First Taste Of the Celebrity Life

I woke up today in a really bad mood. All of a sudden I started feeling guilty about my Labor Day weekend and all the freedom I have.

Shouldn’t I be slaving away, grinding to get my kids up here? Shouldn’t I be crying everyday and being sick to my stomache because I’m not where I need to be in life. I have so many goals that are yet accomplished, how dare I go out and party!

This funk lasted for most of the day. Self condemnation is a bitch! I have until the end of November to save enough money to move into another place and have a cushion for when my sons come up here because on my current salary, I can’t take care of my family.

Too bad cuz I really like my job. All I do is interview successful people and write about them. It’s sometimes stressful having to be creative all the time and believe me its not easy at all. I went in there with no experience as a staff writer and thankfully everyone has been patient with me. I’ve even branched out as the content manager and things are rocky for now as I try to balance both jobs but..I’m hanging in there.

The weird thing about my job is I didn’t picture myself doing lifestyle writing. It’s the same thing that happened in Miami when I first began freelancing. All of the jobs that came my way were entertainment oriented. The weird thing is, I’m not that interested in the entertainment industry, least of all rap music. I don’t even own a CD collection.

But here I am at work, holding the position of content manager. There is a big crate of CD’s sitting next to my desk just waiting for us to listen to them and write about them in the magazine. I can review any CD that I want and say anything that I want about it. And my opinion will be distributed across 19 cities in the US. Isn’t that funny?

Today was a pretty big day for me. I had 4 phone interviews in a row. One of them was my first celebrity.

I called Tamara at work after being given my assignment. “Tamara! Um…who is Young Buck?”

She laughed. “Girl! Shorty wanna ride wit me…” she sang.

“Oh yeah…I liked that song. Now tell me what you know about him because I have to interview him this afternoon and I don’t know anything about the man.”

I ended up calling an old friend from Miami to get the real scoop on Young Buck and the interview went okay. I was so nervous because I was relying on information relayed to me by friends.

“How does it feel to be the only Southern rapper in your…um..group? Do you find that there’s a lot of pressure there?”

“We all enjoyed your appearance on Flava of Love. What did you think of the experience and if you could choose one of the women from the contestants, who would it be?”
“I know you just released an underground CD, when can we expect your new album and who will be on it with you?”Child! I was so scared that he was gonna go, “Who the f**k gave you that information.”He was nice though and very cordial. After a grueling day my brain was busted so I left work early at 5pm. Yep, 5pm is EARLY for the magazine. I knew I had to go home to get a quick nap in before I went out to the Billboard R&B and Hip Hop Awards. I snatched up an extra pass for my girl Tamara and she and I rode out there to see who we could see.I worked a little bit as a member of the paparazzi. I stood on the red carpet taking pictures as the artists came by. But then I went inside to enjoy the show. Let’s see if I can remember who was there. Shareefa, Lupe Fiasco, Akon hosted the show.. Young Jeezy appeared. I saw Flava Flav. Um…Alicia Key’s boyfriend. What’s his name? The other half of Crucial Keys. Anyway…Jermaine Dupree was there. Bobby Valentino. I don’t know who else. Oh yeah, Ludacris performed too. Oh yeah…Lyfe Jennings sang 3 songs.I’m sorry that I still don’t have a digital camera. Those would have been great pictures to share with you guys. After the show everyone kinda stood around mingling. I didn’t want to stay so we did a once around the place and we left before midnight.Now I’m about to go to bed because the magazine is having an event tomorrow morning to encourage literacy among the youth and I’m excited to participate. They have been working very hard planning it and I want to do my part.I miss my boys.I really do.