I went to "Get my praise on" with Deb yesterday and it was amazing. Divine, actually. It was the first time I have ventured into a church just to go in over a decade, maybe even more. I wasn't even married in a church. I did that at the "We've only just begun" wedding chapel. Don't go there. Statistically, the average American marriage lasts 7 years. I nearly doubled that.
I did have my kids baptized in a church and they continued Sunday school and even their educations in parochial schools, but I've always kept my distance. I have many reasons for it. The primary excuse I used was that I was born a Baptist, raised Lutheran, educated Catholic and chose to be baptized Episcopal and even with that, during college, I experimented with Buddism, and currently I enjoy reading about Islam and Kabbalah. Not because they happen to be the thing to do. I've had the books I'm reading on the subjects for over a decade too...but more so because I'm at a point in life when defining my higher power has greater meaning for me.
So when Debbie asked me to go to church, I hmmm'd and ha'd and said "Sure" but I wasn't certain I would really commit and go. I told her I would see how I felt. That's me code for, "Girl, it depends if I'm sleeping in or not". To Debbie's credit, she knows me well. She sent an email to all of my email accounts and left a message on my cell phone and landline that said, 'We're going to get our praise on tomorrow. I'll pick you up at 10". Well, no room for no.
It worked. I was dressesd and re'd to go and prime to get my God on when she arrived. The church itself is a large building that could easily pass for a community center, which really makes sense. The Church she attends more closely resembles one that you would find lower on the Mason-Dixon and yes, there were theatrics, but ya know when someone gets the spirit, I say, "It's your thang, do what ya wanna do. I can't tell ya how to catch a groove". I do the Salt N Pepa version because that's just my GEN. Do what it do.
We strolled in, waited until the ushers seated us, which is easy for Debbie since she is in a wheelchair...she's always got a good seat for every show, ya know? The service began with some bits of testimony where people acknowledge how God has moved in their lives, some divine miracle like knocking out that rent payment. No comment. Then, the choir got up and sang and sang and sang. Their voices lifted, the old addage of 'when two or more are gathered' was ever present and I felt it.
The soul was there. There was feeling behind every word they used in praise of God's work. For some reason, it was vastly different than the vocal performances that I've witnessed at every church since arriving in this state 30 years ago. Well, 32,but I didn't want to date myself. I don't want to make it a difference in white and black, but it just happens to be just that. The difference between Amy Grant and CeCe Winans I guess. I was so moved during one song that I reached into my purse, grabbed my handy dandy notebook ( yes, I know I've watched Blue's Clues too often) and started writing. I was inspired and a woman's story came to me. The words came faster than my fingers could write, but I got the nuts and bolts down. I got a title as well and for me, that's the skeleton. Now, I can use my mind to tell this story and add flesh to those bones.
The sermon was about Jacob and Esau and I have no intention of telling it again. There are enough versions of the Bible out there for anyone that cares, but the Bishop wanted to know which of the brothers we all were. There is no doubt I am a Jacob. I get in where I fit in and when I don't fit in, I make a way and GET THERE. My mind is my trump card and I carry it in a pocket protector called faith.
What's complicated about that, you may ask? Well, nothing really...except that on the way home after the 3 hour service, I was dicussing a personal situation with Deb. I told her that sometimes it's almost like we need a bolt of lightening to tell us if we are on the right path or not. Just then, a car swerved in front of us with a window decal that had one word on it. It was definitely specific to what we were just discussing and so so out of place. There are no coincidences. That bolt of lightening is quite complicated because it means I have to take action and be accountable in a situation that affects more than just me. What can I say, it's complicated.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Friday, March 02, 2007
17 inches of snow on the wall
It's 7:30am and I just rescued my dog from the snow bank outside my office door. Ok, it's not an office, it's a garage, but I do have a desk, tv and laptop here...so by the narrowest ( most narrow) of margins, it qualifies during the breaks I take out here.
Like every other day, I opened the door, expected Sable to go barrelling through it and do her thing but today she took a few steps, I turned back to my desk and sat down in my office chair ( yep, that's here too) and then she started whining to come back in. The snow was taller than she can stand in and not sink and she's a pretty large Black lab. Well, she's more than large and in truth, I need to call Bob Greene and get her started on her Best Life ever diet because she needs fries with her shake and shimmy and she's only 9.
So, I let her back in the house where the mini me(s) are enjoying a hot breakfast because all of the schools are closed. I'm listening to George Michael's Twenty Five again because it was in the Mary J. Reflection's cd case which by default means Mary J is on top of the radio, a lady in waiting. It's going to be a productive day so she'll get her turn.
I woke up early to see the snow totals across the state and see if in fact that schools had closed and I could tell darling daughter to go back to bed once more. Affirmative on all accounts. Then I switched from local to CNN and caught the Anna Nicole debacle on it's last legs.
Anna will be laid to rest today next to her son in the Bahamas, as well she should have been 3 weeks ago. Just the other day my mother made me promise not to take 3 weeks to bury her when she passes. I reminded her that we'll be neighbors in the nursing home, thanks to her unbridled teenage passion and that we should go look for a two for one deal on plots at some point. Keep her laughing now...that's all I can do.
She told me she wants to be buried near me and asked if I was planning to be buried here or in Louisiana. Crazy as it sounds, when I spent all that time bedridden, I did think about this topic and I told her that I want to go home and be buried with our family. She then reminded me that the family church plots are over crowded and I said, "Well, hell, running Uncle Robert over ain't nothing new. I'm sure he doesn't mind at this point and company might do him well." By the time we go, Alex will be lakeshore property anyway so we may as well buy up now. I ain't skeered.
I told her about this newish thing I heard about where you are cremated and turned into a diamond, a thought my husband had for me that I quickly dismissed. It's a brown diamond! Where am I gonna wear that? Plus, if he can't give me a set and it's not a carat for each ear, what's the point? There is that and then there is the question of what his next wife may want because I'm not so sure that I'll be in a position to make those executive decisions for him for much longer. LOL! Besides, it feels freaky to walk around with a person on your person. That's just not normal. Neither is this entry but still.
Like every other day, I opened the door, expected Sable to go barrelling through it and do her thing but today she took a few steps, I turned back to my desk and sat down in my office chair ( yep, that's here too) and then she started whining to come back in. The snow was taller than she can stand in and not sink and she's a pretty large Black lab. Well, she's more than large and in truth, I need to call Bob Greene and get her started on her Best Life ever diet because she needs fries with her shake and shimmy and she's only 9.
So, I let her back in the house where the mini me(s) are enjoying a hot breakfast because all of the schools are closed. I'm listening to George Michael's Twenty Five again because it was in the Mary J. Reflection's cd case which by default means Mary J is on top of the radio, a lady in waiting. It's going to be a productive day so she'll get her turn.
I woke up early to see the snow totals across the state and see if in fact that schools had closed and I could tell darling daughter to go back to bed once more. Affirmative on all accounts. Then I switched from local to CNN and caught the Anna Nicole debacle on it's last legs.
Anna will be laid to rest today next to her son in the Bahamas, as well she should have been 3 weeks ago. Just the other day my mother made me promise not to take 3 weeks to bury her when she passes. I reminded her that we'll be neighbors in the nursing home, thanks to her unbridled teenage passion and that we should go look for a two for one deal on plots at some point. Keep her laughing now...that's all I can do.
She told me she wants to be buried near me and asked if I was planning to be buried here or in Louisiana. Crazy as it sounds, when I spent all that time bedridden, I did think about this topic and I told her that I want to go home and be buried with our family. She then reminded me that the family church plots are over crowded and I said, "Well, hell, running Uncle Robert over ain't nothing new. I'm sure he doesn't mind at this point and company might do him well." By the time we go, Alex will be lakeshore property anyway so we may as well buy up now. I ain't skeered.
I told her about this newish thing I heard about where you are cremated and turned into a diamond, a thought my husband had for me that I quickly dismissed. It's a brown diamond! Where am I gonna wear that? Plus, if he can't give me a set and it's not a carat for each ear, what's the point? There is that and then there is the question of what his next wife may want because I'm not so sure that I'll be in a position to make those executive decisions for him for much longer. LOL! Besides, it feels freaky to walk around with a person on your person. That's just not normal. Neither is this entry but still.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Raving rants...
Rapping Rant
Rapper 50 Cent has just released a book about hustling through his new publishing company. There are so many thing wrong with that sentence, none of which is the structure. I may not know an adverb from my ass, but I do know that 50 cent can’t even say his own damn name, let alone spell it and write about it? HUH? WHAT?
My main bone of contention is that this book will be marketing to youth. My age group will not likely be picking up a Hustling manual ( even though, I know some of y’all could use it). Mainstream America will not be buying this book. His target demographic is junior. For real and he’s teaching junior how to hustle.
That’s kind of like Dick Cheney writing a self help book about making the world love you for your glowing personality. 50 can’t hustle! He’s been shot 8 or 9 times. His hustle is BROKE!
Some may say that the fact that he even has this deal is a hustle and it may well be, but this is when my eyebrow raises and I question the “handlers”, the “advisors” because I don’t believe it’s HIS hustle. Follow the money trail.
The Presidential “Race”
The hats are all being thrown in and it’s still anyone’s game. That’s because we’re a year ahead of schedule. That also means, another year’s worth of millions to fund these campaigns. Whatever happened to campaign finance reform? I mean, it’s logical that if I have the most money, I’ll buy the biggest flag, more people will see it, recognize it and likely support it and many won’t have a clue why except for the fact that there is brand recognition. That’s branding folks. That’s Business 101. Is that what our Presidency is now? Just another business?
Well, it’s always been about the one with the most gold rising to the top, but they used to have to stand for something too…now it seems all of these folks are just in it to win it and will say whatever they need to in order to ascend to the Oval. One won’t admit she made a mistake in supporting the war. One supports the war and one is triumphing by saying he didn’t support the war all along. Senator Obama, you already had my support but careful with that because it might turn into anti-war sentiment and bite you in the ass in a year when those vets come home.
I supported Dennis Kucinich early on in the last election. When I realized that his chances were faltering because he didn’t have “The Look” that Americans wanted, I put my support behind John Edwards because I agreed with him on the issues. I could trust the future of the nation in his hands…for a few years anyway. There was a tiny bit of skepticism because he looks an awful lot like the character Damian in Omen 3 played by Sam Neil, but ya know, I figured maybe that’s just me. As far as religious conspiracies go, the Anti-Christ would have been older than Edwards and descended from a long line of royalty. Hmm, not unlike George Bush of Dubya.
But Dubya isn’t the anti-Christ. I don’t believe him to be inherently evil, just inherently stupid. Big difference. In all honesty, I raise my eyebrows and question his “handlers” and “advisors” too because I don’t believe all of this chaos is his hustle. Follow the money trail. déjà vu, isn’t it?
I caught a bit of the ‘Hot Topics” segment on the View, which I swore I wouldn’t watch after Star Jones was canned, but I still catch that first 15 minutes anyway. It’s amusing to watch. Yesterday, Rosie and Joy were discussing the current political climate and the conversation reached a fever pitch when they turned attentions to Elizabeth Hasselbeck and questioned her unwavering support of the Bush Administration. After The hunt for WMDs, after Haliburton, after Katrina, after Gitmo, after Abu Gharib, after the Patriot Act, after Enron, after Scooter gate, did I mention after KATRINA???? Rosie attributed Elizabeth’s loyalty to youth. Personally, I think she’s just a very very vanilla person ( bsdm reference notwithstanding and she wouldn't have a clue anyway) and that colors much of her world and thinking. It has nothing to do with age. It has something to do with class, ethnicity, education level, exposure to the world and a superiority complex that she isn’t likely even aware that she has. It’s White Privilege in a nutshell. It keeps people that want to be blind, blind.
It can be proven too. My theory anyway. If you were to engage a room full of people and ask them if race ( social construct) mattered, most would say it didn’t. Then go a step further and tell them that they can no longer identify as whatever race they had previously identified as. Most would lose their damn minds. They wouldn’t have a clue who they were or what they were expected to do and worse, they would feel “like everybody else” and that is something that Americans NEVER want to feel. We’re a funny group when ya think about it. People love to pretend to be “color blind” but if two days later someone asks what color they are, they are quick to say. Just the same, I’m not giving my Black back so I won’t be hypocritical about it. But there is no such thing as Black privilege. I guess, viva la difference
In other news
Expecting two feet of snow here...an inch and hour for the next day. For the kids, fun sledding with their dad. For me, lots more time to write. I know I shouldn't shop this week, but I need a new desk. I was thinking of a flat writer's table with two a-frame style sides and then a second architect's desk so that I can just switch up when I paint. Right now, there is far too much preparation and I almost lose inspiration by the time I have all of my supplies together. A snow day would be perfect timing to clear out this room next to me for my own purposes. I'm just trying to busy my hands so I don't think about my mother too much and don't write about her either. Just did though. I'm avoiding calling "Home" because I will have to tell them what's going on with her, though I could lighten the convo by telling my aunt that I ordered Chitlins online again. She gave me hell for weeks for that last time, but I swear I have never seen them cleaned so well in my life. They are what they are. I told her I would save her some time this season and order some for her too. I won't tell you the names she called me but I'm still her baby. Hell, I'm everyone's baby, still! Maybe my mom and I should go home next month after all. I haven't been since Katrina. I left on Sunday after burying Memo and Katrina came that Monday. Yeah, I need to go.
But for now, I'm off to RyeCrisp and turkey with pepperjack land and a side of cukes with Wishbone balsamic spray but I may treat myself to a Welch's grape. But, if I have a V-8 instead, I swear I'm baking a cake tonight! With all kinds of buttercream icing.
Rapper 50 Cent has just released a book about hustling through his new publishing company. There are so many thing wrong with that sentence, none of which is the structure. I may not know an adverb from my ass, but I do know that 50 cent can’t even say his own damn name, let alone spell it and write about it? HUH? WHAT?
My main bone of contention is that this book will be marketing to youth. My age group will not likely be picking up a Hustling manual ( even though, I know some of y’all could use it). Mainstream America will not be buying this book. His target demographic is junior. For real and he’s teaching junior how to hustle.
That’s kind of like Dick Cheney writing a self help book about making the world love you for your glowing personality. 50 can’t hustle! He’s been shot 8 or 9 times. His hustle is BROKE!
Some may say that the fact that he even has this deal is a hustle and it may well be, but this is when my eyebrow raises and I question the “handlers”, the “advisors” because I don’t believe it’s HIS hustle. Follow the money trail.
The Presidential “Race”
The hats are all being thrown in and it’s still anyone’s game. That’s because we’re a year ahead of schedule. That also means, another year’s worth of millions to fund these campaigns. Whatever happened to campaign finance reform? I mean, it’s logical that if I have the most money, I’ll buy the biggest flag, more people will see it, recognize it and likely support it and many won’t have a clue why except for the fact that there is brand recognition. That’s branding folks. That’s Business 101. Is that what our Presidency is now? Just another business?
Well, it’s always been about the one with the most gold rising to the top, but they used to have to stand for something too…now it seems all of these folks are just in it to win it and will say whatever they need to in order to ascend to the Oval. One won’t admit she made a mistake in supporting the war. One supports the war and one is triumphing by saying he didn’t support the war all along. Senator Obama, you already had my support but careful with that because it might turn into anti-war sentiment and bite you in the ass in a year when those vets come home.
I supported Dennis Kucinich early on in the last election. When I realized that his chances were faltering because he didn’t have “The Look” that Americans wanted, I put my support behind John Edwards because I agreed with him on the issues. I could trust the future of the nation in his hands…for a few years anyway. There was a tiny bit of skepticism because he looks an awful lot like the character Damian in Omen 3 played by Sam Neil, but ya know, I figured maybe that’s just me. As far as religious conspiracies go, the Anti-Christ would have been older than Edwards and descended from a long line of royalty. Hmm, not unlike George Bush of Dubya.
But Dubya isn’t the anti-Christ. I don’t believe him to be inherently evil, just inherently stupid. Big difference. In all honesty, I raise my eyebrows and question his “handlers” and “advisors” too because I don’t believe all of this chaos is his hustle. Follow the money trail. déjà vu, isn’t it?
I caught a bit of the ‘Hot Topics” segment on the View, which I swore I wouldn’t watch after Star Jones was canned, but I still catch that first 15 minutes anyway. It’s amusing to watch. Yesterday, Rosie and Joy were discussing the current political climate and the conversation reached a fever pitch when they turned attentions to Elizabeth Hasselbeck and questioned her unwavering support of the Bush Administration. After The hunt for WMDs, after Haliburton, after Katrina, after Gitmo, after Abu Gharib, after the Patriot Act, after Enron, after Scooter gate, did I mention after KATRINA???? Rosie attributed Elizabeth’s loyalty to youth. Personally, I think she’s just a very very vanilla person ( bsdm reference notwithstanding and she wouldn't have a clue anyway) and that colors much of her world and thinking. It has nothing to do with age. It has something to do with class, ethnicity, education level, exposure to the world and a superiority complex that she isn’t likely even aware that she has. It’s White Privilege in a nutshell. It keeps people that want to be blind, blind.
It can be proven too. My theory anyway. If you were to engage a room full of people and ask them if race ( social construct) mattered, most would say it didn’t. Then go a step further and tell them that they can no longer identify as whatever race they had previously identified as. Most would lose their damn minds. They wouldn’t have a clue who they were or what they were expected to do and worse, they would feel “like everybody else” and that is something that Americans NEVER want to feel. We’re a funny group when ya think about it. People love to pretend to be “color blind” but if two days later someone asks what color they are, they are quick to say. Just the same, I’m not giving my Black back so I won’t be hypocritical about it. But there is no such thing as Black privilege. I guess, viva la difference
In other news
Expecting two feet of snow here...an inch and hour for the next day. For the kids, fun sledding with their dad. For me, lots more time to write. I know I shouldn't shop this week, but I need a new desk. I was thinking of a flat writer's table with two a-frame style sides and then a second architect's desk so that I can just switch up when I paint. Right now, there is far too much preparation and I almost lose inspiration by the time I have all of my supplies together. A snow day would be perfect timing to clear out this room next to me for my own purposes. I'm just trying to busy my hands so I don't think about my mother too much and don't write about her either. Just did though. I'm avoiding calling "Home" because I will have to tell them what's going on with her, though I could lighten the convo by telling my aunt that I ordered Chitlins online again. She gave me hell for weeks for that last time, but I swear I have never seen them cleaned so well in my life. They are what they are. I told her I would save her some time this season and order some for her too. I won't tell you the names she called me but I'm still her baby. Hell, I'm everyone's baby, still! Maybe my mom and I should go home next month after all. I haven't been since Katrina. I left on Sunday after burying Memo and Katrina came that Monday. Yeah, I need to go.
But for now, I'm off to RyeCrisp and turkey with pepperjack land and a side of cukes with Wishbone balsamic spray but I may treat myself to a Welch's grape. But, if I have a V-8 instead, I swear I'm baking a cake tonight! With all kinds of buttercream icing.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Oprah: The real constant gardener
After I put the boy wonder down for a nap, I watched Oprah's Leadership Academy Special. I TIVO'd it on Monday night since I was planning a night out and about. When news of the Academy first broke on a message board that I frequent, the reviews were mixed. Many people were faulting Oprah, not for anything that she was doing, but for her comments about the lack of motivation children in this country have towards their education.
But the differences are astounding in comparison. Children here do take education for granted. In our own community, a good student is often ridiculed and alienated. Been there, been that. While in other ethnic groups, a striving student is heralded and applauded, ours are put down by our own. If that's not eating the mentality you have been spoon fed and embracing it, I don't know what is. At this point, we don't even need Oppressors because we are doing such a fine job of imitating them ourselves.
Our children use rappers as role models. They want to dress like them and live like them, but they fail to realize that without education, most of those rappers are one hit wonders that eventually fall back to the same run down streets they came from. The rappers that rise beyond that and become moguls happen to have educations behind them. They understand marketing. They understand how to manage their money. They understand the principles of business. I wonder why these moguls don't spend their time teaching children those things instead of trying to sell them $80 t-shirts? Well, I guess because they didn't take the Master's level classes and don't understand how their actions today will affect them tomorrow. Perhaps they are too busy buying up slices of the Hamptons to care about reinvesting in their own communities. They are probably too concerned having a weave fitted to care that the distribution line of that hair is now entirely an Asian chain and are too absorbed in their own image to be concerned with the fact that there are no Black owned business in Black neighborhoods anymore. Something has to change somewhere.
I don't fault Asian business owners for seeing an opportunity and taking hold of it with the hair care industry. I fault us for still buying into Eurocentric beauty ideals and demanding those products and not giving a damn who sells them as long as we get them. Just another reason why I don't wear a weave and yet my hair is still down my back and my crown and don't frequent those types of "beauty" supply stores. I don't get manicures unless I can develop a reporte with the stylist. I don't fault an Arab business owner for seeing an opportunity and taking hold of the local corner store markets. I fault us for not keeping our own stores in business, for walking further to bigger stores owned by other people and giving them our dollar, allowing that small mom and pop shop to go under. It starts with a little bit of selling out and ends up with a lost generation.
We have lost something. Our parents were raised by our grandparents who knew what it was like to struggle. They knew what it was all about. They fought so fiercely to have the very things they had and our parents appreciated it. At some point, our parents flipped the switch. The message they gave us was "I sacrificed so you don't have to," and we just kick back and enjoy the fruit of their labor, getting fat, watching MTV, remote in hand and waiting for our dinner to be delivered. I'm guilty as charged, but I recognize it and it disgusts me, so I try to change it. A little bit at a time...where I can.
Oprah is doing the world a great favor by empowering these young girls. She is planting the seeds for a brighter and stronger Africa for generations to come. Do we have that here? Who is doing that here? Maybe we all should be.
But the differences are astounding in comparison. Children here do take education for granted. In our own community, a good student is often ridiculed and alienated. Been there, been that. While in other ethnic groups, a striving student is heralded and applauded, ours are put down by our own. If that's not eating the mentality you have been spoon fed and embracing it, I don't know what is. At this point, we don't even need Oppressors because we are doing such a fine job of imitating them ourselves.
Our children use rappers as role models. They want to dress like them and live like them, but they fail to realize that without education, most of those rappers are one hit wonders that eventually fall back to the same run down streets they came from. The rappers that rise beyond that and become moguls happen to have educations behind them. They understand marketing. They understand how to manage their money. They understand the principles of business. I wonder why these moguls don't spend their time teaching children those things instead of trying to sell them $80 t-shirts? Well, I guess because they didn't take the Master's level classes and don't understand how their actions today will affect them tomorrow. Perhaps they are too busy buying up slices of the Hamptons to care about reinvesting in their own communities. They are probably too concerned having a weave fitted to care that the distribution line of that hair is now entirely an Asian chain and are too absorbed in their own image to be concerned with the fact that there are no Black owned business in Black neighborhoods anymore. Something has to change somewhere.
I don't fault Asian business owners for seeing an opportunity and taking hold of it with the hair care industry. I fault us for still buying into Eurocentric beauty ideals and demanding those products and not giving a damn who sells them as long as we get them. Just another reason why I don't wear a weave and yet my hair is still down my back and my crown and don't frequent those types of "beauty" supply stores. I don't get manicures unless I can develop a reporte with the stylist. I don't fault an Arab business owner for seeing an opportunity and taking hold of the local corner store markets. I fault us for not keeping our own stores in business, for walking further to bigger stores owned by other people and giving them our dollar, allowing that small mom and pop shop to go under. It starts with a little bit of selling out and ends up with a lost generation.
We have lost something. Our parents were raised by our grandparents who knew what it was like to struggle. They knew what it was all about. They fought so fiercely to have the very things they had and our parents appreciated it. At some point, our parents flipped the switch. The message they gave us was "I sacrificed so you don't have to," and we just kick back and enjoy the fruit of their labor, getting fat, watching MTV, remote in hand and waiting for our dinner to be delivered. I'm guilty as charged, but I recognize it and it disgusts me, so I try to change it. A little bit at a time...where I can.
Oprah is doing the world a great favor by empowering these young girls. She is planting the seeds for a brighter and stronger Africa for generations to come. Do we have that here? Who is doing that here? Maybe we all should be.
I say a little prayer for you...
An hour ago, my mother called me to tell me that her paperwork was in order and that she wanted me to know that for the first time in her life, a doctor called her at home. She had been having some pain in her leg and side and went to urgent care and the on duty physician stayed on her case and even consulted with another doctor that called her today. They found a 9mm tumor in her femur. I gave her the reply she called for. I told her that I loved her and not to worry. I made her laugh. I teased her and reminded her that her daddy had a peg leg, which is kinda funny since that’s one of those caps my uncles and aunts used to use on me IN FRONT of my grandfather when we would play spades and talk smack over the board. I told her not to worry. I offered to go to the follow up appointments with her. Then I told her not to worry again. Typical of her, she said, 'Oh I wasn't worried, but just letting you know, you might be next." To which I replied "See, I hope you get termites, Peg." My mom and I, we're just like that. It's the 15 year age gap. When my 3 year old asked her once who her mother was, she told him it was me. She wasn't lying.
What’s more, I added her to the growing list of people that it hitting Jamaica this Spring. She questioned whether Jamiaca was the right spot because she wasn’t sure how clean it was, then she informed me that she had just bought some jerk sauce and asked me how to use it. I reminded her that she is the one that taught me how to cook, which means neither of us have a clue how to use that sauce or any other. It was then that she decided to invite my aunt BayBay to join us for the trip. BayBay owns a restaurant in CenLa so at least she learned how to cook as well as Mama ( my maternal grandmother) does. Then I ended the call and gave my mother a parting chuckle by telling her that “What happens in Jamaica, stays in Jamaica”. She roared with laughter at that.
Now, that leaves me to my thoughts, my feelings and my writing. I can only do one right now. The end.
What’s more, I added her to the growing list of people that it hitting Jamaica this Spring. She questioned whether Jamiaca was the right spot because she wasn’t sure how clean it was, then she informed me that she had just bought some jerk sauce and asked me how to use it. I reminded her that she is the one that taught me how to cook, which means neither of us have a clue how to use that sauce or any other. It was then that she decided to invite my aunt BayBay to join us for the trip. BayBay owns a restaurant in CenLa so at least she learned how to cook as well as Mama ( my maternal grandmother) does. Then I ended the call and gave my mother a parting chuckle by telling her that “What happens in Jamaica, stays in Jamaica”. She roared with laughter at that.
Now, that leaves me to my thoughts, my feelings and my writing. I can only do one right now. The end.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Daddy's Little Girls
Deb and I hit the 9:10 viewing of Tyler Perry’s “Daddy’s Little Girls” on Monday evening. I saw the Departed last weekend and watched an Inconvenient Truth and the Children of Beslan about the Terrorist seige at a Russian school in 2004 and really, I needed something a bit lighter. Global warming, Irish Mafia/Police corruption and Terrorists with religious extremism are not light and fluffy and don’t evoke giggles and loose chatter. Tyler Perry productions will give you a message overall, but all the while you are taking that in you’re going to connect to the characters and likely recognize yourself and others in them and you’re going to laugh.
Going into the theater with that in mind, the film didn’t disappoint. The movie’s premise is very boy meet girl, but the message is that there are good Black men around with values and decency and intelligence that are dedicated to their children, their families. It was so so so nice to see that on the big screen. We have gaps growing in our community in education and earnings potential and if we allow them to, they can separate and alienate us from each other. The war on drugs didn’t really happen. The war on terror was a sham. The war on Black men is alive and well. Do you know how many new prisons have been built in Southern California in the past decade? This country is sending a message loud and clear to our sons ( and to our daughters…just ask the ones widely accepted) and we don’t have the luxury to ignore it any longer.
In a day and age where my 3 year old has only men of his grandfather’s generation to look up to for his examples of Black men because Hollywood plays and preys on this street mentality, slave mentality, slovenly, sadistic and that’s just the 18 to 24 group. I won’t even get into the set up that the music industry is doing on young girls…essentially deeming our next generation of Queens capable of nothing but shaking what they have enhanced for the benefit of their male counterparts who prefer them to be light, bright and damn near white, and near a bed. I work tirelessly to assure my daughter that regardless of the ethnicity of her father and his Mayflower pedigree, she is her cousin Ny’Asha. Not that they are the same. They are EACH OTHER. When a Black woman is targeted or excels, they are each other. It matters not the texture of their hair or melanin in their skin, they are each other.
I am grateful to Tyler for this film because it was timely and I found a connection to all of the characters. The lead female character, Julia, portrayed by Gabrielle Union, is a high powered attorney in bustling Atlanta, single and then some and searching. Her well intentioned friends set her up on blind dates that provide some of the funniest parts of the movie. Debbie and I fell out when, on the phone with Tracey Ellis Ross’ character, Julia exasperated by her dates announces that she will scream if she sees another brother in a throw back jersey and then DOES! A few men in the theater had to cover up at that point. That was a high five and “aww hell naw” moment because, pointing to my forehead, I’m so there. I mean, if you didn’t play for the Minnesota Vikings in 1998, take off that Randy Moss jersey! Oooh, flashback to 1998 Minnesota Vikings playing the Altanta falcons in the NFC championship and that crushing, heartbreaking knee that Randall Cunningham took and Gary's missed field goal. *hangs head, raises my Helga braids and Vikes horn in a fist for sad pathetic unity* If I could have beat Denny Green’s ass myself I would have. Manage the clock, man! They did the Dirty Bird IN MY HOUSE! But I digress. See, it’s still painful. That was our year though. Ugh. My Cris Carter jersey has sat in cold storage since that day and I’m not bringing it out until we retire his number in the Dome. How did I get to football?
Anyway, there were a few points in the movie where the script needed to be tightened. A few times where I was screaming inside, “show, don’t tell” and I would have loved to see the Maya character be some of the stitching in tightening that script up. Why was Maya single? If she was single, wouldn’t Monty have been right up her alley? Questions, ya know. It would have made sense that she be the one to tell Julia about the court hearing rather than Julia walking by as happenstance. We saw Monty’s character and background fully developed…did Julia’s end up on the cutting room floor? Her depth wasn’t there. I related to her on a surface level because as women, as Black women, we share so many common threads that don’t need translation but no need to dumb it down for us either. It’s ok to explain that Black women are sometimes vulnerable and debunk the myth that we are angry, loud and able to handle anything that comes our way. We can break too and it was clear that Julia had, but what was not was that her father and a past love had done that to her to create the woman she now was. It was spoken, but never really explained.
I did have a funny awakening in the theater though. As much as we think we change…lol. Just as the lead characters were arriving at a jazz club, I surveyed the scene and turned to Deb and said, “Um, doesn’t look safe to me. Make my order to go,” so I found it insanely funny that Julia had the very same thoughts. I’m not sure what that says about that character and I don’t even want to know what it says about me. But another scene did tell me something about myself. Julia’s closest friends are very much like her, pristine and reared to perfection. In one scene, one of her friends questions Julia’s sanity in choosing to be with a working class man; correction, a working class man WITH children from the hood IN the hood. She’s a lawyer after all and a pairing of that nature is stretching the bounds of class, which is just behind religion and race in terms of challenges that couples face. I lost about 2 minutes of the movie because I really had to think seriously about things in my own life and things I have felt, thought and said. As my sister nears graduation day in May from law school, I have tried my best to not say those words to her, but I know she has sensed my concern for her. I struggle to hide my feelings. Oh, let me quit. I don’t struggle at all. I just don’t bother trying to hide it.
My sister’s boyfriend is from the shanty town here, not even the ghetto. He grew up rough. He grew up poor. He moved in to my parents home( correction: my step mother’s home now) when my sister was 16 (mind you, after my father moved out, of course) and I blew a gasket. I mean, when my dad ran out on those kids, I bought this house 3 blocks from them to help raise them in his absence. I stopped with the minimum wage jobs, went back to school and got my shit together with a quickness. I got married! I went corporate and was promoted 5 times in 4 years with the second largest discount retailer in this country. It’s no small feat when you consider that I still dropped out of college again. LOL! Sometimes, I am Mama and Daddy to them and since I’m 18 years older than the youngest, they rebel just the same too.
Back then, I offered to get my sister’s boyfriend an apartment because I thought that allowing two 16 year olds to live together wasn’t such a bright idea especially since my parents had ME at that age. I called places to get him back in school, I called in favors, I offered a lot. He refused it all. Instead, he worked. He got his G.E.D and worked. At 22, he has supported my sister emotionally and financially through her Bachelors degree and now her Juris at break neck speed compared to her peers. She shaved 2 years off the average timing to become a lawyer…and she did that because she had him supporting her and the ambition and motivation to do that. How can I fault him? For what can I fault him? She’s a student so she’s broke as hell so he’s not around for the money. He has stuck by her longer than some marriages last and they love each other so who am I to judge them? I really wanted to slap Brenda in the movie for being such a hater and I had to seriously look at myself and think about the role I had played in my own sister’s life. Message received. Lesson learned.
I wonder if it’s tacky to give my sister a trip to the Bahamas for her graduation and then go with her. LOL! Well, she’s still my baby sister! I’m not going to let her go alone. Aww damn…ok, this would be a moment where I’m supposed to look over what I just read, the lesson I claim I just got and let her boyfriend have a second ticket because he has earned it through being there for her and enabling her to finish her education. DAYUM! I was all set to wear a bikini ( with a wrap, don’t play) and wind and grind on the beach, getting drunk and waking up with jerk chicken breath. Guess this Stella will have to get her groove back another time. DAYUM for real! It’s a good thing. Let me just keep saying that and I won’t want that ticket. LOL! It’s a good thing and he deserves it. See…but my little cousin is graduating from law school in May too. We’re the only 3 girls, I mean mind you, I’m the official old as hell chaperone. Oooh, that did it. I am too old to be traveling with 22 and 21 year olds and I would have lost my mind if someone my age would have done this to my while me and my girls were in our Wild daze. In fact, I’m almost positive we woke up early and left my Aunt Pete in Louisiana right before we went to Hollywood in 1990. LOL! Issue settled.
Oh, but the bathroom scene in DLG... Someone please tell men that women do not hide their “toys” in the bathroom medicine cabinet. Not that I know or anything about that, but I've heard.*whistles and looks off into space* HA! But, that’s reserved for a nightstand or for some, a case packed with an arsenal. You just don't know! Debbie and I looked at each other and just cracked up. The whole theater of women did. Says something about where some of our money is going. Speeds 1,2 and who needs a man. Of course, that scene was transitional though and it was funny as all get out so it worked.
I’m not sure if it’s Lauryn or China, but the youngest of the daughters had the best lines in the script in DLG and she is going to have a very bright future. The IT factor all over that little girl. I’m sure all 3 of the girls will be able to chart their own course. And Tasha Smith, wow, she played hoochie to no end. I was so ready to knock her on her ass by the end of the film. She represented so much that is wrong with our community and it was tough to keep watching her, let alone Gary Sturgis and not wishing them immediate bodily harm.
I really do hope and pray that something in those last two characters resonates within people and makes them as ill as it made me, so much so that people do really rally as the community did in the film. I mean, we have “Stop Snitching” shirts on sale all over the US. Stop snitching? For real? For what? Who benefits when someone doesn’t snitch? If people were living on the up and up, they wouldn’t need to worry who was snitching in the first place. “Stop tripping” shirts are a better option. Stop tripping on the strip clubs. Stop tripping on trying to “make it rain”. Hell, just make it sprinkle with a J.O.B. and that’s good enough. Light showers never hurt nobody.
It was interesting that there was some realism in the film at a pivotal moment when two characters go head to head where people just stand there and watch. Complacent, not wanting to get involved, no one wants to make that first move. Sadly, that’s reality. Too many people allow fear to dictate their convictions. They hesitate. They second guess and that’s all the time it takes to change the course of life and death.
Overall, I really did enjoy the movie and the night out. It was good to laugh like that. It was even better to see Black people on a screen wearing clothes and not rapping or trying to sell me their name to wear on my back. It was nice to see a happy ending and know that those are possible when we think outside of societal means and limitations and think for ourselves allowing our hearts and minds to dictate our path. There are good and decent Black men out there. They may not earn 6 figures and they may be pushing a broom or a bus or even a pencil, but money isn’t everything and to be honest, it really isn’t much. A house is not a home.
I walked out of the theater feeling positive and even a little hopeful. So now that we know that good Black men are out there and that the concept can make it to the big screen, it’s time to do the same for good Black women. My fingers are itchy..must be time to write.
Going into the theater with that in mind, the film didn’t disappoint. The movie’s premise is very boy meet girl, but the message is that there are good Black men around with values and decency and intelligence that are dedicated to their children, their families. It was so so so nice to see that on the big screen. We have gaps growing in our community in education and earnings potential and if we allow them to, they can separate and alienate us from each other. The war on drugs didn’t really happen. The war on terror was a sham. The war on Black men is alive and well. Do you know how many new prisons have been built in Southern California in the past decade? This country is sending a message loud and clear to our sons ( and to our daughters…just ask the ones widely accepted) and we don’t have the luxury to ignore it any longer.
In a day and age where my 3 year old has only men of his grandfather’s generation to look up to for his examples of Black men because Hollywood plays and preys on this street mentality, slave mentality, slovenly, sadistic and that’s just the 18 to 24 group. I won’t even get into the set up that the music industry is doing on young girls…essentially deeming our next generation of Queens capable of nothing but shaking what they have enhanced for the benefit of their male counterparts who prefer them to be light, bright and damn near white, and near a bed. I work tirelessly to assure my daughter that regardless of the ethnicity of her father and his Mayflower pedigree, she is her cousin Ny’Asha. Not that they are the same. They are EACH OTHER. When a Black woman is targeted or excels, they are each other. It matters not the texture of their hair or melanin in their skin, they are each other.
I am grateful to Tyler for this film because it was timely and I found a connection to all of the characters. The lead female character, Julia, portrayed by Gabrielle Union, is a high powered attorney in bustling Atlanta, single and then some and searching. Her well intentioned friends set her up on blind dates that provide some of the funniest parts of the movie. Debbie and I fell out when, on the phone with Tracey Ellis Ross’ character, Julia exasperated by her dates announces that she will scream if she sees another brother in a throw back jersey and then DOES! A few men in the theater had to cover up at that point. That was a high five and “aww hell naw” moment because, pointing to my forehead, I’m so there. I mean, if you didn’t play for the Minnesota Vikings in 1998, take off that Randy Moss jersey! Oooh, flashback to 1998 Minnesota Vikings playing the Altanta falcons in the NFC championship and that crushing, heartbreaking knee that Randall Cunningham took and Gary's missed field goal. *hangs head, raises my Helga braids and Vikes horn in a fist for sad pathetic unity* If I could have beat Denny Green’s ass myself I would have. Manage the clock, man! They did the Dirty Bird IN MY HOUSE! But I digress. See, it’s still painful. That was our year though. Ugh. My Cris Carter jersey has sat in cold storage since that day and I’m not bringing it out until we retire his number in the Dome. How did I get to football?
Anyway, there were a few points in the movie where the script needed to be tightened. A few times where I was screaming inside, “show, don’t tell” and I would have loved to see the Maya character be some of the stitching in tightening that script up. Why was Maya single? If she was single, wouldn’t Monty have been right up her alley? Questions, ya know. It would have made sense that she be the one to tell Julia about the court hearing rather than Julia walking by as happenstance. We saw Monty’s character and background fully developed…did Julia’s end up on the cutting room floor? Her depth wasn’t there. I related to her on a surface level because as women, as Black women, we share so many common threads that don’t need translation but no need to dumb it down for us either. It’s ok to explain that Black women are sometimes vulnerable and debunk the myth that we are angry, loud and able to handle anything that comes our way. We can break too and it was clear that Julia had, but what was not was that her father and a past love had done that to her to create the woman she now was. It was spoken, but never really explained.
I did have a funny awakening in the theater though. As much as we think we change…lol. Just as the lead characters were arriving at a jazz club, I surveyed the scene and turned to Deb and said, “Um, doesn’t look safe to me. Make my order to go,” so I found it insanely funny that Julia had the very same thoughts. I’m not sure what that says about that character and I don’t even want to know what it says about me. But another scene did tell me something about myself. Julia’s closest friends are very much like her, pristine and reared to perfection. In one scene, one of her friends questions Julia’s sanity in choosing to be with a working class man; correction, a working class man WITH children from the hood IN the hood. She’s a lawyer after all and a pairing of that nature is stretching the bounds of class, which is just behind religion and race in terms of challenges that couples face. I lost about 2 minutes of the movie because I really had to think seriously about things in my own life and things I have felt, thought and said. As my sister nears graduation day in May from law school, I have tried my best to not say those words to her, but I know she has sensed my concern for her. I struggle to hide my feelings. Oh, let me quit. I don’t struggle at all. I just don’t bother trying to hide it.
My sister’s boyfriend is from the shanty town here, not even the ghetto. He grew up rough. He grew up poor. He moved in to my parents home( correction: my step mother’s home now) when my sister was 16 (mind you, after my father moved out, of course) and I blew a gasket. I mean, when my dad ran out on those kids, I bought this house 3 blocks from them to help raise them in his absence. I stopped with the minimum wage jobs, went back to school and got my shit together with a quickness. I got married! I went corporate and was promoted 5 times in 4 years with the second largest discount retailer in this country. It’s no small feat when you consider that I still dropped out of college again. LOL! Sometimes, I am Mama and Daddy to them and since I’m 18 years older than the youngest, they rebel just the same too.
Back then, I offered to get my sister’s boyfriend an apartment because I thought that allowing two 16 year olds to live together wasn’t such a bright idea especially since my parents had ME at that age. I called places to get him back in school, I called in favors, I offered a lot. He refused it all. Instead, he worked. He got his G.E.D and worked. At 22, he has supported my sister emotionally and financially through her Bachelors degree and now her Juris at break neck speed compared to her peers. She shaved 2 years off the average timing to become a lawyer…and she did that because she had him supporting her and the ambition and motivation to do that. How can I fault him? For what can I fault him? She’s a student so she’s broke as hell so he’s not around for the money. He has stuck by her longer than some marriages last and they love each other so who am I to judge them? I really wanted to slap Brenda in the movie for being such a hater and I had to seriously look at myself and think about the role I had played in my own sister’s life. Message received. Lesson learned.
I wonder if it’s tacky to give my sister a trip to the Bahamas for her graduation and then go with her. LOL! Well, she’s still my baby sister! I’m not going to let her go alone. Aww damn…ok, this would be a moment where I’m supposed to look over what I just read, the lesson I claim I just got and let her boyfriend have a second ticket because he has earned it through being there for her and enabling her to finish her education. DAYUM! I was all set to wear a bikini ( with a wrap, don’t play) and wind and grind on the beach, getting drunk and waking up with jerk chicken breath. Guess this Stella will have to get her groove back another time. DAYUM for real! It’s a good thing. Let me just keep saying that and I won’t want that ticket. LOL! It’s a good thing and he deserves it. See…but my little cousin is graduating from law school in May too. We’re the only 3 girls, I mean mind you, I’m the official old as hell chaperone. Oooh, that did it. I am too old to be traveling with 22 and 21 year olds and I would have lost my mind if someone my age would have done this to my while me and my girls were in our Wild daze. In fact, I’m almost positive we woke up early and left my Aunt Pete in Louisiana right before we went to Hollywood in 1990. LOL! Issue settled.
Oh, but the bathroom scene in DLG... Someone please tell men that women do not hide their “toys” in the bathroom medicine cabinet. Not that I know or anything about that, but I've heard.*whistles and looks off into space* HA! But, that’s reserved for a nightstand or for some, a case packed with an arsenal. You just don't know! Debbie and I looked at each other and just cracked up. The whole theater of women did. Says something about where some of our money is going. Speeds 1,2 and who needs a man. Of course, that scene was transitional though and it was funny as all get out so it worked.
I’m not sure if it’s Lauryn or China, but the youngest of the daughters had the best lines in the script in DLG and she is going to have a very bright future. The IT factor all over that little girl. I’m sure all 3 of the girls will be able to chart their own course. And Tasha Smith, wow, she played hoochie to no end. I was so ready to knock her on her ass by the end of the film. She represented so much that is wrong with our community and it was tough to keep watching her, let alone Gary Sturgis and not wishing them immediate bodily harm.
I really do hope and pray that something in those last two characters resonates within people and makes them as ill as it made me, so much so that people do really rally as the community did in the film. I mean, we have “Stop Snitching” shirts on sale all over the US. Stop snitching? For real? For what? Who benefits when someone doesn’t snitch? If people were living on the up and up, they wouldn’t need to worry who was snitching in the first place. “Stop tripping” shirts are a better option. Stop tripping on the strip clubs. Stop tripping on trying to “make it rain”. Hell, just make it sprinkle with a J.O.B. and that’s good enough. Light showers never hurt nobody.
It was interesting that there was some realism in the film at a pivotal moment when two characters go head to head where people just stand there and watch. Complacent, not wanting to get involved, no one wants to make that first move. Sadly, that’s reality. Too many people allow fear to dictate their convictions. They hesitate. They second guess and that’s all the time it takes to change the course of life and death.
Overall, I really did enjoy the movie and the night out. It was good to laugh like that. It was even better to see Black people on a screen wearing clothes and not rapping or trying to sell me their name to wear on my back. It was nice to see a happy ending and know that those are possible when we think outside of societal means and limitations and think for ourselves allowing our hearts and minds to dictate our path. There are good and decent Black men out there. They may not earn 6 figures and they may be pushing a broom or a bus or even a pencil, but money isn’t everything and to be honest, it really isn’t much. A house is not a home.
I walked out of the theater feeling positive and even a little hopeful. So now that we know that good Black men are out there and that the concept can make it to the big screen, it’s time to do the same for good Black women. My fingers are itchy..must be time to write.
It's going to be a write kinda day.
I awoke this morning to a phone call at 7:20 from MissLin. Now, she knows that even before my daughter started school, I don't usually crawl from bed until 8:30. A call before the time people expect me up triggers panic in me. It makes me think that someone died, though I have always told people that know me don't call me late at night or early in the morning especially if someone died. They'll still be gone when I get up. Ya know?
Well, Lin was like, "Turn on the Today show" and I asked what time it was. Truth be told, I was awake but not UP. I have kids. I have to be awake at that hour but I don't have to function well yet. I write late at night. I don't punch in 9 to 5 and I don't sleep from 10pm to 6am, so I wasn't quite all there, but she told me that they were doing a show on something called "The Secret". Good news travels fast, I guess. I thought about it for a second and then I was like, "Girl, you are in Vermont...I'm on CENTRAL TIME. I get the taped edition of the Today show." The segment that aired would have to catch me in an hour, but in the mean time, I spoke for a bit about 'The Secret' with Lin and explained that I was already aware of it and had blogged and written about it but I thanked her for thinking of me first thing in the morning when she saw it. As there are no coincidences, it served as a bright reminder on how I should start my day and that was working towards honoring my essence. That, I can do.
The reason Lin found the segment interesting could also be called a coincidence, if they existed, but in reality, she believed the author of 'The Secret' (Note: Rhonda Byrnes is the author) to be a lifecoach, Rhonda Britton along with Iyanla Vanzant, that produced a reality tv show about the lives of women, sent to live in a house together to work on their goals and become the people they have always wanted to be. She and I met on a message board for that show 3 plus years ago when we were both addicted to the show and probably seeking the same end goal as many of the women on the show. It's interesting how things have worked out. She was single as single could be back then, just ending an early career in politics and still trying to find her way in the world and I was "happily married", defined by the ills of my health and trying desperately to figure out where I stepped off my path to the world. None of those things are our truths anymore...and we're both the better for it. She has a beautiful 2 year old and moved across country with her parents where they all work as teachers now and well, suffice to say, I'm none of the things I once was. It bears no need for explanation. But the ring of that phone was certainly a signal to reflect and mark some progress so that is what I will do today.
Ah, just now I caught that segment on 'The Secret' on the Today show. Dr. Gail Saltz goes head to head with James Arthur Ray to discuss the topic and they feature the Newsweek article that I wrote about earlier this week. What I find troubling is that the detractors are really buying into this theory that people are dumb...and that somehow they are helping us weed out the big bad monster of positive thought through the law of attraction. They cite the example of the woman from The Secret dvd that was diagnosed with cancer and lived her way through it until it was gone.
Well, she isn't an anamoly. People have survived cancer. Most don't do that by laying in bed, not getting treatment and resigning themselves to the thought that they are going to die. What's so difficult to grasp about that? Where is the harm in wanting to be better and then BEING better? I've said this before, but ask anyone that has achieved their goals if they believed they could do it and 9.9999 times out of 10, they will tell you that they most certainly did. Otherwise, what would have been the point?
That's not to say there is no work involved. The brain is an organ that we don't truly understand. We only use a fraction of it on a regular basis and no one really knows what the rest is for. There is much unknown about the human body, let alone spirit, so who is anyone to say what is and is not? The proof that it works is in the pudding. Ask people that even before this book were guided by these principals. Before I read the book, I was already coming out of a slump, but prior to that, I always charted my own course and it flowed on track for much of my life. The bumps were things I helped to create and I bought into. That's common sense. There is no way to explain the vast miracles in our lives if we don't leave room for something beyond just ourselves working in concert with ourselves.
People that want to discount the theory will use a play on someone wanting a parking spot and envisioning themselves getting on, or someone wanting a high performance sports car and getting it to say it's all brain goo. Well, would they have gotten that car or spot if they DIDN'T want it? It's not rocket science.
I should post the writings I did as I watched "The Secret" for the first time because although I was well on my way out of the doldrums, I lept out after "The Secret". I heard messages from God fully deciphered for the first time in years and I was ready for them. For the first time in my life, I was able to move through my day without hearing taunts from my father, from rapists, from the unworthy and unwelcome and abusers. That's no joke. I had been waking up with this pretense that I needed to battle those and slay dragons and I found my body not strong enough for the challenge and it literally broke me.
Fibromyalgia is short code for everything hurts and that's no coincidence either. I hurt for 5 years and I gave into that. I ate so many pills that I pee Merck stock. But it didn't take me. It allowed me to see that I was more than just muscles that ached, bones that hurt. I could have laid down and died at any point after I was 5 years old but I didn't. I kept moving and I kept growing and I kept getting better and better. I wasn't weak. I wasn't battered. I was frightened by my own strength. Baby, it took a lot to try to hold me down and that made me fierce. It made me ME. So while I'm not going to have a dinner party with dear old dud and two rapists anytime soon, I know that the experiences that I had gave me something I would not have otherwise had. Will. Perserverence. The sheer magnitude of my strength. If I chose to, I could change the world with what I have harnessed from those experiences and inspire generations.Well, I am choosing to.
Well, Lin was like, "Turn on the Today show" and I asked what time it was. Truth be told, I was awake but not UP. I have kids. I have to be awake at that hour but I don't have to function well yet. I write late at night. I don't punch in 9 to 5 and I don't sleep from 10pm to 6am, so I wasn't quite all there, but she told me that they were doing a show on something called "The Secret". Good news travels fast, I guess. I thought about it for a second and then I was like, "Girl, you are in Vermont...I'm on CENTRAL TIME. I get the taped edition of the Today show." The segment that aired would have to catch me in an hour, but in the mean time, I spoke for a bit about 'The Secret' with Lin and explained that I was already aware of it and had blogged and written about it but I thanked her for thinking of me first thing in the morning when she saw it. As there are no coincidences, it served as a bright reminder on how I should start my day and that was working towards honoring my essence. That, I can do.
The reason Lin found the segment interesting could also be called a coincidence, if they existed, but in reality, she believed the author of 'The Secret' (Note: Rhonda Byrnes is the author) to be a lifecoach, Rhonda Britton along with Iyanla Vanzant, that produced a reality tv show about the lives of women, sent to live in a house together to work on their goals and become the people they have always wanted to be. She and I met on a message board for that show 3 plus years ago when we were both addicted to the show and probably seeking the same end goal as many of the women on the show. It's interesting how things have worked out. She was single as single could be back then, just ending an early career in politics and still trying to find her way in the world and I was "happily married", defined by the ills of my health and trying desperately to figure out where I stepped off my path to the world. None of those things are our truths anymore...and we're both the better for it. She has a beautiful 2 year old and moved across country with her parents where they all work as teachers now and well, suffice to say, I'm none of the things I once was. It bears no need for explanation. But the ring of that phone was certainly a signal to reflect and mark some progress so that is what I will do today.
Ah, just now I caught that segment on 'The Secret' on the Today show. Dr. Gail Saltz goes head to head with James Arthur Ray to discuss the topic and they feature the Newsweek article that I wrote about earlier this week. What I find troubling is that the detractors are really buying into this theory that people are dumb...and that somehow they are helping us weed out the big bad monster of positive thought through the law of attraction. They cite the example of the woman from The Secret dvd that was diagnosed with cancer and lived her way through it until it was gone.
Well, she isn't an anamoly. People have survived cancer. Most don't do that by laying in bed, not getting treatment and resigning themselves to the thought that they are going to die. What's so difficult to grasp about that? Where is the harm in wanting to be better and then BEING better? I've said this before, but ask anyone that has achieved their goals if they believed they could do it and 9.9999 times out of 10, they will tell you that they most certainly did. Otherwise, what would have been the point?
That's not to say there is no work involved. The brain is an organ that we don't truly understand. We only use a fraction of it on a regular basis and no one really knows what the rest is for. There is much unknown about the human body, let alone spirit, so who is anyone to say what is and is not? The proof that it works is in the pudding. Ask people that even before this book were guided by these principals. Before I read the book, I was already coming out of a slump, but prior to that, I always charted my own course and it flowed on track for much of my life. The bumps were things I helped to create and I bought into. That's common sense. There is no way to explain the vast miracles in our lives if we don't leave room for something beyond just ourselves working in concert with ourselves.
People that want to discount the theory will use a play on someone wanting a parking spot and envisioning themselves getting on, or someone wanting a high performance sports car and getting it to say it's all brain goo. Well, would they have gotten that car or spot if they DIDN'T want it? It's not rocket science.
I should post the writings I did as I watched "The Secret" for the first time because although I was well on my way out of the doldrums, I lept out after "The Secret". I heard messages from God fully deciphered for the first time in years and I was ready for them. For the first time in my life, I was able to move through my day without hearing taunts from my father, from rapists, from the unworthy and unwelcome and abusers. That's no joke. I had been waking up with this pretense that I needed to battle those and slay dragons and I found my body not strong enough for the challenge and it literally broke me.
Fibromyalgia is short code for everything hurts and that's no coincidence either. I hurt for 5 years and I gave into that. I ate so many pills that I pee Merck stock. But it didn't take me. It allowed me to see that I was more than just muscles that ached, bones that hurt. I could have laid down and died at any point after I was 5 years old but I didn't. I kept moving and I kept growing and I kept getting better and better. I wasn't weak. I wasn't battered. I was frightened by my own strength. Baby, it took a lot to try to hold me down and that made me fierce. It made me ME. So while I'm not going to have a dinner party with dear old dud and two rapists anytime soon, I know that the experiences that I had gave me something I would not have otherwise had. Will. Perserverence. The sheer magnitude of my strength. If I chose to, I could change the world with what I have harnessed from those experiences and inspire generations.Well, I am choosing to.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Hanging with Deb
Well it was a date night of sorts. Dinner and a movie with one of my closest and longest, most dear friends, Debbie. She had an Entrepreneur group meeting at church that I opted out of and after that we were off to dinner but I just didn’t have much of an appetite since I had a tiny bite with my kids before Deb arrived at 7:30. Luckily, she wasn’t much for eating either so we just hit the mall until then 9:10 showing of Tyler Perry’s “Daddy’s Little Girls”.
We walked around Brookdale and made our way through various shoe stores and finally ended at Lady FootLocker where I picked up a red and white sweatsuit ( jacket, shit, pants) and new Nike kicks to go along with it. Debbie couldn’t find anything that worked for her in her size. Being 37 and 3 feet tall kinda limit’s the options, but she has never let O.I. limit her style. She’s still rocking her animal print.
The two of us haven’t had much opportunity to hang over the last year since I’ve been recovering from this crazy Benign Intercranial thing. Benign my ass. A headache everyday for over a year is anything but benign. I gave into it for a year and that’s all the time I was willing to give it. I have had enough cat scans and MRIs to allow scientists to fully document my thoughts if they dedicated enough time to interpreting the scans. I had enough of the bed. I had enough of being sick and I was tired as hell of being tired as hell so I just quit being sick and decided that with or without it, I have to keep on living and keep on keeping on…and that’s just what tonight was about.
I knew hanging with Debbie would be falling right in step as if I never veered from the path of our friendship and allowed myself that time of seclusion and being the dutiful friend, she played her role to the hilt. We laughed from the minute I got into the van until she dropped me back off at home when she warned me to be careful on the ice and reminded me of days long gone by when I fell out of the van at Paisley Park. Thankfully, I hadn’t consumed the amount of cocktails that was required back then to pull a Chevy Chase out the passenger door, but the laughter from the memory was enough to make me hold on to her car until I got to the sidewalk, fearful of falling down just the same. It was all as if time had never passed. We started reminiscing about old friends and talking about one in particular and in the simpatico we found that first night in 1991 outside of Glam Slam, we found we still spoke the same language when we both said at the same time with the same intonations in response to that old friend, “Bitch, shut the fuck up”. Words neither of us use on a regular basis anymore, but if ever there was a girlfriend that deserved to hear that phrase over and over again, this one was surely her.
Angela ( name changed to protect the guilty as sin) is from South America. She has seen the horrors of war and witnessed and been victim to the abuses of foster care in this country. We met in 1990 when she was doing nails at Regis next door to the record store I worked at. The two of us had a deal; I let her use my discount and she did my nails when she didn’t have a customer, no charge. Thinking back, she should have paid me to wear those things….acrylic nails out to there in Vivid Red. What WAS I thinking? Well, probably that it matched my Revlon Cherries in the snow lipstick pretty well. It would take me two days to be able to use the cash register again each time I had a fill.
Eventually, Angela and I had a falling out. She wanted a bigger discount that really was akin to theft and I wasn’t willing to lose my $4.55 an hour job over some nails, especially since she rented space in her store to do nails and paid for her own supplies so her freebie to me was really a freebie to me. It wasn’t corporate theft. Well, I think her short stature and the fact that she had fought so many people for so little in life made her think she needed to come at me like a bulldozer and she approached me in the club with all the fervor of a red hot on virgin taste buds. Oh, no, boo. I’m not the one. I can be hot tempered but I’m known for my mouth, not my fists, but some people just know the right button to push. If not for Debbie and that wheelchair, I would have thrown Angela’s ass over the balcony at Glam Slam. Thing is, it’s been 15 years. It wasn’t a big deal back then so one would think she could let it go but my life moved on and hers didn’t and we both remained Debbie’s closest friends. That is just ripe for conflict. The resolution has always been keep that woman out of my sights and it has worked for both of us until now.
See, I don’t have anything against her. If anything, I would like to see her better her station in life because I have never met a more bitter soul and it’s heartbreaking to hear about her because she holds the ghosts of her pasts closer than the fruits of her future and that’s a breeding ground for toxicity. For people lost in that, I used to bring myself down to another level thinking I could help to lift them up, but they have to want to come. For her, I may extend my hand…but I won’t leave it outstretched for too long. My train is moving and it’s slow enough for others to climb on board. I’m good with that. I want it like that. I thrive on that…but I’m not stopping and I’m not getting off. There it is. So for those moments where she wants the train to stop or wants to go one further and start pulling me and mine off, “Bitch, shut the fuck up”. It’s that simple. Aw Ready!
Onward and upward, kids.
So here’s the kicker, when Debbie and I get together, it’s like some weird backwards cultural exchange program. Debbie is White. She runs a million dollar business today that she founded and runs on her own. She is supposed to be disabled and has been in a wheelchair for most of her life because she has brittle bone disease, known as Osteo Genus Imperfecta or O.I. She breaks bones in her sleep. She grew up in the hood and it grew in her. Well, I grew up on the other side of the tracks. My parents were Grambling grads with honors. They were Who’s Who. They were recruited and they bore me with high expectations and paid for many a school to ensure their R.O.I. ( return on investment). Debbie grew up listening to hip hop and clapping on the 2 and 4. I grew up straight Duran Duran and clapping on the 1 and 3, KNOWING I was supposed to clap on the 2 and 4. A conundrum.
We met outside a club when I was 19, sporting on helluva fake I.D. It was my brilliant idea to take my “cousins” birth certificate down to the driver’s license center and apply for an ID with my picture and her info and it worked beautifully, so for awhile, I was Kim at the club entrance. LOL! After leaving the club, I came across two girls that looked kinda familiar in wheelchairs looking like they were having a duel, spinning in circles. It looked like an interesting enough scene so I stopped for a second and Debbie looked up and said, “Hey, don’t we go to college together” and I had to think about it because I was enrolled and I did show up at a few classes I enjoyed from time to time, but I wasn’t sure that qualified as going to college. I was squatting in psychology and sociology classes basically and even then, I didn’t have a goal. I was just biding time until something new came along. Ah, the ignorance of youth.
Debbie and her friend/roommate Rhonda had just come from a night out as well and we all started chatting and laughing and the laughter just didn’t stop. We exchanged numbers and though I’m sure it was after 2am, Debbie and I ended up on the phone all night when she had to ask “WHAT kind of Black girl ARE you” and I responded by asking what kind of white girl she was. As far as stereotypes go, she and I were ass backwards and a perfect pair.
It’s interesting because tonight, after the movie, she confided in me that she recently wondered if she were less of herself, if things would have been different for her and if more White men would have found her appealing. Of course I laughed it off with her and told her that she is who she is and who she is supposed to be and who gives a good damn who finds her appealing and what their ethnicity is. But, I have to confess to wondering the same thing about Black men. So many of the things that were second nature to me just didn’t sit well with most men that I dated. Whether it was my education, my diction, my ambitions, reading for enjoyment, listening to all kinds of music, whatever , all kinds of surface bs…stereotypical bs that I expected of all people, MY people to be above…it just made men question my Blackness, much in the same way that Debbie was wondering about the question of her Whiteness.
WHEN will we move beyond this garbage? My music tastes will not change my physical appearance. Many a Black woman can’t dance worth a damn. I’m not the only one that can’t cook and can’t dance…but the things that I can do, those are good enough to marvel at and appreciate. Since when did all the things that make me ME become flaws within the Black community anyway? I can turn a decent sentence so I’m trying to be something I’m not??? I don’t wear other people names on my ass because they aren’t paying me to promote them, so I’m not down? I never got down on a first date ( and if I did, I'm sure as hell not putting it out there) and I was fine paying my way for dinner and cab, thank you very much. So that makes me unappealing? I’m a friggen PEACH! Giggles.
I’m a Queen and don’t think I don’t know it. Of any ethnicity, I would be one helluva woman but I’m a Black woman and baby, for me that‘s the tops. I was born one helluva woman. I’m timeless and my beauty and my nature unparallel in this universe and that’s not bragging, that’s fact. If I had one leg and an ashy one at that and 3 teeth, I would still be all that. Ok wait…I would have sense enough to buy lotion so I wouldn’t have ashy legs no how. Pass the cocoa butter. But for real, at any size, I’m still all that and lord knows I have been many a size.
We put too much emphasis on things that don’t matter. They just don’t matter. People that have health problems get this because that will level you with a quickness. Dying doesn’t discriminate. Cancer doesn’t discriminate. Chronic pain does not discriminate. When I got Fibromyalgia, I had to realize that I was more than musculoskeletal. When I got Pseudo Cerebri Tumor ( Benign Intracranial Hypertension) , I had to realize that I was more than pain in my brain. There is more to me than just matter. All that you see is NOT all me. The good news is that my body has realized that I’m more than just those conditions too and slowly but surely, they are fading into the woodwork. Background noise. Fade to black. I don’t allow them to stop me. I don’t allow them to define me and there isn’t a thing that I cannot do because of them.
We walked around Brookdale and made our way through various shoe stores and finally ended at Lady FootLocker where I picked up a red and white sweatsuit ( jacket, shit, pants) and new Nike kicks to go along with it. Debbie couldn’t find anything that worked for her in her size. Being 37 and 3 feet tall kinda limit’s the options, but she has never let O.I. limit her style. She’s still rocking her animal print.
The two of us haven’t had much opportunity to hang over the last year since I’ve been recovering from this crazy Benign Intercranial thing. Benign my ass. A headache everyday for over a year is anything but benign. I gave into it for a year and that’s all the time I was willing to give it. I have had enough cat scans and MRIs to allow scientists to fully document my thoughts if they dedicated enough time to interpreting the scans. I had enough of the bed. I had enough of being sick and I was tired as hell of being tired as hell so I just quit being sick and decided that with or without it, I have to keep on living and keep on keeping on…and that’s just what tonight was about.
I knew hanging with Debbie would be falling right in step as if I never veered from the path of our friendship and allowed myself that time of seclusion and being the dutiful friend, she played her role to the hilt. We laughed from the minute I got into the van until she dropped me back off at home when she warned me to be careful on the ice and reminded me of days long gone by when I fell out of the van at Paisley Park. Thankfully, I hadn’t consumed the amount of cocktails that was required back then to pull a Chevy Chase out the passenger door, but the laughter from the memory was enough to make me hold on to her car until I got to the sidewalk, fearful of falling down just the same. It was all as if time had never passed. We started reminiscing about old friends and talking about one in particular and in the simpatico we found that first night in 1991 outside of Glam Slam, we found we still spoke the same language when we both said at the same time with the same intonations in response to that old friend, “Bitch, shut the fuck up”. Words neither of us use on a regular basis anymore, but if ever there was a girlfriend that deserved to hear that phrase over and over again, this one was surely her.
Angela ( name changed to protect the guilty as sin) is from South America. She has seen the horrors of war and witnessed and been victim to the abuses of foster care in this country. We met in 1990 when she was doing nails at Regis next door to the record store I worked at. The two of us had a deal; I let her use my discount and she did my nails when she didn’t have a customer, no charge. Thinking back, she should have paid me to wear those things….acrylic nails out to there in Vivid Red. What WAS I thinking? Well, probably that it matched my Revlon Cherries in the snow lipstick pretty well. It would take me two days to be able to use the cash register again each time I had a fill.
Eventually, Angela and I had a falling out. She wanted a bigger discount that really was akin to theft and I wasn’t willing to lose my $4.55 an hour job over some nails, especially since she rented space in her store to do nails and paid for her own supplies so her freebie to me was really a freebie to me. It wasn’t corporate theft. Well, I think her short stature and the fact that she had fought so many people for so little in life made her think she needed to come at me like a bulldozer and she approached me in the club with all the fervor of a red hot on virgin taste buds. Oh, no, boo. I’m not the one. I can be hot tempered but I’m known for my mouth, not my fists, but some people just know the right button to push. If not for Debbie and that wheelchair, I would have thrown Angela’s ass over the balcony at Glam Slam. Thing is, it’s been 15 years. It wasn’t a big deal back then so one would think she could let it go but my life moved on and hers didn’t and we both remained Debbie’s closest friends. That is just ripe for conflict. The resolution has always been keep that woman out of my sights and it has worked for both of us until now.
See, I don’t have anything against her. If anything, I would like to see her better her station in life because I have never met a more bitter soul and it’s heartbreaking to hear about her because she holds the ghosts of her pasts closer than the fruits of her future and that’s a breeding ground for toxicity. For people lost in that, I used to bring myself down to another level thinking I could help to lift them up, but they have to want to come. For her, I may extend my hand…but I won’t leave it outstretched for too long. My train is moving and it’s slow enough for others to climb on board. I’m good with that. I want it like that. I thrive on that…but I’m not stopping and I’m not getting off. There it is. So for those moments where she wants the train to stop or wants to go one further and start pulling me and mine off, “Bitch, shut the fuck up”. It’s that simple. Aw Ready!
Onward and upward, kids.
So here’s the kicker, when Debbie and I get together, it’s like some weird backwards cultural exchange program. Debbie is White. She runs a million dollar business today that she founded and runs on her own. She is supposed to be disabled and has been in a wheelchair for most of her life because she has brittle bone disease, known as Osteo Genus Imperfecta or O.I. She breaks bones in her sleep. She grew up in the hood and it grew in her. Well, I grew up on the other side of the tracks. My parents were Grambling grads with honors. They were Who’s Who. They were recruited and they bore me with high expectations and paid for many a school to ensure their R.O.I. ( return on investment). Debbie grew up listening to hip hop and clapping on the 2 and 4. I grew up straight Duran Duran and clapping on the 1 and 3, KNOWING I was supposed to clap on the 2 and 4. A conundrum.
We met outside a club when I was 19, sporting on helluva fake I.D. It was my brilliant idea to take my “cousins” birth certificate down to the driver’s license center and apply for an ID with my picture and her info and it worked beautifully, so for awhile, I was Kim at the club entrance. LOL! After leaving the club, I came across two girls that looked kinda familiar in wheelchairs looking like they were having a duel, spinning in circles. It looked like an interesting enough scene so I stopped for a second and Debbie looked up and said, “Hey, don’t we go to college together” and I had to think about it because I was enrolled and I did show up at a few classes I enjoyed from time to time, but I wasn’t sure that qualified as going to college. I was squatting in psychology and sociology classes basically and even then, I didn’t have a goal. I was just biding time until something new came along. Ah, the ignorance of youth.
Debbie and her friend/roommate Rhonda had just come from a night out as well and we all started chatting and laughing and the laughter just didn’t stop. We exchanged numbers and though I’m sure it was after 2am, Debbie and I ended up on the phone all night when she had to ask “WHAT kind of Black girl ARE you” and I responded by asking what kind of white girl she was. As far as stereotypes go, she and I were ass backwards and a perfect pair.
It’s interesting because tonight, after the movie, she confided in me that she recently wondered if she were less of herself, if things would have been different for her and if more White men would have found her appealing. Of course I laughed it off with her and told her that she is who she is and who she is supposed to be and who gives a good damn who finds her appealing and what their ethnicity is. But, I have to confess to wondering the same thing about Black men. So many of the things that were second nature to me just didn’t sit well with most men that I dated. Whether it was my education, my diction, my ambitions, reading for enjoyment, listening to all kinds of music, whatever , all kinds of surface bs…stereotypical bs that I expected of all people, MY people to be above…it just made men question my Blackness, much in the same way that Debbie was wondering about the question of her Whiteness.
WHEN will we move beyond this garbage? My music tastes will not change my physical appearance. Many a Black woman can’t dance worth a damn. I’m not the only one that can’t cook and can’t dance…but the things that I can do, those are good enough to marvel at and appreciate. Since when did all the things that make me ME become flaws within the Black community anyway? I can turn a decent sentence so I’m trying to be something I’m not??? I don’t wear other people names on my ass because they aren’t paying me to promote them, so I’m not down? I never got down on a first date ( and if I did, I'm sure as hell not putting it out there) and I was fine paying my way for dinner and cab, thank you very much. So that makes me unappealing? I’m a friggen PEACH! Giggles.
I’m a Queen and don’t think I don’t know it. Of any ethnicity, I would be one helluva woman but I’m a Black woman and baby, for me that‘s the tops. I was born one helluva woman. I’m timeless and my beauty and my nature unparallel in this universe and that’s not bragging, that’s fact. If I had one leg and an ashy one at that and 3 teeth, I would still be all that. Ok wait…I would have sense enough to buy lotion so I wouldn’t have ashy legs no how. Pass the cocoa butter. But for real, at any size, I’m still all that and lord knows I have been many a size.
We put too much emphasis on things that don’t matter. They just don’t matter. People that have health problems get this because that will level you with a quickness. Dying doesn’t discriminate. Cancer doesn’t discriminate. Chronic pain does not discriminate. When I got Fibromyalgia, I had to realize that I was more than musculoskeletal. When I got Pseudo Cerebri Tumor ( Benign Intracranial Hypertension) , I had to realize that I was more than pain in my brain. There is more to me than just matter. All that you see is NOT all me. The good news is that my body has realized that I’m more than just those conditions too and slowly but surely, they are fading into the woodwork. Background noise. Fade to black. I don’t allow them to stop me. I don’t allow them to define me and there isn’t a thing that I cannot do because of them.
Nay-Sayers
I realize I appear chatty lately, but it's mainly because instead of using all 7 blogs, I'm not using one. I'm going to convert them all over to the domain I've been using for a few years soon, but trust I had my reason for keeping them seperate and maintaining some anononmity.
Each blog is a different aspect of what I do and speaks to a different piece but it's just time to merge them all. No secrets...well, there is but one. It's not just my secret, but a bit of marketing and positive thought genius on behalf of Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret.
The Secret is a DVD or book that is being handed from friend to friend, hailed as success of the minds on talk show after talk show and really it's its own revolution. The real secret is that the secret behind 'The Secret' not really a secret. If you have ever been happy for even a fleeting moment, you know the answer to 'The Secret'. If your dreams have ever come true or if you cling to the belief that they will, you are in full posession of 'The Secret. End of story. It's that simple.
There is however another side to everything though, isn't there? For every believer, there must be one that doesn't believe. This is how we form thought. We balance what works for us and what registers with what doesn't and somewhere in the middle, we find our position. It's why I love debating so much. It's my thing. One of them anyway.
So of course, I knew it was a matter of time, moments really before people jumped on a bandwagon going in the opposite direction of 'The Secret' to disspell it for folly. Balance, you see. Even they are part of it and just don't realize it...but before I digress, I read an article in Newsweek that basically called 'The Secret' a joke. It downplay positive thought and used a familiar dagger to burst the bubble, asking, "But what of those in Darfur or those starving? How is it that they are in their circumstance and why hasn't positive thinking lured them out of it?" Well, I will admit, I've been practicing the principals in 'The Secret' my entire life and didn't need a guide book for it, but when I saw the segment on Oprah, I asked the same question and the answer was relatively easy to come by but required some knowledge of the history of the world and the sociology of people. When you tell someone for so long that they are nothing, eventually, they will believe you.
They can look around their world and see that they are the have nots and then they could question their station in life. They could believe that they are worthless and then they would become that. Haven't we seen enough examples of this? Don't we know entire people's that this is true for? That's an affirmative.
Conflict breeds conflict. Negative anything can only create more negatives. It's only when something positive is injected that we can change the formula and for some 'The Secret' will be enough to do that, so who is anyone to balk at it? Even for the writer that wrote the article, some positive thought, some ambition was neccessary to acquire a position with Newsweek to write that article. Something brought him to the forefront of his class, even if in his mind at some point and told him that writing was his gift. Something led him down that path and if he is too lost to realize that he is that something, well, he's in the wrong business because as one of us, he is a dreamer. We are the visionaries. We see it in our minds and we create it. This is what we do as writers. We are the embodiment of 'The Secret'. How did he miss that? I fear that someone told him that he didn't measure up and he believed that. The power of thinking and believing did him in and he bought it, hook line and sinker. That's unfortunate. Perhaps I should offer a bit of balance to that mind set. Perhaps, the experiences that I know to be a result of believing in what I know I am capable of and a step further, envisioning my future would be helpful to balance that. Well, hell, that's a whole book in and of itself. Check the lightbulb moment. And like that, flashes! You gotta love the mind.
On a completely unrelated subject, I cannot fault videos for affecting my daughter's mentality today. No, today she made it crystal clear that it was all me providing her template for womanhood. It was another moment that I had to check myself. Kids will give you a million of those a day if you are open to it and don't go crazy from it.
It started innocently enough. She arrived home from the nice, quiet Catholic school that I do not take part in but encourage her to do so in and we talked about her day, then mine, then it was snack time. The usual stuff. Well, I was in the midst of picking up the laptop and about to channel hop for background noise and she followed me downstairs, so I was mindful of the channels I landed on. There are things I will watch and/or listen to that aren't meant for her ears and to be honest, that I would hope she would never have interest in listening to or watching.
There is a group called Pretty Ricky out now that is being marketing to young girls and I'm gathering this is a spin on all the young male groups we've always had decade to decade that add a twist to the mindset of young girls that shapes them for the pole. It used to be sweet. New Edition was sweet in my day. I don't recall too much of the sexual overtone, but hey, I was 16 before my friends took me to Chuck E. Cheese to explain the dynamics of oral sex after they tired of my innocent ignorance. What's funny is that looking back, they didn't have a damn clue either so what they were teaching me, I'm glad I didn't take for gospel. I was at least smart enough to wait and read a few books...but hey, WHOLE other topic. Thing is, Pretty Ricky is OVERTLY sexual.
They have a song called "On the hotline". Again, I hate to sound like a broken record but back in Weeziana, one of my aunts neighborhood friends rounded all of us kids on the block up( It takes a village) and made us sign up for the talent show. She gave us two songs, "And the beat goes on" by the Whispers and "Hotline" by the Sylvers. We danced to The Whispers. Now, all of these songs may have very well been about sex. Most songs are at some point, but there is an art to not being crass. We don't have to put it ALL out there. Shouldn't there be some mystique? I mean, we all know basic anatomy, but damn, this is lyrical porno these days...and I'm no prude.
Pretty Ricky Lyrics:
on the hotline its not enough but I had to call ya cuz im home alone lustin for ya
im in my room nuthin but a towel on take them granny panties off out a thong on
I luv it when I hear ya moan ya got a sexy tone that turns ya boy on u in a complete nother city on the fan line with nothin but a baby tee on? u the kind of girl thats sexy in the boxer shorts im the kind of player to make u ride it like a porche yeah I met u on myspace now im about to fly u out to my place in the morning
Um, that's not cute! That's NOT pretty and someone needs to whoop Ricky and his buddies arses. Not only that but my daughter bet not EVAH find herself on myspace or skype talking panties with anyone. EVAH! Because someone's going to jail that night and I ain't skeered. Aww ready!
Ride it like a porche? Can these boys even drive legally yet? And they aren't adults yet, so IT certainly hasn't reached the point of maturity. They song lyrics are "Let's talk about sex baby", well, have they talked about babies? What do they know about sex? Because what ya do at 17 ain't sex. It's just getting some and it's "some" because you aren't getting the full meal deal yet. It's half hearted and half assed. I am so happy to be 36...those books weren't lying about when you peak. But I digress. They may have some funds these days to afford to fly a girl ( because frankly, they are too young to be dating women) out to their homes, but someone is going to jail for real. That's statutory rape no matter how you slice it and underage and flying??? KIDNAPPING! Who is teaching these fools? Where are their parents? What I find appalling is that mama and daddy aren't stepping in to say, "No son, you won't sing that and it's ok if they replace you in this group because you can do better." I would imagine that these parents prefer to cash in on this generation of their children than to give a damn what happens to subsequent generations of their children AND mine.
I mean, I have a Kitchen aid mixer but that doesn't make me Emeril...I don't have to use it everyday just because I have it. Just the same, I start watching Raven with my 6 year old. It's Disney. It's all good and Raven is the $400 million woman, and she isn't puking for fame so I don't mind my child seeing her on tv. Just then, there is a commercial and young dancers come on and my daughter says she wants to learn to dance like that, to which I reply that she can dance whenever she gets the urge just get up and do it, but I remind her that it was her choice to discontinue dance classes that she has been taking since she was 2. Thus, the structured dance is out until she wants to return to class. She thinks about it for a minute and then she says, "No, you can teach me. You can do the booty shake." Oh HELL NO! Um, no more dancing in the kitchen while I make dinner. At least I was mindful enough to remove my 3 year old son from the room while I did my belly dancing dvds. LOL! But he still thinks the instructor is popcorn worthy and would sit there like it's a Spiderman marathon if I let him. BOYS! Now I have to check myself and what I've been taking in. That's what I get for "bringing sexy back". See, that's the thing with kids, they are always watching and always learning so we have to watch what we put out there because our children are our real FUBU, no joke. For us by us. Aw Ready!
Each blog is a different aspect of what I do and speaks to a different piece but it's just time to merge them all. No secrets...well, there is but one. It's not just my secret, but a bit of marketing and positive thought genius on behalf of Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret.
The Secret is a DVD or book that is being handed from friend to friend, hailed as success of the minds on talk show after talk show and really it's its own revolution. The real secret is that the secret behind 'The Secret' not really a secret. If you have ever been happy for even a fleeting moment, you know the answer to 'The Secret'. If your dreams have ever come true or if you cling to the belief that they will, you are in full posession of 'The Secret. End of story. It's that simple.
There is however another side to everything though, isn't there? For every believer, there must be one that doesn't believe. This is how we form thought. We balance what works for us and what registers with what doesn't and somewhere in the middle, we find our position. It's why I love debating so much. It's my thing. One of them anyway.
So of course, I knew it was a matter of time, moments really before people jumped on a bandwagon going in the opposite direction of 'The Secret' to disspell it for folly. Balance, you see. Even they are part of it and just don't realize it...but before I digress, I read an article in Newsweek that basically called 'The Secret' a joke. It downplay positive thought and used a familiar dagger to burst the bubble, asking, "But what of those in Darfur or those starving? How is it that they are in their circumstance and why hasn't positive thinking lured them out of it?" Well, I will admit, I've been practicing the principals in 'The Secret' my entire life and didn't need a guide book for it, but when I saw the segment on Oprah, I asked the same question and the answer was relatively easy to come by but required some knowledge of the history of the world and the sociology of people. When you tell someone for so long that they are nothing, eventually, they will believe you.
They can look around their world and see that they are the have nots and then they could question their station in life. They could believe that they are worthless and then they would become that. Haven't we seen enough examples of this? Don't we know entire people's that this is true for? That's an affirmative.
Conflict breeds conflict. Negative anything can only create more negatives. It's only when something positive is injected that we can change the formula and for some 'The Secret' will be enough to do that, so who is anyone to balk at it? Even for the writer that wrote the article, some positive thought, some ambition was neccessary to acquire a position with Newsweek to write that article. Something brought him to the forefront of his class, even if in his mind at some point and told him that writing was his gift. Something led him down that path and if he is too lost to realize that he is that something, well, he's in the wrong business because as one of us, he is a dreamer. We are the visionaries. We see it in our minds and we create it. This is what we do as writers. We are the embodiment of 'The Secret'. How did he miss that? I fear that someone told him that he didn't measure up and he believed that. The power of thinking and believing did him in and he bought it, hook line and sinker. That's unfortunate. Perhaps I should offer a bit of balance to that mind set. Perhaps, the experiences that I know to be a result of believing in what I know I am capable of and a step further, envisioning my future would be helpful to balance that. Well, hell, that's a whole book in and of itself. Check the lightbulb moment. And like that, flashes! You gotta love the mind.
On a completely unrelated subject, I cannot fault videos for affecting my daughter's mentality today. No, today she made it crystal clear that it was all me providing her template for womanhood. It was another moment that I had to check myself. Kids will give you a million of those a day if you are open to it and don't go crazy from it.
It started innocently enough. She arrived home from the nice, quiet Catholic school that I do not take part in but encourage her to do so in and we talked about her day, then mine, then it was snack time. The usual stuff. Well, I was in the midst of picking up the laptop and about to channel hop for background noise and she followed me downstairs, so I was mindful of the channels I landed on. There are things I will watch and/or listen to that aren't meant for her ears and to be honest, that I would hope she would never have interest in listening to or watching.
There is a group called Pretty Ricky out now that is being marketing to young girls and I'm gathering this is a spin on all the young male groups we've always had decade to decade that add a twist to the mindset of young girls that shapes them for the pole. It used to be sweet. New Edition was sweet in my day. I don't recall too much of the sexual overtone, but hey, I was 16 before my friends took me to Chuck E. Cheese to explain the dynamics of oral sex after they tired of my innocent ignorance. What's funny is that looking back, they didn't have a damn clue either so what they were teaching me, I'm glad I didn't take for gospel. I was at least smart enough to wait and read a few books...but hey, WHOLE other topic. Thing is, Pretty Ricky is OVERTLY sexual.
They have a song called "On the hotline". Again, I hate to sound like a broken record but back in Weeziana, one of my aunts neighborhood friends rounded all of us kids on the block up( It takes a village) and made us sign up for the talent show. She gave us two songs, "And the beat goes on" by the Whispers and "Hotline" by the Sylvers. We danced to The Whispers. Now, all of these songs may have very well been about sex. Most songs are at some point, but there is an art to not being crass. We don't have to put it ALL out there. Shouldn't there be some mystique? I mean, we all know basic anatomy, but damn, this is lyrical porno these days...and I'm no prude.
Pretty Ricky Lyrics:
on the hotline its not enough but I had to call ya cuz im home alone lustin for ya
im in my room nuthin but a towel on take them granny panties off out a thong on
I luv it when I hear ya moan ya got a sexy tone that turns ya boy on u in a complete nother city on the fan line with nothin but a baby tee on? u the kind of girl thats sexy in the boxer shorts im the kind of player to make u ride it like a porche yeah I met u on myspace now im about to fly u out to my place in the morning
Um, that's not cute! That's NOT pretty and someone needs to whoop Ricky and his buddies arses. Not only that but my daughter bet not EVAH find herself on myspace or skype talking panties with anyone. EVAH! Because someone's going to jail that night and I ain't skeered. Aww ready!
Ride it like a porche? Can these boys even drive legally yet? And they aren't adults yet, so IT certainly hasn't reached the point of maturity. They song lyrics are "Let's talk about sex baby", well, have they talked about babies? What do they know about sex? Because what ya do at 17 ain't sex. It's just getting some and it's "some" because you aren't getting the full meal deal yet. It's half hearted and half assed. I am so happy to be 36...those books weren't lying about when you peak. But I digress. They may have some funds these days to afford to fly a girl ( because frankly, they are too young to be dating women) out to their homes, but someone is going to jail for real. That's statutory rape no matter how you slice it and underage and flying??? KIDNAPPING! Who is teaching these fools? Where are their parents? What I find appalling is that mama and daddy aren't stepping in to say, "No son, you won't sing that and it's ok if they replace you in this group because you can do better." I would imagine that these parents prefer to cash in on this generation of their children than to give a damn what happens to subsequent generations of their children AND mine.
I mean, I have a Kitchen aid mixer but that doesn't make me Emeril...I don't have to use it everyday just because I have it. Just the same, I start watching Raven with my 6 year old. It's Disney. It's all good and Raven is the $400 million woman, and she isn't puking for fame so I don't mind my child seeing her on tv. Just then, there is a commercial and young dancers come on and my daughter says she wants to learn to dance like that, to which I reply that she can dance whenever she gets the urge just get up and do it, but I remind her that it was her choice to discontinue dance classes that she has been taking since she was 2. Thus, the structured dance is out until she wants to return to class. She thinks about it for a minute and then she says, "No, you can teach me. You can do the booty shake." Oh HELL NO! Um, no more dancing in the kitchen while I make dinner. At least I was mindful enough to remove my 3 year old son from the room while I did my belly dancing dvds. LOL! But he still thinks the instructor is popcorn worthy and would sit there like it's a Spiderman marathon if I let him. BOYS! Now I have to check myself and what I've been taking in. That's what I get for "bringing sexy back". See, that's the thing with kids, they are always watching and always learning so we have to watch what we put out there because our children are our real FUBU, no joke. For us by us. Aw Ready!
Seeking Balance...at the Oscars?
Um, Ok. But the show did feel balanced to me. Nothing was jaw dropping shocking. Nothing was offensive. It can be done. WHO KNEW? Well, I had high hopes.
I was glad that Ellen was hosting it. Sometimes you can't stop the flow of the positive and she has that written all over here. Contrast with Rosie O'Donnel...and NO, not because they are both lesbians, but because they are both solo ( one former, now doing panel) talk show hosts that started as comedianes and ventured into acting and had to come out at what seemed initially like the height of their fame. For both, it ended up working out better and giving them both a springboard to really soar. Problem is, only one is doing that.
Now, I apologize for the gay woman to gay woman comparisons. I hate it when people do that to Black people...which is why I was clear that it wasn't because they were gay, but neither of them are Oprah so ya know, the comparisons end there. They happen to rank right next to each other in social stratusphere and they ain't Oprah, though I admit to have enjoying Rosie's magazine better than O. Rosie's was more middle of the road, middle class, multi-ethnic. Oprah's was and still is engineering something more which is fine. I'm just not under any illusions about how people make money and advertising. Ok...an example: Oprah has a list of her favorite things in every issue. I'm not sure if the lounge wear that was recently on her show appears in this month's issue or not, but likely it does. Oprah thinks its comfy and revolutionary and I'm sure it is. It's pima cotton and some lycra to hold ya in. What woman wouldn't love that? Well....one that doesn't want to spend more than $100 to lounge.
$100 isn't much money. I'm really not the one to diss someone about $100 because I can drop that in the airport bookstore and usually do. My issue is that here we have a woman that is literally saving the world. I'll defend Oprah until the cows come home and again when the bitties leave because I know my progression as a person has been enhanced simply because she exists. She's a gift in my life. Trust that I know that. BUT, and I sure hate to put a but in any sentence because I know it nearly dismisses everything you just said...not my point, BUT so you have an audience...you promote literacy....market that magazine to the AVERAGE woman. She's not paying $200 for a bath sheet. She is putting her kids through school and most mothers will do for everyone else before themselves anyway so if you are going to urge them to do for themselves, to treat themselves, you can't take from the family's bottom line. It's not logical and people need to quit lying to Oprah: read Gayle as she runs the magazine and telling them that it's selling at it's best and reaching the right demographic.
How many Latino women read O? I mean, READ! And buy the things in it? How many average, everyday African American women read O? The truth is that dentists offices and White women of another income bracket are the top target in that magazine. How do I know? The ads still don't feature many women that look like me. Though I can afford things that are O's favorite things and I happen to love to shop, there has to be a balance. I have enough "stuff". I don't need it just because someone that I admire says it's her favorite thing. Perhaps she would benefit from learning about some of mine.
And what, praytell, are my favorite things?
Well, I do happen to love the song "My favorite things" from the Sound of Music. I'm not embarrassed by that. I think it was 3rd grade summer play that I performed that one. Had to be because I was back in Louisiana for 4th grade and 5th grade was in Minnesota in all district chorus.Digressing...the list:
My favorite things:
1) My Mini-Mes. The most intelligent, compassionate and beautiful 3 and 6 year olds I know.
2) Driving down Mama's street and seeing her sitting on the porch when I go back home.(Note: My grandmother, Mama, is somewhere west of central sometimes. She has a tree garden. Yes, a tree garden. She takes things and recycles them ( my phrasing) and plants things in them and hangs them on a tree in her yard so she can look at them while she sits on the porch. She makes bird feeders out of 2 liter containers, which is normal enough...but Chitlin buckets? Um yeah. Mama uses Chitlin buckets to make planters. Nothing like coming down to street in a cab and saying, "It's the house with the red chitlin buckets in the tree". Oooh I love my family. LMAO! But hey, this is the woman that raised me. If she wants to make planters out of chitlin buckets, go'head on Mama. It's your world.
3)Laughing with my girls..my crew. All over the world...whether it's online, on the phone, over dinner, I love that we hit our essence the minute we hear the sound of each other's voice and stay in step until we part.
4) Fresh sheets. Be it sheets of paper (because I happen to love new notebooks...LOVE!) or freshly laundered lavendar scented bed linens, 800 thread count or higher, I love sheets. It doesn't HAVE to be Egyptian cotton because most of that doesn't even come from Egypt ( giggles)...it could be sheets from ANY nation but keep that thread count up and I'm a happy camper sliding around.
5) A cd that I can listen to front to back and again that satisfies my soul. It can even be a compilation of old and new and I like that even more. I remember spending ages trying to find a version of Shirley Ceasar singing "I won't be back" because it reminded me of one period in life that was rough for my mother as she went through her first divorce from my father. She and I would sing gospel in the car and I loved those rides. Had nothing to do with destination, as much of the good in life doesn't. It was all about the journey. We would take turns leading and doing back up on "Jacob's Ladder"--don't really recall the name of the song but she had a voice then...and her heart was in it. That was 6 weddings ago for her. I would love to see her find that again. She hasn't been single since she was 15 so her heart is spread across too many valleys now and she has to go back and patch it back together. Bionic, but it works. It can be done. That I know for sure.
6)Walking into a room wearing crisp white. I don't know why, but I love that. Whether I do it or someone else, I just smile and feel joy. I'm so simple.
7) The human spirit. See, I cry easy. It doesn't take much. I can watch a movie and when two characters hit upon the essence of the human spirit, I lose it. When I am out and about and I see the random goodness in people, even if it's a man extending his arm to help a child that has fallen get up or a woman smile at another woman, not jealous or sizing her up, I just see something in that. It's love, it's hope, it's wonderment, it's kindness given freely without thought.
There are so many more and perhaps I will continue and make that an ongoing process to this site, but as usually, I'm digressing from the point. It's my blog. I can. Random. Like me.
In summary, Ellen did a great job hosting last night. The show flowed well. She really did honor all the people present and watching and the best line of the night was when she said "If there were no gays, no Jews and no Blacks, there would be no Oscars." You got that right! But more, there would be no us. There would be no world. We're all essential to the functioning of this place. Even those that would make the rise unpleasant serve a purpose. They give us the markers for our own progress. They give us a grain to go up against. They are essential to our essence.
After all the hell my father put me through, I cannot ever curse the day he was born because he happens to have been at trial I needed in life. He wasn't the thorn on this rose, he was the watering. Essential to my growth. For awhile, I calloused under his abuse. I know I did. I'm even thankful for that because now that I know what my worst looks like, I know how to shine as my best.
Eddie Murphy didn't win last night. There are no coincidences. Alan Arkin has been working for 40 years and done some remarkable work in his life. It was his time. For some reason, I think Eddie Murphy will be even better after this and an Oscar forthcoming someday. But see, he has "enough". I hope he realizes that. If anything, I hope Eddie looks at his last release, Norbit and says, what could I have done better that would generate an outcome that measures my work amongst my peers? Norbit wasn't it. Norbit was insulting and demeaning and I don't care how much self esteem the woman had...there are things we just don't do yet and cannot do yet until we are all looked at from the same view finder. Oh, it was comedy and well received by "certain" audiences...but where is the heart in that? I don't find that audience laughing at a large Black woman funny...wait, a loud, large and abusive Black woman. We are more than that. We are better than that. Come again!
I think the rest of the Oscars went to all the right people for all the right work...but Jennifer Hudson oversang and outshined Beyonce something fierce. I almost felt bad until I thought about the fact that Beyonce is "Pimping all over the world". She can't be touched and that was one night and it was Jennifer's night. See...we ARE better than that. Funny thing...the irony, juxtapose the lead female character from Norbit to Effie. Grace and heart can go a long, long way.
Martin Scorcese was honored by his peers. Helen Mirren was hailed as a sex symbol, that she is and one helluva actress. She's been doing this foreva. About time, I say. She earned this in Excalibur and I was a kid back then. Forest Whitaker was the King of the night though. I usually skip the last 3 big awards and go to sleep because they are usually no brainers. To be honest, these were no brainers too, but I needed to watch. This man has limitless talent and always has. After the Crying Game, he kinda drifted under the radar with much of Hollywood so they actually believe this was some sort of comeback. Note to HW--he never stopped working. Successful people usually don't.
There was balance behind the podium this year. It came in the form of diversity. Different ethnicities, different vibes, different languages, really different screenplays and ya know what? It worked! Now, if the rest of the world could just catch that vibe perhaps we could all live in some peace with some balance, appreciating each other for our differences rather than just tolerating them. And I guess that would be #8 for me...balance. Balance is one of my favorite things.
I was glad that Ellen was hosting it. Sometimes you can't stop the flow of the positive and she has that written all over here. Contrast with Rosie O'Donnel...and NO, not because they are both lesbians, but because they are both solo ( one former, now doing panel) talk show hosts that started as comedianes and ventured into acting and had to come out at what seemed initially like the height of their fame. For both, it ended up working out better and giving them both a springboard to really soar. Problem is, only one is doing that.
Now, I apologize for the gay woman to gay woman comparisons. I hate it when people do that to Black people...which is why I was clear that it wasn't because they were gay, but neither of them are Oprah so ya know, the comparisons end there. They happen to rank right next to each other in social stratusphere and they ain't Oprah, though I admit to have enjoying Rosie's magazine better than O. Rosie's was more middle of the road, middle class, multi-ethnic. Oprah's was and still is engineering something more which is fine. I'm just not under any illusions about how people make money and advertising. Ok...an example: Oprah has a list of her favorite things in every issue. I'm not sure if the lounge wear that was recently on her show appears in this month's issue or not, but likely it does. Oprah thinks its comfy and revolutionary and I'm sure it is. It's pima cotton and some lycra to hold ya in. What woman wouldn't love that? Well....one that doesn't want to spend more than $100 to lounge.
$100 isn't much money. I'm really not the one to diss someone about $100 because I can drop that in the airport bookstore and usually do. My issue is that here we have a woman that is literally saving the world. I'll defend Oprah until the cows come home and again when the bitties leave because I know my progression as a person has been enhanced simply because she exists. She's a gift in my life. Trust that I know that. BUT, and I sure hate to put a but in any sentence because I know it nearly dismisses everything you just said...not my point, BUT so you have an audience...you promote literacy....market that magazine to the AVERAGE woman. She's not paying $200 for a bath sheet. She is putting her kids through school and most mothers will do for everyone else before themselves anyway so if you are going to urge them to do for themselves, to treat themselves, you can't take from the family's bottom line. It's not logical and people need to quit lying to Oprah: read Gayle as she runs the magazine and telling them that it's selling at it's best and reaching the right demographic.
How many Latino women read O? I mean, READ! And buy the things in it? How many average, everyday African American women read O? The truth is that dentists offices and White women of another income bracket are the top target in that magazine. How do I know? The ads still don't feature many women that look like me. Though I can afford things that are O's favorite things and I happen to love to shop, there has to be a balance. I have enough "stuff". I don't need it just because someone that I admire says it's her favorite thing. Perhaps she would benefit from learning about some of mine.
And what, praytell, are my favorite things?
Well, I do happen to love the song "My favorite things" from the Sound of Music. I'm not embarrassed by that. I think it was 3rd grade summer play that I performed that one. Had to be because I was back in Louisiana for 4th grade and 5th grade was in Minnesota in all district chorus.Digressing...the list:
My favorite things:
1) My Mini-Mes. The most intelligent, compassionate and beautiful 3 and 6 year olds I know.
2) Driving down Mama's street and seeing her sitting on the porch when I go back home.(Note: My grandmother, Mama, is somewhere west of central sometimes. She has a tree garden. Yes, a tree garden. She takes things and recycles them ( my phrasing) and plants things in them and hangs them on a tree in her yard so she can look at them while she sits on the porch. She makes bird feeders out of 2 liter containers, which is normal enough...but Chitlin buckets? Um yeah. Mama uses Chitlin buckets to make planters. Nothing like coming down to street in a cab and saying, "It's the house with the red chitlin buckets in the tree". Oooh I love my family. LMAO! But hey, this is the woman that raised me. If she wants to make planters out of chitlin buckets, go'head on Mama. It's your world.
3)Laughing with my girls..my crew. All over the world...whether it's online, on the phone, over dinner, I love that we hit our essence the minute we hear the sound of each other's voice and stay in step until we part.
4) Fresh sheets. Be it sheets of paper (because I happen to love new notebooks...LOVE!) or freshly laundered lavendar scented bed linens, 800 thread count or higher, I love sheets. It doesn't HAVE to be Egyptian cotton because most of that doesn't even come from Egypt ( giggles)...it could be sheets from ANY nation but keep that thread count up and I'm a happy camper sliding around.
5) A cd that I can listen to front to back and again that satisfies my soul. It can even be a compilation of old and new and I like that even more. I remember spending ages trying to find a version of Shirley Ceasar singing "I won't be back" because it reminded me of one period in life that was rough for my mother as she went through her first divorce from my father. She and I would sing gospel in the car and I loved those rides. Had nothing to do with destination, as much of the good in life doesn't. It was all about the journey. We would take turns leading and doing back up on "Jacob's Ladder"--don't really recall the name of the song but she had a voice then...and her heart was in it. That was 6 weddings ago for her. I would love to see her find that again. She hasn't been single since she was 15 so her heart is spread across too many valleys now and she has to go back and patch it back together. Bionic, but it works. It can be done. That I know for sure.
6)Walking into a room wearing crisp white. I don't know why, but I love that. Whether I do it or someone else, I just smile and feel joy. I'm so simple.
7) The human spirit. See, I cry easy. It doesn't take much. I can watch a movie and when two characters hit upon the essence of the human spirit, I lose it. When I am out and about and I see the random goodness in people, even if it's a man extending his arm to help a child that has fallen get up or a woman smile at another woman, not jealous or sizing her up, I just see something in that. It's love, it's hope, it's wonderment, it's kindness given freely without thought.
There are so many more and perhaps I will continue and make that an ongoing process to this site, but as usually, I'm digressing from the point. It's my blog. I can. Random. Like me.
In summary, Ellen did a great job hosting last night. The show flowed well. She really did honor all the people present and watching and the best line of the night was when she said "If there were no gays, no Jews and no Blacks, there would be no Oscars." You got that right! But more, there would be no us. There would be no world. We're all essential to the functioning of this place. Even those that would make the rise unpleasant serve a purpose. They give us the markers for our own progress. They give us a grain to go up against. They are essential to our essence.
After all the hell my father put me through, I cannot ever curse the day he was born because he happens to have been at trial I needed in life. He wasn't the thorn on this rose, he was the watering. Essential to my growth. For awhile, I calloused under his abuse. I know I did. I'm even thankful for that because now that I know what my worst looks like, I know how to shine as my best.
Eddie Murphy didn't win last night. There are no coincidences. Alan Arkin has been working for 40 years and done some remarkable work in his life. It was his time. For some reason, I think Eddie Murphy will be even better after this and an Oscar forthcoming someday. But see, he has "enough". I hope he realizes that. If anything, I hope Eddie looks at his last release, Norbit and says, what could I have done better that would generate an outcome that measures my work amongst my peers? Norbit wasn't it. Norbit was insulting and demeaning and I don't care how much self esteem the woman had...there are things we just don't do yet and cannot do yet until we are all looked at from the same view finder. Oh, it was comedy and well received by "certain" audiences...but where is the heart in that? I don't find that audience laughing at a large Black woman funny...wait, a loud, large and abusive Black woman. We are more than that. We are better than that. Come again!
I think the rest of the Oscars went to all the right people for all the right work...but Jennifer Hudson oversang and outshined Beyonce something fierce. I almost felt bad until I thought about the fact that Beyonce is "Pimping all over the world". She can't be touched and that was one night and it was Jennifer's night. See...we ARE better than that. Funny thing...the irony, juxtapose the lead female character from Norbit to Effie. Grace and heart can go a long, long way.
Martin Scorcese was honored by his peers. Helen Mirren was hailed as a sex symbol, that she is and one helluva actress. She's been doing this foreva. About time, I say. She earned this in Excalibur and I was a kid back then. Forest Whitaker was the King of the night though. I usually skip the last 3 big awards and go to sleep because they are usually no brainers. To be honest, these were no brainers too, but I needed to watch. This man has limitless talent and always has. After the Crying Game, he kinda drifted under the radar with much of Hollywood so they actually believe this was some sort of comeback. Note to HW--he never stopped working. Successful people usually don't.
There was balance behind the podium this year. It came in the form of diversity. Different ethnicities, different vibes, different languages, really different screenplays and ya know what? It worked! Now, if the rest of the world could just catch that vibe perhaps we could all live in some peace with some balance, appreciating each other for our differences rather than just tolerating them. And I guess that would be #8 for me...balance. Balance is one of my favorite things.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Curious and Curious-er
Yeah...Alice in Wonderland quotes. Been a dreamy kinda day.
I've been doing a lot of writing today and so I'm numbing a bit with the music video channels serving as background noise. It helps me hit upon topics I wouldn't otherwise. I just saw two Vanessa Williams videos ( The Right Stuff and Work to Do) and remembered how I loved those songs. I think it's because I was coming of age and she looks just like my mom. That kinda sucked growing up during those periods when she was single because well, what 16 year old boy wouldn't look at a woman like that and say "THAT's your mom". I just rolled my eyes just as I used to when I would hear that line. I drew the line the week of prom when I heard it. I skipped the shin dig altogether and told him to take my mom instead. I don't even regret it. LOL!
Now watching Amy Winehouse "You know I'm no good". Gosh, it's bad girl anthem week or something. This woman has a great voice but as much as I like the vibe of the song I can't see myself singing along because well, I know I'm some good. She might not be. That's on her. LOL! If she tells me that's who she is, then I'm gonna believe her. A nod to the great ones. The song is about a woman that cheats on her boyfriend with an ex and basically isn't sorry for it and get this, he's alright with it thinking that it's gonna change when they get married. Um, as the sum product of parents and step parents that married each other and other people 21 times, I can guarantee that cheaters never stop being cheaters and their favorite person to cheat is usually themselves.
Not going to do a play by play of videos...but Lisa Stansfield is on now. Hmmm, the cycles of music. Finish this: Lisa Stansfield is to circa 1988 ( around then) as BLANK is to 2006. Answer:
Joss Stone.
That was an easy one. But how about finding the link between Lena Horne, Diahann Carrol, Vanessa Williams and Beyonce? It's book worthy actually. Oooo speaking of links, Al Sharpton just had a press conference to reveal that a leading genealogist had determined him to be related to Strom Thurmon. My only comment, "Awww hell naw". I'm not sure I would announce that. But ya know, whatever floats your boat. Oh My..they just played Jonathon Butler's "Lies".
I know I said I was done, but when BET video soul came out and oh Donnie Simpson....oooo, oooo, oooo and I was like 13 so way too young to be saying ooo, ooo, ooo to Donnie...but anyway, they had like 10 videos and "Lies" was one of them. That, Randy Hall, what else? Why do I just remember the fine men? That was the year we moved to "The City". I became acutely aware of the fact that for the first time in my life, I was neither the only Black person in a room and that there was more to being attractive than having blonde hair, blue eyes and being an Amy or Jenny. No offense as two of my closest friends happen to have both blonde hair, blue eyes and are Amy and Jenny. But still. I remember an old Prince special on Paisley Park that said Minneapolis was the whitest city in America. LMAO! Well, yeah. It is. And the most open to Interracial dating and marriage. Wrote a song about, wanna hear it, here it goes. Giggles.
Again, being the sum product of so many of those and having parents that both married several spouses of other ethnicities and then doing it myself, I can't say a thing but suffice to say, I don't take part in conversations about the destruction of the Black family. Hell, I unwittingly bought a front row seat. Thing is...maybe my contribution isn't nearly as great as some others. So when Snoop stops C-walking in videos, Nelly n'Dem stop wearing grills made of Blood and conflict diamonds and Diddy and BirdMan stop appearing in and producing videos that depict women as nothing but ass, maybe then I'll consider adding my name to the list of confessors. Until then....
Well, I guess that's really a pivotal issue anymore, at this point, but 12 years was a good run for any marriage...especially one that started from a chance meeting at a Grateful Dead concert. I'm so damned open minded I hurt my own brain cells sometimes. See..say no to drugs. You go out one night and it's all about Tyson Beckford and the next day, you're in wedded bliss with Taylor Hicks. LMAO! I won't have another Sex on the beach...I'll tell ya that! Not that there is anything wrong with Taylor Hicks or my own personal Taylor because there wasn't. But most people don't fit the things they did at 35 as they fit when they were 25. You should. You want to. You try....but sometimes, you just don't. But hey, that's another story, isn't it?
Ok...back to work and VH-1 soul. Oh My..Corrine Bailey Rae, "Like a star". TIMING! Curious and Curious-er. There are no such things as coincidences.
I've been doing a lot of writing today and so I'm numbing a bit with the music video channels serving as background noise. It helps me hit upon topics I wouldn't otherwise. I just saw two Vanessa Williams videos ( The Right Stuff and Work to Do) and remembered how I loved those songs. I think it's because I was coming of age and she looks just like my mom. That kinda sucked growing up during those periods when she was single because well, what 16 year old boy wouldn't look at a woman like that and say "THAT's your mom". I just rolled my eyes just as I used to when I would hear that line. I drew the line the week of prom when I heard it. I skipped the shin dig altogether and told him to take my mom instead. I don't even regret it. LOL!
Now watching Amy Winehouse "You know I'm no good". Gosh, it's bad girl anthem week or something. This woman has a great voice but as much as I like the vibe of the song I can't see myself singing along because well, I know I'm some good. She might not be. That's on her. LOL! If she tells me that's who she is, then I'm gonna believe her. A nod to the great ones. The song is about a woman that cheats on her boyfriend with an ex and basically isn't sorry for it and get this, he's alright with it thinking that it's gonna change when they get married. Um, as the sum product of parents and step parents that married each other and other people 21 times, I can guarantee that cheaters never stop being cheaters and their favorite person to cheat is usually themselves.
Not going to do a play by play of videos...but Lisa Stansfield is on now. Hmmm, the cycles of music. Finish this: Lisa Stansfield is to circa 1988 ( around then) as BLANK is to 2006. Answer:
Joss Stone.
That was an easy one. But how about finding the link between Lena Horne, Diahann Carrol, Vanessa Williams and Beyonce? It's book worthy actually. Oooo speaking of links, Al Sharpton just had a press conference to reveal that a leading genealogist had determined him to be related to Strom Thurmon. My only comment, "Awww hell naw". I'm not sure I would announce that. But ya know, whatever floats your boat. Oh My..they just played Jonathon Butler's "Lies".
I know I said I was done, but when BET video soul came out and oh Donnie Simpson....oooo, oooo, oooo and I was like 13 so way too young to be saying ooo, ooo, ooo to Donnie...but anyway, they had like 10 videos and "Lies" was one of them. That, Randy Hall, what else? Why do I just remember the fine men? That was the year we moved to "The City". I became acutely aware of the fact that for the first time in my life, I was neither the only Black person in a room and that there was more to being attractive than having blonde hair, blue eyes and being an Amy or Jenny. No offense as two of my closest friends happen to have both blonde hair, blue eyes and are Amy and Jenny. But still. I remember an old Prince special on Paisley Park that said Minneapolis was the whitest city in America. LMAO! Well, yeah. It is. And the most open to Interracial dating and marriage. Wrote a song about, wanna hear it, here it goes. Giggles.
Again, being the sum product of so many of those and having parents that both married several spouses of other ethnicities and then doing it myself, I can't say a thing but suffice to say, I don't take part in conversations about the destruction of the Black family. Hell, I unwittingly bought a front row seat. Thing is...maybe my contribution isn't nearly as great as some others. So when Snoop stops C-walking in videos, Nelly n'Dem stop wearing grills made of Blood and conflict diamonds and Diddy and BirdMan stop appearing in and producing videos that depict women as nothing but ass, maybe then I'll consider adding my name to the list of confessors. Until then....
Well, I guess that's really a pivotal issue anymore, at this point, but 12 years was a good run for any marriage...especially one that started from a chance meeting at a Grateful Dead concert. I'm so damned open minded I hurt my own brain cells sometimes. See..say no to drugs. You go out one night and it's all about Tyson Beckford and the next day, you're in wedded bliss with Taylor Hicks. LMAO! I won't have another Sex on the beach...I'll tell ya that! Not that there is anything wrong with Taylor Hicks or my own personal Taylor because there wasn't. But most people don't fit the things they did at 35 as they fit when they were 25. You should. You want to. You try....but sometimes, you just don't. But hey, that's another story, isn't it?
Ok...back to work and VH-1 soul. Oh My..Corrine Bailey Rae, "Like a star". TIMING! Curious and Curious-er. There are no such things as coincidences.
Listen...
and if the song doesn't stir you, nothing will at this moment in life. It's a good song. Great? Well, play it in 10 years and let me know what it stirs and we'll both know. A song must transcend in order to do that. Listen is an anthem. It speaks to the soul of a woman. That transcends race ( a social construct), but can a man sing it and make your heart weep? Can he feel it in the equivalent of a womb? The depths of his being....hmmm, not sure. Ask Louis Armstrong how it's done. He knew. As Stevie Wonder. He knows. Ask Carole King for that matter because most of us know what it's like to wonder "Will you still love me tomorrow".
I've been married since I was 24 and I used to ask that question of others and need the answer. Not so much anymore. I will still love me tomorrow. Good enough.
I ask all this because it's Oscar night and I'm feeling some joy...and some discontent. Joy because baby we are representing. People of color are all over those ballots. I know Forest will win. I know Jennifer Hudson would be a great choice as well...but I won't be dissappointed if she doesn't.
She did a good job. Check the emphasis on that word "Good". Follow me, folks. She earned the right to be in the category...but handing us awards because you know ( you being Hollywood) that it's long overdue won't correct "The Color Purple". People really believe Whoopie got an award for that. They think Denzel got one for Malcom X. No kids, they SHOULD have...but they did not. And not because the other films were so great that they were up against. There is politics in Hollywood, like everywhere else.
We saw it at the Grammy's. The Dixie Chicks made a good cd. There are some really GREAT songs on it. But did they eclipse Mary J.??? Um no! The truth is they deserved that award YEARS ago...but politics got in the way, so Grammy said, "My bad, let me fix that and we're all good". It was transparent and they accepted. They had to or they really wouldn't ever work in that town again and truth be told, they ain't working in Nashville again so they need Hollywood. Not dumb girls. You do what you have to do.
On 9/11, I could barely speak. For me, that's saying something. I mean it. At first, I thought the tower was a local building in my city where I had friends and family working at that hour. I sat stunned, glued to the set. Then, I woke my husband and he said, "It's a clear day. That's no accident" and we watched the 2nd plane hit. My initial reaction was shock, then it was, "Wow, what a perfect set up." The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Someone understood that. Believe that. We won't find that out until this generation is long gone much in the way that JFK's reports won't be released until 2070. By then, the fervor to discover the truth will have died with 2 generations. But, I digress.
I was supposed to leave on a flight to Disneyworld to meet 20 online mommy group friends. We had been planning that meeting since we all found out we were pregnant with our first children and formed our group. We were together for years. Bonds created. We traveled the world to meet each other. We loved each other. We became family...and then, I spoke. I spoke the truth, but far too soon. I knew 9/11 was going to be a pre-cursor to vengence. In the name of the father, they say. How many people must write of that before people understand that it gets us no where? The name of the father, the sins of the father. Papa was a rolling stone. GoOD. That's his deal. Let him have it, I say. Bush should have left it alone and looked in every hen house, outhouse, cat house and cave for Bin Laden, had a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up. I can say that. I'm already checked at the airport twice through security. I'm on the subversive's list. The lesson, Ice T said, "Freedom of speech, just watch what you say".
I said what I had to say to 'My friends' about the trumped up war and charges. You can't liberate a free people. You cannot bring peace with a gun and bombs. If I walked across the street to my neighbors house and tried to liberate his wallet ( oil), he would be well within his rights to liberate my ass straight to Val Halla. You cannot come into a man's home and try to man handle him because you don't like how he is living. Now, I didn't like Saddam. I know he was a brutal dictator. We just love to say that. But we got our own now don't we? Has he killed less people than Saddam? Do the averages. Calc the numbers in years. He's well on his way and if we didn't have term limits, trust that we would see shackles come back in fashion. He's no Christian. He's a politician and they have no religion. You need a soul first. Politicians check that at the door. I told my friends that I would say prayers for their friends and family ( and mine) that were going to fight, but I would never ever support this bullshit war because it had no basis in reality. They kept changing the definition on us and people bought that bs. Liberate? WMDs? Huh, what? WHAT about 9/11? What about Bin Laden? If it's yellow cake you are looking for, North Korea wasn't hiding theirs. We didn't liberate them and they are still living in 1954 thinking they whooped our asses in the war. Mind control is no joke. They still believe we are their enemy--well we are, let's not lie--but they believe it because their government told them so and they bought it. I stopped buying what our government was selling when I was 15. Trickle down means we get to keep getting richer and if some spills over and trickles down to you, you can keep it. I mean, minimum wage hasn't been increased in 25 years to match the way we live. People still making $7 an hour, yeah..but they USED to have benefits with that. Ok..yeah, this is another post. I can feel my blood pressure rising. Let me go back to light and fluffy like we like it because we can't handle the truth Ruth. So nice and easy like Tina. It's all good. *winks*
I say this because we haven't said enough. Dreamgirls opened in barely any theaters. The marketing was horseshit. The posters, horseshit. You have the day's top money makers and they couldn't do a damn thing to stand against it. I say couldn't because one of them is playing the Dixie Chicks game. She can't say anything. Her career is too ripe for her to take any stands. She needs cross over appeal. Steppin Fetchit. BUT, that door is open. It's been paved now. The next one can say, "take your nomination and shove it up your ass". They can say, recognize the results that IN SPITE of you, we made a product that sold and we rose to the occasion. They can say, "FIne, don't market it...I have money. I'll do it myself...but I want a percent of the total earnings from now until the end of time". Own the masters boo...and I mean that figuratively and literally. The musicians can feel me.
Some day, someone will step up and walk that stage to accept an award for Best Picture and Best Direction and their face will look remarkably like mine. I say this, because I have no doubt that it will be mine. Believe that! I do! Crash. Transcend. Listen!
I've been married since I was 24 and I used to ask that question of others and need the answer. Not so much anymore. I will still love me tomorrow. Good enough.
I ask all this because it's Oscar night and I'm feeling some joy...and some discontent. Joy because baby we are representing. People of color are all over those ballots. I know Forest will win. I know Jennifer Hudson would be a great choice as well...but I won't be dissappointed if she doesn't.
She did a good job. Check the emphasis on that word "Good". Follow me, folks. She earned the right to be in the category...but handing us awards because you know ( you being Hollywood) that it's long overdue won't correct "The Color Purple". People really believe Whoopie got an award for that. They think Denzel got one for Malcom X. No kids, they SHOULD have...but they did not. And not because the other films were so great that they were up against. There is politics in Hollywood, like everywhere else.
We saw it at the Grammy's. The Dixie Chicks made a good cd. There are some really GREAT songs on it. But did they eclipse Mary J.??? Um no! The truth is they deserved that award YEARS ago...but politics got in the way, so Grammy said, "My bad, let me fix that and we're all good". It was transparent and they accepted. They had to or they really wouldn't ever work in that town again and truth be told, they ain't working in Nashville again so they need Hollywood. Not dumb girls. You do what you have to do.
On 9/11, I could barely speak. For me, that's saying something. I mean it. At first, I thought the tower was a local building in my city where I had friends and family working at that hour. I sat stunned, glued to the set. Then, I woke my husband and he said, "It's a clear day. That's no accident" and we watched the 2nd plane hit. My initial reaction was shock, then it was, "Wow, what a perfect set up." The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Someone understood that. Believe that. We won't find that out until this generation is long gone much in the way that JFK's reports won't be released until 2070. By then, the fervor to discover the truth will have died with 2 generations. But, I digress.
I was supposed to leave on a flight to Disneyworld to meet 20 online mommy group friends. We had been planning that meeting since we all found out we were pregnant with our first children and formed our group. We were together for years. Bonds created. We traveled the world to meet each other. We loved each other. We became family...and then, I spoke. I spoke the truth, but far too soon. I knew 9/11 was going to be a pre-cursor to vengence. In the name of the father, they say. How many people must write of that before people understand that it gets us no where? The name of the father, the sins of the father. Papa was a rolling stone. GoOD. That's his deal. Let him have it, I say. Bush should have left it alone and looked in every hen house, outhouse, cat house and cave for Bin Laden, had a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up. I can say that. I'm already checked at the airport twice through security. I'm on the subversive's list. The lesson, Ice T said, "Freedom of speech, just watch what you say".
I said what I had to say to 'My friends' about the trumped up war and charges. You can't liberate a free people. You cannot bring peace with a gun and bombs. If I walked across the street to my neighbors house and tried to liberate his wallet ( oil), he would be well within his rights to liberate my ass straight to Val Halla. You cannot come into a man's home and try to man handle him because you don't like how he is living. Now, I didn't like Saddam. I know he was a brutal dictator. We just love to say that. But we got our own now don't we? Has he killed less people than Saddam? Do the averages. Calc the numbers in years. He's well on his way and if we didn't have term limits, trust that we would see shackles come back in fashion. He's no Christian. He's a politician and they have no religion. You need a soul first. Politicians check that at the door. I told my friends that I would say prayers for their friends and family ( and mine) that were going to fight, but I would never ever support this bullshit war because it had no basis in reality. They kept changing the definition on us and people bought that bs. Liberate? WMDs? Huh, what? WHAT about 9/11? What about Bin Laden? If it's yellow cake you are looking for, North Korea wasn't hiding theirs. We didn't liberate them and they are still living in 1954 thinking they whooped our asses in the war. Mind control is no joke. They still believe we are their enemy--well we are, let's not lie--but they believe it because their government told them so and they bought it. I stopped buying what our government was selling when I was 15. Trickle down means we get to keep getting richer and if some spills over and trickles down to you, you can keep it. I mean, minimum wage hasn't been increased in 25 years to match the way we live. People still making $7 an hour, yeah..but they USED to have benefits with that. Ok..yeah, this is another post. I can feel my blood pressure rising. Let me go back to light and fluffy like we like it because we can't handle the truth Ruth. So nice and easy like Tina. It's all good. *winks*
I say this because we haven't said enough. Dreamgirls opened in barely any theaters. The marketing was horseshit. The posters, horseshit. You have the day's top money makers and they couldn't do a damn thing to stand against it. I say couldn't because one of them is playing the Dixie Chicks game. She can't say anything. Her career is too ripe for her to take any stands. She needs cross over appeal. Steppin Fetchit. BUT, that door is open. It's been paved now. The next one can say, "take your nomination and shove it up your ass". They can say, recognize the results that IN SPITE of you, we made a product that sold and we rose to the occasion. They can say, "FIne, don't market it...I have money. I'll do it myself...but I want a percent of the total earnings from now until the end of time". Own the masters boo...and I mean that figuratively and literally. The musicians can feel me.
Some day, someone will step up and walk that stage to accept an award for Best Picture and Best Direction and their face will look remarkably like mine. I say this, because I have no doubt that it will be mine. Believe that! I do! Crash. Transcend. Listen!
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