come correct

Dear Come Correct: I see me as a regular looking black woman—fair, but with definitely black features.  Despite this, I get asked ‘so what are you, anyway?’ more times than you can imagine.  Then, when I say “I’m black,” I get the second insult: “no, really.  Are both your parents black?  What are you mixed…

First of all, apologies to Seiko and anyone else who was offended at the title The Tao of Poo.  As a couple of you pointed out, it was indeed a riff on the bestseller, The Tao of Pooh.  As in Winnie The.  Which was in itself a homage to a series of Buddhist insights.  It…

Dear Come Correct: I work in an office with about 50 people in it.  We are generally pretty considerate of each other—the cultural environment is pretty invested in polite behavior and a crunchy-granola version of “do unto others”—but there are lapses.  One important one for me occurs in the women’s bathroom on a daily basis,…

A friend called to check on me while I was sick last week. We were supposed to go to a fancy ladies’ lunch, but with a sore throat and temperature, the kindest thing I could do was stay home.  I did, and she was calling to fill me in. “Ooooh, girl—you missed it!” “So, how was…

John Edwards’ baby-daddy drama really makes you wish—aside from the obvious, that he’d been faithful to his wife—he was French.  All this would have been handled entirely differently.  Remember when Georges Pompidou died?  His wife and family were at his funeral of course— but so were his longtime mistress and the adult illegitimate daughter they…

I’ve stopped worrying about the approaching H1N1 virus epidemic and started to focus more on the already-here contagion of rudeness that is apparently raging through the ranks of the prominent and privileged. First South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson calls the president a liar on the floor of Congress—a gathering he and his peers have invited…

Remember when you dressed nicely to fly, when there was actually leg room so your suit (yes, suit) didn’t look like an accordion at the end of the flight?  When the staff acted as if they were happy that you’d chosen their airline over another, and acted accordingly?  When passengers were courteous to each other…

Maybe Roger Stephens was having a bad day.  Maybe it was a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder flashback from his own days as a parent.  Whatever it was, when he heard 2 year-old Paige Matthews wailing in a Wal Mart near his Stone Mountain, Ga home, he stepped up to the toddler’s mother and told her…

I’ve spent more time than I would have liked in doctors’ offices recently, and have been interested to note that virtually every single one has a sign that says, essentially, “please don’t use your phone in here.” Mostly the people I’ve seen have complied; they spend a lot of time playing with their smart phones,…

We’ve watched two high-profile ceremonies this summer—Michael Jackson’s in Los Angeles and Ted Kennedy’s in Boston, and beyond the sadness of the occasion the thing that struck me about both was how dignified the families looked in their sorrow.  Sober, elegant clothes that hit exactly the right note.  The Jacksons were, if rumor is correct,…