Month: October 2012

Coming Out.

/ StaceyRose / 3 Comments

Once upon the time in the ghetto, there was a little girl whose mother had taken very ill in her lumbar spine.  Her mother would be restricted to bed for at least a few weeks, this making for the most terrible of living conditions as there was, no interweb, no DVR, No TiVO … hell there was no cable in this particular ghetto (not until the mid-nineties anyway). The little girl was in a state of deep despair.

“How,” she pondered “will I save mother from a fate worse than death … BOREDOM!”

She wouldn’t ponder for long before an idea came to mind.  After gathering bed sheets, shoes, kerchiefs and anything else she felt might be useful the girl mounted a one woman show: Gone with the Wind Redeaux! With pain staking attention to character movement, vocalization, and wardrobe she seamlessly became:

Scarlett O’Hara –

“Fiddle-De Dee … I will never go hungry again!  Tara!”

Mammy –

“You ain’ spose tuh show yo bossom fo three’o clock Miss Scarlett, but go’on since you’s a hoe anyhow!”

Ashely –

“I would love you Scarlett darling, if I weren’t a homosexual married to my cousin, and if you were a man.  A hot, hot man.”

Melanie –

“Oh Scarlett. Sweet Scarlett.  I’m Ashley’s beard.  Besides, only a woman can give you what really need.  Ooo look there between my thighs, I think I’m having a baby.”

and

Rhett –

“You ought to be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how! And I don’t give a damn!”*

*which oddly explains why the little girl as an adult often fell in love with emotionally unavailable men who screwed like champions.
 

Guess what?  The heroine of this trite and tale, is yours truly.  I never conceived of my childhood shenanigans being anything more than me being silly to get people to laugh, and more important, like me.  What I was being though, was an actor.  In the last few years I have sheepishly studied the craft  particularly enjoying dialect and character study.

Despite being officially learned, and pretty good at it by the assessment of others, I’m often too intimidated to put myself on stage. I have forced myself through here and there, but now I’ve committed to do the first honest to God play  that I’ve done in years. There are multiple roles that will force me to flex every acting muscle I have, to utilize every drop of dialect training I got and …

I LOVE IT!!!!

I’d forgotten how much I love it. There is a reason why I choose to consider myself a “theatre artist”.  It is because while writing is and always will be my first love, I want it all. I am theatrically poly amorous.  My attention starved inner child – you know, the one that parodied one of the most racially inflammatory movies of our time for my bed ridden my mother – craves the adoration that only a live audience, captive or liberated, can provide.

I shall not deny myself that pleasure a moment longer.  Why did I wait so long to embrace this side of myself?!  No matter. It is here and now that I make my confession to the world: I. AM. A THESPIAN!

Rosie.

P in pretty.

/ StaceyRose / Leave a comment

“Yo!”, I  was thinking as I heard this song on my drive home from work this morning.  “This song used to be the SHIT!”  I was about 19 when it came out and as about self-conscious/self-loathing as I could get.  Outwardly, there was no good reason for me not to think I was “thebomb.com” (I hate Tamar. Why then, am I quoting her ? Anyway …) I was gorgeous, had all my teeth, a bad ass shape, and flawless skin.  My insides however, were about as ugly as they could come.  I had blinders on.  I could see little of my external beauty and none on the inside.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Awareness is a BEAST.  Looking back it’s utterly amazing the shit I did not know or could not see.   If I could’ve see myself then as I see myself now the world would not have been safe.  Either that or I wouldn’t have depending on how the other variable in the equation, my incessant need to self-destruct, played in.

It’s cool though, we “see” when we’re supposed to “see” and are never too old to shift our perspective.  As of right now though, to quote Yeezy : “Goddammit, I’m killin’ this shit!” and I’m killin’ it despite a few less teeth, a larger body with rickety bones, and the onset of adult acne (that apparently only I can see, which might mean I have dementia :/.)  All of my good feelings about me are beginning to originate on the inside and spill outward.  The foundation for my new attitude is my growing ability to accept myself just as I am. Thank God for moments of clarity like this.  Every now and again I throw the blinders on, but Awareness eats through them with the ill x-ray vision pretty damn fast these days. Life is beautiful, and so am I.

Rosie.

Speaking of songs that make me feel hot over 30 … 😉 yowsah!

Vote, and shut the fuck up. Please.

/ StaceyRose / 2 Comments

ImageOn the eve of this evening’s final Presidential debate, it has become painfully obvious to me that I’m over it.  All over it.  Social networking battles to the death containing little or no semblance of truth, the ending of friendships over comment strings all serves to do what exactly?  Send you to bed pissed off, or worse, out into the world pissed off looking for a release.  Here’s a little bit of insight that hit me the other day. Voting is a very self-centered thing. Our current democratic system plays on every fear, real or imagined, that we have THEN asks our paranoid, self-obsessed crazy asses to go out and select someone to lead the entire nation.  We go, and we vote our own needs and rarely the needs of others.  If you say that’s not true then you’re lying to someone you should never lie to … you.

I know I’m not going to vote in a way that may necessarily benefit a rich corporation more than it’s going to benefit my poor black artist ass.  Why would I? It’d be self-defeating.  Are there solutions that would be mutually beneficial to all American citizens?  Hell, probably.  But, that’s not what I’m here to write about.  I mainly just want to say that the odds of anyone’s minds being changed by endless online banter and diatribes, t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc. are slim to fuckin’ none. So hush.  Go do something more productive, like volunteering and being as selfless as you are with your vote.

Me?  I’m plotting my campaign for 2016. Since world domination is clearly just one rageful tweet away. Governing an entire country can’t be that damn hard.

Rosie.

You B**** You!

/ StaceyRose / 2 Comments

*the following is a reflection of my experience as a triple minority (black/fat/female), any similarities to your experience(s) or that of your loved ones is purely coincidental. Yes, I do realize that my views may be irrational to some, but this here is my blog … I write what the hell I want.

Some folks make we want to draw the purse strings of my human decency closed … Around their neck … Until they are dead. Case in point (and keeping it one hundred, the reason for this post): My dearest friend Eric and I arrive at a high end apartment complex on the high end side of town. We unemployed/lower middle class plebes actually have a friend that lives there. Upon entering the building, walking past an intense argument between a young Asian gentlemen and a female building attendant bickering over the gentleman’s squatters rights, we approach the elevator. The doors open. Dog. BIG dog. REALLY big dog, one of those sombitches that could stand taller than a human being. I don’t know dogs (i.e. breeds, temperaments, blah, blah, blah), but I do know my history with dogs. It’s dicey at best.

Upon seeing the beast my knee jerk reaction came in words:

“That’s the biggest dog I’ve ever seen in my life.” (a slight exaggeration, but it was preeety damn close to accurate.)

Then came an unexpected rebuttal:

“Really?” (dripping with sarcasm)

Pan up from the annoying shoe gloved feet, to slender frame draped work out couture, to JINORMOURS diamond encrusted left ring finger, to almond colored skin, to oval face, to the jenkiest weave I’ve seen in three months.

again, in that bitchesque tone she says:

“Really?!”

As if I were her child and I was carrying on over some non-existent ghost under my bed.

“Yes, really.” I managed.

“He’s a Golden.” she quips …

…like I should have known that at birth, when I honestly didn’t give a fuck what breed it was and didn’t in fact own a pet of the furry variety until I was 22. It wasn’t long before I realized that the dog should have been the least of my worries.  It’s master had already proven herself to be a bigger bitch than it could ever dare to be.

Already exasperated by a day full of assorted strangeness we board the elevator.

“Two, please.” I says.

*blank stare* (I mean blank fucking stare, as if I’d been speaking Mandarin.)

Now, regular well adjusted human beings on an elevator standing next to the buttons will often extend the courtesy of pushing the button for the floor(s) others will be heading to. This bitch was not a regular well adjusted human being. The dog actually had a better shot at being one.

“Oh, I don’t work here.”

In that instant I became more disgusted with her than I had been with any human being in a very long time.  Her snobbish tone and don’t-you-know-who-the-fuck-I’m-is glare made me want to break something … like her face, her fingers, her legs, well you get it.  And I’ll be straight up and say that it’s mainly ego that made me so furious with her.  Nobody likes to be belittled openly or covertly and this is what this chick was doing.  Somehow the circumstances of this … woman’s life had lead her to believe that extending common courtesy was grossly beneath her, and I’ll go further to say she believed that my friend and I were beneath her.

And … I’ll go even further in my attempt to be honest with myself about the situation and say her impudence carried an extra sting because she was black.  There is an implied sense (at least in my black experience) that we are all in this together.  This implied sister/brotherhood was grossly violated, and I resented the hell out of her for it.  I’d come to expect this type of behavior out of certain types of white folk, but I’d venture to say that even their sense of superiority wouldn’t have prevented them from pushing  a damn elevator button for another human being.

During that small exchange  some small part of me knew that I probably had more grace and character in my toe nails than she had in her entire self-centered frame. Me having the common sense that God and my Nana gave me I knew the truth, but my ego didn’t.   Thus this passive aggressive post, because sometimes I just have to allow myself to be fully angry. Now I have been, and since carrying resentments are like eating rat poison and expecting your enemy to die, I’ll let it go. I’ll move forward knowing that in the not so distant future when I am a filthy rich and famous writer standing by the buttons on the elevator of my exclusive condominium complex, when someone boards and says:

“Two, please.”

I shall not hesitate to have my well trained, denim clad chimp press 2. 😛

Rosie.

ok … I’m done for real.

Count it all joy.

/ StaceyRose / Leave a comment

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. –  James 1:2-6 The Bible (NIV)

I am not a bible-y person.  I am not at all religious in fact.  I can be buddhist-y or christian-y or hindu-y depending on how I’m moved on any given day.  Over the last few weeks people in my life (friends/co-workers) have been moving through some pretty tough life situations. As I heard about each one I felt a deep sadness.  While they are not my personal situations and some don’t directly effect me, there is a spirit of compassion that I am fortunate enough to have that allows me to see the interconnectedness of all human beings in existence. It is that compassion, that “gift of sight”, that saddles my spirit with sadness during the calamity of others and fills me with joy during their triumphs. Despite the emotional roller coaster is sometimes produces,  I’m grateful for it.

At the cradle of my at times esoteric beliefs is this:  There IS  something … a force, a body, a spirit … that guides us through life and for the most part seeks to protect us from our silly selves.  This force is kind, never cruel or judgmental. It speaks to us through music, art, people, situations, and every now and then it whispers sweet nothings into our spirit.  Last night while I was trying to comprehend the loss a long time co-worker and friend of mine and his family was enduring the words “Count it all joy …” were whispered into my spirit.  This morning they were still there, so I did what any curious 21st century adult would do; I consulted Google.

Imagine my surprise when I found out it was biblical.  Imagine my delight when the words that followed were ones of comfort and encouragement that reassured me that despite what we may be going through it will not only be okay … but if we choose to … we will thrive! They were just the words needed at the appropriate time.  That’s how it works … and it is indeed all good 🙂.

If any of my folk happen to come by this reading, know that I am there with you in spirit always, and in the flesh if you need me. As bad as it feels right now, there is joy on the other side.  My experience bears this out.

❤

Rosie.