Good Monday Morning

(Don't forget to Comment, text or email to participate in Birthday #44 sweepstakes. See post for details. Drawing on February 8th).

Good Monday Morning to YOU.

I had a good weekend. How 'bout you!?

My weekend was automatically good. Why? Because the polar vortex got the heck on. I don't know where it went and I don't care. All I know is that on Saturday, it was 65 degrees in the ATL.  It was warm enough for me to open my sunroof and let my hair blow in the wind. Yes, I was chilly, but so what? It was 5 degrees earlier in the week. 65 degrees feels like summertime right about now.

There were busted pipes all over Atlanta last week. Water everywhere! It didn't make a bit of sense. Just all over the place, even at work. We even had a day off this week because the boiler went out. I remember that morning getting out of the shower and putting on my clothes... then receiving a text saying that everyone was being sent home.  Well, I just got right on back in the bed. I was texting coworker Sushi, who was on the train, wailing about getting her hours. I told that chick to take her tail back home.  And she did. (Never seent anyone who wants to work so badly).

So, yes I was glad for a warm day. A Saturday no less.

Friday night, I had a writing workshop, which went well. Only two stories out of it, but that's cool. On Saturday I had Triple F Posse. My sister has joined up with the group. (She was part of it in the past). She is such a delight.

And yes, it was a delight when she had 2 pages of "reflections" from the last meeting. We were all O_o.

I gave her some advice before went off to college: take time and sit down and reflect.  And my goodness, it is some 13 years later and she still clings to that advice... with a a vengence.

I can learn from that.

I ran a few errands and went on home. I stayed in on Sunday. I was all tuckered out from Friday and Saturday.

In other news, congrats to 12 Years a Slave for their Golden Globe win  for best picture.

No one expected that. Not even the director. He was shell shocked.

Oh how we hate slave movies. Oh how we hate them. We hate a good butler or maid movie.

But we wouldn't be where or who you are without that slave, butler or maid.  Really.

I remember I went visit my grandparents one day, some 20 years ago when I was working on my PhD. Granddaddy ask me how school was. I whined and complained while he sat quietly glaring at me. When I was done wailing he said "Your grandmama didn't get down on her knees and clean white peoples floors so you could sit up here and whine and complain."

I remember thinking... Uh, Grandma wasn't thinking about me back in the 40s and 50s. But I thought better of it. And that's why I don't mind seeing slave, butler and maid movies. It reminds me to be thankful for my priviledged life now. Yes, convoluted reasonings, but whatever.

Grandaddy is long gone off to glory. You best believe I don't spend time complaining about stuff to Grandma, though. No way.  And she will listen. But I leave her be.

That is all I will say about that.

I too want to see more movies about our history in Africa. We have to get out there and support it, though. I am also a fan of black science fiction and black horror. But we too have to go support that also. But you know how "we" tend to be.

Book of the Week. Speaking of black horror, I love black horror books. They are very hard to come by. I am reading one right now. Well it is novella. Live Again by L.R,. Giles

It is about a widower who is trying to cope with the loss of his wife. He runs into a strange man in a bar that gives him a spell to bring her back. She comes back to life alright... but with a whole slew of isshas.

This is scaring me GOOD fashioned. Oscar-Tyrone jumped up on the bed while I was reading and I jumped sky high. Whoo-wee. That old cat almost got trampled. LOL

I'm wondering what else this author has written?
 I may check him out later. I have to get back to my spiritual reading. Amen. And amen again.

Quote of the Week. I write down so many quotes that it is hard to pick out just one. I heard this one this weekend. It is a question of sorts:

Will you spend the rest of your life living up to the ideas of what or who people think you are or should be doing? Or do you have the courage to break the mold?

That is powerful.

And I think a lot about time these days.  I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago on time (See "The 4th Dimension").  Years and years and years of worrying what people thought of me... I can't imagine it. But it is how we live, isn't it? It's how we have been trained.

I always ask myself from time to time. If I was the only person on the planet, how would I feel about myself? About the decision I am making?

And I let my answer to that be the answer.

I know one thing... the answers to my prayers always have a little "*" next to them.  And down at the bottom of the page it says...

*this answer was NOT run past other people to see how they feel about it.

Good. I won't have it any other way.

I need a good song of the week. Why don't I just play my FAVORITE song for the past 25 years or so.



*swaying in chair and sanging VERY hard*

I LOVE that song. Makes me want to jump up with my glass of brown liquor and dance in the middle of the dance floor all by myself!

Or maybe jump up in the middle of the cubicle area with my bottled water and dance all by myself.

*silence*

I can't do that, honey. Chickens will talk about me and make up stuff.  By the time it gets around the building good, it'll be said that I was drunk and crying over some dude I'm messing with... Some random dude in the building... and that I am pregnant... and I that I'm in a halfway house after beating a charge for attempted murder... and that I smoke crack.

*lee turns off song*

Maybe I should sing to myself.

I should sing quietly... using my inside voice.

Oh yes. That is what I will do... ON PURPOSE.