Happy New Year Mofos!

Imagine that.. I am actually posting a blog close to the start of 2019. Yay me!

Have you ever been kissed ...by a frog?


What you mean Meik?

I'm glad you asked, but I'm not talking about a literal frog. I know the stories of the princess kissing the frog and he turns into a prince, but since this is me--that ain't that kind of fairy tale.


As most of you know, I love covering red carpet events. So a couple of years ago, I found myself on a red carpet about to interview a certain old school artist. While he wasn't THE MAIN singer of his group, it was still awesome to chat with him. I knew things were a little strange when the first thing he said to me was:

"OMG, you are really real!"

Me: Excuse me?



"I mean, I've seen you on social media but like you are real!"

Me in my head: I wasn't aware I was a unicorn bruh.




Me in real life: tee hee hee *sniggles* thank you I think, uh so tell me... *insert whatever question I asked him that pertained to his performance in the event we were there for*

"But, you're so pretty and real in person!"

Me in my head: I think we've established that I'm real negro.

Me in real life: Oh thank youuuuuuu!

So then to gas him up a little more--I ask for a selfie and his fingers continue rubbing my arm.

Me in my head: STOP TOUCHING ME.


Me in real life: Thanks for the pic! Good luck tonight! *steps away and directs my attention to the next artist coming down the carpet*

He just stands there staring with a little drool on his lip.



Don't look at me like that. If you go back to any pic of this dude--it always looks like there is drool and crust in the corner of his lip. I ain't lying--however I ain't telling you who it is either. :)



Fast forward to the after party that I had absolutely no business going to.

Dude walks in and sees me and me being polite I walk over and tell him his performance that evening was awesome and he hugs me. He then says he wants to introduce me to a couple of other artists and so we walk over--chit chat with two other old school artists--one of them a former Bad Boy artist that my ex King Mofo so wanted to be but that's another story.

I notice my sidekick aka my mama (yes I took my mama with me--judge your own mammy not me and mine)


and she is kee-keeing it up with Kid from Kid N Play--again another story for another time, but I step over to ask her if she's ready to go and she nods yes.


So I step back over to my mini-circle of old school artists to do my nice to meets, have a good night pleasantries--shaking hands--exchanging info. I turn to leave and the one that discovered I'm a real live whole ass person asks for a hug--so I oblige..but before I can break away or even turn my head....he mumbles.. "GIMME A KISS!"

His crusty drool filled lips are on mine and I can feel my entire body tense up, my mind is saying don't slap the shit out of him in front of all these people and don't curse in front of your mama.


I'm thinking is this fool really doing this in front of these other artists, and I know that my "employer" is also in the room and I don't want to act a donkey. That 3 seconds was the longest 3 seconds of my life and all I could do was push him firmly to remove his lips from my face.

He FINALLY backs away and smiles and says "keep in touch."


Ew. No. Thank. You.



Now if you know me..you KNOW chapped/dry lips are a pet peeve, and for him to put his DRY CRUSTY LIPS WITH DROOL IN THE CORNER ON MINE.. gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag.



I am dry heaving now as I write this. He wasn't even cute. This makes me even more sad.

Lesson learned: Clearly I didn't learn a damn thing cuz I have many many stories of encounters with the old school famous. Wait for the book! HOWEVERRRRR don't go putting your lips where they aren't wanted or requested. Thank yew, Amen.


Have you ever kissed a frog?

Until later..and still vomi-gagging,
~Meik

Hey Mofos! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know--I'm trifling as hell for not blogging but one time this entire year. A sista has been booked, busy, and well none of your biznass. So I figured, might as well do my usual end of year post right?



This year started out rough and ended well, not AS rough, but still rocky.

What you mean Meik?

I'm glad you asked! On January 2, my grandparents home was destroyed in a fire and luckily my grandfather made it out safely. So many of my friends and acquaintances came through and donated clothes, money, gift cards, prayers, food, any and everything to make sure my granddeddy was ok. I love you all for that and even today he is still so thankful as he sits in his new home at 90 years old. It is an absolute blessing for real! It brought my family closer together and I think my grandma is smiling from the heavens about this.



The year continued to unfold in some unexpected ways in my personal life--for the first time in YEARSSSSSSSSSSS--I mean damn DECADES--I uttered the L word--and felt feelings that I had no idea of what they were--hell for a moment, I thought I had the flu or some ish, but when you go thru some things with someone you start to realize how much they mean to you. Now before you scoot me on down the aisle, this is still a work in progress and my overthinking and anxiety is a problem :). That's step 1, admitting your own foolishness. I've learned to finally let go of the past and to live in the now and look forward to the future.



Anyhoo, this year started out on a high professionally and ended on the lowest of lows with me feeling like what's next for my writing career?? Is there a writing career? Several of my long-term contracts ended, editors left, outlets stopped using freelancers, and my pitches seemed to fall into the abyss of well hell, I don't know where they are, but it seemed like I just couldn't find my footing until I turned back to the local side of things and I have enjoyed writing about stories right here in my own backyard. I realized that writing about music was no longer my focus or passion, that telling the stories of people that have made an impact in our lives in some form or fashion is what I love. I love hearing about their journey to get to where they are now, and usually I take away a nugget or two to stick in my own journal for future reference and breakdowns. I love feature/entertainment stories (take note in case you are hiring! LOL). I couldn't and still haven't been able to land a full time gig, but thankfully God has allowed my part time job to pay my bills and keep a roof over my head. I even waltzed my arse down to the dealership and got a new car--now that's some big energy right there ain't it? It never occurred to me--how the f am I about to pay this car note?



But the pile of rejections from employers has done a number on the ole ego, so while I slide down the wall and throw a temper tantrum every week--I allow myself one hour okay---- maybe 4 to sulk--then I shake it off and get right back to Operation Meik Needs a Damn Career RIGHT NOW movement.

This year I had my first PAID speaking engagement. Yes y'all, someone paid to hear ole Meik Meik talk about pitching to the media and it was so much fun! I felt so important yet empowered speaking to a room of professionals about my experience in the newsroom and as a writer. I also spoke to more students and hopefully impacted their lives in some way.

2018 was my first year on the NC Music Hall of Fame Advisory Board and I threw myself into all things Induction Ceremony by editing bios, writing video scripts, and doing the voice overs for each video for 7 inductees. This process was so fun and I added another notch to my resume. It was so awesome sitting in the Gem Theatre hearing my voice on the big screen and being complimented by the artists--especially John Tesh! Yep THE JOHN TESH.



I of course kept up with interviewing some amazing people this year from Jody Watley, James Mtume, Ananda Lewis, Cynthia Horner, Melba Moore, Mara Brock Akil, Yvette Lee Bowser, and more. Ya girl even did a few Facebook Live interviews!

I almost crawled my arse back to TV News but then God intervened and said BUT GIRL... and I realized that won't make me happy and now that I've learned the joy of sleep, I'm not ready to give that up.



This year with lots of time on my damn hands, I've learned a lot about myself and what I will and won't tolerate. I've learned that you can't surround yourself with toxic people, because their negative thinking will rub off on you. I learned that I do know how to be there for someone and actually mean it and want to be there as support. I learned all about self-love and embracing who you are. I've learned that love looks different for everybody, and nobody follows the same blueprint. You do what works for you. Same as the career path--everybody's journey is different. It took me a while to get to that point. I might be growing up ya'll.

For 2019--I wish for a damn job and a husband, but I also wish for happiness, success, love, peace, and soullllll wait.. I admit I miss Soul Train, it slips out every now and again.



Happy New Year y'all. I can't promise I'll blog more in 2019, but we can pretend I will. :)

What’s up Mofos?! Yes it’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you without a dope blog or two to read, but hell, here we are and at least I’m blogging now right?



Have you ever had to go through something at the wrong damn point in your life?

What you mean Meik?

I’m glad you asked.

Picture it, the year was 2017 and it was a regular arse day and I went to the dentist to get a crown—err well that day would have a temp crown but you get the point. Now years ago, this particular tooth had a root canal and the dentist didn’t put a crown on it after—instead he did some other finagling and IDK what it’s called but it had held up over the years.. UNTIL..

The dentist begins drilling and says “we have a problem.”



WHAT YOU MEAN A PROBLEM?!

Y’all..

She tells me there was a hole in my tooth and after drilling—there isn’t enough tooth left for a crown.

What does that mean???

It needs to be pulled.

Y’all. The tooth in question is in the front of my mofo’n mouth. I CANNOT DEAL. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WALK AROUND SNAG-A-TOOTH and try to be on somebody’s television/red carpet/Youtube whatever.. HOW I ASK?



As I start to hyperventilate, the dentist says, the only option here is an implant, but in the meantime, she will use temporary material to fill out that tooth—but it won’t last long.

As I got to the car—and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I realized that this procedure was going to cost WAYYYYY more than I had in my pockets but a gal has to do what a gal has to do right?



Luckily thanks to God, I was able to make a way out of absolutely no way to come up with the $5000 I was going to need for this ish. –why $5k you ask? I had used up my dental insurance for the year, and my insurance didn’t cover implants any dayum way.

I made my consultation appointment with a specialist.. then got scared and changed it at least two times.. finally I went in for it and of course because my ish was difficult—this was going to be a 2 phase thing and take almost a year to complete. So in September, I had step one taken care of.. a flipper was made so that I could have some sort of tooth in place and not look like a jack-o-lantern. If you haven’t had the joy of wearing a flipper—it basically is like a retainer with a tooth on it—except it doesn’t fit like it should LOL --this is what it looks like:




A few weeks later I went in to have the tooth pulled and a bone graft—it wasn’t too bad—not that painful. With the stitches and the healing however it was disgusting to look at, but luckily with my trusty flipper –no one was the wiser. Well, unless you noticed I now talked with a lisp, couldn’t eat in public, and constantly sounded like my dentures were slipping.

Let me pause here to say here’s where things got interesting because at this point ya girl started seeing someone and I just couldn’t bear to tell him that I was missing a damn tooth. Whenever we went out—I only ate soup or mashed potatoes—and took the rest home or claimed "I'm not hungry!" while my stomach growled in protest. *yes I'm skipping right thru this part cuz the rest is none of your biz*



Sleepovers got a little tricky because you aren’t supposed to sleep with a flipper in—so I would wait until his arse was snoring –go yank that thang out and throw it in a cup (yes complete with denture cleaner and pray he doesn’t wake up and look in the cup. I’d wake up extra early to sneak it back into my mouth so he would never know!
WAYMENT--I mean no sleepovers EVER happened if this my mama reading this!!!

This went on for months, until finally a mofo got hungry and I was like look, I gotta eat—I took it out of my mouth, explained the implant situation—and proceeded to eat and he was like oh hell, I bet you have been hungry LOL—#LoveIs real when a mofo don’t care if you are missing a tooth in the front and shoveling food in your mouth and he still finds you sexy.



I wore that flipper from Oct to March, got the implant put in and more bone graft, and had to wait until May to finish the healing process. Once that was done, I was able to go to my dentist to finish everything and get my crown. I have never been so happy to eat like normal! From Oct to May, I was on a soft food diet—even at work I would only eat yogurt, but bish the day I could go to the vending machine for candy I was on cloud nine. It’s the little things, don’t judge me.

But let me tell y'all about how good God is. I got a letter right before I got the final crown placed from my insurance company and it said they would cover 40% of my implant. Mind you, I had to pay for this on my part time job/freelance hustle salary out of pocket because my insurance hit me with the NAWL SIS. They renigged and sent me a check that actually ended up covering the cost of the crown. LOOK AT GOD I TELL YOU!



The implant looks great and it took a week or two to get used to but thank goodness I'm no longer spit talking with a lisp, sneaking to eat. HALLELUJAH. My advice-- if you ever need an implant it's definitely worth the investment --especially if you need it for the front of your mouth--the back..ehhhh you can get by without it. LOL

I didn't think I wanted to share this story but once I tweeted I got an implant-- many of you with sense KNEW it was dental and not boobs-- cuz lawd knows I have enough for two people..but anyhoo-- a lot of you wanted to know the process so there you have it. I'm glad I got my smile back :)




Have you ever gotten a dental implant? What was your experience like?

Until later-
~Meik