I know you are tired and want to retire,

BUT,

how could you forbid me from seeing Oprah?

Why are you denying me access to Suze?

You know that I only have 2 more days to download her book and you are over here playing games!




That's ok. Its cool. You may have won the battle for now, but you just wait and see. Your days are numbered Toshiba. Oh yeah. Your days are numbered!

As I shook my shimmy this morning I shook it right into a heated discussion on The View between the ladies and Ann Coulter, about the contents of her new book, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America. The ladies of The View were particularly perplexed with Ann's views of multiracial people with African decent identifying with "their black side" more than any of their other heritage and the chapter that she has on single mothers, in which I am assuming from the discussion, that Ann feels are painted as victims by America and who are allowed to paint themselves as victims, when it is the single mother who is the one victimizing America with her band of illegitimate children, who just grow up to be criminals. Yeah. That was the flow of things in the studio and all mouths were going at the same time about one side or the other of this issue. Very interesting. To the point that I thought Ann might leave with a hand print on her face as she got real testy with Barbara. Take a look.



Single mothers as a troupe of immoral women sharing a state of false victimhood in America?

Interesting. Why do people continuously view lifestyles, and the world for that matter, as being totally universal? One America. One correct form of masculinity or femininity. One proper way to have or express sex and sexuality. One type of black (poverty stricken and a burden to society). One acceptable picture of motherhood. What works for one must indeed work for all. No variation allowed. Scales unheard of. Who said that all single motherhood is based on some form of victimization? And furthermore, since when is being a "victim" an immoral act in the first place? And exactly what kind of "victim" are we really talking about here? What makes a single mother a true victim? The sheer fact that she is single? So then should no single woman ever fathum the idea of bringing a child into the world if she has no plans of sharing her home with a man?

Single mothers producing criminals?

If we're going to look at who fills the jails then we must also look at race and certain laws that effect some races of people over others. I'm pretty sure that those living in NY would have no problem weighing in about the effects of the Rockefeller drug law on certain communities. To place a label, such as "criminal", on a child of a single parent is what will damage that child in the long run. Children are born into the world as clean slates and then we "write" them as they grow up in the world. Now, the messages written come from everyone and all things that come into contact with our children. If a child is bombarded with the message that, because they are from a single parent home, they will ultimately amount to nothing, it is then that the child and the parent have to work double time to redirect that message so that the child does thrive. Why is this pressure placed on the child and the parent just because they do not subscribe to the nuclear ideology of this society, which is not universal either?

Single mothers as being selfish for bring children into the world outside of the nuclear family?

What? Are you frickin' serious? To become a parent in any case (and giving birth to a child does not solely make one a parent) is the most selfless act that one could ever perform! Why the hell do people who don't even have children always feel the need to speak for those who do? Again, motherhood, fatherhood, parenthood IS NOT UNIVERSAL, and as we all should know, no matter how many books are written on the subject, kids don't come with instructions. Therefore, you can only be taught the basics, a rubric, of what parenthood is and will bring into your life and the lives of your children along the way. Its a "learn as you go" process. Even when you have a system that you think works for you and your family you find that as times change, and children grow, you will have to switch things up from time to time to "write" your children in ways that will lead them to be the very best that they can be AND to be able to clean up the bullshit when necessary.

Also, as wonderful as having a two parent home is, even this isn't universal. There are two parent homes of the same sex, two parent homes that might consist of mom, grandma and the kids. The possibilities are endless. My view is that biology does not make a parent a parent, it is love, support and guidance that make a parent a parent. These skills can be performed by anyone who has a child's best interest in mind... again, being one of the most selfless acts to ever be performed. I personally know women, and you may as well, who wanted to have children, but also wanted to wait for "the right man". Once they finally found the right man their biological clocks had stopped ticking. Women who are ready to be mothers, who have all of their ducks in a row, should consider thinking outside of the box.

What are your thoughts?

(note: I am considering getting a copy of Ann's book, FROM THE LIBRARY, to try to gain a deeper understanding of the bullshit her views)

As ambitious as I was about starting this year out on the good foot I have still managed to find myself here battling the taupes. Aside from my many other pressing problems, my PC is going down hill fast. Its slower, having to load and blow that loud ass fan more frequently, making me have to rethink and remember my thoughts as I wait... grrrr. I'm close to putting it out of its misery, just a couple more weeks for financial aid to roll around and it will be all good in the hood. I was prepared to sit here and rant and rave about it, until I fired up my bTunes. Keyshia made everything all better. I jumped up and my inner Tina took over. Shaking my shimmy, and everything else that shimmies, up and down the hallway. You shoulda seen me. I WAS Ms. Bar B Fierce! All I was missing was this dress.


In black of course. Truth is, I really do wanna be made over. I want the taupes to leave me alone, I wanna laugh in the face of the pass and say, "I made it." I want the healing process to begin already. Healing takes an amount of skill. It has to be organized and it doesn't happen over night. Its not just a simple process of forgive and forget, some real work has to be put in to get to a point in life where you really are able to move on. To live and let live. I'm ready to do the work and dancing is a great prelude.

Thank God its Friday!

This has been a heavy week. Time to unwind.

Let's get to it...


1. It's January; time for a transformation.

2. As always, ice cream is what I crave most right now.

3. Cork and wine go together like hard hats and heads.

4. Good conversation is so nourishing.

5. Let us dare to make peace.

6. Love radiates from my home.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going to bed early so that I can hit the grocery store in the morning, tomorrow my plans include stocking the fridge and Sunday, I want to eat til' my heart is content!

To participate in Friday Fill-ins click --->here<---

Ever since Miss J was an infant I've felt like I've made a terrible mistake... in naming her. You see, I knew in my heart what she should be called when she was still in my womb. It was a no brainer. It was always my plan, that if I ever happened to have a daughter she would be named after my mother. My mother named me after her mother, and my grandmother was named after her grandmother, so why not keep it going by giving my daughter the name of the woman that I loved and lost. A way for her to exist outside my faded memories.

I shared the name with Miss J's dad and he wasn't impressed at all.

"Emma?", he said. "Naaaahhh, naaaahhh, that's.... country."

Why I didn't put up a fight I still don't know, to keep the peace possibly. I agreed to look at baby names with him online and wasn't happy with any of his choices and he wasn't happy with any of mine. Turns out, I wasn't the only one with a game plan for naming children, he had a system already in place. Before Miss J, he was already a father of two girls named Jelayne and Jamayah so his search for his third began and ended in the "Ja" prefix. He played around with first and middle names, compared meanings. Finally, it all came down to his "Jalia" and my "Jalen". Out done again, Jalia she became. He even picked her middle name, "Damali", which I didn't like, but agreed to because I fell in love with its meaning. Rooted in Arabic, it means beautiful vision, and that she most certainly was.

Although I accepted the name, I was never completely sold. Deep down I still wanted my Emma. I went as far as to go down to the court building and pick up the forms to do a legal name change. It wasn't successful due to the fact that I had no real idea of how to complete the thick ass packet and had a hard time finding someone to help. I figured it was all gonna be more trouble than it was worth and just chalked up the lost and stored the name away to await my next future arrival.

Fast forward to last week...

Jelayne has come down to visit.

Like clockwork, everyone keeps referring to her as Jalia. They both spend a lot of time reminding people of who they are. Their dad even does it! Reminds me of my great-grandmother, who always had to go down the whole list to get to the kid she was actually talking to. Romina...Sha... I mean, Ebo... Jean... ahh shit, you know who I'm talkin' to.

Miss J: I'm NOT Jelayne, I'm JALIA!

Me: Maybe you should change your name.

Miss J: Yeah, I know... Gosh. I know, what about Mia?

Me: Um... no, if you wanna change your name then it has to be Emma.

Miss J: Ah man.

Me: Emma or nothing at all.

Miss J: Ok, then I choose Emma.

The kiddies headed back to school on Monday and when I picked Miss J up from her after school program there were a sea of voices calling out behind us, "bye Ella". Once outside I asked, "why were they calling you Ella?" To which she replied, "because that's my new name." "No, not Ella, its Emma", I reminded her. "Oh, I thought it was Ella." Yesterday I looked through her backpack at the drawings that she did while at the after school program and found this one with "Ella" written at the top of the page. It appears that Miss Ella is running through the grass chasing a yellow rabbit.


So now she wants me to inform her teachers that she is no longer Jalia, but Emma. She has already informed all of her friends, and their mothers, as one asked me on the walk to school this morning if we had legally changed Jalia's name because she said her name was now Emma. Boy, she sure is taking this whole name change thing seriously.

Divine intervention?

Senseless violence. Senseless police violence. Senseless police violence toward a black man.

Another senseless murder of a black man at the hands of a police officer.

I have been trying to come to terms with this ever since the news hit. I did not personally know the man who was killed, but I do know him... we all do, at least those of us who are aware of the historical murdering and police brutality of black men in this country. On the heels of the murder of Sean Bell, who was unarmed at the time he was shot 41 times in New York by police, Oscar Grant of Hayward, CA has joined the list of victims. Like Sean, Oscar leaves behind the woman that he had hoped to marry and their 4 year old daughter. Everyone is trying to figure out why and how this could happen. Again!

If the crime itself is not horrible enough, the sequence of events leading up to Oscar's death have been in heavy rotation across the tv screen. Yes, this time the whole thing was caught on video. Several videos from several angles shot by hand held cameras and cell phones. Showing a handcuffed Oscar being held to the ground by a couple of officers, one of which held his knee on Oscar's head, and a short time later the other drawing his weapon like he was at a showdown in the old West firing a shot into Oscar's back. Although the evidence is there. Murder in plain sight. Officials did not question, arrest or anything else, the officer who fired the fatal shot. They instead are asking the public not to "create stories to go along with what they have seen on tape", while allowing the officer to seek refuge under his lawyer. He hasn't been asked what happened. Why he drew his weapon when there was no threat to his life at the time. Why he fired that weapon into the back of an unarmed, handcuffed man. But, while Oscar Grant is currently laying in a casket, in a church being mourned, the officer involved is under police protection because he is now receiving death threats. I will not say that he should be fearing for his life after what he's done, but I will say that the anger of those who are doing the threatening is COMPLETELY understandable. Someone has been murdered, the murder has been caught on tape, the murderer's identity is known, but he is not treated as a murderer because he carries a badge.

And people wonder why the black youth walk around with a chip on their shoulders. When will people realize that although it appears that we have made some progress, it is clearly not enough. They say we have come so far, but we still have so far to go. Well, I feel that we really haven't had that much progression because this country is still structured in a way that makes it impossible for certain people to thrive. Hell, there are systems in place that make it hard for certain people to live! You may no longer be able to hang a black man, but you sure can make the threat (Jena) and you sure as hell can shoot to kill if you are a man of the law. What message does this send to our adolescent black boys? Barack has made it so there is no longer a reason that you can't shake off the impossible and do and become whatever and whoever you want in America. As long as you don't have your black ass in the "right" neighborhood at the wrong time because the locals will call the cops on you for looking suspicious. As long as you don't move a muscle if you ever get stopped by the police because they will beat your ass and say you were resisting arrest. As long as you don't enjoy any after hours fun and catch the public metro system back home... because you might not make it back home.

I am going to provide you a few videos that you can check out to get a little more on the story or to just enlighten yourself on the many struggles that the black community is still fighting to overcome. You might not wanna have the little ones looking over your shoulder because I believe this first video does show the actual shooting of Oscar Grant. I also encourage you to check out the short documentary that Eb has over at Black Renaissance Woman. It features the reactions and fears of black adolescent boys to the murder of Sean Bell. It kind of puts this whole thing in perspective when thinking about how these kinds of events affect young boys who run the risk of meeting the same fate just because they are black.



This video gives a pure and multi-perspective response to the shooting of Oscar Grant.



If you have room to stomach one more video you can click --->here<--- to see a recent broadcast of the latest in the case. This brief broadcast identifies the officer and talks about how he has been affected by what he has done. Oh woe the hell is he!

I was very happy to find this in my mailbox. That's Little Monkey, wearing that super cool hat of his, snoozing and snuggling the blanket that I made. He is so precious. His happiness makes me smile.

To participate in Friday Fill-Ins click here.

Thoughts and prayers go out to Janet, who's father passed away.

1. The world is much smaller than we think.

2. "I love you" was the last thing I said.

3. I wonder if I will ever be able to truly let the past be the past.

4. There is a lesson to be learned at the end of all things.

5. There's something to be said for people who self sacrifice.

6. Tucked away under the covers, on an island is where I want to be.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to finishing up the third book in the Trisha R. Thomas, Nappily series (I'll tell you more about these books after I've finished it), tomorrow my plans include paying some bills and Sunday, I want to get Miss J ready to go back to school!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

I've been missing in action, I know. I haven't forgotten about you. I still love you and will be by to visit very soon. In fact, I peaked in on a few of you, but thanks to the horrible internet service on my SideKick I couldn't say hello. I'm back now and happy to be starting anew. ITS 2009!!! WHOOOHOOOO!!! This is going to be my year. My time to shine. My time to move forward, transition into a new life and continue shaking off impossibility. I'm ready.

Just like everyone else, I too, will be doing my share of goal setting for the new year. No resolutions for me because they rarely ever get revisited once they have been thought up and jotted down somewhere. "Goal" setting is a better mindset because it keeps me accountable for actually striving to achieve them. My list is still a work in progress, but ya'll know that walking that stage is definitely at the top of the list in the academic area. And the academic area is but one area where goals will be set. More on that later. For now, I wanna do something that Maria, over at Immoral Matriarch did, as a way of reflecting on her life throughout 2008. She chose to share 1 of her own blogs, from each month of the year, that she considered to be her favorite. Since I didn't start A Place of Comfort until July 2008 I will only be choosing 6 blogs instead of 12.

July - Where I Am From

August - So Addicted

September - UC Berkeley Under Siege

October - Pay Yo Fare, Fix Yo Hair

November - Rememberance

December - In Response to Your Comments, Love and Support

I can't tell you enough how happy I am to be here and to have met all of you AND to still be meeting great people. To share my life and to be invited into yours is both a privilege and a blessing. I am looking forward to making 2009 all that it can be and bringing you along for the ride.