Girls with Glasses WRITE!

All You Are

I’m thinking…
we could make this work
If you were less involved
Played the back until at least
We could resolve
Our situation which
Has not lessened-
But instead has evolved

If just once you could
Allow your representative, other self
Your puppet head
stand in, while you
collect dust on the shelf


Place your stunt double
In every important scene
Not only the action shots but
Certainly,
those that include me

For those are the ones
When we’re most at risk
A “we” that is shaky
Some times doesn’t exist

When your empty promises
Silent goodbyes
Make me bury deep
The hurt I feel inside

Our reunions are constant
But not like the stars
They’re full of false starts
Like broken down cars
Like a zipper that catches
A snap that’s lost half
Like empty mall carts
So lets do the math...

When you call and I answer
feel numb at your tears
I hear what they explain
They say you're all I have feared

The answer seems simple
This is all a farce
And you’re a joking, ventriloquist
Whose words don’t impart-

Anything meaningful
Lasting beyond the present
Which should also explain
Why I’m always hesitant

And add to the equation
you’re never quite there
Your lips always moving
But blowing hot air

a red balloon in the sky
Tossed about by the wind
Sadly glimpsed in the distance
only every now and then

So, please consider
Letting your under study stand in
She sees my longing
With me , she wants to begin

With me, she sees promise
With me she sees hope
While she is my island
I’m the life saving boat

With me there is love
With me there’s reward
She has no desire to impale
What we might be on a sword

She sees you and I could make it
If she makes her debut
While you play the back
Because all you are is-- you

Girls with Glasses talk HAIR

Well, hello again already chicas! It’s me once more. It’s my goal to make 2-3 updates today. Hope it’s cool. This one will be short but sweet, or at least that is the goal. So, my hair… yeah… It continues to flourish and grow. I still love it, but I haven’t been experimenting or consumed with it lately. We are settled, like a seasoned and boring couple for whom movie night is now an exciting date. LOL! I attended a party recently and the pictures were posted on FB and I marveled at how BIG my hair was on a day when I thought it looked terrible. Check out the pic of me and a lovely curly some of you may recognize from CurlyNikki.com! I am trying out a new product which I will review in a few days. I was trying to wait a week or two before I talk about it. It’s been discussed before on other threads with good reviews and I found it in my city. Stay tuned, I’ll come back to this in a few days!
I lurk a lot of threads on hair and I hear a lot of women say “It’s just hair!”. They are screaming it from the mountain tops, I swear! I’m about to go against the grain on that talk. Yeah, it is just hair but it’s not JUST HAIR. At least not for me. I care about every single part of me, hair included and on some days… especially. Every time I hear someone say that I wonder why only women say it, refer to it as an accessory. I wonder why they never say- ‘it’s just clothes… shoes… jewelry. Things that are actually-- detachable. That would make more sense to me. I mean, you can give those items away. Someone else can often fit them and they often come in one size fits all. I don’t see my hair as THAT way. My hair is no more a simple accessory than are my legs or my arms which are often taken for granted (sorry limbs!). As if they owe us something. As if it is somehow promised they will work tomorrow. I know I have been trying to make amends with my entire body lately. I’ve been exercising, trying to get my limbs back in shape. And since I started my natural journey, I have been doing the same with my hair. I used to take it for granted too. Relax, color, relax, color, cut it off when I didn’t like it anymore, relax, color, relax, color and then chop it all off again. Basically, mistreat it. Called it… IT. But no more. My hair… SHE actually has a name- Thelma. Because she’s a throw back to Good Times (though not for my momma) when my hair was free to be itself and in essence so was I. Thelma is my way of rebelling against a time of learned, self abuse. Thelma is a boycott of the days when the chemical mistreatment of my hair was more costly, important and routine to me than eating a simple, daily breakfast. Well times have changed my friends. I realized it the other day in a cozy, urban coffee shop where my hair and I are normal. Other beautiful curly and naturals chicks hang out there on a regular basis. While rushing to grab a table, I bumped into a non-black woman (who was curly herself) with my over-sized purse. I thought she would be annoyed but instead she turned and expressed that she loved my hair before asking me if I’d seen Good Hair. Of course I had and it was a great compliment. Bottom line though: You accept you. They accept you. It’s that simple.
At the end of the day, my hair is my crown. A jewel. The star on my tree. The number one statement of… me. It is what people see when they look at me. It’s how my husband and son find me when we become separated in a store crowded with relaxers and weaves. It is a part of my i.d. And that’s just fine with me.
So much for short and sweet, huh? ;)

Girls with Glasses... READ

So, I've been gone for a while... The holidays, work, respiratory illnesses, my weight loss quest have kept me hopping to say the least. But I have managed to squeeze in a few extra curricular activities as usual because well... that's just what I do. I'll share some of my other activities in a separate post but in this moment I wanted to discuss my book club. After a rather lovely reunion and breakfast, two friends and I remembered that we first grew close after forming a book club at work (shout out to Lisa B and Miss Limah). Many years have passed and distance has separated us but our affinity for reading has remained. That morning we decided to form an online book club called Beyond Borders. Beyond Borders earned its title because we like to read books that teach us about other cultures. I mean, we can read about ourselves and each other every day and for me anyway, that's boring. Anyway, our book club chooses a selection, reads it before meeting online for a discussion. We meet via stickam.com which allows us to see and speak with each other using webcams. It's great. Ok, now for the juice on the book!
Our first choice was A Thousand Splendid Suns by Kholed Hosseini, who is the author of The Kite Runner. Splendid Suns tell the stories of Mariam and Laila whose lives become intertwined by chance and circumstance. They find themselves married to the same man but their lives with him are completely different AND the same. I was trying to think of how to tell you story without telling you the story... And here's what I've got... Want to learn about the history of Afghanistan? Feel like you are there? Perhaps you want a realistic glimpse of the lives and roles of Muslim girls and women... And maybe you just have an interest in reading a story with a heavy dose of someone else's reality, to actually feel for the characters, feel like you know them and share THEIR love for country. If that is the case, you will enjoy this read. It will make you laugh, cry and transport you to another world. For me, it did all those things AND it made me care about lives outside my own backyard. I dare you to read even the first chapter. I guarantee you won't be able to stop.
If you pick it up, come back and tell me your thoughts. And if you are interested in joining my book club- hit me up!