On Finding and Defining Oneself

So these first few entries will document my wrangling with the medium at my disposal, and the conclusions and actions taken therein. It is not as easy as one may think to decide on what angle to deliver in something as potentially revealing as a blog. There are so many things I find myself being passionate about, yet find myself self-censoring for one reason or another. This is my attempt to get out from under my own blanket, so to speak. Something I read this morning allowed me to validate my own conceptualization regarding the art and the job of writing, whether one is a novelist or a journalist or a blogger, or, as the case may be, a jotter, as I sometimes am.

I was reading an entry from a new page I stumbled upon, Reluctant Habits http://www.edrants.com/about/ (which, in many ways I can identify with), where the editor Edward Champion (love amazing people with that surname, as if they were truly born into their role) had the opportunity to follow up with a favorite author of mine, Colson Whitehead regarding his most recent novel, Sag Harbor. I found this novel last summer, while trying to fill up a somewhat incomplete summer's day, the last day of my Census 2010 assignment. The title jumped out at me because I attended undergrad in The Hamptons, and adopted it for about five years, becoming a bit more than a summer visitor, but not quite a full-blown Southie. I lived there during the school year, but also worked there during two summers and one winter session, which, if anyone knows, is when the real mettle is tested, along the deserted crunchy beaches and soggy gray atmosphere of the off-season.

Colson Whitehead's novel weaved a captivating tale of that region of Long Island in the 80's, before I really could call any part of New York my own, the generation of my older cousins, yet far removed physically as well as culturally. His world was one of middle class African Americans, professionals, upwardly mobile and yet grounded in their traditions still insulated to a degree from stereotypical portrayals based on unexplored assumptions. I loved Sag Harbor when I was in the Hamptons, but I never really got to see much of what Whitehead framed in his novel. It would almost have me wondering, doubting the true existence of such a place, such a perspective, if I didn't already know the legacy of the reservations in the area, of Riverhead even now. Not everything is white-washed out there, if you are paying attention.

The best part of this interview however, was how Whitehead handled the response to his reponse at The New School interview session. He touched on the need for labels and categorization that oftentimes is the nail in the coffin for brilliant writers, marginalized by their subject matter. It's as if some all-powerful marketing curator deemed them unworthy of a broad audience, or only necessary to plug into a niche market. It is condescending at best, and I wonder where I would be if I capitulated to such playground versions as a child. I distincly remember being accused of "talking white" because I told a classmate that she was acting haughty. I used words beyond my sixth-grade stature, apparently. I even had to defend the radio station I listened to, which was Z100 at the time, not HOT97 like all the other cool ghetto kids. I didn't admit to turning the dial to CD101.9 or the classical stations, though; that would have been too much even for me to bear as an eleven-year-old. In eighth grade, I was voted "Most Likely to be a Snob" by my ever-popular, loud, big-breasted classmate Cheryl and her gang. My reluctant habit for a while became dumbing down my own abilities or range.

The rain falls down upon us all the same.... whether you have an umbrella or not is another story

It is going to take a bit of time before I get the hang of this meta-connected system. There's texting, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs, RSS feeds, Google Voice, for chrissakes! Well, I want this blog to have components of all my mandates, maybe inclusive at times, may not be. I will probably have themed chapters. I will try not to be nerdy about it, yet as prolific as professionally and personally possible. Of course, there are other considerations, such as monetizing, making public, linking and commenting with others, becoming this public person. I never really aspired to be a public figure. It is strange how FB brings certain things out of you, however, in this modern age.

On another note, I woke up around four a.m. to a torrent of rain, haranguing the freight truck outside of my window. It was humid all of a sudden, so the combination of noises and rising temperature of my skin roused me in a most unpleasant way. I wandered over to the window to witness the assault upon my senses and was reminded of a more tranquil event I was privy to almost five years ago in South America. I was visiting Guyana for my grandmother's funeral after a ten-year gap. I was sleeping underneath ineffective mosquito nets, well, half-asleep really since I was determined to keep watch for those same midnight ninjas trying to transmit itchiness and tropical ails in one deft swoop.

So I was losing the fight and nodding off when all of a sudden I hear this tap-dance on the zinc roof where I was staying. It always starts out slow, but builds momentum to the point you can't believe it can still be so loud with the increased physical volume of water. It's the inverse of filling a bucket with water: after the initial pour, the water never vibrates so much while being filled, thus less noisy. No, this was an audio-equivalent to summertime cicadas. It was magical, especially since the block didn't have streetlights but for the full moon casting an eerie glow on the sheet of rain hitting at a subequatorial angle. Nothing like it in NYC.

One of the things I now realize, having finished this memory here, is another purpose I have- to capture the experience of a profound rainstorm in as many corners of the earth as life will allow me.

Launching the first fireball

Okay... so as I become ever more wired or connected to the virtual world, I become increasingly fearful of the actual existence of The Matrix. In fact, I am sure that I accidentally took the Red Pill this morning.