What I needed

Her: Hey baby, how you doin' today?

Me: Fine, thank you and you

Her: Blessed. Yes, yes...I am blessed

Me: That is really good to hear

Her: Let me give you a hug. I likes to share my love.

And then she hugged me and pulled apart from me, looked me in my eyes and hugged me again. I don't know her name, had never seen her face but I am glad that she came when she did. It was most amazing how she singled me out. She couldn't have known what she would do for my spirit and the everlasting joy that she would provide me with.

I may have even held onto her a little bit longer than I should have. There in her arms, I felt safe and innocent again. I was a child accepting the random love from a random grandma. She wasn't my grandmother, but I wouldn't mind if she was. I would have even accepted a kiss on the cheek or a soft pat on the knee.

How good it must feel to rest always in those arms!

Thanks for the Hug!

All Star Weekend!

Okay, okay, okay...The NBA All Star Weekend is coming to Las Vegas

Everybody will be here crowding our roadways and spending all of their money this weekend. There are so many events that are happening, I just have to make sure I am out there.

I just wanna see T.I. - IF ANY OF YOU KNOW HIM PERSONALLY TELL HIM TO GIVE ME A CALL OR E-MAIL ME.

BLISS

Please call me if you see him!!!!

Maya Speaks...

"The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind."

Maya Angelou

Mrs. Angelou will speak in Las Vegas at the Cashman Field Theater on Tuesday, February 27, 2007.

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928. She grew up in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. She is an author, poet, historian, songwriter, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, singer, and civil rights activist. She is best known for her autobiographical books: All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), The Heart of a Woman (1981), Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976), Gather Together in My Name (1974), and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), which was nominated for the National Book Award.
Among her volumes of poetry are A Brave and Startling Truth (Random House, 1995), The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (1994), Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993), Now Sheba Sings the Song (1987), I Shall Not Be Moved (1990), Shaker, Why Don't You Sing? (1983), Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well (1975), and Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971), which was nominated for the Pulitzer prize.
In 1959, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From 1961 to 1962 she was associate editor of The Arab Observer in Cairo, Egypt, the only English-language news weekly in the Middle East, and from 1964 to 1966 she was feature editor of the African Review in Accra, Ghana. She returned to the U.S. in 1974 and was appointed by Gerald Ford to the Bicentennial Commission and later by Jimmy Carter to the Commission for International Woman of the Year. She accepted a lifetime appointment in 1981 as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1993, Angelou wrote and delivered a poem, "On The Pulse of the Morning," at the inauguration for President Bill Clinton at his request.
The first black woman director in Hollywood, Angelou has written, produced, directed, and starred in productions for stage, film, and television. In 1971, she wrote the original screenplay and musical score for the film Georgia, Georgia, and was both author and executive producer of a five-part television miniseries "Three Way Choice." She has also written and produced several prize-winning documentaries, including "Afro-Americans in the Arts," a PBS special for which she received the Golden Eagle Award. Maya Angelou was twice nominated for a Tony award for acting: once for her Broadway debut in Look Away (1973), and again for her performance in Roots (1977).
This bio was last updated on , . --->

www.poets.org

Bliss says: I will be in the house to see Maya speak!

BE...

EYE JUS WANNA BE!!!

Stomp The Yard!

And I Love It!!!!!!

When Y'all see it, we will talk about it.

Utterance of Happiness...

What is lost can never be found, because then... it wouldn't be lost anymore. It would be somewhere in-between growth and failure. It could be somewhere mounted on the wall, it's head protruding out, a celebrated beacon for everyone to see. Then it could be seated on the bus stop, waiting impatiently for something or someone to arrive - waiting to be lost again or found again, so that it wouldn't be in-between any longer. Waiting for the chance at happiness.

It happens almost suddenly and reveals itself bit by bit, not all at once. It is given in small grains of simple memories, past loves, a reminiscent tunes, sweet smells and everything good for the body; and everything tangible for the soul.

The rule says that once we are happy...and that is in our youth. Well, we now know that the rule lies. Youth...can be seen as the gateway into misery, a past that may definitely determine the future. What happens to Happiness?

What Happens to Happiness?
What Happens to Happiness?

I believe that it has been misplaced...placed at the very back of the shelf, not to be found until one day it is too late. There does come a time when someone doesn't want happiness, doesn't care for its kind and flees at the mere utterance of it.

Happiness, could be somewhere hiding- playing a sly game of tag. It's foot sliding in the mud, if a hand gets to close. I see it laughing and playing...I think that maybe even happiness is lost. What is lost can not be found...because then it wouldn't be lost anymore.

Yo Go Girl!

WASHINGTON - The lady is a stamp! The U.S. Postal Service honors the First Lady of Song Ella Fitzgerald with her own postage stamp Wednesday.

The 39-cent stamp is being released at ceremonies at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, and will be on sale across the country.
People who don't know about her will see the stamp and think: "What makes this person special? And perhaps find out about the person and about the music," said her son, Ray Brown Jr.
Fitzgerald wasn't self-important, perhaps reflecting the values she sang about in the Rodgers and Hart song "The Lady is a Tramp":
"I don't like crap games, with barons and earls. Won't go to Harlem, in ermine and pearls. Won't dish the dirt, with the rest of the girls. That's why the lady is a tramp."
Phoebe Jacobs, executive vice president of The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and a longtime friend of Fitzgerald, described the singer as "a very private lady, very humble."
After Fitzgerald confided in 1961 that she had never had a birthday party, Jacobs gathered a star-studded collection of people for the special event. The party was a secret, so Fitzgerald was told to dress up because there was a television interview.
"When the lights came on she took her pocket book and hit me on the shoulder," Jacobs recalled. "She was like a little kid, she was so happy."
Fitzgerald was a baseball fan and the guests included her favorite player, Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle. They embraced and traded autographs.
Fitzgerald's appearance on a stamp comes less than a year after Mantle was featured among baseball sluggers.
Born in Newport News, Va., in 1917, Ella Jane Fitzgerald moved with her mother to Yonkers, N.Y., as a youngster and began to sing and dance from an early age. She began winning talent competitions in the early 1930s and was hired to sing with Chick Webb's band.
She later became famous as a scat singer, vocalizing nonsense syllables, and performed with most of the great musicians of the time. She recorded the song books of such composers as Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and Johnny Mercer.
Over the years, Fitzgerald won 13 Grammy Awards' and many other honors, including the National Medal of Arts, presented to her in 1987 by President Reagan.

Bliss Says: There are some of us that just do the damn thang! I truly believe that if at that time, Ella did what she did, then I can do what I can do! Ms. Ella...you are a keeper of the flame! I salute you.

Bliss