The Gauntlet

There's nothing like watching three girls perform the opening scene from Mo' Better Blues in a classroom. The baby of my bunch, who's crying that everything is unfair, is a natural. I watched her play the role of middle aged Black man as if she were channeling him. There was no gossip. There were no arguments. When the imaginary cameras were rolling it was serious business. I finally found something they loved doing, and I got through the day on four hours minutes sleep, a long day.

It started with a trip to Chinatown to Tiger Shrimp, then it went to the Central library so that I could check out screenplays. Some client work came in. I had to peel, devein and season the shrimp and them make the shells into stock (for details check culinaryintercourse.blogspot.com), then get to work, wolf down two homemade empanadas this Mexican couple sells not far from the job, engage the kiddies, come home, help with the computer system at my godmother's store for the fifth time in three days, give Ifaniyi a viewing of Episode 9 of The Wire and then make dinner for my darling sis, Seda, who I was so rush that I didn't get a chance to take a picture of on the one out of a hundred days when she actually visited the lodge. She brought this dope Italian dessert wine called Cascina Fonda and then we watched Michael Clayton. After she left there were the dishes and a blog about the meal and then I finally fell off into a slumber of the dead, the first as such in several days.

Now there's laundry to fold, a treatment to finish, a manuscript to get back into, Scrabble at school and an afterwork magazine launch event in the city. I guess I better take my vitamins. Out.