First Date Jitters*

 

“Oh shit! I’m so late.”

 

Waking up from the most ridiculous accidental nap in the world, I turned in my bed to see that my clock read 6:45PM. Well that’s just great, I thought. Especially since I had my first date with this great, cute, sexy Brody  I’d met the other day.

 

“Wait, what time is he supposed to be here to pick me up,” I’m pretty sure I asked myself out loud. I was definitely in one of those just waking up dazes that you find yourself in sometimes. Honestly, I couldn’t even remember when I’d fallen asleep. One thing I did know… this guy was going to be at my place by 7:30. Clearly, that didn’t leave me much time to get dressed.

 

I jumped out of the bed so fast; it would have probably given me a headache if I hadn’t been working on straight adrenalin. You’d swear the fire alarm in my apartment had gone off. I ran to the closet, in search of the perfect simple but subtle, dynamic outfit. Knowing that I didn’t have much time to pick out my fit, take a refresher shower, spruce up my hair and go for the “does she have on make-up or is she that beautiful all by herself” make-up look, I knew the quickest way to speed up my process.

 

Find the shoes I wanted to wear.

 

It was something I always did when I was in a bind, whether it was because I needed to figure out my fit quickly or because I was having a moment and couldn’t decide which outfits to pick out of my closet for a specific event. Well, to make sure both situations didn’t hit me with a BOOM, I thought proactively.

 

I wanted something that could make the outfit, but was slightly understated. It was just the first date, so I wanted to show a little of my flair, but not too much. You know, you gotta give ‘em a little to keep ‘em coming back for more, right? LOL

 

Anyway, immediately I knew which shoes I would wear. These Jessica Simpson PARIGI pumps, that had the added benefit of being a beveled toe pump (which made them more comfortable) even as they added extreme height (coming in at a heel height of 4 and ¾ with a 1 in platform) and a slight dazzle with the color scheme, were exactly the shoes that would do the trick.

 

From there, I came up with the rest of the fit pretty quickly. Adding to the shoes, I picked my dark blue (almost black) skinny jeans, white tank top and a medium thick red belt. For accessories, my small red studs and a long brown beaded necklace that hung to my belly button.

 

I quickly wrapped a scarf around my head, jumped into and out of the shower in no time, sprayed some smell good on the important parts, put on my clothes and worked wonders with my make-up in 5 minutes flat. (Yes, your girl is a G with the natural make-up look.) I’d just unwrapped my hair (with great results, thank goodness) when my doorbell rang.

 

Wow, someone was timely, I see. I leaned over to see what my clock read. It was 7:29PM. 

 

“Hold on, be right there,” I screamed through the door.

 

Hurriedly putting my shoes on and checking myself one last time in my “lie to me mirror,” I opened the door to one of the most beautiful men that God has ever created.

 

“Wow,” he whispered, which of course made me blush extremely hard… adding to my blonzer I’d put on.

“Thank you.”

“You must have prepared all day for this date, huh? You look amazing!”

“Ha ha… oh boy, you have no idea how wrong you are, but I appreciate the compliment.”

“Well, you look like a million bucks. I can’t wait to walk in there with the most beautiful girl on my arm.”

“You better stop. I might just fall out from all these smooth talker compliments in a row,” I said, half-jokingly.

“Well, we certainly don’t want that to happen,” he laughed. “With those heels, you’d have a long way to fall!”

“Ohhhhh… okay! I see you! We got jokes,” I said, staring him down, with a HUGE smile on my face. “I’m still bad, even with these heels off.”

“I know.” He looked me up and down, slowly taking in my entire creation, excitement clearly building within him. I’d clearly picked the right shoes for the night, and was definitely going to enjoy myself.

 

* Just another attempt at strengthening my short story skills….

We

Its a simple 2 letter word, but what I’ve realized over the past couple weeks is that it can make all the difference in one’s relationship.

So what is the “we” concept? It is the idea/belief that in a serious relationship, the we always comes before the I. The realization that the decisions you make no longer affect just you, they affect this person that you love and may quite possibly want to spend the rest of your life with.

So you see, it’s a simple enough idea, but for anyone who ever struggled in math, you know that simple concepts don’t always translate into simple actions. Think about it. If you get the amazing opportunity to move to France, when your life is just about you, that could be a no-brainer for you. Your bags might be packed before your friends even have the chance to plan your going away party/dinner. But oh, if you’re in a serious relationship, the decision might not be that easy.

Now of course, you may say that it’s still a no-brainer. How often do people have opportunities like this, right? But what if the opportunity had a minimum comittment of 5 years attached to it. 5 years, outside of the country, away from your guy/girl; you’d have to know in your heart, that by choosing the job, you’re in essence saying “this chance means more to me than us”

Wow, right? Okay, some of you may not be here with me yet. I get that. After all, I didn’t really get the concept myself until a couple weeks ago. I even got into this huge argument with a friend of mine a couple years ago, because he said this exact thing to me about his girlfriend. She’d had 2 opportunities presented to her: a job where he was, and a job all the way in California. She took the job in California. He was pissed, hurt, upset, everything. And I was pissed at him! “How dare you make her choose between you and the job she wants?!” I said. “If you really loved her, you would support her decision and know that you guys would make it if it’s meant to be.”

He wasn’t having it, though. And they soon broke up. I thought he was selfish. I thought he was being demanding, and without right, because he’d put no ring on this girl’s finger. But now I know, he was right. Kinda. He was right in that, he knew what her choice meant for him and more importantly, for THEM. I still believe you have the right to make that choice, but I now get that if your plan is to marry this person one day, you have to know that your decisions don’t just affect you.

That’s a harsh reality for a lot of women to take, because it may sound to some as if I’m saying that “we” means you’re following some man around where ever he goes. Trust me, I am not. This same conversation is relevant to men as well, and it doesn’t just apply to moving to different places.

When you’re thinking “we”, you’re making a conscious effort to include that person in your plans and your thoughts. No longer is it a great opportunity for me, it should be a great opportunity for us! After all, that’s how it’s supposed to be when you join with someone, right? The two become one.

Now, I’m not saying this applies to every relationship you have. Some relationships are never meant to last a long time, but I think a large part of why some may not last (even though they could have) is that somewhere along the lines, either one or both of the people involved never got to the point where they saw themselves as a we. I can speak for myself and say that’s the case for some of my relationships.

What do YOU think? Am I right about the we? And do you think it’s as daunting as I do… cuz trust me, I do think it’s a task that shouldnt be taken lightly.

Classic Chic

 

Here’s another shoe from my new fav website, guys! How classically chic is this! I saw this shoe in a magazine recently and was like, whoa… where is that shoe?! Gotta have it! lol. Well dont worry, I didnt go out and buy it on impulse, but I did want to share with you guys. You know, just sometimes the best shoe is a solid color pump.

Once again, no price listed because it’s a wholesale website, but if you’re interested, check out the REPORT peep toe pump from Delicious. It’s available in beige, brown, green, grey, purple, red, and yellow.

Would YOU Wear it?

I know we’re ALLLLL about being different and the such, but sometimes different can be… well, a little too different. I’m like a little kid in a candy store, though, guys! I recently oopsed up on this cool website that has shoes/ shoe brands you dont normally see… anyway, I’m scrolling through, trying not be tempted to purchase anything, marking down shoes I want to show you guys (see, I’m always here for ya )… when I come across THESE. Ummmmm, can someone tell me when and where I would wear these? (I mean other than by themselves with a jacket for my man.)

Maybe I’m bias though. Cuz I have calfs that probably wont fit in these and no one I would waste time putting that much thought into lol… so it could be that I’m hating and the CREW gladiator platform pump from Paprika really does it for you. If it does, it’s available in black and brown, and in snake: black, brown, gold, and silver. You can check these out and more at http://www.fortunedynamic.com, a wholesale website company.

Hey… it’s OKAY!

Glamour Magazine recently did a page about things that may make you happy, but may seem kinda ridiculous to others. Aptly titled, “Hey, it’s OK!” the page included such great treasures as:

… to still love those zero-spending weekends at your parents’ house.

… to wear that fancy dress to another wedding. And another. It’s not like the paparazzi are on patrol.

AND…

… to have a “work conflict” when a friend picks some hyperpriced restaurant for her birthday dinner.

Well, I KNOW we can come up with some good ones ourselves… EVEN BETTER ones!

I’ll get you started: Here are some I think are noteworthy. Join in the fun and let me know some statements you’d like to add!

It’s OKAY

…. to decide that pair of shoes is worth your lunch for the week if it’s a “to-die” pair that you may never see again, just happens to have one pair in your size, and it’s on major sale; but ONLY like once every 4 to 6 months.

… to call that guy who makes you feel good about yourself when you need a pick me up (esp if he’s like a gazillion miles away, Oakland anyone?, and therefore you dont have to actually worry about any slip-ups occurring.)

… to cry when Mufasa dies in Lion King. That’s a sad part, damnit! (yea CCB, I’m talking to you)

… to make a play for a cute/sexy/FIONE guy. It’s 2008 ladies!!!!! Yep, I’m promoting gettin ‘em with the 2 finger come hither move (LOL)

… to still call your BFF at 3 am (on the weekends) with drunken I LOVE YOUs (yep, that’s you Pimp C lol)

Alright, what would you add???????

Confessions Part Whatever

picks up mic……

(ahem) Excuse me. Excuse me. Is this thing on?… yes, yes it seems to be. I’m starting to feel like Usher on this damn blog… cuz I here I go with some more confessions.

Alright, so the truth is I’ve been a hopeless wreck of emotions lately. God’s been placing all these overdue revelations on me (and if anyone has had that happen to them, you know it’s very mentally draining). For one, I recently realized that I’ve been wandering around the wilderness for the past 8 years. No. Seriously. Follow me here… in case you dont know the story of Israelites, God liberates them through Moses but they find themselves wandering around the desert for 40 years just not getting it, practically going in circles.

Skip a whole bunch of thousands of years, and you have me. I’ve been entering a lot of writing contests lately, as part of my newly refound love of writing creatively. (it’s also the reason I’ve tried to write something on this here blog once a day… keeps the juices flowing if you do it consistently.) Well, I’ve written two short stories so far and once I sat back and looked at them (and had close friends point them out), I realized that the main characters were me. Not completely me… but me.

The first woman was afraid of love and that fear was paralyzing her from opening herself up to a man she knew in her heart that she loved, because she didnt think she could handle it if he hurt her… and the one thing she knew is that he would definitely hurt her. Um….. I’m going to raise my hand on that one.

The second woman sees an ex of hers and realizes that she’s never been in an un-grey situation. Every man that she’s dated/loved has had a qualifier on them. After looking into this, she decides the best thing to do would be to write about it (because thats how she best expresses herself) and she comes up with a book that could be used to make sure other girls dont find themselves in situations where they are dating the “same man” in different men’s bodies. ummmm…. yeah that’d be me too.

Oh, but it gets better. So then, there’s a poetry contest that I decided I wanted to enter, but after writing both of those stories in less than a month’s time, I was going to see if I already had a poem written previously that I could use. Well…. I found 2 poems that were really interesting. One was written in 2000 and was all about how LOVE was a scary concept to me and I was trying to trust this guy, but it was hard; and the other one was written in 2001 and was about how I build up walls, but those walls were starting to become glass and I was breaking them (for the better). Ummmm, let’s stop here for a second… there is DEFINITELY something wrong when a poem you wrote 8 years ago could be just as applicable today.

And to top it all off, I’ve been hearing a lot of scripture about stepping outside of your fear, wandering in the desert, etc… Do you think God could be beating this into my head any deeper???

The problem is that it’s a lot easier said than done to really let go of someone you love. Sure, it’s easy to tell other people how to do it. I can do that all day… but as many times as I’ve thought I was over this one guy, I fell right back into a destructive pattern. Loving a man who couldnt, didnt, and didnt want to love me.

And let me tell you, that damn Making the Band 4 show does not help! lol… I’m sitting there watching Que and Dawn, being all happy for Dawn (like I know her or something) and reveling in young Black love, when Que up and starts singing “You are So Beautiful.” Really?! Really, God!? the song that just happens to be me and Jake’s song… all the songs in all the world, and THATS the song he has to sing!!!?!?!?!?!!?

I couldnt take it… I cant take it. This emotional wreck thing is for the birds (or at least someone who is a whole hellavu lot more comfortable with it than me) and I dont like it one bit.

throws mic down……………………………….. that is all.

Who’s YOUR President???

         Guess what kiddies… the first presidential debate is coming up in only a few short days! Friday at 9pm EST to be exact (yes, an extremely dumb time, I agree). While you wait in such extreme anticipation, why dont you take the time to take this little interactive quiz that ABC has on the website. It’s pretty cool: they take a couple issues that are being considered the talk of the town right now, and present a quote from each candidate on the issue. You have to then pick which quote you identify with, without being told which candidate said it.

          So what do you think? Will you end up picking the person you think you’re going to vote for… OR will it shock you how much you really identify with the other candidate????

Guess who’s AGAIN not surprised?

Well, well, well… will you looky here. I guess all those things that the crazy little negro folk were saying in the beginning of the presidential campaigns (you know, little things like, embedded racism is still alive and well in this country and many people are not going to be able to vote for Obama when it all comes down to it, things like that) are now being reported on because of a polling experiment that AP-Yahoo News and Stanford University did together.

You can check it here, but pretty much, the gist of it is that many white Americans (even the self-proclaimed liberal Democrats) still harbor “deep seated racial misgivings.” ummm, do you ever feel like you’ve been saying something to a brick wall for years and years? I mean, not that it’s really been years, but I’ve pretty much asserted this same belief for awhile now.

Dont get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s everyone. I would never be so judgmental to generalize any one category of people and lump them completely into one negative stereotype, BUT, I’ve asserted for awhile now that it’s naive of us to think that within less than 50 years, all racism has disappeared from these great United States of America.

Just look around. You can’t click on 10 youtube videos before you come across some person emboldened by being anonymous on the internet and using their favorite words: everything from nigger to ignorant porch monkeys. You can’t click on the tv for more than a couple hours before you’re blasted with every negative stereotype of the Black community, from oversexed to violent. Hell, my grandparents still get side-eyes from people who think they’re an old interracial couple because my grandfather looks like an old white man and my grandmother like an older dark chocolate woman.

Does that sound like a society that’s come to grips with its past? Not to me, obviously not to some of the students at Harvard who first studied and formed the Implicit Association Test a few years back, and now not to some students at Stanford who were dumbfounded as to how a man like Barack Obama in a country that is statistically more Democratic could be locked in a dead heat with a man like John McCain after 8 years of one of the most unpopular presidents in American history. I’m sure they were shocked when they found the results to their studies.

I’m sure they didnt think they would uncover that “More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can’t win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don’t have such views” (this is according to the yahoo article.)

And I’m sure that someone is going to look at this and have the typical response: stop whining and just work hard. Hmmm, we’ll see, cuz I’m sure I wont be surprised WHEN it comes up again.

Numbers

 

2, 5, 10… just numbers, right? Well normally, but not today… and not when it comes to guys and girls and perceptions.

 

I don’t remember the first time I heard the theory that people pair up according to numbers, but as soon as I did, it stuck. I would assume it was one of my guy friends espousing some wonderful guy logic on me, because that’s just what it sounds like… but when you think about it, it kinda hits you. 

 

The idea behind the theory is that depending on your number equivalent, you will most likely date people between a 2 point range below you or a 2 point range above you. For example, if you’re a 6, the theory would say that you wouldnt date anyone below a 4 because you would think you’re too good for them, and you wouldnt be able to pull anyone above an 8. It also says that in that range lies certain expectations. If you are the 6 dating a 4, you may expect that 4 to almost be grateful for being with you (whether you realize it or not), and if you’re dating that 8, you may allow that person to get away with more, because hey, he or she is an 8… some things you just have to put up with.

 

 

Now, really think about it. How many 3.5s do you know walking around with 10s living wonderful, beautiful and successful lives. Not many, right? And the ones you do are such a shocker to your system, that maybe you might have even wondered, “how did HE pull her?” or “what did she do to get HIM?” Ahhh, starting to sound familiar, right?

 

The number system is easy enough at first to figure out. You take a gorgeous person who has a great head on their shoulders, has a wonderful sense of humor, and is either successful in his or her career or on the way to being successful… it’d be pretty easy to label that person a 10, right? Except, what if that guy or girl had ALL those things, but also had one of your deal breakers too… then would they still be a 10??

 

Even Katt Williams talked about this in his American Hustler dvd:

 

Aint no perfect people ladies, but sometimes you set your sights to high and don’t give n*ggas no credit. Some of yall then had a 98 percent good n*gga, 98 percent. You got rid of them n*ggas for 2 fucking percent! 98% good. N*ggas went to work, made the check, brought it back, shared it with you, put gas in the car, didn’t beat on you, took care of your kids better than his own kids, he cant even see his kids, he rubbing your son’s hair and putting his backpack on in the morning and you done got rid of that n*gga for 2%… cuz he cheated on ya… a little fucking 2%. You… oh, what? It’s different now!?… Ladies like, n*gga that’s a big 2 n*gga, fuck!

That 2 percent could drop a 10 down to a 2 real quick, right? Do you think the same could be said about a 2 rising to a 10 if eventually you realized that with a bag over his face, he gave you everything else you needed? I mean, I know many people who’ve had a 5 become an 8.5 to them the more they got to know them, so thats not too far of a stretch, right?

 

That all just kinda makes the numbers thing a lil more complicated to think about. Especially when you factor that most people probably won’t consider themselves anything less than a 6.5, I would assume. And so if you think you’re an 8, but everyone else thinks you’re a 4… already you’ve set yourself up with high number expectations that you just might not meet.

 

Anyway, I’m starting to go on a tangent here. But what do you think? Do we pair off in numbers? And if we do, how do you know if you’re setting your number expectations too high? Let’s speak on it…

Are you ready for some football???

 In honor of my love of football on Saturdays and Sundays… I decided I’d switch it up a bit, and do another tennis shoe post. But this one is a tad bit different, because it’s designed by yours TRULY!!!!!! That’s right, lil ol me! I went to Nike.com and they have this cool application where you can design your own shoe based either on a sport or a style. They give you all the different color swatches and you can change every single thing on there… save it… and then place your order… and VOILA! Your very own tennis shoe… how cool is that?!? Anyway, if you’re bored and you’re into that kind of thing, check them out.