Git'em, girl!

It's so good to see people succeed.

That's why when I glanced at the TV and saw Alison Stewart on MSNBC questioning some analyst about William Bennet's racist comments, I felt a tinge of pride go through my body.

I remember the days she covered MTV's "Choose or Lose" campaign, breaking in with the news I could use between videos from Nirvana or Tupac. Then she dropped off the face of the earth, or so I thought. Apparently she was doing a lot of stuff - I just didn't know about it. Now, she's a political analyst for a respectable news station.

I'm glad to see she's doing big things. Still on cable, but doing big things nonetheless.

Makes me feel like anything is possible. :-)

A thought...

Being poor sucks.

That's the conclusion I came to as I dug through my purse around 3 p.m. to find enough change to buy something to eat. The cafeteria was closed, therefore, I couldn't use my debit card. And my tummy would start to rumble soon.

So, I counted.

In my wallet alone, I found $2.70. More than enough bounty to buy a Lunchable (yay!) or some other high cholesterol treat from the vending machines upstairs. I could drink water, but I needed something of substance in my belly.

I wish I was the new girl again. Then I could just have someone buy me lunch. But I'm an old intern, so for me, it's off to the third floor.

Being poor sucks. *Sigh*

****UPDATE****

On my way upstairs, I got a hankering for a brownie - and I had just enough to get it, so I thought. I get to the vending area and not only are there were no Lunchables in sight, there's not a brownie to be found anywhere. I had to settle for the Maruchan Instant Lunch (Roasted Chicken Flavor) and a huge cinnamon roll. That completely made being poor more sucky. Dang, I wanted a Lunchable.

Now, back to work.

An Intimate Subject

My 25-year-old sister, Kinra, and I share a lot of things, more so since I've come to live with her during my internship in Detroit. She'll borrow my shirt, I'll take her Kanye West CD. She'll take my watch, I'll borrow her belt. It's all love. But there are some things that even family members can't share.

Like underwear.

I ain't talking about bras and slips and stuff like that. I mean UNDERWEAR -- panties, knickers, drawes.

"I don't want to wear your drawes, Talia," Kinra said into the phone with some exasperation. She had called me at work to see if I had mixed my underclothes in with the dark colors in the washing machine.

I had. Now, there was a problem.

Underwear is probably the most intimate -- if not sacred -- piece of clothing a person can own. Why do you think Victoria wanted to keep them a secret? At the laundry mat, I turn my back as I fold my jimmies so no one can see. So, the thought of having someone else, even a blood relative that I eat and drink after and share a bed with, wear my drawes wasn't going to cut it.

I could understand my sister's frustration. The one and only time I ever borrowed someone's underwear was out of absolute necessity. I felt horrible the entire time I was wearing them. Even though they were clean, I just couldn't bear the thought that the panties belonged to someone else and had been in their nether-regions probably in the last two weeks. I felt even weirder giving them back. But I digress.

"Just wait until I get home and I'll pick mine out," I told my sister, halfway trying not to laugh because she was really about to have a conniption about these panties.

"Do you have some black ones," she asked, ignoring me.

"Yes, Kinra," I replied. "Just wait 'till I get home."

"Medium or large," she continued.

"Medium," I said. "Kinra - just wait 'till I get home."

"I can't tell which ones are mine," she said. I could imagine her frowning on the other end. I couldn't blame her though. Like I said, there's just some things you don't share.

"I know, Kinra," I said with a sigh. "Just wait 'till I get home."

Straight from the Streets - Coast to Coast

* New Smyrna Beach, Fla. - Driving down the street in the fat Taurus (yeah, I had the big body rental) I look to my left and what do I see? Two crinkly senior citizens in full leather garb riding a Harley. (That kinda rhymed, lol.) Grandma even had her belly showing. Just too foxy for their own good.

*Cincinnati, Ohio - I go into a bar to get a sandwich during my layover. The bartender was new and slow taking orders. I saw he was having trouble, so I waited. And waited. And waited. He took the guy in front of me and the waitress came over to tell him about my order. I'm thinking everything's cool. I wait. Wait some more. An older guy comes up behind me with some coffee or something. What does the bartender do? SKIP OVER ME and ring old guy up behind me. I'm like, wha? But I don't want to act ignorant and by the time I get ready to say something, he's already giving old man his change. Cool. He's finna get to me right? WRONG. Random guy walks up to the bar and starts trying to give an order. I 'bout lost my mind. It took me and the waitress to get his attention and let him know that I'd been waiting more than a minute. He finally rang me up and I took my sandwich to go. Should it really be that hard?

*Detroit, Mich. - I didn't see anything, but I was talking to my friend and found out something disturbing. We were watching "106 & Park" and David Banner's new song, "Play" came on. I'm not even going to post a link to the lyrics because needless to say, they weren't what I thought they were. Now, every time I hear it I just feel dirty inside.

* Other random thing: the whole concept of booty-clapping annoys and disgusts me. It always has. But yet and still (as if my happiness dictates what they make music about), rappers still insist on asking girls to make their butts clap. My thing is, if you have enough junk in your trunk to make it clap, you should probably run your behind to a gym or plastic surgeon cause that just ain't healthy. But then again, maybe it's me showing my butt envy. Whatever. I still think it's nasty.

Fly the Friendly Skies

I hate talking to people in confined spaces and I don't really like strangers sitting next to me. As luck would have it, I got the best of both worlds on my flight to Daytona Beach on Thursday night: two lovely seatmates and a talkative traveler.

"Where you guys going," the guy in the aisle seat asked us.

"Daytona Beach," I said. The other guy was going to Atlanta. Aisle guy took this to mean that we wanted to talk, so he starts going on about layovers and first class and a whole bunch of other stuff I've blocked out by now. I tried to be friendly. I smiled and nodded my head. Then I buried my face in "Things Fall Apart," hoping he'd talk the ear off the guy in the middle seat and forget about me. He did.

After reading for a while, I remembered why I love airplanes. No cell phones. No worries. Just you, the sky and a little bag of peanuts.

Outside of the tiny airplane window, the whole world beckoned me.

When I was younger (read: 17), I used to think about how cool it would be to live in the clouds. From my seat in 2A, they always looked so full and soft - like big piles of cotton. Back then, I'd spend the entire flight thinking about how the clouds would feel in between my toes. Then I'd snap out of it. I could no sooner live on a cloud than I could touch the sun - the billowy pillows would send me plummeting to the Earth the moment I stepped on them.

As I stared out into the atmosphere, I had no idea what the next day would bring. I'd spend the day sitting around a teeny newsroom waiting for people to interview me. I'd eat lunch alone in the cafeteria because no one "had time" to take me to lunch. I'd finish my story test in an hour and spend most of the day catching up with my friend Seth, who works at the paper, because I had nothing else to do. At about 6 p.m., I would be offered the job, even though I realized I couldn't take it somewhere around 3:30 p.m., when I got a call from my first choice in New England.

The flight attendant comes by with refreshments - I get some Sun Chips and a ginger ale. Aisle guy is asleep so I tuck my book into my carry-on bag. Outside the window, the clouds are little islands; the blue of the sky becomes lakes, rivers and streams.

I close my eyes and wiggle my toes.

I can feel the billowy white air between them.

Tryna help a brotha out...

So here goes:

To all of the single ladies who read this blog, my friend Jarrod is taking applications for a girlfriend. I figured I'd help him drum up some business.


He's funny, college-educated and (he says) disease-free. Send all applications (and mugshots) to him - not me -please.


Jarrod, consider that my public service announcement for the year.

T.G.I.F.

You ever have a day so good that nothing can change your sunny disposition?

I have and that glorious day was today.

By all accounts, today shouldn't have been as great as it was.

I woke up and my throat was (and still is) really sore. I couldn't find my birth certificate this morning, which I need in order to go to Canada for a story. I think I forgot to put on deodorant because I was rushing (but I don't stink). I forgot to get gas before I left (because I was late) and realized I now only have a ¼ tank of gas in Dee Dee, which will get me to work and back with a notch or two to spare. I was stuck in traffic forever today and got to work late. The photo assignment I scheduled for the Canada thing got cancelled, forcing me to reschedule (I guess, was a good thing). Not to mention that my cell phone got cut off around 2 p.m. for late payment

But still, I'm feeling good. Probably because it's Friday. Most likely because it's Friday. Hallelujah, it's Friday!

On my way back from an assignment, the radio was jamming. I'm talking "People Everyday," by Arrested Development, "Hail Mary" by Tupac, and my favorite record of the moment, "Golddigger" by Kanye and Jamie Foxx. Trust and believe that I was dancing and singing at the top of my lungs in the company car. Now, I've filed my story and I'm just surfing the Internet, waiting for my shift to end and the weekend to begin.

Don't you love Fridays?

Oh, and my phone should be back on sometime this evening.
Feel free to give me a ring in about four hours.

Betta check your Moo Goo Gai Pan...

Chinese eatery sold donkey in tiger urine
SHANGHAI, China (Associated Press) -- Sept. 8, 2005 -- A restaurant in northeastern China that advertised illegal tiger meat dishes was found instead to be selling donkey flesh - marinated in tiger urine, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The Hufulou restaurant, located beside the Heidaohezi tiger reserve near the city of Hailin, had advertised stir-fried tiger meat with chilies for $98 as well as liquor flavored with tiger bone for $74 a bottle, the China Daily reported. Raw meat was priced at $864 per kilogram.

The sale of tiger parts is illegal in China and officers shut down the restaurant, only to be told by owner, Ma Shikun, that the meat was actually that of donkeys, flavored with tiger urine to give the dish a "special" tang, the newspaper said. The report didn't say how the urine was obtained.

Authorities confiscated the restaurant's profits and fined Ma $296 it said. It wasn't clear what Ma was fined for. Selling donkey meat is not illegal in China and it is widely consumed in the northeast. Ma had initially claimed that the meat came from dead tigers sold to him by the management of the Heidaohezi reserve, but later changed his story, the report said.

While Heidaohezi's director denied that claim, the reserve, with about 150 tigers, has been involved in similar controversies in the past.Until China outlawed the trade in 1993, the reserve received most of its revenue from the sale of tiger skins, bones and other body parts, which are believed by Chinese to imbue vigor and sexual prowess.

*Copyright The Associated Press*

Straight from the Streets #2

Sept. 6, around 6:37 p.m.--Driving down the Lodge freeway, I see a luxury car with the license tag: ILIENEM. You lie in them, huh? For real, brotha? Did he just put all his bidness out in the street, or is my mind just in the gutter? Just asking.

Sept. 3, sometime past a decent hour -- I'm living it up with some friends at Floods Bar & Grill for the Football Classic weekend. The cats we're hanging with, some of my boys from Flint, order some Moet. I get my glass filled and I'm like, "This is cool. We're all together, having a good time, drinking champagne. Life is good." One of the girls I was hanging with, the Detroit friend of some friends of mine, turns to me and says with a giggle, "White Star, that's the cheap champagne." Excuse me, honey - you didn't have to pay for it and you still downed your glass, didn't you?

Sept. 2, around 8:56 p.m., almost pitch black outside-- Why am I hearing the Ice Cream man riding down the street in my complex, with the jingle on blast like he's got some knock or something? I bet firecrackers and crunch bars wasn't all he was selling. My sister said it best: "Who the hell he selling to? I know I ain't letting my kids buy no ice cream from him."

Like Ice Cube said...

...Today was a good day.

I had a Lunchable. It made me happy.

It reminded me of a simpler time, back when I was a child and didn't care about eating processed meats and cheeses with high amounts of sodium.

Those sandwiches were six little artery-clogging slices of heaven.

Hurricane Katrina

Dozens of residents move to higher ground Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, in New Orleans as rising waters flood neighborhoods off N. Claiborne Avenue in the Orleans Parish as a result of Hurricane Katrina. (St. Petersburg Times/Douglas R. Clifford)


It's weird how history happens. We study it in school, but we never realize that someone, at sometime, had to live it.

As Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans and the gulf area of Mississippi, I knew that the days that followed would be ones that we would never forget.

Now, as I sit in the newsroom, every television glued to either CNN or MSNBC for round the clock coverage of the disaster, the devastation that lies in the wake of Katrina becomes more than just the latest news story - more than another chapter in the history books. It becomes real.

When I think of New Orleans, I don't think of Mardis Gras and colorful beads. Instead, I remember the time I traveled with a friend to the Big Easy for the Bayou Classic two years ago.

We drove down Elysian Fields, drank hurricanes on Bourbon Street, and visited her family in the West Bank. Her family opened up their homes to me and gave me a real Creole Thanksgiving dinner, complete with seafood gumbo and stuffed bell peppers.

Last year, I went to Baton Rouge for a conference and caught up with a lot of friends from my first excursion to the Big Easy. We danced the second line, ate King cake and danced the bunny hop.

I always planned to go back to the city I call my second home. I'm an adopted New Orleanian. Now, my heart yearns for those who have lost their homes and, in some cases, their lives, because of Katrina.

Over the past few days, I've been calling my family and friends in Mississippi and Louisiana to make sure everyone is okay. Some tell me that everyone escaped, but what they will return to remains uncertain. Others say they haven't heard from family members and just pray that everything is okay.

Things in New Orleans and the surrounding areas will get worse before it gets better. Today, there were reportings of rapes and other crimes as the people who have been stuck with very little help from the government over the past four days reach the ends of their ropesFamilieses are being split as evacuees are bused from the city to Texas, Baton Rouge and other places around the country willing to help in any way they can. Gas prices climb past $3 here in Michigan, but the cost is higher in other parts of the country. The lawless streets of New Orleans are almost uncontrollable as people raid grocery stores to get the basic necessities to survive. Bodies of those who didn't make it sit along the sides of roads.

It remains to be seen what will happen once New Orleans dries out and the people there try to resume something resembling a normal life. No matter what happens, our country and all the people old enough to remember this event, will never be the same. It's weird how history happens. I just wish, at least in this case, we didn't have to live it.

My prayers go out to everyone whose lives were touched by Hurricane Katrina
and my sincere thanks to those who are working to help those in the area.
To donate to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, visit the American Red Cross.