Mamalicious!

Plus: I finished (and thoroughly enjoyed) Mat Johnson’s Incognegro…

Minus: …but I can’t write my review of it, because I am the sickest I have been possibly ever in my life. Certainly the sickest in recent memory. I never get sick, but here I am: hacking cough, nasal drama, headache, fuzzy-brained. And yet, this is the time in my life when I have the least ability to do what I really feel like doing: roll over and play dead. Children must eat. Children must be chaffeured. So I must keep moving.

Plus: Sweet Mini-Me offered to put me to bed and take care of me when we got home from her dance class…

Minus: …but while I gave the offer serious consideration, I couldn’t let her. I have a fairly strict 8pm bedtime policy, and no way could she play Florence Nightinggale to me, herd BabyGirl into a bath, get them both fed–in less than 2 hours.

Plus: The Man sent me a text yesterday that read: “Kisses to the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Minus: He lives a four-hour drive away.

Plus: We have two kittens (four-month-old sisters) who love me more than anyone else in the house.

Minus: We have two kittens (four-month-old sisters) who love me more than anyone else in the house. I can’t take a step without kicking or tripping over one or both of them. The little gray one tries to eat my locs.

Plus: Obama is moving up, up, up…

Minus: …but I have a sick feeling that something shady is going to happy at election time…again. Some say it already has.

Plus: Obama is moving up, up, up…

Minus: …but like Tami said, “Don’t put all your hope in one basket.” Looking more closely these days at his platform (defense spending increase, suspected lip-service on poverty), there are moments when I feel like I’m choosing the lesser of two evils.

Plus: I made a Black History Month presentation to the (mostly white) 3rd grade classes at Mini-Me’s school today. I didn’t want to show up and yak about “12 Random Famous Black People You Should Know,” or give them a lot of “black facts” in isolation. Instead, I wanted to give them a challenge, an idea that they could apply throughout out their lives. With their recent study of Pittsburgh’s history as a jumping off point, we talked about how history is made up of stories, people’s stories, and that to really know the history of a place or event, to get a clear picture, you have to include EVERYONE’s story–boys and girls, men and women, people who look like you, people who don’t look like you, people who speak the same language you speak, people who don’t.We segued from there into why we celebrate Black History Month and the telling of black people’s stories as American history. We talked about one black American, one black Pittsburgher, in particular, photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris.*

(courtesy of cmoa.org)

Together, we looked at dozens of his photographs from One Shot Harris by Stanley Crouch, and we talked about the stories they told about black Pittsburghers.

(courtesy of tfaoi.com)

(courtesy of dneiwert.blogspot.com)

(Of course, I didn’t share this one with the kiddies. But it’s certainly a conversation piece.)

We thought out loud about the pictures, asked questions, wondered, imagined. The kids made some really astute observations about what they saw, and asked smart questions. Then, they each selected a picture and wrote about them–stories, poems, dialogue. I also offered a prompt to write about someone or something important who/that wasn’t in the picture. Several students took on that challenge

Minus: I only had about 45 minutes to do all this…

Plus: …but they are going to finish up their writing this week, and I’ll get to read them all. And, I’ve provided the teachers with resources related to about a dozen “famous” (depending on who you ask) black Pittsburghers (including Mary Lou Williams, August Wilson, John Edgar Wideman, and Albert French) to incorporate directly into their core study of Pittsburgh’s history in future years. I really, really hate when black folks are an “add on,” so this should take care of that. I really, really love it when teachers are receptive.

Minus: I miss not having my own classroom.

Plus: I am a freelance writer, doing what I love to do…Minus:…but there is a lot of waiting, rejection, and uncertainty.

Minus: I have two interviews to conduct tomorrow for my transracial adoption article, and if today’s interview is any indication, the best I can do (fuzzy-brained) is to wing it and do a lot of active listening. And coughing.

Plus: These are the last two interviews I have to do…

Minus: …but then I have to finish revising the article.

Plus: The editors of an upcoming anthology really like my creative nonfiction submission…

Minus: …they just want me to make a few revisions. Soon.

Plus: I pitched something to Bitch magazine that I think they might be interested in…

Minus: … if they publish it, it’ll be weird to list Bitch among my accomplishments.

Minus: I am the center of my daughters’ universe.

Plus: I am the center of my daughters’ universe.

Minus: I’m tired.

Plus: I am going to bed now.

*Check out: A Teenie Harris Chronology, “One Shot: The Life and Work of Teenie Harris” (a documentary, though no longer available via the linked site), and, replaced back on my coffee table:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 11:50 pm and is filed under 32 Days of Black History, Books and Writers, Cool Stuff, Education, It's...Whatever., Love 101, Mama-hood, Offspring, Politics, Race Matters, This and that, Wordsmithin'. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.