metropolis hoppin
so yes, I did go on vacation...and although we've been back for longer then we were away, I am still in a vacation mentality. that's why I haven't updated - I have a plethora of things to attend to. I understand that the more time that goes by between updating means less and less heads visiting and linking me but...I have two kids (okay...one kid and one boyfriend but let's not quibble over semantics) and two full time gigs, you impatient hoity-toity fuckers. cause best believe my freelance clients require my full time attention. problem is there is always an order to shit...a queue. someone is always gonna have to wait longer then someone else because I always end up getting at least a few clients who are stupid and have selective memory and wait weeks to get back to me on a draft appraisal and then, when they finally do get in contact with me, expect me to harlem shake my way immediately back into their project. some of my clients seem to forget that they are not my employer, I am my own.
I wish I could do like I used to and just stay up all night, sleep for 3, 4 hours, and get crackin for twenty hours straight over and over but even if I could physically, mentally put myself through the strain of minimal sleep, I couldn't emotionally do it...most days all I wanna do is play with my daughter and watch her get better everday at her hand-eye coordination (a.k.a. "I see it...I'm grabbing it...it's going in my mouth, love serena"). shes close to mastering the art of flipping over too, so the position we lay her in in the crib at night is nowhere close to how she wakes up in the morning. shes always scrunched up into one corner clutching her eeyore in one fist and her dolphin in the other. she must have a ball flipping and bouncing around...I think most of it happens in the morning when she's most active. I love the quality beans has brought to my existance. but its becoming increasingly difficult to run my company on top of my other committments...it's hard to work on a field that is based largly on being creative on command in order to appease one person's personal taste. but some of my clients are great, too. they make it worth dealing with the ones that aren't. so hire me today kids. I'm looking for projects that allow me to shake the shackles of "do-it-just-like-that-other-site" isms.
ten things I loved and hated about my summer vacation.
by young h
I loved...
1. my cousins girlfriends/wives: these are some cool bitches. even the two of them that are snowbunnies. I grew up with a lot of boys. 99% of my cousins in my age gap (let's call it 22 - 32) are dudes...they never wanted to play barbies or dolls, they wanted to play racecars and wrestle. and although I thought these things were pretty cool, too, they never included me...I was a girl. my smell of vanilla and sugar and sweet spices and baby lotion totally fucked with their fun. it wasn't until we were teenagers that they'd finally invite me along to go-carts and ice cream and mini-golf and movies. I distinctly remember going to see "dead presidents"(?) with my brother and 11 of my tallest most handsome cousins....this was probably the same day I learned how hard bitches hate.
in any case, I love my big strapping boy cousins...I love how they are old-fashioned chivalrous in a way that is dead outside of the few niggas left that were raised right. I love how they don't let me pay for anything cause I'm their girl cousin...to over half of them damn near a little sister. and I love their girlfriends and wives. they're finally the female cousins I never had. my cousin damon's fiance nicole especially.
2. watching michael leon on cops: my cousin mike is a rookie police officer who recentally starred in an episode of cops. he took a tazer to this crackhead's ass when dude wouldn't stop running...funniest shit I have ever seen. I mean...have you ever seen anyone get tazered? it's like their muscles spasm and they go into a retard seizure. not that retard seizures are funny on the mentally disabled...but on a crackhead that looks like shaggy from scooby doo? funniest shit I have ever seen.
3. two family reunions: not one but two. one for my father's paternal side, which we very rarely attend as it usually falls the weekend before my father's maternal side - THE ROYAL YOUNGS. two days of fried fish and chicken, baked macaroni and cheese and ziti, string beans, grilled corn on the cob, assorted pies and cakes, barbequed, pickled, gutted and grilled swine (which I did not partake of but for the swine eaters I'm sure they loved that porky goodness) and an alcohol collection fit for a frat house. food aside, I saw family I hadn't seen in ten years or more...shit, I met family I don't think I've ever seen. serena won the youngest family member contest with an illustrious prize of $5...she was the starlet. I don't think I got to see her for longer then five minutes at a time before someone would sweep her away again.
4. the price of 2 blizzards at dairy queen in new castle, PA as compared to new york, NY: "$6? for both?" christopher and I spent the five minute forty three second ride back to my cousin jeff's house waxing poetic about how such a thing could be possible...overjoyed, like we'd found an ipod on ebay for bellybutton lint.
5. seagram's gin & juice green dragon with ginseng: the lime green soporific make the sex terrific
I hated:
6. people that are afraid of babies: only when pressured by me and his girlfriend did my cousin damon hold beans and only then so did he proceed to dangle her squeamishly, looking like eddie carrying that brown bag to victor receptionst in beverly hills cop 2 (the first bhc is one of the funniest movies ever made...if you haven't seen it...you have a miserable life. the sequel is funny if only for the aforementioned scene). damon called her "little person" and generally seemed afraid of the secretions cute babies tend to leak all over girlfriends as in love as nicole that make biological clocks tock and maternal instincts blossom. my cousin mike...the one who tazers crackheads? backed away from her like she had explosives strapped to her chest.
now before I had a baby I wasn't really a baby person. I always thought they were cute and smelled good (actually I thought babies naturally smelled like baby lotion...like I thought johnson & johnson copied the baby smell, not invented it)...but I wasn't into holding them - mostly because babies sense discomfort easily and would start crying almost immediately. either that or they'd stare at me like they could see my sins. but I knew how to hold them...I didn't break out in hives and twitches when presented with the very idea of holding one. damon held my kid like she was a porcupine.
7. the way my fake tan faded: I have pale legs. I don't live in miami beach or LA so where am I gonna tan them...on my fire escape? my legs are so devoid of melanin white people sit next to me on the train and their legs look more ethnic then mine in comparison. so I used tan in a bottle which really should be called skin stain because that's exactly what the shit does...stain. my legs looked bronze gorgeous until my fake tan started fading into a blotchy sort of rash looking thing that I am still scrubbing off little by little to this very day.
8. not being able to spend enough time alone with christopher: we'd hoped staying in three different hotel rooms (pittsburgh, new castle, cleveland) would provide adequate inspiration for some love makin, but every single day was crammed full of activity and responsibility and itinerary. it was constant get up and go and by the time we got back to our room every night we were fuckin sleepy...well at least I was...I confess a couple nights I really had to say no which is so unlike me. really it saddened me. sex is such a huge part of me and christopher's relationship (it be's like that when you fantasize about someone for literally years before you even meet them) that one time before he'd moved to new york I took a pill to suppress my period during his visit so my flow wouldn't disrupt our ya know ya know. that crucial.
9. the way everyone always wants to feed serena even when we know she's not hungry:
"thats a hungry cry!"
"feed that chile!"
"that baby hungry!"
fucking...c'mon. serena isn't a fussy kid...she only cries for three reasons, a. she's hungry, b. she's tired and she wants to lay down flat - and shes mad particular about this...see the ikea incident, c. nobody is paying attention to her. she only has a bottle every five, six hours so we know when she's hungry not only by her distinctive shoving of fist in mouth (although now that she's teething she damn near does this all time if there's nothing else to shove in her mouth) but simply by what time it was she last partook of her soy formula goodness. but my family and his presumed every whine was a hungry one and had us making bottles just to pacify muthafuckas. then when she calmed down after me or christopher gave her what she really wanted we'd put the shit in the fridge for when she was really hungry. basically I don't dig parents who shove a bottle into their seeds mouth everytime s/he isn't happy...fat children exist for this very reason.
10. when it was over and I had to return to my only halfway cleaned apartment, my only halfway enjoyable employment, and my sans-car, sans-family existance in the bronx, ny. *debbie downer blip*
all caught up with that then. too lazy to segue. pretend I've done so. aaaand action:
my mom saved me from having a nervous breakdown today. I had a plethora of cleaning to do, a plethora of work...I had a concentrated headache right above my right eye...and was functioning on an inefficient night's sleep. I hate having heads at my house when it's dirty. I find it the epitome of trifling...especially when it's my mother. she's OCD about cleanliness and everytime she visits she starts cleaning something. it seems like she times her visits with the dirtiness of my floors and the behind-ness of my laundry. but today I didn't mind because I actually just let her do her thing...I had already started mopping my living room with the full intention of following suit in the kitchen but somewhere after mopping the living room and before mopping the kitchen I sat down on my bed, got overwhelmed and started crying and saying "fuck" alot. instead of punching me through the wall for my disgusting language my sweet mama turned on her heel and finished cleaning for me. ya know what? ya know what? I am not ashamed. I'm a grown woman and my mama came over and cleaned. then she cooked, nigga! I am typing to the fragrance of chicken wings and baked potatoes. I got a glass of white zinfandel on my desk. and...my boyfriend just walked in the door from work with the mail and I received 2 "the best of lauryn hill" mixtapes that I ordered a couple of days ago (up next: "the best of nas") to add to my other new shit - kanye's "late registration" and ladybug mecca's "trip the light fantastic". I am so happy right now compared to how I felt twelve hours ago I could shit glitter.
I'd never allow my mother to spend half her visit doing shit me and christopher should have done if she didn't come up here every three weeks and fly for free via her husband's son's employment with _____ airlines (that blank wasn't cause I was trying to be discreet...I just can't remember the airline). I'll never let her walk into a less then blinging apartment again, seriously...especially considering I don't know how much longer I'll only be an hour flight away. tonight she's even gonna take it back old school and do my hair. I'd dig it if she and her husband could come for the entire weekend, too...so we could take them into manhattan, maybe catch a broadway show or eat some pizza slices in soho...start to once again take advantage of this city while we actually still live in this bitch.
I actually consider myself a new yorker to the heart. I wasn't born here (denver colorado in this bitch! broncos, bitch!) but I "grew up" here. so leaving next year will be difficult for me. I've begun to do a bit of research on other cities - comparing prices, researching schools, reading articles...just getting a very general idea of what other places have to offer in terms of the quality of life we're seeking. a few mornings ago I came across a weblog article called "hip to be square" by philadelphia inquirer reporter daniel rubin. apparently the new york times published in article wherein the reporter claimed philly as the unofficial sixth borough of nyc and philadelphians are insulted. whatever. I was prepared to not give a shit as I don't really care about philly and have never once heard any new yorker try to claim it although I have heard that some new jersey kats try to claim philly; however, the letter contained therein irritated me. written by a "c. thompson", it not only subtely makes what I consider a wtc quip ("Yeah, times change, and New York became the bigger target. I mean city. Sorry. City.") it also berates new yorkers as a whole. now last time I checked, one writer at the new york times does not an entire city's population make. let jessica pressler have her opinion regarding philly as borough #6 - I can assure you there are about as many new yorkers making that statement as there are philadelphians. how can this c. thompson kat get angry about the generalizations philly receives ("...booing; MOVE bombing; cheesesteaks, Rocky. That's all the effort the Times cares to make anymore when it deigns to report on Philadelphia.") when he generalizes new yorkers as "under productive, overgrown children driving up real estate values and clogging restaurants, museums and streets while contributing little"? and don't get me started on the idiotic comments including "Great another reason to see Philly going downhill....New Yorkers". hypocrite fucks. if c. thompson is any indication, philadelphians are just as arrogant as new yorkers. and the comment about learning manners from philly? please. when I worked as a bartendar in philadelphia I encountered some of the rudest individuals I have ever met - non-tipping, counterfeit five dollar bill holding fools. and with that being said...fuck a philly anyways. I like a lot of philly heads, some of my closest friends are philly born and bred, but philly itself? I'd say it's overrated, but it'd have to be rated to be overrated.
that was some of my new yorker arrogance and hatefulness coming through. I'm just fucking with you, philadelphia, you know I love you. it surprises me sometimes how defensive I get of this vermin-infested shithole of a city. I hate a lot about it but this is just my spot...no other city could've crafted the hustler mentality I have now. everyone who's lived in new york at least 5 years out of their adult life has at least a bit of it. thats why when we go to other cities we really do feel like we can run that shit...even if its pipe-dreaming, confidence builds steel mountains of opportunity. there's a reason new york looks great on a resume. plus, I kinda dig that nearly everywhere else looks comparatively cheap...its like a sprinter training with a parachute on to feel light as a feather at the big race.
atlanta looks to be winning in the household right now, but its the only city on the track at the moment, too. patiently, yet competitively, waiting for a contender.