But it starts before I even got here. My mother and father don’t agree much on the details of how they met but from what I can gather, my mother came to California, met my father and they fell in love. Like for real love, they got engaged and bought a house. Then my father messed up big time (“groupies” according to my dad and drugs, bad combo) and my mother left him. After she had me, she moved back to Connecticut. And since my father loved both of us, he followed. Since he didn’t know anyone in CT, he couldn’t get drugs and so he got clean.

For a while we all lived together with my grandmother. My mother’s work required her to travel a lot, so I spent most of my early years with my father and my grandmother. Eventually my mom was able to spend more time in CT, enough to buy a house and we were a “regular” family. I’m not sure what happened, but my father moved out but we still hung out all the time. I was the ultimate daddy’s girl and it was awesome. He spoiled me rotten and I loved it. Whatever I wanted I got and I got used to it.

When I was nine, my mother told me she was going to have a baby (with her husband, not my dad). That’s when my father decided to tell me that he had just had a baby with some woman I never met and that I had a six month old brother.

Somewhere along the way my dad started doing drugs again. His visits became more sporadic and when we hung out it was sometimes with real shady people and sketchy situations. I was also getting older, so I was more aware of what going on, but for the most part everything was cool.

Then my dad started going to jail. The first time was devastating. I remember hiding in the closet and crying. But after that, I began to look forward to my dad going to jail because when he was in jail he called and wrote all the time. And when he was out, he was gone.

During another stint in jail, the woman he had my brother with had a little girl. She was born addicted to crack and was placed for adoption. I only met her once, the day after she was born. And then she was gone.

Though I was getting frustrated with my father around this time, I was not done with him. I figured eventually he would clean up and get his life together. He had kids and all these mistakes had costs. But my father couldn’t clean up. My breaking point came when he missed my high school graduation. Later he told me that he was high and didn’t want to see me in that state. But I didn’t know then and that was the first time I cut him off.

Through all of this, mother has always remained calm. She never says anything negative about my father and his shenanigans. And whenever I talk crazy about his, she reminds me that he is my father. I’ve always admired this about her because if some man was driving my children crazy, it would be all over for him.

I don’t remember how, but we reconciled. I didn’t trust him and I barely liked him but I still loved him. My mother made me invite him to my college graduation. He came and was so proud you would have thought he had anything to do with my success there. It infuriated me.

The next few years were strained. I was going through my own stuff and didn’t want to deal with my father’s. I can’t remember now what happened, (I’m sure it had something to do with the truly awful man that I was dating) but I decided that I needed to deal with my father and our issues before it ruined any chance I had at obtaining and maintaining a function romantic relationship. So I wrote him a letter. It said three things: 1. You don’t know me, you haven’t made an effort, so I’m going to tell you who I am, 2. You’re either in or out. I’m not going to continue to chase you around and beg you to act like a father. You either do it on your own and leave me the hell alone and 3. You are not going to be the reason I don’t get married.

To be honest, I didn’t expect an answer. But my father, ever full of surprises, wrote me back and sent a packet of other stuff. He said he was sorry. He said he had been clean for a year and was diagnosed with PTSD. He had been in therapy and was back to drawing again. He sent me all the information he had about my sister. He sent me info about veteran benefits for children (way too late as I was 25 but it would help my brother). And he said I was right. I was finally able to forgive him.

He started to call me. If we had plans to meet, you better believe he was there. And for that I am grateful.

Our relationship now is not perfect but it’s much better. I have accepted my father for who is. I can see who he is. And I am ok with that. He’s never going to be Bill Cosby.   He’s never going to be the man to financially bail me out of situations.  But he is the man who will come down to to New York year after year and move me to different apartments, even mice filled ones that scare both of us. He’s the man that tells me I’m beautiful, smart, funny, insert positive adjective here when I need to hear it. He’s the man that helps me calm down because he’s incapable of not seeing the bright side to a situation.  He’s the man that makes me laugh.  He is my father.

e.

All that worrying had gotten me was less peaceful sleep, when I could, and that was starting to mess up my skin and the last thing I wanted to do was start the week with messed up skin. Besides, I had been worrying for a little over two weeks faithfully and nothing was really changing.

I was worried about a paper that I had all summer. In the beginning I thought “Hey I have all summer, I’m going to take a little time to relax and then I’m going to bust this bad boy out.” By July I start thinking “I’d better get cracking on this paper.” Then disaster struck, well disaster by dissertation standards – my results were totally not doing what I wanted them to. I had to go back and check what I had actually done and think about how I can salvage my intro and lit review. Although the paper with the funky data wasn’t the same paper for class, it used the same data set and most of the same variables. Surely my class paper was going to be ruined too.

When I finally stopped worrying, I ran the data for class and that worked out fine. Now to write the paper. Ugh, the hard part. So I started and then came to the part that actually mattered to the class – interpreting odds ratios (aka the results section). This was when worry turned to panic. I began to imagine getting my first F ever in life in grad school. I contemplated dropping the class (but I’ve never been a quitter). Or doing something that is totally logically but that I never do. I asked my friend A for help. After about 5 minutes, I knew what I had to do and turned in the paper. I spent all of labor day weekend working on the paper – aside from a brief break to Saturday Morning Cartoons (hands down the best party of the summer).

I finished the paper around 11:30 on Monday night. Classes for the fall semester start the next day. I turned the paper in and avoided email all morning.

I had finished the paper but turned it in so late could he even give me a grad? Wow e. you’ve really done it this time.

Long story short, he got the paper and I got a B+ in the class (Praise sweet baby Jesus).

On crisis down. Another crisis that had not been solved with worry but with action.

I have another crisis left. Finding a roommate. Yes, I’ve been actively looking for 3 months down. 3 chicks who have confirmed they were moving in and then disappeared later, I have resolved to not solve this problem with worry because it doesn’t help. I’m going to do what I have to do and talk to my landlord on Monday. But I will not spend an entire weekend alone with my worries. No way.

e.

And it was all so simple.   And that is so awesome.  Just spending time with people that you love, that’s what it’s all about.  And that’s what I love about New York.  It’s not the night life or the shops; it’s that most of my favorite people in the entire world are here.  And that it’s close enough for my mom, another one of my favs, to come down for the weekend.

And when it was over, something very strange happened.  I missed my mom.  Like really missed her.  It was more strange considering I had just seen her the weekend before and I can very easily see her this weekend.  I can talk to her all the time, in fact, I do.  But after this weekend, I missed her.  I still do.

But back to the subject at hand, this weekend reminded me that is really is all about the simple things.  What a pleasant reminder.

e.

There’s a scene in the remake of Alice in Wonderland when the Mad Hatter meets up again with Alice and notices that she’s different.  She’s afraid and she’s not who she used to be.  He tells her, “You used to be much muchier.  You’ve lost your muchness.”  I know, it’s a child’s movie and a silly scene, but lately that’s how I’ve begun to feel about myself.

When I was younger, I was a character.  I did my own thing and didn’t care what anyone thought about it.  I was myself.  And then something happened, I’m not quite sure.  From then I began to doubt myself and my abilities.  And I became scared of everything – success, failure, trying.  And it was sad.  And it was exhausting. And I am tired of it.

So join me as I try to regain my muchness again and become that cool kid I know I am.

e.

classy

And  now I look like this:

sassy

Yup, I finally did something that I’ve been talking about for months.  I chopped of my hair and I’m donating it to Locks of Love.  I have literally been thinking about this for over a year, and talking to friends about it for at least 7 months.  My inital plan was to do it for my birthday, then do it in the middle of May, then do it September right when school started.  And then I realized, I could litereally do this forever.  I didn’t want to wait until it got cold because then I’d have no hair to keep me warm, but if I did it in the summer, my hair would be all frizzy and it would impact my beach and dancing in the rain time.  All of these are super lame excuses, and so I said to myself, “Self, stop being a pussy and cut your freaking hair already.”  So this morning, I told Mo and then I went and did it.

I went to a Dominican spot near school, mainly because they had cut my hair before and it didn’t look crazy and because I knew it’d be cheap.  I walk in the store, tell the woman I want to chop my hair to donate it, tell her she had to cut at least 10 inches and waited for the inevitable “are you crazy?” look I get every time I ask to get my hair cut.  I was prepared this time. I bought a ruler so she could see that 10 inches wasn’t ALL of my hair, just enough to make some kid a wig.  Her mother finally agreed to do it and we were on our way.

After a wash and some blow drying, she braided my hair in the back.  She took a little elastic and tied the end of the braid.  Then she took out the ruler and measured 10 inches (in retrospect, measuring a braided 10 inches is way more hair than the 10 inches I measured when I pulled my curl out, but whatevs), she measured again and held her finger there.  She took a bigger elastic and tied my hair where she had measured.  She then took the ruler out again to make sure she had at least 10 inches.  I appreciated her attention to detail.

Then she picked up these huge scissors, smiled at me and snip!

Now the ponytail was in my hand and I couldn’t believe I had actually cut off most of my hair to give to a stranger I will never meet.  Tomorrow I will put my hair in a padded envelope (I didn’t know hair needed so much protection) and mail off my crowning glory (and let’s be for real, my security blanket) to Florida.  I know, now I’m being melodramatic.

But it’s my hair.  I haven’t cut my hair since the first time I chopped it in 2003.  That time was not preplanned, it was more of “it’s hot as hell in South Africa and we’re all drunk and have scissors so let’s cut Eva’s hair.”  That time I also dyed it red, oh the horror.  When I came back from South Africa, most of my friends thought it was funny, but what I member most vividly is how much Black men hated it.  And when I say hated it, they hated it.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many men came up to me to tell me how much they liked my long hair better and how much better I looked before.  It was not a fun time and then I vowed I wouldn’t cut my hair anymore.

But having long hair, and long curly hair at that, is a total pain sometimes.  It takes forever to brush.  I have to gel it up or else I’ll look like Buckwheat.  It’s heavy.  And during summers like this, it makes you so hot.  On the bright side, it looks good and  everyone loves it.  I didn’t have to deal with unprovoked negative comments about it.

But when I thought about why I was keeping this hair that had slowly begun to drive me crazy, I realized I was doing it for everyone else, to keep everyone else happy.  That is not what I’m about anymore.  I’m trying to keep me happy.  And I knew it would make me very happy to pay it forward and donate this hair to a child, who is probably sick, and could benefit from it much more than me.  So I chopped my hair.  It feels crazy.  It feels light,  it’s constantly in my face and far to short to put in a decent ponytail, but more than this, it feels good.  I did this for me and it happens to benefit someone else and that’s pretty sweet.

peace,
e.

For me, this year is all about happiness.  As some who has struggled with depression for years (that’s a whole different post), 2010 was the first year that I spent more time feeling happy or ok than depressed.  This was especially surprising because this has also been the year that I put myself out there with more men than before (and more often than not, it ended in heartbreak. lots of heartbreak).  Anyway, a lot of this happiness is a direct result of an intentional change in the way I think.  This year, I made a point to think more positively, to visualize what I want, and to put it out into the universe (yes, I live by The Secret and now, The Power).

In addition to happiness, this year is also about love and gratitude.  Something I’ve been doing is writing love letters to my friends, basically telling them how much I love them and that they are appreciated.  This year I plan on spending more time with my family.  They are my biggest cheerleaders, they are always happy to hear from me and forgive me for all my faults – mainly my flakiness.  This year I also plan on working on  my relationship with my father.  It is significantly better than it was just a few years ago, but I know he wants to talk more and spend more time.

2011 is already looking promising.  I finally get to go to Paris, although it’s for a conference, I know I’ll be able to sneak a lot of sight seeing into this trip. (note to self: reread Black Girl in Paris)  Also my mom is coming so it’s exciting to start checking things off her bucket list.

I’ve got a better grip on silkscreening so the t-shirts are coming along smoothly.  It’s actually pretty easy to get custom orders and I already have a design that will sell pretty well.  It’s pretty incredible how supportive my friends are about this, very humbling.

And finally, I plan on putting a huge dent in my dissertation.  My presentation for Paris is a chapter from my dissertation.  I have a few people that I can interview for my qualitative section of my dissertation.  And essentially when I finish the boys quantitative section, it will be pretty easy to do the girls section.  The tutorial I took last semester provided me with a lot of the theory section.  I’m really starting to think I can actually finish this by 2013. #holla

Happy New Year.

peace,
e.

enjoy,
e.

before:

after:

My roommate encouraged me to embrace the mistakes, it makes it look more authentic. nice.

Hopefully it will inspire me to actually do some work.

peace,
e.

for months, maybe even a year now, i have been agonizing over what to make this blog.  i was trying to make it into something that would make me “internet popular.” a place where a bunch of strangers would read what i write, agree or disagree, but be sure to leave a ton of comments. and that stressed me the fuck out.

i was worried who would read this (apparently about 12 people a week), what would my mother say, what if someone finally put the pieces together and realized i think and talk about my ex girlfriend a hell of a lot more than i’m comfortable with.  what if my brother realized his first instinct that i wasn’t exaclty straight was right and that i totally lied to him when he brought it up becuase sometimes i’m a pussy.  what if someone called me on my research, said something about my standard errors being too small or large (i never can remember) or just said i was flat out wrong.

what if they don’t like me?

to that, i say, who the fuck cares? why in the world do i care so much about what people think of what i write?  lord knows i talk enough shit in real life, i should be able to take some by now, right?

tonight i started reading bitch is the new black. i started ready to hate because she was talking shit about some of my friends in her “ruhbuhduh” chapter. i was ready to be all snarky and hate (hate hate hate) when i realized that’s some shit i would say (maybe even have said, meh). and as i read this book, all i can think is this chick does not give a fuck who she pisses off. she’s going for hers.  she has a published book and movie deal.  i have two raggedy articles and about 4 blogs that i don’t write on because i’m punking out worrying about strangers or people i don’t like.

what.
the.
fuck?

time to snap outta this shit and write. write for my life, huh CPC?

so here we go,
e.

This summer I want to learn how to skateboard. this is something I’ve wanted to do for years but I was scared that I would fall.  Sure I’m going to fall, but it’s not like I’m going to fall off a cliff or something. worst case I’ll scrape my hands and knees (nothing new there).  I’ve also allowed my friend to talk me out of this, her reasoning being that I can’t do it.  I hate it when people tell me I can’t do something.

Finally, I need to tell people to stop treating my like shit or acting in ways that hurt my feelings.  I really, really don’t like confrontation, but I’m realizing I don’t like they make me feel more. And I really hate the way I feel when I don’t say anything.  So this is something that I really need to work on because I just want to be happy and there are a few people in my life who make that difficult, and actually a few that I just wish would go away.

So these are my summer goals. Wish me luck.

e.