something from goodreads...

my goal is to read 100 books this year and blog about them on goodreads, so i can keep up with my bookshelf life. so far, i'm off to a flying start. we spend so much of our lives waiting. i figured out the trick: keep a book in my purse at all times, so that while i'm waiting for the train, waiting in line at the bank, waiting to see my doctor, waiting for that crosstown bus, i'm reading. in the past few months, i've finished quite a few books this way. this is one of them.

What a Difference a Daddy Makes: The Lasting Imprint a Dad Leaves on His Daughter's Life by Kevin Leman

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
i read this as a gift to myself for father's day, to give me some insight on my relationship with my father (which is actually pretty cool these days).



this is a smart book, an easy read, one that i would recommend to absolutely anyone, but it's especially a must for black men who are fathers. way too many women i know see fathers as just a paycheck. in many instances, they don't understand the importance of a father because they've never had one who had a strong presence in their lives. sometimes, even when he was physically present, he wasn't necessarily "there".



so why have a father that's especially involved with your daughter?



because according to this book, it is fathers who give girls their self-esteem/self-worth. girls get a sense from their fathers -- not their mothers -- that they're worth being loved. if the father isn't present in the girl's life to give her this, she will find a surrogate who will. this can mean lousy choices in love for the rest of her life. and of course, this cycle will perpetuate itself when it's time for her to have children.



kids are going to belong someplace. the question isn't whether they'll belong but where. a gang. a basketball team. a boyfriend/girlfriend. but they will belong.



some of it was a little too disney-esque for me -- like him crying his eyes out when one of his daughters left home for college/got married (yeah, he's a cryer) -- but on second thought, maybe the ideal situation needed to be presented so we'd see the male/father and female/mother roles in the home in their proper perspective.



yeah. a definite must-read.


View all my reviews.

Happy Father's Day!

i wish i could go home to ATL to celebrate with my 92 year old daddy, but alas and alack, my situation is such that i cannot. but i did send flowers. and i'd like to think that this snarky little card would make him laugh.

about that comedy central audition...

i got seen for a comedy central promo on friday. i didn't know exactly what that meant -- promo. i'm thinking, it's kinda like a commercial, right? no matter what it actually is, the audition will feel like a commercial one: i'll say the lines, they'll give me direction, i'll readjust -- but not too big -- and then maybe more direction, more readjustment, a thank you and i'm out. it's a routine that hardly ever changes with camerawork. no matter. i'm ready.

they said casual business attire. i wore a button front denim dress because i didn't have any cash money to run out and buy something to wear for the moment, like i usually did when all of my clothes were dirty. why didn't i have any clean clothes? because the elevator in my building is being upgraded and i didn't feel like hauling three large loads in a rickety cart up and down three flights of stairs. that's why. i waited until everything was dirty and it still wasn't fixed. oh, well.

which wig did i wear in my arsenal? did i do something extra-fancy with my natural hair? what about those cornrows? frankly, i didn't have the energy to bother. i decided to wow them with something really spectacular: my self. i came to this decision in part because of a conversation i had with my father, wherein i told him i got the prego commercial and that it was running but he probably wouldn't recognize me because i had that wig on (come on, you know the one) and then he told me that the reason why i got the prego commercial was because the wig made me look like a lady. then he said a lot of other stuff. like how he was kidding, and how i was supposed to be intelligent enough to know when he was joking. so i told him that i was completely daft but i knew enough to know that people say what they really mean when they're kidding around. and that was his passive-aggressive way of telling me what he thought of my hair. and why did i go for years wearing wigs to auditions and getting nothing. and yeah, he could give my mother the phone back now, and he's like, no, let's talk. and i'm like, i don't have anything to say to you. and that's when we were off to the races.

so when they called me in, i thought, you know what? i don't have the energy, the wherewithal, the time or the inclination to try to figure out what these executive corporate white people -- or my stubborn father, for that matter -- want me to look like as a black woman. they all think they know me, they all think they've got me figured out, and none of them do. especially my daddy. i mean, i've had it.

don't get me wrong. i'll work harder than anyone. i'll readjust. i'll wear a wig. why not? i like wigs. but this -- telling me in no uncertain terms that i'm patently unattractive because i don't straighten my hair -- this is over the top. the world tells me this every day but i don't listen. it shouldn't be a struggle to know that what i am is enough and to live that out in the ordinary moments of my world.

i know what you're thinking: it's just hair! but you know what? it's not. not when you're black and female.

so i showed up at liz lewis casting on time with a tight afro wearing a denim dress and some boots, took my polaroid smiling like mona lisa, and sat amongst gleamingly permed hair-dos and office casual outfits straight out of central casting until my name was called. i remember something about jack link. i remember having them pitch different office scenarios at me. i remember some white guy talking like mr. t at me, and me having to react to that, and everyone in the room laughing at what i did. wierd.

and then the next thing i knew, i was back on the sidewalk making my way through the breezy sunshiny streets, wondering what happened and somehow knowing exactly what happened. telling myself i didn't care -- and meaning it. i've always got way bigger catfish to skin and fry. it won't be the beginning of the world if i get it. it won't be the end of the world if i don't. but i would like to get it, just to leave my hair the way it is and in so doing, to silence my father -- if that's possible. and it isn't.

happy birthday, daddy

my father turned 90 on saturday, march 24th. there was a formal black tie party in his honor in ATL. complete with a four course meal, old family friends, footage from family reunions past, and of course pictures. ramon and i serenaded him. nothing elaborate. just a few standards that he would have heard as a young man in the 2os and 30s. i think a lot of my not-so-distant family members were genuinely surprised that i could actually sing. at the time, i was more amused by that than annoyed but it was definitely a mixture of both.

my father grew up in the deep south -- south Georgia to be exact. interestingly enough, he made the first wave of the great migration north in the 20s and eventually the first migration south in the 70s. i don't know very many people who can make that claim.

i don't even want to think about the trouble he's seen. but believe it or not, sometimes he actually tells us about it.

just so you know that he's not hobbling around in a diaper with a drool cup around his neck and talking to himself: here he is the next morning after breakfast on his excercise bike.



the day before i got to ATL, we had this long wierd argument about debt and how he thinks it's better to pay things off over time than all at once, in one lump sum. i mean, really. he practically drew a flow chart for me over the phone. not that i needed one. i had to keep reminding myself that he was about to turn 90. he sounded like his usual self. remembers absolutely everything. still thinking everything through, still scheming. and even though he's calmed down a lot since i got work, he's still arguing with me about my future, my finances.

that's his job, i suppose. God knows he's good at it.