State of the LadyLee Blog Address...

(Dedicated to one of my lurkers readers, NuRsE CooK!! *LadyLee kicking the hard fist pump* I only talked to you for a few minutes this evening, but my goodness...you are one funny chick!!)

Since our beloved president is about to snow us speak to us tonight in the State of the U.n.ion Address, and pull the wool over our eyes let us know about this sending of MORE troops to the Mid.dle East, I thought I would not even look at his speech (I would look at the new analysis shows tomorrow)...

... I thought I would do a "State of the LadyLee Blog" address.

Just a little something to let you know what's going on over in these parts.

First of all, I did a guest blog thingy over on Tayari Jones' blog. She asked if a few folks would join her as she read Julia Cameron's The Artist Way. You know me. I'm her #1 fan, so you KNOW I am going along for the ride. Hell, If Tayari said that in order for me to improve my writing, I should go find a paper sack and fill it with roaches, I would do it PRONTO. Anything that will help my writing... shoot, I'm game!!

I wrote something funny, but decided to do something more straight laced. I wondered around aimlessly at work for a little while, with a slight tension headache trying to figure out how to write up my adventure, my visit to The Junkman's Daughter store... There is a slightly different crowd over there in Tayari's LURK CITY... I had to represent like I had a lick of sense, LOL.!!!

But on to my address... And I think you should clap after each section, kinda like they do at the State of the U.nio.n address...

I think I will talk about the information in the heading at the top of the page and go from there.

"Presenting Nostalgic Tales, Book Reviews, Writing progress, Current Events, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera"

Nostalgic Tales. I don't know if I do as much of that as I use to early on. Most of my nostalgia involves my homie of the last 25 years... LadyTee. A lot of old stuff, I don't know... I just don't talk about, because it is probably only funny to me. (Maybe I will just entertain myself and post some stuff, LOL). But most of my tales are more current, more of the stuff that is happening to me right here, right now, in the present. I will most likely continue in that vane.

Book Reviews. I read A LOT of books, approximately 3 to 4 a month. That will go up once I finish my doggone manuscript. ~sigh~ I like doing those a lot, and I have 3 book reviews in progress right now. Look out for those to be posted pretty soon!

Writing Progress. Man, I am trying my best to finish my doggone manuscript. Why, just today, I was sitting in a long meeting working on it, scribbling furiously in a compostion book I have reserved for my short story ideas. (It was one of those things where I was screaming "Oh hell nawl, we got a meeting! Let me grab something so I can get some writing done!!) I am, like, 10 pages away from finishing, and the doggone thing will be about 950 pages long. Nawl, I ain't cutting it, either. Tayari says having that many pages is a "high class problem."

*crickets*.

(*Lee frantically waving hand in the air* -- I would like to exchange my "high class problem" for a" Section 8 problem", please! LOL)

My laptop glitched out on me, 10 pages from the finish! (you should have seen me up in the store tripping out on a Ge.ek Squ.ad sista! I was half a step from pimp slapping that chick!). I really don't know what to do with the manuscript right now, in the area of cutting out unnecessary material, that is. I have no experience in such things.

I am reading and printing it out right now. I won a manuscript edit late last year. That's gonna be HILARIOUS when she gets damn near a 1000 pages in the mail.

There are about 10 people reading it. They love it. (You know how folks are... some people love everything I do, LOL. LadyTee refuses to read it. She says she has been reading my sh** since I was 10 years old, and she already know the drill.) One of my book club sistas who does book reviews is currently reading it, and likes to have these long intense convos about some parts of it, which is good for me, because it makes me think.. I'm hearing it ain't the best idea for folks to read your stuff, but I am a novice, and I have gained a lot of insight from talking to those who have been reading along for the past year (So I thank you, you Children of the Corn!)

So that makes me happy.

I have a throwaway excerpt coming up soon, so watch out for that next week time. It is part of a more serious post. I lost a bet with some young bruh that has been trying to holla at me, and he found my blog. I have to write a post to him.

Um, we'll just leave it at that. Look out for that next week sometime.

Current Events. You know, I like current events. I subscribe to both Newsweek and Time magazine, and I just like to read up on current events. (I've been known to peruse an occasional issue of National Geographic... I can be such a NERD sometimes!). I use to do a lot of small political rants early on in this blog, especially after that doggone 'Trina hurricane ish, but I am more interested in little stuff I see on the news. Stuff that has me picking up the phone calling up LadyTee and the two of us getting involved in a little armchair commentating. (You've seen some of our mindless convos, LOL). That may just stay the way it is, because afterall, all of our pontificating is a bit funny.

The "Etcetera." That could mean anything. I am in Diva mode right now and trying to staff up my blog staff. Snake seems to be OVERLY ecstatic about his Monday morning poetry. He was standing on my porch the other day, frowning hard and yelling at the top of his lungs...

"Bite cha, bite cha, bite cha, bite cha...BITE CHAAAAAAAAA!!!"

*Ladylee stepping closer to the front door, just in case she gotta get in the house quick*

He was just a bit ecstatic about his comments, and the fact that people like his poems. He reads his comments over and over. Yeah, he is taking the whole "Snake bite" thing VERY seriously. I don't care, as long as he is happy:)

My blog sista SupaStar is going to do a t-shirt post here and there.

She finds some of the most amazing t-shirts. She has the inside tips on getting personalized t-shirts, etc. Some of them make me blush. Some of them make me stumble backwards, knocking over chairs, trying my best to get away from her. And she doesn't seem to give a flip what people think about them, as you can see from the picture above. Let's just say she wears them proudly.

LadyTee's 10-year old daughter Miracle, who we affectionately call "Milk-Milk" has agreed to do a couple of cooking posts, but she is on some old Diva craziness right now. From what I hear, she is pouring through her recipe books, trying to decide what she wants to cook, and is being real top secret about. I don't know. I think she thinks she is Emeril or Rachel Ray or something.

Listen up Milk-Milk. Get over yourself... This ain't the Food Network. Get a couple of recipes and let's do this. Don't get fired before you even start.

Tiny is always wanting me to look at new improvements he makes to his Mustang. (He is my one man bootleg securtiy team, and works on his car in my garage). I just nod and smile, and keep it moving... I am a girl, and I don't understand such things... But my male readers may like them. So look out for "Car talk with Tiny". Snake got wind of this and caught a major attitude. ("Oh hell no LadyLee, you can't be letting him write poetry.") I thought he was going to knock Tiny upside the head with his composition book!! Now I found this to be quite funny... Tiny does not have a poetic bone in his body, LOL! I explained it to Snake, and although he peered at me suspiciously, he seemed to understand.

I was trying to get the Obi-Wan Kenobi of my book club,

Kat, to do a quarterly blog post, some old "Kat's Corner" type ish... I swear, she says some of the most PROFOUND things concerning character and well being. I almost expect the clouds to part, harps and trumpets to sound, and Angels to sing when she speaks...

I ran up on her about it... She gave me that "look", you know that "look" that your mama use to give you when you were acting up and she'd had enough. Right before she knocked you in the head with a house shoe.

That look that said...

"LadyLee... if you don't get away from me..."

HAAAA!

She's a busy chick. Diva of the world, she is! So I understand. Do your thing and handle your business, Kat:) !!!!

My book club sista said that I should just get a tape recorder and just catch it when she say something and then just write it up. Yeah, I may do that. Lord knows that I can't write it down verbatim... I'm in too much awe, pondering what was said, before I can even think to make notes. Goodness!!!

There will be more in the etcetera round... I have some hilarious movies of Snake. I am mad about my music hosting site being out of commission for the past month, without a word as to why! So I gotta figure out an alternative because I GOTS to have my MUSIC!! Got other lil' thangs coming up!

Make sure you stop back by and check it out!!