Adventures of Nefertiti

One of my favorite memories as a kid was in the kitchen with my Mom making sugar cookies. Times were tough, but with just sugar, eggs, butter and flour, seems like we always had enough for cookies. I remember one snowy winter night in the kitchen with my brother, baby sister and Mom and arms covered in flour and cookie dough, when the song Silent Night by the Temptations came on the radio. Another great memory of mine is of hearing my mother and brother sing. Tonight watching Mariah Carey’s Christmas special on ABC my mind flashed back to that kitchen scene.

Life can be a lonely road sometimes, especially when you find yourself hundreds of miles away from family and friends. I cherish moments now that I get to spend with them. Recently when the opportunity arose to share a New Orleans experience with a close friend, I knew I had to do everything I could to make it happen and make it good. Although at times I did want to back out of our plans only because I’ve gained a lot of weight since my move to Hilton Head. This friend of mine, I hadn’t seen in nearly four years and I used to date her brother. I hated to have to have her see me like this. But I decided to take a chance. I really needed to hang out with someone familiar. I don’t do that at all in Hilton Head and Bluffton. In the Low Country it’s just me and my cat Jake. My life has never before been so void. So, I work for RCI, a timeshare exchange company. I’ve been with the company for nearly ten years. With employee benefits come free resort stays. As employees though, we don’t have ...

“Alright, you go on up, I’m going to wait right here,” my then 17-year old sister Obadiah declared after we’d made our way to the grounds of the Key West Lighthouse and Keepers Quarters Museum. She and my then 21-year old sister Onierita and I decided to drive down from Weston, a small resort town west of Ft. Lauderdale. I had been in South Florida maybe a little over a year when my sisters and I decided to plan this day trip. Only a few hours away, we knew we had to try the conch fritters, and bring home key lime pie as well as hit the Pirates Museum, Mallory Square, and ride a trolley to the historic Key West Lighthouse. We talked about the itinerary beforehand and that’s why it came as such a huge surprise when Obadiah protested taking the journey to the top. “What,” Onie and I questioned in unison. “I’m going to wait right here,” Obadiah smiled up at us defiantly. “Oh no,” I said, “You’re going with us!” “Yep,” added Onie, “you have no choice.” Obadiah reluctantly headed towar...

"The tribes who still live the traditional way of life believe that nature and the Indian people spoke the same language. They believe that nature was the guide and provider for the tribe and that nature gave each tribe power and its own unique identity. The tribes developed dances around the animals and natural forces in which they believed. It is those dances that are danced at pow-wows." Gathering of Nations, A PowWow Experience Ever been to a pow-wow? I have and it was beautiful. And I hope to one day go again. I was raised in the Black experience, but per my Mother and Father I do have Native American ancestry. My mother’s family mainly from Kentucky could possible carry the blood of Shawnee Indians and my father’s people, mainly creoles from Louisiana and later Texas, carry the blood of the Chitimacha Indians. Many others do as well, yet how many people outside of active Native American tribesmen actually know what that means. What does it mean to be a Native American i...

I had every intention of going to that concert in Charleston. I’d bought my ticket during the fan presale and was all hyped and ready to once again see the amazing Jason Mraz. Then reports came in about bedbugs and I didn’t want to chance a hotel. So then I decided I would just drive the more than an hour and a half back to Bluffton after the show. But after the murder of my neighbor, I wasn’t ready to make that drive that late at night. On Sunday evening I started debating if I should go. The concert was on Wednesday, but by Monday morning I had my mind set on a vacation at home. And yes, I did initially take the entire week off just to attend one concert during the middle of the week to a city that is less than two hours away. Hey that’s what you do when you have vacation days to use. You use them or you lose them and I get a lot of Paid Time Off from my employer. Which I would say I deserve it, because I’ve been at my job for nearly ten years. Back to my staycation. I could’ve gotte...

What if all of this (life) is just a test and right now half of us are passing and half of us are failing. The purpose of this test would be for the entire human race to get past superficial things like skin color and religion. When those of us pass we get to move on to the next level of spiritual enlightenment when we die, but when those of us fail we are doomed to this crisis existence on earth all over again, until one day it’s too late, and the promised one returns only for those ready for the next step of this journey. Regardless if I’m looking toward Buddhism or Jesus Christ, the essence of death boggles my mind. I have no idea what happens next and so at night I often imagine where our souls go once they’ve departed. In actuality I hate death, and yet I know it comes for me, it comes for us all. In preparation for the unknown, I try to live a clean life, and I try to do no harm. What does the Bible say, love thy neighbor? I want to practice that. Thou Shall Not Kill. My neighb...

Do you know me? Do you remember me as I remember you? We go back way too far to do what we do. If not for love lost, then why love at all? In the beginning we were one and now we fall. Just to make sure you understand, I didn’t want to, have to, take you, believe you me... This is where we’ll end. One day the circle will come around... again.

I fell for him even before I met him. I had taken a part-time position at a local gym and fitness center and I was the first smile members saw when they walked through the door. I was a front desk clerk, and my job was to take guest fees and to register members for classes. It was an easy part-time job, filled with a bit of friendly and perfectly built pieces of eye candy. But as much as I enjoyed the well oiled machines that walked through the door, and as attracted as I was to just about every male there, I was most drawn to an employee that I had yet to meet. For some reason, fellow co-workers kept bringing up his name. “Wait till you meet Matt, wait till you meet Matt,” they would say. They, were a young bunch. Most making their way through college. I was older and college was already years behind me, but this part-time job helped to pay the bills, because my full time salaried position just wasn’t cutting it. So the first couple of days of this new gig, I had heard a lot about thi...

When’s the last time you’ve hit the dance floor? For me it’s been a while, a long while, and that’s absolutely insane. Time to change that! I LOVE dance. I love to feel the rhythm of a crowd full of strangers rollicking on a dance floor. I love to watch dance too, and from Solid Gold in the eighties to America’s latest showcase for raw talent; So You Think You Can Dance, I am forever a fan of this fluid art form. And finally lovers of the dance get to celebrate the freedom of movement. Mark your calendars, July 31st, is now officially National Dance Day. Come one, come all, shake your booty, free fall. In the meantime, here’s a little something to get you off your feet. From SYTYCD, ballet dancer Alex Wong and hip-hopper Twitch.... Enjoy! http://video.yahoo.com/watch/7804315/20656854

Ok, so everyone is familiar with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a mess down there, and unfortunately, as bad as this oil spill is, there are other spills happening right now around the world. Take Nigeria for example, according to a recent New York Times article, that country has dealt with an oil spill as bad as the Exxon Valdez spill every year for the past 50 years, and currently the children of this African nation swim in oil polluted waters, and unlike Gulf Coast residents, Nigerian people don’t receive much support or relief from their national government. It’s sad to see where greed can lead, and I’m not just talking about Big Oil and corrupt governments. It’s unbelievable to me that Gulf Coast residents are eager to begin new offshore deepwater drilling when their outcry regarding what BP has done to our ecosystem and our wildlife and wetlands has been so loud. It’s also amazing to me that Governor Bobby Jindal can decry that President Obama has a disconnect with the...

I am so glad my parents decided to do their homework before they named me after a huge powerful figure such as Queen Nefertiti. Nefertiti was known for her beauty and her influence over her kingdom in Egypt and her pharaoh Akhenaton. Although there’s speculation of her birth place, evidence from an archeological dig back in December 1912, when her bust was unearthed, shows that Nefertiti was definitely a deep brown beauty. But not all of her successors have that trait in common. More than a thousand years later, another powerful woman ruled Egypt. Her name was Cleopatra. Cleopatra was of Greek origin and ruled during a period of Greek occupation of Egypt. She was very fair skinned and there is no evidence that there is a direct link to African Ancestry. You can find more details from the blog, BlackInCairo that I follow here... http://blackincairo.blogspot.com/2010/06/cleopatra-aint-black-noise-in-cairo-and.html . So all the folks in the Black community crying because Angelina Jolie is...

She’s beautiful and plays a Desperate Housewife on TV, and not too long ago this Mexican-American actress took a DNA test and discovered on the PBS series Faces of America, that she has African ancestry. Her name is Eva Longoria Parker, and while some viewers may have been surprised at what was revealed, I wasn’t one of them. Eight years ago a friend and I vacationed in Acapulco, Mexico. There, we had the time of our lives. We did all the touristy stuff like sightseeing and taking loads of pictures, but what captivated me the most, was the connection I discovered we had with the Mexican people. My friend Sanquetta and I stayed at the Mayan Palace Resort. The resort itself was a luxury that I had never before encountered. The lobby complete with marble floors and Mayan themes with a temple entrance was simply breathtaking. Combined with nightly entertainment, open air buffet restaurants and the longest lazy river pool in Mexico, this beach front property more than exceeded our wildest e...

She lay on the chaise lounge face down on the deck of the pool, a few feet from the edge of the water. It was mid-day and the sun bore down on her intensely, baking her skin into a light golden bronze. Casually, she slid her spaghetti strap down her left shoulder to the side of her bikini bra. She didn ’t want a tan line there. She wanted her upper body nice and even. Not too far away, a dark-skinned woman looked out the window of the clubhouse overlooking the resort’s lazy river pool and noticed the middle-aged woman baking in the sun. The dark-skinned lady thought about how she would love to catch a few sun rays herself, since it was good for her body in it’s conversion of Vitamin D. But, she didn ’t understand the point of sun bathing to the point of obsession. She recalled back one time while in Acapulco, while relaxing out by the pool with a good book in hand, noticing an elderly gentleman laying out next to her, covered in what looked like lesions of melanoma. Of course, her dark...

For most of my adult life, I’ve completely been against subscribing to premium movie channels. In the past, I’ve felt that if I really wanted to see a good movie and if I failed to see it in the movie theatre, well then I should just visit Blockbuster and rent it. This mindset changed for me a few years ago. Upon my relocation to South Carolina, I decided to invest my money in a little at home entertainment. Now with my basic cable and internet package, I also have one group of premium movie channels, and that is with HBO. HBO has been good to me, although my monthly bill is a bit too high, I’m still pretty content with their selection of movie choices and original shows. True Blood and Entourage are can’t miss summer thrills. And very recently, I’ve been really impressed with what HBO has had to offer. Within the past few days, I’ve watched three fantastic shows that have been educational, enlightening, and entertaining. Those three are... Something the Lord Made Sugar Treme Something...

Sometimes I don’t feel comfortable in this small town that I reside in. Although most of the time, I think it’s just me. Over the past few years I’ve become a bit paranoid and feel sometimes that pairs of eyes are trying to get a hold of me. Now it doesn’t help here that South Carolina is a conservative red state and that from time to time I’ve seen a confederate flag hanging over the balcony of the apartment across the parking lot from me. Nor does it help that at one time my office was so charged politically that I called in sick the day after President Obama was elected. Still despite all of this, I have felt relatively safe in my surroundings, albeit a bit uncomfortable. But tonight I experienced something so unsettling that I’m just not sure how I should label it. Lately it seems I’ve had a taste for barbeque. A few weeks ago I was intrigued by a quick conversation on identity with the cashier in the drive-thru at Jim N-Nick’s BBQ and today, I decided to visit a new barbeque resta...

There’s not much to do here in Bluffton , South Carolina, but there sure can be loads of picture taking moments. I moved here a few years ago when my job relocated my office to the resort town of Hilton Head Island. Hilton Head is a sea island off the tip of south eastern South Carolina. And Bluffton is a tiny historic town on the mainland across the bridge from Hilton Head. It takes me maybe twenty minutes to drive from Bluffton to Hilton Head for my office hours. Since I moved to this area, which is also known as the low country, I just haven’t ventured out much. I’ ve hit all the sightseeing spots back on the island, but haven’t had a desire to check out the historic district of my new home community in Bluffton . So today, on this fine Easter Sunday, I decided to drive around the corner with my Canon SX 120 and park the car and take a walk. Only five minutes away from my apartment, what I found here, is a photographer’s dream come true. Of course I took lots of pictures and I...

I hope I don’t get in trouble, but I had been putting off filling out my 2010 Census Form, and now that I have filled it out, I may not have given the response that the government wanted to see. I had been aware of the controversy regarding the word Negro, and I wasn’t too eager to deal with it. Still, I completely expected to have the opportunity to check a box that read Black, or a box that read African American or a box that read Negro. Instead, last night as I sat down to fill out my form, I discovered lumped together under one box to check, read the line.... Black, African American or Negro. Hmm... So have we fully embraced this new millennium or have we traveled back in time to the 1920’s? I remember last month talking with my Grandmother regarding the latest census and asking what she thought about the word Negro being added, and her response was; “Why did they bring that word back?” My point exactly! The reasoning behind that was because the Census Bureau felt that some older g...

This past weekend my brother spent Friday and Saturday evening in the hospital with his baby girl. My 3-year-old niece Dezi was running a high fever Friday afternoon, and after a call from the daycare, my brother Tommy, rushed her to the hospital. She’s fine now, but when I talked with my brother Sunday afternoon, they were still at the hospital and my brother hadn’t had any sleep. He says he was afraid to take his eyes off of her, even for one second. I wish I could have been there for him, because I hate that he had to endure that anguish alone. But I couldn’t, because he’s in Florida, and I’m in South Carolina. My mother is in Kentucky and my father is in Indiana, and they couldn’t have been with him either. My brother has lots of loved ones in Orlando, but no blood relative. While talking with my brother, I asked how Dezi was handling being in the hospital, and he said that she was demanding to go home and that every time the doctor came by to take blood, she would give him the evi...

A few weeks ago, I decided to visit the old Angel Oak Tree on John’s Island and I found her just south of Charleston, South Carolina. To get to her, I eventually had to travel down the roughest dirt road I’ve ever been on. The road is unpaved and is filled with potholes, I swear a mile deep each. The journey to visit with Angel Oak is well worth it though. She’s estimated to be over 1,400 years old, one of the oldest organisms around and is the type of creature to have withstood the test of time. She’s weathered lightening strikes, and hurricanes, and yes even nearby earthquakes. She’s 65 feet tall and 25 feet and a half round. Her branches extend outward to welcome visitors and are so heavy and thick that some of them rest easily on the ground. She’s strong and her roots run deep. She symbolizes the children whom she greets everyday with open arms during park visiting hours. She represents Mother Earth and her love that will forever endure the test of time. She is a sight to see and a...

My cat is traumatized. I dropped him off at the kennel for a few days, so that I could go to Charleston to see John Mayer and Michael Franti in concert. When I made my way back to the kennel today to pick up my little Jake, he was buried in his cage under a big pillow, hiding. The attendant said she put the pillow in his cage to make him feel better. And she suggested I bring him in more often, so that he could learn to be a bit more social. Anyway, he's been meowing like crazy since we've been back, and has been asleep at my feet on and off all afternoon. During his brief periods of sleep, he's moaned and cried out and tossed and turned like he's having nightmares of me dropping him off again. He wakes when I get up to move about and he cries out and loudly meows at me. He is so spoiled. I thought he would have a good time. When I left him there, it was to a room full of other cats and kitties, including two ferrets. But I guess being in a room full of other feline cr...

It’s January and it’s cold outside. Happy New Year everyone! I have so many plans and ideas, but the temperature is so frigid, that I can’t even think straight to put anything into motion. This is supposed to be the year, in which I let go and do things my way, because life is just too short not to. This is the year, in which I take my career to a whole nother level, and find a way to make a difference in the lives of those around me. This could be the year, in which I say good bye to the security of a nine to five desk job, of nine years, and follow through on a more rewarding experience. It’s scary to say these thoughts out loud or let alone type them on a computer screen. It’s a frightening time for change and the current job market is nothing but volatile. The current unemployment rate now stands at ten percent and the headlines at Huffingtonpost.com read “Zero Net Job Creation Over Last Ten Years”. Meaning, if I’m looking to jump careers in search of new employment opportunities, ...