I’ve come to realize that white people, aka “my people,” are kinda yawnsville.  Don’t get me wrong I love argyle, J.Crew, and Nantucket as much as the next white yuppie, but we, as a people, are un peu vanilla. And as much as I adore the J.Crew I-just-spent-the-day-at-the-country-club look, I couldn’t help but be hypnotized by the Indian Slumdog Millionaire dancers at the Oscars with their pretty saris swirling around (not to mention all of the colors in the movie itself).  I don’t care if the saris looked like someone went berserk with an infomercial bedazzled gun, after seeing the dancers I was ready to movie to Mumbai, give up eating cows for curry, and enroll in a Masala Bhangra dance class.  Jai Ho!  And not to mention, how has it NOT occurred to the American fashion industry that saris are THE BEST answer to having a “fat day.”  With a country full of fat people where the Biggest Looser is a hit show, I say Saris for everyone!  It’s the new moo-moo for this millennium.  Think about the kinda mileage you can get out them during the Holidays.  That’s my plan for an economic stimulus.

We already know that I love the latins, a love which I know is not necessarily shared by my people.  But dit-moi, how can you watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona and NOT think Penelope Cruise going loca isn’t, in some way, something that you secretly wish you could do because it’s just so damn sexy to see her and Javier Bardem argue in Spanish.  Doesn’t it sound so much more passionate in Spanish?  And btw, am I the only one who loves Penelope Cruise in Spanish movies, but not so much when it comes to movies in English?

However, despite my love for the latins and sari clad women, I sometimes wish I was an old black southern woman (“OBSW”).  I love them!  They know life’s struggles and ain’t nothing in this stage of their life that is going to phase them.  They know how to discern what’s really important and how to cut through the forest of unimportant B.S. that so many of us get hung up on.  These lovely senior ladies have a way of way of expressing themselves with their cute little sayings and their accents that makes it adorable even when one of them is dressing you down.

I was most recently reminded of my secret desire to be part of the OBSW club after “Smitty,” a security guard at one of my favorite stores, befriended me when I was stocking up on some basics for my solo African honeymoon. First of all can I just say what a cool nickname Smitty is?  I have 20 or so nicknames, but nothing comes close to being as cool as Smitty.  Smitty just sounds hardcore.

At first I thought Smitty was a bit of a nutter.  She started telling me about how when she meets a customer she doesn’t like she’ll imagine that while the “bad customer” is sleeping, she’s standing over them whispering in their ear telling them to stay away from her.  She’ convinced it works too as she’s never seen a “bad customer” back.  Then she told me that she had the gift of prophecy and various soothsayer-like things.  When she told me that I was thinking, “what kind of loon am I talking to?  This is way too New Orleans Madame LaVeau/Interview With a Vampire voodoo scene for me, but I better be nice to her because I don’t want any bad juju, especially when I’m heading to Africa and planning on meeting my future husband on my safari.”  However, after talking to her for over 20 minutes, I’m now convinced that my girl Smitty needs her own Daytime TV show.  I could totally see her telling whiney people from the burbs to stop complaining and get on with it!  Move over Dr. Phil, Mama Smitty is in town!

Picture the following monologue spoken with a charming southern accent when describing a mopey old customer who recently lost her brother (her accent was slightly stronger than Brad Pitt’s in the Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons.  Perhaps more akin to the older woman we see in the beginning of the movie), “I said to her, what you think you’re the only person to have lost someone? I’ve lost my muthah, my 2 bruthaahs and sistuh and my husband.  My husband died three years ago and still I haven’t found a man (pronounced like “maaaan”) that I so much as want to have a cup of MacDonald’s premium coffee with, but you don’t see me layin down and dyin do ya?  You think I’m going to let that botha me, I ain’t gonna let that botha me.  So I told her you can either be miserable and go jump in the grave with your brother and die or you can start living.”  I’m not quite sure Smitty knew that she was coming dangerously close to lifting the “get busy livin’ or get busy dying” line from Morgan Freeman’s character in Shawshank Redemption, but I felt inspired to get busy livin.  

So, in the words of my girl Smitty, start livin!

A thousand apologies for the lapse in time from my last post.  Sorting out my travel plans to what I’m terming my solo honeymoon has been more difficult than I initially anticipated, not the least of which involved the USPS nearly losing my passport en route to the Zambian embassy in DC and my near homicidal like rage over this (trust me my response wasn’t limited to a simple frustrated Seinfeldian “Newman”).  So, needless to say I was left with little time and inspiration to put pen to paper or in this case fingers to keyboard.  But on this Valentine’s Day, having furthered the cliché of what “white people” like (see http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/23/19-travelling/ ) I feel inspired.

You may remember that when I last left you, I was in love with “Kenneth,” my sweet talkin South African travel agent based in New York.  I am sad to report that Kenneth is dead to me now.  Word of advice guys, if you say you’re going to call a girl and you have a “special plan” that she’ll “really like” and you never call, you risk banishment, or in this case loss of a great commission. No girl likes to sit by the phone, willing it to ring Kenneth, you cheeky git!  Kenneth lost out on mucho dinero by not calling me back, a fact which became painfully obvious as I signed off on the final total with a different travel agent (who yes I did facebook stalk) before ever stepping foot en Afrique.   However, I am able to justify my expenditure by realizing that while some people choose to have offspring, I travel.  And at the same time South Africa has been my dream destination for my honeymoon.  And not to go too negativo on the fat arrow carrying baby’s holiday, but who knows when that will ever happen, sooooo I’m taking myself on my own honeymoon.  Yes, you heard me!  Hear me now and believe me later, solo honeymoons will become the new black!

I’ll be traveling solo in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and on a safari in Kruger before hanging with a friend in Cape Town.  On my solo honeymoon portion of the trip, I’m hoping I’ll meet my future husband.  See here’s how the scenario plays out in my head, I’ll be enjoying an African sunset and a cocktail at the hotel bar in Joburg as Toto’s Africa song is playing softly in the background and I’ll happen to turn my head and I’ll notice him saunter in.  He’ll, of course, be tan and have that well manicured rugged look going on, the kind that can only be manufactured in that Out of Africa movie kinda way.  He’ll saddle up next to me at the bar and order some manly drink like an 18 year old single malt Scotch neat and strike up a conversation.  We’ll realize that we’re both going on the same safari the next day.  He’ll be in the ballpark of say 34-37, his name will be something like Jackson or Forrester or Vaughn and at some point in his life, like me, he will have been educated in Europe.   He’ll be ex-peace corps a/k/a a trustifarian (I have a theory that only affluent kids can afford to spend two years post-university kicking around third world countries) and after a brief stint in the corporate world he decided to return to doing international development work and has spent the last 10 years saving Gorillas in Uganda (a little Gorillas in the Mist anyone), digging wells in Rwanda (cuz it ain’t the Hotel California, it’s Hotel Rwanda), helping refugees in Darfur (Lost Boys of the Sudan, peut-être, I think my heart just skipped a beat), and teaching people how to cultivate their own maize in the Congo (come on shake your body, baby do that Conga).  He will have managed to do this while not turning into a dirty hippie. And maybe he’ll be a widow whose photojournalist wife died English Patient style while on assignment in Sierra Leone.  The widow thing adds a tragic element to his generally privileged life and shows that he’s not a commitment phobe, thereby preempting the question that my father asks me when I tell him about a guy, which goes something like, “well, if he’s so perfect, why isn’t he married by now?”  That’s Dad’s standard question as he’s uber suspicious of any man over 30 who is still single.  When I point out that I’m still single, he tells me that’s different because I was focused on higher education until I was 27.  Gotta love dad!  To his credit dad’s instincts have been spot on!  Anyway, Peace Corps boy and I will realize that we’re in love as we’re sitting around the boma after a solid day of game drives and we will quite literally drive off into the sunset.  Don’t you just hate me at how perfect my love affair with my future husband is going to be?

And now that I’m planning my solo honeymoon, I think it’s only fair that I register for it a la Carrie Bradshaw, don’t you?  I’m not above doing it, especially at this age!  After all in light of the amount I’ve had to dole out for engagement parties, bridal showers, weddings, and baby showers, I think it’s only right.  Oh, and here’s a news bulletin for those of you single and baby free, there is now something called “push presents,” which a new mother gets just for having the baby.  What kinda scam are you married and parental people running?  By my count that’s three presents for getting married and two for having kids and you’re going to begrudge this charmingly adorable well traveled single lady a gift for her solo honeymoon.  Communists!

So, be on the look out for my registry announcement. It’s coming to a mail box near vous!