Dearest Heifer,

So long farewell auf wiedersehen, goodbye.

I’ve been trying to part ways with you since Starbucks came on the DC scene in the mid 90s. **cue some really sad dairy music** I’ve been lactose intolerant for all of my life-and I’ve even tried to make it work with Lactaid. But for some reason you’re still making it hard to lose the winter weight. I could blame age, but that’s too easy. For years, I could keep the belly fat down and still consume you. Thoughts of breve still make me smile. But I cannot start the spring with bits and pieces of half and half and whole milk around my waist.

I hope you understand, moo moo.

We’ve tangoed at this rodeo so many times before. But its the last dance I swear. I’ve recently caught some extended versions of the movie, Food inc. (only because I can’t yet bring myself to watch the whole thing) Farmers don’t really take care of you like they used to. Its all about the money now, mass production and injecting stuff into you that makes you good and fat-why should my a!ss or boobs be any different? I’ve got more serious and compelling reasons why we must part now. Dr. Christiane Northrop on her radio talk show yesterday mentioned more than 40% increase breast cancer rate for women who drink you- regardless of your lactaid brethren. She mentioned how animal protein easily form tumors. That’s a dose of reality that I needed to finally bid you farewell. Especially now as women who are diagnosed with breast cancer are getting younger and younger.

I’ve been going out with your evil nasty nemesis, soy. Don’t get jealous, he’s a little bitter and full of sugar.

Don’t feel bad Cow-ey. I’m almost done with hamburger, you should be relieved. Chicken is next on my list. No, I don’t really consider myself a vegetarian. I’ve always hated the thought of them. They seemed like real a!ssholes to me-food elitists, who had some inside scope on how to eat with a moralist slant. There’s no snobbery involved here. Just a serious goodbye. Don’t even think about bringing up the pig. I’m taking baby steps.

I haven’t seen you in two weeks, ok. I did only sip you yesterday at the Nordstrom’s coffee shop. But I got a short, two sips and I was done. Before that it was two weeks.

I’m sorry but its REALLY over this time.

all the best,

CBG

The Daffodil Bloom (before/after)

I missed Gratitude Friday for the first time in like more than a year. Please know that my job is CRAZZZY right now with 10-12 hour days. Thursday night however was pushing 16 hours with night work. And I was so tired, to then wake back up and work 10 more hours on Friday. But still that’s no excuse. I’m so grateful for this blog.

And Daffodils. My supermarket had these cut daffodils out by the checkout stand and not in water. They were just long stems with a tiny yellow bulb waiting to bloom. A day later VOILA. I pictured is a before and after if you will.

And SPRING is around the corner.

And flowers change everything.

Comeback Girl Rule 3,567: When In Doubt, Get Daffodils

Baryshnikov that Body, photog: Annie Leibovitz

As I type this, let’s call it press time (it sounds more official), I’ve got A.D.D as usual. I’m cleaning out my bedroom closet. Freud and my therapist bestie, might call it psycho-se!xual, only because I somehow think that my closet and finally getting rid of “first date” dresses, “he really likes me” boot leg jeans, “we’re in a relationship” handbags and I’m ready to have se!x sandals-might finally invite a less fluffy man in reminds me of a pen!s.

Comeback Girls on relationship rebounds and all those fu!cked up reinvention trips – date fluffy men.

I’m done with fluffy I promise. And I’m almost done with re-invention too. Pretty soon the Comeback Girl is going to run out of Comebacks. And just arrive. And stay.

But I’m not done with submission. Shanel Cooper Sykes suggests black women don’t know how to submit. I could submit to an artsy Russian ballerina though. Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov in some tight pants, I could submit to him.

A black man?

I’mma need a rain check.

The unevolved me could drone on and on about how intimidated black men are with the Independent- Black-Super-Woman-Hero. Black men could give their typical counters on wanting women who make them feel needed. But most black women like me, independent or otherwise don’t want science projects-gluing popsicle sticks back together and we don’t want to fake like we don’t know ALL the scrabble words even if it takes getting homeboy drunk to do it.

But I have dated some broken down a!ss men all perfect on paper-probably just reflection of me.

I’m sort of tired of that now. Fu!ck feng shui (sorry ascended masters). But fu!ck aromatherapy.

Submission probably is the ultimate seduction in a crazy like a fox, memoirs of a geisha way.

But I “refuse to lose at scrabble!”*

*Comeback Girl Rule 1,243,062

Several months ago a friend hip’d me to an alarming phenomenon, women with women problems. I’ve read on many black male blogs about black men and their perception of the “ABW” (Angry Black Woman) syndrome. The “syndrome” explores black women who are just mad for little to no reason at all. But I mostly discount male perceptions because where I’m from, if you suggest, even politely that you aren’t interested in “going out”, “giving your number”, or indulging some fool over an upside down, 180 degrees, breve latte about how wonderful his boring a!ss really is-you’re an angry lonely bi!tch.

But back to my friend, some months ago I recounted on this blog about her asking one of her other friends to come out with us. To which my friend replied: “She can’t, she’s got women problems”. Immediately then I replied, “why the hell would her period prevent her from going out, unless “these problems” are really bad?”

My friend however wasn’t talking about cramps. She was talking about her inability to get along with other women. And while I was going through (and AM going through) my deeply introspective metamorphosis phase- I seem to notice everything. Things I must not have paid attention to before.

And I’m here to say, there are quite a few black women with women problems. I’m not going to go into the ABW theories, because I think they’re deeply flawed. I think what’s truer, is the way black women get along with each other. True enough there are a few nasty gutter butt trollops (wk cite B. Scott) in the world. But mean and nasty trollops are anomalies. Its like mars going retrograde in mercury’s 29th house with a full moon-sh!t like that only happens once every 45 years.

But for some reason this past Friday and through the weekend the stars all lined up for a women problem weekend “WPW”. Starting at Fedex. I’m waiting for almost 30 minutes for the Fedex lady to find a guy’s package on a truck leaving the building. No problem I’m cool. Until this “WWWP” woman comes in and proceeds to get in front of me. I’m thinking to myself, ok no problem I must not have been standing close enough to the guy in front of me. I move closer and she moves closer so I can’t resume my space in line. And then, I politely say, “excuse me I was next”.

To which this heffa replies:

“Um, its not a big deal.”

And I counter:

“See it sort of is, because I’ve been waiting for almost 30 minutes. But if you’re in that big of a hurry go ahead”

And then the women problem chick rolled her eyes, gritted(*dc slang) on me and went on in front. And then I just laughed. I went into the office that same day and there was a black woman I had never seen before and I smiled and she looked at me like “what the fyuck are you smiling at me for?” Usually I follow with “good morning” but after the Fedex chick, I just couldn’t. The next day in Duncan Donuts, I was getting coffee and this woman stares me up and down, no ready smirk to say good morning nothing. Just the stare, up and down sizing me up like a dude. And let’s not stop at the weekend. Yesterday, I get out of my car and this young black chick walks down the street and gave me the most disgusted look EVER. I mean so disgusted, I had to check my reflection in the mirror to make sure I was still looking good in a Klymaxx sort of way ok.

WHAT THE F!UCK IS GOING ON?!

Is it the recession? Is the spirit of a fast paced city, which used to have southern sensibilities and hospitality (and I’ve been living under a rock)? Maybe its the internet and the plethora of gossip blogs, which have black women dissing other black women with the daily update. Maybe its indirectly the black man’s fault. Maybe the sight of a black woman to a “WWWP” signals the urban black male myth (of 200 men to 1 woman).

Maybe its all of the above. Maybe Wayne Dyer would tell my a!ss that that which you notice has a tendency to expand. Or maybe there have always been black women with black women problems but my Mary Poppins’ umbrella (ella, ella, eh**) was shielding it all.

(** shout out to SNL this weekend, remaking “We Are The World”)

Looking For Something Interesting...

Comeback Kids, I have taken a momentary blogging pause. Primarily because I no longer have anything interesting or new to say. And as I go through my yearly Spring time metamorphosis, I’d thought I’d spare you posts about my 10 pound weight gain. No need to drone on and on about my love for Starbucks and 300 calorie drinks. I’ve even kicked that habit for now. Yes, I’ve gone back to Duncan Donuts drip, with four splendas and some soy milk. I’m not trying to cry yall a coffee river, because it tastes pretty good.

Which brings me back to me boring myself.

And right now, I’m boring myself. Usually when this happens I start to shake up my life. Go different places. Take a different way home. Write something totally off the wall.

Ms. Jackson for Comebacks

So the Comeback Wire has just detailed about an hour ago that Janet Jackson will tour with her brothers in a Jackson 5 “revival”. And Janet will take Michael’s place later this year in a much anticipated world tour.

I call it serendipity when I think of someone to write about, and important news immediately comes over the Comeback wire about them. A few weeks ago, I heard Mariah Carey’s “Up Out My Face Boy” with Nicki Minaj. Mariah and Janet have both hit the magic 40 a couple of years ago. 40 in R&B is when you stop being “relevant” according to people half your age, unless you’re eternally youthful married to the chairman of Teen Nickelodeon and can bust out remixes with hot new “Afro-Trinidadian” rappers on one Young Money Entertainment.

Why Mariah and not Janet?

Janet’s on my Comeback Girl watch list for many reasons including ending a 7 year relationship, losing Michael last year, her ongoing battle with weight, on top of which every woman deserves a Comeback or two in her lifetime.

But on paper (as in currency), Wikipedia suggests Janet hasn’t really gone anywhere:

“Her business savvy has been compared to that of Madonna, gaining a level of autonomy which enables “creative latitude and access to financial resources and mass-market distribution.”[177][178] In March 2008, Business Wire reported “Janet Jackson is one of the top ten selling artists in the history of contemporary music; ranked by Billboard magazine as the ninth most successful act in rock and roll history, and the second most successful female artist in pop music history.”

But publicly she certainly has. Maybe reinvention means her career starts again after the release of ‘Why Did I Get Married Too” on April 2, 2010. Maybe 40, is the new 65 get ready to die in Contemporary R&B.

Or maybe she needs Nicki Minaj, two ponytails and a mini-skirt. (btw. I do love Mariah, there is room for more than one 40+ artist).

I’m sort of excited about Spring being around the corner in a month, March 20, 2010. No more boring, drab winter clothes. Every season, should signal a change, growth and movement forward. I’m grateful for those changes.

Mary Poppins & Other Ah Ha's

As many of you know, I consider myself to be the Mary Poppins of the internet an extremely positive person.

But just in the last six months, I’ve been waiting for the other metaphorical shoe to drop. I would really say that since September, everything that could happen to me did. But when I re-read that last sentence I just typed, its an exaggeration sort of. Its interesting how when we’re growing through something, it really looks bigger than what it is-from the other side. But sh!t wasn’t no Disney Land Theme Park nor was it Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

I was working a job, that was no longer REALLY fulfilling. That really wasn’t news, but my father almost dying was. If anybody asks me, what has been one of the most pivotal moments of my life-I’d have to say seeing my father in the worse condition I’ve ever seen a living person. And then to have a doctor tell me the best thing for him was a “DNR” “do not resuscitate” should he flat line again. And almost four months later my father is home through ICU and rehab- still being somewhat of a jerk. But I couldn’t ask for any better possible outcome. Well, except for him confronting the doctor last week who told me in medical terms to let Pop die. She couldn’t look my father in the eyes when he asked her “did you tell my daughter to give the order not to resuscitate me-even though that wasn’t even my wish nor written anywhere?”. He said that before he fired her as his primary care physician, he just wanted to ask her that one question. He said it was like she saw a ghost. And I’m sure she thought she did.

Funny how things work out.

I even think that the love of my life is around the corner…literally.

But do me this one favor Comeback Kids, when yall get that new IPAD, Think of me.

Seriously.

(I’m off to make some magic happen-because trouble don’t last always*.

*Comeback Girl Manifesto #1*

Tavi Gevinson, Girl Wonder, Fashion Insider, 13 year old Blogger

Dearest Tavi,

I’ve been reading your blog now for at least six months, I think you were 12 then. Except I don’t REALLY read it. I skim. Partly in awe. Partly in irritation. The web has enabled virtually anyone to become an expert at something: me, making comebacks and you, deciding on what’s hot and what’s not-blessed by all those devils who wear Prada. Are you their little darling or the double jointed fat lady at the circus?

And quicker than you could pass the 7th grade, you became fast friends with Karl Lagerfeld with a “bus pass” and front row seats to Mercedes Fashion week with a Target deal.

Are you sure you’re 13? I’d feel much better about myself if you were posing. I guess what really irritates me is given how influential bloggers actually are, that you probably already inspired the paired down edited version of what 25-40 year old women will buy at Macys and Nordstroms next season. I suppose its only fair that if gay men (designers) get to define straight men casual wear-that a 13 year old could decide that caged sandals for grown women are on trend this spring.

And if you are the little Einstein of fashion, with the one strand of gray hair that I’ve had on my head since I was 19; I refuse to go “Grandma” on purpose. I guess that’s “the freedom” of having a curfew; the push and pull of boundaries and non-restraint makes looking like a senior citizen totally hot.

Dam!it Al Gore, why did you take so long to discover the internet?

All this creative non-restraint I’m feeling now at 30 something, would quickly land my a!ss in an asylum.

PS. btw. Tavi, I’m totally open to that tea party you said you wanted to have with your readers…so “we can discuss the 90s”. Do you even remember the 90s?