My Daughter is Going to Change Everything

My daughter is going to change everything.

Everyday, I read this "To Everything There is a Season" book to her. At her request. It's literally just the scriptures in Ecclesiastes, verbatim -- A time to be born, a time to die... A time to plant, a time to pluck up that which has been planted... A time to mourn, a time to dance... A time to keep silence and a time to speak... Etc. Nothing really mind blowing, no new information. However, this is her favorite book and she's always transfixed.

The illustrations are, for me, what make it great [and allow me to be able to read the same book over and over again, several times a day, without losing my entire mind]. It features art from various time periods, cultures, and countries for each passage. So, for instance, there's a depiction of Egyptian murals done in acrylic paint on three-ply Bristol board, or ink and watercolor on paper depicting Japanese woodblock prints. There's the art of Mexico, Greece, Ethiopia, India, Thailand -- it goes on and on and it's phenomenal. I feel like I'm walking through a museum when I read it. And I love museums.

Anyway, the second to last bit of the book says, "a time of war and a time of peace." The other day, we stopped for a long time on that page and I pointed to everything that was happening on the "war" side and everything that was happening on the "peace side" and I said, "war is bad. Look, they're hurting each other and killing each other. That's not the way it should be. Peace is good. Peace is what we want. See, this is how we should live."

This morning, I read this book to her, perhaps for the thousandth time. When I got to the war and peace page, she sat and stared for a long time. I followed her eyes as she took in every detail, particularly of the "peace" side. The animals, the people, the blue sky, the flowers and trees. She looked and looked and looked. I could see her, thinking. A 14-month-old. In deep concentration. About peace. Then she looked at the "war" side, and though she did take a moment with it, she gave it considerably less attention than "peace".

Then she turned to the final page, which is a big picture of planet Earth with the words, "One generation passes away and another generation comes: but the earth abides forever," underneath. She admired it for a long time. Then she flipped back to the previous page. More attention to "peace". I sat there, observing, careful not to interfere, allowing her to be in the moment. Seriously, this went on for a long time.

Then, finally, she started "reading aloud". My daughter babbled to herself, pointing at and focusing on different details in the "peace" picture. She read, and read, and pontificated, and theorized, and perhaps even prayed. In that moment, I was clear: The greatest honor and blessing that I will ever have is to be her mother. God is with this child. Her ancestors are with her. She gets it all. She understands. She has a purpose. She's here to change everything.

May we all live to see it.

I'm a Part of This Year's Highway's Poetry Festival

It's my first feature since freedom [insert scarily excited face here]. I promise to do new poems. Plus the fact that I'm performing on the same stage as other artists that I have an immense amount of love and respect for is going to make me put on my good clothes.

The Highways Poetry Festival is a yearly event that consists of 2 nights of dynamic poetry and music. This year, there's a team poetry slam on Friday, 6/13 at 8 pm, hosted by birthday girl and slam monster, Simply Kat. If you want to have a poem of your own workshopped, or get some performance critiques and pointers, come early (5:30 pm, to be exact) on Saturday 6/14 and Chas Jackson and I will give you a sexy literary makeover. After that, we will perform the poems that make the whole world sing. Word to your mom.

In closing: Come enjoy some incredible art in an awesome performance space. You deserve it.

6/13 8PM
BATTLE FOR LA (TEAM SLAM)
Hosted by Simply Kat
$8

6/14 5:30 PM
THE COMPLIMENT SANDWICH WRITING/PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP

6/14 8 PM
POETRY SHOWCASE
Hosted by Judy Holiday
$8

Highways Performance Space
1651 18th St.
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Hey, How Ya'll Doin'?

Soooooo... I had a baby. How ya'll been doin'? What ya'll been up to? You've been in my thoughts. I've been meaning to reach out. It's just that... Well... did I mention that I had a baby? A whole, entire person came out of my body. In real life. That's not science fiction! And yo, that shit was cray. Eight months later, and it's STILL cray. I wake up everyday, look at her and say, "You're real. You really happened. I didn't imagine you. You came out of my body. I'm somebody's mama." I really say those things aloud. So far, she hasn't responded because, she's only 8 months old and doesn't yet have the ability to speak well.

Mother's Day 2014, Getty Museum

So, yeah. That's what I've been doing. Having one sided conversations with an infant. I haven't written a poem in who knows how long. And I haven't memorized a poem in longer than that. I'm doing good to get a shower and eat everyday. It's getting better, though. I'm getting the hang of being somebody's mama and so, as the weeks go on, eating and bathing are more regular to me.

Because of that, I had a crazy idea. You wanna hear it? Come closer. Okay, so I was thinking that I'll dust the cobwebs off of this blog. I know, right!?! Insane. But, true insanity is having a person come out of your body and I figure that if I can pull that off, I can pretty much do any ol' thing. But don't worry. I won't fill this blog up with talk of poopy diapers and wonder weeks and convertible car seats. You want to know why? Because I'm starting a mama blog for that. No, this is gonna be my haven for adult things like the reappearance of crazy fools, turned stalkers and Solange Knowles' ass beating skills. So, keep coming back! It works if you work it.

20 Minute Chicken Rice and Veggie Soup

The fact that I haven't blogged since October is just... Look, let's not talk about that. I've been off somewhere getting married, so I need for ya'll to give me a pass. Okay? Okay.

So, now that the man formerly known as my fiance, formerly formerly known as my boyfriend, formerly formerly formerly known as a stranger with a guitar, has wifed me up, he expects to eat everyday. And supposedly, I'm expected to do at least some of the cooking. He's got a lot of nerve, but I love him, so I've been trying to see what I can do. And since it's been bone shattering cold here in Los Angeles, I got it in my head to make soup. SOUP! It's brilliant. You just throw stuff in a pot with broth and seasonings and eat for days and days. It hardly requires any effort, but the person consuming the soup feels nourished, nurtured, fortified, and cared for.

I decided I'm going to make a soup a week. The interner-webs are overrun with soup recipes, so this will not be hard. When I announced on Facebook that "A Soup a Week" was going down, a friend of mine requested pictures. I can do you one better and give you a whole blog. Boom.

So here's the first one. I've named it "My 20 Minute Chicken Rice and Veggie Soup", since it should only take about 20 minutes (maybe 30, at the most) to make because everything is pre-prepped. Here's what I used.

• 1 cup of rice
• 1 bag of frozen carrots
• 1 bag of frozen corn
• 1 bag of frozen green beans
• 1 pre cooked supermarket rotisserie chicken in a bag
• 4 8oz cups of chicken broth
• 2 cups of distilled water
• 4 tablespoons of crushed garlic
• salt, pepper, onion powder (I forgot to buy an onion)

The magic of soup is that you can sort of just throw whatever you have around into the pot. You may choose to use fresh veggies, but I didn't want to have to chop and prep them. Also, I rarely buy fresh produce anyway, because I always want to flip a table when my investment starts to go bad before I get to eat it all. I don't know about you, but as for me and my household, we don't have money for that sort of foolishness. So, frozen veggies it is. Throw them in the pot. My pre-cooked rotisserie chicken was $7 and was already seasoned and ready to go. You can easily pay more than that for a pack of chicken breasts that you're gonna have to clean, prep, and cook, so why not save yourself the effort and time? I pulled the meat off of the bones and threw it in the pot with the veggies, rice, broth, and water over a medium fire. I added my 4 tablespoons of crushed garlic and a random amount of sea salt, pepper, and onion powder. 

In about 20 minutes, we had a huge, steaming pot of "homemade" chicken soup. It was so good!

No Country for Brides That Don't Want to Wear Quinceanera Dresses on Their Wedding Day

The following is an email that I sent to my girlfriends a few weeks ago. As of today, less than 2 months until my wedding day, I still do not have a wedding dress. Jesus wept.

Ladies, today was the first day when I honestly felt that I would not find a wedding gown. And when I say, "would not find a wedding gown", of course I don't mean that I'm going to be at the wedding in some jeans. I mean, a dress that I would actually want to wear would not be on my body. After looking off and on since January (or thereabouts) and devoting most of my summer to actively going from shop to shop, trying on dress after dress, I've gone to every place that I know to go. As you probably already know, about 6 weeks ago, I took to the internet and went hard in the paint. I've explored having the dress of my dreams made. None of these things have yielded any desirable results. And the whole time, I thought, "I don't care. I'm gonna get MY dress."

Today, for the first time, I felt completely defeated.  

The thing is, there's this one Nicole Miller dress that I wanted more than that one Vera Wang White from a while ago, and even more than the first dress with the asymmetrical ruffled skirt that I tried on toward the beginning of this year... But I don't necessarily believe in "one dress for one bride". Similar to how I don't believe in one soul mate for one person. I know opinions (especially among women) vary on both of these subjects. And the soul mate thing is a whole other conversation for another time, but I'll just say that as a person that is decidedly more "head" than "heart", I believe that logically, math dictates that there can never be just ONE of any possible match. I could be happy in a number of dresses, I'm sure. I just have no clue as to where those dresses are.

At this point, I am about 97% sure that I'm going to end up in a dress that I don't care about, don't care to see, document, preserve, or think about when the wedding is over. Unless awesome dresses start raining down from the sky. This is sad, because though I was confident that I wasn't going to do the bridal cry when I found the dress that I wanted to wear, I at the very least wanted to like what I would have on. I guess life isn't fair.

All of that is to say, I suppose I'm still looking, 'cause, I can't wear jeans. I mean, I could. I probably should. But, anyway. Because I'm completely over looking for a dress, probably permanently underwhelmed, and just ready for this to be over, I'll probably be asking you for your opinion more than ever. Since my idea of what is attractive clearly isn't shared by bridal gown designers, manufacturers, retailers, and wearers, I have no idea of what "looks good" anymore. It's all ugly, white, and beaded, to me, so I'm just trying to find the least ugly of the bunch. I guess it's sort of like adopting a puppy.

The Reason [I Suspect] As to Why I Haven't Gotten My Security Deposit Back

As you may recall, my former landlord is an incompetent jerk. You remember that time he acted a fool when my rent check got lost in the mail and that other time when I gave him 30 days written and verbal notice that I was vacating my apartment (per the terms of my month to month lease and in compliance with California state law) and he acted like he had a problem with that? This is the man that often took forever to make repairs, dragged his feet about scheduling time to do a final walk through of my apartment once I'd moved out, and finally, showed up 45 minutes after the mutually agreed upon time. Well, it's been over six months since I moved out, and (SURPRISE!) this fool hasn't returned my security deposit to me.

According to California state law, a landlord must return a tenant's security deposit in full within 21 days of the last day of occupancy. Typically, that 21 day countdown starts on the day of the final walk through. If the landlord is withholding any part of the security deposit, he or she must notify the former tenant in writing with an itemized list of deductions. So, if you kicked a hole in the wall or stole a light fixture, your landlord would have to send you something that basically says, "I'm deducting such and such amount for the repair of the thingamajig." In my case, the apartment was in excellent condition and thoroughly cleaned. Of course it showed of a reasonable amount of wear and tear which is understandable with 3 years of occupancy. However it didn't need much done to it in preparation for the next tenant. Perhaps a coat of paint.

I had paid my final rent, trusting that despite his shoddy track record, he would do the right thing and pay what he owed in a reasonable amount of time. But, as R. Kelly so eloquently stated, "Haters gon' hate. Ballers gon' ball," and true to his character, my landlord did not do the correct and proper thing. I wrote him a nice email, as a reminder that he owed me some good money. No response. This is the point at which I started calling him. And of course, he participated in shade and didn't answer his phone. He didn't respond to my messages. He was a sucka emcee. But I really want to call him something else. But I won't, 'cause my Mama raised me right.

One day, my fiance called him and cursed him out. I think he did it in Spanish. My landlord called me, damn near crying (like a little bi-- Oh... I said I wouldn't call him somethin' else. Nevermind). He was a fountain of excuses. He was offended that I would take such measures and almost went as far as to say that my fiance doesn't know his life. I told him, "Listen. That's the man I'm marrying and currently residing under the same roof with. It is absolutely his business. He doesn't have to know your life. You owe me. So, you owe us. Cough up the dinero, compadre." And then he started with the promises to pay. "Just give me some time," he said. That was back in June.

So, now I have to sue him.

Really, ain't nobody got time for that. But, I have to do what I have to do, mostly out of principal. I've been living without that money for a long time and [thankfully] I hadn't hinged any dreams on it or made any plans for it. That money would be extra. But the point is that its MINES. Not his. So, now I gotta take attention away from things that I want to do to go deal with some foolishness that I shouldn't have to. Such is life.

Here's the thing though. I have a theory as to why he "hasn't been able" to return my security deposit to me. Remember that one time last summer when Ashley Catharine McGinty (also known as "That Girl") came to stay in my spare bedroom and proceeded to make messes and not clean up after herself, try not to pay rent, and finally not return my house key to me once she left? Well, about a week after I had moved out of that apartment, I stopped by the premises to check and see if there were any random pieces of mail for me that may have been mis-delivered to the old address... And I saw that someone had already taken up residence in my old apartment. Hmmm.

This struck me as strange since, as far as I knew, my old landlord had not advertised the apartment as vacant and it was still the middle of the month. Surely, at that point, he hadn't had any time to prep the apartment for a new tenant. For someone to be occupying the place within a week was just...

Hey. I suspect that That Girl (who, as far as we know, still has my keys), let herself into the vacant apartment  once the coast was clear and took up residence. Listen. Stranger things have happened. And with a squatter in the unit [and California laws regarding tenancy being what they are] there would be no way to swiftly order an eviction, physically remove the unwanted occupant, and rent it out to a new tenant. Therefore there would be no way to obtain a new security deposit or collect any rent... And maybe no way to return my deposit to me. With his broke behind. I'm just sayin'.

As you can see [and probably already knew], my life is full of the finest foolery. Now, excuse me while I go write a check to Southern California Edison in the amount of $.57. Good day.

100 Thousand Poets for Change at A Mic and Dim Lights

This Thursday, September 27th at A Mic and Dim Lights in Pomona, I will be performing along with a small but deadly gang of talented poets in 100 Thousand Poets for Change. It's a special night of poetry organized by David A. Romero in conjunction with the grassroots educational organization, 100 Thousand Poets for Change. The organization was originally conceived by Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion, as a worldwide set of events to take place either simultaneously or at different points throughout the year. Future plans for the organization involve raising funds to help poetry, music and other arts organizations world-wide organize peace and sustainability events.

The evening promises to be inspirational and memorable, thanks in part to an opening feature set from Mic and Dim Lights founder and host BessKepp and music provided by in house DJ, JB. I'm excited to be a part of this event and stand in solidarity with a diverse group of poets around the world, gathered to promote serious social, environmental, and political change. I hope you'll join us.

A Mic and Dim Lights Presents 100 Thousand Poets for Change

300 W. Second St. 

Pomona, CA 91766

Thursday Sept. 27, 2012

9pm

$3