Loss/Black History Month Starts Today (unofficially)

There are no words to really describe the loss I feel about what I'm about to share here. I know that these things may seem trivial & really they are, but I'm still bummed. Waaahh!

Portland Steak & Chophouse is changing its menu & will no longer have it's wonderful happy hour. Good lord the burgers are yummy & an awesome Caesar salad for $2 is a small piece of heaven. My beloved & I were there Monday nigh when our waitress broke the sad news. She said starting February 1st there will be only half-price appetizers. I know I'm not the biggest fan of change but still, things just won't be the same!

Golden Jade on SE Belmont is gone! I didn't even know until I passed by it this morning on my way to a bus stop. It was a great little place with the most friendly orders & very good and salty egg foo young. Now what are my partner & I going to do for takeout nearby? No more egg flower soup when were sick. No more Mongolian beef. Good god!

Bearitos makes this delicious and cheap canned bean dip that I love to eat with my yuppie corn chips. Well now Whole Foods no longer stocks it. I found this out on my lunch break today! I wondered around the store forlorn wondering what the hell to eat. I finally settled on an organic banana, yuppie corn chips & a bean, rice & cheese WF frozen burrito. The shame!

After all this I also hear that one one presidential candidate I was actually excited for dropped out. That's right. The white man I liked best. I think it's because his campaign was oh-I-don't-know .....honest. He was for the working U.S. American. Fawk!

Okay on a way different note!

So since Black folk get the short end on the calender stick when it comes to having a month to celebrate a people I like to declare a few days before February 1st the beginning of Black History Month. So hazzah and welcome to Black History Month!
This year I'm going to make a special focus on African Americans who have made music that inspires & also queer African Americans. Sometimes someone will be both & that's awesome. The first person I plan to feature will be your favorite & mine Sylvester the disco giant and drag diva.

Once again Welcome to Black History Month!
Peace!
~F

Quote of the Day

"Have you forgotten that once we were brought here we were robbed of our names and robbed of our language. We lost our religion, our culture, our God. And many of us by the way we act, we even lost our minds."
-Khalid Abdul Muhammed

Keep in mind I do not agree with this man's politics as a whole. But this quote says so very much about what has happened to African Americans as a result of being stolen from our homeland and enslaved. And what can happen to some people generations later as a result.

BTW remember to vote for the 2007 Bloggies. Very good stuff!
Peace!

*Sigh*

I've got that post sex body-light-as-a-feather feeling. I normally wouldn't share such a thing so publicly but it's my blog and it's just such a lovely feeling so there! Almost a month & a half into this new romance & I'm just feeling really good today about it. Don't know what tomorrow holds. But just for today all I can do is sigh and say YUM! Admittedly I'm being more cautious with my ladyfriend. Not because of her. Just it seems my picker has been very broken in the past & I've had some very shitty relationships. Many that seemed to start off well and with much gusto. What I like about this time in my life is that I can be really excited to get to know someone and even have -gasp- hope that we may have something really good that -gasp- might last and still say to myself most especially "I'm not ready to be a girlfriend." Weird right?

Maybe not. My best relationships that lasted the longest had slow starts that focused on the friendship first. They both also oddly were thinner than me and had brown hair & eyes like my current lover. Bizarre! Anywho I like that when she & I chat it's not "oh yes when we do this & this" it's like "I'd like to do that with you sometime." I dunno it's just really nice that we mutually dig each other and don't need to rush into commitment out of insecurity or whatever. It oddly makes me feel freer to be excited.

For today's Black History Month feature here is a link to hiphop/rap crossword. The other feature a link to a website that has info about the DVD The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till. If you don't know who Emmett Till is then you better go find out. PBS has a decent intro to his tragic story.



Peace y'all!

Peace be with you Emmett!

Totinos Pizza. You know you love it!

Was not in the mood to cook tonight. I just wanted a Totinos pizza so badly so I got one. And then I saw these Ben & Jerry's ice cream cones on sale and...well you know. They were on sale darn it. And just so I'd have a little something healthy tonight I got some 7up because it's all natural right? Oh shit the sweetness is high fructose corn syrup. So I ate a really fucked up, bad for me meal. It was cheap & good so there!

Last night I did something brand new at my place of employment. I did my very 1st author introduction. I wrote it myself and when to time came to stand up before 60 strangers and talk, I did pretty well. Except that I forgot to turn on the microphone initally and lucky for me most folks heard me without it. A quarter way through I turned on the mic laughed with the audience and continued. This only confirmed for me that one of my forte's is public speaking. I can't wait to do it again!

My gosh I'm tired. Must-digest-bad-meal. Oh BTW here are the books I'm reading for Black History Month.

1. Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier




2. Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor by Paul Beatty




3. Lose Your Mother by Saidiya Hartman

The Sidney Poitier bio is pretty good so far. He rushes through getting into his first few films and his marriage. I would have liked to know more about his courtship but whatever. Hokum looks good because it's a humor anthology but feaures folks like Soujourner Truth, Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. Even Al Sharpton who you know can't help but be funny.

Lose Your Mother came out recently and is about the authors journey for information on the slave trade route in Ghana. I'm really excited about this book for a couple reasons. Of course learning more about what my people went through when they were forced to leave their homes, family and culture but I'm also interested because my mother once married a man from Ghana. He was my step dad for a while and it was cool then to have another Black man in my life who was an African.

Okay so peace y'all!

The Unofficial Start of Black History Month!

That's right! I say it starts today. Yay for Black History!

Reading Sidney Poitier's biography this morning got me thinking a lot about my own blackness. Also reading 2 articles questioning Barack Obama's blackness made me wonder about my own heart and attitude on how black-I-am. This and other topics will be explored in a very personal way this month. Other Black History Month topics I'll present are:

• My Black heroes
• My dad
• The words black and dark and their negative connotations
• How slavery still lingers

Today is a very busy day for me so I won't likely post until tomorrow. Until then be happy and celebrate!