Happy Valentine's Day!

My brother's girlfriend sent me this Valentine's Day card, and it made my day! I got a mysterious red envelope in the mail yesterday, and I didn't recognize the return address. Luckily, I am not a fan of the American campaign of fear, or I might have thrown it away out of fear of anthrax! It never crossed my mind either that it could be a Valentine's Day card, because the only V-day cards I have gotten since the tear off elementary school ones are ones that my parents sent. Yep, you heard correctly. I have never been mailed a V-day card by someone not sharing 50% of my genetic code. Needless to say it couldn't be a card from my parents, since I live with them. Besides, these days everyone does e-cards and quick text messages. Even my parents sent text this year! What is the world coming to?!??! This is momentous, if for those reasons alone.

So I open the card, and there it is -- pretty much the funniest card that I have ever received! I had to hold my stomach! I was in tears. And when I got to the inside, it was over. I was no good for the rest of the day. I spent it giggling. Because the universe is against me, I was over my cell minutes for the first time in years and couldn't call anyone, but I sent mad text messages! I also spent most of the night on the phone describing the card for the masses. I am keeping this forever. How clever!

As you, astute blog reader, may have guessed this card ain't that damned funny in and of itself; it's the inside joke. Which I will now divulge because I can't help myself (I will strenuously DENY this if asked about it by any person or in any situation that makes me uncomfortable). After the Zulu ball earlier this month, I went to sleep and had a slutty dream (and that is as much as I will elaborate) about a certain underdog Presidential candidate, which I related in detail to several friends, one of whom sent me this card. Get it now? Good.

Hope your Valentine's Day is as filled with laughter as mine this year!
xoxoxo
D_Luv

PS: Starting a new blog tradition -- the blog theme song. Can't guarantee one for every post, but listening to the playlist today is a dead giveaway!

Post Theme: Happy Valentine's Day by Andre 3000

The Money Pit

Tonight, I am listening to bluesy jazz (Charlie Parker, All The Things You Are), and listening to rain pound the window. I am writing from the money pit. It sucks down here. There's no funny Tom Hanks to make me laugh by falling down the stairs.

I have come face to face with my own dire and desperate straits. Each day that passes I am cognizant of the bills due, the bills on the way, and the lack of money in my pocket. It's either invent something brilliant in the next twenty seconds, win the lottery, or get a menial job and tread water until the first paycheck. Even as I submit my resume for six figure jobs, I'll be scrubbing floors somewhere soon. I can't believe it's come to this. The only thing worse that not having a job is having one like the one staring me in the face.

Oh well. Better hit the streets tomorrow, trolling for open positions. Thing is, down here in the land that time forgot, the open positions are the equivalent of sharecropper gigs. Needless to say I am highly resistant to letting my life turn into a remake of O Brother Where Art Thou?.

I am Dust

Check out my man Van Hunt singing today's anthem, I am Dust.



I had a mock interview today, and am ready to begin my spam campaign on all the Fortune 500 companies with marketing job openings... but I know the one I really want. Send up some prayers for me!

Our Love

Our love is gleefully silent
like a teen sneaking home
in the morning hours.
It has passed the time
sweetly, secretly
whiling away years
on the whim of a stroll
with a handsome suitor.
When I let go of your hand
I had your heart.
And morning never came.
The sun never rose on us,
burning its harsh light.
We made our home instead
in the balmy bosom of night.

It's Official! Yes We Can

Why does it seem like my life, as insignificant as it may be on a global scale, is so reflective of our current times? It seems like at this juncture, I am continually skating a cliff side road bordered on crisis. Is the same not true, with our nation, our world? During these times, I know that God is sovereign, but it doesn't stop the maelstrom of thoughts in my head. I am reminded that the Chinese character for crisis is also the one for opportunity. (I'm not even sure that's really true, as I don't read Chinese, but there's something so poignant and wise about it that it doesn't even matter.) And I am comforted by the quiet still voice in my own spirit that rarely speaks, but was heard to say a few weeks earlier: "THIS IS YOUR YEAR." (How does it seem to scream yet be so quiet? That's the nature of God. Simple, yet divinely complex in His simplicity.)

And so, to the American nation, I say: I can't help believe with rising certainty, that this is our year.



I read a great article that started all this called Why Obama Matters. It was a link from a friend's status message on Gmail. A friend that I will always be grateful to. I, like so many in the nation, feel really disenfranchised. It could be a youthful, generation Y thing, but I don't think so. I think that the current government that we live under is non-reflective of the real country in which we live. I believe that it's current voice is not my voice, not our voice, and that we are under-represented. After all, what's the alternative? To believe the opposite? That's enough to send me emigrating to Canada for certain, no joke. If I imagined myself for one minute, even in Mississippi, which I believe to be the very bowels of America, to be surrounded by the kind of smug, supercilious ignorance, and fundamental disregard of human dignity that I see (and hear) every time I watch our leaders on television, I would WALK until I got away from it. No matter how long it took. I would take a Rabbit Proof Fence walk, people. I might end up in Asia. I say all this to say that I was not paying attention to the upcoming presidential election, certain of a few things:
1) that the current dissatisfaction that people are expressing would lead to the certainty of Democrat in office.

2) that I would be picking the Democratic ticket.

3) that therefore my candidate would win.

4) that Hillary Clinton is an equal choice to Obama.

5) that having either a "first woman president" or a "first black president" is enough to prove our desire to progress and our willingness to do so.

All of these are wrong assumptions, and dumb too. Read them carefully and you'll see the problem. These assumptions are ignorant and born of apathy and laziness! (Yeah, I can be really tough on myself can't I?) I was thinking these things because it was the easiest thing for me to do: wait on the world to change while doing nothing to change it, certain that it won't really change and ready to be "surprised" and disappointed. I'm glad that I got shocked out of this, and that I am now rallying. If you change nothing, then nothing changes! (That sounds really good, so I know I couldn't have just made that up...anybody know where that's from originally?)

Recently, there have been some changes in my mindset. I have been convinced over the past few weeks that we need Obama and the grassroots, radical can-do ideas he represents. I am convinced he is the best presidential candidate, bar none. I am convinced that we need out of the baby boomer cultural identity confusion that has been driving our political dialogue and disagreements. I am convinced that the next president needs to be "free" in a way that no one else is. We need no pre-established political machinery, no network of secret contacts, lobbies, and scorecards of favors owed and favors due. I am convinced we need to do immediate and effective diplomatic damage control in our relationships with other nations. We also need a shocking, undeniable statement of our LACK of racist, religious, and/or sectarian agenda (even if that's not exactly true... yet). What better way than a black man with a Muslim name? Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to reduce Obama to only that, although God knows he must be used to it and get it a lot as do I as a black woman in America. I just mean that he is refreshing: the face, the name, the family, the religious outlook, the policies, the lack of scandal, the prospective plans. THE POTENTIAL. THE HOPE.

As I walk towards a time of triumph and radical change in my personal life, I pray that my country would too. I know that I am on my way out of a valley, and We, the People, can and should do the same. Get out and vote, and make it happen. Barack the Vote, 2008!

Sick and Tired of being Sick and Tired

Feeling crappy -- my nose is swollen and full of that nasty stuff. As I am one of the nation's millions of working poor -- no wait -- make that unemployed poor, I cannot afford to pay for health care, and I don't have overpriced insurance. I hate this! Every time I have the least sniffle I can't see a doctor right off, I have to try and manage. It's only when it gets to the point that I either get some antibiotics or go into a Victorian decline that I go to the free clinic, mostly because I feel bad to use those services when I am so eminently employable and others really need then, but also because I am ashamed to show my face in there all the time. Universal health care. Really, am I the only one that can see the perfect sense this makes?

We need a revolution in this country. I can see myself, a Che-like figure. Out of my mouth pokes a thermometer, and my eye is patched. I scream around a mouthful of medical grade glass: Give us free care! Thousands rally around my cries.

Who's the bad guy in this? Money is. Our system is a capitalist market and health care is the valuable property. Only one problem: health is a right, not a good or service to be exchanged. All of the rest of the civilized world sees this and operates accordingly. Why can't we?

Enough of this, or I really will buy a beret!

Zulu Ball Tonite!

Going to do the Zulu tonight! I'm bought to get my jocomo fina neh on some too!

Okay, enough Louisiana patois. I frivolously spent the whole day getting ready for a ball. That's right. Deep down south we still do truly formal occasions. I will be attending the 2008 Mardi Gras Ball of the Zulu Krewe! It's my first time, and that's saying something considering I'm New Orleans born and raised. At least I still remember how to get my Nola party on. I can't wait!

Being as poor as I am, I had to fall back on the formal gowns I keep for just such an occasion. I even surprise myself with just how much of a Southern belle I can be. I will be, regretfully attending minus the long gloves and tiara that I am envisioning and will have to make do with the old and borrowed. I am comforting myself by telling myself that I am so NOT the focus of attention, it isn't funny, and no one will be paying me any attention whatsoever. There's the king, queen, and court to be worried about.

I will, however, eat my face off, imbibe too much free liquor, and then dance off the calories to the sound of the famous local DJ Captain Charles, and Doug E. Fresh. Lodi Dodi, do we like to party!!! Maybe I can squeeze an invite to the Nomtoc parade on the West Bank (one of my faves, and I am sure that I can find at least one block party full of old familiar faces). It turns out that the friends I expected to be there won't be here until next week, so if that's a no go, I'll probably be leaving in the morning.

Well, gotta go... the readying for a ball is a long and drawn out process. I must:
1) Give myself a spa mani/pedi. (normally I would just go to a salon, but $$$ is a BIG object)
2) Take a Deluxe Shower. This is the type of shower that wets the windows, even in the room down the hall and hikes up the water bill. I must exfoliate, depilify, and wash and condition my hair. (which, of course looks like a schizophrenic rooster's)
3) Deep condition, spa facial with hair removal.
4) Put on pantyhose and foundation garments.
5) Style hair. Deluxe makeup.
6) Glitter powder on decolletage.
7) Steal best scent in house (no matter who it belongs to) and spritz on.


Wish me luck!