How Love Story and its Sequel Mirrored My Life

This essay contains quite a bit of adult language, and by adult language, I mean the words “shit, fuck, and bullshit” fly throughout this piece. I watched Oliver’s Story, the 1978 sequel to Love Story, a film often considered one of the most romantic movies of all time. For years, I put off the hour […]

My Ode to Self-Care 47: “Friend Zone”

This essay was the fourth on my playlist and was supposed to be written in June. However, I could not find the words and vowed to come back when the muse hits me. Forty-two essays and three left after this one, today is the day (Editor’s note: I wrote the first two sentences on November […]

My Summer Rewind: An Ode to Self-Care 8- “#jetsgo”

I feel about #jetsgo the same way Chuck Noland, Tom Hanks’ character in Castaway, did about the angel wings on the FedEx package: it saved my life. It was a symbol of hope in a season where all I could do was wait. In the summer of 2011, Timile, Cydney, and I called Buffalo home. […]

Remembering B.I.G. 20 Years After the Death of Tupac Shakur

Deuteratagonist: the second most important character to a protagonist that may switch from being with or against the protagonist, depending on the plot or conflict. There is no better word to describe the dynamic of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace in their individual Greek tragedies. Today marks the 20th year that many of us remember where […]

Flashback Friday: Star Trek Edition

Tuesday afternoon, I received a text message from one of my editors. She asked me if I would like to go to the advance screening of Star Trek Beyond the following day and to bring someone with me. Immediately, I thought about bringing my father. My pops is a little too cool to be […]

Narcissism, The Creative Process, and The Oscars Boycott

Everyone is a narcissist. If you don’t think so, you’re actually proving my point by thinking you’re different from everyone else. We all have an obsession with ourselves. We seek relationships and attract people based on common interests because it is pleasing to our egos. Who doesn’t like someone who has things in common […]

Love is “Frozen” and My Take on Disney’s Warped Stories of Love

Last weekend when I went to the barber shop I ran into an old lady selling bootleg DVD’s. I figured why not skim through what she has because I just knew she had Disney’s Frozen. Ever since Cydney first saw it about a month ago, she has been talking about Frozen non-stop. When it snowed […]

Pocohantas

Other than Sofia the First, Cydney’s favorite Disney Princess is Pocohantas. It’s her favorite princess toy to play with. Because we watch a Sing-A-Long DVD daily, she has to play with Pocohantas in water while singing Just Around the River Bend. Everything is Pocohantas. Saturday afternoon, we were watching Disney Jr and a commercial came […]

…Where It’s Greater (A Funny Story)

So, with all of the encouragement I’ve received over the last few months I started writing the manuscript for what will be my story to be published as a novel. Doing so has meant thinking back to many stories that i have of Timile and me. I’m not sure if this will make it into the book, […]

Pitch Perfect

Every parent has that one movie that they have to watch repeatedly because their children love it. Usually, its some obnoxious animated movie that consists of lots of singing hokey but very catchy songs. I remember when my little cousin was a baby, her movie was Save the Last Dance. Whenever I’d babysit, my aunt […]