MY ONE GOOD NERVE

......so, okay, i get this email last night at 5:55 pm from my manager informing me and the rest of the staff that there is a mandatory staff meeting on thursday at 10:00 am....."clear your calendars immediately...we will be discussing the new state contract." hmpf! first off, i'm a contract employee, i get paid for the work i do. you give me no 401K, no stock option, no health benefits and you're telling me something is mandatory? excuse me, but the last time i checked my american heritage, MANDATORY meant: "required, obligatory, needed, essential" and there ain't a damn thing essential or obligatory about your meeting or this state contract. i have no interest in talking about something that is not malleable....the state issues the dictum, we do what we're told. what's there to discuss? furthermore, i've got some stencil work to do in my kitchen, some more rows to knit on my scarf that's looking too fly (by the way, Nakachi i found two knitting books. now all i need to do is learn that purl stitch and learn how to read a pattern)....i've got to wash and re-twist my hair cause a sister is rolling up to Harlem USA this weekend and you know the wig has GOT to be looking good....i've got some polishing i need to do to that prologue, poems i need to prune and some i need to print out for this chapbook i'm putting together (cause you know a sister is all about kuchichagulia and ain't waiting around for some white man at some university journal to look at my stuff and say okay, it's good enough now).....no, no, no....a sister has got work to do. do you hear me? WORK! not your paycheck at the end of a long-ass week when i'm too tired to even get to the bank and got more bills than your money is covering anyway. i'm talking about life work. PURPOSE. i'm not talking about you and your jack rabbits sitting around a crowded ass conference table in a too small room staring at each other and listening to you talk too damn long when it's 75 beautiful degrees outside and i'm jonesing for some serious san francisco and some poetry and a vibe meeting with my girl nakachi where we can spin rainbows that swirl up and around and through our nappiness and talk about our plans to make this world a better place by teaching the young folks how to read and write and express themselves and maybe, just maybe we can take our groove to africa and cuba and brazil and places where the indigenous folks are just waiting, waiting, waiting for someone with some real HEART to show up cause po' folks can't just survive offa your rice shipments....i ain't talking about your work. i'm talking 'bout what i got to do before i die. that's what i'm talking about.
so you can take your jive ass mandatory meeting somewhere else cause right about now a sister is totally feeling virginia woolf and that room of one's own and the cash flow to make it so.

be well. be love(d).
angel