The Dithering of a District Diva

When I first started documenting my Dithering nine months ago, I had about 3 regular readers (that I know of), who were not related to me. I had 20 Twitter followers — most of whom were spambots — and virtually no idea what I was getting myself into.  I just knew that my friends were tired of waking up to 5-page emails filled with the random thoughts that skipped across my mind between the hours of 2 and 3 A.M.

So, I started this blog. Eight months later, I have poured my whole heart into it and I love my baby to death! I love that my audience has grown and I love that conversations have been started. But most of all, I LOVE the love I’ve received from strangers.  Because of the love and encouragement I’ve received from people I’ve never even met, I feel like maybe I can be a writer for a living. Maybe I’ll get these books off the ground. Maybe nothing is impossible, and no one is out of reach.

So here’s my tribute to the strangers who have touched my life in the past 8 months through my blog.

1) Sister Toldja: I first learned of blogger extraordinaire Sister Toldja back in November when she wrote a post on my alma mater, Hampton University, its coronation of a White Miss Hampton University, and the subsequent fallout. The post was titled “Lil’ Obama, Big Fail.” As a Hamptonian, I disagreed with her characterization of Hampton, but as a sociologist, I appreciated her analysis of the events. I wrote a comment on the post, and became a regular reader of TheBeautifulStruggler.com after that.

When I discovered a Washington Post article on Single, Successful, and Lonely Black Women featuring Helena Andrews, I wrote a post on it. I sent it to Sister Toldja to see if she had any comment on it. Her response was:

Well, you know I wholeheartedly disagree with most of your points, but well written!

I was overjoyed. Disagree all day, but please, don’t say I don’t write well! It was all I needed.  But since then, she has added me to her blogroll which sends new readers to my blog on a daily basis, introduced me to Clutch Magazine (more on that later!), and given me Happy Black Girl Day, which has made me the Happiest Black Girl in the land 🙂  Can’t thank her enough! (Look for more on her, later in the year!)

2) The second stranger to be a blessing to me was Helena Andrews, herself.  After I wrote my post deconstructing the Washington Post article on her, she took the time to respond to me, via email.  I’d been blogging for a good 4 weeks at that point, with an audience of about 50. I was barely in the little leagues, but she responded.  And then set it up so that  I could receive an advanced copy of her book, “Bitch is the New Black,” to review (have you ordered it, yet?).

3) Aliya S. King — whom I’ve already written about twice — continues to be such a great help to me, (so order her new book Platinum on the right hand side —>).  The most recent awesome thing she has done for me is to review my piece “Does Sex and the City Hate Brown People?” and tell me to stop pitching it to magazines:

It reads as a VERY good blog post. As a feature for Upscale? Not really.

I stopped pitching it and published it immediately.  The hits on this post have been insane! The piece was picked up and featured on Bossip.com (thanks, Bossip!), and my audience has grown exponentially.

4) So, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill thinks I’m awesome. 😀

Fine. He didn’t say those exact words, but it was soooo in the subtext of his tweet to me in response to my post “Thoughts on Being Called a Nappy Nigger in Post Racial America“:

He also agreed to write me a certain letter to a certain institution that I’m dying to go to in the Fall — via Twitter, which is totally, contractually binding 🙂

5) Last, but certainly not least, Terry McMillan — yes, the Terry McMillan whose “Disappearing Acts” I read in one sitting when I was twelve years old — read my post, “Does Sex and the City Hate Brown People?”  and thinks that I should have a book deal, ASAP. Again, you have to dig through the surface of her tweet to me to find that conclusion in the subtext, but that’s exactly what she meant 🙂 In any event, it made my LIFE! Terry McMillan took time to read something I wrote? And thought it was “good”?! Get out:

Yay!

Thanks, also, to all the random people who read (and especially those who comment!) I appreciate all the Strange Love 🙂 Give some strange love to someone today! You never know how you might touch their lives!

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