Since several folks found my previous post "awkward" (you can't handle the truth!!!!), I won't go into it. However, I feel there's nothing worse than whining to someone and then not following up with the outcome of whatever you were whining about. In summation: Jury's still out on my pituitary gland, and we've got more testing to do!
Ok, now that that's addressed:
So far I've found only one drawback to the new plantation. We're right around the corner from a vocational school for addicts and recently released prisoners--awkward!--and throughout the day one must walk down an aisle of ex-cons. This morning was intense, largely because some scaffolding over the Staples next door has provided them with plenty of lounging space. Trying to get through the rush hour pedestrians is hard enough without 30 dudes in the way, you know?
But what really makes it a pain in the ass is their attempts at getting your attention. It often involves a creepy lean in and then a shift back, often with the suggestion to "Slow down, Ma."
I'm not your mother. If I was, you'd be in law school.
Others then attempt to take a stab at it, utilizing all forms of poetic license.
This morning I was called the following names:
Chocolate Princess
Worky Worky (as in "Slow down, Worky Worky! It ain't time yet!"
MMMM-BOOTY!
Sugarfoot.
Yes, Sugarfoot. I have no idea what this means.
Just down the road from the vocational school is a "preschool for the arts," which proudly hangs Modrian-inspired paintings done by 3 year olds. Maybe I'm just a pessimist who watches too much To Catch A Predator, but creative preschoolers so close to men who've been...given a second chance is just an accident waiting to happen.
Good morning, gentle readers. I come to you today with a heart full of fear.
This morning the receptionist from the neurologist’s office called, asking me to come in for a follow-up appointment regarding my MRI. I am freaking the fuck out.
What can’t he tell me over the phone? Does he have to sit me down face-to-face so that he can hold me as I sob? I had the MRI on 5/24, so if it was really life-or-death, I would have heard back before now, right? My head was actually killing me yesterday, so I’m even more worried. When I asked the receptionist if I was going to die, she said no, but she certainly doesn’t have the security clearance to know for sure.
I cannot have a brain tumor right now—I’m just starting to follow my dreams!
This has me thinking of my life to date. I have begun composing several bucket lists based on how long I’d have to live.
Blacktress’ 3-Year Bucket List
Quit job. Tell former-drag-queen boss about himself.
Travel to Italy. Use the word “hospitaliano” at least once.
Write a memoir titled “Eat Eat Eat”.
Write 4 screenplays.
Earn Oscar nomination for one of them.
Have Ben Affleck and Matt Damon accept the award in my stead.
Get a ½-hour special on Comedy Central
Meet Nick Kroll
Take a ferry to Staten Island (what goes on over there?????)
Hang out with Marc Maron on the cat ranch.
Find a closeted celebrity in need of a beard. Act as his beard until I become sickly and unattractive.
Become best friends with Kathy Griffin.
Get married, A Walk to Remember style.
Blacktress’ 18-month Bucket List
Quit job. Tell former-drag-queen boss about himself.
Find a wealthy benefactor to help me live my dreams in my final months.
Write one screenplay that sells. Use money to produce the biopic Blacktress Like Me, in which I will star. Angela Bassett will play my mother.
Visit every aquarium in the country.
Go back to my native land of Africa and finally cash-in on that princess status I’ve been hearing about all these years. I’m probably just the ruler of a goat tied to a shady tree, but I’ll get to wear dramatic head wraps.
Perform stand-up across the country, opening for such acts as Glenn Beck and Donald Trump. [this would be more of a stage-hijacking, but equally awesome.]
Take a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. (what goes on over there?????) Use the word ‘summer’ as a verb.
Hang out with Marc Maron on the cat ranch.
Meet Kathy Griffin.
Blacktress’ 6-month Bucket List
Quit job. Tell former-drag-queen boss about himself.
Find a wealthy benefactor to help me live my dreams in my final months.
Try to get a guest role on The Office as Stanley’s daughter or niece.
Find a way to get on the Today Show and be interviewed by Matt Lauer.
Find every man that’s done me wrong and tell him about himself.
Take a ferry to Cape Cod. (what does it feel like to be rich?????)
Hang out with Marc Maron on the cat ranch.
Write and produce the solo show To Be Young, Gifted, & Blacktress. Receive posthumous Tony nomination, even though the show will not be performed on or off Broadway. (it’s just that good!)
Meet Kathy Griffin.
Blacktress' Back-up Bucket List
Mop
Ice
Child-Size Beach
Aluminum
Construction Square Plastic
Gallon Square
Elevator
As you can see, there are several goals that repeat themselves. I will also be creating a will, in which I will bequeath several items to friends and acquaintances—such as the emergency contraceptive I received from Planned Parenthood and never used; Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs; and the entire Babysitters’ Club collection, including the mysteries and summer specials.
I’m writing to you from a brand new office! This place is way better than our overcrowded veal pens in the midtown office. Not only are we a Sharon Stone’s throw away from a Bed Bath & Beyond, a Trader Joe’s, and The Container Store, there are windows everywhere, and more than one bathroom!!! It’s nearly 1pm and I haven’t heard anyone urinate, blow his or her nose, or hack up a lung all day. This is living!
To top it off, massa’s not here (apparently he’s in Russia—this doesn’t surprise me in the least), I have an audition this afternoon, and I don’t even have to be nervous or guilty about leaving because today is the first “summer Fridays,” aka early dismissal! I feel like the world might not want to oppress me today—score!
In other news: The side I got for today’s audition makes no sense whatsoever. It’s for [a popular brand of food storage containers], but the product’s not mentioned once, the script references what appears to be eight different characters, and I don’t know if I’m going in for “Woman 1” “Woman 2,” or “Mom”—who’s referred to as Deb. I think I’m going to have to play it Pauly Shore style. Say what you will about him, but that man knows how to work with nonsensical (BioDome and Encino Man, par example).
Hellooooooo readers!!!! It feels so good to blog again!
Apologies for my absence--it hasn't been for lack of fodder. This Memorial Day weekend Jewboo and I made great strides in our interracial love affair. We embarked on air travel to Minneapolis to attend a friend's wedding, and dealt with the shitshow that is American Airlines--and even ran into my high-school history teacher at the gate! [Mr. Werth was my very first gay, and even though he wasn't out to me, there was something about his skinny jeans and ageless face that, even at the age of 14, told me that his date with "Leslie" was Queer As Folk.]
Through the high-school reunions, plane delays, and engaged upwardly mobile couples, Jewboo and I didn't fight with each other AND we looked really cute in photographs. Success!!!
But let me be real with you, readers--after all, this is the diary of a mad blacktress--it wasn't all roses and hotel sex. Both our outbound and return flights were canceled and moved to 6am the following day, resulting in a lot of sleeplessness and hunger. After my heinous experience with Delta Burke Airlines a few years ago, my attitude toward air travel has changed--I know people got jobs to do, but if you're going to insist on stripping me of my shoes, liquids, and dignity, can you at least have a plane take off a tiempo?
I could go into detail, but I'm only finally getting my sanity back. Instead, I will copy and paste the tweets I sent to help me get through the frustration: May 26: @hiyellanegress They wont let us get to Minneapolis. Going back to Harlem to catch a 6am tomorrow. #weddingseason
May 27 Back at laguardia airport. Trying to get to minneapolis. This is cuckoo bananas. #weddingseason #fatigue
May 29 [My rage really picked up here, as we were so ready to go home--I took to directly tweeting the airline in hopes of getting some acknowledgement] Sick of reaching your destination on time and with few complications? Then fly @AmericanAir!
After all, nothing makes more sense than having the crew for a delayed flight scheduled to work on the next flight! @AmericanAir
@AmericanAir, quick Q: with chicago's bad weather, why would you hinge other flights on chi crews? do you not want people to like you? [I was just being a bitchy brat at this point, but sometimes you gotta go a little Miley Cyrus on an airline.]
The wedding was quite loverly, though. It's always nice to see well-to-do Caucasians coming together to create more of themselves. [Seeing as the bride-now-wifey is an avid diary reader, I hope none of this comes as a shock.] But there was one moment when I felt a bit out of place-- isn't it always weird when you find out that you're someone's only black friend?
We've all heard jokes about having "the black friend," but in this case, it was the real deal. There was one older black couple, but the guy was her former boss. Of course, if Friends and Candace Bushnell taught us anything, it's that a lot of white people don't get down with the brown and it's not anything personal. But it was still odd to enter a room full of people celebrating a friend I attended diversity university with and see that maybe diversity is just a thing you try once in college. But let me not hate over my own insecurities about feeling bigger and blacker than the rest--I mean, I've been in the heart of Caucasia, and Minnesota was a piece of cake after Middle Earth. Besides, I can't really blame the girl for keeping Sojourner in her corner. A blacktress is more than just your token black friend--I'm like a cross-over Moesha-style sensation! So, you know, if you're going to go black, you may as well go blacktress.
For the reading I chose a poem by James Kavanaugh that I thought would speak to an independent woman such as the bride--"To Love Is Not to Possess" (it immediately jumped out at me as a freed slave, natch.) I practiced a bit beforehand, but lately I've been really trying to take a page out of Avril's book and not make things so complicated. The reading wasn't about me--it was about setting a tone and supporting a union. With that in mind, I decided to leave my flowing Maya Angelou robes at home and tone it down with the enunciation. (I did, however, make sure to direct the lines "to love is not to own / or imprison" at the groom.)
But oh, how I would have loved to deliver it something like this: Chocolate News
People kept coming up to me and complimenting me on the reading, though. I was surprised, seeing as I hadn't done all that much in my opinion. Jewboo had to remind me that they weren't aware that they were dealing with a professional, and my innate ability to work a mic and breathe life into love poems isn't a gift we're all lucky enough to possess. But once one of the uncles started going on and on about how "articulate" I was, and an aunt told me I was "well-spoken," even Jewboo had to admit it was a little racial America up in the twin cities. #notyouraveragenegress
Happy Wednesday!!! I know hump day isn’t usually happy (unless you’re humpin!), but this is my last day in the office for over a week, and I’m on cloud 9. Well, maybe cloud 7, seeing as I’m running on 5.5 hours of sleep.
Who has two thumbs and is dumb enough to schedule an MRI at 10:30pm? THIS BLACKTRESS!!!
By the time I got to the Radiology lab, I was ready to go to bed. Add to that the fact that I was wearing the equivalent of winter pajamas, and I thought I was in for an HMO-sponsored nap. I was given a brochure with a list of satellite-radio stations I could choose to listen to during the test. Because I love directing anxiety toward fake problems instead of dealing with the issue at hand, I deliberated for about 10 minutes. One of the comedy stations might be good, since I’m a bit tense, I thought. But if I have to stay still, maybe I shouldn’t listen to something that’ll make me laugh. Show tunes could be fun, but it all depends on the show, and then I’ll be stuck listening to the soundtrack to South Pacific.
Southern Gospel station might be the way to go—if there was ever a time I needed to get He Who Cannot Be Named on my side, it’s now. But if I really just want to be relaxed, maybe the vocal trills and belts of a woman who owes her life to the lord won’t be the way to go. I continued to create a mountain out of a non-existent structure.
Canadian News & Information—that’ll be pretty boring. Keep that as your safety station.
I finally settled on 2000’s Pop Hits and felt a bit calmer having made a decision.
When I was called down to the MRI area (I’m not sure what to call it. After half an hour of sitting in an empty waiting room that reminded me of The Malkovich, I was directed to an elevator by a wild-haired woman. It only went one flight below street level.) The night-shift radiologist was anything but pleasant. He was small and bored and didn’t even engage when I tried to crack a little jokey joke.
I don’t get how people who have chosen to enter a field in which they interact with sick and suffering humans think that it’s okay to have no personal skills. You’re dealing with people you’ll likely never see again at a time when they’re at their most vulnerable. If that’s not a call for compassion and warmth, I don’t know what is.
Okay, rant about human indecency is over.
I got into the pod and was told to “be completely still for 20 minutes.” He put a pair of big headphones that pressed right up against the part of my head that was hurting. Before I could wince, he caged me in and fired up the ol’ MRI. “If you need something, kick your legs,” he said as he walked away. Um…..
Don’t you want to know which radio station I’d like?????
Apparently, he’d already made the decision for me: house music remixed with sounds of a fire alarm and heat coming through rusty pipes. It must have been some Euro-pop B-side. Wait, no—that was THE MACHINE.
I knew there’d be noises, but I had no idea they’d be so heinous. How can someone stay completely still when their ears are being bombarded with craziness? At worst, it sounded like the machine was breaking and about to cave in on me; at best, it sounded like I kept making the wrong choice on Family Feud or just stole something from a WalMart.
I probably won’t get the results until Monday. Til then, I’m going to go to a Midwestern wedding and try not to feel inferior to my fancy grown-up bride-to-be friend and the blondtourage I have somehow been invited to hang out with. I’ve gotten invited to drinks every night—and a couple of mornings—for the next 4 days. I really hope I don’t do a sober-girl cry in the bathroom—it’s just such bad form.
Whew, it feels good to blog again! I know I just posted yesterday, but I’ve been in a 3-hour staff meeting that felt like an age. (But I didn’t want to gouge my eyes out—growth!) Not only were my boss and I not addressing each other the entire time, but I was also running on about 5 hours of sleep. I’ve got a lot of anxiety coming up—the usual blacktress drama, course—but I’m also dealing with some potential medical issues that have me a bit nervous.
As you know, I’ve been all over with the sinus troubles. Well, it seems that it's not normal for sinus pain to affect the neck and it's even less normal for a part of one's head that hasn't been hit or cut or otherwise traumatized to be painful to the touch.
I went to a doctor last night and it was a real hip, swanky place--all the receptionists looked like Urban Outfitter's models and the doctors were in cute Anthropologie outfits. I went in to see Dr. Ko, a cute Asian woman who was totes wearing invisalign. I explained my symptoms as she continued to look more and more puzzled. "Where's that Dr. House looking guy I saw in the waiting room? We need to get him in here." Luckily, she laughed and didn't think I was insulting her skills. "We call him that, too!" she said. "Yeah, he does specialize in complex cases." With no equipment in their hip office, she immediately referred me to a neurologist, not just giving me the info, but calling his office up and getting me in just 15 minutes later! The neurologist, a small Indian man with a touch of Asperger's and hair like Full House hottie Uncle Jesse, pressed his fingertips together a lot and pursed his lips.
"What do YOU think it is?" He asked. "Is this some kind of trick question?" "No. You'd know your body better than me." I swear, what do these people get paid for?
He basically didn't know what was up, although he thinks I could have migraines. But the only way to rule everything out is to get an MRI. This is one mystery diagnosis.
How ironic. I’m becoming one of the very medical mysteries I love to watch on Discovery Fit & Health.
I'm now writing this in a flurry from my house, where I had to come back after work to change clothes before teh 10:30pm MRI. Apparently, even the underwire of my bra* will set off the machine, so I gotta rock a sports bra and ill-fitting sweatpants along with anything else metal-free that will keep me warm.
I liked how the "preparation list" featured--in 16-pt font, no less--the directive DO NOT WEAR MAKEUP IF SCANNING THE HEAD.
Oh yeah, cause I'm thinking about foundation and creating doe eyes at a time like this.
Wanted to just let you guys in on this cause you mean the world to me. Without you, I'm just a creepy, possibly racist narcissist with too much internet access.
How was your rapture? Mine was so-so. That Thursday Stony Point 40-minute gig I was so excited about got canceled on Tuesday, sending me into a shame/FML spiral of unprecedented proportions. I feel like I am not only doomed to be writing about paintings of fruit in bowls for the rest of my life, but I’ve let you down, my gentle readers—especially Dave, who was kind enough to do a little Wiki-ing for me.
This weekend was an emotional rollercoaster, starting off with a fight with the massa at 3:30pm on Friday. It was definitely a Roots moment, with me refusing to go by the name Toby and him refusing to let it go—metaphorically speaking, of course. I should have known better than to give a former drag queen “the hand” (my attempt at getting a word in edgewise), but we all make our beds and have to lay in them. I found myself completely wrecked until 8pm the next day, when I headed off to do a set at a show in Queens.
I was actually quite nervous beforehand, for a couple of reasons. First of all, it was in someone’s apartment (which we all know can be a hot mess) and every single audience member could be seen plain as day. As any performer knows, the ability to see the audience rolling their eyes, checking their phones, or simply bored or confused can shake even the most professional blacktress or WHactress. Of course, once Sojo takes the stage, most audiences snap right to attention, but the crowd was also unknown, and I had no idea what they were into. I walked in to a sea of Caucasians, many of whom were heavily tattooed. Was I in Stony Point after all? I wondered. I’d been invited by one of the organizers, who’d seen me do a set at Broadway Comedy Club almost two months ago. It was a hellish bringer show, with about 14 comics doing 6-minute sets—speed-dating the audience, basically—and only 5 were actually good.
As I made my way through Queens trying to find his apartment, I started to feel a pinch of fear. Maybe it was the fact that I was standing under the train tracks and a highway unsure of which direction I was supposed to walk in. Or maybe I was just having flashbacks to the crazy Greek man with the small gyro who told me I was a “tiny baby child.” Or maybe it was that that I was going to the apartment of three rando White boys I didn’t know. Nah, that’s nothing new—it was that this guy was an established comedian and I felt like I had to prove that I was good or something. Add to that my hatred of my job and possibility of being fired, and I needed this set to be great.
I got there shortly after 9 and sat in the “green room”—AKA one of guy’s bedroom. The guys were actually really nice and gracious, even offering to get soda or non-alcoholic beverages if I wanted. I felt like I was backstage at Conan or something—if Conan, like, came on public access at 4am.
I saw the set list and learned that I was opening the show! Gulp. Blergh. Gloop. Labia.
I was hoping I’d get nestled in the middle, giving me ample time to feel out the room and see what these rugged Queens-bound Caucasians were into. I was told that it was a compliment, as they thought I’d bring good energy to get the show rolling. I had hoped to try new jokes, but as I looked out into the Caucasian Sea of faces, I immediately went into my own tales from Caucasia. All in all, the set was a bit spotty, with the biggest laughs coming from my asides to two middle-aged dudes in the front row. (One of whom I warned that I’d “sit on your lap for the remainder of the show and make it ALL ABOUT YOU if you don’t stop talking”) All in all, though, I was glad to get back up and active—and momentarily forget that I’m a terrible employee. It was also great to meet male stand-ups who aren't assholes and don't think of me as a second-class comic.
I’m not sure why I had an Angela-Bassett-in-Waiting-to-Exhale moment on the plantation on Friday. I think I got carried away by the rapture. If the world was gonna end, maybe I felt the need to tell Massa about himself before I went. I think I’m going to use this experience to produce my own faux-reality show for MTV. I’ll just follow people around for a week leading up to “the end of the world” (faking that will really up my production budget) and see how cray they get.
The tagline: What happens when people stop being polite and start getting raptured?????
