My Favorite Remakes

Yaaay – I’m Oprah status with my favorite things. I guess I can do a little something every day (c’mon son… you know I’m not on here every day LOL) But I’ll try.

I’ll start with my favorite musical remakes of all time. No profound commentary – I like songs that take the original and flip it on it’s ear and make you look at it in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LIGHT. I really mean it. But somehow maintain all the purest elements of the song. Musicians are genius!

I threw in the Estelle song as a bonus. I can’t hear the Screaming Jay Hawkins one w/o thinking about Estelle’s flip on it.

*small disclaimer for the first song… errr… it’s a little explicit… so if the kids are around, you might wanna tell them to run & play for 6 minutes and 15 seconds*

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Designed to Change

Everytime I find the meaning of Life, they change it
- Unknown

Luckily for us, Humans are designed to change. It’s through change that we grow and evolve and become better (and sometimes worse). But to expect that we’ll always stay the same is a fallacy. Even the most stubborn, non-changinist person in the world is changing every day (and I am calling ONE person into my mind that I know…) and how does he change? By becoming more stubborn and more entrenched in his old ways than ever. That’s still change though.

Last year about this time… I had received a bunch of baby shower invites that I summarily ignored. Just having lost the first love of my life (mommy) and not knowing what the hell was going on in my body made me bitter and angry. I couldn’t find any enjoyment in other people’s successes and happiness. And although it’s not Christian to be that way… it IS human. And it felt like these announcements were coming out of the wood work. EVERYONE was having a baby. EVERYONE except for me. And I’d forgotten the lessons I’d learned in the past. There was a time when EVERYONE was getting married. EVERYONE except for me… but I’m married today. You’d think that would give me comfort. But it didn’t.

Around this time last year a dear chapter Soror of ours passed away. Soror Delores. And I’d sworn off of going to funerals because I felt I’d had my fill of them for a life time. But Soror Delores deserved me being there to pay my respects to her. So I trudged out there in the snow to partake in her Ivy Beyond the Wall. But her service was so packed with people.. there was NO parking ANYWHERE. And circling around in Queens is never an easy task. By the time I found parking and jimmied my way into it past the ice and snow and made it to the funeral home, I’d missed the IBTW. But Sorors were still there, chatting and milling about.

One Soror came up to me. My dear Soror Alex (for whom my love and respect grows daily!) walked up to me and came right out and asked what some folks may have not wanted to. “I sent you an invite to Georgie’s baby shower and you haven’t responded – that’s not like you – what’s going on?” I had a choice. I could lie and say I didn’t get it. Or that I’m much too busy to attend. But before I could make a real decision about what I WOULD say… the truth came spilling out to her uncensored. “I can’t,” I exhaled….”I just can’t take it, Alex. EVERYONE is pregnant but me. I don’t know what to do and I’m not sure how I can continue along celebrating for everyone else and never for the making of MY family. It’s destroying me inside and I can’t even muster up enough real joy to put a smile on my face for everyone…” I caught myself right then. Oh LORD… did I just SAY all of that??? That’s the stuff of inner dialogue if anything!!! I thought she may have been like… “Oh… I see,” not knowing what to make of it… and maybe walked away. I forget sometimes that she’s a trained psychologist… and a GREAT one – one who actually cares. She sat me down and asked me what I’ve done to try to find out what’s going on — have I been to doctors etc? And at that point, all I’d really gotten were run arounds. Doctors who would diagnose then disappear or who would recommend watchful waiting. But I was feeling worse and worse. She listened attentively and then said she’d heard of a doctor that was in Brooklyn who was really good. She told me a few stories of Sorors she knew who had gone to this Doctor and now not only had they been pregnant but some were waiting on their next child. I suppressed the over excitement in my heart and said “let’s see before we get our hopes up”. She jotted down the name of the Doctor and phone number and the name of one of the success story Sorors and her number. She said, “Just try… you have nothing to lose. And feel free to call me if you need to talk.”

It’s no mystery that the number she gave me was Dr. Kofinas’ number. And we’re all mostly familiar with how this is turning out.

I bumped into her LS Georgie at chapter meeting yesterday who told me how excited she was to hear my status updates about the Post Op appointments and began giving praises to God. And looking at this lovely woman – the same one whose baby shower I’d hidden from going to, more inner dialogue creeped out, but i didn’t mind it. I said… “Last year at this time, I’d given up, Georgie…” and she quickly responded, “Oh… I’d NEVER given up hope for you!” And her assurance filled me with emotion. It was all I could do not to cry. Happy tears though…

One year can make so much of a difference. I’m a completely different person now than I ever was then and I’m so happy for it. I have renewed hopes and dreams that I thought were dashed to the ground because I had a lapse in faith – which is human. But THANK GOD for change and the ability to rise up from those hiccups and fear.

And thank you Alex and Georgie from the bottom of my heart. I’m not sure there will ever be a way for me to truly express how your presence in my life has made such an amazing difference. But PLEASE know that it has!!

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Lying and Tiger’s Affairs… oh my…

So… I’m kind of on the outskirts of all of this getting random reports every now and again about the latest. Here’s what I know in short:

There was a *makes fingers do the quotations move* “Car Crash” involving Tiger Woods a week ago where he hit a tree head on, air bags didn’t deploy and there didn’t seem to be any damage to his door. In a valiant attempt to *quotes move, again* “save him”, his wife Elin busted both back windows *cue up Jazmine Sullivan quietly in the background* to his Cadillac Escalade (quick RCA dog head tilt here on why a billionaire is driving an Escalade…) to *quotes move a third time* “pull him to safety” then a day or two later it starts to come out that there were “transgressions” with someone who he left a voicemail for asking her for things she’d have to do for him Huge. Quickly. Bye. Because his wife had been going through his phone (right before the “crash”?) A day later there was another name… cause the first girl we heard about had a J – Jenna or Joanna or something… now there was this Uchitel chick and today a third… a Kalika someone (who I SWORE would be a sistah with a name like that – and maybe would have actually made this whole thing jucier – but Tiger gets points for being consistent with his Jungle Fever or… um… Cablinasian Fever… because Kalika was just another skinny white girl – but brunette this time). And over all of this fuckery he laid the sauce of “I’m only human, stop pestering me and my family – by the way my wife is so gracious and wonderful, stop accusing her of being violent and barbaric – but wait – NOT gracious and wonderful enough for me to try and keep my 9 iron in the bag” right along the top with a flourish.

In. A. Nutshell.

What’s my take?

This was a public service reminder to all and everyone who is in a committed relationship or married to go through their phones and delete questionable shit. And questionable means just that. If it can be construed a million ways. Or if your mama read it and you think she’d raise an eyebrow… If it’s a photo you have to turn on an angle and preface with “wait… you gotta know the story behind it…” DE? Lete. And then make a little resolution to try not to anymore with the creating of new messages like that, mmmkay? Especially if you KNOW someone’s going to be looking at your phone when you aren’t.

Do I think he’s wrong? Sure. I also think that society has inflated our expectations of what we should and should not be doing. But that’s a blog for another time… or maybe – I wrote it last blog, actually LOL. I think I might have been able to forgive him on one… but three? I mean… damn, Tiger… How many women are you “wearing out?” Fer shizzle.

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Thoughts, Memories, Flashbacks…

Yesterday was a pretty busy day for my mind. It was occupied with though from the early reaches of the morning till the depths of the evening when I finally gave up and went to sleep.

I woke up at 5 AM and jumped to work as there were some items that needed to be handled even though we had a 5 day weekend. Work never ends, so I can’t stop working sometimes.

A conversation later on with a close friend revealed to me his proposed reasoning behind “romance”, “marriage” and “fidelity”. This one, my mind chewed on for a LONG time. He likened it to a “fence in a woman’s mind”… He said that when you own some sheep and you put a thought in their heads and get them all to thinking that way, the likelihood that they’ll stray from the patch is minimized. You might not even NEED a fence… because it’s a fence in their minds. Men drummed up all of these concepts to keep women from straying from them because, he admitted, men can’t handle it. Sure they can handle the idea just fine that they can hop from woman to woman non stop. But they can’t handle it if they hear one of their women hopped. So they make us believe from early on that it’s romance and fidelity and marriage that we seek… so that we can stay put. I looked back on my past relationships with men and I felt… pretty stupid. Cause I couldn’t dispute it all the way with any of them. In the end for most cases… the romance was held up like a smoke screen so that they could do what they needed to do, while I waited patiently. I took comfort in the idea that it isn’t really much about “romance” between Earl and I, though. It’s a LOT more about friendship. We lean heavily on each other and try to brace one another for the tribulations of the world. We’re very much partners in fighting off the ills together. So I left that thought not feeling completely victimized. But I’m MUCH wiser now for the conversation. Too bad that couldn’t come when I was younger. Would have saved me a GANG of heart ache. And now I am completely convinced that my girl children will NEVER partake in any fairy tales if I can help it. It just adds to the wickedness.

Later on that day, an elementary school friend shared this picture with me.

I'm still bugging out that we're only a bit taller than the hydrant.

Yeah. That’s me on the left. I don’t even REMEMBER that coat, for real. But I could clearly see… w/o having to really scrutinize… my mommy dressing me up like a little doll. It’s what she LIVED for. She adored seeing me look like one of her little porcelain dolls so she’s shop and shop and I’d wear it and she’d do my hair and she was so excited! I was excited to see the pic. So much so that I was about to send it to her.

And that’s when everything started to take a downward spiral. I had a mini meltdown. Crying and missing her and wishing she could share in the remembrance but she’s gone. She’s gone. And what can I do??? Luckily, it only lasted for so long when I remembered… I can share this with Domi. I can share this with Nininne. And I did. And felt so much better. Nininne says she remembers that they bought the coat on one of their outings to Delancey Street. Of course they did!!!

With that comfort and the helpful words from my husband, I nestled into his chest last night and murmured “I love you” until I fell asleep and finally gave my mind much needed rest.

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