The Upside of Urkel

Posted in Another Version of Success, BOYS, Butterflies, Foolproof, Independence Day, My Self, Sex and the Single Girl, The Pitfalls of Being a Good Girl by Kel Daroe

The past two months, it’s been hard to breathe. Between working 6 days a week, trying to finish up a project at Job 1 and start a project at Job 2, I have all but abandoned faithful friends and confidants. I knew I couldn’t make it up to them individually, so I planned a picnic.

It didn’t take long for us to catch up. I love them; they love me. The leaves, turning colors anywhere from ruby-red to burnished gold, floated to our feet. I’m sure people were talking, but my soul sat in silence, content to just be.

And then it started…

“Kelly, so tell us about your boyfriend.”

It’s an innocuous query from a bunch of undersexed and overbrained New York career women, but it snapped me out of the dream-like space I was inhabiting. I answered questions in clipped phrases, sighs, and facial expressions not closely approximating a smile.

My friends were shocked. My boyfriend is, without a shadow of a doubt, better than the last one and anyone who has crossed my path in a number of years. We went foraging for 5 hours in Prospect Park, then cooked dinner with the greens we collected. We talk about retirement. We bike through neighborhoods to find thrift stores. He twists my hair. HE TWISTS MY HAIR!

So why am I so meh whenever someone asks about him?

Because I am dating Steve Urkel.

Do I make you swoon?

Seriously. Gap-in-teeth-questionable-fashion-sense-glasses-from-two-decades-ago Steve Urkel.

I have been dating for about a thousand years. For most of that time, I went out with someone because of charisma, sexitude, or swagger. It’s hard to care about someone’s values when you are drunk making out with them on the top of a Manhattan hotel bar. Chemistry is not connectivity. When I look at anyone’s stable relationship that I admire (I can count about 3), they all say the same thing– passion and chemistry don’t sustain you.

I guess my friends’ point is that it should be there at least at the beginning? Where is that set in stone? No, I don’t daydream about him. I don’t call him obsessively. We do not makeout on rooftops.

But when I am sad, he takes kisses my forehead and takes my hand. Even when he works more than me, he is always concerned that I am getting enough rest. He takes out the trash, walks the dog, fixes chairs, and washes the dishes. I never ask him to.

He doesn’t give me butterflies.

But there is truly no other place that I’d rather be.

TV Tokens? Not so much.

About 10 years ago, I wanted to be a historian. My subjects of choice were African-American gender history, LGBT history, and the history of reproductive medicine. My expertise allowed me to read old Ebony magazines, first-hand accounts of underage hustlers in Time Square, and protocols for testing early contraceptives on Blacks and Hispanics to find out if it was suitable for whites. A prospective career writing about sex and drugs helped me get through the dreary, dusty environment of my suburban elitist school.

Reading microfiche in the library’s basement I was enamored with early and mid-twentieth century Jet magazines. I skimmed past the advertisements for skin lighteners and hair pomade and always went to the Jet Firsts. Each week the Jet Firsts mentioned some woman of color who was blazing the trails in law, science, academia, politics, or celebrity. They served as beacons of hope during the South’s Jim Crow, the North’s smothering urban poverty, and the disillusionment that followed.

Today, it doesn’t make sense to have the Jet Firsts. Women of all persuasions are seen everywhere.

Except for on television!

During the past decade I have looked for a representation of myself. All I could come by was Meredith Grey and Carrie Bradshaw. I intimately understand Meredith’s neurosis or Carrie Bradshaw’s obsession with shoes, but it doesn’t really reflect my life. The best I have is Living Single’s Khadijah James of 1993 on YouTube.

This season, however, is different. I turn on the tv and I see myself! Not just in terms of color, but in terms of character. Scandal’s Kerry Washington is an driven bitch who makes tough calls, leads by example, and has ill-advised sexual relationships with unavailable white men. WE’RE PRACTICALLY TWINS. The Mindy Project’s Mindy Kaling is a woman with big thighs working in the medical field and just trying to keep her head up and believe in love after about a million bad dates. HELLO MIRROR!

My excitement about these shows makes me equally ecstatic and sad. A black woman hasn’t headed a drama since Diahann Carol did in the 70s. I have NEVER seen a non-thin brown woman head ANYTHING EVER on regular broadcast tv.

It’s 2012. And we still have Jet Firsts.

My only hope is that I can get to a Jet Fifth by the time I’m 50. Until then I will be doing my brown girl duty…aka siting on my ass and laughing at the shenanigans of a person who looks like me.

Mindy, I’m rooting for you girl!

18Sep2012

Identity Crisis

Posted in Another Version of Success, Butterflies, My Body, My Self, Sex and the Single Girl by Kel Daroe

I usually have no problem talking about the worst parts of myself. I grew up in a society that depends on familial secrecy to uphold a cultural facade, and long ago I decided not to live in an all-black rerun of Dallas. Every time I write a blog post, I star in my own episode of Iyanla Fix My Life where I am both the host and guest. Sharing my experiences along with brash comedy and intellectual insights is the essence of this blog. As a result I have made friends, enemies, and cleared up misconceptions. All because I am honest.

I sleep well.

So, I’m pretty baffled that I have had a major life change for the past few weeks that is very hard to put into words. I have sat at my computer about 11 times wondering what I would say and how people would judge me. Writing about what’s going on in my uterus, my rape, and my habitual romantic pursuit of underachievers was a cake-walk in comparison. Even now, my palms are sweating as my brain is telling my legs to get up and watch yet another rerun of Criminal Minds.

So, here goes:

I have a boyfriend. Phew! I said it.

[Pause]

Yep, that’s it. That is the thing I have been coming to grips with over the last 3 weeks. I have only recently told my best of friends. Recently as in 2 days ago.

For so long being single was a part of my identity. Along with being an Ivy Leaguer, a woman, a Negro, and Brooklynite. A sizeable part of my life centers on socializing and talking with other fabulous women on topics like “Will I ever have sex again?!?” We wore our angst the same way I would my favorite purse: loud and proud. I would feel naked without my purse! And I feel naked every time I realize I have to tear down the emotional walls that I have erected in the name of self-sufficiency and ambition.

I look so much better in clothes.

12Sep2012

The Down Side to Having a Dream

Posted in Uncategorized by Kel Daroe

In the last 2 weeks I have gotten my dreams back. This is big news for a chronic insomniac with racing thoughts. Since forever I have tried to quiet my mind, tossed and turned, gotten up to pee (or snack), and awoken agitated and misaligned. I couldn’t remember what I ate for dinner, let alone what I dreamt.

Recently I have been getting glimpses of what my mind does when I am not awake. Some dreams are fantastical, some mundane. They come to me suddenly when I am taking my time getting ready. I sit and try to recall, smiling as they vanish faster than they arrived.

The bait-and-switch is something the dreams that I craft in consciousness do as well. I am always restless. If you ask me why, I will give you a list of things that, although I am sometimes overwhelmed, do not exhaust me. After recounting the joy I found in remembering my dreams while sleeping, the reason my total life has restless leg syndrome was quite apparent.

I’m restless because I no longer dream IN LIFE.

How Did I Get Here?

Most days are the same. Wake up too late. Walk the dog. Throw something on. Go to work. Come Home. Walk the dog. Frankly, I could manage my life in my sleep. I’m not complaining. I am amazingly lucky and blessed. I am a hard worker. My hard work has gotten me where I am today.

The problem is, it’s not where I want to be. It isn’t even the next county over.

I wanted the life no one with my background is supposed to want. Living in the East Village, hiding out from the landlord, creating writing and hustling until I became Mindy Kaling. Or at least one of Mindy Kaling’s writing staff.

In the meantime, I observe my friends who have spent the last 7 years in abject poverty in pursuit of their creative dreams are beginning to reap the rewards. They do not have 401ks and they work like dogs, but when I see them they smile the largest, most genuine smiles I have seen in my life.

I want to smile those smiles.

You know, the smiles I smile in my dreams.

27Aug2012

Papa Don’t Preach

Posted in Another Version of Success, My Body, My Self, Papa Don't Preach, Sex and the Single Girl, She Works Hard For The Money by Kel Daroe

At least once a day I hear someone reference the War on Women. 2012 has been a particularly difficult year to have a vagina. Wanting affordable access to family planning makes us sluts. Not wanting to be mothers until we are ready means we are going to hell. And don’t even get me started on the scientific “facts” that “prove” you can’t get knocked up from rape.

The irony isn’t lost on me that most of the people making these kinds of statements into a microphone are old, rich, white men. One of my best friends is a very Christian conservative. We greatly disagree on a woman’s right to choose. But even she concedes that we live in a country that doesn’t support motherhood (aka paid maternity leave, affordable day care, access to decent prenatal care for everybody) in comparison to other developed nations.

It doesn’t help that while the nation is waging a war against my body, SO AM I. For the past five years I have tried a variety of remedies to make my womb SIT DOWN and SHUT UP. From the cysts, to the pain, to the bloating, to the side effects, something always seems to be amiss. There is no perfect solution. I don’t want anything implanted in me like I’m a Russian spy. The Nuvaring scares the hell out of me. And the patch is a pinky tan color that just screams I WAS MADE SOLELY FOR WHITE PEOPLE. They can make a clear nicotine patch for smokers, but I’m stuck with this piece of shit:

Inevitably I gave up the search and went on the pill like everyone else. Except something is wrong with that too. I never take it at the same time. Sometimes I forget. And when I take it, it’s a daily depressing reminder that I’m not in a relationship. Yay!

After talking with my doctor and my OBGYN friends about my options, it was glaringly obvious what I should do.

Get an IUD.

Mom, if you are reading this, I promise you that IUDs have changed since the 70s and I’m not going to die from an unheard of infection. Also, the Surgeon General says that tampons are ok. Thanks! Love you.

It seems completely counterintuitive to stick something into your uterus so nothing will stick in your uterus. And the price tag doesn’t help. Basically, it’s like sticking a Marc by Marc Jacobs purse up your pussy. A Marc by Marc Jacobs purse that lasts for 5 years only. Did I get ripped off? It is what it is.

Today as I laid on my back spread eagle, I knew I was making the right decision. I don’t want a baby right now. No other method works for me. It’s actually cheaper for the average user once you add up 60 copayments for bcp and Plan B.

As I exited the doctor’s office, I felt crampy yet confident!

And then I started to cry.

WTF? I looked down at the little card the nurse had given me.

Next replacement: August 27, 2017.

2017. 2017! I will be fucking 34 years old.

That card was concrete evidence that the life I pictured for myself is completely not going to happen. I will not be the 30 year old mother of 2 living in a 3 story house who works even though she doesn’t have to because her amazingly attractive husband brings home the bacon. I will be the 30 year old who is thinking about having roommates again because she can’t manage to pay off her student loan on an artist/public servant salary. I will be the 31 year old woman who still wouldn’t want to get pregnant even if she met the perfect man so she won’t have to depend on someone else 100%, just in case things don’t work out.

I mourn the vision I had of myself. There’s just a wide discrepancy between who I thought I would be and who I am. I knew I had those feelings when it came to my career, but not when it came to my cunt.

I can’t blame Paul Ryan for the War on Women that I have within myself. Really it’s the War on Woman, because the rules in my head apply to me alone. The war that expects me to do everything, all at once, like yesterday. Today I made the right decision. I want to live a healthy life without constantly thinking about my reproductive organs and how they could ruin my life.

But until my IUD can do for my worry what it is doing for my womb (preventing unwanted things from sticking) I will be stuck with that image of something I have failed to become.

Even though I’m not even sure if I ever really, truly wanted it in the first place.

17Aug2012

The Depression Era

Posted in I Feel Like Death, My Body, My Self, The Depression Era by Kel Daroe

Only Duke Ellington and John Coltrane know how I feel. It’s Friday night, the city is jumping for one of the last weekends of summer.

And I am sitting at home, half-dressed, in a sentimental mood.

I have suffered from depression for about 15 years, but each time I feel like this, it comes as a complete shock and surprise. Like me, my depression has morphed over time. Gone are the crying jags, horrendous decisions, and incessant negative though patterns of my youth. They left with biking shorts, slap bracelets, platform tennis shoes, and the Spice Girls.

Now, again like me, it’s more mature. There is no crying, just a pervasive melancholia that you can smell if you get a little too close. I decline engagements in favor of late nights not sleeping, listening to blues and jazz. One too many glasses of wine are my only company. It is quiet and small and easy to disregard. So I disregard it.

And then suddenly I have 2 days in a week that I cannot get out of bed. I don’t feel emotional, just overwhelmingly fatigued. Like it’s too much energy to call my grandmother or brush my teeth.

I have no choice but to stop. I always feel like this for a reason. I spent the last 6 weeks hustling for a better job, apartment, body, and life. I didn’t take time to breathe because I was so busy making plans. Work. Negotiate. Write. Gym. Walk the Brooklyn Bridge. Walk Bernie. Write Some More. Make Plans. Pass Out. I didn’t take the time to breathe.

My body decided to take a time out for me.

Depression and exhaustion are not easy. I want to feel better, but I can’t. Not right now. Now my body needs love. Vegetables, rest, good books, and soft voices of support. I’m sorry. I can’t go to a movie. I can’t listen. I can’t force a smile. Not even for my friends.

Unless they are John or Miles or Ella or Sara or Billie or Duke.

They always help me out the sentimental mood.

10Aug2012

My Thoughts on the Olympics This Week

Posted in Olympics by Kel Daroe

Me: If I wanted to see a bunch of Jamaican men run after the sound of a gunshot, I could just go to Crown Heights.

[PAUSE]

The Bestie: Or Jamaica. As in Queens.

Kelly's Belly

Progress is precarious.