While searching for something to rearrange my interests and inspire a new blog post, I stumbled upon Jean Grae’s new single off of her upcoming album “Cake or Death”. Is the title suggesting that this album eulogizes all women who have died from faulty butt implants? Probably not, but that would be interesting.

The track is titled “U & Me and Everyone We Know”. I presume the title is loosely based on the uncanny movie of the same name, directed by Miranda July.

Musically, this rocks my boat. Lyrically, it is a lament and may be the best soundtrack to friendships that are perpetually under construction.

“I still adore you, but you adore me theoretically”. Whoa.

Listen. Appreciate. Feed me back.

Girl, catch ya breath.

This morning my oats and I watched instead, joshua bee alafia’s fourth episode of “Staying Together”–a web series that explores questions Black men and women have around relationships and intimacy. Each episode is closed David Chapelle style with a featured vocalist performing an original song around the theme of couples staying together. Musically, the fourth episode is my favorite. I was introduced to Lotus Love, two women who sound like oatmeal.

A very well-cooked bowl of oatmeal.

I have yet to come across a duo like this since Musiq Soulchild’s “Settle for Your Love” ft. Aaries.

I jumped into a quest for more music from these women. After watching their first and only video on their YouTube page, my flight fell short, and I landed upon the likes of Gwen Bunn.

This young woman immediately made a fan out of my disdain with contemporary R&B artists. Particularly the ones with ovaries. Gwen Bunn, 20 years old, hails from Berklee College of Music. Not only can the woman sang, she writes and produces. For all of those who have issues trusting the opinions of bloggers, here is a quick fact for you: Ryan Leslie shopped her a beat. An excellent songwriter in his own right, surpassing warm-oatmeal status, Leslie’s got to see something in this cropped Afro of a singer. I’m pretty certain if her lips were brushes, she’d give Basquiat something to run tell dat.

I’ve listened to her EP “The Verdict” over three times, with minor snack-breaks between. My favorite tracks are “A Baby”, “Right Now” and “Let Me”. However, I vouch for the first seven songs on her EP including a separate track titled “Do It For Me” which can be found here.

Enough of my flaccid review, here she is:

Contrary to what a virtual yogi may suggest, online status updates and photo albums depicting seemingly flawless lives of “friends” do not inspire me as often as they may intend. On some nights, like this one, I go into compare mode and contrast my reality to static images. This can’t be a good thing.

Facebook has a way of reminding me that I have baggage. I swore when I first picked up my tote, it was barely big enough to carry a frail looking dog.  After a few failed relationships, my baggage has enough capacity to fit a nomadic tribe of twelve. It has become not only a burden, but the bearer of spears, occasionally shot at love infused status updates. And teenagers who relentlessly hold hands. In public. As they upload photos of clammy palms onto their profile pages.

Perhaps, I need to take my co-worker’s advice and begin a daily regimen of taking multi-vitamins. I heard nutrients increase one’s energy, thus boosting overall cheer. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I am going to tuck my bags under my bed and prepare for work. I have two and three-quarters of an article left to read by tomorrow’s a.m. #notgoingtohappen.

…and since I am a single woman working on being more committed to things I want to be more committed to, I decided to at least show my blog some love. Thanks for bearing with me.

Signed,

The Grinch Who Stole Beautiful.

Tonight’s intent was to watch Issa Rae’s Awkward Black Girl Season Finale, but it’s nowhere to be found on the internets. So, the game-plan has switched and instead, I have found a link to a really cool blog. It’s super (insert poppy cultural adjective).

Follow this young man’s blog. After following mine, of course. Remember who sent ya!

For anyone who’s been keeping abreast of this year’s blog posts, bear with me. I am trying to find a convenient rhythm and diversify my content so that it is not so monochromatic. (I.e. all about after-hours knee-knocking and stomach slapping).

My goal is to blog. One day at a time. Mostly about things that put a snuggie on my heart. However, it is past my bedtime and I have yet to brush my teeth. So today, I decided to keep this post short, and hit you with some grown up, semi-but-not-really-politicized art from a dater’s perspective.

Wait…this contradicts what I just said.

…and so it is. I am a human who retracts statements in less than two paragraphs and not-so-loosely titles her posts after sexual innuendos. Cue the Marvin Gaye and Lil’ Kim. As soon as I put on my grown woman drawers, I will re-post the photo and fully expose its text. Until then, I am going to zip myself up in a onesie and call it a night. Enjoy!

After an extended conversation with the T-mobile sales rep about promotions that were not designed to save me any money, I was about ready to die and come back as a cell phone. This way, I could avoid a monthly fee just to comfortably co-exist with the rest of humanity.

Verizon is selling the iPhone—the phone, which a few of my friends and most other people swear by. The cost of it did not put my wallet into shock. The added feature of being able to call five friends from outside of my network without using my whenever minutes was a mediocre perk. However, the monthly plan amounts to two street sweeping tickets and  I have no wish to pay triple digits for conversation. I presume most people don’t. But the fact that we do, when the money could be going to better things that shape human morality, is reason for me to stage a mini-protest and walk out of the store…

..and into the lesser of evils…AT&T.

They had something shiny and sleek looking. It uses a different operating system than I am accustomed to. So, if I buy this phone, I would be learning something new and increasing my intellectual capital. Sounds like a fair trade. After three stores and several conversations that sounded like raining poop, I think I might have found a phone for me.

I was at the check out counter, happy because I have two gift cards to cushion the hit my checking account was about to take. The sales rep asks for my I.d. I pull out my debit card. It has a photo on it of me that was taken almost a decade ago and on a day I had severe allergies. I was afraid that she, like most people, would either laugh at the way my face swells in spring, or hold it in and ask for an alternate I.d. She did the latter. I left my smile on the counter and walked toward the exit. I had left my I.d at home and was not able to reap tangible benefits from the web of data plans I wanted to so badly to crawl out of.

I’ve never understood why I.d. matter so much when doing things like buying a phone or returning an unwanted item? What is more convincing: a piece of laminated paper with a photo of me on it, or the breathing human standing right in front of you? Perhaps there is a rumor going around that I was birthed to aliens who have a pact with Jay-Z and Beyoncé to rule earth and convert everyone into severely disciplined performance artists. That must be it.

This planet has a way of occasionally sucking and so does every single cell phone within it. But because I done messed around and got myself a job that insists I be communicative, I will begrudgingly go back to AT&T, with proof that I am human, and proceed with my purchase.

Here’s to technology. Its hustlers, and the hassle.

1) Every time I say his name, it curls my tongue in two.

2) He has 27 books of photography to his credit, one of which has more value than many of my friendships.

Wait.

3) He is the color of an isolated pile of sand.

4) Many feminists despise his art. I want to cuddle with it when I have no human to lock toes with.

5) I’ve never felt a crook in my neck so good as the one I caught the night I watched his debut film. However, I am making a New Year’s Resolution to show up to theaters on time so that I am never again subjected to front row seating.

If you have succeeded in clicking the link above, then your memory should have been jogged a few years back and into the creative imagination of David Lachapelle. Hopefully, you have had the opportunity to fall in love with his lens and minutely experience life from a different perspective. I always do, and Rihanna’s “S&M” video confirms that I am not the only one who appreciates Chapelle’s intrigue with latex and color theory.

Though this video came out almost one year ago, I recently found out via The Daily Mail (UK) that Chapelle sued Rihanna for one million dollars. His reason being that Rihanna copied Chapelle’s “composition, total concept, feel, tone, mood, theme, colours, props, settings, decor, wardrobe and lighting’ of his work.” In October of 2011, Rihanna made it rain something nice and the only thing we’ve heard from Chapelle is that he is enjoying the weather.

Given Melina Matsoukas’ (the director of “S&M”) filmography, I am convinced that she can rely on her own talent. My assumption is that she was most likely paying homage to an artist whose art speaks in more pixels than a million. Perhaps there is some truth to Charles Caleb Colton’s idiom: “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”.

So I guess the moral of this not so relevant post is to stay away from bad spoken word poets, because they do not make enough money for you to be compensated even if they did “flatter you”.

Living in a city, in which theories breed theories, I often times find myself not wanting to think. Whenever I have thought aloud, I would be interrupted by a spontaneous prayer or mystic chant insisting that I ask my ancestors for forgiveness. Fast forward to now, and I refuse to seriously talk about too much of anything. Conversations usually end up in a game of semantics and whether I am using the most un-oppressive and environmentally just gender pronoun to refer to myself. Would it be politically incorrect to self identify as a crouton?

With that said, I would like to introduce you to Franchesca Ramsey. I had found her in just enough time to cushion my fall from the soapbox. Otherwise, I probably would have yelped a tirade about how she’s engaged to a white guy.

Wait.

That is not the point. A thirty-five thousand dollar YouTube reward and speaking engagements at NYU are the point of this woman. She has been posting videos on YouTube since 2006, making this her fifth year as a vlogger as well as a woman who has had two things in common with me for half of a decade: 1) We both have locs 2)We would rather speak in giggles and laugh out loud.

Watch her video and see for yourself. I have been talking too much.

Wait.

That analogy went terribly wrong.

Continue.

For a while, my hair has told me to do something different. Three years ago I respected its wishes, shaved off half of my crop and am currently enjoying an interesting tuft of hair that strokes the middle of my head.

….my hair has been incessantly gossiping since the first chop, and after a few rounds of ‘girl quit playin’, I think I am ready to finally face the rumors it’s been using to grease my scalp.

I have had more than a few lingering doubts about how I would be perceived with hair short enough to lick my skull. But the more I see women rocking the baldy, the more I become able to hear excerpts of the truth.

I found Maty Sall–who was a Fine Arts major at  the Fashion Institute of  Technology in New York– on Tony Clomax’s “12 Steps to Recovery” sixth webisode. This woman is fierce. I am not sure if it is the way her French accent sounds like a noiseless heater that has me infatuated with her aesthetic, or that she has no hook in the back of her head. Whatever the case, I am in love with this woman’s hairline and hope that the next time I google her, I’ll find more than just two stranded photos.