Veggie

So I'm doing well on this vegetarian thing...For carrots and peas I'm cooking! and to the joy of everyone in the house I'm washing dishes as well. I was never much of a meat eater anyway...giving up pork and beef about 8 or 9 years ago. But recently I have done away with poultry and seafood, hoping to be off dairy by the end on march.

My favorite eats so far have been

black bean soup* Black Bean, Sweet Corn and Guacamole Salad* Pizza with faux-ronni, with red onions, green peppers and a whole wheat crust with home made sauce. Eggplant prepared any way. Oh and a cold pasta salad with grilled zucchini, squash tomatoes and green peppers, with some dressing .

My long time love of Chocolate soy-milk has even been shared with my very bull headed friend who is a hard sell on much anything. I've gotten off milk which was my life blood for many years but cheese and yogurt are difficult things to give up..I hope the dairy free alternatives live up to the hype.

As for now the path has been filled with nothing but pleasantries and I have learned a lot about myself and developed a more positive relationship with food. Gone are my days of 25 cent snack cakes to fill my hunger...wait G'D it those things are 35 cents now but who cares. Vegetarianism has allowed me to realize that we are what we eat...over processed and artificial or fresh and revitalizing I choose the later

Random

This past weekend was both turmoiled and intriguing. After a long battle with my inner desire to do well in school vs. my desperate need for pain killers ( horrible tooth ache) and skipping class to find a corner store and 50 cent package of aspirin and the soft couch of the Club ( work). I gained the strength to drag my self off the train and to class.

My train ride to work was smooth and I gleefully can say very interrupted. After a stranger tapped me and ask me a question about subway lines, I replied instead of shrugging off the usual new yorker interaction. We shortly after began very polite conversation ( although the pain dulled my usual charm) I mus tared a half relaxed and inviting sentiment. From what I remember his name was Shareef, I was most taken by his resemblance to a late cousin. Now my cousin who in my minds eye is eternally 18 years old was a handsome young man with sharp features and beautiful brown skin...what I remember most was his smile and the way that same light that came through in the glint of his slanted eyes...I'm healing from past to present if that makes sense..making peace with my past. I'm not sure who the stranger is or where he was going but...I guess guess the subway is funny like that

Home Sweet Home

As odd it may seem to some I am very borough centric, I love the Bronx! Although I am a very uptown type of girl ( I discovered this after I journeyed to 161st to a bar...needless to say I stuck out like a soar thumb). The borough is where my heart is and although in road rage induced rants I run down the list of vulgar slurs I love the people as well. I say all this to say that we all must become painfully aware of what is and has gone on around us. Do we want to suffer the same fate as Harlem Lovers...losing the Rich culture and historic value to the gentrification of our home town.

Life uptown is a hybrid between the hustle of the city and the greenery of a more suburban life. Unlike many other boroughs racial borders are easily blurred as multiple backgrounds occupy the same buildings, blocks and schools. The type of gentrification that I would call the power of multiples or pigeon holing has bought a host of 24 hour laundromats, beauty supply stores and fast-food restaurants to our neighborhoods. With the occasional car dealer ship or auto shop. I once had an associate who after returning home from college was gleeful about the change..commenting how nice and new everything was looking. This saddened me because it was this sentiment that will continue to bankrupt our "town" into nothing more than a rotating landscape of fast food restaurant, laundrymat, beauty supply and did I mention Check chasers.

Beware of the pale man bearing a solution to the problem that they them selves created--( Yes I my self am pale and this makes refrence solely to a system of discourse rather than a race of people)

Hot Ghetto Mess...

Hi there ho the… *sigh* BIG *SIGH*…When is that we can stop and think about the many choices we have made and why we have made them. Why did I ever date that damn fool, was Ithat bored did I like him or was I just desperate. When did I become a dirty hippie of the urban variety? Well who cares!! As I rode that luxurious iron horse to my destination, I faked interest in the play-list coming through my outdated ipod. I looked at this young woman in front of me no older then 19 years old and almost dropped a tear. I was looking at her nails; they were good quality probably a glass tip with a mediocre design. When did I become so grown that I out grew my only passion for style and aesthetic? I had long out grown the other around the way vibe that the girl was rocking, the long straight relaxed hair and layered chains and multiple rings. Was it the new grown and sexy movement ushering us all from round plump hips to straight boy thighs, from gaudy name plates to knock off juicy couture…oh dear good when will this movement end. Well it ends with me!!

Unlike many other adolescent things I was brain washed and bullied into liking, nails were my thing. Give me a glass tip with some opti-lite gel and some butterflies and I would be set, throw in some underlay of silver stars and it's a wrap. It all began with a little pink corduroy purse filled with nail polish from Claire's. No I take that back it began with my older cousin painting my nails as she watched me ( I cant call it babysitting because chances are no one was being paid and I was most often left to my own devices). From there began the love affair with nails and hands and the general aesthetic of it all, the proportion of fingers and nails, how cuticles look, and if you bite your nails forget about it. I could sit and paint and file, grease my cuticles and lotion my hands.

I miss my nails the ritual of getting them done the smell of a fresh set and the sound of nails clicking together in glee…I'm tired of looking at my fat little fingers all bald and shit naked to the

world, a dark inky purple colored nail polish. Just crying out to the world for attention, I miss my nail girl/guy…and the man with the crisp DVDs, the idle gossip of the shop, the slight buzz you get of the acetone…..

Coffee Wars

Just tap it straight into my veins! Coffee the life blood of just about every new yorker forced to

commute and deal with other highly caffeinated people. I myself began my love of coffee and

coffee drinks after learning to work a very fancy cappuccino at 16 years old...the sweet brew

allowed me to work through my junior and senior years of high school with very little sleep and

working very long shifts and still making it in time for home room.

Now as many Bronx residents know good coffee is not hard to come by, rather the overly priced

yuppie brand seems absent from the borough. The major retail StarBUCKS has a sprinkling of

stores in the Bronx a majority of which are inside other retail chains ( one of which being in the

Bronx's sole Barnes & Noble's) and the other in target ...Then there is the w225th street location

which the residents of the area don't consider to be in the Bronx, they have annexed them selves

and taken on the areas name to be just another trendy neighborhood in Manhattan ( Sorry but

look at a map Riverdale is no No-Ha)

But I digress...Today the coffee war have kicked it up a notched and StarBUCKS is closing there

doors for a few hot spot free, caffeine vein tapping hours to retrain there Batista's. Dunkin

Donuts has taken this opportunity to push their cheaper latte for 99 cents fro several hours,

even over lapping the hours that StarBUCKS will be closed ( I assumed to benefit from the over

spill of customers fighting to get back into their caffeine induced frenzy). Seeing as how I doubt

my travels will take me south of "upper Manhattan" also known as riverdale and the and the

FUCKING Bronx, I will not be able TO enjoy my fave soy latte...why doesn't DD's invest in some

some soy milk seeing as how lactose intolerance is more prevalent among people of color, and

like StarBUCKS in trendier neighborhoods DD's is dotted through out uptown neighborhoods. So

I guess I will have to settle for the Bodega Bottles of liquid crack that StarBUCKS trucks uptown.

Hope 2% milk won't kill me...ttyl

Another lazy day...Which I am very thankful for after a hellish weekend. I accomplished a lot today or rather in the wee hours of the morning, I decided to return to my regular hair routine as the weather has warmed and hat season has come to a close...I've returned to my oddly shaped but love able 'fro. After making a stop to a very cool Dominican salon(which restored my love of the highly popular scene) I returned with my tried and true goodies in a cool Lil canvas bag *so green* and proceeded to try to revive my winter dried and flat iron fried 'fro....Till another day

I've been raised already but thank you...

Ugghhh!!! or should i say AHHHHH!!! I awoke this

morning with a God awful crick in my neck

and missed out on what seemed to be a lovely day( from

what i could see from the couch).My

natural hair journey has been a long and very painful one,

with man interesting follies in the mist

of it all.There was the time i cut off every straight end i

had in sight thinking that those devilish

ends were the remnant of a long gone perm...it wasn't my

hair texture is just really funky. OR

the box braids and cornrows that the African hairbraiders hated me for because of my dense

hair and large lolly-pop like head.Or even the weave yes a weave...done my back,it was only for

a trip but i would prefer to not remember it. Hair oh hair the burden of black women and yellow

women alike( yes mo i am mello yello)

am i so vain as to base my existence on the swirls, kinks, beady beady bucks and oddly

matched straight strands that jut precariously from my scalp...? Is this the reason why black

men seem to run in opposite direction of my soft untamed fro,who knows...or better yet who

cares!! Hurt full things I've heard and observed

"What happened...you know to your hair I have never seen u look so bad!"...*someones

mom..sigh

"Your not the type of girl who should be natural, your not ugly so why do that to your self"...*a

really dumb motherfucker i use to talk to

After getting my hair pressed...

"You look so much better like this...maybe you should always keep up with/do your hair"...* i

wash my hair more than you bitch.

"Oh yes this is much better that wet curly mess u had going on"...my hair isn't wet its called

luster and no its not gel or a jeri curl

Observations...the not so obvious glances

Instead of looking at your face or your eyes they glance up at your head

At work customers... stare up at your head in disgust,half expected a "militant" angry black

women throwing food down for whitey. Then they hear my pleasant welcome and they almost

melt with approval.

Life is a strange and often uncomfortable, I would like to say that I'm brewing with self

confidence but unfortunately I'm not quite there yet. Yes I do care what people say and the

perception that others have of me. Sometimes I wonder if the glances and remarks that we

absorb into our subconscious aren't the very thoughts we have about ourselves and that these

demons I'm fighting are the battle between self-love and self-loath. For now I'm on the wagon

( metaphorically speaking) and working day by day not to give in to the stinging smell of that

creamy crack. This is getting length so I wont go further but leave you with the thought... Is it

wrong to still love my Just For Me cassette tape...I mean it was a catchy ass song

Taking a Mental Health Day

I was hoping to began my blogging days with much grandeur, my intentions were to stock pile some material and photo-journal my life for a week. Then open the flood gates so that I would have time to formulate postings before hand maybe even some research on my often unfounded but comical musings. I had so much planned for the day. this being one week of complete down time since my work load was light and school was closed for the holiday, I accomplished little beyond some much needed tidying up. The weather in new york has been ab horrible crisp and fall like one day and blistery the next. Not to mention the constant predictions of snow storms...the past two we have had, crippled the city. So I took this as a sign to enjoy the last days of solitude and chalk it up to a mental health day...and a sick day my tooth is killing me(need to get that taken care of asap). But for the time being I will re-post some rehashed blog entries from my myspace page... TTYL