Amazing

It's amazing how in one fell swoop your life and outlook on life can change. Bravo Joel Osteen, thank you for reconnecting me with God.

Getting Through This!!!!

When I tell you I am going through it, believe me – I AM GOING THROUGH IT! I have faith I will get through this because faith is ALL I HAVE. Temp jobs have all but stopped. This is the first year in my entire life where I have not been working as much. I have gone through every emotion, experienced many losses and found out who my friends really are. Amazingly, I have more than one…I have TWO! I am lucky.

This morning I cried like a baby. Mary had to go into a nursing facility last night and I, her step daughter could do nothing to help. Without income, I cannot fly to Chicago to help the person who has helped raise me in her time of need. I broke down on the phone with the mortgage company when they asked why I didn’t make a payment… I prefaced my response with – “this has been the worst year of my life. A good friend died, my credit was ruined, people with their own fears and insecurities have made my life a living hell (think WB Tech Ops!), my family thinks I’m a loser, and the friendships I thought I had do not exist. In the span of a year, I have lost almost everything that has taken many years to gain. And now that my family needs me, I cannot be there to help. As soon as I get a job, you will never have to call me again.” End of conversation. I wonder if he shed a tear. By the end of the phone call he told me that he would do all in his power to help me get through this (wow and that was a BofA rep).

I invited an old boss to the lot I was working on yesterday. It was great seeing him. I was so embarrassed that in all of these years (five), I have not grown career-wise. I was so ashamed about that and the fact I had no money to buy lunch. Thanks for allowing me to eat off of your plate!

Being unemployed and relying on people to take a vacation or get sick in order to work is not the living for me. I hate it but it is all I have right now. Why Boston University dumped me, I will never know. This is not the life for me and I have to change it, and that time to change is now. I don’t know how, but I do know I WILL GET THROUGH THIS!! When my time comes to leave this Earth, do know I will not go defeated!!!

My next blog post will be GOOD NEWS!!!

Precious and The Color Purple

No, this is not the title of a new children's book, nor is it a comparative analysis of the two movies.

The movies depict black women at their lowest point and bring them to their somewhat happy ending. Here's the problem, in the middle before that happy ending (if there is one) is a long bout of depression, insecurity and hatred for ourselves.

I live and work in Los Angeles, yet I was born and raised in Chicago. I was having lunch with a friend of mine on Saturday and we had an interesting conversation about black folks here vs. black folks in the Midwest or the east (yes, we lumped the two together since their attitudes are similar). We wholeheartedly admitted it was harder and took longer to acclimate ourselves to the Los Angeles scene. Coming from Chicago, the "no non-sense" and "mean-what-you-say" town, we've found the black folks here (in Los Angeles, just in case I dropped you with that last sentence); out impression of the black folks here (some of them...can't generalize!) is that they "seem" to be cold, insecure,unforgiving and single. On the positive, other than the weather, black women here seem to be more health conscious.

The struggle for this black woman has not been an easy one. Having a black first lady has not eased what most of us still have to contend with and overcome on a daily basis. I have been through things that would make a weaker-willed person think twice about living (no offense to those not as strong as myself). I find everyday I am having to prove myself in one way or another. Where is my happy ending?

Why do we hate each other and ourselves so much? Black women are the most beautiful in the world (yep, I said it), yet our level of confidence is so low that we hurt ourselves and each other. Why?

FlashForward Backwards?

ABC has a real winner with FlashForward, a television show loosely based on the science fiction novel of the same title by Robert J. Sawyer. Sawyer created a futuristic world, 2009 in which on October 6, 2009 for 2 minutes and 47 seconds the entire human population blacks out and is given a glimpse of what their life will be like in six months. The show centers around FBI agents trying to piece together the world's flashforward experiences through a website they created called Mosaic in order to figure out who is behind this and what their goals are.

This is a stunning example of free will. Here is the catch, just because you see it, does it mean it will really play out that way? Is this show promoting creative visualization? Clearly realism is out of the picture, even though they tried. FBI agents are not that emotional or passionate, even though they are human, their years of training strips away emotion in order to carry out the thankless and difficult jobs ahead. Most law enforcers deal with the worst of society.

What's my point here? Who knows? I got distracted as usual with crap!! I just figured this was a good start to something interesting.

Inspired by Michael Jackson, talent by God

Day four and no work. Instead of being depressed and going over all of the issues in my life, I decided to go see Michael Jackson's This is it! Gerald has the week off and so we went together. It was nice to see him since we mostly chat on IM.

Michael Jackson was a true perfectionist whose instincts were so keen, it seemed he was psychic. I was so inspired to keep going for my dream and actually knowing it is going to happen for me. Writing is what I do. It allows me to say what I want, right or wrong. I do my best to research something to its very essence, then create a story on top of that.

Today, I began writing on my pilot. It felt so good not to be rushing somewhere or bored to tears on an assignment or working with an insecure person. I think when people see me, one of two things happen: they see what they could have done with their lives by going for their passion and not settling; or the look at me in disgust and pray they never end up like me a temp with no future and no history. What they don't realize is I am not responsible for the misery or joy in their lives and if they are looking to me for a solution, they need to find God.

Michael reminded me of myself with a dogged sense of perfection for every word I write. I feel I am the only one who goes nuts over a typo! I try to think of each word especially if I am angry with someone. I want to make sure they know exactly how they made me feel (how I allowed them to make me feel) and they will think again before trying to play that game on me. I am not a fighter per se, but I will let you know where I stand. Seeing Michael rehearsing and making each move perfect like a natural instinct, made me feel normal again. "This is it" this is my time to shine. I need to prove to myself that writing is my career and my passion.

I miss Michael and I wished I would have met him before he transitioned. I like to think in someway he is watching over me, pushing me to be the best me I can be. Of course that little voice in my head is me, although as of late it adds a "WooHoo" at the end of every triumphant choice of word, line, and scene.

Thanks Mike.

Precious ME

I guess if I had grown up reading books by Sapphire, was raised in a depressed home environment and had an abusive father; I could of related more. Don't get me wrong, I do empathize with anyone, black or white that has to endure such atrocities. I am no better than anyone and I do not want you to take away from this that I am. I am simply stating that that was not my experience growing up. Of course too, I am not stating all was well. In Precious, I did see quite a few similarities in my own emotional upbringing. I can relate to being the fat daughter, the ugly girl, the dumb student. I, like many black girls longed to have the light skin and long hair. We kept our hair relaxed in hopes it would grow down to touch our shoulders and we could shake our heads and it would move from side to side. Oh yes, once that happened, I knew better days were ahead. Wrong!

I grew up in Hyde Park on the south side of Chicago. Back in the 80's the neighborhood was mixed. It was not a suburb where white folks only encountered black people on tv while watching the Jefferson's. I was surrounded by a loving but stern family, very intelligent friends and teachers who gave a damn. I remember Mr. Latman and Mr. Sherrill, Mr. Dora and Ms. Stein pushing me to my limits and allowing my tiny, shy, ugly and fat voice to come out. Thank you.

Back to the movie. Mo'Nique did a phenomenal and exceptional job! I would recommend everyone watch this movie. Precious represents all of us in one way or another. It is neither black or white but more of a universal truth that needs more exposure so we can heal the hurts and right the wrongs. You will learn something about yourself. You will change or at the very least think about change.

The director and the writer. As a writer it is always good to meet, and interesting to hear of the successful ones plight/fight to the respectable top. While Geoffrey Fletcher was inundated with other aspiring writers wanting to know how he made it, I asked what his inspiration was for the line "tv channels I never watched." We weren't allowed to take notes during this screening so the line is not exact. He gave pause, he noticed me and we struck up a conversation. Mr. Fletcher told me that it took him five months to write the screenplay adaptation - his first. He shared that it was like that, we get in a rut and only watch what we can understand, not venturing out to learn something new (my words not his). I always want to know the thought process and the "whys" of any behavior - I guess that's just my die hard and useless criminal justice background education. Fletcher did a good job by keeping true to author Sapphire's voice and skillfully added a hint of his own. He did well with his very first adaptation.

The director Lee Daniels. I love meeting people in person. It allows me to mentally understand who they really are by observing body language and how they answer questions (damn CJ mind). He admitted he wanted Helen Mirren to play the role Mariah Carey had. That right there should give you a glimpse of who he really is. I will let you guess. He also revealed he realized he was "racist" before making this movie. Now the white folks in the audience did gasp, but that isn't what he meant. He wasn't racist against white folks, he was racist against his own folks. He, like many confused black Americans have subscribed to the media portrayal of their own kind, exploiting the sad and the hopeless. That's not his fault. The fault is in "The American Dream" - another CJ reference. Daniels did a good job in bringing this tragic novel to the big screen.

Cowards make lousy employees. - House

House said it best in last nights rerun. That is how I will sum up my experience in the Tech Ops department at Warner Bros. That department needs some serious cleaning out. There are more miserable and insecure people in that one area than in the whole of Warner Bros. Youth and intellect scare them. My assignment was simple (although they told the agency it is a very hard assignment and we need someone really smart) basic data entry. A no brainer to me since I had experience in that area and I knew some of the people there. Monday. I walk in to an empty workspace. I sit and sit and sit, three hours later Ann (the woman I reported to) comes over and tells me that I will be doing a ton on data entry but she needs to print out the sheets for me. In the meantime do filing for another manager. Cool. Three huge stacks are plopped on my desk. The woman who plops them looks familiar but hey, as a temp, everyone seems familiar. Two hours later finished the digital file. Ann comes back and still has not printed out these lists I need to start working. I am a happy ray of sunshine in most gloomy places, for some that is a nice respite for others it is a threat. When the lists finally came to me (late Tuesday) I knocked them out in one hour! I then had to wait again for Ann to enter information on her part before I could move to the next task. Meanwhile, all of the filing was done (alpha'd, date ordered with labels and placed in the drawers!!!).

Thursday, more people from my past realize I am there and stop by my cubicle to say hi. Once again completed all tasks assigned. Ann's boss was in the office chatting with her when I stopped in to let her know I completed the task. Her boss asks her, not in these exact words - what do you do all day? Ann's response: I tweet! I tweet Lance Armstrong. Her boss - an extremely intelligent woman gives her a puzzled look in which Ann took as confusion as to what tweeting is, so she proceeded to explain to her twitter. All the while, I and another worker were standing there waiting for her to do her job.

Outcome: I was fired for being too social. I am still laughing at that.