To Suffer But Not To Suffer - draft from 2009

Always doing things the hard way
To prefer simplicity over luxury
To be hungry and broke
But full of love
Does this make you a saint?
You choose to suffer?

Did You Ever Wonder? Draft from 5/29/09

I've never written a proper introduction as to who I am, if you care...
I am from Peoria, born and raised.  The oldest of ten children.  I didn't go to public school, I was home schooled or home educated as my mother would say.  My parents wanted to be in control of our education.

Strangness of things...Draft from 5-17-09

I was reading a friends blog and found out someone I had met had died last year...I started crying, it was so disturbing...he was 26...died at home...

I looked up his obituary, he seemed kind of sad in the picture...

When I met him, he was

Life - 08/2009

I was going through old drafts:

Everyday it seems has been an adventure for me. I've hung out with at least one or two or a group of people that I knew but didn't know very well. I have often been afraid to really get to know people

I decided to start this blog back up.  I usually post into the void on Twitter.  I avoid posting anything of my mind so on Facebook.  Sometimes I do on Instagram. Snapchat makes for good verbal diarrhea.

I feel that I have quite a bit to say.  I also want to gain a wider audience.  I'd like to practice writing more.

I don't think I'm very good at writing.  I'm not sure what makes a good writer.  I didn't take literate in college.  You might say one does not need to take a college class on interpreting literature, however, my brain works better when I am given tools and how to use them. 

I used to read a lot of Chris Hedges and I got to the point of being able to write like him. I think his writing voice appealed to me.  He refers to mythology and of course non-violent activists in a lot of his writings. Regardless of the controversy surrounding him which I in no way mitigate, I did enjoy his writings.

When writing, one has to find their voice. That is something I want to find.

I've been reading Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin.  I finished Giovanni's Room prior.  

Giovanni's Room had a smooth fast rhythm the chapter in.  Then it starts to kind of lose rhythm.  But it is a very emotionally charged and heart wrenching story.  It seriously affected me reading it.  I had to put it down often.  It took me a couple of months to finish.  There was so much to take in.  I didn't want it to end.  I like stories that touch you to your core to the point of needing to back off from it.  Stories about relationships do that to me.  

Go Tell it On The Mountain is moreso James Baldwin's voice when talking live.  It is very choppy and it is as a declaration or coming of declarations and revelations.  James Baldwin, I do feel his writing was before his time.  I can't imagine being a Black Gay Man in the time of Segregation.  He had a drive to write and educate on civil rights.  He was a bright shining star of African Americans.

Being a talented African American, that is a post I'd like to hit on later.