Internet crack, anyone?

So, I stumbled upon a bit of Internet crack - if you will - and got hooked.

That's what I get for blog-hopping.

As some of you may know, I don't have Internet at my house. I know, I need to step my game up, but I just use it for e-mail and blogs so I check that stuff when I get to work. Anyway, after I got off last night, I was surfing some blogs when I ran across this Web site - www.notpron.com.

Apparently, this is the hardest riddle on the Internet. So, being the smarty pants that I am, I figured I'd check it out. It couldn't be that hard, right?

Au contraire, mon cherie.

I got through the first three rounds no problem. They have a tips and tricks message board that helped out a lot. Then, I got to level 4.

I will admit, I cheated and found the answer, but only because I didn't have the programs the message board said I might need. So anyway, I make it all the way up to level 6 and then get stumped. By now, it's 8 p.m. I got out of work at 6 p.m.

I just wasted 2 hours of my life. So, I called Marcus, the person who's blog subsequently led me to the blog with the wretched URL and vented.

"I just want you to know that you're the reason I'm just now leaving work," I told him as I whipped my Cavi around the corner. "That NotPron junk is like crack."

He laughed and asked for the Web site. In the morning, I sent it to him. Fifteen minutes later, he was hooked, too.

"How do you get past level 2," he IMed me while I was at the Library up the street from my house. I laughed - he figured it out. Then, I walked him through the next few levels. When we got to level 6, I had to let him go.

"That's as far as I got," I type. "If you get to level 7, let me know how you did it."

Shortly after I got to work that afternoon, I got an e-mail from him: a friend of his had figured it out and he was passing along the knowledge to me.

"You're going to have me not getting any work done today," he joked.

I smiled, but at my terminal, I shook my head. I'd help yet another person get addicted to NotPron. It's like when you're on crack and you want to hang out with other crackheads because they know what you going through. Yeah, it's like that.

So, here it is, folks. Sniff it up.

I need some company.

Party and Bullish

I went to G. Lee’s 32nd birthday party this weekend. Ate some red beans and rice, made some good conversation with friends and cut a rug with my boy from the Nola.

Good times partying with the “old” man.

Anyway, around 2 a.m., I was ready to head home. I’d been running all day and then drove to Boston for the party. Gathered my coat and scarf, said goodbye to all and got ready to skedaddle.

To make a long story short, on my way to take Darren home, I got swindled into a late night bowling match. We call Russell (shout out NYTI crew), who gets out of his bed, geeked as all get out to come bowl with us. We paid the clerk, grabbed some shoes and threw some balls at the pins.

They were serious competitors. I think a redemption game is in order (I won't say for whom) - to be completed at a later date. I left the joint with a respectable score – something in the 80s or 90s, I believe – and headed down I-93 back to Providence.

Gotta love being random.

(Captions, top to bottom: G. Lee and I at his birthday party - FYI, he's lit; Russell and Darren resting between frames at Boston Bowl around 3 a.m.)

Tag, I'm It

Four jobs I've had:
Merrill Lynch (Associate Assistant)
Editor in Chief at the Hampton Script
Misc. internships (The Commercial Appeal, Detroit Free Press, Press & Sun-Bulletin, SHFW)
Reporter @ The ProJo

Four movies I could watch over and over:
Love Jones
What's Love Got to do with It? (Eat the cake, Anna Mae!)
There's Something About Mary
Purple Rain

Four places I have lived:
Flint, Mich.
Hampton, Va.
Memphis, Tenn./Binghamton, N.Y./Washington, D.C./St. Petersburg, Fla. (Internships)
East Providence, RI

Four TV shows I Love:
24
CSI (either the original or :Miami)
Iron Chef (Food Network all day, baby)
Boondocks

Four places I've been on vacation:
Oxford, Ms.
New Orleans, La.
Athens, Ohio
Atlanta/Macon, Ga.

Four favorite foods:
bread
Lunchables
macaroni and cheese
fried chicken (can't you just hear my arteries clogging?)

Four places I'd rather be right now:
At my apartment
Southfield or Flint, Mich.
Maryland/D.C. (Louise!)
Brooklyn, NYC

Four Web sites I visit daily:
Facebook
Bloggers (keeping up to date on friends lives - and the comments on my page)
Gmail
NY Times or Bank of America (depends on my mood)

Four bloggers who are now IT!
Jarrod (since you're alive and well...bastard)
Darby (do it T&L style)
Jessie (I want the bestest list ever!)
Russatta (show them how it's done, sis)

Talia bin Laden?

I have no doubt my name will soon end up on someone's No Fly list in the near future, all because I was doing my job.

In my bureau, we rotate cop checks and today, lucky me, was my turn. After spending the morning driving around to all the cop shops, I come into the office and my boss asks me to check on a call she got. Someone called saying that CCRI Lincoln, a local college, had been evacuated and police were stopping cars in one neighborhood looking for a subject with "black hair."

Are you serious? She assured me she was and asked me to at least check it out. Okay, cool. That's my job. I call the Lincoln Police Department and ask them what's up. They say they're looking for a robbery suspect in the woods, but no cars are being stopped - let alone a college evacuated. Just to be sure, I call the college. No one answers. So I leave a message on the media pager and call the switchboard. The operator tells me that school is going on as scheduled at CCRI.

Great. I tell my boss and finish writing my police briefs before heading out to an assignment. I get back around 5:10 p.m. My phone rings.

Caller: Hi, did someone here call my boss? This is Susie from public relations at CCRI.
Me: I don't know if I called your boss, but I spoke to whoever is on the media pager today. I was checking on a call we got about an evacuation of the Lincoln campus, but I've already cleared all that up.
Caller: What did you say your name was?
Me: Talia Buford.
Caller: Well, the Warwick campus was evacuated at 3:30 p.m. today for a bomb threat. Your call came into us around 3. What we're trying to figure out is how you knew about the evacuation before we did. Where'd you get your information?

I look at the phone dumbfounded; old chick is insinuating I had something to do with this bomb threat.

Me: We got a call.
Caller: From who?
Me: I don't know. We get calls all the time and I'm the on call reporter so I followed up on it.

I knew good and well where the call came from, who made it and at what time it came in, but I wasn't going to tell her. She all but called me a terrorist.

Caller: Well, don't you have caller ID?
Me (getting a little agitated): Yes, but it's not the kind you scroll through. Once I hang up, the number disappears.
Caller: Well, Talia, was it? I'm going to notify our security about what happened because it's odd that you knew about the evacuation 30 minutes before it happened, even if it was at the wrong campus.
Me: Alright. You have a good day.

I turned around and yelled at my boss, "Karen, you got those people thinking I'm a terrorist!" She just laughed at me and called the Warwick bureau to tell them about the bomb threat and evacuation. It ain't go be funny when Homeland Security shows up at my door looking to ask me some questions. All because I was doing my job.

An apple for your thoughts?

While I waited for a copy of the police log today, I listned in on a conversation between a resident and two cops in the precinct. Apparently, this guy was looking to file criminal charges for some "missing" money in his account.

Cop 1: So, let me get this straight, sir (flipping through receipts). You made a deposit for $478. Then here's the credit for that deposit. This reciept shows where there was a debit of $365 on the 12th. Now you have .39 cents in your account, sir. What happened to the rest of the money?
Man: I spent the money I deposited before, but I just made the deposit of $478 and it was clearing.
C1: So did you pay any bills?
M: No.
C1: Take out any money?
M: No. Except for the money I already had in there before the deposit.
C1 (getting agitated): What probably happened was you wrote a check and forgot about it and spent the money. We can't file criminal charges for that.
M: But I spent the money I had in there previously.
C1: Alright. So, if you have $478 apples on Monday, and then on Wednesday, you have 39 apples, where'd the other apples go?
M: But I didn't spend any apples. I spent my money I had previously in my account.
Cop 2: Well, sir, either way, you'll have to go back to the bank to get a new statement with your current balance because there's no proof of criminal activity.

Me and the other cops were in the corner dying laughing. Eavesdropping. You can't beat it with a baseball bat.

Put some stank on it

I'm singing in our newspaper guild's annual musical (tickets are $50 if you want one, hit me up). I was talking to one of the songwriters when this gem came out of his mouth regarding my solo performance:

"You know, I want you to give me attitude. Like, I am pissed. I want that neck thing you women do so well."

And then he tried to roll his neck! Maybe you had to be there but it took all I had in me to keep from busting out laughing at this middle aged white guy trying to do the "sistah gurl" neck roll. Hilarious.

Speak the truth

Best quote by far I've heard in reference to my new haircut came via IM from my boy, Mike. When I told him though I'd hacked my hair off, I still looked good, he replied:

"Yeah I have to agree with that... you look real... yum..."

Now that's the kinda compliment that makes you feel good about yourself.

On an unrelated, but huge-in-my-life sidenote, I'm now officially a grown woman.

What happened, you ask? Did I get my first mortgage bill? Buy a couch? Go to bed at 8 p.m. on a Friday night?

No. But I did get a job.

Starting Jan. 16, the day we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I will be reclassified as a reporter at The Providence Journal, shedding my previous designation as a two-year intern.

I'm talking cats got benefits, a 401(k) and a raise. Not to mention I can stay in my job until I decide to leave this tiny state.

Just in case you didn't already know, you should ask about me. Ha!

The Cornrow Incident of 2002 (by popular demand)

It was toward the middle of my freshman year at Hampton University. Up until then, I’d worn my pony tails and wraps every day to class. I had yet to find a hairdresser who could coif my tresses like my girl back in Flint, so many a day, my hair looked busted. Around Thanksgiving, I decided it was time for a change. So, when I went home for the holiday, I coaxed my hairdresser into giving me cornrows. Long, beautiful cornrows with big wooden beads on the ends. It would get me through final exams without having to worry about my hair, I figured. So, I went back to school whipping my new braids around campus. I loved them. They were low maintenance and still stylish. I was in heaven.

Then my hair started itching.

I sprayed on that anti-itch braid stuff, sheen, grease, anything to soothe my scalp. After a few weeks, the buildup of all of the chemicals was making my hair look nasty so I decided to take them out and wash my hair. I know you can wash your hair with braids in, but I didn’t think I’d be able to get them clean like they needed. So, one Saturday morning, I set about the arduous task of taking the weaved braids from my hair.

I decided that I’d cut them out, as opposed to unbraiding them from the bottoms. It’d be easier and faster, I reasoned. I grabbed the scissors, being sure to position them far down the braid so that I wouldn’t cut my own hair.

Snip. Snip. At the rate I was going, I’d be done in no time. I grabbed the braids near the front of my head and went at it. Snip. Snip.

Even though the process was moving along smoothly, my arms started to get tired. I wanted to hurry up and cut them so that I could enlist some friends to help me take them out. So I grabbed about five braids on the left side of my head and cut them to the same length as the others.

Snip. Snip.

As soon as the scissors sliced through the hair I felt like my lungs caved in. I hadn’t. Had I? No, I couldn’t of. I grabbed the braid nubs and examined the parts. They were lower than the others – closer to my scalp. When I cut them to the length I had been cutting the other braids, I’d hacked off half of my hair. The braid was about three inches long – which meant my hair was probably an inch and a half.

Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad, I told myself. Maybe you wouldn’t be able to tell once I took them out, I said. So, I started unbraiding. As the chunks of synthetic hair fell to the floor, it revealed my worst nightmare. I ran down the hall – hair all over my head – to the lobby where my friend was studying.

I showed her what I’d done to my head. My long dark hair sat nestled on my right shoulder, while on my left, a swatch of hair barely covered my ears. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was clutching clumps of weave while I relayed my sob story. I told her my life was over. She tried to comfort me. Tears streamed down my face. She said it wouldn’t be that bad once I washed and styled it. I wallowed in self-pity on the couch. She said my hair would grow back and ushered me back to my room.

There was a week and a half left before I could go home to Michigan. Gel helped me slick my hair into a smooth ponytail while I studied for my finals. I made an appointment to see my hairdresser the day I got back to Flint to see if she could help me. I walked into the salon and sat in her chair. I’d warned her beforehand that I was going to need some help. I took the elastic off my hair and finger combed my hair out so she could see.

She laughed so hard I though she was going to bust a gasket.

After she ridiculed me for being stupid and cutting my hair, she called the other stylists over to see what a stupid thing I’d done. I sunk down in my hair and tried not to cry as they all laughed at me.

My stylist, who loves long hair, didn’t want to cut mine off. Maybe, she reasoned, if we just angle your hair so that it blends with the side that’s long, it’ll grow to be even. So that’s what we did. When I left the salon, the left side of my hair was securely tucked behind my ear, while the right side flowed freely to my shoulder. The slightest angle could be detected.

I went through Spring semester with my hair like that. I got through it mostly by using ponytails to hide the uneven ends. I told a few select people about my hair mishap, but mostly, I kept it to myself. But when I went home that summer before I went to my internship in Memphis, I knew something had to change.

“Cut it off,” I told my stylist as I sat in her chair. She looked at me like I was crazy.
“Are you sure, Talia?”
“Cut it until it’s even,” I said again.

I emerged from the salon with a sprightly little ‘do that came about mid neck. That summer, I curled and dried my hair in no time flat, getting regular trims along the way. By the time I made it back to school in August, my hair was back to its normal shoulder length. No one, except my boyfriend at the time who’d come to visit me in Memphis, even knew that I’d cut my locks.

And that was the way I wanted to keep it.

The long and short of it all

With only 45 minutes, $12 and a tip, yesterday, I changed my life.

When I woke up that morning, cutting my hair seemed like a good idea. It would be a big change, but a welcome one, I thought. So, I'd dressed and headed over to the local Supercuts to get my wig split. Afterwards, I came home, washed and set my new 'do on rollers.

But as I stood in my bathroom mirror and unfurled the curlers, I knew I had made a big mistake. I picked up the phone and dialed - looking for support.

"Jarrod," I whispered into the phone. "I think I'm hyperventalating."
"Talia," he said calmly, "if you were hyperventalating, you'd be breathing a lot heavier right now."
"Okay, well, I think I'm freaking out, then," I said. "It's short, Jarrod. Real short."
"It can't be that bad, Talia," he cajoled.
"You don't understand," I said, "it's REAL short."

All of my life, I've had relatively long hair. Save for the Cornrow Incident of 2002 when I had to chop it all off, it's always been there to cover my shoulders; hanging just so with the slightest bend at the bottom. I used to think that my hair, with the signature side part and swoop bangs, was what made me, me.

In high school, my ponytail or smooth wrap set me apart from the sculptured weaves, french rolls and blue tracks sewn into the girls heads. In college, it helped me communicate a mood without saying a word. If I came into the newspaper office I was sporting "the Buford ponytail" - a slicked back ponytail tucked into itself, the ends sticking out any way they please - instead of my wrap, chances are I was tired and not in the best of moods. During job interviews, I coifed my locks into a bun, conveying what I hoped to be sophistication and maturity.

I also had a lot of fun with my hair. I would experiment with parts, curl patterns and accessories to try to give myself a more sophisticated look for nights out. I even passed along a few of my creations to friends to give their 'dos more variety. But lately, my hair had become more of a burden than a joy.

In Rhode Island, there ain't a lot of black people, and even fewer that I'd trust to put dangerous chemicals on my scalp. So, I'd been getting the necessary trims at the aforementioned Supercuts while I looked for a stylist. Whenever I washed my hair, I'd have to spend an hour blow drying and flat ironing and curling just to get it to look like anything than a hot mess. I'd been contemplating cutting my hair or going natural, thinking it would save me from the clutches of high maintenence hair. But, for whatever reason, I'd never been able to go through with it. When I told people, they'd say, "no, your hair is beautiful, don't cut it," or "I don't know if I'd like your hair anything but long, Talia."

When I came back to HU for Homecoming, friends commented on how my hair - which by then reached the middle of my shoulder blades - had grown.

Guys would tell me how they loved to run their fingers through it.

And now, it was gone.

When I sat in the chair, I told the stylist to cut it until it was healthy. My eyes were dry as the inches fell the the floor. I was smiling as I left the salon, the wind cooling the back of my neck. But as I stood before my bathroom mirror and took in the new me, I wasn't so sure I liked what was peering back.

I reached my hand to grab a handful of curls on the back of my head and pulled. The ends barely reached the nape of my neck.

"Maybe I made a mistake," I pleaded into the phone.
"Well, Talia, you can't exactly take it back now," he said. "You're just in shock because you look different. You'll be fine."

We talked for a while longer and eventually I started to believe him. I continued fixing my curls as he tried to get me to laugh and take my mind off of things. By the end of the conversation, I'd come up with a look that didn't scare me as much. The curls created a youthful presence, while the length somehow made me feel older. The cut showcased my neck, making me look taller, I told myself. And next time I know not to curl it so tightly. I smiled as I flicked the wide tooth comb through my tresses.

I was going to be okay after all.

Ghetto Bird

Me and Popeye go fight.

I was oh-so-geeked to find the aforementioned's Chicken & Biscuits place while I was trying to find my way back to the expressway after I tended to some things. I drive into the drive thru lane, ready to get my spicy chicken on. There's like two cars in front of me - one at the window, another at the speaker.

I swear there must have been only one person working the window. She had to get one order completed before she could take the next person's order (I'm sure that logic made sense in her head). So, after waiting forever, I get up to the speaker and order. Three piece with a biscuit, red beans & rice and a Sprite like a mug.

"That'll be $7.56," the voice from the speaker says.

Come again? You want me to pay almost $8 for some ghetto bird?

So I hand chick a $10 (I mean, I complain, but cats be hongry) and she gives me my food. I'm so hungry ya'll I eat one of those crispy chicken legs while I'm driving down I-95 back to work. At my desk, I crack open the red and white box, fully expecting Mardis Gras to begin, at that moment, in my mouth.

Why this trick give me two thighs? I don't even like dark meat like that (pause). I was at least looking forward to a wing - since getting a chicken breast seems to be completely out of the question.

If I see you on the street, Popeye, best believe its go be me and you, my man. Me and you.

Turn the Speakers Up!

Have you ever just wanted to put on some happy music? I'm talking some living-my-life-like-its-golden-Bombs-over-Baghdad-I-missed-the-bus-type of happy music?

Damn, I wish I had a CD burner in my head.

Ya'll need to hear the soundtrack to my life right now.