Vulnerability

Posted on February 2, 2026 by reginadma

“I’m not going to hide from what’s true just because it hurts.” —Toni Morrison

Amygdala lovefeast

Feeling vulnerable, feeling open to harm, to attack, to criticism, isn’t something many of us delight in. Certainly, our very old, very loving amygdala is present, ready and prepared to respond to any perceived threat well before we are physically aware there is a threat. Our very old, very loving amygdala doesn’t distinguish physical harm from emotional harm, or even discomfort. That is where we come in, we have the ability to distinguish, we have the ability to create patterns our amygdala can distinguish and understand so we’re not unnecessarily in flight, fight, freeze or fawn mode.

But but for real

Before I say another word, I am compelled to share a learned pet peeve of mine. When I was coming up through learning how to give presentations, I learned about a common pitfall people often set for themselves. Right at the beginning of their talk, people will take away their own credibility and ask the audience to stop listening to them or to question the validity of what they are saying. You may have heard someone say, “I’m not an expert, but…” It happens often. If you haven’t noticed, be on the lookout, tell me if you come across an example in the wild. Now, when I hear people say that, I don’t stop listening to them, and I don’t invalidate what they are trying to say. More, I want to help them rewrite what they want to say*.

Yet, there is a specific phrase, adjacent to “I’m not an expert, but,” that I do think is important for people to say and I am going to say here: “I’m not a doctor. I’m not a clinician. I’m not a therapist.” Everything I say is either my opinion based on my life—this whole photo writing project as I mentioned is based on my experiences. And, I am a huge intellectual nerd, so I will offer lots of resources from people who are doctors, clinicians etc. But I’m not a trained or licensed professional.

I mention not being something because in talking about our very old, very loving amygdala’s role to keep us safe, many, many people are in actual harm’s way. They are in very terrible home and life situations and the resources they need should come from professionally trained people. I mentioned in my piece, Anger, when my sister felt herself reaching a breaking point, she didn’t turn to yoga or stretching, she didn’t turn to knitting or hiking, she didn’t turn to her trusted girlfriends and she didn’t turn to me. She turned to a trained licensed therapist, and that was the absolute right person to help her. I tear up thinking how grateful I am to my sister and to the professionals she sought support from. And it is with peace and love that I manifest to those who are in harm’s way, to tarry to safe ground; you deserve safety.

I almost always take the invitation to breathe when it is offered

I definitely invite all of us to take those in breaths through the nose, pause at the top and let the breath out through the mouth. Even now, when I look back at the moving pictures of my sister and me 30+, 20+ years ago in specific scenes of ick, I tense up. I shallow breath. Even now, in writing this, I’m feeling a lot, even though I’ve written and talked about my sister’s decision to seek a therapist a lot. The invitation to breathe for a second is for me, too. But, I know I am okay, I am safe.

Getting and being vulnerable

You Talk About Race Too much came from my desire to do more. I’m busy, so are you. That is not going away for me anytime soon. I like being busy and how I’m busy is important to me. And, I want to offer to everyone reading some of how I came to a place right now of being open to do more when I already do so much. In my writing Anger, I pulled out the tarot card of emotions and specifically on that card, was anger. A new tarot card I’ve pulled for this conversation is Vulnerability, and vulnerability is its own card. 

Being vulnerable is deeply, deeply uncomfortable, and again, our very old, our very loving amygdala is going to protect us against things scary and vulnerable. We have the opportunity to work with our very old, very loving amygdala to let our brain know, to let us know we are safe, we are just uncomfortable. And being uncomfortable, experiencing discomfort, is survivable. It is. I would say, maybe not airtight, but if we find ourselves purely uncomfortable, we’re probably physically safe.

But we have to work with ourselves to remind ourselves that when we are uncomfortable, we are physically safe. We have to send the message to our very old, very loving amygdala that we are physically safe so we can also know we are spiritually safe. And that message channel needs a clear pathway in order to signal effectively. When we find ourselves in places of discomfort, we have to message to ourselves often, even within a short period of time because for a lot of different reasons, sometimes the travel pace of the message we are physically safe is s l o w.

Come Correct

And as I said in Anger, we also have to come correct. To be vulnerable, to be open and exposed means we lay our weapons of defensiveness and barriers and excuses down, even if for 30 seconds, breathing the whole time (or your practice of choice): in for a count of 4, hold that precious breath for 7 whole seconds and slowly let that breath out through your mouth for 8 seconds**. By repeating this breath, and, for the breath to transport you to a place of feeling safe, just be patient with yourself and don’t rush. Believe in the breathing. Actually count. Actually be in the moment of discomfort, of vulnerability. By repeating this breath, you signal to your brain—to your very old, very loving amygdala who lives at the base of your brain, that you are physically safe. And when you are physically safe, you can be spiritually safe, and when you are physically and spiritually safe, you can focus on listening to hear and listening to understand and listening to learn new and different. And overcoming discomfort to relearn, to lengthen empathy, to deepen and strengthen resiliency, or whatever it is that you are trying to accomplish. We will be moved out of and away from the same old same old that isn’t serving us, and we will navigate to a new place that feels more authentic. And this practice grows our power. And when we have power, we can do more.

*I am an Ambassador to the incredible organization, The OpEd Project. The OpEd Project works to support more representation in writing and specifically writing op-eds, which to this day are overwhelmingly pitched and published by white men. As an Ambassador, I can offer scholarships to people to attend a 2-day virtual workshop on writing op-eds. Let me know if you are interested. 

**Breath breathing has a lot of variations, in breath through the nose for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds at the top, and out breath through the mouth for 8 seconds is one example. A 4-4-4 breath is another. There are breath exercises that are all nose breathing. There are workshops that you can attend online and maybe even irl about breathing. What a gift!

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Anger

Posted on February 1, 2026 by reginadma

“I believe in anger. Anger’s like fire, it can burn out all the dross and leave some positive things.”

—Maya Angelou*

Pulling the anger card

In my introduction to You Talk About Race Too Much, I note the project came into focus because of my many experiences, current lived reality, reflections and emotions among other considerations. And within those considerations that allowed the project to be born, I pull out, right now, the tarot card emotions. And specifically, on that tarot card of emotions, is anger. Anger is important to me, distilled, anger motivates me and I write about anger often.

I began to work intentionally on regulating myself so that I can show up as bright as I’m supposed to be for my sister and my niece. They were my first and only motivating factor to “come correct.” And I have my sister to thank for putting me onto this mind health journey. My sister was 27 years old when she understood that to survive, she would need to seek a therapist to help her make sense of her past, her present and the mismatch she was experiencing that was causing disruption in her life. My sister spoke to me about her journey, and she speaks freely to others about how therapy saved her life. I remain so proud of her for taking control of her life course, and putting herself on a path more authentic and safe. Through her work, I felt compelled, obligated and encouraged to do the same for my journey, so I could be better for her and for my niece.

So many years later and I am in the grove of who I am. I am who I am supposed to be at my resting state, and I now have such strength to continue on my journey.

Anger is here to stay

I write about anger a lot because no matter where people are at in their journey, no matter how long or how short their emotional range, anger is something that every person feels. And back when I was coming up through, anger had such a bad wrap. It was an emotion to tamp down, to feel anger meant that you were doing something wrong and to do something correct meant the absence of anger. And, as I’ve been on my journey, as more therapists and sociologists and GenXers and Black women have added into the conversation about anger, the emotion has been able to be seen in new ways that were not accessible to me when I was younger.

Being unstoppable

Now that I am healthy and healthier, now that I am regulated and regulating, now that my life’s purpose has come into spiritual focus, I appreciate my anger. And through my work, I’ve been able to understand my anger, my origin anger and my current internal anger and external anger. I don’t shy from saying I have anger, I don’t ignore its existence. I now have the training to use my anger like I use my critical thinking skills, my interpersonal skills, and my other emotions: to propel me, to motivate me, and to create.

The 2015 family comedy “Inside Out,” and 2024 sequel “Inside Out 2,” shows the character of Anger in lovable and relatable scenarios. And we also see the power of Anger when he uses his forces for collaboration and for good. Anger makes good points and Anger is deeply, deeply protective. I have come to understand my anger in its many forms, and that anger is not going anywhere. But, over years and years and years, I have built a relationship with my anger so anger can work with me…most of the time. I’m still human. And more often than not, anger isn’t the first tool I turn to, and rarely is the main character. More often than not, anger is often accompanied by many other emotions.

Darling, I am here for you

I provide my anger as background because it is a theme I write about a lot and I do not shy away from talking about it. I have anger, but I’m not angry. As a human, you experience anger, too. And, a lot of what I will offer through this photo writing project, anger is woven into the pieces. Not always, not always the main character, but anger is there.

And, I invite everyone reading to reflect on some questions that I find deeply fascinating. What is your past relationship with anger? What were you taught about anger, and what did you learn about anger? What is your comfortability talking about your anger? How has anger shown up in your life to keep you safe, to keep you avoidant, to fuck up your shit? What is your current relationship with anger and do you like it? What would you like your current relationship with anger to be? What do you do when you are angry? Please let me know what you would like me to know. Of the 6 Mantras of True Love, the first Mantra reminds us, “Darling, I am here for you.”

* Leave it to Maya Angelou to use the word dross. As a lover of words, intellectual, and as an older person, I had never heard of this word before…ever. I turned to my PhD-touting husband and read this quote and he said, “no one knows that word.”

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Introducing: You Talk About Race Too Much—a photo writing project

Posted on January 30, 2026 by reginadma

Too little

A section of a recent interview of writer, sociologist and MacArthur Fellow, Tessie McMillan Cotton, from my viewpoint, went viral. I’ll paraphrase the clip of the interview. Professor McMillan Cotton noted that many people are feeling fatigued about the state of the world, the state of their country, the state of their state, the state of their neighborhood. They are tired. And she offered, for some, the reason they are so tired isn’t  because they are doing too much, but because they are doing too little. Doom scrolling and passive observation can get our amygdala fired up into fight, flight, freeze, fawn mode, fill our bodies with cortisol and make our bodies feel run down, after having done…nothing. Many people are indeed not doing much to contribute to making the world a better place, and have swapped meaningful action with ersatz screentime and are suffering from fatigue with nothing to show for it. Professor McMillan Cotton suggests for those specifically suffering from that kind of tiredness and fatigue, the answer is to actually be involved: call elected officials, volunteer in the areas that are making you feel the worst—hunger, homelessness, if you are afraid for children, become a mentor or teach kids how to read. By taking action, you have the opportunity to shift from passive malaise to purpose; to being needed, to realize a path you can take to make change.

Do More

As a lifelong social justice activist and volunteer, I agree. I actually don’t think I could agree more. But I will try. I will try to agree more by doing more myself. And, in doing more, I commit to encouraging those around me, those of you reading my work, who want to do something and for those who are already doing more, to do more. To your degree; always, and without excuses and without excoriation of what you have or have not done already. See, I already do a lot, and I know I do a lot. I say that without ego and I say it without faux humility and I say it without working to shame anyone. People can shame themselves without my help. Shame and excoriation wastes time, and this Capricorn from New England does not like to waste time. Without baggage, as of late, I have felt I can and want to do more, and maybe you do, too. We get to decide for ourselves.

And…I love a good journey. I love a good story. I love exploring and learning. I love art in all forms. And I’m an extra-extravert. So what that means is, in my pursuit to do more, I make an invitation to all of you to actively participate with me. Pick up anything from me I am offering that you need or want. Put down some things for me to pick up and weave, stamp, adhere, cure, sew and sow into this pursuit, this journey offering and invitation.

Introducing a writing photo project

Over the course of many months, an idea in my mind’s eye began to take shape, coming into focus because of moments in my life: Professor McMillan Cotton’s words, my recent trip to the Legacy Sites in Montgomery, the upcoming commemorative Black and Women’s History months, reflections of my childhood and coming of age years, my friendships, my existing writing, my anger and power that I’ve applied to my current lived moment and the hardships that are around all of us. I’m excited to share this idea with you; an idea that has evolved into a full photo writing project. And through this project, I’m excited to be tired; for you to be tired because you’ve taken action, or because you’ve taken more action.

For my photo writing project, over the course of February, each day I am going to post across social media platforms. You can find these posts on my personal blog, my personal instagram (in private mode) and I am working closely with Food Recovery Network to provide a weekly FRN-focused synopsis of the posts that most relate to our vision to recover surplus food to feed everyone who is hungry on my FRN Substack.

My photo-writing project is titled You Talk About Race Too Much, and it’s an offering to you.

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I need your help to foster equity

Posted on December 27, 2021 by reginadma

Dear friends,

I hope you are well, safe, healthy, feeling loved and in love. I hope 2021 has brought many gems to you and yours. I also hope that the hardships we’ve all faced this year and in 2020 (remember that year?) have produced pearls of wisdom, experience and remembrance for you.

That’s a lot of hope that I want to express to you in the form of a big, virtual hug wrapped in the sparkly aspiration to see you very soon.

I’m writing today to celebrate my birthday! Woo Capricorns! And in full transparency, to ask you to make a financial contribution to my nonprofit, Food Recovery Network. I wanted to ask each of you to personally shape the equity practice I have worked hard to foster at FRN by becoming a recurring monthly donor to this organization that means so much to me. The amount can be whatever makes sense to you. My goal is to have enough recurring monthly donors to equal $1,000 per month in contributions. I can tell you exactly how that will help walk in equity with me and make a huge difference for FRN.

First, let me tell you a little about Food Recovery Network

At FRN, we are committed to building a more equitable and sustainable food system. We were founded to address the alarming reality that more than 40% of the food produced in the US each year goes to waste, while nearly 42 million people face food insecurity. Through a simple yet effective student-driven model, we harness the energy of young people across the country to redirect thousands of pounds of perfectly good food from landfills and into the hands of those who need it most. Since our founding in 2011, FRN has evolved into the largest student-driven movement against food waste and hunger, with chapters on nearly 200 campuses across 45 states and the District of Columbia. To date, we have recovered more than 5.3 million pounds of food for our neighbors in need. That is more than 4.4 million meals to those experiencing homelessness, veterans, parents and their children, and like too many, those who are trying to recover because of the job loss or pay for medical expenses and those who are working and working hard, and just cannot consistently afford food. These are our loved ones, our neighbors, and honestly, at any one moment, with any one financial setback, this could be us.

Our FRN students deliver food to those in need literally in all conditions. I’m honored to work with them.

A little about me as it relates to FRN

My career has been in the nonprofit sector and I have been the Executive Director of FRN for 6 years now and I am committed to continuing to work within the unique contributions of FRN to support the economic security of the 42 million people who are needlessly experiencing hunger, and I want to ask that you help me.

Speaking at our last national conference

By providing the food that people deserve, I see that action as a bridge, a ladder, to other areas of work we can also engage in together to walk in equity and eliminate poverty. I also know that feels like a big task. It is. But, the key is, we designed poverty. It’s not naturally occurring. And we can tackle poverty one area of work together at a time.

Let me tell you more about why supporting FRN matters within equity:

  • Spiritually, none of us want to see fellow humans suffer, and yet, we know that so many people who are working hard each day are suffering. Your support helps us today to provide meals to those individuals. Your support helps FRN contribute to structurally changing a system that continually keeps so many people working hard in dire straits. I’ve been poor, I was poor for decades, and we can unpack this statement through various conversations but let me sum up for everyone what it feels like to be poor: it is deeply troubling, stressful, worrisome and it sucks.
  • Physically, the $12,000 a year I hope to raise through my birthday campaign will help me to pay for part of the FRN employer paid health insurance for my team. My team is dedicated to the work of FRN and for them to dedicate themselves to helping to ensure the economic security of the 42 million people who are food insecure means they need to be healthy. Being able to take care of our bodies when we need to is critical. Providing employer paid health insurance was a big moment for FRN. It took me years to build the health insurance expense into our annual budget. Health insurance is critical to my team, yet as many nonprofit employees know, it’s often deemed “overhead” that is not easily funded. Everyone deserves access to health insurance, and more, healthcare.
  • Financially, your recurring contribution can help me better predict how much money FRN can rely on every month and ensure that money goes directly to providing health insurance to my team.

To learn more about me

  • I invite you all to listen to some of the episodes of Intersectionalities in Practice, my almost-monthly video conversation series. Intersectionalities in Practice is my space to have real conversations with people who are engaged in the work of and fight for equity every day. The conversations illuminate how multifaceted the issues of poverty are, and the many ways organizations engage in equity work.
  • To hear more about some public conversations about equity and our work at FRN here is an interview I had on Voodoo Retail. I get a little personal in this one, which I’ve been doing more and more recently because I want people to know that on and off the court, I believe in equity.
  • And here is a blog post I recently published on the FRN blog that highlights the last Intersectionalities in Practice conversation on community disinvestment. We can have it all and our resources can be shared among all of us, don’t believe the scarcity hype.

Thank you all for considering making a monthly recurring donation to FRN. And also, if that is not in your cards right now, there is no pressure at all! One-time donations are welcomed, texts of encouragement are always welcomed, too! No matter what, please do get to know us at Food Recovery Network. In 2022 we have some really great work ahead and we’d love to see you involved!

With love,

Regina

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So wrong

Posted on August 11, 2019 by reginadma

I recently went to the doctor to see about a perpetually swollen lymph gland—the one commonly misnamed “tonsils.” For cultural sake, I’ll keep referring to this gland as my tonsil as my doctor did during my visit.* The lymph glands, as part of our endocrine system, help trap dead tissue, dead blood (so gross) and various debris floating around inside of our bodies and then filters all the chaff out of our bodies. What I didn’t know is that, if I had to be relieved of this particular gland due to its as-of-late proclivity towards constant, painful inflammation, it wouldn’t affect my overall health. Seems processing toxins out of our bodies is an important enough function that I’d want all glands on deck, but apparently I’m not a doctor. Jury is still out on whether I need to be relieved of this troublesome gland, although my doctor assured me “probably not.”

As they typically do at doctor offices when the nurse asks you to “follow me out back”** after a door somewhere in the waiting room opens and a head pops out and they say your name, my weight and height were recorded as well as my temperature and blood pressure. All very typical stuff.

But this day ended up being decidedly not typical.

Everyone, on this day, I learned something about myself I feel like I kinda should have known after, literally, all of these years. Maybe, a long time ago, I knew this information about myself. Maybe I had the correct information at one point, but somehow, the accurate information was lost to me. I wonder, to lose this information, was it gradual, or did it happen all at once one day? I’m just not sure. But I will say, I am still processing what this could mean about myself that I just didn’t know this piece of somewhat prosaic, yet kinda important information. The first question I asked myself, in the same tone as a friend of mine from Maine, who one day, years ago, asked me the same question*** with incredulity, “what is wrong with me?!!” I think all of you probably have this piece of information about yourselves pretty down pat. So, truly, I’ve been wondering, what is wrong with me.

So here I am, after obediently following the nurse out back, my weight is recorded and my height is recorded. My weight hasn’t changed that much since roughly college. My height hasn’t changed since, what, 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade? At what age do we reach our permanent height?

The nurse doesn’t tell me how much I weigh—nothing to report there, but she does, interestingly, tell me my height. You’d think, with one having the potential of varying widely and the other not, that she would tell me my weight, or at least announce it to the room as she recorded it like she did my blood pressure and temperature. (Are you talking to me, or the room?) I’m guessing she relayed the information to me verbally for one of two reasons: since I was facing in the direction of the scale, I could observe how much I weighed so there would be no reason to say out loud about me, what I can clearly see.  And therefore, perhaps it’s because I had my back turned to the “height measuring rod”**** while she recorded my height, she felt inclined to tell me. But why verbalize this, why tell me something I obviously already know? I’m not at an age where shrinking height is a concern. I was just so confused.

In all the visits I’ve made over the years to the doctor’s— and to be fair, it hasn’t been that many times, because, having taken one of two stances: 1) that hybrids are above average healthy individuals and rarely need the services of a doctor, or, 2) to just shake it off and it will probably go away—but in all my visits, I honestly don’t recall anyone actually telling me my height.

It is probably true that, over the years things have changed within the setting of a doctor visit and this brings me to my second guess as to why this nurse decided to tell me how tall I am. I surmise that perhaps this verbal announcement of what should be commonplace data is part of a growing culture of “patient interaction” and “socialization with patients” brought on by the over-correction to the advancement of electronic medical records in the exam room***** as they replaced paper ones. Basically, electronic records means computers in exam rooms, which means doctors and nurses look at screens more than they look into the eyes of those individuals they are examining. It’s hard to talk to your nurse or doctor about something personal if they’re staring at a computer. Using computers during visits was new, uncharted territory just several years ago and overtime, the jury came in: doctors and patients don’t like the cold computer sitting between them. So, perhaps this nurse was just being chatty…about a fixed and benign piece of data.

I was so taken aback by her announcement of my height because, this information is so constant, I’ve even had nurses just ask me my height to spare them the task of having to take my height.

I was in the process of thinking to myself, pre-coffee so therefore probably kind of snarkily, I will admit, “why is she telling me my height when—”

I stopped.

I wish I could convey to all of you the number of things that went through my mind in one instant at this very moment. I know our brains and our bodies do incredible things to protect us from the sheer amount of stimulation out there, and without these protections at that moment, to keep me from imploding from stimulation overload, I’m not sure what would have happened.

On the instances when I’m asked to provide my height to spare my nurse the trouble of measuring me, my answer is of course always the same. I am five three and a half exactly. For nurses, this information is usually recorded without ceremony, typically without interest and almost always without comment. Sometimes I get a smile out of a nurse when I declare the half inch, and they respond factually, “So you’re five three.”

In my day-to-day life where people take slightly more interest in me than the nurses of doctors’ offices, many times, to my bit of sinful pride, people will comment, “five three? You seem taller than that…maybe it’s because of your personality.” If you’ve ever been in a conversation with me about my height, you know how I lovingly reply, “yeah, I get that a lot.” I love that people think I’m taller than I am because it makes me feel like people really know me and my personality. The people in my life know that I’m a lot. I talk fast, I rarely sit down, I get excited about…everything. and, all of that energy sun bursting about often feels out-sized to my friends, and I appreciate that…when it’s a good thing.

Sometimes, I remind people about the half inch. It’s important when you’re short to take all that you can vertically get. Exactly half an inch isn’t insignificant. I’m not like five three and two millimeters trying to eek up to the next half inch.

The nurse tells me my height and I stop mid-step off the scale like the hyperbolic person I have a penchant for being.

I said, “excuse me, what?”

The nurse repeated herself: “You’re 5 foot 4 and a half inches tall. ”

“Really?”

“Uh huh, can you sit down over here please?” And the nurse directs me to a chair to take my blood pressure.

I start to laugh pretty hard, shaking my head. The nurse isn’t overly interested in what’s given me the morning guffaws. But I press on because, as an extrovert and an external processor, I need to talk this out.

I told her, I am almost 40 years old—yes, information she also has, and I can only hope she was thinking snarkily about me, “why is she telling me stuff I already know?”—and this whole time, I thought I was five foot three and a half.

As I was laughing into the room and trying to get the nurse to talk to me about this revelation in the way that I wanted, instantaneous to all of that began a new existential moment in my life: how did I not know my own height? I’m shocked by myself that I was so wrong, and for so long. And, I’m weirdly in awe of myself for pulling off this mistake for SO LONG. Years. And years.

She proceeds to take my blood pressure, after asking me a couple times to uncross my legs that I do out of habit and now because of an increase in energy as my brain runs through this new bit of information and shrugs slightly amused and says, “well, you just gained an inch, that’s better than the other way around.”

I pause at this comment. True. We do value height in America, this is true. And onward with the growing existential dialogue I’m now having in my head, instead of, preferably, my nurse.

I state on my driver’s license that I am 5’4″ and, whenever I’ve gotten a new license due to losing a wallet or renewal, I always have this Catholic guilt****** swirling through me. Should I really say that I’m 5’3″? Those nurses said I’m 5’3″…Is it okay to round up that much? And now that I’m 5’4.5″ can I guiltily round up to 5’5″? Five foot five, wow, that’s really tall.

Whether I wanted to continue in vain to get the nurse to interact with me on this topic doesn’t really matter because she has stepped out of the room, her role complete, and I’m alone, waiting for the doctor. I’m baffled and amused and I’m firing off many questions at once, which is a lot easier to articulate in your head because they’re just there, like breathing, as opposed to laboriously having to articulate them to, in this instance, a very uninterested other person, one at a time.

How could I have possibly gone this long in my life and not known how tall I am? Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd? If it does strike you as odd, and you feel the need to tell me, please do it gently, over dinner. Maybe right before the wait staffer asks if we want to hear the dessert menu, or if we want coffee. I’ll probably get a coffee, and if it’s at the kind of restaurant I like to patron it’ll probably come in a super cute, tiny French press.

Do you know how tall you are?

When I tell people that I’m 5’4.5″, what if people stop saying, “hmmm, wow, you seem taller”? What if, poof, just like that, I don’t seem taller but I seem like I am the height I say I am, and after all these years, there’s no longer comment about my height? Does this mean my personality isn’t punching outside of my very stable weight class anymore? Gosh, that sounds awful. And if that is the case, if I look and act like my height, does this mean that now, like Yo Yo Ma, I’m actualized? I just…am?

Or, like the 3 or 4 people pointed out whom I talked about my new life contemplation while looking for sympathy, searching for answers, fishing for compliments and reassurance that I am still, indeed a firecracker friend, I have something else altogether to consider. To be fair, I probably didn’t consider this point because I’m still processing and in this beginning processing phase, to be honest, the point was too practical and not hyperbolic enough to register with me. Regardless, it is a noteworthy point for which I was immediately annoyed at myself for not thinking about: “Maybe she was wrong when she measured you.”

“You think?”

“It could happen. You should measure your height when you have a minute.”

To this suggestion, that I received several times from my loved ones, I laughed, scrunched up my nose even and said, “why would I do that?”

*I asked my doctor, knowing this gland isn’t a tonsil, “so, what is it called?” And she said, “it’s just a gland.” I have to think, since we humans are so keen on naming things, that this particular gland has a name…Again, I’m apparently no doctor, but I know this thing isn’t just called “gland.” Do you know what it’s called?

**For those of you who know me, and those of you who don’t, you’ll soon find out: I am a) not an anxious person. Per my last blog post, I’m very fortunate that the amount of anxiety and stress that I do have in my life is manageable; b) I can get lost very easily. I can get lost in one room I often “joke.” When I am late to gatherings, movies, meetings, weddings…it’s often because somewhere along the way, I got lost trying to go from point a to point b. Not all of the time, but getting turned around, rerouted, confused as to which turn I’m supposed to take…any number of these scenarios, and often more than one together, intertwine through my locomotion. So while I do not identify as an anxious person, I do experience a perceptible uptick in anxiety when I have to follow the nurse “out back” because I know that often, after your visit concludes, they don’t accompany you back to the waiting room from whence they plucked you. After your time with the doctor is over, you’re on your own to get from the hallway from which you’ve just been ushered after being escorted out of your exam room. There could have been a couple hallways you had to navigate while making your original trek to the exam room, there could have been a couple of turns… And, for the more complicated office setups, there could be a totally different desk “out back” that you need to visit before going back to the waiting area. I find those setups particularly difficult because, the longer I have to talk to this particular set of people, the foggier my memory becomes as to how to get back to the front. Did I just go around in a circle? Do I have to completely backtrack or is there a secret door I haven’t seen yet that is probably perfectly obvious to everyone else that leads to the waiting area? It’s distressing.

***It’s an interesting day when you’re just doing your just talking, probably pontificating on something and your friend record scratches the conversation to a hold to ask, “What is wrong with you?” Wherever things go after that, it’s probably interesting.

****I definitely looked up the different parts of a physician’s scale and learned that’s what that part of the scale is called. And I didn’t know the kinds of scales that measure your weight and height were called physician’s scales, I just called them “the scale at your doctor’s office”.

*****I found this article on the topic, and definitely remember an NPR segment on it as well. Since this particular blog is not always statistically sound (please see my last post about lying), you’ll just have to trust me that there is a correlation between patient interaction with doctors with the advent of using computers to track medical records during visits.

******I didn’t grow up Catholic, I am not Catholic, but I like to co-opt Catholic guilt about really banal things. It makes me happy.

 

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I’m back-ish

Posted on June 24, 2019 by reginadma

When I first moved to DC, I started this blog because I had some time on my hands. I also came across some situations I found amusing, or thoughts I found “deliciously” ridiculous. Seemed like a good intersection of   time : mind, so I got to writing. After, what, a year, two years? I stopped. By the time I got home I wanted to run, to walk my dog, cook, host dinner parties, any number of fun things. Having spent the day behind a computer for the most part and I think many of you can relate, I took little joy in opening up my computer again, even for my personal quippings. NO MORE TYPING…unless for rapid fire texts to all my loves across the country. I have limitless energy to text…as…many of you know.

From my last post to today, I actually have more demands on my time, not less. Is that true? Am I exaggerating? The demands on my time are different, but are there actually more demands, or are the demands of a different nature? The demands might have higher stakes, but maybe take the same amount of time to accomplish as my demands required however many years ago? Probably…maybe. Regardless, I felt the creative tug beginning to happen. Ideas that needed a home besides in my head, situations observed that needed an outlet. I think writing is fun and I missed it.*

I haven’t gone back through my blog posts yet, but the stories I do remember, I remember fondly. They made me smile. And best compliment, a friend once texted me to say one of my posts was “funny as shit.” That can really propel someone, and me specifically—to think you’re funny and every once in awhile be told you are indeed, funny. It’s fun to be funny, and it’s fun to try to be funny. And if you ever want to tell me you think my writing is funny**, well, don’t let me hold you back, you be you.

I’ve been on social fairly heavily in the years away from writing my blog, so if you wanted to, you could figure out what I’ve been up to during that time. I think it would be a bit redundant to list out what’s happened in the time between. I mean, I honestly could go on about what I’ve been up to, but I feel like English teachers, professors, creative writers, or people who are just plain good at writing would caution: do it: write out what you’ve been up to, but you better be really good at it—be clever, be different, be a new new to the question, “so what have you been up to these past few years?” David Foster Wallace, give me strength, and I still don’t think I’ll attempt such a topic.

I do find a few things interesting that I would like to enumerate.

First, a theme within my blog was triggers. What I mean by triggers is specific phrases from movies or books from my child and early adulthood, song lyrics—any number of, what were for me, earworms that when I hear or read them I immediately need need needed*** to finish the sequence. Missy Elliot songs,  basically anything having to do with Goonies or The Last Dragon, Othello passages…my blog discusses various starts and stops in my head. Every once in awhile I could even embed a youtube video to add texture to what I was trying to get at and that was a technological feat worthy of its own footnote. I think many of those videos don’t link up anymore, so, someone is going to have to fix that.

I’ve read Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem**** and wish more writers, designers, character casters, put forward characters who have different abilities and tarry at different places on different spectrums, and that those differences aren’t even really mentioned. I don’t know much about Tourette’s Syndrome, but from Lethem I learned about the pull, the pull to continue a sequence and the relief of completing that sequence. Fascinating. When main character Lionel Essrog, as a child felt the need to jerk his head to the right (I think it was to the right), how he tried to not do that, and how he felt better when he did, and how that need affected his whole family…I just had never read or been part of anything like that before and I was, I think the best word to use is, thankful, that Lethem gave us such a regular anti-hero with a difference. That pull that Lionel felt might not be the same for everyone with Tourette’s, it is, after all, one perspective. I dated someone who self-identified as having OCD. Perhaps you know people in your life who identify with OCD. This particular person had to have squares and rectangles like papers, folders, books, lined up straight across the right angle of his table.***** Right angle over right angle. I never understood what that could possibly feel like to need to move objects so they were at right angles. Many peopel learned from Ellen DeGeneres about gay people when she came out on her show, and from the television show, Good Times the life of some black people. Some people learned about the lives of the supernumeraryly rich in Crazy Rich Asians, a movie I tricked myself into seeing because I thought it would be interesting, but turns out was just a romance flick. Some of us just have no idea how other people live, or what compels them. I find it all 93% endlessly fascinating.

The struggle is to show an example of other | different | not-like-you representations, in a way that isn’t tokenism. Some would argue, if you highlight one, and that one is the only one, that immediately suggests and demands token. I don’t remember who I was listening to being interviewed on NPR, but upon being asked, how to prevent Latinx****** characters from being tokens, she replied, simply have more Latinx characters represented and normalize it. Having more representations in our cultural creations has the power to open doors and maybe can act to build bridges, inspire questions and curiosity and I have to also think, since we live in a complex world, ensure yet others will put up walls of disgust, fear, judgement. (Speaking of disgust, I can talk about my love of Martha Nussbaum later…I started her book Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law and lost my copy. If you read a title like this one and your face looks like the smiley face emoji with the hearts for eyes, me too. So fascinating.)

Let me bring this back: when I hear a certain phrase, song, see a sign that I have a certain connection to, I immediately step into the hypnotic tunnel to finish the sequence associated with how I know that piece. I finish the sequence because I want to, and because I find it fun. I am fortunate that I don’t have to complete the sequence if I don’t want to. For example, though you feel compelled to show off your moonwalk abilities because someone reminds you that “back in the day” you were known for your dance skills. Even if that person is slightly implying they’d like to see those skills today, don’t mean you should. Especially if the situation calls for you to do othe things like apologize for participating in past behavior that at the time was traumatic and horrible, and that today remains traumatic and horrible. You apologize, you discuss how your attitudes have changed over time (and let others decide whether or not they believe you), you ask for people’s time, if they’re willing to give it, to talk with you about how your actions caused harm and ways you can make authentic amends. You don’t fucking attempt to moonwalk because there is nothing that is compelling you to finish that sequence that is out of your control to stop.

I realize I said the word “trigger” a lot. I look at that word today and it just feels violent to me. It feels like onomatopoeia+, and that sound association that I hear connotes danger, fear and harm. It wasn’t that long ago, but things are very different, using that word feels very different. I feel strange saying trigger. I feel strange saying “crazy” because people in my life have told me how much weight the term “crazy” carries, and I agree with them. Of all the things I consider, and in the moments I consider them across the passage of time, I had not considered enough how harmful using the word, “crazy” might be to others until a couple years ago. I’ve not 100% eradicated the use of crazy when I think something is absurd, funny, confusing etc, but I am intentionally working on it.

Between now and my last post, there have been mass shootings in Orlando, in Las Vegas, in my beloved Pittsburgh, in Virginia Beach where my sister and my niece live, in San Bernardino, in Thousand Oaks, in Dallas, in Roseburg, in…well, I don’t want to go on. I could go on and I don’t want to go on. For the people who were taken unnecessarily and too soon in these locations and to the too many who were taken too soon in the locations I didn’t write, and to their families: this should not have happened. Your lives matter. Instead of trigger, I now say “inspire.”

Respectfully moving to a different section of this post.

Second, like an Escher painting, not all the stairs have to lead to a door in my world. And sometimes the stairs defy gravity and are upside down and stop at the ceiling. At the time he was creating, I’m not sure what people thought of Escher (but feel free to tell me)—why would he build a world of melting clocks and stairs that lead to nowhere. That is uncomfortable, and that doesn’t feel…safe? Normal? Status? Some of my favorite narrators in literature are those you can’t trust. Sometimes the narrators lie to us. Sometimes they lie to us, but they think they’re telling the truth; and my favorite is when they lie to us because they are intentionally trying to deceive us. I’m not saying I’m going to lie to you in my writing, that’s not my particular style, but I prefer the messy, and while I like to enumerate, I prefer the nonlinear. I prefer multiple threads interacting with one another to tell a story, and often, when I’m telling the story, those threads typically tie together, but I make zero promises that that will be the outcome. I prefer when you have some extra parts that don’t fit into the widget you just built. And for some of you, that might feel frustrating, and for some of you, you might not see the point in having extra parts, and that’s okay. For many of you, you might not even notice, of if you do notice, it’s not incompatible or newsworthy. I like all of that.

Third, I will say I don’t think I ever referenced an emoji in my old blog. I have much pride for the fact that the emoji, in its biblical sense 🙂 🙂 is credited to a Carnegie Mellon alum for inventing. I have a lot of pride in this, as a fellow alum, and if that ain’t true—if it’s some nerdy urban legend that a CMU alum created the emoji, don’t tell me, or if you need need need to tell me, do it over dinner and drinks. Wine and dine me, and “well, do it and be brief” when I’m waiting for my coffee, just say it. If you have to say it at all.

Fourth, for my personal writing, I write like how I talk…and I talk like how I feel: generally slightly overexcited, or fully overexcited, with lots of exclamation points and at a very fast clip, and definitely not usually overly linear.

So, I’m back. I’m writing again-ish. I’m a genXer and though I happen to be a decider, ain’t no one better than the “ish”, the “maybe definitely” than us GenXers. All 12 of us. Totally probably maybe. In my little blog, I get to be wonderfully unreliable about posting new stuff | content | ideas.

I will leave you with this. The reason I was inspired to start writing my blog: I woke up and I was like, life if really awesome. I love life, and I thought, I had an idea for what I wanted to say about that good feeling. I also saw some signs hanging up that I had some thoughts about that I made note to think about later. Those thoughts didn’t fit on insta and certainly not on facebook. (Luckily, I have just enough cultural sway that facebook’s stock…probably remained exactly the same as it was after you read my dig at the platform. You’re welcome facebook.)

My phoenix thought |my idea and love hope happened when I woke up. I was happy and more, I had the thought that I hope you have a good day. And my thought was, for all I know, and for all you know, actually, you only get today. It’s a concept we’re all familiar with, yes. Hackneyed, probably. It’s just today. And I thought about how I said the word trigger so much, and I thought about all of the people who were supposed to have many more days. And actually many people will say bullshit: you get eternity somewhere else, or you get forever youth somewhere else and that’s so rad. I love that. If that works for you, I’m in. But, for this particular day, as I see it, it’s just this one. Respectfully, being grumpy, being pissed, or stressed, having things in your life that don’t allow you to feel or choose happiness notwithstanding. I understand some of that, I’ve been grumpy before. For some of it, I actually can’t understand, so I peacefully empathize and know that, moving forward, I write with respect, and I write with love and I by no means assume anything of you. My love is not a zero sum, and no matter who you are, I do hope that when I see you in real life, that you know that I do see you. And, I hope that you have a good day.

So I’m back…ish. I’m in, so if you’re in, well, that’s basically a dance party. Gimme your hand, friend. Let me twirl you.
*Also, and let me know what you think about this, I think the things on your mind, that you are scientifically capable of holding at any one time, probably has a ceiling. Like that 12oz cup can only hold 12 ounces of liquid, not 15. Sometimes that cup might hold 10 or six ounces, but never more than 15 ounces. Over the last few years, I’ve picked up new memories, some new habits maybe, and I’m thinking about some of the same ol’ things in different ways…and probably in some of the same ways. And that made me want to write.

** Remind me to tell you about the time a dear friend of mine whom I regard as super funny (and also as a wonderfully terrible human) told me that he didn’t think of me as funny. He just, never thought about it, never considered it, and didn’t feel like he had necessarily witnessed me being funny.

***Said in Leslie Jaimison’s voice when she reads her memoir, The Recovering.

****Fifteen years before Lethem published his book, Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney dropped, and that proppeled McInerney into a literary stardom. He was considered a literary darling. (I think some said that of Franzon when he first hit it popular.) I don’t think Lethem was ever described as a darling and I think about that a lot. Did Lethem want to be a darling? (Did McInerney?) What does it mean to be a darling of your profession, when is that useful, when is it not, and if you are a darling and then no longer a darling, when is that a good thing, and when is that not a good thing.

*****Exactly once, before I realized this person was serious about the need for things to be at right angles, before I understood some of the depths of OCD, I moved some of his folders so they were at, what, a 45 degree angle across his table and he looked so annoyed. In one moment, that look said so much, and I immediately apologized and felt so badly that I had done that. I thought it would be funny because I didn’t actually think he was that serious about the need to have his right angles at right angles. Of course I never did it again, and…annoyingly, I’ve continued to feel badly about it to this day. Maybe some of you who’ve grown up culturally guilty can understand this. I didn’t grow up culturally guilty, so you can imagine my annoyance at having such a feeling tacked onto my person.

****** I just learned this term.

+ When my friend I mentioned told me, though we’d shared lots of belly laughs together, he never really thought of me as funny, it was like a record scratch. That quintessential record scratch. Almost to my lips, I feel like I probably must have put my drink down.What? Excuse me? And I rarely, if it’s that close to being consumed, stop mid-drink and actually put the glass down.er the use of crazy when I think something is absurd, funny, confusing etc, but I am intentionally working on it.

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Musings by Reggie

Posted on March 18, 2014 by reginadma

I’m working on a birthday card for a colleague.  I’m at the stage that I really like: before any ideas are put to paper, before any shapes are cut out or paper embossed.  I’m at the very beginning of creating this card, where all I do is just think about the person.  What would make a good card for him?  What conversations have we had lately?  What have I learned about him?  How can I translate that into a card that says, “happy birthday”?  It’s great because I just get to have plenty of positive and creative thoughts running through my head.

So, one particular scene from one particular movie that I watched many times in my childhood keeps running through my head.  It’s not necessarily a trigger, but I will bust out at random times singing this song.  I really like this movie, even though, sure, it’s a little cheesy.  I’ll give you that.  This particular scene is RIGHT NOW at this very moment evoking thoughts about my colleague, but also of my sister.  I’m thinking about how important her faith is to her, and also how important her faith is to me.  It’s calming and peaceful for my mind to hear her talk about her “walk with God” and what that means to her, and what that means in how she lives her life day-to-day.

No matter what our beliefs are, we’re all walking, and I say, live, rejoice!

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December 2013

Posted on December 12, 2013 by reginadma

I am currently locked in a game of “Assassin” with some friends, and what you won’t see on my list of things that I’ll be doing this month is: Fear for my life, chase away paranoid thoughts when friends contact me to say hi, or plot complicated set ups to win this damn game.  That would be weird.

I am very happy with the way December has shaped up thus far–just the right mix of social gatherings, travel and like most people, I’m well on my way of gaining that 5 extra holiday pounds that I look forward to working off in January.  It’s the traditions of the season that keep up healthy, happy and involved, right?

Dec

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November 2013

Posted on November 15, 2013 by reginadma

Oh my.  Here we are, halfway through November and I’m just posting my November list.  It’s been a fun month to say the least.  Here are some of the events I have / had going on.

November 2013

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Playing Pool Gwendolyn Brooks Style

Posted on October 25, 2013 by reginadma

I have a few poems that I think of often.  They’re not triggers necessarily…just poems I came across in my younger days that now are part of a constant rotation of things that I reference or think about.

Gwendolyn Brook’s wrote “We Real Cool” in 1959, having won the Nobel Prize in Literature 9 years earlier.  I read a small sample of her work for the first time either in high school or in college as part of the brick by brick foundational teachings of American Literature. I adored these foundational courses where students learned about theme, and plot and structure and using many authors as examples along the way.

I remember, when reading “We Real Cool” for the first time, thinking, this poem is so simple and tidy.  That’s what I really liked about it, but the simple words and style also confused me: what necessarily makes this poem a great poem?  As I got older and had the opportunity to take my first class on literary criticism, I  discovered that my confusion about what qualifies as “good” or event “great” poetry was but one small voice within a heated discourse about poetry and what ingredients come together to make “good” or “great” poetry–many people have an opinion, and many believe theirs to be the definitive on what is or is not good poetry.  Ah, I love literary criticism.

I refer to “We Real Cool”, humoring myself when I, as a response to this situation or that, say, “we real cool,” or, more fully, “we real cool, we skipped school.”  I mean, it comes up where I need to respond to things with those phrases.

The simple composition of the poem is comparable to coming across a cute screen printed apron at a gift store, and you say, “I’m not going to buy that, I can make that myself.” You pass on the $40 apron a little incensed by the price, and yet, you never make that apron.  Fast forward many years later, you actually do attempt to make a homemade screen printed apron for your sister for Christmas and your final product looks like crap.  We all have the capacity to make a screen printed apron.  And, sure, many people can make ones that look quite lovely.  Yet, more often than not, our apron doesn’t possess the high-level of skill to create a final product that is so apologetically simple and tidy.

Now, I’m in the camp that people should write–the more we do it…well, the better we get.  The old saying is true.  What I love in particular is that writing unlocks a part of our brain that is creative and when that part of our brain is activated, the benefits in our every day life is literally endless, and I love that.  I’m not trying to be all scientific about the whole thing, but it’s true.

I admit I often don’t know what makes good poetry good all the time.  I love having conversations with friends about this topic, and sometimes I can present a pretty compelling argument.  It’s kinda fun to wax intelligent, devil’s advocate, or brazen about why a particular poem or author is or is not amazing.

In the meantime, Ms. Brooks poem is special to me.  So now  you’ll know what I mean if you happen to get a text from me saying, “hey, what are you guys up to tonight?  Do you want to play pool Gwendolyn Brooks style?”  Here is Ms. Brooks reading “We Real Cool,” and then a second time read a bit over-dramatically by Morgan Freeman.

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