February 24, 2006: My Latest Guilty Pleasure

Hello all.

In the second week of avoiding what Bryant Gumbel called the sporting event that reminds him of the GOP -- aka, the Winter Olympics -- I've been engaging in some creative TV watching. I tell myself that I'm just passing the time until Law and Order returns, and then I can shift my Brothah Lust back to Jesse L. Martin. I delude myself, because I cannot believe I've let another brothah into my life to take hold so tenaciously. And that brothah would be -- drum roll please! -- FLAVOR FLAV!

I've gotten sucked into that ridiculous guilty pleasure that is Flavor of Love on VH-1. Every Sunday, I stare at the television in awe at the lengths some women would go to to get on television. In case you have the words "Cave, Sweet Cave" emblazoned on the wall in your home, here's the premise: Flavor Flav has this mansion somewhere in Cali (typical!). Twenty women move in and vie for Flav's affections. He gives them monikers like "Hottie," and "Pumkin" [sic], "Hoopz," "Goldie," "Red Oyster," etc. I guess using these names is supposed to lessen the humiliation; conversely, would Flav be as outrageous if we refered to him as "William Drayton?" Women are voted off in succession, based on little "tesses" Flav gives them, until the finale. Like Highlander, there can be only one.

These women are insane! One especially, Miss New York, needs a therapist on speed-dial. And after the show last Sunday, I was like, "Oh no, she didn't!" Pumkin, as she was being eliminated, got in a rip-roaring fight with Miss New York, and then proceeded to spit in Ol' Gurl's face. Poor Hoopz looked on, like she was viewing a car crash from the back seat of her own car. Can you imagine? All this mess over Flavor Flav!!!!! I was hoping that one of those clocks he was wearing would ring an alarm to tell him that yes, in fact, his fifteen minutes of fame were really up.

All in all, I'm thinking, what people won't do to get on TV. But while I'm feeling superior, in the background of my mind, if there was a reality show where writers would have to create the best book or get voted off, don't you know I'll be there, front and center. I'd like to think I'd draw the line at showing my boobs, spitting in some other writer's face, or fighting over some gold-grill-havin' has-been rapper, but who's to know what you'll do in any given situation? Go ahead. Judge me. Let her or she who is without sin -- and burning desire to be on the NY Times Best Seller List -- cast the first chapter...

February 15, 2006: I SURVIVED VALENTINE'S DAY '06!

Hey, folks. The title of this post will be on the next T-shirt you see me wearing. I've gone from just giving a snide "Yeah, right," under my breath at the sight of a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates, to now actively handicapping how long these romances will last, the romances where the sistah is proudly clutching her long-stemmed roses, and the brothah is wistfully clutching his empty wallet (Caucasians reading this, substitute "sistah" for "girl," and "brothah" for "dude"). One day, and he's the newest member of Kanye West's fictional fraternity Broke Phi Broke.

I ask myself why I'm so anti-Valentine's Day. Is it a) because I'm not actively seeing anyone? Is it b) because I think the whole thing's contrived to separate folks from their money? Is it a) and b)? I've stopped even asking. People were wishing me "Happy Valentine's Day," and when I told them thanks but I don't partake, they gave a laugh and looked at me like I had a horn growing out of my forehead. Jeez, you'd think I'd shot my lawyer-friend while hunting on Saturday and didn't tell the press and the rest of the American public until Sunday evening!

I don't know why I'm such a cynic about the whole thing. And who am I to question why? Maybe it is because I'm not wrapped up in the bondage of love. And given the state of the pickins out there, I think being cynical is a normal reaction to February 14. Even Diogenes, if you remember, famously searched the streets of Athens with a torch, looking for an honest man, and he never found one! No wonder why he's the Father of the Cynics. Try living in D.C., Diogenes!

So, yes, I survived... for another year. And I wear that like my own private badge of honor.

February 11, 2006: IT'S SNOWING AGAIN IN DC!

We're in the throes of another Nor'easter here in the Dark Counrty, folks. I always seem to be blogging when there's snow on the ground. Coincidence? Child, I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm bound to the house and therefore am forced to be still and contemplative.

And I hate to sit still. When I was a kid, I was That Kid... you know the child who had ants in her pants, who was busy all the time..."frisky," I believe was the word my aunt used before she told my mother that I was, under no circumstances, allowed to return to her home.

As I got older, the physical friskiness was replaced by the mind that ran at warp speed while the body struggled to catch up. Think of that woman, Ann, in those Strattera commercials for adult ADD, where she's in this meeting and her mind is like a TV with the channels being changed like my last boyfriend with the remote control. But when it snows, there's no external stimulation to focus -- or not focus -- on, and I'm forced to sit and think about one thing.

Like this encounter I had last night. I don't know if I should call it a date. I don't think it was. Like how Oprah just realized, 20 years later, that she and Roger Ebert had actually gone a date (INSERT HUH?! HERE). I know what you're thinking...

For someone who writes romantic fiction, she's sure out of touch.

And I'll cop to that, because it's possible. Zane could write about all that sex, even though she was in a miserable marriage that just led to divorce, right?

I met the object of the encounter through a friend of mine. He's my friend's cousin. We'd done the phone and the electronic parrying and jousting, a la Devin and Chaney in What You Won't Do For Love and decided to "officially" hang out. He's very sweet, attractive, and intellectually stimulating. And with me, the way to my heart is through my brain. But when it come to men, I'm just weird. Like every woman my age, I've been hurt by men, at times badly. So, like anyone hitting her head against the wall, there comes a time when you stop. So I stopped dating and evolved past men... kind of like how humans may have evolved past having a tail. But you still have that coccyx... something that's there as a reminder. Metaphorically speaking, I've suddenly again become aware of my coccyx. And just like how snow disrupts and snarled up everything, becoming aware of your coccyx can disrupt your comfortable status quo... force you to think... reflect... want -- perhaps? -- for something previously you'd dismissed as a possibility...

It's snowing again in DC, people. Damn...