A year ago today I hadn’t thought much about what happens when you die, or even what could happen when millions of people who feel a connection to a man like Michael Jackson suddenly lose him.

Full disclosure: I am a moody, easily depressed, sensitive about my writing type of person. When concepts won’t quite gel in my mind or I don’t have much to say, I feel pretty hopeless. When I’m flying high and full of ideas nothing can stop me. Then there’s that in-between place where I know what I want to say but don’t feel like saying it for free. That’s just real talk. Anyway for the past month I’ve been each of those for about five minutes every day in rapid succession, a cycle powered by what I now see was just…

I’ve been, to say the least, a bad blogger lately. It’s easy to lose track of things and who I’ve told about what between the Facebook fan page, Twitter, and the podcasts. So let me update you all so that I don’t start getting “where the heck you been at, Thembi?” messages and everyone can bear with me during this frantic time.

About a year ago I put up a post with this same title. At the time, I’d just been accepted into the University of Southern California’s Specialized Journalism Master’s program, so I was like wow y’all I’m…

The whole online dating thing is beyond out of control. This weekend BlackPeopleMeet.com tried to break fly and use a picture of D’Angelo in a Facebook ad, so I roasted them appropriately and moved on. But then this morning I opened my e-mail to find this:

Direct your gaze to the upper left-hand corner. Did a Black Big Beautiful Women dating site just send me a St. Paddy’s Day promotion?

Let me explain. A few years ago I did an online dating experiment. I

Of course I’ve never been to Freaknik. Of COURSE not. I didn’t go to an HBCU and it was banned by the time I was of age anyway. What I do know about is Philadelphia’s Greek Picnic. When I was little my dad took me a few times. He’d perch me on his shoulders, showing his first born baby girl off to his frat brothers. But that’s back when it was a picnic; by the time I went again I was in college and it wasn’t about the actual event, it was about people hanging out on South Street and…

People always ask me, “Thembi, how do you find this stuff?” Well, this week I’m going to walk you through the process because there is no reason why a perfectly sane woman such as myself should be asking any questions about Corey Johnson. Please bear with me as I take you through the tragically painful journey of discovering all there is to know about this person.

After my much needed hiatus I’m refreshed and re-focused…well, sort of. Since I spent the first week of the new year laying low I only absorbed all of the motivational “let get it in 2010!” talk from afar, and am rejoining the online community in a regular winter blues state of mind. It’s cold. It’s not just December on the East Coast cold, it’s freezing. I spent my time away in FLORIDA where it was only fifty degrees or so, which is way better than the negative temperatures I would have faced at home but still a huge rip off

It felt like a big explosion, minus the whole heat and debris part. So not an explosion at all, I guess. Just a swift kick in the gut.

I’ve been on pins and needles all week because this site was hacked by a malicious password-seeking virus. I’d rather drink pepper spray while sitting on a cactus and being fondled by Rush Limbaugh than have anything bad happen to this website. Fortunately, I’m slowly rebuilding what was lost in the recovery, mainly the last week’s worth of posts and comments, so if you left a comment anytime last week I’m sorry – it’s gone, just a fleeting moment, thanks for participating, au revoir. But hey, I’ll be back in full swing before

My freshman year of high school was so uneventful that I don’t even remember it. All I recall is my first serious teacher, Mr. Mealey, making me think about science in a logical and analytical way that until that point was unprecedented (even in the Mentally Gifted Program). A quick glance at the wiki entry on music of 1993 makes matters much clearer: that was the year of Wu-Tang’s Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

Mmmm hmmm, that’s right. That is Ghostface Killah aka Tony Starks aka the thug gangsta jump off man of my fantasies with yours truly. Last weekend Ghostface did a show in my town, and when I heard he’d be signing autographs just

It happens to most black women. Whether you have relaxed or natural hair, a weave, or braids. I’m talking about white people asking questions and making nutty comments about your hair.

If you spend any time in an environment where blacks are in the minority (i.e. if you have a job), then there has to be someone who wants to touch your ‘fro, another who asks how long your braids took, and another who innocently inquires about your new weave. The effects of humidity and heat styling on Negro hair are lost to most people, and the difference between a “perm” and a “curly perm” has still not been clarified for the masses.