the title's pretty self-explanatory. there'll be randomness, and recipe links, and occasional deep thoughts, and foul language. if you're cool with all of that, then welcome to my domain.
"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.
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.
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?
"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?
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[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.
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.
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.
