i'm a work in progress

I finally watched the newer version of "A Raisin in the Sun" this evening with my future mommy-in-law and, I must say, it was touching and inspiring and all that gold jazz. In short, I highly recommend it. At its television premiere months back, I managed to miss it because I'm such a scholastic and actually go to class at night. But it got me to thinking about what I manage to put ahead in my life and what I perceive as important values to preserve. And currently reading "The Secret" doesn't help, either.

I know I moan about going to work, but work is how to survive, and has been for generations of black people. You put pride into your work, and you do your job with the utmost humility and joy because there are so many of my people out there who are disabled and cannot work; who are blind and cannot see to work; who are wrongfully incarcerated and...well, you know. My mother cannot find a job, for goodness sake, at age 40 and with "too much experience." And once I do find that position in which I would work for free out of so much passion and desire to do my job, I will crave and nurture it. For now, I will be a security guard and smile and tackle people to the ground with grace. J/K!

Money is not in the equation for me. Having money is nice, but money is the root of all evil, and I refuse to make the pursuit of money a part of my demise or, in the least, make me insane. My Johnny and I know that happiness is the biggest goal of our lives, even though it sounds cliche, but we really treasure our goal and work to achieve it every day. Yes, I'm serious. If I'm honoring life, as God ordained it, He will provide me with all the money I need.

And another thing: I vow to positively drag good things from the universe into my days. Reading "The Secret" has helped me tame my negative thinking into its more positive counterpart, and I'm trying my best not to wish bad things upon the person who cuts in front of me while driving, and the white lady who runs to walk in front of me into the building or get ahead of me at the grocery store, and the people who don't say "thank you" when I hold the door open for them. Ok, well, not always, but I'm a work in progress! Lord, help me now. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts...

out-there-ness

I just read on the the wondrous site for oddly gratifying information that is my MSN homepage the headline, "Girl's twin is found inside her stomach." I immediately chuckle, not because of the misfortune of a Greek 9-year-old, but because of a similar mention in one of my favorite movies. More on that in a sec...

MSN: "A 9-year-old girl who went to the hospital in central Greece suffering from stomach pains was found to be carrying her embryonic twin, doctors said Thursday. 'They could see on the right side that her belly was swollen, but they couldn't suspect that [a] tumor would hide an embryo,' hospital director Iakovos Brouskelis said. Andreas Markou, head of the hospital's pediatric department, said the embryo was a formed fetus with a head, hair and eyes, but no brain or umbilical cord. Markou said cases where one of a set of twins absorbs the other in the womb occurs in one of 500,000 live births."

Isn't that news of the weird, or what? And, supposedly, I was a twin some 23 years ago. So I absorbed my other half? I no like that. :-( Makes me squeamish.

But the occurrence reminded me of one of my favorite scenes from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." Toula's "crazy" aunt (we all have those) sat down her niece's fiancee's parents, upon first meeting, and went right in about a lump in the side of her neck and the fact that in the lump was her twin. "They found teeth and a spinal cord." You gotta see it to laugh at it! (And she's Greek, too! ha ha! It's in the accent! ha! It's...ok. I'll let it go now.)

In other news of the weird today, well known Atlantan YouTube celebrity "Soulja Girl" (or "ATL Hoodrat") has been put in jail for harassing Marta passengers. Supposedly, the girl was already on probation for spitting on a Marta employee some time ago. The girl's mother says she's bipolar, basically justifying the girl's "out-there-ness" shown in the YouTube capture. So, if you know your daughter is on probation for acting up on Marta and she's bipolar, why is she still riding Marta without you, mom? Come on!





[I honestly think this lunatic has been posted on everyone's blog for the past week or so!]

Have you ever seen the headline, "Man steals ATM with a forklift?" Not until Bush was in office! Hard times, ladies and gents. Hard times.

Other MSN headlines as of 8 p.m. today: "Best jobs for a recession." "Hollywood P.I. convicted of racketeering." "Tonya Harding tells her story." Rough stuff.

recap of my time gone

Good morning, America! A lot has happened since my last entry upon my mostly-neglected-but- nevertheless-yearned-for blog. I have also grown so much in the maturation of my beloved toilet reading. I currently have a decent rent-paying job, am officially full-steam-ahead into my master's, hold a great writing internship, and am still in love and am loved [cue the "awww's"].

In case you missed it from the past 9 months: Jenna announced her engagement to Henry, bless Daddy Bush's heart. (No, really, Bush's heart is in the shape of an atomic bomb, but I'm trying to be nice here because he's almost out of office...no, f*** that...gas is $3.70! F*** Bush!). Beauty pageants are, indeed, still truly hated (as are dumb blondes and such as Iraq and education in South Africa). O.J. was arrested again. White people are still missing from hiking trails (and why do you think I won't even walk in a garden, let alone a woodsy trail?!). More Spears rears her ugly head, enough said. The Hollywood writers strike...f*** you, pay me. We've had iPhone, Dr. Phil, Miley Cyrus, and Wesley Snipes, all newly exposed, for lack of better word.

We've had little people, more Lindsey, rapper arrests, Idol fever, Flav craze, celebrity pregnancies (and everybody had twins), the birth of super Internet stars (and their own funky reality shows), more deaths by bodily chemical malfunctions, recession and economy woes, freaky government officials (and the call girls who love them), environmental talk, game shows revisited, fat people, 8 more Will Ferrell movies, the "other F word," rehab, the Amy Winehouse meltdown (and I do loooove her cd!), kids beating the sh** out of each other at school (and shooting it up later), and Iggy-gate. And, no, the earth is not flat, black-lady-whose-name-does-not-matter-but-not-Whoopi-from-The-View.

All of this to say, I'm back, America! Stay tuned!