a few more updates

Hey guys-

I know have been totally shit abt keeping in touch. I apologize. First, I want to say that if you have sent me a letter, please let me know when you sent it! I haven't gotten anything yet because there is a postal strike here, which has been slowing down the mail. This is really upsetting for me, because I ordered a bright pink party wig and if I don't get it by Halloween, I will be very disappointed.

Things are good. I know that some of my updates can lead people to believe that I am having a horrible time and want to go home. I feel like I have settled in a lot more, and am feeling less anxious abt social things (although, let's be real- it's me, I'm always going to be anxious//nervous).

I am going to start a project that I will take back to Hampshire and create into a performance art//one-person show (hopefully). I was reading a book called "Queers in Space" which was all about the history of queer spaces, queer visibility in public spaces, queer bodies as queer spaces, etc... I really liked some essays in this book. It reminded me of the photo pieces that Cheryl, Sarah T and Maddy did for the Black History Month Show two years ago. I remember there was a quote from Sarah where she talked about how there was usually an assumption made when people looked at a picture of a public space- people tended to assume that this space was a white (& heterosexual) space. She mentioned that she wanted to challenge that. I want to do the same, but use theatre and performance art as my tool. So I want to think abt queer identities, and how we relate to these spaces- whether they be "traditional spaces" like home, school, etc. or public spaces like walking down the street, or virtual spaces like media and the internet, or our own bodies, ie- how we feel abt them, how we treat them, etc.

So I am hoping to do interviews, transcribe them, be inspired by them, and write monologues, poems.. or just do some weird installation with them. * I also have to tip my hat to Ashley & Uni for doing similar projects to me and doing them extremely well.I have a lot to live up to.* I might actually "install" bodies in public areas, make people do living statue-esque things... I don't really know. All I know is that I hope this all goes well and that I don't offend anyone in the interviewing process.

I also need to find a way to make sure that the group of people I interview is a diverse group, rather than just my friends (although I recognize that the data is already biased because I am asking people from academia- and all one specific school with a very specific type of education.)

Gah. This will be an interesting project. I am very nervous. But still excited. I realized yesterday that I have three pages worth of questions. I also realized that questions that might be deemed as appropriate to ask at Hampshire might not be taken as well here. So I am also trying my best not to offend people.

But enough of that. Let's talk about interesting things.

My flat has gotten at least five or six notes from the cleaner (YES THEY HAVE CLEANERS HERE- they take out the trash, sweep the floor, vacuum the hall and wipe down the counters... even though the dumpster is right in front of our flat... what. the...).
SO I believe that the cleaners have decided to take our dishes. Yes. They take them and throw them away. And although it sucks, I don't think that it will have ANY effect on the condition of our kitchen. I think that they're just going to buy more plates... It's so strange. Living in 52 last year was disgusting, and we did get in trouble for it at the end of the year (didn't we get fined?). However, we AT LEAST would bring our dishes to the sink. Our problem was that the dishes would no longer FIT in the sink.

We have a "family dinner" every Sunday, and everyone takes their time cooking. Adorable, right? Except that after this Sunday, all of the flatmates looked at each other, looked at the mess that we had all made, and just got up from the kitchen and left. I was SHOCKED. How in the hell...? They didn't even scrape their plates. And a lot of that food (well, the dishes that I didn't wash... I did 6 full sink's worth of dishes) is still on the kitchen table, unless the cleaner threw it away as promised. Craziness. I wonder why I always end up living with people that are a lot of fun and sociable and enjoy doing thing together, but ABSOLUTELY HATE cleaning or being tidy..? I wonder why I can't get the best of both worlds..? Maybe it's cuz my friends are so damn crazy? I dunno.

That's it for now. My life is muy aborrido. Tell ME things instead.

IT NEVER DIES

OH. MY. GOD.

seriously, this is a slap in the face. since when is blackface only hurtful to americans? what about black people in their country? this is horrific and i am appalled that anyone would think that it is an insult just to americans, or that blackface is just having a "bit of fun". i am also ashamed that america ever created such a horrible pasttime. man. sometimes i think, why do i study minstrelsy? don't people know the history? and then i watch things like this AND I KNOW.

vlog number i've lost count now.

yes, i was a bit of a debbie downer last night. but still.

who the hell am i and how did i end up here?

hey guys.

i am sorry it has taken me a while to post anything, or to even do a video update. there is so much i want to talk about, so much i want to tell and share with you all, but for the past few days, i have felt very pent up- constipated creatively (sorry for the shitty -no pun intended- mental images). i am actually surprised that i feel up to writing today, but this is going to be very frazzled, so bear with me.

i have been very unsatisfied. my loneliness//homesickness is showing through me constantly feeling restless and sleep deprived. its hard because i feel like i need to spew out feelings and words and thoughts with people, and am so used to being able to go lay/complain in najee or mikayla's bed or smoke a cig on the stoop with skrim or send stupid texts, saying "nyah nyah nyaaah" to helyx or just generally be around c.jarelle all the time. plus i learned that it is hard to fall asleep when you are not hogging yr best friend's covers. i miss being at hampshire, but i don't feel like i am in a place where i can be there. i kind of want to go back, back a couple of semesters and start from there again. but its different now. hampshire feels different and i feel different.

i am constantly having identity crises. i have explained it to some people before, but i have a couple of names, and they all suit me at different times. sometimes i feel very much like a stokely or a jd, but at other times i feel very much like a damali too. sometimes, i am forced into a specific name, like on the first day of school, or when i go home for breaks, and this makes me very disoriented for a couple of days. but i think that when i decided i was going to go by jd stokely, i assumed that this was my "boy name". under the "about me" section of this blog, i originally had something along the lines of "m. hopper likes flowers and dresses and she dislikes ______. jd stokely is a fratboi wannabe and he likes ______." i think i automatically put my different names//ways of expressing myself into neat little boxes. i thought that when i was stokely, i had to be soo masculine, and to be honest, i think there are a lot of times where i overdid it. i think i felt like i had to compensate for something, like i had to show how macho i was because by "turning my swag on" i could forget abt how big jd's bra cup size is, as well as forget how that might affect the way that they function through the world. i often caught myself thinking really misogynistic thoughts, like feeling possessive//protective over female friends. i think that sometimes my friends might have unconsciously fed into that not-really-still-a-little-boy-not-yet-a-grown-man mentality that i had by coddling that forming black masculinity. in the end, i kind of exhausted myself out.

when i left new york at the beginning of august, i had to prepare myself mentally for "becoming damali". i think over a month of it really threw me off, especially since i came to london right after being home. a lot of my clothes reflect that month of being home. i have a lot of flowy scarves, a dress or two, shiny ballet flats. at first i was uncomfortable with wearing those clothes, many of them hand-me-downs from my mother. then i began to take every day as a drag performance. instead of fighting against the dresses, i would wear them with red lipstick and tiny cardigans. it was a fun game, but then i would obsess with what i was going to wear the next day. i would wake up in the middle of the night and try on clothes, have my own personal fashion show. i would put on the clothes, take time putting on lots of makeup and jewelry, turn on all of the lights and take pictures on photobooth. i know that sounds strange- mostly because it is. i would spend hours doing this every night, and i couldn't sleep unless i did it. whenever i took off the clothes and wiped off the makeup,i always felt like i had just spent the night cross-dressing, like what i had just done was bad.

by the end of august, i felt very confused. i didn't feel comfortable wearing more masculine presenting clothes, and even if i wanted to, my mother would always have something to say. i also didn't feel like playing the part of my mom's cute straight, girly daughter (i notice when i go home and try to "pass"- sadly, i have been guilty of doing this- i always interpret "girly" or "straight" as very cutesy, frilly, young-looking.") i decided that i wanted to experiment more with what feminine meant to me through clothing, but thought that i didn't want to do it for anyone's sake but mine. i wanted to find ways to express my queerness and my femininity. one night, i discovered that i wanted to king it up for a bit, and created the persona (another one, i know) of franklin, or "frankée fierce". i never got to fully flesh out this persona, but for me, i discovered that one way that i could express my femininity and my masculinity was through the persona of a gay male. i think that there is a side of me that is very much a gay man, but that is beside the point. unfortunately, i have not had a chance to explore frankée more, but he comes out occasionally.

but, anyways. i am in london. i am still feeling bottled and confused.

i think that this is mostly because i really lack a home base. i want someone i can vent to, someone i am close enough to who will listen to my crushes and stupid, slfish complaints abt gender, and generally spend all my time with. i know that it is selfish, but i really feel like i need a good friend right now, and i know that it is hard to just befriend people, but it feels like everyone else has found that here already. i feel like i am doing something wrong, and i keep thinking- i am only here for 2 1/2 more months. i am running out of time for friendship. the time is going by so quickly, but it also feels like it is going by so slowly because i am so alone. it drives me crazy. my flat is lovely- i really enjoy spending time with everyone in it. however, they are all straight and 18/19 and have very crappy, liberal lovey-dovey politics. in fact, the video i am working on right now is called, "can we please not talk politics? i want to still respect you in the morning." harsh, i know, but i have yet to find conversation that i feel pushes me forward. i feel like i am back in that white//str8 place where i have to be the educating token queerblackfriend. and i don't like it at all. i don't even have good politics! i am still working on myself and i want people who can help me work on myself, recommend good essays to read and call me out on my shit or call me out on not calling others out on their shit. what im really saying is that i want you guys here. i have a queer friend but it is always so hard to find him//hang out with him because he is always herethereeverywhereandnowhere, yes, like freddy. i also dont know him that well, although he promises me a day of hangingout, listening to queercore and eating pie.

i have even been to the library and taken out 6 (i originally htought it was 7 but i realiz now that i miscounted) books from the library, only one for class and the rest all abt queer theory. the ones that i am the most excited abt reading are black queer studies, queers in space, and feminist and queer performance. the only downside is that it has been so long since my brain has done anything academic, and i need someone to help me digest it all (the one queer conversation that ive had here that i was excited abt was for five minutes in the middle of a gay club during a katy perry song that i sat down for in protest and i could barely hear them over the music. they also no longer go to goldsmiths. i also havent seen them since.) i am surrounding myself with piles of books so that i can flip through pages to find one image of me or at least one sentence of something familiar. its not working- i just feel tired all the time from all the readings.

AND SO, IN CONCLUSION-

the actual reason i started writing this note. i feel very lonely and miss my people//community. you guys are my roots. because of this, i am constantly in a very hazy, vague state of mind, also causing me sleep deprived nights, while also always making me tired. i also feel like i haven't been able to express myself creatively or verbally, which is why i haven't updated as much (via email, letters, vlogs). I also feel like it is affecting the way that i express my gender//identity, and i have no idea what name i am at right now, or how i should-or want to be- dressing or who i should-or want to be- seeking out for company. i also spend way too much time on facebook, and have been looking at old pictures of myself- reminiscing abt who i was in the different stages of my life, who i am now, who i will be. i start thinking, maybe i should have grown up to be this way, or, when did i start looking//acting like that? i am excited abt this trip and glad to be here and am enjoying myself, but i am anxious to find people to share it with.

and with all that said, i will definitely try to start writing again, there are more poems for people coming up, as well as vlogs, emails, etc. love you all, thank you for reading this through. i'm not quite sure if it makes sense, since it was an hour-long ramble!

** oh, and here is the picture that started this whole train of thought!! me, at 16.
**