In BRAINWASHED, we explore the portrayal of African American women as sexual objects in the chapter Studs and Sluts. Check out this Fan-Made movie short that was inspired by the book. This is a fantastic example of what can be done with a little ingenuity and access to a computer!
Greetings. In a nod to the new look of my blog, we shall take some time to ponder the Greek name in question.
…siiiggghhhh. My general opinion of most of the women featured on the “Real Housewives” franchise is pretty low, and for reasons that you don’t even have to guess. You know. So when I was watching Bravo one day, and the commercial promoting the upcoming season featuring a brand new city (at the time) came on, and I saw that one of these women had the audacity share my name while making an idiot of herself on national television, I was incensed, I tell you! How dare she!
I caught an episode.
I’m so glad I was wrong. I can’t believe I’m typing this, but this Alexia is a welcome breath of fresh air among these women, most of whom seem to be oblivious, tactless, and not too thoughtful. Now, it’s not like I know this woman personally, and people being people, I’m sure there are aspects of her personality that could use improving. Just like me, you, and everyone else in this world. Plus, this. But I get this sense that she has been and is a hard worker. She could be a little less indulgent toward her son, but at least she calls him out when necessary. She’s decidedly more down-to-earth than her fellow “housewives”, and doesn’t seem to take her personal feelings out on others. In other words, she doesn’t behave like an emotionally immature seventh grader with privilege for ages. Maybe that’s all we can ask for anymore.
Alexia is a shortened form of Alexandria, the female version of Alexander. It means defender of mankind. I’m sorry; I’m leftist and all, and I respect all people as people, but a lot of y’all can go to hell. My mommy wanted to name me Alexandria, but her mother, the late, great Mollie, the grandmother I feared and still love, said that it was too long a name for a little baby, so no. So my mommy shortened it. I wonder why Mrs. Echevarria’s parents went with this name. It’s not very common: I’ve only met three other people who shared it.
In conclusion, my name still rocks, and isn’t sullied by the Miami socialite who shares it with me.
I have been an avid bookworm since I started learning to read in kindergarten. I have been a Stephen King fangirl since I was nine years old. This was the year that my mom remarried, that we moved down to the suburbs of Houston. It was the first time that my sister and I actually lived in a house, and we thought it was so cool. There were five rooms! And a kitchen and a breakfast room and a living room and a dining room and a den upstairs! And Otis (my step-dad) had a big screen TV! With cable!
Sometimes, they would let us watch movies late at night on Fridays and/or Saturdays. One night, we settled down in our pajamas in front of a movie that had started 30 minutes prior. It was Kubrick’s The Shining. My sis and I LOVE scary movies, and it pleasantly freaked the hell out of us. It dawned on me that I had seen this title in what we were calling the “office”, on a bookshelf; a thick yellow book that proclaimed THE SHINING by Stephen King. I wasn’t daunted by the length of the book – I was reading “The Baby-Sitter’s Club”, and there’s all kinds of chapters in that! I wanted to see how hallways of blood would be described. So I picked it up.
It was the first novel that kept me up for hours at night, hanging on to every word, dread and suspense in my heart; not just because of the subject matter, but because of the King’s use of language. After I was well into it, my mother saw what I was reading and expressed concern. Didn’t they talk about sex? Isn’t there cussing? (What’s funny is that my mom never tried to censor my choice in literature, but when it came to music and film, the above was NOT acceptable no matter WHAT the context.) She never told me to stop reading it, though. After I was done, I took on The Stand, and then The Dead Zone. I loved each dearly, and I was hooked. I’ve read almost ever novel, novella, and short story written by Stephen King since then – excluding the Dark Tower series – and although my opinion has changed about a number of his stories that I enjoyed at first (Rose Madder? The Tommyknockers? Desperation/The Regulators? blegh!!!), I’m still his number one fan. Cell, Lisey’s Story, Just After Sunset, and Full Dark, No Stars are all must-reads. You must read them. I’m telling you. Go. Now.
Wait- not yet!! First, my take.
Under The Dome is the shit!!!! Under The Dome is classic King! Under The Dome pulls no punches, never patronizes, never proselytizes, and breaks your heart. And the ending doesn’t make me feel all stabby with rage.
I don’t want to spoil anything, so here’s the story’s skeleton: one day, out of seemingly nowhere, an invisible yet solid force-field of a dome covers a small New England town, sealing them off from the rest of America. Shit gets started immediately. Throw in a town selectman with delusions of grandeur, his entitled son’s grudge against an outsider trapped in, and some good old political corruption, and you’ve got a hell of a story. I’ve always loved the characters that Stephen King creates, mainly because you can tell that these people could exist in real life and probably do. He knows Maine because that’s where he’s from, he knows small towns populated by working class to working poor folks, because that’s his background also. There are several characters in Dome that are central to the story, and he makes them drive the novel in such a way that it transcends being just a sci-fi type of “whatarewegonnado???” survival story. Every single thing that they do, you expect them to because of who they are, because they’re not just stereotypical archetypes. That’s what this novel is all about. Different kinds of people, and what they do together and individually under duress.
This isn’t a full-on review because that’s not how I operate. I don’t like to give away anything except the super basicness when it comes to books or movies, and I hate giving plot summaries. One thing I love about this novel, and several others, is that when it’s all over, there’s this fulfilled feeling, a closure in spite of the fact that not all mysteries are necessarily solved within the story. For that reason, I love going into a new book (or film, or even new CD [Yes. I still buy CDs.]) knowing as little as possible about it. For that reason, you’re just going to have to buy the book – or check it out from the library – for details ‘cause you ain’t gittin’ ‘em from me, playboy.
So go. Now.
Meh.
The only day that looks remotely interesting is Saturday (Paul van Dyk, Erykah Badu, and Arcade Fire), and they stopped selling single-day tickets two years ago, the bastards.
I’ve got Brazil, Germany, and Italy to look forward to, so what-eh-varrrrrr.
a notification. a recognition. anticipation. pairing. music. 5 o’clock shadow. guitars. Animal. nostalgia. save empire records. a beckoning. platonic embrace. an invitation. drinkety-drink drinks. fun. smiles. photos. competition. victory dances. elizabeth berkeley. hand on my neck. it’s been 4 months. it’s been two years. my homegirl. taco joint. tetris ripoff. radishes. a pulling away. desire. passion. feelings. unrequited. leave me hanging. morning dancing. effusive g-chatting. 10 unexplained tearful outbursts. art. sex. 90’s heartthrobs. waiting. awkward texting. privileged schoolgirls. glue. food color. salts. scents. a play. more effusive g-chatting. replays in my mind. desire. passion. feelings. interestingness. mystery. I like. I want more. more replays in my mind. desire. passion. feelings. thoughts. future? interestingness. mystery. hmmm. rationalizations. uterus. ovaries. estrogen. birth control. desire. passion. feelings. mystery. burning. yearning. trite words. replay the past. imagine summer. it’s been 4 months. how many more months? it’s been 2 years. 2 more years?
My body is disintegrating. I feel like shit on toast. I look like an ogre. Alexia’s my name, hyperbole is my game.
Let me tell you what I LOOOOVE. I LOOOOVE how that I’ve been on track with my workouts; not losing much weight, and yet getting slimmer and firmer. Feeling healthy, fresh, beautiful, and energetic. And then my uterus starts acting up, I have an allergic reaction to my grandmother’s blanket while I’m in Dallas that leaves huge red itchy welts on my face, chest, arms and hands, and then I come down with an awful cold so it’s been a week since I’ve been to the gym; and THEEEENNNNNN after three months with my new agency, wondering if I should even bother, doubting my appearance and demeanor, I FINALLY get invited for a casting for a Levi’s print job while I’m looking like an ogre. And although it went okay, I probably won’t get it.
I F*CKIN LOVE THAT SH*T!!!!!!
First of all, it’s true. Writing it down does help. I don’t keep a fitness diary or anything, I just know what my goals are, and every Monday I weigh myself and measure my waist. I’ve restricted myself to dessert once a week, protein once a week, a mass of carbs once a week, and strictly healthy vegetarian eating supplemented by my supplements as I go along. It’s very easy for me to gain muscle mass, and muscle mass is heavier than fat, so I’m less concerned with weight loss than I am with my size goals. I’m getting older and my body is changing, so maybe 140 is my new 130. So up until about a week ago, I was doing most excellently.
Before I left town last week, though, my uterus started having passive aggressive fits with me. This happens whenever I miss a pill (I take low estrogen birth control in order to suppress my periods; if you don’t take it at the same time every day, you WILL spot for a month). It feels like it wants to ball up into the deathly cramps that it used to, but that would be no fun, so it turns on low doses of pain here and there, randomly, for a couple of weeks. That bitch. She knows I crave dark chocolate and sugar whenever she does that. So this is how I flew to Dallas last week, and I was going for a few days to see my new baby niece. My other sister had her a few weeks ago, and she’s so adorable and sweet! I’m really enjoying being a spinster aunt! But Sunday afternoon, in addition to passive aggressive uterine pain (temporarily cured by Manischevitz + Skittles), I started breaking out. On my lower face. On my wrists and hands and arms. On my boobies and clavicle. I still feel like a leper. The itching has stopped, thank friggin’ Christ, but now I look like I have friggin’ herpes all over my lower friggin’ face, and I look like an abuse victim elsewhere. This is how I arrived back to Los Angeles on Tuesday. But I’m not that vain, I’m reclusive anyway, and I’ve been feeling even more so recently, so whatevs. I go to the gym Wednesday morning, make it to the afternoon p/t job, start feeling a low grade fever, so I take more Benedryl that I swiped off my dad while I was in Dallas – asleep by 8.30. Wake up the next morning feeling like shit on toast, and no one can take my shift that afternoon for me, and then I get word that Levi is looking for beautiful, stylish, confident women to be featured in a print campaign, and I’m confirmed for the casting. WHY NOW? WHY NOT TWO WEEKS AGO? Because God said so, that’s why.
Last night, the few times that I could get to sleep, I would invariably dream that my former boss, Tulsa, lived in a swanky IKEA-designed house in the sky, and that I was staying with her and her adult adopted protégés (that don’t exist). I’m serious. This was the background of every dream I had last night, with slight variations on the theme. During a three hour stretch of sleeplessness early this morning, between sneaking onto facebook and playing Tetris on my phone, I devised a plan by which I could feel beautiful, stylish, and confident by 2.20 today. I decided to start with my favorite fantasy where I’m reunited with my deported ex-boyfriend, I confess my love to him, he doesn’t turn me away, we make sweet love and elope together. Then, I would watch an episode or two of the Simpsons on my favorite website. Then, I’d watch the YouTube clip I favorited recently from the TV series “Martin”, the one where he suspects all his friends of stealing his cd player, when really it was bruh-man. Then, I would look at some pictures of my nephew, and some footage of him dancing, because the thought of him warms my heart. Then, I would cleanse and scrub my face during a long shower, do a peel off mask, use my best lotion, put on my coolest outfit, throw on my afro wig - heretofore known as Miss Mojo – all this while some soulful deep house is playing on my new laptop speakers on full blast.
It kind of worked. I got down to the casting, a little breathless, but feeling great and not at all nervous and awkward and weird like I usually do. They asked me about my heritage, and once I got the clue that they’re looking for interestingness, I laid claim to my Creek Indian heritage for the first time. I usually don’t do that, even though it’s true. You know how some black folks are. They’re not satisfied with being “just black”. I am. Every once in a while, I get the “what are you?” question (as if I’m some sort of fabulous animal or mineral), and I say “black” because I’ve never met any white or native family members, so what’s the point? Well, this time, the point was a huge chunk of change that will be put to good use during my unemployment cut and my two overseas trips later this year, so if they don’t want “regular black” today, then we’re throwing my Creek in the mix. The jeans fit nicely, I danced in front of a camera, told them about the most adventurous thing I did, and walked out with a smile on my face.
Now I’m back in bed, and again, I feel like shit on toast. I really hope I book this job. I’m with Industry Talent. They represent my homegirl Diana, and when she started working for them, she lobbied to get me signed on. I’m serious, ever since I met her three years ago, she’s believed that I could make a career out of modeling and talent work. She’s believed it more than me, actually, and now she’s my agent lady. It’s nice having some competence on your side, ‘cause letmetellyou, I’ve got some agent horror stories, and I wouldn’t even bother anymore if it weren’t for her and the others working there submitting me. They let me know that that they submit me quite a lot on a lot of different projects, but this is the first one that I’ve been considered for. It’s hard when you’re black, and you don’t quite fit the set mold that exists for black+female in the model/talent world, and most of your pictures are outdated and not very good in the first place. It’s an arbitrary science. I just want some cash so that I can survive until grad school. Plus, I actually have to pay taxes this year. The Outrage!!! (Not really, I can afford it, I just didn’t realize I had moved up a tax bracket)
Will our heroine get the job? Will she be paid on time if so? Will she feel new again on Saturday morning, in time for the dance class she wants to take? When will the uterus EVER stop the madness??? Why does our heroine still have hopes of seeing a man barred from ever entering the United States again? Will her thighs NEVER cease??? These, my friends, are questions for the ages.
The hotness, it burns
My passion unrequited
It feels wonderful
So tall. So attractive. More acting prowess than many will give you credit for. And yet, it wasn’t until I saw this when I swooned. I’m smitten by you. I can’t help it. One day we’ll run into each other at an Along Came Mary event, me doling out risotto from behind a buffet table. All I want is a wink. Just one wink.
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