Quick Update

Um, people. I have my work cut out for me with the new pup.
He is a year and a half, and still very much a puppy.
BD was 12 mos when I got him. Never acted like a puppy. He is way too serious about his job (whatever that is) to be silly. His issues came out later. With strangers, not in the house.
LD.... this guy, all silly all the time. And he has NO idea how to be in a house. Or with a family.
You put the leash on, and he carries it around house walking himself. I set off my car alarm, and he peed. He has learned, however, not to take BD's food (and BD won't eat until he makes sure LD has his....). He has learned to come in when I call him, and how to get a cuddle. Something else he didnt' know. His favorite new thing.
Anytime he doesn't know what's going on...he stops and won't move. That's a bit of a pain when he and BD are hooked together sled dog style and LD gets stuck UNDER BD when its pitch dark, before 6 am, when I have to leave shortly for work.

But he's learning. And you can tell he's amazed by life here.

Strangers want to love LD and pet him and feed him (and maybe call him George...)at the pet store. Funny because while they tell me how good BD is they give us A LOT of room to get by. No one wants to pet him or feed him. Sad because BD is really sweet. Do those few extra inches and 20 extra pounds of muscle really make BD that much more intimidating? Weird. I've never been afraid of a dog unless it was chewing on my leg.

LD is really out of shape from sitting in the shelter for 6 months only getting out of his cage every few days for a little bit. He was a skinny fat guy. After 2 weeks with us, he's just plain skinny. The hour to hour and a half of walking and playing with BD and going to doggie daycare have shed several pounds off his tiny frame. His poor hip bones not only show, but are pointy and hard. We play hard at this house. Hopefully, in a few months he'll be buff like BD. Well, BD is pretty massive. He may not be that buff. But maybe he won't be so skinny.

In other news, my job finally went full time and a 'major Midwestern university' called me to adjunct and I'm working weekends at my mom's store. I haven't had a day off in months, my dogs are wearing me out, and its really pretty awesome.

How you all doing?

Wordsmith's Challenge

Bad, bad, bad, stupid bad idea this had been. Like the Edsel, shag carpet, brussle sprouts, and that time she’d tried to surf. Another of Noah’s brilliant ideas. Noah was stupid. She was more stupid for finding herself yet again in some kind of bad sitcom jam with him. This time they were lost in the woods. That was no sitcom. More like X-files or Supernatural. Although she highly doubted that some Impala-driving Dean Winchester with a smart ass line, a bad boy squint, and lips pretty enough to make her teeth sweat was going to come out of the woods and save her.
No. She was here with stupid, stupid Noah.
In a place where a purty mouth was a whole different adventure.
She glared at the back of his stupid camo hat.
His fishin’ hat.
For luck.
Stupid dill hole didn’t even fish.
She wanted to take hers off and beat him with it. Put it somewhere uncomfortable.
Hers was pink.
A fishin’ hat for luck. Never mind that SHE DIDN’T FUCKING FISH EITHER.
He’d gotten them both one for this adventure.
He’d always been like that. One for him and one for her. Beers, silly t-shirts, or a spot of trouble. One for him and one for her. It all started in kindergarten when he’d gone to the supply room to get a bottle of finger paint to decorate the teacher’s chair. He’d brought her a bottle, too. Blue for him and orange for her. Mrs. Vienna had sat in the chair before noticing their handy work. Her ginormous butt stamped with kindergarten graffiti. They'd spent a week’s worth of recess with their heads down.
She grinned despite herself. She’d almost forgotten that was mad at Noah. She scowled at his hat as they tromped through the woods to whoknowswhere.
He’d found some damn story about an abandoned railroad bridge that they had to go find. He’d wanted to tell her something. She was curious, but his grin was as pretty as Dean Winchester’s and she’d agreed. She shoved THAT idea out of her mind. They’d been best friends for twenty years. He didn’t have a pretty mouth.
She always went along with him and this time was no different.

He'd picked her up early, stopping for directions at a ramshackle gas station. It featured dusty counters, a display case full of bongs, a most excellent assortment of munchies, and a cashier who was clearly fat Elvis in hiding. They’d left with moon pies, grape soda and directions to the bridge.
“Pull over, hike six, seven miles,” he’d said.
They’d gotten directions from a fat stoned Elvis. No wonder they were lost.

Suddenly, stupid Noah stopped. She ran into him and started to grump at him but stopped.
“Oh shit,” she breathed and took his hand.
In front of them was an abandoned warehouse. Odd that it was in the woods. Odder still that she could see right through it.

Fat stoned Elvis didn’t mention this.

remember that time....

...that Err had to take her lip liner to school with her because she thought she had parent teacher conferences and didn't want to look like hell after a 14 hour day(and really she was a dumb ass and they were the next day anyway so it didn't matter)? And remember how she had on a button down shirt and a skirt? With no pockets? And remember how she had to take a bunch of crap with her and get the 2 crazy dogs in the car? And remember how her purse was in the car? And how she stuck the lip pencil in between her business in her bra thinking she'd put it in her purse when she got out to her car? And remember how she forgot about it and put on her scarf and jacket? And how she sat through a parent teacher meeting and her first period of the day with lip liner in her cleavage?

Yeah. I don't remember that either.

Good decisions

No new negro league players at my house. I was pulling for Jackie Robinson. Then I'd get to live with Hank Aaron and Jackie Robinson. TB, however, felt that the little shy dog we met at Pet Smart (who was there with Big Dog's former 3 time foster family) was more like Walter Payton. I can live with that. He's another German Shepherd Husky mix. Way smaller than the one I live with. He was adopted at 6 months, spent 6 months with family who left him crated for 10 hours and were surprised when he dug and tried to run away.
Smart dog
Being a larger (though not BD large) and black and full of energy, he spent the next 6 months at the dog shelter.
We brought him home Sunday.
He doesn't know a lot of things that a dog who's had a home would know. What to do when someone is trying to put a leash on you, how to come and get a pet (though he learned that along with his name by Sunday night), or that turning the lights off means simmer the frick down and go to sleep. He also isn't in very good shape yet. Not a lot of muscles and kind of skinny-fat. Heh. He lives with me. That'll change soon.
And the good news is that he's pretty submissive, so he walks well on the leash despite me being the first person to walk him. He's been walked from here to there, but never taken on a walk. I am eternally grateful for this because as alpha as BD is, the two of them could could very well drag me from one end of the town to the other like their giraffe they've been playing tug with.

Note: As we picked up our new pup at the shelter and 2 boys and their dad picked up their new one at the same time, a lady returned her dog and a stray was dropped off by whomever found him. The holes this other family and mine made were filled before we emptied them. I'm just saying.

squee.....

People.
There may be a WD2.
Keep your fingers crossed for another negro league player at the house of err.

Blogblast for Peace (special thanks to Mojo the person)

Like most everything about me, folks.... its rough but sincere.

How many of you hear me say PEACE at the end of a phone call or message when you see this at the top of my blog? Those of you that don’t hear me leave messages, I’m sorry I don’t know how to write it. Likely it sounds a hair more like Pace than Peeeece as I’m not so much with the annunciation most of the time. There is a drop in the inflection with an emphasis on the vowel sound. pEAce! Think rap video stuff from the early 90’s. Much of my life in the early 90’s was like a rap video…

And it was in the early 90’s that I picked the expression up. Peace. Peace Out. It was a standard way for a good homegirl/boy to end a convo or a letter. And because I’m getting older and there are always some things that older people never let go of I still say it. And because even the mighty academy can’t beat the hood rat out of me, I still pretty much sound the same when I say it. But I must admit, it has a different meaning to me at 33 than it did at 15.

Somewhere around my doctoral program, I started to think about what the word means. Considering the book I just published with my advisor is about discourse analysis, that’s no surprise, really. Thinking about words is what I do. That time in my life was pivotal. The day I got accepted into the program was the day our country went to war.

Do I think war is wrong and unjust? Sure. I’m a pretty good liberal. Far left liberal even. I don’t believe in the death penalty. I do believe in gay marriage. All the things that freak out my in laws. For me, however, peace isn’t about an end to the war. At least not this war.

I’m seldom passive. Seldom quiet. Seldom what you would think of as peaceful. You can poke your head into my classroom on any given day and hear, “Son. Unless you want that pencil to wind up somewhere very uncomfortable….stop tapping it while I am talking.” No. I don’t think I’m exactly what you’d call a peacenik… at least in the traditional sense. But my favorite shirt has a recycle symbol, an earth, and a peace sign. Everyone knows that that is my thing. Peace. pEAce.

My peace sign t shirts with my big butt, flashy Nikes, less than natural makeup and my trademark ghetto hoop earrings. I look like I borrowed someone else’s clothes.
I keep telling people I’m complex.

My whole thing about peace (pEAce) isn’t about wars in the traditional sense, but it does go back to that pivotal time when I started back to school and we went to war. I felt like I went to war. I had blindly bumped my way through the entire process of applying to the doc program. Making one stupid ill informed but very polite call after another. It took me damn near six months to get my stuff in. I knew so little about anything that I didn’t know graduate assitanceships existed. I didn’t know what ABD was. What a dissertation was. What an advisor was. I knew nothing. And certainly, I didn’t know that high heeled knee boots, a shorter (not mini, but above the knee) length skirts (and those ghetto hoops) were not standard doc student attire. Especially for the first interview. I figured it out when the student interviewed before me walked out in wrinkled khakis and a sweater. No make up. Hair plain. Certainly not red hair with blonde and purple highlighting. Gah. When I sat down and said to the room full of scholars who I’d stalked for years and said, “hi. How you folks all doin’?” I saw the exchanged amused glances and knew that I needed to sound a bit more…. Well, a little less like me.


I knew I had walked into a world that I had only suspected existed. And folks, it was so much worse that I could have imagined. I was so much different that I could have imagined. Except for my #3 brother, (who I met in this program and who’s words, “you know who you are” saved me more times that I can count)…no one was like me. Even the other students of color (and there were precious few) came from doctors and lawyers and government officials. On top of the pressure we faced with work and making careers, I had no idea who I was supposed to be in the academy.

For a time...there was no peace.

There was no peace in our country. In the world. I decided to work for peace. However I could get it.

Peace took on a new idea for me. Peace of mind. Peace inside. I took on a new identity inside the academy. I was Err, in the academy. This meant I was me, only my location changed. My hoodrat stubbornness and irreverent attitude stood firmly in the forefront of my identity. I brought back my swagger. I was a hard worker. My work was top notch. Professors called my advisor to report the high quality of my most recent papers. My attitude was my own. Phrases like, “how you gonna….” were heard for what was very likely the first time in seminars (I got a reputation for saying “the funniest things…” when I wasn't being funny at all). I used Friere and Anzaldua to argue against the hegemony of the white middle class standard in educative systems. I used words like hegemony. But on more than one occasion, I got called to the side and was told, “you should smile more.” I learned that a nod and “how you doin’?” did not successfully replace a cheesy grin and head tilt. I smiled at my ‘helpers’ and totally disregarded their info. I knew who I was and that was a step toward peace.

I fought tooth and nail to do good work in a community I cared about. Another step. At the cost of the big time change the world career in the academy for which I was being groomed, I chose to return to the classroom with the hope of keeping only one foot in the academy. This did not cause peace between myself and my advisor. But it was a huge step toward peace on a bigger scale. Because folks, there are wars out there that many folks concerned with World Peace don’t know about. Or choose to ignore.

Every night in my city someone gets capped. Its usually a young black male. Like my students. I work everyday for peace (and pEAce) in that world. Teaching kids to stay safe. Telling them to watch their back. Letting them know that they decide who they want to be. Reminding them every day to do the right thing. Threatening them with a month’s worth of something dirty and gross if I catch them fighting. Breaking up fights in a not too peaceful way and then not turning them in.
A step toward peace.
To end the urban genocide of gang warfare.

Every year, I give my lecture. About how we don’t use gay as a prejorative in my class. About how, “if you had 2 mamas wouldn’t you love them?’ Would you want someone to bust on them in my class? Wouldn’t that hurt you? Would you like it if everything that was lame, was called your name??? Those shoes is so Malik. That’s not fair! That’s just so Shaquan. Would you like that??” My voice trying not to break, I tell them about my student who killed himself because when he came out to his family they ridiculed him. I tell them THAT IS WHY YOU WILL NOT SAY THOSE WORDS IN MY CLASS.
For peace.

Maybe someday we’ll get peace throughout the world. For now, I’m just trying to be peace myself and get some peace on the block.

Wordsmith's Challenge

She sat in her E class working up the nerve to get out.

Shit.

There seemed to be a cult of the mom jeans here. And that cult broke off from the cult of the denim jumpers and socks. What the hell had she been thinking when she came here?

Her key was still hanging in the ignition. She should just start the damn car back up and drive back home. She already missed neon signs, and pawn shops, and thugs who posted up on the corner, nodding their hellos. If her mother were still alive, she would have talked her child out of this shit. If her mother were still alive, she wouldn’t be here in the first fucking place.

She looked at herself in the rear view mirror. No one saw her. The windows were blacked like she was the president herself. Course, the president didn’t roll on Dubs. Or wear Gucci stunner shades studded with rhinestones. They might as well have been neon lights. Flashing neon that said, “I DON”T BELONG HERE.” Soon, people would start blessing her little heart for looking so out of place.

It wasn’t so much that her gear was top shelf. The town, though small, was affluent. It was a college town. She wasn’t the only one there with an 80, 000 dollar car. Hell, she could pick out five of them from where she sat. Small private college town. She’d moved here to work with other top surgeons doing research. They didn’t work for minimum wage.
I don’t work for minimum wage anymore.

It wasn’t that she was paid that made her stand out. It was that she was flashy. Way too flashy. Clearly, she hadn’t come from money. And she didn’t care who knew it, she made no effort to blend. Back home, her ride was not the most expensive on the block, either. Maybe the only one with a legal title… Here, they all were legal, boring. No way did any have Budweiser in the trunk. Maybe microbrews. Fuck that. She liked Bud. The carryout by the free clinic she’d opened back home didn’t carry micro brews.

She was here to meet the head of her research team. He’d invited the young single doctor to join him and his wife at the “delightful farmers market” where she could “meet most of the town!” She’d smiled at the white haired old scientist, knowing that she had to make nice and agreed to meet them at 9. She’d said she was, “Looking forward to it.”

Really, she’d been looking forward to listening to the O-Jays and get stinking drunk. She didn’t care about meeting anyone. She didn’t care about making scientific history with the research team. She cared about whipping the ass of heart disease which had taken her mother at the age of 42. To do that, she had to make nice.

She took a deep breath and opened the door, promising a fast return to her 12 little Buds.

4 words

Its about damn time.

Trash Day, yo.

Man. Wo-man. (think so I married an axe murderer)
Time gets away from me this time of year.

WM had her open house for the holidays at her store. Read: I pick out, light up, and decorate roughly 7,000 trees. Well, maybe not. But in the tens of dozens anyway. Roughly a metric ass ton of trees. I am really good at it. I also have only had a tree like once at my house. I get my fill of that shit in late october. After the trees she closes down for a week. Which means, this kid works 14 ish hour days every day for like 3 weeks. This year, I'm working many weekends for her because apparently, people don't want to work. I mean sure, they want to go somewhere and get a check. But they don't want to work. Shit, I don't get that. If nothing else, the day takes too damn long if you stand there with your thumb up your ass.
I'm just saying.

I survived the outlaw visit. Barely. Lots of "i thought you said...."s from my MIL. And pictures of her boy with her, her boy with his dad but none of her boy and his wife. Um, I may not exactly be a looker.... but I ain't gonna break a camera lens either. Then there was that passive aggressive, 'I'm not going to walk over to you and hug you." And folks, I was not the bigger person. I didn't go get a hug. Not because I'm being passive (cuz let's face it folks...I'm aggressive sometimes *cof*often...but never passive). Only because I was too damn tired to bother. Two tears in a bucket.

I am really, really fucking tired. And apparently, that sleeping issue I have is starting to cause other health problems. So a new doc who's trying to find out what has happened put me on one of those 'non addictive' sleep aids. And yeah. I'm still freaked out about it. Puh-leeze don't give me the rap about biological shit and how it won't hook me. If you'd come up like I did, seen air conditioners ripped out of walls and guns pulled on family members and more other fun stuff, you'd worry about it too. You'd understand being scared to death that you might be a junkie. You'd be scared to death that you would be the one to go back to the way things are there. But in what is either good or bad news, the sleep aid, four days in....doesn't do a damn thing.

My dog is rad. After we went to vote, we went to hike. The squirrels of the world have apparently gotten together, held a caucus and figured out how they can drive WD apeshit. Their plan of run past him really fast..... totally works. Squirrels don't use leashes and that drives WD crazy. Equally as maddening... squirrels don't stay on the path. My dog, it seems, is as crazy as I am. Hmm.. my doc did say I seem anxious.
*****no shit, sherlock, you've had me waiting for an hour.....I.NEED.TO.GO.*****

Yeah. Doc met me for ten minutes and said I seem anxious. Up tight. Wonder if he wanted to call me a dork or start talking about my mother. Fucking pissed me off and no doubt, that makes me everything he said. But still.

And that, dear readers.... updates you on my world.

But because my bloggofriend MOJO (see my list) is advocating for the peace blog and i dig peace...there will be a peace blog on the 6th. And there would be a cool logo too if I were cooler.
So use your imagination about the direction I might take and for those of you that know me IRL, think about how I always end messages on the phone and email with Peace. And how I totally don't sound like a hippy....

heh.