I lucked up on a ticket to last night’s VH1’s Hip-Hop Honors Awards. And although I’m not normally a fan of attending shows that are going to be taped for TV (too much down time changing sets, reading lines for commercials, and overall time inefficiency); I have to say it was really good.

So as usual, I’m running a little behind on updating my peeps. Please blame it on my head, not my heart… Anyhoo, I am sad to say that Denene and I did not win the African American Literary Award for our category. Sniffle, sniffle… Although definitely disappointed, knowing that our work was worth a mention is reward enough (at least I’m sure that’s what my mom would want me to say). But between you, me and the wall- the second book in the series is 100x better and it’s on and popping the next time!

Okay I have to take a moment to say how freaking proud of myself I am!!! After too many years of delaying (and jumping on other folk’s internet connection), this past Friday I FINALLY bought my own Linksys router!!! WOO HOO!! And wait on it, I even connected it myself! Now for those who know me, I am absolutely technologically challenged. So in retrospect, that might not have seemed like a huge deal to many, for me it was the stress equivilant of picking an outfit for that first date with a cute boy.
Naturally, because I am a living breathing exapmle of Murphy’s Law, I followed the installation CD, hook it up, it works for all of 20 minutes (read: long enough for me to throw out the box) and then na-da. No signal in the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, not even on the living room sitting beside the freaking thing. Only some cryptic message saying that the network address wasn’t established. I was in total denial. I assured myself, “oh no there’s just a blip in my building. I’m sure it’ll be on first thing in the morning.” Let’s just blips don’t happen. SO I tried to simply disconnect everythign and re-install the CDs. Nope. Now the computer is saying that the router needs to restored to its original settings. WHAT?
So now, I’m sitting there thinking I have the worst techie karma in the universe. I send out a frantic email “I’m about to kill myself if you don’t stop what you’re doing and help me” email to my boy James who builds websites (or something fantastic like that ). Mind you, he was on vacay. And proceeded to work myself up into a panic attack- “Oh god, why do I always have to buy the faulty equipment? This is what my lazy butt gets for trying to do work and watch Oprah,” on and on I went.
I am not ashamed to admit that I spent a good 20 minutes feeling sorry for myself before it occurred to my dumb butt to simply READ the printed information that they provide with the router (we writers can be a little dense that way). AND voila! At the very bottom of the page, there was an 888 service number with an ACTUAL customer service person on the other side! A wonderful woman had walked me through fixing my router in a little under an hour for FREE! Cause you know they tried to coax me into letting their computer tech remotely access my computer and do it for me for $10- CROOKS.
Long story short, I’m nowcoming to you live from the middle of my bed. Eat your heart out folks!

After spending the two nights of watching the Republicans belittle Barack and insult the intelligence of everyday Americans, my nerves were beyond bad. And while I know the most powerful thing I can give the good Senator is my vote, me and the crew plunked down our litte donation and headed to our very first group Obama fundraiser. And it was… interesting.

Yippie, we made it! After much drama and confusion, I am finally in Martha’s Vineyard for Nicole and Melissa’s weeklong 30th birthday celebration. It’s my first time in the Vineyard… so excited.

Ever feel like the Universe is trying to tell you something?
Last week Friday I pulled a major muscle called the iliopsoas. And it hurt like hell. To make matter worse, the strained muscle became inflamed and never went down. In fact, it got to the point where it got so big it was pressing on the sciatic nerve in my right leg. I know, sounds like a whole lot of personal medical information. But bear with me. Cause long story short? I was in breathtaking pain for almost three days straight. I’m talking tears in the street, looking for the elevator in the subway, can’t get out of bed in the middle of the night, calling Elsa to come get me pain.
Now we all know, there’s always a lesson in the struggle, right? And my lesson came when the doctor informed me of the cause the increased inflammation. Apparently, 75% of the severe inflammation was due to me not resting, running around the city trying to do 50 million things at once in no support having flip-flops and joggig on the pavement. The other 25%? Well that was from straight up stress. My constant worrying about what’s next, what I’m not doing, who owes me what, where I should be, etc. Simply put, my inability to relax,relate and release finally caught up with me.
And so now, that I’m back at a point where I can actually get up out of the bed and move around again with some sense of normalacy all I say is- DULY NOTED. Ain’t no fun being the cripple chick. It’ time to let go and let God… while I make like GUY and chill for a bit.
(sorry if you’re too young to understand).

So I finally went to a BBQ this past Saturday. And after all the complaining I was doing about not getting invited to one you’d think I’d be overjoyed and doing one-handed cartwheels… not so much. But you know what your mom always says- if you ain’t got nothing nice to say keep it to yourself.
So all I’m going to say is- it was really nice to catch up with my girl Christina and her friends from Howard. Hopefully, the next time I won’t have to drive to somewhere behind God’s back, be surrounded by a very whatever crowd of people and damn near break my front tooth on an overcooked lobster claw.

I really do mean to post everyday. How-some-ever, life has a funny way of getting in the way. go figure. But enough with the excuses, on to the good news. My mom’s sister, affectionately known as Tia Puchi is in town for 2 weeks. So I’ve been running around spending quality time with her. Which is hilarity at its best. In my humble opinion, my Tia is exactly what you would get if you crossed my little sister Melissa and myslef- an outgoing, sarcastic, hard-headed diva- who loves her dogs. For those that know that know both me and Melissa, I’ll let you be the judge of which attributes belong to whom.

There are no words. For the record, I generally hold the New Yorker in high regard. However, this cover has really caused me to pause and rethink that. What’s worse, the pundits now saying that Obama and his camp are being sensitive. They feel Obama should have embraced the cover. Apparently, he was wrong to come out so strongly against it and instead should laughed it off.