I have an unnatural addiction to all things vanilla. That’s not a metaphor for white men, I just love the flavoring. I love vanilla scented candles, Good Hope Vanilla Tea, smelling vanilla extract straight from the bottle, I love vanilla. I love to juice mangoes and pineapple in the summer and drink it for breakfast it on my balcony. I love salads with avocado and black olives and home grown, organic tomatoes. I love salsa music with a passion and a dance partner who is taller than me when I’m in heels. I love going to a jazz club and sitting so close to the bass that I can feel the vibrations in my chest. I love cuddling on the sofa, spooning in bed, finding that perfect place on my lover's chest where I just fit, and waking up with him aroused and rubbing on my butt. I love listening to the piano being played solo, the first day of spring when I can wear sandals outside, the look of my feet in high heels with clear polish on my toes, taking a hot bath and feeling my body temperature rise, rubbing my head after I just got my hair cut, sucking on a newborn baby’s perfect little toes, herbal tea with honey, pumpkin seed chili, and pear cobbler from Lush Life Café. I love when I sweat and it's that slippery kind of sweat. I love my grandfather. I love that he was a civil rights leader and taught me the importance of having integrity. I love that my grandmother gave me the love my mother never could. I love that I have had the opportunity to help two wonderful loved ones transition peacefully. I love raspberries, blueberries, cherries, and really juicy peaches and plums. I love the fact that I'm not average. I love organic gardening and making fresh pesto sauce from basil I grew on my porch. I love blasting my favorite g in the car over and over again and singing it at the top of my lungs. I love being in love and spoiling my partner and knowing that he appreciates it. I love Cafe 290 on Sunday nights and a decadent picnic basket with gourmet foods. I love throwing dinner parties for friends and using my cloth napkins. I love all my ex's for teaching me how to love and making me a better woman. I love Law & Order marathons when every episode has Jesse L. Martin, HGTV, documentaries about Black history, and Alvin Aliey’s Revelations make me cry every time I see it. I adore making love to men with the same skin color as me, when I don’t know where he begins and I end. I love writing a story and seeing the words come alive on the paper and realizing that I gave birth to transformative words. I love playing games online that stimulate my brain and learning the words to amazing gs in different languages I don’t speak. I love having my nipples sucked softly like a baby and the art of Woodrow Nash. I love drinking coffee with amaretto creamer at night before I go to bed. I love egg custard snow cones, unagi, learning things most people don’t know, women with thick, wooly, nappy afros and smooth dark skin. I love late night phone sex with men with poetic hearts and radical minds. I love the feeling of finishing a creative project, writing in my journal, chilled white wine, bone china, crisp, freshly laundered sheets, smoked salmon, making love in the candlelight, talking dirty during sex, white chocolate, dark chocolate, Stevie Wonder, I love telling people that Earth, Wing & Fire's September was written just for me because my birthday is the 21st night of September. I love Ledisi's Feeling Orange CD even though it costs an arm and a leg and is more rare than a split atom, musicals from the 60s and 70s, and meditation. I love conversations with deeply cerebral individuals who appreciate me for me and not my aesthetics and who don't judge me for my politics or profession. I love when people tell me that something that I've written has helped them, healed them, moved them, aroused them, or given them a new way to think about things. I love wearing dresses and going out to dinner and knowing that I'm going to go home and make incredible, passionate, sensual, AfroerotiK love.