can i be your baby daddy?

june 25th and 26th, yes two days in a row, i went to madison square garden.  i had tickets to hear, to see, to feel maxwell.

when i heard he was coming to NYC, i booked my ticket for the show on the 25th.  the romantic side of me wanted to buy two, one for me and one for my cat daddy, but my realistic side told me to go solo.

it was only after i was seated that i felt a little alone but when maxwell came out on the stage, it became a private experience that i was so glad i went all by myself.

maxwell did not disappoint!  his energy levels were high as he sang and danced to his newer music and some of his old hits... and when the not so impromptu thong panties hit the stage and he wrapped them around the microphone and simulated something sexual with them thangs, i couldn't help but say out loud... "damn maxwell, you nasty".

he opened with "sumthin sumthin" and closed with... "pretty wings"...  and in between he rocked us with "reunion", "til the cops come knockin'", "lifetime", "stop the world", "bad habits", "drowndeep: hula" and other hits... but when he sang "this woman's work" he asked the ladies in msg can i be your baby daddy? all of the women went carazy!

jill scott opened for him on friday night... i always try to catch jill when she comes to ny but i've been missing her lately... i fall deeper and deeper in love with her art with every concert appearance.  she sang her older songs and something new to come.  i was blown away.  she was the perfect appetizer for the main course... she definitely got the ladies warmed up, feeling feminine and sexual and beautiful as she sang "golden", "he loves me", "hate on me", "long walk", and a new joint "i love you".

that was friday...

my mom happens to be an employee of madison square garden and got tickets for saturday's show... she was going to give me the tickets but i insisted that she go with me.  my mother is a homebody like my girl DC, in fact, i joke with them both that DC is truly my mother's off-spring... so on saturday my mother got dressed and we hit the town... tell me why my mother looked younger than me?  she loved the show!  she danced when maxwell danced and screamed as he wooed the women with his lyrics.

my soul-sista erykah opened on saturday night with songs from her new cd new amerykah: part two return of the ankh... "20 feet tall", "ummm hmmm" and my favorite "out my mind, just in time" but she didn't sing "window seat". :-( while her performance is always on point and thrilling to me, she wasn't the right fit... not the same level of sexy... no where near the same level of energy as jill scott and maxwell.  i enjoyed her though, a true fanatic i am.  she also sang her older songs... "me", "the healer", "on&on", "no love" and my other favorite "i want you".


all in all... maxwell dazzled me... i still get a little woozy when i think about how he performed and how my left eye swole with tears... i beam on the inside part.  you know how you see the footage of women swooning and falling out at old michael jackson concerts or even elvis? i almost felt like that... almost.

breaking fast... summer vacation 2010

i was away. i took a very short flight to a small tropical island, BERMUDA! i booked my vacation back in march and looked forward to heading to a relaxing vacation spot for the 4th of july... with none other than my frenemy DC.  there's not another person that i would vacation with but the minute that vacation begins, i'm wondering what in the hell i'm doing...

i don't trust her with my camera.  she takes the WoRsT pictures... do you see her side-eyeing the camera?  well back before digital cams, i actually took the worst pics because i always had my finger over the lense but DC will cut your head off. just crazy. this is us walking in newark airport...

she had just warned me to put the camera away, i looked too touristy and no one takes pics on the plane... well i like to snap photos so i snuck this one in...

this is me walking on the tarmac.  i've never walked on tarmac before. i was hyped... i'm walking like the president does... but i'm also tired.  bermuda is only a little over an hour away and i thought i was gonna catch a nap but noooo dc doesn't like to see anybody sleeping.

we'd just passed customs.  if you've ever or never traveled to bermuda, they don't like you bringing NOTHING onto their island. if you do, it can't total more than $30 or so dollars in value. well... we sneaky folks packed our stuff and we got the items through.

this is dc's cousin, he's a native bermudian and we stayed with him... bermuda is one expensive island.  their summers are our summers since they are a little off the coast of the carolinas and during peak season the price of a hotel room is ridiculous.  i like dc's cousin... he's tall, he's fine and he carries bags!

me again... in the back of dc's cousin's car thinking... "THESE CARS ARE TIGHT"... bermuda is so small and they drive these special mini vehicles like the smart car, fords, peugeots, bmws... but they might as well all be smart cars! they are smaller than the average small. and since they drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel in on the right side of the car, dc's cousin might as well drove the car while sitting on my lap.

day 1 in bermuda... we got to the aquarium where they also have a peacock that walks around... freely.  i love peacocks and i thought i was sweet-talking it into spreading its wings but no.  instead the peacock screamed for me. have you ever heard a peacock's mow?

that night we ventured out for bermuda's night life. i stretched my hair a bit and we got dolled up.  dc wouldn't pose for a pic ;-(  that may be why we only stayed out for 2 hours.. maybe 3 and that included dinner time.  truth is, dc is not a party girl.  she's a homebody.  put me in a club or anywhere there is music and you can leave me but not on an island where i don't know anyone and a d-train can't take me home...

day 2 and we're on bermuda's ferry-line heading to dockyard.  if you've taken a cruise to bermuda, you've docked at dockyard.  yeah the bermudians are simple people.  there's a road in the middle of the island and the name of the road is middle road.  there's a bird on the island and the bird has a long tail the name of the bird is the bermuda long tail.  simple.

it must have been the weather but for some reason my clothes were ripping apart.  my strap just popped off of my shirt. thank goodness the other one held up... and i smiled through it all...

dc... you ever pressed a zoom button before?  nope... see this is the pic that dc took... i let her snap a couple or else i wouldn't have pics of me near the clear blue waters...

day 3 and we're waiting for our table for sunday brunch...  our reservation was at 3:00, brunch is over at 3:30 and we didn't get sat until 3:35... they didn't even throw in free mimosas!  brunch was expensive, nice but not a free thang.

here's a smiling pic... wait - dc is still mean-mugging it...

when you've been to beaches that look like this, it's so hard to go to a beach where the water is a dark murky green as it is here in NYC.

day 3 and 4 we head to the beach... dc's cousin dropped us off but we had to walk back.  everything and everywhere on bermuda is walking distance away but i ain't nev-ver walked on a road like this one here.  and though walking is what i do with no car and living in the city, island walking is way different. this is tribe road no. 5 and while it's lush and beautiful, it looks like it's name. there's an incline on this road that made my body hurt.

the houses on bermuda are painted in pastels, which makes me think of ice-cream or better than that, sherbet.
the house we stayed in is up this hill and one night we went out and though dc asked me if i wanted to take a taxi back, i declined. i don't take taxis when i'm away. it was dark, midnight dark, and luckily bermuda is a relatively safe island because my fears would have told me that i would be attacked or robbed.  five steps up this hill and my chest is burning.  i look up and see that dc is mid-way up the hill, steady striding.  that heffa didn't even look back for me. she waited at the top though...

day 5 and we're having afternoon tea with dc's cousin.  bermuda was a british colony and so they do as the british do. afternoon tea.  i think i was tipsy all day of day 5. we had champagne and bloody mary shots at the tea, went to a wine tasting after that and later dinner with dc's family where me and her aunt tore up a bottle of pinot noir. day 5 was a good day.

day 6 and we're leaving... but before we left we decided to walk dc's cousin's doberman pinscher.  i don't know why i'm smiling because doberman is about to run up tribe road no. 5 while I am holding his leash.  no bueno.  not on my last day.  not while i am wearing flip flops.

and here we are, me and doberman, chatting it up in the kitchen, after the walk. i'm telling him to be good and he better miss me since doberman stayed licking my toes the whole trip. dc didn't take this pic, her cousin did.  i wish he hung with us. i would have gotten him to take my pics for me... and possibly with me... nah mean?!?!?!

this pic reminds me of what our friendship represents... longevity, faithfulness, trust and strength.  we have a lot of pics like this... ones when we were younger and this one now that we're in our 30s... but to me we look like, for a moment, that we were still in our teens, that we're still little girls, returning from our island venture.

i write like...

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I went to: http://iwl.me/ and put in some of my blog writing and that's my result... I write like Stephen King... wow... Try it and let me know who you write like...

herstory

nineteen years ago... we sat at my kitchen table.  it was mid-summer and she was spending the summer in new york city rather than her suburban hometown.  she told me she thought she was pregnant. i didn't want to believe it. i didn't want her to be pregnant.  being pregnant meant that we weren't little girls anymore.  i mean i would still be the little girl but she'd be the woman.  i think back to then and realize that... wow, we were never really close after that summer...

i took my $20 weekly allowance and bought a $10 pregnancy test.  we needed to know.  we had been hanging out kinda tough and we had been drinking. she had been pregnant once before.  her father took her to get an abortion and afterward cursed her, telling her she'd be knocked up again in 6 months.  through tears she swore she wouldn't be.  she swore she'd be a good girl, get good grades, stay away from boys.  4 months later we sat in my bathroom, her on the commode, me on the side of the tub and cried because that clear blue easy line appeared and got darker and darker and our suspicions were confirmed and WE felt like WE failed.

i asked her what she was gonna do.  i had friends who got free abortions.  i kept the number just in case i ever slipped up.  she didn't have to return home to handle her business, WE could get her a free abortion right away, act like nothing ever happened and she'd return home in august as if our summer was filled with fun and good times.  she must have wrestled with that thought all night because the next morning, with red rimmed eyes, she looked at me and told me SHE was keeping her baby. damn what her father said and felt. damn that free abortion that i told her about. the 1st child was aborted and that was all her father's idea, but this 2nd child was created in love and keeping this was her conviction.

for the next 2 weeks i cooked every meal for her - breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.  one day i chased the ice cream truck halfway down the block because she was feigning for a chocolate cone with sprinkles.  with my following week's allowance, i bought her a huge jar of palmer's cocoa butter for her belly that hadn't stretched at all, but we knew it would.

she returned home and didn't tell her parents a word.  she hid her pregnancy and put up a front every month as if she was receiving her cycle.  eventually her mother found out and told my mother and my mum, the clairvoyant one, she knew that i knew... could remember that one week when my penny pinching self spent all of my allowance in 2 days.

nineteen years later... and this young lady is now a happy and successful woman.  she is married to the love of her life, she has 3 beautiful children, owns a home, owns 2 cars and her eighteen year old daughter has gone to her prom and has earned her high school diploma.  as i beamed at my little cousin's prom and graduation pics i couldn't help but think of that summer and admire my cousin's determination to keep her baby.  it wasn't easy.  my cousin leaned and depended on her parents for years!  slowly but surely she gained her independence and handled her grown womanness.  if she listened to me, there'd be no celebration taking place, no tears of joy, no witness to God's miracle of life - and i'm glad that she was determined to do things her way.

i need

by now... if you've been visiting me long enough then you know that i'm an erykah badu fan and "fan" is an understatement.  if the myth about her is anything next to true, she's entranced me from day one.
it's been a good long while since i've chosen a song as my theme song... a song that when i hear it, my head drops, my eyes close and my lips spread in a smile...my recent choice... "window seat"... while the video has caught major buzz lately, it's the lyrics that delight me.

it's that part... the bridge, when the music changes to the 3 beats and then a clap... the part where she's singing about needing... i personalized it... i'm sure we all do it and that's what makes a song, a poem, a piece of literary work so distinctive for us.

the song speaks of something that's hard for me to admit to... the fact that i need.  i have no problem saying what it is i want and especially what i do not want... but need?  needing seems to imply that there's something or someone that i am lacking and i know that i've got all of my needs met... food, check... clothing, check... a job, check... shelter, check... stable family relationships, check...

one night i got an email from one of my suitors where he asked me "what do you need?".  he wanted to give me something special but i appear to have it all so he asked me "what do you need?".  i have given to him... he loves jazz and i love maysa and lalah and i wanted him to have something special from me.  so i bought us tickets to see lalah and bought him the latest maysa cd.  my truth is... i'm not a good receiver... receiving doesn't settle well in my spirit.  i feel the need to overcompensate to the giver instead of receiving and relishing in my gift given... so it's a little difficult and vulnerable for me to ask for what it is i need. and just like life... as i clicked reply to answer his email, "window seat" pops on the radio...

i need you to want me... that's a friend of mine who asked me what do i need.  he's the king of the poker face... while his texts and phone calls let me know he wants me, i'm still not fully convinced, or his grown man game is different from what i'm used to...
i need you to miss me... that's my long distance love (yep that's 2 men, i'm grown and i'm single!)... and though i've seen him recently and we speak all the time, long distance is what it is...
i need your attention... that's for my babies at church... you know young people are know-it-alls and just for a minute, i would like their full attention and they can avoid some of the mistakes they make...
i need you next to me... my bed is empty... there's nothing like a 98.6 degrees laying next to you, up under you, leg thrown across you, arm draping 'round you...
i need someone to clap for me... that's my supervisor, her supervisors, hell all the people at work.  a thank you, a high five, a slight nod that my work is appreciated...
i need someone to come get me... i want to be rescued... i want to be sought after, pursued, captured...
i need your energy... i need my mothers... my biological and adopted mums... those strong women who nurture with their kind words and thoughtful pats on the back... who mother the little girl in me and support the woman i've become
i need your direction... GOD... nuff said...

beat your own damn kids!

i have no children but i love them to pieces... and if by chance i become impregnated, i would be too-too happy. at this moment, however, i am childless.  i like to think that i'm "good" with children, meaning that i am approachable and easy to talk to about school, home life, esteem issues, relationships, and sex... my youth at church usually open up to me about these things.  and i even let them question me about my life and i answer them honestly.  they want to know if their experiences are unique to just them... and we all know that today's issues are not so unique... so i have no problem sharing.  my church youth know i have their back. i want what's best for them and even when i'm hard on them, they know that i do it in love.

i chose the title of this post because recently two of my friends have asked me to speak to their children and even discipline them about issues that i feel is beyond me as a non-parent.

their daughters don't live with me... i'm not the one who bought the short shorts, the wife-beaters, the hipster pants, the g-strings, the provocative shirts nor the make-up... so why should i be the one to tell them to clean up their image?

they didn't do or say anything to hurt me... i'm not the one who allows them to leave for the party at 11:00 pm and then turn around at get mad at them at 2:01 am when they don't turn the key in the lock... so why should i be the one to discipline them about how a proper young lady respects herself?

the last time i checked the legal drinking age is 21... yet you allow them to have a coupla drinks in the house, right?  but then you get upset with them when somebody else notices that your underage daughter is pissy drunk and throwing up and the pictures are all over facebook...


now one of the daughters i am talking about has even begun to talk back to, rip and run the streets all times of day and night and even curse at her parents... if the mother allows this to go down, then why is my cell phone ringing with this child's sweet voice on the other end telling me her mom wants her to talk to me?


i have personally laid my hands on plenty of children.  i truly have no problem popping, choking them, or my personally fave, collaring them.  i have reprimanded them when i felt their behavior was out of line.  children have been sent to me with bad report cards and i have echoed their parent's reactions... the emphasis is on echoing the parents... meaning that me and their mamas think along the same line... meaning that mom has already gotten in that behind and if i should say something it would only be so that the child has a "village experience". but when you turn a blind eye to their behavior or worse... you're afraid of being thrown in jail because your daughter thinks she's bigger and badder than you but you pay the bills, cook the food and put her ass through school, i say you rear your hand back... way back... and beat your own damn kid! 

random words i type...

she sought me out in a dark crowded club. i saw her when i first walked in, one of the 1st people i recognized and she made her way over to me.  it's been 17 years since high school graduation, this is our 2nd reunion made possible by way of facebook and it was good to hook up with old peeps.

she made her way through the crowd of people who were hugging, kissing, squealing "how are you", "you look great", "you look the same"... however when she turns to me she says... "do you still work in midtown?".  "no", i reply, "my unit has moved out to queens"... wow i thought, she must be asking because we used to work so close to each other. we made plans for lunch the last time we saw each other, exchanged business cards and all that.  she then says, "oh i figured that because there's no way you can get away with working in midtown with that hair."

???

my natural, coarse and wild hair?  i had no idea that midtown manhattan, which is the area between 14th and 59th streets, about 5 square miles, had stipulations on which state my hair or anyone's hair should be in. i can't even imagine midtown being some kind of entity that would frown upon and possibly banish me from entering unless my hair was somewhat more... acceptable?

i am not even fazed by this comment nor am i surprised.  this old schoolmate has always seemingly had this black may be beautiful but it's not always right mentally.  it has been a whole 366 days since i made the decision and cut my relaxed hair off.  i went from having 12 inches of relaxed hair...

to having 3 inches of natural hair...

and i have no regrets.  in fact, i could not be happier.

i could have been offended by her comment but i am not. in fact, i am flattered. i love that my hair grows out and up, defying gravity.  i like not having to put up an umbrella when it rains, knowing that my scalp will remain dry.  i enjoy not worrying about wrapping my hair every night and i am excited to work in a field where natural is acceptable - my director rocks a caesar, my supervisor has locs, and almost every woman of color in my worksite proudly flaunts their naturalness.

my facebook inbox is full of messages from friends and friends of friends who ask me when, how and why i cut off my hair and my daily regimen.  i receive compliments especially from people who never would have guessed that i would cut off my treasured relaxed hair, and as blog sister kay c wrote once on her blog, i receive lots of hands in my hair, especially from male acquaintances.

so now that the reunion is over and everyone is posting pics... i have this feeling that one of the messages in my inbox this week will be from this very woman... except this time she won't be asking something like, "girl, how they let you go to work like that" but more like... "i've been dying to do the very same thing... tell me how you made it happen".