Post 100

It's a wonder what can turn your day around.

I admit, I had been having a pretty sucky day up until around 3 p.m. I'd come in early so I could leave mid-day for a doctor's appointment, only to go to Lincoln and find my doctor wasn't there. I couldn't figure out what to eat for lunch and I just wasn't feeling up to writing my story.

So I put my away message up: "I just don't feel like talking right now. Leave me a message and I'll respond when I feel up to it."

While I banged out some stories - one about an alligator in a city yard - my Favorite IM'd me.

"I don't know what's bothering you but I hope you're feeling better. I was looking at pictures from the summer and they were great. Just wanted to let you know I miss you and I hope you feel better."

Favorite is one of the friends I met while at a program at the Poynter Institute last summer. He's a feisty guy with a deadpan sense of humor and a mischevious grin. He earned his nickname because, well, he's my Favorite.

He's not in this picture, but these are my peeps from the program. For those of you who have ever been to Poynter, as our "class prank" the RW (Reporting & Writing) fellows opted to take a picture in the reflecting pool outside of the Great Hall. As my boy John Sutter says on Facebook: "Isn't it weird how denim can soak up nine million times its own weight in water?"



Weird indeed. Anyway, back to my Favorite.

His comments made my day. I hadn't spoken to him (he's now a page designer in Lexington, Ky) in forever and it harkened me back to those days in St. Pete.

After that, my day got better.

One of my coworkers brought in two loaves of bakery bread, butter AND cheese. For those of you who don't know, I love bread. With a passion. So that made me happy.

And to top it all off, it's time for me to go home. Life is grand. Peace out, peeps.

Correction: Afro? Who's 'Fro? My 'Fro.

It's come to my attention that some of you may think that because of the above mentioned post, I have cut my hair.

I did not.

The picture seen in the post "Afro? Who's 'Fro? My 'Fro" shows me with my hair tightly curled - not cut. Sadly, I did not go through with the Big Cut and my hair is still to my chin.

As a status report, I have about two inches of new growth and expect to be able to cut my hair fully around August - maybe in time for the NABJ convention. Until then, expect to see my hair in curls and twists for the next few months.

I apologize for any confusion the photo may have caused and will make an effort to be clearer in future posts.

Sincerely,
T-Dot

Afro? Who's 'fro? My 'fro.

“You need to pick your afro, daddy, because It’s flat on one side.
Cause if you don’t pick your afro, you’re gonna have one side high.” --Erykah Badu

When I walked into the office today, I was greeted by a bit of brouhaha.

“Whoa, what happened to your head,” one coworker asked.

“It looks cute,” another offered.

“Hells bells, did I miss something,” my boss asked. “You just keep changing your hair.”
“Gotta keep you guys on your toes,” I replied.

From a cubicle in the corner, my coworker cried out: “You have the most fabulous hair transformations of anyone I know and they all look good on you.”

I admit it. She’s right.

And here it is, folks, live and direct; a taste of things to come.

What, hon? No buns?

Some call it ghetto, I call it multi-purposing.

I believe that most of the things you buy should be applicable to something else in your life. Kinda like Alton Brown does. Why buy a garlic press when the back of our knife will do just fine?

That’s why I don’t buy hotdog buns. At least, not all the time.

But as a still semi-struggling young woman, I’ll buy hotdogs every once in a while, just to have something quick to eat after work.

Enter the man-friend.

He is, quite possibly, one of the bourgeois men I have known. He came to visit me and before I went to work, I gave him a rundown of what was in the fridge should he get hungry.

“There’s turkey and lettuce and stuff if you want a sandwich,” I said. “Ramen is in the cupboard, and there’s some hotdogs on the bottom shelf of the fridge.”

His eyes lit up at the mention of Ballpark’s.

“You’ve got ketchup,” he asked.

“Yup.”

His smile broadened. “Buns,” he continued quizzically.

“Nah,” I said. “But there’s some sliced bread. I even bought a loaf of Wonder since you don’t like wheat.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” he said, the joy drained from his face. “I’ll figure something out.”

“So, what: you can’t eat hotdogs if you don’t have a bun?” I asked incredulously.

He said he couldn’t.

Unbelievable.

In my house, if we had hotdogs (or Koegels Viennas as we ate in Flint), and no buns do you know what you did? You grabbed a slice of bread and kept it moving. Call me ghetto if you want to. I learned the fine art of placing hotdogs on a piece of bread so that a piece of bread was in every bite. I remember eating hamburgers so greasy, the oil would seep through the thinly sliced bread (not buns) – making it almost transparent.

All those specialty breads – hot dog buns, hamburger buns, rolls - were for special occasions in my working-class household. For a long time, I honestly thought buns were only for barbecues and cookouts because we never kept them on hand in my house.

Shoot, while I’m playing, I still do.

By the time I returned home from work that day, I’d made peace with the situation. As time passes, I see a lot of things we do differently from one another. Not better - just differently. I cook my bacon in the oven. He can't eat hotdogs without buns. I still don’t know what the man-friend ate for lunch that day. I didn’t bring up the hotdogs again during that weekend.

But the next time he visited, there was a piece offering waiting in the fridge:

An 8-pack of buns sitting next to the Ballparks.

People in Compton fly private planes

No, seriously. They do.

At least, that's what my friend, Calvin told me.

I was in New York Thursday for an awards ceremony and I'd stopped by one of the best papers in the nation to catch up with some friends. My friend Calvin and I were in the lunchroom chopping it up when I mentioned I'm always in NYC because my Inglewood-born boyfriend lives in the area.

"Cali - yeah, I go home to Compton like once a month," he waxed nostalgic.

I all but spit out my Snapple Pink Lemonade.

Who's from Compton? I had a few stereotypes. I admit it. When I think Compton, I think NWA and Eazy-E; gangbangers, low-riders and Whattaburger. I definitely don't think Ivy League educated, globe-trotting and snazzy dressers, such as the journalist sitting across from me.

"So you're from the hood," I asked, apprehensively.

"Well, yeah," he said. "But all of Compton isn't bad. There are nice parts. My dad was an engineer."

Stop.

Engineers don't live in the ghetto, I said.

That's when I got my education on all that is Compton.

Compton has some bad parts but some of the area is nice, just like other cities, Calvin said. The city airport was established so that the residents of Compton, before it became so stigmitized, could fly their planes into a nearby hangar.

Hell, even George W. Bush and his papa lived in Compton for a bit around 1950.

No former, future or current presidents ever lived in my hometown. And I can barely get an incoming flight from Rhode Island to our airport.

Guess we'll have to settle for washed-out rappers turned deadbeat dads.

Straight from the Streets - Throwback Edition

I found this in one of my notebooks as I was cleaning my desk today. Figured I'd share it with you. It's a little old (seems to be from December), but hey, who cares? Enjoy

*In RI, pedestrians have the right away at all times. There's even a law that says cars must stop anytime a pedestrian is in the crosswalk. What people don't understand is that law or not, sometimes it just ain't possible to stop. The geniuses here must think cars stop on a dime. Friday, we had a huge snowfall - 7 inches in a few hours. I'm driving to Woonsocket to do cop checks when I make a right turn onto Main. This was probably one of the most icy intersections in the area. I see a chick on a curb, but the crosswalk is right there - I can't stop that soon. Chick locks eyes with me and proceeds to walk her happy tail onto the icy road. Somehow I was able to slam on my brakes and keep my car from hitting ole girl. Cats act like they've got bumbers or de-icer on ther butts. Stupid pedestrians.

*I was talking to my sister Kinra about the execution of Tookie Williams when she let this come out of her mouth: 'He probably woulda gone back to Crippin' if they let him out."

*Sitting on my mattress watching videos the other night and I hear a knock on my door. It's the guy who lives across the hall. "Hey, how ya doing," he asks after I'd cracked the door. "I cooked too much food and I was wondering if you wanted to come over and eat with me. I know you're new to the building so I figured why let this food go to waste." He wasn't fooling me. I'd already been told by one of my friends in the building that this 40+ year old man was trying to get with me. He'd call out his window when I was walking up to the building from the parking lot. I already had an apartment stalker before. I wasn't trying to encourage another one. "No," I replied. "I just ate. Thanks though. Enjoy your dinner." He smiled and I closed the door. You won't find me locked in his bathroom. No sir. Not me.

A nice shade of lavender - to answer your question

“Trying to figure out... the deal with the purple paint samples...” - Babyface Assassin commenting on the above picture of my desk on Facebook

Two years ago, I went to the paint department in Home Depot for inspiration.

I was having a hard time at my first metro reporting internship at the Press & Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton, N.Y. Up until that point, I’d done feature writing, soft daily pieces – nothing with the immediacy of a major fire or even the police beat.

My frustration built with every straight news lede I had to write. I felt like all the joy I found in writing was slowly slipping away because the scenes and color I loved so much had no place in a hard news story.

So, when I called upon an old professor to vent my feelings, she gave me this sage advice.

“Every good piece of writing is somewhere between the plain white facts and purple prose,” she said. “Great journalism comes in a nice shade of lavender.”

After our conversation, I jumped in my car and headed for the nearest paint department. I actually went to two or three stores before I found the right one. The five-colored swatch has a deep purple at the top – the colors gradually fading to a violet tinged white at the bottom.

And smack dab in the middle, is my lavender.

I took a few of the swatches and tucked them away for safe keeping. At work, I taped one to my computer, to remind me that just because what I’m writing may not be a textbook feature doesn’t mean I still can’t paint a picture or evoke emotion with my words.

Since then, the swatches have been with me at every job I’ve been to. from HU to Detroit. And now, it’s on the bulletin board at my desk here in Providence. Sometimes I forget it’s there.

But when I’m on deadline for a major mill fire and the words just won’t come, I glance at the paint swatches to my left and remember the advice I got two years ago.

Then I close my eyes and paint my story a nice shade of lavender.