A Clever Diversion

the dance floor/my dining room floor

last night’s house party was a success!! i’ll have to talk about it later. i’ve decided to enjoy the final day of my birthday week. i went to the muhammad ali enter to see the “americans who tell the truth” exhibit and i’m now eating delicious food from the vietnam kitchen. i’ll probably smoke………………. and HOPEFULLY start cleaning up. 

every room in my house is in shambles. 

Fall Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee, Last day of Summer/First day of fall 2012

Hey, remember that time we were so scared for our lives that we couldn’t sleep!!?

I had a fun camping trip… it was COLORFUL.

First, I of course had no money. I tried to get it postponed but that wasn’t happening. So, I had to move some funds around, and I worked up just enough to get there and get back.

I set out on Friday afternoon….Of course, my tire blows out about 45 minutes outside of Louisville. Luckily, I have roadside assistance. I was on a really dangerous stretch of highway, miles away from the next exit. So, when the roadside assistance lady asked me if I was in a safe area… I was like NO! She sent out the state trooper as well as someone to change the tire. 

The state trooper shows up…. I get out the car, and I don’t know what he was prepared to do, but………………….. let me say this, I expected him to park behind my car and flash his lights so that people would move over into the other 2 lanes and I wouldn’t have to worry about being side swiped or just completely ran into. The huge trucks were already shaking my car back and fourth every time they passed by.

What he actually did was absolutely nothing… he came and left me there. 

Eventually the tire man shows up and changes the tire. He was really nice. Usually, I go about 80mph when I’m travelling over the highways for long distances (speed limit usually being 70mph). With the spare tire though, I had to go 65mph the entire way there. -____- It hurt. 

So, with the flat tire which took about an hour out of the trip, the backroads iphone google maps took me through to avoid Nashville, and only being able to go 65 mph…. by the time I got to Fall Creek Falls, it was already dark, and Kristen and I were the ones who were supposed to go set-up camp first.

Cellular phone reception is unreliable up there, but luckily, Kristen is a procrastinator. We were both behind schedule, and we arrived at around the exact same time in the dark of night. 

We were initially slick lost, but we figured out the map and tried to secure one of the nine, secluded walk-in campsites. Even though the woman on the phone told Kristen she didn’t need to make a reservation and that there would be plenty of campsites, every single campsite was taken. And the RV/Camping areas that are close to other people were packed. There were little kids running EVERYWHERE. Kristen and I didn’t think we had a choice but camp near the snotty nose lil kids but when Sarah and Malia showed up and somehow, we still ended up camping in the walk-in camping area………. 

Sarah picked out a spot that seemed secluded… it wasn’t a designated spot, but  it seemed decent. 

We set up our tent… eat some Wal-Mart rotisserie chicken… drink some beer. Chill………….. 

THEN, WE SEE FLASHLIGHTS COMING ALONG A PATH…! The people in the closest tent to ours returned. THEN, one light starts coming towards us. 

Sarah’s ass gone say “Hey, are you lost?”

YOU KNOW HE AIN’T LOST SARAH! Like, that gave him the perfect introduction to lead into his following shit… “No, this my campsite. Is this right here a campsite?”

Sarah: “It is now…”

I’m sitting there like OH SHIT! Wtf!!?. Sarah, I’m telling you.. ALWAYS GETS ME INTO TROUBLE. Sarah is sweet and she just meant it “matter-of-fact”ually.. BUT, still, perfect set-up for this guy to be a fucking douche. He stood in the shadows so I don’t even know what he looked like. He appeared to be short with a voice that I can only describe as “White, male privilege.”

He starts going off about designated campsites.. why are y’all so close to my campsite.. yada yada yada . And Sarah explained to him that we had gotten there when it was too dark and didn’t realize how close we were. She apologized. But he was still going and going and going… and they may have been going back and fourth.

I don’t remember what they were saying because the entire time I was just like

But then suddenly, my “You’re saying too many words” alarm went off… and I interjected 

Him:… You could have at least moved further away and

Me: Ok, so there’s no point of being Captain Hindsight now because we’re already here. We’re going to keep it down. And we’ll be gone in the morning.

Him: Right.

Boom. He walked away and he seemed satisfied. We took our already regularly leveled talk down to whispers around the fire. But like 2-3 minutes later, here his ass come AGAIN saying the same exact things. 

Him: ...You guys are gonna wanna be up all night…

It’s like dude, wtf do you want us to do? If you really want us to move, taking down our tent and moving all of our stuff back to the car will be louder than we’re being right now. I mean, this time around, he was REALLY FLEXING NUTS. I mean.. douching to the maximummmmmmmmmmm.

I’m like “Okay, so what do you want us to do because you’re saying too many words and they’re all unnecessary.” His response?

Him: I want the fire out and no noise… blah blah blah

Fine. Fine. Fine. We put the fire out (slick, cause when we got up the next morning, it had actually still been smoking all night… oops). We go into our tent (4 people sleeping in my 2 person tent) with one little flashlight and get ready for what seemed like a slumber party with whispering. We’re in the tent for like 1-2 minutes…

Then out of nowhere our mini slumber party turns terrifying. WE HEAR THREE EXTREMELY LOUD BANGS.

I was scared as fuck. It was loud. Like, gunshot loud. … White guys been shooting shit up for no good reason a lot lately. I’m not trying to be Trayvon Martin’d… like those were the exact thoughts in my head.

Sarah had her flashlight on and we were all like Yo, turn that shit off NOW! We wanted it to be pitch black so that fucking psycho would have a harder time trying to find out tent. It was that fucking scary. 

There was no more whispering after that shit… we were scared as fuck. I was so scared, I couldn’t even sleep. We were all basically silent and awake the entire rest of the night. 

When we got up (notice I didn’t say “woke up”.. to wake, you have to have been sleep, which never happened), he was already gone. His tent was still there and empty. To this day, I regret not taking a shit outside of his tent.

Sarah and I went and got the copy of a copy of a copy of a copy maps that they have (shittiest maps of all time). Malia cooked breakfast (bacon, eggs, and cinnamon raisin toast) and we all decided to do the 12 mile loop, with the campsite being 6 miles in. We were really unprepared… we only had regular backpacks. We could only take what we could carry 6 miles.

Some of our food and water had to stay behind in the cars… and we could only bring 1 sleeping bag, and 1 big blanket. We decided to take turns carrying the tent because it wouldn’t fit into anyone’s backpack.

So, we got started on the trail. Everything went well at first.  We were never really lost but we just didn’t know where we were going at one point.We had shitty maps and the trail signs would change names 3 or 4 times because trails had 3 or 4 different names. Still, we never had to retrace our steps, and we were actually going the right way. We made it to the Nature Center where the woman there had no idea what the hell she was talking about and had to call a ranger to tell Sarah where the rest of the trail was. 

But while we waited to figure all that out, it was nice. We relaxed by the waterfall and I put my feet (which were already hurting) in the nice, cold water. The weather was perfect too.

After our short break, we continued on our way. We almost took the wrong path again, but some nice, old, toothless, country guy with a pack of cigarellos in his shirt pocket pointed us in the right direction. It seemed to take forever to get to the campsite though!!! You get to that point where you pray the campsite is around every corner, because we really had no way of being able to tell how far away it was. Backs, shoulders, ankles… our bodies were WEARY. I was thinking

But finally we made it to the campsite. 

They had really nice campsites too, with an old water pump with well water. We picked out our spot and set-up before we got too tired to move. Then it was marshmallow roasting time. 

We had s’mores and roasted potatoes, bell peppers, onions, and some kinda sausage. It was all delicious BUT… splitting it between 4 other hungry tired women was HARD cause I was definitely starving. 

At night we had some whiskey, talked politics, and gazed at the stars. Our neighboring campers were cool, and it was nice not to be afraid of them.

However, it was freezing! The previous night had been a nice, warm summer night but it was freezing this night, and we only had one sleeping bag and a blanket between the FOUR of us.

We slept on top of my sleeping bag and stretched Malia’s blanket across the four of us. Definitely the most uncomfortable sleep I’ve ever had in my entire life. First of all, I was on the end… so I was literally pulling the cover all night. Half of my body was under the cover and half wasn’t. If it weren’t for Sarah’s cuddles, I would have been an icicle. 

Even while freezing, I was so tired that I did manage to doze off a couple of times. One time I woke up, and my body was aching so badly. I was laying on my side, in spooning position,… but I realized that my knees were at the end of the tent and i could feel everyone else’s feet bunched up down on my calves. MY CALVES. Like, imagine me standing on my knees and then push me over on my side. That’s exactly how I was laying in this tent!

I look up towards the other side of the tent, there’s like 2 feet of space. The blanket was too short and we had all shifted to being scrunched up at one end of the tent. It was so uncomfortable, but I still got better sleep than the night before when I was scared for my life. 

The next day, we had leftover bell pepper, onions, and TWO sausages split 4 ways.. lol.. packed up our stuff and went back on the trail.

I wanted to complete the other 6 miles of the loop, but everyone else wanted to go back the 6 miles we came from. The other way had an 800 feet ascent and descent, and even though my body was hurting, I still really wanted to do it. I don’t like leaving stones unturned and I don’t like avoiding something just cause it’s going to be challenging. It’s a bitch move. But, this is America, majority rules.. no biggie.

So, we went back the way we came. It was a nice, refreshing (cause it was just a little chilly) hike. It took a lot less time. I just tried to enjoy the hike and the crisp air. 

When we made it back to the Nature Center, we saw the guys who had camped near us. One guy from their group had made the hike back to where we had all parked our cars (“Ranger Station”) to get their car. When he came back to the Nature Center, we had the puppy dog eyes READY. Lol. But they were all really nice. They were from Memphis, TN. He happily gave us a ride back to our car and the rest of the guys were okay with waiting longer for him to get back and scoop them.

We got back to our cars and drove to a local bar-b-q joint then hugged and parted ways. 

Kristen, who was moving to Detroit, decided to come spend the night in Louisville to break up the long drive, and besides the fact that we almost got killed by a HUGE, industrial-sized farming tractor that was driving on the back roads in Kentucky (before the tractor came, there was a guy in a pick-up truck waving a orange flag…. BUT WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN!????? apparently that means there’s a big ass tractor that takes up the entire road just behind that hill and you can’t see it but it’s coming your way. get over in a ditch or you may die!), all went well. 

I say it was a successful 3rd Annual Fall camping trip!! 

My Aunt Robin’s 50th Birthday/5 Years Breast Cancer Free Party was great!

We had a lot of fun… plus we got to express our love for Robin, who is really one of the sweetest people. Everyone was coming to the mic to say nice things, and the way you could tell it wasn’t just shmoozing was because people had very similar things to say. If you’re in trouble, she will be the one showing up to your house… making phone calls and checking on you (even when she was sick!)… trying to brighten your day in anyway that she can. She’s just awesome. She has always approached me like an adult, yah know? Like.. when I was little, I’d be like Gross! No.. I don’t want to talk about periods Aunt Robin … but I grew to really appreciate that about her. 

Me and the other nieces sang “My Girl”.. but changed it to “My Aunt” (Melyn has an amazing voice so she lead. Like, her voice will make you jealous. When I was little, I used to be sad at Christmas gatherings when she would sing like Damn, I have no talent!! Lol!)

The family also told funny stories and acted silly like we always do. Then, afterward the party came the after party… all us young cats drank and had herbal refreshments. I had herbal refreshments with my sister for the first time ever. When she found out that I partake.. she was like “That’s like finding out Martha Stewart smokes..”

i loved chicago! 

the only sad thing is, i didn’t get to spend a lot of time there (only 1/2 of friday and 1/2 of saturday). 

in the first place, it was a last minute type of thing. quaniqua texted me like last week saying “why don’t we go to chicago on the weekend of the 18th.” and, i of course said “yes” … (but i always feel like i get suckered into these kinds of trips… where the other person has money so they are low key pressuring me into going on a trip… that’s how i got stuck in johannesburg getting dogged out by a south african taxi cab driver for not having enough cab fare. i’m an adventure whore -_-)

i usually like to do really detailed plans when i travel, but that didn’t really happen this time. 

on a gray friday morning, i hopped in the car with quaniqua.. we picked up megan, a new student to the pan-african studies department, and were on our way to chicago. 

the trip there was pretty boring except for the magnificent wind turbines that littered miles and miles of farm land in indiana. they were so pretty against the sky, which had immediately cleared up as soon as we left louisville. go figure. the streets of northern indiana though….. those need to be repaved! wtf? it felt like we were driving on a dirt road!

anyway, q wanted to avoid the toll booths… and she also missed a turn, so we ended up taking an extended detour through “east chicago, indiana” to get into chicago. when we got back on the highway in chicago, there was so much traffic! it was really annoying to have like… reached your destination, but actually not really! i knew it would be that way because we fucking left so late (for reasons beyond my control… -_-). we arrived in chicago during rush hour!

eventually, we made it across town and dropped megan off at her sister’s apartment. we shared some herbal refreshments and had a shot (megan’s sister works at a liquor store or something… but bad story: she was having a horrible day cause she just caught her boss calling her a “nigger bitch”) then quaniqua and i drove to the hostel we were going to stay at (we didn’t get invited to stay at megan’s sister’s place… although we were waiting on the invitation… -_-). my friend malia had recommended chicago getaway hostel. 

when we got there, the place was obviously nice, but the price wasn’t. we thought it would be $22… but even those beds were actually like $66, and there was only 1 of those left. we were told that we had to get one of the private 2 bed rooms, which was $150. i was pretty pissed off… cause, unlike quaniqua, i have stayed at hostels before and i’m well aware of the amenities i can and cannot expect. for that much, we coulda stayed at a regular hotel. but it was already 6-something in the evening and we didn’t want to spend the little time we had in chicago trying to find another place. so, we just paid. 

it really hurt, considering i didn’t have much money to spend. if it weren’t for david, who gave me some spending money, my trip would have basically ended right here. lol.

anyway, we put our stuff in the room. and got back in the car and went to devon street. some guide i had very briefly looked over, recommended this one place for some authentic indian food, but when we finally found the place, it was a grocery store or something… -_-. so, after walking around, i realized that we should just use urbanspoon to find a nearby restaurant. we ended up going to an indian restaurant called tiffin. q and i were both fucking STARVING. 

i ate my food like it was gonna get up and run off the plate…lol. i don’t know if i was just extremely hungry or if it was actually that good. but, the service was good and i know this because q and i had had herbal refreshments (mary jane and shots of aged ginseng that megan’s sister gave us)… and we were energetically giggling the entire time about random things… and they were still nice to us even though i’m sure we were being annoying. 

after dinner, we met up with megan and her sister… (and it’s sad, cause if you can’t tell, i really don’t remember megan’s sister’s name.. lol) at merkels, a bar near wrigley stadium. there was some kind of trivia game going on but i really wasn’t interested. i had a drink and then we left. 

eventually we went back to megan’s sister’s apartment, had more herbal refreshments, and then caught a cab to exedus lounge, a reggae club. it was fun. it was packed, but not overly so. the music was good too BUT THE DJ… omg… he just keep fucking talking during every song… and also, he would play 1 minute of a song and as soon as you were really getting into it, he’d just cut (no transition) to another song. i hate apple computer djs who have no idea what the fuck they’re doing. 

i was dancing and having a good time but i was way too tired. when the club closed, i was glad. we took a taxi back to megan’s sister’s house… on the way, the taxi cab driver was trying to give us advice on how to find a man. his advice? if you annoy a man by not showing up for dates and calling repeatedly over and over again and he doesn’t mind, then that’s the guy for you…. 

q and i drove back to the hostel, and i fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. 

the next morning, we woke up, checked out of the hostel, and headed south to the dusable museum of african american history. that’s one thing i love about q… she’s into recreational learning, yah know? i got friends that i go hiking with.. i got friends that i smoke with… or shop with.. but, i don’t have many that like to go hear a speaker or go to museums. so, she’s always good for that (she’s also a fucking ill dancer and has been professionally dancing her whole life. when we go clubbing, as soon as she starts dancing, all the men in the entire club flock to her like a moths to a flame. she’s an amazing damn dancer… like, she will make you insecure on the dance floor).

so the dusable museum is named after jean baptiste pointe dusable, the father of chicago. the museum was definitely worth the trip. i had never heard of dusable before and there were many different exhibits. there was “africa speaks” which was all about how there are various ethnic groups in africa. there was also really cool artifacts and a virtual tour of egypt’s pyramids and the sphinx. then, there was an exhibit displaying the history of black people in the armed forces and an amazing art exhibit. 

then, shit got scary. so, they have this exhibit dedicated to harold washington, the first black mayor of chicago. that shit was so scary. they had his office set up with a harold washington life-size figure sitting in the chair and everything. keep in mind, this man is dead now. okay… so, there’s a button near a television that’s hanging in harold washington’s office… so, i pressed the button, thinking the tv is going to play some film cause there are tvs playing films all over the museum… and the fucking harold washington thing comes to life!! and starts talking and moving and shit!!! i took off running! 

lmao. 

like wtf? don’t have secret animatronic shit around. that shit scary. i was expecting a museum. i wasn’t in my chuckie cheese mode! lol.

yeah, so i don’t know a damn thing about harold washington. i left that area and headed downstairs to the other exhibits. the best exhibit to me was the “word, shout, song” exhibit about the research of lorenzo dow turner. he was a researcher who found language and song links between west african ethnic groups and black people in the diaspora. that’s amazing stuff!… to think that people who had been through HELL still.. generation after generation.. held onto whatever pieces of their homeland culture that they could… that’s crazy. and it made me think about this slave lullaby that i came across in the black book that was similar to this lullaby my grandmother “la” (laura, r.i.p.) sang to my sister (who was ALWAYS crying and was an ass of a baby.. lol). the songs begin with…

go to sleep little baby

when you wake, i’ll give ya apiece of cake…

just maybe she had heard it from her mom.. and she had heard it from her mom.. and so on.

i hope so cause that’s cool to me.

after dropping a few dollars in the gift shop, we met up with megan at gino’s east for some delicious deep dish pizza! the deep dish takes like 45 minutes to bake though, so beware. i usually don’t eat meat on my pizza (i just don’t like it.), but we were on a time budget and I wanted to save time and just get one pizza for us all. so, we ordered a deep dish pepperoni. it was sooo damn delicious. the pepperoni wasn’t so spicy… it was subtle and a little like ham. the sauce was tomatoey and delicious. THE CRUST…. crispy and thick. it was just so incredible. as hungry as i was, i could only eat one slice though. if this was woman vs. food.. food won fo sho. lol

after such a tasty meal, we walked the magnificent mile, which is kinda like soho in new york. i really wanted to just go to h&m, cause we don’t have one in louisville. but, i was disappointed. i couldn’t find any unique pieces that were worth buying. i walked away with only black tights and black flats (total: $30 fukin dollars for tights and shoes! fucking ridiculous.).

and i lifted a basic, orange dress….. someone else had already pulled the tag off!!! come on..?.. it was just laying there……

… so, after shopping, we went to the navy pier (parking was fucking $25!).. it’s on lake michigan and there are rides, including a sweet ferris wheel, and there’s lots of places to eat and you can ride a boat around lake michigan. 

since it was already like 6pm, we only spent a short time here. i did manage to get a hot dog but it was from this really corny looking chain place called america’s dog. i got the chicago dog though and it was really good. i liked it, especially the bun. 

chicago’s pizza was pretty delicious… but i dunno if it beats a new york slice (it’s just so cheap and delicious)… and detroit’s hot dogs are beating both city’s hot dogs … fo sho.  of course, all those cities are better than all the places i’ve lived combined so.. no shade. 

i loved chicago. it suited me well. there was so many people on bikes. and so many nationalities and so much food. there were just so many options. i loved it. i didn’t get any of that murder capital of the U.S. vibe.. AT ALL. i really needed to stay there for more days though. i had such a touristy experience. all i saw was a really beautiful big city by a big blue lake. and it was fucking 75 degrees both days. it was so nice.

the only shit was the TRAFFIC.. omg, it was ridiculous almost always. and, i guess, part of it was that it was the air and water show.. and everyone was out watching it (including us. it was crazy… planes flying so close together doing synchronized stunts!). but the traffic was awful. the parking was awful. and, if i go back, i’m FO SHO not trying to drive a car around. it wasted too much time and money.

regardless, i think i’d like to live there some day. especially with the work i do. i got some “violence reduction” experience now.. so maybe there’s some projects i can help work on there.

i’m looking at school options there right now.

maybe i’ll move to chicago and be the next barack obama!! ha! 

the drive back home was crazy! i was high as fuck.. and it was dark and everyone else was sleep. and those indiana roads are shitty. it was scary. and those wind mills… at night, they have these flashing red lights on them. we were listening to “runaway“ and the lights were hitting the beats.. it was cool and eerie at the same time. 

Weekend in Chattanooga pictures