I Guess You Can't Escape Politics

My manager is constantly leaving her laptop charger or other behind and I end up shouldering the responsibility of getting it back to her.  Just this past Tuesday she came to the reading center to get the charger she had left behind last Thursday.  Only, she leaves it again!  She leaves, early, but calls me to ask how she can get back into the building since the main doors were already locked.

You can probably see where this all went.  I told her that I would have to go down (the 5 flights of) stairs and open it for her.  She goes, "oh well could you just bring the charger with you?"

I get down there and guess what? To compensate for the trip down Tiffany hands me an armful of donated books for the reading center and a tri-fold board to carry back up the stairs!

Convenient how she forgot them when she came in that morning or after lunch or even mentioning them on the phone to me before I went downstairs.  She could have at least helped me back up the stairs with the stuff!!


This is only one of already many tiffs I have already had with my manager Tiffany.  My biggest concern is when I apply to work for this organization in Dallas next year her account of my first weeks on the job won't be positive...

Everything's Great When You're Downtown!

But I'm not.

I'm not even in the city-I'm in Queens!

So just an update about my life:

My manager and I have gone toe to toe a little bit because I have been late a few times and she has been trying to get me to use systems that she is still getting used to. Its just frustrating that I am being talked down to, "well if you just check the google doc you would see" even though I had and that is why I have issue and so on.  Other than that, I love the reading center, the cute tutors, and the even cuter students.

Living in Queens isn't awful, but I am just so far away from the friends I have made, my co-workers, and the city.  I spend over an hour getting everywhere and nearly anywhere from work to uptown.  It was frustrating and now I just make sure I have the paper, a book, or the NYT saved articles available in my phone.  My basement apt, when you look at the sum of its parts, is pretty great.  I have the whole basement to myself with its kitchen, tiny bathroom, and my room.  I can't, however, use the washer dryer that is right across from my room that the main family comes down and does use.  I am thinking of asking if I can pay an extra $50 a month or something instead of dragging my clothes upstairs and several blocks away to a cleaners.

And now for the date...

The  man's name is Richard, or Rich, and he is in his mid thirties.  He is on the heavier side, but has a sweet face.  Like I mentioned on the phone, he went to grad school and now works for the city in urban planning and lives a few blocks away from central park.  For our date, he packed a picnic, brought a blanket, and several delicious dishes from a bistro near his house.  We talked for a little bit and ended the meal with a little make out session right there in the park...innocent enough...but enough to want to cancel the tour of the park and watch a movie at his place.  Transformers 3.

Now we both know that when a guy invites you to his place, no matter the excuse, its goin down.  He said he needed to drop off the salads and stuff in his fridge and we decided to go ahead and watch the movie.  His attention was not on the movie, and I knew I wouldn't be able to finish it until I gave him my attention.  It's not that I didn't want to, I did.  But, I also wanted to get to know him better before I biblically knew him. The road to hell...

So between the clean up and shower and putting our clothes back on, I couldn't help but hide tears of frustration and sadness.  He did not push me.  He asked me.  Of course, when we are in the middle of making out, I want to keep going.  I am still accustomed to the level of intimacy that I had in my marriage and I want to get to that level as soon as possible with the next person I share my life and myself with.  Dangerous.  Because not everyone wants what I want.  He gave me the whole, "No matter what happens between us..." speech which did the opposite of comfort me and even though we finished the movie and spent the rest of the evening walking around 5th avenue and seeing Times Square I could not shake the feeling that I blew it.

Granted, even if I hadn't given up the cookies, I could probably have figured out that this guy wasn't looking for a girlfriend or something long term.  He says that he wants to be my tour guide which may just be a cover for fwb.


But the city is a lonely place...


And he does have condoms...

Am I that desparate to be held, to be told I am pretty, to feel the sweet caress of another's lips on mine?

Living Just Enough for the City I'm...

There have been so very many things, its better to try and just give you the boring vacation slide version:

- Golden Birthday in the city! No one from work showed up to the dinner but thankfully I had made 2 friends who invited a friend and we all had dinner at Times Square in Olive Garden then walked around.  The Dave and Buster's was such a rip but there is a DDR machine there. My co-workers did join me for a birthday lunch and my manager treated me.  Though I have no family in New York, I definitely feel like I have friends.

- Earthquake...in New York?  Yea.  And I missed it.  I was in an elevator when it happened. But just a few days later....

- Hurricane Irene hits Queens, where I live.  Power outages, flooding, downed branches and trees.  But I was fine and the city turned out to heed the cautions well.  Other places along the Atlantic coast were not as fortunate,

- Labor Day Weekend I finally find a place to live that I can use the address! I could have waited until the end of September since I had already paid through then, but for so many reasons I wanted to move immediately.  The feeling of being unsettled, having to walk into the apartment complex behind others or wait for someone to come along and let me in was grating every day.  I needed to set up things like doctors, food stamps, and more but without an address, I was immobilized in such an inconvenient way.  I found a basement in a home a few bus stops down from where I was.  A co-worker and now dear friend spent her Labor day helping drag and carry my suitcase set and a cart of things on the bus and down to the new place.  I banged my ankle pretty good and ended up sick the next day, but we celebrated with the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes which was good.

- The basement is part of a 2 story home, small bathroom (have to physically sit at an angle when I am on the John!!), no working lights for the stairs leading down, and a washer dryer that I can't use.  Not to mention the poor reception, but I do need a new phone so that could just be my fault.  The family on the first  floor has a loud and noisy young boy of about 4 who runs and screams and jumps between 9 and 11pm most nights.  I talked to his grandmother and I think things will be a little better from here on.

- Work. The whole reason I am in New York, to help students with their literacy, is far from my mind as I traveled sometimes 2 hours one way to either the main office or other Site Coordinator sites to help set up their schools.  I finally moved into my classroom and it took 2 days of clearing and cleaning before I could even start setting up my actual things.  We found a newspaper from 1969 that headlined "Man Walks on Moon"!  My co-worker joked that we would end up finding the Declaration, but when we did it just became hysterical.  The fact that it was a fascimile didn't matter, the room hadn't been cleaned in years and the former teacher had pictures, cards, wedding planning documents, and more personal items there.  Le sigh.  I officially start running my site on Monday morning but I have to be there at 8am.  Since I have two buses and about an hour commute, I have to get up at 6am.

Granted, all the difficulties have been trying and frustrated, but at the end of the day, I am working, I have a place to live, I have food, and I can continue to count blessing after blessing in my life.  Even though I have been reprimanded for my tardiness, because I didn't pick up interborough transportation instantaneously, and could lose my job because the transition was harder for me than anyone else, I still think this experience has taught me a lot about myself and I have noticed how lessons I have learned in other seasons of my life coming through...just keep swimming is a big one.  If I am laden with bags, shoes hurting my feet, and I am lost in Manhatten and need to find the train for a probable 2 hour commute, I just breath and walk and remind myself that I am strong. Stopping is not an option.  So many other times when I was younger, I found myself on my own in a pinch and simply had to rely on myself.  There was no use in whining or complaining, explaining the unfairness, or seeking sympathy from strangers.  Sometimes I was completely and literally by myself and I had to get home or get to work and I just made it happen.  Carried over $100 worth of groceries from the store many times in Illinois through the snowy winters up stairs...because I did not have a choice.  Biked through the snow to get to work on time because they buses were so unreliable I had nearly lost my job. And that list goes on.  I have been carried in those moments by my Lord and through Him I can look back and honestly marvel at how I got over.

Leaky Heart

I am sitting in a McDonalds where I have been since noon using their free wi-fi and working on assignments for work.  I have also been checking up okcupid and managed to have a rather lengthy conversation with a young man whose profile said he was Christian but when sex came up in the convo he said that he was secular and didn't think we wanted the same things from a relationship.

Yesterday Sean told me he wanted to be single for a while.

Stephen wants to be together but is getting heart surgery soon and won't be able to move here for a while and even when he does he would have to get a job and figure out life and we would be trying to figure out us and it makes me thoroughly tired just thinking about it.

Taylor keeps poking me on Facebook and "liked" my post to my profile that had a link to my okc profile where we met.

I am sleeping on an air mattress again, more transient than I can remember, and there is so much that I don't know...all after my golden birthday which was actually mostly fun when I avoided the couples and pushed back the thoughts of my men troubles

I'm Gonna Make It After All...

In the fall, a few weeks from now really, I am going to be living in New York and serving a community for a year in AmeriCorps.  I have never been to New York and I only know a handfull of people who live there, only one intimately-and he is upstate.  Here are a few things I hope do and don't happen while I am in New York...

Do:

Find a reasonable apartment/furnishing/roomies

Enjoy my job

Explore the city

Discover a new hobby

Visit places I have seen only in movies and tv shows (like the diner from Seinfield)

Don't:

Get bitten by a rat

Get pushed off the busy sidewalks into traffic

Get mugged/robbed/raped(against my will)/murdered/etc

Get so lost that I have to call the cops to help me find my way home

Lose my money/bus fair/subway tokens/etc and have to walk 20 blocks in heels or something

Lose myself in the people and attitude of New York and come out on the other side of this service year jaded, hardened, and further away from the woman I hope to be

Pick up smoking

Become a loose woman with loose morals

Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of

I need to have $1,500 money by Monday August 8, 2011.  I know I can do it!

African and African American Studies Department Spoken Word Poems

Spending time with the timeless

By Shamika

When my body gets weary,

I sit a while with Rosa

We talk about how hard we worked

and agree its good to get off our feet

When I lose my sense of purpose

I pontificate with Malcolm

He always seems to have

a word or fresh view

When I need to clear my head

I take a healthy stroll with Martin

Walking with him invigorates me

from the inside out

When I am old

and young at heart

who will spend time with me?

I gather rather

it all depends

on how I spend my time now

What will I work so hard at

That I am too resolved to move?

What plans and purpose

will bring me clarity of mind?

What in my life

shall move me and those around?

Young black girls

not yet told of their beauty

Young black boys

deserving of a dignified masculinity

The reassurance of the experienced

that they are leaving the world in capable hands

Future

By Shamika

I glance longingly ahead

The light piercing through my sunglasses

Everything I have worked for

All the sacrifices I have made

Culminating into a moment

That will never quite come

Until the end, as far as I’m told

There will always be a tomorrow after today

So when I need a pick me up

I cuddle with my well-worn thoughts

Thumb through the threadbare scenarios

Exist in the ethereal space out of time

In my mind

When it comes

will I know it?

Amidst the goings

and comings of life

How does one ascertain

they have arrived?