Trying to get it together

If anyone out there is reading this, no, I haven't left. My computer, under the devious possessions of some mysterious virus, was completely uncooperative. Perhaps it was boycotting my exit from Facebook. Who knows or cares. All I know is that is has put me seriously behind.

I am trying to gather my thoughts to blog again. I will be back, soon.

What would you do?

Please respond if you read this.

• You are in desparate financial straits. In your P.O. Box you find a $2,800 check. It isn't addressed to you and you have no idea how it got there. Do you toss it? Return it? Risk going to jail but cash it?
• You see keys left in the door of a retail business afterhours. Do you ignore it because it isn't your business? Take the keys to return them tomorrow--hopefully? Call the police or leave the keys with a neighboring business?
• On the floor of a store you find a $50 bill. Turn it in or keep it?

Coming Out

What?

Whenever we hear that term, we usually think of someone breaking the news that they have an interest in members of the same sex. It is a dreaded concept.

That isn't what it means to me right now.

I feel like I am coming out...of a cave. Don't misunderstand what I am saying. Not darkness like in a depression or fog like confusion. A cave, like where you hear echoes and you aren't quite sure where the origin is, but once you hit the main vein, you can find your way out.

I love the life I live, but I don't always love the way I live it. I realize that I am my harshest critic and that to my detriment more times than not. So, being that critical has driven me away from some of my faith's most basic tenets: loving your neighbor as yourself, doing unto others as you would they do unto you, having no god before God.

As I have worked on my LinkedIn, University of Michigan Alumni and Facebook networks and have started my blog, I am rediscovering life. Finding people who have been part of my life means a lot, and, as I look at their pages, I realize that the 'worlds' of my life, school, church, former church, family, profession are not so disparate. I am not separate people. I am not living separate lives.

I am coming out of a personal privacy and into the greater society once again.

Some of my contacts I will maintain and others will have to cease.

What a stretch!

Way to wind down

I love the television series ER. I may have missed an episode here or there, but for the most part I watch it every week.

After 15 years, the series is winding down, and, I don't know about other people, I have a major pet peeve with television shows just dropping off at the end. They create a following, get the viewers interested in the characters then just leave us hanging. Not fair at all.

There were several storylines that I felt needed to be concluded. One was with Dr. Benton (Eric La Salle), the other was with Nurse Hathaway (Julianna Margulies) and Dr. Ross (George Clooney). When they appeared on the screen, my hand went to my heart automatically. I got the warm, fuzzy feeling one gets when you need comfort food (mashed potatoes and gravy, pot roast, turkey and dressing, hot chocolate with marshmallows...). It was great to see them there, and the writing was good. Some lines I could anticipate, such as when Benton asked Carter about his wife, and Carter pulls out a picture ("You married a sistah?"), but the overall story line was well done and brought the viewer up to date in the lives of the previously departed doctors without creating a storybook moment.

I will be sad to see ER leave the scene, it has been a big part of my life. But, fans are fickle, and I already have a new love...Grey's Anatomy.

Discovering Networking. Rediscovering Writing.

How I ever got the designation of a technophile, I will never know.

Alright, so I am severely behind the times in discovering and utilizing networking sites such as Facebook. Truth be told, the Internet intimidates me because there are insidious people out there stalking and acting crazy.

But there are also people out there that I haven't seen in 5, 10, 25 years. Or some I haven't seen since yesterday that I want to keep up to date.

I am entering a new territory because for years I have been working on projects--in a corner. Everyone who really knows me, knows me as a writer. And, if I may be so bold, a pretty good one. But one that needs to own her art. Not craft--I am not a witch. What I do is art. Art from the heart.

That is one reason I began this blog.

So, all of those who remember me as an aspiring writer, keep looking because here I come.

My 'bestest' friend is back!

You will NOT believe this, because if I wasn't sitting at the computer right now, I wouldn't believe it myself.

I decided to get back on facebook to start expanding my network and re-introducing my name to society. So, I am searching for friends, and my bestest, bestest pal (I mentioned her in an earlier blog about friends) Angelia pops up! A new picture, but the same face! I guess in today's parlance, she would really be my BFF!

Oh, Lord, help me!

I wish I could really, really cry right now. Suffice to say, we went to school together everyday, then talked on the phone every night. We fought every other day, erased names and numbers out of the book...then called each other and continued talking.

We went to college together and haven't seen each other in more than 13 years. But, now, another puzzle piece is back in my life.

I have two more people to find: Eugene and Stephanie.

Give Dora a break

One thing that has always bugged me is how cartoon 'children' never seem to grow up. The Peanuts gang is older than I am and are still as young as my children. Cailloo--oh, how annoying he is--maintains his preschool personna. Baby Smurf is still a baby and there was even a move to create baby Looney Tunes characters (why?). Huey, Dewey and Louie are still the precocious nephews of Donald Duck.

The only ones who seemed to have escaped until now were Pebbles and Bam Bam--although, on a more serious tip, their parents have been wearing the same clothes ad nauseum.

So, what is the deal with Dora?

There is just a silhouette...no real sketches...and people are decrying her. Please, give it a rest. Dora will be ten this fall, almost eleven. Is she destined to swing from the trees in her shorts forever? Her mother even had twins (to my dismay? surprise?) so why can't she grow up?

This is part and parcel the problem that plagues child stars. They can't seem to shake the thing that made them a household name. Every now and then, if their parents are cooperative and the child is centered, one will escape and grow up. Like Rudy, Tootie, or Fresh Prince, or Raven. Still many more 'die' into that childlike personna.

But don't let your fifteen year old sit around in a diaper and bang a bat on the ground screaming, "bam! bam! bam! bam!"

Now, if Dora comes out with cleavage, splits, and meets boys behind buildings, then, then, we can stone her character. Until then, go march for something else, something more useful.

March is literacy month...go read a book.

Leave Rush Limbaugh alone

OK, so the title of this entry may be controversial.

I think President Obama and the Democrats should just leave Rush Limbaugh alone. Period. Ignore him and his statements.

Do you remember the child at school who was at first mildly disruptive? Then perhaps they hit someone or called them a name. Pretty soon everyone in the class would begin talking about them or running away in fear. They became a household name.

Look at reality shows. Take Omorosa, for example. At first, she was just another annoyance, then as her name began to resonate, she became a force, now well known in most circles and forever etched as the model evil reality show contestant.

There have been many over the years who brought nothing redeemable to the table, but suddenly became famous for their ability to take others off task and off message.

This is how I view the Limbaugh effect. Don't acknowledge him. Leave him out of press briefings, speeches, morning reports, jab fests. Ignore him.

By raising his name, it is raising his star. People may actually think he has something redeeming.

Twenty-Eight Days

Isn't that the same amount of time people go to rehab?

There is an argument out there that African American history is irrelevant. I say that the only way it is irrelevant is if the accomplishments of African Americans are seamlessly interwoven into the fiber of American history in general. The history of these disparate groups are the history of this country in which we live.

Nevertheless, how can we posit that African American history isn't needed as a stand alone history if we do not rehearse it with our children and teach them the things they need to know. It has to be more than 28 days, more than a month, a week, MLK day. It has to be lived.

It is like the controversy early during last year's presidential race. Would black women vote for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman or Barack Obama because he is black? For those who revel in statistics that may be a question, but for me it wasn't. The decision wasn't between one side of me or another--it was about competence and the ability to succeed.

It is the same with American History. Consider it without the stoplight, the cotton gin, peanut butter, heart surgery, the roller coaster (as I found through my son's project last week). There is no full American History without these things and all were contributions by blacks.

Now that the official month has ended, let us live in history. A united history. An American history.