Been tagged by 13....
Five songs I'll always love:
1. a song for you - donny hathaway
2. when you call my name - frank mccomb
3. any luther song
4. diamonds and pearls - prince
5. all in love is fair - stevie wonder
*bonus Whatever, Whatever, Whatever - Jill Scott and Say Yes - Floetry..
Now - what was I doing ....10 years ago:
i was living in corvallis, oregon where the land scape was beautiful but i swear me and my (then) husband increased the black population by at least 20%. i worked for osu. i had written tens of poems but hadn't claimed "poet" at that time. so, i obviously, didn't know who i was then.
5 years ago: i was turning 30 and waking up! still married and had 2 kids by then. (so much changes in 5 years... wow!) i had a three-year-old and a one-year-old. i was overwhelmed. livin' pretty large but, like most corp. folks, creating big debt and unhappy. on one side of life, i had published a book, was on the writers league of texas board of directors, and was running several writing programs and projects/becoming "shia" again. on the other side, selling my daytime soul to my day job and living to pay bills. my marriage lost it's way. i cut my signature, VERY LONG at the time, hair all the way off and wore a fade for the first time ever. SO liberating! i remember that being a very painful/confusing/excitingly scary time because i knew change was going to come. i just wasn't sure when or how. but i knew it was necessary.
1 year ago: separated... moved out. i was empowered but scared. but i LOVED our new living (me and my children). wrote more. realized what was missing... loving ME! realized fun again. became the owner of "writer". oh! by now had written 4 screenplays, produced several short films and developed a gazillion treatments and film ideas. became screenwriter shia. owned the cave canem fellow and widely published poet shia. (shameless self promo) learned to love and nurture both. found passion. kept passion.
Yesterday: felt the pangs of merc in retrograde. tried to get settled into my new apartment but the raccoons wouldn't let me. drama, drama all day long. but i found breath in a bath and the return of my phone service. (what's a girl to do without a phone?)
Today: so far... caught up on my blog reading. managed urgent work issues. listened to thunder. wondered about how my children are. said a prayer for their safety. accepted a lunch date with my girl. sent a headshot to the printer for my L.A. trip tomorrow. got a note that my late time sheet may not get me paid til the 18th. (wha' ha' happent was... mymanagerisonvacationandmynextlevelmanagerwasoutyesterday
soididn'tsentittilthismorningandthenthefaxedfailed
andsoihadtosenditagainandbythetimeirealizedthefailureand
resentititeasafternooneasterntimeandtoolateforthem
toprocess...whew! i hope the rest of the day is better...
ok, before i finished this, they told me i'll get paid on friday... phew! (relief). now i am contemplating neo tonight. i need it.
Tomorrow: make sure all my stuff is together for my cali trip. exhale...
5 snacks I enjoy: dark chocolate, birthday cake, chocolate or yogurt covered pretzels, bon bons, almonds with some kind of salted seasoning or unsalted whole cashews.
5 bands I know the lyrics of most of their songs: stevie wonder, luther vandross, frank mccomb, old school new edition, all michael jackson up thru thriller
5 things I would do with $100,000,000:
1. donate 5% to charity preferably a cause for feeding children, AIDS, and all activists causes relating to black people.
2. whatever my children want and set up account to grow money for them
3. invest for myself
4. buy a home with hardwood floors, aa fire place, a courtyard, maybe a pool, and a custom writing room.
5. plan and pay for vacations for me and my children for the next 10 years
5 locations to run away to: bay area (cali); anywhere caribbean and black; paris; harlem, new york; and canada
5 things I wish I could wear: a bikini (confidently); my bare skin (confidently); a belly ring without being "skerred"; dread locs (some day); and long nails, cuz i like 'em.
5 Movies: momento; mahogany; monsoon wedding; sparkle; and boomarang.
5 biggest joys at the moment: my children; feeling connected to good people and good things which, for me, equals knowing there is a God; writing (any genre, including blogging); good food, good drinks, and good conversation with those aforementioned good people; and love... gotta have love.
5 toys: blog; words; my children; my laptop; and anything in my top bedroom drawer (oops)... ok, i'm kidding... i think...
I tag jameri, kelli, steph, natasha and ... can i tag amanda too?
abrazors y besos... shia
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
cable conspiracies and banana bread...
so the whole idea of having cable, i now realize, is not a choice... it's a conspiracy! how about this... in my new apartment, i can't get a single channel! not even the 5 local ones in used to get with rabbit ears. so i have to pay, at the very least $39.95 for access to local channels whether i like it or not! what the...?
on another note, aside from the fact that i must have lost 20 pounds during the move, going up and down stairs, load after load, my move went very well. (i assure you that i have had little trouble gaining every pound back in these last to sedentary days at work, though.) anyhoo, various friends came over to help out when their schedules could manage. the main crew came out on saturday, late day, after the fierceness of texas heat calmed itself a bit. i made a turkey lasagna the night before and fed folks which always goes over well. or maybe it's just that when you work people hard before you feed them, they think your cooking is the best they've ever tasted. either way, folks left exhausted and full. and we devoured my version of patti labelle's best-ever banana bread, which has quickly become a staple of my household. my kids' think i should open a banana bread shop. so hard to admit it isn't my recipe. maybe i'll tell them when they're older. maybe...
it's bananas... b-a-n-a-n-a-s... Oooo... that's my sh... that's my sh...
so unfortunately, we still don't have cable. i ordered direct tv but canceled when i realized that my complex wouldn't allow them to drill a hole to hold the dish. so the only place they could plant the gaudy contraption was on an imposing tripod right in the middle of my stairwell... is there intelligent life in their universe? don't they know i have an 8 year old and a six year old who argue on their journeys up and down those stairs daily? that's an accident waiting to happen.
i hope to be fully moved in before i leave for cali on thursday. but with merc still in retro, i won't count on it.
cuz it's bananas b-a-n-a-n-a-s...
so the whole idea of having cable, i now realize, is not a choice... it's a conspiracy! how about this... in my new apartment, i can't get a single channel! not even the 5 local ones in used to get with rabbit ears. so i have to pay, at the very least $39.95 for access to local channels whether i like it or not! what the...?
on another note, aside from the fact that i must have lost 20 pounds during the move, going up and down stairs, load after load, my move went very well. (i assure you that i have had little trouble gaining every pound back in these last to sedentary days at work, though.) anyhoo, various friends came over to help out when their schedules could manage. the main crew came out on saturday, late day, after the fierceness of texas heat calmed itself a bit. i made a turkey lasagna the night before and fed folks which always goes over well. or maybe it's just that when you work people hard before you feed them, they think your cooking is the best they've ever tasted. either way, folks left exhausted and full. and we devoured my version of patti labelle's best-ever banana bread, which has quickly become a staple of my household. my kids' think i should open a banana bread shop. so hard to admit it isn't my recipe. maybe i'll tell them when they're older. maybe...
it's bananas... b-a-n-a-n-a-s... Oooo... that's my sh... that's my sh...
so unfortunately, we still don't have cable. i ordered direct tv but canceled when i realized that my complex wouldn't allow them to drill a hole to hold the dish. so the only place they could plant the gaudy contraption was on an imposing tripod right in the middle of my stairwell... is there intelligent life in their universe? don't they know i have an 8 year old and a six year old who argue on their journeys up and down those stairs daily? that's an accident waiting to happen.
i hope to be fully moved in before i leave for cali on thursday. but with merc still in retro, i won't count on it.
cuz it's bananas b-a-n-a-n-a-s...
Friday, August 05, 2005
mercury in retrograde...
...and chaos is the word of the day. the phone company switched over my phone service 2 days early so while my new place has phone service, my old place, where I AM STILL LIVING, is phoneless. for those who know me well... what's a girl to do without a phone?
as if that isn't enough, it's raining cats and dogs, thunder storm theatrics and all. i pray it stops before the crew of friends i begged/invited over to help me move arrives. rain and hauling heavy stuff that ain't yours down... then up flights of stairs isn't nutritious OR delicious!
the good thing, that i am SO looking forward to, is being in the new apartment. after 5pm this evening, the kids will have their own floor (the 2nd floor is their room and bathroom) and the rest of the living area, including my room, is downstairs. and i LOVE my 2 accent walls (one RED in the dining area [which falls in my love and relationships bagua] and the one in my bedroom, pale green [which spralls across my skills& knowledge, career, and the other green-empowered bagua] ). yes, yes, i am creating a feng shui environment to promote success by all means necessary, man! so that even when mercury is retro, in my home, i can find peace.
prayer, y'all. prayer and umbrellas...
abrazos y besos,
shia
...and chaos is the word of the day. the phone company switched over my phone service 2 days early so while my new place has phone service, my old place, where I AM STILL LIVING, is phoneless. for those who know me well... what's a girl to do without a phone?
as if that isn't enough, it's raining cats and dogs, thunder storm theatrics and all. i pray it stops before the crew of friends i begged/invited over to help me move arrives. rain and hauling heavy stuff that ain't yours down... then up flights of stairs isn't nutritious OR delicious!
the good thing, that i am SO looking forward to, is being in the new apartment. after 5pm this evening, the kids will have their own floor (the 2nd floor is their room and bathroom) and the rest of the living area, including my room, is downstairs. and i LOVE my 2 accent walls (one RED in the dining area [which falls in my love and relationships bagua] and the one in my bedroom, pale green [which spralls across my skills& knowledge, career, and the other green-empowered bagua] ). yes, yes, i am creating a feng shui environment to promote success by all means necessary, man! so that even when mercury is retro, in my home, i can find peace.
prayer, y'all. prayer and umbrellas...
abrazos y besos,
shia
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
step away from the light
so after long deliberation, i decided when we move into our new apartment this weekend, we are going to finally get… cable. i have been, thus far, committed to keeping my children from over-indulgence and bad habits learned from the smart-mouthed, wise-cracking, too-grown-for-their-own-good kids of disney and nickelodeon tv. don't get it twisted, they have begged for it on a regular basis because, save reading rainbow, between the lions and seinfeld, “regular” tv these days has little to offer children. they finally wore thin the skin on their knees and, over about the last 4 months, they started answering themselves for me. they ask no one in particular as they flip the 5 channels that come in clearly thanks to rabbit ears, "mommy, are we gonna get cable soon?" then, in a mimicking mommy voice, they lament, "not this month, sweetie. maybe before you're a teenager.")
they’ve lost their tolerance for toddler-tuned programming on PBS. in that last hour before bed, I admit what a treat it would be for them to watch a half hour of something THEY choose. (if they can survive the dramas of divorce, they can intellectually persevere over one episode of “that's so raven,” senses fully intact.) so, while i hope we get our money's worth, i hope the time we do spend on the couch, mind-controlled by the tube doesn't stifle the creativity we've found in all of these months without it.
i also asked myself, as i push myself forward into my next screenplay, how can an aspiring screenwriter NOT HAVE CABLE? chalk it up to the economy, being broke and my still relatively new status as head of household, trying to wisely stretch my tiny pay check over the most appropriate bills (like rent, childcare, insurance, utilities, and my monthly massage).
aside from the movies, i recently missed my younger sister on her debut as a contestant on the TLC reality show to find their 3rd member. (brandy has always been the child who takes on adventure and will try anything once. her first week in nyc at nyu, she got signed to do a billboard ad for nike. that's how her universe works. can i be brandy for a day?) anyway, i plan not to miss the rerun of the show. or another season of def poets. i can't front... i am most excited about the return of UPN (been missing "girlfriends") and bravo (inside the actor's studio is "tha bomb!") in my life. hgtv. bet. lifetime. doesn't oprah have her own channel now? documentaries and videos and movies, oh my...!
so if you don't hear from me in more than a week, send over an exorcist to cut to cable cord and tell us to step away from the light. i don't think my new apartment building is built atop a graveyard so the likelihood is that we would have become possessed by the spirits of time warner cable.
so after long deliberation, i decided when we move into our new apartment this weekend, we are going to finally get… cable. i have been, thus far, committed to keeping my children from over-indulgence and bad habits learned from the smart-mouthed, wise-cracking, too-grown-for-their-own-good kids of disney and nickelodeon tv. don't get it twisted, they have begged for it on a regular basis because, save reading rainbow, between the lions and seinfeld, “regular” tv these days has little to offer children. they finally wore thin the skin on their knees and, over about the last 4 months, they started answering themselves for me. they ask no one in particular as they flip the 5 channels that come in clearly thanks to rabbit ears, "mommy, are we gonna get cable soon?" then, in a mimicking mommy voice, they lament, "not this month, sweetie. maybe before you're a teenager.")
they’ve lost their tolerance for toddler-tuned programming on PBS. in that last hour before bed, I admit what a treat it would be for them to watch a half hour of something THEY choose. (if they can survive the dramas of divorce, they can intellectually persevere over one episode of “that's so raven,” senses fully intact.) so, while i hope we get our money's worth, i hope the time we do spend on the couch, mind-controlled by the tube doesn't stifle the creativity we've found in all of these months without it.
i also asked myself, as i push myself forward into my next screenplay, how can an aspiring screenwriter NOT HAVE CABLE? chalk it up to the economy, being broke and my still relatively new status as head of household, trying to wisely stretch my tiny pay check over the most appropriate bills (like rent, childcare, insurance, utilities, and my monthly massage).
aside from the movies, i recently missed my younger sister on her debut as a contestant on the TLC reality show to find their 3rd member. (brandy has always been the child who takes on adventure and will try anything once. her first week in nyc at nyu, she got signed to do a billboard ad for nike. that's how her universe works. can i be brandy for a day?) anyway, i plan not to miss the rerun of the show. or another season of def poets. i can't front... i am most excited about the return of UPN (been missing "girlfriends") and bravo (inside the actor's studio is "tha bomb!") in my life. hgtv. bet. lifetime. doesn't oprah have her own channel now? documentaries and videos and movies, oh my...!
so if you don't hear from me in more than a week, send over an exorcist to cut to cable cord and tell us to step away from the light. i don't think my new apartment building is built atop a graveyard so the likelihood is that we would have become possessed by the spirits of time warner cable.
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