upkeep/sugar water
the upkeep portion
I bought my first album via itunes a few days ago...leela james. I would've bought ladybug mecca's new album too, but they didn't carry it. the next day I purchased the foreign exchange. I don't know what took me so long...I intended on buying it over a year ago when frankie showed me the photography he'd produced for the cover art. I even moreso intended to get it when ro was visiting and I listened to it on his ipod. I just hadn't...I'd been content with the few songs I'd downloaded, but I really wanted to support. buying music is kinda liberating after pirating so much of it. and because I bought these albums, I have to listen to them often...not just because its good music, but because I have a responsibility to the money I spent. buying digital music is still a bit of an alien concept to me...no CD to hold or cover art to either adore or admonish (the aforementioned ladybug mecca covert art = deplorable).
I got my nails and toes done last wednesday on my lunch break...they're painted the color of milk chocolate. they look like I dipped my hands in willie wonka's chocolate waterfall. they're so pretty, I can't stop looking at my hands...ditto my toes. I can't even express to you how trife my shit had looked...all grown out after a month of neglecting to get a fill, tinged with red streaks from dying blue's dredlocs. which will now lazily segue into my fireworks and bbq chicken day (read: the fouth of july)...which I do realize was like two weeks ago and well into the realm of whothefuckcaresville...which I will write about anyway since I actually wrote most of this entry two weeks ago...which consisted of neither fireworks or bbq chicken. just like last fourth of july I spent the entire evening playing beauty salon...only difference being this year I was the one doing the hair. I spent hours meticulously dousing blue's penny-colored dredlocs with cranberry red rinse. even after we shampooed and rinsed and rinsed it was still bright red. kinda hot though...it suits her. in exchange for my services, she was supposed to watch serena while christopher and I went to the sugar water festival last tuesday. but she got off work too late so lexy graciously stepped in to do the babysitting honors. I'm still debating on when I'ma cash in blue's favor...topher been talkin about renting a hotel room and doing some real romantical type away shit for a minute, but considering we'll be seeing the inside of three hotel rooms in a matter of weeks while we trek from pittsburgh to new castle to cleveland for a family-time extravaganza thats probably a no-go. we still ain't seen batman yet. maybe we'll go see that and eat vanilla cake batter ice-cream and coldstone creamery and kiss and kiss and kiss in times square.
so I have become a shopaholic in the truest sense of the cornball ass word...I have never been like this before. spending money I really shouldn't spend on pleated skirts, milk chocolate manicures and pedicures, argyle v-necks, pinstriped shrugs, burgundy sunglasses...shoes shoes shoes. blue says depriving yourself of something for long enough will cause you to go into overload when you finally satisfy yourself again. she and I have been spending a lot of time kickin it...like shopping for bras...cause nothing boosts your self-esteem like a good bra that pushes and lifts the girls together like two perfect brown melons. besides, I consider these shopping extravaganzas to be a contribution to my ongoing quest to be grown and sexy. blue and I are both a tad chubby (her extra meat comes from spending weeks and weeks eating in bed inbetween sex session with her skunt trollop bitch of a bitch ex-girlfriend, mine from the tike of course...and too much ramen and reese's pieces) and we feel like as we lose some weight we should still feel optimal. we're very different from each other, but not really...I think we both spent too much time being tomboyish, neglecting ourselves, always putting others ahead. I keep telling her I wish she knew the pre-serena huny...its kinda odd to be thought of as a parent first and then an individual...its something I am still getting accustomed to. I really do dig blue, though, shes a good friend in the classic sense of the term good friend...she officially crossed into friend mode, I'd realized, when she showed up at my door at 3am after her aforementioned ex-girlfriend got violent with her and I wasn't even irritated. and not just because I'd gotten some earlier that night. I was just mad for her. I don't get mad on anybody's behalf...only friends...it feels good to have another one since I really have so few. a handful of my "friends" simply don't talk to me now that I have serena...I don't know what that's all about, but I don't have the time nor inclination to miss them. it bothered me for awhile, that I was tossed aside so effortlessly especially when I'd just gone through something so life-altering, but I'm over it. when I wake up to serena's baby talk and coos in the morning, shes so happy to see me hovering over her in her crib she smiles mad huge and kicks her feet so hard she moves her entire body. shes like truly joyous to see me, just cause I'm mommy - provider of soy formula and warm breasts to lay against. unconditional love - I deserve it.
my mom was here yet again last weekend with her husband. I love her visits because she makes everything look better...she straightens the magazines out just so, she folds the baby blankets, she does whatever dishes are in the sink. she always insists on buying us food, but since it was actually her birthday on friday I banned her from the kitchen and made lambchops, fresh string beans, and baked potatoes. I'd also stopped by the store on my way home from work and purchased a cake, ice cream, and candles which I know she wasn't expecting. I just wanted to make the day special for her...now that I am a mother as well, I for the first time deeply overstand how she feels about me and why she is so selfless when it comes to my well-being. after everyone was full and content, she looked at me proudly and said "my daughter has become quite the little homemaker". that meant a lot to me and I'm not someone who ever aspired to be any kind of a homemaker, good or otherwise. I see more of her in me everyday, physical and mental and since I spent my entire childhood wanting to be just like her, its a welcome metamorphosis. even down to the shopping thing...no matter what hardships my mom goes through in her life, she always looks fucking great. I used to think she was extra as hell with all her face and body creams and perfumes and petal pink powder puffs, but to look at her now and see how well she's aged makes me realize how important all this self-maintenance I've become interested in really is.
I thought I had more to say on the whole upkeep theme. basically, I'm not gonna rely on my youth to keep me pretty anymore. I wanna be "serena's fine ass moms" twenty years from now to her friends, nahmean. the hot mom, on some lisa gastineau shit. I think black women can look even better with age. me = wine.
thanks to the heads who made suggestions on where christopher and I should move to next year...as well as those that stopped by to tell me why they continue to visit my site. I put effort into the information I share on my site and its nice that heads find it interesting in even the smallest of ways. what I did notice, however, is how drastically my male readership has gone down. is it all this baby and beauty talk or what? did they only come around for the strip club stories? I guess your typical dude really wouldn't be interested in what I bought or what color my nails are...typically I wouldn't even write about the shit but really thats all thats going on with in my life right now.
the sugar water portion
chunky girls were representing to the fullest at the sugar water festival last tuesday. I don't know if it was because jill and queen latifah were headliners (I can't count floetry because they've both lost a significant amount of weight...when they walked on stage I thought they were background singers; didn't even recognize them without the extra meat), or if patchouli oil slows metabolism, or if weed munchies hit neo-soul fans extra hard or what. all I know is that the big girls were frollicking as far as the eye could see; it was eye candy everywhere for thickum connoisseurs such as christopher and myself. he said it looked like a big yella girl convention was in town. it was so beatnik...I ain't never seen so many hippy skirts, dredlocks, and courie shell earrings. looked like everybody got smacked in the face with a boho stick. looked like everybody shopped for brown rice and wheatgrass juice at whole foods. looked like everybody smelled like shea butter and dandelions. I could do this shit all day.
christopher and I debated during the break after floetry lite who would have the last set...I figured erykah, he said it might be jill. I love jill, don't get me wrong...I think I may love her more then erykah, but erykah has enjoyed more mainstream success and has more longevity in the game. topher figured since jill had the more recent album that trumped it. I was right, regardless, the order after floetry was queen la (she did just as many rap hits and that jazz flapdoodle - even closed with U.N.I.T.Y which topher didn't think she'd do it at all, but I knew she would), then jill, then erykah "pussy-make-a-nigga-wear-orange-plaid-culottes" badu.
during breaks I also fully came to realize somet things about sitting on the aisle. pro - don't have to shuffle past anyone to get out. pro - don't feel clausterphobic. con - standing up every five minutes, especially during intermissions, for other heads in your row who want to go to the bathroom, go get something to eat, go stretch their legs, prance about and be seen, blahzay blah.
regardless it felt good to be there with christopher...we've hit a really strong stride in our relationship. maybe because we've started having sex again. is that wrong? fuck it...it has been a most welcome re-introduction to each other. sex sex sex. he tells me I look beautiful all the time, he holds my hand, he wakes me up at 4am to make out...I love this shit. it's like there's a deep seriousness to our shit that wasn't there before because we have a daughter...it's dizzying to realize that you'll be in someone's life forever, to really have it solidified by the connection a child brings. riding the LIRR, being at the concert with him, listening to live love songs, getting warm by leaning closer to him, even buying overpriced food...it was all made better cause we were doing it together. I love him and our pretty daughter maddeningly. it also helped that its such a clean, architecturally impressive ampitheatre too...unbeknownst to me until we arrived, it's outdoors...the stage itself is actually built on water - surrounded by it on three sides. I felt pretty. I didn't mind being cold; it made my tits perky... christopher took a picture of them with his camera phone.
jilly from philly opened with "golden"; a song my cousin has admonished in the past for its commercial sound, but that song makes me happy. of course she did "he loves me" - one of the greatest love songs ever written, "a long walk", "gettin in the way", "do you remember", "whatever"...all the hits. jill made me wanna write poetry again right then and there...something I haven't done in over a year, not counting snippets here and there as fleeting inspiration runs past me with winged kicks. her entire set was very love oriented...kinda erotic as well...I love and appreciate that jill's big ass is so unashamed of expressing her overt sexiness. seems to me that big girls in the entertainment industry, at least as far as how they're forced to portray themselves anyway, are always playing on their humor or their wise-cracking sidekick-ness (to the svelte chicks)...but jill is just sexy, yo. she moans and purrs and talks about getting her thick limbs stretced across continents. I was in awe of her. she reminded me of leontyne price, who I had the honor of seeing at howard university when she was teaching a master class to the music majors...her voice FILLS every cavity of an arena. I felt the same about jill...her shit is just strong and resonating. christopher is so in love with her, yo...he'd stumble over me to shake her hand. which is cool because love means knowing who trumps you. morris chestnut > topher.
not really...I can't even keep that there without feeling wrong about it. topher smells good, fucks goods, and makes pretty babies; he wins.
we were so hungry after jill we broke down and paid $18.50 for two personal pan pizzas and a large sprite when just a couple hours earlier we'd scoffed at the fools paying such sick prices for mediocre stadium food. that pizza was fucking good, too, we barely even spoke as we devoured, but we did stop chewing every few minutes to grin at each other in full-stomached satisfaction.
erykah "I-spank-your-favorite-emcees-with-paddles-behind-closed-doors" badu was a bit slow to get the audience opening with "green eyes" but when she launched headfirst into "cleva", "on and on" and "next lifetime" and "danger" and a whole slew of other hits she had the crowd going apeshit; just throwing down their incense sticks to pump they fists. that chick knows how to put together a show...with her strange ass using some psychadelic turntable machine and reciting gangster tales inbetween songs. she's mad hood too, yo...she was talkin about weed smoking and fuck the po-po, she bigged up god and then said "yall ain't got to clap or no shit like that". awesome. she is such a weird little thing...her afro was bigger then her entire body, but her voice is so flawless...like a modern day billie holiday. she even chopped and screwed a portion of her set...like, with her voice...cause you know her ass is from dallas...so inventive. I actually liked her even more after her set...cause there are singers and then there are saaangers who know how to perform and remix shit up to make it worth your attendance but not too much of a remix cause we still wanna sing along.
needless to say it was one of the best concerts I have ever been to, and I have seen michael jackson, janet jackson, stevie wonder, whitney houston, mariah carey, mary j. blige, amongst many others live. what made it most enjoyable was that all those ladies could actually sing...even queen latifah has a gorgeous singing voice. much better then I figured, I guess I been sleepin on her because I miss her b-girlishness so badly. no lauryn hill crackishness going on (it was so hard for me to type that...I was so reluctant to hop on the "lauryn has fallen off" caboose for so long, even refusing to watch her performance at the bet awards but...damn). jill, erykah, and queen all closed with "never too much" as a tribute to the late great luther vandross and the elation from seeing some quality music being created right there in front of my face reverberated all the way home with us.
since li says I end my shits too abruptly this is the end portion
hm. this is a lot of pressure.
oh, wait I have something. seeing jill scott live really inspired me. I'ma start writing poetry again for sure. and I think I want my own tv show on HBO...I'ma get started on making that happen. if I published a scrapbook-format book with my writing and poetry and artwork in it would you buy it? riddle me that. the end.