Xtina

December 23rd I walked into a seedy neighborhood bar called Knuckleheads adjacent to a local strip joint. I was not looking for a man, but rather a break from reality to drown my sorrows with local Xmas revellers. Earlier that evening, I had tried my two-step at a Montrose nightclub where I frequently hang out with a couple of friends. The bouncer looked me up and down and asked me which party I was with. I told bonehead I was with the owner of the spot, Amir, and waited for the raincheck. I have never seen the real Amir, but the stand-in that greeted me was a guy that I had a run in with a few months ago. Assured that it would be a party of lames, I made my way to the bar I had been drowning my selfish indulgences in beer over the several of the 12 days of Christmas. Last call for alcohol and an order of 35 cent wings infront of me, a dark skinned brother by the name of Mike walked up next to me and pulled up a bar stool. He told he was from in town. He told me that he was a real nigga and at the same time he said he thought I was pretty. I asked him to clarify that and he said it again. I had on a cashmere coat in the color of camel over my hot pink dress. His black leather jacket was zipped up over his powder blue football jersey. His jeans and tennis shoes had already exuded that this would be casual encounter. "Give me your number," he said from the side of his mouth. He did not pull out a pen. He just insisted on asking for my number. He asked me want I wanted to drink and I asked Simon the bartender for a Bud Light. Simon never served my drink that night. To quell the flames of attraction with Mike, I said lets play darts. I led him over to the left side of the bar. A game was already in progess and no darts were free. I patted him on the shoulders to soak in the stranger and told him I was leaving. Strapped up in a seatbelt of my car, Mike came back around for another request. He rapped on my window. I reluctantly rolled it down. He was driving a white Honda Accord and had Three Six Mafia's "Sipping on Some Sizzurp" playing on the factory system. He gave me his receipt to Knuckleheads and asked me for my number. I gave him something to send him on his way, an email address. When I pulled into the driveway of the house, a strike of lightning came from the sky and knocked out a regulation trash pail on the on the other street.

MAC

Since my friends have all left the pond for sunnier destinations, I just copped my own hands on a helping of MAC cosmetics. I have never been quite confident on how to draw the line straight under the lash, line my brows, or apply the correct shade of rouge. So in the past, I have begged my friends for tips and makeovers out of their makeup cases. Normally a Mary Kay inductee, I decided to make a purchase at the store in the Galleria a few days ago. Why is it so hard to pin down a MAC Rep for a spin in the chair? Maybe that is why I have always skipped that shop for Victoria's Secret. Every girl must have been featured in a Mary Kay fashion show at least one time in her career and walked down a makeshift catwalk. The last time I called a family friend Mary Kay rep, she told me that she knew Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. In turn, I proceeded to lay it on thick with my ongoing letter writing campaign. Mary Kay is a staple however MAC has been the lingua franca for known and the bevy of unknown fashionistas. Leaving with Studio Fix powder and a lipstick in Pink Noveau Satin in a plastic sack, if I master those steps, I will come back for more.

That's What Friends Are For

Everyone loves Dionne Warwick! Her friends even decided to throw her two gala affairs during the Washington D.C. festivities for the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. Somehow, I ended up on this esteemed invite list and landed an email for the event. Still wondering who was thoughtful enough to send me the invite, I will just chalk this one up to East Orange, New Jersey.

players anthem

New Jerusalem, ho! Friend of the rap ensemble the Fugees, John Forte' pushed weight like retail, but what did it get him? It got him frequent flyer miles for a fourteen year sentence for thirty one pounds of liquid cocaine worth $1.4 million dollars uncovered at Newark Airport in 2000. A camp of women connected to Forte' were arrested by law enforcement in Harligen, Texas in July of 2000. After being searched and detained in Houston, the women were to call Forte' who he himself summoned them with a coded response to "put the ice cream in the tub." The fateful meeting was arranged for Newark International. On December 22 of this year, Forte' will be released from his cell in Fort Dix New Jersey on a pardon from President George W. Bush after serving just half of his sentence. Kemba Smith liked the fast car her drug dealer boyfriend Khalif or Peter Michael Hall, by variying aliases, drove her in. Kemba Smith was a student at Hampton University located in Hampton, Virginia when campus co-ed Peter Hall introduced her to become a consort of a drug traffiker. He showered her with gifts during their over three years courtship in return for her trust and loyalty while he was out doing his bidding. Hall humiliated her in the bedroom when het got angry. She labled herself as prostitute when questioned by prosecuters after Peter Hall was killed in Seattle out on the lam a month after Kemba was arrested. Up the river with a twenty-four and a half mandatory minimum sentence, Smith was pardoned by President William Jefferson Clinton after serving six years of her sentence in 2000.

American Gothic

Remember the days of 1990's yore, when several New York NBA players were caught with their pants around their ankles at the Gold Club. The Gold Club is the elitist Atlanta strip club that padded professional athletes' tabs with effluent bottles of expensive champagne to hide a money laundering racket and prostitution ring by convicted owner Steve Kaplan. To raise the profile of the club, the Atlanta club's Thomas "Ziggy" Cicignano told his sexy hunnies to perform sex acts on the likes of New York Knickerbocker Patrick Ewing. Did the Gold Club establishment of women offering sex to NBA high rollers travel to the Indiana Pacers' string of suites at the downtown Atlanta Swissotel in 1997? The Indiana Pacers nor the Swissotel had any lodging records that by Steve Kaplan's account he and the Pacers' Reggie Miller brought three women "entertainers" to share with the rest of the teammates. There may be a Gold Club near you with the hunnies that just take off their clothes, or if you plan on moving to Dallas a sexy club of another sort lies off the beaten path in Duncanville, Texas. The Cherry Pit is a swingers club at a local residence that charges $50.00 per person for friends to munch on chips and soda. There is no charge for participating in any hedonistic delights with the neighbors. However, Duncanville's city council is at the task of regulating the neverending private house party that advertises its For Ladies Only Pussy Pit on the 'net.

Double Jeopardy

What is the 2005 G8 Meeting.

Pentecost

“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire."

- Matthew 3:11

I am still straightening out the kinks in an unraveling unspoken family history. Getting to the heart of it, belies my Catholic high school girl roots which is how I met a referral for my job after law school. When I met with her, her husband, and her in-laws at her in-laws home, her husband communicated to me in a conversation about church that his wife was of a Baptist faith by trade.