Why I Write

My mother often reminds me that my dysfunction didn’t commence when I moved to the City of Angels, but began at the tender age of six or seven. Around that time, I started writing obituaries: “Kristy was killed by her father today…” “Timmy got ran over by the school bus…”

They were pretty morbid stories, the stuff that fills psychiatric files. But the carnage cluttering my literary landscape wasn’t the work of a burgeoning serial killer. Those dark eulogies were simply the means for a lonely little girl to exorcise childhood's demons.

By age 10, I started journaling. I remember trying to erect a time machine from a toy baby carriage and some miscellaneous items around my grandmother’s house. I wanted to document my journey to the past, my voyage from a life of invisibility. It was at that time that I discovered Stephen King, Dean Koontz and the Twilight series — teen horror paperbacks that my mom dismissed as “occult books.” I wasn’t fascinated by vampires or gruesome murders. What enchanted me was the ability of little girls to set a foe aflame from fifty feet, or telepathic teens who could levitate the school bully to another plain.

I grew up in a small town ten miles northwest of Philadelphia, and was often teased for “talking white.” While my cornrowed neighbors were jumping double Dutch on the sidewalk or hanging out on the stoop listening to Salt n Pepa, I was locked in my room penning the ‘hood version of Carrie. I identified with King’s psychokinetic protagonist because she too knew how it felt to be the odd kid on the block.

I still feel like the odd kid, but now I’m learning to embrace my otherness. I enjoy writing essays and novels that celebrate that curious, disenfranchised and marginalized character — the dysfunctional black diva. Yet, I have trouble negotiating my love for the vapid and materialistic with the need to examine more political and intellectual matters. I felt conflicted for not blogging about the Jena 6 case, Bill O'Reilly’s off-color comments about black folks, or Megan Williams’ rape and torture by six white people in West Virginia. I’m sometimes plagued by the notion that I’m not intelligent or informed enough to critique relevant social issues. It’s not that I’m oblivious to racism, sexism, classism and other interlocking systems of oppression. It’s just that I’m more at home with essays that begin: “A funny thing happened on the way to my colonics appointment …”

When I write about the comedic but mundane, I worry that I won’t be considered a conscious writer. I appreciate the politics of Fanon, Cornel West, bell hooks, The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron — in fact, I interviewed Scott-Heron when I lived in Baltimore after his set at the Arena Players. But I also spend hours reading Stephen King or perusing perezhilton.com. I’m an information junkie. I read feminist blogs, Latino blogs, gay blogs, conservative and left-wing blogs, black militant to evangelical Christian sites, Bossip to Slate, Crunk & Disorderly to Salon … and they all inform my writing.

Sometimes, I return home from a full-time job and sit at my laptop until four or five in the a.m. Writing is lonely work, but it’s also redemptive. I want to explore the struggles of women who not only battle bigoted bosses, but who also have hair care woes. Like bell hooks says, “There is a world of thoughts and ideas women have yet to write about in nonfiction — whole worlds of writing we need to enter and call home. No woman is writing too much. Women need to write more. We need to know what it feels like to be submerged in language, carried about by the passion of writing words.”

As trite as it sounds, writing is my passion. Little did I know that as I was killing off the neighborhood bullies in those childhood obituaries, I was also writing myself into existence. There is healing in humor, and I’ve found a safe place to be zany, reflective and vulnerable — all at the same time.

My Dirty Little Secret

“What pornography is really about, ultimately, isn't sex but death.”
- Susan Sontag

I watched my first adult film at age 13.

Spending the night at my older cousin’s house promised to be an evening filled with girl talk, Jiffy Pop and Sixteen Candles in the VCR. But what transpired over the course of six hours was more hardcore than any Molly Ringwald movie.

My uncle and his girlfriend at the time were headed out on a date. To my shock, he dropped a dime bag of weed into my 15-year-old cousin’s lap, and admonished me not to tell anyone. Then, grabbing his jacket, he closed the door behind him and locked us in.

Claustrophobia was a hazy noose tightening around my neck. I was sandwiched between my cousin and her 15-year-old girlfriend on a love seat as they passed a joint back and forth, inches from my startled face. Instead of Sixteen Candles, we watched The Exorcist. I grew fearful that we weren’t alone in the apartment, a paranoia spurred by the contact high I was getting.

After a few hours of horror movies, my cousin decided to lighten the mood. Rifling through videotapes, she inserted one of my uncle’s pornos in the VCR. I felt like the heroine in a Donald Goines novel, trying valiantly to resist the pimp’s attempts to turn her out. But it was a battle I was slowly losing. The video was laughable, featuring ugly white guys with thick moustaches and corny names like “Dick Goezinya.” Yet, I was impressed by the skills of one fat, curly-haired man who could lean over and perform fellatio on himself. Ron Jeremy, as I later learned, was an unlikely icon in the porn industry.

More shocking than the sex acts appearing inches from our faces was my cousin and her friend’s reaction to the flick. They seemed stoic and bored, like restless kids trying to stay awake in church. But I became aroused by the moans and gyrations on the TV screen, even replaying the tape after the two girls had passed out on the couch in a bud-induced stupor.

Over the years, my flirtation with pornography became a full-fledged love affair. The video I watched that night at my cousin’s apartment awakened some dormant sexual desire in me. At 14, I would raid my older brother’s hidden stash of dirty magazines, and sneak them to my room to masturbate. When I went to the bookstore, I would buy soft core “Victorian romances” to supplement my diet of Sweet Valley High and Judy Blume novels. My favorite offering from Blume, the beloved teen author? Wifey. I had to hide my dog-eared copy in the back of my closet.

As a freshman at Hampton, I had a small library of X-rated titles “borrowed” from friends that I conveniently forgot to return. But I was growing bored with my hobby. Because I considered myself a critical thinker, porn was viewed as anti-intellectual and anti-woman. I didn't want to see myself as a hypersexualized underclassman who couldn't stop masturbating. I didn’t watch another X-rated movie until junior year. I got drunk with some homies and we picked up a Heather Hunter flick at the video store as a joke. I remember dozing off during her sexcapades, believing that my addiction had indeed fizzled out. For a few years, I developed an aversion to the Caught from Behind and Debbie Does Deliverance films of the world. Around that time, I started attending church, developing new friendships, and disdaining my dance with debauchery. Whatever comfort porn offered shriveled up like a raisin in the sun.

But even dried fruit can be reconstituted.

Earlier this year when Ray-J’s sex tape was leaked, curiosity got the best of me, and I went online to find a copy. In my quest to view the R&B singer’s home video with Kim Kardashian, I discovered several Web sites that boasted free porn. Religious beliefs aside, another reason I stopped watching flicks was the embarrassment of coming out of an X-rated store and being spotted with a tell-tale paper bag in hand. But my laptop became a portable sex shop, and I could browse all the three-minute videos I wanted.

At first, I convinced myself that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. After all, I had been celibate for six years, and at least I wasn’t sleeping around. But I was spending an inordinate amount of time on the computer – sometimes three to four hours a night – surfing sex sites. I knew I had a problem when I started watching online videos at 10 o'clock one evening, and didn’t shut down my computer until 6 in the a.m. After a while, I viewed the choreographed sex acts with the same stoic expression my cousin and her friend wore that fateful night so many years ago. But I couldn’t look away. Disaffection became a disease, and even when it was apparent that some of the women were being roughed up during intercourse, and several of the teens looked suspiciously underage, I didn’t avert my gaze. “MILF,” “facialized” and “cumshot” were unwanted entries in my mental dictionary. I started to feel corrupt, like a pedophile in a raincoat and shades, handing out hard candy to children in the park. But that didn’t stop me from logging onto my laptop every night.

A part of my spirit dies every time I stare through the window of my monitor into someone else's bedroom. I used to cry out of guilt when I did it, but I don't anymore. I know that, at 13, I was an unwilling participant in a perverse rite of passage, yet emotional tribal scars run deep. Maybe it's sexual repression, loneliness, excitement or an addictive personality that makes me turn to pornography. Sometimes, I fancy myself as Sula, the detached anti-hero who mourns, yet wholeheartedly embraces, her own fragmentation.

I mentioned this addiction to a girlfriend, and she warned me about the dangers of forming soul ties with my cyber partners. Her words hit home recently. I turned off the lights and got into bed after hours of net porn, and for several minutes, naked couples copulated against the darkened screen of my closed eyelids.

Here's where I'm supposed to insert: "But my relationship with Christ delivered me from this sinful compulsion." Sadly, I'm still looking for redemption. Sunday mornings have found me strolling the seedier online communities until it's time to get dressed for church. I know that I have many spiritual (and sisterly) bedfellows. According to 2006 statistics from Family Safe Media, 9.4 million women access adult Web sites every month, and 47 percent of Christians say pornography is a major problem in their households. That’s a whole lot of bawdy bandwidth being broadcast into the home.

I’m not proud of my dirty little secret, but I'm working hard to remove this cloak of shame. Instead of three to four hours a night of illicit net flicks, I’m down to 30 minutes every other day. Last night, right before I clicked on a porn portal, my finger hovered above the mouse, unsure. After moments of indecision, I went to my Favorites, and selected an Internet sermon on forgiveness. For me, this is deliverance … and not the kind that Debbie does.

Adventures Out of Veganism


Okay, so it’s official … as of Sunday, February 5, I ended my six-year stint as a vegan.

It was a decision that I’d been grappling with for several months. Despite subsisting on fruit, veggies, rice, tofu and pasta (with a few chips, cookies and Slurpees thrown in the mix every now and then), I was steadily gaining weight. I had gotten up to 152 pounds, was feeling quite unhealthy, and was craving carbs and sugar like crazy. But the most damning evidence came from a trip to the beauty shop this past Saturday. Upon arriving home and inspecting my ‘do in the mirror, I noticed that my hair was thinner than it’s ever been, and looked decidedly unhealthy. As a black woman, my hair is much more ingrained in my identity than my desire to skip meat and dairy products. Baldness is not my destiny. It was time for a quick trip to the seafood section of Whole Foods market.

Ironically, when I first became a vegan in January 2000, my weight was the impetus for such a drastic lifestyle change. At that time, I was tipping the scales at 171 pounds and struggling with chronic adult-onset asthma. I started following the principles of Fit For Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. That book touted the benefits of vegetarianism/veganism along with proper fruit consumption and food combining. After two months on that diet – or lifestyle change, I should say – I dropped 30 pounds. By the end of 2000, I was down to 125 pounds, and was able to rock size 4 clothes to the clubs and industry parties.

More so than just flaunting a tight new figure, I was proud to embrace a vegan lifestyle because it seemed like I was doing something revolutionary as a black woman. I was rebelling against my community’s love affair with fat-laden, overly processed, unhealthy food: collard greens with fat back, greasy bacon, fried chicken and fish, macaroni with layers of cheese and overcooked vegetables swimming in butter. I enjoyed perusing the shelves of the organic market, on the lookout for marinated seitan, teriyaki tofu and barbecued tempeh. I could even put up with the constant ribbing from well-meaning family members and friends who thought I was trying to "act white" and accused me of appropriating La La Land values.

Given the dearth of organic markets and vegetarian restaurants in our ‘hood, blacks seem reluctant to embrace alternative ways of eating. When I cruise down Crenshaw on my way to Simply Wholesome, the black-owned natural foods restaurant, I am struck by the abundance of rib joints and chicken shacks cropping up along the urban landscape. The line to the $1.00 soul food eatery is usually out the door and down the block, and the smell of catfish popping in hot grease is more overpowering than exhaust fumes. Even though I realize that cardiovascular disease and diabetes disproportionately impact my community – and largely as the result of unhealthy, slave-mentality diets – I also recognize the need for balance. I'm not blaming my thinning tresses on a meatless diet, but just as I explored veganism as a pathway to better health, I am once again on a journey for wellness, which may include some meat products.

So, after months of struggling with losing a part of my identity, I decided to take the plunge. My sweet princess friend, Jeannette, was kind enough to prepare a feast for a king -- or a queen -- last night -- baked salmon with garlic, swiss chard with marinated red peppers, brussels sprouts, yams and salad. For the longest time, I pushed the fish around on my plate – a condemned woman, toying with her last meal. I secretly assumed that my organs would rebel against me for such outrage, but now that I think about it, salmon is hella healthier than a 32 ounce Slurpee or a bag of potato chips, for that matter.

I woke up this morning and guess what? I’m still alive. I went to the gym at 5 in the a.m., then cruised to Whole Foods like I do every morning and got some fruit and a salad for lunch. Is meat going to be a regular part of my diet now? As Whitney so succinctly put it, hell-to-the-no! I will indulge in salmon (preferably farm-raised) maybe once or twice a week, but I’ll still turn my nose up at milk and other dairy products. Gotta maintainin’ for the Movement. Who knows? Maybe I will return to veganism if my hair continues to thin out even after I incorporate fish into my diet. I might end up as a weave-wearing, tofu-eating, soymilk sipping LA diva, but one thing’s for sure. I will never again let my diet define me.