Saturday already?

Greetings me hearties! The weekend started well for ya? Hungover? Happy from a lil morning tumble [ye who speak British English know what I mean]?

Today it's the usual rambling to help me get back into the groove of blogging. I took an extended sabbatical to make some paper & now things have finally slowed down enough to for me to pick up this lil hobby of mine again. Alrighty then ...

Umm let's see. I am still unspoken for. No rush on that front as I haven't met anyone who has made me pause in quite a while. Where the heck are intelligent, spiritual women hiding these days? I've discovered that working vampire hours isn't exactly conducive to mingling.

I now have a 2 year old [she just turned 2] in my life who talks non stop and I do mean non stop. Not even toddler garbled shit. I mean we are talking talking complete with "No way auntie". She still refers to herself in the third person but you know what, she can tell you wtf happened when she comes crying and that makes troubleshooting much much easier.

Moving on ... To those that do not read Black n Bougie, I really think you need to. It is one of the most entertaining and informative blogs out there so get to clicking. Relationship advice - check. Employment advice - check. An opinionated readership - double check. The comments in and of themselves are worth the click.

There is a new blogger on the (i)qwoc circuit [queer women of color (international / immigrant part optional)]. She blogs as The struggle within me. She is feeling her way around round this here queer thing so please click on over.

O and shoutout to my Ukranian reader who reached out to me via twitter.

Peace, Love, and Happiness.

Thursday Beat: Jessie J - Stand Up

Back to regularly scheduled programming. Blogging regularly should also resume shortly...

And if you don't reach for the moon you can't fall on the stars 

So I live my life like every day is the last, last, last

 

Why I am out

Aaah the last post of the year. These tend to be epic year end reviews but we'll deviate ever so slightly. I was recently asked why I was out. Now to say I was rendered speechless by the question would be the understatement of the year. I was truly thrown for a loop. While the question did not come out of left field it certainly was in the vicinity of left of center. I contemplated not answering it because I think that's a highly personal question for one and I'd also known that person for all of 2 hours [damn Megabus]. I thought about it further and decided to answer the question, not because I was under any obligation to answer it, but because it occurred to me that I'd never articulated [out loud anyway] why I made the decision to be out. So below you'll find my reasons...

Now before we hop into the reasons I'll go ahead and give you my definition of being out: it's when you publicly acknowledge your sexual orientation / gender identity. Now the word public is dependent on the individual. The acknowledgement could be verbal, through clothing, causes that you support etc.

I am out because it's important for the folks around me to know that queer people exist and are people that they know personally... think of it as putting a face to that queer thing that you keep hearing about. As odd as it may sound in this day and age, I have met quite a few people who think that they have never met / personally know a gay person. It is not my place to out people so I usually nod while at the back of my mind I'm thinking ummm your office manager has a wife and 2 kids, they are not just friends. I might check some of the stereotype boxes for queers but I also provide a different face in that I am queer and an immigrant. [ current running joke among some of my friends is that I check so many minority boxes that it would be in an organization's best interest to put me on the board to show diversity]

I'm out because I want to have genuine relationships with those around me. I spent many years trying to blend and had personas to suit each crowd that I hung with. After a while I realized that I was not reaping the full benefits of the relationships around me and decided to not leave parts of myself at home. My African, scholarly, queer and dorky selves were all coming with me and if someone didn't like it, tough.

I am out because it is important to be my authentic self [shoutout to Mama O]. I am comfortable with myself in masculine clothing which tends to be the queer giveaway once folks figure out that I'm not a guy. If I am blessed with kids, I want them to understand that who they are on the inside should match who they are on the outside. If you are in tune with yourself, it's slightly easier to navigate life. There is no faking it. Yes I take it harder when I'm rejected for being myself, but I also have fewer regrets in that I know that they might have accepted my "representative" but rejected me when they finally met the real me. I'd rather know before I am too heavily invested in a situation.

My seatmate and I had a lively discussion on being queer etc for the remainder of our journey and I'd like to think that I gave her something to think about in the same way that she did me.

Have a great New Year folks. May good health and good fortune be with you throughout the year.
Sláinte agus saol agat* - Health (good implied) and life (long implied) to you
Go mbeirimíd beo ar an am seo arís - May we be alive at this same time again
Libe lom' nyakomutsha omuhle lempil' ende - May you have a good new year and a long life

Tuesday Beat: Lights - Face Up

#Doccubus + Lights' Face Up = Awesomeness. Make it to 6 mins and it becomes officially NSFW.

 

Mid Fall Blues

Today the geeks celebrate a perfect binary day. By some fluke I happened to glance over at the clock this morning and it read 11:10 so ofcourse you know I waited for it to read 11/11/11 11:11:11.

Happy Veterans day to my peeps who have / are serving in the armed forces.

Now to the topic at hand. I am experiencing mid fall blues and can't seem to shake them. I got back home a week ago and I've been getting progressively more lethargic. Throw in the fact that I had a major exam to sit for this week and had to stack job interviews because of scheduling conflicts and I think I was long overdue for a body shut down. My mind called it a week yesterday and I feel extremely tired. I can't even drum up the energy to work on a site that I'm supposed to have finished next week. Bleh!

In other less depressing news, I have added something interesting to my bucket list. I want to hand build a cabin over a summer. I mentioned this to a friend and she just about died from oxygen deprivation courtesy of laughing really hard. For those who've never met me in person, know that I'm the scrawniest thing ever. I do however have more strength than is immediately apparent. SO the idea of me wielding power tools and messing with 6x6s will  probably be fodder for several jokes until I actually come round to building it in a couple of years.

Oooo and Ty jr maketh me proud. My niece managed to play the Halloween system and ended up with twice as much candy having walked only half the route. I am bummed out that I won't see her for Thanksgiving but hopefully I'll see her shortly afterwards.
Have a great weekend!