Where I’ve Been

1. Doing a solid for a friend… for which I’m being paid.

2. Entering flash fiction contests. My story, “At Last,” is on page 2. Join the forum and rank the stories you like. There’s some good stuff like….

“The Vigil of Clouds” on page 8.

“Frangible Choices” on page 7.

“Have Your Cake” on page 1.

You have to register before you can rank the stories, but it’s fast and easy. The forum is Flash Fiction 40 Contest.

3. Working on two other short stories. They’re creepy and twisted. I’ve discovered that I like writing about the creepy and twisted. What does that make me?

4. Getting caught up on Southland, Supernatural, Weeds, and Criminal Minds.

Blogging will commence tomorrow with a Top Ten. My Top Ten Memorable Encounters.

What about you? What have you been up to?

Hairy Nipples and Other Short Stories Called Blogs

I recently discovered a blogger who gets a shit ton of traffic writing about the same exact stuff as me. It’s like reading about my life, but with white people. Well, more white people.

This morning I read her latest blog; a conversation between her and her husband in which he scolds her for scraping a pole… with their car. He talks about how she always nags him about driving too slow, like I do to Donny.

“Donny! Oh my God! It’s like us, but we’re funnier. And only I would never, ever, ever, crash the car.”

“Only, you did crash the car.”

Pause.

“Oh. Right. Never mind.”

No, I’m not linking her site. That bitch has enough readers.

Hairy Nipples

I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’m a hairy freak. It is not unusual for me to find one growing out of my chin or neck, pull it out as far as it will go, and exclaim, “Donny, look at this, sucker!” Then I’ll let it go so it can snap back into a neat little coil… like a Slinky! Donny will stare in a mixture of revulsion and amazement.

Every now and again, I will find random hairs growing around my areolas. He keeps saying, “Pluck them.” I don’t think plucking that area is appropriate. I reserve the hurt-so-good feeling of plucking for my eyebrows, and then only after I’ve waxed them within an inch of their lives. I apply the tweezers to the unruly stubborn hairs with masochistic glee. But the boobs? They get shaved.

Today I was sitting on the bed after dying my hair and noticed a stray strand from my head had landed beside my right boob on my nightgown. It was really long. Donny was sitting to my left, and because I had nothing better to do and I’m a touch retarded, I decided to play a joke on him. I tugged at the hair to make it look as if it were coming from the bottom of boob and said, “Oh my God, Donny! Look!”

He took one look and started dry-heaving. I couldn’t stand it.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. See?!” And I pulled the hair loose.

“I’m not that bad,” I said lifting my right boob slightly to discover that I wasn’t… yet. There was a pretty long one kind curled up like a cat on a rug in front of a fireplace. It looked just as content and I might have heard it purr.

“Well, damn.”

“Poor Jack,” Donny lamented, “It probably tickles his tongue when he’s eating.”

“Like that time Peter nursed Stewie!”

And we both dissolved into giggles. And then I shaved.

Dominicans Do Some Hair

There are a lot of Dominican hair salons popping up around here. This hasn’t surprised me because I’m from Brooklyn, NY and I know Dominicans can do some damn hair. They may wear too many pastels and have an aversion to socks, but they can do some damn hair.

Note: Being black and Panamanian, I can totally make fun of other blacks, Panamanians, and Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans.

Donny, forgetting himself, will occasionally try to do so until I remind him that he can’t. The other day Kali stuck her fingers under his nose.

“Daddy, look at my nails!”

She had painted each nail a different color.

“What are you? Puerto Rican?”

“Hey! You can’t say that!”

“You joke about Puerto Ricans mixing colors all the time!”

“Yes, but I can. I’m Panamanian and my step-mother is Puerto Rican. I lost my virginity to a Puerto Rican for God’s sake. In Brooklyn, Puerto Ricans are lighter blacks with funny accents. I do it with love. You are white. You can’t make fun anyone.”

Earlier today, we were all piling into the car after shopping at Old Navy when Donny pointed to a salon across the street. It was the grand opening of a Dominican hair salon.

“Dominicans can do some hair,” he said.

My head whipped in his direction, my mouth agape.

“How you know?”

“Because. You always see Dominican Hair Salon. It’s never, like, Rita’s Hair Salon or Sally’s Hair Salon. Just Dominican. Like, being Dominican is all y’all need to know.”

He had a point. If you saw, “Roscoe’s Fried Chicken,” it would stand to reason that Roscoe could fry some damn chicken. Or that Kim Phan could lay some acrylic nails. Or that Shaneequa knew about braids. You might want to stay away from Kimber’s House O’Weaves, though. Girls named Kimber don’t know shit about weaves. Just sayin’.

TCTBTF: Week 6 and some other stuff!

I have found the best.diet.ever.

The flu!

Jack and I have spent the whole week fighting a cold and as a result, I’m down another 3lbs! This is awesome. Well, not really.

It’s been slow going, but I haven’t given up hope. And as usual, imagine how much weight I’d lose if I actually put my ass in motion.

The cauliflower mashed “taters” were a no-go because it gives the baby gas. So, boo on that. Also, I think I’ve given up on peanut butter.

So, let’s move on to other stuff since I’m sick and it’s my blog and I can talk about what I want.

I’m addicted to Twitter. Really, I am. I tweet all day with people I just met. Twit this, twat that… Wait. If you’re on there, follow me and I’ll follow you. I’ll occasionally post things there that you won’t find here. I’m Neenerspb.

Also, starting today, my Friday entertainment blog will be a Survivor recap and on Mondays there will be two entertainment blogs; The L Word recap and The Amazing Race recap. The L Word will end before TAR so eventually it will even out again. I’ll update the BIOB Posting Schedule.

So, what do you want to talk about?

P.S. I’m so excited about tonight’s BSG I can barely frakking stand it!

Why I Write

When people marvel at, what they perceive to be, my ability to wear many hats I wonder if I’ve somehow inadvertently inflated my responsibilities. I’m great at multi-tasking and it never occurs to me that I’m getting more done than the average stay-at-home-Mom. Then Jack came along. And now I have to ask that you allow me to toot the hell out of my own horn.

Best case scenario? Jack sleeps from midnight to 8am. I’m allowed to get Kali off to school in peace and grab a quick breakfast. When he wakes up, it’s only to nurse briefly and go back to sleep until 10am or so and I usually take that opportunity to nap as well. What follows is a day of cat naps for him, every 2 hours or so.

Worst case? He goes to bed at midnight and wakes every two hours to nurse, play, fidget, and watch T.V. I get little to no sleep, Kali barely makes it to school, and all the thoughts in my head meant to come to life in my novel, my blogs, and my short story stay jumbled up.

When the latter happens I am like a bag filled with bees. The bees are words and they are confined and angry. They want to get out and I want to let them out. Every moment that I don’t, they sting and cuss and I worry that I’ll forget my plan for those bees. That I’ll finally have the time to let them out, they’ll stare at me like, “Now what?,” and because they were pent up for so long I’ll have forgotten the what – and the who and why – and I’ll let them fly away.

The fact that I can even write this eases my burden for it came to me last night (well, this morning) at 1am, as I lay down after hours of waiting for Jack to sleep, that I have to write as most people need to sell or teach. I’d even go so far as to say I need to write like everyone needs to breathe.

As I started to drift, I framed the blog that I was going to write for today (now set for tomorrow), this blog, the short story I’ve been working on, and the 31^st chapter of my novel… all in my head. More than once I thought that I should be writing and not sleeping, and almost got up to do so. Then I remembered my motherly responsibilities and knew they were best met with a rested, albeit cluttered, mind.

Next week it will only get worse. I am taking a biology class with a lab, my final Spanish course, and two Journalism courses. Add some academic bees (with glasses and backpacks if you wish) to this bag. They are going to be fighting with bees named Chloe and Patrick who just want to have their happy ending, damnit! And a bee named Chris who may or may not be flying across the country to certain death… or maybe it’s a bit closer to home. A bee named Tara whose inability to be on time seals Chris’ fate. And the four bees who were girlfriends in college and covered up a crime. Those bees will fight bees who are detectives tracking a serial killer and bees whose sole job is to frame all of that into query letters.

Having to do all of this doesn’t drive me insane. The thought of never getting it done does.

I write because it is all I’ve ever wanted to do… even when I tried to do other things. I write because my inflated ego assumes that people actually care about my thoughts, opinions, reviews, and observations. I write because I love the characters in my head and I want them to have their happy endings… and deaths. I write because to not put fingers to keys and get it out would have me jumpy and scratching at those bees like a crackhead. I write because I’m tired of observing and not participating. I write because I’m good at it.

So, why do you do whatever it is you do?

Welcome!

Most likely everyone reading this was a subscriber to Blog It Out, Bitch over on Myspace. Let me start by saying how much I appreciate you taking the time to check me out in my new home. Hopefully, you’ll stay awhile. And by stay awhile I mean you’ll come everyday to read my blogs. Several times a day in fact.

If you’ve followed the directions left on Myspace you’ve already read the About section of this site and possibly checked out the Who’s Who directory. Now, I want to tell you what you can expect here at Blog It Out, Bitch.

On the main page you’ll notice the Features box with the rotating images. That box will always feature the five most recent blogs on this site. Clicking on an image will take you to the corresponding blog.

Each day you can expect two new blogs. One will be a television review (The L Word on Mondays, 24 on Tuesdays, Lost on Thursdays, etc.) and the other a regular old slice of life Nina blog you’ve come to expect from reading me all those years on Myspace. Those blogs may fall under any of the categories listed on the About page (Blog It Out, Bitch, BIOBaby, Mommy Mondays, Fiction, etc.) The only time you can expect three blogs in one day is if for some reason two of the shows I review are aired on the same night, then you’d get two reviews and one regular blog.

As you get acquainted with my new digs I need two favors. One, go back to the main page and register your email address to receive a daily digest informing you of new content on BIOB. Two, spend some time over the next few weeks checking out the nifty archives. There you will find some of your old favorite blogs and maybe some new gems you missed along the way. Leave comments, let me know you’re here. If you see errors in blogs, please feel free to point it out either in a comment or by emailing me at nina@blogitoutb.com. Any blog you see here will soon be gone from Myspace forever.

For those of you following Sharing Space, the first two chapters have been posted under the fiction section. I’ll be rolling out the remaining chapters slowly to give new readers a chance to catch up. It might also be good for you original readers to use that time to refresh your memory.

Starting on January 1st there’ll be a new blog feature under Health titled, “Too Cute To Be This Fat.” Follow my journey to lose baby weight. That’s bound to be good for a few laughs.

And please have a little patience. I think I did a pretty good job of transferring over the lion’s share of my good blogs from Myspace, but I’m sure I missed a few. As I come across them, I’ll be adding them here with their original post dates. They will never appear in the features section and hopefully, they won’t appear in your daily digest, but they might.

Did I say two favors? I meant three. Finally, I need for you to tell a friend, co-worker, or family member (or five) about this site, and then tell them to tell someone… or five. I could use the company.

Thanks for reading,

N.

(Please note: The e-mail form is working correctly now.)

Who’s Who

Some of the many people you’ll encounter at Blog It Out, Bitch:

Donny – My long suffering husband. He works hard so I don’t have to. I suspect he only puts up with me because I make him laugh and I’m pretty good in bed. Everyone is waiting for the day when he’ll go “white boy crazy” and kill me in my sleep. Including me.

Kali – Our nine-year-old daughter. She’s smart, funny, and incredibly kind. She’s also drop dead gorgeous. She’s a Disney Channel star waiting to happen, but less annoying and without the whole drugged-up, washed-out, has-been future ahead of her.

Jack – Our newborn baby boy. He’s too young to know what a crazy household he was born into. Born in August of 2008 he’s already displaying a sweet disposition (from Donny) and sense of humor (from me.) He’s also beautiful. Like his Mama.

Sophie/Moon – My best friend since I was 12 and in junior high. We bonded over Guns n’ Roses and To Kill a Mockingbird. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two small children. She knows where the bodies are buried.

Richard/Tralfaz – Richard and I met on Myspace over two years ago (profile name: Tralfaz.) He’s one of few people that can put up with me, but I suspect he only does so because I’m one of the rare people alive that watches about as much television as he does. Richard is a magazine editor that resides in New Jersey.

Mike/Armand Assante’s Left Ventricle and Bette/Wonder Bitch – I met Mike and Bette on Myspace a few years ago. For a short time we had an internet radio show which was pretty much us making each other laugh for an hour. Mike and Bette are dating and live in Orlando, Florida.

Tara/Boozy Irish Floozie – Tara, another Myspace friend, lives in New Jersey as well. Tara is like me, but white. I suspect she doesn’t drink nearly as much as she lets on.

Other oft mentioned folk include my father and stepmother who are both retired NYC police detectives now living in Atlanta, my mother in North Carolina (also ex-NYPD), and various siblings so large in number that even I sometimes can’t name them all.

Taking Inventory

My smart, sexy, oh so funny, sister inspired me to do something I should have done a long time ago.  No, not have a baby. Although, I did think that her relocation to Atlanta with my scrumptious nephew was a sign that I should have my eggs checked for dust, but I instead realized that she was sent home to inspire something else: my artistic drive.

She lent me a book which was very funny. I read it in one day.  As I read it I realized, “I could do this! Why, this is nothing more than a book o’ blogs. I got blogs. I got blogs coming out my ever widening ass.” (As of this blog, I have 10 till 1,000) Then my sister told me that as she read it, and the prequel before it, she thought the same thing.

So, why hadn’t I done it? Laziness and fear. But mostly laziness. Ok, the majority of it was laziness. Like 99.8 percent pure laze.

I wasn’t going to make New Year resolutions because I think they’re lame.

And I never keep them. But that’s not the point…

The point is that today, after spending most of the day alone with my thoughts, I realized that maybe I should this year. And this year will be different because they will be realistic. Unlike previous years where I was downright resolute in my quest to marry Jason Behr, travel the country by motorcycle, and finally beat Final Fantasy V. (Don’t judge me!)

I’m going to start simple:

- Continue going to school (which was my resolution last year, to go to school, and three semesters in I think it’s fair to say I’m kicking school’s academic arse) and do well

- Remember to place the house phones on the charger so that when I want to use them they’re juiced up. (Like tonight when I went to call Richard, Mike, Bette, and Emily only to realize both phones were dead)

- Send birthday cards to all my family and friends (so that they arrive in time for their birthdays)

- Go back to reading for pleasure (which I didn’t do much of last year due to school. Hopefully, the book club will help me do this)

- Write, write, write

- Encourage my friends

So, that is all. Starting tomorrow I will be taking serious inventory of my blogs, and begin working on new ones, all because my little sister believes that one day people will pay to read my ramblings.

Happy New Year, bitches!  I wish nothing but great things for you and yours. I know I’m going to grab a bunch for me and mine. (insert big fat smooches right…about…here.)

Bad, Bad Nina

So a few days ago I’m on the phone with my mother-in-law and she mentions having her own Myspace page and that she has seen mine.  I was a little taken aback.  Not that she had a page.  Nothing wrong with that.  And not that she had even seen mine.  Nothing wrong with my page, right?  Right?

But my first thought was about my blog.  I love bloggin’.  Mostly because I love hearing myself speak…and watching myself type apparently.  But what I really love about it is the ability to share my experiences, thoughts and questions with people I know and people I don’t.  I truly believe that all people want to feel validated, loved, and heard.  And I guess there’s something about the possibility of being heard several times a day, everyday that really does it for me.

That said, I tend to be pretty honest in my blogs.  It’s not that I would be afraid that my mother-in-law would read something negative in my blog about her, there’s nothing to post, but that rather she’d maybe take offense to what I like to call my “potty mouth”.  Now everyone who knows me and knows me well, knows that I have a trash mouth, that I pepper my sentences with F-bombs like it aint no thang.

I talk like that to all my friends, my parents….well, not TO my parents.  I would wake up on the floor missing some teeth if I did but when relaying stories and such, I speak to them like I speak to everyone else.  My father and I were just talking about this the other day and I asked if it bothered him or my stepmother.  He said it didn’t.  I think it’s fair to point out at this point that my parents have been known to drop their own F, MF, A, and B-bombs.

But to my knowledge, I’ve never really let loose like that around my mother-in-law.  How would she react to my foul-mouthed blog?  How would she react to me calling her son “white boy crazy”?  Not sure I wanted to find out.  The more I thought about it, the more vexed I became.  As a writer, I have a big problem with censoring myself.

These blogs are supposed to my honest and true thoughts and observations.  What’s the use in doing it if I can’t be open, honest and free?  Should I change who I am and what I think because someone I know may read it and not like it?  Well, it’s funny that I should be asking myself those questions because today my father posed similiar ones to me.

I’m on the phone with him, telling him all about registration and feeling good and collegiate when the blog comes up and he goes, “Oh yeah, I was looking at your page and I think you made a critical error but we can talk about that later.”

Uh-oh.  I hate when my father says shit like that because 1. I hate criticism and 2. he’s usually right.  Turns out, while visiting my sister in Jersey this Christmas, he saw one of my older blogs.  (Note to self:  remind sister to activate a password protected screensaver)  He didn’t have a problem with what I wrote specifically.  His exact words were, “I thought it was very funny and well written.”

His concern was that the person it was about, though never mentioned by name, would easily recognize him/herself and be very offended and that if I cared about that person’s feelings and what it would be like to see that person again, I might consider removing that particular entry.  My first reaction was, “Fuck so-and-so and so-and so’s feelings and the horse that so-and-so rode in on”.  See, potty mouth.  But the more we talked about it, the more I realized that though I really didn’t give a shit what that person thought, (because nothing in my entry was a lie) for all my bravado I’m really a nice girl (sometimes) and it’s never nice to intentionally hurt someone’s feelings.

I’m not removing it.  At the end of the day, it’s my blog, my feelings, my stories to share, my truths.  My father was fine with that and he had done what he had intended to do which was make sure I was aware of the consequences of such honesty especially when it pertains to people I care about.  Like my mother-in-law.  The aforementioned person in the older blog entry however, I could give a rat’s ass about.  Sorry, Daddy but it’s true and you know why.

I’ve written a few screenplays, novels, short stories, etc. All fiction.  But I will tell you that for every three characters created from my imagination, there is one based on someone I know or a mixture of several people I know.  And inevitably, the few people close enough to me to read my rough drafts, will ask, “Is that supposed to be me?”  And I reply the same way.

“Gurl, that ain’t you.”  Even if it is.

All I can do is be me and write from my heart and not worry that every friend (there are a few that read this blog), ex-boyfriends (a few of those too) or relative that reads this might recognize themselves and take offense. All I can do is promise that I will never post anything personal and private that would embarrass someone I care about. The people who read this, that I care about, know who they are.  But I cannot promise that you will not someday read something that will make you blush, or something that may reveal a part of me you never knew.

It’s my weblog, my journal.  Read at your own risk.  Or better yet, I think my best friend came up with a better disclaimer that I just might start using:

Disclaimer: If you know me, I’m sure you’ve somehow pissed me off at some point in time. This is a blog about the shit that happens to ME. If you live in my world, prepare to read some shit about YOU that you might not like. Holla!

A Blogging It Out Bitch

Writing this blog everyday has become more than a habit. It’s downright addictive. I think that’s because it has proven to be a form of therapy for me. All the things that I can’t, or won’t, say in real life are poured out on the pages of this blog. I can blog it out, put it out there, and not have to worry about all my emotions overloading my system because I don’t have an outlet for them.

Oddly enough when I blog and when I don’t blog both leave me with the same feeling: as if I’m that man on the board game Operation. When I blog I feel all open and exposed as he is – my insides laid out for all to see and pick over. When I don’t blog I feel like the slightest touch, the smallest bump in the road of life, will cause me to react as if anything would set off an electrical charge throughout my body. Given that, I choose to go with the lesser of two evils. I’d rather put it all out there and be free, and scrutinized, than to walk around a ball of nerves.

When I started blogging in November of 2005, I had no idea that it would evolve to such a level. Back then the only people reading my blog were those related to me and family friends. This totaled about 8 people. Seemingly out of nowhere, people began to find my blog and leave comments. A dialogue, and an addiction, began.

Of all the hyphenates attached to me; mother-wife-student-blogger, blogger is the most surprising. I thought bloggers had to be incredibly tech-savvy people who wrote about things of great importance. As it turns out, a blogger can be anyone with internet access and the delusional notion that people are actually interested in anything they have to say – important or otherwise.

Lucky for me there are people out there, at least 2000 at last count, who consider my mostly normal, but sometimes crazy, life interesting. They log on everyday to read about my latest adventures in motherhood, matrimony, and college life in my 30′s. That kind of attention can also be addictive. Now, I am known as the blogger in my family. I’m the one that people feel the need to preface their conversations with the warning, “Don’t blog about this…” I find it hilarious.

One person who isn’t laughing, well, maybe on the inside he is… a little, is Donny. For some bizarre reason he takes exception with me writing about our sex life, his tendency to sometimes rock a very scumbag looking mustache, and our wacky conversations. I tell him to lighten up. How sad would life be if we couldn’t laugh at ourselves… and share it with others who are, more often than not, going through the same bullshit? Blogging has given me a connection with people all over the world I would never otherwise meet. I couldn’t stop now if I tried… sad, but true.

I knew my blogging addiction was spiraling out of control when one night the plan was to work out and then join Donny in bed. After exercising I decided to log on, really quickly I told myself, to see what comments had been posted on my latest blog. One thing turned into another and I found myself online for hours engaging in conversations with my readers as I sat ruminating in my own funky sweat. By the time I realized the time and tippy-toed upstairs Scooby-Doo style, Donny was already asleep. I quietly made my way to the master bath and turned on the shower. Why not just quietly slip into bed and go to sleep? Why run the risk of waking him up to call me out on my late night addiction?

Because you just don’t crawl into bed with your husband smelling like gang bang.

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