It Was the Worst of Times; It Was the Worst of Times

On New Year's Day 2009, Tania Jackson had the traditional New Year's meal of collard greens (for prosperity) and black eyed peas (for good luck) at her mother's house. Her good friend Mafara Hobson came as well, and brought her mother who was in town from Memphis, Tennessee. The mother-daughter pairs raised glasses of prosecco in a toast to Mafara,who was celebrating her birthday. Afterwards Tania went for a somewhat impromptu reunion with high school era friends, ending up staying out until 5 in the morning.

As she crawled into bed that morning, before she drifted off into the boneless sleep of the truly spent and exhausted, Tania's head was filled with bubbly energy and excitement. 2008, a year filled with horrific revelations, bad diagnoses, epic feuds and exhaustion, was finally over. Huzzah! 2009 had arrived and it was going to be fabulous. Or at least much better than 2008.

Two weeks off at the end of the year proved refreshing; on January 5th Tania walked into work with a sense of purpose and ideas aimed at infusing new life into all of her projects. As she reorganized her desk and patted herself on the back (mentally, of course) for taking the time to eat breakfast and make her own version of a triple venti vanilla skim latter (hold the vanilla syrup and use Peet's vastly superior coffee, pour into 16 oz Peet's coffee car cup), she thought to herself: "2009 is going to be a stellar year."


. . . yes, I've heard the adage that if you want to hear God laugh, you tell her you have plans. I just never actually listened to it.

Mixed Review

I'm still in a post-Grammy haze. First there's the brouhaha about Chris Brown & Rihanna... everyone is featuring stories that speculate about all kinds of ridiculous scenarios. I wish the media could just wait and see, but I guess that doesn't sell magazines or bandwith.

Barring that, this was the first time in years I've been excited or energized about any of the Grammy-ness. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus. Really sad about how Justin Timberlake tried to outsing Al Green, who was like, "I got this." Too bad Wanya Morris didn't get to do the same (am I the only one who thought his mike got turned down just as he decided to go for it?).

I absolutely loved the Swagga Like Us performance. Props to M.I.A. and her due date performance. She's now my hero.

I'm very disappointed that American Gangster didn't get the props it deserves. I get why Li'l Wayne is popular, and I don't subscribe to the theory that he's all mindless & doped up lyrics. BUT I don't see a whole lot of rhymecraft or lyrical styling going into much of hip hop these days.