It's funny what can send a person into her dark places. Sometimes it's something seemingly small, an idle comment made by someone while you are in Target, buying socks, being flipped off by an obnoxious driver for no discernible reason...little things. A dear friend asked me once what it felt like to be "crazy" (my word, not his). I told him it feels like beating against the inside of my own skull, trying to get out or trying to get a moment's relief from the old tape recorded messages, t... read more

That it is nearly impossible to have an intelligent discussion about so-called "women's issues" (shouldn't some of these issues more properly be called "human rights issues') without so many men (and some women) immediately feeling the need to try to discredit any point that is said, no matter how rational and well-supported it is, and start mudslinging at the speaker, calling her a crazy feminazi bitch or something similar? Why do I feel the need to have to qualify my statements with "now I ... read more

on Feb. 2, 2008 in Jackson, Mississippi. Ariellah will teach a 4 hour workshop that Saturday, and the Black Hearts Ball will be Sat. night, with multiple performers from the South and with Ariellah as the star. Email me for more info.

I have to vent. Today is the anniversary of that bitch Katrina. I don't live in NOLA anymore. I teach English at a community college in a very small town in Mississippi. I woke up feeling like I am getting a cold, it's August 29, and I get to my first class, a very basic developmental writing class, and we are reviewing how to brainstorm for ideas to write a paragraph. We were doing an exercise in the book that asks the students to describe different clothing styles. So I get them to st... read more

Halloween weekend in New Orleans--
Tthis coming weekend will involve fishnet and tribal jewelry, lots of bellydance, lots of black, old worn out Doc Martens, alcohol, bellydance, absinthe, old friends, and dancing my butt off until 3 am or until I fall over. It's time to scratch the itch.