My cup runneth over (but I'm doggy-paddling in the spillage)

Hello ladies!!
First, THANK YOU for all your incredible, funny, encouraging emails (especially VADAMSEL… you, your sis, two kids and boyfriend are in mi corazon). I’m tickled fuchsia that you like me, you really like me, and I adored your gentle-but-firm admonishments for not including your favorite glosses on the Tia’s Top Ten Lip Essentials list. It makes me feel so vindicated, your passionate product loyalty, as it proves I am not the only cosmetics crackhead willing to ride or die for her MAC Lipglass!

And yes, I’ve been missing as long as Mariah holds that last warble on “We Belong Together,” but I’ve had QUITE the couple of weeks!! Some very exciting projects have been thrown my way, so I’ve been somewhat distracted—not to mention working every second I get on my novel (which is finally sputtering along n-n-n-nicely). Here’s what’s been going on with me!

Forever and consistently shaking my beauty and you better do the same, bitch,
Tia

1.) Me, my apartment, and my metrosexual Miniature Pinscher have just been photographed for an October feature in Glamour magazine (it hits stands in September…look for it!!), tentatively titled “Creative Women and Their Spaces.” Have you EVER? Chappie wore a beautiful red prep school-esque sweatshirt over a stiff-colored white oxford shirt. Very back to school hot (he looked like Seth Cohen from the OC). And I wore fabulous fall frocks from Max Azria and Nanette Lepore—both very bohemian luxe. The best part? The Glamour folks brought in a red chaise lounge, and as I lay there, draped languorously across the thing with my handsome pooch in my lap, the camera snapping away, I thought to myself, “Okay, this makes up for the mortification of turning THIRTY in August.”

2.) Starting on Monday, www.bet.com's beauty page will feature a link to “Shake Your Beauty!” Just go to "beauty" on the left column of the home page, then scroll down and click on the "Shake Your Beauty!" icon (my saucy illustration) to access. Pass it on!

3.) For the second year in a row, I’m signing books and speaking on one of the many fabulous panels at THE black literary event of the year, the so-called "Mecca of Black Literature"…The Harlem Book Fair! On Saturday, July 23rd, literally every black author (from Zane, Toure, and Nelson George to Cornel West and Bebe Moore Campbell) will be somewhere among the 250 or so tents along 135th St. in Harlem, selling and signing books, doing readings, speaking on panels. Its an orgy of booklovers (at least 5,000 folks a day) and books…you won’t have to go to the bookstore for a year! Anyway, last year my panel was “Love, Lust and Lies” (needless to say, the “Down Low” guy was one of the panelists), and this year, it’s “The Enigma of Beauty.” Oooooh. And my very own Fairy GodModel, Iman, just informed me that she's on the same panel!!! Cannot, cannot wait. If you’re anywhere near New York City, you MUST attend.

4.) Anybody gonna be in Atlanta from September 30th to October 2nd? I’ve been invited to read, sign and participate on author panels at the Million Reunion/Consumer Expo at The Omni Hotel in downtown Atlanta (click here for list of authors, schedules, tickets, etc.) It’s sort of a reunion of the 1963 March on Washington, the Million Man March, and The Million Woman March—expect tons of exhibiters, celebrities, entertainment, interesting panels, etc. Lets get positive, people.