Oh Dhani!

I have become obsessed with Dhani Jones, poet, athlete, entrepreneur, renaissance man extraordinaire:

http://www.dhani55.com/

Last week, I had three very sweet dreams starring him (and me, of course) that have rekindled a hot white flame within me. Thanks to Dhani, my cold, cold loins are thawing out and becoming tender again, lol. So, either I meet this man soon, or his doppelganger, or all hell is going to break lose...somewhere. Watch out ;).

Look at that smile, those eyes...! Bestill my heart, he's so handsome. And he's intelligent, too kids! Confident and strong (body&mind), and on the travel channel weekly, tackling the globe. If this isn't a reason to get cable, I don't know what is. There's an ep with him in Thailand and he's learning muay thai kickboxing...shirtless, muscKles flexing, lips parted...dios mio. I'm parched just thinking about it. My crush intensifies every time I see him.

This is all big shit I'm talking, of course. Were we ever to meet, I'm 60% certain I'd be too stuck on stupid to make him fall head over heels in love with me and whisk me off around the world with him. Knowing this makes me sigh...but I look forward to going to sleep every night these days, hoping he'll show up in my dreams again. Until tonight, mi amor! muah!

Mama Mia, part deux

*part 1: http://musefromabroad.blogspot.com/2009/03/mama-mia.html

This picture was taken the day that my parents met. That's my mom at 14 on the far right, my aunt Joyce is the tomboy in the middle, my uncle Bobby is second from the left in the beret, and the rest of them are neighborhood kids. When my dad passed away in 2003, I heard the story of how they met for the first time. I was visiting for his funeral, which was taking place the following day, and my aunt and uncle were driving me around the old neighborhood where my parents grew up. We had just come from visiting my Aint (aunt) Big Fat, my grandma's sister, who now lives in the retirement home that was once the old church where they went to Catholic school, when my aunt told me the story. She had been hanging out with my uncle and some of the neighborhood boys, one of them my dad, when they saw my mom walking down the street. "As soon as he saw your mama, he said who is THAT! then he told us he'd catch us later and he ran down the street to catch up with her," she told me.

That was 8th grade. They got married when they were 23/22 (they share a birthday, exactly 1 year apart), and I was born when they were 26/25. My brother was born 5 years prior to that to a different mother but it took my father 25 years to admit to it. Anyway, it didn't take my mom but 2 months after my birth to decide she'd had enough of him and the midwest and wanted a new life for us.

When we arrived in California, Chicken and Cookie, our cousin's sisters in law, picked us up from the airport in a "big, raggedy station wagon," my mom said. "I felt like the beverly hillbillies. We went to baggage claim and there were all these designer bags coming down the conveyor belt - Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Polo...and then there was my boxed up bassinette, all taped and tied up by my daddy and them." It was the beginning of the rest of her life.

How confusing the term 'cock' is

Back in the late 80s/early 90s, many Black folks used the term 'cock' when describing female genitalia. It must've been a white person who co-opted the term and turned it pornographic because it took the rest of us a while to catch on to what they clearly knew all along. And when we did, we totally blew it. Maybe a farmer or someone from Kentucky coined it. Anyway, back in the early 90s when this word started to really catch on, my cousin came to live with us and her good gal pal talked her into doing phone sex for a living. Welp, her shift was during the late night/wee hours, naturally, so in order to not wake anyone up (except me :/) she would drag the phone into my room all the way at the end of the hall at night and get her smut on. Of course I eavesdropped and once I heard her say something along the lines of "mmm, baby, I really want you to lick my cock..." meaning pussy. And then, suddenly, her voice changed and she started to defend herself, lol. Her caller had become quite irate and was going OFF. I could hear him through the phone, hysterical. No more hushed whispers at all. He said something about "transvestite" and shortly after that debacle, she lost her gig. She, and all her friends, honestly thought that cock was another term for vagina. She was baffled, until she talked to a family friend who happened to be the receptionist at Hustler magazine at the time. It all got straightened out and she's been in the know ever since. Although, she never went back to doing phone sex.

Mrs. Harvey

That old bitch. I had Mrs. Harvey for 5th grade. The same year that Brandon Posey socked me in my tenderly budding bosom and caused my eyes to well up with tears (Asshole. I bet he's still a punk bastard to this day). Anyway, in her class I sat at a table with all of my Spanish speaking friends - Leticia, Veronice, Maribel, Luis, and Richard. I didn't know a lick of Spanish. Well one day everyone at my table was talking - except me, of course. And that old bitch Mrs. Harvey singled me out. She stopped teaching to yell at me to go sit by the cold ass window and stop talking. Never mind the fact that I didn't even know any Spanish! She made an example of me and I was too shy to defend myself. So I chilled - literally! - by the window until recess. I could barely work, I was so cold. This wouldn't be the last injustice she served upon me in her class. I loathed that woman and will never forget her. Today I found out that she passed away recently and I felt...a little shocked, I guess. It never occurred to me that she wouldn't live forever. She certainly left an indelible mark on my brain. Despite it all, I learned a lot from her.
RIP Mrs. Harvey.

Mama Mia

Like many California transplants, my mother moved us here with stars in her eyes. But not the kind that many have of becoming a star themselves. She came here to get away from my insufferable father, to exchange the dreary midwest for sunshine, beaches and mountains. I guess you could say she was romanced by Hollywood. She left her husband for him. And from the living room window of our first apartment, you could see him as plain as the sun, sitting up in the side of the Hollywood hills. For years I romanticized that sign as well. It looked so regal, it symbolized so many things. Then one day when I was about 13 years old, my uncle Doc took me and a couple of my cousins hiking and we stumbled upon it. Up close and personal, Hollywood was not what it seemed at all from a distance, from my living room window. It was dirty, and shaky, and full of graffiti. Of course, from that day forward the stars in my eyes dimmed a bit and that sign no longer captured my imagination so wonderfully. But my mother still did. I never lost that sparkle that she provided. She came here a star. She was glitz and glamour to me. She was the romantic starlet, the adventurer, the model that Hollywood emulated and her sisters, cousins and close friends wanted to be. It's funny because before she moved us here (me 2mos old, her 26 yrs old) she was nicknamed "Ms. Hollywood". Here's her with The Bellettes, a singing group she put together with her cousin Carolyn and friend Mary. That's her on the far right ...with the Halle Berry haircut that was hers before Halle made it famous :) (mom cut her's herself). They won the talent show of '68 and got to sing a few stints as backup to Smokey Robinson. There's a newspaper clipping of them with Smokey somewhere in my grandmother's closet.
Anyway, my grandfather used to say that she belonged on a stage...doing something, anything. Everyone else always told her that she didn't belong in the midwest. That she needed a bigger pond. Although she had dreamed of moving here all along, the push came once she was fed up with my father.
to be continued (maybe...if i feel like it)

Sunday Morning Musings

I am becoming my mother - version 2.0. No matter that I try to fight it by sometimes consciously doing the oppossite of what she would do, I look in the mirror with a straight face and she smiles back, lol. I suppose all women do, eventually become their mothers as a sort of ode to her and all of her hard work and love expressed to raise you, shape you...into her! They make us and we become them. Of course, now, in my 30s I admire my mother and recognize her as the strong and courageous and intelligent person she's always been. Growing up I couldn't see it, I was oblivious, naturally. But now I get why all of my friends and everyone around us loved and admired her so much; I see what they saw in her. She brought me here alone from the midwest at 2 months old with my grandfathers advice, 5 bucks, and a bassinette full of baby clothes. Completely stunned my father and everyone else who said we'd be back home in a months time, TOPS. 3 decades later and we're still here and doing quite well.
So as I've grown and begun to notice her all over my face, in my mannerisms, in my heart, I've learned what it means to have it all, to be every woman (chaka khan, chaka khan) and to bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan (cause I'm a woooooman, Enjoli! <---This line originally appeared in an ad for Enjoli perfume, which had paraphrased it from the Lieber/Stoller song "I'm a Woman")...something usually ends up giving and the myth is exposed for what it is. It's liberating to no longer feel the need to believe in that one perfect image, the ideal of being every woman. I'm having a swell time forging my own way, the best I know how, thank you. And I'm realizing my dreams and watching fantasies evolve and wither as I change, lose interest in them that I thought would complete me. And that's alright. I've come to grips with those old expectations, things I thought I wanted as a child (usually because my TV and those around me, stuck in their respective boxes, told me to). This *moves hands up and down my sides like a Price is Right model* is precisely who I want to be now that I've grown up :) And when I'm 50 or 60 I want to reminisce over all of the wonderful things I decided I wanted to do and did, the risks I took, the mistakes I made, my successes and even the failures.
I've also made the realization that certain decisions can affect ones path in life. Seems obvious, I know, (Choose door #2 or take the showcase you already know about? Oh decisions!) but work with me here, por favor. I often wonder how much differently my life would be had I followed what Olga's tarot cards told me that day in the restaurant http://musefromabroad.blogspot.com/2009/02/olga.html, or what the lady swinging the pendulum told me that my chakras told her. How much of what they told me did I leave behind and how much did I subconsciously carry with me? The power of suggestion is strong. Where would I be had I left sooner? Would I be where I am now? Would I be closer to where I'm going? Or somewhere altogether different from what I could have ever dreamed?
One of the things I've learned as I've gotten older is that there is no magical age you reach where you know it all. You never stop learning and the adventure doesn't end until you take your last breath. Something new awaits you each and every day that you open your eyes; it's up to you to recognize it through the mundane and not passively dismiss your days as any other. It's all new, not a repeat of the same and when you begin to notice the variations in the theme (stop and ROLL in the flowers, don't just smell them) you truly begin to appreciate life for what it is - a constant discovery, a great big adventure, an evolving story where you are/can be the main character, a practice, a career, a monument of your own creation, an ode to you, you mother and all the relatives before you, a collection of thoughts and experiences, hearts beating, cells moving, constant change and spinning until we all fall down...exhilarated.
What a brain dump. I have no idea if what I just wrote has any real rhyme or reason explained within it. Me, uncut. Hope you found a gist in there somewhere, though.

Because Patty chastised me, here's a 2nd post for today

I want to take a cooking class. Yes, yes, I've come to hate cooking (http://musefromabroad.blogspot.com/2009/02/man-i-marry.html) but I love to eat way too much, so I'm looking to boost my technique and develop a love for culinary creation. I'm also hoping to meet some interesting people and maybe host a few dinner parties where guests rave about my cuisine and I gush, feigning modesty :). My mother has even nicknamed me "Moffa Stewart" because, aside from being a savvy decorator (toot! toot!), I absolutely love planning parties. Although, hosting them is an altogether other issue of mines that needs to be addressed but not now. I'm tackling one thing at a time and cooking is at the top of the list. Now I'm off to google to see if there are any cool cooking classes in my area. I'm all about self-improvement.

I think maybe I need cable TV in my life

I feel like I'm Amish, so out of touch with society, so behind the times. It could very well be that I am the only person on the planet who knows next to nothing about the Opto mom, except that she gave birth to 8 babies all in one sitting and is obsessed with Angelina Jolie. But I feel like there must be more to know because everyone seems to be going gaga over this woman and I just don't get it. What am I missing out on? What has Brenda Lee Johnson done without me all these months? And let us not forget fine ass Sgt Gabriel! What has he done without me?? And who the hell is Chelsea Handler? Who's VJ'ing on 106 & Park these days? Is my homegirl, Samantha Brown still trotting the globe? I'm sort of embarrassed to ask. I don't know wtf is going on. At first I thought that maybe not having cable would force me to be more productive, creative, get in better shape, save some clams.... but I'm looking around, and at myself, and I see that I was sorely mistaken and misguided. I've actually gotten fatter! I've missed all of the awards shows for naught - MTV, VH1, BET... Bravo's reality TV and competition shows! Who are the real housewives of Atlanta? What should I be wearing?? I am completely in the dark and have nothing to contribute at the water cooler. I haven't decided whether that's a good thing or not. Could cable tv really enhance my life? According to Miles "heck yeah, it can!" But if I sign up that just means another bill in my mailbox so the jury's still out on whether or not I should improve my life.

Fucking BRILLIANT!

So I'm floating around the Americana outdoor mall, people watching and sipping on something ice-blended, when to my bewilderment I stumble upon a vision of overwhelming desire - a friggin high end pajama store! Naturally, I, being the pj connoisseur that I am, rushed in. The first thing I saw was an oversized t-shirt that read "Sleep with me." I instanly fell head over heels in love, as this store is what I have always dreamed of...but could never recall once I woke up. Go figure. Anyway, some Australian guy by the name of Peter Alexander must've eavesdropped on my dreams and opened a chain of stores devoted to sleeping around. Imagine my dismay! It's of no consequence, really though, because I soon realized that I couldn't afford a damn thing in the whole store, lol. Which means that all is not lost for moi, because if I'm ever able to fight the inertia holding my ass to every chair in my sight, I will spawn a love-child store of my own with just as attractive inventory but at more reasonable prices. Peter caters to A-list celebs (Of course. His tags all read "Made exclusively for young Hollywood") but the regular girl, such as myself, also deserves to be able to sleep in cashmere or shuffle around the house in luscious, floor-length robes made of lightweight velvet, without the $350 price tag. Plus, his collection isn't really as fabulous as his asking price. I've seen better pj's at Marshall's, honestly. I love the idea though and I hope to see more stores popping up that cater to the lackadaisical crowd...but with lower price tags. In the meantime, I'll stop by Peter's store every once in a while to daydream and marvel at his goods. Walking through there, I felt like a kid in FAO Schwartz.
In other news, my trusty Blackberry has kicked the bucket. Reg jinxed me. He JUST said "Damn! Isn't it time you got a new phone? Haven't you had that one for about 3 years??" As if I need to keep up with the times. My phone served its purpose and it wasn't broken...until I dropped it in Ross the very next gatdamn day. It's had an hour glass on the screen for three days now so I think it's safe to say...it's caput. I went and bought a cute, purple flip phone from Tmobile yesterday and as soon as I figure out how to text message properly, I think we'll be just fine. Here's to, hopefully, another 3 year long (or longer) relationship.

Dunno whyyyyy…

...there’s no sun up in the skyyyy. Stormy weatherrrrr, since my man and I aint togetherrrrrr. Keep’s raining alllll the tiiiiiii iiiiime. So I bought tickets to go see Stormy Weather at the Playhouse this Saturday. It was an impulse purchase and I’m not regretful of it at all. I need some theater in my life. The cost of two tickets amounts to about the cost of one of my Saturdays out and about, shopping, eating and mingling. Plus, life doesn’t last forever so I'm making it count. I love the title song with all my heart and I actually sound good singing it, too. Lena Horne was/is magnificent. She reminds me so much of my grandmae (see pic on the right) .


Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCG3kJtQBKo

You ever meet someone and instantly you know that their mother loved them well? They're just the best people to be around. That's another post though.

The thrill is gone

You ever have a crush and things are just fabulous, you're surfing on a cloud all day long, feeling glorious and divine? You're ok with simply having the crush, really, because you know that the minute you act on it, it'll be ruined. You like this feeling and don't want to mess it up. So you keep quiet. Then in steps a meddling friend who convinces you to act on your feelings despite your insistance that you.are.fine, you prefer to crush from afar. Really. But this friend pesters you so bad that you give in and you act, against your better judgment, and the next thing you know your crush is ruined. Ever had one of those?
I used to have a crush on a guy named Omar. A friend of mines was cool with him and I made the mistake of swooning over him in front of her. Before I knew it, she was playing matchmaker. I tell her to kick rocks, I'm FINE the way things are. Honestly.
She doesn't buy it. I eventually relent. He and I chat on the phone, we go out on a date, and that's when I saw it. O switched when he walked. Not no Sashay Shante switch; it wasn't fabulous or anything. But with each step he took, he lifted his knees a little too high up so that his hips swayed from side to side when he walked...and I was completely turned off. After that, my day lost its spark, no more pep to my step. Crush demolition * le sigh
This isn't about Omar, though. But my balloon is indeed deflated.

Productivity, baby!!

I'm sitting on my couch, freshly showered, donning straight-from-the-dryer PJ's, smiling like a Cheshire cat, because I am loved and my house is in order. Today my family came through for me big time. My ex and his brother went through my entire garage, pulling out that old fridge, stove, washer and dryer, cleaning and sweeping and making it completely un-rat friendly (I wanted to blow the garage up last week: http://musefromabroad.blogspot.com/2009/02/woe-is-me.html). Then my step father sawed four huge pieces of wood and boarded up the vents at the top of the garage. After that, he went inside the house to putty up a few spots under the kitchen cabinet and put my sons new platform bed together. Meanwhile, we were overhauling the rest of the garage, tossing stuff on the curb for the city to pick up tomorrow, and getting other stuff ready for a yard sale next weekend (hopefully). All day we worked, from about 1pm until this very moment (10:20pm).
After the outside was done, my ex's bro repaired my kitchen light fixture, and then he crawled into the attic and drilled chicken wire up to the vents on both ends of the house. And all I did in return was thank them profusely, smile and paid for dinner at Tops, the burger spot down the street. Labor = $31 for a meal that everyone enjoyed (including moi), parts = roughly $125. Peace of mind...priceless :) My garage is immaculate. My mind is clutter free.

Fearless flying

So I have to have a bullet proof ego, be humble and train myself to write like a modern day Shakespeare. Sounds simple enough, I guess. These days, nothing is penetrating my ego and I’m humbled by my experiences. Of course, I could use a little oiling up because I am terribly rusty. But all in all I think this slate is prepared! I have a “room of my own” and the time and privacy to write to my hearts content. Now I just have to discipline myself to sit still for at least four straight hours a week and write something. I think I’ll designate Sunday’s as my writing days. Roll out of bed and begin writing, only taking bathroom breaks and stopping for breakfast (I like to roll right out of bed and jot my ideas down while they're fresh in my head). Four hours…straight. Or maybe that's a tad too lofty, considering my go, go, go/never ending to-do list, life. It’s a worthy habit to develop, though. Maybe I could work on an ezine. I need discipline (I need a lot of things). I feel different today, kind of like I know where I'm headed and the map aint a blur...for once. My good friend has moved to San Diego and things are looking up for her. That really makes me happy. Plus, now we have an excuse to take a road trip Thelma and Louise style down there to visit her. I am a huge fan of get-aways. Another friend is prodding me to come and visit her in Atlanta for her birthday but I have Vegas jazz fest tickets the following weekend so I'll have to postpone that trip. There are so many places I want to see and revisit. There's just not enough time and money at the moment. Plus, I want to remodel my kitchen.

My parents are here to help me with household repairs and upgrades (well, my step dad, really. My mom dresses the part but she does more instructing than actual work). Gotta run. Toodles!