40 Things You Need to Know

Posted on | July 22, 2010 | View Comments

…About the Next 40 Years

Click the link above to see the Smithsonian’s list. [found on kirtsy.com]

There are a lot of incredible possibilities on the list. Things far more exciting than free cars and artists running the world, but those were among my favorites. Which items on the list stand out for you?

[Monday Music] Christina Perri | “Jar of Hearts”

Posted on | July 19, 2010 | View Comments

I’ve been a So You Think You Can Dance fan for quite some time now. This season, with all of its seemingly unnecessary changes, has been blah-blah-snore for me. One of the better things to happen on Season 7 was a contemporary performance by Billy and “all-star” Kathryn, two people who won’t be winning a jump-off-the-screen-crazy-fantastic-personality contest any time soon. While the dancing was great, what caught me (and apparently thousands of others) was the song accompanying their steps: “Jar of Hearts” by Christina Perri (see video above). She’s a virtual unknown who, with the use of her song on the reality show and her subsequent live performance on it, is suddenly star-twinkling.

The best thing to happen on SYTYCD this season was Alex Wong, who unfortunately had to leave the competition due to injury. Check out his fun hip-hop routine with ALL-STAR Twitch by clicking here.

Category: Found on the Net, Monday Music, Pop Culture, Television, audio, video
Tags: Christina Perri > Jar of Hearts > So You Think You Can Dance

It’s 1994 and You Ask Me…

Posted on | July 13, 2010 | View Comments

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I tell you two things: an artist and a singer.

I was serious about learning to draw which, over the years, meant watching several episodes of this. (It’s virtually unbearable to look at now. I’m not even sure if he shows a finished picture in this clip because I didn’t watch it all…lol) Oh, and I was going to be a singer. No, I was going to be Whitney Houston. Yeah. OK. Singing was more of a fantasy….

I never emerged as a strong vocalist or artist. Instead, I started writing “seriously” at eight or so, and I grew to love it. Yes, grew to love it. Secret’s out. Writing was not my first love. I was constantly praised for what I was told were “well-crafted” essays, poems, and stories, but I can’t say it’s what I thought I’d be doing as a grown-up.

Over the years, I’ve still been involved with music—taking piano lessons, playing the clarinet, singing in choirs, taking on the occasional solo. However, I understand that I won’t be taking on the music industry as a recording artist any time soon (read as: ever). But early in high school, I moved beyond painting on paper every now and then to tinkering with graphic manipulation software to make images for signatures on message boards and eventually, entire websites, every day. I did this out of boredom, and it never resonated with me—until now—that I may have been trying to get back to an initial passion using new technology. By this point, I was deep into pursuing writing, journalism, and performance poetry, swallowed up in doing what I was “good at” and had truly fallen in love with as much as, if not more than, my other extracurricular activities.

Now that my faux year off has ended and I am searching for serious work, I can’t stop myself from considering getting training in graphic design, in creating visual art. I have no intent of putting writing to the side, but it seems that I need more going on in order to be satisfied. I need to combine writing—my favorite kind: getting a message across in the fewest and “best” words—with visuals. Could it be that I am meant to be an advertiser/marketer?

Just to be clear: I’m not confused about my skills or interests. I know what I like. Of the things I’ve attempted to do, I know which ones I’m prepared to do well. And I know what I am capable of with just touch of training. It is now down to placing myself in positions that use every bit of what I can and want to do so that I’m not a disgruntled and starving artist.

A recent article at the Koda blog discusses taking what you wanted to be at five and making this your “personal brand.” (I’m not so ecstatic about personal branding, but this was sorta interesting.) The blog entry’s author, Lauren McCabe, wanted to be a mermaid. At first glance, this doesn’t make much sense. No one is going to take you seriously if you put “mermaid” on your business card, right? (Hey—can you imagine having the first name “Mermaid”?) However, Lauren goes on to explain how this can translate into being, among other things, versatile, creative, and playful.
What does my age five response of singer and artist translate into for my 22-year-old writer and wanna-be designer self? Let’s see. I have a “broad range” to my voice (as a writer). I “color outside the lines” in a way that adds a fresh perspective to any creative problem. I’m not afraid to explore using various “mediums.”

This could go on for a while….

Category: Choosing My Career(s), Found on the Net
Tags: Koda blog > personal brand > what did you want to be when you grew up?

Essence Mag on What I -Should- Experience

Posted on | July 13, 2010 | View Comments

The July 2010 issue of Essence magazine focuses on the reasons black women should love and celebrate themselves. As a black woman, this is a focus I am appreciative of; I agree that we are resilient, intelligent, beautiful and should say this loudly, proudly. But sometimes we say ridiculous things instead.

Page 129 is a compilation of 20 Things Every Black Woman Should Experience. I was totally on board and reclined in first class with a strong beverage with number one which was to “create the fantasy.” “My number one bucket list dream is to have the glam experience of being an elegant plus-size fashionista in Paris, sipping wine at ultrachic bistros, then hanging out on the French Rivieria,” says Fern Gillespie, 53, of the New Jersey shore. (All errors retained.) This is great! Go for things you feel are far out there for you! You know I love this. But it all started going downhill at number two which was to “rock ‘freedom hair.’

As you probably expect, this bullet point is about “going natural” at least once in your life. Make a statement in locks, twists, or a teeny-weeny ‘fro. “Going natural” has been equated with “freedom” in a way that makes me uneasy. In recent years, passing up chemicals and whatnot in favor of natural curls has regained crazy momentum, so much so that some have positioned this choice on a pedestal. Transitioning or doing a big chop seems to be an urgent must-do, and if you don’t, you are somehow less “real,” less “authentic,” just lesser than. This isn’t the first time this conversation has happened in history, but it’s suddenly permeating all of our conversations again.

I just want to know why this is something I should experience? How is it freeing? I’ve worn my hair relaxer-free and long, relaxed and shoulder-length or shorter, and partially natural with relaxed ends with no real intention of transitioning. It’s ALL work if you want it to look decent. Where’s the freedom? Someone explain it all to me. Whatever. This isn’t even the main thing on the list I took issue with. Let me move on.

The craziness is camping out in the second half of the first column on this page—numbers five and eight. “Fish in different waters” and “Share a hot, sultry evening,” respectively. Just looking at these headings, you’re probably thinking, OK? You should try new things and name 10 activities better than a steamy evening with your love.

[5] Fish in different waters. “My girlfriend and I got all dressed up and hit the clubs on a mission to talk to White guys,” recalls Jill Moura, 30, of Brooklyn. “I ended up kissing a White boy, and my friend ended up dating a man she met, even though we did it only for adventure.”

[8] Share a hot, sultry evening with a gorgeous island man. Then board your plane with delicious tropical memories and no regrets.

What!? If a white man said he went to a club on a mission to talk to black women, he kissed one, and *gasp* even dated one…that would be openly and hotly discussed. And what is this, How Stella Got Her Groove Back? Even that doesn’t end with just tropical memories.

These two points did work to invalidate the whole list. I couldn’t take this seriously. Your thoughts?

Category: From the Magazines
Tags: "freedom hair" > 20 Things Every Black Woman Should Experience > Essence Magazine

Who You Choose to Honor [or] You Should Be Sleeping

Posted on | May 26, 2010 | View Comments

As a person who experiences insomnia several nights out of each week, I’ve seen my share of ridiculous infomercials and hyper televangelists. A few weeks ago, during one of these sleepless nights of channel-flipping, I found a guy who took an hour or so to convince his viewers—including myself, unfortunately—that he knew the path to clarity, peace, and righteousness through his snippets of anecdotal advice before attempting to peddle his books to the first 100 callers. He added that he’d be saying a prayer just for those folks who dropped $40 on his books pamphlets. Just those people.

Before this man shoved what little credibility I was willing to give him at the onset down the proverbial drain, he shared a couple bits of appreciable “wisdom”: Your future is determined by who you choose to honor. And one person can change the season in your life. The latter’s something I’d already come to know, but the former has kept me thinking long after I finally got to sleep that night.

In the sense of the program I was watching, “to honor” meant to give your time, energy, thoughts and prayers, love, respect, appreciation, money (if the situation so called for it), and so on and so forth. But what about the people you choose not to honor? Those to whom you don’t fully “give of yourself” but you opt to become a part of their lives? What about those you “play” in relationships? Those you mooch off of to serve whatever purpose you need them to at the time?

I spent some time considering people I’ve needed for just a moment in time—as a friend, significant other, or in some other capacity—and those who treated me in that same way at some point. There was no “honor” involved, but perhaps there should have been since it actually seems that it is these people who borrow your time (and whatever else you’ll give to them) more so than those you cherish without limits who determine your future. These are the individuals and experiences who force you to ask yourself what if I had treated him/her differently? What if I’d honored his/her choice to be the person he or she wanted to be and understood then that person wasn’t meant to be a part of my life? These are the people—the questions—that keep you up at night wondering why the season’s been fall in your life for quite some time.

Category: Probably part of a future memoir..., Television, Tidbits
Tags: insomnia > televangelists > who you choose to honor

Tweet Tweet | 052510 11:52 p.m.

Posted on | May 25, 2010 | View Comments

@toriemichelle

i remember when ppl would hold me accountable for being a lazy blogger. *breaks into song* “…i want that old thing back”

less than a minute ago via web

Category: Tidbits
Tags: twitter patter

On Not Having Children in Your Early Twenties…

Posted on | May 12, 2010 | View Comments

…so that you’re not penalized financially.

Click here to watch an excerpt (starting somewhere around the 30-min mark) from yesterday morning’s episode of The View in which journalist Carmen Wong Ulrich makes some interesting points about the costs of starting a family early.

Category: Television
Tags: Carmen Wong Ulrich > having children is the biggest predictor of bankruptcy for women > The View

Protected: Multiple Loves Will Make You Lose Focus…

Posted on | May 11, 2010 | Enter your password to view comments

Category: Choosing My Career(s)

National Poetry Month PAD Wrap-Up

Posted on | May 1, 2010 | View Comments

I’ve now taken down all of my poems from the April 2010 NaPoWriMo/Poem-a-Day Challenge. I’ll be revising them and working on them for assorted projects. I may record some and surely, others will be posted on my Selected Works page. Just to recap: I completed 25 of 30 first drafts. I plan to finish up the last five this week.

Thanks for coming by and reading this month (even if you didn’t comment)!

Category: National Poetry Month 2010