipes, I envisioned myself present at the new baby's birth. The first thing the child would see would be Abby's beautiful smile. Mr. Abby would lean in for a kiss and hold the baby's hand, and then child #1 would gather round with Momma Abby and there would be a complete family photo.
THEN they'd pass the kid on to Auntie Kyle. But I wouldn't be cooing. No, sir. All they'd see would be me darting out the door, an umbilical cord flying in the wind behind me.
But, well, then I'd have to go into hiding, I'd lose two friends and Auntie status of the first kid, people would wonder about the whole race issue and I'd have to make up some story about having an albino child, the kid would grow up listening to Rachmaninoff and Lauryn Hill and Johnny Cash and Maroon 5 and somehow have all of my issues even though we weren't genetically related.
So then I briefly entertained leaving the house with kid #1. But I knew I wouldn't be able to get out without a brutal fight against scrappy, smart Abby, though, and once Hubby came home from work, I wouldn't stand a chance.
So now I'm back to this: WHAT. THE. FUCK.
I'm all in, guys. I'm in for the weird-colored poop and the spit-up and zero hours of sleep and the lice the child will inevitably bring home from school and having to watch my language until 8pm every night. Because tiny shoes and Goldfish crackers and love from someone who will undoubtedly be an asshole for at least 5 of the next 18 years.
There are several problems with this.
1. I cannot be a single mother. It would be an absolute train wreck for everyone involved. And since right now I'm batting 0 for several of the long-term relationships I've been in, it's hard not to picture that as being the case.
2. I do not want no stranger's ass sperm. NOPE. One of the reasons I was so into having Paul's babies is because I knew what I was in for. We would've had awesome kids. Great eyes, great thighs, great if not perfect pitch. Midnight train to brilliant, those kids.
3. My chances of actually carrying to term are slimming every day. I grow uterine tumors like the CSA down the street grows asparagus. But actually though. The last one I had removed looked like a holiday ham, and my surgeon hung a picture of it up on the bulletin board where she kept all the photos of babies she'd birthed. (I imagine her clientele has slimmed somewhat since she posted that. "Is that a child?!" new moms would ask. "DO THEY COME OUT LIKE THAT?") Which means...
4. ...I have to harvest and freeze some eggs, and then find some poor unsuspecting soul to carry them for me.
5. I kind of want the whole pregnant experience. Or at the very least, a kid with my genes. The Colemans are endangered. It's up to me to pass on the snark. I do feel slightly guilty about the concept of contributing to the whole overpopulation issue. But. Yknow. Cross that bridge when I come to it.
6. Again, what if the kid turns out like me?!
7. If ever there comes a child, my father will make the kid fat, and then I will have to wrestle with childhood obesity in addition to my own ever-fluxing weight.
I do not know what the future holds for me. But I do know this: if I turn 40 and have no child, that Tina Fey movie will not just be a bizarre movie any more. It will be a KB biopic.
In the meantime, watch your damn back, Abby.
(Love you, mean it, kiss your daughter for me, see you next week or something.)
Monday, March 30, 2015
Everyone's an Asshole
After an evening of cookie dough, J. Lo movies, and subsequent night terrors, I decided maybe I needed to take a break from the train wreck that is my subconscious and look to some media that is based in reality. Clearly, the best way to do that is to go on Facebook.
So I waded through adorable videos of deer frolicking with puppies, pictures of creative cupcakes and other various snacks, and the rantings about other people's insomnia. I also found out that, according to BuzzFeed's assessment of my taste in movies, I appear to be 69 years old.
Then I came across something useful.
I, along with many other decent individuals of America, have been pretty up in arms these days. "AGAIN?" you might ask incredulously. "What NOW?!" Well, my friends, it's about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed in Indiana on Thursday. Theoretically, it "promotes religious freedom" within business establishments...but is, in practice, just a vehicle for discrimination. Own a business? Believe in a god that frowns upon homosexuality? Well, now (yet again) it is TOTALLY fine for you to be like, "We don't take kindly to your folk around here, do we, Skeeter?" and then turn those patrons away.
Okay so first of all it just speaks volumes to me that in a business context, being able to discriminate is more important than capital. This country BREATHES financial profit. I mean, of course, those entrepreneurs that are interested in utilizing this bill in this way probably can afford to turn down a few customers here and there, but still...
Okay but then also. The author of this little article in the Washington Post helpfully points out that several states already have RFRAs in place (pictured below in the darker green: Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, terrifying-ass Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia). I'd like to think that Connecticut, PA, and Rhode Island use their powers for good, because Northeast bias, but what do I know.
Anyway, the amount of state-wide Religious Freedom Restoration Acts was a fact that I definitely was blissfully unaware of. Miley Cyrus was too. Me and Miley just didn't know. According to our guy at the Washington Post, our ignorance means we're kind of assholes, which actually pisses me off. To a certain extent, ignorance is not a choice. I know a hell of a lot about a hell of a lot, but even being relatively well-informed, there are things I do not know. And you know Miley be scannin Facebook at midnight lookin at cupcakes and bunny rabbits too, so it's not like she don't have the opportunity. We just didn't know! Wikipedia didn't tell me! HuffPo didn't even ASK if I wanted to know!
I've strayed.
Much to my amusement, this particular RFRA has hilariously backfired with the establishment of the First Church of Cannabis. (Unrelated to this fiasco, there are other churches in and around cannabis as the tree of life in California and Hawaii, and likely a bunch of others I don't know about. But I should like to know about them, my friends, I should like to know.)
This entire disaster has, however, inspired me to really bring focus to the manner with which I look at and make a difference in the world. I've created a whole philosophy, and I invite anyone to join me and read the holy text I am about to make up real quick, which you can purchase for just 24 easy monthly payments of $19.95.
Henceforth: as of 3:32 AM on this Monday, the 30th of March, in the year of KB 2015, I have established a church called The Church of No Bigotry, You Motherfuckers. (The name might change. But you know what? It might not.)
Commandment I: Into discrimination? Y'all ain't sittin at MY lunch counter.
Commandment II: Incidentally, in this particular religion, the lunch counter, where one orders milkshakes and french fries, also doubles as an altar.
Commandment III: Don't be mean to other people about their ignorance. Instead, share what you know through witty blog posts. If they don't get the underlying sarcasm, it's their own damn fault.
Commandment IV: NO MANIPULATION! Of ANY kind. If I catch you using the CoNBYM commandments to trick some poor soul somewhere, you gone get smote right quick.
These are the rules. I found them written on a post-it note underneath the trash on my living room floor, so they're all definitely true. I imagine that in about 1,000 years they may need to be adjusted according to cultural evolution, especially since half of the world will be underwater by then (and who knows, maybe all the assholes will go with it), but these are the rules. You want your religious freedom, you got it, but don't be a dick about it. And just a reminder: it is milkshakes and fries. Period. Don't be tryina substitute onion rings or complain about lactose intolerance and go for a soda instead. And NO DIPPING your fries into the milkshake chalice. Just take a big gulp and pass it down the line. We're all gonna get swine flu anyway.
That's pretty much it.
Oh, and while we're at it, Commandment 5: your ability to walk in front of my car to cross the street for no reason is a privilege, not a right. And if you ain't careful you gone get smeared on Gert's pretty little bumper and NO ONE WILL BE SORRY. There is no need for road rage repentance in my religion.
Maybe it shouldn't be called The Church of No Bigotry, You Motherfuckers. Maybe it's just a way of life called "everyone's an asshole, but maybe just try to not be one...but if you don't put in the effort I will totally hate you."
But really, in all seriousness, the Blog of KBizzle is a safe place. Believe what you need to believe, learn what you can, be who you are. I'm just a humor writer from the school of Seth MacFarlane and Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and I WILL make fun of EVERYTHING.
PS: Hey, thanks, Christians, for rolling with my punches. You're good sports. But if you can't take it, just try a maple cream milkshake from Local Burger and tell me that that is not the nectar of the gods.
So I waded through adorable videos of deer frolicking with puppies, pictures of creative cupcakes and other various snacks, and the rantings about other people's insomnia. I also found out that, according to BuzzFeed's assessment of my taste in movies, I appear to be 69 years old.
Then I came across something useful.
I, along with many other decent individuals of America, have been pretty up in arms these days. "AGAIN?" you might ask incredulously. "What NOW?!" Well, my friends, it's about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed in Indiana on Thursday. Theoretically, it "promotes religious freedom" within business establishments...but is, in practice, just a vehicle for discrimination. Own a business? Believe in a god that frowns upon homosexuality? Well, now (yet again) it is TOTALLY fine for you to be like, "We don't take kindly to your folk around here, do we, Skeeter?" and then turn those patrons away.
Okay so first of all it just speaks volumes to me that in a business context, being able to discriminate is more important than capital. This country BREATHES financial profit. I mean, of course, those entrepreneurs that are interested in utilizing this bill in this way probably can afford to turn down a few customers here and there, but still...
Okay but then also. The author of this little article in the Washington Post helpfully points out that several states already have RFRAs in place (pictured below in the darker green: Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, terrifying-ass Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia). I'd like to think that Connecticut, PA, and Rhode Island use their powers for good, because Northeast bias, but what do I know.
Anyway, the amount of state-wide Religious Freedom Restoration Acts was a fact that I definitely was blissfully unaware of. Miley Cyrus was too. Me and Miley just didn't know. According to our guy at the Washington Post, our ignorance means we're kind of assholes, which actually pisses me off. To a certain extent, ignorance is not a choice. I know a hell of a lot about a hell of a lot, but even being relatively well-informed, there are things I do not know. And you know Miley be scannin Facebook at midnight lookin at cupcakes and bunny rabbits too, so it's not like she don't have the opportunity. We just didn't know! Wikipedia didn't tell me! HuffPo didn't even ASK if I wanted to know!
I've strayed.
Much to my amusement, this particular RFRA has hilariously backfired with the establishment of the First Church of Cannabis. (Unrelated to this fiasco, there are other churches in and around cannabis as the tree of life in California and Hawaii, and likely a bunch of others I don't know about. But I should like to know about them, my friends, I should like to know.)
This entire disaster has, however, inspired me to really bring focus to the manner with which I look at and make a difference in the world. I've created a whole philosophy, and I invite anyone to join me and read the holy text I am about to make up real quick, which you can purchase for just 24 easy monthly payments of $19.95.
Henceforth: as of 3:32 AM on this Monday, the 30th of March, in the year of KB 2015, I have established a church called The Church of No Bigotry, You Motherfuckers. (The name might change. But you know what? It might not.)
Commandment I: Into discrimination? Y'all ain't sittin at MY lunch counter.
Commandment II: Incidentally, in this particular religion, the lunch counter, where one orders milkshakes and french fries, also doubles as an altar.
Commandment III: Don't be mean to other people about their ignorance. Instead, share what you know through witty blog posts. If they don't get the underlying sarcasm, it's their own damn fault.
Commandment IV: NO MANIPULATION! Of ANY kind. If I catch you using the CoNBYM commandments to trick some poor soul somewhere, you gone get smote right quick.
These are the rules. I found them written on a post-it note underneath the trash on my living room floor, so they're all definitely true. I imagine that in about 1,000 years they may need to be adjusted according to cultural evolution, especially since half of the world will be underwater by then (and who knows, maybe all the assholes will go with it), but these are the rules. You want your religious freedom, you got it, but don't be a dick about it. And just a reminder: it is milkshakes and fries. Period. Don't be tryina substitute onion rings or complain about lactose intolerance and go for a soda instead. And NO DIPPING your fries into the milkshake chalice. Just take a big gulp and pass it down the line. We're all gonna get swine flu anyway.
That's pretty much it.
Oh, and while we're at it, Commandment 5: your ability to walk in front of my car to cross the street for no reason is a privilege, not a right. And if you ain't careful you gone get smeared on Gert's pretty little bumper and NO ONE WILL BE SORRY. There is no need for road rage repentance in my religion.
Maybe it shouldn't be called The Church of No Bigotry, You Motherfuckers. Maybe it's just a way of life called "everyone's an asshole, but maybe just try to not be one...but if you don't put in the effort I will totally hate you."
But really, in all seriousness, the Blog of KBizzle is a safe place. Believe what you need to believe, learn what you can, be who you are. I'm just a humor writer from the school of Seth MacFarlane and Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and I WILL make fun of EVERYTHING.
PS: Hey, thanks, Christians, for rolling with my punches. You're good sports. But if you can't take it, just try a maple cream milkshake from Local Burger and tell me that that is not the nectar of the gods.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
KBizzle Walks the Avon 39
I hate running. I hate it so hard. Knee surgery twice, asthma, and having huge and ridiculous boobies just adds up to wicked pain and general disgruntlement. Plus it's boring as hell if you have to do it inside. At least on an elliptical you can watch Netflix.
So anyway, so I'm walking. I'm walking 39 miles in Boston to raise money for breast cancer. And I am hell-bent on making it happen, the right way. The marathon is called the Avon 39, and it's a full weekend, May 16 and 17. It sounds hardcore, and maybe it is. My first thought, though, was "Yo I can totally do this, like right now, it will be super easy." (And then I was like, ...wait a minute.) This is the link to my page. You can use it to sign up and join my team (Team Winnie) or to donate or whatever you want.
On March 11, I found out that a client of mine—after whipping Hodgkin's butt (HARD, too), being diagnosed with breast cancer, having a double mastectomy, and, when I met her, had so many tumors in her gut that she looked 7 months pregnant, and yet still had the grace and style to be decked out in silk leopard-print pajamas and get her eyelash weave taken care of—after ALL this, she'd passed away. I was helping her write a book on her journey and on cancer. She wanted to leave that legacy behind. She never got to finish it, which breaks my heart.
The next day, I just happened to see this walk on Facebook. March 12 was the 6-month anniversary of losing my uncle Barry to lung cancer that had just spread everywhere. At the end I wasn't even sure what cancer was where and even, really, what kind of cancer he had, and I don't want to know. All I know is that on September 11, after I'd spent a week trying to play nurse (I was sorely unprepared for THAT mess) and hearing him moan in pain and cry out for his wife and tell us how he just couldn't fully wake up and not being able to do anything for him except stroke his head and coerce him into taking more morphine, I left to go home, get more underwear, and sleep on an actual bed for a night instead of on the couch that my aunt hates getting hair grease on. And on September 12, my mother called me and told me he was gone.
I can name everyone I still thankfully have with me. I can recount the stories of every single person I've lost to some form of cancer. But, to be frank, fuck this. I'm done. No more. This ends, and it's going to end with me having had my hand in it.
Please, please help me. My journey—39 miles, which is a hell of a lot smaller than the journey of these people in their fight against these diseases—starts on May 15. My goal is to raise $2000. Sign up to walk with me, donate just $1, even just pass this along to your friends. Let's get the word out that we can make some kind of difference, no matter how small, and let's do it not just to beat breast cancer, but for every cancer out there. A victory for breast cancer is a victory for each variety of cancer.
In Memoriam:
Barry Coleman
Stacy Tomlinson-Gibson
Paul Hamel
Avi Concool
Genny Lescroart
Kim Bedesem
Marla Kurtz
In honor of:
James Boatwright
Lee Ludwig Meyers
William Clyde
Barbara King
Andrew Coles
Betsy Welsh
Who do you know who's battled cancer? Tell me, and I'll include their names on the list on my webpage. This is for all of them.
Again, the link to my page is right here. Help me make it happen.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Farewell, King
My Uncle Barry died five months ago today.
My Uncle Barry is dead. I have to say it aloud sometimes to remember.
My family shares this loss, for which I'm grateful, but I forget to grieve alone. In the midst of this tragic blow to the foundation of my family, I almost don't have the energy. And I don't know how to handle grief. Not this one. I sob, I ignore it all together, I laugh hysterically, I panic, I talk as if Barry were still on the couch at the house on Schuyler, I forget that I can't call him to ask how the hell to work my computer or the effects of string instruments or what Greek currency has to do with this life insurance book I'm writing. My aunt changed her cell phone number to his, and I almost had a heart attack when "Uncle Barry" popped up on my phone, and it was just her calling to say Happy New Year. (Changed that shit RIGHT quick.)
I see these posts like this on Facebook all the time, and I am embarrassed to say that I scroll right past them the majority of the time. A) I'm not on Facebook tryina be depressed all day, but more importantly, B) what is there to say? It's their loss, and all the love in the world doesn't fill that void, even if it does help the healing process. You can say you're sorry. You can sympathize. You can send good thoughts. But you can't "like" that Aunt Sally died. (I mean you could, especially if you wanted to start shit. Which, naive Kyle is finally learning, is a thing that people do every fucking day. But I digress.)
My ex and my uncle used to bond over jazz all the time. Instrumental stuff, namely. Though I dug the music, the conversations bored me to tears. I appreciate the sheer artistry and the beauty of it all, but being a writer in addition to being a musician, I place equal import on lyricism.*
I listened to so much instrumental music with my ex. It was a great thing, and the music we listened to as we cooked dinner and played Mancala and Life ranged from Roy Hargrove back to Miles Davis. But during those years, I lost touch with the words.
The day Barry died, I wrote a post (shared on Facebook) about how Erykah Badu totally stole Uncle Barry's bass line for the most popular song on her album. Then the album went platinum because she ripped off MY uncle, who had long since stopped booking gigs and was sitting in a leather chair in an office with a window at Merrill Lynch in New York. His upright sat in the attic with the ghosts and his psychedelic posters from the 70s. It didn't seem fair. She won. He didn't. She's alive. He's not.
And then, even though I'd already heard the song a bajillion times (because secretly my entire family really loves the song and her, but DAMN YOU E. BADU) I listened to her lyrics, and I sat sort of paralyzed, wondering how she knew my uncle so well.
Time to save the world
Where in the world is all the time
So many things I still don't know
So many times I've changed my mind
Guess I was born to make mistakes
But I ain't scared to take the weight
So when I stumble off the path
I know my heart will guide me back
Love is life, and life is free
Take a ride on life with me
Free your mind and find your way
There will be a brighter day
Barry was brave. He was scared. He was broken. He was strong. He was sensitive. He was brilliant. He was quiet and perceptive. He was hilarious. He was the best man I know.
He is the kind of man I am ever-searching for in a partner. He called me Kylie Wiley and knew exactly when to stop, when I would be embarrassed by the nickname in my teenage years. He sent me hilarious birthday cards and told me it was okay to cry. He held my hand when I burst into tears at how much weight he'd lost from the cancer that consumed him. He told me I was special, and somehow it didn't seem cliched, because it wasn't, not coming from him. He told me I am the woman I should be, and that it's good. He told me to trust myself. He stood by me in the light of all of my huge decisions and mistakes and tears and successes, even when I was being stupid and selfish. He smiled, near death, when I told him we had his back.
This is my loss. It's allowed to be. And when my throat closes up on the drive to my piano studio because I see a rabbit or a Jeep or a goddamn traffic light and suddenly remember that my Uncle Barry is dead, I let it. And when I throw up from sheer loss, thinking about how he just wept at the end in that hospital bed, I let my tears blend with the contents of my stomach. And when I panic in the middle of the night because he's just gone, and that I rested my hand on his empty chest and kissed his empty face and wondered aloud where the hell his nose hairs went—is that really a thing that they just shave out?—I let myself panic. Because on the day that we buried him, I stayed behind. I sat in the dirt after some randos in dirty overalls lowered the heart of my family into the ground, after everyone had already gone back to the weird party limo complete with champagne flutes that oddly transported us from the funeral home to the cemetery like this was some kind of prom. I made sure that the prettiest flower was on top of that casket, and I watched over it until my brother's hand on my shoulder pulled me away. And every day for a week before he died, when it mattered just as much as it did when he was healthy, I told Uncle Barry that it was okay.
And when I stumble across old text messages to my best girlfriend like the one I found today from the day of his funeral—
"Facts:
A) Nothing like being an Episcopalian-raised agnostic/secretly-kind-of-white bitch at a Southern Baptist funeral in Harlem.
B) I came very, very close to punching an 8-year-old in the face today.
C) My dad almost ended up in a hotel fist fight with my mom's other brother.
D) I'm pretty sure my uncle has been laid to rest in the Korean section of the cemetery."
—I fucking laugh. And I think he'd have laughed too, but he was never the type to read other people's texts lest he invade their privacy.
God, I love that man. It hurts as much as the loss does, and maybe they're separate and maybe they're kind of not, but I love that man. That's him up there. Open to the sunlight, ever tied to his technology, on a boat with his Merrill Lynch partner, feeling the vibrations of the bass in the floorboards.
*Also, jazz musicians name-drop like a desperate wanna-be actor at a high-end party in LA (it's not mean to say if you've done it yourself...), the difference being that the jazz cats can legitimately rattle off names because they know each musician's riffs intimately. And then if you are not really a jazz cat you just feel like you got dragged to a party where you know absolutely no one and everyone just talks about their super talented famous group of friends that you will never measure up to.
My Uncle Barry is dead. I have to say it aloud sometimes to remember.
My family shares this loss, for which I'm grateful, but I forget to grieve alone. In the midst of this tragic blow to the foundation of my family, I almost don't have the energy. And I don't know how to handle grief. Not this one. I sob, I ignore it all together, I laugh hysterically, I panic, I talk as if Barry were still on the couch at the house on Schuyler, I forget that I can't call him to ask how the hell to work my computer or the effects of string instruments or what Greek currency has to do with this life insurance book I'm writing. My aunt changed her cell phone number to his, and I almost had a heart attack when "Uncle Barry" popped up on my phone, and it was just her calling to say Happy New Year. (Changed that shit RIGHT quick.)
I see these posts like this on Facebook all the time, and I am embarrassed to say that I scroll right past them the majority of the time. A) I'm not on Facebook tryina be depressed all day, but more importantly, B) what is there to say? It's their loss, and all the love in the world doesn't fill that void, even if it does help the healing process. You can say you're sorry. You can sympathize. You can send good thoughts. But you can't "like" that Aunt Sally died. (I mean you could, especially if you wanted to start shit. Which, naive Kyle is finally learning, is a thing that people do every fucking day. But I digress.)
My ex and my uncle used to bond over jazz all the time. Instrumental stuff, namely. Though I dug the music, the conversations bored me to tears. I appreciate the sheer artistry and the beauty of it all, but being a writer in addition to being a musician, I place equal import on lyricism.*
I listened to so much instrumental music with my ex. It was a great thing, and the music we listened to as we cooked dinner and played Mancala and Life ranged from Roy Hargrove back to Miles Davis. But during those years, I lost touch with the words.
The day Barry died, I wrote a post (shared on Facebook) about how Erykah Badu totally stole Uncle Barry's bass line for the most popular song on her album. Then the album went platinum because she ripped off MY uncle, who had long since stopped booking gigs and was sitting in a leather chair in an office with a window at Merrill Lynch in New York. His upright sat in the attic with the ghosts and his psychedelic posters from the 70s. It didn't seem fair. She won. He didn't. She's alive. He's not.
And then, even though I'd already heard the song a bajillion times (because secretly my entire family really loves the song and her, but DAMN YOU E. BADU) I listened to her lyrics, and I sat sort of paralyzed, wondering how she knew my uncle so well.
Time to save the worldWhere in the world is all the time
So many things I still don't know
So many times I've changed my mind
Guess I was born to make mistakes
But I ain't scared to take the weight
So when I stumble off the path
I know my heart will guide me back
Love is life, and life is free
Take a ride on life with me
Free your mind and find your way
There will be a brighter day
Barry was brave. He was scared. He was broken. He was strong. He was sensitive. He was brilliant. He was quiet and perceptive. He was hilarious. He was the best man I know.
He is the kind of man I am ever-searching for in a partner. He called me Kylie Wiley and knew exactly when to stop, when I would be embarrassed by the nickname in my teenage years. He sent me hilarious birthday cards and told me it was okay to cry. He held my hand when I burst into tears at how much weight he'd lost from the cancer that consumed him. He told me I was special, and somehow it didn't seem cliched, because it wasn't, not coming from him. He told me I am the woman I should be, and that it's good. He told me to trust myself. He stood by me in the light of all of my huge decisions and mistakes and tears and successes, even when I was being stupid and selfish. He smiled, near death, when I told him we had his back.
This is my loss. It's allowed to be. And when my throat closes up on the drive to my piano studio because I see a rabbit or a Jeep or a goddamn traffic light and suddenly remember that my Uncle Barry is dead, I let it. And when I throw up from sheer loss, thinking about how he just wept at the end in that hospital bed, I let my tears blend with the contents of my stomach. And when I panic in the middle of the night because he's just gone, and that I rested my hand on his empty chest and kissed his empty face and wondered aloud where the hell his nose hairs went—is that really a thing that they just shave out?—I let myself panic. Because on the day that we buried him, I stayed behind. I sat in the dirt after some randos in dirty overalls lowered the heart of my family into the ground, after everyone had already gone back to the weird party limo complete with champagne flutes that oddly transported us from the funeral home to the cemetery like this was some kind of prom. I made sure that the prettiest flower was on top of that casket, and I watched over it until my brother's hand on my shoulder pulled me away. And every day for a week before he died, when it mattered just as much as it did when he was healthy, I told Uncle Barry that it was okay.
And when I stumble across old text messages to my best girlfriend like the one I found today from the day of his funeral—
"Facts:
A) Nothing like being an Episcopalian-raised agnostic/secretly-kind-of-white bitch at a Southern Baptist funeral in Harlem.
B) I came very, very close to punching an 8-year-old in the face today.
C) My dad almost ended up in a hotel fist fight with my mom's other brother.
D) I'm pretty sure my uncle has been laid to rest in the Korean section of the cemetery."
—I fucking laugh. And I think he'd have laughed too, but he was never the type to read other people's texts lest he invade their privacy.
God, I love that man. It hurts as much as the loss does, and maybe they're separate and maybe they're kind of not, but I love that man. That's him up there. Open to the sunlight, ever tied to his technology, on a boat with his Merrill Lynch partner, feeling the vibrations of the bass in the floorboards.
*Also, jazz musicians name-drop like a desperate wanna-be actor at a high-end party in LA (it's not mean to say if you've done it yourself...), the difference being that the jazz cats can legitimately rattle off names because they know each musician's riffs intimately. And then if you are not really a jazz cat you just feel like you got dragged to a party where you know absolutely no one and everyone just talks about their super talented famous group of friends that you will never measure up to.
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