Sandra just awarded me a Sephora giftcard just for giving her ideas to write about. If it were that easy I’d have been writing about ideas like that long ago because that eyeshadow isn’t going to purchase itself! She’s writing over at Damsels In Success and here is a sampling of her work.

It appears that there are lots of birthdays this month as I wander aimlessly throughout the internet (it only took 45 minutes, too, that easy internet slut) and since my parents were getting jiggy with it during the summer of 1970, I am here to celebrate entering the world with a new list of Things I’d Have If I Had A Million Dollars.

This is from the over-priced but always exquisite Horchow site. I figure I will dream big. It’s bright and cheery and ON SALE. To be fair, they do have “Furniture. Accessories. Dreams.” right there on their site. DREAMS, people. They are free, but this bad boy will set you back at the low, low sale price of $480.

So let’s dream smaller. After all, I’m only going to be…EEK. IS THAT A RAT?

Pardon me. Where was I?

Smaller dreams. Aaahh yes. This Flip Video should be a real crowd pleaser in my bithday stocking this year.

It’s small, not too pricey, and pink. The most important part is that it’s pink and will record live video. I’m a slut for pink things lately.

This wouldn’t be a proper post unless I showed some outrageously high-heeled death traps that are whispering in my ear.

They are whispering, “Come. Break your neck with me. But look F-A-B doing it. I will let you sniff my goodness first and then make you long for some cushiony Dr. Scholl’s help. Remember the F-A-B. It will help you forgive me later.”

Gorgeous, no? Made by (caution: click on this link and listen to sexy shoe wearing music) Martinez Valera and named “Camila” (I would even call her by her name if she were to find her way into my closet) they are available from Piperlime for $129 and I would squeeze my size 11’s into that 10 right before I sent them back and whispered sweet nothings into Camila’s ears.

Let’s get real, though. I’ll probably only spring the 20 bucks in my pocket for this cute green tank top from Mission Playground.

Eco-conscious and adorable. I’m all over that. Mission Playground’s website reads “May we all be aware and respectful of our playground.” and that reminds me that I keep telling you that I’ll write about going green but I have to get my notes together on an interview I did.

For now, I’ll probably save my green (my money! or lack thereof!) for a little birthday dinner later this week. No birthday wishes just yet, please. I don’t want to jinx the birthday letter I’m hoping to get from that tease over at Fluid Pudding for the April NaBloPoMo theme of letter writing…

My mother and I share birthdays close together and by some strange fluke it so happens that Easter falls on our birthdays something like every seventeen years or something. Yesterday was her birthday and she turned 60 years young. She wanted to spend the day with all three of her daughters and that’s exactly what she got. All of us girls spent the day doing whatever she wanted which mostly included chilling with a handful of her grandchildren, eating yellow cake (plus several cupcakes since 60 candles wouldn’t fit on one cake) with cream cheese frosting and fresh strawberries, and having the most fabulous pancake breakfast known to man at the Original House of Pancakes in the Hyde Park area of Chicago where I grew up.

This may not come as a surprise, but Obama’s statement about his “typical white person” grandmother didn’t phase me at all. It didn’t offend. Nor did it occur to me to anyone would pick it up and run with it, but rhetoric makes news. I don’t even know if it’s fair to put that same line to Clinton who might utter “typical black person” because as soon as blacks cross the street from the stereotypical white person who may or may not want to mug them…well, I’m sure you can see where this could go. I care not to encourage anyone to see my side because it can turn into such an ugly argument and quite frankly, I’m on my Spring Break and don’t want to think too much.

If being typical means that my mother once died her hair pink to go to Burning Man, pierced her nose, and attends African drumming circles, so be it. If being typical assumes that my white mother has an incredibly beautiful naked woman tattooed on her back and that she takes Italian classes just to learn, fine. If my typical white mother studies Reiki and reads a 400 page book on salt, then typical she is.

Typically, I pretty much adore her and if she’s not offended by being called typical then I’m ok with it, too. But I know she’s not typical, normal, or conventional by any means. None of us are. So since it doesn’t apply to her then she’s not going to let that stop her from seeing the beauty in humanity, typical as it is.

I have had this Cafe du Monde container of coffee sitting in my freezer for a while and today is just the day to see if I still like it in all its earthy gloriousness. I do. Just takes a bit of 2% milk to make it not grow chest hairs so quickly. G’on and git you some.

Unlike some people, I’m not at all troubled that race has been an “issue” in the current election. I prefer to think of it as a Racial Election Process that we’re currently going through because we’re being forced to process information like never before. This part of our daily lives isn’t so much an “issue” because that implies that it’s something to be dealt with, yet I’d like to offer another perspective: one in which we LIVE with those very real things before our eyes every single day. Sometimes we see it clearly, other times it is pointed out to us, and still others, like the faux-controversy surrounding the LeBron James and Giselle Bundchen magazine cover, are shoved in our faces. We’re told, “Be offended! Be upset! THIS should be causing you discomfort!”

No, thank you. There is enough of it that is real and felt every single day that I don’t need one more.

Race comes up these days as if it’s just another topic of conversation like healthcare and education. Those issues are separate and distinct and don’t even affect every person. If you have healthcare, you don’t tend to engage in conversations about it unless you’re feeling passionate about those who don’t have it, but mostly you go to your doctor and pay your co-pay and get seen for things that don’t take more than an hour out of your work week. Educational issues come up when we’re disgusted with the fact that 4th graders can’t do long division and we wonder who will be the future engineers and bank tellers and computer gurus. Those who don’t have children in school or even public school will weigh in on their repugnance of the state of education and will look to those of us in positions of influence for hope, but few will offer up their time to come into that 4th grade classroom for an hour a week and run through flashcards with James and Marquan and Denise.

Race, however, affects us every single day. Most of the time, we are choosing not to see it.

Don’t be mistaken: I want you to see my color. I want you to embrace my cultural being, not just my “heritage”, but who I am today and who I will be tomorrow and who I’m shaping my own children to be. My fair-skinned red-headed son gets asked weekly, WEEKLY, about being “black”. When his friends see me as I’m picking him up from basketball or taking him to youth group, they wonder. It’s a topic of conversation for these unworldly minds who are accommodating their intellectual reasoning in order to make sense of it so they can LIVE IN IT EVERY DAY.

Why must we adults compartmentalize it and treat it as an “issue” needing to be dealt with? It’s not a rash that requires a salve or a broken dish that needs some super glue.

Don’t deal with my race. Invite me in and get to know me underneath this mocha-colored skin, these odd green eyes, this “interesting” hair. Wonder about what makes me tick, ask what prompted me to make a purchase, inquire about how I came to a conclusion.

But don’t, just DON’T act like you will figure it all out and lean back in your chair while stroking your chin and let out an breathy, “Aaaahhhh” as if you now understand people of color. See my color, please, but love me as a human. View my humanity, but know that I’ve come to This Place in living with these experiences every single day. When you take them apart and try to file them under Cocktail Party Topics I become small to you. Insignificant and unworthy of real examination.

The point is, I’ve been examining you for a long time. I’ve watched you and made note of who you are. The breadth of your experiences get to make up who you are and you’d be horrified to hear me utter, “Aaaahhh” as if I’ve figured you out after one intense conversation.

This election has become a process for Americans and it’s rather painful to go through. For instance, what I thought would be a fascinating dialogue on Professor Kim’s website has sadly, and predictably, become a one-sided conversation once again.

Perhaps what people didn’t like in hearing Rev. Wright’s sermon are such because they are things said in black conversational circles every single day. As way of disclosure, though, I’d like to point out that during this highly political time I have stopped going to my own church because of the stranglehold they seem to have on the Republican Right. It’s not even thinly veiled and I’ve chosen to attend a black church for the time being (and yes, other factors are involved, I’m not that one-dimensional) and when and if that becomes a place where I feel the pulpit is being used to sway my vote, I will leave there, too. My intentions of connecting with God don’t always have ties to my politics. I believe I am influenced by my time with God, but I won’t be led by the convictions of the person happening to stand on the stage.

What I can understand, nevertheless, doesn’t always seem like much. What I can wrap my brain around is a minuscule bit of life, yet I am experiencing it every day. I may walk around the store with my typical white mother, share a steak dinner with my typical white mother, or hold tight to her when she is getting ready to leave on a trip but I am still black every single day. I may walk around with my typical black father and share a meal with him, too, and I am still black. My sisters are still black. That won’t change.

So since live with it and joyously so, can you stop treating it as an “issue” and deal with my blackness? Can you do it every single day?

I do.

Let’s have real discourse about race in all it’s messiness and aches and irritations.

Let’s do it every single day.

When I was about 5 years old my mother took me to the Jewish Community Center (yay for multiculturalism, folks!) to see about putting me in their after school program following my indoctrination from the Catholic School I was attending. If that’s not enough for some future therapy people, I don’t know what is. I tell you this because while they were monitoring my “play” to see how I would adapt I went over to the Living Room Area and started doing what I presumed to be “play” though I’m sure that fixing martinis and looking for my long cigarette holder weren’t part of that. Still, I grew up wanting those things.

So I’m playing and playing and having a grand old time and then my mother looks mortified - mortified I tell you - that one of the things I’ve been playing with is the potential Jewish teacher’s purse (she was for sure Jewish, but we didn’t know if she’d be my teacher yet). Apparently, I was removing all the items and lining them up and doodling all over her checkbook.

Since then, I’ve decided not to mess with other women’s purses. The Jewish Community Center thing worked out just fine but I was slightly traumatized that they kept a kosher kitchen and I cringe just a little to think that we couldn’t have cheese on our tacos. That’s probably because I also attended a bi-lingual nursery school with many Hispanic muchachos y muchachas.

Seriously. I’m either very well represented or in need of a bong.

So! I say this because yesterday my post about my TYPICAL WHITE MOTHER just got eaten up by my server and it’s still in the process of looking for it so I cleaned out my purse. Which reminded me of the Jewish Community Center purse story and I realized, hey! I haven’t shared that story online yet! so there you have it.

Ok, so I’m going to write about Going Green which obviously the ENTIRE WORLD IS READY TO DO. Have you watched television lately and seen all the Green commercials? The Green products? Wow. I’m proud of you, Earthlings. You’re doing your part. But I have to admit that I am carrying around my camera in the car lately because I long to be featured on the FUH2 website whereupon you flip the bird to those blowholes with the nerve to even own such monstrosities.

In an effort to see if this is really working, I’m committed to checking this site every 30 minutes or so to see if comments are working.

If you came here and just read this and are clicking off, DON’T. I need you. Every single one of you. Leave the comment and back slowly away. You can even link here and read about the woman who went in for a leg operation and got a new anus instead. The second comment on the page will make you piddle in your pants. Grab a tissue first.

Or else no tacos with meat AND CHEESE. You don’t want to mess with my Judeo-Christian-Hispanic alter egos.