Prejudice on the El Platform

Guess what I'm wearing on Saint Patrick's Day next year?

Uh huh. And since I don't always believe in delayed gratification, (it is a long way till March 17th) I wore this shirt yesterday. Thanks to my eldest son, a budding photographer if there ever was one, you get a glimpse of my "Thinking Deep Thoughts" stance.

Or at least, I think that's what that is.

It could just as easily be my, "Wow, there's a whole lot of black ants down there!" look.

Can you tell it's Friday night and I'm bored? I can't believe it's come to this! Really, if I'm writing about black ants crawling around, I might as well chew on a piece of cardboard and call it a night.

Speaking of "night", let's do a little homophone paradigm shift because I'm jealously picturing everybody else out drooling over Christian Bale's performance as Batman in "The Dark Knight". I really wanted to see it but alas, it was not meant to be.

I guess I shouldn't overexaggerate by saying "everybody" wants to see the film. I got to experience some Chicago Transit Authority delays today and before you knew it, five or six of us random strangers were discussing Batman while waiting for a red line train at the Fullerton stop. One guy who was sort of hovering on the fringes of our newly formed El social club said he had no intention of seeing the film because, "That guy playin' him (Batman)... he's a f***ing ____!" (Insert most popular and offensive gay slur in the space where you see_____).

I'm pretty sure that guy now knows that when you say such things when there's a CTA delay, and everyone is cranky and late, you could end up getting tossed off the platform. Seriously, it was such ignorance.

Sigh.

And now, while you you're wondering whether or not that idiot really got pitched onto the el tracks, I'm going to say goodnight because I think I may keel over into my laptop.

Night-night!

Reconnecting With Slavery

Yesterday I took my sons to Chicago's Field Museum. They loved every moment of the experience, from the mummies to the meteorites. Or rather, they loved almost every moment. They totally freaked out over the simulated slave ship in the Africa exhibit.

Actually, I should also include myself in the freak out. I just wasn't mentally or emotionally prepared to go into a simulated slave ship hold and neither were they.

There we were, innocently walking through the exhibit, checking out various cultural artifacts from lots of different countries: drums, spears, knives, walking sticks, hairpins and religious iconography -- and then all of the sudden there on one of the walls was this paragraph detailing how slavery stole away so much from the civilizations that had created such beauty. Then, before I knew it, we were at the entrance to what looked like a dark tunnel. Except, it wasn't a tunnel. It was the entrance to the hold of the simulated slave ship.

My four year-old began crying and screaming in terror. My seven year-old clutched my hand and said, "I don't think we should go in there. It looks evil in there."

I tried to take a step forward but neither one would budge. More tears and them crying, "No, no! Don't make us go in there, mommy!"

The fear in their voices made me think about the fear that millions of African children must have experienced as they were forced onto slave ships. I couldn't ask my sons, "What are you afraid of?" because how could they not be afraid? They have not hardened their hearts to the complete blood-soaked and immoral horror that lays claim to our past. In their minds is neither the blase intellectualization of slavery nor an attitude that it all happened years ago so there's no reason to still talk about it.

As I listened to my sons beg me not to take them onto the slave ship, their comments and questions made me realize they'd forgotten that we were merely in a museum. They were really worried that they were really about to be sold into slavery and if they got onto the "ship" they'd never see our families again.

I reassured them that this was not the case and after a few minutes, we proceeded to step through the "hold" of the ship. We moved quickly through. Even though it was simulated it did make me feel like some sort of door was going to clang shut. This photo is my eldest after going through the ship. He'd been crying:I asked him what he was thinking about and he said, "I don't wanna be a slave. Ever." I think he sees himself in those pictures, sees his ancestor's faces reflected back to him.

I am glad he wasn't born 150 years ago. I'm glad we can walk through a simulated slave ship and come out the other side, not as property to be sold, but as ourselves.

OD'ing On Love

After a weekend of totally OD'ing on my friends and family, let me start out by saying that I'd totally forgotten about how much mosquitoes like me. I mean, given that I haven't been out to this part of the world during the heat and humidity of July in like four years, it's a shock to suddenly have these swollen, itchy bug bites all over my body. It looks like Mount Vesuvius is on my ankle.

Why didn't I spray myself with bug spay? Because we don't have mosquitoes like that in LA and I forget about their existence. They really went to town on me in Grant Park yesterday.

I'm also going to have to buy myself an umbrella. Summertime does not equal "umbrella" in Los Angeles. But in the Midwest, those big fluffy clouds turn into rain in a heartbeat and before you know it, the sky is black, gloomy and heaving out buckets of wetness onto my head. When it's not raining, it's... steaming! So, my hair is standing vertically a good six or seven inches off my head. It's not the 80's but darn it, big hair is back in style!

Saturday I went to Navy Pier with my dear friends Kemba and Dena... and my husband's brother. I'm glad the kids got to hang out with him because he's a nice guy, but it's like being around all of my husband's extreme CP Time tendencies, magnified by 1000. If you tell him, "Let's meet at 12:30 on the platform at the Dempster Street El," that means he's gonna show up at 1:00, or maybe 1:30. And for this recovering Type A personality who worked 101 hours this time last year, I wanted to swallow arsenic and throw myself in front of the El.

But it was all good because when we finally got down to Navy Pier, we had a ball. We headed over to the Taste of Chicago to see Stevie Wonder and eat some food but the crowds were insane. It was wall to wall people, a total bust. After standing for 30 minutes in a line for food tickets, we were just done! I could not believe it when we found ourselves collapsed in a Cosi across from Grant Park, but it was just too much.

It was a good lesson in remembering that it's not so much what you're doing as it is who (or is it whom??) you're doing it with. It's the people that matter, not the events or the places. You could put me in the Artic Circle with Dena and Kemba and I'd still have fun.

The fun continued yesterday when I found myself going to brunch at a fabulous place in the South Loop called Yolk. First of all, when the heck did restaurants start opening in the South Loop? South Loop = run down homes and crack heads in my book. But not anymore. Times are changing and I can order an egg white omelet in the South Loop.

Second of all, I went to lunch with about 75% of my closest friends in Chicago. With all our kids there were 18 of us. I kept getting all teary-eyed because it was so nice to have so many people I really love all in one place. It was fabulous.

I think I OD'd on love.

What Will Her Baby "Be"?

I keep thinking about a conversation I had on Wednesday with a dear friend who's pregnant. This is the friend I'm going to knit the baby blanket for, but to preserve her anonymity, I'll call her... Martha. How's that for a nice, anonymous name?

Martha is like me. She's also half black and half Irish, and, like me, identifies as being both black and biracial. Despite both being told at various times in our lives that we talk "white" or act "white", neither of us have ever identified as white. We like being black and neither of us is totally crazy.

No wait, that's not true! A dozen years ago on an American Airlines flight out of Birmingham, Alabama, I told my seat mate that I was white. He was an older white gentleman who chose to try to strike up the, "I'll bet your people are just so proud of that Barack Obama Tiger Woods, aren't ya?" conversation.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"Y'know. 'Cause he's a black fella playing golf. Not to many of y'all black folks playing golf, now are there?" I remember he laughed and slapped his knee.

That's when my 23 year-old sort-of-crazy self decided to say, "Yeah... Tiger's great. As a white woman, I admire everything he's accomplished. It's amazing."

You can imagine how that stopped the laughter. "Whadda ya mean? You're not a white woman! Just look at yerself!"

I gave him my best, OMG, how could you say that I'm not white, I'm sooo shocked look, and said to the man, "Well, my daddy's white and you know, according to the old European patrilineal descent laws, that means I'm white." Then I calmly gave him my dazzling "How ya like me now!" smile.

He pushed the flight attendant button and asked to have his seat changed.

And that's the only time I've ever told someone that I'm white. Doing so in this country is completely unacceptable. We like our one drop rule here and it keeps us comfortable because that's the way it's always been. Black is black, as folks like to say.

In case someone takes me bringing all this up as a sign that I want to be white because of deeply ingrained self-hate, nooo, that's not the case. I just find how we rub along with these man-made racial definitions pretty fascinating and sometimes I like to push buttons just to see what happens. Plus, I've never "bought" that acknowledging and loving my Irish heritage means that I don't want to be black. Gosh, we're brainwashed, aren't we?

Anyway, my girlfriend, Martha, got married late last year to an awesome guy who's also Irish. They came out from NYC for a quick visit this week and of course we got to talking about the baby. She started telling me how she's thinking a whole lot lately about what the baby's going to look like and of course, this led to a conversation about race and what's the baby going to be identified as. "Be", as in, what race the baby is going to be.

Some people might think it's a silly thing to think about because a pregnant woman should just be thinking about delivering a healthy baby, but, again, this is America. We have race on the brain all the time, as evidenced by the fact that we're once more living in the days of the never ending discussion about whether or not Obama's actually black, even though he self-identifies as black.

Martha's going to have a baby that's essentially 3/4 Irish and 1/4 Grenadian. Clearly the baby's going to navigate it's own identity, but what does Martha do as a mother when she'll be required to "assign" an identity to her child? Or when other folks try to assign that identity? Does she adhere to the one drop rule which says that one drop of black blood equals black? Does she go old-school and say that her baby is a quadroon? Does she say that the baby is bi-racial, or does she say that her baby is white?

I think Martha's leaning toward seeing her baby as being black. And indeed, to claim blackness is something to be proud of, even if, sadly enough, it really isn't seen as something desirable in our culture. But, Martha was also talking about how, depending on what the baby looks like, she can see it going around saying, "I'm black!" and getting some crazy stares. We both know folks who have experienced this, folks who strongly identify as black, despite looking "white". Yeah, those are the folks who usually get told fun stuff like that they only claimed to be black so they could get an admissions edge at college.

Thinking about all this feels like trying to make sense out of system that's insane. I told Martha how the baby will have to find its own way, carve out its own identity, but that ultimately, the baby's "race" is going to be the least important thing about it when it's born. It's going to be a beautiful baby because it'll be loved and cherished.

But really, I don't have any easy answers for all this. Do you? What do you think?

Angelina's Big Gun

"Wow, that's a big gun!"

The minute I heard my four year old, "T", say this on our walk home from school this afternoon, my split second reaction was that someone walking toward us had a gun.

It's been eight years since I was robbed in my neighborhood and the cold feeling of a metal pistol stuck in my chest, right over my heart, is not something I care to ever experience again. So I immediately snatched up my child and prepared to run into the street shouting, "Fire".

But unlike eight years ago when I could clearly see two guys running up on me in t-shirts and baseball caps, tattoos covering the skin on their necks, there was not even anyone else walking on our side of the street. And on the other side of the street I could only see another mother and her child.

I didn't have to ask my son what he was talking about though because his eyes were trained on the building to our right. "Whoa, that's a cool gun!"

My eyes followed his gaze and I saw the (see above photo) five-foot tall posters for the upcoming Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, and James McAvoy action flick, "Wanted".

Now, "Wanted" is definitely on my list of films to check out this summer, mostly because every time I see the slick preview for it, I get all, "Whew, that looks awesome!" and, "Angelina is hawt!" Plus, Morgan's acting is always a fave of mine and McAvoy is pretty easy on the eyes and a good actor as well.

Indeed, I plan to see the film sometime in the next three weeks while I'm away in the Midwest, preferably someplace where one measly movie ticket isn't almost $13 like it is at my local theater. However, just because I want to go see this flick, that doesn't mean I want my kids to see these gun glorifying advertisements, especially when they're a mere block away from my child's school.

My first thoughts were, yes that is a big gun. A larger than life gun. The handle is almost as wide as Angelina's arm. I know she's skinny and all, but dang, that's just ridiculously massive. I'll admit I was pretty shocked to see such an advertisement up where kids can see it.

But I didn't need to share all those thoughts with T so I just told him, "Oh no, honey. Guns are not cool and I don't like that picture because guns are very dangerous and they hurt people. Remember, you should never touch one."

"Well that woman's got one and so does that guy!" The sass in his voice matched the gleam in his eyes. "And they look cool!"

We had to talk, yet again, about how guns and gun toys are not OK and that being cool and looking cool is not the end all, be all. But I felt like he's saying, "Mommy, you're such a hypocrite. You wanna go see this movie with guns precisely because you think it looks cool, yet you're telling me that guns are not cool and being cool is not important."

He's right. But I'm also not four and I know the difference between movies and real life. And even though I want to go see the film, I'm not OK with advertisements for an "R"-rated movie being put up a block away from a school where kids can see them.

Then I looked next to the "Wanted" advertisement and saw the ginormous Heineken ads. Clearly, the road from bad to worse is quite, quite short in my neck of the woods. I guess just having guns up there on prominent display isn't enough. Kids in my neighborhood need to be exposed to both guns and booze on their way to and from school.

Gosh, I wonder if gigantic ads featuring guns and liquor are a block away from a school over in Pacific Palisades where Governor Schwarzenegger's family lives. Do they have to see this kind of crap on their way home from school?

What do you think?

I'd hop in the car and go do some investigative reporting for y'all but 1) it's the end of rush hour so it'd take me like an hour to get over there and 2) regular unleaded is up to $4.69 a gallon at the gas station by my house.

As you can see, I'll have to pass on a Palisades road trip. BUT, I'll hazard a guess that no, they don't have to see such things over there. Lucky them.

I know in a week this advertisement will be replaced with something else but honestly, I'm tired of the endless parade of age-inappropriate stuff being shoved down my kid's throats by the billboards in my neighborhood. I plan to email this photo to City Council President, Eric Garcetti's office. Garcetti doesn't live too far away from me. I wonder if he'll have any issues with Angelina, her gun and the beer being strategically placed where every child strolling to school can see.

I'll just have to wait for his office's response. In the meantime, I wonder what would happen if someone in the neighborhood were to decide to take this poster down on their own?

Playing Peacemaker

In less than two weeks I'll be leaving LA and heading back to the "Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana" area. I'm headed out for almost all of July and I'm taking the kids with me. It's going to be great to spend time so much time. I usually feel like I'm stuffing seeing everyone and everything into only a few days, so such a long trip is a real luxury.

My kids have been counting down how many days till we leave for like forever. It's our first visit in the summer and I've filled their ears with stories of the Taste of Chicago, lightning bugs and swimming in Lake Michigan. They're also looking forward to gardening with my mom, going to a water park with my sister, hearing my dad play piano and trombone, and doing whatever with all their cousins.

I'm looking forward to all that too, but now that today's Pre-K graduation is over, I'm suddenly feeling stressed out.

One, I have to get us all packed up! I've been making lists of what to take and what to leave behind for each of us because I want to try to take only one checked bag each so I don't have to pay extra fees. I think making people pay all these extra fees for everything is pretty ridiculous. However, I just don't know if one bag per person is going to be possible for my clothes and shoes for my kids.

My youngest is helping though. After his graduation today, he packed his backpack full of Legos and action figures. As far as he's concerned, he's ready!

The bigger thing I am stressed about though is that I have a bad habit of trying to play peacemaker/unifier when I go home and I need to stop it. I tend to get uncomfortable with conflict and so I always want people to "play nice" while I'm there. They may have stuff that they need to work out and I just need to respect that. I don't know why it is that I expect folks to talk and act like they have these loving, fabulous relationships just because I'm there.

You know how it is, Relative A and Relative B have long-standing issues that they could spend a couple of years in therapy over. Or, one person says they're not going over someone else's house, even if I'm there. And, I think I just need to accept that it is what it is move on from there.

What gets hard is stuff like if I mention to Relative A that I'm going to Relative B's house and then Relative A suddenly starts acting weird towards me. I've thought about trying to have a BBQ and inviting all my relatives. But will folks even show up? And, if they do show up, will they even speak?

I don't know the answer to that, but I do know I hate that the only time I see some relatives is when there's a funeral. It'd be nice to get together even if we're not saying farewell to one of our dearly departed.

Actually, I don't really care if folks want to act weird towards me or not speak to me. What I am concerned about is my kids and them being exposed to a whole new set of tensions they have no idea about and don't need to know about. They love everybody and just want to have a good time and they should get to do that.

Hmm... I love everybody and just want to have a good time too, but I'm not looking at life through the eyes of a child. Sigh. Why do some things have to be so complicated?

I know I can't be the only person who goes through this. So, tell me, how do you all navigate spending time with people you love, when the ones you love don't always seem like they love each other?

Barack Went Straight to College

Tomorrow morning I'll be attending my four year-old's Pre-K graduation. "T" is super excited about the ceremony, especially since he thinks college comes next. You see, although he really likes school, he positively loathes homework.

So why the excitement about college? Well, "T" somehow remembered that I told him that you don't get homework everyday at college. So he's decided he's going there next. Forget about K-12!

I tried to be rational with his stubborn, "artistic" temperament. "No, honey, next you go to kindergarten like all the other big boys."

His response? "Nooo! Barack Obama went to college when he was four, so I can too!"

"Uh, no, he didn't."

"Yes he did! He DID go to college when he was four!"

We went back-and-forth before we agreed to play paper-rock-scissors to settle the debate. Fortunately I've noticed that my son always puts the scissors first, so I put out the rock to break them. He was SO mad that he fell out in the floor and started having a fit! Whatever. I ignored him till he shook his fist in defiance.

"Fine then! But I'm still going to college like Barack Obama!"

"OK, that's good. Of course you're going to college."

Our little "argument" was over but it got me thinking about how, for my sons, these days, everything is about Barack Obama.

Do you think Barack Obama ever had pet silkworms?
Is Barack Obama an omnivore, carnivore or herbivore?
Does Barack Obama play with Legos?

Last night my eldest was checking himself out in the bathroom mirror. As I walked by, I heard him say to his reflection, "What do you command, President Obama?"

He was totally pretending he was Obama!

I don't know if all of us who are parents fully realize how potentially having a black President is going to impact our children. I don't think I ever saw even a TV black president as a child, but gosh, my kids might have the real thing. It matters to see a face that looks like theirs up there. It definitely does.

I know for every person that says that Obama can help instill a sense of confidence and pride in black children, there's someone that says that none of that matters if black folks as individuals don't get their acts together and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I'd say people of all colors need to get themselves together and we can't do it in isolation. We need each other.

I don't think Obama's going to be an instant panacea for anything, and he shouldn't have to be. If he gets elected, America still has a tough road ahead as far as true racial unity, let alone gas prices, war, healthcare and education. But gosh, it does something special to my heart to see my sons admiring him and developing this whole superhero-like mythology about him. It's especially nice because most of the popular culture heroes that are put in front of them are not black males. Ironman, Batman, Indiana Jones, The Hulk --none of them look like my sons. They play with Batman action figures but I'll never see them look in the mirror and say, "Gee, I look just like Bruce Wayne!"

It's not just black kids either. Obama also does something for children of all colors. He challenges some of the subconscious, less overt stereotypes that our children, regardless of background, have learned about black men. His wife, Michelle Obama likewise challenges beliefs about who black women are and what we're about.

Tomorrow when my son walks across that stage to get his little Pre-K diploma, I know he's still going to be thinking that Obama went straight to college. And really, knowing I have a child who believes a black man can go from Pre-K to college is alright with me.

Jack and Bob Make Babies

Here it is, almost 9:30 and I don't know where the day went.

First of all, school needs to be out, like yesterday. My kids are so over and done with this school year. They don't want to go anymore and they for sure don't want to go to sleep. So what are they doing? Right now, they are in bed and have been (off and on) since a little after 8:00.

Unfortunately though, thanks to Daylight Saving's Time, it's still nice and light outside at 8:00. Why go to sleep when the sun's not down? And since they don't want to go to sleep, they get to fooling around.

First there was an itty bitty spider on the wall in their room. I had to stand on a chair to kill it and then they were scared it was going to come back from the dead like a zombie. Next they were hungry yet again. Trust me though, I believe them when they say they're hungry because these growing boys are like bottomless pits.

How bottomless pit-ish? Well, we went to the Los Feliz Street Fair yesterday, and I watched my seven year-old, "O", sit on the sidewalk in front of Skylight Books and devour one large Jamba Juice and one slice of cheese pizza from Palermo. Then he started begging for my bowl of Channa Masala and rice from Electric Lotus. I felt sorry for him so I went on and gave it to him. Twenty minutes later, he wanted a hot dog. As I sat there watching him scarf down the hot dog, I couldn't help but think, "10th percentile for weight. 90th percentile for height. He's gotta have tapeworms."

Anyway, back to tonight. Their second "dinner" got served to them around 8:45. Then folks had to go to the bathroom yet again. Now they're in their beds pretending that one of them is Robin Hood and the other is the Sheriff of Nottingham.

There's no point in going in there and making some sort of threat like, "If you don't go to sleep I'm gonna throw out all your toys," especially since the acting is so entertaining. Oh wait, they must be finished with Robin Hood and have clearly moved on to scientific inquiry because "O" just yelled, "Hey Mom, what are Jack and Bob doing?"

Remember those silkworms, Jack and Bob, that we picked up at the Bug Fair a few weeks ago? Yeah, if you don't, I don't blame you. I forgot about them too because Jack and Bob spun cocoons and have been chillin' inside them for over two weeks.

Well, today after school, O discovered that Jack and Bob, finally hatched from those cozy cocoons. Our two newly hatched moths then proceeded to have sex with each other all afternoon. Wait, let me go check... yep, still having sex with each other.

Gosh, silkworms. I had no idea the moth Kama Sutra would be going on in my house.

The most awkward moment of the evening was during their second dinner (peanut butter and jelly) when "O" just had to put their little plastic box next to his plate so that he could observe Jack and Bob. He was watching them intently and then he narrowed his eyes and asked, "Why are their butts stuck together like that? And why does Jack keep moving like that?"

Um, er, um. Mommy really doesn't know how to answer those questions without freaking both of us out, so that's why she said, "Because that's what moths do, so eat your sandwich and go to bed!"

Clearly I'm just as unprepared for the animal sex talk as I am for the human sex talk. Eek!

So, yeah, my kids will both be total zombies in the morning. This could work in my favor if Jack and Bob haven't detached from each other by then. The kids might not even notice if they haven't. And if the boys are little tired, hey, they only have a few days of school left. "T" graduates from Pre-K on Thursday and "O" only has till the following Thursday and then we are DONE with this school year!

Along Came a Spider

"Mommy, there's a SPIDER!!!"

Last night my seven year-old son, O, was in the bathroom screaming that there was a spider on the wall. I went in and indeed, crawling on the wall next to the toilet was a baby spider about the size of a flea.

"Kill it! Kill it!" he cried pitifully. And so, like any good and decent mother, I smashed it with my finger and rinsed it down the drain.

Today, less than 24 hours later, the exact same boy was happily holding a tarantula at the 22nd Annual Bug Fair.

Yes, folks, our annual visit to the bug fair is the only day of the year my two sons ask me things like, "Can I touch that scorpion?" and, "Don't you think a tarantula would make a great pet?"

I think it's the effect of listening to scientists wax rhapsodic about catching those tarantulas. We got to hear gems like, "When I was hiking off the 5 around Castaic I saw her on the ground. So I just scooped her up and stuck her in my backpack."

For you non SoCal residents, that's Interstate 5 and Castaic is only 40 miles north of Hollywood. Yeah, I'm sooo thrilled to know that there are friendly female tarantulas roaming around near my hood.

If tarantulas aren't your cup of tea, the bug fair also features fun centipedes and scorpions. One guy happily shared how he's been stung by scorpions between 150-200 times in his life. "It's not so bad now. I'm used to it, except I have to be careful now because these days, the part of my skin where I get stung dies."

Oh, okaay. His skin dies. That why he's holding three of those suckers, right?

My hands down favorite had to be the lady holding the gigantic cockroach. She had the nerve to say, "Isn't he a cutie?"

Uh, no ma'am. It's a cockroach. There is nothing cute about a four-inch long cockroach. It needs to meet up with a big can of extra-extra strength Raid and the underside of Shaquille O'Neal's shoe.

And of course, I wouldn't be myself if I didn't take note of the lack of racial and gender diversity among the scientists and other bug aficionados there to display their pets. Seriously, these guys looked exactly like you'd expect them to, like they just broke out of the 2008 version of Revenge of the Nerds. I'm sure they have Star Wars action figures at home, just like my own little scientists in training do.

Yeah, I'd be perfectly happy if my kids turn into Dr. O and Dr. T, bug scientists extraordinaire. I guess that's why I broke down and bought my boys their very own bug pets. Ladies and gentleman, meet Jack and Bob, our newly acquired silk worms!

Over the next two months, my kids are going to get to see Jack and Bob eat a bunch of mulberry tree leaves, spin a cocoon and hatch into moths. That's all fine with me. I'm cool with the kind of pet where if it gets loose I'm not going to have to stay at Motel 6 till it's caught again. Plus, the worms were two for a dollar. That's the perfect price!

And as I type, guess who just crept out of his room, whining, "Mommy, there's a spider..."

It's Hot

It's really hot here so my mind can only think in lists:

1) Why was there a guy sitting on a bench smoking a joint at the park at 7:15 AM this morning? Isn't it a little early for all that puff puff pass mess? Oh, except he was puffing solo so he had no one to pass to.

2) I know Mike Huckabee apologized for making a joke yesterday about an assassination attempt on Barack Obama, but I'm feeling pretty uncharitable about the whole thing. Not cool.

3) On the list of racial inequalities in the judicial system comes this story from South Bend, Indiana: White co-defendant gets no prison time biracial one gets 8 years. Uh huh. Is Al Sharpton gonna roll up any time soon?

4) The pictures from China are breaking my heart... and my dad heads there in two days for work. Sigh. Greedy people + Building codes = Disaster when an earthquake hits.

5) My seven year-old wants to know why Dracula only bites people on the right side of the neck. He claims to have observed this since my husband let him watch Batman vs Dracula last night. Yeah, he didn't sleep in his own bed after watching that. Poor baby was scared.

6) I'm hot.

7) Clearly, as you can see from the picture above, Rick Ross needs a bra and the Jillian Michaels "30 Day Shred" DVD. And, we all know what would happen to Trina's career if she got a gut like that.

8) Still ridiculously excited about winning the Depeche Mode contest. Like commenter Neil suggested, it totally is like winning the lottery.

9) Speaking of music, if you don't have any Bjork records, you should get some. Like this song:


10) And now I'm going to brave the 95 degree weather. I'm afraid.

Yo' Mama!

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there! Are you having a great day? I am and it's all because of my sons. Clearly, I wouldn't be a mommy without my little boys, "O" and "T". Yesterday I had one of those moments where I realized that I really am a mom. I mean, who else but a mom hangs out at a park for hours at a time because their kid's have sporting events?

My baby "O" (on the left with the popsicle-blue lips) is on a baseball team and he had team pictures yesterday from 11-12:30 and a game at 2. Of course, after the game, the boys wanted to play on the jungle gyms so I set up shop on the grass. I was supposed to be reading my book, Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road", but I ended up spending a lot of time watching my sons play and thinking about how good and sweet they are.

They were making me laugh so hard because every so often, they'd run over and say, "You know we're going to Disneyland tomorrow for Mother's Day, right?"

I think they were hoping they could break me down to the point that I'd cave in and say, "That's a great idea! Let's go see Mickey!" But nope, instead I got up this morning, ended my TV abstinence by watching Meet the Press and then did a Jillian Michaels workout DVD. The DVD is called "30 Day Shred". Apparently, if I do it every day for the next 30 days, I'm gonna look shredded! I'm inclined to believe it, especially since I'm now having a hard time even typing because I'm so sore.

Hands down, the funniest moment of the morning came right after I'd finished working out and was putting my free weights back under the couch. There was a loud knock on my front door and even though I was a hot sweaty mess, I had to answer it because my husband had stepped out for a minute to go buy some milk. So, I answer and there's this hot guy standing there with something wrapped in some brown paper.

He says, "These flowers are for you," and holds them out to me.

I'm sooo stupid that I thought this guy was giving me flowers from him!

I actually said, "Are these from you?" -- to which he confusedly replied, "No, I'm just giving them to you."

It took a second for me to realize that he worked for a florist and was merely delivering the flowers. In my defense, I had just done a workout that promised to make me shredded so I think my brain partially shut off because of the pain vibrating through my quadriceps.

While this guy is standing there holding this bunch of flowers out to my dumb self, here comes my husband bounding up the steps with yet another bouquet of flowers and a huge balloon that says, "Queen for a Day!" on it. Uh huh, going to go get a carton of milk, yeah, right. He comes and stands next to the delivery guy too and is all, "These are for you," while looking at the man like, "Who the hell are you and why are you here?'

Never in my life have I been presented with two bunches of flowers at once! Wowzer! So, I took the package from the delivery guy, unwrapped the brown paper and saw that it was a huge bunch of ranunculus! Ranunculus are my absolute favorite flower in the whole world and these ones, as you can see from the picture above, are absolutely GORGEOUS!

My husband looked a little deflated as he stood there with his bunch of yellow, purple and white daisies. "Who are those from?"

I should've replied, "From my other baby daddy," but instead I opened the card to reveal that they're from my awesome sister! Love her! And, now I'm feeling like I'm "all that" because I got two bunches of flowers in one day!

I know there are those who hate Mother's Day. They say, "It's just a commercial holiday. People should honor their mother's every day." There's no denying that is true. But still, it's nice to see my little boys shyly presenting me with the pictures and poems they made at school and I got two bunches of flowers!

Sooo, if you haven't already connected with your mother today, the clock is ticking! Even if you all don't get along and you're still in therapy from your traumatic childhood, give your mom a ring. As a friend told me, one day your mom won't be there and you'll wish you could tell her you love her just once more. Separate the behavior from the person and just reach out because hey, she did carry you for 10 months and that is no small commitment.

Anyway, my eldest just asked me, "Aren't you going to go get your nails done or something?" Yes I am, and some waxing too! See ya!

Frozen Peas and My Knee

I'm sitting around with a bag of frozen peas on my left kneecap. Clearly the end of the world is upon us.

One of the consequences of last Thursday's lengthy, rage-induced run is that I've killed my knee. It began bothering me a bit on Friday, and of course the solution my dumb self came up with was to keep on moving. It's like the Daft Punk sample of Kanye West's "Stronger" turned on in my brain and all I could think of was:

"Work it harder
Make it better
Do it faster
Makes us stronger"

How much harder, better, faster, stronger? Since Thursday, I've jogged twice more, done step aerobics and sweated my way through a Violet Zaki DVD that makes you do about 7,943 squats and lunges. Stupid, stupid, stupid! (Picture me banging my head on a concrete wall.)

Last night I woke up twice because the pain was bothering me. I took some Advil and, unfortunately, it didn't make a bit of difference. I spent most of today limping around the neighborhood looking bitter and geriatric. I mean, it took me half an hour to walk to pick up my sons from school today because every time I put more than a little weight on my left leg, bolts of pain shot through my knee.

On the way home after school, my youngest refused to walk up our hill. He claimed that his legs didn't work and so I needed to carry him. Of course I wanted to know who the heck was going to carry me since one of my legs actually seemed like it didn't work for real.

Guess which one of us ended up getting a piggyback ride???

To distract myself from the pain of hauling a 32 pound child up the hill on my back, I attempted to think about what an awesome hair day I was having. And then I remembered that that wasn't actually true since my hair was sort of resembling a rats nest.

Sooo, I came home, called my sister and complained about how I'm getting old and my body is falling apart. Seriously, I never had aches and pains like this back in the day. She was pretty sympathetic although she thinks I just need new running shoes.

I responded by launching into a complete pity-party about how my knee's jacked up but I'll never know for sure since 1) I don't even have a doctor, 2) I only went to the doctor when I was pregnant and 3) I haven't been to a doctor since my six-week checkup after my four year-old was born -- and what's wrong with me psychologically that I never go to the doctor? I told her how I'd even taken a bath in Epsom Salts just like an old lady.

She says, "Well my trainer at the gym says you 're not supposed to put heat on knee aches. You're supposed to ice it."

"Ice it?" I was skeptical. I thought heat makes things feel better.

"Yeah," she said. "Put a bag of peas on it. Heat is what old people put on their bodies to make themselves feel better."

And that, my dear friends, is the tale of how a bag of frozen peas came to be resting on my knee.

Turn Off My TV

I like to watch TV.

I can sit and watch Rock of Love episodes of Masterpiece Theatre all night long. Then I might wander over to the History Channel where there's always some cool show about the total barbaric craziness that was Europe in the Middle Ages.

After that "The Breakfast Club" will come on and I'll feel compelled to watch it for the 1,406th time just so I can see Mr. Vernon yell to Bender, "Don't mess with the bull young man, you'll get the horns!"

Given all this, it may come as a surprise that I'm attempting to participate in Turn Off Your TV Week this week. It's not that I'm addicted to "American Idol" (I've only seen it once) or anything like that. But, it never hurts to put the brakes on the "idiot box". And I suppose I could read a book about the Middle Ages instead of watching a documentary, even if I sort of like those reenactments of the plague descending on Europe.

The week starts today and goes till the the 27th. My goal is to avoid turning on the TV at all, but I especially want to wean myself off of cable news and all reality shows on Bravo. Fortunately, the addictive train-wreck that was VH1's "Rock of Love" ended last night with the reunion show so I'm already finished with that. Whew, perfect timing.

I'm starting off strong since I did not watch the news at all this morning. That's probably a good thing because I can't take all the pre-Pennsylvania Primary hype. However, my efforts to not watch TV should get "interesting" because my husband is not participating with me. He said he doesn't see the point of it. I suppose I'll just go sit in another room when he turns on the TV -- and when I get really irritated with him, I'll just think about how he's the way he is because he's been a big TV watcher ever since he was a kid.

Hmm...this no TV thing can turn into self-righteousness in a heartbeat, can't it?

I suppose I have an advantage over him though. I didn't watch a whole lot of TV growing up and neither did my parents. My mom watched WGN's 9:00 morning movie if it was any good, then she'd sometimes watch the "Phil Donohue"show at 11. The only soap-opera I remember her watching was "The Young and the Restless", but even that wasn't an everyday thing.

We definitely watched "Masterpiece Theatre" -- I still remember the fabulous one about Lillie Langtry-- but other than that, the only shows we saw on a fairly consistent basis were "Fantasy Island" and "The Love Boat". Sometimes we had cable TV. Sometimes we didn't. Our lives just didn't revolve around TV. We could read, draw, paint, wash dishes or pull weeds in the yard, but we didn't just sit around and watch TV.

I figure not watching TV has to be a good thing for my kids. When I told them about this, they just wanted to know if they could still play video games. I think technically the week bans any kind of "screen time" but I'm trying to be realistic with this. I don't want a total mutiny in the house and besides, I'm going to see Kanye West tonight and I think the babysitter might freak if they can't play video games for a little while.

Another benefit of doing this no TV thing though is that maybe I can be totally honest next time I take my boys to the pediatrician. If you're not a parent, you may not know that every time you take your kids to the pediatrician's office for a checkup, they ask, "How many hours of TV a day does your child watch?"

I'm always the parent that says, "Um, ah, um, maybe one, unless it's Saturday and then they get to watch, cough, two hours." Nevermind that there are like six cable channels devoted to cartoons. Two hours (the maximum daily limit) is a good guesstimate of the time spent, right?

Parents claim that our children are barely TV viewers because we know that otherwise, we're on the "Irresponsible, Very Bad Parent That Lets Their Kid Get Babysat By TV" list. If you're on this list, you know your child will end up hyperactive, unable to concentrate and lacking in creativity. And then your child will be an all-around complete idiot as an adult.

I guess that's why when I go to the doctor, I never get asked how many hours of TV I'm watching. Maybe it's already assumed that my brain is fried and that I'm an idiot? Well, hopefully I'll be a smarter, more well-rounded adult at the end of this week and maybe my sons will be less likely to beg for Lucky Charms and the latest Lego Star Wars toys since they'll be unplugged from all the commercials.

So are you going to join me in turning off your TV too? C'mon, let's try to make it through the week together!

Tesla Coiling

Earlier today I wanted to go throw myself into a sensory deprivation tank because my brain was feeling a little like this:


Yes, I totally felt like a mental Tesla Coil! I was having one of those moments where I was comparing my life to everyone else's more amazing and awesome life. The comparison game left me feeling agitated because I don't own a house, my car is 11 years old, and I have no cute spring clothes... and those are just the first three things I was getting worked up about.

Sound trivial to you? Well, maybe it is. But I know I'm not the only one who goes through this. I guess I was just having a moment where I felt less than, where I felt like I should be achieving something that I'm not, and in our world, achievement = material things.

I felt like I needed to distract myself from such thoughts so I made the mistake of turning on MSNBC to see what was happening in the world. Why didn't my guardian angel stop me from doing this? Talk about a BIG mistake! I got to hear all the gossipy insanity that is the spin-cycle of our Presidential election process.

Seriously, what in the world is going on with this mess? I'm seeing $6.99 watermelons in the grocery store, there's more homelessness here in LA than anywhere else in the United States and California unemployment hit 6.2% in March, but, nope, I'm supposed to focus on who Barack Obama's ever talked to in his entire life?

Yeah, the TV absolutely had to go off when I was started saying, "Bitch, please," to Joe Scarborough's commentary. AAGH!!! I think sparks were flying out of my ears!

So what made me stop my "Tesla Coiling"?

Well, I looked over to where my four year-old son was lounging, flat on his back in the middle of my living room floor. He was wearing a Spiderman costume with a pair of cowboy boots and he was staring straight up at the ceiling.

He seemed very deep in thought so I asked, "What are you thinking about over there?"

His reply? "I'm thinking about how much I love you." He then sat up and threw his arms around me.

I suddenly stopped feeling like I needed to go to the bookstore and buy some book titled "How to Fix Your Lame-o-Life".

My life is not so lame, even if I have my dinged up car, no new clothes, and no house in the overpriced Los Angeles housing market. Not lame because I have a little boy who loves me and isn't shy about telling me so. Not everyone has that and I'm so lucky.

I hope you have someone who tells you "I love you" and saves you from yourself too.

Quieter, Messier

The house seems so quiet, and a little bit messier too.

Saturday morning I dragged my sister's suitcase to the inside of the American Airlines terminal, hoped that her flight to Chicago would be one of the thousands canceled, and then sighed with disappointment when I found that it was not. I managed to hold back my tears until she had to go through the first security checkpoint. Ticketless, I could not follow her.

Don't you miss those pre-September 11th days when you could hug someone goodbye at the gate and then watch them walk onto the plane? After so many years of War on Terror "safety" measures, it still feels inadequate to only be able to wave goodbye as someone ascends an escalator and yells down, "You better not cry!"

Her words were too late, because as she now knows, I cry over everything that touches my heart these days. And so I tried to cover my face. I felt embarrassed to be crying so much in an airport terminal with harried passengers shoving past me to get to the self-service check-in kiosks and the security guards looking at me like I was a cause for concern. Doesn't anybody cry anymore when they say goodbye? Or are we all too used to gruffly kicking someone out of our cars at the curb and then getting on with our busy lives?

I cried until I got back to where where my car should have been in the parking garage. It was gone. I stood in the garage thinking, "Great. Someone stole my car."

I pulled out my cell phone and debated who I should call first. I just couldn't believe it. I mean, who the hell steals an 11 year-old car? I paced back and forth for a few more moments, thought about how I wasn't going to cry again because tears don't solve stuff like a stolen car -- and then I suddenly realized I was on the wrong garage level. Whew. I took the elevator down one level, and thankfully, there was my car, complete with it's beloved scrapes and dings.

I took surface streets home, driving north on La Cienega Boulevard. I turned down the music to see if I could hear the creak of the oil pumps that are ever churning in the dusty hills. I passed the Target on Rodeo Road and considered stopping and engaging in some mindless shopping to take my mind off not having my sister here anymore. After all, I could always use more lipstick and house plants. But I was in the wrong lane for a left turn into the parking lot, so I headed up Fairfax to Beverly, cranking up my air conditioner as I drove. It was already so devilishly hot by 9 am.

The time in the car made me realize that I wasn't crying just because my sister was gone. It's that I shared a room with her when we were little and I know why she cried as a child and as a teenager. I know if she were a bitter and angry woman, that wouldn't be unreasonable. But she's not. She's so considerate and has such a good heart. Sure, she has problems like anyone and she's not perfect, but she's never said she is.

And I know I cried because it's so rare that anyone I'm related to comes to visit just to see us. I get those that ring me up to say, "Oh, I'm going to be in town for work and I have an hour or two free." Not that I don't appreciate that, but it's different when you know someone decides to take a trip just to see you. I'll put it out there and admit that it makes me sad that I have been here for ten years and my mother has never come to visit. Nobody from my husband's family has ever come visit either. Sometimes it feels like it's about more than fear of getting on planes, more than the cost of a plane ticket. It would be a shame if the first time my mother has to come to California is, God forbid, for my funeral. I hope that does not end up being the case, but we never know if we're promised tomorrow.

And so I drove home through the boiling streets of Los Angeles and before I knew it, I was back to a house that felt too silent.

My sister's running shoes are in the hallway outside my door. She accidentally picked up my pair and left hers here. I promised to mail them to her but she'll probably go buy a new pair before I even get to the post office. Maybe I'll keep her shoes here in anticipation of her next visit.

The Long and Short of My Hair

It's almost midnight on a rainy night in LA. Twenty minutes ago I had a pair of scissors in my hand. I was thisclose to snipping off all my hair.

But I chickened out.

I have a lot of fear about cutting all my hair off and as the days continue to fly by, I've been reflecting a lot about what's behind this fear. I know folks will say that it's just hair and it'll grow back, but when you're a black woman in America, such a laissez faire attitude toward hair is not so easy to have.

I've found that getting to a place of comfortability with my hair is a little like unpeeling the layers of an onion. Like dealing with an onion, peeling back the layers of hair can also cause a few tears. It makes me think about the insidiously racist messages about beauty that black women, including yours truly, receive.

One of the most recent layers I unpeeled was chemical straightening (also called "relaxers" in case you didn't know.) Over the years I've gone back and forth with relaxers. In high school and college I used them, but didn't have the money for the upkeep so my hair didn't always look so hot. Post graduation/post life in China, I stopped straightening. --I need to learn how to use the scan function on my printer so you all can see some photos of how big my hair was after a couple of years of growing out all the straightened ends. I think it stood a good six inches horizontally off my head. I'm sure it would've been bigger, but since my hair was also pretty long, the weight of it pulled all the bigness down a bit. I'm not kidding. It was seriously the biggest, awesomest hair ever.

About four years ago I started straightening it again, mostly because I felt pressure to seem more "professional". It's hard to sit in a meeting with a principal or district official when you feel like you have the biggest, most unprofessional hair ever. Whether the pressure was real or a result of my own psychosis is certainly a fair game question, but let me just point out that we do live in a world where last fall, a Glamour Magazine editor told a group of lawyers the following:

"First slide up: an African American woman sporting an Afro. A real no-no, announced the 'Glamour' editor to the 40 or so lawyers in the room. As for dreadlocks: How truly dreadful! The style maven said it was 'shocking' that some people still think it 'appropriate' to wear those hairstyles at the office. 'No offense,' she sniffed, but those 'political' hairstyles really have to go."

Of course, Glamour did whatever damage control they needed to do at the time. But, I'm still waiting to see the pages of their magazine really reflect the diversity of black hairstyles. Actually, to take it a step further, I'm still waiting to see the models in the magazine reflect some true diversity, period. But maybe I'm somehow skipping over all the pages with black, Latina and Asian models.

Anyway, I was increasingly dissatisfied with straightening my hair. Every time I went to get my hair done, it took like five hours. It was also expensive, both in terms of the salon cost as well as styling products/conditioners. I needed all the conditioners and styling products because the more straightening and flat ironing you do, the more damaged your hair becomes. It's like a vicious cycle because it takes more and more effort to make it look decent.

I'd been considering going back to natural for about a year because I was sick of the straight hair and how flat and boring it was. The final straw was last July when I transitioned out of my job. About a week after I left, I went to get the roots of my relaxed hair touched up. My stylist was super busy chatting about her daughter. I was exhausted and not paying attention to any of it. Before I knew it, she ran the chemicals through not just my roots but through my whole head of hair. This is SUCH a no-no, not to mention it's never taken too much to straighten my hair in the first place. This second application of chemicals was a total disaster. My hair felt rough, it would not hold any kind of curl and it looked like straw.

I vowed to never go back to her again and then spent the summer dousing my hair in all sorts of deep conditioning treatments and avoiding my flat iron unless absolutely necessary. I figured the long term solution was to find a new stylist, but the thought of doing such a thing was really overwhelming. Most black women have the nightmare stories about the stylist everybody else swore was awesome and then they walk outta there half bald! AAGH! It's really hard to find someone you can trust.

I also didn't want anybody I needed to drive an hour through traffic to go see. I didn't want anybody's cousin Re-Re who did hair in her garage. And as much as I loved Dominican stylists in NYC, I didn't want to pay the Dominican stylist who'd opened not too far from me the extortion-type rates they were charging. So, I wore a lot of hats.

It wasn't till after school started last September and some issues with my eldest son feeling confident about his blackness emerged that I started really reflecting on how straightening my hair was sending my boys the wrong message. How could I tell them to be proud of their skin and hair when I was constantly chemically altering mine? And again, it's not like changing from flats to heels. Whether we like it or not, black hair is politicized. Because there's so much baggage tied to our hair, I felt like I was going along with the societal message that a woman of African descent is not as attractive if her hair is not long and straight.

I thought about how my son would see billboards of Beyonce up in Hollywood and he'd always comment that he liked her hair. I started explaining how it wasn't really her hair, that it was a lace-front wig. He'd look at me like I was crazy, and to tell you the truth, it made me feel a little crazy to be explaining it all to him. I thought about how I didn't want him to turn into one of those guys that only likes long, straight hair, or, even worse, one of those brothers that proudly proclaims that he only dates girls with light skin and long hair. I think if I ever heard my son say that, I'd throw up. So, I realized he needed to see a role model of natural hair in the woman he most closely identifies with. And that would be me.

In the past, growing out my hair from a relaxer wasn't such a big deal because I'd had stylists that didn't leave chemicals on too long or run them through my hair twice. So the difference between my natural hair and the straightened hair wasn't as noticeable. I'd rinse it with water in the morning, throw some leave-in conditioner and hair gel in it and run out the door. It would all curl up nicely. But this time though, it's really noticeable because my hair is so straight.

Since the end of October, my solution has been to straw set my hair. I wrote about all of that here so I won't rehash it. But once every week, I roll all my hair on straws and then dry it. The whole process takes about two and a half hours to do, but compared to the five hours I was spending dying in a salon plus daily styling, it's totally worth it.

However, I've been thinking for awhile now that I need to peel another layer off the hair onion. I need to just cut off all the over-processed, straightened ends and only have my own natural hair. I don't like being tied to a straw set but without it, the straightened part of my hair looks horrible. If my hair is shorter, I can just rinse it and go. But, I've never had short hair in my entire life. The shortest my hair has ever been is chin-length and I hated it.

I'm so afraid to cut it because I'm worried I'm going to look awful with a six-inch 'fro on my head. I do have a measure of vanity in my bones and, in case you didn't notice, I live in Los Angeles, the vanity capital of the world. I'm not trying to look like a buster.

Then I think about all those messages we women get about long hair and how all that feels like it's doubled for black women. I question everything, so I wonder, am I still perpetuating this racist insanity of aspects of a black woman's worth being tied to long, straight hair? Should I just take the plunge and chop it off? I know some of you have taken that step, so I'd especially love to hear you weigh in on this.

I know that with each layer of societal brainwashing that's removed, I get closer to my true self. I'm just not sure if I'm ready to give it a go with the scissors.

Encounters With the Clueless