Dag-blasted Tag...

So I've been "tagged" by the one and only J.A.C. So here we go:

The Rules:
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I have an extremely vivid imagination. I can see a person on the street, train, bus, in the car next to me, wherever and create and entire life for them, why they are in that space and time, what they are thinking, what their home life is like etc...which leads me too...

2. I am an obsessive people watcher/voyeur. I can sit in a location and watch people all day, they don't have to be doing anything in particular, just walking, talking...my favorite is to see ppl arguing or in some sort of conflict, especially when I am somewhere that they aren't privy to my gaze...which leads me too...

3. I like to argue. Ppl always think its a result of my line of work, but not really, I just like to try to prove things, or hear ppl try to prove them to me, I always come from the position "explain to me why I'm wrong" or "make me understand why what you did was acceptable" which I guess is a set up, b/c I already know you were wrong, i just want to hear what possible illogical thoughts you used to rationalize the behavior...which leads me too...

4. I am fascinated and petrified of drug use. I want to watch shows like "Intervention", movies like "Lady sings the blues" but I can't. I am so interested in why ppl use drugs, how they got started, what their drugs of choice are and why, how they pay for their habit, if they were ever able to function as a normal person in society while on drugs and if so how...all of it is so interesting to me. But I cannot watch anything that features heroin use. I discovered this when as I kid I tried to watch "Lady sings the blues" and was so disturbed by her drug use that I stopped watching mid-way through (I NEVER get midway into a movie and stop watching, if I've watched to midway I have to finish, no matter how bad it is!) and had nightmares about it...I still remember vividly the scene that I had to walk out on, and I saw it like 10 years ago. I can watch a movie about heroin use I just can't watch the actual shooting up, I watched "Ray" with my hands over my eyes for all the actual drug use scenes. One would think that its the needles, but its not, I've seen shows where ppl shoot up meth, and I'm totally ok, chris and the crack rock in New Jack City, also totally ok, surgery on the learning channel, one of my favorite things to watch...but if a movie features someone shooting up and they say that the substance is heroin, i can't watch....when i was in junior high I heard on some talk show about a girl who was kidnapped from a her nice middle class life, held captive in some drug house, tied to a bed, and given regular hits of heroin...after a while she was released from the bed and made to work as a prostitute in order to get her heroin fix...I think she was missing for years, and says she stayed b/c she was so addicted she couldn't leave....I was CONVINCED that I was going to get picked up and strung out at anytime (active imagination, remember)...which leads me to...

5. I am a hypochondriac. I always think that any minor pain or injury will result in my sudden and untimely death. I am constantly self diagnosing myself (or even worse using webMD). For instance:
random pain in head=aneurysm, or stroke
sprained foot=all the bones in my foot are broken, I may never walk again
pain in chest=pulmonary embolism
clumsiness (I take a random tumble, or I trip without cause)=Vertigo
common cold with significant cough=the consumption (aka tuberculosis)
flu=ebola, malaria, or west nile
Basically if i now the symptoms of an illness and I have even one, then clearly I've got the disease, and obviously I prefer the more rare/obscure illnesses, or at least ones with fun names, "the consumption" that is awesome...which leads me to....

6. I love random and obscure knowledge/facts/dates/words etc...my favorite word is onomatopoeia...I love the meaning, i love to say it, i love that in a group of 4 other ppl, its likely that only one other person will know what it means...which leads me to...

7. I sometimes have tendency to lord my intelligence over ppl. Its a bad habit and a terrible quality of mine. I have to make a conscious effort not to assume that I am smarter (and somehow better, perhaps?) then ppl I meet who don't immediately strike me as the most intellectually savvy...which leads me too...

8. Even though I think its silly, I do like the automatic assumption that I am a bright girl when I tell ppl my occupation...again not a great characteristic, but its true...however it does make me wonder what ppl would think if I stopped being a lawyer...I wonder if my title were not attorney, whether ppl would still get that impressed/surprised look in their eyes....

So all my blog friends have already been tagged...except for:

DIMPLEZNMORE

So get to it lady!

Humble-Bumble

So i'm sure that by now all of you (my two, maybe three readers) have heard about the sniper that was downtown today, right. Protesting Lindsay or Paris, or whomever, being just generally cra-cra and shooting all willy nilly. Well your girl was down by the courthouse when it all went down...and I heard that first shot and hit the deck, nevermind that I lost my shoe in the process, nearly skinned my knee, i knew that if I was going to save my life and the life of the 96 year old widow whose life I also spared on my way down in a very Jack Bauer fashion, I had to sacrifice my limbs for the greater good....what...huh....whats that now, you didn't hear anything about a sniper downtown...nothing huh...and whatcha say now, you think that I was walking to fast b/c i was running late to court somehow forgot how to walk and/or wear shoes for a second, walked out of said shoe and barely managed to keep my noggin from hitting the pavement in a spectacle of Beyonce proportions on a major downtown street, not far from the cross walk where all the other attorneys were crossing the street to also get to court...Oh. Well I guess that could have been the case as well.

The funny part is I can totally imagine how it looked, i was walking past some parked cars, so you know how ppl pretend to walk down imaginary stairs, they just crouch down "step" by imaginary "step" behind an object. That's what it had to look like, because after walking out of my shoe my next step was a crouching/not trying to touch the dirty ground with my foot move, just before i was completely spralled out on the pavement, bag also on ground, somehow next to me and no longer on my shoulder, stuff falling out, mascara rolling away...then a very kindly man who literally said to me "Ay Dios Mio are you OK?", first told me to stay down, like I was 86 and may have broken my hip or neck, (he even looked around like he was going to need some assistance getting me to the emergency room or something) and then helped me up when it was clear to him that I wanted to be off the ground. He picked up my sad rolling away mascara and other belongings, handed me my bag and blessed me with the blood of the Christ...Aside from a scratched leg, some sort of injury to my foot, and sore pride i'm fine. But man I bet that was funny!

I want you...

**Update: Please see the comments section for a more accurate rendition of the lyrics to "I Want You".

I I I I I I I
WANT YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU
AND I
I I I I I I
WANT YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU
so what we gone do
i want you
gone do
what we gonna do

2nd part
when words got a way way way way way way way
i want you (baby)
so what we gonna do (baby)
i want you (baby)

chorus
love is on the way all I got to say is It wont let go
we can pray to early May
fast for 30 days
still It wont let go
got a good book and got all in it
tried a little yoga for a minute
but it wont let go (oooh)
tried to turn the sauna up hotter
drank a whole jar of holy water
but it wont let go

begining

and the words got a way way way way way way way i want you
so what we gonna do
i want you

Chorus
and I
I baby I want you
you baby
so what we gonna do

begining
and your words got a way
so what we gonna do
i know you're a little nervous
so what we gonna do
i know you really want this
so what we gonna do
i cant really explain it
so what we gonna do
i feel your love

Bridge:repeat 2x's

i dont want no trouble
i just wanna love ya (yeah)
i dont want your money yeah
i just want to love ya (yeah)
i wanna get to know ya
and i
i want you
and i
i want you
and i
i want you....
Begining (1st part again)

See also: Sade "Love is Stronger then Pride", "Is it a Crime" and D'angleo's cover of the George Clinton "I'll Stay".

trains of thought

...someone paid me a great compliment the other day, she said that I was the only person she knows who can go from bourgeois to ghetto in the blink of an eye. she said that lots of ppl that she knows are able to switch it up but not as quickly or effortlessly as I do. I love that about me! is that vain to say? its one of my favorite qualites about myself, versatility. I love that i can go to a meeting of professional collegues and contribute intelligently to the discussion, and leave there and head to a venue where they play Pharcyde's "Passin me by" or Tupac's "I get around" and I know all the words, or Lil boozie's "wipe me down" and I know the chorus (ignorant songs I try to keep it to chorus only). Or sing along to Chamillionaire's "Ridin' Dirty" but am also well informed and have strong opinions regarding police profiling in my community. The fact that the other night while watching the video's that I DVR'd from BET, I had to get up and dance hard because the beat dropping in on UGK's "International Players Anthem" gets me every time, but I can also put together a cogent argument for why BET is the bain of my people's existence (and I use the word bain) is great stuff.
I tend to think that in my generation there are many like me. there are obviously those that stand only on one side or the other, but i think that there are many that straddle the line and exist in both realms without feeling conflicted or disingenuous.

...we are going through a bit of a rough patch. all of us. at the same time. its strange. i love how we are all relying on one another though. how we all have turned to our faith, and the bible for strength and fortification. its funny though, when things are swell we don't talk this much about the bible. isn't that always the way, when things get bad is when we turn in earnest to Him, of course we think about him and thank him in passing when things are good as well, but we re-commit, re-focus all our attention on Him, when things take a turn for the worse. i'm happy that we are all here for each other. i pray for us, in hopes that our various situations and stressors will pass and that in the meantime we don't give in to our disquieting thoughts.

...last night at the kingdom hall a brother that has recently been in the hospital for his heart, passed our towards the end of the meeting. his wife screamed, the meeting stopped, ppl hurried to his side, the paramedics were called, the meeting ended abruptly, ppl were silent. no one wanted to leave until the paramedics verified that he was ok. he is an older brother, probably close to the neighborhood of 70 years old, he got married about 3 years ago, for the first time i think. they are an odd couple, but they clearly make each other very happy, she has softened his often cantankerous nature. For her sake, almost more then his, I hope he is ok. To have finally found a measure of happiness and then to have it taken away abruptly (or slowly) while not uncommon to the human condition, is cruel nonetheless.

...2 Timothy 3:1-7
"1But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
I have read 2 Tim 3:1-5 a million times. like literally a million times...but vs. 6, 7 I think i read it for the first time over the weekend. I can't ever recall reading it before, and it clicked for me...I've often wondered how the significant others in the lives of my friends and I could be so cruel, so deceptive, how their actions could belie such contempt and wholesale disregard for the feelings of those they claim to care about...the scripture explains it. Its the last days...

...Credit cards are the bain of my existence. I loathe them.

...My parents brought home videos from when I was a kid on vacation...I was 7 years old, adorable, articulate, and had a disproportionately large behind for my small frame. its the craziest thing, but it does look hilarious, i totally get why the kids made of me.

Unexpected pleasures...

I always mock J about her favorite show, SYTTXVBCTREDG, which is the abbreviated acronym for "So you think that you can dance while in America on a reality show for people with real viable talent"...I think that is its short title.

Aside from its insanely long title, I DVR'd it last night, and much to my surprise I LOVED IT! Most of the dances were phenomenal, I'm convinced that most of the dance couples are sleeping together (at least with the couples wherein the guy seems not yet all the way gay), I liked the introduction to songs I had never heard of, and the story lines to the dances were cute as well. The only thing I didn't like, were the non dancers: the judges...especially the woman with the enormous teeth, who screams for some reason...the host...what is her purpose, her skill, how did she get this job?

My other unexpected pleasure are movies involving Stephan Chow...well actually i've only seen two of his movies, but if these are any indication....I love this guy! The two i've seen are Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer. I explained to my sister that essentially they are comedies in the vein of Airplane, Dodgeball...low brow silly comedies with a moral that are in Chinese (I think) and involve extensive amounts of Kung-Fu. Typically movies like dodgeball or Airplane I consider to be beneath me, something I'll watch on an airplane, at the shop, or over the home of someone i'm not comfortable enough with to tell them to turn. But these Stephan Chow movies, I want the DVDs! The addition of the subtitles and kung fu, make them genius!

I left my heart in...

San Francisco (hereinafter "SF").

I love SF.
So when my job asked if I could fly up to SF for a 10 minute appearance I said sure thing. Spend the morning/afternoon in a city that I love, meeting strangers in the airport, maybe even sneak in a little shopping in Union Square.
4am I'm up and at them, headed to the off airport parking, I make my flight since I have no bags to check, my flight is on time, and at 7am I am in the lovely city of SF. Preparing to get on the BART I speak to a nice young gentleman waiting for the train, we strike up a conversation, chat all the way to my stop. He gets off at my stop with me, walks me to the courthouse, I still have an hour or so before my hearing so he suggests we grab some breakfast. I say sure! We walk Several, and I do mean Several blocks into his neighborhood to his favorite breakfast place. His neighborhood is known as the Tenderloin district. It is everything that the name connotates. It is a neighborhood that I know not to be walking around in alone. Even walking with him I thought, as we passed many of the cities transients, I sure hope he can fight. Thankfully that wasn't necessary. And as we walked I determined that either he was walking me out of that neighborhood or I was cabbing it back to the courthouse.
We arrive at the breakfast place, sit down and the TV is on Fox News...they have found the body of some young woman who had been missing, they believed her death was caused by her boyfriend.
Hmmm, I just followed some strange man that I have never met before several blocks into a neighborhood that I know to be dangerous, to have breakfast at a place that he is familiar with that I am not. Ok. Alright. I agree, not one of my brightest moments. And while yeah i didn't feel at all in danger, Ted Bundy was notoriously charming and non-threatening and he killed several "smart" women.
But then I realized how sad it is that in this day and age two people who have a good conversation can't have breakfast, or meet up, or take their conversation from a happenstance meeting to further deliberations over some eggs, and pancakes? I mean isn't that the basis for most old love stories? Isn't that how Sidney Poitier met all his leading ladies?
My how times have changed.
As an aside, breakfast was great, we had wonderful conversation, we will likely keep in touch.

So after breakfast I head to the hearing, and guess what...its not until the next day. So yeah I went all the way up there, for a 10 minute hearing that wasn't going to take place until the next day. So after meeting and confering with my job, turns out I was going to be spending the night in SF. I got to get up with some good friends, had a good dinner, bought a new outfit, stayed in a nice hotel, and attended the 10 minute hearing the next day.

On the airplane ride home I realized that I hate people on airplanes. In the terminal ppl are fine, in fact generally I am very tolerant of ppl. However on a plane, ppl make me sick. I think its just the proximity and the fact that I have nowhere to go to escape them. The couple next to me were talking and laughing incessantly, the guy next to me kept touching me, and he had to get up to go to the bathroom. Its a 53 minute flight. 53 minutes!!! What adult can't hold it for 53 minutes?? Apparently lots of them. The guy with the window seat in front of me got up twice...twice in 53 minutes.
So yeah I hate ppl on planes, love SF, and like my new friend.

Ellipses

Last week was tough...one of the worst weeks i've had in a minute. I'm glad its over. I'll admit i've been organizing, coordinating, hosting and MC'ing my own personal pity party...i feel like i felt when a relative died, cry a little here and there, an overall feeling of sadness, and a desire to remain solemn as it feels like being happy or jovial is still inappropriate. I am normally the queen of hidden emotion, and sucking it up...but i haven't had the energy to be my normally energetic self. Its strange...I watched a heck of a lot of Oprah last night, trying to clear out my tivo cache, and it was actually quite helpful. there is something very selfish about depression...you are only thinking about yourself and your situation, i remember reading an article once that said that one way to get out of such a funk is to dwell on others, participate in things that force you to take an interest is something or someone other then yourself...watching Oprah, peeking into the lives of these other ppl, seeing how truly fortunate I am by comparison, definitely took my mind off my issues. I am thankful for my blessings, and God's clear hand in my life, I just kick myself when i begin to reap what I have sewn....O' if I would only listen to His voice (isa. 48:17, 18)...I need to get that tattooed on my wrist, or chest, like that guy in Memento "Remember Isaiah 48..."...there was some other scripture that I read recently that I felt was even more necessary in my life right now, of course i've forgotten it, shouldn't be too hard to figure out where i read it...at work the other day I overheard someone in front of my door asking someone else (a blk person was asking a Jewish person about a scripture in the greek scriptures!) where that scripture that says that God will not put upon you more then what you can bear, he didn't know, so I yelled out 1 Cor 10:13...I was only about 70% sure that was the correct verse, I knew that was the right chapter and book, and turned out I was right about the verse as well. I am often surprised by my ability to quote and recall scriptures...unfortunately I tend to be like that man who looks into the mirror of God's word to see the man that he really is, only to walk away and forget what he saw...ironically, I can't remember where that one is...I cannot be less excited about my parents impending visit...its terrible...but it feels like i just saw them, and i just can't take that level of scrutiny right now, i'm already being hard on me the last thing I need/want is their dual assault on my life, interpersonal relationships, weight, skin, hair, home decorating, lack of organization, spending habits, clothes, and car maintenance...I really just want to be alone...like really alone...no sister, no hall, no work, just a weekend or so alone...I miss VA...i used to just disappear, drive along the river, to a waterfall, no cell service, no ppl, just an 1.5 hour drive, sit on the riverbed, and then drive back...I've been through worse, or at least equivalent, and really...sorry i just got distracted by this very cute, moderately big backed white boy with a buzz cut from some M state who always flirts with me when he drops off documents to our office...so what was I talking about?