It Seemed Better on TV...

You know, being a single woman on the lamb in the city seemed a lot more interesting when it was on tv. Granted, maybe it's me. Maybe Zuri Wallace is not cut out for living single. Perhaps if I had three crazy roommates and a zany superintendent this would seem more "wild". As it is, it's actually more tame than living at home.

You know what I did when I got off work yesterday? I took a jog around the neighborhood with Paula (she's convinced me to jog instead of going to the dojo), cooked a microwave dinner, read about half of "Things Fall Apart" (again, time 4), took a bath, and went to sleep. No drama, no zaniness, not even a neighbor looking for flour. In fact, I met my superintendent yesterday, it's a she! Now I'm all for equal treatment in the work force, but a strong confident female superintendent is not as funny as whatever it is I thought I would be getting. I'm just saying, how am I supposed to have zany adventures when everything is so...I don't know...normal and...kinda how I like it.

I think I'm just going through drama queen withdrawal. Even if I didn't do something wild, Paula was always having some kind of issue. I think it was actually vicariously through Paula's love life that I ended up staying single. Clearly, the men Paula met were no good. If Paula couldn't find a good man looking like she does, my chances were meager. I'm starting to think that may not be the case. Maybe there's some ebony Romeo...ewww, not Romeo - what a sleazebag - I could settle for Hamlet or OW! Othello! We know he liked the light skinned honeys, am I right? Anyway, yeah, somebody smart and strong like Othello, just without the jealous murdering tendencies. I'm okay with settling down with a good man. Paula is waiting for someone to whisk her off her feet. I would settle for honest compliments and a pointed but friendly debate.

Nope, I guess I'm not sitcom material. Oh well, gonna go finish "Things Fall Apart" and get eight hours of sleep.

The Clothes make the Woman

So, I’m not generally a conceited or shallow person…but then again, who wouldn’t say that?  Perhaps what I mean to say is that material things, clothes especially have never really had that much importance to me.  That said, I read this great prompt in one of my test books, so I really wanted to use that for my blog entry.  Here goes…

 

What do you wear to feel confident?

 

Now let me preface this by saying that I don’t have an “outfit” per se.  I’ve never really been good at making outfits.  If I have a really important even to go to, I always pull Paula aside a day or two before and make her put something together for me.  However, I have a few things that I always pull out when I want to feel confident or sexy.

 

The first thing I always go for is my favorite skirt.  I picked it up off of the rack at a store I went to with Paula and Edana.  It’s a little shorter than knee length and has a wavy brown pattern throughout the base of the skirt.  It hugs my hips perfectly (what hips I have) and comes down in what I’m told is a pencil shape.  The bottom edge of the skirt is accented with this shining gold fabric, that always seems to catch the light.  When I wear my skirt, I can’t help but pose.  I catch myself doing it without even realizing it.  My turns and spins, which in normal clothes are quick and deft (read clumsy and indecisive) turn into amazing twirls of ecstasy.  My hem plays just above my knees and the wind sweeps up around my thighs.  When I wear my my skirt I am not just Zuri Wallace:  Teacher.  I am Zuri Wallace:  Wind Goddess.  I float lightly on the breeze.  I command gales with a stroke of my hand.  I rise above.

I have my mother’s legs, that is one thing (along with hair) that I got from her.  I have never been as tall as I’d like to be.  I’ll never be an black Amazon like Paula, but I come from a family of women with beautiful long legs.  I feel like a warrior or a biblical character – my mother had long legs as did her mother before her!  But hey, there aren’t a lot of physical features of mine that I’m comfortable with.  It’s like that song says, “You look inside yourself, take the things you like, and try and love the things you took.”

 

The other old staple of my wardrobe are dangly earrings.  I’m not real selective on look or type, I just love earrings that are dangly and metallic.  I know it’s no fashion revelation, but earrings are my thing.  I never really did bracelets or rings or necklaces.  Suffice to say, I’m not a big accessorize.  But get me in a store full of dangly sparkly earrings and I will lose my my shit.  I swear, I’m ten years younger on the spot.  Does anyone else have this issue?  I don’t keep many keepsakes (totally not true) but I have a jewelry box that’s half full of broken earrings that I swear I’m going to get fixed one day.  They all have some sort of special meaning to me because I wore them to some event or another or some relative gave them to me.  Some day, when I’m a rich and well paid teacher, I’m going to find a jewelry repair place and dump the whole box on the counter.

I’m not really sure what it is I like so much about earrings.  Maybe I just like my ears, although I find that hard to believe because I can’t say as I’ve ever spent a significant amount of time admiring or even inspecting my ears.  Maybe it goes well with the afro.  Maybe it’s some left over seventies movie desire to be Pam Grier (I heart Pam Grier!).

 

Just know, when I die I want to be buried in my favorite skirt and an enormous pair of silver hoop earrings.  Unless I’m cremated!  Do I want to be cremated?  That’s creepy, but being buried is so…egotistical.  I don’t know, don’t really want to think about it, plenty of time for that later.  Maybe that could be another blog down the line.

New Ways to Sweat

So, maybe this is just me, but did refrigerators always make such a loud buzzing noise? I swear to God, I think it woke me up this morning. Now I'm pretty fierce about this "I'm a big girl I don't need anyone to protect me" thing, but having an apartment by myself can be a bit creepy. Thank God for teaching because if I didn't have somewhere to go during the day I think I'd lose my marbles hanging around here and discovering what appliances in my house make formerly unheard noises.

For real though, I'm really okay. I'm finally starting to get stuff unpacked. I have a few things hanging on the wall and...well, my tv on an endtable which isn't really big enough for it directly across from my beat up old couch. I had to set it up somewhere and came to realize I don't actually own a "tv table". The whole place really is pretty sad looking, but I had to put the tv up so I could distract myself from the mess.

Right now my biggest concern is that I haven't found the laundry room in this building yet and my house is starting to stink. Seriously, I didn't know I could sweat like this. I mean, I've been doing martial arts for most of my life, but I have never soaked through three t-shirts in one day. I had changed one and thought I was good till Paula came over and said she wanted to take me out to dinner. I said okay, and started to walk out with her. She just stared at me like I was some kind of nut.

"What?" I asked.

"Zuri, I can see your boobies," she said.

"So what, I can see yours too, I replied.

"Yeah but this dress is supposed to look like this AND I'm wearing a bra. I am not going out with you looking or smelling like that."

"Smelling? Do I smell?" I sniffed my armpit, bad move.

Paula said she was going to help me unpack after dinner, but it was really something more like move small objects from one side of the room to the other. Then she started watching something on TV and it was all over. Next thing I knew I was waking her up off my couch. Love you Paulie.

Anyway, life goes on...

Ms. Independent

If you don't know by now, Ms. Zuri Wallace is now officially out on her own in the world. That's right, in my new apartment and lovin it. I just moved in yesterday with some help from the fam (thanks fam) and spent my first night here last night. I thought about having Paula stay the night, but she had her own stuff going on, so I stayed alone.

This is the part where there should be some story about how creepy and weird it is to spend the night in a place all alone, but I only wanna give y'all the truth. I was out like a light the moment they left last night. I was so tired. I had no idea I had so much stuff! I didn't even move it all yet. I still have half of my clothes and all the boxes in my closet back at the house. For the moment, I think those might be staying there. I have no urge to move anything else (plus dad had to take back the truck this morning, so anything else we move will have to be in his little car).

Now, about my new apartment...I haven't really got things set up yet. I just got the Internet working which is why I'm doing this now. Most of my stuff is in boxes. Tomorrow my mission is to unpack the kitchen...and after that I can learn how to cook.

My only complaint so far is that the old lady next door seems to be a bit deaf, so she puts her TV on blaring loud. I can hear it through the wall! I guess that's the cost of living in cool apartments that used to be factories. The floor and ceiling is solid, but the walls are like paper. Thankfully, that wall is the one in my living room and not in my bedroom, so I can sleep just fine.

A strange side effect of this move is that I'm super organized about things which usually don't require any organization. For instance, I've already laid out my clothes for tomorrow morning. I haven't done that since I was five!

Alas, my body is still aching, so I'm going to slip into the bath and take a long soak. Zuri out.

Life

So, I haven’t written in a while, my bad. Honestly, the problem is that every time I go to write now I see the entry about my parents and I think “I don’t have anything as good as that”. So, I end up thinking about what it is that I want to write and then I don’t end up writing at all.

I kinda realized just now that that is beside the point. The idea with this blog was just to write about my life anyway. Not everything in life is as big and important as everything else, but it’s still just as much part of my life. So, it should make it to the blog.

I’ve been packing up for my big move to my new place, so there are a lot of little things I keep finding that I haven’t seen in a while. I found a picture of myself today from just after I came to live with Edana and LaShawn. It was back in the day when I used to have those seriously messy pigtails. I started wearing those when I was a kid because my mom would get so sick of messing with my hair. If there was anything I got from my mom it was her hair. Whenever she grew it out it was wild and kinky and in no time she would give up on it. It would end up in braids, or a weave, or just straightened out again. You know, I love my afro, but I’ve had my hair like this for a long time now. I wonder what it would look like if I changed it. I see old pictures of my relatives with straight hair and I wonder what that would look like on me. I guess I’ll never know. You can’t find those chemicals anywhere any more and even if you could it’s against the law. Well, I think it is anyway. Someone told me once that there wasn’t actually a law against it, it was just that people had the good sense not to try it.

Anyway, Paula would lose her mind if I did anything to my afro. She loves my hair more than her own. Looks wise, there are very few things I have on Paula, but hair is one of them. She can’t get her hair to do anything. She always ends up back at the microbraids. Speaking of Paula, I think she’s starting to warm up to the idea of me moving out. She’s making plans for what she’s going to do to my room once I leave. That girl is a trip.

Oh, I’m reading my favorite collection of Maya Angelou poems again. God, I love those things. My dad bought them for me a long time ago. I lost the first copy I had lord knows where, but I bought a new book right after I started teaching. If I could write like that woman did, I’d never stop.

Well, since that isn’t the case. I guess that’s the end of my entry for tonight. I got work in the morning and those kids ain’t gonna teach themselves.

My Mommy and Daddy

I was feeling antsy tonight, so I was sitting around messing with my computer. I looked up and realized that it was midnight, then I saw the date. Today would be my parents' twenty-something-th anniversary. I'm not sure what I feel. It's kind of a weird throbbing in the pit of my stomach to think of the whole situation that way. To imagine them still alive and happily married...what would they even look like if they were alive today. I wonder if they would recognize me. I hope they would. I'm pretty sure my mom would, she used to just sit and stare at my eyes sometimes, tell me that they looked just like my dad's.

In honor of my parents' anniversary, I'm going to tell a story. You ready?

My parents were both English students at the University at the same time. Both of them were dating different people. But, as my mom tells it, the moment she saw my dad she knew she had to have him. As my dad tells it, he didn't even like her because they guy she was dating was a jerk. Well, time went by and she broke up with the jerk. Eventually he broke up with his girlfriend, so mom decided it was time to make her move. She had tried to say hello to him every time they saw each other, but he hadn't been very talkative. So one day after English class, she walked up and said "Hey, we have a bunch of classes together. You're name is Jonothan and mine is Elana and we're going to be friends. The next time I see you, you'd better say hi!" Then, she walked off.

Well, time passed and he said hi when he saw her. Eventually, they ended up in the same class right before lunch, so they started eating lunch and walking to class together. They would talk about class and life and whatever books they were reading. Finally, he invited her to this play he was in. She was all excited at the chance to see him outside of their normal setting. At this point, she had gone back to dating her old boyfriend, but things weren't going so well, so she had hope! Well, she went to the play and waited for him outside with the families. As soon as he came out this other girl (the one he had broken up with before) came leaping into his arms! Mom was stunned, she was sure they had broken up. She went home broken hearted.

Not too long later, my mom had a class with daddy's little blond girlfriend. She heard her telling another girl that they had broken up the week before and she was plotting to get back with him. Well, Mommy knew she had no time to waste! That same day she asked him out on a "not date between two people who are just getting out of relationships and aren't ready to date any one else but would like to go see a movie together". He fell for it!

Well, she was sure she had found the right guy, but he really didn't want to get in a relationship. The next semester he was going off to Ireland and couldn't imagine putting someone through that. It's important to note at this point, for anyone who doesn't know anything about my daddy, he was always the knight in shining armor. Well, he fought her off for most of the summer, but by the time he went to Ireland she had him calling her every day just to talk. When he came back, they were inseparable.

And that's the story of my mommy and daddy getting together. I know you're up there looking out for me now and I want you to know that I haven't forgotten you. I hope I'm making you proud!

Kinda weirded out

Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and say beforehand that maybe I'm over reacting. Maybe I have no grounds for being weirded out and I should just be happy for the concern on my behalf.

That having been said, Tamia George (mother of my student Ororo George) is totally creepy. So like I said before, she used to be a student of my mom's back before the the war. In fact, my mom was pregnant with me when Tamia was in her class. Of course that could lead to some form of connection between the two of us, but I haven't seen her for a significant amount of time my entire life, so it seems a tad weird to me that she is so interested in me.

The setup is this: Ororo has serious anger issues, but is one of my best students. Her mom is concerned about her and wants to keep a close eye on her academic progress. Totally understandable. In fact, I wish there were more parents like that. So Tamia set up conferences with me in the mornings once a week. She said she could only do it before school, on account of the fact that she is a nurse and works late most nights. I am totally okay with that. However, when we start having the conference, we talk about Ororo for about five minutes an then the topic turns to me. She wants to know what my life is like. She wants to know what I do in my free time. She wants to know about family life and if I have a boyfriend and if I plan on having kids. I keep trying to turn the conversation back to Ororo, I keep thinking that it's unprofessional to share this much of my private life with a parent of a student, but she's relentless...and really really nice. I found myself telling her things that I didn't even know I was going to say.

Then we started talking about my mother. She was saying how I reminded her of my mom. I was just going to say something about a lesson that I had planned and how I'd gotten the idea from some of my mom's old papers. Nothing came out though. I just started crying. Not crying like a little bit either, like boo-hooing. Why did I have to choose today to wear mascara? Before I know what's happening, Tamia is stroking my hair and I am totally letting her. I felt like I couldn't breath and all I could get out between sobs was "I just miss her so much some times".

I don't know, maybe it's because it's getting close to their anniversary and I always feel kinda like this when that time rolls around. Also, it may have something to do with my period, which is about to start. I always know when it's that time, because I find myself crying over silly things. On my way to work today there was a man about my age in a military uniform on a playground spinning his daughter around. Really, all I thought was, "That's nice" but I was blinking back tears. What's that all about? Really, I could set my clock by it. Well, calender...if you had to set a calendar...seriously though, does this happen to other women? I hear jokes about women becoming like these horrible angry creatures during their periods, but I just feel like curling into a ball and disappearing for a week.