Five Dope Girls In A Cadillac

Someone (I like to think it’s a fan) asked me how the five of us women know each other. And I realized that we never explained our relationship on this here blog. I don’t know if it would add or take away if I gave the history, but um here it goes…

I suppose you could call me the anchor, I am friends with all of the four, and I introduced them to one another over the years, collecting these ladies like the treasures they are. I met Dark & Stormy in 2nd grade. We were part of the handful of Black students in our magnet program. We met, we bonded (over who knows what-a game of horseshoes, a game of horseshoes?) and we’ve been tight ever since. I met Amaretto in 7th grade, again we were one of the few colored faces in our program. We may have first bonded over the difficulties of being the ‘minority’, but over the years a genuine friendship grew. I met Bellini in high school. I’m not sure how or when or where, but somehow we became friends. I introduced her to Dark & Stormy and a high school clique was formed – and a friendship between the three of us still remains. I picked up Mint Julep in college. I guess we started off as peripheral friends (because we had a mutual friend), slowly feeling each other out. And when we became roommates Senior year and had our year of culture as we like to call it – going to concerts, seeing foreign films (City of God!), trying new restaurants, we found we had more in common than we realized.

I can say that the blog was my idea. It came to me during the summer of my discontent. I was working a job I hated (I’ll have a post about that some day, but thinking about it is akin to a Vietnam flashback) and praying for something new. One day I said to my mom, “why is life so hard right now?” And then I thought well if I feel this way, surely there must be others. And then a thought: what if x amount of young women who seem to be the same but are actually “different” started a blog? And everyone took a day and wrote about what was happening in their lives?

I approached the other four ladies with the idea. We were all in different places in our lives – most of us hated our job, some of us still do, we were all trying to find ourselves, get to that level of understanding of what makes us tick. And we were all taking different approaches to getting there. We had been through our own trying and fulfilling relationships with men. We all had different upbringings. We had different levels of education. On the surface, for instance if you saw us sitting and laughing at restaurant, you would think there go five Black women, eating and having a good ol’ time, never taking the time to think of us as individuals. Because you would seem the same: Black, woman, intelligent, funny, driven, loving, friend. But if you were to stop at the table, and ask a few questions to each of us, dig a little deeper, well then you would find our differences. And that’s what I wanted to highlight.

And so on Labor Day Monday, our country’s official farewell to summer, we all sat on my mama’s porch and decided to blog. And blog about shit that mattered to us – what was happening not just in the world but in our lives, our individual emotions, feelings, views on our present situation, whatever that may be. This time in our lives seems to be filled with such angst, wonder, question marks, and I hope, God willing that when I read this at 35, I’ll laugh and say, “what the hell was I so worried about?”

But for now, it serves its purpose. Over the past six months we have shared our lives, stories, viewpoints with the world (ok with whoever is reading) and we’ve reached the 10,000 hits mark. It may not seem like a lot to y’all (considering there are blogs that get 10,000 hits an hour) but we are talking about five very busy women who take time out of their lives to write what we hope are meaningful posts, digging deeper than just rehashing our day’s events.

This post is not meant to be self-congratulatory; I mean I understand that we are bloging, not curing cancer. But it is a thank you note to the other four ladies who carved out time from their world to help make my idea a reality. I know some famous person, (and I’m too tired to look it up right now) has said something about being proud of your friends. I am proud of these ladies. I am proud that they are in my life and that we are taking this journey together, wherever it leads. And I’m proud that we are writing about it every step of the way, chronicling our story, for the “masses.”

It warms our hearts when we get positive comments about people feeling our blog. Or when my younger, college-aged cousin sends me a text that reads, “that blog you sent me is amazing.” It feels good to know that we are connecting with other people who are going through their own quarter life crisis. And we can all talk about the struggle together. At first we wondered if anyone was going to read this. If anyone was going to care. And sometimes we still wonder. But as we watch the hits counter go up, it's continued confirmation that people are reading and we hope enjoying what we write... Who knows where this will lead or how long this will go on, but I'm glad that it's here now. And I'm glad/proud to blog with four of the best women this side of the Mason Dixie line: Dark & Stormy, Amaretto, Bellini & Mint Julep - who's world is this? The world is ours...

That’s my time y’all! Happy Rum Punch Friday!

You got to have balls!

For the past few days I’ve been able to catch up on television. As a professional, my bedtime limit is supposed to be 10 p.m. so I can get to the office at a decent hour the following morning. All the good shows and the night news come on at 10 o’clock or later. . . Now I understand why one of my favorite professors swore by TiVo. So, with no new programming coming on this week all my favorite shows are on instant rerun status and that’s fine with me -- I can play catch up. So, the other day I watch E! News and they discuss memorable moments for 2007. Imus and the Richards guy come up and they have Roseanne Barr give her 2 cents and she says “It takes balls to go after people with more money than you, that’s what I do.” Ha! Well, go on Roseanne– ‘cuz Bellini is totally feeling you.

Roseanne’s quote then led me to ponder whether the blogosphere is justified in going after celebrities. Just because they make more money and operate in the public sphere – should celebrities be game? I know you guys are aware of the cybertiff going on between some celebrities and bloggers of color – check December ’07 Essence for a recap. If we apply Roseanne’s logic the bloggers are justified for going after the celebrities. Does it make a difference if the bloggers and celebrities all happen to be black women? – the cattiness of women “meow”!

The rumormill has the women linked to various men all within the same week, impregnated, etc. . . Now, it appears the bloggers feel they are doing the woman a service by suspending their name and image on the minds and tongues of the people. But I’m not sure if the Hollywood adage rings true “all press is good press” – is it? I mean look at Britney she could use a few months without being mentioned in the press – no lip service at all.

Could it be argued that black bloggers are leveling the playing field for black celebrities? Then again, just because white Hollywood has relegated black actors and actresses to the “other” category, does this mean that black folks must feel compelled to operate in the paradigm that the mainstream has established? Couldn’t we operate in a different fashion, so that it’s not the typical Hollywood business as usual?

Food for thought?


cheers,

Bellini