we all have "situations"

i was on my homegirl's radio show the other day when i made a comment that peaked the curiosity of a guy that was on the line as well. the guy asked me if i had a man and i replied with "i've got a *situation*but i'm not in a relationship." to my surprise he stated that everyone is in a "situation "at this point. once i thought about it, i realized how right he is. between people not being married but having children, and cohabitating to save money, the economy just being bad, so people keep living with significant others that they don't want to be with, just because they can't afford to live alone right now. many of us have "situations."

at this age (i'm 28) most people that don't live with their other should not have a "situation." if a guy has a chick and he loves her and she thinks he's being faithful when he's fucking whoever he can, that's not a "situation" that's him just fucking around. but when a man is living with a woman, they don't have sex, they have children that he loves and the woman has said to him "i don't care if you mess around" (true story of a friend of mine) he has a "situation." he loves his kids and couldn't stand to be a part from them, but he's got needs too. frankly i think the chick is getting her rocks off elsewhere, but he's so sexually frustrated and pissed off after years of her being like this, he doesn't even care what his baby's mama does when she's out of the house. dude is just looking for a girl that can break him off in the meantime and can deal with his "situation."

"situations" are tricky. when you've got a "situation" you can't just be dealing with anyone. "situations" normally require that the outside party be understanding and not trying to get the person they're kicking it with to marry them. most of us with "situations" understand that when you meet somebody new that you like, the first thing to do is to tell the new person. nobody likes surprises. and when you're in a "situation" its important that you reiterate occasionally, "i'm not happy with my 'situation' but for the moment, its the best thing going for all parties involved." a lot of guys with "situations" find that its best to just hook up with random chicks at the club. that way there's no real conversation or expectancies. they do their thing one time and go home to forget about on another.

classic case of the outsider of a "situation" gone wrong? getting text messages and phonecalls from some bitch deen was fucking with, telling me that she's preggers. sweet jesus. now, in his defense, deen tried to explain to old girl early on that he had a "situation" and that relationship-wise, he was off the market until baby and i move out and until he gets his finances in order and finishes school. but i know how deen does (not to mention the fact that he's good looking and mannerable so women are always checking for him) so i wouldn't be surprised if what she heard was "if i expedite the process of his baby mama moving out, he'll be MINE." deen told me that the chick told him (in the beginning) that she'd had a botched abortion back in the day so she couldn't have any kids. ouch. when i talked to her on the phone it was quite obvious that her mental state was in shambles (she was literally rambling about how the whole thing was between she and he and was none of my business- she didn't answer any questions or even talk directly to me, she just kept repeating that the whole thing was between he and she). needless to say, i hit the fucking roof. whatever you do in the streets, it should never make it home to your "situation." i'm sure that not all women that are unable to have children have the mental issues that this chick did (and for the record, she wasn't preggers afterall) but he broke off things with her when he felt it was getting too close to home. but his dumb ass kept going back. *sigh* and that's how i ended up with yet ANOTHER one of his crazy bitches causing me to want to bash his damned skull in.

i've also got another homegirl with a "situation." she's got kids and a husband and lives with her extended family. the kids, husband and she share a bedroom. she got chlymidia from her husband. it happened nearly a year ago, but she's not sure if she's going to stay with the guy. so everytime she meets a new guy, she has to explain her "situation." or there's my homeboy whose been screwing off and on with his best friend since high school. he says that he could never marry her because they're too much alike but when dude tried to get with my homegirl, he constantly brought up his best friend and seemed to enjoy making my homegirl feel uncomfortable with their "friendly" relationship. why the hell didn't he just admit to having a "situation" so that my homegirl knew exactly what she was getting into earlier? the thing about "situations" is that if you're honest and as a person, if you're worth it, you can still date, "situation" or not. my homeboy is a great guy and my friend still would have dated him casually, but at least she would have known not to try to get too close because of his "situation."

personally, i don't really seek out dating because of my "situation." i live with my son's father and although we have separate bedrooms, we do still occasionally get it on and, its hard for me to tear myself away from the couch with him when we're home having our family moments. as long as we live together, honestly it would be hard for me to give proper attention to any man that isn't my son or his father. don't get me wrong, though. for the right man, my "situation" isn't going to stop the show. personally, i like guys with "situations" also. if a guy is single and childless or if he's single and the child doesn't live with him, he doesn't understand the complications of leaving the house when there's issues with the other or issues with "who's gonna watch the baby?" a guy who's got his own "situation" isn't going to press me to move in with him or try to get me away from deen. if he's got a "situation" too, he'll understand that sometimes all we can do is talk on the phone and/or lay with each other on occasion before we get back to our lives. i guess that's what a situation really is- the life that you want, versus the life that you have.

i miss not being a mommy

i love my son. i honestly do. i would lay down my life for him in an instant if i had to. but this evening when i went into starbucks to pick up the long-missed white chocolate mocha, i noticed the slightly warm air. the people sitting out on the patio laughing- that used to be me. about 3 or 4 years ago pre-baby and pre-deen, i used to be a regular at the magic johnson starbucks on cascade road in atlanta. i went there to study. i was especially partial to the area because that was one of the areas in atlanta where many of the wealthy black elite lived. i used to bask in their glow and see many of the political bigwigs meeting to discuss real estate deals and whatnot. i saw mayor shirley franklin walk in there one day. i met one of my best friends, leo, while hanging out there. there was a crew of older men in their 60's through their 80's and they sat in there talking shit and playing the dozens. some of those older cats had marched with many of atlanta's civil rights era royalty- lewis, abernathy, hosea williams, dr. king. that was my second home. i honestly logged about 20 hours a week there, if not more. the second i got out of school, i'd go straight there. i'd stay until they closed. i knew the regulars and staff of that starbucks by name. i rarely even paid for drinks so my caffeine addiction was never even an financial issue. today i went to a strange starbucks, not the one on cascade. something about this night reminded me of what my life used to be. i used to stay at starbucks reading book after book and writing. i can't do starbucks with a 16-month-old child. that boy wouldn't sit still and be quiet if my life depended on it.

not only starbucks do i miss. i miss my favorite pizza joint, fellini's. fellini's closes at 2 a.m. (one of the very few places in atlanta that's open late). i remember laughing with friends eating on the patio until 2:30 when they started pulling in the umbrellas at night. i miss the night life. i miss dancing at mjq concourse until the lights came on. i miss wearing short skirts that showed off my long sexy legs. i refuse to be one of those moms that dresses like a slut while my child is with me (but i have no problem dressing like one while he's gone). i love my baby, but i miss the old me and i miss my freedom. i miss late nights out partying. i miss being able to drive to tennesee or alabama whenever i needed to drive to clear my head. i miss being able to walk through centennial olympic park in the middle of the night when i wanted to get away from the craziness of my existence. i miss meeting men and not having to explain my "situation" about living with my son's father in an open relationship. i miss being able to go shopping for a new outfit whenever there was a party to attend. i haven't gotten my locs professionally twisted in over a year. now my days are spent chasing down my son and planning for his future-private school. i change diapers all day. i make sure he's fed. i can't just up and go to pilates classes if i don't have someone to watch him. i can't even just enjoy walking through the neighborhood with him in a stroller because there are no sidewalks in some parts so the stroller would be a bitch to navigate. my only salvation will be the eliptical exercise machine that i'm about to buy. so i can stay home and exercise while continuing to watch my son.

i love my son and i have no regrets about him being here, but damn. i miss my freedom.

you're gonna hate me but- i'm tired of obama

ok, since dude announced that he was running 2 years ago, there hasn't been a moment that a camera isn't in his damned face. we saw him painting, we saw him on vacation, we saw him stopping to get a chili dog at his fave hang out. yeah, i'm happy too, but DAMN. am i really going to have to shut off all forms of communication to get some damned peace today? i want the positive changes too- i'm about to graduate from college and i really need for the government to free up some money so that me and other college graduates have something to look forward to. as much of a hippy as i am, being a hippy doesn't pay the bills and it sure doesn't come with health insurance. hell, i'd work for the goverment if i had the chance. but i'm home, my t.v. is on the cartoon network of all things and they're talking to KIDS about obama. when is the media going to let up and start focusing on issues again and crawl out of this guy's ass?! frankly, i wish my grandparents would have lived to see this. and if the inauguration would have happened in a warmer month, i would have went on up to dc and met up with friends and family, taken the baby, and whatnot. but the fact is a pipe in my apartment just burst for the second damned time because it froze over so there is no way in hell i'd go up there where it is even colder. do you know how crowded dc is on the regular? i do. its crowded and its dirty. i hate dc. and now over ONE MILLION additional people have descended on that poor over-worked, dingy city. let's just get this over with. i don't give a damned who's performing. i don't give a damned what they sing. i don't give a damned what michelle wears. i don't give a damned what he says during his speech in a little under 2 hours. i give a damned what he does once he's sworn in and starts with the policies. so excuse me if i'm an obama scrooge. but I'M TIRED OF OBAMA. with his fine ass.

is it better to have screwed and lost than to never have screwed at all?

recently i found myself reflecting on some things, relationships and the like. i dunno, perhaps my time with deen has made me think about some things. anyway, i was talking to a coworker of mine recently. anyway, the chick is pretty banging. she just graduated from college with a degree in accounting. she's got a pretty face, an ass-to-waist ratio that most women would KILL for, good head on her shoulders, and a great sense of style. she's only about 22 or 23 and there's no doubt in my mind that this sista is going to go far in life. she and i talk about men and relationships a lot. she's single and she complained about the same crap that many single women (especially black women) complain about. lack of men, lack of quality men. wanting to go far in her profession and not wanting to get sidetracked by some knucklehead.
my sage words of wisdom to her were to "find a man that you're willing to work on things with, and CLING ON TO HIS ASS." intelligent? no. true? YEP. these days, its HARD for sistas to find good men. i love the beautiful men that i'm surrounded by but frankly, i know far more single women than single men and while men know that they have their choice of women, women know that they've got some serious competition for the best men. i have a homeboy with a masters degree who owns his home and he fully understands that in terms of women, he can have his pick of the litter. i told her that my personal fear was to become one of those women that had everything going on in my professional life because my professional life was the only thing i had to cling to. a prime example would be a teacher i had a few years ago. that woman had it going on. she was beautiful, had a sense of humor to rival mine (which is quite a feat), masters degree, her own business, owns her house. what man wouldn't want that woman? guys wanted her, but to find one that matched wits wasn't too easy. she was about 42 at the time. as much as i respected her, i couldn't imagine myself 42 and single and childless. another friend of mine has a god-mother in a similar boat. in her early 40's, beautiful, kind, spiritual, lawyer, her own house. single and childless. don't get me wrong, having a child doesn't make my life more worthwhile than a woman that doesn't have a child. when you're in your 20's and early 30's, there's still plenty of time. but frankly, if you don't have any children by the early 40's and you're a woman, its time to consider that having a child and/or getting married may not happen for you. and before i get comments saying "i know a woman thats xyz age and she just had a baby and got married and is happy" frankly anything is possible. but most older people that have children will admit that they wish they'd have started earlier. anyway, as crazy as it sounds, when i reached the age of 25, i started to say that it may not happen for me. hell, marriage may still not happen although i do have times where i enjoy playing house with deen. but i remind myself daily that this isn't real. we talk about the future but its not secured for either of us. but please believe that times like now when things are good, i think (and hope) that maybe by the time we're forty we'll figure the whole damned thing out and get married.
when my coworker and i talked and i gave her my *awesome* advice and i told her about my fear of becoming one of those beautiful women in my forties with no children, she recommended a documentary called "soul mate" where they talk about the exact same thing- sucessful older black women that are having a hard time getting married or just finding a good partner. today when i got out of work i looked up the documentary and i got to watch a small snippet of it. one of the things it said is that 70% of black women are not married. damn. another clip showed a woman saying that she's 45 years old and a virgin. SAY WHAT!?!?!?! virgin? 45? no sex? EVER?! *shudders* this is one of those moments where i'm fighting the look of being a shallow slut. sex isn't everything. its damned close to it. but not everything. while i respect women that choose to hold out, i can't help but to feel that at some point, hell, get it on over with. while i hate that david was my first, i accept that it brought me to a higher level of understanding in relationships. for my cute little 22 year old virginal coworker, i continue to encourage her to wait. but 45? damn girl. i gotta rent this dvd now, just because i want to hear her story. has she been in any deep relationships? if so, for how long? was she ever close to getting married? was she/is she waiting for marriage to get it on? wow, 45. once again, i'm sure her life has been fulfilling. but she doesn't know what she's missing out on. i'm not even talking about casual sex. although i am a *bit* of a proponent for casual sex, i'm talking about making love. i'm talking about laying in bed naked next to someone that loves you. granted, you may not be married and you may not plan to get married. but you love one another. to be a naked woman, wrapped in a bed sheet sleeping next to the naked male love of my life is something that i cherish. david may have been a douchebag in the end, but there were numerous moments that we shared not only our bodies, but our souls. sometimes i climb into bed with deen and we spoon and hold one another. could you truly appreciate all of that and get to that point without sex? i don't want to say no, but i highly doubt it. and not that i encourage having a child the same way that i did, but without premarital sex i never would have had my son. a 45 year old virgin doesn't know what she's missing out on. but i know what she's missing out on, and you couldn't pay me enough to be her.

how i pissed off a pastor

as an adult do you ever look back at something that you did or said as a child and think to yourself "man, i was advanced/brave/kind/smart when i was a kid"? this is one of those moments for me. anyway, i've always been a bit of a rebel and i've always asked questions of people i'm not supposed to ask. that's why i don't do the whole church thing. too many questions that can only be answered by blind faith and hypocrisy. here is my story of ticking off a pastor. damn i'm good.

in high school we had a woman that was a local pastor who would be a substitute teacher from time to time. her name was ms. english. one day she filled in for my chemistry teacher and starting telling my class about the bible. she pointed to my classmate juju and said that the tattoos on his arm were sinful because the bible says that we're not supposed to mark our skin. now her argument would be well and good, except for the fact that ms. english had about 5 earring holes in each ear.

i pointed out her earrings and said that it's wrong to put down juju's tats when she had earrings. call me crazy, but i couldn't really see god being okay with a woman lining each of her ears earrings, while damning young juju for his tats. ms. english looked at me with utter contempt (i've gotten that look a lot in my life, so i know the look of contempt WELL). she said to me "the bible says not to CUT the skin. just to help this story along here is the verse from the old testament says

“Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves."

so anyway, i told her that she was just as wrong for having earrings as juju was for having tats. ms. english was getting more and more irritated as i pointed this out in front of my classmates. she asked me if i knew the difference between a piercing and a cut. i told her that they're pretty much the same thing and she said they were totally different. somehow or another i was challenged to get a dictionary to look up the difference between the words "pierce" and "cut." in my classroom there happened to be two dictionaries available so i grabbed the biggest one, knowing it would fall in my favor. i started by looking up "cut" and one of the definitions was actually the word "to pierce." i read the definition out loud. my face as i looked at ms. english said it all. i'm pretty sure at that moment she wished she wasn't a christian so she could punch me.

now that i'm older and i've learned to look closely at all religions, i marvel at how advanced and intelligent i was to question her. not only was she an adult, she was a freaking pastor. i just didn't like her telling us how wrong tattoos and whatnot are, when she pretty much did the same in a different capacity. this is was while i was a junior in high school. if only i'd learned to use my power for good instead of evil.

surprise!!!

a few years back i hung out with my homeboy and a bunch of his buddies. there with us was also a girl that my homeboy had been chatting with online and this was their first personal meeting. no homo and all, but the chick was BANGIN'. light skin, long soft pretty hair, big ass, small waist, gorgeous face. she kept playfully backing it up to my homeboy that night. his homies were drooling over the chick and amazed at how lucky he was to find a chick this good looking and flirtatious, online. she was the kind of woman that men wanted and women wanted to be.

my friend and i lost touch and we'd caught up later and we were discussing some lost friends when i asked him about the gorgeous creature he'd met online. he told me that she and he remained friends and they never got together.

he also told me she had HIV.

damn.

i sure as hell didn't see that coming. the girl didn't look like she'd been sick a day in her life. i literally watched men craning their necks to look at her. she got it from a boyfriend at school. she had a sickness that could kill her if she got a bad cold. she was cursed with "the package." i can't really get into what made me think about this story. perhaps when i get drunk and/or mad enough, i'll blog about it, but for now i can't.

but becareful people.

AIDS is real.

am i the only one whose family "just doesn't get it"?

my father called me around new years and asked if i wanted to get together with him, my son, and my younger sister. my answer? "hell no." he asked why not. i told him that the last time my sister talked to me, she called herself telling me about myself. she told me that "its not her fault that i got pregnant" and that she's "tired of taking care of my child." at that point the only thing she'd done was buy a few bottles and watch my son twice while i went to class. sorry, but that does not constitute taking care of my child. and as far as i'm concerned there is no "fault" in my getting pregnant. my son is a gift and anyone that doesn't see that family or not, doesn't deserve to bask in his glow. people that see me and know my hustle know how much her saying that hurt me and pissed me off. despite being pregnant, i continued to work and go to school. as a matter of fact, i was at school the day before my labor was induced. i was alone. despite deen early on not wanting the baby, i was willing to do the whole thing alone. how dare she think its her place to correct me when the truth is, she and i are virtual strangers?

i barely graduated high school. i was a c and d student. an angel of mercy changed a grade for me at the last minute and that afforded me the chance to graduate with my class. i started at community college and i paid for it out of pocket. i was working at the same time. despite my family making me feel like a dumbass, i continued on. it took a long time. i wanted to get a regular job, but frankly, i'm not a regular person. so i continued to work b.s. jobs while dealing with my school schedule. i later went to a school where my dad works, so i went for free, but i was still grinding and working while going to school.

when i transferred to kennesaw state university, it was the greatest moment in my life (outside of childbirth). when i talked to the admissions woman and she told me that i'd got accepted i cried and hugged everyone in my office. kennesaw represented a place where i never thought i'd be. most of my friends from school went to major schools while i was at community college. and now i had just got accepted to the 3rd biggest school in the state. by the time i started at kennesaw, i was 24 and a junior. for the first 3 weeks i was there whenever i stepped on college, i took the whole thing in. the big buildings, athletes jogging across campus. kennesaw represented that i, the girl that had barely graduated high school, was better than people told me i was.

it was hard as hell to go to school while pregnant. early on i was sick as hell and i failed a class. toward the end i was 9 months pregnant and when i walked down the hall, the red sea parted. people were happy for me, but i felt like a statistic- an unmarried black woman, pregnant before i'd even graduated college. but i knew that going to college was important because whether deen would be in my life or not, i needed to hustle to get out and give my baby the existence he deserved. like i said, i was at school right before my baby was due. that's how dedicated i was.

so, no, i don't want to talk to my sister. my whole damned life she got her shits and giggles by calling me a nobody, and right after i had my child despite me hauling ass to make things good for him, she calls me talking shit. my father feels that she was giving me tough love, but i didn't need tough love, i needed my family to tell me that i was doing the best i could and they saw that and appreciated it. i told my father the other day that i only have one class left to take and i'll graduate in may and my dad said to me "i'll believe it when i see it." 10 years of college and that's what he says to me. its so sad to me that many of my friends will say to me "it doesn't matter how long you've been there, the good thing is that you're still going and you'll get out eventually" but my own family is caught up in me not getting out when and how they think i should.

so, no, i don't want to see my sister now or ever. she doesn't know a damned thing about me and until she can look at my life as an accomplishment instead of as a failure, she'll continue to have no relationship with me. i'm not missing out, i'm at a better place now than she'll ever know. and i don't need her or anyone else raining on my parade.

from the studio to the train station: the fallen star

as some of you know, i live in atlanta and i grew up in college park. back in the day (thousands of years ago) i developed a crush on one of the members from the nineties r&b kid singing group another bad creation. i'll just call him memberx. i've always been a music nut. i'd buy all the magazines like "fresh," "word up," and "right on" and post the pictures on my bedroom wall. i even remember the supposed "beef" between abc and kris kross.

so imagine my total shock when i started high school at banneker high and discovered that 2 members of the group another bad creation went to my school. the members were memberx and his cousin roro. it took a few months before i even realized that the goofy kid that sat in class drawing dirty pictures was roro. his real name is romel.

i decided that i'd act on my crush to memberx. how many young girls drool over their favorite celeb and then end up going to school with the guy? i knew i had to take a chance. so i slowly did things like give him my candy from halloween. i'd compliment him. i wanted him, but like i posted all over my blog, i was a fat nerd (okay, a chunky nerd) in high school, memberx had no interest in throwing game my way. i guess i don't blame him, in our school he could have dang near any girl he wanted. i gotta admit though, i was kind of crushed when i learned that he started trying to talk to a girl named tisha. tisha wasn't just ghetto, she was HOOD. her hair color changed all of the time, she was loud. sorry but she wasn't that cute. so here i was a woman that knew memberx's birthday from the mags i read on him and he wants the ghetto girl. granted i did reek of "virgin" and he probably figured that he'd go for the girls that seemed most likely to give it up. and tisha was that. it was what it was. i decided to write memberx a letter letting him know that i dug him as a person and not as a "celebrity." that sonuvabitch SHOWED the damned letter to people. bastard. it eventually dawned on me that memberx and i weren't going to be, so i moved on with what dignity i'd had left at that point.

in the middle of my sophomore year i moved to decatur and changed schools. no more memberx, no more roro, no more homegirls. it all changed. i slowly forgot about that awkward time at banneker and i transferred to southwest dekalb high, where i continued to be rejected for girls that were more likely to give it up.

post high school, late one evening i found myself flipping through the tv when i see another bad creation (all grown up) performing at a club on television. they looked and sounded terrible. they had no kind of choreography, they rapped (if that's what you want to call it) all over eachother, the sound and picture was terrible. despite my experience with memberx, i really wanted to see them doing good, so i wished him the best in his attempt to make a comeback.

a few weeks later i was on my way to school and i was at the train station and who do i see? memberx. memberx wasn't just there, he had the spray bottle and rag in his hand. he was working CLEANING THE TRAINSTATION. what the FUCK?! how the hell do you go from being in a michael jackson video, a robert townsend movie, touring the world, covering magazines, and signed to motown, one of the biggest music labels ever, to working at cleaning a damned train station? wow. i saw him and we embraced. i asked how he'd been (as if i couldn't see). he told me well. i asked how ro was and he said that ro was doing good also. i told him that i'd caught his performance the other night. he asked how he'd done. i'm not one to crap on anyone else's art so i told him that he'd done well. his eyes lit up and he said "really?!" now, i'll take this time to tell you that i'm a terrible liar. i guess its another gift/curse because you can always depend on me to give an honest opinion when you ask for one, whether you want honesty or not. if only he hadn't asked. i could have glossed over his performance but now i had to elaborate on a lie. my brain just isn't wired to tell you that your performance was deserving of an award when truthfully i think i could train squirrels to do a better job than they did that night. so when i heard "really?!" i just replied with "well- i've seen y'all do better." that way i preserved his dignity, while not lying. i have seen them do a lot better. that wasn't a good performance. AT ALL. he went from being on top of the world and making girls scream, to being a janitor. i'll interject that i don't see any shame in his job. hell, i've prayed that i didn't come across people that i hate while working at a department store, knowing that they made far more than me. but we gotta eat. no shame in honest work. but damn dude, you were on top of the world. memberx wasn't a bad guy. i never thought so, even though he did show that damned letter to others.

later that night i hung out with my homeboy, dj scorpio. scorp was in a bit of a reflective mood and he said to me "malika, do you realize that i'm in a business where so many people are grinding to make money in music, while here i am doing it and making a decent living. do you know how lucky i am?" yeah, i knew how lucky he was. i'm sure memberx could have told him how lucky he was too.

and so its time to grind

well folks the celebrations have died down. people are going back to work, the christmas decorations are getting put away. and now its time to do what the hell we said we were gonna do. its time to freaking HUSTLE. about a year ago i decided that i'd make my small fortune and retire to an island off the strength of making and selling some lip glosses and lotions that i make at the crib. i bought the ingredients, started working on products, checked on prices, was putting together the business plan in my head and i got side tracked. i started back in school, moved in with deen, was dealing with other stuff and so that lip gloss idea got tossed into the back of my head like a lot of other good ideas that i was too damned lazy to pursue. like i've heard time and time again, the good thing about the economy being crappy is that a lot of folks take this time to start their own businesses. and therefore, go i. i just looked at black snob's blog (blacksnob.blogspot.com) and she's doing with this whole thing what many of us should be doing. she's GRINDING. i know that y'all are in hustle mode too so there's no need to preach, but if you look at her site you see that she's selling ads AND she's got a pay pal account set up to take donations. that's the hustle i'm talking about. we're all pretty dope writers, we should get paid for doing the same thing. that's where i need to be. i'm telling myself that if there's no serious job in sight by april or may, i'll set up a booth at a place called the bizarre (its kind of like a fleamarket filled with eclectic goods) to sell my lip glosses and lotions and crap. so here it is. its time for me to take the plunge. early on i thought i'd make it by writing novels. oh well, get it how you live. i love lip glosses. the thought of branching out on you own is kind of scary. but damn that, i wanna eat. and i wanna eat SHRIMP.

what 2008 taught me

it sounds so cliched to sit back and reflect on a year. but the older i get, the more it happens. my plan was originally to hang with my homegirl for new years but when she stood me up earlier, i knew that if she stood me up on new year's i'd be livid so i nixed my plans with her. i ended up with deen and the baby instead and we hung with some other friends also. we went to the peach drop, it was cold as a mofo but it was worth it. last new year's i was in my own apartment with the baby. and here i live with deen now. damn only a year later. anyway here's what the year taught me in no particular order.

6) be more open minded. in a class that i took last semester, i had to interview an activist so i chose a chick that was active in youth pride, an organization that deals with teens that are bi/lesbian/gay/transexual. sadly i only picked her because it was the easiest, but i learned so much that i actually hugged her when the interview was over. it was really an eye opening experience to talk to chris. she told me that her mother actually took her to a shrink and had her put on MEDS when she found out about her being a lesbian. damn. to bare myself, i used to say that i'd have a big problem if my child was gay, but hearing her speak i learned of how much gays really have to go through. chris (who prefers to dress more masculine) told me how at times she actually has to bring people with her for PROTECTION if she wants to go out to certain places in the middle of the night. damn again. to actually feel that your life is in danger because of who you date is in-fucking-sane. and to make sure that i got the message, the heavens had me hanging out with some friends and their 5 gay male friends. once again, i sheepishly admit that before that i'd had a misconception about gay black men. but i had a blast with them. they didn't talk about sex all night, they weren't wearing lip gloss, they didn't squeel alot and pop their lips. their outfits were immaculate (lol) but they were *gasp* normal. i'm such a dumbass. that's okay, because at least i'm learning. one day i'd like to work up the nerve to talk to a transexual to actually ask their story. chris made a good point in saying that those in the gay community should take more time to talk to people and tell their stories and answer questions. i agree because i learned how narrow-minded i really was before talking to her. i think that black people should do the same thing and be willing to talk to whites and not be so damned defensive all the time.
5) grind like my life depends on it. because to some degree, it does. this spring i will be taking my last required class for my degree and at the age of 28 i will FINALLY be a college graduate. so now its time to stop feeling sorry for myself and hustle like hell because i have to do more for me and my son. deen has helped us in so many ways but its time for me to standup and help deen as much as he's helped me. i need to get a good paying, full time job. perhaps i'll move out depending on what deen and i do, but i need to help him get out of school too. its time to pull my own weight a lot more.
4) be better at managing my money. yeah, the economy is fucked but that's no reason to not be more on top of spending and budgeting. i'll go into a store with $50 and swear to only spend $20 but i'll end up spending the whole damned $50. i'll have to use those little tricks like leaving the house with only enough to get what i NEED, not going shopping hungry, sticking to shopping lists, budgeting. all of that boring stuff. if the goal is to get my credit in order and buy a house, things have gotta be better on my end.
3) control my temper and stop being so damned emotional. i have gotten so mad at deen that i've hit him at times. i'm so humiliated to admit that to myself and others. but at the same time i am at least woman enough to admit my fault in our altercations. i haven't been with my ex in nearly 2 years but i still carry a lot of the negative baggage from that. but i'm slowly letting that go. sometimes with deen i get so pissed and afraid of once again being the woman that is being manipulated and used that i fly off the deep end. all i'm really doing is overcompensating for the times that i wish i would have stood up for myself previously.
2) forgive and forget. let go of the emotional baggage. a lot of people think that buddhism is stupid or a cult, but it taught me so much. i've learned to let go of things like anger and resentment. for those that aren't buddhist, i'd look into it. its possible to be buddhist and christian, because buddhism isn't a religion, its a philosophy. it brought me peace and clarity, things i never thought would be within my grasp. i forgave david, my mother, deen, i even just reminded myself to forgive deen's family. its amazing how much lighter you feel when you fully forgive and let go.
1) what its like to be loved. for a few nights things were really chaotic here. i was so pissed about the blog thing that didn't want to be in a room with deen so when he entered i'd just go into my room and close the door. and although i didn't know it at the time i really hurt him when i did that. we finally talked and we both bared our hearts and souls. and i fell in love with him all over again. and not only did i love him, he actually loved me. ME. that little fat girl with self esteem issues. he loved ME. a man loved me so much that me not wanting to be near him hurt him. i can't believe that i'm crying as i write this. i'm sure that i'll get mad at him again. and he'll get mad at me. but it means so damned much to know that someone that you love, loves you just as much in return. he took me to the mall and bought some jeans that showed that actually have a bit of a figure. its such a small thing, but its so big, he cared enough to want me to look good and feel good by and for myself. i didn't belive in love for a LONG time. but now i do. and i love deen.