Teedra Moses Live At SOBs

Last Thursday I went SOBs to see Teedra Moses perform live. Her album Complex Simplicity came out in August 2004. I played that cd in my car every day through that fall. I felt her vibe, her songs were real and she talked about things I was living. She pushes the envelope and challenges the notion of the heartbroken R&B singer. There is empowerment in her lyrics.

I had never had the opportunity to see her live. She came out in a saucy little turquoise dress and blew the crowd away. This woman can sing, and she is not afraid to give her all to the fans. She is a true R&B talent. She sang her heart out and her fans responded and received her joyfully. It was easy to get swept up in the vibes, everyone singing her lyrics at the top of their lungs.

Enjoy the video footage.

Essence goes natural…

Pick up the November 2009 issue of Essence magazine for a guide to growing out your relaxer and becoming a “Natural Woman”. It’s about time Essence!! LOL

It’s that time again…

I am trying it again!

I tried Nanowrimo for the first time last year, and was unable to complete my novella. No matter though. I have a lot of really great content from it. And I will keep trying until I succeed. Wish me luck!

Wanna join me? Add me as a buddy. & good luck to you!

P.S. I have a FB fan page…slowly but surely making moves!

Defining Self

Recently I began reading Iyanla Vazant’s book: “Until Today: Daily Devotions for Spiritual Growth and Peace of Mind“. Yesterday’s entry was “I will realize my own worth when I accept…the story I tell is the story I live”. An excerpt:

Excuse me, but nobody wants to hear your story again No one wants to be rude, but you’ve been telling everyone and anyone who would listen why you did not, could not, have not moved beyond the situation you are in and say you no longer want to be in. Quite frankly, no one wants to hear about it anymore.

She is right. It is so easy to sink into your failures, to mull them over in your mind, to make them apart of you, to allow them to make you feel inadequate. But that will just keep you mired in the past, unable to make a start or make movements towards a new and brighter future.

So the entry ends with “Today I am devoted to taking the time to re-write my story”. Immediately I took out a pen and began to write a list:

Today I am:

happy	multilingual	a good friend
frugal	intelligent	accomplished
well-adjusted	social	a writer
nervous & hopeful	vivacious	a Brooklynite
in love	thoughtful	a soca lover
natural	loving	Haitian-American
sensual	smiling	3 year loc wearer
a woman	bohemian	prayerful
mature	dancing through life	contemplative

I ended with “loving my life and feeling slightly guilty because of it”.

All of the things that I thought would define me, my descriptive characteristics, ended up in my 3rd column. In the past, I always thought of who we are as the characteristics/adjectives we use to describe ourselves. But as I delve into the Law of Attraction I think I was wrong. What defines us, what we are is how we feel. I remember a time when I hated getting up in the morning and I dreaded my day ahead. I no longer feel that way, these days I feel pretty good. This is progress.

Now to get to the point where I don’t feel guilty about it. LOL

Fabulous First Lady

InStyle magazine now has a section entitled “Michelle Obama’s Style” where they feature her looks as she performs her first lady “duties”. I am loving it! Go Mrs. O!

So…what do you do?

There are definite pros and cons about living through a recession. I’m sure that we can all list cons: lack of steady employment, pay cuts, hour cuts, uncertainty in the job market. But I have identified a surprising pro.

This recession has kicked away some societal norms. For instance, before the recession, if you met someone new at a party, you could expect one of the first 3 questions to be “What do you do?”

Now that is such an uncomfortable question to ask with so many potential pitfalls that people rarely ask it any more. In fact, when someone asks me that question now I look at them strangely, like where have you been for the past year? Don’t you know that is not something you ask? People are unemployed, working jobs below their normal skill level, suffering through pay cuts, having to work twice the amount of hours for the same measly check. The answer to the question is fraught with ambiguity and pitfalls. So people rarely ask any more.

Which is fine by me. I never liked that question anyway. It is such a middle class question to ask. And I have never defined myself by my employment. In fact, I have had a history of well-paying jobs that I hated. I never liked to go to work in the morning.

Better you ask me “what part of town do you live in?” or “what do you like to do in your free time?”. Then you are getting at the essence of me, getting to know the type of person I am.

I am the type of person that doesn’t like to tell people what I “do”. LOL

Television as Motivation Pt2

So reading one of my favorite blogs Unclutterer, I saw a reference to a show called Hoarders. Curious, I headed over to A&E online to check it out. And was scared shitless.

The episode I saw was about Kerrylea and Lauren. Kerrylea was a middle aged woman who had already been through one divorce because of her hoarding. Now her second marriage was immensely strained and she was facing foreclosure on 2 homes. She had purchased the second home in order to accomodate all her clutter and had gone through her and her husband’s retirement savings in order to try and keep it. Now she and her husband were living paycheck to paycheck, and had to sell one of the homes or lose them both.

Kerrylea seemed physically unable to clear the clutter. She hired a professional organizer for 2 days and as the time went on, she seemed to develop this peculiar head tic. She spent over 4 hours in one bathroom and got nowhere. She freaked out when she thought one box of her items might be missing from the home. They weren’t missing at all: she had mislabeled the box and it was sitting elsewhere. But she was up in arms about it and unable to continue. I was horrified.

As the episode continued, I began to clean out my closet. And clean and clean and clean and clean. I was merciless. Each time I watched Kerrylea struggle with something, the item in my hand seemed less important and I would throw it in the donate pile. By the end of the episode, I had significantly cleared my closet and had several bags of clothes and shoes ready to give away.

I just couldn’t imagine it. Couldn’t imagine having to give up a relationship with a supportive man because of my attachment to material things. Couldn’t imagine climbing further into debt, to the point of foreclosure because I needed another house to store my things in. And while I understand that this is a recognized disease here in the U.S., part of me just felt it was unacceptable. Because I am also Haitian and having been to Haiti all my life, I knew hoarding was an affliction of the privileged. You have to have possessions in order to hoard them.

All I could think is I didn’t want her life. It was a powerful motivator. And so I will begin decluttering again in the morning. Because material possessions are not worth your loved ones. Not worth your peace of mind. Period.

Here’s the episode I saw.

Television as Motivation

I have been watching Making His Band. I’ve grown to love this season, because it is focused on musicians. Musicians have real talent and motivation: they had to learn to play the instrument and either they practised or didn’t. There is no faking knowledge of a musical instrument as you might be able to with rapping or singing.

I was watching Episode 6 online. Last episode, Diddy had given his new cd, “Last Train to Paris” to the band members and they were not focused on learning it. It was understandable- they are all young and no specific challenge had been laid out for them. Diddy made a surprise visit to the house and no one was prepared. And it scared them into working hard.

I felt inspired by that. That is the way I used to strive for what I wanted. I used to have a goal and tear away at it like a pitbull until it was achieved. I want to go to this college? I am going to work hard at my grades and join every extra-curricular activity I can to enhance my application. I am going to seek out alumni in my area and make sure I have my own personal cheerleading squad for the admissions board. I want to be a lawyer? I am going to read caselaw till my skin breaks out and my hair turns gray. I am going to leave nothing to chance.

Ever since my graduation from law school I have lost that drive. I had a series of jobs where I was unhappy and felt I had no future. Then the recession hit, leaving me feeling lost and without a goal. I don’t know what to strive for. I have always wanted to be a writer, but what does being a writer actually mean? Do I want to be a journalist? A hardcore blogger? A columnist? A novelist? Write essays for publication? I have skills in all areas, and I have no idea what to cultivate, what would make me happy. And where do I look for opportunities, in a market that seems as if it has none? So I am just meandering, writing of course, but with no clear direction.

Being a writer is amorphous. Not easily defined. And I have no idea how to proceed when the goal does not have clear and easy steps to help achieve it. I have a creative mind, but I am afraid. And I’m not quite sure what to do about that.

Seeing this episode, gave me a bit of that old spark back. It made me think about what motivates me and what moves me. What will make me happy. I still have no idea what I want to do, what direction I want to go in. But I am trying to write hard core again. Sit at this computer for hours and pound at the keys. The ideas are flowing like water. And in a strange way, television brought me here.

Here is the episode: Making His Band – MTV Shows

Moderation & Randomness

I need to stop complaining about how little I post here. Some of my favorite blogs put up new entries sporadically at best. What Men Are Thinking is one of the most insightful blogs that I have read to date. But they do not post every day. I peruse their archives and re-read occasionally. They drop so much knowledge with one entry that it is easy to miss some of their gems upon first read.

I am a procrastinator. I have accepted this long ago, and have been trying to combat it ever since. The Procrastinating Writers Blog has been a huge help. And this entry, is a lifesaver, for all you fellow procrastinators out there…

There are these trees on my blocks that are shedding acorns and the process is violent! I hear each acorn fall hard, on the sidewalk, on cars parked outside. I wait with bated breath for the sound of shattering glass, but it never comes, thank goodness.

Football season has officially begun! *fanfare* Break out the buffalo wings and put away the summertime Sunday parties! Woo-hoo! LOL. HQ loves her football and has officially entered her own personal version of heaven! LOL. Wonderful showing by the Giants today. Let’s go Big BLUE!

Privacy

Privacy has become such an amorphous term. You don’t want to have everyone picking over the intimate details of your life. But is anyone really that special? What is a human life? Aren’t the stories we see, the lives we are living just variations of the same stories that have always been? Is it so important that we keep everything to ourselves and no one know our innermost thoughts and feelings?

Isn’t anonymity a facilitator in making us disappear? I believe that humans fear oblivion and extinction. We long for validation and admiration from our peers, to make a mark on the world, become immortal. But if no one knows anything about you, how can they remember you?

I’m reminded of an ANTM models comment “you have to put yourself out there”. And I do believe that is an unavoidable component of success. Whether you are talking creatively or in the business world, people like to get a sense that they know something of the essence of you. It is apart of the process of human connection.

But the floodgates are open. We have no idea what balance could or should look like. The internet has thrown privacy on its ear. The truth is, if you want to participate fully in our “modern world”, you must be somewhat technologically savvy. If you have a presence on the internet, even just as a consumer, profiles, cookies and flash are compromising traditional notions of privacy. It is what it is.

And yet, it is opening yourself up to potential criticism and ridicule. Judgments of your character and life choices. And people can be so brutal these days. Because privacy is lost, people feel free to say whatever whenever they want about each other’s lives. We have lost of sense of decorum and kindness. And that is scary.

I’m just trying to figure out how much privacy is too much.