FLORIDA Forever
Just when I thought my sense of peace, nurtured by YouTube hypnosis, might displace irritation as a source of inspiration, I Jezebel'ed a profile on author Lauren Groff. A favorite of President Barack Obama, her latest collection of short stories, FLORIDA, was just released, and something about her handling of my beloved Sunshine State in the interview, just rubbed me the wrong way. Deliciously. I haven't had that particular feeling since the #WHITEMANINMYPOCKET / CHEEKY LaSHAE discovery. That space where I'm sufficiently crawed about some ism oversight or institutional boundary that simply begs for a beat down. Oooh, the smell of it! Black Panther Party leather glove fisticuffs and a jaunty beret. I immediately ordered the book via evil Amazon Prime and googled her maniacally. She lives in Gainesville and I realized how Mrs. Jenkins I've become about my hometown. Plus there's that socio-political blind spot, opened by the statistics we're all fed, that glared from the algorithms of my search. I was gleeful; the moral high ground of my blackness triggered by the relative nature of our structural positionings. She was 'gon learn today! And although I'd only read a few preview pages offered by Barnes & Noble I had a enough ammunition to lay. Her. Out. Metaphorically, of course. My good fortune guaranteed that a stop on her publicity tour would be in Brooklyn and I went, book in hand, for the reckoning. I smoldered during the panel dialogue, but couldn't help being just a little plied by Lauren's demeanor. Affable, funny, and open, I knew that the requisite book signing chit chat would be more of a shoulder shake than a punch in the nose (metaphorically). Even though she omitted my surname parentheses, I still think we managed a political act. I, by sharing both my anger and its generative effects (I'm blogging again), and she, by listening -- offering an email address for future conversation. She's also a good writer (dammit!), a reluctant Floridian, and tester of dark (metaphorical) waters. We'll meet again. In Gainesville. Where we both have home court advantage. Imagine that.