The following are excerpts from my handwritten journal, along with explanatory notes.
April 4, 2006
I was born to do this. I was born to do this. There will be blood on the paper because this is the only thing I know beyond myself. It is myself.
That’s it. Do you feel the tingling? Someone sitting in another place, doing another thing, is having an impact on your life. The moment before the pendulum repeats its arc. No stopping now. Do it. Continue reading
“I may be firing an AK-47 for the first time this weekend, along with some other rifles. I only have experience with handguns. Is there anything I can do or wear to avoid major bruising from the recoil, or should I just buck up and wear my bruises with pride?” – Me, Tuesday, November 07, 2006 Continue reading
I have a photographic memory. It’s flawed, but remarkable nonetheless, at least to me. People ask me several times a week, “How did you know/remember that?” The answer is always because I saw it or read it once, somewhere – scrawled in the borders on the page of a book or driving by a billboard. I can’t remember birthdays unless I write down the date on my agenda or unless someone shows me their license – tying the letters of their name or their likeness to that important string of numbers. Continue reading
I went camping (for only the second time in my life) this weekend with my best friend April and my former roommate “Double-0” and I can tell you three things:
1. Camping is for White people.
2. Camping is for White people.
3. When camping with White people, drinking makes the experience infinitely more fun.
This is what I packed into Double-0’s car. April went up early to set things up for us since we had to work.
Prof. John Ernest with me and Kristin at our college graduation
I went to college with a mission: I wanted to learn more about Being Black. Problem was, $10,000 of my scholarship money for New York University had fallen through on the day of my high school graduation. I wouldn’t be attending school in the diverse Mecca-lekka-hiney-bro Melting Pot known as NYC.
Nope. The University of New Hampshire would be hosting my education in Being Black. It was as unlikely a place as one could find for increasing cultural awareness. There were 78 Black students out of 13,000. If you were counting me, there were only 77.5 Black students. We do what we can with what we have, though, and what I had was a course catalogue listing a 500-level course for Introduction to African-American Literature.
Any time I’ve ever wanted to understand anything, I’ve turned to books. From cooking to interior design to tarot card reading, if there was anything I’ve wanted to understand, I just buried myself in every chapter and verse I could get my hands on. I thought if I could read about other Black people, their history, what they had been through . . . maybe I would understand a little bit more about myself. Continue reading
Dangerously Enthusiastic 