Been visiting Bill's favourite blogs

Now I want to copy everything they're doing!

Like Solonor's end-of-year recap.

Or Blog from a Broad's latest meme. (I can't get the link, but it's today's date.)

Thanks to Key of D, I have discovered Rob Paravonian. (Happy belated Birthday, if you ever come my way.)

Such smart and clever folks!
Okay fine, I won't hate all people. Just the stupid jerky ones.

The Invisible Woman...

What is with people these days?

It seems to me as though everywhere I go, people are trying to walk through me. It's as if I don't exist, or perhaps everyone thinks that we're still in the forties and black folk should willingly contort themselves and hop into the gutters to make way for the white man and his woman walking by. I mean, WTF?

You know what I'm talking about: for example, when you're trying to get off the metro (or subway if you're not from Montreal) and you've got seven jokers trying to get on as you're getting out. Or how about when you're walking on the sidewalk and three friends are walking abreast towards you and taking up the entire sidewalk, but they have no intention of making way for you to pass by, or they might exert themselves to create a six-inch space for you to squeeze through. I mean come on, I'm thinner, but not that much thinner.

And even though I know it's wrong, I've stopped contorting myself to make way for ignorant people. Since I've improved my eating and exercise habits, I'm actually full of happy endorphins and am generally in a really good mood almost all of the time. But this is just one of those things that sparks mindless rage in me and I go from 0-60 in seconds. What's more, now that I have greater muscle mass and density, Tamara+momentum=a considerable force indeed. And people who try to walk through me go flying. And woe betide the person who even begins to get a little bit shirty with me about it. Righteous anger trumps carelessness and insouciance every time.

Maybe it's just that people are more and more self-absorbed, or have an inflated sense of entitlement. I mean, hey I can appreciate sometimes wishing that you were the only one on the sidewalk or getting on or off the metro, but wishing doesn't make it so. Ignoring me doesn't make me disappear. I should be the bigger person, I should be humble, because in the grand scheme of things, what does it matter? Who do I think I am, anyway? But when it comes down to it, I'm just sick of being made to feel invisible, or as though I don't have a right to be here. Because I am a person with value, as much (or as little, depending on how you look at it) as anyone else. I don't want your space, I don't need all space or even think that your space belongs to me. I just want my space. I'm happy to invite you in, but no one else is entitled to it. Shoot, I'm not even asking for a lot of it. Just enough room to move, room to breathe.

Argh, sometimes misanthropy just makes sense.

For the love of dairy products...

Food is so fan-frickin-tastic! Sure, my tummy is like a basketball stuffed full of bread and sugar and fat, but it's just so doggone good! Even if I am a little burpy and farty right now. Dairy, as good as it is, has never been good to me.

Meh, I can always train like a marine tomorrow. (And you KNOW that I will. That crazy Loren has given me a new program that I guarantee, if it doesn't prove to be the death of me, will give me the physiology of a 15-year-old. Oh yes, I'm determined to beat his score on the Fit Test. Heh heh. And when I do, I will gloat. Loudly and often. I will not be a gracious victor. I'm just warning you all now. Judge me if you will! It's just because he gloats about having a 16-year-old body and is shaped like the letter Y. I think it will be good for him to be beaten by a girl. Yeah, I want to help to develop his character...that's my motivation, uh-huh, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. )

But darlings, believe me, I am going to earn it. I need memories of sugar, chocolate, french fries, red beans and rice and pie to comfort me through the long weeks and months of brown rice, chicken breasts, egg whites, and broccoli ahead.

Mmmmm....fat. *drool!*

I'm at my dad's place eating pastries and drinking coffee and Courvoisier and listening to the Dreamgirls soundtrack. We are all being as loud and sassy as we know how to be, and it's oodles of fun. I'm storing up a lot of memories to tide me over in the upcoming weeks, because things are going to get hairy.

So there is a slight chance that I may tend to be neglectful in the upcoming weeks. Please don't get mad at me, I know it's not fair, but you may have to be the one to call me more times than I will call you. But I will do my best to try to keep my work and social life balanced. A little kick in the shin from time to time will remind me to keep my head up and looking around me instead of just the row that I'm ploughing. If you catch my drift.

Anyway. Loving you!
Merry Christmas!

Goodbye James Brown. You may have ended up crazy, but you were still the greatest.

I'm in Niagara Falls

In case you were looking for me.

But if some dude in a suit and sunglasses bearing a suspicious resemblance to Hugo Weaving is asking about me, you don't know where I am.

(He's probably from VISA.)

It must be said...

My baby sister is hella awesome. I've been digging her more and more these days.

(Of course that's one of her expressions, because she's far more hip than me. In fact, now that she too has a job, we must shop together. Maybe she can teach me to look like a girl. That would be swell. She has the eye for fashion. In fact, it was she who turned me on to the glories of the fuggers, whose snarkiness I can no longer live without. They are my daily dose of eeeevillll.)

Angela, I salute you.

I know, Momma's been neglectful...sorry.

Anyhoo, I'm just popping in to share a thing or two with you before I get back to working like a crazy woman.

First of all, yesterday, I ate horse meat for the first time. (Yes, willingly.) And it's funny, but I felt absolutely no pangs about it. I was never one of those girls who, growing up, dreamed of having a pony. Somehow, at eleven, I never understood that desire and thought that it was a ridiculously bourgeois one. Besides, Who would look after it? My smurf village bedroom was always in a mess of post-apocalyptic proportions. No sir, I wasn't going to be shoveling any equine dookie.

Second of all, I've to date, lost 25 pounds. Go, me! I have gorgeous abs, no love handles in sight. (Of course, I probably look better this time around since I'm not depressed like I was last year and smoking cigarettes on the sly. I hear tell smokers carry more abdominal fat than non-smokers.) Anyway, not far to go until I reach my goal. Yeah! And I'm perfectly healthy, not starving or anything, have no fear. I eat every two hours. It's just that I train like a marine. I almost look like that picture of Alicia Marie. In fifteen pounds, I totally will. I've figured out how people who purportedly take fat-burners and lose 25 pounds in 6 weeks are doing it, and it's not with those useless pills, let me tell you. I look like a before and after picture. It's fun.

More news!

I have been cast in a role for which I didn't even audition! Mella! Mella! This year's school tour for BTW (http://www.blacktheatreworkshop.ca/) will be featuring yours truly! I'm not playing Mella, I'm playing the goddess. Which is awesome. Even though that will make it job number 5 as of January, I can't help it! If you offer me a role that doesn't require me to play a stereotype like maid, single mom, crack whore, or spunky, wisecracking girfriend/sidekick, I'm going to move mountains to take it.

For the first time ever, I'm being offered roles based on my reputation for work. I mean, this director had seen me in previous shows, and wanted me all along. I didn't audition because I figured, shoot, I'll be busy, and I should give other people a chance to do stuff. But they were so excited when I said I'd do it, and they were willing to accomodate my schedule too!And suffice to say that other things are on the horizon too, but it's too soon to talk about it.

And this darlings, has inspired me. I've decided that in February, I'm going to start shopping for an agent. I think I'd like to do film, tv, commercial, voice and print ad work if I can. As for theatre, I figure I'll do auditions, but I'll find that stuff more as it comes on my own I think. I'd rather go by reputation and working with the people I know and like on projects that I believe in. Theatre is my passion, and that's something I want to remain pure, as naive and idealistic as that may sound. I wouldn't just do anything to be able to work.

For the other acting stuff, in the same way as I am about music and singing, I can be pragmatic about myself as a performer. I'm not particularly competitive about being out there as an actress, so much as I'd like to make a fairly decent living at it so that I can just teach at BTW without stressing and without having to work 65+ hour weeks. I'd like to be a more experienced actor so that I can be a better teacher.

In truth, I've been scared about the prospect of having an agent and getting out there in the workforce in the past because I didn't want to be pigeonholed into stereotypes and images that I feel are derogatory to black women. Also because I always felt too fat and ugly to ever get any work, but that's just ridiculous. I don't have to be pretty. I just have to be good at what I do. And I am good at it. And what I don't know now, I'll learn quickly. I just abhor rejection, and that's what awaits me once I get into that whole hustling for auditions and whatnot. Well, after the debacle that was my marriage, if that didn't kill me, nothing else will.

Anyhoo. Enough hosing around. Back to work.
Ciao, Bébés!

A Couple of Things I've Noticed Lately...

There are couples making out in public everywhere.

A song with handclapping or finger popping is sure to be a hit (in my books anyway).

Chocolate always helps.

Somehow, crazy as it seems now...

I thought I'd be having more free time around now.
Hm.

I'll check in with you soon dahlings. Loving you! YouthWorks outcome is past, very positive feedback, and yet somehow my work is not yet done. Oh well.

*m'wah!*

Yark!

How gross is the weather today?