Slow

Just don't look myself in the eyes. I just have to put this one cream on my face and then I don't have to look in the mirror until I do my hair. I just have to keep it together to put on this one cream. Because if I see myself start to cry, if I even just see my face right now, I'm done for. It's all over. I'll be a blubbering mess. Thank the gods today is not a day where I have any reason to wear makeup.

A friend suggested I watch this amazing short film, Slow, directed by Darius Clark Monroe. To whittle it down would be to do it an injustice, but, as with anything that has to do with black sexuality or gay sexuality or sexually tense situations, I couldn't help but think of you. I watched all of Mr. Monroe's short films that were available on vimeo and I had to fight back thinking about you because I knew I'd lose it if I let myself think about how I couldn't share this with you, that I couldn't share anything with you again.

I wonder what you'd think of the new cover of "99 Problems." Tribute or rip-off or somewhere in the middle?

One of the blogs I read, Racialicious, is doing an online book club of Octavia Butler books. I don't know if you ever read any of her books and I know you were never really a scifi fan, but I'd give anything to buy double copies of everything, one for me and one for you, so we could read along with these other men and women all over the world.

I want to watch Game of Thrones or True Blood with you and talk for hours about race, sexuality, class, ownership, and anything else that comes up.

I know you'd understand better than many how it feels to worry about living up to potential, pressure to make good on the hard work that others did for you to be where you are, even if it's only pressure from yourself, when you feel like you're running in quicksand. I wish I could talk to you. Wish I could hear you tell me that I don't have to live up to anything. That I don't have to live a certain way because they can't anymore, those people I've lost, because you can't. I should live up to what I can do at any given moment because I owe it to myself. Hell, you'd probably offer me a toke and tell me to just chill, worry about it tomorrow, not to stress about it right now. But I wish I could hear that from you. Girl, you have no idea how much I miss you. Today and everyday.

I was changed for good and for the better by knowing you. If I wasn't an incredible pain in the ass on equality issues before, I definitely am now, which I think is better. Being around you made me realize how incomplete my education was and you made me want to keep filling in the gaps. You have probably been the only female who's helped me feel more alright with being turned on by "the wrong" thing. You knew I was totally in love with you but, thankfully, you never made a big deal out of it.

I'm sure this isn't the last time I'll write to you here, but it's the first time I've written in a long while and that's something. Even if my face is all red and puffy, my nose is dripping and I'm completely unsuitable looking to leave the house. Thank you, Miss Kee. I miss you terribly.