on: "a little life"

"You won't understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are -- not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving -- and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad -- or good -- it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well."

almost every book i read, and have read for at least the past 5-6 years, has come from a library. once in a while, i'll come across a book that i really love and will decide to add it to my personal collection. those are usually nonfiction or poetry titles, though.

"a little life" by hanya yanagihara is one of the best novels i've read in a long time. even before i finished it, i knew i'd want to re-read it. i want a copy of my own so i can highlight passages and maybe write some additional blog posts or journal entries about it.

this book made me cry at least twice and there are so many little gems, like the opening passage of this post, that i want to revisit and it is so well-written (in my opinion - obviously your mileage may vary) and i can't stop thinking about it. no, really. it's that good.

i think part of the novel's appeal for me is its focus on friendships and how much of ourselves we give and reveal and conceal and forgive of those we hold near and dear to our hearts. if you've been reading the blog for a while, then you know that this subject is an ongoing area of focus for me. i'm sure that's part of why "a little life" resonated so much with me. the conversations that these characters both on their own and as a collective are conversations that i've had with myself and with other people. how do we maneuver this world without losing ourselves? i don't have the answer to that one, but i'm glad this novel can help explore the question.

on: not expecting reciprocity

(now playing: lauryn hill's "ex-factor")

i was talking with a friend of mine a few nights ago and they asked me why i do the things i do for the people i care about, even when it may be obvious that i won't necessarily receive a similar level of consideration.

my response went something like this: "i don't do things like that because i'm expecting the other party(ies) to reciprocate. i do those things because it's the right thing to do."

i've been mulling that over ever since and it still holds true. something in my spirit or in my gut or some combination thereof will tell me to send that text or write that email or pick up that "just because" gift or send that quickpay or whatever and i am trying to be better about going with that feeling. would it be nice if i got that same kind of consideration in return? absolutely. as i tried to explain to my friend, though, that's not why i do these things.

never mind that the theory of reciprocity basically tells us that yes, we should expect a certain level of behavior or treatment in exchange for how we behave towards or treat others. i think once i started leaning in (and i typed that with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek) to this whole empath/caregiver role, a part of me realized that yes, this will be somewhat thankless work and yes, there would be times when i'd pay any amount of $ i could get my hands on to receive some sort of acknowledgment for it but no, that's not why i'm here. if i had to wait for these things to come back to me in some fashion, i'd never get anything done. i'm not always ok with it, but i accept it.

i saw this earlier and it kinda solidified my position a bit. i don't want to live a life where there are strings attached to my generosity. i need to be able to give of myself without worrying about if/how/when it's going to come back to me. i need to trust the process, which i swear is so much easier said than done. maybe that's part of the ongoing lesson(s) that god/the universe is trying to teach me.

of thee i do not sing

(with apologies to langston hughes)

i, too, lip sync america.

they do not send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes.
a table has been prepared for me in the midst of my enemies.
my place is to smile through my wincing as they point to me
as an example of how hard work and resilience can pay off.
would that i didn't need that resilience to get me through each day,
but such subjects aren't discussed when company comes.

they see but won't acknowledge how beautiful i am.
they will praise me for being so articulate
even as they ignore my pleas for them to stop killing us.

i am the token symbol of progress
as schools are underfunded or closed altogether
as mental health services fall by the wayside
as community-based initiatives are stretched to the breaking point and then snap
as our demands for more and better jobs and economic equity
are met with "get out of the streets and join the police academy"
as if that has ever solved or will solve society's ills.

they will wonder why i, you, we, us
why we are unsatisfied
after they have "given" us so much

oh, we are far from satisfied
we are not satisfied, nor sated, nor appeased, nor content
we are, to paraphrase miss fannie lou,
beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired

our hands are up
not out
our eyes are open
not shut
our voices are loud
not silent
our hearts are heavy
but still beating
even as you pick us off one by one.

and so i lip sync america.
i kneel or sit or raise a fist and delight in your horror at my "disrespect."
"how dare you? after all we've done?"
how dare i not, after all you're continuing to do?

see as little evil as possible

9/27 7:19pm

"don't read the comments. ever." i occasionally break this rule and i almost immediately regret it every time. people are terrible and internet comments bring out the worst of the worst, so i try to avoid the comment section whenever possible.

i also try to avoid watching footage of police encounters gone horribly awry - beatings, shootings, murders, etc. i personally gain nothing from seeing that on screen. it upsets me. it was hard enough watching "fruitvale station" and "the black panthers: vanguard of the revolution" (to name a couple) in theaters. i knew how these stories ended and i still found myself in tears and kicking the seat in front of me out of sheer frustration.

needless to say, i try to turn my head or leave the room altogether if quasi-landlord's watching tv and there's video of the latest police shooting(s). i don't post them. i keep scrolling whenever they make it into my feed. i don't need to pay that kind of witness. i do not gain strength from watching them. it saps me of what little strength i have left on any given day.

i went to a lecture tonight and there was a short film as part of the presentation. footage from various police shooting and other altercations was included in the film. the tears started flowing before i could even think of keeping it together.

i'm writing this on the train ride home and while my eyes are dry for now, my head hurts and my heart is heavy and i feel like a goddamn broken record because sweet jesus haven't we had enough? haven't we endured enough? haven't we been through enough even though we're not considered to be enough?

recipe* review: chili-rubbed tilapia

not even gonna lie to y'all: it feels weird as all hell to be posting a recipe review after my most recent post. i supposed this could also be considered part of the work - the attempt to resume pursuing normalcy in the face of heartbreak and chaos. i am still heartbroken, but i've only cried once so far today and i feel like that's progress. on the other hand, i am sleep-deprived as hell and my sinuses have been acting up all week and when i tell y'all that i am so looking forward to taking a benadryl later so i can get some relief and hopefully some sleep? my body is ready. literally.

anyway - got a text on tuesday afternoon from quasi-landlord while she was grocery shopping, saying that tilapia was on sale and asking if i wanted her to grab some for me. sure, i said, grab about a pound. i figured i'd cook on wednesday since i already had dinner plans on tuesday.

well, i wrote about what happened on tuesday, not knowing that wednesday was going to break me even more. my head is still reeling and my heart is still broken and after i'd written about wanting/needing a safe space for me and mine, the near & dear friend i mentioned in that post wound up staying here on wednesday night b/c everything was just too much at that point. one bright note, though - one of the library books i picked up this week is the companion piece to the kerry james marshall exhibit that the guy on the train & i discussed on tuesday night. gotta love that kind of timing.

while i was at work on wednesday, i remembered that i'd seen a photo of this recipe on instagram and it looked easy enough. i didn't want anything that required the oven because it was still a bit too warm for all of that. i walked in wednesday and realized that my friend and i were both starving, and this preparation seemed easy enough that i could handle it in my exhaustion.

i thought the fish was a bit too salty, but i didn't actually measure the salt so much as i eyeballed it, plus i was using freshly ground pink sea salt (s/o to costco), so your mileage will more than likely vary. i did not make the asparagus because i am weird about asparagus - i only like it when it's mixed in with other things, like soup or risotto, but not as a standalone vegetable or side dish. quasi-landlord took a whiff and declared the tilapia delicious even though she didn't actually eat any of it. it helps that the seasonings (as well as the fish itself) aren't things that will make her sick, so i'm sure this will end up in one or both of our rotations. i'm currently pondering a variation of it with lemon pepper instead of chili powder. i'll let you know if/when that happens.

the good lord works in mysterious ways

the title of this post is brought to you by the musical version of the color purple.

today was a doozy. i was exhausted when i left the house this morning (thanks, monday night football!) and the news did fuck-all for my well-being or disposition. i think i made it through maybe 2 hours at work before i was ready to just curl up under my desk and cry for the rest of the day. i didn't, because such behavior is frowned upon in the workplace, but a bitch was done. the wall had been hit and i wasn't entirely sure how the fuck i was gonna pull through. past me made reservations for a wine dinner at wildfire with a friend tonight and that was the only thing that kept me more or less upright. seriously. i lost track of how many times i caught myself just sliding down in my chair at work and realizing that no, i couldn't just fall out. stupid "open workspace" environment.

whatever. between the murder by police in tulsa and a judge's decision in a certain rape/sexual assault trial involving a certain nba player, i could barely keep it together. but i did, somehow. made it through pre-gaming and the aforementioned wine dinner with the homie even though he was feeling all kinds of ways. i've said more than once that i just want the people i love to be safe and happy and free, but that is oh so very difficult for the black men in my life. like, wtf am i supposed to tell them at this point that doesn't sound or feel like an outright lie? one of my nearest and dearest friends looked at me tonight and said that his life doesn't matter to anyone, and i looked back at him and said that if his life didn't matter to anyone else, it matters to me, his mother, and his son. i meant it. that was the truest thing i could say.

i felt my tenuous grip on being ok slipping away by the time i got on the train to head home and whatever tears i'd been holding back for the past, oh, i dunno, 12 hours started to fall. it's not the first time i've cried in public and therefore i wasn't really bothered. my humanity's barely seen as it is, so a few tears won't really make a difference. the hell with the strong and/or angry black woman trope that i get to wear unwillingly the majority of the time. if you saw me on the train tonight, you saw me in tears. to hell with it, as teedra moses would say.

while i was on the brown line, i saw a white man wearing a "black lives matter" button. i texted my friend to say that if this guy was still on the train when i got ready to leave, i would say thank you because my spirit needed that recognition in that particular moment. sure enough, he was still on the train and i said thank you and he said you're welcome, and we were both getting off at the same stop and he asked if i'd seen the kerry james marshall exhibit at the museum of contemporary art. as a matter of fact, i'd gone 2-3 weeks ago, so we talked about the exhibit and how amazingly powerful marshall's work is and how we both wanted to see it again and would possibly plan a trip to nyc or l.a. while the exhibit's on tour, and then we parted ways and said goodnight.

needless to say that i was expecting none of that and it is possible that i cried some more while walking home. oh, who am i kidding? i totally cried some more on the way home and went into full ugly cry mode once i closed my bedroom door and got ready to start typing this.

theoretically, i have to get up tomorrow and go to work and be a functional adult. my next day off isn't until november and i'm not sure i'm gonna make it. working from home isn't all that feasible b/c i'd still have to deal with quasi-landlord and the dogs and the wonky internet connection (seriously, comcast, get it together). at one point tonight, i kept thinking that all of this is another reason why i need my own place. i need a safe space for myself and for my friends if they don't want to go home for whatever reason(s). don't misunderstand me - i could show up with any of y'all and explain to quasi-landlord that you needed somewhere safe to be on that particular night and she'd be cool, but i need a place of my own so those conversations don't have to happen and instead i can focus on the difficult conversations about why society at large refuses to acknowledge or hear our pleas to be allowed to alive.

i'm tired, y'all. i am so goddamn tired that i can't even articulate how tired i am. my heart is in pieces and i honestly don't know how it's going to be repaired. the accuser in the aforementioned rape case is about to have her life destroyed even more than it already has been and the thought of it makes me nauseous. i can't join the cacophony of #sayhisname or #sayhername or #saytheirname because there are too many names and i will break all the way down because i do not have the ovarian fortitude to do that.

i tweeted earlier that i/we should do what i/we can, where i/we can, and how i/we can, and that it's totally ok if i/we can't at any particular moment, which i'm really feeling right now. i honestly don't know how much more of this i can take without really reacting and possibly putting myself and/or others in jeopardy. i've accepted this empath/caregiver role, but i am so ready to flip all of the tables, metaphorically and literally. i'm here for y'all as best as i can be in any given moment, but holy christ am i exhausted.

but for right now? i need to try to get some sleep and brace myself for whatever tomorrow might bring (hi, femi kuti). i love y'all. good night.

leaning into a week of yes

why yes, i did have a nice trip visiting my friends a couple of weeks ago. as much as i love this city, it was good to get out of chicago for a bit.

we all know i was going to see "purple rain" at millennium park last tuesday. it'd been on my calendar since the movies in the park schedule was released. of course more people than usual were going to be there after prince's fatal overdose (no, i still can't say or type his name and "death" in the same sentence. shut up), but whatever. i had my lawn chair and my individual box of wine and my snacks and i was fully prepared to be by myself in a sea of people.

but then some of my monthly brunch boos said they were going, and i figured, oh, why not join them? it gave me an excuse to buy macarons from sugar bliss and re-up my levels of #blackgirlmagic and since i'd seen "purple rain" twice since april, i wasn't worried about missing a moment of catharsis.

i'm glad i went. it didn't matter that most of us had just seen each other a week prior at brunch. we caught up as if months had passed and we laughed and we sang and we drank and we ate and it's not as if i have a steady sleep pattern anyway, so who cares that i didn't get home until after 11 and still had to be functional at work the next day?

that very next day, one of my dear friends asked me out for wings and/or pizza. i'd had to decline a previous invitation because i was doing all of the things and needed to come home and do as little as possible, but that evening was clear and so i accepted. we ate and drank and caught up and one of her friends invited me to go sailing. more on that in a bit.

we're on...thursday? thursday night i took myself to the art institute (hooray for free evenings!) and spent some quality time with this exhibit before it closed. i also bought a pair of earrings at the gift shop because they were on sale and i really liked them and sometimes saying yes to yourself is a very good thing.

friday after work, i ran into a couple of girlfriends as i was walking to the train and decided to join them for a drink. they didn't believe i would only have one round and be done. i knew i still needed to pick up dinner and run a couple of errands and go home and tackle some laundry, and i did, and it was great...

...because saturday i'd already said yes to meeting friends at the bar to watch the cubs game and then go check out some live music. i got home at a decent hour, which was important because sunday morning was for sailing!

back to wednesday night. my friend's friend owns a small boat and during dinner, he turned to me and asked "what are you doing sunday?" i said it sounded like a trick question and he should just tell me what i was doing. "you're all coming out with me on the boat on sunday." ok. sure. turned out to just be the two of us and i actually got to steer the boat for a bit, which wasn't scary at all (it totally was!) and it was a gorgeous morning and i would totally go back on that boat again as a "passive sailer," aka someone who just sits and looks out on the water and doesn't actually do anything helpful. then we had lunch at the club, as you do, and i had a hibiscus mimosa and a couple other drinks with lunch and it was delightful.

this all happened because i decided to say yes and be willing to hang around people. obviously this does not always happen (she said while typing on her laptop at home on a friday night), but sometimes it's nice to be surprised by the results.

"now if i give you the funk, you gon' take it..."

saw a documentary about parliament funkadelic recently. some former band members were present for a q&a session after the screening. i felt bad because holy shit there is still a lot of righteous and totally justified anger there. i think a couple of them are coping/dealing better than others, but the tension was palpable.

also, i learned that p-funk's "give up the funk" borrowed heavily from david bowie's "fame,' which i hadn't really considered previously but it makes perfect sense. i don't know how i failed to make that connection before but now i can't stop listening to them back-to-back. it reminds me of how i reacted when sjb told me that cee-lo's "bright lights bigger city" and michael jackson's "billie jean" are sorta kinda the same song. i actually have a playlist that's nothing but those two songs and i still listen to it occasionally and my mind is blown all over again.

i left the q&a before it ended because the aforementioned tension was getting to be too much and the folks in the audience giving monologues or soliloquies instead of just asking their question and shutting the fuck up were pissing me off. i wish james had been able to see it, though. did i mention that this screening was on what would have been james' 54th birthday? i think he would've dug it.

vacation, all i ever wanted

going on vacation in a week. actually getting on a plane for the first time in six years. amazing how much has changed since my last flight (memorial day weekend 2010 to philadelphia for the #okpre, to be exact).

hard to seriously think about traveling when you're trying to keep your life together. when staving off eviction and then trying to figure out exactly wtf you're going to do once you've been served with eviction papers, yeah, the thought of going somewhere crosses your mind but you don't act on it. can't act on it, even if you were to take that thought seriously.

but then, you start getting your shit back together. it takes a while. a long while. longer than you thought. the process is still in progress, if you're honest with yourself. but things start coming together. you take a couple of trips to milwaukee for summerfest, but you don't really count those because milwaukee is basically a suburb of chicago in your opinion anyway. last year's winery trip (with a repeat trip already in the works for this year) counted, but that was a road trip if ever there was one.

getting on a plane to visit a state i've not been to yet? this definitely counts, especially since i'm not charging this trip. shout out to my secondary savings account that i set up just for things like this. past me is a genius, i tell you. 

i'm excited to see my friends, and relax, and enjoy some time outside of chicago so i can come back ready to resume kicking this year's ass. wishful thinking? of course, considering the havoc that has been 2016 so far, but you can't say i didn't try.

on: claiming space

(note: i'm using italics to denote past tense because i wrote this last night.)

7/11 7:51pm

lie on your back. look up at the sky. make out shapes of the skyline of the city. your city. a city you've loved and hated to love and fallen back in love with more than you can count.

listen to one of your favorite artists. remember that being a dancer in femi kuti's band is still a bucket list item of yours. sing and sway to the music. marvel that you've seen femi a dozen times if you've seen him once, and tonight you get to enjoy it for free.

ignore the group of men slowly encroaching on your space. stepping on your beach towel. standing directly behind you while you sit and sway and sing. close enough for you to notice but feeling disrespected because the boundaries of the little bit of space you carved out for yourself are being breached. they won't make eye contact, maybe because they're standing and you're sitting. they won't even offer a beer or say excuse me as they step dangerously close.

you are tired. this show is supposed to temporarily ease the burden on your shoulders and make the bridge across your back a little more tolerable.

you feel yourself getting smaller even as you want to raise your voice and remind the interlopers of your presence. you are not invisible, nor indestructible. but you are tired. tired of feeling less than.

so you look at the sky. briefly close your eyes and meditate on a power that is greater. remind yourself that even in the small space you currently find yourself occupying, you are exactly where you're supposed to be. sit up. stretch. smile. smirk at the group of men when one of them breaks their styrofoam cooler by trying to sit on the lid. sit and sway and sing. let the music literally and figuratively move you. say thank you and amen.
 

we're up all night to...

i went to ravinia last night with a few girlfriends. we'd had these tickets for months and we were all excited and there was plenty of wine and laughter, as there should be on a friday night on the lawn, i think.

duran duran was the headliner, but i was really way more interested in hearing chic and nile rodgers. nile is a musical god among mortals and given how incredibly awful 2016 has been for celebrity deaths, i wanted to make sure i got the chance to hear, if not see, nile in person at least once.

at one point during the show, i wondered aloud about the chances of our hearing any daft punk and told my friends that i would probably lose my shit (in a good way) if it happened. shortly thereafter, nile told the crowd about when he was diagnosed with cancer, his thought was to get his affairs in order. by that, he meant he was going to write and produce as much as he could while he still could, and "get lucky" came out of that. nile is now cancer free, thank the gods, and we all know how massive a hit "get lucky" turned out to be.

"we've come too far to give up who we are..." i totally went to church during 'get lucky' live & i'm not sorry. thank you, @nilerodgers.

— lady black (@queeneulalia) July 9, 2016

i have listened to and sang that particular lyric 100 times if i've done it once, but never before had it resonated so powerfully as it did last night. maybe it's because chic slowed down the tempo for that particular part of the song. maybe it's because the woman singing it sounded great. maybe it's because this week has been nothing short of insane. maybe it was a combination of all of those things. i totally ugly cried at ravinia and a tiny bit of the pain i've been carrying from this week lifted ever so gently, just for those few minutes.

my friends and i were walking home from the metra late last night and we passed a boutique's window display for a boutique. i spotted this, shrieked as if i'd seen a ghost, and grabbed one of my friends to come look at it to make sure i wasn't hallucinating.

i went back to that boutique today and bought this print. the one i saw in the window was a bit larger than i wanted, so i wound up with the only 8x10 print that they had of this.

i haven't decided if i'm going to put this up at work or add it to my collection of prints that i'm saving for when i move, but clearly i was meant to have this. it needed to happen, just like i needed to have that moment at ravinia last night.

sometimes the universe is all "hey, i know things are incredibly shitty, but here's a little tiny something to brighten your day." this falls into that category.

foundations of a foodie?

a big part of my relationship with my father revolved around food. mcdonald's on sunday mornings before church or on road trips. countless trips to ponderosa or sizzler or shoney's or shakey's. feeling grown up the first time i ordered chopped steak because daddy was nice enough to wait until later to burst my bubble. :-) 

are you hungry? let's eat. not hungry? let me know when you are and we'll get you something to eat. i don't remember the first time i joined my father in the kitchen during meal prep. it wasn't a big deal for me to see him cooking (and cleaning, at least until i was old enough to take on kitchen duty) and then we'd sit down to eat. i don't remember being a picky eater so much as i was really clear on what i liked and what i didn't and i had the space to express that (within polite boundaries, of course).

like chitlins. family lore has it that someone gave me a forkful of chitlins when i was 6 or so, and i promptly threw up all over james. i haven't touched them since and no one in my immediate family would even consider offering them to me unless they had a memory lapse of some sort.

daddy would never force me to try new things or eat something i didn't like just because it was there. like spicy food. i told the popeye's in kokomo story on here a couple of years ago and it's still one of my strongest memories.

tamales are another strong memory for me. daddy became obsessed with making tamales, to the point that on every trip to mississippi, he'd ask around for so-and-so's recipe and how did such-and-such make their tamales and, of course, have a few samples. he'd come home, add his findings to whatever he'd already collected, and tinker with the recipe. next thing i knew, the kitchen table would be covered with masa and corn husks. i don't know when he'd decided that he'd mastered the recipe, but i do know he'd sell tamales to friends and family and made enough to cover his costs and a little extra. i also remember bringing a batch to school once for a class potluck or something like that. everyone went crazy over them, and deservedly so. those tamales were delicious. one of my regrets is not getting that recipe from daddy before he died.

as meat and potatoes as he was, i appreciated daddy's willingness to branch out (like with the tamales) without making it a big deal. i've said before that my smoked sausage and broccoli dish was one of the first things i made up on my own in high school. i'm not sure i would've done it if daddy had made a face or expressed disgust or displeasure. it was just, try it out and if you don't like it, that's ok. if it doesn't work, let's try to figure out what went wrong. if you've read my recipe reviews, then you've seen a little bit of that in action.

i think that's one helluva lesson to take away, not just for food, but for life in general. try it out and if you don't like it, it's ok. if it doesn't work, try to figure out why and go from there.

music sounds better because of you

i saw a tweet that asked people what song(s) reminded them of their parents. answering this for my mother is easy - the theme from "m*a*s*h." no, really. apparently she disliked that show so much that whenever it came on, one of us had to run over to the tv and change the channel immediately. i still have a somewhat visceral reaction when i hear that theme song that i find myself turning away from it, whether it be changing the channel or hitting skip on a music player or whatever.

answering this for my father, however, is way more difficult. i'm not sure i could narrow our musical memories down to a single song. music was almost always playing in the background during my childhood. one of my brothers played drums at church every sunday and there was almost always a radio on. i remember daddy going through a country phase in the late 80s/early 90s and i made what is to date my only country album purchase as a gift for him for christmas or his birthday.

when daddy, james, and i would all be home together, there would almost always be three different songs playing. james had the run of the basement with his stereo system, i had a stereo (with a record player and a 8-track b/c hand-me-downs weren't just for clothes) in my room, and daddy had his setup in his bedroom. r&b or smooth jazz would be on james' system, i'd have a radio station on, and daddy would more than likely be listening to gospel or blues, having passed through his country phase.

what i can appreciate is that daddy never yelled at us to turn off that "rappity rap" or anything along those lines. at least, i can't remember such a thing happening. my brothers might remember differently but maybe he mellowed out by the time i came along. obviously he had some opinions on what i was listening to since i was still a minor and omg won't someone please think of the children, but there was never a flat-out dismissal. wait, i take that back. wkkc would play gospel on sundays until about 3pm and then switch over to house music. if we were in the car when that shift change happened, daddy would flip to another gospel station because he didn't want to hear "secular" music during the day on sundays. sunday nights were ok, somehow, but whatever. i knew i could turn on the radio in my room and have a dance party and not worry about daddy coming in yelling at me to turn it off.

besides, who else would ask one of their girlfriends to take their daughter to the budweiser superfest at soldier field? i was still in high school and i can't remember if daddy had to work or if he just didn't want to go, but there i was with his lady friend, doing the humpty dance and making friends with other folks sitting nearby.

when i'd come home from northwestern and it was just the two of us, there'd still be two stereos blaring and possibly the tv, if i was watching videos (yes, boys and girls, there was a time when music videos actually played on tv on a regular basis. i didn't always like what daddy played and being the know-it-all teenager i was, i'd voice my loud and probably wrong opinion. i'm sure he hated a good chunk of whatever i was into at that point, but if he judged it, he kept to himself.

road trips were fun because it was my job to change radio stations until i found something we could both agree on that wasn't full of static. this was also where we'd catch up on somewhat deep conversations that we hadn't had at home for whatever reason(s). it was on one of those trips that daddy told me that my mother had cancer and hadn't died of a heart attack as i'd believed for years. i don't remember my immediate reaction but i remember thinking later that he thought i was old enough to handle it and being proud that he thought so highly of me.

don't get me wrong. there are certain songs that could start playing right now and i will immediately think of my father. i think one of the biggest gifts he gave me was to listen to the music and not dismiss it outright, and for that, i am thankful.

happy father's day, daddy. you're still missed and i'm still grateful that i'm your daughter. i'm sorry the musical selection in heaven's improved the way it has so far this year.

on: finding and keeping joy at home

i'm having a helluva time with today being the one year anniversary of the charleston massacre. i think it's taken me this long to reconcile the sheer sense of fear and disgust and anger that i still feel about that shooting.

even though i wasn't directly impacted, it hurt me in a visceral way. i grew up going to an a.m.e. church with daddy and still went with him on occasion after i'd joined 1st c. daddy's funeral was at that same a.m.e. church and while i no longer considered it my home church, i still felt welcome. that's a great feeling, especially after the heartbreaking gossip that swirled about me. nothing says awkward like your father sitting you down to confirm that no, you haven't been sleeping with random deacons at his church while you were still in high school. yeah, that happened. ask me about it offline over a drink and i'll fill you in.

before charleston, i'd have the occasional nightmare of being at 1st c. or some other church gathering and some gunman (or woman) coming in and causing chaos. needless to say that i experienced that particular nightmare more than usual after the shooting last year. it still happens and it still hurts like hell. i can visualize myself sitting on a pew, surrounded by family and friends and their kids (some of whom are actually adults now but i still think of them as my church babies b/c i'm that kinda auntie) and trying my damnedest to make sure they're ok when the gunshots start ringing out. i don't think i can understate how fucking nervous i was the first time i went back to 1st c. after charleston. luckily i know that building well enough to know where the exits are and where i can duck and cover and the simple fact that i feel like i have to keep that knowledge somewhat handy is some bullshit.

sorry. got distracted and riled up there for a second. *takes a deep breath*

despite the people and policies and politics, churches are a place of refuge for me. i can sit and have a little talk with god (shouts to stevie wonder). i know i can do that anywhere and trust me, i do some of my best praying outside of church walls. but there's just something different about being in a church for me. it's soothing, really. i haven't been to 1st c. in months but i know i could walk in and be at home.

home. longtime readers know that i have strong thoughts and feelings about what home means for me. home isn't always about a physical place, which is a lesson that has been reinforced constantly for me during the past few years. if home is a physical place, though, you should feel safe there. the charleston 9 should've felt safe. the crowd at pulse in orlando should have felt safe. there are countless other incidents i could name where the people gathered should have felt safe. it breaks my heart and my spirit when these places of refuge are violated. y'all have heard me say god knows how many times that all i want is for the people i love to be safe and free and happy. that we are more than enough just as we are. it gets difficult to keep reminding myself and y'all of that in the face of horrific events like the charleston massacre and the orlando hate crime and yet it bears repeating. we are seen and we are heard and we are loved and we are more than enough. joy may be fleeting but it's ours, goddammit, and i for one am too stubborn to let someone just snatch that shit away without a fight.

a month later

i went shopping on my lunch break today and while i was out and about, it dawned on me that today is the one month anniversary of my surgery. that little tidbit almost took my breath away and simultaneously gave me the push i needed to buy the purse i've been obsessed with for about a week or so as a present to myself. funny how that works. :P

i haven't been feeling all that great this week, thanks to mother nature. i really should've stayed home on monday and yet i pushed through like the superwoman that i try desperately not to be. tuesday was a little better but by the time i got home that night, i felt like i'd been hit by a truck and spent most of the evening with a heating pad on my back.

when my alarm went off yesterday, my body just said nope and therefore i worked from home. you know how sometimes you'll wake up in the morning and you'll give yourself about 10 minutes or so to confirm that yes, you feel ok enough to get out of bed and get moving? i didn't even have that yesterday morning. as i was turning my alarm off, it felt as though every nerve ending and every muscle were yelling at me to stay in bed, so i did...for 2 more hours. today was better in that the pain didn't really kick in until after i'd gotten dressed and was on my way out the door, but i was able to manage it. 

there are still days when i feel lethargic and i have to remember that i'm borderline anemic on a good day, so of course it totally makes sense for me to be physically tired even when my brain thinks i should be doing all of the things. people ask how i'm doing and i can honestly say that i'm still not 100% and i'm doing better about being ok with that. i saw one of my doctors last week and she reminded me that this is a process and it'll take some time before i get back to normal or even to establish a new normal.

in the meantime, i'm thankful for a job that allows me to work remotely when i'm not feeling up to going into the office, and for having money left after paying bills to splurge on a new coach bag, and for knowing way deep down that i'm still doing the right thing by giving my body a break when i need to.

on: resting and not doing all of the things

first things first - a huge thank you to everyone for the calls, texts, tweets, dm's, emails, flowers, cards, etc. during my surgery and recovery. i really appreciate it and y'all are the best.

as of this writing, it's been 2 weeks since the procedure and while i'm definitely doing better than i was immediately after i got home from the hospital, i know in my heart of hearts that i'm still not 100%. it's mildly annoying for me because i sorta kinda want to do all of the things and my body is just like "hahahahaha go sit down somewhere."

i went back to work this past week and managed not to fall asleep at my desk, so that's an accomplishment in and of itself because i'd gotten accustomed to taking at least one nap a day while i was at home recuperating. this weekend has been a test for me in terms of resuming my usual drinking and other shenanigans and fuckery, but when i found myself turning down tacos last night after lots of beer and my first shots in 2 weeks (yes, readers, i was as shocked as you are now by this), i realized once again that i'm not back to my previous form.

don't get me wrong. on a logical level, i totally get that it's only been 2 weeks and the fact that i'm moving around and have gone back to work without being in too much pain is a good thing. i also know that my sleep patterns were trash before i went into the hospital and therefore my inability to get a decent night's sleep is impacting my recovery. i understand all of this.

and yet i beat myself up for not feeling as productive or social as i think i should, which is ridiculous. i think it's great that no one has put any pressure on me to go out - if anything, you guys are all "hey, are you sure you're ready to have drinks/go to a concert/sit through a lecture that you wish you could get your time back for because it was awful" or whatever. it's all internal. i even gave myself grief for this post b/c i'd intended on writing it before today but i didn't get around to it until now. that's just silly.

i have to remember to continue meeting myself where i am, even if that means taking it easier than i think i should be. it's ok for me not to be 100% yet. it'll be ok if i only get to, say, 98%. my health is what's really important here and clearly i'll be no good to anyone if i'm passing out from exhaustion, so if my body says "hey slow down there for a while," i have to listen and block out the voice that gives me grief for not pushing through.

t-minus 2 weeks and counting

as much fun as i had this weekend - and if you follow me on twitter and/or snapchat, you saw just how much fun (and booze) i had - i was also plagued by anxiety. more than the usual amount of anxiety, really. my subconscious was on a roll. nightmare that combines some of my worst fears? check. panic attacks? yup.

it took until early yesterday afternoon for me to piece it all together. i went to my nephew's wedding this weekend and i was prepared for familial drama b/c as y'all know, nothing about my family is simple or easy, especially when it comes to events like this. plus mother's day is coming up and my feelings on that have been well documented (yes, i will be drinking myself silly again this year, thanks for asking). those two things would be enough, but then i did the math and realized that my surgery is in 2 weeks and that really kicked the anxiety up a notch or 12.

everyone knows that hospitals freak me out and i start feeling claustrophobic if i'm at a hospital for more than 90 minutes or so. i am the one who asks for xanax whenever i need an mri because my nerves just can't take it. some of you also know that a big part of why hospitals freak me out is because both of my parents were hospitalized during their illnesses and never came home. one of the few regrets i have when it comes to james is not going to visit him during his multiple hospital stays, even though he knew why i was really staying away and didn't make a big deal of it, bless him.

and now i am having surgery for the first time ever and, in the parlance of peg + cat, i am TOTALLY FREAKING OUT. at least once a week, i have to give myself permission to flip out for about 5-10 minutes about this routine surgery that will only have me hospitalized overnight. yes, it's technically a voluntary procedure, but my doctors and i understand that my fibroids have minds of their own and i'd rather manage this while i have the opportunity to make decisions based on what i think is best for me. also doing this while i'm still living with quasi-landlord makes sense b/c she'll be around to drive me back and forth and enough of you live nearby to bring me tacos if when a craving hits and i'm not up for walking around yet, b/c tacos.

never mind that i have the logistics figured out and have to date avoided the potential pitfall of over-researching the procedure because then i will definitely have a major moment of panic and that i know in my heart of hearts that this makes sense. if i am being logical about all of it, then yes, this is a good thing and there is minimal risk. i am not a logical person when it comes to this stuff, though - hence the weekly freakouts and the overabundance of anxiety this weekend.

one of my friends is particularly good about reminding me that i tend to worry too much about certain things, especially when i have little to no control over them. i can't help it. my ocd and type a-minus tendencies can be a bit strong and sometimes i just need shit to make sense even if i can't impact the situation. that friend has been advised that they need to issue these reminders more often during the next week or two. i have to meet myself where i am and trust the process even though the thought of staying overnight in the hospital makes my skin crawl and i already know i'm going to take the world's longest and hottest shower when i get home after being discharged. another friend has promised a recovery bottle of booze while i'm at the hospital, so at least i have that to look forward to. also i know my body needs the week or so i'll be home from work to rest, although this won't be a vacation by any stretch of the imagination. 

a number of us are on an ongoing quest to own up to our shit, and this is me being upfront about what i like to call my medical anxiety. i know that while it's justified, it's not really helpful or healthy and as much as i would like to control and manage this situation in its entirety, i have to try to not dwell on things as much - hence my asking the aforementioned friend to help me try to keep the worry in check. i won't even lie and say that this is going to work and i will be totally chill between now and the 16th because insulting y'all's intelligence like that is just rude, even for me. i'm gonna try, though. wish me luck.

i only wanted to be some kind of friend...

[note: this will probably be way more disjointed than usual, for reasons that i'm sure will become obvious.]

i think i was about 7 or 8 when i saw "purple rain" for the first time. my mother was dead and i was staying with my mother's best friend, who had a daughter around my age (we'll refer to her as rb for this story) that was also my best friend. rb and i shared a room, we went to the same school, we liked the same music - we weren't so much inseparable as we were...oh, i don't know. we were best friends even though we didn't get along all the time but we made it work.

somehow, rb's older brother had a copy of "purple rain" and we all watched it one day after school. yes, ladies and gentlemen, the first time i saw this movie was on a bootleg and it is entirely possible that it was a bootleg betamax. yes, i am that old. shut up. was i old enough to be watching purple rain? absolutely not. rb and i both knew her brother was doing us a major favor that we couldn't tell anyone about. imagine going to school the next day wanting to tell everyone that you'd seen this movie but you knew word would somehow get home and then everyone would catch hell. instead, we just giggled about it to ourselves and i have a vague memory of us playing records backwards and wearing some godawful paisley (it was the 80s, remember - we didn't know any better) and having a great time.

fast forward to high school. my friends and i were old enough to be left home alone to watch "graffiti bridge" and delve deeper into our prince fandom. i met kb after i transferred schools midway through my junior year. our circle of friends would sit together at lunch and/or in whatever classes we had together. i worked in the principal's office my senior year during a free period and i would totally forge passes to get kb and the crew out of classes.

kb was a year behind me and he was definitely our little brother, though i'm sure he harbored crushes on at least one or more of us. the summer after i graduated, kb and i made a pact that if we were both single in 2010, we'd find each other and get married and listen to "purple rain" as many times as we could stand it. this was 1994. 2010 seemed really far away to us back then.

hey, remember when i got divorced in 2010? if i was on facebook, i'm sure i would've found kb years ago and though i'm not convinced that we would've dated, let alone gotten married, i can pretty much guarantee that we'd be listening to "purple rain" as much as we could stand it.

and then there was last thursday. honestly, i'm still in shock. i totally had to leave my desk a couple of times that day to go cry in the bathroom. i've only listened to "purple rain" twice since then. that song, both on its own and in the movie, makes me weepy on a good day, so needless to say i'm still having trouble getting through the song without flat out bawling. y'all have been so great, though, with the emails and the tweets and the texts to check up on me and i love you guys for it.

km reminded me of an outing we took to wrigleyville one night b/c i wanted to try to win tickets for what i think was the musicology tour. beer pong may have been involved. i think someone left their card at the bar and had to go back the next day. none of us won, but the fact that i had this crazy idea of winning prince tickets and managed to rope some of y'all into coming along on this pursuit says something. it says a lot, actually. sometimes we do crazy things in the name of friendship and the shit just makes sense in that moment so you go with it.

i wound up seeing prince twice on that tour, both here and in dallas. dallas was first and i was by myself and when "purple rain" started, i went into full ugly cry mode. i remember looking around and everyone in my immediate section was caught up somehow. there was a moment being had and i hesitate to call it spiritual for everyone, but it sure as hell was spiritual for me.

there's power in that, i think, and i like to think that prince knew and understood the kind of power he had and toyed with us anyway, the bastard. i still can't believe he's gone. i can't even say or type his name and "dead" in the same sentence because denial is not just a river in egypt.

jb (yes, i'm just using initials left and right in this post and you will deal, lol) tweeted me yesterday about a prince tribute on chirp radio. i managed to catch the end of it during my ride to work and the last song was "sometimes it snows in april." i sat in the lobby of my office building sniffling and wiping tears because that's another song that hits me in the feels even on my best days, and i hadn't listened to it since the news broke and dammit i am totally getting teary again now. fuck.

anyway...apparently the universe decided i needed to hear that song twice yesterday, b/c i stayed up to watch d'angelo's tribute on jimmy fallon's show and i have the video playing in the background while i type this b/c i'm gonna link to it and christ jesus i am about to start bawling again. hold on.

saying "thank you" to prince doesn't seem like nearly enough and yet i feel like that's all i have right now. thank you for music that has impacted me for 30 years and counting. thank you for giving voice to emotions that i'm sometimes unable or unwilling to express. thank you for sharing your genius even when i couldn't always understands your methods or your madness. thank you for "purple rain." thank you.

recipe review: slow cooker saffron rice with chicken sausage

i was on #adventuresindogsitting duty friday night, which meant i'd be home to do laundry and watch hockey and drink beer and eat dinner and maybe actually break out the slow cooker and do a little meal prep. i knew i had a pack of italian sausage in the freezer, so i started looking through my recipe files with that in mind. i'd saved a copy of this recipe from one of giada's cookbooks and it looked like something i could adapt, so i decided to go with it. here's what i did differently:

--used the aforementioned italian sausage instead of chicken sausage
--used 1 cup of short-grain brown rice because i had some left from a previous recipe and figured i might as well put it to use
--6 small cloves of garlic
--there was some leftover orange bell pepper in the fridge, so i added that with the red bell pepper
--chardonnay instead of vermouth because i was not buying a bottle of vermouth to only use 2 tbsp of it
--closer to 1/2 pound of green beans
--skipped the fresh parsley
--adjusted the cooking time a bit since i was using brown rice. ~3 hours on low and then another 30-40 minutes or so on high
--added pepper (i eyeballed it, same as the salt)

i'd make this again with "regular" rice to see what the texture differences are. i'm ok with the brown rice version, although it doesn't give off the "paella vibe" giada mentions in the introduction to the recipe. if i had shrimp on hand, i'd throw some in during the last minutes of cooking and i'm sure that would be fine.

on: having or not having role models for living to a ripe old age

my boss' great grandmother celebrated her 107th birthday this past weekend. 107. there are days when i can barely count that high, let alone dare to dream of living that long.

and remember the 106 year old dancing with the obamas at the white house? that video makes me weepy every single time i watch it. there is just so much joy there, y'all. it hits me right in the feels.

but then i get to wondering about having those kinds of older women in my life; or, to be more precise, not having those kinds of older women in my life. my maternal grandmother died before i was born. my paternal grandmother died while i was in my early 20s. i'm not sure anyone in my immediate family has attempted to trace our ancestry beyond my grandparents and if they have, i certainly haven't heard anything about it. i'm sure i could and i probably will at some point just out of sheer curiosity.

instead of having older relatives or friends to marvel at because they're still alive and active and dancing and raising hell, i got to attend a funeral on saturday for a family friend who died at the ripe old age of 53. i know it's selfish to want an extended circle of folks all living long and prosperous and happy lives, and i know i obviously have no control over how or when folks die. the logical side of me can process all of that and accept it as valid.

can you blame me for wishing i personally knew a 100-something year old so i could listen to all of their stories like i'd never heard them before? that i could share their joy over dancing or music or a good meal or just laughing themselves silly? i totally plan on being the crazy aunt on someone's porch drinking spiked iced tea and saying whatever comes to mind and doing whatever the hell i want (within some semblance of reason, i suppose) and i'm just saying it'd be nice to have some personal role models for that kind of thing. thank god i can live vicariously through other folks' connections to the elderly.

i'ma go watch that dancing video again.

what they don't tell you re: growing up

if you were anything like me back in the day, then you couldn't wait to grow up and be on your own. occasionally a family member would say something like "aw, don't be in such a rush to grow up. you'll have to pay bills and be responsible and you only have one childhood," or something along those lines. that was a trade-off i was willing to make, dammit. i'm more or less willing to be responsible and earn money and pay bills and do what i want, within reason.

here's the thing, though. i don't think anyone bothered telling us that one particularly sucktastic part of growing up is coming to terms with the fact that you will begin to lose family members and friends at an alarming rate.

some might think that since i've lost so many family and friends throughout the years that i'm more resilient than most when it comes to dealing with loss. oh man, would those folks be wrong as hell. i found out on friday night that another family friend from church passed away that day and the news sent me reeling. luckily i was sitting down when i heard about it and by the time my brain actually processed the words, i was mid-sentence and had to stop talking because i wasn't sure if i was going to start crying or screaming. neither happened, but there was lots of swearing. lots. a tapestry of obscenities may still be floating near the ceiling as i type this.

at one point, it slowly dawned on me that i am at the age where i have to be prepared to say goodbye to my play aunties and my play mothers. i do not like this. this is a pretty fucked up part of adulting and i would like to opt out.

i have been beyond fortunate to have a circle of older (relatively speaking - they're all older than me but i wouldn't call them "old" per se) black women, both from church and from other spheres of my life, that i can call on for advice or gossip or a quick word of encouragement or to read me the riot act or to just be there when i need them. this circle has been in constant formation for as long as i can remember. these were the women i could lean on when my family was driving me up the wall and i didn't think i'd survive high school without losing my mind. they held me up. stood by me. sometimes stood in front of me when i couldn't defend myself. they still do, but i have to accept that death will remove some parts of that circle and it hurts like hell. it really fucking hurts.

i told someone that this timing was particularly egregious because i'd just gotten through the stretch of february/march with all of the death anniversaries and other remembrances and now i can add april 1st (seriously, god - if this is your idea of a joke, I AM NOT AMUSED AT ALL) to that list. the hits just keep on coming and i might have to start adopting the tuck and roll position because attempting to remain upright is exhausting.

recipe review: slow cooker jambalaya

a funny thing happened a couple of weekends ago: i had an entire sunday free. no plans. nothing on my calendar. no need to leave the house unless i really wanted to. this was exciting because i couldn't really remember the last time i'd had a saturday or sunday that was completely free with no errands to run or no laundry to do or not going to church or brunch or lunch or dinner or to a party or a concert or to the bar or anything. it was going to be great.

the day before this lazy sunday, i looked in the freezer for something i could cook on sunday that wouldn't really require much effort. i spotted a pack of andouille sausage that i'd bought with some vague idea of making "cajun" pasta at some point. the sausage went into the fridge to start defrosting while i went to my recipe files for ideas.

i realized that making something in the crock pot would be a great idea because i could do all of the prep either late saturday night or whenever i got up sunday morning, and it'd be done by the time i was ready to have a late lunch or early dinner. that helped narrow things down a bit.

this was the first recipe i found in on my laptop that looked promising...until i realized it had no seasoning. none. i just looked at it again while copying the link here and there is no salt, no pepper, no garlic, no herbs, nothing. obviously this would not do.

off i went to my folder of hard copy recipes, where i found this one. i didn't really want red beans and rice per se, but at least this recipe had more seasoning and other things i could make work.

what i wound up with was a combination of elements from these two recipes. here's what made it into the crock pot for 4 hours on low:

• 1 package (16 or 20 ounces - can't really remember right now) of andouille sausage, cooked and broken up into pieces
• 1/2 pound of shredded cooked chicken (the jewel near me sells "leftover" shredded chicken from the rotisserie chickens in the deli case. i've used it before for other things, like nachos, and it was fine, so i decided to buy some for this as well)
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 1 large(ish) sweet onion, chopped
• 2 ginormous cloves of garlic (i used a garlic press, but you could mince them the old fashioned way)
• 1 15 ounce can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 14.5 ounce can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes
• 2 small stalks of celery, chopped
• 1 12 ounce can of beer (i had a yuengling in the fridge, so that's what i used)
• salt and pepper (i eyeballed both - no actual measurements)
• creole seasoning, which i also eyeballed - maybe a tablespoon and some change? i dunno.
• dried thyme - this was also eyeballed but i doubt if i even used a full teaspoon, really
• a couple sprinkles of garlic powder (b/c garlic)

verdict? i should've drained the tomatoes since i was adding more liquid with the beer. i also wanted, and this will sound strange to those who are aware of my intolerance of spicy food, more spice - i probably could've added another teaspoon or so of creole seasoning without potentially injuring myself. the yield was probably closer to 6 servings than 4 - i had a couple of helpings that sunday and monday, and there are two plastic containers of it in the freezer. i made some microwavable brown rice with it, but obviously you could use whatever rice you wanted or not use rice at all.

on: being a disappointment to family

i saw a tweet a few days ago that discussed being a disappointment to your family. i said it kinda depended on how one would define both "disappointment" and "family." y'all know that i think of a good number of you as family - i've said countless times that the family i've created is preferable to the one i was born into, and i stand by that.

here's the thing about being a familial disappointment, though: i've learned that i can still function and be myself without worrying as much about their expectations. don't get me wrong - there is still a really small part of me that wishes, and probably will always wish, that i could fit into the box certain family members set up for me decades ago. but i don't, and i won't, and i likely never will, and that's ok.

one of the things i mentioned in response to that tweet was how, in my opinion, my independence plays a large part in the how and why of my family tends to be disappointed. it's noteworthy to me because they raised me to take care of myself and be independent and resilient and all those other things, and yet the fact that i'm independent enough to not rely on them is always in the background.

i told myself when i finished high school that i wouldn't move back in with a sibling of mine unless i absolutely positively had to, and i've stuck by that. even through the eviction/couch-sitting/quasi-nannying period of 2011-2012, going "home" was a last resort that i only seriously considered for the briefest of moments. see, i knew and still know that going home would be the end of that independence. not just because of the relative geographic isolation, but feeling like i had to fit into the box of expectations and, well, y'all know how stubborn i can be. that would not end well.

i gave up on being the "good little girl" decades ago. it was me - or at least i tried to make it work - when i was younger and lived at home and didn't have any autonomy. this is not to say that i've developed into a super duper evil person, although we all know i can be an outright bitch at times. :P


y'know how i keep saying that i'm working on meeting (and occasionally leaving) people where they are? i have to remind myself to do the same thing with my family. i remember ages ago being upset that they just didn't get me the way i thought they should, and i had to make peace with the fact that they probably never will. hell, i don't really get them 100%, either, and i am more than ok with that. i can meet them where they are and then leave them there because if i've learned nothing else, it's that i can't expect everyone to travel on this journey the same way i am. it's unfair to everyone involved and if that means disappointing someone as you try to be your best, most authentic self, then so be it.

on: resilience, patience, and other things in progress

[editor's note: this is really long and some of it may be borderline tmi for some of y'all.

also, i apologize if my blabbing about all of this here and not directly one-on-one with any of you makes you feel some kind of way. most, if not all, of you know how to find me outside of the blog if you want/need to chat or yell at me about any or all of this. it's a lot, as you'll see, and putting it all out here seemed to be the best way for me to process/deal with a lot of it. please don't take my not coming to you individually and/or offline as an insult or an affront to our friendship. i love y'all like i love bacon and chocolate and ll cool j and books and quiet time and alcohol.]

quasi-landlord and i were having dinner a few weeks ago with her other tenant. the two of them joined a fitness center recently and they were going on about the various classes and services offered. apparently they have access to a steam room, which quasi-landlord said no to because she's somewhat claustrophobic. i can understand that - what if something goes wrong and you can't get out of the room, etc.

"not unless eulalia was there. maybe i'd go in if she was with me."

me: what? i don't understand.

"i mean, i know that if something went wrong and you were there, things would be ok somehow."

me: are you calling me an optimist? b/c i know you know better than that.

"no, no. you just have this...resilience about you. even when things are falling apart, you manage to figure something out and you keep going."

me: ok. i guess. sure. i suppose that's true.

patience, on the other hand? i swear the universe has been and is continuing to conspire to teach me a lesson or 50 on patience. my life feels like one big exercise in delayed gratification and, given the way the past 4-5 years has played out, that makes sense. i get it. i couldn't come back to chicago until it was time. the full-time job search took way longer than i ever thought it would. now, of course, i'm chomping at the bit to do all of the things and reestablish myself as a functioning adult in my own space. that resilient part has to come in occasionally and remind me that even baby steps still count as progress, even though i feel like things aren't moving fast enough. like i'm not doing enough despite evidence to the contrary. a friend of mine shared this post earlier this week and i almost started crying at my desk because that whole lack of patience thing is so very real for me.

like the whole moving thing. i was a very responsible adult and used a sizable chunk of my bonus from work to make a settlement offer to my former landlord, which they accepted. once i have a copy of the court order vacating their judgment against me, that's one major thing i can get removed from my credit report and i'll feel a little better about apartment hunting without that blemish on my record. this is a good thing. this is a very good thing, especially since my tax refund basically covered all but $400 or so of what i used from my bonus to pay this. it was all sorta kinda free money, right? this is awesome. i'm excited, and yet i feel like i'm still floundering because i'm not out there looking for places and shopping for a new bed and other furniture. then i feel silly for beating myself up and then i get impatient b/c i wouldn't feel so damn silly if things would just hurry the fuck up already.

another reason for the moving delay is the surgery i need to schedule to have my fibroids removed. i knew when my gynecologist first diagnosed them back in 2010 that this would need to happen. i am trying to convince myself to just have a full hysterectomy because if i'm going under the knife, they might as well take all of my reproductive equipment.

y'all. i am freaking the entire fuck out about this. if you know about my hospital phobia, then you probably understand why i'm just like "holy fucking shit i can't believe i'm doing this" even though i haven't even scheduled an official surgery consult, let alone the actual surgery. i probably don't even need the full hysterectomy, but, again, if i'm going in, just do it all at once. i know at least two people who were diagnosed with uterine or ovarian cancer after just having their fibroids zapped away vs. a full hysterectomy and that is NOT a life i want to be about. #fuckcancer all day, every day.

i refuse to accept any blame for being scared about this. both of my parents went into hospitals and never came out alive. i just powered through my father's birthday and the anniversary of his death, and the anniversary of my mother's death is coming up on tuesday and james' death anniversary is next week and...hold on. i need to remember how to breathe properly.

*pause for station identification and/or to take a drink*

ok. sorry about the interruption. where were we? oh, right - freaking out about a surgery that isn't even on my calendar yet. the only thing that is keeping me from full out panicking all the time about it is knowing that i have a support system in place that will make sure i get to/from the hospital and bring me tacos and make sure i actually attempt to follow doctor's orders. also i can work from home (yes i have already thought this part through even though i haven't talked to my boss about it yet b/c, again, no surgery date). that's resilience for you, i guess - thinking shit through to something that could be construed as a logical conclusion so you know wtf you're getting into.

here's the thing, though. being resilient and trying to maintain a modicum of patience ain't easy. if you've been reading for a while, you know i've become more committed to following my empath/caregiver tendencies. i know it's been paying off, but what i didn't know is how fucking taxing being resilient can be when you're trying to be in tune with your feelings and those of the people you care about. my patience reaches a breaking point b/c i just want everyone to be ok. like, if y'all are good, then i can focus on my own shit and process it and then come back and help y'all out if necessary. but if we're all sorta kinda broken and fucked up, i am more likely to tune into what other folks are feeling/thinking and what they need and push my own shit to the side. yes, i know that's unhealthy. if you follow me on twitter, you've probably seen how that impacts my sleep pattern (or lack thereof).

this past week was exhausting. i was working yesterday and at one point, i told one of my teammates that i felt like i was juggling all of my projects in the air and one or more of them was going to drop and everything would be screwed up. he, of course, told me that no such thing would happen because i'd pull everything off and it'd be fine just like it always is. i'm not so sure about that. this week may have been the first time since i started in this position where i honestly felt like i wouldn't be able to do my job the way i'm supposed to. that a deadline might get missed. that something might go horribly awry. i still kinda feel that way, honestly.

i know i wouldn't feel that strongly about work if i wasn't so stressed out about everything else in my life. the downside of being all resilient is that you get all kinds of things thrown at you and no one expects you to flinch. you will just deal with all of it and come out shining and everyone will just be like "oh, eulalia, you always manage to pull through!"

being resilient wears me out and i think i really hit the tipping point this week. trying to power through all of my shit and everyone else's shit was a bit too much. plus my social calendar was packed this week, so i was out every night after work like i have a life or something. and the hits kept coming. every time i thought "ok, i have a grip on what's going on and i can deal with this," i'd find out about something else that happened to someone, or i'd have an anti-epiphany of my own, and i'd throw up my hands and add it to my pile of things to tackle.

and then my lack of patience kicks in. "why do i have to be the one tackling all of this shit? i need some of this shit to get resolved so we're not all walking around stressed out. i need a vacation. i should take a vacation. no, it'd be silly to spend money on a vacation when i'm saving up for my own place. but if i'm not moving anytime soon, i might as well book a flight somewhere. i haven't been on  plane since may 2010. i deserve. no. sit your ass down and keep working and keep being resilient and trying to be patient because all the chips are going to fall like they're supposed to."

i swear that internal dialogue happens about once a week normally. this week? at least a few times a day. i was so fucking over everything and yet i caught myself still trying to be tuned in to what other folks needed. never mind that i was (am) sleep-deprived and, if i'm being really honest, would love nothing more than to leave all of this at someone else's feet and go be a carefree black girl for at least a day.

please let me be clear. i do not want any of you to feel like you can't come to me if/when things are bothering you. please don't feel like you're upsetting me, or that you're a burden, or that you need to deal with all of it by yourself. you know better. you know you can email or call or text or dm or tweet or leave a comment here or send a letter or a postcard or a letter or schedule a lunch/dinner/coffee/drinks date or what the fuck ever and you can tell me what's up. that's not going to change. i promise.

what i need to change, though, is how much of these things i internalize and start thinking i can fix or solve or otherwise address. on a cerebral level, i know that not everything is my problem. the empath in me knows that it's my job to stand with you (besides you, behind you, whatever) while you're going through things. i'd do that for a fair number of you even if i wasn't committed to being an empath/caregiver, b/c we're friends and that's just what the fuck we do. we show up and we stand up for each other. this is how it is and this is how it should be.

but - and this is difficult to type, let alone admit to myself and to y'all - there is a limit. this week left me reeling and i cannot function like this. it's not fair to me and it's not fair to y'all. at least i was honest enough to tell some of you this week (and possibly longer than that) that no, i wasn't okay and no, i wasn't really in a space where i could talk about it. we all know past me would've thrown up a grin and lied and said everything was fine even though my heart was shattering for reasons i couldn't even articulate.

don't get me wrong. my heart is still shattering and there are things i didn't write about tonight that are still weighing heavy on me but since they're not really my stories to tell, i'm keeping all of them close to the proverbial vest.

i can say that this is the most relaxed i've felt all week, though. never mind that there are giant knots in my back and stress/hormones have done a number on my face all week and i have no fucking clue what's going to happen next. i might actually get more than 5 continuous hours of quality sleep tonight. i should probably start winding down if that's gonna happen, huh?

i love y'all. remember: we are seen and we are heard and we are safe and we are loved and we are stronger than we think. good night.

recipe review: sausage and cheddar muffins

trying these muffins out was a bit of a no-brainer. i was home on #adventuresindogsitting duty last friday night, so i had plenty of time to make dinner and do laundry and then try this recipe out.

thing i learned while making sure i had everything i needed for this recipe: quasi-landlord doesn't have a muffin tin. i'm pretty sure i have one packed away somewhere. quasi-landlord's other tenant had a couple of jumbo muffin tins and also some "muffin-top" tins, so i decided to just make 6 giant muffins instead of the normal 12. i used more than the cup of sausage called for in the recipe, and i didn't really measure the cheese, so i probably wound up with a little bit more than a cup of cheese total.

y'all. i put a couple of these in the freezer so i wouldn't eat them all over the weekend. they're so good. quasi-landlord's other tenant tried one out and immediately asked me for the recipe. i used "regular" pork breakfast sausage, but i might try turkey or chicken breakfast sausage the next time around. i'm also thinking about using some sort italian sausage and mozzarella cheese, or maybe parmesan, or some combination thereof because in my head, that sounds fucking delicious. if it turns out that these freeze decently, then it is entirely possible that i will be making these on a regular basis so i have an easy option for breakfast during the week.

it's the most wonderfully depressing and emo time of the year!

january kinda sucked for a lot of people, so i was happy to see it go. i then realized that my glee would be short-lived, as february and march are historically difficult months for me and this year will be no different. my annual wallowing in all of the feelings has nothing to do with the weather, though.

now i get to embark on my yearly quest to power through february and march without falling apart. whee!

— auntie lori is my og (@queeneulalia) February 1, 2016

i don't know exactly when the death anniversaries of my mother and father started to impact me as an adult. my father died on february 27, 1997. my mother died on march 1, 1984. maybe it was after james died in march of 2009 (march 8, for those playing along at home) that i realized that hey, there's a method to this sadness.

dealing with those three anniversaries would be enough, but this year marks the first anniversary of lori's death (february 4, 2015) and just typing that makes me want to cry.

every year at the beginning of february, i tell myself that if i can make it to march 15 without completely falling apart, then i'll be ok. i am usually able to get through those 6 weeks or so without any major meltdowns. sure, there's crying and there are days when i just wanna wallow in my feels, but nothing too traumatic.

i'm not so sure about this year, which is why i'm writing about it and putting it out here for y'all to see. i might need to lean on y'all more than usual between now and the ides of march.

gonna try to be better about reaching out for support or just saying i need to stfu for a while during this timeframe. i know y'all got me.

— auntie lori is my og (@queeneulalia) February 1, 2016

my annual swan dives into a pile of emo have already started. i was at work earlier and a song came on that reminded me of some recent conversations i've had both with myself and with some other people, and i felt that being an empath/caregiver wasn't really worth it if i couldn't actually fix at least some of the things we're dealing with. i wanted to reach out to someone who would basically put me in check and remind me that i am not here to solve the world's problems and that there's only so much i can do. i wanted that person to be james, or lori, and the reminder that i couldn't text or call them just about shattered me. i was already missing james thanks to a different song i'd listened to earlier in the day, so i was already susceptible to a grief fit or whatever one would call it. i managed to pull it together by watching highlights of game 6 of the 2013 stanley cup final, which will always make me shed happy tears b/c holy shit that was awesome.

when i was at the bar later tonight, my friend asked if i was ok. i said yes and they immediately called bullshit, b/c they saw something in my expression that wasn't quite right. i amended my answer, saying that i was ok overall but that i had some things on my mind, which was true. i was still processing the wave of grief from earlier and trying to figure out how the hell i'm gonna get through the next month or so without sobbing myself silly.

i don't know if it'll help that i currently have plans on lori & my father's death dates. maybe it'll be distracting enough that i won't completely fall to pieces and if i do, maybe i'll be lucky enough to do it in private and just sob myself to sleep.

this is one of the many reasons why i tell people that there is no timetable or proper way to grieve. i know i can still be knocked flat (figuratively and literally) by grief after all of these years and therefore everyone should be allowed the space to mourn in a way that feels right for them.

i have no idea what's going to feel right for me this year. i know enough to know that i owe it to myself and to y'all to be a bit more vocal about how this season (for lack of a better term) impacts me so it's not completely out of left field when (not even gonna lie and say "if") i have some sort of reaction.

so, yeah. happy february! :P

imagining home

"a house, even borrowed for a little, but all your own, would mean a place to imagine and be safe." © sandra cisneros

— gwendolyn/maya/zora (@queeneulalia) January 26, 2016

i came across that line while finishing sandra cisneros' book this week. i totally agree with the notion of a house, if not somewhere to call home, being a place to imagine and to be safe. no argument from me on that one.

during the past week or so, i have been wrestling with the fact that i won't be moving out as soon as i'd hoped. i was aiming for the second quarter of this year, and while it's still possible on paper, it just doesn't make sense. at my checkup last week (the same one i alluded to in my attitude of gratitude post a while back), my doctor and i pretty much confirmed that this is the year for my fibroids to come out. surgery has been an option on the table since i was first diagnosed with fibroids some 5-6 years ago, but, y'know, i was kinda preoccupied with other stuff and therefore surgery wasn't super high on my priority list.

surgery still isn't super high on my priority list, if i'm going to be honest, but i have resigned myself to the fact that it should happen sooner rather than later. hence the delay in moving. i spent a lot of time weighing the pros and cons of moving out and then having surgery, or having the surgery while i'm still here with quasi-landlord and then moving out. the latter just makes more sense. quasi-landlord works from home and can drive me to/from the hospital and anywhere else i need to go. i can work remotely if i'm not ready to go back to work right away. depending on the surgical option my doctors and i decide to go with, i could be out for a couple of days or a couple of weeks. i know without any doubt that if i asked y'all for help, we'd make it work, but just thinking about the stress of getting settled into a new place and then having surgery was enough to make me want to pull out my hair.

none of this is set in stone. i haven't even followed up on the referral my gynecologist gave me to see which surgical option is the most viable. but, me being me, i had to start thinking ahead in an attempt to figure out what was going to make the most sense in the not-so-short term. of course quasi-landlord is all "you can stay as long as you need to and if you have the surgery before you move, that's fine," which almost made me cry even though i knew that was gonna be her response all along.

my overall goal of being back into a place of my own in time for my birthday is still viable. i just have to be ok with getting some other shit handled first. what's a little more delayed gratification, right?

recipe review: jamaican country ribs

thanks to quasi-landlord's current dietary restrictions, we're sometimes left with ingredients that she can't eat and that i more than likely forgot we had in the house. like black beans. there were a few cans of black beans lying around and quasi-landlord can't eat them, so she reminded me of their existence so i could do something with them at some point.

off i went to my recipe files while i happened to be making a grocery list. jewel had pork country ribs on sale, so my original thought was to buy a couple packs and freeze them for later use. then i found this recipe and realized i could make it this weekend. i bought a red bell pepper instead of the green pepper called for in this recipe, because organic red peppers were on sale for less than what i would have paid for either an organic or a "conventional" green pepper. 5 cloves of garlic instead of 4 because garlic is delicious and the cloves i had were on the small side. i didn't bother with the scallions at the end because lazy. oh, and i used a tablespoon of arrowroot instead of flour because i was out of flour. 

i didn't want to buy jerk seasoning because my spicy food tolerance is practically nonexistent and i didn't want to be stuck with a bottle of something that i couldn't actually use. i did a little digging and found a recipe for a jerk seasoning blend that i figured i could adapt for my own purposes. turns out we didn't have any onion powder, so that was omitted. i used maybe 1.5 teaspoons of cayenne pepper and skipped the crushed red pepper altogether because i'm a wimp like that. the seasoning isn't really that spicy, which means i probably could have added another 1/2 teaspoon or so of cayenne pepper and been ok. i still have some seasoning left and will probably use it on some chicken thighs or chicken wings. maybe i'll add more pepper then to see what happens.

in the midst of doing my prep work last night, i decided to rub some of the seasoning on the ribs and refrigerate them overnight. i do not regret this decision; in fact, i recommend you follow my lead on this if you have the time before making this recipe.

end result? i'm happy. there are plenty of leftovers so i'll get to see if the flavors develop more as the food sits. 

a not even remotely close to complete list of things i'm grateful for right now

i feel as if it has been ages since i've blogged or tweeted about #attitudeofgratitude. i've been in a weird mood the past couple of hours, like i'm waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop on something or just an overall pending sense of DOOM. maybe it's because i'm going to the doctor for my annual exam on thursday, even though i was just there in november to confirm that my fibroids haven't morphed into something more life-threatening. that's something to be grateful for right there, obviously. also grateful that i have health insurance that is accepted by both of my main doctors, so i can go have my annual exams and any other follow-up visits or tests or prescriptions and not go overboard with worrying about how it's gonna get paid for.

but i digress just a tiny bit. i tweeted a few minutes before i started writing this post, basically saying that i need to go back to being about that #attitudeofgratitude life. just because i have plenty, and oh boy do i mean PLENTY, of things to be worried and concerned and stressed about, doesn't mean i can't take a minute or two to focus on some of the good.

like my job. i have been at this job for a little more than 6 months now and even though i still don't have a full grasp on all of the things i think i should know by now, i'm doing good work. i know this because i have a manager who is actually capable of sharing feedback, both positive and negative. my teammates are cool and i like to think that i've gained the respect of some of the other teams i work with on a regular basis. i'm not saying this is going to be the job i'm in for the rest of my life, but i like where i am right now, career-wise.

my job also helps me boost my #attitudeofgratitude in other ways. the steady paycheck is a big help. i'm able to donate to charities and other worthy causes. i can pay my bills on time if i choose to, if not a little bit early. tonight i bought theatre tickets for quasi-landlord's birthday next month, and i didn't even flinch about the (admittedly discounted) cost or if i had enough in the bank to cover the expense because i know the money's there. i can treat myself to nice dinners or hang out with friends or decide that yes, i do want to go out for lunch or stop and get tacos on the way home from work (b/c tacos) and not worry myself silly about the cost. there is such a blessing in that, and if you were around back in my couch-surfing and quasi-nannying days, then you know that this isn't something i take lightly.

i am thankful for my friends, which might sound a bit repetitive given yesterday's post, but it's true. you guys are some of the most talented and intelligent and hilarious and just flat out wonderful people i know, and i am beyond grateful that i get to be a part of your lives. it's no exaggeration to say that i literally wouldn't be in this place right now if it weren't for some of y'all. i love you to the moon and back and i can't wait to see what kind of adventures we have together in the coming year.

i also love that we're still able to dream big. that sometimes i will share a totally ridiculous idea and we will run with it. or that one of you will share something and i'll be all "yes this is a great idea let's do it!" regardless of the logistics or cost or anything rational along those lines.

we haven't let life beat us up to the point where our imaginations have gone dormant. we're still here, thinking and dreaming and plotting to take over the world. if we miss, we're here to hold each other up and come up with a new plan. when it feels like the world is attacking us, we're here to hold each other up. when those voices in our heads get a little too loud, we're here to hold each other up even if we're just being silently supportive.

we're here. we are here. i am so fucking grateful that we are here. we are here and we are seen and we are heard and we are loved and we are more than enough and i am thankful. amen.

on: the friend(s) who got away

a friend of mine sent me this article a few days ago and asked me to share my thoughts once i'd had a chance to read it. since i'd been meaning to write a new post for at least the past week and a half, if not longer, i figured this was as good a reason as any.

"If our friends are the family we choose, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that our old friends must be treasured?" 

you would think so, right? with all of the work we put into choosing our friends, we'd want (need?) to hold our dearest friends as close as we can.

and yet sometimes the best possible thing we can do is let some of those friends drift away. sometimes it's due to a major break, like the one the author describes in her article. other times it's because life just gets in the way and it's hard to keep track and keep in touch.

i've experienced both. i identified so strongly with the author's "breakup" with her friend because similar circumstances led to my falling out with my former bff. like the author, i've resigned myself to knowing that former bff and i will probably never talk to each other again, and if we do, it'll be nothing like it was when our friendship was active and intact. the last time we saw each other, i laid into her with a laundry list of reasons why i was pissed the entire fuck off at her, even though i knew my yelling wouldn't change anything about her behavior. and it didn't.

"The strongest friendships are ones that have withstood the test of confrontation. It isn’t easy, I know. Our voices shake. Our palms grow damp. Our hearts beat a little faster. But when we tell our friends the truth of our hearts—even when it’s scary, especially when it’s scary—we are allowing ourselves to be seen and known."

there's so much truth to this. i am probably more transparent on this blog (and twitter, to a somewhat lesser extent) than i am in real life, but i would like to think that it's a work in progress. that most of my friendships are at a point where we can own up to our shit and, if necessary, call each other out on our shit. it's not easy and i'm not sure it should be at times. and that's ok.

"You don’t need to like each other all the time. Just show up. Tell the truth. And be kind." 

i swear so much of being a good friend can be defined by simply showing up. sometimes i just need to know that someone else is there, even if i can't articulate why i need someone there. i think we all do.

maybe that's our charge for 2016. to show up, to tell the truth, and to be kind. i already know i won't always be successful at it, but i can at least try, especially since i know that i can count on y'all to remind me of how valuable our friendships are and therefore i shouldn't completely fuck them up. :-)