Cyber Family Time

When I'm not crocheting my fingers to the bone, with mountains of yarn scraps surrounding my desk chair, the kid and I have been making weekly YouTube videos. Haven't done too many natural hair videos lately because I've been wearing a lot of hats to work. You know, slick advertising and what not (and it's working, YES!).

I used to sneak and do my videos when the kid was asleep, sometimes I even did them in the car. But when I realized that having the kid's participation made for a better, more fun-filled video, I decided to include him. If he wasn't feeling to honery of course (which is hardly ever). He's been addicted to getting his picture taken since he came into the world so making videos was just a natural progression.

Of course, if he ever gets to the point where he doesn't want to be bothered, I completely understand. Hey I can be funny and entertaining all by myself. I don't need no cute little smart alek 4 year old to make my videos fantastic... Well, it wouldn't be as much fun. So I'm going to milk this for all it's worth. LOL

Hey, some people may think that I'm taking advantage of my son and using his cute face and silly antics for my own personal gain. You know what I say to that? Times is hard and the kid is going to have to get a job one day so he might as well figure out how to market his skills now.

{crickets}

It's not like he's really doing a whole lot. He's just being himself, which would be great for ratings if we were on a real tv show. But as it stands, he takes some of the pressure off of me when I'm attempting to make a not so boring show and tell type video for my crochet items.

Cyber family time is the new black.

Not sure what that means. It just sounded good in my head.

Pregnant? ~ But I Have the Mirena.

This nearly brought tears to my eyes. Can you guys please help a sister out?

I got the Mirena about 4 years ago after having my son. Since then, my periods have been pretty much non-existent. I may spot for a day or two and that’s it until the next month. The last few weeks, I’ve been experiencing a lot of fatigue and after my manager told me she had a dream that someone was pregnant, I made an appointment with the gynecologist. The last time she had a dream like that, I along with two of her nieces, were pregnant at the same time. I told the nurse and doctor that I wanted to make sure that the Mirena was still in place and that it was still working. They didn’t do a urine test and they didn’t draw blood. All they did was tell me my blood pressure was high, fondle around in my “you hoo” and do a pap smear for STDs. They told me I had a year to decide if I wanted another baby, if I wanted another Mirena or if I wanted to get my tubes tied. A week later, the spotting started and actually lasted an entire week. Like I said before, prior to going to the doctor, I’ve been feeling all kinds of crazy. I’ve been having a lot of headaches and my back hurt for about three days in a row. I’ve been getting dizzy and my right eye felt like it was going to jump out of the socket the other day. I read a couple of articles about the odds of getting pregnant with the Mirena and came across numerous sites where women have gotten pregnant after having the Mirena for 3 months to 3 years. I tried to convince myself that I was just now experiencing side effects of the Mirena but I remember how I felt the last time I was pregnant and this feels nearly the same.

Yesterday, the results from the Pap smear came in the mail saying that everything was fine but last night my lower abdomen started feeling heavy and that’s when my mental alarm went off. This morning I took a home pregnancy test and I wasn’t too surprised when “pregnant” popped up in the little window.

Everyone has been telling me for years that my son needs a sibling and I have been turning my nose up at the thought. I can’t deal with another baby because my patience is getting shorter and shorter, I don’t have the money to pay for childcare and daddy and my dude’s mom are both in their sixties and probably too old to deal with a newborn.

Another thing for me to worry about is the fact that the Mirena will more than likely cause complications. I may either have a miscarriage or the baby may suffer some type of illness. The Mirena was made to do something to the lining of the uterus and if the baby can’t grow right, I may lose it. Even if I carry the baby as close to full term as possible, she/he may suffer developmental damage because the baby is basically trying to grow around a foreign object that was supposed to prevent its existence in the first place.

Now I’m at a point in my life that I thought about briefly with my first pregnancy. Abortion. I certainly don’t like the idea of having an abortion but I hate the idea of having a miscarriage after making up my mind to keep the child. As mentioned before, my patience is getting shorter and shorter so I know I wouldn’t be able to deal with a disabled child either.

I told my dude that if I am really pregnant that I am thinking about having an abortion. He told me to let him think about it and then we’ll sit down and talk about it together. Heck, he can’t take care of the two he has and I’m struggling with the one I already have, adding another, possibly disabled, child to the scenario would not be a good thing.

A Romantic Relationship ~ My Wants and My Role

A friend of mine asked me to write down what I want from a relationship and what I think my role should be. After reading, he agreed with some of the points and STRONGLY disagreed with some of the others. I expected that, so I was only bent out of shape a little.

What I want from a relationship…

Communication
I would like a man that I can share my feelings, ideas and interests with. I mean, I am not the type of person that just complains and whines about stuff for the heck of it. If I have a problem, I want to be able to talk to my man about it without him making me feel like its frivolous. I want my man to feel he can share whatever is on his mind with me as well. I’m pretty open-minded. (I’ll try my best to refrain from making any of my signature facial expressions as he bears his sole.) I want my man and I to be each other’s #1 fan. Whether laughing and joking or engaging in a serious discussion, I would like for both of us to be able to speak freely and honestly, yet respectfully. I am not a mind reader and I don’t expect my man to be one either. If we don’t let each other know our likes and dislikes we’ll probably end up with more sad or angry times than happy ones.

Friendship/Quality Time
I believe friendship is a very important part of a relationship. If I can barely stand to be around the guy or only want to be around him when I need something (or want something) what’s the point? Going out and having a nice time is good, but as long as we can spend some kind of quality time together, I’m happy.

Intimacy
Sex is great! (I’ll get into more detail about that in a moment.) Being talked softly to or touched gently (or roughly, depending on my mood) would bring me to climax a lot quicker than someone just ramming into me and saying “let me know when you get one”. (More times than not, I end up lying to Mr. Wambam and pretending I got one but…anyway.) I like kissing and being kissed. I like touching and being touched. I like hugging and being hugged. Well, you get the picture. I’m touchy feely most of the time. And I like being around someone who treats me like he really wants me.

Sex
Like I mentioned before, sex is great. I like having sex. Some may call it being a freak or a nympho but of course women are usually branded negatively by those names. I don’t see anything wrong with a woman that has a big sexual appetite but hey that’s my opinion. I do realize that the older people get, the less their desire for sex becomes. Sometimes health issues make having sex nearly impossible. In my opinion, as long as the intimacy is there, my sexual appetite will be pretty much satisfied because there is definitely more than one way to get the job done.

What is my role as the woman?

As the woman, I do believe that I should allow the man to be the man in the relationship. I would like to be given the opportunity to express my feelings about something but I do realize that the final decision should be the man’s. Even though this is my philosophy in my head, I have rarely had the opportunity to let this philosophy manifest within my relationships. Most men these days don’t know how to be men which made me have to step up and practically play both roles until I got fed up and called it quits. I believe in supporting my man but not to the point of taking care of him, unless he’s sick. I mean I don’t mind “helping a brother out” but when his needs attempt to outweigh my needs or the needs of my child that is definitely a “hold up, wait a minute” moment. I will respect my man both in public as well as in private. I do not believe in “busting folks out” in front of friends, family or complete strangers. I do try to do things to put a smile on my man’s face. I used to use the term “make him happy” but if he is not happy with himself, nothing I say or do will make him happy. Hopefully whatever I do for him will add to the happiness he already possesses.

In conclusion…

Sometimes I do have a smart mouth but that has come with age, as the result of the people that I have been around and my experiences. If I come across disrespectful that is not my intention. It is more of a defense mechanism. I spent too many years following the wrong people blindly (and silently). With a little time, I can change my negative way of thinking and try to focus on developing a more positive outlook on relationships and life in general. I believe that I am a good woman who has just been hurt more times than I care to mention. I am not stupid. I can recognize a good man when I see him, even if I do have to overlook certain personality traits and deal with some things that I am not used to in order to reap the benefits of a relationship with that good man.

No NaNo For Me

Around this time last year, I was getting ready for NaNoWriMo.  For those of you that don't know, that's an acronym that stands for National Novel Writing Month.  I have several blog posts about it if you want to learn more.  Anyway...

I'm not doing NaNo this year for a couple of reasons.  Number one, I have three novels in progress in various stages of completion.  One of them, I am ashamed to say, has been on my to do list since 2001.  Now I've revamped it a number of times by changing the title and practically changing the whole story line to fit what I think someone would really want to read.  Quintina Mitchell's story, Her Leftovers, is the book that has plagued me for a decade.  From the responses I've been getting to the excerpts that I've posted, I think I have a pretty good story, I've just got to make up in my mind to just be done with it already and let the readers tell me if they like the whole thing. 

The other two works in progress are my NaNo projects from the two previous years.  Sassy Johnson, the private detective and Cole Slaw, the bounty hunter, have been battling for attention the last couple of years.  They both want me to finish their stories ASAP but I haven't because well... I don't know why.  Probably because I keep going back to Her Leftovers.  So if I can't decide which one of these books to focus on, what's the point of starting another one.  Since I like all three main characters, the next book would probably be a part two to one of these projects.

The next reason why I'm not doing NaNo this year is because of my crafting business.  It's getting cold and everyone is hounding me about hats and scarves.  I've been getting a lot of orders for the jewelry too so my spare time is usually spent surrounded by beads or yarn.  It's tiring but I love it.  You can check out some of my Youtube videos (www.youtube.com/suzyquzy) and the photos on my Facebook(http://www.facebook.com/susienmccray) page if you want to see the different items I have made.  

Speaking of YouTube, I have been trying to document my hair growth since I've been natural.  My hair is now longer than it was right before I started growing the relaxer out.  My goal is to get it to the length and thickness that it was in high school.  I'm almost there, yayyy!  Maybe by next May I will have reached my goal, which will be the 2 year anniversary of being completely natural.

Despite all of these things I'm doing besides writing, I still think about writing.  Writing was my first love and I will always go back to it (Hence this blog post.)  One day I'll slap myself upside the head and complete at least one of these books.  If I do it before next October, I will definitely start prepping for NaNo. 

Boy

Who can I talk to about adding more hours to my day?  Mary J. Blige is loving her man 25/8 (25 hours/8 days a week) so maybe I can get 29/12. Just a thought.

To all of you who will be NaNo-ing this year, I wish you the best of luck.

Wearing White After Labor Day

My friend, Dorothy, and I were walking down the aisle at work when we ran into two other coworkers.  Ms. Paulette was decked out in her usual attire--all purple everything.  The lady that was with her, whose name I don't know, had on an all white outfit.  Dorothy told the lady in white that she looked nice and she responded, "Thanks.  I figured I'd go ahead and wear it one last time."  I smiled and nodded but I was thinking, huh?  The outfit didn't look like it was too little and about to burst at the seams so what was she talking about.

As Dorothy and I walked away, it finally dawned on me what the lady in white meant.  The Labor Day weekend is fast approaching and she wanted to wear her outfit before it became taboo to do so.

For the rest of the day I wondered about the "don't wear white after Labor Day" tradition.  I even asked some of my other co-workers what the big deal was.  I mean I had heard about it all my life but I didn't take it very seriously.  Heck my grandmother forbade me to wear red because she said it was the devil or Jezebel-like or something.  (She would smack me with her cane if she could see this red fro on my head, but I digress...)

I asked Sandra, who sits in the cubicle across from me, her opinion about the issue.  She said that since they make white winter clothes, including a leather white skirt set that a friend of hers has, she didn't see anything wrong with wearing white or pastels during the fall and winter months.

Three other female coworkers said that they didn't know where the tradition originated but they were always taught that it was safe to wear off-white, cream, and winter white (whatever that means), just not plain white.

I sat down and continued to work but the notion wouldn't stop nagging at me until I made up my mind to write this blog post.

Last year, I asked a young lady on Twitter about this "no white" thing.  I can't remember her exact words but I do remember feeling kind of dumb and backwoods-ish after she finished her spiel.

Sandra told me to just Google it so I did and found a number of sites that gave me a lot more info than I bargained for.  It talked about people wearing white during the summer to keep cool but not in the winter because it wouldn't keep them warm enough.  They also mentioned that they didn't want to mess up their white duds during the rainy and sometimes muddy months.  As I continued to read, I happened across another reason.  Back in the day, early 20th century, middle and upper class people used the "rule" to differentiate themselves from the poor underprivileged souls who weren't worthy of being in their hoity-toity presence if they didn't know about the only wearing white between the beginning of spring and Labor Day thing-a-ma-jig.  This had to do with knowing which fork goes with which dish too but I don't get that either. *shrug*

This all sounds like a bunch of bull... spit to me.

Personally, I wear any color at any time as long as its clean and not so tight I have to hold my breath most of the day to keep from bursting it wide open.  But hey, that's me.

What are your views?

Are you for or against wearing white after Labor Day?

What I've Been Up To

Yes, I know, I haven't blogged for a while.  Please believe that I have not just been sitting around twiddling my thumbs.  Before my addiction to social media, I was a very avid crafter.  From crochet, to cross-stitch to working with foam sheets to scrapbooking, I never had a dull moment.  Most recently, I took an interest in jewelry making.  I have a few videos dedicated to it on my YouTube channel (click the "I love YouTube" button to the left). 

Until the last few months, I wasn't that into jewelry but a coworker of mine began selling beaded bracelets and earrings.  I became one of her most loyal customers until I requested something that she didn't have time to produce--hoop earrings.  Having been patient for several weeks I decided to buy some wire, tools and beads and made my own earrings.

After I made that first pair I went crazy making earrings to match the clothes in my closet.  Then I thought, "Hey, I need some bracelets to match all of these earrings."

Now I never set out to start a business but I seem to be heading in that direction.  Everything I wear to work, I get one or two or ten people that want the same or a similar item.  So far I've only been making custom jewerly that the customers request but I'm probably going to start doing a feature item a week where I make at least six of one items to see how many people will buy it.. 

One thing I'm going to have to learn is to not give everyone credit.  I try to do POD (pay on delivery) but some folks don't pay when I deliver.  Yeah, I know everybody's money is funny, but I don't have the money to make stuff for free.  I mean if it was for advertising purposes, and the person referred a few people to me, I could give them a free item every so often.  Otherwise, I need my money honey.

To avoid not receiving payment, I'll just let people know when I have their items and tell them I'll deliver it whenever they are ready for it.  People with common sense know that means, "have my money ready".  I'll see how this jewelry making thing pans out over the next couple of months.

I plan to start making hats and scarves again for the winter.  The last time I did that was maybe 6 or 7 years ago.  I stopped because I was working two jobs and got overwhelmed with orders.  Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up with the demands this time.

Whew!!!

I promise I haven't completely stopped writing.  Sometimes I have to live a little bit to have something to write about.  Stay tuned. 

Cookie Explosion

This is an exerpt from one of my three works in progress (#WIP) about a female bond enforcer by the name of Nicole Slawyer ("Cole Slaw" for short).  Let me know what you think of this story.

I want kids but I'm kinda afraid that I'll break them. Not that I'm a child abuser or anything, it's just that kids always seem to get sick in my presence. I think it's me because when I'm around them and their parents, they are perfectly healthy. As soon as I get them home alone with me, their nose starts running; they get a stomachache and/or throw up all over the place.

This is so not an exaggeration. My godson, lil Ron, was the first kid I babysat when he was about 5 years old. His parents wanted some alone time. Baby Tina was at Ronald's parents’ house, and I volunteered to watch Ron since he was bigger. They said it would be an all-nighter and they asked if I minded.

Joe was out of town visiting some of his relatives that I didn’t like, so I welcomed the company. But now that I look back, he may have been getting down and dirty with his current boo, Paul, someplace.  That's another story for another day.

"Of course I don't mind. Go on, have a good time. But don't make another one of these just yet okay." I said. Meosha and Ronald just laughed.

My feathered friend,Tipsy and I were able to keep Ron's attention for about ten minutes before he burst into tears, begging for his mama. I tried to explain to him that he would be spending a little time with Auntie Cole and that he would see mama and daddy as soon as they came back to get him. His bottom lip shivered but he stopped crying.

"You wanna help me make some cookies?" I asked him.

"Yaaayyy cookies!"

So I pulled out the bucket of cookie dough that I bought from some lady Pop-Pop knows. I usually don't buy stuff like that from any old body, but this was a fund raising type thing, probably the church building fund or something like that.

Anyway, I read the directions on the side of the bucket that explained how much dough you should scoop on the cookie sheet to make a regular sized cookie. If I followed the instructions I would be eating about 10 of those tiny cookies, so I decided to make bigger cookies. So instead of a dozen cookies, I made 4 big ones. Ron's eyes were big as let him look at the cookies before sliding them into the oven. Apparently, Chef Meosha didn't make cookies that big.

"Relax, kid. I promise this way is much better."

Ron smiled and hugged my leg, and went in search of toys to play with until the cookies got done. I set the timer on the oven just in case I forgot that I was cooking, but the aroma coming from the oven filled the whole duplex. Even my neighbors from next door knocked on the door asking what I was cooking.

"We smelled chocolate and looked outside and didn't see either one of your friends’ cars in the drive way so we were making sure everything was okay."

It was always a major even when I turned on a stove. I guess my neighbors thought that someone in the family had died and I was making a dish for the repast. Meosha and my boo, Marcus, had me spoiled.

"Everything's fine. Just babysitting."

That brought and even bigger look of concern. They had never seen me with a kid and probably didn't think I could handle it. I assured them that everything was under control and they told me to knock on the door if I needed anything.

Lil Ron and I sat at the kitchen table staring at the oven with our heads on our propped up hands. As soon as the timer went off we jumped up. I grabbed the oven-mitts and pulled out the mega-large chocolate cookies.

"I'll give you one now and if you eat that I'll give you the other one," I said to Ron.

I placed both of my cookies on my plate. Then I went to fridge, grabbed the half gallon of milk, and poured both of us a glass full. Lil Ron gobbled his cookie down quickly and was ready for the other before I was halfway through with my first one. I put the other one on his plate and he gobbled it down too. He drank all of his milk and sat there looking as if he wanted to attack me for mine. I gave him half of my second one. He sat back rubbing his stomach looking really satisfied.

"You wanna watch cartoons?" I asked him. He nodded his head vigorously. I had him settled on the couch watching a SpongeBob DVD that was in his bag.

I was looking at my empty plate wanting to make more cookies but not wanting to share them with Lil Ron. About 30 minutes passed and then I heard retching coming from the living room. It was Lil Ron hacking and then hurling bits of chocolate chip cookie and milk all over the couch.

Tipsy was squawking, "He's blowing up. He's blowing up."

And Ron did indeed look like he was blowing up all over the place. It took me a minute to jump into action and run to the closet and retrieve the mop bucket. Of course by the time I placed it in front of him, only yellow stomach acid was coming out.

After it looked like Ron was finished, I helped him to the bathroom and took off the soiled clothes. The poor kid had messed his pants as well, which brought tears to my eyes.

"Its okay, Auntie Cole. They were good going down." Then he patted my face. I could feel the cookie gook residue that his little hands left on my cheek and wanted to hurl myself.

While Lil Ron was in the bath tub, I dismantled the couch cushions and put everything that could be washed in the machine. I grabbed Pine-Sol and scrubbed down the foam cushions and leaned them up against the wall and turned on an oscillating fan that blew air on both of them simultaneously.

When I went back to check on Lil Ron, he looked as if he was nodding off as he sat in the murky water. I called his name and he woke up. I already felt bad about giving him all of those cookies; I was not about to let him drown in the tub. I helped Lil Ron dry off and put on pajamas. I laid him in the daybed in my office and he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

I never told Meosha and Ronald about Lil Ron getting sick. Apparently he hadn’t either because he and Tina spent the night with me a few more times over the years until they reached their teens. I guess they stopped wanting to eat junk food until they threw up. Which was great for me, I had to buy a new couch because the old one had faded from all of the washing.

Kids were too much work.  Believe it or not, chasing criminals was so much easier.

My Dating Dilemma

I have a habit of attracting men who are down on their luck: no job, no car, living with family or fresh out of jail. Everyone goes through hard times but I would like to date someone that’s not looking for someone to “help a brother out”.

To get help with my dilemma, I sought advice from this lady that I follow on Twitter @TheDatingTruth. According to her website, Miss Solomon offers practical dating advice that could make even the most clueless guy get a date. She is very straightforward when offering her opinion to help single men and women have better dating, networking and social experiences.

Here are the tips that she told me to follow if I want to attract stable guys on their grind:

Tip #1
Go where they go. Stable men find ways to fill their free time. Join clubs, networks and boards.

Tip #2
Ask Questions—kids, career, living arrangements, convictions? Find this out before you give your number. Its okay to judge it’s your life.

Tip #3
Get yourself together. Like attracts like. If you’re stable, you can recognize the signs of stability. Surround yourself with stable people.

Tip #4
Have a routine. If people (men) start seeing you at the store, gas station, on the train (bus) on a regular basis, they’ll eventually hit on you.

Tip #5
Break ties with negativity. Happiness attracts the best people. When you’re happy it’s a magnetism few men resist—you’ll attract great men.

I found a lot of truth (pun intended) in all of these tips, but I did have one question. If I’m out somewhere and I meet a guy that I’m interested in and who’s interested in me, but I don’t have time to ask him his whole life story, what’s wrong with giving him my number? If I find out later that I don’t like him, I’ll just stop taking his calls. Should I just pass up the opportunity to meet a great guy?

Her response—“It’s not an opportunity if it’s someone you don’t want anyway. Missing out on a guy is like missing out on a sale. There will be another one and you’ll probably find something (someone) better anyway.”

Makes a lot of sense to me, I hope I can take heed to this advice. It sure would keep me from dealing with a lot of unnecessary foolishness.

Check out http://www.thedatingtruth.com/ to get more information about dating, men, sex and relationships.

Confrontation

This is another installment to "Her Leftovers", after the fight between Quintina and Tamesha. 

Quintina was sitting on the couch in the living room when Cortez made it home.  He had a few bags of food and a bouquet of flowers in his hand that he struggled not to drop before heading to the kitchen.  It was dark in the room so Cortez was startled when Quintina called out to him.

"Hey baby," Cortez said, turning to her.  Quintina slapped Cortez across his eyes hard enough to blind him.  He dropped everything to the floor and covered his face, "What the f...?"

"Since you love her so much, pack your shit and go over there," Quintina sneered.

"Quintina, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Tamesha.  Yeah, your girlfriend sent me a birthday present.  Let me show you."  Cortez followed her to their bedroom.

Quintina grabbed the remote and pressed play.  She turned the volume up.  Cortez rubbed his eyes and squinted at the tv.  His bloodshot eyes got big as goose eggs and then filled with tears.  "Baby..."

"I don't want to hear it.  Get out!"

"But this is my place."

Quintina pulled her gun from the shoe box, pointed it at Cortez and cocked it.  "You've got 15 minutes."  He hurriedly gathered as much as he could stuff in a gym bag and left.

After Cortez was gone, Quintina collapsed to the floor and began to sob.  She had no idea what she would do next.  The obvious choice was divorce but she wasn't sure if she really wanted to be completely through with Cortez yet.  She would give it some thought. 

Quintina moped around for about an hour then cleaned up all of the items that Cortez had dropped. Everything that was salvageable was stored away and the broken items were thrashed.  The flowers were fine but she shoved them into the garbage disposal.  She took a shower, got dressed in a flattering red dress and tried to camoflaug the bruises on her face.  Satisfied with her results, she called SaLynne and asked her if she wanted to go out.

"Sure, where do you want to go?"

"Some place where there are some fine men with real jobs."

"Uh oh. Sounds like Cortez is going to have some competition."

Quintina laughed out loud.  "Girl, you have no idea.  Come get me, I may not be able to drive home later."

"Quin, what's up with you?" SaLynne sounded puzzled.

"I'll tell you when you get here."

Are You a Nag?

I’ve never played the nagging girlfriend role in any of my relationships. If I asked my boo to do something once or twice and he doesn't do it, I do it myself or get someone else to do it. My patience is too short to keep begging someone to take out the garbage, cut the grass, wash the car, or pay the dang light bill.


The nagging has come from the guys in my life. Well, mostly from one particular guy, I’ll call him Lee. He and I haven’t been in a real relationship since 1999, but that hasn’t stopped him from bugging the HELL out of me for one reason or another.

• “You work too much.”

• “How come you don’t call me?”

• “How come you don’t come see me?”

• “Can I come spend the night?”

• “Can me and my kids come spend the weekend with you and D?”

• “Are we going to do it soon?”

• “Bring me a beer and a box of black n mild’s.”

The list goes on and on.

Why? Well, I guess I’ve got that come back, LOL. But for real though, in 2008, I made the mistake of telling Lee that I would marry him in December of 2012. Now, the agreement was that he and I would have ourselves together by then. I was hoping to have my debt to income ratio down to at least 50/50 and hopefully have lost a significant amount of weight so I wouldn’t look like a whale walking down the aisle. He was supposed to have lived on his own for at least one year (not with parents, siblings, cousins or smoking/drinking buddies). Lee should also have a better job that would allow him to at least be able to pay the rent while I handled the other bills. I would work on my cooking skills and he would limit his drinking.

It is now May of 2011, and I have not lost weight, I’ve added more student loans to my pile and my cookbooks are collecting dust in the kitchen drawer (Thank God for my daddy). Lee has no job, lives with his mom, and has acquired a drinking and driving charge which has his CDL license in jeopardy. Great couple huh? Hell no. Time is ticking down and it doesn’t look like either one of us is going to be on point by the end of next year. I’ve come to the realization that maybe it’s not time for me to get married or maybe he isn’t the right guy for me. Lee on the other hand makes it his business to at least call me, text me or Facebook me to ask if the wedding is still on and why I haven’t returned any of his calls. The last time he sent me a note, I told him that when I get off of work, that I don’t feel like talking to anybody and that I wish I could leave my son at daddy’s house all week and only see him on the weekends. Boy oh boy, all he could say was “ok” to that. Maybe he thinks I’m having a nervous breakdown or something. At this point, I don’t really care what he thinks; he really gets on my nerves so bad. If Lee finds a chick that can put up with him, heck I’ll pay for their wedding reception myself. I should probably tell him that to see what he says. Maybe he’ll get curious and read this blog post when it pops up in my Facebook profile.

Who is or has been the nag in your relationship? If it's you, stop it, NOW!!

She Ain't Worth It ~ Part 2

Here's part two of this story.  Just like last week, this story has a lot of profanity in it. So if you're sensitive about that you may want to steer clear, or read another post (smile).  All feedback is greatly appreciated.

Once Quintina had put on her jeans and t-shirt, she shoved the shoe box under her arm, grabbed her purse in one hand and her keys in the other. She ran down the stairs and out the door. Quin, where are you going? She thought. You know you are not supposed to be drinking and driving. Fuck that, this is not something that I’m gonna let slide.


Quintina got off I240 at the Hollywood exit and went north. When she reached Dalana’s house on Brookmeade, she started beating on the door like she was the police.

“Hold on, goddammit,” Dalana yelled. When she opened the door and saw that it was Quintina, she just stepped back and let her in. “Quin, why are you looking all torn up on your birthday?”

“I’m on a rampage. Call that Tamesha bitch. I got a few choice words that I want to say to her,” Quintina said throwing her purse and keys on the couch. She had left her gun in the car under the passenger seat.

“What happened? She called the house or something?”

“Naw that bitch was in my house, in my bed, fucking my husband.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“The raunchy bitch sent me a tape of them. You remember when I told you that we had set the camcorder set up in the bedroom.” Quintina had started pacing back and forth across the room. Then she went into the kitchen and got one of Dalana’s coolers out of the refrigerator.

“Yeah, I remember. Shit, those are some bold muthafuckas. See, this is your own damn fault. If you hadn’t have been letting Tez get away with all that shit, this would have never happened. They think that you’ll never do anything.”

“I don’t think Cortez knew she was taping it. It looked like he was too torn up to even pay attention to anything she was doing besides freaking on him.”

“Don’t start making excuses for that niggah. That’s what you always do. Whether he knew she was taping it or not, he still fucked her.”

“I know. Get that bitch on the phone.”

“She’s at Schrhonda’s place right now,” Dalana said picking up the phone. “I need to pop some popcorn, this is gonna be better than the Tyson vs. Holyfield fight.”

Quintina was standing in the doorway when Schrhonda and Tamesha arrived. Tamesha automatically got all up in Quintina’s face. She started bragging about how she had Quintina’s man wrapped around her little finger and how she can take Cortez from Quintina whenever she got ready. Quintina tried her best to keep her composure but she couldn’t maintain. She finally got fed up with all the bullshit that Tamesha was shooting off about and suddenly grabbed a handful of Tamesha’s hair and punched her in the face. Then she pushed her out the door and let her fall down the steps onto the concrete carport.

After Tamesha had hit the ground, Quintina noticed that she had a big plug of her hair in her hand. She looked at Tamesha’s head and immediately noticed the patch where the hair had come from. Quintina almost started laughing before Tamesha stumbled to her feet, holding her head and cursing.

“Bitch, you got me fucked up.” Then she punched Quintina in the mid-section, making her doubled over in pain. Tamesha began to rant and rave again while Quintina was trying to recover. She had all sorts of murderous thoughts going through her mind but couldn’t figure out how she could carry them out without it resulting in a 25 to life prison sentence.

“Bitch, Cortez is my man first, hoe. If it wasn’t for your square ass, I would be Mrs. Cortez Robinson. But that’s alright though. I can still get the dick whenever I want it. You think that was the first time? Oh no, honey. We have been fucking since day one. He came over my house the first night y’all met at that basketball game. Yeah, he had you thinking there wasn’t anything between us. That’s just how we do it. Even though he acts hard he can’t live without this pussy. Now, what do you have to say about that?”

Quintina finally straightened up and looked Tamesha dead in the eyes. Tears partially impaired Quintina’s vision but she wiped them away. Quintina felt as if she were moving in slow motion. It was sort of like her body was moving by itself because it surprised even her when she rushed into Tamesha like a bull. When Tamesha hit the ground with a loud thump, she moaned in agony. Then Quintina straddled her and began to repeatedly pound her fists into Tamesha’s face.

She talked to her in a surprisingly calm voice, almost scary. “You know what, hoe? You can have that hoe-ish ass niggahs. I don’t need all this drama. I hope all the dick you’ve been getting over the years has been worth this ass whipping. Both of you selfish motherfuckers deserve each other.”

Quintina pounded until her arms got tired and her fists began to throb. Once on her feet, she coughed up a big blob of phlegm and spit it in Tamesha’s face. “I hope you two have a wonderful and fulfilling life together.” Then she began walking slowly towards her car. Before Quintina could reach her car door—SMACK, she arched her back in pain and turned around quickly. She saw that Dalana was holding Tamesha who had a bat in her hand. Tamesha didn’t say a word; she just stared at Quintina through her swollen eyelids.

Quintina remembered seeing the bat propped against the wall under the carport when she and Tamesha had come out of the house but was too distracted to worry about where it came from. She knew it hadn’t been there when she first arrived at Dalana’s house. Or was it? She was too tired to figure it out.

“Bitch, I ought to shoot your ugly ass right now but I ain’t trying to be going to jail for no piece of shit like you,” Quintina said opening her car door and sliding in.

Shoo Bugaboo

If you have no idea what a bugaboo is, let me explain. There was a guy that was interested in me but he called too much and he wanted to come over my house all the time and he would constantly asked me when we were going to have sex. The only “date” we went on was when we went down by the river. I sat in the car and he sat on the bank until a rat ran across his foot and made him drop his beer. He was ready to go home after that.

The http://www.urbandictionary.com/ has several different definitions for a bugaboo but this seems to fit my situation perfectly.

I mean this guy was a 41 year old teenager. He would run back and forth from my house to his mom’s house three or four times a day talking about he was board. When I pulled into the driveway, he instantly came outside and walked across the street as if he was sitting right in front of the door or window waiting on me to get home. Sometimes he would be sitting on the porch or in his car watching my house. He said his mother told him that he smothers people and he asked me if I agreed. When I told him yes, he got all bent out of shape.

Never in my life had I known a guy that constantly fished for compliments.

Dude: “I’m ugly ain’t it? Don’t you think I’m ugly?”

Me: “No, you’re not ugly.”

Then he’d turn around with his butt to me.

Dude: “I’m fine ain’t it? My cousin said that all of the men in my family were fine.”

Me: “Well, you’re attractive.”

In all actuality, he was ugly and he was not fine at all. He had hazel eyes but the bloodshot practically made his eyes look like two big brown blobs. Sometimes he would wear the same clothes two days in a row. He smelled like beer every day no matter what time it was. Even when he said that he had just gotten out of the shower, he smelled like beer.

He was also a bum. He had no job and no prospects. Dude couldn’t go job hunting (even if he wanted to) because his license was suspended for a DUI. Plus he hadn’t paid the guy down the street for the car and I think he was afraid he would get pulled over and get the car taken. Every day he asked me or several of the other neighbors to buy him beer when his mama didn’t buy him any. Dude begged for money to add minutes to his cellphone. And I hear he tried to pay his phone bill with a check that he found in the car that the guy down the street gave him. (Not sure how true that was but hey you never know.) One day all I had was a bag of breaded chicken patties in my freezer, about six of them. He begged for those. And came back the next day asking me what I was cooking.

Like I said, I put up with this for a week and a week only. I told him that THIS whatever THIS was wasn’t going to work because he required more of me than I could give. “What do you mean?” he asked. I told him that the constant sex talk was getting on my nerves but it was so much more than that. Don’t get me wrong, if I had really been into him, honey child he wouldn’t have had to ask. But he already knew why I wasn’t that into him. I had told him several times throughout that week until I got tired. Then D started telling him he smelled like beer. It had nothing to do with him hearing me say it because I never said it around D. My son is very perceptive and not afraid to speak whatever is on his mind.

Not a day passed that Dude didn’t ask me when I would have sex with him or why I was acting like I didn’t want him. It was so annoying. Everything about him annoyed me. His walk, the way he talked, his smell, the stupid things he said, foolishness all the way around.

I had never in my life met a guy in his forties with so many strikes against him. And what’s sad is that he thought he was a catch. He really thought he had it going on with his drunk, no job having, begging, want to fine behind.

Goodbye bugaboo and good riddance.

She Ain't Worth It ~ Part 1

I usually don’t write in third person but I decided to switch it up a little bit. I’m revisiting a scene in “Her Leftovers” where Tamesha decides to let her presence be known. WARNING: There is quite a bit of swearing in this story.

~ Let me know what you think. All feedback is welcome. ~


“Quintina, you didn’t have to come to work on your birthday. I told you that you could take off since you did such a good presentation at the conference in Atlanta,” Craig said walking into Quintina’s office with a bouquet of roses and a bag with Happy Birthday printed on it.

“I just wanted to look over these reports before I turned them in. I’ll be leaving after lunch.” Quintina’s attention was focused on the computer so she didn’t see what Craig was carrying until she looked up. “What’s that you got there?”

“Oh, the guy just dropped this off so I decided that I would bring it in for you. Cortez is so romantic, I wanna grow up and be just like him,” Craig said wiping away imaginary tears.

“Thanks Craig, with your silly self.”

“No problem Mrs. Robinson,” he said as he walked out of her office and closed the door behind him.

Quintina played it cool until her boss walked out then she pulled the light blue bag with white letters on it to her and pulled out the white and blue tissue paper. Cortez must have gotten somebody to help him with this because he’s never took the time to find tissue to match the gift bag, she thought. When she had finally gotten all of the tissue unraveled, she found a video tape. I wonder what’s on it. Dalana did say that she told Cortez that I wanted him to learn how to strip for me; maybe that’s what it is.

When Quintina got home she ran straight to her bedroom so she could look at her present. She put the tape in the VCR and walked over to the nightstand and pushed play on the remote. At first she just saw Cortez laying on the bed smoking. That ain’t no cigarette, that’s a blunt, I’m gonna kick his ass. Then she saw a dark skinned woman get in the bed with him. What the fuck? They began kissing and touching each other. He turned the blunt around and put the lit end in his mouth and put his mouth to her nose and blew the smoke in. I can’t believe this shit. I need a drink.

Quintina paused the foolery and went downstairs to the kitchen and pulled Cortez’s bottle of vodka out of the freezer. She got a Sprite out of the refrigerator and poured some of it into a plastic blue cup. She had intended on making her drink half liquor half soda but she decided to grab another cup and fill it to the rim with vodka. She took a swallow of her drink. It burned going down but it wasn’t nowhere near as uncomfortable as it would have been under normal circumstances. She was already on fire.

When Quintina got back up to her room and restarted the tape, the first thing she saw was the woman get up and go over to her dresser and pick up the bottle of Motion Lotion that Quintina and Cortez used quite frequently. Quintina finally got a good look at the skeezer and realized that it was none other than, Tamesha. That bitch! Tamesha got back into bed with Cortez and opened the bottle pouring some of the strawberry flavored lotion on her hand and rubbing it on his penis. Then Tamesha lowered her head and filled her mouth. I can’t believe they’re doing this in my house, in my bed. I want to kill them so bad, but neither one of them are worth going to jail over.

Quintina had finished her drink when she noticed that there was music playing in the background on the tape. Then, as if right on cue, Tamesha pulled away from Cortez’s groin and walked over to the radio. She turned up the volume a few notches, looked at the camera, then sauntered over and turned her ass to the camera. No that bitch didn’t just jiggle her flabby ass butt cheeks in my face. She went over and climbed on top of Cortez, facing the camera so Quintina could see the expression on her face. …Still in love with… Quintina threw her cup toward the TV, barely missing the screen.

“Our fucking wedding song! Aw, it’s on now,” Quintina yelled out loud. She reached under the bed and pulled out the shoe box that she kept her loaded .45 millimeter in and put it on the bed so she would remember to take it with her. But first she had to change into her beat down clothes.

Relationship Stance: Traditional vs Modern

I guess my view of how a relationship should be is in between traditional and modern. I mean, every guy I date knows how to cook so we take turns doing that. As far as working and paying bills, I think we should do that together as well. I’ve never had the desire to be a housewife, but I would have liked to stay at home with my son his first two years but I wasn’t in a position to do so because I’m a single mother. I had a career before my son was born so I couldn’t just stop working, I didn’t have that big of a support team.


My original plan was to be married before I had a child but that didn’t transpire, so I’m making the best of it. Now I have one guy who seriously wants to marry me but he has no job and he lives with his mom. He’s never lived on his own, well let me clarify that. He’s had roommates, live-in girlfriends, a brother and cousins that he’s shared a place with. There was never a time when he was the only one responsible for taking care of all the bills. I have a problem with that. I’ve worked continuously since my last two months in high school (17 years ago) and I have lived on my own for more than half of that time. Yeah, it is hard out here for a sister but I do what I gotta do.

Over the years, I’ve found myself in relationships with guys that didn’t have a job when I met them but I got with them anyway thinking that maybe I could help them get on their feet. I learned the hard way that some guys really don’t want to work. They rather stay at home and keep the house clean and cook while the woman goes to work. This is where my traditional views come in. I do not consider a man the head of my household if he cannot pay the house note. Some women have a problem with allowing the man to make most of the decisions for the household, but I don’t if I believe that he will do what is best for the family. I mean, if we have been together for a while and the guy loses his job, I won’t kick him out because he has shown me that he wants to pull his weight. Of course, he’s gonna have to go do something to bring in some money: cut grass, wash cars work at McDonalds—until he finds something better.

I talked to a lady on Twitter a few days ago and she said she shared my views with a couple of guys and they said they couldn’t be with a woman that couldn’t hold it down. Now that made me mad because either she or they didn’t read all of my tweets or those guys are just bums. I go to work every day and I work too hard and put up with too much mess at work to come home and look up in the face of some guy that can’t even pay the damn phone or cable bills. That makes me hot all over. If the fact that I won’t take care of a man the reason why I’m single, I’ll be single for life. I’m not teaching my son that he’s supposed to stay at home while his wife goes to work every day. They should be working together to have something.

Despite my traditional views, I don’t even think it’s a good idea for a woman not to have some kind of job. She needs to be selling Avon, doing hair or babysitting to bring some money in. My dad always told me that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. This means, if a person doesn’t have anything constructive to do, they will be thinking of all kinds of devilment to do.

These are my opinions but everyone is entitled to their own. Please share your views with me.

Once Was Blind ~ Part 2

“This is Roshelle’s first night out and you know she wants to spend some time with me,” Darnell said. He had called me at work so I couldn’t curse him out like I wanted to.

“Do you want to come over and hang out with us?” he asked.

I declined. I knew she wanted to have sex with him and I wasn’t about to sit there and watch them, and I definitely wasn’t going to participate in any freaky stuff.

My dad helped us move that next day. Once we got most of the furniture into the house, we all just sat around trying to catch our breath. I went in what was to be Darnell’s room, to think about what I had gotten myself into when Daddy walked in.

“Hey, Baby?” he asked.

“What’s up?”

“You know you can always come home when you want to, don’t you?”

“Yeah, everything’s all right though.” I wasn’t’ ready to let my dad know that I had royally screwed up, but I think he could read my expression anyway.

“Well, you have a key, so you can come get some air whenever you need to,” he said as he hugged me.

Roshelle spent the night every Monday and Tuesday. Darnell would ask me to help her dry him off when he got out of the shower. I always refused. I already had to deal with the fact that my man was sleeping with another woman, in the very next room; there was no way I was going to act like I was happy about it. I remember a couple of conversations Darnell and I had about his dream of marrying an older woman who was an ex-hooker. So, whenever I looked at Roshelle with spandex clung to her heavy-set body, I wondered why I was even there. I often took Darnell outside to talk about some of the things that made me uncomfortable. Like the love letters she left around the house. Especially one that went into graphic detail about how much she enjoyed performing oral sex on him (I guess that’s why she didn’t bother to wear her false teeth that much).

“Like it, like it, or dislike it. You can roll whenever you get ready,” he would say in response to my complaints. It was as if he didn’t even care if I was happy or not. It didn’t matter that he was only working part-time for a guy who threatened to fire him every week, when I’d had two steady jobs for several years and I paid the majority of the bills. It didn’t matter that his family and friends loved me, but couldn’t stand Roshelle. It didn’t matter that I had stuck by him for his last three years in prison, and all she could do was write him letters for a year and a half. None of that mattered. He felt that he had tried to make other people happy for most of his life. I realized that I had been doing the same thing myself and I was sick of it. So one night, when he had returned from Roshelle’s house, I was in my room packing. When he walked into my bedroom, I snatched my car keys from him and put them in my pocket.

“Don’t you ever snatch anything from me,” he growled. He raised his hand as if to strike me, but I hit him first. He pushed me down on the floor. I got back up and started taking my boxes to the car.

“So, you’re just going to change horses in the middle of the race?” he asked, walking behind me.

“I don’t feel like hearing that pimp shit tonight. Leave me alone.”

“You don’t tell me what you feel and don’t feel. I tell you what you CAN feel and CANNOT feel.”

I wanted to scream but I didn’t want to wake up his children. I wanted to tell him that I had wasted my time and money on him and that I hated him for putting me through all of that nonsense. It felt like I was going to have a heart attack and a stroke trying to hold in all of my emotions, but I made it through.

I know it sounds foolish, but I still miss him sometimes, but not enough to go back. Darnell and Roshelle made me mad enough to kill, but I’m not going to give up on finding a good guy. I just have to keep my eyes open.

Don't Wear Your Welcome Out

I have mixed feelings about people having their single friends and relatives around all the time when they are in a relationship or married. I mean, if a person is a cheater they are gonna cheat but I don’t want to give them opportunity to do it right under my nose. This sounds kind of crazy and paranoid but let me explain.


This guy I know told me that he and his live-in girlfriend hardly ever have time for just them or just them and the kids. His girl always had her single sisters, cousins or girlfriends over to the house or Ty and she would go over one of the single lady’s houses. He said that at any given time, one of the ladies would bend over in front of him or make a big production of lifting up their blouses when they pull their pants up. One actually said, “He better not sit by me cause I might have to take him from you.” He finds it flattering in a way, but the subtle and outright advances also make Ty uncomfortable. He feels his girl brings him around her family & friends to rub the fact that she has a man in their faces. From what he’s told me about her, I’m sure he’s right. I kind of laughed to myself thinking of him as a trophy boyfriend. I told him if he didn’t want to be around the ladies all the time that he should tell his girl. If he didn’t have the guts to tell her, I told him to just grin and bear it, making sure he kept his hands and other body parts to himself.

I’m a hugger, and this one guy that I lived with a while ago used to bring his friends over and I would hug them when they came in and when they left. I mean I hug folks at work all the time so it wasn’t because I wanted to do them, that’s just how I greet people that I’m cool with. One day my boyfriend told me to stop hugging his friends because they might want to screw me. I looked at him like he was crazy because I didn’t know they thought of me in that way. To keep down confusion, I just said hello when they came in and went into my bedroom until they left. Of course then he said they thought I was acting anti-social so they started meeting at his brother’s place. *Shaking my head*

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I had friends that were married. They were ladies from my church that I used to like to be around because they told me stories about their lives before they became saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost. Some of those chicks were really something else, Playboy bunnies and everything. At least that’s what they told me. Anyway, I would hang around them most of the day, but when their husbands came home I would leave. I mean I wouldn’t just rudely jump up when they guys walked into the house. I would have maybe a five or ten minute conversation with them and then I would make my exit. At that age, I had sense enough to know that hey, this guy has been gone all day and he probably missed his wife. He may have wanted to spend some time alone with her or his wife may have wanted some “special” time with him that couldn’t wait until bed time.

I’ve known a number of friends and relatives that have slept with their friends’ mates and it caused and still causes nothing but confusion. I mean, if you’re having a dinner party or some other type of get together, it’s cool to have people over to the house, whether single or married. I just don’t think that folks should just be camping out at your place like it’s a bachelor’s or bachelorette’s pad when you have a significant other.

This is just my opinion, I could be wrong. What’s your viewpoint?

Once Was Blind ~ Part 1

A year ago I was trying to adjust to Darnell being on the town instead of living in the prison he was in when I met him. You know how you look back and try to focus on what was good about a relationship? Well, I’m sorry to have to admit, I felt better when he was locked up than I did during the three months we lived together. The harder I tried to overlook the things he did, the more my patience wore thin.

My name is Yolanda Reynolds. I thought that I would be married by the time I turned thirty, but Darnell Oliver not only wanted to be my everything, but everything to every woman he met who had a little change in her pocket and who was easily persuaded. Persuaded to do what? Well, just about anything under the sun.

He wanted his women doing everything, from stealing and selling clothes and jewelry to being a part of the oldest profession. Yeah, you know what I mean, prostitution. My former fiancé was a pimp and proud of it. I admit that I tried things his way for a while, but I guess I didn’t have much street value, so he didn’t try to make me quit my day job to pursue full fledge tricking. I thanked my Heavenly Father for making me fat, and for giving me the strength to leave him before Darnell had starved me to death and forced me to be a full-time whore, whether I liked it or not.

Darnell’s mother, Darlene, and I worked together. She and I had been pretty good friends when she introduced me to her son. The first time I talked to him on the phone, Darlene and Darnell had called me on 3-way. Darnell and I exchanged addresses and promised to write each other at least once every couple of weeks.

His first letter was accompanied by a package the size of a toothpaste box. I, being the type of person who loved receiving gifts, unwrapped the light blue package. When I opened what was indeed a toothpaste box, I found a dozen fake miniature roses of assorted colors. Then I opened the letter which said that the roses were better than real ones because they would last forever. I thought that was sweet gesture. As I held the letter, it dawned on me: I had agreed to date a convicted felon on his seventh year of a ten year bid.

After about two weeks of talking on the phone and exchanging letters, I was ready to meet Darnell face to face. I knew who Darnell was soon as he walked into the visitation room. I recognized him from the pictures of him around Darlene’s house. The guy who reached to hug his mother was a lot thinner than I expected. I had figured all guys gained weight when they went to the pen from lifting weights all day. He had a big gold-tooth smile on his face when he looked at me. As Darnell wrapped his small, but muscular, arms around me, I resisted the urge to touch his shoulder length jheri curl. At that point, I hadn’t known what he had done to get himself locked up, but when I looked at the one inch, perfectly manicured nails and snakeskin cowboy boots, pimping came to mind.

During the first two years of our relationship, I visited Darnell every week, twice a week during the holidays. If my car needed servicing and I couldn’t go see him, he told his mother or brother to bring me.

To make up for the fact that he couldn’t see me on an everyday basis, he was the first man to remember my birthday every year. I sent him money and accepted his calls three times a day. He had friends that would give me money for the phone bill when I needed help. He sent me cards and little notes every Valentine’s and Christmas. He even sent me a mother’s day card and signed it, “My children’s mother to be.” I got to know his entire family including three of his children and their mother. They all made me feel like part of the family. No matter how often my friends looked at me and told me that I should have known better than to get mixed up with a convict, I didn’t listen. I didn’t even tell my dad that Darnell was locked up, because he would have been the very worst critic of all; not just because I was his daughter and he wanted the best for me, but because he had done a decade in prison himself. He knew that everybody didn’t learn from their mistakes.

There were a few times when I said to myself, “This is stupid,” and I wouldn’t go see Darnell or put money on his book. When he would call, I would instruct my roommate, Lolita, to tell him I wasn’t there. I sometimes went out with other guys to try to forget about Darnell, but then he would call on one of his friends 3-way and tell me how much he missed me and that he would be there when I got through running around with all those “nothing –ass niggahs”.

During one of those breakups, Darnell met Roshelle Price through one of the other inmates. Roshelle was ten years older than Darnell, which made her fifteen years older than I. She made her money as a hooker and a clothes booster. Why couldn’t I have left him alone then? Because she ended up going to a federal prison and I didn’t considered her empty promises as a threat to the plans Darnell and I had made together. I didn’t take me long to realize how persistent she was.

After my roommate moved out and I was struggling to pay bills on my own, Darnell convinced me to move in with his mother and we would get our own place when he got out.

Darnell was out a whole week before I knew it, and the $900 he asked me to send to him, before his release had already been blown. His second night home, he screwed some girl in my bed while I was at work. I knew this because I saw an open condom package under my pillow. I should have packed my bags then, but I just told him when we moved out of his mom’s house, that I wanted my own room. We stayed with Darlene a month before we found a house.

Government Shutdown

A number of blog ideas were flowing through my head the last couple of days—getting to know new people, backtracking with an ex… Not so unusual for me, I decided to go in a totally different direction. This doggone government shutdown is weighing heavily on my mind. I’m usually not a political minded person, but this stuff right here is getting on my nerves. I work for the part of the federal government that some people love and some hate—IRS—and as you know THE DAY is fast approaching. This year we have until April 18 to file and/or pay our taxes. As an employee, this date as well as the last day of this month, are crucial times for getting work completed.

The shutdown could also affect the issuing of refund checks (I'm glad I filed in February).



If we are shut down for a couple days to a couple of weeks, we may or may not get paid once the budget is passed. That’s what’s bothering me. I appreciate my good government job which is why I’ve been there for 14 years. As crazy as things get around there, I would love to have a few days off but being off without pay is not something I look forward to.

I was 19 years old and had no idea I’d be working for the government back in 1995 and 1996, the last time the government shut down. The politicians say that was the reason why former President Clinton was elected to a second term. I don’t know how that had anything to do with the cost of tea in China but instead of the senators fighting over whether the shutdown will benefit the Democrats or the Republicans they need to come to my service center and talk with the so-called non-essential people who don’t make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Then they would see that what’s important is the fact that we could miss one or more pay checks. Depending on a person’s financial situation, that could cause a major problem when it comes to paying the bills for however long we are off.

The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) reps passed out fliers at work giving us information on how to send our congressional representatives a message: “Just say ‘NO’ to a government shutdown and severe budget cuts.” I’m not sure if this will have any effect on Congress’s or President Obama’s decision, but I would like to think that it would.

When we didn’t get our yearly raise and were told that we probably wouldn’t get one for another two or three years, I just shrugged and said, “Oh well”. I couldn’t miss any money that I never had. But I go to work every working day other than three vacation weeks out of the year, so I expect to get my regular paycheck.

When the Democrats and the Republicans finish playing this game of chicken, we’ll see if the government will be shut down Friday evening. 

If I get furloughed, can y'all let a sister hold something?  LOL just kidding, I'm good.

An Understanding

“Where the hell is Phillip’s medicine? It wasn’t in his bag,” Jarvis yelled into the phone.

I was rocking the baby, trying to soothe him, but I knew that his earache was getting worse.

“This is the second time that you’ve forgotten it. Do I have to come to your house and pack his bag my damn self from now on?”

That’s what you get for having a baby by a young, dumb, white girl, I wanted to say but I didn’t. I was his wife and wives were supposed to be supportive, no matter nuts their husbands were. The fact that she was white really wasn’t a big deal to me because dumb came in all colors.

“Now when I sue you for full custody you’re gonna say that I’m being low down. Whatever. Gennifer, just drop his ear medicine off at mom’s house and I’ll go get it.”

I decided to take Phillip into the kitchen to find him a snack to get his mind off of his pain. Before we reached the doorway, Jarvis screamed, “I bet’ not give you my address, you think I want you to bring your drama to my doorstep?”

I sure the hell didn’t. I almost got locked up fooling around with that broad. I told her I was there for him before she got there and that I’ll be there when she was gone, so she got hot. Hell, it was the truth. Jarvis and I had known each other since ninth grade. We weren’t high school sweethearts or anything but we were good friends. If we had not lost contact a little after graduation, she would have never gotten into the picture.

When he first told me about Gennifer, I figured they would get married but she turned out to be too crazy for him to handle, so he had to cut her loose. Unfortunately, she was pregnant when he’d called it quits. I told him to try to make it work with her but he didn’t want to, saying that he should have been with me in the first place. So there I was, Mrs. Jarvis Anderson, aka Boo Boo the Fool, trying to make the best of a very awkward situation.

“Sonia, come ride with me,” Jarvis said walking into the kitchen where I stood. “I might kill that girl if I go alone.”

“Okay. I wish you wouldn’t let her upset you so much,” I said handing the baby to him. I went to the living room closet to get our jackets. I put on mine and took Phillip from Jarvis, giving him his jacket as well. Jarvis watched me as I got Phillip ready.

“I think you take better care of my son than his mama,” he said as we got into the car.

“I love this handsome little guy. I mean he looks just like you, except he’s more light skinned, has nicer hair and prettier eyes.”

“Are you trying to put the moves on my boy?” I just giggled and hugged Phillip to me. I was glad Jarvis was back to his old self again. He and I hardly ever argued, so it was unusual for me to see his bottom lip poked out.

It was too bad that our good moods didn’t last long. Gennifer’s car was still in Mrs. Phyllis’s driveway when we pulled in front of the house. It looked as if Gennifer was getting ready to back out, but I’m sure she made it her business to be there when Jarvis got there on purpose, hoping to get a few moments with him, without me around. Oops, her bad.

Jarvis blew the horn to get her attention before he got out the car. As he walked over to her car, I could tell that old girl was getting ready to chew Jarvis out. I hoped he would keep his composure.

“What do you want? And why doesn’t your wife have my baby in the child seat? Is she trying to kill him or what?” she yelled loud enough for me to have heard her in our backyard six blocks away.

When Jarvis looked back to see if I heard her, he saw me getting out of the passenger seat, so I could put Phillip in the back. As soon as I sat him down, he began to whine. “He needs his medicine,” I yelled to them.

“Bring me my baby, he just misses his mommy,” Gennifer said impatiently.

I picked Phillip up and again and walked over to Gennifer as she got out of her car. When I put the baby in her arms, he began to cry louder. By the time Mrs. Phyllis had let me in the house, the baby was on the verge of bursting a blood vessel and his face was almost as red as a tomato.

“What’s wrong with that child? He looks like he’s fighting for his life. Look how he’s clawing at that gal’s face.” I picked up the medicine bottle from the coffee table and went to stand behind Mrs. Phyllis as she stood at the door looking out. We both giggled when Gennifer thrust Phillip into Jarvis’s arms.

“What have you been doing to him?” she yelled nearly in tears herself.

“We’ve been taking care of him and loving him, the way you should be doing.”

Phillip calmed down and looked over his little shoulder at his mother. His small hand went up to his earlobe and began twisting and turning it. I took that as my cue to return outside and rescue both of my men from that woman, before things got any worse.

“Can you have kids?” Gennifer burst out, as I approached them.

“Why do you ask?” I responded, as I put the drops in the baby’s ears.

“I was just wondering if you were going to have any children of your own or if you were just going steal my son away from me.”

I would be a much better mother than you, I wanted to say, but one look at the expression on Jarvis’s face said not to even go there. I took Phillip to the car and fastened him in the car seat. I handed him his sippy cup from his bag. He looked out of the window and watched his parents as he drank his juice. It was a good thing he wasn’t old enough to feel embarrassed by his mother. I envied his innocence.

It was Phillip’s third birthday. Mrs. Phyllis and I were out in her backyard putting balloons and streamers on the wooden privacy fence. We were waiting for Gennifer to bring Phillip over so we would have him ready before his little daycare friends arrived. She was late, as usual. Jarvis had not made it either, but he had called to say he would have to work a little later.

The party was well underway, when I received a phone call that I felt would send me to my maker. The police told me that Jarvis had been dropping off one of his coworkers, when a motorcycle got into his lane, coming down the wrong side of the street. Jarvis dodged the guy but ran right into a large tree that pretty much totaled his truck. My sweetie was unconscious.

“Phyllis,” I screamed, trying to keep my composure, but failing miserably.

“What is it, baby?” I just handed her the phone.

Once I had gotten myself together and sent everyone home, Gennifer and I got into the car. We rode in silence except for her crying. Mrs. Phyllis stayed at the house with Phillip. I drove because I was the more coherent one. I felt as if I had drunk a bottle of Novocain that made my whole body numb. I wanted to smack Gennifer, and put her out of the car, for all of her melodramatics, but I controlled the urge. I did feel sorry for her because she was alone, except for Phillip. I didn’t know much about her, but I did know that her attitude had a lot to do with her relationship status.

The doctor didn’t want me to see Jarvis at first but when I got through cutting up sideways, they let me in. They wouldn’t let Gennifer come. I don’t think she would have been able to see him like that anyway. I nearly stopped breathing when I laid eye on him. One of his legs was up in a sling and his handsome brown face was covered with cuts and bruises. I dropped to my knees, and prayed until the nurse came to tell me it was time to go.

When I explained Jarvis’s condition to Gennifer she cried twice as much as she had earlier. “What are Phillip and I going to do if something happens to Jarvis? I can’t take care of him by myself. I know I give him a hard time about everything, but I still care about him.”

“Gennifer,” I said putting my hand on her shoulder. She looked up at me. “No matter what happens, and Lord knows I hope he’ll be all right, but if something does happen to Jarvis, I’ll always be there for you and Phillip.”

“But…”

“No buts. When I married Jarvis, you and that little boy became my family too. I could never turn my back on you, no matter how crazy your ass is.” That girl was speechless for the first time since I’d known her and it made me smile through the tears in my eyes. We sat there and held each other for a long time. I felt all of the animosity that had been between us melting away.

Jarvis came out of his coma after a week and a half. When Gennifer and I went to pick him up, he did a double take. “What’s the business? Y’all must have gone crazy while I was half dead.”

“No, we just came to an understanding,” I said.

“What kind of understanding?” Jarvis asked suspiciously.

“That if you died, we would move in together.”

“What the …?”

“Just kidding, baby, calm down,” I said kissing his face.

“Sonia and I called a truce. I’ll try not to give her a hard time and she will try not to kick my butt if I slip up,” Gennifer said.

“It’s about time. Does that truce extend to me too? I wanted to bust your head a couple of times myself.”

“Damn, y’all violent,” Gennifer laughed. “Yes, I promise not to get you riled up either.”

Who knew that Gennifer and I would have become friends? She had hated me since day one. I really thought she would revert back to her old ways after a while, but she didn’t. I guess she finally understood that there was no reason for us to have any animosity against each other because Phillip was the most important person in all of our lives and that it was important for us to get along, for his sake.

With her attitude under control, maybe could find her a good dude to keep her occupied.

What Does My Twitter Bio Really Say About Me

I discovered Marian Schembari through a YouTube interview done with her by Joanna Penn. After watching Marian's videos and reading a few of her blog posts, I got to thinking about how my Twitter account looks to people. I’m interested in a lot of things and sometimes I wonder if I turn folks off by tweeting about so many different subjects. Can any of you, or maybe Marian herself, let me know if I’m harming my potential readership by being all over the place with my tweets? In addition, my blog posts fall along the same lines. One day I’m writing about a relationship and the next day I’m writing about my decision to embrace the natural texture of my hair.

Let me provide a little more information about my subject matters.

Mother

I am a mother first and foremost. I’ve held this title for nearly four years and I’m still learning how to be a good mother. By no means am I perfect, but I’m doing the best I know how and I hope my son appreciates it when he gets older. I talk about some of the outings we go on and some of the funny things he says in the course of a day. At times I even ask for advice concerning my child’s education or why he may be behaving in a certain way.

Writer

Writing was a part of my life long before I became a mother. I write poetry, short stories, unfinished novels and of course blog posts. My desire to be a professional writer is the number one reason why I joined Twitter in the first place. I have met writers at various levels. From professionals to aspiring, from traditional published to self-published, from fiction to non-fiction and everything else in between. No matter what level the writer is on, I learn something from all of them on a regular basis through their blogs, YouTube videos and conversations with them on Twitter.

Reader

Before I was a writer, I was a reader. Reading was my first love (Some of the stuff I read as a youngster led to my first love with a boy but that’s another story.) Many times I tweet links to blog posts that I find interesting or about a book or ebook that I’m reading or have read and enjoyed.

Thinker

Things are always popping into my head, even in the middle of the night. Sometimes it’s a story idea or a lyric from a song that I can’t get out of my head. Sometimes I tweet these lyrics and sometimes I post a link to the video on YouTube. When something ways heavy on my mind, I write a blog post about it and link to it. (Which is what I’m going to do with this post).

Natural Hair

I didn’t even know there was a such thing as a natural hair community until I got on Twitter. I had been toying with the notion of growing my relaxer out but I really didn’t think much of it until I ran across a couple of tweets with the hashtag #naturalhair. When I clicked on it I saw a legion of nappy headed, curly haired, kinky haired African American women that had cut all of their hair off or were in the process of growing the chemically treated hair out and trimming it a little at a time. From joining and participating in this community, I have learned so much about my own hair. Sometimes, when the mood hits me, I even create and then link to my own YouTube videos.

Relationships

Most of the poems and stories I’ve written over the years have dealt with relationships. Some of the relationships were really good and some were so bad that a person was on the verge of going to jail before they took anymore abuse from the other person. (Been there, almost did that.) Sometimes I pose questions to tweeps requesting their opinion on something I had been thinking about and that I plan to write about.

Family

Even though my son is the only family that actually lives in my household, I see my dad almost daily and my baby sister once a week. I encounter other members of my family a couple times a year. Sometimes it’s pleasant sometimes I vow not to see them for maybe two to three years the next go around. A lot of times I respond to family related tweets because I have been through or personally know of examples of similar situations.

Social Media

Last but definitely not least, I am addicted to social media. From Twitter to Facebook to YouTube and all of the blogs I can stand to read. Social media feeds my all of the previously mentioned items. If there is something going on in my life that I can’t explain, I Google it and get all kinds of answers as to why it happened and how it can be prevented from happening in the future. My dad thinks the internet is the devil but maybe if I told him I learned how to deal with his crazy antics from some of the things I read on the internet, he would sing a different tune.

Well this is my spiel for today. Let me know if you think that I should narrow my range of subjects, if I should only tweet or blog about one thing or if you love my flighty-ness and think I’m the best thing since sliced bread was invented. Please don’t lie to me.

Looking forward to hearing from you.