Light-skinned-ed Girl

More Curly Hair Blues: Yet Another Biracial Hair Post

I was trying to be nice to my curls after blasting them straight the other day.  I took them to Devachan Salon, the curly hair salon here in New York City.  It's a fancy, lovely place where your curls are worshipped, and you lay on a beautiful daybed to get your hair "washed" and conditioned.  My curls were in need of a cut badly -- and no more single strand cutting by me.  Well, the poor curls didn't get the treat they deserved.  The elegant and talented hair stylist Keith did his wonder yes, but the assistant (although young) had an old-school Grandma kind of method of getting the conditioner through my hair.  Yes, I remember again how tender-headed I am! When she asked if she was hurting me, I said yes.  She said: oh, well, you should have said something.  Well, it does hurt I said, but I know it's tangled.  And then she continued to pull and yank.  I swear, a tear almost rolled down my cheek.  Then it was back to Keith --thank God.  And a very good long time under the super-powered, G-force hair dryer that turned me a bright red--particularly my nose.  It was fine.  It was cold outside and aforementioned assistant had managed to get the back of my robe wet.  Keith made the curls look great in the end, but then it was time to go home.  It was raining, and blustering, and it was cold.  In just the five blocks to the subway station, my hair was soaking wet again (the ends) and the top was crushed flat by my hat.  So no biracial curly hair victory photo today.  Nope.  Oh well.

A Rant on Gentrification

I saw Danny Hoch's show Taking Over the other day and LOVED it.  It's a one-man show in which Danny Hoch plays a number of different Williamsburg, Brooklyn residents talking about how the neighborhood has changed as a result of gentrification.  It's about how the residents who have lived there for years --through the crack epidemic--are becoming displaced and essentially invisible in their own community.

Hoch is a great actor.  He portrayed a tall black woman as truthfully as his young white Wisconsin student. 

The show reminded me so much of what has happened to my home neighborhood in Portland, Oregon.  Northeast Portland was--during the 1980s--the center of the city's gang activity and the crack epidemic.  All of the gang shootings  (including a drive-by done by a shooter on a bike) happened within a ten-block radius of my house.  My mom was once robbed in front of our house by a guy with a sawed-off shotgun.  Prostitutes walked Union Avenue (now MLK Blvd.) making it unsafe to walk home from school -- if you were female and on the street even in twilight you were likely to be approached -- I know, it happened to me.  Drug dealers sold their stuff quite openly across the street from where I lived.  Now, there is a doggy day care there; and tons of cafe's and chic restaurants and a food co-op.  The area even has a name: the Alberta Arts District.  Of course, I'm glad that the area has become nice and safer.  But why didn't it happen before?  Why didn't we--the long-time  residents--deserve better?

Miss France is Biracial

Congratulations to nineteen-year-old Chloe Mortaud, the new Miss France.  Born to an African-American mother and French father, Mortaud says she plans to use her platform to transform discussions about race in France.  "I want to go to people and explain to them that fear of the other is unfounded," she told The Associated Press the day after being crowned. "I want to incarnate ... today's French diversity" at international beauty pageants.  Hooray for Mortaud!

Finished: Now that the Manuscript's Done . . .

I finished the manuscript revisions this weekend and sent it off to my editor (via email and hardcopy) this morning.  I can hardly believe it.  And not that I don't have a million things to do--many things have just been neglected as I focused on the writing--but I don't quite know what to do with myself today.  I feel like I am missing something, or someone. 

I am also feeling a huge degree of relief.  I am happy with what I submitted today -- it is by far a much stronger story now with all of the editing, chopping, deleting, adding, re-arranging and suffering.  And honestly, I feel proud of myself in a way I never have before.  I just wrote that in an email to a friend who replied in puzzlement: you didn't feel proud when you graduated from all those schools?  Well, yeah.  But this feels very different.  School has certain rules--if you do all the things that the university requires, you graduate.  It's not an easy road, but it's a clear road.  There was no road to publication of this book.  I made the path myself with hard work and some luck, and some people who championed me along the way.  I didn't know how to write a book when I started -- I knew only how to long for writing a book.  Now, I know both. 

Now comes the wait.  Fittingly, it will be nine months before the book appears on bookshelves in Fall 2009.  Of course, I'll keep you posted every step of the way.

Photo by Emdot via Flickr

Zadi Smith on Black Authenticity

If I had known about writer Zadi Smith's talk last night at the New York Public Library, I surely would have been there.  But, lucky for me (and you), here is the audio recording! 

Small Pleasure & Obsession: Disposable Fountain Pen

I love writing with my fountain pens--alas, on the plane, it's not possible to use them because the air pressure makes them leak.  BUT I found this delicious alternative a couple years ago: the Pilot Varsity Disposable Fountain Pen.  It's so smooth on the page--Moleskine and otherwise.  And the medium nib is still pretty fine.  I buy the pens with blue, purple, black and sometimes turquoise (I think you can also get pink ink).  At abut $3.50 a piece, they are kind of pricey, but they last a good long while --and you can also order them in discounted variety packs.

On Craftmanship

I've said before that every craftsman
searches for what's not there
to practice his craft.
A builder looks for the rotten hole
where the roof caved in. A water-carrier
picks the empty pot. A carpenter
stops at the house with no door.

Workers rush toward some hint
of emptiness, which they then
start to fill. Their hope, though,
is for emptiness, so don't think
you must avoid it. It contains
what you need!
Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting your net
into it, and waiting so patiently?
-Rumi

Photo by Nualabugeye via Flickr

The Debt I Owe My Characters

I have held onto the belief that the book's publication will legitimize somehow.  That the book's publication will make me more real.  As I wrestle with the words these last few days before I hand it in to the publisher, I am more and more concerned about being true to my characters.  Have I served them well?  Have I told their stories truthfully, and fully?  Have I made them real?  I think so.  I hope so.  They are so real to me and very dear. 

A Writer's Schedule On Deadline

Here is what my days look like as I tumble toward the book's deadline:

5/5:30AM Wake up; drink coffee through bendy straw in favorite chair while writing morning pages and writing affirmations 10x in a row

6:30AM/7AM Make bed; brush teeth; eat breakfast; put on workout clothes; check email; check stats; check Facebook friend status updates; look longingly at email that has all my daily blog subscriptions (about 50) which (I apologize) I have not read in a month; write blog post; send urgent emails (sorry blog commenters that you have not been among them but I want to thank you SolShine, Martine, Heather, Mischka, Kathrin, Charlotte, and all others who have left encouraging words as I go through this process!)

7:30AM-8:30AM Writing (also called staring into space, cutting hair strand-by-strand, pressing F9, checking out what's on ebay)

8:30AM-9:45AM Workout

9:45AM  Shower (wash parts, pull hair back, put on necessary odor blockin and odor enhancing scents)

10:15AM-7PM Write (meaning drink massive amounts of Diet Pepsi, panic, write some words, delete, write more words, try not to delete said words, suffer, press F9, check stats again, imagine how brilliant I am, imagine how brilliant I am not, read other parts of manuscript I like, write more words, make big x's on manuscript, suffer, suffer, write, suffer)

Yup, just a few more days of this: Dec. 11.  Sooner if I can!

The Countdown to the Novel's Completion

Yesterday, I read through the entire manuscript in one sitting.  I can't tell you how thrilled (and surprised) I was.  It really is a book!  It has a beginning, middle and end.  It has characters that seem authentic.  It's a good story that hasn't been told before.  I went to bed feeling good about the work I've done and with a clear vision of the work I still have to do in the next seven days.  Yes, it's a book--now I'm making it better.