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Beyond Comprehension
March 30, 2009 by NaysWay · 2 Comments
I try, really hard, not to feature news stories on this site. The news is everywhere. You can’t go ten feet without seeing the latest depressing story. And I’m trying to use this as a platform to get over and deal with my own demons, not make more.
But when you see stories like this…
There are horrible things happening all over the world. The news rarely highlights stories on the positive or inspirational. Those are considered “puff pieces”, and they don’t bring in viewers. It’s one of the top reasons that helped foster my decision in a career path. If what bleeds leads, I cannot, in good conscience, sit in front of a teleprompter, camera, and millions of viewers, to headline the latest death. To imagine being the reporter assigned to break this story is beyond me.
Kiss your little ones. Be glad you have them.
Everyday.
FEAR Feature: Mad Max (Minus The Thunderdome)
March 27, 2009 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
I say, quite often, that a writer must read. I also say, just as often, that I didn’t read much growing up. Either my mind is getting foggy in my old age, or I’m on some type of drug I don’t know about (I’m lookin’ at you, BFam), but I read a lot as a kid. The older my children get, the more books I buy them to read. The moment I set foot in a bookstore, all these memories of books I claim I never read start coming back to me. Here I thought I was born with this insanely unique and vivid imagination fueled out of thin air, when the truth is I have a library of published stories floating around in my head.
One of my favorite books was Where The Wild Things Are. Oh, how I loved this book. Max, the main character and resident trouble maker, was so cute to me. Even then, my mother should have been locking me up in a room somewhere, what with my penchant for bad boys. What better way to pass down this mild obsession than to share it with my seven-year-old? She’s mature enough to be introduced to bad boys, right?
Sadly, she could care less about Max or his wild things. She is a pious and humble servant of the Lord, guarding her loins for one so noble and true. World without end, Amen.
Look at that face. Does that look like bad boy material to you? A bad boy would chew her up and spit her out for breakfast. And I don’t have bail money for her father.
Yet when the night falls, and everyone is bathed, pajama’d (yes, it’s a real word, look it up), and deep under the covers of bed, I read this story. And, wouldn’t you know it, I do have a fan.
I’ll give you one guess who it is.
Can you guess?
Bet’cha you can.
BIG surprise right there. Huge! I know. I’m just as shocked as you are.
Not.
Imagine my glee when I found out this was coming to film! Did you know that?
I am SO there. MY little trouble maker will have to stay at home. (Gotta keep an eye on that girl.)
Must Be Jelly…
March 26, 2009 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
If this is what “too curvy” looks like:
And this is what “too fat” looks like:
And this is what “too old” looks like:
Then call me curvy, fat and old.
Although I will say I hate that dress on Beyonce. I hated it when Jerry Hall did it years ago.
Not everyone can be Dita Von Teese.
The point is… WHO CARES?! These women look good. And everyone with something to say right now is just plain, old-fashioned jealous. I mean, look at Valerie Bertenelli. Look at her, for Christmas’ sake! She looks FABULOUS, and I don’t even like using that word (thank you Kimora Lee Simmons). Cindy Crawford – my favorite supermodel of all time – please! If you could promise me, right now, that I’d look like that at 43, I’d slap you, right in the mouth, for lying to me. Then I’d sashay away in my soap sudsy body.
Because you know you want to touch it.
All of these women are healthy. They exercise. They eat right. They’ve struggled with weight… OK, maybe Cindy didn’t. That’s just insanely wrong and gifted only by Greek gods. But they’re women! This is what we do. Stop harping on our weight! Unless you have to special order a forklift to pull our lifeless bodies from our couches, while Bon-Bons ooze from our lips and you have to pry pizza crust from our vice-gripped fingers, leave us be!
Baby Steps
My first year in college, I just knew I wanted to be a Journalism major. We didn’t have what you’d call helpful academic advisors in those days at THE Ohio State University. They were overworked, underpaid graduate students just trying to fill their credit quota. To them, you were just a grade. No matter that they had your life in their hands. When I told my advisor (Her name was Tammy. She was an African Studies major. I hated her.) about my decision, she flatly told me, “That’s great.” Then she gave me the name of the professor she thought would best suit my needs and gave (again, her thoughts) the best introductory lecture to the field. My first day in Journalism 101, an attractive black woman in her late 40′s walked in front of a huge lecture hall with thousands of students, anxiously holding their #2 pencils to fresh lined paper, waiting with baited breath for the words of wisdom that would for certain fall from the lips of this weathered scholar, and told them one thing: If you want to make any money in this business, you’d better go into broadcast Journalism. You will make nothing in print media.
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Hacked!
March 22, 2009 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
I never saw it coming. Then again, who does?
See this picture?
Probably the scariest image of Heath Ledger (God rest his soul) I’ve ever seen. This was the image, along with some other garble about being hacked and nah-nah-ni-boo-boo going on, that met my viewers (and, eventually, me) this past Friday. And I know it’s disturbing and frightening. But I believe that’s how all attackers want their victims to feel.
I am not a Webmaster. As part of my real job, I maintain websites. I update their information and change graphics around. My coding knowledge is limited on a need-to-know basis. This doesn’t mean I don’t have the desire to learn more. I would love to be the master of my own site – design, maintain, code, code, code. I am a closet techie geek. I have techie geek envy. Do I want to give money I don’t have to someone else to do something I can probably do if I had the time? No. I’d love to have a site fully, totally, completely belong to me.
And then, my site got hacked.
In the past 72 hours, I’ve wanted nothing more than to do away with this site. I haven’t wanted to touch it. I’ve wanted to give it to someone else, let it be their problem. I’ve been on the phone with my site provider’s technicians, asking questions I’m not sure I’m asking correctly, getting answers that may as well be in Chinese. Too many times, I’ve prefaced each question with, “I’ve never had this happen before”, or “I don’t know what I’m doing”, or “Hey, did I happen to mention I’ve never had this happen before, I don’t know what I’m doing, and I need you to talk to me like someone who’s not a Webmaster?”
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned about this whole ordeal is this: People are assholes. The other thing: If you have your own domain and hosting provider (that should, please dear God, be available 24/7), and your site gets hacked? Pick up the phone. Call them. Do not conduct a live chat on their website. I don’t care how inviting and cute that little box looks. I don’t care how convenient it might be. I don’t care if you absolutely, positively HATE talking on the phone because you already do it for a living at your Call Center day job. I don’t care. Do you hear me? Call them. I cannot stress this enough. I mean, I can but you don’t want me driving from hick-Ohio all the way to Wherever-You-Are, America because then I’ll be mad AND telling you off. And I’m black. So you know there will be finger-waving and neck-rolling involved.
In the past 72 hours, I have wanted to quit. I don’t quit often. But the timing of this hack has been nothing short of horrendous. I’m already stressed. I’m already stretched thin. And the one place – THE ONE PLACE – I go to seek solace gets hacked. God is trying to tell me something. But I really need Him to speak plain English right about now.
Of course, I’ve sought comfort from my family. My mother’s brain has been amazing because she remembered all but one of the posts I lost from this past week. BFam, on the other hand… *sigh*.
My husband.
God love him. If ever I need instances I married my grandfather, let things fall apart. Let something be broken. Let me just want to die and crawl in a corner. These elements make for a catastrophe. To this catastrophe, his response is to respond in either fashion:
1) Him: Oh my gawd, it’s broken. I can’t do it. It won’t work. All is going to hell. We’re all going to die.
Me: What do you want me to do about it?
Him: Nothing. I was just telling you.
2) Yell at it like a drill sergeant. “HOW DARE YOU?! HOW DARE YOU QUIT ON ME?! DON’T YOU GO QUITTIN’ ON ME, SOLDIER! YOU WILL FINISH THIS SITE! YOU WILL MAKE IT GO LIVE AGAIN! YOU WILL STOP CRYIN’ LIKE A SISSY WOMAN! NOW DROP ON THE FLOOR AND GIVE ME TWINNY, SOLDIER! GO, GO, GO! MOVE IT, MOVE IT, MOVE IT!” I wish I were exaggerating.
The site is live.
I think the coast is clear again.
I think.
I hope.
I’ve recovered every post save for Friday. I may dig in the recesses of my mind and re-write it again. The jury is still out.
I hate being a Webmaster.
I’m not sure why, in a sea of millions of blogs (me being over 2 million in Technorati ranking), I was hit. I’ve come to understand who I am and what’s on my site doesn’t matter. It wasn’t an arch enemy. It wasn’t that mean girl in grade school who spent almost every other week trying to beat the living crap outta me. It was some kid who was bored and wondered if he/she could. Who saw an opportunity and thought to themselves, “Wonder if I could upend the journal of this one no-name person’s life? Wouldn’t that be fun?”
I’m going to bed now. Wake me up next year.
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