Dirty Thoughts - Stars

Cue up “A Star Is Born” - Jay Z ft. J. Cole . . . Okay, is it playing? Good now we can start!

That was the song that I wanted to hear after over 48 hours of contraction and of course screaming at the top of my lungs. “Everyday a star is born / Clap for 'em, clap for 'em, clap for 'em / Hey” .

I wanted to hear that song because Hip Hop is life (duh!) but more importantly because stars are born everyday. Why not breath greatness into her from the start?

By now those of you who read my “monthly” post know me well enough to assume I am itching to come back from maternity leave lol. I don’t know how you ladies do it! I have been sneaking and checking my emails, trying to plot on my next move. I mean just picture me walking around the house with the baby strapped to me scheduling out CopyWrite business from my phone in one hand and the vacuum cleaner in the other Haaaaaaaa! I’m ridiculous.

So of course I’m writing this while she is taking a nap (there is no free time) and just staring at her little face, it was all worth it. Every sleepless night, every headache, every body ache, it was worth it to see her little smile while she sleeps.

Now for business. . . I’m clearly going to be a lot more busy these days grooming this lil sassy pants to take over the empire lol but until then I’m focusing in on young creatives who need resume and portfolio boosters that want to #SupportTheLocal

I’m talking about INTERNS & creative STARS! So this is the time to join the CW family. I have project stipends available, press privileges, college credits, teaching opportunities, training opportunities, publishing opportunities and more. My team will be taking over the creative scene this coming Fall. We want more for our city, our people, and our community. We do more and we don’t fold. We break the mold. We are not your average media company….but ya’ knew dat!

So if you want in (Photographers, videographers, journalist, graphic designers, bloggers, & creatives) Please Apply!

Now leave me alone for the next 2 weeks lol I will be back soon. Hatched & Snatched, with a big smile on my face, ready to go HARD!

/Dirty

Dirty Thoughts - A New Boss (Baby)

Over the past few years at CopyWrite there has been a running joke when I am introduced by /CW staff at an event or when I walk into a room, to call me the “Boss Lady”. I used to chuckle at the idea of me being the boss of anything, let alone anybody because as my Old Head (that’s my grandma for those of you who are still not on game) has always told me, “It cost to be the boss”. AND I PAY FOR IT EVERY TIME!

Not that it was ever something I thought of, but by default I have become a “boss” and it has shaped my mental growth, my ambition to help others, and to always strive for greatness.

But being a boss is more than just being in control, its being a role model, a leader, a mentor, a resource, a sounding board, a pep talker, an assist, a defender, a barricade, an extension, a counselor, an ear, a test dummy, and so many other hats that morph through necessity.

It's been a learning experience but soon my biggest challenge will arrive and my “boss” training will be put to the test. I have been called many titles in my life  but this one might just be the most important: Mommy.

Photo by Sean Chris . Taken while overseeing a CW fashion feature photoshoot.

Yup, that’s right . . . I am having a baby!

Oh, and not just any baby. This is the kind of baby that stops you in your tracks, tells you to take your over working, doing too much homework, not eating right, not sleeping, over extended self and sit theeeeee heck down, type of baby. This is the kind of baby that will karate kick you  for sitting at a desk too long, waking up too early, going to sleep too late, or entertaining anybodies bull and getting anxious . . . and I mean kick like the whole foot will stick out of my side and it will not stop until I listen.

So I guess I’m having a Boss Baby Lol. I always said that I wanted a little monster that would probably plot world domination, but would settle for holding society accountable for its actions, and lead others to greatness. Ha! Well here is a good start.

I’m very excited to be having a little human with my best friend, and plan on listening as much as I teach. I plan on giving as much as I receive. I plan on not knowing all the answers and finding them together . . . and knowing that I’m no longer the boss of me but “She” is.

Mommy & Daddy getting gifts for the New Boss. Am I too old to rock unicorn too?

This is the one role that I’m the most determined to succeed at. Thank you to all the people who have been pouring into me well wishes and positive affirmations that I, without a doubt, will be a great mother. (I don’t think you guys understand how much that means to me).

This summer the new boss will arrive & I will have finally met my match.

/Dirty

Dirty Thought's - Protecting Your Energy

I’M SENSITIVE. . .

Yes! I said it. I’m mutha freakin- get out my face- don’t touch me- give me 50 feet- you fake actin- blood sucker- I don’t  kind of way.

So I know I often make the statement that “I don’t like humans!”, or simply that I am not a people person, though many people find it hard to believe and continuously seem to have some kind of gravitational pull toward me. (Why? These are still the mysteries of introvert Lexi and her aura). I say this because social setting take a lot out of me. Negative energy drains me, crowds drive me insane and the way people behave tend to bend me all out of shape. Come to find out its because I am an Empath.

An Empath is “a person with the ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual”.

So when you act/feel shitty, I’m catching all of that!

Crazy right? But before I had a word for it anxiousness, fatigue and depression would come over me and I had to learn to deal, in order to survive.

Of course I have had several hiccups in my tactics but protecting my energy has become very important to me so am more cautious in who I spend my time with, how long I interact with people (even people I love) and how I move through social settings.

There is an old article from Psychology Today I like, that really helped empower my feelings and methods of coping.

In spirit of that article I will share a few of my methods for dealing with society:

1. Be aware of your sensitivity: Be vocal that you are sensitive, its okay to not like spaces and vibes.

2. Know your capacity: If you can only handle 3 hours in a public place before the anxiety takes over, make that your limit. Drive your own car. Don’t let others pressure you into staying places where you don't want to be.

3. Walk Away: Some time there are scenarios where you have no exit strategy. Find a corner, bathroom stall, or a place outside where you can sit to calm your nerves.

4. Say No: Its okay to stay away from people, and places if you need time to bubble. Bubbling helps replenish that energy that people can drain from you.

5. Call Bullshit: Some people will try to make you feel bad because they feel bad.  We all have issues and if people can't filter where they are putting their energy, you don't have to be bothered with it. Its okay to remove yourself from judgement, scrutiny and hostility.

6. Detox: If you have triggers, step back from them for a while and clean out your system so you can replenish good vibes.

At the end of the day protecting your energy is vital to being productive and ambitious, so you know I’m on it.

/Dirty

Dirty Thought's - "Contamination"

“I mean I’m in my chest. It’s Killer Season. My focus is to annihilate this semester.” - an excerpt from a conversation I had with Big BaeBee last week.

As I hit the ground running making sure not to slip up with my responsibilities outside of my role at CopyWrite, it has become a symbolic time. The same way the chill rushed through the air and Hell as we know it froze overnight, spite with a blizzard of judgement came rushing into my world killing all the warm memories that had kept me silent for the past year (with only subliminal messages projected to those who needed to know).

The first reading of the semester would find a way to deliver me a message that would calm my nerves, put that ego back in my chest, remove the gloves in a way that coerces my friends turned foes to keep watching and allow me to laugh at the “loss” I just took.

(Real question is are you reading this? Lol)

Scholar, Kwame Anthony Appiahjan’s article “The Case for Contamination” (2006), delivered some insightful takes on globalizing factors of homogeneity that question limits of tolerance and concepts of Universal Truths. This banter of right and wrong projected by the westernized society onto other existences, customs, beliefs, life styles, practices, (you name it), has been indoctrinated into even your average citizen and boy oh boy how they forget that it was the colonizing, genocide creating, aristocratic, white male who started those “moral” trends.

But it is this quote that Appiahjan’s concluded his theory with that resonated with me:

“When we make judgments, after all, it's rarely because we have applied well-thought-out principles to a set of facts and deduced an answer. Our efforts to justify what we have done -- or what we plan to do -- are typically made up after the event, rationalizations of what we have decided intuitively to do. And a good deal of what we intuitively take to be right, we take to be right just because it is what we are used to. That does not mean, however, that we cannot become accustomed to doing things differently.”

I fuckin’ snickered with my nerdy self in understanding that my recent plight had been a cast of judgement of others not understanding their own moral compass, choosing to point to structured “rights”, accept the “wrongs” that they preferred, and rationalize after making a “Fuck you! I can't deal with your truth.” it hurts my soul, decision. Bloop, that's called hypocrisy, sweetie.

I say all that to say this. . . The next day I walked to the class I was about to teach, because yup, I do that too,  listening to Bone Thugs n Harmony - Thuggish Ruggish Bone, because I’m Dirty Bone (Lol) and I’m living my truth. I’m about that life, and until those around me can say the same for themselves they will continue to drop into the homogeneous bucket of complacency. Trying to live to societal standards instead of fulfilling your purpose.

Bone Thugs n Harmony - Thuggish Ruggish Bone http://www.bonethugsnharmony.com

But if I have to make the reference more current  *cues Chance The Rapper’s “I Might Need Security” & let me give my Soulja Boy on Breakfast Club speech. “I started this shit. Y’all shitted on me bro and laughed at me like I was nothing. I’m coming back with vengeance…DRAKEEEEEEEEE?????????” Soft natural stunt.

ChanceRaps.com

/Dirty

Dirty Thoughts - The Price of Freedom

This is the last one of the year and as always, I have no idea what to say! I could go deep, be dramatic, find purpose and meaning, be calculated and strategic or be really rushed and to the point. . . I’m just not sure what I want to share right now & THAT'S THE TRUTH.

My “Dirty Thoughts”  are supposed to be liberating. Out of the structure of what I have to say to keep you guys entertained. But sometimes, that gets hard. To dig into my soul and show the uncensored truth. . . How many of you have really met Dirty?

When it’s the last one. . . of a set, of a group, of a memoir (who remembers Sleepless Nights With Dirty? That was some of my best work), it's supposed to be meaningful, uncensored and strong. . .

But this isn’t that.

If you have been paying attention this year you know what mayhem has occurred in my professional and personal life. You know how I have learned to fight fire with water instead of engulfing things in rage. You know how much BALANCE has been my call to action and self love has been my method of sanity.

Today I just want to say thank you to my team, the ones who are on the #SQUAD, the ones who show support by sending me good vibes, and every person who has saw the effort and supported our mission. This is not a ME thing, this is and will always be a WE thing.

As I wrap up my year I have decided that forgiveness is key.

Letting go is best.

Scribbled across my bathroom mirror in lipstick for the rest of the year to remind me why going hard, making waves and being unapologetic about the choices is worth it:

This is the Price of Freedom.

Find yours and don’t give it up!

Happy New Years Fam!

/Lexi (The Dirty Magic)

Dirty Thoughts - Check!

Do it with passion or not at all!

October has been crazy in all the right ways. . . remember how I said last months word was balance? Well this months word was clarity.

Things have really been starting clear themselves up and that “good stress” has been leaving me with opportunities that only action make possible.

So to where this month is too hectic to give a in-depth Dirty Thoughts, I’ll just do some soft stunting over here in my bubble.

Check this:

• Interviewed a famous Artist and member of the Black Panther Party (Check! My father would be so proud.)

• Sponsored and moderated a live interview with a Grammy award winner & label exec (Check! This is the moment I realized that I really have a cool job.)

• Went back blonde (Check! Ya girl is back.)

• Made ya look! (Check!!!!!!!!! Nope I haven’t fallen off yet! Thanks for asking lol)

So the reminder here is to do cool things because they make you feel alive, all the other things will fall into place. I have a contract to write up, a new hire to train…so ummmm gota go!

But How Chance would say it: “I’m Livin’ my best Life. Its my birthday...or least that's what I’m dressed like”. Or at least trying too!

/Dirty

Dirty Thoughts - Balance

Right before the beginning of this year I remember getting a phone call mid-day from my OG ( who is respectively my grandmother, and arguably my favorite person living) asking me randomly had I purchased a calendar for 2018. Being the millennial that I am, and having grown accustomed to programing my life into my handy-dandy (control system) cell phone, I obliviously replied that I had not. She shuffled me off the phone proclaiming that she didn't want to interrupt me any further knowing that I was at work, with a brief, “Okay. I’m going to send you one. Go ahead and get off the phone Baby, I love you. Assalamu alaikum”. With my reply of, “Okay, Grandma I love you too...Wa alaykum as-salam”, she was gone.

A few weeks later I received a package in the mail from my OG, that held not one, not two, but three calendars in it. When I called to thank her, she assured me that I had several places to put these calendars, like keeping the calendars visible would be critical in the year to come. As I further examined what she had sent me I noticed that two of the calendars were the same. One just a miniature of the other. Where one calendar was of Tinker Bell theme ( my favorite feisty little character), the duplicate one showed a cover where the back of a Buddha statue is looking off into hazed picturesque distance, titled, Zen - A Year of Mindfulness. Fitting into my newer growing and needed practices of good karma, I have placed different representational Buddha statues in every room of my residence, to remind me to find peace in all moments. The calendar was theoretically perfect for my decor (which if you know me, you know is critical), so I took it as a win and another little temporal keepsake to remind me of the Grandmother who I often miss so much.

But what I didn't know is that beyond making me think of her and it looking absolutely gorgeous in my space, what she had sent me was a list of words to reflect upon in a 30 day cycle of life. Each month a new word would appear. As I turned the page it would trigger actions or subjects that I then became conscious of as I would walk past the calendar each day. Words like January’s “Love” or April’s “Focus, June’s “Inspire” and August “Serenity”. I would often find myself mining through my placement in life that month and how those words would appear in my experience. I indeed, became mindful of what those words truly meant to me.

As this months word is “Balance”, I have noticed what a balancing act my life has become. Especially since this month I have introduced a new job into my routine, while carrying on my “Black & Hooded” aspirations, and of course filtering my growing obligations as Editor-in Chief of CopyWrite. The balance has become a critical part of staying afloat, where scales tipping too far in either direction creates chaos, not only for me, but for all the other things, that by default, depend on me. . . But even deeper than that, it becomes survival in every way that the word is expressed.

It is this word, more, than all the other words that have appeared on the calendar this year, that is the most striking to me. Often when people inquire about my goals in life I always follow through with a statement that includes balance and/or stability. Where it is something I am continuously searching for, I am always one pebble (or five) short of true symmetry, making me in the past doubt if it will ever be a goal accomplished.

I write this to say it is in this month, as conscious as I am to it’s meaning then ever before, that I have stopped trying to search for balance but actually have been letting balance find me. With that, opportunities have been knocking. I am more satisfied with my journey and all those things that have thrown me off my game are solving themselves because I have no time to toil with unnecessary situations, confrontations, or other negative things that I can not control. As my focus has shifted to be more proactive than reactive, even in my lowest days I smile because I see that the fulcrum that is my life, shall pivot in the direction that ensures I never truly fall but become more flexible to my own needs, no matter what outside gravity pulls at me.

I am here, I am “woke” and I am now very certain that my grandmother ALWAYS knows exactly what I need.

Some gifts are priceless.

/Dirty

Dirty Thoughts - Not Much To Say. . . Just Yet

I bet you didn't notice, but I definitely did not get to post a Dirty Thoughts for this June.

The team & I had been so busy gathering content, attending all these festivals and conducting all these dope interviews for our next issue of the mag (mmm hmmm it's coming) that I forgot to sit down and give you all my monthly rant. Shame on me! I’m sorry (to the 5 of you who actually take the time out to laugh at my fool a**).  But I don't have much to say this time around.

So quick updates:

• My curl pattern is back! So I been growing my hair back and went on a small heat hiatus. Now my curls have reappeared bouncy like a bed spring. I look like a puddle and yall love it. So if I’m trendy it's not because I want to be, its because my hair belongs to my genetics and I have lost all control!

• I am looking for several interns for this upcoming fall at /CW. Do you want a cool supervisor? Do you want to explore arts and creativity? Do you love all things  Urban and #SupportTheLocal? Well apply to be #SQUAD

• We are re-introducing /CW subscriptions! For $45 a year you get first dibs on new releases of our quarterly issues and VIP treatment at all /CW events. This is a steal! You guys are really out here robbing me! Lol

• I’m also taking a small social media break. If you can't find me, its because I’m not trying to be found. Lol Don't DM me about /CW

Now for something unexpected. . .

I have a surprise coming. I’m . . .

You will just have to wait for that news *wink wink*

/Dirty

Dirty Thoughts - May I, May I (I May)

May is my month! Not only was I born in this magnificent time of year (where my Taurus instinct become fully loaded) but it is also always a month filled with the ambiance of completion. The last projects of the semester are in, people are graduating, winter has fully sprung (right into summer this year lol) and it's sundress season. (Is that last one relevant? Maybe not but it was necessary because it completes me! Haaaaaa!). The city just seems to become so lively, and after all the seasonal depression fade away,  I jump into my car with the sunroof down and the music loud, and  I remember how much I love it here.

Idk if its the street festivals (Check out this pic snagged by Jordan [@lime.slippers] of me, /CW PR Tiffany & some of our biggest supporters at the 7th Annual Heal The Hood MKE Block Party)...

Or maybe its the ability to sit outside at a coffee shop or go for a walk, or be anywhere but nowhere in the elements but everything, even the lows just feel so much better. On a personal level, I have lost a loved one, been threatened, physically attacked, and have had to deal with some very dramatic interactions this month alone… Yet, still, I’m just in a great mood (& unphased!)

What a win!
I’m just saying if Drake can drop the ‘Duppy Freestyle’, Pusha T cannot respond for days,  I can still cry when ‘Nice for What’ comes on (Yes! That song makes me cry. It's just so symbolic yall just don't knowwwwwwwww *tear*), and Kanye can still be overweight after lipo, called a rapper after ‘Lift Yourself’ and we can all still save money by switching to Geico, then life is good!

As I have been saying all May, “Life is a Comedy. Don't let this society convince you it's a Drama”.

Every little bit of positivity goes a long way and a smile can break a Bi**h. 
Please enjoy this summer! Say hey, if you see me and the /CW Squad at these events AND

#SupportTheLocal.

(Now time for a root beer float). 
/Dirty