A little hometown pride

I got this forward a while ago, but for some reason today, I'm just feeling a little proud of my city. Don't ask me why. Read on and just nod your head. Because trust me, you really won't understand.

You know you from Flint when...
Everyone in your family work or worked in the shop
People get scared when you say your from
You think "Sweetest Day" is celebrated everywhere
You drink Faygo Red Pop
You say Pop, not Soda
You drink Vernors
You get you hair and nails done to go to the Valley
You call the Genesee Valley Mall "The Valley"
You think the Valley has the best shopping
You can do 3000+ hussles
You go to ballroom hussle lessons at the Vets Club
Your church is across the street from a party store
You call the liquor store the party store
You still say Chatty
You still talk about how fly you were at the prom
The prom is the biggest event of the year
You brought an outfit to go watch the prom
You brought colored gators for your prom outfit and it matched the color to the T
You think 4 high school's in the city is a lot.
You went to a CAMP party with one of these names on the flyer Darrnel, Terrel, Jerry, Clyde, and Tank
The party you went to ended in a fight or shooting
You were the person fighting or shooting at the parties
You think it's normal for people to shoot at the club.
You wouldn't go to a party unless DJ scribbles was the DJ
Tony Naylor cut your hair High school basketball games were bigger than the NBA playoffs
Every guy you went to high school with was "going to the League"
You have a Flint tattoo
You know the difference between firecrackers and gun shots
You know what Big Johns, Halo Burger, and Ya Ya's is
You've taken 3:00am runs to Angelos (the original one)
You've eaten at Atlas
You love some banana boat
You were excited when Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, and Popeye's came 10 years after every other cities had them
You know who the Dayton Family is and Top Authority
You been to the Beavers and lived to tell about it
You look forward to 3 major events Prom, Pro Ams, and Double Headers at the IMA and buy outfits to go to them
You remember the Super Show High School Step Shows were tighter than College Step Shows
You were a member of Xinos, Kudos, Akettes, Alpha Esquires, Kappa League, or Unified Sisters or wanted to be
You remember skating at CLC
You consider Clio Rd. the Strip
When the Jordan's came out you left school to go get them
You went to Blue Bell Beach and Penny Whistle

Theres no city in the world like FLINT.
Its not the best place to live but it's a great place to be from!!!

My Life in the Sunshine

It's like 68 degrees today.

I wore a black and white optical print wrap dress to celebrate (My Florida Evans dress was dirty). As I traipsed up and down the streets of Downtown Providence, I had to be cognizant of my hand placement. See, in addition to it being a beautiful day, it was right windy.

And my dress was short. And wrap dresses aren't the sturdiest constructed garments.

So I had to walk around with my folder weighing down the free end of my dress so that it wouldn't flare up a la Marilyn Monroe. Definitely a little more work than I'd imagined. But nevertheless, it was a beautiful day today.

Thankfully, it is not raining today.

Last week I walked out of the office and came to a startling realization: Providence smells like vinegar in the rain.

At least it did last week. Blech.

On a sweeter smelling note, I start mentoring here next month. I went and visited the site today and I'm REALLY excited about being a mentor. The program is essentially designed to help youth from urban backgrounds (read: the ghetto) make it in corporate America.

Though I'm not the queen of business lunches, meetings and quarterly reports - my job is inherently non-corporate, or at least we like to think we are - I really think I have something to give to these students. Most of them are around my age, so I definitely know that I can relate to them -- especially considering my upbringing (Flinttown, stand up!) and the fact that I made it out. I'll be paired with one student and be charged with keeping weekly contact with them and helping them navigate the world of corporate America.

Did I mention I'm excited!?!

Beyond that, I feel like I'm hitting a stride in Providence. Granted, it took 18 months, but it's here. I'm getting more involved in my church, in mentoring and in professional networking groups and Providence is actually feeling *gasp* like home.

Now if I could just get some of my family and friends to come visit me in the Ocean State, all would be well in the world.

Anybody looking to make a day trip to Providence?

West Coasting it?

So, it looks like Africa is out for the foreseeable future.

However, it seems that Las Vegas is in.

NABJ, here I come.

Working Girl

Oddly enough, I haven't been able to match lately.

Maybe I'm going color blind.

No, I think I'm just starting not to care. I got up this morning and pulled on a pair of grey pinstripe pants and a green short sleeved sweater. No problem, right? I slipped into my black pumps and headed to my closet to look for a cardigan to shield me from the ever changing temperature in my office. I didn't have black, so I pulled out my beige cardigan and put it on. I grabbed my teal coat, knotted my crimson scarf around my neck, and walked out the door.

Before you berate me, hear me out. I had every intention of taking the cardigan off and placing it on the back of my chair at work. But as soon as I came in, I headed into a staff meeting, where it was cold. So I kept the cardigan on. And the red scarf. It wasn't until maybe 4:30 p.m. that I realized what I had on and peeled the cardigan from my back and laid the scarf to the side.

Good thing I spent most of the day at my desk writing.

Speaking of writing, I feel like I've become an indentured servant to my newspaper. After a very long weekend of shenanigans and responsibilities, I started Monday at 8:30 a.m. at a local pond. I was there to do a feature on a water based division of the police department. From there, I headed back to the office to write about an open meetings complaint that had been filed with the Attorney General's office. I also got the skinny on a court case that I had missed earlier that day and wrote it for the enxt day's paper. Day done yet? Not by a long shot. I had to then head to my town for a budget workshop that I thankfully didn't have to write about until the next day.

Tuesday, I slept until noon, then rolled out of bed to go to work. I wrote my budget hearing story from the night before, filed some requests for public documents and headed back to my town for a marathon town council meeting. The meeting started at 7 p.m. It adjourned at 11:05 p.m.

Exhausted, I ran back to the office to get on the following day's b udget (a mandate from my boss) then went home and fell in the bed. Then, today, I had the two hour staff meeting and then spent all afternoon writing about the marathon town council meeting which advanced the story on a pension board issue that recently had garnered a lot of coverage.

I'm just pooped. And the week isn't over yet.

One good thing is coming out of all of this, though. Can you say "overtime?"

It's getting hot in here

No, seriously.

Right now, at this very moment, it's hot as all equator in my office.

I asked my co-workers if they felt the heat. They said no.

Maybe I'm having hot flashes, but this stuff is not cool. I don't like sweat. Which is a problem because my hands have a tendency to water unprovoked. It doesn't happen when I'm stressed or nervous, it just happens randomly. I need to figure that out.

Anyway, take the rising temperature outside, the heat blowing from the vents above me and my sweaty hand tendency and you have a recipe for disaster.

My hands are leaving perspiration prints on my wrist guard.

Oh bother.

My 'fro is SO soft

I tell ya: ain't nothing like getting a good shape-up from a talented barber.

As T-Dot 2.0 readers will be well aware of, I haven't exactly had the greatest of luck with hair in the past.

First, there was the Cornrow Incident of 2002
The short anxiety attack I had whenI first cut my hair in January 2006
Marathon braid sessions with African stylists

You get the point.

My luck finally changed when I made the committment to go natural in June. But even still, I've had my bad days.

But since I cut my hair, my experience has been homegrown, to say the least. I wash it and condition it myself. It dries naturally in about 30 minutes these days. And sometimes I even do it up and get creative with the styles, like I did for the Follies.

I'd tried finding a stylist in RI like the salon that intially cut my hair. Clearly, there aren't enough natural black people in the state to warrant a whole salon devoted to natural styles - or even a stylist who knows how to manage kinks. I went to a salon to get comb twists around my birthday and was less than pleased about them. I dropped in a random salon in the hood to get a trim and ended up with about an inch and a half less hair.

I even bought a pair of shears in hopes that I would trim my ends myself. I've been too afraid to do it. So, my fro has been looking a little haphazard. I had to pat it down a lot more than is normally desired, and I couldn't even think of walking outside of the house without my headband to tame my locs into submission.

Randomly, I asked a friend of mine, who I met via an organization I just joined, if he knew of a barber I could trust with my afro.

He asked around. Directed me to a small shop in south Providence where his boy cuts hair. I was nervous, but I figured after the luck I'd been having, this guy could be nothing but an upgrade.

I sat down in dude's chair and took in his space: a few random shots of his boys were on the mirror, not much else. The barber, Hakim, was a man of few words. But the boy knew how to work the clippers!

As he worked, I struck up a conversation with him. He's pretty nice. Guess he just waits until he's spoken to to speak. Regardless, he was very professional and I actually felt at ease in his chair. He rounded me off and lined me up with quite possibly one of the best shape ups I've ever had.

I thanked him, tipped him and informed him that from now on, he would be my barber.

Back at work (I dipped out during my lunch break for the cut), I kept stealing glances at my hair as I walked past the glass doors in the hallway. In the bathroom, I patted my 'fro to make sure what I was seeing was really real.

I'm walking with a little pep in my step today. My head? It's held a little higher than normal.

I love my barber. I love his work. I am very happy.
So, so very happy.

There's No Follies like OUR Follies

I closed my eyes and ran through my lines as I waited in the wings, listening for my cue.

Backstage, a million things were happening all at once. The makeup guy was trying to give my wig one last once over. The girls were adjusting their tights and bustiers as they lined up behind me. To the left, one of the costars was wiping blue paint from his face.

This, my friends, is The Follies.

For those who don't know, The Follies is an annual show sponsored by the Providence Newspaper Guild, my union. I call it Saturday Night Live, based on Rhode Island news events, and then set to music. The show, which involves guild members and community members, has been going on for the last 34 years. This is my second year participating.

So, based on last year's raves and reviews, you know I was expecting some big parts in this year's show.

Yeah. Not so much.

I had two leads. One was a duet, the other a takeout verse. I sang backup in another skit and was a dancing showgirl in yet another. I was in the opener and closer.

But beyond my absence from the stage for a good portion of the show, I couldn't help this weird feeling I got when I did step on stage. Something was different.

Gone were the butterflies. My mind, which previously went blank, recalled the words to my song easily. I sang to the audience and worked that stage with the confidence of a pro.

Maybe I knew I had very little stage time so I needed to milk it for all it was worth. Whatever it was, it worked. Even though I was only in a few skits, I got more than a few compliments about my performance.

Some of the comments, however, were a little uncomfortable.

The last skit told the story of a strip club that rents space from our local department of transportation, which has offices on the second floor of the same building as Club Desire. When the music began, I walked out on stage in a two piece lingerie outfit and wild brown wig to sing the intro:

Here's our story it's sad but true

About some guys that we once knew

Worked upstairs fondled lots of money

Now we're not their highway honeys

Once the show ended, the comments began.

"Wow."

"You wearing that to work on Monday"

"I've got some guys over here that want to know if you have a boyfriend."

I brushed them all off and smiled. No, I will not be wearing this in the newsroom. And if your mans and them need to send you to get my number, they don't need it.

My other song, which got some reaction was a tune we sang to "Unforgettable." Except ours was called "Undivorcable." It told the story of a lesbian couple who married in Massachusetts but live in Rhode Island. Now, they want a divorce. Problem is, Rhode Island doesn't recognize gay marriage. D'oh! My verse:

So forgettable, in every way

I'll go back to men that's where I'll stay

Divorce darling is the thing I need

To get rid of you, for good you see

Never before have I hated you more

For the scene, I donned an almost skin-tight hot pink sequined dress and slid a ball and chain around my wrist. The audience loved the line where I went back to men. I mean, you see me in the dress, wouldn't you be happy too?

The rest of the time, I danced with some guys on stage and used my feather boa. Afterwards, I wiped the stage make-up off of my face, slid back into my cocktail dress and heels and went to go find my sister.

We listened to talk from my coworkers about going to a local bar for drinks. I told them to call me. They didn't. And I didn't call them. At first I was hyped, but as I went into the adjacent room for the cast party (read: cast dinner), I felt all of the energy leave my body. I gobbled down some lasagna, rice pilaf and some carrot cake and started looking for the door.

My sister was tired and really, so was I. It had been a long day. A long week. Shoot, a long month. And I was glad it was over. Great experience, but whew, it takes a lot out of you. So, Setta B and I braved the cold New England air and headed back to my house in East Providence. Oh, in case you're wondering, she blogged about The Follies at her site, too.

The local alternative weekly, the Providence Phoenix, wrote about the show in its entirety. I got a slight nod at the end, but nothing like I had last year. (Hint, my name is on page 2 of the article.) Oh, the burden of not being the star.

Regardless, Follies, thumbs up overall.

And just so you know, I gave back the pink dress.