Good Morning, Starshine!

Happy Friday, y'all!

The time is 11:44am.

I have been awake since 5:15.

Since then, I have ---

****Wait, this just in. I must share a phone conversation I just had with the organizer of the watermedia thing I'm going to next weekend.

Guy: So, either myself or one of our volunteers will pick you up from the airport. How will I know what you look like?
Me: I'm black--which should make me pretty easy to spot.
[silence]
Me: I'm 27, which also stands out among the watermedia crowd--no AARP card for me! [he laughs] And I guess I'm tall--5'8"
[He repeats it as though he's writing it down.]
Guy: Ok, great. Unfortunately, there's no nearby hotel, so we'll be transporting you everywhere.
Me: Can you guys just get me one of those Jazzy Power Wheelchairs and I'll just zip myself around?
Guy: [laughs for two seconds, then] No.
Me: Okay, whatever's best for you guys.

******
Why does Caucasia get so freaked out when I tell them I'm black and ask for a motorized wheelchair? I swear, if we can't laugh about this whole thing, what do we have left? I really hope these folks can handle Sojourner's truths.

Okay, now where was I? Oh yeah, been up since 5:15am.
Since then I've worked at a benefit breakfast for a religious-leadership organization that honored women who'd worked to bring positive change to the world. I checked in guests, asked people for tax-deductible donations, and generally tried not to fall asleep. It's not that I wasn't heartwarmed, but y'all, the last time I saw 5:15am, I was walking from a dorm room holding up my broken bra strap! Times have changed. I needed to go to bed.
I also reconnected with an artist-friend of mine, was asked to audition for a comedy festival, purchased really cute sale items from Urban Outfitters, and had some delicious organic egg whites.

Is this what being a parent feels like? By the time 10:15am rolled around, I walked into the office smug as all get-out (even though I couldn't manage to avoid entering Urban Outfitters and making a purchase when I was already 30 minutes late). As far as I'm concerned, the day is done.

What are you guys up to this weekend?

I Am Not Limitless

Happy Monday, guys!

I’m really trying to blog more regularly, but sometimes I just don’t know where to begin. At the risk of ranting, I must share my latest un-handle-able truth:
We should have been the ones hit by a tsunami. Let me explain.

Reason 1:
On Friday afternoon I got an e-mail from Ticketmaster.com, alerting me to the availability of tickets to Charlie Sheen’s “My Violent Torpedo of Truth” tour. Apparently, for just $575 I can get a seat in the first 10 rows, an autographed photo of the CauCRAYsian, and shake his chapped, cracked, Gollum-like hand (I’m just assuming).
Why on earth would I want to do this? What skill does Sheen have that would warrant a live tour? Is he just going to get on stage and yell at people? Will he be offering to leave angry messages in the voice mailbox of audience members’ exes? Apparently this tour is already sold out.

Punto Numero Dos:
Half an hour later, I was sent a “music” video of “Friday Night,” by tween sensation Rebecca Black (I’d hyperlink you to it, but I don’t want to give her the press). With such lyrics as “Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday / Today i-is Friday, Friday … / Tomorrow is Saturday / And Sunday comes after ... wards,” I feel as though society is getting dumber, and can no longer tell the difference between talent and delusions of grandeur. Sadly, today’s tweens have very few options, as the covers of “Celebrity” magazines often feature teen moms from the MTV series. We all know I love the 16 and preggos, but since when has being a teenager mother warranted several magazine spreads? Do note that these headline-grabbing moms are CauCRAYsian. When one can be equally famous for having rich parents, winning an Oscar, or getting knocked up by a 16-year-old who works at StopNShop, I think it’s time to reassess our priorities as a nation.

Point the 3rd:
I left work on Friday to meet up with my girl Scribe to see Brad Cooper's latest flick Limitless. I hadn’t been to a movie in ages and was ready to be entertained--even though I do find Cooper to be a bit slimy (doesn't he seem like, before he was famous, he was the guy who'd corner you in a bar, going on and on about his "eye-opening experience" helping Hurricane Katrina victims, and then after bedding you that night, tells you "I've gotta get up really early tomorrow for a life-drawing class, so you might want to get a cab home now"?).

Alas, I found myself uncomfortable and confused much of the time. (SPOILER ALERT!)

The movie starts off with Bradley Cooper (or, as I like to call him, Coop) playing a struggling writer—not struggling because he can’t catch a break or because his work was plagiarized on Wikipedia, but because he just can’t seem to get anything written!!! AAAHHHH, SO HARD BEING A CAUCASIAN MALE!!! What to do with my book advance? Writer’s block is sooooooooooo hard to overcome! Maybe I’ll use it to buy pizza and grow my hair out really gross and scraggly.

He then gets dumped by his boo, which we don’t even care about because we never see them together. This makes him good and vulnerable when he’s offered a clear little pill that makes everything…. LIMITLESS. Suddenly the slacker can remember everything he’s ever heard, learn languages in a day, and learns the stock market (Move over Shia Leboeuf! I bet the ink's still wet on the script for Wall Street 3: Coop Never Sleeps!)

I won’t go into more detail, but basically he goes from zero to hero in three days, becomes a billionaire, and then starts to feel the side effects of this non-FDA-approved black-market drug. Without it in his system, he doesn’t remember a damn thing, and he’s basically an addict in need of 12 steps within the first 30 minutes of the film. At one point, he’s in such a bind that the only way he can save himself is to drink the blood of a Russian mobster that pools outward from his dead body.

Ew.

How does this relate to my rant? Well, quite frankly, Coop’s insistence that he have skills he was too lazy to cultiviate is an example of CauCRAYsian hubris! He’s no better than Charlie “I am the warlock of your destruction” Sheen. Who said you get to be limitless, Bradley? So what if you’ve got baby blues that I could drown in and a devilish smile that’s probably concealing herpes simplex I? If he was down and out at the start of the film and needed the money for, let's say, a liver transplant, or to get his mom in rehab, I might have rooted for him. As it was, when he laid there lapping up the dude’s blood I wondered why it was okay for Bradley Cooper to drink AIDS.

As Scribe and I walked to a post-movie dinner, we were so busy chatting we momentarily forgot about traffic laws. We almost stepped out in front of on-coming traffic, but I looked up and put my arm out. “We are not limitless,” I said. “But we do have options.”
And that, folks, is where I’m at today. I am not limitless like Sheen and Rebecca Black and Cooper’s latest character, but I do have options. The world is not owed to me (and oftentimes behaves as though I took out a loan and am in forbearance) but I know on which side my bread’s buttered—the worlds of blackting and blogging.

Was this a rant? I don’t know. My brain feels a bit fuzzy because I just spent 15 minutes on the phone with an elderly reader who mailed in a printed page of her Google search for a book from our online store—she made sure to underline “YOUR SEARCH DID NOT MATCH ANY DOCUMENTS” before writing, “I followed the instructions in the issue with NO SUCCESS. PLEASE HELP!”
It took me 12 minutes to explain to her—and then her husband, who she put on the phone—that she can’t type the URL into a search engine, but must instead type it into the nav bar. The call ended rather oddly:

Husband: What's your name?

Me: Sojourner

[I have to say it three times before he gets it, spells it back to me, and tells me to go on. I have nothing left to add.]

Husband: And this is about the flowers?

Me: I believe so, that's what your wife said.

Husband: And today's date is?

Me [silent. I'm not sure if he's testing me or what]

Husband: Hello? Today's date is?????

Me: March 21.

Husband: And the time is now????

Me: 3pm.

Husband: Okay, thank you, bye-bye!

Do you think he'd been sitting in the dark with his wife for days, wondering what season it was?

******TIME LAPSE******
AAAHHH, sorry to be so all over the place, but I just got a call from the agent, sending me in for an audition tomorrow!!! EEEPPPSSS.
I better go get my hair did. Blacktress out!

Moral Support.

I was talking to my crush last night on the phone, for the first time in 2 weeks-- as my loyal readers will recall, he'd been in Brazil for work. After a bit of phone tag, we finally worked it out.
Until my awkwardness kicked in.
Let me set the scene:

Blacktress and Crush are on the phone. Blacktress is outside a restaurant on Rivington street, before a stand up show. She has to be breezy and brief.

Blacktress: So, how was your trip?
Crush: Good, I did well with clients. It was good all around.
[there is loud barking in the background. His dog hates the blacktress.]
Blacktress: Why is she freaking out? Does she know I'm on the phone?
Crush: No, it's not my dog, I'm at the dog park so there are alot of them.
Blacktress: Oh, ok.
Crush: So, what is this whole, "becoming a gay icon" thing you were talking about on gchat?
Blacktress: Oh, I did a show for the gays, and they loved it. I got a bunch of invites to perform at other venues, and I was called "a magical creature."
Crush [in a high-pitched voice, as though speaking to a child]: Good girl!
Blacktress (laughing): Thanks!
Crush: What?
Blacktress: Thanks for your support.
Crush: Oh. I was talking to my dog.

Of course he was.

Um, we have a date Saturday night. I'm gonna need you to wish me luck.

Forget Me Not

Last night, while hanging out with my main gay JJS iii, I received a voicemail from a man with whom I engaged in a makeout session Saturday evening. I was mildly excited to see a missed call from an unidentified number, and had a sneaking suspicion it might be him.

The male in question was someone I had met months earlier at a stand up comedy show (we were both performing), and his wry wit and inherent dorkiness endeared him to me, and I asked him if we could go on a date (you know this blacktress is upfront!!). We went on a semi-date, and while there was a fun comedic rapport, I could tell he had about as much interest in me as a gay man has in a vagina.
But he isn’t gay.

Cut to 5 months later—May 10, 2008. At the party of blacktor Victor Varnado, the comedian/disinterested date and I are reunited, and there is much merrymaking. He’s suddenly all up in a blacktress’s George Foreman (grill) like a horndog on prom night, and I wonder what has changed. I figured I best not over-think it, especially with me Australia-bound in a few months time—now, more than ever, we don’t love these hos. I figured I could get my makeout on and end up just fine.
We had a nice time, and there was a bit of me that felt a little boost from getting with an unrequited crush, even though I was no longer crushing. I felt all was right in the world. Perhaps, like Joni Mitchell, he didn’t know what he’d got til it was gone, and now he was carpe-ing the diem and getting with this.
He kissed me again, before leaving the party at 3am, apparently to “go fishing with a friend in Long Island City, Queens”—a sentence that made little sense at the time, but I thought it best to overlook it.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear his voice on my answering machine Monday evening.
That is, until the message went on.
It went something like this:

Hey Sojourner, this is D-Bag McGee. It is 6:30 on Monday and I have an incredibly awkward question to ask you, and that is…uh…what did we do Saturday night at Victor’s party--because I have no recollection whatsoever because I drank too much and my mind is absolutely a blank slate, so there’s a big question mark as to what happened at Victor’s party--did I break some windows, did I steal things? I have no idea what happened, and uh…yeah…. [then, the following he said in a sing-song voice]: I hope everything’s okay, I hope I didn’t do anything bad, I feel embarrassed and awkward, bye!

I. Shit. You. Not.
I literally just transcribed the message from my phone, where it is eternally saved.

I honestly think when I was born, the man upstairs looked at my wet, placenta-juice-covered body and said, “let’s give this one something to blog about.”

Now, some of my most loyal readers know that I, too, have engaged in too much drink in one evening, and suffered from what I am now calling a Whiteout (see Friday Night Amstel Lights for details). I mean, we’ve all been there.

But we do NOT go there with a blacktress.

W. T. F?! I mean, nothing is more insulting than calling someone and saying, “I don’t remember making out with you.” This was no random mid-dance smooch. This was much dirty dancing foreplay (foreplay is MORE play—holla!), and then a hard-core makeout session, which was briefly interrupted by the party host (who jumped on top of us and called us tramps) and then resumed!!! It was then followed by a long conversation in the living room, where I sat on his lap as though he was Santa and he told me I was really hot and cute (I mean, he was speaking TRUTH, obvi).

How could he blackout on a blacktress?!

You know I called that bitch back posthaste and let him know what was what. Our conversation went something like this:

[phone rings. He answers.]
Sojo: You are such a d-bag.
D-Bag: What?
Sojo: I said, you are such a d-bag.
D-Bag (hesitantly): Why?
Sojo: We made out last night.
And I’m pregnant.
And I’m keeping it.
D-Bag (a quiet terror): Ha…?
Sojo (as though speaking to the character of Corky from the television series “Life Goes On”): Seriously, we made out. Like, what?! You don’t remember?!
D-Bag (quiet terror still seeps through the phone lines): No…. I just, like, don’t remember anything. The last thing I remember is us all talking in the DDR room, and then me waking up at my friend’s place.
Sojo: Well, you missed a good time, D-bag McGee. You should have been there.
D-Bag: I was soooo out of it.
Sojo: I’m sorry you were “so out of it,” I didn’t mean to take advantage of you by letting you kiss me. If I’d known you weren’t in your right mind, I certainly wouldn’t have put my lips on yours.
D-Bag: No, no, you shouldn’t feel bad, it’s my fault.
Sojo: I was being sarcastic. Of course I don’t feel bad—if anything, I now have the upper hand, because you feel silly.
D-Bag: God, I was sooo drunk.
Sojo: Um, could you stop saying that? You’re making me feel bad.
D-Bag (taking long pause): Um….sorry, I’m here, I’m just digesting all this….
Sojo: You blacked out on a blacktress!!!!
D-Bag: Yeah, um….
Sojo: You might want to handle your alcoholic scandal. Be careful out there. Bye.
[We hang up, and luckily, with my main gay by my side, I am able to resume my normal activities.]

Okay, let the record show that this dude is 33 years old—or, I should say, 33 years YOUNG. How are you 33, calling up a fine-ass blacktress such as myself, with no recollection? Shouldn’t you know how to hold your liquor by the age of 33?! And repeatedly saying he was drunk just made me feel like I was some gross mistake he made, like filling in the wrong bubble on a standardized test, or accidentally drinking baby’s blood.

I am seriously done with the male gender. This is what that random college student was talking about in that paper I graded a month back.
What has become of the world when a man can call you up and just TELL YOU he forgot about making out, and then, when hearing the news, instead of rejoicing, he openly expresses his horror and distaste?!!

WHAT IS MY LIFE???

Reason #249 I need to blow this popstand.

The Last Unicorn

Ladies, Gentlemen, Friends, Foes, and Hos:

Today is a sad day. Another one bites the dust.

It is currently day 5 of “OPERATION: Why won’t he call me? WHY?! WHY?!” and still no word. Not one to roll over and play dead (I did free myself from the shackles of slavery, didn’t I?) I even called the wandering minstrel last night, just to put out there—this body ain’t getting any younger, people!!!

As of now, I have received no return call.

This, coming from a man who said I was “Excrutiatingly attractive”—when ‘excrutiatingly’ isn’t even a word! I mean, when you’re altering the dictionary to find the right compliment, it has to be for real, right?

This, coming from a man who had a moment in the Nubian sunshine, and came all the way to Harlem to attend a gathering hosted by Sojo when he didn’t know a single soul in attendance.

This, from a fellow who cleaned the red wine I spilled all over the couch and still wanted to make out with me.

I am seriously lost and delirious.

Let me tell you some things I like about my crush:

He is a 6-foot 3-inch tall glass of milk—Sojourner's not getting osteoporosis on his watch!

He has curly hair—it's like white people's version of nappiness!

He plays magic cards—which clearly means he is smart, has an nerdy past, and won't be scared off by my Harry Potter fetish.

And, most importantly:

He was recently on The Tyra Banks Show.

Um, need a say more???

Ok, I will!!!!!!!!!

A tall hot nerd who doesn’t know he’s hot is an urban legend—like razor-blades in apples, and getting AIDS from a toilet seat—only he’s more fun than those. A hot nerd who wants a blacktress is simply magical—the male equivalent of a unicorn. Like an audience member at his Las Vegas run of Cirque du Soleil, I thought I’d hit the jackpot when I dazzled him in my freakum dress and my gays said my “tats looked great.” Our interactions were effortless, and it felt like I’d known him way more than a hot minute. I thought I could finally stop kissing frogs and end up with a prince.

Apparently, that’s not in the (magic) cards for a blacktress.

My beeper has not beeped and my phone has not phoned, and I feel like an ugly normal person who no one wants to spend time with—not even Jesus (and he’s everyone’s homeboy).

Possible Reasons He No Longer Has Love for the Blacktress:
1. He’s gotten with that tramp Felicia from the Tyra Show.
2. Hotter women have come out of the woodwork ever since Tyra called him sexy.
3. He’s going on tour with a wandering minstrel show.
4. He’s been stop-lossed and is going back into the trenches, like Ryan Phillippe
5. He’s racist.
6. He’s lazy and crazy.
7. My vagina dentata scared him away (JK (rowling)!!! I don’t have TEETH)
8. Perhaps it’s because I told him I wouldn’t sleep with him til EL CINCO DE MAYO (Mexican Independence Day)?
9. Because I asked him to teach me to play magic cards because I wanted to “know his world.” (which I personally think is endearing as shit, and should have made him swoon with delight)

So, today, we self-soothe with episodes of "The Office" online. We shed a tear for the pretty, tall, mixie babies that would have been. We light a candle for the mocha acting troupe we would have undoubtedly started. We pour 1/5 of gin on the ground for our dead minstrel, and just praise White Jesus that he didn’t put his p in my v without a c.

I'm Awkward II

Note to self:
Do not have a 30-minute conversation with a guy you've hooked up with twice after not seeing him for 10 days. You do not know him. This conversation will not go smoothly. You will feel kinda like Corky from "Life Goes On."
Keep it short, sweet, make a plan to hang out, and then HANG UP. Seriously, this is the only way to go.
I kinda want to send him this ecard, but I can't, cause I don't have his email address: