My friend, Fayette Pinkney of The Three Degrees passed away on Saturday.  Unexpectedly.  That news hit me hard.  I’m so worn out by a recent rash of death and loss both in popular culture and to people that Jim and I know.   A bright spot in my life was dimmed on Saturday, and the fabulous Fayette will no longer grace this planet with her grace and her style.  I met Fayette when I worked at United Behavioral Health as an Intake Counselor.  The poor woman had to sit next to me and field every “newbie” question I ever had.  She was patient and kind.  After sitting with each other for a week or so, we began to be quite sociable with one another and a friendship emerged.  I didn’t know at that time, until one of our bosses said “I love this woman, and she’s responsible for some great music!”  That was when I found out she had been in the 3 Degrees – a girl group from Philadelphia that was famous for the iconic hit “When Will I See You Again (Precious Moments)” and the “Soul Train Theme Song” amongst others.  As our friendship grew, I was constantly amazed by how beautiful her life had been…about all the travels, the journeys, the fame, the relationships and the glamour that her life had been.  She was content to now be in psychology and happy for her time back then.  I even helped her look into some legal steps to regain a bit of her rightful royalties and such…not clear if it ever worked out or not.  We ate dinner together and on one trip that Jim had come up to visit me at my apartment, I invited Fayette to dinner to meet my man.  I had just gone through a divorce and was happy to be with someone who loved me like he did.  I wanted her to meet him, like a big sister would or an Aunt.  I still remember, we went to Cin Cin in Chestnut Hill and that night was magical.  She was so beautiful in heart, mind and spirit and so open to sharing tales of her life but yet so humble.  She was teaching singing lessons on the side.  She had a profound impact on my world and my life…we had stayed in touch for years after I moved to Tennessee and she sent me her church photo.  This world is a little more cold without her.  To my beautiful friend, Fayette…I will miss knowing you’re in this world and thank you for making mine just a little better.

I’m not sure what to type at this point.  I came home from work to the news.  I had heard about the loss of Farrah Fawcett hours before and felt badly, for her family and for the fact that one of the most notable sex-symbols of my childhood has died.  However, like what a family goes through when a loved one battles a disease for a long time, I felt more peace at her passing knowing that her battle with cancer is over and she can be at rest.  It is sad, but sadly expected.

However, Michael Jackson’s death was quite unexpected.  I haven’t shed a tear, cause I was a fan back during the Thriller days, and a mild fan afterwards for the albums that followed (a few of them at least).  When I was a fan, I was under 10 years old and I found him to be a revelation.  While sadly, the Thriller album sounds very “dated” upon listening to it – you can’t deny how HUGE that album was.  It was GIGANTIC.  People wore sparkley gloves (1 of them), people bought “Beat It” jackets (I had one), and people drank more Pepsi.  He duet-ed (quite fabulously I might add), with Paul McCartney back in the day.  He stunned us with some incredible dances that helped shape dance in the pop-sensibility…I remember watching the Motown 25th anniversary special and seeing that moonwalk…it was awesome to a little girl. He gave a lot of current performers “inspiration”.

Sadly, as his life progressed…the childhood he never really had because he was in the “biz” from such a young age was his primary focus.  His apparent body dismorphic disorder lead him to completely changing his facial structure when frankly I thought he looked his best in his “Off the Wall” and “Thriller” days – I wish he would have stopped there.  His love of children, was probably the most disconcerting because if you were a fan, you wanted to believe the innocence but you always thought that his relationships seemed inappropriate.  He spent money like it was constantly renewable.  He ruined his friendship with Paul McCartney after snatching the Beatles rights from underneath him….etc.  I found myself, with each mention of his name…missing the Michael that seemed so fresh and so free…the Michael who “moonwalked”, who made “zombie dancing” cool, who promised “I’ll be there.”  A talent, worn away by tabloids and torment.

Still, last night after hearing the news, I couldn’t help but reflect on what he did do for us (my generation).  I think my Facebook status captures that thought the best: “Regardless of his personal life…Michael Jackson was a huge talent, he shaped MTV (when MTV was good), he got a lot of us into music when our ideas on music were forming, and made some pretty iconic pop music. “Thriller” is still amazing to me. “Scream”, with his sister was fabulous. Life is short folks, for any and all of us. Sad.”  I also downloaded 4 of his videos that I’ve always loved: “Thriller” (what is probably, in my opinion, the best music video of all time), “Just Leave Me Alone”, “Scream” and “Smooth Criminal”.  It was my personal homage.

In the end, the reason we’re so shocked is because someone who appeared young died suddenly.  Not slowly, like the lovely Ms. Farrah.  Truth is, when it’s our time to leave this earth…you don’t get an extension.  Having lost so many, I know this.  I feel deeply for his family and the knowledge that he was the first of their clan to go.  I feel horribly for his 3 children, as they’ve lost their primary caregiver.  In the end, collectively my generation will mourn, remember, and hopefully focus on some of the positive aspects of this person’s life and career.   Adam Shankman probably said it most poignantly, “Michael, I believe yours and lifes rules were at odds… I pray you finally find peace now.”  I sure hope so.  Rest in peace.

I’m not someone to put a lot of focus on a specific product, and I don’t know if you use Philosophy products, but I am completely enamored with their bath/shower/shampoo gels.  At this very moment, there are 2 bottles sitting in our shower at this time: Red Licorice and Mimosa.  They smell, exactly like they are named.  Exactly.  I took a shower tonight and it smelled like a candy store.  I’ve loved their “flavors” of Champagne, Red Velvet Cake, Hot Chocolate and others.  I’m just saying, that these products make taking a bath or a shower a delightful experience, getting clean and feeling yummy.  They’re a bit pricey, but they last forever and you’ll be glad you gave them a try!

There are some things going on in our lives at this time that gnaw at my ability to live with a ton of hope.  Now perhaps, this difficulty stems from my tendencies to be weak on patience.  They may be linked to the overall malaise in the country with the state of the economy, unemployment, etc.  Maybe it’s the amount of effort I expend, completely not correlated to the return on my “investments”.   I don’t know.  I do know that I am struggling with being HOPEFUL.   The Jim is being the cock-eyed optimist these days, and while that’s a slight shift, I’m glad he’s able to look through the cloudy sky and see the glimmer of the sun.  While I’m not going to talk about the issues that are gnawing at me, I’m just curious?  How do we foster and encourage hopefullness in a time, place and situation where it feels like a lot of the hope crew have taken a lunch break?

I’m completely open to suggestions.  I’m mildly hopeful you may have some.

In the meantime, I’ll leave it to Morrissey:

So a couple people have asked me why I didn’t blog about SYTYCD this week.  Yesterday, our power was out for over 2 hours and I had to travel to the benevolent Dotson’s household in order to watch it on their DVR.  I didn’t have my laptop with me, and when I blog SYTYCD, I do it as it’s happening.

Truth be told, the Jim said it best, “Last night’s performances were a bit like a music group’s sophmore album – which typically aren’t as good if they’ve had a strong debut.”  Okay, he didn’t say that exactly, but I knew what he meant.  It was a little lackluster last night.

Tonight, Max and I can’t remember her name (sadly), went home.  The judges did what they had to do, and I thought they made the right choices, hard as they are/were.

I have to talk about things that make me laugh (and I have a mildly odd sense of humour to say the least).  I’m a fan of Monty Python, The Kids in the Hall, etc…but one show that had about 6 episodes on Comedy Central WAAAAY back when I found hysterical.  It starred four men: Nick McKinney (brother of KITH/Saturday Night Live alumni Mark McKinney),  Rob Gfroder, Vito Viscomi and Paul Greenberg.  The sketches were off kilter, but some of their best stuff was their songs and “videos”.  Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I found some I could share with you all.   I think I’ve done this before, but it’s Thursday and I need a laugh.  They were originally scheduled to shoot 13 more episodes (apparently via their wikipedia entry), but never did.  Here’s some comedic gems.

THIS SONG IS GOING TO MAKE A GREAT VIDEO

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

SLEPT ON HIS ARMS

I needed that.  Check out other stuff on Youtube.  Their “Jesus in the Classroom” is one of my favorite sketches that is a recurrent sketch, and I love “We’re Gonna Get Lucky Tonight”.  Gems.  Enjoy.

This weekend and frankly, this past week I feel like I’ve lost a bit of my zing and zest again.  Darn it!  I don’t know how it’s so easy to lose once you get a hold of it.  Perhaps it was the monthly business trip which is slowly sucking the life outta me.  Perhaps, it’s not having the dough to live life decadently and go on wildly amazingly transcendent vacations.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve slacked a bit on my wellness plan.  Perhaps, it’s because we had a completely “friendless” weekend.  Not that we lost any friends or anything, but it was the first weekend in a LONG time in which we really didn’t do anything with any of our friends.  It kinda felt odd, in fact.  For someone like me who’s so afraid of “getting close” to others, I’ve come to really find comfort in our circle of friends.  I mean, they’ve brought a lot of connectedness into our little lives.  In fact, I feel kinda lost in a sea of who knows these days.  Last week, I emailed and left messages for my boss since Wednesday and hadn’t heard back from her since.  I tried to call a whole host of co-workers on Friday and only got 1 person to respond to me.  I suppose that the sense of connection we feel with others is what keeps our mojo tethered to us?  I dunno.  I do know that I am not cut out for the life of a hermit.  Now, to try to convince myself that I’m excited about Monday.

Here’s hoping for some friend-time soon.

The Jim and I also watched the beginning of Nurse Jackie this weekend, the new vehicle for Edie Falco.  It was good in general, not as comedic as I had hoped for, but as the Jim remarks, it’s like ER but more gritty and probably real.  Nurse Jackie is a nurse with a lot of brains and a lot of problems.  While she seems to excel at knowing how to treat her patients and diagnose them correctly, she’s sadly addicted to pain-killers herself and apparently willing to sleep around just to keep her supply coming.  How sad.  Why can’t a woman be bad-ass (the ear scene for example), and be free from such soul sucking tendencies like addition and adultery.  Oh well, I suppose that’s how life is.  I will say though, the amount of sex going on in hospitals is AMAZING.  I mean, from Grey’s Anatomy to Nurse Jackie, there is more play in the dark corners of your neighborhood hospital than at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch.  Okay, maybe not, but I am always impressed at how many medical dramas and shows focus on the sex lives of their physicians, nurses and assistants.  Ah to be that young and nimble.  Anyway, if you like the pay-channel dramas, I’d recommend this show as we intend to see it through this season.  Let me know what you think!?!

The Jim and I just finished watching the start of the 2nd season of one of our “shows”, True Blood on HBO.  It didn’t disappoint to say the least.  If you don’t want spoilers, stop reading now.

Okay, back on.  First of all, I was sooooo happy to see that Lafayette was not the dead body found in Detective (ahem, right), Andy Belfleur’s car.  It was the “voodoo” woman who saved Tara’s mom, and she was – quite ghastly, missing her heart.  Interesting?  I was happy that Bill and Sookie are still knee deep in their relationship, and was impressed with how passionate they are with one another – wow.   I also realized that the teen vampire that Bill has to deal with, is not as annoying as I once expected her to be.  I love how Bill is trying to mentor her to be a “noble” vampire like himself and I realized that the majority of her annoyance to me is because she’s 17.  17 year olds, are, by nature, annoying.  Sorry.  Tara is falling in love with another man, meanwhile we learn more about the relationship between Marianne and Sam although I still have no idea what “she” is.  A good friend has suggested that concept of a “Succubus”.  Possible?  Jason (Sookie’s brother), is going headlong into the wacky world of televangelism which scares the crap outta me.  Lafayette is stuck somewhere underneath Fangtasia, and has suggested from the coming attractions that he’s going to ask to become a vampire.  That would rock.  All in all, it’s a good start for a good series.  Here’s hoping that this season is as riveting as the last!

For the past month or more the Jim and I have been attempting to watch our sugar intake.  No fear of diabetes or anything, it’s just that I’ve been going to a holistic physician and he seems to think my sugar intake (which also includes starchy, complex carbohydrates), is what’s contributing to my moods, my weight, my energy – you name it.  So what does this mean for us?  Well, first of all it’s not cutting out carbs at all.  Instead, however, of eating my favorite white, soft, squishy bread I can roll into little balls, it means we need to pop in a few slices of what we call “God-Bread” (aka Ezekial Bread).  If you’re not familiar, it’s found in the freezer section and comes in loaves.  It’s called “spelt” bread or “sprouted grain” bread, and it’s quite dense and hearty.  Most surprising in fact is that I actually like the stuff.  However, I have tried the same company’s Hot Dog buns, and I have decided I’m willing to go whole wheat buns, but I can’t do the dense hot-dog buns, just toooooooo much bun that you can’t taste the hot dog.  No more.  Other than that, we’ve been very conscious of selecting low sugar foods and trying to avoid any hint of high fructose corn syrup and other “oses”.   My one vice during all this has been (if I’ve had a low sugar day), to have 1 Pepsi Throwback with only 40 something grams of sugar in it.  It makes me feel more normal.   In the meantime, the Jim and I are trucking along nicely with our lifestyle adjustments and to be honest…the lower sugar does make me feel a whole lot better.

If you have any recommendations for living a low sugar lifestyle (and not replacing it with tons of artificial sweetners and such), let us know.  We are certainly a work in progress.