Read this DEEP poem I found in Oprah Magazine!

________________________________________
Prayer
by Marie Howe

Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important
calls for my attention--the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage

I need to buy for the trip.
Even now I can hardly sit here

among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside
already screeching and banging.

The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.
Why do I flee from you?

My days and nights pour through me like complaints
and become a story that I forgot to tell.

Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning
to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.
____________________________________________________________________

Deep, huh?

March on...

Today I am deeply disappointed. I had the ominous feeling that I had been presumptive in my joy, and loosed-tongued in my overconfidence, and yesterday, I fear, I was proven correct. I would have loved to be wrong in this!

What am I talking about? Well, I had a great interview this week, was positive that I was moving on the last and final round of interviews, was certain that I would receive an offer, allotted less than a week for salary negotiation, and started planning my end of the month move to New updating my financial goals, mapping out a budget, and looking at homes for sale on craigslist! Whether this is a case of healthy success visualization and claiming God's promise, or gun-jumping at its finest, I do not know.

Not to mention all the people I told... people that are going to want to know what happened with the job and when do I start. People who will attempt to encourage me or comfort me when I tell them that I am back to square one. So heaped onto a crushing sense of disappointment and weariness in being disappointed is a sense of shame. No good news to report guys, nothing to see here. Let's all just get some sleep... Isn't that what the police say when they're shooing away the gawkers at the scene of the train wreck? Why yes it is... how apt.

I received an email telling me that the position that I was certain that I would be offered is "on hold for a month or so". I don't even know what that means, and it can mean so many things. What happened to the strong sense of rapport that I built with my interviewer. I thought for sure that I could have depended on her for more of an explanation than that, no matter what the outcome. A terse, two-sentenced brush off what outside of the realm of my expectations.

Of course, not all hope it lost. I have to keep on trucking, keep on looking... I mean, what else is there? It might even turn out that I will eventually be handed what looks right now to be impossible: this job on a silver platter. There's really no excuse for me giving up now, particularly with the amazing support system that I have in family and friends that are behind me, with the number of people offering themselves: money, time, favors. I appreciate you all more than I can say.

I just can't help but wonder how much longer I will have to wait. The bible says be ye not weary in well-doing, but the negative emotions and thoughts, bruised feelings, and tough circumstances weigh down on me like baggage, and it's baggage that I can ill afford. Today, with a sigh and a tired smile, I soldier on.

Post Theme: Bag lady by Erykah Badu

Celebrity Deathmatch: Racism vs. Feminism

Ferrara can't help herself; she's tangled in the clotheslines of bitter, vintage feminism, baby boomer era deep-seated racial resentment, and the White man's business-as-usual double standard. It's a psychotic cat's cradle that allows one to delude oneself into believing that no matter what a person does, regardless of the outcome, whether soaring achievement or complete failure, the reason is race. It is the existential antithesis: you are nothing but your blackness (smirk, smirk). Embittered by the failures of feminism, and the pressures of being a woman in politics, she is angry that a Black man will snatch away the pinnacle of feminist achievement: the presidency. In her untouchable, bourgeois, whitey arrogance she refuses to recant. Even getting so hysterical (yes, I understand the snub) as to face the challenge by implying that she is a victim of "the race card" too, that she is being attacked because she is white. Sorry to inform that no, she's not being railroaded as a woman, she's being attacked because she is a deluded psycho, implying that being black in America is a cool fad, easy, or lucky, that there is an affirmative action effect. I missed the memo, the transition... here I was thinking that life is hard and even harder as a black person, and the whole time Obama is sliding down an easy shute to the Oval Office like a diseased cow in a meat packing plant! Thanks for the heads up, Geraldine!

I laugh uproariously at the image of white people as bugs mesmerized by Obama's brown-skinned "bug light" effect. There's a lot of stuff white people like, but black people in power is not one of them (so far). You lose... good thing you quit Clinton's campaign before she had to "denounce and reject you"! Too bad, so sad. Now go sit your ass down and think about what you've done!

This is why black women have always struggled as feminists; it all breaks down because there is the tension of competing and conflicting interests. Our feminism is often restricted to within the race or subjugated altogether in many cases, ostensibly for "the good of the race" philosophy with which we are so often socialized. I have mixed feelings about this, but mostly I just have to accept it, and it's work within me. I feel it keenly when I read and see this. I admire HRC and Geraldine Ferrara for representing the fierce competency of women, and the successful and skilled power brokering and politicking that we can do. Yes, they've paved a way. But I cannot accept or allow that respect to deafen my ears to racially charged statements and behavior. The facts say it all. Sad to say, but Callejo and Ferrara have said the most racists things in the campaign to date, not some white guy. Something to think about!

Post Theme: Hate On Me by Jill Scott

I'm So Excited!

Break out the 80's music! I am so excited and full of energy that I hardly slept last night or the night before! I mean I'm really soaring...it's some combination of nervous energy, excitement, and endorphins (since I went walking this morning at 5:45 am). It's the kind of thing where you jump on the bed, or run out into a hard rain yelling Shazam! The feeling of invincibility is a welcome change, believe you me!

I've been laying low because I didn't want to over think it any more than I usually do, and therefore jinx it, but I had my first face to face interview in 6 months yesterday, and it went swimmingly. No details here, but I am moving on in the interview process and think that I just may have found something even better than I job I can tolerate -- I THINK THAT I'VE FOUND MY DREAM JOB, IN MY HOMETOWN!!

Do you know what this means?!? It means an end to my crisis of faith, an end to placing fear-inspired limitations on God or myself. It also means an end to the unending, foggy valley that was my mid-20's. Talk about your quarter-life crisis! I can live EXACTLY where I want to, how I want to. In other words, I am perilously close to getting my heart's desire. Hosanna!

In other news...I volunteered for the Obama campaign and he won MS last night! Another reason for shouting out (it's moments like this that I miss my giant trampoline)! You da man, B!

Also, I am hysterical with ironic, maniacal laughter at this whole NY governor situation. Methinks it was a case where he doth protest too much against hookers! The guy is the main prosecutor of prostitution rings and then leaves a neon-glowing money trail back to himself! And then the main pimp daddy running the whole biz is an IRS official! So that's why he never thought he'd get caught...it never fails to amaze me. I also can't help noticing that this scandal broke in NY, where HRC is "from".... where there's smoke there's fire. *rude snicker* It's about as much to go on as they have on Obama, and I think turnabout is fair play. I can see the mudslinging posters now: pix of Hillary shaking hands with Gov. Spitzer while Bill Clinton slides his hand up some intern's skirt in the background. The slogan at the bottom reads... "WTF?!?!" Then she can spend lots of valuable campaigning time explaining away the behavior of unfortunate acquaintances in an attempt to dispel the ludicrous and vague aura of guilt and scandal that she finds herself surrounded in. I can see the email chain letters now: don't vote for Hillary, she hangs with philanderers and whore mongers. And she's got a black person somewhere in her family tree; she will have to be sworn in singing Lift Every Voice and Sing instead of The Star Spangled Banner. People would totally believe it, too.

Post Theme: Neutron Dance by the Pointer Sisters

So Life Ain't No Crystal Stair... Keep Climbing Anyway!

After such a melancholy post yesterday, you might be worried about more whinging today... congratulations! You've been granted a reprieve. I pretty much did nothing all day, and it was everything that I thought it could be!

Taking a break for a day was really what I needed. I can't believe that I'm stressed enough these days to actually need a vacation from the "job" of looking for a job, but that's the case. Now where am I going to get a ticket to somewhere tropical for five dollars or less without winning the lotto? (Forgive me, it's taking awhile to adjust to the rhythm of being poor; it's been so long)

I saw two great movies today: The Jane Austen Book Club and Death at a Funeral. JA book club is one that I will be sure to buy, for the obvious reason of me being a devoted fan of Miss Austen's, and also because I thought the movie was quite smart, smarter than the book actually (which I have actually never said before -- don't know what's got into me). The way the movie displayed the interaction between Austen's characters and novels and the modern day characters was expert and amusing, and the casual discussion of scintillating opinions between Austen aficianados made me hunger for my old book club days. Ah Bluestockings, how I miss thee! Go see it if you can. I know that it will be making my collection as soon as a dvd purchase is not analogous to a home purchase in my checkbook.


Death at a Funeral is one that I have been hungering to see, as the trailer was included on several movies that I've rented from Netflix over the past months. It was absolutely hysterical and there were several times I had to stuff my sleeve into my mouth or risk bringing down the wrath of all the sleeping family members above stairs. Think big fat black funeral as performed by a British cast full of starched accents. Definitely recommended for fine family fun! Go see it soon!

In other news, is anyone else fatigued of the damn election? Hillary please go home! You're ruining everything, can't you see that? The stupid Democrats are also giving Repugnicans (yep, you read it right, it's not a typo, and if you see it anywhere else on the web they stole it from me) a huge advantage with all the squabbling and fighting. It's clear that the only solution to the Florida-Michigan problem is a complete Do-over, and I wish they would stop stalling on that announcement. Even so, no one is going to get all the delegates that they need to clinch the nomination, so it's going to be an outside decision. I just know that it better be fair! I just can't believe that being silly and non-strategic could lose the election to McCain -- and what a loss! He's unveiled himself as Bush 3.0! It's like updating your crappy 2000 macbook laptop to an original Charles Babbage model T computer. It's not an upgrade obviously! I mean, just take a look to the left -- is that old white guy man love or what? Talk about being in bed together! Is it too much to ask that we leave the old administration behind in its entirety? Let us ask ourselves this question: why is it so hard for America to break up with her exes? First the Bushes and now the Clintons... seems to me like America need to pick up a copy of He's Not That Into You and give it a good read. Bump the chump girl! There's a good man waiting in the wings!!! And once you go Black...

Post Theme: I Gotta Get Thru This by Daniel Bedingfield

Access Denied

Today was a resounding chorus of ACCESS DENIED in so many ways. How did I get locked on the outside of the bubble?

I got a rejection email from a company that I didn't even want to work for, and yet I am still a bit wounded. Is this how low I've sunk, that I want to be wanted, regardless of whom is doing the wanting? I could be a heroine on Lifetime. Cue montage of attitude change and resultant success please, because I am tiring of this uphill battle. I would be so pleased if the weeks flew by to the tune of some insanely upbeat music, snapshots of me working hard, working out, losing weight, changing my image, getting a makeover, and relocating would sail past my nodding head and snapping fingers bump-free, only to arrive at me, a completely different person. A successful, confident person. Not the disaster I am today. Right now, that is my fondest wish, to be in a fairy tale. What does that say?!?! I need a break.

My wishes are very simple, actually. A renovated double shotgun in New Orleans, and an uncorked writer's brain to write my stories and sell 'em to whoever wants to read 'em. How did trying to get there come to involve rewriting my resume fifteen times and searching ardently for jobs in Atlanta or Washington DC? I feel like I'm in the center of a tornado, all turned around and holding on for dear life. What happened to true North? Is that why this isn't working? I'm so blown off course... was it heeding the pushy chorus of helpful voices, or my deafness to them? It occurs to me that there is only one voice that I need to heed, and it is not the voice of the crowd. It's a still, quiet voice that speaks to the broken, listening heart.

I wish that listening and waiting were as easy as typing these words, but there is the small matter of what I might hear when I finally do hear something. Hearing a no might break my heart, and would certainly hurt my feelings -- another access denied. Courage is scarce today, and faith locked away in a mustard seed, but tomorrow brings the dawn and joy cometh in the morning.

Post Theme: Open Up My Heart by Yolanda Adams

Goodnight Moon...goodnight stars

I'm writing this to you from a dark room filled with the portent of soon coming thunderstorms. The lights are all out, and the curtains billow in the wind. There are no stars tonight. Strangely, this perfectly captures my mood. I could go either way.

The day was strangely productive. I worked out, cleaned up, washed my hair, applied for some jobs, and emailed. I watched CNN, Beowulf, and cooked a huge dinner of rotisserie chicken with all the trimmings. I did not dwell on my circumstances.

In other news, today in a stroke of laughing irony, life walked up slapped my back in friendship, leaving a kick me sign. I spend most of the days now waiting for the phone to ring from unfamiliar out-of-state numbers, waiting to be asked to interview at any of the many places that I've applied. Today the phone rang, and it was an unfamiliar out of state number. Full of expectation, and putting on my best business persona, I answered the phone saying "this is Danielle". It was American Express calling about my past due amount and wondering whether I would be able to make that payment by phone today. And so it begins. The calling, the gentle and friendly voice "reminding and encouraging" you to make your payment. It's amazing how it all comes back to you and how quickly one adjusts to having money in hand and on the way at any point. I realized today that I have to re-learn phone evasion techniques. But how to balance the need to screen calls with the need to conduct business and be available for my next employment opportunity? And so I end the day with a bank account balance of 5 dollars.

My head pounds. It's not frustration... this time. This started with Katrina -- I can sense the onslaught of a severe weather system through my magical, malfunctioning sinuses. There's one on the way tonight; some shelters even opened in New Orleans for people who live in Fema trailers (more irony!). My forehead screams with pain at the abrupt, plunging pressure change. I remind myself of those coal mine canaries; good for a warning in a crisis, but at great personal expense. Maybe I can turn a profit with this. More on that later.

Time to lay me down to sleep for now. Ta-ta.

Post Theme: Hopeless by Dionne Farris