The Urbane Urbanite

After a six-year hiatus, I've made a triumphant return to the big screen ! The small screen ! Okay, your computer screen! Yep, I've got a lead role , a supporting role, a small role as a therapist in one scene of the fifth episode of the upcoming comedic web series, Jackson & Lewis (think Bad Boys meets The Odd Couple ).

Image Used in an Old Blog Post about the NY Giants 2008 Ticker Tape Parade Last night, the New York Giants clenched another victory against the New England Patriots in the final nail-biting moments of Super Bowl XLVI - and I couldn't be happier. I yelled. I screamed. I ate my feelings. I clutched my chest. It was EVERYTHING! In honor of their win, I ransacked my archives and unearthed a blog post (on a now defunct blog) that I wrote four years ago about my experience at the ticker tape parade in celebration of Big Blue's win in 2008. Here's the blog post...subpar writing, corny puns, misplaced commas and all. I've grown as a writer as much as the Giants have grown as a team. *Runs to Modell's to grab a new hat and shirt for tomorrow's parade* ____ On Tuesday, members of the 2008 World Champion NY Giants football team, rode floats headed up The Canyon of Heroes (Broadway) to the cheers and admiration of thousands of their most die-hard fans. There we...

View from my suite (Photo: S. James) If I could add an additional 1000 square feet to my apartment at home; swap out the hardwood for marble floors; throw in a master bathroom the size of a NYC studio apartment; and switch my drab view of Papa Johns with crystal clear blue ocean waters, my spot would look just like the rooms here at The Seven Stars Resort in the Turks and Caicos. I feel so at home here; it's less hotel, more home away from home. I soooo needed this getaway. The winter blues began to set in. I was starting to live in my feelings on a daily basis. Again. And just when I was on the brink of an inevitable wall slide, my beloved editor hit me up and asked me to review this beautiful resort. Take a look at some pictures I shot of the 2 bedroom 2.5 bathroom suite I'm calling home. Cheers! www.sevenstarsgracebay.com My welcome package! (Photo: S. James) Living Room (Photo: S. James) Master Bathroom (Photo: S. James) Master Bedroom (Phot...

My Holiday Party Guests Piled Toys for Tots Near The Tree I hosted my 3rd annual holiday party last weekend - and it was a success! The sangria was flowing (until it was all gone); the food was hot (until the food warmer thingy blew out) and the DJ was spinning (until she was ret ta go). My guests had a great time. I couldn't have asked for a better night. But this year I did something different. I teamed up with The Apostles' House whose mission is "to provide comprehensive social services to homeless and at-risk families and individuals in the Newark, [NJ] area in an environment that encourages and enables self-sufficiency." I received a text message from a friend stating that they were in need of toys for homeless children staying there this holiday season. So, in lieu of a bottle, I asked my guests to bring an unwrapped toy to donate to the kiddies at The Apostles' House - and they did not disappoint. I had over 40 partygoers at my crib and ended up w...

Photo: S. James  Del don't do road trips. Usually. I have terrible childhood memories of being sandwiched in the back seat of an unairconditioned hooptie, riding down south in the middle of the summer. *Shudders*  So naturally, when talk of a road trip comes up, I'm the first one on the computer looking up a flight to said destination and making plans to meet my travel mates there. In my mind, by the time they get to the hotel completely aggravated, cranky and smelling of automobile, I'm already checked into my room, curled up with a Kindle and enthralled in a good book. Such was the case this past summer when my homies decided that a road trip from northern New Jersey to Toronto was in order for the 4th of July weekend.

My Room With A View Photo: S. James It's late October, but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone with the fall blues here in Clearwater Beach, Florida - including me. As I type this, I'm sprawled out on the balcony of my oceanfront suite at the Sandpearl, a world class resort and spa facility that calls The Gulf of Mexico its backyard. And I'm not the only one taking in this beautiful day. There are folks sunbathing on the sundeck near the lagoon swimming pool. The kiddies are playing in the sand. And others are getting their toes wet, walking along the shore. Photo: S. James I'm here on assignment reviewing the Sandpearl for one of the lifestyle publications I write for. Slave labor, I know. But someone's gotta do it, right?  I haven't been here 24 hours and I've already: Nibbled on shrimp, lobster and chocolate covered strawberries during a private food, wine and dessert tasting in Sandpearl's private standalone beachfront guest sui...

Homer, ancient Greek poet & scholar Scholarly is the last word I would used to describe myself. In fact, the adjective is on my list of words people overuse when describing themselves and others. (Other words include: epic. icon. amazing. etc.) But, today, I am quite proud to announce that I've got a clip in a scholarly journal. Woot! Woot! Wait. Are written pieces in journals even called "clips?" The word "clips" sounds too light and general - not serious enough. I think the proper phrasing is: I've got an article published in a scholarly journal. Ah, yes. That sounds much better. Yes, yours truly has a piece in JENdA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies. *Takes Bow*  Here's how it all came to be.

I didn't lose anyone on September 11, 2001. I don't even know anyone personally who lost a friend or loved one that day. And because of that, I've always felt like an observer, like a voyeur who stood and watched this heinous, horrific thing happen to other people. If I had to guess, I would say it's because of the way I watched the attacks on The World Trade Center unfold: From a large office window in New Jersey, just close enough to know that what I was watching was real but far enough removed to be out of harm's way.

In 2009, I decided to take the Praxis exam to become certified to teach theatre. Ever the researcher, I got in touch with some friends who are theatre teachers to pick their brains. They told me what books to buy, what series of flashcards to study, how the questions would be setup on the test. The works! Ever the procrastinator, I put off studying until the very last minute. I finally whipped out my notes and tried to cram 300 flashcards full of theatrical information into my brain a week before the exam. Needless to say, I failed with flying colors. I'm well-versed in performance, production and professional knowledge, but when it comes to history, theory and literature - you know, like who invented puppetry and middle Greek comedy - yeah, I'm clueless. And it was in those specific categories which I scored the lowest.

I started working on my novel (for real, for real) in January of this year. I sat down and pumped out a couple of decent chapters. And I got some good feedback that propelled me to keep writing. As I started to use the momentum to pump out more work, something stopped me dead in my tracks: Procrastination. I would set aside time to sit down and write or brainstorm or jot down notes and plot ideas, but, instead, end up on Twitter shooting the breeze with hundreds of folks I do not know. I quickly zeroed in on the problem and scaled back on my tweets. In the past two weeks, Foursquare check-ins and blog promotion aside, I've only tweeted 23 times. That equals out to about 1.6 tweets per day. And more than half of those tweets were replies to messages sent directly to me. Just when I thought I had tamed my social media activities and was back on the road to literary success, my clever, crafty ass found o...

I attended my very first (and certainly not my last) National Association of Black Journalists Convention & Career Fair in Philadelphia last week. The Philadelphia Convention Center was the nerve center for everything NABJ: Ceremonies, panels, receptions, parties, film screenings, celebrity performances and a huge career fair. Although I was in reporter mode covering the event for VIBE magazine, I still managed to attend several panels, a couple of receptions and one lively film screening.

Image: S. James An unseasonably cool breeze whips through my rental car as I zoom up I-80 on my way from the San Francisco International Airport to The Meritage Resort & Spa in southern Napa Valley. After a six-hour flight from New York City, the fresh air is a welcome reprieve. The one-hour drive, which features glimpses of The San Francisco Bay, grassy knolls and rugged mountainous terrain, goes by in a flash. And before I know it, I pull up to a palatial 158-room resort that looks like an estate plucked straight from a Tuscan painting. I can't wait to check in! Image: Courtesy of The Meritage Resort & Spa

I've been having the same nightmare once a week for several months straight. The nocturnal reverie always stars a teenage me in the tail end of my senior year in high school. The dream typically begins with me strolling the school halls with textbooks in my hands, chatting up my fellow classmates. And usually ends with me groveling at the feet of a teacher whose class I've cut the entire school year, begging her not to fail me. And then, just like that, I wake up sweaty, out of breath and clutching my neck where I imagine pearls to be. I hate this dream. Hate it. Mostly because it feels so real and always leaves me in bed trying to remember if I actually graduated high school or not. Yep, the dream feels that real. For the longest, I've been trying to figure out the reasoning behind this recurring dream. Is someone trying to tell me something? Should I retake the Praxis test I failed two years ago and succumb to my urges to become a teacher? And then last week, ou...

I was 8-years-old when I owned my very first album. Up until that point, Mom would purchase singles for me. The first single I ever owned was the Inspector Gadget theme song sampled joint by Bad Boys. And yes, it was a vinyl record. I'm sure Mom still has it. She's a pack rat. But the very first full length album that I not only owned but listened to from start to finish was Tracy Chapman's eponymous debut. The young man who drove the church van would always talk to me about this album that he could not stop listening to. One Sunday, he surprised me with a copy he recorded for me. After church, I ran straight to my tape recorder to give it a listen. Even at the tender age of 8, I could recognize good music when I heard it. I instantly connected with Tracy Chapman , especially the popular single "Fast Car." Backed by a gentle percussion and acoustic guitar arrangement, Chapman narrates a story of loss, hope and despair as her dreams for a better li...

Every now and then, I need to make a quick escape. Life gets tough and the four walls in my apartment in New Jersey - as much as I adore my crib - start to close in on me and I want out! This past weekend was rough. I had a lot on my mind and needed a change of scenery. A change of pace. Different air to breathe.  Something to help me clear my head and take a break from my thoughts. I knew just where to flee: Brooklyn.

Tucked away in a top secret location, handwritten using my favorite writing utensil (a Pilot Pen Precise V7 roller ball ink pen) on a titleless sheet of paper torn from a legal size notepad is a list of everyone I've ever had sex with. Yep. I keep a list - and yes, it's numbered.

I drooled the entire time I thumbed through Esquire's spring/summer 2011 Big Black Book. There are so many spring/summer must-haves that I simply...must have! Wing Tip Shoes Linen Jackets Canvas Bags Tortoise Shell Shades Colored Chinos *Hides Debit Card* *Sigh* But the number one thing on my spring must-have list: white denim. I know. The mere mention of the words can be a bit off-putting. I imagine wine spilling on them during dinner. Or coming home with a dingy ass at the end of the day from sitting on filthy subway seats. But there are some perks to rocking white jeans: they go with practically everything, and you can easily dress them up and down. But no matter how you decide to rock them, they always give your look a fresh, clean finish that blends well with everything from light, airy hues to woodsy palettes. I wouldn't mind rocking mine with a pair of my desert boots like so. JCrew does a great job of showcasing how easy it is to pull together a whi...

I've known for a while now that my short story "The Ballerina" had been selected as the fourth runner-up (fifth place) in Pen Tales ' inaugural short story contest. But I decided to wait until they made an official announcement before I blasted it all over my blog, mostly because I couldn't believe it. I am a very insecure writer. Very. I write with great confidence but I am terribly insecure about how others will perceive my work. If that makes sense. That being said, I had no intentions of winning anything when I entered the contest. At all. Whatsoever. Seriously, I wrote the story just for the sake of writing. I had reached a serious roadblock with my novel writing , which still exists today (more on that sadness in another post), and welcomed the opportunity to work on something else. Here's how I stumbled upon the contest.

*Throws self on carry-on bag* Why Lawd WHY? *Sigh* Yesterday, I came home from a fantastical extended weekend getaway in northern California. (Review coming soon.) I had a ball. That jaunt was just what the doctor ordered. The cat's meow. The bee's knees. The yin to my yang. The - well, you get the point. But I swear, as soon as my flight landed at JFK and I walked down the jetway into the airport, my shoulders started to tighten, jaws suddenly clenched and all of my day-to-day anxieties came flooding back to me at once. Granted, I was extremely jet-lagged, had been awake since 3:00AM Pacific Standard Time, didn't sleep on the plane, had indigestion from dinner from the night before, barely ate anything at all and sat in traffic for 3 hours before I got home, but still, there was something more going on here. Because I'm a hypochondriac, I hopped on my phone (as I sat in traffic) and Googled my symptoms. Turns out, I'm suffering from Post Vacation Depres...

*Sigh* I hate to admit this, but no, I do not know how to swim. It troubles me terribly because the moment I tell someone that, I instantly feel like a stereotype - and rightfully so.