Is Being *Unhinged and Authentic the New Captcha for the Anti-AI Movement *A little less hinged. “Showing up online a little unhinged proves that you aren’t using AI, and it’ll set you apart.” A post on LinkedIn read, and it got me thinking. They’re not wrong! Being a little unhinged or quirky, leaning into your…
Tag: writing
Once Upon a Black Woman: Unemployment, Maturity, Peace, and Self-Worth
I found out April 1st that, come April 30th, my full time employment would be eliminated. My car decided that it wanted to make the sound that could only be compared to the whale in Finding Nemo. And that’s okay because gas is now more than the 412 area code that Pittsburgh resides in. It’s…
Once Upon a Black Woman: There’s Something About April & Change
April always tests what I’m made of… In April 2013, I joined AmeriCorps after being laid off for the first time. In April 2014, I became an American Airlines flight attendant. In April 2023, I was laid off for a second time. This time from my third career as a healthcare IT Business Analyst. I…
Confessions of an Ex-Millennial Mayor: Overseeing a Police Department
In a weak-mayor system, some municipal mayors get to oversee a police department. The first thing that I remember after being sworn in was being whisked away and handed two internal police investigations. I was curious, energized, ready to learn, and ready to lead. The mayor paid less than $100 a month, so my day…
Why Not You?
Audacity “The quality or state of being audacious: such as a : intrepid boldness knights admired for their audacity.” I’ve had about four or five careers (I’ve stopped counting), and I just embrace the art of side quest. Why not step out of your comfort zone? Why not learn something new? If you fail, it…
Confessions of an Ex-Millennial Mayor
I imagine 18-year-old me, 28-year-old me, and the me today sitting at a bar. They’d all get along kee-keeing with one another. They’d converse about talking the crying customer out of the plane bathroom before take off, or telling the one man, “I’m as hot and chocolate as he was going to get,” because we…
On: Millennial Adaptability, Authenticity, and Publishing My 4th Book, Black Girl, Blue Skies
Just chasing authenticity and imperfection in a world full of perfectly curated artificial intelligence. You’ll never have it all figured out, and as soon as you figure that out, life doesn’t get easier, but it absolutely becomes less chaotic by far. Controlling everything like a game of The Sims 4 is impossible. If I weren’t…
37 in Less Than 7 Days: Flexibility is a Flex
I will be 37 in 7 days. What am I learning? Mostly, I’ll never have it all figured out. After briefly being a flight attendant, my 9-year career in tech came to a pause. The position got eliminated, so I leaned heavily into pivoting. I will continue to lean into pivoting my entire life as…
We Are All Exhausted
We are all exhausted right now, but we show up with as much as we can every day. One hundred percent looks different to the same person each day, and we just do our best and try again tomorrow. Times in this political climate (which some of us predicted if we got there) are hard…
Capitalism Killed the American Dream
Once upon a time, in an American neighborhood, you could buy a house, work through college to pay your tuition with zero student loan debt, and have a child without feeling as if you would never financially recover. The credit score wasn’t even created until 1989. It wasn’t until 1978 that federal student loans were…
OMG It's Just Daé 