The Potty Mouth Granny

  • When Blood Recognizes Itself

    Lately, I’ve been seeing the faces of my ancestors in strangers. A jawline in the grocery store line. A pair of eyes on the bus that feel like déjà vu with a pulse. A woman laughing two tables over, her mouth moving exactly like my mother’s used to when joy caught her off guard. It’s…

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  • Tears, Television, and an Animated Sponge

    When my eldest brother died nearly six years ago, a simple cartoon helped carry me through the first raw, disorienting days of grief. My brother didn’t have any life insurance, so it fell to me to lay him to rest—and I had no money. I managed to scrape together $1,000 toward a cremation, but I…

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  • Happy New Year

    It’s a new year, a new beginning. An opportunity to start over. A clean page, not because the old chapters were mistakes, but because they taught you how to hold the pen differently.  You don’t have to become a brand-new person overnight—growth isn’t a costume change. Sometimes it’s quieter than that. Sometimes it’s choosing yourself…

    thepottymouthgranny

  • The Book Collector

    A couple of months ago, I came to the conclusion that as long as I am alive, I am going to buy books. I am a prolific reader. I love books—the smell of a new one, the quiet promise in its untouched pages. I love pulling an old book from a shelf and finding phone…

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  • Gone With the Wind – My Childhood Obsession

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  • Not All Men—Just These Ones

    I really try my best not to man-bash, but mercy has its limits. Harder than a pimp’s heart, yes—and just as guarded. I don’t carry this irritation into my real life. The men I know in flesh and breath can look you in the eye, hold a thought, and say something with weight. They exist…

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  • Not Every Man Who Desires You Can Walk Beside You

    Any man threatened by your independence, your intellect, your spirituality, your sensuality, or your refusal to play small is not for you. He may be fascinated by you. He may desire you. But he is not built to walk beside you. Men like that don’t want a woman; they want a dimmer switch. They want…

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  • Access Is Not a Right.

    Remember earlier this year when folks were losing their ever-loving minds over a statue of a Black woman in New York because she was “fat”? This nonsense popped off not long after the president’s inauguration—right when certain people were feeling themselves a little too hard and decided trolling Black spaces online was a personality trait.…

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  • Not All Water Is Innocent

    As a Chicagoan, I despise the Chicago River. To me, it’s a filthy cesspool with a long memory. I’m convinced there are still bodies down there from the Prohibition era, secrets wrapped in bones and silence. Meanwhile, people hop on boat tours every summer, skinning and grinning like the water didn’t just finish whispering threats.…

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  • It’s Okay to Cry

    Forty-seven years ago, my mother had just gotten out of the hospital. She had been diagnosed with diabetes, and if my cousin Cleo hadn’t taken her in when she did, she would have slipped into a diabetic coma and died. That’s the part that still makes my chest tighten, even now. While she was hospitalized,…

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