This Weeks Assignments w/Publish Date

Hello!!

Yesterday, I published my blog explaining what my goal is for this year. You know to make me a better person... etc. etc. I told you that I was going to make myself accountable for fulfilling what I set out to do this year. Here are my assignments for the week, including my publishing dates. Keeping up with the number Sev7n, all of my post will be available for your review at 7:07am for each publishing date.

Each Saturday morning, I will be posting my assignments for that week. Should you feel like I should do/try something (all within reason), please feel free to enter your suggestions on the comment box and I will schedule it for the following weekend. (oh LAWD...here comes the nervous laughter) He he he..ha.

February 18, 2013 - I will be publishing a poem. It shall also be displayed on my poetry site, where I will be commenting on 7 random poems. (Earning brownie points & becoming more web social) I will be linking each comment so that you can see, I ACTUALLY DID IT.

February 20, 2013 -  I will have finished reading The Force of Favor by Dr. Dave Martin. I will be publishing a book review on it and what I learned from the book.

February 22, 2013 - I will attend a yoga class and tell you all about my experience. I haven't practiced in a while and will attempt to make this a weekly ritual.

Ok, there it is. My written contract on what you can expect from me this week. AAGGGHH!! Wish me luck!!

if you hesitate, you die

Fulfilling My Resolution

A while back I posted a blog discussing my 2013 Resolutions. I am sadden by the fact that I too have fallen into the land of despair as so many other people do after New Years. It's like for the first couple of days one is filled with this fire inside to make a change. When the change is not immediately witness, the fire goes away and is replaced with the same things we did the previous year. This is a cycle that I choose to end today.

I am happy to report that I did manage to get one goal accomplished. I finally started my first magazine. She is my baby. I have big dreams for her and a staff to help me accomplish those dreams. What's it called? Seven The Mag.... you can check out our first issue here: 7themag. **enter shameless plug** Don't forget to subscribe so that you can receive, in the convenience of your inbox, our monthly issue. You can also follow us on twitter: @7themag (we follow back) or friend us on Facebook: Seven TheMag. The magazine covers a variety of topics from Politics to Poetry. We are constantly looking for submissions and hope to grow the staff well beyond the number 7.

Now that's out of the way. Let me tell you, starting an online magazine is a lot harder than I thought. First of all, I had to select a blog format to start out. My sister aka The Thought Pusher has a successful blog of her own. Chic loves to read. She joined a site called Goodreads and has made many connections. To say that I am proud of her and her accomplishments is a severe understatement.

Anyway, she suggested creating the magazine on WordPress. I have never used the site before. I was convinced by her expertise on the matter. She believes that it would be a friendlier environment on how to get followers and potential writers for the mag. I, who lack a social internet bone, decided why not? She's an expert on the matter.

The truth is that I have only two experiences on blogs. My previous blog, that shall remain unnamed (I don't remember the site) and this one. Blogger is very user friendly and the fact that I have it linked up to my email address is a severe plus (THANK YOU GOOGLE!) However, the truth remains that I lack followers and I use this more as an online journal. I have no clue on how to build up a fan base.

Ok, enough self depreciation. Bottom line is, my procrastinator self kicked in and I decided to start working on the layout of the issue and all that good stuff a couple of hours before we actually went live. BIG MISTAKE!! I was not familiar with the WordPress layouts and formatting and I had to make due with what I could. Lesson learned. Instead of publishing at 12am on the 7th, as I had previously set as the publishing date and time, we published at 7:07am on the 7th. Even then, it wasn't what I expected. Lesson learned indeed.

This time around I have decided to work on it little by little. I also learned that even though I would love to have a hand in everything Seven....I cannot. For this issue, I have learned to delegate certain task and assignments. I have an overall vision for the magazine. However, I cannot run and write everything. I have two wonderful assistants, who are amazing writers on their own (Tiffany & K.S. Pratt). They are going to be writing amazing pieces for our next magazine...which WILL be published 3/7/2013 @ 12am!

So, yeah. One of my New Years resolution is complete. How about my others? Write more poetry & publish it on my poetry site, write a novel, read a book a week, take a yoga class a week, work on my overall health, start running again, visit the beach more often, a date a week with my Boobie, etc etc... yeah those things are still in the works. In fact, in doing my research for Seven, I have decided to make it happen. How do I do that you say?

Well, so far Seven has taught me that if I make myself accountable to someone other than myself, I actually accomplish things because I feel like I am going to let someone down. So, I actually do things. What better way than to make my blog my source of reliability.

I plan on making a blog post 3x a week confirming what I had set out to do at the beginning of this year....TO W R I T E. I am affirming (oh Lawd) I am VOWING that 3x a week I will...YES I WILL...tell YOU (bless you for reading this) what I did that week to accomplish my goals of this resolution and how it has affected me.

So...if you don't mind, I have work to do...

 

2013 Resolution

I’m putting this in writing.

Not because my soul is aching for it, but because I read a book that said in order to realize ones goals, one must actually see them.

I’ve lost my way.

Word counts became too high, books got too wordy and the romance in words became lost in acronyms.

IDK, sometimes I wonder what’s the point?

No one feels words anymore.

I too have fallen victim to the unpersonalized world of speed language.

In an OH EM GEE world, the pen was replaced.

My goal is to revitalize my burning desire to feel the syllables.

I will become familiar with the feeling of pen on paper… fingers on a keyboard.

I will grovel to the undying glory of verbage and find my way back to its familiar camaraderie.

I will accept the title of Writer/Poet/Blogger.

My heart shall once again bleed the words unspoken.

For I am Pathetic.


(to be posted on my poetry library https://pathetic.org/library/6371)

Louis CK has a show!!

I love comedies. Even more though, I love stand up comedy. There's this dude named Louis CK. Super funny comedian, or at least I like to think so. His comedy focuses on his family and how he copes with lifes issues after a divorce. His comedy tends to be morbid at times. It's like your half expecting him to hang himself in a hilarious way right before he puts the mic down.

He has a couple of stand up specials, my favorite being Chewed Up (2008) and Hilarious (2009) BOTH are available on Netflix (which is quickly starting to fade in popularity, but that's for another day). Both of those specials made me a fan. I think I caught Chewed Up one night on Comedy Central. It was the edited version, of course, but I thought he was funny. It's kind of like the way I discovered Dane Cook. (Love me some late night Comedy Central viewing). Anywho, I just found out that he was a show on FX called Louie. It's a show that makes me sad in a happy way. I am REALLY late in discovering this show, apparently it's been on since 2010. Not only has it been on, but it's been nominated for many awards, including an Emmy. Season three is scheduled to air on FX network on June 28, 2012!

Ok, so late is an understatement. I finally caught up on season one and there were a couple of episodes that were hard to watch. Hard but not impossible, as I kept laughing along the way. (Season Two I'M COMING FOR YOU!!!) The episodes really don't follow any certain story line. It's all over the place and if you are expecting something, then don't. Watch each episode for what it is, a half hour of pure hilarity.

"I'm the guy that women see and they go UGH, and I'm like I know but let me just talk to you for a minute." The one reoccuring theme flowing through the show is that he is a self depreciating, raunchy, demoralized version of Seinfeld. He touches on everything from being divorced, awkward dating habits, feeling lonely, raising two girls and trying to make a career fro himself.

In truth, Louie, as a character never seems to grow. he is stuck in the same never ending depression tornado. The storm clouds hover over his shiny bald head and he stares up and laughs at it and continues to walk in the storm. Louie is a survivor. He is the proof that for some people Murphy's Law is a birth right.

There's an episode where he, at the age of 42, is being bullied by a high school punk while on a date. He walks away from a potential fight with a kid. His date seems horrified. When he asks her about it, she tells him "my mind is telling me you are a great guy, but my chemistry is telling me that you're a loser."

Sometimes our instints lie. Maybe, just maybe, our minds are trying to guide us in the right direction. My mind is telling me to continue to watch, because I want to see Louie's character continue to suffer and laugh at all his pain. It's not always about what situation you are in, but how you cope with it. It's about how you react to that situation and find some laughter in it. Louie is a fighter and when he can't take it anymore he grabs a microphone and for a couple of minutes, it's ok.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some catching up to do. Season three is only a couple of days away!!!

I finally did it...

I thought about it day in and day out. It was almost an obsession. I continued to look at myself in the mirror and wonder why. Here I was a couple of pounds lighter and I still looked the same way I did at the age of twenty-three. At what point was I going to become an adult? At what age was I going to start living the life of a real woman enjoying her thirties?

I wondered what it would look like, if I would like it, could I manage it? There were many questions lined up to knock me down, but the desire was still there. When the desire is there and the nagging feeling of "I need this" is looming in the distance, there is no stopping you. I sat down and discussed things with my other half and he finally convinced me to do it. "It's what you want to do. So what if you don't like it, it will grow back." He was right. 

The day had finally come where I needed to step back and look at the life I had lived up to this point. I know what you're thinking...this is all about a freaking hair cut? Yes, yes it is. my hair meant more to me than I don't know what. It was my comforter, it was my sex appeal, it was my shield. I wore it many different ways, but by far my favorite was when it was straight and you could see the length.

I loved the way it would flow in the wind, the way it rested in my shoulder and I loved to pull my hair from the back as I was concentrating on something. I still believe that when I was suffering from a severe writers block that little pull made all the difference.

Eventually, budget cuts hit and there was no way for me to constantly go out and blow dry my hair. It takes money to make kinky hair look nice. So, a bit of depression settled in. There was no way that I was going to blow dry that mop myself every three days. 

 I mean, come on... Look at that. Would you ever think that hair that curly could ever look straight? It does. My hair is thin, but ridiculously curly. I owe that luxury to my mixed genes. Luckily, I got more of the mom hair gene than the sperm donor, because her hair is lifeless straight and tends to lend a hand to the people who blow dry my hair. 

Anyway, let me tell you the story about when I went to the salon and finally gave in to cut my hair short. My hair dresser and I have had a ten year relationship. She and I have been through marriage, divorce, dating, and new relationships. She has been dying to cut my hair really short to give me a new look since my divorce five years ago. I always refused.

One day, I went to see her to become a red head. She loved this color on me and was dying to change it back to red (I was a severe red head years ago, think the Phoenix from X-Men). I caved and she changed it. But, since my hair was sooo long, she ran out of dye and had to re-mix another batch. The problem with this was that she didn't remember exactly how she mixed it. 

I was half asleep and didn't know what was going on, until I went to work. A co-worker of mine looked at me and said, 'Dude, your hair is two different colors.' I lost it. I didn't call her nor did I contact the salon. I knew this was on oversight on her part, but, I couldn't afford to continually go back there every other week. I was determined to find a new hair dresser.

I found one. He was amazing, he fixed my situation, but he wasn't her. His prices were great. The waiting time killed me. So, when it came down to getting my hair cut, I knew what I was going to do. I was going to call Carmen and set up an appoint and forgive her for her mistake. I was going to get my hair cut!!

 I made the appointment and showed her this picture. I want to look like Drew Barrymore, sans color. I want a short hair cut in order to cut away all the things that I have gone through in the last ten years. I WANT FREEDOM!!!! She looked at me and said, it's about time. But, are you sure. 

She knew how attached I was to my hair. Was I 100% sure, of course not. However, I couldn't handle the desire I had to get rid of my hair. The time had come for a change. Everything around me was changing. My world was starting to look brighter and I needed my hair to reflect that. 

She grabbed the scissor and cut. I'm not going to lie. At first, I was hyperventilating, but with each cut I felt lighter. I felt free. I felt more powerful that I have felt in a very long time. I was excited for the change. For every little change that I was making in my life.

I'm not going to continue to bore you with my dramatic outlook on life. Let's just say that I am happy. I do need to do a couple of other things to my hair because I didn't remember that cutting my hair smack in the middle of summer was a bit dumb on my part, seeing as the humidity in Miami and my curls don't like each other, but there isn't a day that I look back on my hair cut and doubt that I made the wrong decision. So, without further ado (is that how u spell that?)  MY BEFORE AND AFTER SHOT. 

Tell me...and be honest....WHAT DO YOU THINK?