So we are right at the last few days of 2010 and I have to say I am SO FREAKING GLAD THIS YEAR IS OVER!!! Now I know.. i know; it could have been much worse, but it feels like the challenges I have faced this year are enough to make up a few lifetimes! And just recently I have decided to STOP comparing my life over the past several years and just focus more on the present. Because I honestly have been driving myself crazy... and who wants that? Not me!! That's for sure.
Jobs
I started this year with a job and I'm ending this year with a job... so that's good right?!? Again, something I am trying to do or NOT do is define myself by having a job or not. It is just soooo very stressful to not have a job and still have to maintain a living. My standard of living has fallen significantly. I have been on a 'needs only' basis for longer than I care to admit. So it has been really easy for me to talk myself out of any extras because I truly could not afford it. But I think it has made me a better person... at least I hope.
I maintained my grind with all my 50eleven jobs. Still a little discontent that I haven't found a little bar to be bartender at; but that just means I gotta get my stuff together and open my own little spot. One of my temp gigs, I sorted the little tags that they put on the hanger for suit sizes. I really almost had a breakdown as I laughed about how the hell I was gonna put that on my resume! It was funny, sad, and very humbling.
This year I have worked with some GREAT people and some horrible people and I always wonder how the horrible ones got to be where they are. Yet another thing that could drive a chick crazy. But Karma, as I always say, is a bitch, so I believe I am making up for something(s) I have done but I know my reward will be great at some point.
Travel
I am a chick who likes to travel several times a year so the fact that Pittsburgh, my home town, was a major destination was sadder than sad!! LOL Not that I do not enjoy being with my family and specifically my mother, I needed a beach! And I am going to make it to at least one beach next year so that is something to look forward to. I did make it to Atlanta this spring, and I had a blast that weekend as I helped celebrate my cousin soror's 25 distinguished years in Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. I need to get my butt active again so that there will be a celebration for me in about 10 years... oh wait... 9 years!! I been a soror for 16 years!! WOW!!!
So the destination next year is Dominican Republic. I have a big cheesy grin on my face as I type about all the beautiful men that are going to be there. Me gusta un latino!! See I gotta get my Spanish together!! I would also like to make it to Miami and Chicago and New Orleans... but the budget may only include 1 good trip, and that is really ok with me. As long as a beach is involved, OH and some fruity libations, it's good!!
I just tortured myself by watching the Best Beaches in Mexico and now Jamaica undercover is on. It is nice to look at a beach even if it's just on the TV
Family
All of my nieces and nephews are getting SO BIG!! I even kept my littlest nephew at 2 even though he is 3 because I just couldn't keep up with all the... well I don't know what my excuse is for that one. My oldest nephew is 22 and that make me gasp when I say it out loud. I mean he is legal and EVERYTHING. I just can't take it all.
We had our family reunion this year and it was great to see everyone and meet family members I had never met before. I enjoyed the weekend but I was one of the hostesses so it was 'working' vacation. 2 people who came didn't make it through the end of the year. You just never know when sometimes the last time you see someone is really going to be the last time!
Music
I didn't buy to much stuff this year, but I did just get Fantasia and Kem. Both cd's are pretty darn good. It just floors me when some artist 'make it' and others don't. I still don't get the whole Justin Bieber thing, or Lady Gaga which were more mainstream; as for the R&B folks... i don't get the Keri Hilson, Melanie Fiona and Ciara thing. They all are just so regular to me, like nothing all that special.
But then again I love my independent artists so i guess I like the more different people. Like who?!?! Well I'm glad you asked!! I just discovered or rediscovered N'Dambi. She is really slept on, like many artist, but that song 'Can't Hardly Wait' I just LOVE IT!! There of course is a potty mouth version that I can never seem to find... but here's the cd sampler. Now what's crazy is this is kinda how I was with Eric Robeson, although with him I saw him perform several times and then I became like a mega fan. I have yet to see her perform, but it's like I've know she was around but just kinda 'discovered' her again. What I do know is she was one of the background singers for Erykah Badu.
Nothing else happened that seemed to big on the music scene for me.
Men
**LOUD OBNOXIOUS SIGH** Ok so not one of my stellar years for relationships. I mean all I need is one good one right? One I should have just kept that nonsense right in the past, the other I think I thought I wanted to be with him... but well what had happened is we just didn't click (and that is putting it mildly and very PC).
AND... moving on!!
The System - aka trying to get over...
This was not my goal this year, but I tell you when you make a call where they either put you on hold or disconnect you altogether or give you a bad number to get to a person who never calls you back to get some basic services, yeah you feel like working the system for all it's worth. And then after a few days of cooling off and rethinking just what the hell you are doing... you try again and get someone who actually can and will help and so your issues get resolved. It's a labyrinth. What's bad is with every THING (housing assistance, taking class to make myself marketable, and most recently my janky health insurance) it can drive a chick to drink... and since I already drink I DRANK MORE!!! And each of the various services that are set in place to help people, you have to figure out what hoop to jump through and then figure where they want you to jump... it's all so very exhausting. For the house you have to tell your whole life story only for them to want more documentation only for them to lose it so you have to start the process all over. With the class, because I had a job (even though grossly underemployed) I was told I was 'employable' so the state couldn't authorize me to use money set aside for people who are EXACTLY in my situation. AND lastly the insurance... they dropped me then the labwork got submitted but now they picked my back up and to be honest I have no good idea what I'm supposed to pay; so I'ma give it a few more weeks before I call and see.
The Good and The Bad
For what it's worth as low as I have felt and been, I still think I had more ups than downs. I mean I still have my house, my health, and my sanity AND that's really saying something. My goal for the past several years has been to be a better me... and I still think that's a lofty goal, but I might need to be a little more specific. I think I'm going to start working on my bucket list. One of those goals is to run a marathon, and since i like neither running NOR sweating this one is going to be a challenge. Another one is to meet Regis Philbin... I don't know why I just want to. So I might have to go hang out in random spots in NYC.
That's it... my year in quick review format for all to see... err I mean my 5 readers to see!!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
no mas!!
I am sitting here trying to get myself into the Christmas spirit so I turned my Pandora to the 'Holiday' station. I have no good idea who Olivia Olson is, but she just did the Mariah Carey song 'All I want for Christmas is you'. And then last night as I was driving home, I think it was Chris Brown's version of 'This Christmas'. Now we ALL know Donny Hathaway is the ONLY and by only I mean ONLIEST one who can do that song. Both of his versions were sufficient and then some. I only even ½ way like Luther's version and Luther can redo (or rather could) anyone's song and make it his own. Why do these artists think they can touch the originals. It's almost like HOW FREAKING DARE YOU!?! Write an original song and make that your own! OR like my nephew's music teacher does, she come up with these songs aint NOBODY ever heard before, but they musta not just caught on back in the day when they came out.
The next song on my jolly quest to insert some commercialized Christmas into my life is 'Last Christmas' done originally by Wham or was it just George Michael… now Jimmy Eat World is doing some farfanagled version… UMM I am getting slightly irritated which is defeating the purpose of trying to get in a good mood. I mean you know not that I am in a particularly bad mood, I'm really not. But hey It's Christmas not X-mas which gets more on my nerves than anything. We must not forget Christ in Christmas…
I am digging Michael Buble's version of 'Let it Snow'
Okay I had to turn off the Pandora… it was getting to be too much of what I didn't want to hear
Thursday, December 16, 2010
random 12.15
I have 1 whole follower!!! yeah me!! Thanks Brina for always being there for me! I LOVE YOU GURL!! I have missed a whole YEAR cause my god son is 3 not 2!! LAWD I'm getting old!
ok onto general randomness and merriment... OH I KNOW
The Dominicans
My new favorite thing are those Dominican women who can roll the hell outta ya hair then dry the hell outta your hair and you leave outta their spot like DAMN I LOOK PRETTY GOOD!!! (had to pause real quick to go make a pom/lime martini... I'm feeling a little festive :) It has always been such a wonderment to me why it always takes sooooooooo long in a black hair shop. You make the appt, you get there on time and yet many times you just WAIT... and wait and wait. And who really has time for that?? I remember as a kid being dropped off by my dad in the morning and then picked up by my mom in the afternoon. And I had alot of hair so it was always a blessing when I got to go because no matter how still I sat my mom was going to find an ear or a neck to burn when she hot combed it. LOL the good old days? ANYWAYS you just show up at the shop. The woman who probably speaks the least amount of English gets you set up either in the shampoo bowl or at the chair if you are getting a chemical. Then the woman who has the license starts working on you in about 5 minutes! I mean that has been the max time I had to wait. I am going to this one particular shop on the recommendation of my cousin who has a baby and demanding work schedule and no extra time to just be waiting in a damn salon. PLUS her hair always looks good. I would take the thriving nature of a NON American to get this thing going. I just think we are so complacent as Americans. We are so stuck in mediocrity sometimes. But you know, not all of us.
Work
The ongoing joke started and perpetuated by my, is that I have 50eleven jobs, which just means I have a lot of them. And now thanks to Little Baby Jesus, I can add yet one more company to my exhaustively long list of places that I have worked. I did a kind of filler resume to include everywhere I have worked in the past 10 years, and it is slightly embarrassing. I mean to an extent that it really is a whole lot of places which can be good AND bad. So my current dilemma is that I just don't know how to take the folks I work with now. They are really a great bunch of folks, but I just feel like I am going to say the wrong thing or offend the wrong person. It has taken me several years and a few lost jobs to learn to just not blurt out everything that comes to my random mind. And this can be a task. So now mostly i just sit there with a goofy grin so as not to say anything crazy. Cause you know I have a comment about EVERYTHING but I have to remind myself that either 1.) THEY AINT TALKING TO YOU or 2.) THEY ARE REALLY NOT ASKING FOR YOUR OPINION!! So this chick has to pump her brakes more often than not.
I would really like to go into some juicy detail about some of the extremes I have had while working, but i guess that would be kinda crossing a line. BUT here's a few... being told I had to take my acrylic nails off because the were too wild (I was the only black chick in the office... come to think of it only black PERSON including the maintenance dudes... do you smell discrimination?); being written up for non-verbal communications (I still scratch my head about that one... which I guess is non verbal LOL); having a weekly meeting with my supervisor who then said we didn't communicate enough (too much weirdness in that office); only being able to use blue ink pens because EVERYONE knows it business blue not business black :/ ooookay!!!
Yeah...
Housewives
nothing really to report other than I guess now Cynthia is saying the friendship contract was a joke, but both she and Peter went out of their way to appease Ne Ne and that heifer still acted a fool!! Good girlfriends are hard to come by so I get where Cynthia was coming from. OOOOHHH and Sheree... acting?!?! Come on really? And how you just go out and buy an Astin Martin?? If you really got it like that, why are you being wasteful?? Cause she mentions err chance she gets that she doesn't get child support. so I just wonder where all this money is coming from, and clue a chick in so I too can be all willy nilly with my funds too!!
The Singoff
I am in freaking LOVE with this show!! It is featuring all acapella groups and now we are in the voting phase. I am voting for Committed, they are church boys who now are singing 'worldy' music. It's funny because they seem sooooo virginal, but I wonder a few things, cause they aren't the most masculine men, BUT they are all cutie pies (ESPECIALLY the one with the gap (LAWD gap tooth men LOVE IT!!) and the bass dude who kinda looks like a dark skinded Hill Harper), and hopefully just pure at heart, but we all know church boys/men can be worse than the ones you find at the club, but I do wonder if they have girlfriends. Their 1st song was a song by Maroon 5, which sent shiver down my spine...leave it to youtube to hae what I need. HERE look!! As Shawn Stockman (Boyz to Men)... or the pussycat doll chick said, he had a musical orgasm!! And I guess maybe I did too!!!
So yes there are other groups who I also adored. The Whiffenpoofs were the team from Yale, whose, song the 1st show was just sickness!!
Groove for Thought were the team of music teachers and 1 of their daughters, who were just so jazzy. The competition was really stiff cause I was hoping they would be in the top, but they had a few missed notes.
On the Rocks... if I was a dude, I would totally want to hang out with them. They seem like a great bunch of dudes to hang out with. The started with a Lady Gaga song and got kicked off with Kyrie which I thought was really good. Actually their Swan Song was really good too... which I can't seem to find so here's the Elton medley... ENJOY!!
Then you got Street Corner Symphony who are in the top 4. the lead singer dude had a record deal, but he just got dicked around, by the record company. So probably when a young teeny booper was being promoted his talent got lost in the sauce. So this was my favorite, Everybody Wants to Rule the World. It's Tears for Fears!! I realized how big an 80's geek I truly am; i passed this little test with flying colors:
You might be a child of the 80's if...
You have seen at least 10 episodes of Fraggle Rock. (I've seen them ALL and I own several VHS copies)
You know that another name for a keyboard is a "Synthesizer."
You'll always hold a special place in your heart for "Back to the Future." (1.21 jigga watts!!! have the 3 DVD set)
You know where to go if you "wanna go where everybody knows your name." (I might as well be cliff clavin)
You thought Molly Ringwald was REALLY cool. (Was there an 80's movie she WASN'T in?)(cause red hair was cool!!)
You know what "psych" means (always spelled it sike though LOL)
OH wait... where was I. The other top groups are Jerry Lawson and Talk of the Town and the Back Beats. Not really feeling the Back Beats although they ae the only top group with women in it. Talk of the town is good in an old timey barbershop quartet kinda way.
I will be downloading ALL the songs I like!!
I did not realize the hyper links took you completely out of the blog into the link... hmm how the heck do I fix that?? Or is that just a Google Chrome thing? Well so for now... watch the link the hit the back button to continue getting your dose of randomness! I just looked at a previous post with a Monica video in it. She had a lot of lightskinded men in her video... and then the dude from Ordinary People (John Legend video... whose real name is John Stephens LOL)is in that video. And where exactly do you go to find out the people in commercials and videos? The At&T Taco Party commercial makes me laugh just thinking about it! Eric does NOT seem creepy to me.. in fact I would like to know Eric and his taco eating self LOL.
funny random shit...
Meltdown
If you don't go to any other link... go to this last one!!!
ok onto general randomness and merriment... OH I KNOW
The Dominicans
My new favorite thing are those Dominican women who can roll the hell outta ya hair then dry the hell outta your hair and you leave outta their spot like DAMN I LOOK PRETTY GOOD!!! (had to pause real quick to go make a pom/lime martini... I'm feeling a little festive :) It has always been such a wonderment to me why it always takes sooooooooo long in a black hair shop. You make the appt, you get there on time and yet many times you just WAIT... and wait and wait. And who really has time for that?? I remember as a kid being dropped off by my dad in the morning and then picked up by my mom in the afternoon. And I had alot of hair so it was always a blessing when I got to go because no matter how still I sat my mom was going to find an ear or a neck to burn when she hot combed it. LOL the good old days? ANYWAYS you just show up at the shop. The woman who probably speaks the least amount of English gets you set up either in the shampoo bowl or at the chair if you are getting a chemical. Then the woman who has the license starts working on you in about 5 minutes! I mean that has been the max time I had to wait. I am going to this one particular shop on the recommendation of my cousin who has a baby and demanding work schedule and no extra time to just be waiting in a damn salon. PLUS her hair always looks good. I would take the thriving nature of a NON American to get this thing going. I just think we are so complacent as Americans. We are so stuck in mediocrity sometimes. But you know, not all of us.
Work
The ongoing joke started and perpetuated by my, is that I have 50eleven jobs, which just means I have a lot of them. And now thanks to Little Baby Jesus, I can add yet one more company to my exhaustively long list of places that I have worked. I did a kind of filler resume to include everywhere I have worked in the past 10 years, and it is slightly embarrassing. I mean to an extent that it really is a whole lot of places which can be good AND bad. So my current dilemma is that I just don't know how to take the folks I work with now. They are really a great bunch of folks, but I just feel like I am going to say the wrong thing or offend the wrong person. It has taken me several years and a few lost jobs to learn to just not blurt out everything that comes to my random mind. And this can be a task. So now mostly i just sit there with a goofy grin so as not to say anything crazy. Cause you know I have a comment about EVERYTHING but I have to remind myself that either 1.) THEY AINT TALKING TO YOU or 2.) THEY ARE REALLY NOT ASKING FOR YOUR OPINION!! So this chick has to pump her brakes more often than not.
I would really like to go into some juicy detail about some of the extremes I have had while working, but i guess that would be kinda crossing a line. BUT here's a few... being told I had to take my acrylic nails off because the were too wild (I was the only black chick in the office... come to think of it only black PERSON including the maintenance dudes... do you smell discrimination?); being written up for non-verbal communications (I still scratch my head about that one... which I guess is non verbal LOL); having a weekly meeting with my supervisor who then said we didn't communicate enough (too much weirdness in that office); only being able to use blue ink pens because EVERYONE knows it business blue not business black :/ ooookay!!!
Yeah...
Housewives
nothing really to report other than I guess now Cynthia is saying the friendship contract was a joke, but both she and Peter went out of their way to appease Ne Ne and that heifer still acted a fool!! Good girlfriends are hard to come by so I get where Cynthia was coming from. OOOOHHH and Sheree... acting?!?! Come on really? And how you just go out and buy an Astin Martin?? If you really got it like that, why are you being wasteful?? Cause she mentions err chance she gets that she doesn't get child support. so I just wonder where all this money is coming from, and clue a chick in so I too can be all willy nilly with my funds too!!
The Singoff
I am in freaking LOVE with this show!! It is featuring all acapella groups and now we are in the voting phase. I am voting for Committed, they are church boys who now are singing 'worldy' music. It's funny because they seem sooooo virginal, but I wonder a few things, cause they aren't the most masculine men, BUT they are all cutie pies (ESPECIALLY the one with the gap (LAWD gap tooth men LOVE IT!!) and the bass dude who kinda looks like a dark skinded Hill Harper), and hopefully just pure at heart, but we all know church boys/men can be worse than the ones you find at the club, but I do wonder if they have girlfriends. Their 1st song was a song by Maroon 5, which sent shiver down my spine...leave it to youtube to hae what I need. HERE look!! As Shawn Stockman (Boyz to Men)... or the pussycat doll chick said, he had a musical orgasm!! And I guess maybe I did too!!!
So yes there are other groups who I also adored. The Whiffenpoofs were the team from Yale, whose, song the 1st show was just sickness!!
Groove for Thought were the team of music teachers and 1 of their daughters, who were just so jazzy. The competition was really stiff cause I was hoping they would be in the top, but they had a few missed notes.
On the Rocks... if I was a dude, I would totally want to hang out with them. They seem like a great bunch of dudes to hang out with. The started with a Lady Gaga song and got kicked off with Kyrie which I thought was really good. Actually their Swan Song was really good too... which I can't seem to find so here's the Elton medley... ENJOY!!
Then you got Street Corner Symphony who are in the top 4. the lead singer dude had a record deal, but he just got dicked around, by the record company. So probably when a young teeny booper was being promoted his talent got lost in the sauce. So this was my favorite, Everybody Wants to Rule the World. It's Tears for Fears!! I realized how big an 80's geek I truly am; i passed this little test with flying colors:
You might be a child of the 80's if...
You have seen at least 10 episodes of Fraggle Rock. (I've seen them ALL and I own several VHS copies)
You know that another name for a keyboard is a "Synthesizer."
You'll always hold a special place in your heart for "Back to the Future." (1.21 jigga watts!!! have the 3 DVD set)
You know where to go if you "wanna go where everybody knows your name." (I might as well be cliff clavin)
You thought Molly Ringwald was REALLY cool. (Was there an 80's movie she WASN'T in?)(cause red hair was cool!!)
You know what "psych" means (always spelled it sike though LOL)
OH wait... where was I. The other top groups are Jerry Lawson and Talk of the Town and the Back Beats. Not really feeling the Back Beats although they ae the only top group with women in it. Talk of the town is good in an old timey barbershop quartet kinda way.
I will be downloading ALL the songs I like!!
I did not realize the hyper links took you completely out of the blog into the link... hmm how the heck do I fix that?? Or is that just a Google Chrome thing? Well so for now... watch the link the hit the back button to continue getting your dose of randomness! I just looked at a previous post with a Monica video in it. She had a lot of lightskinded men in her video... and then the dude from Ordinary People (John Legend video... whose real name is John Stephens LOL)is in that video. And where exactly do you go to find out the people in commercials and videos? The At&T Taco Party commercial makes me laugh just thinking about it! Eric does NOT seem creepy to me.. in fact I would like to know Eric and his taco eating self LOL.
funny random shit...
Meltdown
If you don't go to any other link... go to this last one!!!
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