how people are selfish and bad

And by ‘people’ I mean ‘me.’

So, today I put up a link to this space from an old blog I started during my undergrad days and haven’t updated in over a year. Funny thing about me; sometimes I drop off the face of the earth. This year — summer to summer — has been one of those times. I’m not sure what I’m ever thinking when it happens, but it’s been an enduring feature of my life ever since I was a little girl. I totally did not call my grandmothers during the school year, nor did I write my friends during summer vacation when I went to visit my grandmothers. Yet I would always come back to them expecting to be known and loved and welcomed. Because it wasn’t that I forgot about them, or didn’t care about them, or didn’t think about them. It was that I was and still am a crap communicator. Friends, extended family, coworkers, church members, I lose track of them all, from time to time, and they lose track of me.

I’ve been told people worry about me, and that really kills me, and I always vow that I won’t let it happen again because I don’t want people worrying about me, but it never matters. For some mysterious set of reasons (completely stupid ones, no doubt), I stop writing, and calling. I forget that I ever had an email address, and as a functioning, socializing human being, I pretty much shut down. No one gets in; I let nothing out. I’m not “there” for anyone, and I spend my time on a bunch of busy day-to-day nothings. Totally selfish. And … bad. And I know it.

Anyway. I can’t imagine it’d happen, but if anyone does drop by that old page and wants to hear it, I’m sorry for falling out of touch, for not calling, and for seeming not to care. I have been thinking of you, and praying for you, and wishing you well. I hope you are still thinking of me, but if it’s been too long for that I hope you understand. I’m still trying to do better.

triumphing over adversity, again!

I’m excited to finally see more and more commercials airing, and hear the award buzz buzzing for The Great Debaters.  For a while there I thought this film was going to be another Talk to Me — a great black film that nobody saw and barely anybody even heard of, because it had such crap promotion and limited release.  Yeah, I’m still a little bitter about that one.  But I should’ve known that a Denzel project all about championing the human spirit was going to get a little more attention.

Also, who knew Jurnee Smollet grew up and can act now?

clash of the choirs = love

Aw yeah, son. Choir geeks finally have a reality show all our own! Last night was the premiere, so there was way more filler than there needed to be, but still I pretty much loved everything about this huge cheese fest. Except Michael Bolton’s choir who were just kind of sad. (“Living On A Prayer”? Really?)  All of the pageantry, the glitzy, coordinated costumes, and the horrible choir-choreography just made me downright giddy.  I wish it were going to be on longer than this week.

So the show was great, and as expected Patti Labelle just trounced the rest of the choirs. But I have to say, I am sick and tired of people blindly criticizing anything the least bit gospel-y. Patti’s choir was magnificent last night. The soloists carried the melody beautifully, and the harmonies were tighter than 80s jeans (Or, if you like, contemporary hipster jeans.). Their arrangement was highly stylized and technically challenging, but they pulled it off to perfection, and they were the only group out there who really sounded and acted like a choir and not just a bunch of people singing together through the whole performance. They ruled. They were not just shouting. They were not. Shouting.

I just needed to get that off my chest.  I’m excited to see what happens tonight.  I think I heard there was going to be actual Christmas music this go-round.  Yay!

’tis finally the season

Okay. So, I love Christmas. I love the whole holiday season, from Thanksgiving on through the new year, really. I love all of the family gatherings and the parties and the intimacy everyone seems willing to share. I love the briskness in the air, and the lights downtown, and especially the music; I definitely have my Christmas playlist loaded in my mp3 player. Can’t beat that Vanessa Williams version of “Do You Hear What I Hear,” unless it’s with Tevin Campbell’s “Oh Holy Night.” But I have to admit that it’s not truly, truly the holidays in my heart until two things have happened: I must see A Christmas Story, and I must see Sandra Lee prepare her Kwanzaa Cake. (<— please go look at the picture and recipe. I promise your life will change.)

Those requirements might sound a little silly, but what can I say? They’re my own personal traditions. As I grow older, I realize I’m clinging more to these little reminiscings, memories of things I’ve seen and done and shared with people that made me happy. Coming back to them makes me happy again! I need that to fortify me in those times when the solitude gets to be a bit of a downer.

This year I thought I was in danger, because we’re over a week into December and I hadn’t heard a peep about a Ralphie sighting, and there was no sign of cinnamon-cocoa-frosted, corn nut dusted angel food cake on the horizon. But yesterday, I got half my heart filled when Food Network finally ran old Sandra’s Holiday Show yesterday. Oh, the apple pie filling! The corn nuts, the popcorn! The fricking enormous tabletop taper candles shoved into that plumb awful … creation! It’s so ridiculous you can’t even be offended. I was uplifted moreso than usual for a Sunday afternoon. Hysterical laughter tends to do that for me.

But what of Ralphie? I checked IMdB and it seems there’s no chance of seeing that dumb round face in his bunny suit until TBS/TNT do their 24-hour ACS extravaganza on Christmas Eve. Tragedy! I can’t wait that long to have Christmas in my heart. I’m leaving for home next Sunday. I think.

Luckily, last night I remembered a tape I had made, lo these many years ago, for my dry years cable-free existence as an undergrad. I popped it right out of my trunk and into my VCR. Thanks to that strong narrative voice, that ice-cold flagpole, the leg lamp, and that official Red Ryder carbine action two hundred shot range model air rifle, suffice it to say that my spirit is now high as a kite. I might even bake something Christmas-y.

Just because, a little Christmas Story to enjoy:

Nadafinga! Bye bye, Major Award.

what if i …

… don’t want to be a professor? Will I have wasted 5 (dear Lord, please let it only be 5) years going after a humanities doctorate? Will the world end? Life is so full of unknowns.

fair east side

You know, sometimes you just have to let the reminiscing speak for itself. Go ‘head and try to harmonize with the fellas. You know you want to.

i need a drug.

It’s 5 on Sunday evening, I haven’t done a blessed thing all weekend, the Emmys are on in two hours and I’m seriously rooting for Vanessa Williams to take home some shiny metal so I must watch. What to do? What to dooooo?

There is an answer.

Oh, I feel so free!

aw yeah, son!

Hee. I have a committee! Woohoo. All summer I’ve been fretting and nervousing about asking these two awesome people to work with me, and today I finally bit the bullet and asked them both. They accepted like, immediately, and then actually laughed at me for nervousing in the first place because this isn’t such a big deal at all except it totally is my future and now it’s all settled, so yay! God is so good. He always provides.

guess what sucks.

Being patronized. Dude, whatever. I don’t think it’s the best thing for you to treat someone like a bratty step-child because you have the money, and in some measure, the final say. We might be a bother, but we’re totally in the right to be such, because we have been treated unfairly and we want redress.

I realize that I just switched without notice from “I” to “we,” and I realize that none of this means anything to anybody out there; it’s all just so much venting that I need to do before I have to be diplomatic, so apologies if anyone happened to read this (ha, I know) and is confused. Or nosy.

sweet validation

Remember Bastard the Music Master who lives beneath me, and who I mentioned a couple of days ago? Well, it turns out that I am not alone in being annoyed and driven nuts by him. He has managed to screw up someone else’s morning, and I am saved from being thought an unreasonable silence maniac. He was at it again this morning, at freaking 5 AM. I was already awake, so only peeved instead of thirsty for his blood, but I still went down to knock on his door and tell him to shut it, because seriously. I got to the door and saw someone had beaten me to it, in a more passive-aggressive fashion. They left a note. And it was awesome. I took a picture. I’m going to post it as soon as I can find my camera transfer cord thingy.

Wacky update: So, I finally found my camera cord, but upon looking at the note again, I decided that the language of it is a bit too coarse to put out in the universe. Or at least the part of it that belongs to me. And if I blurred out the coarseness, there’d be something like three words left in the note, which would convey nothing of its overall awesomeness. So, you’ll have to live with using your imaginations on this one.

Wacky update II: Adrian’s Revenge: So, he was up to his old tricks again recently, and unluckily for everyone the office was closed that day for a meeting. But! some enterprising and totally fed up somebody had to make their dissatisfaction known in what I have to say is a brilliant way. I give you the best noisy neighbor note I’ve ever seen ever in life:

 

Yup. That’s pretty much the business right there. I especially love the two responses. Way to build community, y’all.

who the heck is it?

So um, as I’m busy procrastinating compiling my reading list this afternoon, all of a sudden, someone comes by and lays on my doorbell. Lays on it, I mean. I don’t answer the bell if I’m not expecting anyone, because who knows who it could be? And everyone I know here knows me well enough to know (you might have to read that back again) to call if they’re coming over. I don’t just get up and answer the door. I don’t do people dropping by unannounced.

Not to be refused though, whoever this was that came by me just now just would not let the bell go for like, two minutes. I wish I had that kind of determination. Well I guess I do, seeing that I myself wouldn’t answer the door for like, two minutes. Go me.

Anyway, if you read this, oh mysterious visitor of mystery, give me a call next time and I’ll let you in. Probably.

In other news, I’ll be darned if this (following) isn’t the funniest and funnest commercial ever. I’ve had it stuck in my head for weeks and weeks and I reminded myself when I said “go me,” and it always makes me smile and I’ve always wanted to experiment with embedding a YouTube clip, so bam!

I said a beef hot link!