So much to say. So lickle time to say it

Two things happen when you’re a self employed single woman in New York City who writes, edits and researches for your cheese.

#1: During jury duty, you tell the plaintiff’s attorney that due to your multiple deadlines, his manipulative, time-eating banter with Juror Number Four is becoming an economic hardship for you.

#2: You lack the energy and concentration to blog for free.

You know, I recently realized that my relationship with this blog is like that of Angela from Boomerang and the young Black youth at her Saturday art class. Only I’m not pausing on small.medium.large after having my heart broken by a Jehri-box wearer named Maaaaaacuss. I’m forsaking it for the rat race. (Cue in “Love Should Have Brought You A Fellowship Last Night…”)

This is Angela in career gal mode. But she still has so much love in her heart.

Anyway, I want to be the Angela who gets the visit from the kids at her powerful new gig and presumably balances her community work with her for-profit endeavors. I want to be sweet Angie who designs blue people and makes inspired speeches about love.

So today I’m posting, quickly. If you’re still with me here, consider this an IOU, a public meditation of sorts. (And for the commenter who recently took time from her/his action-packed life to post “yawn” on an ancient entry, consider this your lullaby, bitch.)

I, Ak, pledge that I will post after seeing “Precious” on Saturday. Yes, my butt clenches every time I think of Lee “Monster’s Ball” Daniels adapting the pitiful story of a dark-skinned, fat Black teen with two kids by her stepfather and a mother who, at least in the book, forces her to perform oral sex on her. But I should at least see the film before I throw up in my mouth, right?

I’m also posting to tell you, my 16 devoted readers, that the book I co-edited, Naked: Black Women Bare All About Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips and Other Parts, has lapsed from printing. Apparently it sold well for years, then dropped off in the last two quarters. This is what the paperwork says, even though people keep running up on me in the street saying they just discovered and read it. The good people at the publisher’s office are working with us, but it’s still annoying as hell.

Naked, no more? Bah!

OK, this is starting to feel like something bitter-but-powerful Angela would write between barking orders at her incompetent creative staff so I’m signing off. But Saturday y’all.

Just another guy on the IRT

One night in 1998, my best friend Montclair and I were leaving a party at Chelsea Piers when we both stopped, turned 2/3 of the way around and looked a man over from head-to-toe, like he was a brontosaurus burger and we were Fred Flintstone. Goddamn, she said. Goddamn, I answered.

Montclair and I had never engaged in behavior like this before (or since) that night. But it was Leon, Brother from Another Planet, Waiting to Exhale, you-know-I’m-still-fine-even-with-this-Detroit Red-conk. And as cute as I ever thought he looked on screen, he looked fucking delectable that night.

Which brings me to this moment, when Leon’s conk-less self is sitting across from me on the 2 train reading what appears to be a magazine about rims and big butts. The cheekbones still look like they were chiselled by Rodin, the skin smooth and rich as dark chocolate, his outfit passably un-corny. And yet, even with traces of the margarita I had at an office party making me giddy, I’m not moved.

Is Leon such a 90s throwback that there’s no room for him in my lusting of this millenium? Will TI one day just be that short rapper who bought some machine guns before the BET awards? Lord, let’s hope not.