Monday, February 27, 2006

Missing Octavia already (1947-2006)


Many so far have written about this woman and personally, I don't know what else to add.

all i'm remembering is my best friend Jme for my 24 birthday giving me 3 books. a
rhyming dictionary, a roget's thesaurus and wild seed....

i had just started to write, to get into it for real...so badly, I entered BMCC that spring
wanting to be an english major...

I didn't become an english major but i went through wild seed in a week.
i also got a C on my paper in eng comp because i went coo coo with the thesaurus.
i later got my other girl to loan me mind of mind soon after....
finished that in the lobby of village voice...gasped over the fact Doro
had indeed been destroyed by his perfect creation...kindred shook me after....others
followed...last year I was at a lost of words sitting in a tiny room filled with black women
at Yari Yari...i was too nervous to talk to her...to tell her that her books where the only
ones back then... i did manage to tell her that...but i guess it's two heads and two worlds,
one totally transfixed with literature and one catching the bug well into her twenties...

i had really hoped to meet her again, somewhere with less folks hovering
around...just let her know how much she made me think about things...

tell her about Prince's Dolphin song...about how I'm convince that he read
wildseed...that his dolphin was in fact Anyanwu.

she's going to be missed terribly.

here's an article from New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/01/books/01butler.html

on the subject of MTA, I think there's a conspiracy against me being totally indie.

being financially stable and relaxed.

I got a letter from TAB, Transit Adjudication Bureau, informing me that my check
was going to be garnished due to outstanding penalties on summones and violations.

items I know nothing of. so for 3 hours, I sat in the office awaiting a brief hearing.
a ticket dating back to 1990. A ticket i know nothing of and am only hearing
of more than 15 years later.

so now i'm awaiting the judgement. NYC is getting crazy.
And as Grahm Haynes, a musician, over tea and french fries added,
you can't think here...getting out of NYC is the only time one, creative, can think.

I agree.

After MTA, I went over to a high school I had worked this fall at. A school I had not
recieved any checks from since december. And guess what?

Someone didn't do the paperwork right.

I'm wondering if working retail is really that bad after all...checks come in steady,
I write and create more frequently than I do teaching....I don't know.

Maybe I'm hitting that thirty something protion of life when things
just gotta be in order.

I paid my phone bill but my phone is cut off half way.
Verizon email service sucks.

time to just get that online phone service.

beading and prayers...that's my sanity right now.

oh how much did I want to be Anyanwu when I read Wild Seed

I wanted that power...I wanted to turn into a dolphin