Category Archives: Slice of Life – Two Writing Teachers

Cold As

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Hung out last night for dinner and drinks with friends. On my way home this happened:

Male Friend I ran into on train: Have you been drinking?
Me: Yup.
MF: You’re drunk?
Me: Nope. Inebriated.
MF: What’s the difference?
Me: A) I can still pronounce it easily. B) I can still spell it slowly. C) You’re attractive, but not nearly enough for me to have illicit thoughts. D) I actually thought the words “illicit thoughts”.
MF: Damn. Even inebriated you’re cold.
Me: Yup.

For the record, even when sober, I spell inebriated slowly.

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 11

As Old As

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Killing time before class starts, my students and I are shooting the breeze about music. One mentions she will be attending Metallica’s upcoming concert in NJ, which I will attending as well. It segues into first album purchased (Micheal Jackson’s “Off the Wall”) and first concert attended, which for me was The Spinners with an appearance by Dionne Warwick. Only one student, not much older than I, knew of the group. Way to feel ancient Rai – geesh, but I guess it was better than none of them knowing, right? Right.

The student who knew of the Spinners sings out  “I’m sitting all alone by the telephone, waiting for your call..”

Not missing a beat I join in singing “…when you don’t call at all. It’s a shame, sha-ame.”

We trade lyrics and singers from the late 60s, early 70s for a bit. Clearly, I was familiar enough with the music of that time to have not just heard it from my parents collection. I am accused of that often enough that I just shrug it off for the compliment it accidentally gives. Meanwhile I can see the numbers crunching in his head as he looked hard at my face, which is never a good way to judge my vintage, by the way.

“How the hell old are you?” He baldly asks the burning question at last.

“Damn dude!” Exclaimed another student “You don’t do that!”

Without batting an eye, me – being me, answered in true me fashion.

“Let’s just say I was a cougar to Methuselah.”

There was a most awkward pause before some of them got it and laughed. While Methuselah had to be explained to the rest. It amused me immensely that I, the self-proclaimed resident heathen, made a biblical reference that went over nearly everyone’s head.

“And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.”
–Genesis 5:27 King James Version (KJV)

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 10

A Life After Death

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Legendary rapper the Notorious B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, was also known as Biggie Smalls professionally and Big Poppa by his fans, was gunned down in 20 years ago today at the age of 25. While the artist only recorded two solo albums during his brief life, his music has left a lasting influence to the point that many have called, and still call, him the greatest of all time, or the GOAT. Many young rap artists out today cite him as an influence. Fellow Brooklynite rapper Jay-Z gives a shout out to Biggie at nearly every concert to this day. For those who do not follow rap, or don’t even know his name, many at least recognize the most iconic image of him…

The Notorious B.I.G. – shot by Barron Claiborne for Rolling Stone magazine

The Notorious B.I.G. – photo by Barron Claiborne for Rolling Stone magazine

Biggie’s influence remains such that NBA’s Brooklyn Nets will celebrate the life of Brooklyn-born rapper when they host the New York Knicks at Barclays Center on Sunday. The evening will commemorate Biggie’s iconic legacy.

Wallace’s original stage name Biggie Smalls came from a character in the 70s blaxploitation movie “Let’s Do It Again” starring Bill Cosby & Sidney Poitier. At 300+ pounds and standing over six feet tall, the former drug dealer live up to the assumed pseudonym. When he was sued for using the name he became The Notorious B.I.G. Honestly, the law suit was a waste of time. Even for many of us with the vintage to remember the the character from the classic movie, the name Biggie Smalls will henceforth be associated with Big Poppa first.

Biggie, Biggie, Biggie can’t you see?
Sometimes your words just hypnotize me.

While not a devoted fan of the exaltation of sex and drugs that permeated rap at time, Biggie hit a balance that was not has hard hitting as some others like N.W.A., but was not anywhere near the easy-listening sounds of  say Heavy D.  So yes, I am a fan of The Notorious B.I.G.’s music and his smoother than silk delivery as he told his truths his way.

So today, on the anniversary of his leaving this world, my iPod plays all things Biggie, to celebrate a life that had such an impact while he walked this world.

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Sequitur / Non-sequitur:
I started this post on my cell phone – it amused to see each time I typed “The Notorious” it immediately suggested “B.I.G.”
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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 9

!! HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY !!

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Maya Angelou’s classic poem Phenomenal Woman as set to music by Amy Sky.

A loving reminder to all women that we are indeed phenomenal!

It’s International Women’s Day and I’m I woman. W-O-M-A-N! I’ll say it again!

Today is going to be ridicu-busy for me. If I don’t post something now – it won’t happen.  And who better than Maya and the lovely Amy Sky to say and sing it better?
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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 8

One World-Divisible 

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On Star Trek: TNG there was an episode about a planet wanting to join the Federation, but could not because a small part of its population was against it. It had to be a united planet to be a member.

A united planet.

We who call ourselves citizens of the United States would be noted as liars to say we are united merely as a country these days. We have not been truly united since a few years or so after 9/11. Perhaps there was a momentary resurgence of patriotism when Osama Bin Laden was finally taken down, but bloom fell off that rose pretty quickly.

Locations of ongoing conflicts worldwide; updated March 2017. - Wikipedia

Locations of ongoing conflicts worldwide; updated March 2017. – Wikipedia

Since Cain first had his jealous streak and took out Able it has been man’s penchant to divide and hold his cause in favor.

It is one the oldest strategies in the book of power. And it works, because it plays directly in to human nature.  We classify ourselves as along political, social, religious, economic lines and so on. We used to agree to disagree and be, if not fine, at least tolerant of opposing views. These matters are central to human social existence and tend resist any attempts at resolution. As a result, each side views the position of the other as a threat to its very existence.  The more we lose sight of our commonalities; drifting away from each other and becoming less human. When we group ourselves away from and regard those outside of our group with fear, with hostility, even if, especially when they’ve done nothing – we forget that they are humans too and that makes us part of the problem.

These intractable conflicts are ones that have continued unresolved and seem stuck in their levels of intensity and destructiveness. People tend to strike out at what is different, what they fear, which is bad when what we fear is each other.
It’s worse when we give in to that fear, give in to that desire to inflict as much harm, physical and psychological, on each other as possible. For so many this constant sense of threat and hostility pervades everyday life and overrides our ability to recognize any shared concerns.

For a nation renowned on embracing the different, some in the US seem to have lost sight of this within our own walls. Where will her huddled masses go if Liberty’s torch grows dim?

Will it ever come to a point it blows out?

And the U.S. is but one nation of many nations trying to get its act together, as a people we seem to be doing more and more separating of ourselves from each other. Earth would never be admitted as a member of the UFP as we stand now.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 10

52essays2017

A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

 

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 7

Wake Up And Listen

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Note: This was the slice that should have been typed and posted Saturday morning. By the time I finally pulled myself out of bed, I hit the ground running and did not stop until very late evening. Those who read my ‘placeholder’ for Saturday night and my slice for yesterday know why it was preempted to today.

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I woke up to birdsong.

I have a small playground surrounded by trees outside my windows. So in spite of my being a born and mostly bred city gal, I do hear birds on a regular basis. However, it is usually on weekday mornings of spring and autumn when their rising coincides with my walk to the train station for work. Again, depending on timing, some evenings I will catch their riotous calls as they circle and settle in for the night. Still, I almost never hear them weekend mornings.

As an early riser Monday thru Friday, unless my bladder calls, I steadfastly refuse acknowledgement of the world before 9am, 10am if I am particularly knackered from the previous night’s shenanigans. This is what made Saturday morning different. Daylight was just breaking over the jagged horizon of homes and tenements that mark my neighborhood I woke up to the trills and coos of birds. It’s not even 7am so my first instinct is to turn over and go back to sleep when I realize what I’m hearing. While I knew the playground and trees were there, it was one of the selling points to choosing the apartment, I had not really factored in birds. I amused myself trying to imagine their “morning routine” on a brisk winter day. Who’s the early riser among them, driving every other avian crazy with a.m. perkiness? Which is the one still burrowing under the twigs and twining of their nest wanting a few more moments of shut-eye.

It was the first time I’ve noticed them while ensconced in the quilting of my bed. It was a wonderful reminder of how close we are to spring.  They were at decibels boisterous enough to seep through windows tightly sealed against the chill of winter. Loud enough to reach through my still sleep drugged mind to make me hear; so now I listened. Until they lulled me back to sleep.

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 6

Place Holder

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I had a slice on my mind all morning, but then my morning ran away from me and I never got to write, let alone post it. It was just as well as this evening provided me with a regrettable, but larger slice to choke on and work with.

Unfortunately, I know I will not have it typed in time for today’s deadline.  So here I am near the witching hour asking you to stay tuned….

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 4

 

 

Battle Lines

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On Wednesday it reached a whopping 70+ degrees. I told myself, it is still winter bring your coat. Naturally, I fully regretted that decision by mid afternoon when I was sweltering under my wool coat as I walked about. Or as I nicely posted on Wednesday…

weather

The temps have since dropped steadily since Wednesday afternoon. It’s now Friday, with an expected high of 41 degrees which has already come and gone. This morning I happily pulled on my wool coat, grabbing a hat, scarf and gloves not seen since last week . Even so the temperatures continue to drop more as the day progresses.

So Ol’ Man Winter has remembered we’re still in his purlieu and has remembered with a vengeance, as tomorrow’s expected high is a brutal 19 degrees.

Tomorrow, I will be hanging out with my offspring. While I am looking forward to seeing them, I am not looking forward to Jack Frost’s rendition of Shakespeare’s Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!

We’re smack in the lion’s jaw right now in his annual battle with the lamb for seasonal supremacy. Three days into March and it’s already looking to be a doozey. Forget what that stupid groundhog said, you can do this Lamb!

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 3

Careful What You Look For

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I am a born and bred New Yorker and a daily mass transit commuter. Part and parcel of this are the mornings when I may encounter a group of police officers performing random searches of bags. This happens at my local station several times a year, while I have witnessed others randomly selected to have their bags searched I myself had not been stopped before. Until the day I really, really should not have been. Oh, the deities do love to laugh at us mortals, no?

When the officer signaled me, my first instinct was to balk. I mean seriously? Of all days to be selected! Please note the situation: me – a fat black woman, clearly dressed for work, carrying a leather cross body bag with embossed skull adornment and a zipped leopard print shopping bag, certainly looks as though I am in possession of potential bomb making materials, to transport via the subway nonetheless- staring down several gun-toting NYPD officers who indeed looked friendly enough, but let’s not get it twisted, I am most certainly offering my bags for inspection. I huffed at the inconvenience of a missed train, but then I remembered exactly what I was carrying.

In my mind I could hear a Greek chorus of certain friends yelling “Rai BEHAVE!”

However, my ever-present demon did Olympic worthy somersaults on my shoulder as I bit down the urge to grin while I handed my bags over and took a step back from the table.

“But of course officers, here you go.”

Oh, this is going to be such FUN! 

A younger friend of mine, slowly coming into her sexuality, wanted to go “toy” shopping. As she was new to this, instead of randomly buying things online, I had suggested we go to a brick and mortar store where she can actually see and touch a few things.  Let’s just say that after an hour or so the end result was my friend, and a couple of others – who overheard me explaining certain things and wound up in our conversation, spent a lovely amount of dollars there and the salesgirls wanted to recruit me. Which was all well and good until I got home I realized I had her purchases with me because in spite of it all she was still too shy to be in the street carrying a bag with the store’s logo emblazoned on the side, announcing to the world where she’d been. We agreed to meet in the morning at a station downtown to drop it off. I placed the items in the leopard print bag to be nice to her. I now watched as an officer slowly unzipped the bag and took a peek inside.

I knew the first thing he saw was the brand spanking new dildo, still in its package sitting at the top. His mouth dropped as he gasped, turned all manner of persimmon and looked up at me.  Of course this got the attention of the three other officers working with him who naturally had to take a look. It seemed as almost one they all slowly looked from the bag to me in expressions ranging from What kind of shit is this? to Oh my God! to Well, hello there!

“That’s not mine. Would you believe, it’s for a friend?” I teased, Maxwell Smart coming to mind as I shrugged a shoulder, knowing damn well what they believed.

It took everything I had to keep a straight face as a different officer took a pen, moved the dildo over to look further into the bag only to remove his hand and look up at me anew. I suspect he saw the – well never mind what he saw.

“Now, that one is mine.” placidity was my name as I arched a brow at him. He grinned. It was lethal. It was beautiful. I reminded him he was married, to the amusement of his comrades as the first officer quickly zipped the leopard print bag and handed both bags back to me.

“Enjoy yourself.” Officer Smiley’s grin was divine as, per protocol, he held the emergency door open for me to go through as I earn a free train ride as payment for the inconvenience of being detained.

“You saw what was in the bag; you know I will.”  I purred as I went through. The officer’s laughter followed me as I went down the escalator.

I was on the train, pulling out my iPod, when it amused me to realize that in the surprise of the toys found in the leopard print bag, none of them actually checked my purse.

To paraphrase a classic: be careful what you seek, you might find something unexpected instead.

Whoops!
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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 2

Be Mused

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Morning commute, I am sitting in a corner seat when muse strikes. It’s a crowded train, there are people are all around me. Really Calliope, now? -Or was it Erato this time? Either way, darn Muse! It’s annoying, but personal experience, aka the hubris of Oh, I’ll remember this later to write it down has taught me harsh lessons to not mess with the Muse. They graciously bestow at their convenience, not yours, and will cattily take it away have you not the guts to heed. I have also learned, type now edit later. Spell checks, grammar checks, syntax, style can all be fine tuned later. No matter how disjointed they initially seem, there will be nothing to fine tune if I don’t get the lines down first.

Thus, I pull out my tablet try to capture the stream of consciousness that are their gifts as they rain down.  I barely remember to look up to check stations every now and then so I don’t miss my stop.  In order to hold my tablet properly as I type means my elbow slightly encroaches into the personal space of the person sitting next to me, but I pay it little heed as I type/cut/copy/paste/arrange.  I am approaching my station when I stop to pack up.  It’s a little ways from finished, a long ways from polished, but I have to stop and hope I can recapture that mood to finish it right at a later time.

Later that morning, tablet in hand, I am exiting a Starbucks when I see this a guy coming towards my general direction. He stops short when he sees me and breaks out into a grin. With that grin he goes from coming towards my general direction to coming directly towards me.  There is no question that he’s coming towards me as he waves his hand, nods and points directly at me in response to my Who me? pantomime. There is a vague familiarity to him, but my mind won’t quite make the connection and I have time to kill so I wait until he reaches me.

“So, how’d it turn out?” His hand waves in the general direction of my tablet.

Uh, what? While I have no idea what I was expecting him to say, I guarantee it was not that. It must have shown on my face.

“Saw the poem you writing in your tablet and…” And click… The missing piece falls into place as I recognize him.

He got on the train about a third of the way in my commute, then got off at the same station as I. This was the person sitting beside me on the train, whose space I invaded as I wrote. While I was not hiding my words as I composed, I was not inviting them for casual perusal either. Still, he liked what he had glimpsed. He did not want to interrupt and in the rush of disembarking, I disappeared into the crowd before it occurred to him to stop me. Not expecting to ever lay eyes on me again, and resigned to not knowing the outcome of the write, now that he has seen me he was curious and could not help but ask about the finished product.

We chat for a bit where he acknowledges the creepiness of reading as I wrote, but hey we were on a crowded train, can’t say that I blame him. I likely would have done the same were the roles reversed.  I respond that I have not finished, sometimes a complete write drops fast, some have to simmer for a bit before I think they are ready for the world to digest. I give him the URL to this blog to peruse at his leisure and eventually see the finished product. As we part ways what is the first thought that enters my mind?

Hey, this would make a good Slice!

And so we begin – Day One down, only 30 more to go.

As for that poem? Well, that one is still simmering. You’ll know when I know.

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 1