Felly and I have had NO. Zero. Zip. Nada internet for the past... I dunno, forever. It some ways it has been kinda nice...not spending time procrasting while I should be doing work...ehem, like right now, but at other times it sucked balls. I was forced to pull out my print dictionary to look up words while writing papers, and had to spend extra time on campus to check my email and shit. It really made me greatful for the fact that I have a home that I can go to do work while others are forced to spend extensive periods in the computer lab or the library to writer papers and do research. I hate both. Of course I was computer-less for all of college and spent much of my time in computer labs, but I guess there is a certain sense of superiority that comes with being a grad student...or maybe I am just old. Either way, I am particular and like most of all to be comfortable. A snob really. Whatever. We're Back!!

My first duty is to promote this Saturday's BATTLE AT BUFFALO!

Felly and I and some friends will be attending, as usual. Come and be amazed. And, I don't quite know the specifics, but we might go out afterwards, depending the the requests of the friends from out of town.

Lets see. I know this might be a little late in the game, but I would like to put it out there that thank god somebody filled in that damn hole in the middle lane going from Delaware to 33. That thing drove me crazy for months and months. I was sure there was a good reason for it, but obviously not because they filled it in. Ah well.

Also. Where does the time go? Just 6 more weeks and I will have completed my first year at grad school, which means I have to start getting serious about thesis and whatnot. Meh. Like I have any idea what the hell I'm doing. And I still haven't quite adjusted to the whole spring forward thing. I think I have all the time in the world because the sun is still up, and then before I know it 9pm. Poof, just like that. I love it though and I just wish that the weather would catch up and warm up. I want to eat dinner outside on my porch and wear tanktops and shorts and flipflops and all that jazz. Is it April that is in like a lion, out like a lamb?

I am maybe the luckiest girl in the world.

I had class yesterday...handed in my rough draft of that 15 page paper i've been writing since last week. Got out of class as I walking to the bookstore to buy one of those voice recorder thingamabobs for my interviews this weekend and I called her and she presents a wonderful night to me....

Dinner: balsalmic chicken salad (which ended up being more of a pita cause we didn't have any spinach, or rather, our spinach was looking a little limp) and 2 extra meaty super duper yummy artichokes, which we ate sitting side by side on the couch, dripping butter all over ourselves.

Drinks: she had gotten what I guess was like a daquiri mix that she put in our magic bullet to make it all icy, which I love, although i was sad because i couldn't drink it through a straw until it had thinned out a bit.

Play time: I had told her weeks ago that i wanted to dye eggs for easter, but had completely forgotten about till she told me that she had got one of those little kits for us to use! I haven't dyed eggs since early highschool, maybe earlier than that and it was fun to see that although we got these female condom esque bowls to use that i had never seen before, they still came with those little color pellets which disolve and turn everything they touch a different color. Ahh, memories...

Presents: she got me flowers...it was super cute because she got me tulips and told me that she was thinking my favorite flower was tulips and then after she bought them she remembered that it was daisys, but i don't care. I have flowers and she gave them to me.

Today I am doing two interviews...one with a girl that I have never met, but she is the only female breakdancer to consistently dance at the battles...I hope she gives me what i want in terms of good quality answers, but I am not counting on it.
The other is with my dance teacher/the guy who "hosts" the battles. I am worried that he is going to talk more about this history of hip hop and bboying than about the here and now community.
Today will be a good test of my listening skills and ability to steer a conversation in the direction i want it to go.

Ok. So...I woke up this morning and opened the door and I was SOO happy to feel the warmth, to not be able to see my breath, to notice that the snow is melllllllting and then. It all went wrong.

I decided to be productive and change the kitty litter so I emptied it out, cleaned it, shook out the bathroom carpets, swept the floor and went to put the new litter in to find that we had no litter! Shit shit shit, I had to get to the store before the kitties went poopoo in the empty litter box. Gross....so I shower super quick and get all ready to go and try to find my wallet....and then it hits me. I left my wallet in the glove box of felly's car and she is at work. So now I have an empty litter box and no wallet.

AND THEN

I realized I have NO GAS in my effin car. I can't even get to class. Shit shit shit. What to do? I thought I could take a check over to the bank to cash and then, oh yes, I have no ID. It's in my wallet. I tear apart the apt. trying to find my ever ellusive passport and of course, can't find the damn thing. So, now, no kitty litter, no wallet, no gas, no I.D. What the eff?

I emailed my prof, saving her from the gory details of my ridiculous day...and of course I have a paper due in her class so I send her a copy of that and sit down to a wonderful afternoon of HGTV. I honestly wanted to go to class today...beautiful days make me want to drive, to do something, to leave my apt and that enthusiasm was slapped right outta me after all this nonsense.

There is no point to this story...just me getting it all out. Tonight is floor class which makes me happy....and then 3 days of class and then SPRING BREAK...bye bye buffalo :)

How is it that "we" hear of some things and not others in the news? It is beyond my ability to understand the ways in which we are manipulated through basic access to information...for those who don't search it out on their own, which is many of us, are we not just submissive infants swallowing all they hold in front of our faces? This is not to de-emphasize the tragedy of Lawrence King's murder, but rather to question why we get to hear about his death and not the death of Simmie Williams Jr.? How many alleged hate crimes go unnoticed, unprinted, unrecognized while other are lifted up to level of idolization? Was Lawrence King more "innocent" that Simmie Williams Jr.? Could we idolize a street walker, a potential prostitute, someone who stepped out if his place? I am disgusted at this possibility...that somehow one person's death is more or less credible, legitimate than an anothers. How wonderful that people hear about the death of Lawrence King, that people understand the brutality of it all, but I know that there is more to it than that... if Lawrence King had worn is female clothes out into the streets, if he had been just a little bit older, if he had "hit on" some straight man, the list goes on and on about what can and can not be taken into the hearts of the american people.

Victim: Simmie Williams Jr., shot as he stood along Sistrunk Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, died at Broward General Medical Center.


By Brian Haas and Sofia Santana | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
February 23, 2008
FORT LAUDERDALE - The shooting death of a gay teenage boy who was dressed in women's clothing is being investigated as a possible hate crime, while detectives try to determine whether he was targeted because of his sexual orientation.

Simmie Williams Jr., 17, was attacked on the 1000 block of Sistrunk Boulevard by two young men who wore dark clothing and might live in the neighborhood, police said. Williams, who was wearing a dress and was known in the area by his first name or as "Chris" or "Beyonce," was shot about 12:45 a.m. Friday and soon afterward died at Broward General Medical Center, police said.It's unclear what Williams was doing in the area, about four miles from his house, but police are investigating whether he was working as a prostitute, officials said.



Almost two weeks after the shocking death of Lawrence King in his California classroom, a gay black teen has been shot dead in South Florida. Police in Fort Lauderdale say 17-year-old Simmie Williams Jr. was dressed in women's clothing and his death is being investigated as a possible bias crime.

"We're looking into the possibility of a hate crime," Sgt. Kathy Collins with the Fort Lauderdale Police tells News 10. "There were some words exchanged prior to the shooting ... Witnesses said he was in a verbal argument with two men and then they heard several shots being fired and the men took off running."

Detectives say Williams was wearing a dress and at the corner of 10th Avenue and Sistrunk Boulevard at around 12:45 a.m. Friday. It is unclear what he was doing in the area. The vicinity is frequented by transgender prostitutes.

Williams' mother tells the Sun-Sentinnel she knew her son was openly gay, but, did not know her son wore women's clothes or what he did after dark. "I gave him $2 for the bus and he never came back," says Denise King, who lived with her son west of Fort Lauderdale. "He was a quiet person, kept to himself. He had a lot of friends. He wasn't a troubled child. He was a happy person."

The distraught mom also says her son "planned to get his GED":and then go to culinary school. "That's what he really wanted to do. That's all he talked about," says King. "He spent the whole day with me yesterday, played with his nephew and cooked dinner."

Although the Lawrence King murder is making national headlines and the community is pulling together, there probably will not be a stampede in Fort Lauderdale to apprehend the men who killed Simmie Williams. Authorities are historically slow to solve murders of black gay young menâ€"a la Rashawn Brazellâ€"and "being black, gay and dressing in women's clothing made Williams 'a minority within a minority within a minority,' says Grant Lynn Ford, dean of Sunshine Cathedral in Fort Lauderdale, a congregation that ministers to gays, lesbians and their families.