California Dreamin'

All respect and praises are due to my girl J. California Cooper. She is that shit. I recently reread a couple of her short stories and let me tell you...if you haven't already, you need to check her out. Of her works that I have read she is something like a feminist writer. Her main characters are usually Black women going through and, then, overcoming something. I'm in the middle of reading Some People, Some Other Place. It's been a slow process though because school has been extremely hectic this summer. So far the book is really good and very original. It is told from the POV of an unborn child. The baby chronicles the lives of her ancestors and her mother. My favorite work of hers (although I haven't read them all) has definitely got to be Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime. Whew LAWD! You talkin' about some good readin'!!! I won't lie. Some of the stories are a little drab and even drag at times. But I guarantee you will see a little of yourself in every single one of them. Further, I'm positive that you will take a lesson away from each story as well. Her stories may seem, and even read, simple...but there is a profound message in all of them. Someone described her work as "strongly, deliberately reminiscent of conversations over backyard fences". Cooper's writing just feels right. Just wanted to write a line or two about her. Maybe some of you have never heard of her. Maybe some of you have never read her. Familiarize yourselves...she is the business.


On another note:

I love this. I randomly saw it on someone's myspace page. I only fell in love after I saw the adinkra symbol tattooed on her arm.

"Adinkra is a cotton cloth produced in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire which has traditional Akan symbols stamped upon it. The adinkra symbols represent popular proverbs and maxims, record historical events, express particular attitudes or behaviour related to depicted figures, or concepts uniquely related to abstract shapes. It is one of several traditional cloths produced in the region – the other well known cloths being kente and adanudo."**

I have two adinkra symbols tattooed on my wrist. That is probably my favorite tattoo. My best friend calls it my crest.

The one below pretty much means "learn from your mistakes". You might recognize it from the Velvet Rope album.

This one pretty much means "no one before God".

The other two symbols on my "crest" tattoo are the Virgo symbol and a Japanese character that means "mother". Back in January, 2006, a few months after I got the tattoo, I was sitting in Statistics class behind an Asian girl. She turned around and looked at my arm. She was shocked when she asked "YOU'RE a MOM?!?!?!" I replied "yeah, how you know?" (complete with my black girl attitude and semi-pursed lips). She pointed to my tattoo. Then I lost the attitude and got excited, lol. "You're Japanese?" She said "Yeah". "And this really means mother?!?!?!" She said "Yeah." That was probably the highlight of the semester, lol. So, yeah, my shit is official!

One more picture for the road:

My bookshelf. I told ya'll....it's not a game!

**http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aaAdinkra.htm...let me include SOME kinda citation before my ass gets sued or somethin' crazy, lol.