Adiba Nelson

I applaud you for being here. I applaud you for giving life the five fingers of death and deciding to show up for whatever the day brings — every day.

So, by your reasoning, it’s safe to say that we should go into areas where one group of people are thought to be terrorizing another group of people, round up the terrorizers, and get them off the streets. OK, cool. I see your proposal, and I raise you “history."

How do you go from two extremely different individuals living life separately to two extremely different individuals merging their separate lives into one loving family portrait — all while avoiding a cosmic meltdown? Very, very carefully. And with a bottle of wine… or 50.

"I will peer relentlessly into every cop car I pass with a young black man in it, stretching my neck to make sure that it’s not my son who’s been arrested for driving while black, walking while black, or breathing while black. I will hold my breath while listening to every news report of another black man that has been arrested, beaten, killed, and made an example of."

While most of my friends on social media are in a complete uproar over season four of Orange Is The New Black (OITNB to the rest of us), I am standing at full attention, giving Jenji Kohan the loudest slow clap in the history of slow claps.

Soy Adiba Nelson, y soy Latina también!

That, my dear, is self-care 101: You must take care of yourself if you want to take care of others.

Want to go on a carbs and wine tour of Italy? Break out the leggings and go for it. This time is yours.

That man shakes me to my core. Actually, not HIM, per se, but the people who blindly follow him. The out-and-out bigots who will call me the N-word just as easily as they’d call their buddy “Bob.” The people who SWEAR they're not bigots, but support him because they believe in his promise of new jobs and deportations.

Then we had that talk that made my eye twitch: the budget talk.