I wash my hands, wonder how an awful day could turn even worse. It seems like at some point you'd just run out of awful.

...My sister Doreena who never lifted a royal finger growing up because she had the heart defect that we later found out was a fly on the X-ray machine.

I grew up in the 1970s, but I don't think a whole lot had changed from the '60s. Oh, it had changed in the law books - but not in the kitchens of white homes.

Lord, I never seen blue hair on a black woman before or since. Leroy say you look like a cracker from outer space.

At one O'Clock, Miss Celia comes in the kitchen and says she's ready for her first cooking lesson. She settles on a stool. She's wearing a tight red sweater and a red skirt and enough makeup to scare a hooker.

I intend to stay on her like hair on soap.

I'm tired of the rules," I say.