Not hating, Just stating…

check me out here: Bri Cooley’s Strange Truth

see ya there!

“Night or day they’re just not matching what they should do. Keep me feeling blue.” -The Spinners

Part one:

 I am a firm believer in doing what you say & saying what you’re gonna do. If you think that making me an empty promise is the way to keep me happy or hanging on, ya dead wrong! If you think that NOT saying something to me directly about something that will have an affect on me will keep me from getting upset, ya dead wrong!

Tell the truth upfront & let the chips fall where they may. Manipulating truth is lying, omitting parts of the truth is lying by omission, and just flat out lying is your ARSE! I hate being lied to like ANYONE, but most of all I hate being manipulated and having energy transferred to me that I don’t deserve. Transferring energy is a little like deflecting only there are only two people involved and the person to whom you are giving the business feels trapped in their own lie & tries to accuse you of something similar to their transgression in an effort to take the guilt off of them. This doesn’t work with me because I’M SMART! So why do it? Because you like to play games and manipulate situations to your advantage and when  mirror is held up to you, you refuse to look in it. It’s time to get off the playground & step into adulthood… I don’t want to play tag or hide-n-seek or monkey in the middle… You can have fun with someone without playing games.

Part two:

“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone?”- Joni Mitchell

This is a recurring theme for me. We’re “dating”, “seeing each other”, “talking”, “hanging out”and for some reason I start to make “demands” of you that you cannot fulfill. Not ultimatums, or even real demands… just requests for simple things like quality time or a night out once in a while. (Who would remain interested in someone that never went out with them, right? only a fool or a sukka, right? RIGHT!) So I start to feel that the relating-ship (I use that term for the commitmentphobic folks so as not to have it confused with “relationship” which includes titles & responsibilities for each others feelings and general treating the other person like a human being) is slowly deteriorating & I bring it to your attention before it fizzles & fades. I am not an unreasonable person, I give it time to get fixed. BUt after I have brought it up a FEW times & am met with nothing but the aforementioned games, I let you know it’s not gonna work for me &  I get *GONE*. I don’t call like I used to, I don’t respond to you the way I used to & we definitely don’t do the things we used to. SUddenly and much too late you realize something is amiss… and it’s time to do soemthing about it. CORRECTION, it’s too late.

As a result of your game playing, you are now sitting there thinking about the way things used to be. *cue Joni*

“Don’t it always seem to go

That you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s *GONE*

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.”

It has been a while, I know…

I have been working & interning & getting my lesson out (as my grammy says) recently I have been actually going out… on dates… with like a boy & stuff. Yeah, I know, it IS strange.

I am really trying to make an effort to blog more, but life gets in the way… *womp womp*

I haven’t been watching much tv or dvr… I took myself to the movies Sunday I was a very EXPENSIVE date… I saw up in 3D… *cha ching*

So I am just letting the FEW of you who keep up with me that I have not abandoned my blog (like I have the 4 or so others I started), I just have been trying NOT to be overwhemed with all I got goins on.

I think I will revisit the idea of being *GONE* at some point today…. because maaaaaan, some people really like to be last minute Larry’s! But we’ll discuss that in a few hours. So *checks clock* let’s say we meet back here around 11 AM, cool? COOL!

BTW, if I am not here at 11… I probably won’t post until this evening… sad, but true… this IS my life!

As we should all know by now, I love reality TV. But I am SELECTIVE about what I will watch. That’s like saying I LOVE trash, but I will only eat from certain garbage cans, I know! ANYWHO…

I was watching the GYM known as Charm School. A little history on this reality tv classic: It was originally hosted by Mo’Nique who, after watching the chicks on Flavor of Love show their azzes literally & figuratively decided to reach one, tech one. Since then, attention whores from Rock of Love and Flavor of Love have been showed the way to Ladydom by Sharon Osborne & now the wayward hoes of Real Chance of Love and Rock of Love Bus are being escorted down a less wayward path by Ricki Lake. So last night I was watching what AMAZINGLY is only the second episode of season 3 and there was a CLEAR “cultural” divide.

The “blonde-tourage” from Rock of Love were ganging up on one particular chick from Rock of Love a former porn star turned Holy Saint… *eyeroll*. And when I say ganging up, I MEAN IT! They were initiating & instigating things with her. At one point, they came into her room and locked her in the bathroom. Then they thought it was a good idea to feed her while she was in there so they shoved hot dogs under the door. Where at do they do that?

The Real Chance of Love girls are loud and mean. But they have yet to resort to physical violence. There is one little mousy one named Bubbles who likes to talk NONSENSE. She will get ganged up on verbally, but no one has ever put their hands on her or locked her in the bathroom.

So what is my point? My point is that CULTURALLY, passive aggressive cruelty seems to be much more acceptable to non-Blacks than in your face loud smack talk. This is RIDICULOUS! In urban American culture, you have to be loud, you have to be aggressive, you have to be in-your-face; or you will be run over, overlooked and/or looked down upon. It is a survival skill. Just the opposite, it seems, is the suburban or predominately white culture that thinks that outright cruelty, mean-spirited jokes & overall catty foolishness is the way to remain dominant.

Let’s weigh these 2 cultural phenomenons:

locking someone in the bathroom as “just a dumb joke” vs. getting up in someone’s face & yelling really loudly

Only ONE of these things can get you arrested… yet the other can get you expelled from Charm School. What happened last night was ALMOST a racial divide, but moreso cultural because there were non-black women that sided with the black women (KO).

In the first episode the Rock of Love girls got stumbling drunk. And one mother of 3 pulled out another woman’s hair while the RCL girls looked on in horror. In this last episode, the RCL girls ganged up on Bubbles in a yelling match but never once put their hands on her or locking her in a room. Yet the Rock of Love girls got drunk, got rowdy & locked someone in the bathroom and somehow, that was okay. One of the Rock of Love girls even SAID: “I didn’t want to be on Real Chance of Love for a reason…” I’m wondering what reason that was. Maybe because she knows had she locked an RCL girl int he bathroom there would have been no worse fury in HELL than when they let her out. Maybe because she knows that she would have had it coming from all the “scary, ghetto girls” had she tried any sort of sabotage or shenanigans.

What ever the case, I cannot wait to see how this season ends because those Rock of Love girls have much to learn about what is & is not acceptable!

As most of you have probably heard already, Miss Bea Arthur of Golden Girls fame has passed away.

I took some time to reflect on “friendship”. And after the weekend I have had, I REALLY know what friends are supposed to be. I know some folks, I have some close acquaintances, but as Gabby said on Desperate Housewives last night, there are friends with a LITTLE “f” & there are Friends with a BIG “f”. The Golden Girls were Friends. Everything was out in the open. There was no mistaking the fact that they thought Rose was dim… ROSE knew that but she also knew that they loved her anyway. There was no mistaking that they thought Blanche was a slut… Blanche KNEW she was but she also knew that they loved her no matter what.

Being a friend isn’t about “smile smile smile, fun fun fun” ALL the time. It is about being able to sit down over cheesecake & keep it REAL with each other. It is about looking someone in the eyes and telling them how you feel. And not from a place of judgement, but from a place of TRUE concern. THAT is the most important thing that I learned from the Golden Girls. Learning to be honest with yourself is the most important part of being a friend. Being able to ask yourself, why does this bother/concern me about this person. Am I truly concerned? Am I disappointed? Am I frustrated? Am I jealous? It is imperative to know where you stand within yourself and not try to convince yourself otherwise. When one of the Girls had a problem with the other. They went to one other person for a reality check and then, if necessary went to the person. Once the issue was on the table, discussed & concluded. That was it.

How awesome would that be? Let me tell you, when you have a Friend… it is awesome! This weekend I was able to spend time with close acquaintances, friends & Friends and it put so much into perspective for me. It gave me a CHARGE to know that when it all comes down to it, what REALLY matters is being together on one accord with no secrets, no pretense, no nonsense… JUST FUN! there COULD have been division, there COULD have been disdain, there could have been all of those things… But, at the end of the day: WHO CARES?

Bea, thanks for teaching me how to be stern, straightforward, and dryly hilarious… but most of all thanks for teaching me how to be a Friend!

For those of you who do not know. There was a dust up @ the Berlin Zoo this weekend when a woman jumped into a polar bear enclosure at feeding time. Oh yes, feeding time.

The news report I read said they have no idea why the woman did this. OH, I DO! For lack of a more clinical term… she was crazy! I know that word is a no-no in the mental health field, but sometimes, without a proper record review and administering a battery of tests and an MSE… crazy just FITS! When I first heard of the crazy shenanigans, my mind went STRAIGHT to Katt Williams: (NSFW)

Then I watched video of the rescue… OH YES THERE IS VIDEO!

Scaled the FENCE did she? Trying to reach the world’s most famous poalr bear, Knut, was she? Got what she deserved? DID SHE EVER! My girl, K says she was ISO her 15 minutes of SHAME! And now she got it.  I am still befuddled by the idea that she was trying to get close to the “world’s most famous polar bear”. Ummmm, the Coca-Cola polar bears were real? Because that is who I think of when I think famous polar bears. But apprently that isn’t why Knut was famous… I read the wikipedia page & I STILL can’t figure it out. So I gave up on caring. Because at the end of the day, the polar bears did what polar bears do! And the biscuit headed lady got what she deserved. GO POLAR BEARS!!!

I attend a grad school that has what they call blended courses, partially online with a 3 day weekend in class. This weekend we had class and I was ready to put a face to the names I had seen online attached to some of the more “interesting” posts to our online classroom.

There was one particular classmate that some think may be a little learning disabled, or a sufferer of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or maybe a crackbaby. Her posts are like word salad, and the lettuce was WILTED… I had taken to skipping them because they gave me a headache.

We get to class & I am sitting next to my “lil sis” and she informs me that the girl sitting in front of us on the end is the chef of the word salad online. She introduces herself & is supposed to be explaining what she wants to do with her degree… I have NO idea what she was saying… something about crime scenes and fire and a few I don’t knows. I was scared.

As the weekend progressed, I noticed that she had some pretty bad habits. Including, CONSTANTLY saying “whatsever”. I kept score, she said it 6 times. Yeah, I kept score. But I started to feel like a joke was being played on me because there is NO WAY, this girl was in grad school. The teacher asked if everyone read his bio & what they thought of it, she blurts out: “Your job seems boring, but I guess you find it interesting.” Where at do they do that?

Throughout the weekend, she gave various indications that she wasn’t all there. The teacher asked a question & in the middle of her answering, she says: “DAMN, I forgot!” Then commences toTOTALLY mispronounce the name of the author of the MAIN textbook we use. My entire row sat there in complete & utter disbelief. She then, decided to mispronounce the MAIN FOCUS of the class: COMPENSEE… leaving out an entire syllable. I turned to my girl T & wasked her what “compensee to stand trial” meant and, bless her heart if she didn’t try to explain COMPENTENCY to stand trial to me. Until I stopped her & said: I said COMPENSEE not COMPETENCY. We laughed & shook our heads.

The entire weekend, we waited with bated breath for her presentation because we were soooo sure that it would be entertaining, to say the least. The schedule for presentations was already given out so everyone knew when it was their turn… EXCEPT HER! We all sat looking at her and finally the teacher called her name & she exclaims: OH SHYT! AGAIN WADTDT? She announces to the class that she feels dumb because she didn’t understand the assignement. Which I found both easy AND hard to believe. Theselection of presentation topics was laid out in the syllabus at the beginning of class and the topic had tobe approved by the professor AND the subjects to be discussed in the presentation and the paper were outlined in the schedule for the weekend a week before we met. Yet, somehow, despite alllll of that, she managed to get it wrong. Hm!??! Immediately, my entire row began to text one another. She HAD to know we were doing it. But, then again she was oblivious to everything else. She said ax instead of ask, deaf instead of death, and made a very curious reference to 1994s as if it were SEVERAL years instead of one. At the end she kept using the word reassualts and it took me several minutes before I was able to figure out that she MIGHT have meant reasserts. The world may NEVER know.

I really want to see her transcripts. I sincerely hope that with all the hardwork I have put into my graduate school education and my AWESOME way with words that I have BETTER grades than she. Perhaps if she were simply socially inep, I wouldn’t have bothered even blogging about it. But because she seems to not only be inept, but also waaaay out of her league & over her head, I demand ANSWERS! What a travesty!

I’m not hating, I’m just stating.

I haven’t said THAT in a while…

Why do you talk so hard?

You need to read my Unsolicited Advice 4 Men in the DC Metro Area…. TWICE!

I am not one of your boys in the street. Why are you cursing, overanunciating your mispronounced words and using so much slang with me. EASE UP! You make me uncomfortable… and a little scared. You want me to come over to the otherside because I need a young man in my life to pull over on the side of the road with??? ummm, that sounds DANGEROUS! I guess you thought you were being “sexy” but PART of being sexy is being eloquent. SO the ummms, & I’m sayins, and all that slang with which I am unfamiliar nullified your argument for why I should choo-choo-choose you!

At first you were persistent, then that turned into a little pressedness, followed by doing too much too soon. And then there was the straw that broke the camels back… You were solemnly and in earnest trying to convince me to be your, and I quote, “muhf^##!%” lady!” Where at do they do that? You are so impressed with what you have & where you have been & what you have done, you haven’t had a chance to work on WHO you are. You have some growing up to do. And it seems that you don’t really want to do it, but you insist that I am not trying to make that change & you are right. That would not be a wise move. I have NO idea if you are a man of substance, respect, INTELLIGENCE, or anything. Because you are so focused on ME being YOURS you haven’t told me WHO you are; nor have I asked, because, frankly I don’t care.

Here is a tip: Please learn the difference between a lady, a muhf^##!% lady, and your boys, they all require a different approach. You have traveled overseas so you should KNOW that you need to adapt- not to fit in, but to COMMUNICATE and get along. Isn’t that what relationships are about? Or am I missing something? Did you notice that when I speak to you I use a very professional tone and the only time I have ever used slang or had to get LeDroit Park on you was when I informed you that: “You be doin too much! All this right here you doin is too much too soon!” I thought maybe you would understand, but apparently that only made matters worse and as I type this you are texting me wondering why I am not responding to you. Did it ever occur to you that TWICE you have asked ME to go out with you and TWICE I have said whatever just call me and TWICE you have not called. I mean where at do they do that? Perhaps if you listened to what I was telling you instead of charging at me and putting the full court press on me via call & text, you would get it. I’m just not that into you, I have said it before, PLEASE don’t make me say it again.

 Ok? Ok!

Who do you think you are?

No, REALLY… inside your head and when you look into the mirror, who do you see? Some cornfed, white bread all-American midwestern girl? Because that squeaky clean “ohmiGAWD!” voice you were using on DWTS last night was like nails on a chalkboard.

Honey, do you know who you used to be? Are you reinventing yourself like Madonna? Are you reinvienting yourself INTO Madonna? When you look into the mirror who do you see? Barbie? Barney? What?

You have massacared yourself & are now unrecognizable to your fans, yourself & probably the lawd himself! Seek help! How can you hate yourself sooooo much!!?!? Do you hate not being Faith or Charli Baltimore that you are CARVING yourself into something similar?? I wonder if you cry when you see the old you… and if you do are you crying because you USED to look like that or that you will NEVER look like that AGAIN! I hope you are going to counseling because you need it. I am sure Biggie is NOT cool with what you have become and are still trying to be… WHATEVER that is, I hope you come around soon, hunny.

God bless ya!

Why are you invading my personal space?

It seems that some men in this area have NO idea how to talk to you and NOT invade your personal space. They move in sooooo close as if they are feeling a vibe. UH UH, back up! Just last night I had to tell a 40++ year old man that he was IN MY SPACE! He didn’t seem to notice or care. He said: “I have heard that I can be ummmm, what’s the word?” So I gave him a l ist of my observations in the 15 or so minutes we had “known” each other: rude, annoying, invasive, abrasive, loud, imposing? He said he liked the way imposing sounded. I said, “That figures.” He came up to the bar at about a 10 while everyone else was about at 7, then as he began introducing himself and talking to people at the bar, he kicked it up to 15 & then 20- touching, leaning, laughing close, talking closer. He seemed oblivious to his invasive ways. at one point he was LEANING on my friend as he talked to the woman next to her, so much so she couldn’t move her arm to finish eating her food. I am shaking my head at the thought. Of course when I informed him he was so close she could not eat, he got close to ME.

This is not an uncommon occurrence, people getting too familiar too quickly.  I have been known to do the same, but only when there is a vibe. And apparently some men cannot sense when there is no vibe & they are much too close for comfort. Here is how to tell:

• If you lean in to talk to her & she leans back; you’re too close.
• If you place your hand on her arm, back, leg, etc. & she looks down at your hand and stops talking; you’re too comfortable.
• If you are talking to her, giving her your BEST Billy D. & she seems to be staring JUST over your shoulder; there is no vibe.
• If you give her a nickname before you even know her name &  she looks at you like you just called her a b¡+¢#; there is a problem.

SIMPLE, YES? It astounds me how common courtesy just isn’t that common anymore. Respect me, respect my space… plain & simple. Simple & plain. If you wonder why the woman you are talking to has an attitude, maybe it’s you. Maybe you are too close, too loud and too familiar too soon. Just because a woman doesn’t want to be called BooBoo by a someone she just met 5 minutes ago, does not make her uppity. Just because a woman doesn’t want your arm around her AS you introduce yourself, does not make her stank. Just because a woman asks you why you are talking SO loud, does not mean “she thinks she’s like that”. These are ALL real scenarios & they ALL happened LAST NIGHT! Yes, a grown man told me that I think I am like that. To which I replied, “Yes, I am kind of a big deal!”

Gentlemen of the Metropolitan Area, I challenge you to respect a woman’s space this week and see how far it gets you.

Ok? OK!