Archive for October, 2008
i don’t celebrate halloween…
Oct 31st
…I find other ways to honor the dead. Not judging. Just not my thing.
(Click here if you’d like to actually learn the origins of the holiday).
But if you want scary, here ya go. Happy effin Halloween:
who’s the master? sho-nuff!
Oct 30th
I’ve always loved the saying “It takes courage to be yourself.”
Throughout my life, many people have told me that they admire the fact that I am never scared to be myself. For the longest time, I didn’t understand what that meant. How can one not be his or herself? What or who else could you possibly be?
But recently, conversations with loved ones and associates have revealed to me, that for some, it’s hard to be who they really are under the weight of others’ judgement. It brings me to a few questions:
Are you truly living your life if you live it according to how others believe you should live it?
And if you live your whole life according to how others believe you should live it, are you okay with the fact that though these people who are around to tell you how to live your life now, will be nowhere to be found once you are faced with the outcome of the decisions they’ve made for you? (When you hear a lot of “Well no one told you to listen to me.”s)
Furthermore, isn’t it always hilarious when you “make it” in life (after growing a backbone and deciding to live life the way you feel God intended you to) and the same people who told you you were doing it the wrong way come around and kiss your ass?
We all have a unique coding. We all have a map of our path, a snapshot of our destiny, and an idea of the obstacles that may arise along the way to attaining them and our ability to surpass them.
We know our capabilities and our weaknesses, our talents and our shortcomings, our purpose for being and the heights we will reach. All of this is engrained within our minds and souls. At our purest we can tune in on them like a radio dial and have the clearest understanding of each.
However, outside variables (ie. anything that ultimately affects your perception of self) can alter the frequencies. What we know of who we are becomes fuzzy. We lose clarity and allow others to try to describe for us what we are squinting to see. That’s when everything goes to shit.
The answer isn’t in anyone else. What they think we should do, who they think we are–none of that matters if we can’t see it ourselves.
It’s like in The Last Dragon (if you have yet to see it there is something seriously wrong with you), when Leroy’s teacher pokes Leroy in his forehead says “It is THERE and ONLY there, that you will find the master.” Leroy was on the quest to attain the glow and couldn’t see that it was already within him… that he was the only one standing in his way.
Block out all the static, tune in to the Master within and bring her/him out.
You’ve got the glow.
cyu
for those who have inquired…
Oct 29th
Along with my modeling portfolio, I’ve added my writing portfolio in my closet down below.
It includes the pieces that I’ve written thus far that have been published.
It will be updated shortly as a few of my more recent pieces have not yet been added, but feel free to take a look.
happy tuesday and all that jazz,
cyu
t.i. talks about life and rihanna yoddles on the chorus
Oct 29th
This song grew on me. I like T.I.’s lil’ message in the beginning and the overall message of the song. Peep below.
usher sends a message
Oct 29th
Ursssher’s new video for his song “Hush” has a political/social message. View below.
keep makin’ that platinum and gold fa me
Oct 28th
So according to the numbers, you guys kinda love me for some reason. LOL. No idea why.
And I don’t normally discuss numbers because honestly if only two of you visited consistently, I’d still be writing LOL. It’s not about that for me. It’s more therapeutic than one might think.
But today, I have to share because so far, and the day is not over, 515 of you have visited Qomplesso.
That’s right today Qomplesso went Gold.
And for that, I deeply thank you.
I very much appreciate you sharing in my insanity.
And the crazy only gets deeper my friends. LOL
love, peace and McCain’s fake teeth,
cyu
two days of soul – part three
Oct 27th
Minutes after we position ourselves in front of the short set of steps leading up to the stage, the room begins to fill. Before we know it, my friend and I are at the very front of about 250 Prince fans packed into this small room. The tension builds as gentle elbow nudges become forceful shoves.
Prince’s long-time assistant addresses the antsy crowd. “Yo! Listen up. Don’t push the people in the front. There are steps here!” A girl who apparently got very little attention as a child maneuvers her way in front of me. I hold in the Bronx chick. Be cool, be cool Q. “Ice Cold!” André 3000 yells in some back room of my mind.
“Oh she’s gonna get handled if she tries to touch Prince,” my friend says laughing.
“What do you mean??”
“He don’t like all that touchy shit. And his mean-ass guards don’t appreciate it much either.”
Prince no likey touchey. Check.
I make a mental note-to-self just in time to see the guards enter stage-right.
They do look mean.
The band takes the stage. The crowd applauds. Prince’s two back-up singers follow close behind. Excitement builds. And finally, cooler than a polar bear’s toenails, following his main bodyguard, an approximately 5′2″, spandex bell-bottom clad Prince saunters by, two feet in front of me, up the stairs and takes center-stage. The crowd goes crazy. I go crazy. How does this man, who has the frame of a 16-year-old girl manage to drive so many women (and straight men for the matter) crazy? It’s at this moment, when Prince takes his shades off and flings them to the stage floor, that I realize Prince has all of Jay-Z’s swag in his petite talent-electrified pinky.
I am watching Prince on-stage. IIII am watching Prince on-stage. This isn’t happening.
My daze is broken. Prince’s guard has pounced on innocent by-standers in the crowd to reach a man who’d pulled out his camera. His camera is now the guard’s property. Other picture-takers decide the challenge is worth it. They brave the guards’ threatening gaze for one snap of Prince. One by one, they all come down.
Damn. They weren’t playing about the no-camera rule.
The first note the tiny man strums on his guitar sends the crowd on a trip that lasts the entire night. He handles his guitars like he’s playing with the wind. His fingers don’t even appear to touch the instruments and their sounds seem to be channeled through his body escaping from his mouth instead of where his hands move. He displays his mastery with ease. The stage, the mics, the instruments, the lighting–this little man brings it all to life. Electric word, Life. It means forever. And that’s unquestionably how long Prince’s music will be relevant.
He rocks out most of his classics and continues on to rock out everyone else’s. Halfway through making The Beatles’ “Come Together” come together more than they ever did, Prince stops and decides:
“I need some dancers on the stage. Let’s get some dancers up here!”
Lady luck takes another form. This time she’s Prince’s singer. She approaches the crowd.
Screams. Reaching hands. One connects.
Wait… that’s mine! Oh my god, she’s pulling me up.
Within seconds I find myself on stage, literally five inches behind Prince himself.
Prince is rocking out in front of me…. I am dancing… on-stage… with PRINCE. How am I not fainting?? Focus Qimmah. Look cute.
I dance as hard as I possibly can without looking like an earnest fool, who, in fact, happened to be dancing next to me in the form of a corny-looking rhythm-less White dude.
Hair! Down! To his knees! Got to be a joker, he just do what he please!
Prince glances back. My knees slightly give. I play it off with a dance move. He’s a living legend and I am sharing the stage with him. Gots to keep it funky. Even if it feels like a hazey surreal dream sequence.
Thank God I actually worked on this outfit.
“We got a special guest singer!” Prince yells. “Come on up here Dave! You gon’ have to sing or play the tambourine or somethin’!”
Dave Chappelle jumps on the stage with his perfected goofiness and jumps on the mic.
“I wasn’t expectin’ this man! I’m not prepared! I cain’t do it!”
“You gon’ have to!” Prince shouts back. “Do SOMEthin’”
“Gimme the tambourine! Gimme the tambourine!,” Dave yells in his Rick James voice. One is tossed to him and he beats it against his hip to the music. “I’m playin’ the tambourine at the muthf&^*in Prince concert!!!!”
Am I actually on this 10×10 stage with Dave Chappelle and Prince???? If I’m dreamin’, just let me sleep.
Prince, then, addresses the fortunate volunteers. “Aight y’all I’m ’bout to kick a solo. Y’all gots to go.”
The earnest fool, the other lucky girl and I rush back down into the crowd and spend the next fifteen minutes in awe of the experience and deflecting piercing hater stares. I don’t care. I’m still radiating from his electricity.
After two hours of musical majesty, Prince says thank you, good night and exits the stage. Apparently, the fans are aware of this part of the show and are sure of his return. So much so that no one budges. Chants for his return begin. I think he’s gone but I don’t mind. If it ends right now, I couldnt’ve asked for more.
But it was nowhere near over.
To be continued…
cyu
no air
Oct 27th
Life is ill. The moment you complain about things that happen in yours and begin to contemplate whether or not life is worth living, you are either tried with the possibility of losing it or made to appreciate it after seeing others lose theirs.
Both happened to me this morning. I was far from complaining about my life but I was beginning to become overwhelmed by its temporary lack of solid direction. I was beginning to let the weight of decisions and possibilities depress me. That was until I boarded my Airtran return flight from Atlanta.
I sat in a window seat about halfway into the aircraft. That was fine. I’ve flown many times and seat positioning (especially on Airtran whose planes are the size of buses) has never induced anxiety. I said my prayer, asking God to give the pilot the skill and sense to guide my plane safely to the LaGuardia landing strip. I took out my book, turned on my iPod when it was allowed, propped up my Brookstone neck pillow and got into my zone. Not even the huge White man who was continually and uncomfortably shifting in his seat beside me disturbed my peace.
About 45 minutes into my flight, as I sat listening to Sisqo and Mariah Carey harmonize about the “Beautiful Ones” who hurt you every time, I realized my breathing had gotten pretty shallow.
Ok Qimmah, breathe girl. Deep breath.
I attempted to expand my lungs and not much expanding took place.
Breathe Qimmah.
Suddenly, the White man next to me became that much bigger, the seat in front of me that much closer and the air within the plane hardly breathable.
“Excuse me. I’m sorry, I have to get up.”
I damn near shove my way past my two seat neighbors who had gotten up to let me out. I made my way to the back of the plane and tapped the flight attendant who was seated in her special back-of-the-plane seat.
“Excuse me,” I said much more calmly than I anticipated.
“How can I help you, honey,” said the middle-aged badly blonde-streaked and way too made up attendant.
“Do you have one of those bags?”
Weird look. I press on.
“I’m kinda um, I can’t um.”
My lungs got heavy like two flour sacks. I sat with a thud in the seat next to her. She seemed shocked. I told her not to panic.
Qimmah why are you calming her down?? Focus on life!
Deep breath girl. DEEP BREATH!
Very little air was making it in. My head began to spin. I saw the attendant run to the front of the plane.
Qimmah you need to find air.
I tilted my head, saw the green Unoccupied sign and realized I was right in front of the bathroom. I pushed in the door. Holding myself up against the mirror I found the vent. More importantly I found fresh air.
One breath in. Out through the mouth. Again Qimmah. Second breath in. The bathroom door flew open. “Here she is,” said the blonde. “Are you okay, darlin?” said the attendant the other had gone to get.
“I’ll be okay,” I forced out.
Don’t belittle it Qimmah.
“Here,” she handed me the very bag I poorly described minutes earlier. I sat on the closed toilet and after a few heavy breaths in the bag returned to my window seat.
I prayed for strength.
Then I slept for lack of a better solution.
When I awoke we were on the ground at LaGuardia Airport.
I prayed again.
I hadn’t even left the airport when I received news that Jennifer Hudson’s nephew who had been kidnapped after her mother and brother were murdered in their home, was also found dead today. I cried and said a prayer for Jennifer.
Half an hour later, I walked into my office building in Midtown and was greeted by commotion. A woman was being taken out by EMTs on a stretcher. She’d had a heart attack.
As I sit in front of this computer, in this office, doing this job that I have complained about too many times to remember, I am forced to retract my past sentiments.
I have absolutely nothing to complain about.
Among all of the many blessings I have received… I can breathe.
Be grateful today, my loves, if for no other reason than the fact that you can breathe too.
Please send a prayer up to whoever it is you pray to for Jennifer Hudson and her family. And call your own and tell them how much you love them.
cyu
diddy x l’uomo vogue
Oct 23rd
Diddy continues the trend of Blacks on the cover of Vogues. Fur coats and bling, I expect nothing less from Sean “Puff-Puffy-Puff Daddy-Diddy-P.Diddy-Dum-diddly-doo-dah” Combs.
do you think about me now and then, i’m comin’ home again
Oct 23rd
home [hohm] noun – the place in which one’s domestic affections are centered.
There are many definitions of home but I like the above the best.
I’ve been contemplating the importance of roots lately. Being grounded. Having a place to go back to that’s familiar. When my family relocated to Atlanta, my home in the Bronx became merely a house. Calling it a house was even a stretch after the shady real estate company built another house right on top of my adjacent yard in efforts to expand and make more money. It felt like my childhood memories were buried right underneath the ugly two-family they threw up. It stung like bad perm.
I soon learned, however, that my home is, in fact, where my heart is. My family and my close friends whom I consider family carry my home with them.
As I prepare to travel to Atlanta tomorrow for my Alma Mater’s homecoming, I think about the associates who have come and gone, the colleagues who wouldn’t recognize me if I walked right by them in the street. But then, my mind comes to those who have been in my life for years and years. Those who weren’t there for a reason or season but for the long-haul. Those who’ve become siblings without sharing blood and those whom I can’t fathom what life would be like if I had never met them.
The winds of life have a way of bullying your soul. Wearing down your edges. Chafing your spirit.
Home, your place of refuge or the refuge you find in someone, is the healing balm for the bruises and cuts you’re left with after life kicks your ass.
My flat may only be a one-bedroom but when it comes to homes, I have a 50-room mansion.
And not even this recession can touch my mansion.
cyu