Day One- No Drinking

Okay, so yesterday was really day one, but I didn't know it then. Last Friday I got a pimple on my neck. At first it just felt like a pimple, but then it started growing and hurting. It felt like it was growing legs into my neck. I’m very squeamish about my neck.

The pain became familiar to me because in the spring I’d had what I thought was a pimple, then a mosquito bite under my right boob. Then it got big and burst and was gross and I went to the doctor and he gave me the same antibiotics because I had a staph infection. I’d first felt the “bite” right after getting out of the pool and steam with my ladies on a Friday. By Wednesday I was at the doctors office. I couldn’t drink for a week and it was hell (and I didn’t quite make it… apparently I believe Coors light isn’t really an alcoholic beverage since it’s not one I partake of …ever.). I also didn’t swim as much this year.

So after the doctors yesterday, with a bandaged neck and on antibiotics, I decided to think about it differently. See, I’m up writing and not too drunk to string coherent sentences. I’ve decided to really take this time and take stock of my situation.

I’ve been applying to jobs all day and getting to the cover letter stage and freaking out because cover letters scare the shit out of me. So I have a bunch of tabs open with my résumé uploaded waiting for me to grace the page with some witticisms about how I want this bullshit job so I can show a judge that I shouldn’t be evicted and convince my landlady to give me another lease. At least until I can figure out if I’m really going to throw things in a bag and move to Paris. It wouldn’t be so hard if I could just get a commercial. And the thought of trying to get more work makes me want to drink. Not that I mind production work, I mind the fact that no one’s calling me to work. I’d love to do another commercial like the one I just did. Or like the movie, but the Marshall is scheduled to put me out January 7, and I don’t really have all the money I need to make that not happen. I’ve sold some mutual funds, but what if I give her all the money and she still evicts me? Then I’m really broke. And I’m just figuring out what I’m going to do here now that I’ve given up on production. I’m so close and just need like 6 months. I might not have it. So, I must write cover letters.

But I’ve gotta tell ya- it’s certainly put another kind of fire in my belly. I’m not so much saying what I won’t do, but look at what I really want to do. And not just write to make money. That puts too much pressure on my writing right now. It’s going somewhere I really like and, like me, tenses up under pressure. My personality changes and is not the creative soul I’ve sold myself on.
So I really want to bartend, but it’s the holidays and I’m waiting for the dust to settle before I go out and hit that. I don’t know the first thing about how bartenders make the magic that lives in my glass. I mean, I know, but I never know how much I owe or how much cocktails cost. I want to take a bartending class to get comfortable back there. And bartending classes aren’t free.

The thing about it all is- Money!

Every sidestep I want to take takes money and it’s keeping me up at night. All this education and I don’t feel like I’m qualified to do anything. I’ve never gotten a job with my résumé ever. I believe this is so because I have my crazy cover letters attached. I can be professional, but I’ve never really worked in a professional environment. I don’t have the clothes for it. I’d have to take out a loan to go to work and I am not what they call credit worthy right now.

So today on day one of my not drinking, I gave myself a little schedule and as of now, I’ve completed the big tasks. But I had to write down to eat yogurt with honey (check), journal writing (check), drinking tea (check) then working out (check). Shower (check), lunch (check), write on blog (check), read (I’m on it now).

So I’ve given myself a gold star day. I always like to keep the momentum of gold star days. Days when I’ve done exactly what I set out to do. There aren’t many of them, which keeps the gold star special. (I should get some more colored stars that way I have some kind of grading system. Make it not so all or nothing.) Yet, it’s Christmas now- an actual event day. Then it’s Saturday then… Then nothing. Then Saturday I can do the same exact thing and make it to class.

But see how the alcoholics can’t think about Saturday. So I’m going to follow their sage examples and just think about tomorrow. I’m going to keep it even simpler and just think about today. Because 10 days from now, I’m getting it in!

Reading: "It's Six A.M., Do You Know Where You Are?" by Jay McInerney in the Paris Review Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, The Art of Writing, And Everything Else in the World since 1953

Justin (shitmydadsays) on Twitter

Justin (shitmydadsays) on Twitter: "'That woman was sexy...Out of your league? Son. Let women figure out why they won't screw you, don't do it for them.'"


I have a feeling that if my dad could talk to me like this, we'd be much better friends. And we're already homies, except for him knowing about the smoking, drinking and fucking parts. Other than that, great.

Aw Shit, I shouldn't have answered the phone

So I’m sitting watching Cadillac Records with Leslie and my mom calls. I’ve also just painted my fingernails purple. I had to file them down because I scratched my face like a baby, and they’re still wet. I'm holding the phone precariously to my ear.
I answer cheerfully, as I always do and tell her what I'm doing, and she says, this’ll be quick. Of course it will because I just told you I’m watching a movie and poisoning myself inhaling paint fumes (which isn’t as bad as people say). She asks “do you know what I was doing 23 years ago today? Getting high.”

I thought, that’s funny, I just got high too. Then she asked what she was doing 23 years ago tomorrow- not getting high. I was thinking, where’s my pot? “And,” she continued, “and it was all because of my baby.” That baby would be me and that’s not a kid’s responsibility. I told her well, congratulations.

In addition to being drunks, my mother also likey-ed the cocaine. I guess it was called crack if that’s still the same as freebasing, but since we were in a different tax bracket and she actually bought powder and cooked it up herself, I guess we’re safe on the freebasing. She worked for Amtrak and ran the line from Chicago to NY to LA and San Francisco. They partied on those trains like it was actually 1999, so she got all the best drugs (and records) from all over the country.

I remember walking into the kitchen one day and it’s covered in all kinds of bowls, butane, what looked like metal medical supplies and shit I’d never seen in the fucking kitchen before. Besides the fact my mom was the worst cook ever and when trying to make me biscuits invented “breakfast cookies”, so much seeming activity in the kitchen surprised me. I asked what all this stuff was and she said, “Something I don’t ever want you to do”. Well, that was clear I knew she smoked pot, but I assumed everyone smoked pot. She smoked pot with her dad, so why would I think it’s strange. And she drank, but everybody drank. I didn’t see anything wrong with the way we lived. . I didn’t really understand about the drugs until she went into rehab.

23 years ago today I suppose. I do remember it was the end of school. The sixth grade. It had been a tough year for everybody and I was one worn out 12 year old. My mother had abandoned me in France. I don’t mean she left me to fend for myself in the French/ Swiss Alps, but she didn’t send me any letters or call. No one in my family did. It was so bad they called my house so I could talk to someone and no one was home. I wrote every day at first, then every other day, and then I just stopped. Later she told me, all fucked up, that she’d sent me a huge care package with all of the newspapers of the important events I’d missed in the mountains. Like, the Bears winning the Super Bowl and Challenger blowing up. She also sent some Championship t-shirts and hats, she said.

Then, my Granny had died. She’d been sick while I was gone and my Granddad says that she waited for me to get home safely before she died. I wasn’t home two weeks. I was on some Brownie trip that day. It was Presidents Day. Michelle had on too much of her mom’s perfume. (I don’t know the name of it, but whenever I get a sniff of it in my nose I think of this time and want to throw up.) Granddad had dropped me off for it before he headed to the hospital because my mom was M.I.A, California run. I’d barely seen her since I got home. I was staying upstairs with my other Grandma, Granny’s daughter, and my Aunt Donna. Uncle Sidney was around but he was so strung out and evil I didn’t miss him. And Uncle Torry was sitting around smoking cigarettes and looking maudlin as usual. Aunt Donna was also on a tear and Grandma was waist deep in Crown Royal and black assed days.

From February through June it was just Granddad and me. He was about 76 then and still took me everywhere I needed to go. I got cookbooks to learn how to take care of us. Even though everybody was around, except of course for my mom, nobody was really there.
In March I got my period and didn’t have anyone to go through the talk with me or go get me pads or rejoice in my becoming a woman. So I scavenged through my mom’s stuff and found this long pad that needed a belt and stuffed it in my panties. Luckily that first one was only a little spotting and only lasted a day.

At school it was tough too. I was awkward and too smart and my boobs were getting gigantic. I was also becoming chubbier because I was trying to feed my grandpa and myself and didn’t know what I was doing. And my Grandma was dead and no one would talk to me about it. I was pulling stuff out of the pantry that had been in there for years. I made egg foo young and we ate a lot of Vienna sausages. I was also nervous about boys and had a crush on Chris Fryison who was also chubby but had a great smile and made me laugh and bought me Chinese jacks in the 3rd grade. But since I was getting busty, the 8th grade boys started paying attention to me. I was still an early hip hop tomboy wearing bandana’s around my knees, plastic bangles that later had to be cut off, one earring like Janet Jackson and tons of neon pink and green. I had no female adult supervision so I looked a mess. And I had a curl.

One day in June, after my mother had been gone for weeks we were in the bathroom together in my Grandpa’s house. I was sitting on the toilet and she was in the mirror behind the sink. We were facing each other. I remember that part, but then I don’t remember the part of the mythology where I say “Mommy, what’s wrong with you?” I’m afraid that sounds a little too naïve for a girl who’d just told her uncle that he wasn’t coming in her house to look in the safe. My Uncle Sidney was a junkie and a thief and had Drunk Eric from down the street with him. He’s already broken into the safe and stole all the silver dollars and coins Granddad and I had been collecting my whole life. I stood my self in the doorway and told him he was coming in over my dead body and to get the fuck off of my front porch.

But that’s the story she likes to tell because it makes me her conscience. She needs me to be her mirror, but I can’t anymore because it’s too heavy. I can’t be the perfect reflection of her good intentions.

We got off the phone quickly. I hung up and harrumphed. Leslie looked in my direction and I picked up my pipe. Bouncy was screeching in the background and I just looked at him and took a hit. He asked what? And I answered, “nothin’ bullshit.”
That Beyonce sho cain’t sing.

Did I ever tell you about the one when I was growing up?

When I was a kid I lived in a house full of drunks. Not run of the mill drunks, I mean drunks that had doilies on tables and dusted every inch of the house until it was spotless. These were people who used to pick cotton and were terribly ashamed of it. I remember the one and only time I found a book on the top of my grandmother’s ivory wardrobe. It had numbers and names and was ancient. When I found it I took it to my great-grandpa cause he always told me the truth. And then the truth only needed to be that I was loved and adored and there was no other little girl in the world and beautiful and good as me.

When my Granny, his wife, saw that he was explaining the book to me she went ballistic. I never understood why because to me I had history in my hands. My granddad was explaining that this was the book they kept their sharecropping records in.

Anyway, these people drank and drank a lot. My Granny, had my Grandma, when she was 14 years old and Granddad was 21. These weren’t mature people. And they were suddenly in the north with a new set of rules and regulations and Chicago in the 30’s was almost as bad as Jackson, Mississippi- well I guess at anytime by my reckoning. So they drank and had fun (as far as I could see) and lived it up with the relatively few minor freedoms they got to have in the north. Like buying a house in what was previously a majority white neighborhood that would eventually become the murder capital of the city in the next 50 years.

What I realize now is that they were depressed and sad and living unfulfilled lives. They also didn’t know how to nurture us. They didn’t know how to nurture themselves; they hadn’t come from a nurturing environment. The legacy of The South still complicates the lives of those who escaped its horrors. I still live with the legacy of Jim Crow because Jim Crow people raised me. People who now theoretically had more freedoms, but also knew that Chicago’s Jim Crow could be worse. So what do they do with this baby born in the 1970’s without any knowledge of the systems they needed to survive? They teach her the same rules while telling her to fly away, but not too high. And not too fast.

The shames and inadequacies they felt when sober came out in a wale when they were tight. You could hear it in their laughter, the freedom of it. I guess that’s why I always thought they were having such a good time. I rarely saw them this free. But that freedom came with a cost, because as I’m learning in my life, you pay for that freedom the next morning with guilt and more shame. Living a whole life embarrassed and not wanting to pass that embarrassment to your children. It’s living in the fear that a misplaced word will display the short educations prescribed to children who had to work. Not wanting to pass on a shame that you don’t even have the language to denounce. It’s just a feeling.
It feels like sinking. It felt like my body was actually sinking and drowning. My chest would tighten, my skin would go prickly cold and my throat would go dry. Like all of my moisture was evaporating and I was becoming like stone. And then I would turn off. The messages getting yelled at me were getting through, but how I felt about them never really developed past that sense of dread. I get that feeling less often now, but when I was a kid it was constantly overwhelming.
Seeing that book was one of those times that I was conscience that the wrath I was getting had nothing to do with me. It was embarrassment on my Grandma’s part because she was almost hysterical. She told my Grandpa he had no right to show me this book and it was hers. He explained what he was doing, but the reason Grandpa and I had so much time to discuss the book was because she was off taking a nip. I’m sure she fully expected to come back in the room and watch one of her stories, but instead she sees the proof that she picked cotton in the south and whatever that entailed on the lap of her great granddaughter.
The great granddaughter that was going to be proof that they were all okay. She was going to rise above her roots and make everyone so proud. But I didn’t understand that either. I didn’t know there was anything in our lives to be ashamed of (except for the drinking part- that got complicated for me to beg off friends visits).

I think I might be fucked

Calamity Jane: Everyday takes figuring out all over again how to fucking live.

I just want to write down a bunch of curse words and write fucked up stories with fucked up people. But I guess I can't get there cause I keep getting myself fucked. Not in the carnal sense (today) but in the metaphysical sense I guess. I keep creating situations in my head that are preposterous so I can keep myself busy cause I'm bored out of my mind. I just want to party and bullshit right now.

The good thing is that I am keeping busy and feel like I've reconnected with my purpose in life. The thing I like best but would be considered the bad thing is that I'm also setting myself up for a mighty fall. I'm not using the minuscule amount of self control over my thinking on certain things and it's really affecting my life.

Firstly, I've got to go to work soon. This is really some bullshit and besides the fact that right now I feel all production people should be fucked, I don't want to do that. I just don't want to have to go pretend that I give a fuck about Pizza Hut, or Mastercard or anyone who has more money than me. I'm sick of pretending at all and since I'm doing it less and less, I'm getting much better at speaking my real mind and watching people look at me in horror.

Secondly, my own mind is full of rage, lust, sloth and abject hedonism. Rage and lust apparently go everywhere together. They're almost inseparable right now. I never would have guessed them for a couple. But since my lust has a crazy component right now, I just have to write it out and see if I can find a website sick enough to print it. I'm making that sound worse than what I've written, but not what I've thought. My rage is so all emcompassing it can only be satisfied by lust.

Lust, well it's always more difficult isn't it. Lust (or lechery) is an inordinate craving for sexual intercourse often to the point of assuming a self-indulgent, and sometimes violent character (Wikipedia). But there's a component of affection there, supposedly. In order to make the emotion of affection dissapate, I now rely on the lust. But sometimes, when my heart does go a flutter, I flirt with a stranger or spend some serious quality time with myself and computer. I can't deal with "feelings"; I'm learning, but I'm slow learning.


Sloth and hedonism, well they're pretty well matched. I did buy that bottle of Jameson along with other choice fun aides and nothing lasted two days. Two days? And I didn't share but a drop with anyone else. Then the next week brought about sake Thursday. I've apparently created a song and dance revolving around the nectar of the small isle.

But see, I'm still pussyfooting around what it is that I want to say. I'm not telling the whole truth. Maybe I've gotten so good at it that there is no whole truth with me anymore.

But I know one thing, I hate being told what to do and if you want something done you need to do it yourself. That's abstract. I'm in a constant tug of war with my friend and basically pusher of alcohol over the contents of my soul. Or at least my allegiances, or my loyalty. But what she wants is obedience and a reflection of herself as all saving saint that I know is false and therefore can't trust. I'm always a player in the dramas that ensue around her. I try to stay away, but I'm so bored and I want to be with my friends...so I succumb. Then she'll try to help me with something or start pouting cause she's left out or try to find a way to manipulate a situation to create some drama. I'm so sick of it. Now she wants me to clean something that's been dirty for years because she wants it done now. Fuck that. I'm not her kid. I'm not A kid.

When we met I was much more fucked than I am now (which is saying a lot). I had a neediness on me that reeked. When I'm reading my old journals it's the same ole thing: I wish I had money, I wish I had a boyfriend, I'm so lonely, some strange guy was here this morning, smoked too many cigarettes today, I'm fat, I'm so lonely- because I'm fat...it goes on and on for years like that.
Then suddenly there was a light at the end of the tunnel and it was full of booze and it gave me a bunch of people I like a lot and some, not too much. But I stayed cordial. Well, even my cordial is getting thin. I don't have anything to lose so much and I'm sick of being manipulated. I'm really sick of being needed in a way that makes me feel like I'm constantly in a turtleneck. Everything smushed, tits, throat.

Sometimes I think I'll just stay away forever. But I know I can't. That would freak me out more than anything else. I do change slow. When I learn slow, I synthesize. I'm still not even telling the whole truth, but at least I posted today.

My Week 6/3/9

I've decided I'm going to buy a bottle of Jameson's and sit in the house and write and get trashed for the rest of the week. That sounds like fun and will probably be more productive than the so called planning I've been doing to get my work done. Today I got up (at 11a) with good intentions and now it's 4 and I've been taking quizzes in Facebook with my little sister all day. I apparently must fuck off the first 4h of my day no matter what time I get up. So, now I'm gonna go get that bottle, a $5 foot long, see if they have any Sedaris in the biblioteque and come home and hit it.

I have a column/ review that I gave myself a deadline for. WTF was I thinking? They didn't ask for anything but I've volunteered it. I think I wanted to show my go-gettitiveness. But now I've boned myself. I'm gonna watch The Day the Earth Stood Still with the little wooden boy and write something about it. Shit, I need a drink.

Gentrification Blues #3

This weekend was hot. It was the official beginning of summer. I barely left my house. When I did I was again confronted with the changes in my neighborhood. It's like the rats on a ship or roaches in the dark metaphor. Into the blinding sunlight and mildly scorching heat came the ghostly bodies of my new neighbors. Mouth dryingly pale and still without manners. It's going to be a fun summer. I love sitting on the stairs of the library, now known as my office, and having to stare down the Park Sloper with the baby crying because it's hot and mommy can't take it in the library SCREAMING like that to cool it off or leave because she's got a great spot to get some sun on her legs.

So here I am sitting alone listening to my iPod scribbling furiously on the stupid story I've been hacking away at, I mean writing, for like 2 years now.... "Sorry, what? No, no one's sitting there." What could I say? No one was sitting there. I wasn't prepared to act crazy and have imaginary friends. So down she sits and my table's perfectly placed for two ways to get sun and put the baby under the umbrella. The screaming baby. The baby screaming so loud that my Erik Satie makes my head hurt and hands shake cause it's too loud and grating. I stare at the mother who apologizes profusely, but what am I supposed to say? "I accept your apology, but it would be better if you took your SCREAMING MONKEY home."

She started doing all the things mothers do to make their children shut up, to no avail. I start shifting. I'm already hot and uncomfortable and writing outside and feel weird. How do I describe how I felt with the future sitting there raising hell and a mother who kinda didn't give a shit. (Now, let me say that I have friends with kids and I know it's a tough job and adults don't want to be cooped up with kids all day. But I also know that that's why I don't have kids and really resent being subjected to other peoples problems.)

I guess it's just that I'm seeing something more and more that disturbs me about this neighborhood I love so much. Too many babies. When I'm dictator, I'm putting a moratorium on procreating in Prospect Heights. Go to Queens to fuck up your kids.

Chase Bank Can Suck it

I’m unemployed. Usually this doesn’t mean much because I’m freelance on commercials and have many weeks with no work. But I haven’t worked since December and it’s really annoying, at best. But that’s not the problem today. The problem today is J.P. Morgan Chase bank.
Or, as I affectionately call them, the devil. I get that we’re in an economic recession, which by the way, means nothing to me. I’m always in some sort of economic recession only everyone’s in my situation now and it’s not as lonely here. But “the devil” keeps taking what little money I do have. I understand banking practices and know it’s a system built on years of careful honing of greed and avarice. Not a wall to break down overnight, but when you don’t have any money, it becomes that much apparent.
In the last few months I’ve paid Chase over $600 in overdraft fees. That’s with the credit card that’s supposed to pay for those fees which charges 27% or so right now. I transferred my last CD into my checking account to cover some bills and it seems the more money I put in the more money they take out. Now, I’m not going to say I’m all that great with the account balancing business, but I’ve been attempting to be precise about it lately. I use chase.com to monitor my purchases and have been frugal and cognizant of my purchases to the last penny. Some automatic deductions do still throw me for a loop, like the gym and my non-Chase savings account, but I usually keep up.
But today was the breaking point. I’d walked around with $10 in my pocket all weekend to ensure all transactions were covered and still got charged. Online the payments were pending and deducted from my available balance, I made a deposit 2 days ago and today, they’ve taken $105 in fees.
I was furious. I called and was told I’d already gotten my yearly courtesy refund and I refused to take that as the final decision and spoke to a manager. She explained to me while yelling over my yelling that I need to make some changes in my life and some sacrifices. WHAT? I then went on to rail about no job, no money and giving one-fourth of my money to Chase every week. I lowered my voice, apologized for my tone chalking it up to frustration and requested another refund. I informed the manager that I was going to request a refund every time I believed I was in the right. I told her that even if they didn’t give it to me, I was going to ask for one when the time between the bank charging me overdraft fees, a merchant presenting a receipt, and a check clearing was a matter of hours because none of these things are in my control. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do as much as I can short of having a combined balance of $5000. That’s just not in the cards for me right now. I wish it were because it’s very expensive not having any money.
Eventually, we wore each other down. She gave me back most of my money and I changed my account to one that doesn’t charge a service fee and fits my current needs better. What I learned was that in these “tough economic times” it’s expected that people will give up and be too embarrassed, ashamed and frustrated to stand up for themselves financially. Especially to a bank. That’s what they’re counting on. So don’t give up. Keep calling and asking for what you want. They can only say no and everyone’s not going to say no. Chase has enough money. I can’t afford to keep it afloat and neither can a lot of people. We have to stand up for ourselves and not be embarrassed about not having the money we used to have. Hell, the banks had to ask for money they didn’t earn. I’m just asking to hold on to the little money I have.

Cigarettes are How Much: or Mayor Bloomberg can Suck It!

Cigarettes cost WHAT? $9 for a pack of Newports (I'm black remember). Actually this all takes me back to when I first started smoking. (Hazy waves, hazy waves...)
It was my senior year in high school and I worked at a job with this totally rad grad school chick named Jen. She was also black and brilliant like me and working at a job with people she hated and didn't respect (which I would come to understand more viscerally as I got older). I was the office assistant and she had actual work to do and would send me to go get smokes for her when she ran of Benson & Hedges Menthol Lights. Only I was only 17 and we worked on a campus that was hard on ID'ing underage smokers. So she'd not only call and tell them who we were she'd also send me with a note (handwritten even).

The night I was formally presented to society I turned to my escort and said "let's get some cigarettes." All I knew to say was Bensonhedgesmenthollights, so that's what I got. By the next week when my escort was telling me how he'd had sex with his boyfriend in the car seat I was occupying on our way to see Tommy Tune in Bye, Bye, Birdie- we had cigarette holders, the long black and silver ones.

Smoking has always been so exotic and eccentric to me. It was also something grown-ups did. My grandma looked so elegant with her beautiful long brown legs crossed and smoke curling from her mouth. She'd look elegant until she got full of Schlitz and started cussing everybody out. But until that point, she looked like a movie star. And that's really the crux of it, isn't it. I'm an old movie queen and always wanted to move like Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck. I remember in All About Eve when Bette's Margo Channing was checking cigarette boxes to make sure they were full. What decadence.

Fast forward 60 years to a pack of smokes costing $9. So does that now make them a luxury item? I'm buying cartons now and can't breathe because I feel like I have an unlimited supply. Until they run out. Then I'll cry because THERE'S NO WAY IN HELL I'M PAYING $9 FOR A PACK OF SMOKES. I'll have to start rolling my own, and I'm just too lazy for that.

Rose's Bloom

Calm yourself because no one can save you
But you
No one can replace you but you and are you willing to do what it takes to make it?
You hate to hear it, I hate to write it.
But you know betrayal and its sting never gets easier.
Do you even know who you are?
The older you get, the more difficult it is to know the answer to that question.
You just want to put your head in the sand and hope everything goes away.
But when you wake up sober and in pain cause you can’t breathe from all the smoke in your lungs, you know the answer.
You’ve done this to yourself. You’ve been on this path of destruction for the last 20 years.
It began as playful teenage angst, and moved into middle-aged nuclear destruction.
It’s not cute anymore, the damage you do to yourself.
Waking up with strangers who make you feel terrible about yourself isn’t cute anymore.
It’s dangerous, not just to your body but to your soul.
It’s damaging to your self-image, which is still based in a teenaged cool you learned from black and white movies.
Everyone you’ve loved died from the cigarettes you still relish.
You begin to see wrinkles, your skin doesn’t snap back and the weight you keep gaining still doesn’t go away no matter how much you go to the gym or how many slim fast shakes you have.
Your mouth tastes like ass and you think your teeth are gonna fall out. Most of the women in your family didn’t make it past their 30’s with their original teeth in their mouth.
More reason for shame. And you can’t even imagine what you must taste like to men. Not that any man has tried to taste you lately. Not even the man trying to be your long distance boyfriend.
Balls!!!
Wilted, that’s how you feel. The bloom is definitely off of the rose. And you’ve never even been married. How’s this gonna work?
Who wants this life? Balls!!!
I know who does. Me. Fuck all the answers I’m supposed to say. All of that supposed has gotten me here, so FUCK SUPPOSED.
I’m supposed to make a ton of money based on my breeding and education. But do I? No!!
So I’m gonna continue doing what I want to. I’m gonna keep going and telling everyone else to go to hell.

Sorry I missed your Oscar Party, but I was having a bit of a nervous breakdown

I was supposed to go to a friends Oscar Party Sunday. I missed it. He's pissed. Oops. But then today, I IM'd him just to see if we were cool and he sends me this snide little note about spending a lot of time and money and disappointed that I didn't make it or call. I apologized again with my pithy "sorry, couldn't make it" and got no response. Then when I vomited up "and my phone was turned off Sunday because my bill was over $600 and so was the cable and my dad wants me to move to dc or else he won't help me anymore and I'm 5 months behind in rent which all came crashing down on me Sunday morning. I would have been a bit of a party pooper since my best friend had to come over and do a little care for me". Only then did I get a response. WTF? I was totally wrong for not calling. But I didn't want to. I don't want to keep telling that story and it's the main reason I'm not going out anywhere.

I understand that this is one of my more self important friends, and he did put a lot of work into it and was very excited about his party.

But I'm tired of explaining to people who make shitloads more money than me that although I don't have to bring something to your house it's tacky not to. And since I'm always the one black girl (and I know race isn't a major factor) I'm always the poor black girl. And I'm not even a girl any more. I'm the poor black woman. And I wouldn't even mind that if his crowd wasn't the crowd always trying to outdo each other and making snarky side shots under their breath. And if I'd said this to my friend, would he have understood? Maybe, but I didn't really want to talk to him about it because he could be as snide and snarky as the best of them. When I'm in high times, it's cute. When I'm not, I want to punch faces.

So Sunday I was in no mood to sit around being fabulous, meeting boyfriends and not betting in the Oscar pool cause I didn't have but $20 to last me the rest of the week. I'm so tired of the ridiculous amounts of money I have from day to day and didn't trust that there wouldn't be ridicule because my conversations tend to surround that fact right now. I'm also not in the mood to justify my life and my choices to a bunch of people I don't know. I'm sure I'm reading too much into the situation, but I've been in the situation too many times to not have my trepidations. I'm not so much fun to be around with new people. I'm lucky to have a place close to me where I know the people and I can relax and enjoy the company of people I know and like and who reciprocate without judgements.

That's it Heroes

I quit you. Like my 6th grade boyfriend. Only he said it before me when I called to tell him so he really quit me (which was humiliating cause he was in the 5th grade).

I’ve watched this show since it's first episode and when everyone else was done with you I persevered. When Hiro was in 16th century Japan, I still gave it a chance. When they kept introducing characters I liked that died 2 episodes later (usually thanks to Sylar) or just never come back (Micah and his entire family) and storylines that went nowhere FOR A WHOLE SEASON (Villians).

But now, I’m tired. I already have to choose between Heroes and 24 for the time slot. I am blessed with not only superior intelligence, but also a DVR, so I can watch 24 later and rid myself of all those pesky commercials. But now I’m apparently a 24 woman all the way. I’ve even read the spoilers for Heroes so I can see if there's any hope and the one glimmer is the same thing that's kept me here this long.

SYLAR. If it wasn't for him, I’d have been gone a long time ago. He’s the only one who has both retained his initial character and grown. Everyone else seems to have amnesia. Really, you guys have powers and know what each of you can do. This season has been so full of petty concerns and squabbles, people getting powers, losing powers, acting as if their powers are way weaker than they really are. It’s frustrating when Parkman won't just create illusions to escape or search for information. It’s frustrating that Mohindar is still keeping secrets when he knows what's going on and they've all been rounded up for containment. It’s ridiculous that all Peter can do is fly when he's been around both Parkman and Mohindar and could also take their powers, why wouldn't he? What the fuck is up with Claire and her super heroics. She used to be smarter than this.

Everyone used to be smarter than they are now... except Sylar. He’s getting smarter by the day and not just because of more powers, but because he's integrated his experiences into his personality and he grows. He seeks out new information, not standing around asking the same questions of the same people or not asking and going off all half cocked (PETER!). So Heroes when you get your shit together you'll get me back. When people aren't being retarded.

under pressure

my dad has offered me an opportunity to move down to dc so i can get some relief from all of these money woes that are plaguing me here in ny. i love that he wants to help me. i think it's great. but not the condition that i move down there and live in an apt. above them. my family are the straightest people i know, next to my paternal grandparents, who also live in dc. i love my dad, but stimulating conversations would be cut to a minimum. too much fast food, too many shallow ideas, too little thinking outside of a limited view. my dad's a great thinker but he's not living the life he always dreamed about with me. and the life he's living has made him more financial secure than he's ever been but he's a different dad. he has a baby and a life that didn't exist when i came about. and the time he wants to spend with me now, he feels he can help make up for the time he missed when i was a kid. i get that. but that time has passed. and i feel guilty enough for not being overjoyed at the prospect of work and cheaper housing and some help with my discipline. but that's just it as well isn't it? He said we could help discipline each other. a lot of the reasoning has to do with him and what he wants. well of course it does darling. that's how the world works. i live so much in what i want all the time that i always question if it's what i want, don't want or don't care about.


i'd be closer to my little sister, and that would be great, but we talk on the phone everyday.

i also don't like that if feels like unconditional surrender of my writing goals and dreams. he contends that i can write down there and, of course, i can. but would i? that move's a soul killer. i'm trying to do this writing thing here which is slow as molasses, but i'm doing it. arghhhhh.

did i ever tell you about the time i went to vermont

A few weeks ago I went to Vermont with a friend of mine and her husband. They’d invited a bunch of other people because the husband who I’ll call, um "hubby" rents a house every year and goes skiing. My friend who I’ll call "friendo" doesn't ski, so she wanted someone to hang with while everyone else skied.

So we drive up the 5h and it's snowing and what I’ve heard people call "beautiful" and I call cold and snowy. I’m from Chicago. I’ve skied the French Swiss Alps. Vermont was cold and snowy. So I’m the chocolate in the vanilla once again and I’ve got to say I’m sick of it. I know, I know, we live in a post-racial world. My ass. So I’m up there surrounded by white- in a fur coat and sorrel boots. Everyone has on snow pants and I feel like the poor kid who's mom sent them out without the right gear.

When I went to France I was 12 and it was a bunch of rich black kids from the Southside of Chicago. I obviously slid in under the radar, but my mom was always good about making sure I had tons of exposure to everything. (Probably to too many things, but that's for a different day.) My mom was absent while I was getting ready for my trip, working on the railroad or smoking coke in LA, who knows. My dad had taken me to get my ski jacket. My granny got me my ski pants and luggage. And boots.

The boots.

It was January 1986 and everybody who was anybody had moonboots. And remember, they were rich so they had extras. My granny (great grandmother) was born in 1917 on a Gullah island and raised in Mississippi until she married my granddad in 1932 2 months pregnant. Right, do the math. She didn't know or care about a moon boot. The baby was going skiing and needed to be warm so she got my boots. They were a Christmas present (like everything else I got for the trip- except my Mr. Microphone) and so I had to pretend like I liked them while secretly plotting to leave them there and make my mom send me money to buy some in France.

To me they were the epitome of my particular social status. They were grey, quilted WEDGES!!! Wedges. In the 80's. She might as well had sent me out in bell-bottoms. I wore bangles up my arm and wore hot pink lace headbands like Madonna in the holiday video. I tied bandanas around my knees like ozone and turbo in breakin' (the original because the only good thing I can say about 2 is din da da). I was hip and cool and these would be the only boots I would have to represent my hipness and coolness to the French. So I wouldn't wear them. Up to my knees in snow and I just wouldn't. It worked most of the time, because we mostly wore our ski boots, but one day it went terribly wrong.

We had to go to town at the crack of dawn to watch a local baker make the bread we ate everyday. I put on my penny loafers (remember I’m cool- Michael Jackson wore them and nothing was cooler than that) fully expecting to jump in a van and go down the mountain. No, no grasshopper. We walked. By the time we'd gotten a few feet from the chalet I realized I was in trouble. There was already snow in my socks and we had another mile or so to go. And did I mention it was early? Dawn was just breaking when we left and in the Alps, it's cold at dawn in January. But my penny loafers weren't cutting it. And I felt stupid and inadequate and ill prepared. It also didn't help that my best friend said, "I don't know why you didn't just wear your boots". Because they make me stand out and look weirder than I already do. Because I haven't been taught that being different is okay. Because I want to just fit in and not think about the fact that no one in my family has bothered to write, let alone send gift baskets while I’ve been away for a month. I don't want to think about the fact that I hate these boots my granny who's at home dying bought me. I want to be a normal girl with normal problems. Which brings me to Vermont.

I always feel a little off, especially when I’m in a new situation with strangers. Especially when I’m the only not skinny not white single girl in the room. Especially when the guy my friendo told me I’d be interested in is a fat pasty thing- who's not interested in me. And when it appears all of these people know each other but I don't know any of them. I think their conversation is inane and there's one girl in particular who's doing that white girl attention getting thing that drives me crazy. She’s too loud, too silly, too showoffy. Maybe I’m just sensitive, but I decided I don't care for her. I’m the wild card in so many ways. And I’m not wearing the right gear. There’s a button missing off of my fur coat. I’m the only girl who smokes. I’d rather sit in the cabin than go hiking. (I don’t get hiking. where are we going?) I’m not going hiking and it's not because I’m afraid I’m going to get winded like I did on our walk after smoking like 5 cigs in a row and I thought we were just going out for a minute not an hour and my boots weigh 20lbs each. So enjoy your hike. I’m making myself a cocktail.

Then the dog ran out. This pampered mutt had hurt its ass and was left home. Flappy. Flapjack. Flappy the dog. So I go out for a smoke, it's whining, I let it out to pee or whatever cause I don't really fuck with dogs like that to know what his problem is. And this little mutha fucka won't go back in- FOR AN HOUR. Not only that, he's growling at me and keeps trying to run up the driveway to the road. Hubby had already stated that if anything happens to the dog he's going to kill himself and I believe him. He makes his food from scratch. He cooks chicken and makes the dogs food and my friendo hand feeds the fucking dog. Can you believe that? So here I am rationalizing with a dog that lives better than I do and it all comes rushing at me.

I’m 12 years old and just want to fit in. I just want to not be broke and unemployed, praying to get the writing fellowship in England, hoping to get some writing done between drinking wine and taking a sauna. I don't want my belly to hang over my jeans and I want to smell good. I don't want to be as hungry as I am or as lonely. Everyone else seems to be having a grand time. I just want to read. I’m not outdoorsy. Maybe that's why I’m fat. I don't want to engage these people I’m never going to see again. I have too many people in my life I want to engage but can't because of various social anxiety disorders. This dog can't get hit by a car or freeze to death on my watch. I’m not socially or emotionally equipped to deal with that. So after I’d decided to throw my hat over the dog’s head and Drop Squad him back into the house, I just started laughing. Fuck this shit.

Later when I was recounting the story and telling the group how I’d gotten the fucking dog (mindful to be respectful of this bratty pooch) into the house by crouching down and admitting defeat, I realized I didn't give a fuck about these people or what they thought of me. Sure they have not only jobs, but careers. And I’m a writer. What have you written? Nothing you would have seen. Really? Yeah, it's about blacks. That shuts them up. And I was free.

We went watch the Superbowl at a bar/ restaurant and I ordered the steak and had several cocktails. The one girl I didn't care for was freaking out about eating veggies and hubby snapped at her and then she got all solemn and weird. Another couple's car kept breaking down and that was the most henpecked husband I’d ever seen in my life. He looked miserable all the time. I had no money. I didn't care. They were all rich. I paid what I could and fuck it. I felt great. I talked to everyone I met outside while I was having cigs and between being drunk was also high as a kite in a town where I was the only black I’d seen. By the time we left, the snow was already black with grime, everything was melting because it was like 50 degrees that day and on the way out... everything was beautiful.

Money can suck it

Okay, I know I’m supposed to bless money or whatever but right now, I honestly believe that money is something assholes created to piss people off. Okay, maybe not honestly. And when I have money I look down my snobbish nose at poor people. I’m an ass. That’s clear. But this week money made me cry. To be more precise, lack of money made me cry. And my pop once again offered me a chance to come live with him, help him with his business and money up so I can go live in Paris. But the idea of being a 34-year-old woman with an advanced degree leaving my apt of 12 years to have to move in with my dad sent me bawling. It didn't help that I was cutting up my cucumber dinner. And I’m still fat. At least let me be thinner lord. But I don't really want that either. I just want something different. I want a change and me sitting up here playing poker on Facebook isn't going to get me anywhere. So I guess money isn't the one who can suck it. It appears to be me.

So I’ve not left the house since Tuesday. I went to have a drink at my local watering hole, had a seltzer and cran with some homies and had to leave because I was about to burst into tears. I was so hungry. And the place smelled like meat and cheese and deliciousness and my mouth actively began watering. And it was someone's anniversary and I thought about how I’m not just temporarily low on cash, but alone. Then that made me think about my choices. Left turns, right turns, returning phone calls, not blowing someone off, seizing an opportunity here or there. All these things got me here. Fear got me here. But that's not true either. (Oh and I’ve begun lying a bit too.)

After I cried it out and my aunt (who's also manic) talked me down, I drank the wine I had in the house and it came to me. I don't regret a single choice I’ve made. Could I have done things differently? You betcha. But who couldn't have? Really? I should ask John McCain. He really knows what it feels like to be a loser. I just feel like a loser, he really is one.

So in the Zen way, I know money's coming to me and I’m open and willing to all the money I desire, but it can still suck it right now.

Since I can't keep changing my Facebook status on Inauguation Day...

Bill Clinton's a pimp.
The Dark Lord Himself in a wheelchair is telling.
I love Sasha and Melia.
Laura Bush is lovely in grey.
What the Fuck is Ree-Ree wearing on her head?
Melia's so TOTALLY COOL.
What do the Bush girls have in their flasks? I bet it's delicious.
Bill Clinton just looks like a booty pincher.
Man that looks like some party.
I wonder if they're going to boo GWB?
That crowd's rowdier than a KISS concert.
I love Michelle in gold.
GWB looks confused... as usual.
Dude, sniper's on the roof.
Don't touch GWB he's got cooties.
I would have loved if they had carried down the Dark Lord in his wheelchair.
Good Prayer, gay hater.
the my country iconograpy is so cliché.
Oh that Ree-Ree can sing. Good Lord.
the good old pastor has literally been doing this since before dr. king was shot.
i love them.
she loves him.
he loves her.
i'm so thrilled.