Tag: Female Writers

11..., Lifestyle

11… Reasons I Have the Best Person Ever

RaeAnna
Our first trip together! San Diego, 2014
We have a mutual love of bed and dogs. 2015
She’s smiling even though she was dying inside from the boredom that is carousels. My birthday, 2014.
She’ll take pictures like this with me! Christmas, 2019
The infamous Wox of Bine night, 2013.

11… Reasons I Have the Best Person Ever

This post is sponsored… kidding. This post was inspired by my best friend when I asked her what I should write about today, and she told me “11 reasons I have the best friend ever,” so here we are.  I changed it to “person” instead of friend because she’s more than my friend. She’s my sister, my partner, my soulmate, my other half, my forever and always, my constant. She is my person.

For those of you who don’t know her. Kelsey Roberts is a 25 year old bad-ass. We met seven years ago in college working at the library. She was a freshman; I was a senior. She just graduated from her Master’s program in Art History from George Mason University. 

  1. Kelsey has supported and loved me through some of the darkest times in my life. I really will never be able to thank her for everything she has been through with me, but it is a testament to our friendship and her heart that she is still around. 
  2. She’s fucking funny. We riff off of each other so well. We’re always in stitches when we’re around each other. I have so many screenshots of our conversations and an entire Google.doc of funny things we’ve said and come up with.
  3. She didn’t run away after the first time we hung out. Seriously though. There were a lot of red flags telling her torun, but she didn’t. She was like, “Yup! This crazy matches my crazy, and it’s scary but it’ll be fun.” It’s definitely been scary, but it’s been a hell of a lot of fun. 
  4. She’s just the right amount of stupid. Actually, she’s not stupid at all, but she is a hypochondriac. When her hypochondria gets-a-going, she’ll believe a lot of things. Like the fact she’s allergic to the color yellow so she can no longer eat bananas. That’s not a real thing, but she totally believed me until I posted the screenshots of that text exchange on Facebook.
  5. She puts up with me embarrassing her on social media. See #4 or writing about her on my blog or posting really embarrassing pictures from her drunken nights in college. (Which totally never happened. Kidding they absolutely did, and I was sober to capture her in all her glory.) Wox of Bine anyone? That’s Kelsey for “Box of Wine,” which she put on a short dude’s head so she could drink straight from the Wox of Bine’s spot. 
  6. We’re exactly the same height. Literally. Exactly. Except her mane gives her a quarter of an inch to a full inch depending on the day. We’re the same height, and it’s amazing. No awkward tall-short friend pictures for us. It’s a blessing. 
  7. She lived in DC for a few years. This was amazing for visiting purposes. I got to visit her and explore a really cool city!!!
  8. Her love for animals is as deep as mine. We’re crazy animal people. She leans more towards cats but has a never ending love for dogs too. She fully supported me when I told her I picked up Tess and was probably going to keep her and help her through the puppy-situation. Kelsey was the first person I called with Tess news. Kelsey knew before Dylan. 
  9. She gave me a family. Her parents are now my parents. Her siblings are now my siblings. I love them with all my heart. I lived with them for almost three years. I go home as much as I can, and they love me unconditionally. 
  10. She has a heart of gold. Truly, she would take away the world’s pain if she could. 
  11. She is my other half. We always tell people: If you love Kelsey, you’ll definitely love me. If you love me, you might love Kelsey. Kelsey is pricklier and harder to get to know on the surface. In reality, she’s more optimistic, positive, and open than I am. She seems more difficult to get to know, but she’s protecting her soft, puppy-loving, do-gooder heart from being hurt by shitty people because she has been through so much in her life. We are two sides of the same coin. We balance each other and make one another whole. She is the person I turn to and vice versa. We met and instantly became attached physically and emotionally. It got harder when I graduated, but we talk every day, all the time. And we talk about EVERYTHING. From poop to sex to fashion to dogs to health issues to politics to family to my existential crises/feelings of impending doom to her hypochondria and everything in between. Nothing is off limits. We have no secrets, and whatever hasn’t been shared is solely because we forgot or ran out of time or we’re waiting until the next time we see one another in person, which should be sooner rather than later. Since meeting her, I have never once been scared about being alone. I found my person at 22. My person is not a romantic love, but it is the best love in my life. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her, and I miss her every moment we’re not together. Someday, I plan on kidnapping her and retiring to a lighthouse on the coast of Scotland where we will live together in peace raising dogs, cats, and White Park Cattle, while reading and writing about all the things we’re passionate about. 
  12. The one thing I don’t love: She hasn’t come to visit me in over three years. She needs to meet all her new fur nieces and nephews, see my new house, and sit on the couch and binge Netflix with me!!!

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

11..., Reading Lists

11… Black Writers I LOVE

RaeAnna

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The Travelers | The Water Dancer | How to Love a Jamaican | A Raisin in the Sun | The Palm Wine Drinkard | Infidel: My Life | I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem | Passing | Half of A Yellow Sun | Homegoing |

Some of my favorite books are written by black authors. The first book I read by an African author was The Palm Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola. It completely opened my mind to a new voice, culture, and world. 

Black authors have done more to open my mind than any other demographic. I would not be the person I am today without these authors, their stories, the characters, and the challenges they gave me to face in the mirror and the world.  

    1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie… I’ve read all of her books, and they are amazing. Americanah is absolutely stunning. I can’t recommend her enough. She has a uniquely African, American, female, human voice, which creates empathy and understanding by bridging the differences and finding the commonalities. 
    2. The Palm Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola was my gateway book. Before it, I had always gravitated to the European classics. Tutuola opened my eyes to a more diverse world of literature, and I’ve never looked back. It’s an amazing novel. You should read it. 
    3. One of the first novels I read by a black woman after discovering Achebe was Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. It is an incredible novel, and I fell in love with Hurston’s prose. She was incredibly talented, witty, and amazing. Anything she wrote is gold. 
    4. A few years ago, Yaa Gyasi was all over the place because of her debut novel Homegoing. It is absolutely worth the hype. I love the book and reviewed it, here.
    5. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a great writer. I really love his essays. They are incredible and insightful. 2019 saw the publishing of his first novel, The Water Dancer, which I’ve just read and I’m in the process of writing a review.
    6. The playwright, Lorraine Hansberry, is best known for A Raisin in the Sun, a play depicting segregation in Chicago and the Black Americans living in it. It was the first play by a black, female author performed on Broadway. 
    7. Alexia Arthurs has an amazing and unique voice. I can’t wait to see what else she brings into this world. Her collection of stories How to Love a Jamaican is wonderful. I reviewed it, here.
    8. I love memoirs, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a phenomenal memoirist. She’s had a challenging and tragic life, but she overcame it and created good in the world through her activism and writing. I highly suggest any of her memoirs, but Infidel: My Life is particularly incredible.
    9. I recently discovered Nella Larsen and her novella Passing. It was published 91 years ago, but it still holds so much up in today’s world and provides insight into the days of years gone by. Read the review, here.
    10. I read Moi, Tituba, Sorcière… Noire de Salem or I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé in college. Some of the scenes in the novel have stayed with me ever since. It’s an amazing and heart wrenching novel in the original French and just as powerful in the English translation. 
    11. Regina Porter’s debut novel The Travelers is fantastic. It’s an amazing snapshot of American history. I reviewed it a few months ago, here.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna