Much as I’d love to exercise my option of not writing a post-BlogHer wrap up, I can’t help but tell you how I became a raging lunatic within 15 minutes of landing in New York. Don’t worry. It subsided just as quickly.

But then I read this on Gawker and I had second thoughts. Then I recounted the story numerous times to friends who laughed and laughed and pointed fingers at me saying, “That’s the Kelly I know! You crazy, girl.” so I’ve decided that the best I can do is write about it. It’s been a whole week since I posted anything and life has clumsily gotten in my way of writing. Cleaning up smoke damage, talking to claims adjusters, and trying to make my house smell better (thanks for all the suggestions!) has taken priority.

On the plane ride to New York I was seated in the same row of an obnoxious woman. She was older and in a wheelchair when we were in the airport sitting area and she talked to everyone around her. This made me instantly stop making eye contact with her. She was saying things like, “Honey, you’re my angel! I’ve been waiting for my angels. People are just not nice anymore.” The valets who were assisting her backed away quickly because she was, well, awkward and obnoxious. She talked and yammered on endlessly to people sitting near her and then continued once she got on the plane (she walked onto the plane so that was weird) and then kept this poor couple hostage with her incessant talking. They were an attractive Spanish couple and the woman started speaking Spanish to them in her very best Peggy-Hill-como-estahhh-los-estudiantes (”es-tud-ee-ahn-tays”) voice and I just plugged my ears with my headphones because even eavesdropping on this was painful.

After we landed, I took a bus to Manhattan and wouldn’t you know it? Obnoxious Peggy Hill sat three seats behind me. We stopped twice to pick up more airport passengers heading downtown and there was some sort of scuffle going on with her and another woman. I ignored it and played with the contents of my purse, rearranging money and tickets and lip gloss. Another woman, a lovely meek Indian woman was arguing with her and then walked past me in the aisle to talk to the bus driver.

Bus driver: Ma’am, you need to take a seat.

Indian woman: I cannot! She won’t let me sit down!

At this point, the lovely meek Indian woman pointed at me with ferocity. Her emphasis of the word “she” got under my skin instantly.

Me: Excuse me? You didn’t ask me to sit down. I’d let you sit down if you asked me, but this is the first time you’ve said anything about the empty seat next to me.

Not only was I shocked that she blamed me at this point, I knew that Obnoxious Peggy Hill had something to do with this. The people sitting around me looked at me with stunned faces because they knew I was being pegged the pariah in this mess. I got up willingly and had her take the seat next to the window. Lovely Meek Indian woman became less lovely in my eyes but I knew she was flustered by whatever confrontation happened behind me and she tried to make up for it by asking me a question.

Lovely Meek Indian woman: So, where are you from?

And that’s when I heard Obnoxious Peggy Hill loudly proclaim the source of her wickedness and she made it impossible for me to answer Lovely Meek Indian woman’s question. The best part is that she was talking to no one in particular and just addressing the bus as her entire audience.

Obnoxious Peggy Hill: I’m from New York, we’re bitchy here and we don’t like doing what we don’t like to do. I’m having knee surgery and I had back surgery and oh, driver? Can we have some air in here it’s hot and I have diabetes so I’m not going to be hot. If you don’t like New Yorkers, you shouldn’t come here because this is just the way we are.

It is as this point when my mouth twitched and I know for certain it is about to get away from me. It is here where I turn into full on principal mode and go right after the source of irritation for everyone on this bus. It is, perhaps, my Chicago roots that solidly take hold and make me fearless. It is now when I stand up from my seat fully erect and launch into her.

Me: That is a PATHETIC excuse to be mean to this woman and not give up your seat. Being from New York doesn’t give you license to behave like that and pardon you from taking responsibility! You could have told her all that about being physically unable to move to let her sit down but you didn’t! Shut up about being from New York! I know plenty of New Yorkers and they’re just fine and nice so SHUT UP.

There was a smattering of applause from the people in the seats around us and I sat back down in my seat wondering if my days as a principal had finally permeated my gumption to take people to task. When I sat down I sighed heavily and shut my eyes wondering if Obnoxious Peggy Hill would respond. She didn’t.

Lovely Meek Indian woman: So. Hmm. Where are you from?

Me: (still speaking loudly at this point and emphasizing certain words) I am FROM where we CALL people on their BULLCRAP.

Lovely Meek Indian woman: Oh.

The remainder of the bus trip was uneventful save for the three people who mouthed thank you to me from their seats. After arriving at the hotel I met up with friends and began the whirlwind experience that is both New York and BlogHer conferences. I settled in for what I hoped to be a quiet evening with a few friends and we had pasta and champagne to celebrate seeing one another again. Here. I must post a picture to show that Obnoxious Peggy Hill didn’t ruin my trip.

Heather, Jenny, Karen and I posing in the mirror. Jenny’s Hair should probably get top billing in this photo.

After returning home I happened to read this on Chookooloonks (so. fun. to say!) about her 1,000 Faces Project. Watch all four minutes of this. The music is amazing and it makes me be-bop around in my seat.

It was simply an incredible amount of fun. You can’t fault a gal for wanting to have fun and not tell off strangers on a hot, sweaty crowded bus.

The most touching part for me to visit New York and attend the BlogHer Kirtsy party was seeing the items up for bid at the auction where artistic pieces were created from essays. Kati Sellers, an artist whose work, I believe is found at this website, chose my piece entitled “I’m Black Irish and I’m Proud” to watercolor paint. Here is one of them:

Not only did it take my breath away to see something created out of inspiration of my work, it made me break down and cry. A few folks grabbed me by the hands when I walked into the auction and exclaimed, “Have you seen your artwork? It’s amazing! Come on. Let me take your picture standing next to it!” but we didn’t really get that far because as soon as I saw it I wept and mumbled the words, “Please give me a moment. I can’t do this yet.” Where was that bold, brash woman now, huh? I cried again when I looked at the BlogHer site. Bidding is happening on eBay here and as soon as I put up a bid last night it was promptly outbid. I’m really hoping my sisters and I can combine our efforts to purchase this for my father. As yet, he doesn’t know about my blog or writing because he’s old fashioned enough to warn me about the danger of axe murderers on the Internet even though I’ve met hundreds of incredibly normal people from my online world. Only once was I leery of someone and that was a long time ago. I think I give off the vibe that tells creepers to stay away. It’s probably that stern principal vibe that comes on strong as well.

If we do win the bidding on these paintings (it’s a set of two) I know I will finally have to tell my father about my writing and pray that he’s not upset with my retelling of his story. Dad, I’ll say, I wrote a story about you and the response was overwhelming. See how much writing does to help us bridge the gaps of racism and start talking about important things in our country?

Maybe I’ll add, You’d be so proud of me for standing up to this obnoxious woman on the bus. Wait till I tell you that story, dad.

He’ll be proud. He raised me to do just that.

I love reading other blog posts that describe what the do when they’re on vacation. Skiing, hiking, and ziplining or some such nonsense. Isn’t ziplining a word? I thought that’s what it was called, but since I’m terribly uncultured in the art of vacation it’s just a crapshoot. My version of a vacation is usually going up to see family and friends in the Chicagoland area and dining out and eating with family. See how this works? Life in my family revolves around food. Eating is far more sexy to me than taking a cruise and letting the kids watch IMAX movies and whatnot.

Right here and right now I am going to apologize for overusing the word ‘whatnot’. It’s not my fault. One of the summer reading books I’m enjoying is an audible book that I’m listening to on my iPod. It’s Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help” and listening to it is affecting my non-existent southern accent because for the rest of the day I will suddenly add extra syllables to words. Early on in my listening one of the characters used the word “whatnot” and now I am killing that word. And whatnot.

Let me share my very sexy life with y’all for a moment. Today, I spent time cleaning out my refrigerator and there were too many things that had to be thrown away without me documenting it for my shame to be shared throughout the land. I am pretending that I am a princess today and it really helps to clean out your own muck while wearing a tiara. TRUST ME. So, I’m cleaning it out and listening to “The Help” and then my phone dings at me to say I have an email and I read that I was nominated for an honor at the closing ceremony for BlogHer this year. You can find the post here with all the other entries. Someone nominated me and I don’t know who it was, but thank you nonetheless and whatnot.

The blog entry that was nominated was “I’m Black Irish and I’m Proud” and it might be weird to say, but it’s one of my favorite posts that I’ve written and also one that was painful to write. Also currently on BlogHer is a piece on cyberbullying by Gina Carroll that I got interviewed for a while back. It sums up my frustration with dealing with it as an administrator and yet doesn’t even come CLOSE to the mess that this little gal is in right now. I watched the videos this morning just shaking my head that an 11-year old had that much power over what she was putting out on the web and then her screaming father reminded me all too well of the kinds of things I might hear when they want us to clean up the mess. She is a complete brat and plays with her bangs so much I kind of want to make her cut them off, but that’s neither here nor there.

A friend of mine also emailed me today that she nominated me for the Black Weblog Awards and reminded me that since they are now taking nominations I should go ahead and pimp myself out so there you have it and whatnot. If you’re inclined, please nominate me for Best Personal Blog.

Do it because you love me. Do it because I have no food in my refrigerator. Do it because I said please.

And whatnot.

Some marvelous things happened this week. One of my favorite parts about having a blog and sharing things online with friends (yes, I said FRIENDS) is that people read my words carefully and generally care for me. That’s a really nice thing to have in life anyway and I am blessed with some pretty fantastic friends, online and not.

First, my mom is feeling better and getting around nicely and losing lots of the water weight she’s been carrying around. Small blessings for health, I say. It’s made me far more aware of my own health and I’m exercising a lot and eating more vegetables and trying in general to be positive. Would you believe that I even tried a little bit of ice cream and that it didn’t make me violently ill now that I’m lactose intolerant? Weird. I can’t explain that one.

Next, I had some friends over this week for a movie night that was supposed to be outside on the projector but Mother Nature graced us with blazing heat so we settled for modern A/C  in my living room to watch  “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” and shared wine and guacamole and black bean & corn salsa and Hypnotiq. The only thing I will say about that is that it pays to be friends with really young people who’ve just come off the college scene because they know how to make The Incredible Hulk drink from Hypnotiq (mix it with Hennessey) and do you know what happens then? THEN, you have a real party where you do dramatic readings of Twitter streams and it becomes a hilarious event. (I would upload some pictures from that night, but my cord is missing that goes from my camera to my laptop) (there should be a word for what that cord is, but I don’t know it). We have decided that next time we will view that blockbuster chick-flick, “Spice World” which is supposedly a great film. Yes. Film.

This is a video from my friend Alex who started taping Patrick doing these dramatic readings of DeShanee’s tweets. The background music is “Ashokan Farewell” because we were doing this a la Ken Burns.

You’ll also see friends Jeanette and Steve and Lynne as the camera (a la Ken Burns, remember?) pan slowly across the kitchen table. I spent most of my time finding new funny ones for Patrick to read and covering my mouth with my hands and laughing. Good times.

To cap off all the great things that are going on at Chez Mocha Momma I want to do a birthday shoutout to my friend Karen of Chookooloonks (you can tell she’s my friend because I mention her like all the time) who is happy to announce that she’s 43. I, however, am happy to announce that she wants nothing more for her birthday for you to go out in the next 24 hours and do something for yourself. Her words and an image from her book campaign below:

It could be having a great meal, taking a perfect bath, reading that book on your nightstand that you’ve been meaning to read, booking that holiday you’ve been tempted to book or just lying in the sunlight for 30 minutes.  Whatever it is that will make you happy today, please go do it.  In fact, I beg you to go do it.  I’d love to think that on my birthday, people all over the world are ensuring that they’re having a great day.

The comment I left for her was:

For your gift today I will do the following:

work on my book and devote a full 2 hours to writing

take a jacuzzi bath today now that I actually have a jacuzzi bathtub

give myself a pedicure

do one of those home facial kits that I’ve had in the bathroom cabinet for too long

read from one book on my nightstand (you caught me!)

and love the people in my presence with a fierceness (smothering with kisses, hugging, telling him pointedly that I love them).

So, Karen, my dear sweet, encouraging friend of a certain age, these are your gifts today. They are done in your honor. I love you. Happy birthday.

xoxo

Since I’ve moved, I now have a writing space where I am practicing daily to devote 2 hours to that craft. Devoting that much time to writing means that I can’t always put up a blog post and I’m willing to sacrifice that time. Many other things happen there like messing around with my colored pencils and organizing my bills and doing crafty workbook-y stuff in the book “How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything”. It’s a very Zen-y, Buddhist-y, self-discovery type thing that helps me work out some kinks and I highly recommend it since this is my second time through it. I like to think of it as my Artist’s Way with crayons and glue sticks.

My messy desk that somehow doesn’t contribute to my messy mind.

Besides that, I sit and look out the window where I have placed a photograph from Karen of a sunflower that she gave me years ago. It inspires me to see it and to read her words from time to time. (Maybe I’ve mentioned that? I’m not poking around in my archives to find out, though.)

The sunflower in my window.

Finally, a bit of good news that came for me from a friend I met in California years ago when I was there for work. Her name is Lara and she’s quite beautiful. Let me show you a picture of her she used for a post that makes me crack right up when I see it.

Anyway. Lara. Well. Remember how a few posts ago I was all woe is me? Well, this friend did something amazing. Lara sent me an email this week about a windfall of money that she received and she wants to buy me a plane ticket for BlogHer in August. It’s really hard for me to accept things like this especially since I resolved that I wouldn’t go and stretch my budget too far. After many conversations about her wanting to do this and how she didn’t know what she was supposed to do with it and how I just wasn’t sure about it, she convinced me. I usually hate publicly whining about things, but then I was talking to Karen again (REALLY. SERIOUSLY. I CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF THAT WOMAN.) and she said that for her birthday I must accept and she keeps teaching me to accept things, good and bad, and that all of those things contribute to the forward motion of life we’re in so, for whatever reason, I AM GOING TO ACCEPT AND GO.

Happy stuff, y’all. Accept and go.

Have something happy or positive to share? Please do. I can use all the goodness you can spare.

Somewhere out there, in this vast universe of ours, there is a woman getting all the good karma possible. She must be stealing it from me because I can’t believe sometimes how it all just rains shits in my life. Something fantastic will happen and then it seems to stop, back up like a garbage truck with shirtless men hanging off of it, and then proceeds to take the trash OUT of the can and place it all over my driveway.

This is me feeling sorry for myself. It’s not an unusual routine, it’s just that I don’t write about it often.

And do you know WHY I don’t write about it often? Because I hate those bloggers who write sticky sweet posts with fabulous pictures and happy, happy, joy, joy posts about the greatest things on the planet (things like sweet potato fries or really comfortable shoes that also look incredibly fashionable) and then they pour out their hearts about the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad thing that happened to them and everyone comes rushing to their aid in the form of a thousand comments of “Hang in there, kid!” and “You don’t deserve this!” It all makes me wonder about the whole karma thing. I don’t think about it all that often, but recently a friend of mine asked if I could do something with her and I couldn’t because there were things pressing on me. There were other responsibilities. And then I mentioned to my friend, named Susan, that I also had to take care of my mother. “You know, you’re going to get some really good karma from doing that.”

Later, that same week, I had the Orkin folks come out and take a look at my new house because we must have brought every bug known to man into this place when we moved it including, dare I say it, las cucarachas, which are just about the most disgusting form of insect ever especially when you step on them barefoot in your living room and then you have to cut off your foot because cleaning it with acid just won’t do the trick and hey, this one footed look is all the rage in France, isn’t it?

The other reason I don’t write about the woe-is-me blog post is that there are really strange people reading my blog. Not YOU, but there are others. Weird in the way that I either work with them or they know me from my previous church or they are just nosy but not at all invested in my life. When I moved to this house it seemed like the entire neighborhood knew I was coming. “Oh, I heard you bought that house!” someone said to me. It made me remember that this is a small town and that people talk. Truly, this is a wonderful area, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve already seen a neighbor fall over drunk in front of me and smack her head on the pavement in front of my house. Twice. No lie. In fact, my favorite person who lives near me is a darling Indian woman who gasped when I told her what I did for a living and said, “Oh, my goodness! I cannot believe I am talking to an assistant principal! This is so very wonderful!” It’s not that she’s impressed with my position, but she instantly was warm and welcoming and asked if I liked to eat samosas and didn’t strike me as the gossipy kind. Plus, she always says “Hello, Kell-y!” to me in a sing-song voice with her perfect English sprinkled with her adorable and quite likable Indian accent.

Oh, and another thing for people-who-know-me-and-read-me-but-don’t-really-talk-to-me: if I use an alias on the blog here and then you bring up a story to me in person and use the alias and not the real name but then you tell me that you don’t really care about my blog and that’s why you don’t read it then I’m going to have to call bullshit on you. I will also think you’re a creeper. Stop doing that. It’s silly.

Oh, and one more thing about that since I’m in the mood to address it. Maybe you should stop talking about how you’d like to invite me to things because of my online Internet presence and about all the good I can do for you or your organization because stuff like that does get back to me and it makes me feel used. And don’t pray for me to use my blog for Jesus. Yeah. I heard about that one, too.

Back to karma, shall we? So, the Orkin guys points out that I have some mold and rotten drywall in the basement and see here? This thing? It’s a hole that’s starting to form and it’s getting bigger, you might want to have that checked out. This leads to a panicky Who do I call for such a thing? Is this a cosmic joke? Buy a new house and have to fix this already! but then I calmed down after snorting a line of crayon dust (the color was cerulean, I knew you might ask me that question) and realized that this is probably because of the air conditioner which I am running at all times and the previous owner didn’t really run at all so this is where the condensation is building up. (Much as I would love to proofread this post and take out all the run-on sentences I will certainly NOT do that right now.) Let me just shorten this next part:

1. Contractor/fixer-upper guy comes in. It’s condensation. Buy a dehumidifier and empty that sucker daily.

2. Pull down drywall. Oh, look! The rubber hose around the pipe has little teeth marks! You have mice!

3. Fix, re-rubber piping, put up new drywall, sand, paint, voila!

Karma also got me for teasing my son about the vaginal itch cream because the very next day I got bitten by a buffalo gnat right next to my eye which then created a cellulitis and I had to go to the doctor to get put on an antibiotic just in case and the whole left side of my face looked about 20 years older than the right side.

Karma: Take THAT!

Me: Okay. You win.

Besides the fact that I’m singing “La Cucaracha” around the house now and trying to squeeze in all sorts of fun things for my super short summer month, I am regrettably unable to attend BlogHer in New York. I already have the ticket to get into the conference, but no easy way to get there and pay for an expensive hotel. There’s no point in expressing how sad this makes me because I badly want to see people and get/give hugs to people who have become such good friends. My only excuses are las cucarachas y ratones and caring for a sick parent and paying for an expensive divorce that still isn’t settled yet and a new house payment. I’m thinking of how funny (just not Ha! Ha! funny) it is that I wrote this nearly a year ago about saving money and not begging for sponsorship to attend blogging conferences and here I am making the responsible decision. I will go ahead and quote myself from that post: I simply cannot go.

Karma just isn’t all that funny.

First, I owe Mallory her birthday post. That poor kid hasn’t even gotten a birthday card from me because I spent all day Saturday moving out of my rental home and moving to my purchased one. I think it’s funny that my youngest asked me, “Mom? Is this our permanent home?” as if to imply we’ve lived in temporary places his whole life. “Uh, yeah, kid. I plan to be here a while.”

Second, I owe a really long post about something I found that belonged to my grandmother because it sort of blew my mind to read what she wrote in an essay in 1968 concerning issues of race. Once I wrap my brain around that I will get to it, but I fear it’ll be an emotional piece of writing for me so I’m going to take my time with it.

Finally, I have to at the very least post the video of me and Ree, The Pioneer Woman, dishing about shoes that we did for the Macy’s Putting It All Together campaign over on the BlogHer site. We named a few of the shoes (all girl names) and discussed the crucial issue of “toe cleavage” so you’ll want to click on the video below. I have to admit, though, that I haven’t watched it all the way through because, like many people, I cringe when I see myself on video. Pictures are fine because I can’t hear my voice (Is that really what I sound like? What the what?) and the first time I tried to watch it I did so with the sound off.

Oh, yeah. And now I owe the mortgage company for the house. But that one was to be expected. Pictures soon!