Vixen Chronicles

It’s March. Where did February go? It does seem like February slipped by in a furry of snowstorms. So did black history month. or maybe its were I’m located. When I lived in Texas, it seemed like the short month of February was jam packed with activities designed to remind and celebrate the legacy , contributions and history that Black Americans have made to this country. I went to luncheons, breakfasts, parades and service activities, etc. There were so many we had to pick and choose which we would attend. Now that I have moved to “supposedly” more liberal California, the month almost slipped by unnoticed. There was one activity, and that is the first weekend in March. Instead of being a month of remembrance and reflection, the thing that will stay in my mind about February of 2010 is The Compton Cook Out on UCSD’s campus, an event that was a mockery of black history celebrations everywhere, where participants were encouraged to come in black face or dressed as jigaboos and ...

I was going to blog about what you could do for yourself on Valentine’s day, but instead found a much more interesting topic. Do you think a man and woman can be “just friends”? I used to think so, then I realized there are all shades of this. It depends on a lot of things. Is the man single? Is the woman? Just how do you define “friends”? Is a friend someone you know and you might hang out with occasionally? How do you define hang out? Does hanging out mean you went to high school (or something ) together and you happen to be in town and once in ten years you have a drink? Or does it mean you have a regular get together to maybe go to the movies alone together, without your significant other? How does the answer change if you are married? I know people who would absolutely answer yes, but can they really? I know you are racking your brain thinking, “Me and Ray-Ray have been friends for years”. But if you dig down, has either you or Ray-Ray, at one point, tried to take your ...

A New NinaFoxx.com is coming! That's right, new year, new FOXX style. My website has been redesigned to reflect the new parts of Nina. Go there over the next few days and take in the new metamorphosis. My new site will be the headquarters where you can find out about all of my new projects. From there you can connect with me and my friends via my blog or my twitter. You never know what I'm up to or where I'm headed, so be sure to check in here often. My last entry will make you think about the hairy parts of life. :-) I hope that " Lycanthropy Runs in my family " will make you dialogue about Mo'Niques leg look for the red carpet and what you think is acceptable. FILM : One of the new things you will find on my website is a film section. That's right, film. Think of it as FoxxTale TV- Those of you that have been following me know that I have been active on the film scene. I created a web pilot called " She's Got Is'Shoes" and...

Mo’Nique has been in the news because of her hirsute legs on the red carpet. She said on Oprah that being unshaven was a black women’s thing. Ahem. Maybe its just a Mo’Nique thing, cause I’m a black women and I shaved my legs as soon as I had hair. I must have been twelve when I discovered the first hairs. I remember an oppressively hot day, mid-summer in the deep of Alabama. I was sitting on the porch in my grandmother’s rocking chair, folding myself over to stop the beginnings of what I didn’ t yet recognize as cramps, with my chin on my knees. There were hairs there. It wasn’t a conscious decision to remove them, but I somehow got the sewing scissors and started to trim myself.         I stole my older brothers razor that summer and used it on my legs until it got rusty. At one point it cut me so bad that my nervous system jolted and made me dizzy. No hair will grow in the spot where I cut myself to this his day. I tried various di...

I used to know a girl in high school who appeared so confident, except for one thing. She had a funny, little nervous laugh that would always give her away. When she said something she wasn’t sure of, her hands would fly up to her mouth, and then that little laugh would escape. It was deep, belly kind of laugh, delivered with a snicker that would shake her whole body. The two of us used to be friends, sort of. We traveled in the same circles, but I think the two of us had an unspoken understanding to keep each other at arm’s length, or we both lacked the familiarity with ourselves that kept us from the disclosure with another that makes people true friends. I almost admired her. In my eyes, she had all the things that teens deem important; great hair, great clothes and a very close female friend, at a time when I hated my own orange colored hair that my father refused to let me have cut, coiffed, colored or relaxed on a regular basis, and Daddy-chosen clothes that never seemed q...

I just got back to the West Coast last night, and I’m spending time in opening the holiday cards that came While I was away. I love the picture and the update cards the best. The holidays are a time when you can catch up with friends and family that you haven’t seen in a while, so I really appreciate it when someone takes the time to update me on their life and to actually mail me a card. I did get a few e-cards, but call me old-fashioned. They are just not the same. What do you think? I also came to the conclusion that mainly women send cards. Of about the 100 that I received, only one came from a male. Interesting. I took the last two weeks of the year to rest and do absolutely nothing. When I left here, I had every intention of writing the last two weeks of the year away. But thankfully, my family didn’t let me do that. Instead they kept me occupied, sometimes occupied doing nothing, for most of the time I was gone. The end result is that I am refreshed, rejuvenated and ready ...

Got this is an email, thought I would share... There is one Christmas Carol that has always baffled me. What in the world do leaping lords, French hens, swimming swans, and especially the partridge who won't come out of the pear tree have to do with Christmas? This week, I found out. From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember. -The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ. -Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments. -Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love. -The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. -The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Tes...

Came across this article on Salon.com and loved it. Sadly, it seems so true! http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2004/03/22/midlist/print.html

n a moment of frustration Virginia wrote an open letter to Oprah, and shared it with a few writer friends who are going through the same thing we are. Now the letter is starting to go viral--getting a lot of repostings and inclusions in blogs, newsletters and on Facebook, so we decided we should share it with you, the readers who have supported us all these years. We are thankful for you and we wish you a joyful Thanksgiving!   V&D       Dear Oprah: We don't sing karaoke or dance with the stars, we have been contributing to the cultural landscape long before Jon & Kate, Britney,Rhianna and Chris or Stephanie Meyer and most of America, including you have probably never even heard of us. We have railed against Kanye's proud pronouncement upon the publication of his 52 page book: Thank You and You're Welcome, that "I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph." Huh? We are writers and we are in trouble. Big trouble. I would never have im...

I haven’t blogged in awhile. Truthfully, I haven’t been feeling it at all. I do know many of you have been keeping up with me on Facebook and Twitter. I celebrated my birthday this past weekend. (Let’s just say it was an anniversary of thirty five). I’ve had a great year that has been full of lots of life changes. Since last October, I’ve done a lot of great traveling to a lot of great places, and yes, I have looked for shoes in all of them. I also made some personal changes that have left me loads happier and looking forward to great future. I completed a TV Pilot, and although I have not sold it, it has won a few awards. Most recently, it won Best TV Pilot at the Urban Media Makers Film Festival In Atlanta ON MY BIRTHDAY. Yaay! It was a great event, and they even had a runway, so you know I had to strut my stuff on it! Seriously, Cheryle Reynolds put on a fantastic event and I was honored to be in such great company. If you want to see the sizzle of the film, see it here, h...

VideoDetective.com - Nina Foxx's Marrying Up Preview Shared via AddThis

I have gotten several emails asking when I was going to blog again. Yes, I am fine. I have been taking some time for myself, to do some much needed reorganization of both my life and my business. That being said, good things are coming. I have two projects that I am working very heavily on. First, I’m working on an anthology---Stay tuned for the submission information. The second one I am very excited about. I’ve been stewing the idea of some film shorts for awhile, based on the characters from Just Short of Crazy. I wrote them awhile ago and stuck them in a drawer. After moving to Cali I pulled them out and it looks like they are coming to life in a very special way. I got the greenlight just a week or so ago, and before I knew it I was in pre-production and casting meetings. I know you want to know who is going to be in it, BUT I can’t tell you yet! Stay tuned for that info---

You all know that I have been working on a TV Pilot. Here's a snippet. Nina

One might have thought that I was just lazing by the pool yesterday in Waikoloa, but I wasn’t. I was studying. I find that I can learn something from almost every situation. I tried to sit there and just do nothing, but before long, I found that I was being schooled. This is a family resort, so no surprise that the early morning pool-goers were families; mothers and fathers with kids in tow, many with a severe case of jet-lag, just like me. People who’d gotten up at 4:30 AM or earlier, whose kids couldn’t wait to get out into the surf or any kind of water. The MO was almost always the same. The moms lurked around the edge of the pool, with the kids begging for them to hurry up and get into the water. Usually, Kids would jump right in while the moms watched and slowly edged toward the pool. Some moms might have come to the edge of the pool and let the kids get on the first or second step, threatening to snatch the pool privileges if they went to far too fast. If Dads were presen...

This past weekend, I had the privilege of attending a luncheon honoring young black men. Usually, the luncheons are all the same. You arrive, have about a half an hour of hobnobbing with people that you see at all the other luncheons, someone rings a chime, the doors open and you new file into a ballroom and find your seat. Generally, you sit with people you know, because you have bought the table yourself or been invited by one of your friends who did . You kiss everyone on the cheek all around the table and comment on each others clothing. Usually, there’s a salad in front of you already waiting, and sometimes the dessert, too. The table is usually too crowded, and you sit around and wonder quietly which napkin is yours and hope you choose the right fork. Finally, some with courage will be the first one to dig in. They grab a napkin and everyone follows suit. Fortunately for me, I had my big one with me, and she informed us that the right way to go was to wait for the oldes...

I didn’t know what to expect at all. This was my first time on the African continent, and I was standing face to face with some of my American prejudices. I’d just gotten off the plane and was making my way to immigration in Casablanca, my steps slowing the closer I got. All the way down the maze of hallways, a man had been shouting at the top of his lungs. Shouting, and I couldn’t understand. I glanced at him casually, masking my annoyance and his long, black beard stabbed at me. He continued yelling in Arabic. Part of me was bathed in relief, the kind you feel when something embarrassing is happening around you and you’re glad that the person committing the deed isn’t black. The other part, the part that has been bombarded with orange alerts and strip searches, cringed and tried to distance itself from the man and his unintelligible rant. We ended up in the immigration lines next to each other. His yelling kept getting louder as we neared the desks, despite his friends tryi...

I didn’t get to go to the Inauguration, but a lot of my family members did. My sister sent me her thoughts and I feel honored to share them here. The opening line to A Lesson Before Dying is “I wasn’t there, but I was there.” That sums up how I feel... Enjoy. I just wanted to take a moment to send a few notes about my incredible experience yesterday in Washington, D.C.  Robert, Brandie and I, along with some of my NYC relatives got together for a once in a lifetime experience.   We decided to go with a friend who sponsored a bus outing from Baltimore since private cars were not going to be allowed in D.C.  Getting eight people up, dressed and ready to meet a bus at 4:00 AM was easier than I thought since we were all very excited and were eagerly awaiting this event.  Thankfully, the temperature in Baltimore rose to a high of 28 degrees to start out with and stayed around 38 degrees throughout the day.   Yes, it was really cold!  We arrived at RFC stadium where only charter buses wer...

I read an interesting tidbit about the Real Housewives of Atlanta. First, let’s just say I’m not really a fan. I caught a few snippets and although I have to admit that I was riveted, I refused to return. I was sort of put off by their shenanigans. I mean, are these people real? I know they weren’t figments of my imagination, but I didn’t feel they were an honest (or respectable) portrayal of black “housewives”. I can say that because I know a lot of people who would fall into that category. Really, this was an excellent illustration of the fact that class and money (or style and money) are not the same things. But hey, I wasn’t mad at them for scoring a slice of somebody’s black on TV, even if they did look like buffoon’s when all the editing was done. I realize that not everyone shares my opinion, and that the editor’s knife can be wicked. The tidbit said that Deshawn Snow would not be returning to the show for another season. Why not? She’s too normal. The quote I read sai...