Category: Melissa’s life (Page 10 of 20)
A while back, a couple of my Little Rock twitter friends wrote about race after reading a startling statistic about Arkansas. I wasn’t as surprised as I should have been. See, in what will be the ultimate cliche of all time, my friend who died a couple of months ago, Angela, was black.
There’s a picture of her at her daughter Alexis’s birthday in 2007. Crap, I can’t believe that was almost three years ago. Even more crap, I can’t believe my friend is dead. Well I’ve known . . . knew Angela since we were in kindergarten and we became good friends in high school. That’s a lot of years.
She wasn’t my only ethnic minority friend. I’m not even sure how many I have. I have enough that I would have to think about it to actually give a number. My first boyfriend’s parents came here from India and he was first generation. I’m not quite sure how I got to be so comfortable around different races other than to say that my single Aunt had a Laverne and Shirley type roommate situation with this black lady named Debra when I was growing up. Actually Debra is back at my Aunt’s house but apparently sometime during the late 80s, early 90s, Debra got married and moved out. Maybe I’m just easy going. I don’t know. I know for high school purposes most of the other white kids in my smart kid classes were also members of the country club and that added an interesting little twist to the whole small town social seven circles of hell known as high school cliques.
I do know that racism is alive and well. I saw what happened to my friend when she was in the running to be valedictorian. It was ugly and obvious. Ethnic students are given lower grades by white teachers, even if it is the exact same paper as the experiment in the link did. That study has been replicated so many times. I’ve heard all of the statistics about black people going to jail more than whites.
I’ve also seen what it does to individual people. I’ve seen the unfairness. I’ve seen how it slowly sinks in and how some people become bitter. some people become sad and yet others just quit trying altogether.
I don’t quite understand it. It’s something that should be so easy and yet it seems so hard. If you don’t know somebody, you don’t know somebody and assuming things about someone you don’t know is stupid. Why be mean to people you don’t know? Why go around assuming someone is lazy or stupid or anything because of their appearance? Putting other people down as a means to feel better about yourself is desperate and sad.
I wish I had some deep meaning prose that would inspire but I don’t. Others have done it better in other venues. People just want to be liked and appreciated. They want to be loved for who they are deep down underneath all the bullshit.
I admit it. I love cover songs. They’re a guilty pleasure. Sometimes, they’re a not so guilty pleasure. Some cover songs are amazing and surpass the original. Others could be described as pure satire or butchering. Some are an attempt to disturb the soul of the composer of the song from heaven or hell. They’re just that bad.
here are some for you to gaze and laugh. Or whatever.
This is Hallelujah by Sheryl Crow. Hallelujah was written by Leonard Cohen and is more notorious for its many covers than the original song. Everyone from Rufus Wainright to Bob Dylan to KD Lang have recorded covers of this song and that is not including the myriad of covers done in concerts.
Bitches Ain’t Shit by Ben Folds. “Bitches Ain’t Shit” was originally performed by Dr. Dre . It’s a hardcore misogynistic gangsta rap song talking about wmen being hoes and going to county jail. OH lord. The first time I heard this, I laughed so hard I cried.
Jonny C covering “Baby Got Back” My friend Rebecca found this little gem. This is also a white dude singing a rap song with an acoustic instrument.
I Will Survive by Cake. This is a remake of the ubiquitous and beloved disco classic by Gloria Gaynor.
- I bit the bullet and got my own domain. This should be very interesting. I already have hosting for my professional site so I just added this domain. I’m not sure why I think this is better.
- I saw This Film Has Not Yet Been rated. It is about the rating system of the Motion Picture Association of America. It’s about the arbitrariness of the ratings. It points out that the identities of the raters are secret. The film makers hire private investigators to find out who they are. They study movies and point out that the same frames of a sex scene (same position, same angle of the camera, etc.) that get an R rating for a heterosexual will get an NC-17 for a homosexual. It’s a fascinating documentary.
- World Cup. DAMN! Nail biter. So close.
- My parents are selling my childhood home and the buyer is tearing it down. I have to go through the remaining items still over there to see if there is anything I want. Also, if my brother and I want to coordinate a yard sale, we need to do that this week. The house has floor to ceiling bookshelves in one room. There will definitely be books and old furniture. gosh. They managed to give away my childhood piano. It was out of tune so they gave it away to a guy who was going to pay to have the thing restrung. I saw the eight year old girl who came to watch her family load it into the back of their truck. Her eyes glowed. I think it’s a good match. Apparently, the family owns the donut shop in Crossett.
- I am getting back to running. I have to do it really late at night. (8-9 o’clock) but I am getting it done. I’ve been looking at other forms of fitness. It’s time I get serious about this.
- My friend Sharon is meeting our mutual hero PAMIE. I’m excited for her. I’m also excited for Pamela Ribon (aka Pamie). She got an article published on Oprah.com. Yes THAT OPRAH.COM.
- Speaking of books, I finally have got the first Sookie Stackhouse book. The books take place in a fictional town in Northern Louisiana. While the actual Bon Temps does not exist, there is a Monroe Louisiana and a Shreveport Louisiana. There is a rather large mall in Monroe too. Also, yes, it is realistic for a small town to have a chapter of a group that celebrates the civil war. It rings true with the exception of vampires being real and roaming the earth.
So today is father’s day. Like most daughters, my relationship with my father has gone through peaks and valleys. We’re alike and different in ways that lead to much angst and frustration on both sides.
Strangely enough it was my moving thousands of miles away that seemed to smooth over a lot of things. I’m guessing there is something about that sort of distance that puts many of the frustration and arguments in perspective. Or maybe he was just all kinds of jazzed that I was going to be a lawyer.
He taught me how to ride a bike. He still reminds me to check the oil in my car. Every time I stop by, he checks the tires. I got my musical ability from him. He has two guitars, a mandolin, a violin/fiddle (he likes bluegrass so he calls it a fiddle) and a banjo. Wait I think he has a dulcimer, too. I can’t keep up.
He used to make up these wild bedtime stories when I was wee enough for fathers to tell their daughters bedtime stories. He would put himself and me as the hero and heroine of the stories and use our pets and the animals in the woods as our villians. Yeah we got them every time.
He calls me hopalong or molasses. He has the most disgusting feet in the history of feet. That man needed a pedi about twenty years ago. Now I can’t bear the thought of some beauty parlor nail person enduring the havoc that is my father’s feet. I’m sure she would charge him triple. TRIPLE y’all.
He’s incredibly patient except when dealing with his tools. He’ll cuss out the screw driver and the stuck screw like it slept with his wife. He has a sense of humor. When he was in the hospital, the nurse told him that she was giving him half a pill. He asked if it was the right half or the left half. Yeah they got a kick out of him in the cardiac wing.
So today I say thank you for everything Dad. You’re the bestest.
- Over at the Tumblr page I am doing this 30 days of songs meme. The list is under the Friday Five list if you want to play at home. I am thoroughly enjoying it. It’s been a while since I’ve written something non legal. I write on here but it’s been a while since I have had to thing about a topic and write about it. I love music so it has been so much fun going through songs. Searching for the right song to pick for each day has been far more fun than I, or you, would think it would be. It’s a downright HOOT!
- I miss my friend. She’s been dead over a month. I don’t cry. I am able to “go on” but occasionally, I forget. When Obama gave his speech regarding BP, I picked up the phone and pressed her number on autodial. I am handling it. I know she wouldn’t want me to spend my days not living my life while she is stuck in the ground. She might slap me at the pearly gates if she finds out I did.
- The local domestic violence shelter needs $6,357 by August 1, 2010 to buy their shelter. The building is owned by the Drew County Public Facilities Board and they have decided to sell the building because the rent is cheaper than the expense of the building. Well that is the official statement. I have no nice words. This domestic violence shelter is here and serves five counties. To just up and decide to sell it at pretty close to the last minute shows a lack of commitment to assist victims of domestic violence. To put it succinctly, “BLARGH”
- I finished Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
. It brought back that urge to write. It reminded me that when I was younger I liked to write and that I took a creative writing class. Yes, yes indeed. It also reminded me that nothing comes out of the gate all nice. It’s all written in a notebook in a big hurry and then later it gets edited down into something nice and presentable. You have to be able to release the emotions as fast as they can come out of you. That is the most raw and the most real. Those concepts and themes then become the most relatable. So I got another Moleskine
and I’m ready to go. I think I’ll start small.
- Oh yeah it’s HOT! Crazy hot. Heat index in the 100s hot. blargh.
Day 01 – Your favorite song
?Day 02 – Your least favorite song
Day 03 – A song that makes you happy
Day 04 – A song that makes you sad
Day 05 – A song that reminds you of someone
Day 06 – A song that reminds of you of somewhere
Day 07 – A song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 08 – A song that you know all the words to
Day 09 – A song that you can dance to
Day 10 – A song that makes you fall asleep
Day 11 – A song from your favorite band
Day 12 – A song from a band you hate
Day 13 – A song that is a guilty pleasure
Day 14 – A song that no one would expect you to love
Day 15 – A song that describes you
Day 16 – A song that you used to love but now hate
Day 17 – A song that you hear often on the radio
Day 18 – A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Day 19 – A song from your favorite album
Day 20 – A song that you listen to when you’re angry
Day 21 – A song that you listen to when you’re happy
Day 22 – A song that you listen to when you’re sad
Day 23 – A song that you want to play at your wedding
Day 24 – A song that you want to play at your funeral
Day 25 – A song that makes you laugh
Day 26 – A song that you can play on an instrument
Day 27 – A song that you wish you could play
Day 28 – A song that makes you feel guilty
Day 29 – A song from your childhood
Day 30 – Your favorite song at this time last year?
After what can only be described as two crazy weeks, I had almost forgotten that I was had a ticket to see Conan O’Brien. I know, I almost forgot about Conan O’Brien. But really it was crazy.
- CLE in Memphis (CLE stands for Continuing Legal Education. It’s a fancy way to say I went back to school for two days)
- Memphis in May was also around that time so i saw the B-52s again. Also, other bands until during the Middle of Hall and Oates (don’t judge me), there was a tornado warning and we all had to leave.
- Fortunately, i did not die but it was scary
- I also found out that day that one of my really good friends was in a coma
- Two days later, she died
- Tons of crying and a funeral
See I told you it was a lot going on and in the midst of all that mourning, I didn’t realize that Conan was on Saturday until my friend Tiffany sent me a message about three days before the event. See, she lives in Muskogee and was going to let me crash at her place after the show. Aren’t friends great?
Someone asked me “what was the appeal of Conan O’Brien” and I had to pause because while I know theoretically there are people who don’t like him, I couldn’t conceive of why. I guess I just assumed they had brain damage. For me, I guess I relate to his willingness to be silly and his intelligence. He is that smart, dorky guy in school who grew up to be one of the “cool kids” and yet he still sees himself as that dorky guy in school. Maybe I relate to that a little too well. (shut up, I am awesome!) ahem… Triumph the Insult Comic dog. Crap. That mutt is funny.
I make no claims to be “objective” in my fandom of that show. It’s on the short list with Veronica Mars and Dexter. Sorry love it. Due to being so busy I didn’t read any of the reviews or hype regarding the show. The only thing I had even heard was at some point, Conan uses the word “douchebag.” So I went into it with about as open of a mind as I possibly could.
They had me at LaBamba. See when Conan said he was taking his show on the road, he meant “his show” so as much of it as he could take without violating NBC intellectual property laws. Hence the “not legally allowed to be funny on TV” being the title.
See, its’ the Band. See its’ LaBamba. The band came out and sang a song before Conan ever took the stage. LaBamba and ran through the aisles. Since I had an aisle seat really close to the stage, I got in on that running action.
Unfortunately, my camera was slow and I got his back but it’s LABAMBA!!! LABAMBA!!!
I was a jumping up and down giggly as a school girl fool. And I had a giggly school girl grin throughout the entire show.
There’s a lot of overlap between the TV show and this show. One of the biggest differences is that Conan does a lot of singing and playing his guitar in this show. Many of you might remember he got a whole bunch of musician friends and Will Ferrell to do Freebird as a final song on his show.
Apparently, each spot has a special guest that has some tie to the location. Our special guest was Hanson. Here they are singing “Never Been to Spain”
and at the end, Conan sang a song and ran through the aisles. I touched his arm. *sniff* *silly schoolgirl gush*
I think it’s always a good thing to meet your heroes for the simple reason to remind yourself that they are just as human as you are.
An old man and his son in the frontier West awoke to find a section of their fence had broken and all their horses had escaped. The son said, “Well isn’t that rotten luck!’ The old man replied,”Maybe. Maybe not.”
The next morning they awoke to find their horses had returned and had brought with them 10 wild horses that had followed them home. The son said,”Well isn’t that wonderful!” The old man replied,”Maybe. Maybe not.”
That afternoon, while trying to break the new horses, the son was thrown and broke his leg. The son said, “This is terrible!” The old man replied,”Maybe. Maybe not.”
The next day, while the son lay recuperating, a group of soldiers came by the homestead rounding… See More up all able-bodied young men to go and fight in the war. They passed the young man by because of his broken leg.
Things happen to us all that at the time may seem tragic, at other times wonderful. We don’t always understand God’s plan for us. Sometimes we can see it in retrospect, but often we remain in the dark. Learn to trust that everything happens for a reason, and that even when we don’t “get it”, God does.
(this was one of my Facebook friend’s status messages)
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light_ Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night– Dylan Thomas.
Dear Angela,
I didn’t hear you were sick until Louise sent me a Twitter direct message on Saturday and I was in Memphis due to a conference and Memphis in May. Well she just said you were in the hospital and she didn’t say intensive care or anything like that. She said you were at UAMS. So I drove to Little Rock from Memphis instead of coming straight home to see you but you weren’t at that hospital. I didn’t have your Dad’s number on my phone and I never had his cell. Well you know that. So I didn’t have any way to find you so I went home. I called your Dad on Monday but I had to work. He told me that you were in a coma and that was only a matter of time. And so I was going to see you Tuesday around noon but you were dead by then. Were you wondering where I was? I keep asking myself that. I didn’t know you had been in the hospital since last Monday. I didn’t know. Nobody told me. I would have been there. Did you spend your last week wondering where I was? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
Since I didn’t see you lying in that hospital bed, it hasn’t hit me yet but I can see the light in the distance and it’s getting closer and closer. I know when it finally hits, its’ going to crush me and it’s going to hurt real bad but I know I can’t run from it. I’m just standing there waiting for some impending flash of pain that hasn’t gotten here yet.
I can’t believe you don’t remember the coat incident. We were both in Ms. Judkins’s morning kindergarten class. Back then, kindergarten was only half a day and I was in the morning half. We had the same coat. One day, I put on my coat and started to leave and this girl said “you have my coat.” I told you I didn’t. Crying ensued. I went home to discover my coat was sitting in my closet. So my Mom had to drive me and your coat back to your house I can’t believe you don’t remember this if for no other reason than it was the first of what would become a whole hell of a lot of times that you would say, “See Melissa. I TOLD YOU . . . ”
You know what else? Those were the ugliest ass coats in the history of outerwear. My Mama managed to avoid taking a picture of me in that thing. She was smart. She knew better than to document her baby looking tacky on purpose. Of course, she did have the bad judgment to buy that ugly coat in the first place.
Of course, we didn’t get back under the same radar until we both got put on the “smart kid track” at school. If you are considered a smart kid, you get to take “Advanced Placement” classes. Of course, those are only offered one period a day and as a result, you end up having the same classes with the same 15 or 20 people for the rest of your high school career. We were both in band. We both went to Governor’s School. You ended up going to Girl’s State and subsequently Girl’s Nation.
Oh my God, there was that one time that Sam (my governor’s School boyfriend) came to visit and we went to pick up your boyfriend Charles from Prattsville. We drove to Prattsville. oh man. Crap, that was like 100 miles from our town. That was high school. And we ended up cruising PINE BLUFF of all places. oh crap.
Somehow we lost after high school. I had gone to Hendrix and moved to DC and went to law school. You had gone to UAPB and got a job with the Department of AG and ended up in IOWA and then DC. You got an MBA in DC around the same time I was in law school. Somehow we both managed to move back to this teeny tiny small ass town and like all chance meetings in this teeny tiny small ass town, I ran into you at Wal-Mart.
And well, we became fast friends all over again. I met your kids and somehow even when our schedules got crazy busy, I always ended up chaperoning your kids’ birthday parties. Hell, I even went to Chuck E. Cheese even though I don’t have kids of my own. That’s love. You compared us to that Any Day Now show. We would commiserate over small town syndrome and rage against not being able to find any gorganzola within the town limits. We would talk about all our nerdy pursuits. And somehow we got this crazy tradition where we would watch political debates and give our running commentary about them over the phone. I have no idea why I didn’t just drive to your house and watch them with you.
I knew you had MS. You told me. I’d have to drive you to Little Rock because your nerves couldn’t make the round trip by yourself. Your feet would get numb. Or the next day you would be wiped out. You had to take so much medicine. Yet, your schedule always managed to be busier than mine.
You were a force of nature. You loved attention. . . and football . . . and men. Oh you were such an optimist in matters of the heart.
And fearless, that one time those guys were leaving Sticky Fingers and you said “Why are you leaving? I”m here” One of them said, “What?” “I’m here!” “Who are you?” “The woman you’ve been waiting for all night.” You were always trying to set me up and pimp me out.
Crap there’s so much I could say on here. You loved attention. I think the only reason you didn’t have a blog of your own is that you worked for the federal government with this amazing Americans with Disability Act telecommuting from home position with uber secret security clearance. You’d be all tickled that I’m telling these tales.
There was so much left to do and so much that is now undone. You aren’t going to get to gussy up your daughter for prom or watch your kids graduate from high school. You aren’t going to get to meet all those fellows and girls that your kids are going to date.
I can hear you clearly yelling at them to get ready for bed. I guess because we were such good friends, you wouldn’t hang up the phone to scold them so our conversations would have you saying this like this. “Yes, Walmart is creating a false demand with their .. I TOLD YOU TO GET IN THE TUB SO YOU CAN GET READY FOR BED! . . . beverages.”
I’m so sad that you’re going to get to miss out on all that. You were your days were numbered. You knew that at some point you weren’t going to be able to work and that you were probably going to be in a wheelchair. Hell, we both knew. I just thought that well you could go from us having these intellectual conversations and running around town to me pushing your wheelchair and you occasionally forgetting stuff. I thought there was going to be some sort of weening process, not this quick brutish bam like an invisible bolt of lightning that somehow struck your head and knocked you into unconsciousness.
I saw your Dad yesterday and he was telling me that your last words to him were “You can deduct your job search expenses on your taxes.” I got to thinking what your last words to me were. I think the last I actually saw you was when I drove you to Little Rock to pick up your kids from the Airport. They had gone to visit their father in St. Louis. You took me out to Chi’s as a “thank you/birthday dinner” We even took a picture of all that food.
I just realized what your last words were to me. It was a FB message dated April 25 7:02 p.m.: “He’s attractive”
For some reason, the idea that our last conversation was about boys er… men (We’re not high school teachers, people) makes me smile.
And as for the identity of said man, well, that’s a secret I’m taking to my grave.
It is the one year anniversary of the LRTweetup community and someone over there, I think Tsudo, wants us to tell our Twitter story. Or more specifically our LRTweetup story
According to my stats, I signed up for a twitter account on June 16, 2007. Yes, that’s right! 2007. I guess to talk about the twitter story, I have to go back to thePamie story . . . or maybe online journaling in general. Apparently, people have been writing about their lives online since 1994. Here is some history here and here is a fairly accurate wikipedia entry.
I discovered Pamie’s online journal, Squishy, in 2000. This was before blogger and movable type. Seriously, they didn’t exist back then and so people who wrote things on the internet had to hand code each page. Usually this meant making up some sort of template and then cutting and pasting the “journal entry”. She wrote about her day, gave her cats personalities and their own entries, and every Valentine’s day she wrote these hilarious and bizarre poems. It turned out in 2000 that there were a whole lot more of these “online journal” things including this funny guy named Stee who wrote Plaintive Wail, and a guy named Rob who worked IT at a “fancy pants college in New Haven, Connecticut”. Well there ended up being a whole bunch of people that in the grand scheme really wasn’t that many people and they chatted with each other on listserves and forums, had awards for the journals (best writing, best entry, best layout. etc.) and then everybody wanted to meet everybody else and they started having “JournalCon”.
Well I hung out on those forums during law school and met people and all that. I hung out on pamie’s forum (she doesn’t have one anymore). At one point, a bunch of people (who were not me) went to Vegas and sang over the top karaoke at a dive bar. It has since burned down. Pamie has also set up the dewey donation system to help out libraries. It started because one of her local libraries had a wish list of books and she got readers of her page to buy the books on the amazon.com wish list.
And even though Pamie is too busy to run a forum, those connections are still there. I can name weddings that resulted from people meeting on that forum. Yeah that’s a little bizarre even for me. In fact, I think I heard about twitter from one of those folks. I know that my first batch of people I followed were based on connections from there.
And as a result of keeping up with former classmates and friends in DC and those internet folks who I like to think of as friends in the way you would call a pen pal your friend, I’ve been online for quite a while with an ebb and flow of how much time I put into the whole process. Right now in small town Arkansas, I tend to put more time due to the dry county, lack of single professionals in town, and the ease of logging into twitter on the crackberry.
I went to my first LRtweetup to meet David Kinkaide and Blake Rutherford. I am a big fan of their blogs and since they were both going to be at Copper Grill, I thought I would go check it out, meet some folks, and meet some of my “local net heroes.” (damn did I just sound like a nerd groupie. I think I just did). And I did meet them. I also met other people as well and I had a good time and met lots of fun, friendly, interesting people. Oh and I was thinking about moving to Little Rock.
Over the year, I have met other people and gone to other tweetups. It’s a friendly and entertaining group who are there for you when you are up and are praying for you when you are down. They managed to save the dean of UALR Law School’s life. (well sorta) I’ve had the opportunity to meet people that I wouldn’t have met under any other circumstances and to share ideas with people whom I probably wouldn’t have had time if I had to do it one on one. It also reminds me that I am not alone and the world is bigger than the town I am in.
While the internet and twitter doesn’t replace face to face time, it does give you the opportunity to keep in touch and meet people. Strangely enough, the LRTweetup community reminds me of the initial old school online journaling from the late 90s early 2000s which is why I brought it up in the first place. And well social media was around back then, before it was called social media. And like all things social, some of the people I’ve met at LRTweetup will be friends for years and others will fade into the background. The internet doesn’t change human behavior, it only augments or diminishes certain facets of it.
So it will be interesting to see what happens.
As far as the “power of social media” goes. Since so many of the LRTweetup folks are in PR, I will give the where are they now spiel.
Pamie managed to turn her journal into a bona fide writing career in the entertainment industry. One of the fellow online journalling folks named “Glark” and “Wing Chun” (No I don’t know their real names” liked her snark and asked her to write for a website called Television Without Pity. As you can see, Bravo has since bought it or powers it. I can’t keep up. And she has three books in print and has worked on several television shows. Read the about me page.
Stee was trying to make it in Hollywood and now he is a staff writer for Weeds. Yes that Weeds.
Rob published a book called Schuyler’s monster about his daughter being born with a rare neurological disorder that doesn’t allow her to talk very well, if at all.
It will be interesting to watch what great things the LRTweetup community does in the future.
