Homegirl Quel (kel) in Austin

20 Questions- B.E.T. Awards

1. Why are Will and Jada so cute?
2. Could Jada be any cooler?
3. Why did Stevie Wonder have a choreographed number?
4. How did Destiny's Child manage to make lapdances classy?
5. Why is Terrence Howard so fine?
6. How cool was it that the Set if Off cast was there and that they pretended to jack Anthony Anderson?
7. Why were so many winners not there to accept their awards?
8. Where was Usher?
9. Where was Jamie?
10. Where was Kanye?
11. Where was Shaq?
12. Why was Mariah's voice off and her performance almost painful to listen to?:(
13. Why did I miss THE FUGEES opening act?
14. WHY DID I MISS THE FUGEEEEES?!
15. Why did Tina Marie give an awesome spoken word tribute to Rick James bitch!
16. Why does Gladys Night look and sound as amazing as ever?
17. How beautiful is Toni Braxton?
18. Why did nobody recognize Tito Jackson when he came on stage?
19. How cool was it that John Legend and Stevie Wonder performed together?
20. Did I ask why is Terrence Howard SO fine?

In case you missed it, here's a recap.

Sibling Braggedry

My sister's research is published! The research was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Click the link below to download the report. If you're not interested in the topic, you should at least check out her rockin' bio. It's good stuff.

Is More Better? The Impact of Postsecondary Education on the Economic and Social Well-Being of American Society by Adriane Williams and Watson Scott Swail

Randomness

So this week was workworkwork. I love my job.

We discovered that Stella has a cool reflex. When you stroke her back in just the right place, her coat jacks over to one side and she kicks her back leg out. It's so funny. You can do it forever and she won't even get annoyed. As long as she's getting attention... My dogs are so spoiled.

We had some people over for dinner last night. Billy smoked some chicken and made curried goat. Mmmm! I love having people over. Entertaining guests is cool. I like it. They ended up staying way late, so Billy and I had to rethink our late-night plans. We were going to go see Luciano at Flamingo Cantina--this hole-in-the-wall reggae spot downtown. We both had to be alert and unfoggybrained-ed today so we decided against going. Which sucks, 'cause we haven't gotten to see him live yet. They rarely bring the reggae bands we like (i.e. actual bands from the Caribbean), so when they do...usually in the summer...we try to make every show. It's hard to know these guys are in town and not go check them out...Beres Hammond, The Whalers, Third World, Beenie Man, Buju Banton...hard to miss those shows. We have plans to see a couple of upcoming shows. Plus, I'm sure other great ones are on the way, so plenty to look forward to this summer.

My mom is coming Tuesday! Yay! The rest of my folks are coming on the weekend. Yay!

Hello. My name is Raquel, and I'm an ifcaholic.

I can't wait until Me and You and Everyone We Know comes to Austin. I read about it here and then saw a special about it on IFC. I hope it's here when my girl Terri comes to visit. I can tell we're going to love this movie.

According to the clock, I only have a few minutes to get ready and make it to church on time. I'll probably be late...and I hate walking into church late, so I'll probably pass on it...again.

Since we found out about my hormone imbalance, and I'm on supplements, I'm sure I'll get my ideal weight back. One of the side effects of my particular imbalance is increased appetite and slowed metabolism, so now that I'm balancing things out, I'm sure I'll be back to normal (in more ways than one) in no time. I also learned that a side effect is increased anxiety and am sure it has something to do with my social anxiety deal...I haven't always been this antisocial.

Hopefully I'll reach my goal weight before I become a baby factory. I've been off my weight loss plan for a couple of weeks now, yet I've managed to maintain my weight since I lost it (thanks to the soy-mones maybe?). I'm back on the treadmill today. Wish me luck!

Google--makes the people-- come together--yeah

So, I got an email tonight...from Bernice McFadden! Her book Sugar is on my favorites list and I'm working on This Bitter Earth...Sugar's sequel right now.

Her email went like this...

Hello Raquel,

I ran across your site today while surfing the web. Glad to know that my novels are amongst your favorites!

Stay well, blessed and beautiful,

Bernice

http://www.bernicemcfadden.com

I actually forwarded the email to the people I thought would be as elated as I am to see that she actually took the time to write a fan.  It was a hotmail address too, so I'm totally convinced it was really her. And even if it wasn't, I'm still really excited, because they really did find my site while surfing on the web!

She really is a great author y'all. Y'all should check her out. I'll review This Bitter Earth when I'm finally done with it.

Cool!

My flowers are feelin' the love.

7 whole days have have passed and my flowers are still going strong! Only one has died so far and the others are still as lovely as ever. This is a new record for me, I must say. It's the love. They feel the love.

Then

Now

Movies I enjoyed this week...

• Closer
• Meet Joe Black- I've seen this movie several times. It was on the Encore channel this weekend, so I watched it again. Brad Pitt is Mr. death...last name Reaper, first name Grim. He was so soft-spoken. You really believe it's G.R.'s first time taking human form, and what a beautiful human form 'tis. His two scenes with this dying old lady from the West Indiesare the best. She knows him when she sees him and he speaks to her in island dialect. All his scenes are so intense. Clair Forlani is beautiful as always. Anthony Hopkins is amazing as always. Speaking of Anthony Hopkins...
• Remains of the Day- This movie is part of my DVD collection. After watching Meet Joe Black, I hadn't had enough of Mr. Hopkins, so I watched this DVD again. Such a sad story.
• Meet the Fockers- Ben Stiller is crazy. SO happy to see Babs back on screen. I love all her old movies. My favorites, Yentl (Papa can you hear me?) and A Star is Born (Watch closely now. Are you watching me now?). I think she was really beautiful in her musicals back then. I love her in movies. Other singers I love in movies: Diana Ross (Mahogany, Lady Sings the Blues? Hello!), Cher, JLo (only in romantic comedies), Will Smith, and Mos Def. I like Hillary Duff and Lindsey Lohan in movies too.

Next week...

• Alfie-It's been on my list to watch forever. A friend, Edmund, gave me his take on it so I'd like to check it out. I didn't know Omar Epps was in this movie. I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy it.
• Boseman and Lena-Angela Basset and Danny Glover in apartheid South Africa. Should be a heavy movie, but I'm looking forward to it.
• Crash- Ever on my list.

Happy Pappy's Day!

Shout out to all the baby daddies out there. Big ups to y'all for bein' there for the offspring.

Peace and Love men.

Again?!

Why is it that Austin PD will call back-up to wrestle a white man to the ground, yet shoot a black or brown man in a minute?

I'm so sick of hearing about some unarmed minority getting killed "in self defense" by the police, when white folks actually live and get arrested for assault on a police officer. I've only lived in Austin about 4 years, and it seems like every year there's at least 1 incident like this. It's so tiring.

18-year old Hispanic male...unarmed...shot... in the back...face down on the pavement...by a female police officer.

2 police cars on the scene, but nobody's tape was running? The back-up...a SERGENT...on patrol on the East side of Austin... at night...and we're supposed to believe that he forgot to check out a tape for his vehicle at the start of his shift that night?

It took a matter of hours for the media to announce the shooting...every 2 minutes, on news radio, but 2 whole days for the police dapartment to report that the officer who shot this boy suffered a broken leg "during the struggle"...are you kidding me? The chief of police didn't even make a statement until days later! You wanna know what they came up with?

Something like..."he's a known trouble maker...we found a bag of weed by his body."

AND? The coroner didn't find marijuana in his system...MARIJUANA... which stays in you for like 2 or 3 months...and even if he was a chronic smoker, is it open killing season on known, trouble-making pot-heads now? If so, I guess there are no young white males out there causing trouble and smoking weed. Give me a break. Oh! Actually the white boys are not on the East side, so they're not being STALKED by police. Yeah. That's it.

I don't know all the facts, and the internal cover up investigation may find that the shooting was justified.

But the only thing that matters when it's all over is that another minority youth's life was taken by the Austin Police Department.

What gives?

In case you haven't heard about this:

Austin Citizens Protest Police Killing
by Oread Daily Tuesday June 14, 2005 at 01:14 PM

Oh. Yeah.

We just scored tickets to the Destiny's Child concert! I logged on as soon as they were on sale to the public this morning at 10. Those tickets went fast, but Summer and I got pretty good seats.

I might brave the radio waves all summer to enter contests and stuff to try win backstage passes.

Closer

I know I'm late, but I finally saw this movie last night. It was as I thought it would be, but it was a little heavy for me. I had heard that it was set in London, and with all the beautiful actors, it seemed like it would be the perfect movie for me...British accents, Julia Roberts (such an amazing actress), Jude Law...

But it was so heavy. I like romantic comedies, 'cause they leave you with this sweet good feeling about love. Whether you're in love or not, when the movie's done you feel all warm and fuzzy...like in 50 First Dates or Love Actually. You get to see the sweet beautiful parts of love. Closer was like the ugly underbelly of love (I wouldn't call it love, except that's what it was supposed to be in the movie)...obsession, possession, selfishness, near madness. I wasn't totally disappointed though...

Like I said, the actors were beautiful, I thought the dialog was cool, the set and the English accents made everything a bit softer I guess...and I could watch it again. I probably will. There were some parts that I didn't get like when Alice aka Jane met Larry for the first time and got emotional after they flirted with each other...was she hurt for being hit on or objectified or whatever, or was she frustrated that she felt something for somebody even though she was so in love with somebody else, or was it something totally different?

I don't know why, but I'm thinking about checking out The Woodsman too. Pretty scary movie...Kevin Bacon plays a pedophile who is paroled, gets an apartment next to the playground and is struggling with the urge to offend again. I saw the trailer on the Closer DVD and am totally intrigued. As one who cannot take movies with heavy subject matters, I might need therapy after watching this, but I've read so many good things about this movie...and I should branch out a little I think. Anyway, Mos Def plays his parole officer, and he's such a good actor. I read that he was a total scene stealer. Eve is in it too. I'd like to see her as a normal, non-hoodified character.

Tonight we're either going to catch Crash at the movies or rent Meet the Fockers on PPV.  After last night's downer, I'm leaning towards the latter.

I can't resist...

...the urge to watch 50 First Dates again. I want to watch the Pistons/Spurs game with Billy, but I know 50 First Dates is on now, and I can't resist the urge to go into the other room and watch it...again.

I wish I could watch HBO on the Internet. Then I could stay here, in the living room with Billy's laptop, and put my brain cells to double-useless use by watching two television programs at once.

Girlfriend Reunion

I never had my afternoon nap. I was so excited to have my Okie and Stella home. I couldn't resist the chance to cuddle and bond with them and give them all the love they missed from me over the past three days. I didn't realize how much I missed them until I saw them again. I giggled like a little kid. I love my dogs.

Since my folks left, I can't seem to quite wind down. And since I can't stop reliving in my mind all the special moments we had this weekend, I might as well share my thoughts with you. It's been 4 years since we've all been together and from the minute they arrived it was like no time had passed at all.

I could spend forever waxing sentimental about our reunion, but I'll spare you. Instead I'll give a short list of highlights in no particular order:

• The little guy said my nickname. SO sweet to hear his little toddler voice say, "Quel. Quel. Quel."
• Billy barbecued. Mmmm!
• The baby said Blen's nickname too.
• We watched Garden State. Yay!
• Blen got to see the wedding picture books, finally.
• I split a Katz's Cheesecake Shake with Summer. If there is a word that means heavenly and delectable and so awesomely yummy that when you think about the taste of it, it makes you pause and sigh at the lovely memory of the happiness that your taste buds felt every moment it was in your mouth, that would be the word to describe how good this thing is.
• I cornrowed Blen's hair. Just like old times:)
• I got to see Summer be an awesome mom. 
• Petar came by and Rami came by and Patrick called...CBU was in tha house:)
• Summer bought me flowers! Purple flowers!   
• Billy had guitar-time with Petar and the baby (while us girls were out--HATE that we missed that, but the girl-time, especially after all these years was priceless)
• We looked at old pictures from school, including Summer's surprise graduation party and a couple of our crazy dance floor moments.
• We got caught-up on the goings-on in Blen's joint after all these years.
• Did I mention that Zare knows my name?!
• We had heart-to-hearts and revealed goofy things about ourselves and laughed the way everybody should laugh everyday.

Great doesn't do the experiences this weekend justice, but I'll use it anyway. This was a GREAT weekend.

Good Times

I had a GREAT time hangin' with my girls this weekend. My friends are on their way back to Dallas and Atlanta. I'll catch you up on our weekend later.

Right now I'm off to pick up Okie and Stella from Happy Tails. When we get back, It's nap time for everybody.

Bad girl...

I've been a bad girl this week. Absolutely NO practice. I have Fridays off though, so I think I'll dedicate some time to practicing every Firday at least. I know...excuses excuses.

Nothing in particular...

I really don't have anything to post about today, but I just feel the urge to post something. Maybe if I write long enough something will come to me. Maybe not.

The mosquitoes are eating me ALIVE! I have bites in the worst places, like inside of my wrist, just under my palm, right where it bends...and on the back of my shoulder and on my hip. It's so annoying.

Two of my girlfriends are coming to visit this weekend! I'm elated. We haven't all 3 been together since my wedding 4 years ago. Unfortunately we'll be 1 short of a bonafied 4-Deep reunion. It's all good though.

My girls are not dog people. Okie and Stella require that everyone in their presence give them much love, so we're sending them on a dog vacation. Our usual spot is booked...I'm so bummed about that. I'm still looking for a comparable haven for them to crash, but nothing compares to Dog Boys.

I think I'm going to start forcing my retainer back in next week. I wish I had gotten those permanent braces, you know the ones that go inside your teeth where nobody can see? It's such a hassle dealing with a retainer every night. I feel lucky that I got the invisaline kind. I can force my teeth back together anytime...after a considerable amount of pain. It can't be healthy to have my teeth moving around in my head all the time like that.

Russel Simmons is gonna be on with Neil Boortz tonight! I think I'm missing it! Gotta go.

It's pass my bedtime anyway.

It's all coming back to me

This weekend Billy taught me how to tune my guitar. I know that's the first thing you're supposed to learn, but somebody else has always been around to tune it for me. He finally decided to teach me. So, progress!
I tried to see if I could remember some of the songs I'd already learned, and Brown eyed girl came back the easiest. Billy helped me sound it out and showed me how to play using bars. Good warm-up.
This week I'll be working on Bob Marley's Redemption Song. Wish me luck!

Me and my twin brother smoked grass...

Literally!

We were in fourth grade and forgot to bring our keys to the house, so we were locked out until our sister or parents got home. It was so much fun growing up with a twin...somebody to play with and get into crazy things together, the way we always did. I think my cousin, Cheronda, may have been with us too 'cause we all went to school together.

Anyway, we decided we were going to get high. We were 9 years old and had no idea that the people we saw getting high in movies were not actually smoking grass, which is what it was called back in the 80's. All we knew was that if you smoked grass you got high. So, we pulled up the most exotic looking grass we could find in our backyard (which was a serious TN nature preserve complete with rabbits and lizards and snakes and frogs), wrapped it in a piece of notebook paper, and lit it with a lighter we found in the car that lived under our carport.

There was a huge flame, and the paper burned way too fast. We were so naive. We had a blast waiting for the high to hit and pretending to see things.

100 Things About Me (42-49) My Confessions

42. I never sent the thank you cards for my wedding gifts. I just kept putting it off until way too much time had passed. I felt terrible, but after 4 years what are you gonna do? When I give gifts I never expect a thank you card. I just assume that the person appreciates it, because normal humans appreciate receiving gifts. I'm sure before thank you cards were invented, a simple thank you at the time of receiving the gift was enough.

43. I deleted this one, because it's no longer true about me and it may have been T.M.I. (too much information). And speaking of T.M.I....

44. I was a virgin until I was 23 and until the third day of my marriage...Billy was very patient. I recently read that Mariah Carey was a virgin until she was married at 23 too, so I don't feel so weird. I was able to hold out, partly because of my religion, partly because of a promise I made to my mom, partly because I was lucky that I made out with guys who stopped when I said to, but mostly because of fear that it would hurt.

45. At different points in my life I've had all of the eating disorders. All of them.

46. I haven't gone to church in 2 months. I feel like a heathen. I wish I didn't put so much pressure on myself to be a perfect church person. When I do go to church, I feel like a hypocrite, because I am a Christian, but I don't really care to participate in all the little extra parts of the services like standing up and talking to my neighbors and  physically praising God in front of people...but I know those are things that a "real Christian" is supposed to like doing...and when I don't do those things I feel like people there think I'm not a Christian. I always get invited by somebody to get saved when I go to church, and I'm like, I'm already saved!

47. I've never done drugs, but have always wondered what a marijuana high would feel like.

48. My uterus won't hold eggs, so I'm going to have to take hormone replacements in order to get and stay pregnant.

49. My husband is an answered prayer. When I was 13 or 14, I wrote a letter to God describing what my perfect husband would be like, his level of confidence, his spirituality, what he would look like...skin tone, nose size (I LOVE big noses on Black men), lip size (I LOVE big lips on Black men), everything. No detail was spared. At my church I had learned that you could ask God for anything...even a future husband. Billy and I had been together about 2 years, when I found this prayer, written in pencil on yellow notepad paper in my adolescent keepsake box. I told my mom and my Sunday School teacher (they remembered when I wrote it, and were excited that I got to experience a prayer answered like that), and eventually I told Billy about it, but not too soon after that... didn't want to blow his head up. Every request, except the height (off by about 7 inches) was granted. It sounds corny, I know, but it's true. I had totally forgotten about that letter, but obviously God hadn't.

See 1-41 here.

Easy like Saturday morning

Actually there was nothing easy about this Saturday morning. We were up until after 2am this morning and had to be up bright and early this morning for an appointment.

The easy part was the second half of the morning. We went to a surprise wedding anniversary brunch for some friends. It was our first time going to the home of the hosts and we got turned around a couple of times before we finally made it  there...they live in a cute gated community in Round Rock. We made it there just as the honored couple was supposed to arrive, so at first we parked in a lot next to where some kids were taking horse riding lessons to wait a few minutes to avoid screwing up the surprise. But I had to pee really bad and Billy was impatient too, so we parked outside the gate and walked to the house as fast as we could. The happy couple ended up being like an hour late, so we were good. After spinach quiche, champagne and strawberries, we came home and took a 3 hour nap.

It was SO HOT today! I'm not sure exactly how hot, but it had to be 90-something. I wanted to go swimming, but we had too much work to do. We gave our front yard a face lift, which involved attempting to uproot 3 huge monstrosity wild-grass shrubs. We didn't get a chance to finish before the sun went down, but we'll finish the demolition and mulching tomorrow.

It all started when

My dad bought me an acoustic guitar for Christmas my freshman year in college. The white girls who shared the suite with me would sing and play all the time, and I remember thinking, how cool it was that they could make music and sing like that. I sing all the time and it just blew my mind that I could possibly make music. They convinced me of how easy it was, and how you only have to learn 3 basic notes and you could play almost any song...learn to transition between C, G, & D and the rest is gravy:)

The first song I learned was Don McLean's " American Pie". I have always been into "white" music. I drove my Black roommates crazy one year with my music (1  year, because after that we all went our separate ways). That year I was all about The Cranberries (I have all their albums), James Taylor (fell in love with him as a kid when I saw him on Sesame Street singing "Let me tell you 'bout Jelly Man Kelley, he like his jelly with toooooast, a dede-de-de-de yada yada yada yada come home Jennyy! Oooooooh, can he come home Jenny can he come home Jenny can he come?" I've been singing this song MY WHOLE LIFE.) Live, No Doubt and Sarah McLachlan. Brandy, Aaliyah, Boys to Men, and of course Mariah Carey were holdin' it down for me on the R&B side. That just brought back the memory of my sophomore year of me and friends and me bonding over M.C....

...It was the Fall of 1996, we had all finally found each other, it was the end of my above average GPA, and the beginning of the best 4 years of my life. We all lived on campus. I got to know friends I had grown up with all over again, and met my girls...I can't even imagine what college would have been like without them. And I digress...

Anyway, so I learned "Miss American Pie", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" (I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that it was in a sweet scene in a Julia Robert's movie Sleeping With the Enemy...LOVE her), then George Michael's "Faith"--which I performed for my friends at church--they thought it was cool--then there was REM's "Man on the Moon" and Third Eye Blind's "Semi Charmed Life". And there was this song by Blues Traverler and a few others.

I've only ever dabbled with the guitar, and as you know, I'd d like to get really good at it. For all of those songs I learned, I hardly remember any of them. But, practice makes perfect...