recipe review: sweet potato, sausage, and green pepper hash

part of my adulting while quasi-landlord is away is making sure i have food both to take with me to work and also to eat when i get home from work. so far i've been pretty good about meal prepping on my days off so i don't have to think too much about what's for lunch/dinner, or about what i'm gonna eat when i get home late from an evening of shenanigans.

that said, i figured i should also try out a new (to me) recipe or two while i'm home alone. this one seemed easy enough, plus the main ingredients are all things i enjoy.

i didn't make the fried eggs, though, b/c i'm not a fan of fried eggs. obviously you could make them if you wanted.

here's what else i did differently: i used 1 large sweet potato because that's what i had here. i also used about 8-10 ounces of turkey italian sausage because that was in the freezer. i used a green bell pepper instead of an anaheim pepper because we all know my tolerance for spicy food isn't that great. i bought a 10 ounce bag of spinach, and i added a 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder when i put in the cumin because garlic makes everything better.

result? nom. would make and eat again. you might want your sweet potatoes to cook a little longer, depending on how soft or firm you like them. if you're using a different type of sausage, you may want/need to add seasoning as you see fit.

beware the gratitude police

i tweeted earlier this morning about not wanting to go back to work today. it's true - i've been off since last wednesday and there's been enough insanity going on at work that i really don't want this break to end. i also mentioned that yes, i know, i should be thankful to even have a job, etc. that doesn't mean i have to like everything about it.

that was a preemptive strike against what i'll call the "gratitude police." you know them. they're the ones who always have something to say whenever you're even remotely negative about something. "ugh, i have to go to work." "you should be glad you have a job!" "dammit, i need to clean the house/car/garage/whatever." "don't you know how lucky you are to even have a house/car/garage/whatever?"

for me, the annoying thing about that is yes, i actually do know how lucky i am. anyone who's been paying attention to my life during the past 4-5 years knows that i will readily cop to being thankful/grateful for where things are vs. where they could have been. that doesn't mean i can't complain or whine about it. pretty sure there's no hard and fast rule about just shutting up and being grateful, and if there is, then i'm ok with breaking that rule.

still here

i honestly don't know how i'm still here some days, but i'm here. this week was a clusterfuck on myriad levels, ending with the news that a colleague's husband died suddenly this week.

one bright spot, if it can be called that, was this snippet from my colleague's family about the memorial:

In lieu of flowers, the family has made the following request: "Please donate to something very meaningful to your own beliefs - or in the ways of (redacted), befriend someone who needs a friend, or take someone to lunch who looks like they could use it."

i'm not crying, you're crying.

have a good weekend.

me, miss janet, and the babygirl syndrome

i was having a bit of a lazy sunday morning earlier. y'know, the whole "take a shower and go back to bed and watch tv" kind of lazy? while watching tv, the video for michael & janet jackson's "scream" came on. i hadn't seen it in a while.




something struck me while i was watching it this morning, though. for the first time in a long time, it was obvious to me that janet & i have something in common - we both have what i'm calling "babygirl syndrome." we're the youngest. we grew up with older siblings. we love those siblings even when they say or do things we don't quite understand. we do our best to honor that bond.

at the same time, though, we're always striving to create and establish our own separate identity. janet's not just "michael's little sister," just how i'm not just my brothers' little sister. never mind that some people still introduce me that way when the other person has previously met one of my brothers.

think about it. janet has always been cast in the supportive little sister role in her family. artistically, though, she's put in hard work to show people that yes, she's her own woman with her own voice and opinions. i can recognize it because i've done the same thing. my brothers drive me up the fucking wall (as longtime readers and people who know me well irl can attest), but that's my family and i love them dearly even though they drive me up the fucking wall. at the same damn time, though, i've worked (and am still working) on being my own woman with my own voice and opinions. it's not easy, but it's worth it.

recipe review: pork chops with apples and onions

quasi-landlord is on a more restricted than usual diet these days. two of the things she's supposed to stay away from are onions and garlic. longtime readers know about my love of garlic, and quasi-landlord decided immediately that there was no way she could omit garlic from her diet. i'm ok with that, obviously.

onions, on the other hand...well, let's just say that there was a surplus of sweet onions on hand and something had to be done with them. i knew i had pork chops in the freezer, so off i went to my folder o'recipes. i'd honestly forgotten i had this one saved, and i have no idea what took me so long to get around to making it.

here's what i did differently: i used salt, pepper, and garlic powder (b/c garlic) to season the pork chops. i had 2 boneless cutlets and 2 bone-in chops. i used beer (blue moon to be exact, the remains of which i am drinking while i write this), 2 pink lady apples, and 1 large sweet onion. oh, and i made sweet potatoes as my side dish instead of rice or mashed potatoes.

guys. omg you guys. i am so full and happy. i am so making this again. i am so angry with myself for not making this sooner. i want y'all to make this and to be full and happy. quasi-landlord wandered in while i was cooking and pretty much demanded that i make this once her diet isn't as restricted. i will be happy to oblige.

let's talk about wonderful sex (sfw edition)

"i hope to god my child never shoots someone in the face, but i really hope she has wonderful sex." - shonda rhimes in essence magazine
— eulalia (@queeneulalia) April 21, 2015

i won't copy the rest of my tweets from my brainstorm last night, but i basically wanted to point out that a lot of us, self included, weren't raised to think that wonderful sex was an option. for me, sex education at home was "don't have sex until you're married," and "ok, here's how you get pregnant, but DON'T YOU DARE COME HOME PREGNANT BECAUSE YOUR LIFE WILL BE OVER." seriously, that was pretty much it. no talk of "hey, so when you do have sex, here's how to make it enjoyable and safe at the same time for all parties involved."

luckily i've had 20 years or so of, ahem, practice to try to keep figuring this out, but that quote from shonda really got me thinking. what is it with our society that, in 2015, there's still so much shame and stigma attached to healthy sexual relationships? why do we do this to ourselves and to the next generation?

i'm not even gonna pretend to have the answers on this one. i'm not even sure i know what questions need to be asked, but i'm willing to attempt to discuss it if y'all are.

remembering our dear miss brooks during national poetry month

gwendolyn brooks, that is. i've written previously about winning her poetry contest in 8th grade, so that should tell you how highly her work ranks with me.

i discovered "when you have forgotten sunday: the love story" during my senior year at northwestern in a performance studies class, and it's still one of my favorites.

"—And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes on a Wednesday and a Saturday,
And most especially when you have forgotten Sunday—
When you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed,
Or me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon
Looking off down the long street
To nowhere,
Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation
And nothing-I-have-to-do and I’m-happy-why?
And if-Monday-never-had-to-come—
When you have forgotten that, I say,
And how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell,
And how my heart played hopscotch if the telephone rang;
And how we finally went in to Sunday dinner,
That is to say, went across the front room floor to the ink-spotted table in the southwest corner
To Sunday dinner, which was always chicken and noodles
Or chicken and rice
And salad and rye bread and tea
And chocolate chip cookies—
I say, when you have forgotten that,
When you have forgotten my little presentiment
That the war would be over before they got to you;
And how we finally undressed and whipped out the light and flowed into bed,
And lay loose-limbed for a moment in the week-end
Bright bedclothes,
Then gently folded into each other—
When you have, I say, forgotten all that,
Then you may tell,
Then I may believe
You have forgotten me well."

for some reason, the poem popped into my head this morning, so i figured i might as well share it. happy monday. :-)

random reminders and remembering

try to meet people where they are. try to be ok with leaving people where they are.

engage in crazy faith and angry prayers.

find the go(o)d and grab it.

find the p(r)etty and praise it.

"they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and i keep on remembering
mine."

--Lucille Clifton, "why some people be mad at me sometimes"

happy national poetry month!

one of the last books i read during the 1st quarter of 2015 was this volume of poetry. i found myself nodding in agreement in certain places, and jotting down verses in others. seriously - if you're into poetry, check this book out.

one poem in particular, Heaven is No Recompense, really stuck out for me. i think it's a piece that applies to quite a few of us right now, so i'm posting it here.

Heaven is No Recompense by Angela Jackson 

Who ever you love you will lose
Sooner or later. Even you.
And you will grieve for who
Ever is lost. Even you.
How can you lose unless you hold?
And how can you hold without
Touching, being touched.
Each stroke a stroke of luck
Pity us. And love the luck.

here's to a great month for all of us.

on: thoughts that go bump in your head in the night

"aren't you afraid of falling in love again?" nope. i have so many other worries that keep me up at night.
— eulalia (@queeneulalia) March 24, 2015

it's true, though. falling in love is among the least of my worries at this point. my role as a empath means that i worry about my "family"/tribe/circle/whatever you wanna call the folks i care about the most. are they ok? are their families ok? will the black men i love and hold dear make it home in one piece? what the fuck is it with politicians and police officers and other folks in power that are so fucking hellbent on fucking shit up for people who look like me? the anxiety attacks i have about those things (and myriad others) are real and so not spectacular. sometimes i text/email/tweet certain folks just to make sure that they're still around because they've popped up in my dreams and said dreams were the polar opposite of "sweet."

honestly, any and every day that i manage to make it out of bed is a good day. just living from one day to the next is a courageous act for me. i remember my 17th birthday and being quite ready to say the hell with everything and commit suicide. i also remember a little tiny voice telling me not to give up just yet.

but then there are other not so tiny voices telling me that my life is just one big failure and there's really no point in even trying to improve things, so #minuswell give up. there are days when those voices are LOUD AS ALL HELL and it takes everything i have in me to get out of bed. those are the voices that say that i'm never going to find a full-time job. that i will be stuck living with quasi-landlord forever. that nothing i want to achieve in my life is going to happen. that all of my hard work has been for naught. that daring to be happy is a mistake. that i will exposed as a giant fraud and everyone will desert me and everything will shatter into pieces that i will be unable to put back together. that i will dare to fall in love again and it won't work. that i have been and will be rejected so often and by so many people that i won't know what acceptance looks like anymore.

i get up, though. i get out of bed and i attempt to power through my day knowing that those voices will never shut the entire fuck up. sometimes i can use that self-doubt as motivational fuel - y'know, the whole "oh yeah? well, i'll show you!" thing. sometimes it works. oftentimes it doesn't and i regret getting out of bed in the first place.

this is a big part of why i'm committed to meeting and leaving people where they are. the psychic cost of not facing my demons and of amplifying those negative voices is too great. so, yeah, sometimes i say things that give people pause. sometimes i behave in ways that other folks don't understand or agree with. sometimes i make questionable decisions on purpose. and yes, sometimes i eat and drink my way through things and feelings because adulting is hard. fuck it.

when you see me tweeting about how we're all stronger than we give ourselves credit for and how we'll get through whatever adversity we're currently faced with, please know that i am also talking to myself (and, more specifically, those loud ass voices in my head) in those moments. i know enough to know that i'm not alone in this, which is why i try my damnedest to make sure that i'm there for folks who need me. meeting people where they are. making sure they're ok. supporting and encouraging them. giving myself a break from the continuous cacophony of doubt so i can focus on someone else and maybe, just maybe, we'll all get over the hump.

this is the life i have. this is the path i'm on. i know it's not for everyone and i accept that not everyone will be fellow travelers on the road to wherever the fuck this leads. this is why i'm so incredibly grateful for those of you who are on this journey with me. for the ones who reach out to say "hey, i see you. you're ok." for the ones who don't have to say a word for me to know that they've got my back. i love you.

on: meeting (and leaving) people where they are

as previously stated, i am really trying to commit to meeting people where they are. during the past week or so, though, i've realized that not only can i meet people where they are, but i can also leave them where they are.

i don't mean that in a negative way. it's more of a realization that everyone i meet isn't going to be in my life for the long haul, and that's ok. hell, everyone i meet shouldn't be in my life for the long haul, and that's also ok - hence the leaving people where they are.

i was talking to someone last week who i previously hadn't been in contact with for almost a decade. we were catching up and they asked what my life was like now. i said that at this point, i'm just trying to live my life and be happy and anyone who's willing to join along for the ride is more than welcome, and anyone who isn't willing to support that quest can, quite simply, get the fuck out.

i don't think they were ready for that level of realness, but the journey i'm on at this moment requires nothing else than the best i can dedicate to it, and if that means leaving people where they are and continuing on my merry little way, then so be it.

when knowing the "why" doesn't make it any easier

i have been in a mood for the past, oh, 36 hours or so. bitchy, angry, depressed, sad, emo...whatever you wanna call it, i have probably experienced some variation of it since yesterday afternoon. i tweeted last night that i wanted to call off from work today because i was angry and i hated people and i just wanted to drink and make bad decisions.

i still feel that way to a certain extent, really. i would be more than happy to drink all of the drinks and leave someone else in charge of decision-making. i'm tired of being responsible and i would just like at least one day where i can just sit in relative peace and quiet and do as much or as little as i would like, preferably without pants. i miss having a place of my own where i could be as moody as i want to be and not have to justify it or talk about it or put on a happy mask.

work tonight wasn't terrible, but i still found myself wanting to be snippy when situations didn't really call for it. there have been a few anti-epiphanies floating through my head (part of why i kept waking up every 2-3 hours last night, which was as fun as you think it was) since this mood came on, but they weren't fleshed out enough for me to have a "aha!" moment about them.

it really didn't come to me until work was almost over. i am self-aware enough to know that a part of me is still in denial about lori's death. part of this mood is me dealing with that. the other part of this mood, though, is doing the math and remembering once again why february and march are so difficult for me at times.

the last time i saw my father alive was on his birthday, february 18, 1997. he died less than 2 weeks later. my mother died in march. james died in march. and now i can add lori's death date to the february calendar. this wasn't an "aha!" moment per se, but it damn sure helped me pinpoint why the hell i'm in such a mood. funny thing is, i was pondering booking a massage because holy shit the stress tension is real right now, but then i realized i might start sobbing on the massage table and that would be all kinds of uncomfortable.

instead, i will try to make sense of my thoughts and try to curb the urge to punch people in the face and try to make it through each day without dissolving into a puddle (well, in public, anyway) and we will see what happens. maybe one of these days, i will have a day off from adulting. i swear i would love nothing more than to relinquish my throne for a day and let someone else deal with all of this shit.

on: saying goodbye

hands down, this was the most difficult funeral i've been to since james died. in some ways, james' funeral was easier for me b/c some of y'all were there and troy was there and i knew w/o any doubt that if i faltered or fell, someone would catch me.

february 4. a text from carol asking if i was at home. me saying i was about to leave work and, as the texts progressing, me asking if i needed to call her. i did, and i did, and she told me lori was gone. luckily i was sitting down (and luckily carol asked if i was sitting just in case before she told me) b/c i might've hit the floor.

see, lori was gonna be invincible in my eyes. anyone who'd beaten the medical odds the way she had was bound to outlive us all. lori was the reason i coined the phrase "crazy faith and angry prayers," b/c when she was in the hospital for weeks on end for reasons that couldn't really be explained, i was crazy enough to believe she'd pull through, and angry enough to yell at god and shake my fist in his direction b/c this wasn't how shit was supposed to go down.

but it did, and she survived, and she kept us laughing and on our toes. we all knew she lost her legs, but lori never lost her spirit. her smile. her ability to make us double over at the most inane thing. it's one of the things i loved most about her.

fuck. i just typed "loved" right there and i'm not gonna lie, it kinda hurt.

anyway...from february 4 until this afternoon, i'd done a decent job, imo, of not falling apart. i kept telling myself that i could weep all of the tears at her funeral. that i would be able to say good-bye. that my family, and our church family, could say good-bye. i needed it. we needed it. lori was there to hold me up when daddy died. when james died. i really dislike attending funerals b/c of [reasons], but dammit, i was gonna be there for her and for her family. it was only right.

it wasn't until i was combing my hair while getting ready to head out this afternoon that it hit me. lori was there on my wedding day. she was in that inner sanctum helping me get ready.

and now i had to go to the same church that holds so many wonderful memories for me and say goodbye to my "play" auntie. i put that in quotes b/c really, lori was family. i mean, yeah, we called her "auntie lori," but that was more a term of endearment than any actual establishment of connection. she was there, and then she wasn't, and it is still difficult for me to deal with this. 

apropos of nothing, i found this pic of me & james, also from my wedding day, while i was looking for the above pic. it's one of my favorites. i missed "uncle james" something fierce today. i felt, if not heard him, during the service tonight, which was helpful in moments but totally broke me in others. i can tell y'all this b/c you're removed enough and you won't be broken by it. 

anyway, the picture of me & james: 

and now i need to try to catch up on sleep. i have totes magotes lost my viking status this week.

what a difference a few years can make

throughout today, i have been reminding myself that no matter how horrible the day was, it wouldn't be nearly as bad as things were three years ago.

no, seriously. this was me on valentine's day 2012. the hottest of messes. actually, that's not quite accurate. what's worse than a hot mess? b/c i'm pretty sure that's what i was this time 3 years ago.

today? i went to work and almost everyone on my crew today remembered to bring candy and/or snacks. one of our co-workers really loves valentine's day and we knew it'd mean a lot to her if we celebrated it somehow. it was pretty sweet.

also i have plenty of chocolate on hand, so i don't have to worry about my stash approaching dangerously low levels. which is good, b/c the wind chill is getting ridiculous and i don't wanna go outside until i absolutely have to.

compared to 2012, the fact that i'm back in chicago full-time and have a part-time job still amazes me sometimes. honestly, there were times when i really wasn't sure how i was going to claw my way back. there are still times when i'm not sure how i'm gonna make this all work, but at least i'm in the city i love and in close proximity to my wonderful circle of friends and yes i'm being a bit sappy about it. i'm entitled.

i hope y'all had a great day, or at least a day that didn't completely suck. :-)

on: a week full of feelings

omg you guys it's friday. if friday was an actual person, i might give it a hug or buy it a drink or something. holy christ. i remember being happy that january was over b/c january really was on some fuckshit for a lot of people i know and i was glad to see it go.

monday was lab work at the hospital before work. i schedule these tests right before work so i only have to make one trip up to evanston and not "lose" one of my days off. the problem, though, is that hospitals make me claustrophobic if i'm in one for longer than, say, 2 hours. luckily, i got to the hospital early (on the day after a blizzard, no less) and got in and out before i hit that threshold, but i totally felt myself on the verge of losing my shit. it also helped that i'd built in enough time between my appointment and when i needed to be at work to grab a late lunch and try to regain some semblance of normalcy.

tuesday was pretty productive, actually. i applied for jobs and filed my taxes (yay for making just enough to owe the government $10) and made an appointment to get my hair cut next week (i may or may not be considering cutting a significant amount of my hair, but i'm a wuss and who knows what i'll actually do). i also attempted to re-enroll in a health insurance plan (thank you, president obama!) but my doctor only accepts a plan that i'm not qualified for. at least i have the option of finding out if another doctor in the practice accepts one of my alternative plans.

wednesday. wednesday about broke me. first it was work-related stuff - my schedule might be changing a bit b/c of management [reasons]. then i found out that one of my nearest and dearest family friends died on wednesday. i know enough to know that i am still kind of in shock and/or denial about this news. i don't know when the funeral is yet, but i know i need to go and say my goodbyes and have all the feelings with my family, both of the blood relations and of the church variety. i also found out on wednesday that a bar in my neighborhood is closing and when i went there with a girlfriend wednesday night, the feelings kinda hit me out of nowhere. i realized that a lot of ladybrunches happened there right around the time that my life was going through all of the changes, so that bar was kind of a safe haven of sorts and now it's closing and omg feels.

yesterday my phone decided to stop functioning and verizon was nice enough to offer me an "upgrade" that would cost me more per month for half the data i'm getting now. yeah...no. at least i got my phone to work, thanks to all the experience i had resetting it back in november.

today was pretty solid, though, b/c i won free shoes from dsw. it's nice to be a winner. :-)

so, yeah. all of the feelings this week. at some point i will have some sort of meltdown (more than likely at the funeral) but until then, i'm relying on my ability to compartmentalize and i'll just keep swimming, just keep swimming...:P

quote of the day

courtesy of the book i'm just about done reading:

"And lying on my back just like the girl I've always been, I watch the clouds drift and glow across the roof of the world, becoming newspaper headlines that tell the story of my life, the last one saying, Fuck you, I survive."

that just resonated with me and since it wouldn't fit in a single tweet, i decided to post it here. good night. :-)

on: meeting people where they are (and trying to accept yourself in the process)

one of the things i'm really trying to focus on this year is meeting people where they are. i mean that both in a literal sense and also more figuratively. if i know the only way i'm gonna be able to spend time with someone is by dropping by their job or meeting them for drinks or seeing them at church (in the case of my family, anyway) or whatever, then that's what i'm going to try to do. if i know someone's going through some shit but they just wanna keep things light/superficial and have a few laughs, then that's what we're gonna do when we hang out. you get the gist.

i struggle with this. i really do. as i get older and realize that my propensity for being a empath/caregiver is becoming more and more pronounced, the more convinced i am that i just want the people i love to be safe and happy. it's difficult because so many people i know and love are having issues of various kinds and holy hell do i feel their pain. i'd love to fix things for them but i can't and that leads to more pain and have i mentioned that being an empath is really fucking difficult sometimes? because it is.

i was catching up with a friend earlier this week and i was telling them about this new "mission" of mine, and how it all made sense in my head and how i'm hoping it'll help me be a better friend by letting go of some of my type-a minus tendencies (which is a struggle in and of itself, let me tell you). the conversation moved on to other things, like how i've been thinking about letting go of my "let me get a full-time job and move back into my own place and maybe then i can think about the possibility of dating and (re)establishing a social life, etc." plan and just let whatever happens, happen.

my friend, in their ultimate active listener wisdom, looked at me and said, "you know how you want to meet people where they are? you need to meet yourself where you are, too."

not gonna lie, that kinda stopped me in my tracks for a second. "i know you already know this. it's in your head. you just needed to hear someone you trust to hold up the mirror and say it back to you."

sometimes i hate my friends for being so gotdamn right all the time. :P

it's true, though. i accept that we are all broken in our own myriad ways and as much as i really want y'all to be safe and happy, that's not always possible...hence the meeting people where they are. if i'm really gonna be effective in this whole meeting people where they are, then i need to meet myself wherever the fuck i am, too.

you're not ready for this video.

i wasn't ready for this video when i saw it on twitter earlier this week. i just watched it again for like the 6th or 7th time and i still wasn't ready. i may or may not have shed actual tears of laughter when i first saw it. so, of course, i'm sharing it with y'all b/c i love you and i want you to laugh along with me.

recipe review: spicy rice bake with black eyed peas, collard greens, and sweet potato

yes, yes, black eyed peas for luck and collard greens for money. i started adapting this january 1 tradition a few years ago, when i realized that i either wouldn't be at home on new year's day and if i was at home, i probably wasn't going to want to make a full meal. therefore, i decided that as long as the first real meal i make in the new year involves black eyed peas and collards, i should be ok.

that said, i started going through my recipes last week and none of them were really appealing to me at that moment, so off to google i went for ideas and/or inspiration. this is what i came up with. i was excited b/c it combines greens and black eyed peas and sweet potatoes and i like all of those things.

here's what i did differently - i used brown rice vinegar instead of balsamic b/c quasi-landlord is allergic to balsamic vinegar and damned if i was gonna buy a bottle just for the tablespoon called for in this recipe. i minced 5 garlic cloves (note that this recipe doesn't tell you if you should chop the garlic or mince it or smash it or what) b/c these were some big garlic cloves. quasi-landlord came in as this dish was finishing up and she facetiously asked if i'd used enough garlic. oh, and i only used 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper b/c my tolerance for spicy food is still rather low.

verdict: would make again. my decision to dial back on the cayenne was totally justified, btw. obviously your mileage may vary. i took the dish out of the oven with about 3-5 minutes left on the original 90 minute cook time and the texture was where i wanted it - the peas and the sweet potato were tender and the rice was cooked but not too mushy. there's no serving size on this recipe, but i'd guess you could get at least 6-8 side dish servings out of this. probably 8-10 servings if you're ambitious like that. i'm gonna put some in the freezer for future nommage; we'll see how that turns out.

favorite concerts of 2014

holy shit you guys i went to a lot of great concerts in 2014. i'm gonna recap some of my favorites b/c i haven't finished my "favorite songs of 2014" playlist yet. concerts are listed in chronological order, primarily because i'm taking the coward's way out and not choosing an absolute favorite.

april 11 - sharon jones and the dap-kings at the vic
i'd heard that sharon jones & the dap-kings put on a helluva show, but i didn't learn that for myself until april. holy shitballs this show kinda melted my face. sharon reminded me of a lot of women i know from church, in that she was singing and having fun one minute and then took us to church the next minute. i might have ugly cried during this show. knowing sharon was back on tour after kicking cancer in the throat was just...yeah, i cried during this show. i regret absolutely nothing.

april 18 - mavis staples & regina carter at symphony center
one of my friends wound up joining me for this show. luckily she was sitting behind me so she couldn't see the tears i wept during mavis' set. i love me some auntie mavis, dammit. fight me. i saw auntie mavis (b/c she really is one of my play aunties in my head) on the kennedy center honors last night and damn near wept with joy. i love her that much.

june 3 - frankie knuckles tribute at millennium park
it doesn't take much for me to fall back in love with chicago, especially during the past few years when i wasn't sure if i was gonna make it back here on a full-time basis. that said, this tribute to frankie knuckles was everything i needed it to be - lots of dancing, lots of diversity, all of us vowing to keep loving and living and dancing in spite of everything.

june 7 - the prince experience at untitled
ok, seriously? if the prince experience is in your town and you're a fan of prince and/or morris day and the time and tickets aren't $100 like they are tonight, you should check them out. much dancing. so wow.

august 29 - michael mcdonald and toto at ravinia
that should really sum it up. i wrote about this previously in case you need a refresher.

november 14 - stevie wonder at united center
news about this tour and i immediately adjusted my budget accordingly. so what if i'd seen (ok, heard) stevie wonder for free at the taste? no matter. i needed to be at this show for REASONS, dammit, and i made it happen. so what if my phone bricked the afternoon of the show and i gave myself a migraine while trying to restore my contacts and apps and figuring out my #alphet for the show (for the record, i wore a dress and some knee-high boots, for those who like to play along)? i was there, and it was amazing. i could've done without india.aire and her 5-6 costume changes, but i wasn't there to see india.aire. i was there to see/hear/experience stevie, and it was worth every penny i paid. i managed to keep the ugly cry in check, but damned if it wasn't close there during a few songs.