Celebratin' YK 2K10

Hey gang!!

So, I’ve been doing this new thing where I get to the plantation an hour early (and promptly fuck around online), just so I can get a moment’s peace (as my grandmother would say) before the massa and annoying coworkers get here, all up in my George Foreman, demanding my time. The last three weeks have been beyond cray cray, with one of the main editors out because his wife just had twins, our art director transferred to Colorado, and New Massa generally being unpredictable, dramatic, and demanding. I think the highlight was when I got to my desk after Labor Day weekend and saw a postcard on my desk. The picture on the card was of 6 drag queens in a forest on Fire Island. On the back my boss had written:
"Found this card in the local grocery store on the island. Can you guess which one is yours truly?"
Yes, yes I can. The one in light-pink taffeta.
Of course, I love a gay visionary, and if he wasn’t so bitchy and untrustworthy, I’d be in love.

Although the plantation is beating down on me like the hot Mississippi sun, I am pleased to report that things with Jewboo are beyond tender. This past Saturday was our 6 month-aversary, and he took it to the next level by giving me the key to his APARTMENT!!! Um, this is out of control. I have a key to the crib. Granted, a blacktress isn’t liable to be jetting back-and-forth to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, but this means that I can officially be his Urkel, rocking up unexpectedly whenever I want to. This is so perfect for my stalker tendencies.

We look so much alike, y'all. Trust me. It's uncanny.

In addition to giving me the key (a move that is straight out of an episode of Grey’s Anatomy), he’s also making me a mix CD, and rumor has it (from his roommate) that it’s TWO DISCS. Um, I think we all know how I feel about making a mix tape for a lover. It’s so real. And since he’s basically a real-life version of the main character in Nick Hornby’s book “High Fidelity,” I know this is equally important to him.

So, some of you may be thinking, “Um, Sojourner, this is a key and some music—you need to be cool.” To those of you, I say: stop hating on me like Willow Smith; if you’ve been a long-time reader, you know I’ve been through some man hell and we need to praise black Jesus for the little things! And if music and keys don’t move you, how’s about this:

This Friday, at 5:30pm, I board a bus bound for Reading, Pennsylvania, where I will spend the weekend celebrating YOM KIPPUR!!!!

Blacktress is about to Jew it up, y’all!!! For those of you who don’t know, let me copy and paste from good ol’ Wikipedia:
Yom Kippur, also known as the Day of Atonement, is one of the holiest days of the year for Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue services.

Yes, y’all. A lot of my friends are saying this is serious, since Yom Kippur is such a holy day. I must say I’m a bit nervous. According to the Internet, not only can I not eat or drink (not even water!) for 24 hours, I can’t even apply lotions!
Jewboo is about to have a blacktress hungry and ashy up in the suburbs!
I have no idea how I’m supposed to make a good impression under such circumstances. When I don’t eat, I get grumpy as hell, y’all. When I’m dry, I feel unpretty, like TLC. Add to that the fact that I gotta sit up in synagogue for the afternoon and I gotta wonder—are these really the chosen people???

Look at this oil painting from 1878. These peeps look hungry and tired as all get-out. Everyone's leaning on stuff for survival, trying to make it through with their low blood sugar. Matisyahu's standing over the guy with the Talmud (is that what it is? I have no idea), too tired to appropriate hip-hop culture. It's looking bleak.

I’m freaking out about what to wear, and have no idea what food I should bring for dinner on Saturday night, when we break the fast. I even emailed his sister with an SOS, and am waiting for her advice. I’m hoping I can live-tweet the entire experience. Look for the hash tag: #YK2K10 on twitter.com/blacktress!

Who’s Got Two Thumbs and a Case of the Mondays??

THIS GIRL!

I am hating on my job, y’all, for serious. I know that I’m lucky to be employed in a recession, but let me have my Monday rant, mmmkay?

When it comes to New Massa, the bloom has faded from the rose, as they say. Like Ian McKellen in “The Da Vinci Code,” he started off nice and enthusiastic, quick to teach me about Leonardo and offer me refuge. However, just as quickly, he turned on me, ready to shoot me in a church and poison me.
(if you haven’t seen “The Da Vinci Code,” then this makes no sense at all. Apologies).

New Massa is a high maintenance older gay—you know, the kind who don’t have patience for your shit because they came up in a time when they weren’t even allowed to love openly? He’s an “I pulled myself up by my bootstraps to become an upper-echelon intellectual at a time when I’d be called gay just for buying oil paints.” So, you know, he doesn’t have time for your, “I’m sick, I have to go home” bullshit. Or your, “it’s 5:30pm, I am done here” exodus. He also has no concept that other people could have things to do, and whatever pops into his head has to be done right away. Oh, and he also likes to schmooze out on the town, promise artists feature articles and things, and then leave us lovely editors to do the writing.

Of course, writing is my job. I enjoy it. That’s what makes this bearable. But when he wants me to spend my time going to events “just to make contact,” that infringes on my personal time. When he wants me to spend all day in Long Island at a workshop when I don’t even have the staff camera to take photos, that means I’ve got to make up that day’s worth of office work—when, exactly? On a weekend? Oh, in the words of Whitney, HELL TO THE NO!

You must keep in mind people: my dream is humor writing and blackting. I am a blacktress. But momma didn’t raise no fool, and it’s about having bennies and some income coming in! So, I work. I pay my bills—and it takes some of the pressure and insanity off the creative process. But let’s not get it twisted—I’m not here for the love of the linen canvas. I’m not in it for the watercolors. This is my job—not my career.

A career is a responsibility that combines interests you have and skills you possess. In exchange for providing your skills and sharing your interest, you are given monetary compensation, opportunity for growth, and steadily increase in your skills and responsibilities.

A job is something you get to pay for your addictions! (you know, like shopping at Crumbs cupcakes) They do not pay me to care. I’m just here to pay for my HPV vaccine and therapy sessions, boo!

Quite frankly, I’m looking for a damn job that pays me more than I paid in college tuition! There is no reason I should leave one of the “top liberal arts universities in the country” with a shitload of debt and the inability to go to the movies without rearranging the finances. Blacktress is trying to break even—is that too much to ask?!

So, here it is, nearly noon on Monday, and I’ve already been at my desk 5 hours, and I’m trying to make sense of an article that is so annoyingly dry and pretentious—and I can only expect to do more of this, as this is the “new editorial voice” New Massa wants to go in. And tomorrow, I”ll be the only person to leave my desk before 5:30, because I have a 6 o’clock call time for a show I’m in. It’ll be blasphemous because, my god, shouldn’t I love art enough to want to stay here all day and into the night? As New Massa said when I went into his office to discuss this last week (I didn’t make it about him, but about “Artists sudden demands on my time”) he said two things that got me:
“Well, it comes down to putting in the hours,” and “It should, of course, be fun. It’s not meant to be painful.”
Well, sir, it is NOT fun—at least, not doing so regularly. And, unfortunately, I have other goals that prevent me from putting in the hours to a job that doesn’t pay overtime.

So, there you have it. Monday rants. How was your weekend, guys?

Blast From the Past

No, I'm not referring to the movie starring Brendan Fraser and Alicia Silverstone. I'm talking about my lost youth.

I don’t know what’s up with me, but I cannot get early-90s television off the brain--maybe it's some weird PMS thing.

You know you’re hella bored at work when your first thought is, “I wish I could watch Blossom.”

Seriously. This has been nagging me since 10:42am.

Where is Mayim Bialik? Or, more important--where can a blacktress get one of those sweet hats with a flower on the front?



I cannot tell you how many times I sat in my room with my camcorder and recorded my dance moves for posterity. Blossom gets right to the heart of the matter.



I cannot tell you how many times, after a nice Brazilian wax, that I tapped dance on a piano while my dad looked on creepily. (something was going on there, I’m telling you)



Below are a list of other jams I miss--some of it may seem strange to you, gentle readers. I mean, the Cosby Show goes without saying, as does Save By the Bell, not only because everyone misses them but also because they can still be seen on Nick at Nite and TBS.
Oh god--television shows from my youth are now on Nick at Nite. I feel like I'm 72 years old. Here are some dark horses:

My Two Dads (obviously, my mention of it in the last post is what started this trip down memory lane.)
Flash Forward Hello--the old one, not that new ABC crap.
Out of This World (Because I, too, often imagined my absentee father was on a far-off planet, which is why he couldn’t take care of me)


And, of course, A Different World. Oh, how I hoped one day to go to Hillman……

I don't know what this is all about today, but I just really miss the early 90s. It was a simpler time--when Bill Clinton could get beejers whenever he wanted, and a B.A. could actually lead to employment. When , and creepy aliens could live amongst us--it was the kind of change I could believe in, you know?

Sidebar: OMG, New Massa just brought in his BF to introduce to the office. He is soooo hot multi-culti. They're like a silver-fox Benetton ad. SWOON CITY.

I want to spend my nights watching them sleep.
Is that creepy?