Whose Right is it anyway?

There is a tremendous fight going on in America today regarding gun control laws. There are those who say that strict gun control violates the terms of the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms).

There are other who say that perhaps this right should be violated, if it will prevent disasters such as Columbine from occurring. The arguments and catch phrases in this fight are well known, and the gun control issue has become one of the major elements of political platforms. My opinion on it? Guns should be illegal. Period. End of discussion. Their majority of guns only purpose is to kill people, despite what all of those ‘huntsmen’ in the NRA have to say.

How many Americans eat deer on a regular basis? How many Americans know someone who has been killed or injured by gunfire? I think my point has been made. Then, there is the cry that if the current gun control laws were more stringently enforced the problems on guns falling into the wrong hands would be over. Hmm… it seems that plenty of people are wrong fully killed by guns in the ‘right’ hands as well, and an odd majority of them are minorities of color…of whom the NRA has a very low percentage of in their membership. Am I going somewhere with this? Yes…’bear’ with me.
In the constitution, the right is given to all American citizens to be able to bear arms. Now, I (just out of curiosity) checked the definition of the word arms.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
A means (as a weapon) of offense or defense

According to the Cambridge International Dictionary:
Weapons and equipment used to kill and injure people

According to the Webster’s Revised and Unabridged Dictionary:
Instruments or weapons of offense or defense

Are you noticing a pattern here? In NONE of the definitions are guns specifically mentioned. Perhaps I am just a deadly & bloody minded woman, but just off of the top of my head here is a list of things that are also considered arms, according to the definition of the words
Knives
Nunchucks
Bow & arrow
Staff
Fists
Feet
Sword
Ax
Ice Pick
Spear
Rope
Pipe
Hands


And I am sure, given this list, most people could also come up with a few more things that can be considered arms under the definition given by the previous dictionaries.
So...my problem is this. What is stopping the American Government from declaring guns to be illegal…really? Clearly, it would not be violating the First Amendment, as there are still plenty of arms left for Americans to legally bear. Thus, it would just be a change to it. And think of how many times the Constitution has been changed already…to give me, for example, the right to vote took three different changes to this hallowed letter of the law. What then, is stopping the government from making a change to the document that will give hundreds of thousands of people a chance to pursue Life?
Perhaps…in America today, life is not worth nearly as much as the NRA’s dollars.

Stay Jazzed

My Little Sister was on Big Brother...

..well, at least she was on the premiere episode. Guess who she was? The half country black girl who is William's girlfriend talking bout ‘We gon make us some money’ *shakes head* she will NEVER be able to live that one down. *shakes head* Finally, something on TV that makes we want/need/madly desire a television. But since my mother & grandmother love me, they are sending me one. Oh look! something else to keep me in the house, solitary & somnolent. But I am not going to bitch about that because it is my own fault. Ugh.

Anyhow… (this indicates a segue)
I have not been wounded in a way that I really have to actively seek healing from, and it would be rather ludicrous for me to even try to claim that I need healing. I need time & space to dull the ache, but healing? *shakes head* I don’t know. I need something along the lines of healing but not…I need change. I need a shift in how I do things… how I relate to things, and I am not sure how to put it into effect. I know where I am, and I know where I want to be…but the path between the two is sooo fuzzy that I can’t even presume to figure out where it starts. Things outside of myself I am quite skilled at going for, setting up a plan, following through & handling that plan, and then moving on to the next big thing to solve/handle. But when the issues & changes are dealing with something that is within me… for some reason I just can’t get a grasp on it long enough to say “This, this and that needs to be changed into that, this, and the other, and this is how to get there”. I am so good at organizing other folx houses, but can never manage to set my own in order. This is one of the reasons that I decided to start living in truth. I thought that maybe if I stopped lying to myself, I would be able to discern how I could get to where I need to be clearer. So far, it hasn’t been working. I have long ass list of what I need to change, of what I would LOVE to be different about me…but I have no clue how to shift it. *sighs*

I am just angry. I was walking down the street today and a sudden feeling of utter rage swept over so strong that I had to pause and sit down because I was trembling. I really don’t want to deal with this anymore…but I think I might need to scream. Or beat something. Or maybe I just need to take a quick jog. Or go to the archery range and practice. *deep breath* the best thing for me to do would be to go swimming and just stay in the water until the 30% of me that is not water got a little liquified…but until I can find a pool I will just

Stay Jazzed. (it ain’t as easy as it looks)

A Lil Look into the Jazzy

Stolen from Mentalman
The TWO-fer survey!
1. What are two of your favorite smells or scents?
hmmm…cocoa butter and ginger incense
2. If you could take any two people in the world out with you for two days, whom would you take?
ummm.. Nee & Little One.
3. And where would you take them?
To some hot & sexy island
4. If someone stole your identity and you had to change your name to something else, what name would you pick as a new name?
Ai’Shah Guy
5. If you won a two-day trip to anywhere in the world, where would you go?
To some hot & sexy island
6. And why?
Ummm..the hot sexiness of it.
7. What two traits or qualities do you look for in a significant other?
*sighs* Honesty & Ambition
8. What color eyes and hair do you look for?
Anything natural
9. What two years do you remember most from your school years?
From High School: 93-94 & 94 –95
From College: 95-96 & 98-99
10. And why?
High school: I grew out of the super shy withdrawn anti social person I was
College: Change. A lot of it & rapidly.
11. Are you happy living where you live now?
No.
12. Why or why not?
I live in the hood. I love my people, but sometimes… I wish I were living around the Cosby’s and NOT the PJ’s.
13. Two scoops of ice cream...what two flavors would you pick?
Pralines & Cream and Caramel Fudge Swirl
14. Name two of your favorite diary friends ...
Anatomy of an Imbalanced Mind and *Wendy*
15. If you could only have two pets in your Manhattan Park Avenue high-rise townhouse, what two pets would you choose to have?
Cats. Two. Female. either Siamese or mutt.
16. Two significant people (besides mentalman) who have affected your life in a good way or bad way?
Papi & JW
17. Two of your favorite swear words?
fuck & ish
18. Your ride of preference for a warm sunny summer day out, two wheels or 4?
four. a convertible.
19. Your two favorite music groups or performers?
Meshell N’degachello & Janet. Ms Jackson if you’re nasty.
20. Two reasons why you write on the OD?
I can access it from anywhere, and it is as anonymous as I want it to be.
21. Two hours for lunch!!.... what will you do?
Go to a good restaurant with my favorite co-worker and talk.

Mnemonics of Pain

Why I can’t get back with Chris
1) Every time he said he was tired from insomnia, I would wonder if he had just been on the phone all night.
2) When I didn’t hear from him for a weekend, I would wonder who he was visiting.
3) He dedicated songs & sung to her
4) He says he wants me, but he wants her too. He is the only one I want…and I expect to be the only one he wants.
5) He needs to grow up.
6) He needs to start taking more responsibility for his life.
7) He needs to work on his healing.
8) The fact that late at night, I think that I would have helped him deceive Uju if I had only known.
9) It isn’t our time yet…. but hopefully it will come soon.

Living in a Trunk of Spirit

It’s amazing how much you can collect in a few years of living. I have only been in this apartment for a little over a year, and yet I managed to throw out almost 8 trash-bags full of STUFF. Some of it was stuff that I was holding onto for no apparent reason. Some of it was leftovers from old relationships. Some of it was stuff that I assume I had a rason to keep it when I kept it, but at this point I have no clue why I still have it. A LOT of it was half full notebooks and journals that I have not touched since I finished copying old poems & stories into, the originals of which I still have.

Well, I have managed to reduce the memories & writings of 23 years of life into a single trunk. From the letters I wrote to myself at 12, to the stories & plays & novel I have been working on for goddess knows how long...it's all in this one trunk. The letters from old lovers, my friends, my family, my fathers, it’s all tucked away in corners of this trunk. I wish that it was cedar lined, and had delicate padding all around the inside, something to signify that the contents repesnt something important, that most of an entire life is in there. *shrugs* Ah well… I guess my great grandchildren will find it in the attic one day and find out all about GreatGramma Jazzy and the twisted conflicted woman she was.

Oh yeah… happy 4th of July & all that Jazz. *rolls eyes* The only wonderful part about this holiday is the fireworks. I was supposed to actually go to Centenial Park and watch them, but as time rolled by and I got caught up in other things, and my hair started looking crazier & crazier I decided to just stay home. Then I started hearing the booms & rattles, and I looked out of my back door, and there, framed ever so nicely by the trees, were the fireworks. I had a perfect view from the ‘backyard’ from the start to the finale.

There is something so sad about fireworks. They are created and designed to basically blow themselves up in a few seconds of beauty. Their deaths are their lives. Okay, I need to stop anthropomorphizing the fireworks...but there is something in them that is just…unsettling.

Shall I even get into the utter absurdity of African-Americans celebrating the Fourth of July? *shakes head* Or even women for that matter? Ugh…I suppose if you celebrate it in the ‘spirit’ of freedom, and allow yourself to ignore the historical reality of what the day means…then in the ‘spirit’ of freedom there is nothing wrong with a big ole shindig for the Fourth after all…rather like the Confederate flag. Those who want it to stay up claim they are looking at the ‘spirit’ of what the flag represents, and those who want it down are looking at the historical reality of what it means. I suppose one would have to balance the two views and see which one is more representative. Humph.

Ugh. I am unsettled. I think I rather understand how amputees feel. Even though the limb is no longer there, they act like it still is, until they do something that sharply reminds them that the limb is no longer there. Ugh. I would like to stop stubbing my ‘ghost’ limbs against bits of life. And the radio is NOT helping.

Stay Jazzed.

Saving Grace

Why the hell am I miserable? I shouldn’t feel bad…should I? ugh. I want to cry….what we had was so fucking perfect…it’s not fair.

I don’t want anybody else. He is so much still mi Papi, mi corazon.

And somehow that fact upsets me even more. Did I do right? Mercy but I miss him so much. Amazing is what it is…utterly amazing.

But what really do I miss? I miss the hopes that I had for our future…I don’t even know if he had the same ones. Is that going to be enough to keep me cheerful? Hmm…this is what I get for picking out china patterns so early.

Something in me told me that I was being a fool for falling so hard so fast, for being so totally into somebody…but I ignored it because I thought that being a fool was worth it, and the amazing part is that it was.

I have never cried over a relationship, and here I am ….having a hard time sleeping because I miss him so. And the even uglier part is I have nobody to talk to about it…he was my fucking saving grace.

Jazzed.

The Hermitage (Part Two)

Actually…in the light of morning I have to edit that. I am sure that my friends feel as though they are there for me at every possible instance, and they would get rather insulted if the very idea of me being so very lonely was brought up. However, I am not comfortable in calling on them. I feel bad to impose my fears & woes & tears on those who I know have woes & tears & fears of their own. *truth* I feel like I am not important enough in their lives for mine to really matter. I feel like each time I come to them as anything other than the strong, free, calm Jazzy they know, I am getting marks placed against me, that after they reach a certain number means that I will get thrown out of their lives for being too much trouble.

It’s odd. I leave myself open to be a shoulder to be cried on, but I cannot believe that my friends value me enough to do the same. *sighs* Am I uncovering some hidden self esteem issues here? I don’t doubt my own self worth… I fell like I am worth a hell of a lot. I doubt whether other folx see me that way. I have the diva impression so well in place that I don’t know if it is a mask or me anymore. If it is mask, oh how I wish I could find the strings and pull it off… if it is me… well we know that divas don’t have friends.

Stay Jazzed.

The Hermitage

I was sitting in my bed this morning, fighting to go to sleep, and I realized that I am the lonliest person I know. I feel like through every stage of my life, I have managed to lose the people who I could be totally and truly myself with. As much as I love my sister, she is so busy that I can’t really turn to her as much as I would want to. And as for the rest of my friends, well…they just aren’t really ‘there’ for me. And I understand why I fight so hard to keep the few good friends that I have, because they are so fucking precious to me. And it is just so overwheleming to realize that right this second, there is no one I can call and let them listen to me cry, because there is no one I am comfortable with crying in front of. So I sit here in front of my computer, hunting for some contact with anyone outside of myself…and I wonder how the hell I got here. What have I not done right in my life that has left me so alone? I know that I am an independent cuss to be so damn young, and that I don’t really have a family, and that my friends are few and far inbetween…but why? What am I doing wrong?

I don’t have a support group in my life. My trees have all been dying…and I started out with so few in the first place.

life should not
be lived
alone
my tree is only so strong
and in times of storm
i ask not to lean
merely to be listened to
in times of drought
i ask not to be held up
merely to be sympathized with
in times of plenty
i ask not to hoard
but to share with the
forest surrounding me.
where have all the trees
gone?


Am I too hard on people? Do I expect too much? Or have I built up the hard, free, fierce shell so well that no one can see or believe that a needy, emotional woman exists inside?

What do I need to do different? Am I meeting the wrong people? Am I not meeting enough people? Am I too old to form the kind of friendships that I need, that I want, that I envy other people for having? Is it because I had a half crazy step father? Is it because I have lived in fear of hurting for so long? Is it because I can be uncommunicative at times? Is it because I have absorbed the myth & mystique of the strong black woman?? What is it, and how can I change it because I can’t keep going through this alone.

I wish I could just unmake all that has happened in the past week. Ignorance would truly be bliss.

(i’m trying to)
Stay Jazzed.

Birthing Babies

In the past, I have considered being/becoming a surrogate mother. Whether it would have been for a gay couple, or for an infertile straight couple, it really would not have mattered. I know how skimpy the choices are for AfricanAmerican couples who cannot have babies the old fashioned way. Each time I considered it however, I realized that there was no way I could feel a child growing in me for nine months, give birth and then let go. Just thinking about it makes me tear up, and god knows I simply could NOT do it. I would end up in court fighting for custody of my baby.

Lately however, I have been running more & more into the stories of adopted children and their mothers (bio & adopted), many on here, and others in other places. It seems like everywhere I turn, I find another story about a woman giving up her child to be loved & cared for by someone else. There is a diary on here by 'A Star is Born' called 'Gift from the Heart' that was started by a diarist on here to chronicle the life of her son, who she recently adopted. Every time I read the diary, no matter how simple the entry is, I start to cry.

The joy and awe that she has in talking about her little gift is so overwhelmingly beautiful that I can do nothing but cry. Before I had the abortion, I considered adoption, and I knew that I could not do it. It simply was a null choice for me. Afterwards however, I started to become more and more aware of just how much of a gift children are, and of just how many people who want & deserve the blessings of that gift are denied. Thus, in an effort to share the joy and awe that a child brings, and to help those who need it, I have decided to become an egg donor.

I have thousands of eggs that I will never use, and I am an AfricanAmerican woman, which from the reports and studies I have read is something that few egg donors are. I am in the right age group, and something in me tells me that this is right. That even though the best choice for my baby & me was an abortion, that I have to make some sort of… I don’t know, offering to her spirit. I feel that I need to provide as many chances for other to feel the joy that I had to cast to the side. It is a long, and from the sounds of it, not too comfortable situation. But the awareness that I would be helping someone who perhaps could not be helped before have a child that looks like them (at least racially) will be worth the pain. I had planned on going through the procedure here, but as it takes close to three months to complete, I would not be in the area long enough to pull it off. Thus, I am going to go through with it when I get to Indy.

I would like to know when & if my eggs were ever used, and I know that is something that may not be possible…I would want to know just so that I could be able to see the joy in a new mothers face as she looks at the child that my eggs, somebody sperm, and her & her partners heart have given birth too.

Stay Jazzed.

Class, Dismissed.

Every time I encounter something that can be considered as nothing but a gully in the road that I thought my life would take, I learn something more about myself. Sometimes they are bad things, sometimes they are good things, and sometimes, they are just things…new facets of my personality that is brought to the forefront of my consciousness.

What have I learned from this past gully? I have learned that I am without a doubt, the type of person who once a decision is made, it is done. I don’t chew over it, I don’t mull about it, and I don’t try to second guess myself. I make the decision, gird myself to handle the repercussions, and move on. I have not yet figured what kind of things this is. Does it mean that I am too quick to decide? Does it mean that I am mildly inflexible? I’m not sure…but I am sure that I will find out more and make a better call on this as time goes on.

I noticed this about myself during the abortion, that once I had made the decision to have an abortion, it was made. I was done with it, and all that remained was actually going through the procedure. I still don’t regret it, and don’t think that I ever shall. It’s odd, because I truly & deeply regret the fact that I got pregnant in the first place, but I don’t regret having the abortion. I do however feel that I have to make up for it somehow, but that will be the topic of another entry.

I have had it brought home to me once again how much I treasure my friends. I HAD to let go of JW, because not only did he coldly abandon me in both of his aspects (as the father of our child & as my friend), but also he never even tried to make amends. Papi on the other hand…*shakes head* amazingly enough, this in my mind has boiled down to a series of misunderstandings, miscommunications that everyone has apologized for. Thus, I am going to do my damnedest to insure that not only do I keep him as a friend, I become a better friend than I have ever been. And I expect the same from him. We will most likely get sick of each other pulling the other coattail, but as I told him in an email, that is what REAL friends are for. They let you know when your shit stinks, and don’t let you delude yourself into thinking that it smells like roses.

What else? I have learned that I have within me the capacity for amazing and free love. Never before have I been so…settled so comfortable in the ‘arms’ of my partner. Never before have I been able to settle down, and be comfortable with that settling. I know that a good bit of it was because I was settling with Papi, and a good bit of it is that I have grown up and into a state where I can be able to settle. I honestly never thought that I would be able to reach this point, and to say that I am overjoyed is an understatement. I would not give up the events & emotions of this last month for anything, because I don’t think I have ever felt such a pure love & joy.

I wish that there was a term to contain all of what I have learned. Baggage has such a negative connotation, but that is what it is. Baggage, things that I carry with me and treasure someplace inside of me, something that whoever I encounter next will have to live with & learn to love. Shall I call it wisdom, and leave it there? I don’t know…but perhaps that is something else that I am slowly learning. Not everything can be capsulated into a singular term/phrase, and sometimes a single word has pages of meaning behind it that change depending on who is saying it.

Stay Jazzed