Quote of the Day -- from Chris Rock

"Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before. So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. 

If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, “Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.” It’s not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn’t. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people."
(Read the rest of the New York interview here.) 

maintenance and upkeep, all the time

there are no ugly women, only lazy ones. -- helena rubenstein

the hard work of maintenance and upkeep is renewed daily, with prayer, hard physical exercise and the ritual of scrub creams, lotions and oils, and concoctions that i make for my skin, hair and nails.  i know it sounds like diva nonsense, but ultimately it's a serious commitment to great health and a quality of life that will hopefully sustain me as i grow older, allowing me to be my best self at any age as i continue to explore and create and live, really really live, in style.

 
Poor health is not caused by something you don't have; it's caused by disturbing something that you already have. Healthy is not something that you need to get, it's something you have already if you don't disturb it. ~Dean Ornish

what's really overwhelming to consider is that most chronic diseases -- diabetes, stroke, heart disease, arthritis, cancer, obesity and more -- are lifestyle related and preventable.  i'm probably genetically predisposed to a lot of this. i have watched many relatives succumb to these illnesses, including my daddy. although he had a garden variety of chronic diseases, he fought the good fight and lived to see the ripe old age of 92 comfortably -- hard at work in his home, with his wife of more than 50 years.

“First, do no harm.” (“Primum non nocere.”)  - Anonymous

the thing is, healthcare in america isn't healthcare at all. healthcare would mean that the medical industry is concentrating on preventing diseases, finding cures for chronic illnesses and actively encouraging a lifestyle that would keep most people from having to see a doctor on a regular basis in the first place. what we have in this country is actually disease management. whatever is wrong with you isn't actually fixed but painstakingly regulated with a ton of medication.  doctors aren't doctors at all, at that point. they're drug dealers.  needless to say, pharmaceutical companies are behind this. and why not? there are billions of dollars at stake.

or as chris rock explained recemtly, they just want to patch you up until you make it to the next stop. why? because they want your money.



i want a healthy, lean, strong body with thick, strong, natural hair and i'm willing to fight for it by eating clean, living clean and staying out of the sun. this is why i take my good health and my daily rituals seriously.

i'm the decider!

Source: confident-beautiful-motivated.tumblr.com via Gretchen on Pinterest

i've turned a corner.

i don't know exactly when it happened. i don't know what triggered it. i don't know when all of it hit me, full on. maybe it was boxing. taking myself to my absolute limit physically every day definitely changed me from the inside out. maybe it was the clean program. so many days of deliberately eating unprocessed, healthy, organic food -- no caffeine, no salt, no sugar, no junk food, no corn, no peanuts, no dairy, no nightshade vegetables, no wheat gluten, no pork or beef or seafood -- for weeks on end. it must have shaken something loose in my soul. or maybe its all the vintage tea dances and parties and cool events and such -- glowy moments that transport me into another time and place, whether i want to go or not.

as if all of that weren't enough, i have an avalanche of unconditional love in my life that overwhelms the most mundane moments in my day to day world -- and he's right by my side.

apparently while i was beating myself up about not being able to do a military push up, my life pulled me up to this whole other level. something clicked when i read the quote above. like gabby, i made the decision to get off the couch and get physical. i made up my mind to eat healthy. i wanted to have more fun on my own terms. sure -- getting dressed up in vintage clothes and going to a tea social and dancing to music from the 20s and 30s isn't everyone's idea of a good time but it makes me very, very happy. so, nuts to you.

maybe that's the whole point: nuts to you.

it's a beautiful thing, to subconsciously focus only on the things that really matter until everything else grows strangely blurred -- and i'm left wondering why i cared about any of that stuff in the first place.

and that's another thing: there is something powerful and life-affirming to be said for gabourey sidibe having the guts to make that statement to herself, to decide that she is beautiful, when practically everything in the world is telling her -- and every other black woman on the planet -- that she is not. there's a reason why, in a recent allure magazine survey, black women were three times as likely to rate themselves as "hot" than their caucasian counterparts. that makes perfect sense to me.

i don't have anything out there in the world that's validating what i see when i look in the mirror, so i make my own world. i have my own beauty standards and regimens, my own beauty ideals. my own beauty icons. and as i surround myself with these things and more, my self-confidence grows and grows and grows.

did chris rock say it best? why yes, he did.



i know how -- i decided! -- but i don't know when i got to this stronger, healthier, happier, more beautiful place in my life. all i know is that i'm pressing on, the upward way. and i'm grateful.

chris rock tells it like it is

Chris Rock's election coverage

glumbert - Chris Rock's 2008 Election Analysis