it's friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiday!!

i'm too lazy to compose anything meaningful today, so i thought i'd share one of my favorite poems. it's by mari evans. have a great weekend. hopefully i'll find something productive to do this weekend to prevent me from sitting around and blogging (i can't believe i just used that as a verb).

I am a Black Woman


I am a black woman
the music of my song
some sweet arpeggio of tears
is written in a minor key
and I
can be heard humming in the night
Can be heard
humming
in the night

I saw my mate leap screaming to the sea
and I/with these hands/cupped the lifebreath
from my issue in the canebrake
I lost Nat's swinging body in a rain of tears
and heard my son scream all the way from Anzio
for Peace he never knew....I
learned Da Nang and Pork Chop Hill
in anguish
Now my nostrils know the gas
and these trigger tire/d fingers
seek the softness in my warrior's beard

I am a black womantall as a cypress
strong
beyond all definition still
defying place
and time
and circumstance
assailed
impervious
indestructible
Lookon me and be
renewed

the booty thief!

i just found out that r. kelly and jay-z are going to actually have a best of both worlds tour. this is pretty much the best news i've had in months. i was disappointed when it didn't happen a few years ago with that album first came out...anyway, it's going to be hot and i'm trying to decide which two cities i should see it in. i'm thinking dc and nyc because i feel like there will be a lot of special guests at the new york show a la the black album concert at MSG. this totally makes up for there not being any good concerts this summer. the sad thing is i only have a small twang of guilt about supporting the pied piper of r&b. i mean, yes, i have seen the sex tape and that's definitely him and the girl is shockingly young-looking. okay, this is already sounding bad because how do i then justify the fact that i still want to go to the concert? the thing is that the only person who loses if i don't go is me. if i could actually make myself not WANT to go to the show, that would be ideal. but, if i don't see jay-z and he really does retire (what are the odds on that as of right now?) i will never forgive myself or r. kelly. boy, he and hov must be really good friends because jay is pretty much guaranteeing that guy sold out shows. i mean, i'm sure a lot of people want to step in the name of love, but not as many people as want to see young. ya heard!

so my friend joe is back from europe. also good news. hate to bundle him into a posting entitled "the booty thief" but it has to be done. i'm pretty sure he was like 1 or 2 more months away from never coming back to america. joe's like a taller, white, male, more religiously observant version of me. it's great. he's that friend that you have that never thinks what you say is mean because he's already thinking either the same thing or something even meaner. it's refreshing because usually i'm the meanest person in any group i'm in...or maybe it's most honest. hmmm...he's also that friend that you definitely don't call if you're interested in feeling sorry for yourself and having someone else tell you it's justified.

concierto

went to kanye/usher concert last night. it was decent despite the fact that i think kanye should have headlined. he's probably my favorite artist that's come out this year and his set was only like 50 minutes long. apparently christina milian was only on stage for 15 minutes (i hadn't arrived yet). i hope she's getting paid well, because that hardly seems worth it. anyway, the concert was mostly about 'twens who wanted to be usher's baby's mama screaming all around me. there were, thankfully, a few old time fans sitting in my section that remember him from when he was just a cute 12-year-old (okay, we were 12 too). anyway, it was very enjoyable. i think he was losing his voice because he did a lot of that "ya'll sing it for me" biship instead of just singing himself. i hate that. i feel bad for him thought because the tour schedule is pretty grueling and he does so much dancing and doesn't use taped concert vocals like most pop stars these days. i do respect that a lot. the person who was really HOTTTT was john legend (nee john stephens). he was in my friend's a cappella group in college and i met him a couple of times (i feel like arsenio hall always making a big deal out of being friends with eddie murphy). but anyway, the man can SING. wow. his album is coming out this winter. pick that ish up. you'll thank me. believe that.

so tired...

so tonight's the last day of *oasis*. nothing like an outdoor happy hour to track just how many thursdays this summer have included rain. it's been fun though. i don't know if i could be a fulltime club promoter because there are so many shady assholes in the business. i mean there's really no other description for them.

it strikes me that writing two blogs simultaneously might detract from the potentcy of this, the original. i am already starting to experience the effects of this phenomenon. i've just written something witty (if i do say so myself) in my other one and i find myself at a loss for things to put here. so, today i'll just tell you something i'm obsessed with: blue diamond smokehouse almonds. yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum.

oh also, this weekend my cousin is coming and bringing his new wife who, as of the last time i saw her, didn't speak any english and yet managed to be the most charming person i had met in years. amazing. i'm looking foward to it. i just hope that my crazy cat doesn't attack them. if i didn't know for sure that he hadn't been outside i would definitely think he had rabies. he's out of control and i don't know what to do about it....

back up off my retina!

i just read in my friend larry's blog about some program that people are apparently submitting to where you skip airport lines and avoid delays by agreeing to have a background check, iris scan, and fingerprints on file. if you ask me, the delays are a small price to pay for keeping the man outta my eyeballs. i mean, is that scary or what? maybe it's just me, but i'm not down with that.

speaking of scary, what's with all these horror films lately? that one "the village" looks particularly terrifying to me. it's like i have to see it even though i hate scary movies. i want to know what happens because on some level in my crazy brain i'm thinking if i know about this sort of thing then if it happens in real life i'll be able to protect myself from it. but then i'm scared for like 5 or 6 days afterward and i just add another strange phobia to my list. on my trip the only city where i had my own room was memphis and i woke up and i thought i saw an old slave woman with a bandana sleeping in the empty bed next to me. okay, that's crazy. i know. but i couldn't go to sleep until i had removed all the blankets and pillows from the bed. see! this is a perfect example of why i shouldn't be exposed to scary things.

i am thinking of writing something entitled "the haters' blog" where i just hate on people and things i don't like. but then i thought that though hilarious, it would make me sort of sad that i had the time on my hands to devote to that. make no mistake, i could make a fulltime occupation out of hating on people, but i am trying to cut down. i really am. i'm trying to at least stop vocalizing the hate. that way, eventually if i stop saying the stuff i'll stop thinking it as often.

right now i am listening to light rock. bonnie raitt. i wanna sing along so badly, but somehow people aren't down with that at work. i need a door on my office. okay, i'm starting to ramble out of control now so i'm going to stop writing. i wish i was more cohesive. i can't help the person i am though. gotta love me.

triumphant return

wow. that was one loooooooooooooong trip. i got back on saturday from our civil rights journey. it was pretty amazing. okay i'll admit it...it was amazingly transformational. first, it was the most rewarding work experience i have ever had. i also now feel like i have a bunch of new friends. unfortunately they are 17 and they think of me somewhere between an older sibling that gives good advice and a teacher. i prefer the older sibling role i think. it's weird to think of anyone looking up to me. i'm so misguided myself. i mean, i have a list of favorite mistakes to suggest they not make so i guess that's something. okay, there's no way to actually describle the experience so i'll just list some highlights below. aiiiiight?

• met elaine brown, former chairwoman of the black panther party
• met charles evers (medgar's brother) and discovered through him that indeed pimpin' ain't easy
• learned how to play texas hold 'em (well, sorta learned)
• met new personal hero: bryan stevenson
• managed to contain laughter during the craziest church service i have ever witnessed (got hit with a mack truck of blessings)

okay, that's just a few. it's hard to sum up 25 days in bullet points when so much of what makes the trip great is the experience of being on it. anyway, i am tired and going home soon so that's gonna have to be it. sorry this isn't particularly poignant or funny or anything. my brain is seriously fried from the mississippi heat or something.