Saturday, December 30, 2006

2007

This year,

I want some of these
riiiight here .

(And they have to stay longer than 3 days or it doesn't count).

In hindsight, I was romantically BORED in 2006. I had my usual space-fillers but no one of great interest. Do you know that I haven't gotten butterflies (that lasted for more than 3 days) in almost TWO YEARS??? How crazy is that? I used to always have a crush. As a matter of fact, I used to have several (celebrity and average joes alike). I don't know what's happened but I just don't seem to get googly-eyed over guys anymore. And I've been out with some attractive ones too! Maybe my early decision of "no relationships" this year shut down other things like basic attraction? I don't know. But dammit I want butterflies this year. More than once! And I don't care who gives them to me: A guy at Target or some actor in an indie film.

At a recent dinner out with the family, I was asked about my thoughts about the upcoming year. I went somewhere in my mind and what came out was :
"Something better pop off or I'mma CHOKE something!"

So there's my theme for 2007
(until I forget or don't care anymore):

"Or else..."

I'm also going to manage this year's resolutions on a quarter-to-quarter basis. I think I'll set goals each quarter as opposed to an entire year. So here's what I've got for Quarter #1:
  • Do something FULL OUT. Even when I want to give up. Even when it looks like I'm about to have my ass handed to me. I want to have my first experience of giving my all to something in first quarter.
  • Fall in love with something. A great pair of shoes, a job, a person, a city, a new hobby/haircolor/lip gloss...SOMETHING.
  • Network into a B-plan for the grad school yay or nay in April.
  • Make a list of a whole bunch of shit that I never thought I'd do (within reason) and consider doing it in quarters 2, 3, and 4.
  • Upgrade the social calendar. Not on Paris Hilton status but I haven't been out and about in a while. I'm young. My ambition has been riding shotgun for quite some time, and since I've put a few things in place, the backseat doesn't look so bad.


All that said...


What do you want from 2007?

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Choosing Black

Shit like this hurts my heart.

It's damn near 2007 and we STILL live with skin complexion and hair complexes.

But the part involving the kids?? That got me. I started choking up. My sister was a part of a study like that on ABC when she was in pre-school. She chose the white doll too.

It really makes me sad to know that these children share the same views as people my age and older. We hate our hair. We hate our skin. We hate our ignorance. We hate our state of being. We make it "okay" by doing things to it to make it more acceptable to others, but at the end of the day, icing on top of mud doesn't make cake.

I really, really hate this. I remember the different things people would say to me as I altered my physical presentation throughout the years. When I grew out my perm in '97, you would've thought I was a leper. I'd hear stuff like "Ooh girl, you need Jesus!" (That's Southern ignorant speak for "Your hair needs to be saved...no lye!") Naturally, the same heifers tried to do what I did a whole semester later. But I'd get the same crap from guys and teachers too. My parents weren't even really feeling it. Especially my father.

I don't know what it is about men and hair, but they almost require cardiopulmonary resuscitation if you change it up on them. Ya'll know how I tell you about how my Life becomes red carpet status when my hair is straightened. For those who don't, I straighten my hair every 3 months or so to get it trimmed. I refer to these moments as my "face lift" to a few of you because that's what it feels like sometimes.

ESPECIALLY in college. Lawd, the men came OUT when I got a press! Some of them honestly related to me as if I was someone new. Like I didn't know them or we didn't have class together, or I knew nothing about their man-whore ways. It was ridiculous!

But you know what? (And I'll probably never forget this.) The ONLY person who didn't give me the thumbs up was one of my best guy friends there--- a white guy. I had gotten so much buzz all morning about my hair, when I met him at our usual spot, I was totally prepared for more the same. He said nothing.

So I asked him, "What do you think?"
He tilted his head and frowned slightly as he said non-chalantly,
"I guess."

I grinned from ear to ear. He actually preferred me as my natural bummy self. I don't think I ever felt so embraced before without physical contact.

After that moment, I realized that this idealism is no longer just about White supremacy. It's almost 2007 and with all the progress made thus far, WE still think this way. White people had their thoughts about Hip-Hop but that didn't change it. WE changed it. I really just want us to own our identity as self-created and stop buying into all this Black Righteous crap, or this self-depreciating idealism.

You can't blame White people anymore. It's us. Those are OUR kids choosing the White doll over the Black one, and there's no White nanny at home raising them.

It's us.

We have to own it.

I was definitely one of those girls back in middle and high school talking that mess. I would always diss light-skinned chicks like, "These light-skinned ho's..." Looking back, I wonder if people looked at me crazy. I didn't know I qualified as being "light-skinned" until 10th grade when my friend, Ooms, told me. I was a tomboy so I assumed my perma-tan was really my true color. I honestly thought I was brown-skinned for most of my life.

Let me tell you, that revelation really turned my world upside down. I had a brown-skin girl mentality: A classic Betty & Veronica perspective. Yeah Betty was cool but Veronica always got Archie. You know, the whole second best ideology and there was nothing I could do about it. My friend, who is darker-skinned, had me realize that the darkest woman (considered as beautiful and given lead roles) in Hollywood is Vivica A. Fox and to this day I can't find anyone to disprove her claim. That sucks.

But having graduated from that bullshit, it really irks me that other people are still stuck in it. Even worse, they don't consider themselves to be "stuck" but simply living "the truth". Feeding into that crap does nothing but produce more kindergartners picking the White doll.



When do Black people finally choose Black?



Friday, December 22, 2006

***Princess Maker??***





Is this clown SERIOUS???

What's up with...

1. The 15 sec self-promotion BEFORE we get to know WTF he's doing in a hospital gown
2. Almost forgetting that his "girlfriend" actually birthed the babies (and not him)
3. Hold up...is that background music?????
4. The glittering pink fonted Sesame Street breakdown
5. How a 37 year-old "business man" can't manage to treat the birth of his children any different than an album promotion
6. How he successfully managed to talk about himself in damn near every sentence

Wow.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

***Vanity Prayer***


Dear God,
For my future life, this is my prayer
with or without, my love, John Mayer.

Forgive my vanity,
for that fruit has been peeled.
I will promise to stop talking about people I don't know,
(and even if I do know them)
my lips will be sealed.

In times when I'm broke
and I have no disposable money,
May I look like Kelly Rowland (in this pic)
all throughout my 20's.

To glow like Wendy R. Robinson in my 30's
would be a dream.
Just tell me who makes it
and where I can buy the cream.

In my 40's I plan to be fearless
so it's important you see,
to be on Vanessa Williams' status
as I do what I please.

And in my 50's,
when my waistline no longer goes in,
may I possess the elasticity
of Patti LaBelle's skin.

As I flex my gray hair in grace,
and my teeth start to go missing,
May I make that thang look GOOD,
just like Nancy Wilson in her 60's.



Amen.


Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Fa La La La F'ing La







I just don't want to do it.

And I know I still will because I still feel like I have to do it but STILL!

I just don't feel like spending crazy money on people to prove I care about/like/love them this year!

It goes against my love for the spontaneous.
There's a level of expectation that Christmas brings that I'm not feeling, and it has nothing to do with being generous or caring.

If I come across something that I think you may like, then sure, I'll pick it up. But to go out and find something? All for the sake of what?

Hell, if I've shot you an email, text message, or talked to/called you in the past 3 months or so consider yourself favored.

*groan*

I just don't feel like it.

And again, I ask, why exactly are we exchanging gifts anyway?
Because baby Jesus got broke off after He was born?

That's called a birthday party.

Why the hell would YOU/I get presents on someone else's birthday?
And if the argument is then "It's for Christians because we follow Christ"
that's some bull.

I go to church with a whole bunch of "unholiness" so don't run that game on me.

Speaking of which, I wonder how many people would find religion if it determined how many paid holidays you get at work?

Cuz I know I'm always like "Dammit!" around Jewish and Muslim holidays.

Anyhoo...

I just don't want to deal with the (self-imposed) guilt if I choose to opt out of the gift-giving ritual this year.

Well, not everybody. Gotta take care of my kids. That's default. Then there's the Parental Unit (they've given me waaaaaay more than I could give them on a holiday). Then the siblings. Then the extended fam. Lawd, you should feel my heart right now. Cuz then there's the hometeam.

Lawd.

And all these grad school app fees are due...GMAT fee...regular bills...living expenses...

Lawd.

My breathing is getting tight.

And I'm also salty cuz I lost $40 on Sunday. Perfect example of why I don't do cash.

What the F ever.





Happy Merry.


Friday, December 15, 2006

Applied Meaning


So I'm logging into my Yahoo account this morning, and I see a headline that catches my eye:

Group not satisfied with Rosie's apology


All that hell she raised about Kelly Ripa gay-bashing and now she's got a case of the loose lips? So I read to find out who she is apologizing to and why. Turns out that she made a joke about how Danny DeVito got arrested for drunk driving and, in the joke, referred to the Chinese language as "ching chong".
Alright.

But as I keep reading, I notice that she was informed by several Asian people who found "ching chong" to be as bad as "nigger". (Yeah I wrote it. F that n-word crap.) While I don't agree, it definitely made me think about something: If Asian people have "ching chong", and Black folks have "Nigger", what do White people have? That's when it hit me...

White people don't have a Nigger equivalent.

So if almost every race (other than White) has that one word of demeaning social stigma, then where lies the power of the word itself?
At first I went the obvious route. I looked at White people as the source of the power of the word Nigger and put on my blinker to turn right on Kill Whitey Ave.

But I wasn't convinced,
so I kept straight on Whatchu Think Rd.


Then I thought of every word I knew that Black people used to demean White people. "Honkey" and "Cracker" is all I could come up with. But I couldn't even say it without smiling because it was such a weak attempt to racially offend a White person. I imagined using it and how ineffective it would be in a moment of pure anger. Then I tried making up words cuz I realized nigger wasn't derived from anything. There's no Greek or Latin root to it. Someone simply made up a word and used it in a way that taught people how to sling it. Over time we all learned. And today, if anyone pulls a "Nigger!" out on a Black person, they might have something pulled on them--- physically.

So I keep chewing...


As long as people take it offensively, it will always be a way to offend. People who were at least 10 years old in the 60's & 70's have lived in the power of the word. It represents much more to them than it does someone my age or younger. We will casually hear it in a hot song, in passing and conversation with friends, and even out of our own mouths. It's another element of a true generational divide.

To me, the intention is much more upsetting than the word itself. Because the word alone gives life to a moment in history of unmasked oppression. Black people were just given the right to vote 43 years ago. And the people who were a part of that experience will always live a life of "not being a Nigger". Don't misunderstand me, the word hurts. But the intention of the person using it is worse to me because it's an invitation to revisit that past.

I think Black people should decline that invitation. Words hold the meaning you give them. Ever notice how easy it is for some people to say "I love you" while others MIGHT utter it on their deathbeds? Words themselves hold nothing until we apply the meaning. Pops always asks me "How was your day?" And while I don't always want entertain the question, I make it mean "I love you" and I do :o)

People criticize Hip Hop and rap music for the using it so much. But I think it's subconsciously done to weaken the shock value of the word. Similar to what Lil' Kim and the other "I'll Dominate a Man With My Sex" rap females did with the word "bitch". They demean its demeaning power. I think before those women came out, Bitch was always a word that any female could be offended by. But by owning the word and altering the meaning of it, it was less threatening to those influenced by their music.

But when someone uses the word bitch or Nigger to intentionally offend you, it will always hurt.

And it's not the word.

It's the context of the meaning applied to it.





Monday, December 11, 2006

It's BANANAS!

Do you know how hunters in South Africa catch monkeys?

They place a single banana right at the door inside of the cage. The monkey comes along, sees the banana, decides he/she wants the banana, approaches the cage, reaches in and grabs the banana. But little does the monkey know that the door to the cage was made to fit his/her hand--- not the banana. In trying to leave, the monkey will stay there for minutes trying to bring the banana through the narrow door and before he/she knows it they're CAUGHT!

Did the monkey have the banana?
Or did the banana have the monkey?

I made this entry much harder than it had to be by posting what I did earlier. This weekend, I really got something very huge. I no longer had my view of the tip of the iceberg being the whole enchiladas. Seeing what lied beneath the surface was embarrassing, absurd, and extremely freeing.

I'm participating in a 7-month leadership program that ends on March 30th. In this program, the participants are given "coaches" who do just that. My coach asked me this weekend about my appearance. Knowing that I do image consulting, she asked "Why is it that you have such great ideas for everyone else's appearance but you come as Plain Jane?" Of course, I initially went on the defense but once chilled out, I looked at what she was saying and not what I thought she meant. She was right. I intentionally present myself juuuust below the radar. That's when I got to phase one of a whole bunch of declarations that I quietly believed to be true.

Belief #1: Beauty is manipulative. I actually saw beauty as evil because of my past experience of it. Like I said before, I've always been able to be friends with guys. And just about every valuable friendship I had with a guy was ruined by a "Pretty girl". We just never seemed to be able to co-exist and I'd always get the boot. Or so I felt. Even now, its hard for me to see attractive people (women especially) as having earned whatever they have. In my mind, some way some how Life was made just a liiiittle easier for them.

Belief #2: If you never call me great/smart/attractive/etc., then I can never NOT be great/smart/attractive/etc. And this is why I would get so uncomfortable with compliments and acknowledgement. If you see me as such, then...(see #3)

Belief #3: Somewhere down the line, I'm going to disappoint you. I don't have the consistency to maintain people's compliments because to me they were expectations. If you were to compliment me for anything, I'd have a twinge of nervousness all because I felt like I now had to uphold your concept of me. Bottom line thinking? It's not really there anyway---you just caught me at a good moment.

Crazy right?

When I really got to see the foolishness that I held onto THIS WHOLE time I was just dumbfounded. I never consciously said any of this to myself but it was definitely running the show in the background. Who knew?

Well I do now.
And now that I do, I have a certain power that I didn't possess before holding onto those three bananas.


What banana has you?






***Overload***

Omg, my mind has been putting in overtime between last week's posts and now. Some heavy, some light, some rants, some insights...my focus is too dispersed. Out of fear of forgetting, I'm going to take the next 3 or 4 days to draft them all out (although a lot of the insights were trumped by more recent ones). I'll post progressively unless (of course) Life upstages me again:o)

Anyhoo, I'll post by Thursday. Or at least that's the goal:o)

Ciao!

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

*** Tracey Noooo!!***

I'm sorry but this crap right here pisses me off. This alone inspires me to start something called "Celebrity DOWNGRADE". Tracey Edmunds-No More! You were my shero! I was quietly following in your footsteps, but now??? As the Parental Unit used to say to me: "This hurts me more than it hurts you." (I always felt like they were lying but, in this moment of clarity, I believe that I understand.)

I'm closing my eyes as I do this but dammit Tracey...

You've earned the stamp of whackness.


I know he probably makes you laugh and might be the exact opposite of Babyface,
but COME ON! Charlie Murphy is better than Eddie!

Eddie "Scary Spice Sperm Donor" Murphy???

I have two words for you: Johnny Gill.
You can redeem yourself, Tracey.

I believe in you!!!



*** He's MINE!!! ***

I wish I knew how to use Photoshop.
I would make ALL of my dreams come true RIGHT NOW.

Rachel Bilson & Adam Brody Split

TUESDAY DECEMBER 05, 2006 07:00PM EST


They kinda look alike, huh?
Rachel Bilson & Adam Brody Break Up | Adam Brody, Rachel Bilson
Rachel Bilson and Adam Brody – who play a couple on The O.C. – have broken up off-screen, PEOPLE has confirmed.

(If you're interested, click here for the rest of the story.)

I'll give him 3 months to "breathe".

and then?

VICTORY!!!
(insert evil laughter here)



Tuesday, December 05, 2006

**B-Lated Kudos***

I have to give it to her.

I believe her "Irreplaceable" is probably the nicest, most polite "Get the fukk out" R&B song I've ever heard.

SHE'S SO HELPFUL!!


Full of suggestions...
So go ahead and get gone
And call up on that chick and see if she is home

She must've said "please" like 3 times. And "could" like 2.

Amazing.

She not only PACKED his stuff (not throw it out of the window, sell, donate, or burn it), but she SEPERATED the items:
Everything you own in the box to the left
In the closet that's my stuff - Yes
If I bought it please don't touch
I wonder if she completed his laundry load if he had something in the washing machine?

She allows room for self-expression and she's very guiding:
And keep talking that mess, that's fine
But could you walk and talk at the same time
And It's my mine name that is on that Jag
So remove your bags let me call you a cab

And I think someone should give her an award for
"The Tightest Chain Snatch in a 2.5 Scene Video".
If you haven't experienced it yet, you must.
Click here:


The Laws of Attraction

So over the weekend, a relative of mine came by for a visit. To be honest, I knew OF him but I didn't KNOW him, feel me? I just knew his name and who his kids were. So we're chatting and he, being really into numerology, asked me what my birth date is and how I spell my name. So he's breaking it down as far as who I am and my strengths and weaknesses, and I must say he was quite accurate. (Hell no I ain't telling you, so don't ask.)

Except for one thing.

He asked me, "Do you usually attract needy men?"

I had no clue that was coming, so I sat there with the stupid face for a minute.
"Huh?" I replied eloquently.

"Do you seem to always attract men who seek 'repair' ?"
Then I processed the thought completely and said
"Hmmm...I never thought about it. Let me think about it."

So then I did.

In high school, hands down, I attracted weirdos. I mean WEIRD azz mofos. In college, I upgraded to Mama's Boys. But now? It's so varied that I couldn't honestly agree with him.
So I didn't.

"Nah. Maybe back in the day, but for the here and now, I'm going to say no."

So he moved on.

But I kept chewing on that. I haven't looked at my laws of attraction in quite some time. It was a yummy invitation that I couldn't resist, so I took it further:

What kind of PEOPLE do I attract?

1. Children
2. Alpha-Male Conquistadors
3. Artsy/Bohemian/Creative People (of all races and degrees)
4. Hustlers (usually disguised as #2)/Entreprenuers
5. Domineering/Controlling women (affable tho...at least initially)
6. Virgos
7. Lone Rangers

(you can see where this is going right? lol)

Okay, real talk. I listed this out for the first time on this blog and I'm just grinning to myself right now because it's quite clear why this happens. They're all a part of me, lol.

Wow. That wasn't fun to say or accept but dammit...

Hmmm...

I wonder how I should look at #2? I definitely don't see myself as an Alpha anything, let alone a conquistador. I was never an "It girl". Maybe they (the #2s) come because I'm usually evasive?
Like a cat and mouse chase?
ooooooohhhh... another insight.


(Don't know if I want to say this one, but here it goes...)

Perhaps...

I'll always run because if you're after me you can't be all that great? I'm used to wanting things I can't have, so if I can have it (in my silent fukked up line of thinking) it must not be worth as much. And that doesn't just apply to people but opportunity itself.

Ouch.

Wow. This is not where I thought this entry was going to go.

Oh well. That's what I get for typing in brain-farting realtime.

I'm done.

Let me hurry up and post this before I change my mind.

Ciao.



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