Never Can Say Goodbye

I didn't even notice the gloves.

I'm halfway watching the memorial to Michael Jackson, who died a week and a half ago as he was preparing to launch his comeback/retirement tour. And I just got a glimpse of his brothers, who were the pallbearers, all wearing MJ's signature sparkly glove on one hand.

In the time since his death, it's been wall to wall coverage of Mike, a lot of it good, fitting, loving tributes to a man who had such an impact on so many people and to music as we know it. I remember the night he died, I had to run back to the newsroom to get by badge. A copy editor remarked that it was hard to imagine what music will be like without him.

"He's the king," I said. "Music is the way it is because of him."

The copy editor agreed (and added James Brown, which I concurred with) and we went about our way.

I'm not going to wax poetic about Mike. I thought he was great and enjoyed his music, a realization I came to only after his death. As radio stations and televisions played his songs in constant rotation, I found myself unable to control my dancing. My joy. Controversial, troubled or not, MJ was a genius who brought so much fun to his music. And you felt it with every beat.

This wasn't what I planned to write about today, but I can't think of anything else. I sit across from the TV in the newsroom and I feel like my eyes have been glued to the screen (with barely no sound) all afternoon.

Just kinda wish this all wasn't happening.

We Had Him

Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing, now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips like a puff of summer wind.
Without notice, our dear love can escape our doting embrace. Sing our songs among the stars and walk our dances across the face of the moon.
In the instant that Michael is gone, we know nothing. No clocks can tell time. No oceans can rush our tides with the abrupt absence of our treasure.
Though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone.
Only when we confess our confusion can we remember that he was a gift to us and we did have him.
He came to us from the creator, trailing creativity in abundance.
Despite the anguish, his life was sheathed in mother love, family love, and survived and did more than that.
He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style. We had him whether we know who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his.
We had him, beautiful, delighting our eyes.
His hat, aslant over his brow, and took a pose on his toes for all of us.
And we laughed and stomped our feet for him.
We were enchanted with his passion because he held nothing. He gave us all he had been given.
Today in Tokyo, beneath the Eiffel Tower, in Ghana's Black Star Square.
In Johannesburg and Pittsburgh, in Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, England
We are missing Michael.
But we do know we had him, and we are the world.
- Maya Angelou

Oh, Christmas Tree

I was going to put up a tree this year. I promise I was.

I went to Target and bought a thrifty artificial one -- that is still in the box on my living room floor.

I have ornaments, including the ones Jessie and I exchange each year.

But, with less than a week to go before Christmas, and me literally days away from traveling to NYC to visit my sister, I realized it wasn't worth it. Plus, all the presents I had so lovingly wrapped for friends and family were shipped off (at the cost of $50!) or otherwise delivered last week.

So again, what's the point?

Thankfully, the BF and his roommate, the Magic man, were decorating their tannenbaum and allowed me to join them. See the Christmas pin in full effect??

We decked Magic's 7 foot tree. His reasoning for getting such a large tree? "If you're taller than your tree, it's a Charlie Brown tree."

I disagree, obviously.

We strung the lights and hung the bulbs all while the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory played in the living room. (Aside, have you seen that movie? Gene Wilder, though not as disturbing as Johnny Depp in the remake, is pretty peculiar. And the oompa loompas? Absolutely fantastic.)

We had to make sure we broke out the tinsel and fake snow, Gigli was in the house.

We'd hung all the bulbs and admired our work. All that was left, was to hang the star. But being that Greg got the most ginormous tree he could find, there were some technical difficulties.

Four hands were able to finally get the star in it's rightful place. Just when we thought we were done...

The candy canes!

Greg and I hung the peppermint treats high enough to keep out of Deuce's hungry grasp.

Here's the final result:

Merry Christmas, indeed.

T-Dot Redux

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone! Go support your local Mexican.

I was trolling through the T-Dot archives and found a post I made a year ago, where I apologized for being away so long (sound familiar?) and gave an update on some things in my life. I figured it wouldn't be a bad thing to update this a little. Here goes:

I'm still working on that debt free thing.

Sam's Club is back. I rejoined the super warehouse, BUT, I didn't get the credit card. I'm just a plain ole member, with access to the lovelyness that is all things bulk. I did, however, pay off my Bank of America credit card with my taxes this year (joy!) and I'm slowly chipping away at the foolishness that is my American Express card. A month or so ago, actually, when I got my tax return, I was on a debt eliminating kick. So I called Amex and told them I needed a lower interest rate. Now, a little background. Last year, I did the same thing because they'd raised my rates after I was late with a couple payments. No worries. I got on the financial work out plan known as automatic bill pay and have been consistent ever since -- and paying them twice a month. So I note all of this to the teller. And with no problem at all, he lowers my rate to some thing in the 8 percent range. Very good. I've also started contributing more to my savings account by automatically deducting $75 out of each check on payday. I don't miss it and my savings account is getting nice and plump.

I'm not buying a house.

I don't know if I told you all this, but I don't want to be in Rhode Island forever. Yes, I've been paying rent for nearly 3 years in Rhode Island, but honestly, I ain't trying to have ties to this area when I decide to move on. Beyond that, I'm not in the situation financially to be a homeowner. I have good credit, but my savings are not what they need to be and my main priority is debt elimination these days (see above).

Also, I was thinking about it when I went to Atlanta a few weeks ago to visit my friend, Hizzle, who recently became a homeowner. I think I want to own land in the south. Or at least not New England. I need a place with a yard. Though I'm not huge on yard work (hubby can cut the grass), there's something about having a big yard where you can gaze out from your porch and watch the happenings, or -- later down the road -- a place where my kids can run around and be merry. That's important to me. So, until I find a place I want to be for a while, and a plot with wide open spaces, it'll be the renters life for me.

I'm no longer a mentor.

It was a lot. I liked it when I did it, but i was doing entirely too much. The program is supposed to be guided by the mentee and my mentee never called me. I tried (a few times) to get her to go out with me and I'd take her to lunch every so often, but once she started her internship, she was like peace out. And things got busy for me at work, so I didn't really speak to her again until graduation. I'm pretty bad at keeping in touch with people. People i choose to like, not just people I'm assigned to. So I told the organization I was sitting this round out. They can keep me on the list for maybe another time, but these days, I was like, I'm trying to focus on some other things and I just don't have the time, desire or committment to mentor right now. I do need to find something else to occupy my time that also fortifies the community. I'll work on that.

I still make a fantastic lasagna.

But you'd never know it from the way I've been eating lately. If you pumped my stomach over the last month, you'd likely find that I sustained myself on a steady diet of Subway, Chinese food, pizza and fried chicken in various incarnations. I tried to do better, so I bought some lunchmeat and made sandwiches for lunch, and brought yogurt to eat. But by dinner time, I'd be so tired, I'd just throw on some ramen, or eat some hotdogs (with buns). I need to do better. My manfriend and I need to make thanksgiving dinner (we decided that's something we wanted to do on a random day soon) so that'll be a start. But I don't even know what I'll eat tonight. Hmmm. Maybe I have some salmon I can unthaw.

Talk about thankful

I got to come home for the first time in almost a year this week as I celebrated Thanksgiving with my family.

I got into Detroit on Wednesday afternoon and headed to Flint the next morning with my sister and her kids. We filled up on my mom's cooking (ham, yams, greens, stuffing, fried turkey and black eyed peas) and promised we'd have dessert (peach cobbler, pinapple upside down cake, cream cheese pound cake) later.

Afterward, I went to go visit my grandmother and took some peach cobbler to her. We talked for a while - during which time i realized she is getting old. She's refusing to go to the cardiologist they referred her to (it's too far, she says), and her hearing is beginning to go. She's in her early 90s, I believe, so she's still super functioning to be so old. But it was kind of hard to see her starting to wither a bit. I made a mental note to call her more and visit her whenever I can. In fact, I'm coming back to Flint on Saturday, so I'll visit her then as well.

I came home and called my boy Karrington, from high school and he dropped by for a cool minute. We chatted for a bit and then he said he'd be back before I headed out to brave the Black Friday sales in a few hours. In the meantime, I played with the kids, took pics and watched the American Music Awards on my mom's DVR.

As I watched Rihanna and Neo perform, I glanced at the end table and saw the picture I'd taken with my high school senior prom date. (My senior prom photo, right, sans my date.)

"That was a cute dress," I thought to myself. "It's still in there. I wonder if I can fit it?"

It was sort of a challenge to myself. I'd tried the dress on at least 2 other times: freshman year of college and senior year of college. Each time, I could barely get it on my body, let alone closed. Still, I hadn't been able to bring myself to give it away. And everyone had been saying lately that I'd lost a lot of weight (yesterday, my sister saw me in my underwear and said my stomach looked "crackish" because I'm thin. I sighed.), which I can't see, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I had nothing to lose after all.

I went into my room, which my mom has now converted into an office (there isn't even a bed in there anymore!) and pulled the dress down from its hanger. My sister was on the computer and called me crazy for trying to put the dress on. I just laughed and slid the beaded number over my head.

I stopped laughing when it went on without struggling. I looked at her and smiled. "Can you try to zip it?"

"You out your damn mind," she said, fumbling with the zipper. Then, it happened. I looked up and this dress - the one I'd bought a size too small (a 4) in 2001 because it was the only one of the dress left - was on my body. The straps dug into my back a little. And the chest could be adjusted. But, overall, it it didn't look bad. My face lit up and I screamed "I CAN FIT MY PROM DRESS!"

My sister looked at me, shook her head and turned back to the computer. I ran into the dining room to show my mom. She laughed. I grabbed my phone and called Julian. He laughed. I sent out a mass text to at least 5 different people. A few laughed. Nothing was funny. This was a milestone.

I put the dress - along with my dress from senior ball at Hampton - into a garment bag and put them on top of the rest of my stuff to take back with me.

T.Dot loves the kids!

I got something in the mail at work the other day and it was so cute I just had to share. It's not journalism related per se, but I did blog about my visit to the Paul Cuffee School for reading week on Ten95 recently, which served as a rejuvenation for me.

So, quickly, two notes. First, from the school:

Dear [T.Dot]:
It was great to have you with us during Reading Week this year. Ms. Rich's 2nd grade class truly enjoyed having you visit! Enclosed is a note from the students and a picture of you with the kids. I hope you enjoy it.
As our last guest reader of the week, you get an A+! your visit was a great conclusion to this year's successful Reading Week. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us.

P.S.: Our students have chosen you as the most fashionable guest reader of 2007!

Now, a note from the kids, verbatim:

Dear Ms. [T.Dot],
Thank you for comeing to read us ThaT Book. Are You comeing Back to read us a nuther Book?
From: Miss Rich's class.

Not that misspelling words is cute, but the note - and accompanying pictures - made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

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!!!