VaginaCon

Due to a falling out with a friend, the wind was taken out of my sails in writing about the New York trip any further. In short, just know that I had a fabulous time with Emily, Niles, Tracey and Sam on Saturday night – I still can’t believe I turned down the chance to see an actual TARDIS – I made some new friends at the Indie Book Event and learned a lot, and I had a wonderful time with the bestest of best friends, Sophie.

Which brings me to…

I’m used to having one good girlfriend. The same girlfriend since I was about 12.

Sophie is the type of person who sends thank you cards. For everything. I’m talking handwritten, on cute stationery thank you cards. She also sends homemade cookies in pretty packaging. Just because.

The day before the Book Event, when I woke up in my hotel room, my feet covered in blisters, I called Sophie. She was two hours away and wasn’t scheduled to come to NYC until the next morning. When she heard me crying on the phone, in pain, homesick, and put off by a conversation with another friend, she offered to come to New York that day just to bring me comfortable shoes.

As tempting as it was to just sit on the pity pot, order room service, and wait for the shoes, I hobbled across the street to a Payless shoe store, bought a cheap, comfortable pair of flats and then wore those to the Duane Reade on the next corner to buy blister pads. Later that day, when I met up with the other authors in the room where the event was to be held, I was the only one without items to set up. Sophie, to make it so that I didn’t have to check a bunch of boxes and bags at the airport, was bringing all of my books and table decorations. On Sunday, we hung out in her kitchen while her husband, Scott made dinner. He told me that Friday night Sophie could barely sleep and woke him up around 3am to ask if he thought the table cloth she’d purchased would be big enough for the book table.

That’s a friend.

Especially since I am positive that at the same time, I was sleeping soundly, drooling on my hotel pillow, and dreaming about the fabulous Hawaiian-inspired meal and cocktails I’d had hours earlier with Emily, Niles and Tracey.

It’s not that I’m not used to being treated well by a friend, I’m just not used to having more than one good girlfriend. Over the past few years, I’ve opened up my life to strangers, never once thinking that I’d gain friends from it. I have. I now have a small circle of girlfriends who make me laugh, make me think, and (as you’ll see in a moment) make me cry in a good way.

Today I was surprised to find a package at my door. Yesterday was my birthday, but I was still surprised. It was a very thoughtful package from one of two new friends. Nanea sent the goodies below with a note warning that Meghan’s gift would be arriving shortly.

A cup to enjoy my very own, named-after-me cocktail (Nanea is the mixologist of our bunch) and a tin decorated with something from one of our favorite shows, Misfts.

Inside the tin, more Misfits love in the form of magnets:

As I opened the package and read the card, Kali, who is home sick from school today, asked, “What’s that?”

“Presents,” I said, then started to cry.

Here’s my very public thank you to Nanea and Meghan, who, I’m sure, would put Iwan Rheon in a box for me if they could, and the rest of the girlfriends who have come into my life recently. You’ve shown me that Sophie is not an anomaly. And I’m sure at this point Sophie would like me to add, “Don’t get it twisted; I’m still the bestie.” But it’s nice to discover, at the ripe old age of 37, that there’s room in my heart for more girlfriends.

I very much look forward to laughing, drinking, watching Misfits, and going to see The Hunger Games with you ladies next March. VaginaCon 2012: Shit Just Got Real.

It’s on like Donkey Kong, bitches!

Blog it Out, Bitch the Book

Coming September 2011

 

New York Walker

When last we met I’d just taken my first flight in ten years and almost been abducted by a gypsy cab driver.

I arrived at my hotel, The New Yorker (8th Ave. & 34th St.) shortly before 11am. The doorman helps me with my luggage and I pass through automatic revolving doors into a large, air conditioned lobby. I’m checked in within moments, and make my way up to my room on the 23rd floor.

The hotel was older, but nice, and filled with many contemporary touches. My room was a lot bigger than I thought it would be and as soon as I entered it, I remembered how much I enjoy staying in hotels. The first thing I did was put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door. It would remain there for the duration of my stay. If I need towels, I’ll call. Since I wasn’t there for sexy time, there’d be no reason to have my sheets changed during a three-night stay. I like to spread out and pretend I live in my hotel room. (Just call me Dylan McKay) The last thing I need to worry about is someone coming in to clean when I’m not there and all my personal stuff is strewn about.

Even though I was receiving the conference discount (the book event was in the same hotel), I was aware of how expensive the rooms usually were so I was really relieved to be happy with it. I don’t know why, but I have this old school thought process that all articles of clothing should be $20, hotel stays should be $100 a night, and movie tickets should be $5. (Shoes and purses can cost whatever the fuck they want.) It’s like I live in 2011, but my wallet is stuck in 1982.

Anyway, I did a little unpacking, freshening up, and checking in with social media before going to meet my friend Richard for lunch. I looked up the restaurant online and then checked my handy NYC Subway app for the nearest train stop. There’s an A train stop right on the corner so I headed for it.

 

I took the A Train uptown to 59th Street Columbus Circle. It was there I remembered everything I love about my hometown. It was loud, colorful, bright and diverse. Living in the Atlanta suburbs, I’m surrounded by Mexicans and white folk. That’s it. I miss Puerto Ricans! I miss different languages and foods! I just stood in the circle, spinning around like a tourist, taking it all in. I felt like Mary Tyler Moore. If I had a hat, I’d have tossed that bitch in the air.

Here’s a short video I took of a street musician:

Street Musician

The plan was to walk to the restaurant, but when I stopped a cute guy (hey, don’t judge me!) to ask walking directions to where I thought the restaurant was, I realized it was better to take a cab. I met Richard at Whym, a restaurant that looked as if it gets pretty busy in the evening, but that afternoon was very laid back and somewhat empty. We ordered apps, lunch and lots of cocktails.

Before leaving, I had to use the little girl’s room (several glasses of water and three Bellinis will do that to you), and managed to knock a butter knife off the table next to us. Thankfully, the only other couple in the joint didn’t pause to stop staring into each other’s eyes to notice.

 

As soon as I enter the bathroom I notice the toilet’s water level is really low and there’s soggy toilet tissue floating at the bottom. So, what do I do? Flush it, of course. And the water rises and rises and just as it reaches the lip of the toilet I say, “No. No. No. Please, don’t!”

And it does. All over the floor. Can’t take me nowhere.

We hop a cab to Dylan’s Candy Bar, a touristy candy shop owned by Ralph Lauren’s daughter, Dylan. I had no intention of buying a bunch of overpriced sweets, but I knew Kali would get a kick out of the photos and I bought her a cute little bag she can use to carry her dental care products at school (she wears braces). Gotta love the irony.

And it was right about then that my feet started KILLING ME. I’m not even sure of the hows and whys, but after we left the candy bar, we couldn’t catch a cab to save our lives. You would have thought we were two brothers on the corner trying to hail a taxi. We seemed to walk forever in search of a cab that didn’t have its off duty light lit or already have passengers. It didn’t help that it was hot as Satan’s taint either. I did manage to take some photos and videos along the way:

 

 

 

Here’s a video of the tram you wouldn’t catch me dead on:

Roosevelt Island Tram

At that point, it wasn’t as hot as there was a nice breeze coming off the river, but my feet were still burning and not being able to catch a cab was working my last nerve. When we finally got one to take us, the cabbie explained that it was approaching their 5pm shift change so taxis were all headed to their respective depots. He only agreed to drop us at 7th Avenue and 34th Street. We took it. Beggars and choosing and all that.

When we got out of the cab, Richard pointed me in the direction of 8th Avenue and headed off to do whatever it was he was going to do before we were to meet up for dinner. As I walked up the block, several times I thought I should probably stop someone and just confirm that I was, indeed, headed for 8th Avenue and not 6th, but I didn’t. And fuck me for not doing so.

At one point, a crazy black man who had been yelling into his cell phone, “Why the fuck you keep saying what I said yesterday? I didn’t even talk to your ass yesterday so what the fuck you talkin’ ’bout?!,” turned and saw me walking behind him and did a double-take.

Oh, fuck.

He purposely starts to slow down until I’m walking alongside him and then says loudly, “I’m looking at America’s Next Top Model right here. Forget those skin and bones. This is it!”

Totally forgetting that he was, quite possibly, insane, I say, “Hold up. Did you just call me fat?”

“No! I’m just saying that even the white girls are trying to look like you!”

As you’ve probably guessed, I was walking in the wrong direction. I almost sat on the curb and cried. And for the sake of full disclosure, these were the shoes I wore:

There were not uncomfortable when I tried them on, and I spent a few days breaking them in at home. They were nowhere near as difficult as the shoes I’d started to bring, but didn’t:

 

I think it was a combination of being on my feet since 4am, the heat, and the concrete, that had my feet screaming, “Uncle!”

Once in my room, I closed the curtains, got naked, talked to my husband and kids and then soaked in a hot bath. I met Richard downstairs in the lobby about an hour or so later – which, in retrospect, wasn’t exactly smart because my feet hadn’t received any rest – and we tried to catch a cab to where we were meeting his best friend and his partner for dinner.

I guess cabbies didn’t like my face. Or my shoes. We couldn’t get it together. More walking to another corner, then more walking back to the hotel, and no cab to be had. The doorman even tried for us. No dice. At this point I’m extremely miserable. I’d just spent time bathing and getting fresh and pretty and within three minutes of being outside, I’m covered in sweat and my feet are like, “Really, bitch? So soon?”

At one point, Richard says, “Frankly, I thought you’d be a better New York walker.”

What the fuck is a New York walker? Now, I took offense to this, but I’m on vacation and it’s day one, so I’m swallowing annoyances and really, when you’re dealing with melting face and screaming feet, a comment that rubs you the wrong way isn’t worth it. I’m not an idiot. I knew spending a weekend in NYC would involve some walking, but since when did New Yorkers start walking blocks and blocks to catch cabs? I get the whole, “We’re headed downtown and this traffic is going uptown so let’s walk one block over,” business. I’ve done that hundreds of times. But I felt like we’d walked above and beyond. It being hot as a motherfucker while being 14 hours into 10 hour shoes didn’t help matters, either.

I also tried explaining to Richard that hanging out with women is a totally different animal than hanging out with men. We don’t spend time getting dolled up to sweat our makeup off before we even get to the mode of transportation that’s taking us where we’re going!

We ended up hopping a hot ass train and walking another four blocks to a different restaurant. I’d never been so happy to see a barstool or a glass of water in my life. We had a very nice time. There was lots of laughing and great conversation and we later moved the party across the street to another bar for more food and cocktails (although, at that point, I just stuck to water).

 

 

At the end of the night, Richard put me into a cab that thankfully stopped right in front of the restaurant. Once I made it back to the hotel I was happy with my decision to have the hotel for all three nights instead of staying with anyone. I was grateful for the room, and the quiet, and the aloneness because I was exhausted and sore.

And that was just the beginning.

Next time: Blisters, Tears, More Friends and Lani Kai

Flying Again

Last week I flew on an airplane for the first time since 9/11. I used to fly a lot in my late teens and 20’s, and while I was always a nervous flyer, I enjoyed the experience. After 9/11 – and up until a few nights before my flight – I’d have nightmares about shiny, bulbous aircrafts, sitting at a gate, waiting for me to board and soar me to certain death. I had horrible dreams about being in Manhattan (I’d also not been there since a month before the attacks), looking up at skyscrapers that disappeared into the clouds, casting dark shadows over the streets below before crumbling on top of me.

So, when I won an author’s table at the first annual Indie Book Event in NYC, and friends suggested I fly, I was all, fuck that. Then I noticed that all the people I admire, all of my friends doing big things, flew constantly. You can’t really expect to promote yourself via social media and make the right connections if you’re afraid to travel. Yes, most of the interactions take place online, but conferences and other events are crucial and you need to show your face.

I put on my big girl panties and boarded a flight to NYC last Thursday. I kid. We all know I don’t wear panties, which would have made the full body scan very interesting if I’d received one. My flight left at 7:30am, which meant I had to arrive at the airport by 6am. Donny and the kids dropped me off at the curb. I kissed them all goodbye like it would be the last time we ever saw each other (I even left my wedding band with Donny and only wore my engagement ring. I figured if the plane crashed, there wouldn’t be much of me left so he should have something to remember me by) and was off.

Going through security went surprisingly well and I was probably a tad over-prepared. I was a bit disappointed there wasn’t cause to open my suitcase and show off how well-packed I was. I just knew my curling rods would set off alarms.

 

Once I got to the gate, I posted this pic:

 

I tried not to look as terrified as I felt as I boarded the plane and noticed how fucking tiny it was. Holy crap. It was like, one step above a propeller plane. And the seats were super small. My Amazonian ass was not happy or comfortable. My knees were touching the back of the seat in front of me. Are plane seats made for women without hips? Thankfully, my seat mate, a guy who looked like Jean-Claude Van Damme, sat next to the window and quietly played on his phone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was scared, pissed, and uncomfortable.

Once the plane started taxing to the runway, I started making deals with God.

Please, don’t let me die like this. I promise to be nicer to people. Even the douchebags.

I hoped that was enough. It didn’t help matters that there were NO babies on the flight. I like babies on flights. I want babies on my flight – loud, new-to-the-world, milk-breath babies with big, soulful eyes. I want God to think twice before he gets in a smiting mood.

Take-off is the worst: it’s all rumbling and loud and the moment the plane is no longer touching the ground you marvel that something so heavy can stay in the air. Once we reached our cruising altitude and the fasten seat belt light went off, Jean-Claude Van Damme leaned over and whispered in a heavy Brazilian accent, “I’m sorry. I hate to do this, but I’ve been holding it for an hour.”

It sounded like a I’m-about-to-piss-on-you warning, but then I realized he was looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to move so he could scoot into the aisle. Grrrr. When you’re 5’11 and weigh approximately none of your fucking business pounds, the last thing you want to do is move around on a tiny plane. I got up so he could go to the bathroom and as soon as I sat back down, the man in front of me reclined his seat. And then his wife reclined hers. Now, I didn’t catch their names, but for the duration of the flight I dubbed them Mr. and Mrs. Inconsiderate Motherfuckers.

How you just gonna lean your shit back like you home watching TV?

I considered accidentally on purpose standing up and hitting Mr. I.M. on the head with my laptop bag, but I just made those God promises, and you don’t want to go fucking with your karma 32,000 feet in the air.

By the time Jean-Claude got back, I was relieved to stand just to get my knees off my tits. He sits down and as I awkwardly lower myself into my seat, I say the first thing that pops into my head.

“I thought it’d be bigger.”

Then I bit the inside of my mouth to resist the urge to add, “That’s what she said.”

He sighs and nods his head towards business class, just two rows ahead of us. “They wanted $70 more for business class…”

I nod vigorously. I know what he’s going to say. Seventy bucks is a small price to pay for comfort, I think. It has to be cheaper than knee surgery.

“… but I couldn’t see paying that for an hour and a half flight. Three hours, maybe, but not ninety minutes.”

I stop nodding. We are NOT on the same page. He is clearly insane.

Turns out he’s an aircraft mechanic for the military and he starts telling me all about the plane we’re in – how it operates, how it came to be and how and when they changed the cockpit from analog to digital.

“Although, I cannot call it that any more. It’s now the flight deck. People got offended by the old name.” He smiles a super Van Damme smile and adds, “Like, these…” He holds up a package of salted nuts. “… I probably can’t call these nuts any more.”

I snort. “We should start calling them balls.”

He blinks.

And just like that I’m a fucking idiot.

I spend the remainder of the flight trying not to look at him.

 

When we landed at LaGuardia, I got a slew of text messages sent while my service was down. One was from Donny letting me know that our AC repair had turned into a full blown AC replacement. I tried calling him for details as I headed to the exit. Just as I was about to leave a voicemail for him, I approached the exit where a short, olive-skinned man stood. He was wearing a dress shirt and slacks and I thought he worked at the airport.

“Exit?”

“Um… yes.”

He gestures towards a door, leading outside, and asks, “Where are you going?”

“Manhattan.”

“Can I take that?” He nods towards my suitcase.

“No, I got it.”

I don’t mind tipping, but I’m not going to pay for some guy to pull my suitcase 12 feet to the curb. I figured he was going to hail a cab for me, or at least show me to the taxi queue.

He walks ahead, reaching the curb and then crossing the street, all three lanes of traffic. I stop at the curb because the ‘Don’t Walk’ light was on. Also, I’m dealing with some very important shit. Unable to reach Donny, I’d moved on to checking into Foursquare. Hey, don’t judge me! I want to be the mayor of something besides my neighborhood Kroger.

The whole time little dude was crossing the street he never turned back to see if I was with him, so I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be following him. Once he reached the other side, in front of the parking garage, he turned and signaled for me to follow. The light changes and I meet him on the other side and this time, I let him take my suitcase. I try calling Donny again as we approach a Town Car with the trunk open. He puts my suitcase in the trunk and it’s not until I’m in the backseat that it hits me.

“Hey, how much is this going to cost?”

“Sixty dollars.”

“Uh, no. I’d rather have a real cab. With a meter.”

He starts backing out the parking space.

“OK. Fifty.”

“No. Let me out.”

He locks the doors.

“Fifty is very good price.”

“No. Really. Let me out.”

He whips back into the spot and this time it’s up to me to get my own shit; he was done caring about my luggage.

I take a legit yellow taxi to my hotel.

It cost $31.

Motherfucker.

Next time: Being a better NY walker and blisters on my feet.

My Life, My Book

Things have been pretty quiet around these parts because things in my day-to-day life have been anything but. It occurred to me that I never really did a big “announcement” of any kind, and that a lot of you may not know about the most exciting thing to happen to me in a long time. (At least since Jack was born.)

Be prepared to do a lot of clicking, liking, and voting. (All links should open in a new tab.)

My book, The Twin Prophecies: Rebirth, is now available for the Kindle, Nook, other e-readers and in paperback. This is the official website for the book. You can subscribe to the blog so that you’re sure to get news on book-related events as soon as possible. There’s a cool prequel chapter that introduces you to a character you meet in Rebirth as well as a link to the book trailer. The media tab has links to interviews I’ve done to promote the book. You can read a short synopsis here and early reviews on Amazon.com here.

If you could take a moment to “like” the book’s official Facebook page and my author page on Facebook, I’d really appreciate it. You can also find me on Goodreads and Shelfari. If you’re a tweeter, you can follow the book on Twitter, too.

Now for the fun stuff. Next week, to help celebrate the book’s official launch, I’m giving away three fun prizes. Everyone who purchases a Kindle OR paperback copy of the book has a chance to win either:

• a signed paperback copy of Rebirth
• their name as a character in book two, The Twin Prophecies: Origin (Dec. 2011) or
• a Kindle with Special Offers

The contest is for any Kindle or paperback copy purchased between Monday, May 16th and Wednesday, May 18th, 2011. Purchase confirmations must be forwarded to twinprophecies@gmail.com to enter and must be received by Friday, May 20th. You can get all the details and official rules by reading the press release.

Finally, I have a great opportunity to attend the Indie Book Event in NYC this summer, but I need your help. If could go here and cast your vote for me, Nina Perez, to win a free table, I’ll love you forever. You can read more about the Indie Book Event here.

 

I know, it’s a lot of stuff, and THAT is why I’ve been missing in action. I have no complaints though. None. This is a very exciting and fulfilling time for me and I want to thank all of you who’ve been along for the whole ride. Don’t get off yet. There’s more to come.

 

Nina

 

Soap Death

I just saw a tweet that All My Children is probably/possibly going to be cancelled later this week after 41 years on the air. I immediately called my best friend, Sophie.

We were both sad, but also confused. Why were we so upset over the cancellation of a show we both stopped watching a long time ago? Sophie summed it up best. “I don’t watch it, but I like knowing it’s there.”

I think this has a lot to do with what I’ve always believed made soaps so special: they are tradition. I don’t know anyone that discovered soaps later in life. OK, one exception seems to be the men that have admitted to either currently watching a soap or watching one in their past. They discovered soaps when they were in college, in the middle of the day when they didn’t have class and there was nothing else on TV.

But for most women, soaps are passed down from their mothers and their grandmothers. I know for me, ABC soaps played a big part in my childhood. I grew up in the late 70′s and 80′s when most of the households had one television and mothers stayed at home. Whatever your mother, grandmother, or after-school provider was watching when you walked in was what you were going to be watching, too. Don’t even think about asking to turn the channel until Mama’s “stories” were done.

In our house it was Edge of Night, Ryan’s Hope, Loving, All My Children, One Life to Live and General Hospital. This was back before DVRs, and hell, even VCRs so when there was a 30-minute overlap with AMC and The Young & The Restless, I remember my Grandma used to flip back and forth during commercials. I also did my own channel flipping from 2pm-3pm to watch OLTL and Another World. (I loved me some Cass!)

Then we lost Edge of Night, Ryan’s Hope, and Loving became The City, which later became Port Charles, and then that was gone, too. All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital have always been there and the thought of either of those three going away makes me deeply sad. Over the years, I’ve read about other soaps on other networks being cancelled, and I’ve felt for those fans (NBC has ONE soap left), but I never imagined it would happen to one of mine.

So, what happened? I suspect that people like Sophie and me are to blame – people that don’t watch (even though we TiVo every day) unless there’s something major going on like a beloved character dying or being brought back from the dead. If people were still watching like they used to, surely soaps wouldn’t be cancelled – seemingly – left and right. Or is that the people are still watching, but it’s no longer enough to justify the costs of keeping these shows on the air?

And for those of us no longer watching, why not? I used to think it was that I simply outgrew them, but there are women a lot older than me still watching – and loving – soap operas. But I think it’s that and then some. I know I started to feel like it had become too formulaic and predictable. Characters rarely learned lessons. How many times can it be considered entertaining to watch the same vixen sleep around and manipulate her away into a crisis, yet never evolve? I’m looking at you, Blair Kramer! Then there was the almost cavalier way pregnancies were conceived (literally) and then terminated by awful means to jerk tears and boost ratings. I’m looking at you, General Hospital! I mean, really. BJ and Maxie all over again in 2011?

You can almost forgive them of their staple cliches because they kinda made them the iconic shows that they are:

• If you’ve done something awful that would ruin your life should anyone find out, why would you talk about it… out loud… to yourself?
• Why does everyone insist on referring to each other by their first and last names? “You’re a son of a bitch, Adam Chandler!”
• And the looong storylines? Come on!

With so many other things competing to be our escape (Twitter, Facebook, TiVo’d prime time shows, instant streaming and video games), do we really have time to give to an industry that just doesn’t seem to be changing? Or are they not changing enough, fast enough? I cannot remember the last time a soap opera surprised me with a storyline I simply didn’t see coming.

And what is it about soaps that make them so dispensable? What other family of television programming has been decimated like this? Talk shows? Still around, though we’ll see what happens after Lady O. leaves the stage. Game shows? Still kicking. They didn’t even consider axing The Price is Right after Barker’s retirement. Prime time dramas? Not going anywhere. Sitcoms? Check. Hell, we’ve even made room for a new genre: reality shows.

Even though I don’t watch anymore – at least not as regularly as I used to – I hope All My Children (and the other ABC soaps) stick around for people like my mother and grandmother who still watch every day. They still call me and ask, “Girl, did you see what Clint did to Jessica and Natalie?” And even though I find their summary enough to keep me updated on what’s going on in Pine Valley, Llanview, and Port Charles, it would still break my heart to see those shows go.

I guess, like Sophie, I just like knowing they’re there.

Angry Black Woman – Part Two

My friend, Ben, linked my Angry Black Woman blog on his Facebook wall the other day. The first comment came from a gentleman (I use this term loosely) we shall call “Dean”:

I hate to say it, but when you stick a bumper sticker on your car and forcing your opinions down everyone’s throat then you’re challenging them to respond, and opinions are like arseholes: everyone has one, which means that arseholes are going to give you their opinions.

I hate to say it, but your friend threw down the gauntlet when she slapped on that sticker.

Wow. Just wow.

Yes, my bumper sticker is forcing my opinions down his throat. Because, you know, when you’re out and about it’s impossible to concentrate on anything else but the bumper stickers around you. Furthermore, he would have never normally use the word nigger; it’s my fault for having a political opinion and the gall to display it in the wonderful, red, Republican state of Georgia.

I guess I now have the right to attack people with Pro-Life stickers as “baby killers” and people with Eagles NFL stickers as “animal cruelty advocates,” and people with New England Patriots stickers as “douchebag supporters.”

I threw down the gauntlet, apparently, and said, “Please, everyone that doesn’t agree with me politically, I dare you to use hateful, disgusting, vile, racist names in front of my children.”

This guy is clearly a fucking asshole and I seriously doubt that he “hated to say it,” as he twice claimed.

Ben, God bless him, tried (at first) to get dickhead to explain himself and maybe (just maybe) redeem himself, but decided that was a waste of time and deleted the guy instead. Ben (who is white and married to a black woman) did what I would expect from any of my white family and friends when in the presence of such racial ignorance – he shut it down.

Since posting the last blog, I’ve decided I will no longer give a pass or shake my head politely when a white family or friend practices passive racism – not saying anything when surrounded my racist remarks spewed by their family and friends. So, please, I warn you: it’s no longer a good idea to tell me such things unless you want me to lose my shit. Unwillingness to stand up to it may be more dangerous than spewing it. I’m not naive enough to think that this will eradicate racism or racist remarks, but I think the fucktards should stop and think, “I wonder why every time I’m around my own and I use the word nigger, someone hands me my ass.”

I don’t think this is too much to ask of family and friends who are the right side of this. I really don’t. I’m not gay, but I have gay friends – one very dear to me. I don’t tolerate “fag” talk on my blog, Facebook page, and definitely not in my home. I will no longer entertain the, “Well, black/gay people get to say it,” debate either. I will tell you what I tell my 11-year-old daughter when she says, “Diana gets to do it!”

“Stop worrying about what everybody else does, and worry about what you do.”

Decide what you stand for, what you believe is right, and stick with it.

I’d like to think that Ben’s ex-friend’s comment was just poorly worded and that maybe it’s not really what he meant to say, but then I read this comment by a mutual friend of theirs in regard to the statement:

I actually went to de-friend Dean for this one, only to find he’d de-friended me first! Wonder when that happened… Probably about the time I pointed out his kid likely doesn’t gets in physical fights with teachers and bites other students DESPITE Dean beating the living shit out of him (for such infractions as ‘having a disrespectful tone’ on a phone call) as BECAUSE he does.

Regardless, Dean’s been given too much leeway over the years by folks due to his playing up to his comedy buffoon image. At the end of the day, this is still the same guy who claimed in the midst of Katrina to have friends in the New Orleans PD, that the deaths weren’t down to the floods and FEMA’s slow response but to black people turning on each other ‘like animals’ (his solution being,if I recall correctly, to fill the stadium with concrete with everyone inside). Naturally ye olde liberal media supressed this.

Dean’s a dick, is what I’m saying.

Anyway, I completely agree with your friend’s anger, Ben. The use of the ‘n’ word is just totally unacceptable. Racism SHOULD make people angry.

(and even leaving aside the distressing racism angle – a bumper sticker isn’t an open invitation for comment, any more than wearing an NFL jersey is a licence for strangers to come up to you in the car park and tell you your choice of team sucks. It’s just RUDE.)

He nailed it on the head. Dean’s a dick.

Angry Black Woman

For a long time I was careful not to fall into that stereotype of  the angry black woman – mad at her kids, mad at the world, mat at her man, mad at the white man more than anything else. Just mad, mad, mad.

This morning I realized that I am. Sometimes. And I’m okay with that. Because sometimes I have every right to be mad. But what makes me really upset is thinking about the times when I’ve curbed my anger because I didn’t want to come off as the angry black woman – the number of times I hesitated saying something out loud or on Facebook because I don’t want to make my white friends and family members “uncomfortable.”

This morning I went to the Walmart. Not just any Walmart, but the Walmart, the scene of the incident. The Walmart where a redneck, douchebag, asshole looked at the Obama ’08 bumper sticker on my car and said, “Nice nigger sticker you got there,” not caring that my child was standing right next to me.

Ever since then (12/31/08), I’ve always felt a sense of dread and disgust when going back there. And not just that store, but the whole area. I started wondering how many other white people were walking around with the word nigger on their tongues just waiting for a moment, a lost election, the loss of a parking spot, anything, to let it fly.

And I’m supposed to be the bigger person. I’m supposed to “let it go” and just brush it off as a rare, isolated, event. I thought that I had, for the most part, until this morning when I decided to go back there because it was the closest place selling a video game Donny and I both wanted. I couldn’t even park near the spot from that night because it made my stomach knot just looking in that direction. I put Jack in a shopping cart and headed for the store. One of the wheels made a clacking sound in a kind of one-two rhythm. And as I pushed it all I heard was:

clack-clack-nigger sticker-clack-clack-nigger sticker-clack-clack

I just wanted to be done and out of there. See, that man had tainted the whole area. He felt safe enough to spew his hate there. Was there a reason for that? Did he know something that I didn’t?

Driving home I thought about the book I’m reading, The Help, and why (at times) it bothers me so much. It’s set in 1960′s Mississippi and follows two black maids working for white families. At first, the dialect was a little hard to swallow. Friends told me, “Well, you know that women back then spoke that way.” No shit. I have a grandmother in her 80′s, born in the south, who cleaned a lot of white houses and helped raise white babies. I know that some black people spoke that way and still do. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. And I’m allowed to have an emotional reaction to it.

But it wasn’t until today that it hit me what’s really bothering me. The attitudes depicted in that book aren’t gone. They’re just more subtle… most times. In the past two years, do you know how many white friends have admitted to me that they have parents/siblings/in-laws/aunts/uncles, etc., that use the word nigger? More than I’d have imagined. And my response is always the same, “What do you do?” And the shuffle begins where they back step, side step, and pretty much just step in it. But I get it. These are their people. They have to share meals and holidays with these people. They may have to borrow money or ask these people to watch their kids. They’re not trying to rock the boat.

I get it. Doesn’t mean I like it because I understand it, though. It makes me feel like, “What does that say about how you feel about me? What does that say about how you feel about yourself?” I judge and I get angry. I picture them standing there with polite smiles, fitting in, standing by, while the word nigger floats around the room. Sometimes I think those people are worse. I assume that racists are idiots, so what does that say about the people that sit in the midst of the racism and sip from their cups, and pass the plate of string beans, and turn up the music, like it didn’t even happen?

I hate that people keep telling me, “Well, that was x number of years ago.” It wasn’t that fucking long ago! My Grandmother is 83. That means she was well into her life as an adult and couldn’t use the same bathroom as white people. That means she lived a long time with white folk not acting right. It would be nice to say that the true old school racists will die out soon, but Mr. Nigger Sticker was about my age. I remember glancing at his fat ass wife and later thinking how could she even tolerate that. But she probably feels the same exact way and for all I know they’re raising little mini-racists right now.

So, what the hell am I supposed to do with all that? I think I can be a little fucking angry, for one. It kills me when people want to compare struggles. Like, a white woman might say, “I know discrimination, I’m a woman!” Uh, I’m a black woman, doubly-fucked, what else you got? “I’m fat! People discriminate against me all the time.” Then lose some fucking weight! The last time I checked, this blackness ain’t washing off. You can’t even count ugly people because ugly is subjective. One man’s ugly is another man’s juuuust fine.

I think the only people that can come close to relating are mentally-handicapped people. To have something “wrong” with you, something that sets you apart, something you can’t hide when you go out in public, and then question the sincerity and motivations of everyone that deals with you while you’re out. That’s what it’s like to be black in America.

Make no mistake: being anything in America is infinitely better than being anything anywhere else. But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. And sometimes, it’s harder. This wonderful free country where I gotta worry about a white person spitting in my food, or mistreating my child when they find out her mother is black, or being called a nigger just because.

And give me that, white people. Stop trying to sugar coat that shit. Stop telling me, “Well, you know, that was a long time ago,” or, “You have to let that go,” or, “Don’t think that way.” It’s kinda hard not to think that way when you’re getting nigger sticker thrown in your face. I don’t have the luxury of not wondering or worrying. Do you know how many interviews I’ve shown up to and seen the look of surprise on people’s faces when they see I’m black? And then I have to sit there the whole time wondering if it’s a bad thing.

So, yeah. Must be nice to not have those worries on top of all the other worries we all have like, paying bills, affording health care, making time for work, family, friends and ourselves, etc. So, cut me some damn slack.

A few weeks ago I brought up the Nigger Sticker incident while talking with some friends on Facebook and a white friend emailed me a day or so later and said that every time I talk about it, it makes her uncomfortable. And that I can’t continue to let it bother me because the racist wins.

First of all, I felt like this was her polite, white, way of saying, “Get over it.” Secondly, he already won by spewing his filth and not catching an ass whupping for his troubles. Finally, if it makes her (or you, for that matter) uncomfortable to hear about it, then take that discomfort, mix in some humiliation, a dash of fucked up history, a pinch of having relatives that remember what it’s like to fear talking to a white person wrong because they might get strung up, toss in side-eyes when you’re out with your white husband and mixed children and chew on that for a while. Then multiply it by one thousand and imagine how I feel.

Then politely wash it down with a frothy mug of shut the fuck up.

You’re Annoying # 1

I hate when people without kids question my decision not to answer the phone while Jack is taking a nap. I don’t question why they don’t answer the phone when they’re taking  a shit, in the shower, having sex, watching a movie, etc. So, back the hell off.

These people can’t handle the truth.

“Why didn’t you answer the phone earlier?”

“Jack was napping.”

“So.”

They can’t handle lies either.

“I didn’t hear it.”

“How could you not hear your phone? Where was it?”

Seriously?

That hour and a half that he naps is my time to do something besides talk to you. Like, my fucking job, for instance. There’s nothing you have to say at 1pm on a Tuesday that is so damn important that it can’t wait till 2:30pm. Because, I would like to point out, not one of those missed calls was to inform me that someone had died. At least not someone I cared about.

I don’t need you giving me alternatives either.

“Why do you have the ringer on if he’s sleeping?”

“Because, nosy ass, the ringer is on low and that won’t wake him up. But me blabbering with you might. Also, I have another small human out there in the world that I’m responsible for and if her school calls to say she just threw up in gym, I might want to get that call. That is worth the risk of waking my child, but talking to you is not. And why not just tell me what the hell you wanted now, instead of wasting three minutes of my time questioning me about earlier?”

People without kids always feel the need to mention the sacrifices parents make when they have kids as if we suddenly become walking shells of our former selves with no social or sex life to speak of. We are perpetually broke and miserable. Um. No, we’re not. Some of us are happy and extra happy when we’re together. This is why I also don’t answer the phone after 9pm. That’s family time and I don’t want to squander it talking to you. Sorry, I just don’t.

I would never, ever, ever, have the audacity to question why someone chooses not to answer their phone. But you can chalk that up as another thing non-parents feel completely comfortable judging parents on, in an incredulous voice, as if ensuring that our children get uninterrupted sleep is wrong. Screw you.

The best revenge will be to wait until they are parents and do it to them. Oh, your kid is sleeping? Sorry, I’ll talk to you later. Then I’ll make note in my planner and make that shit recurring.

12pm – Asshole’s Kid Naps (Mon-Fri)

Then I will call consistently to interrupt whatever it is you save for when your kid naps – your shower time, get housework done time, sex time, fart in peace without hearing a toddler say, “Ew, Mommy you tooted!” time, lunch time, work time, etc.

And when you try to be nice and tell me that your kid is sleeping in that deep whisper you hope conveys what a pain in the ass the call is, I will say insensitive, audacious, rude, things like:

“Well, why don’t you move him to another room?” or

“Still? He still sleeping? Damn, how long is he gonna sleep?”

When you finally stop answering because you’re sick of my rude ass mouth, when I finally DO catch you on the phone, I will say things like,

“You need to train him to sleep through noise.” or

“I’m sick of him always sleeping when I call.”

Um, he was sleeping BEFORE you called, fucker.

12 of 2011 – Part Two

I’ve pledged to read 12 books in 2011. I’ll read more, but I’m definitely going to read this 12 (one a month) this year. The first part of the list can be found here.

7. Ninteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult -

Best known for tackling controversial issues through richly told fictional accounts, Jodi Picoult’s 14th novel, Nineteen Minutes, deals with the truth and consequences of a smalltown high-school shooting. Set in Sterling, New Hampshire, Picoult offers reads a glimpse of what would cause a 17-year-old to wake up one day, load his backpack with four guns, and kill nine students and one teacher in the span of nineteen minutes. As with any Picoult novel, the answers are never black and white, and it is her exceptional ability to blur the lines between right and wrong that make this author such a captivating storyteller.

On Peter Houghton’s first day of kindergarten, he watched helplessly as an older boy ripped his lunch box out of his hands and threw it out the window. From that day on, his life was a series of humiliations, from having his pants pulled down in the cafeteria, to being called a freak at every turn. But can endless bullying justify murder? As Picoult attempts to answer this question, she shows us all sides of the equation, from the ruthless jock who loses his ability to speak after being shot in the head, to the mother who both blames and pities herself for producing what most would call a monster. Surrounding Peter’s story is that of Josie Cormier, a former friend whose acceptance into the popular crowd hangs on a string that makes it impossible for her to reconcile her beliefs with her actions.

At times, Nineteen Minutes can seem tediously stereotypical– jocks versus nerds, parent versus child, teacher versus student. Part of Picoult’s gift is showing us the subtleties of these common dynamics, and the startling effects they often have on the moral landscape.

Sophie has been trying to get me to read a Picoult book for awhile now. This one’s plot was the first to really interest me. If it makes me cry, I’m punching Sophie and Jodi in the face.

8. The Sookie Stackhouse books – My friend, Marge, very generously sent me the boxset of the first 8 or so Sookie Stackhouse books for my birthday last August. Since I’m a fan of the ridiculous show, True Blood, the books are based on, I’m really looking forward to diving in. Marge assures me that the book Sookie is not nearly as annoying as Anna Paquin’s portrayal.

9. The Confession by John Grisham –

In 2007, almost on the eve of the execution of Donté Drumm, an African-American college football star, for the 1998 murder of a white cheerleader whose body was never found, Travis Boyette, a creepy multiple sex offender, confesses that he’s guilty of the crime to Kansas minister Keith Schroeder. With Drumm’s legal options dwindling fast and with the threat of civil unrest in his Texas hometown if the execution proceeds, Schroeder battles to convince Boyette to go public with the truth–and to persuade the condemned man’s attorney that Boyette’s story needs to be taken seriously.

This, and my next selection, can be considered my super-fluff reads. They’re not particularly challenging, often predictable, very quick reads, but they’re fun.

10. Cross Fire by James Patterson – Just as Alex Cross is about to get married, a serial sniper fucks things up. See? Simple and fun.

11. The Dice Man by Luke Rinehart

I tried to find an adequate description of this very… different… story online and couldn’t. I first heard of this book in a blog post by my friend Zoe Brock a few years ago. It wasn’t available for purchase then, nor could I find it in the library. Another friend, Emily, recently reviewed it for her website and I was happy to see it’s available at Amazon.com. Here’s a bit of Emily’s review:

Dr. Lucius Rhinehart is bored. Bored with himself, his family, his psychological practice, with society and its ridiculous rules and constraints; BORED. His wife irritates him, his children are tedious, his patients never get any better. He’s stagnating in every sense of the term and is contemplating suicide. Coming to the conclusion that suicide isn’t an option, he decides that he is going to spice up his life by leaving some of his decisions to chance – that is, he assigns a certain number to each of several choices, rolls the dice, and does whatever the dice choose. No rolling again, no taking it back. Sounds like harmless fun, right? Unfortunately, Dr. Rhinehart’s black sense of humor gets the best of him and his first “decision” one evening is whether or not to go to bed with his wife, stay up reading, or go down the hall and rape Arlene, his attractive neighbor and wife of a colleague. Perhaps not surprisingly, the dice choose Arlene, and Luke dutifully trundles down the hall.

12. The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson –

An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of time.

The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide—for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul.

A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him back to health. As she spins their tale in Scheherazade fashion and relates equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he finds himself drawn back to life—and, finally, in love. He is released into Marianne’s care and takes up residence in her huge stone house. But all is not well. For one thing, the pull of his past sins becomes ever more powerful as the morphine he is prescribed becomes ever more addictive. For another, Marianne receives word from God that she has only twenty-seven sculptures left to complete—and her time on earth will be finished.

This was tossed about as a possible selection for my book club, but something else was chosen. The description intrigued me and I promised myself that I’d eventually get around to it.

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