An Ode To Smokey

There it was in blue and black (if you’re an iPhone user) Smokey died…. And for a quick second I think I had a heart attack. See my brother who rarely physically calls anyone, called me three times in a span of thirty minutes. I didn’t answer his calls because I was at a lunch meeting, finally I decided to text him and ask him what was up and ever in a million years did I think he would have told me that Smokey died. See Smokey was the family dog for the past 11 years and has been a valued member of my family for all these years. 

I remember going with my Step-dad to pick out Smokey from the pound for my brother's 13th birthday. I looked and looked around and not one of those dogs moved me, then I got to the pin where he was. He had about 4-6 other brothers and sisters with him, but there was something about him that seemed special, maybe it was his sad eyes idk but I knew that he was the dog for us and he was up until this week. I was the one to even name him Smokey, although he was technically my brother's present. He was intending to call him Midnight... but that name didn't suit him to me, so I vetoed it and he was named Smokey. Now I have had dogs all my life but none of them were like him. From the very beginning he was different. Scary is how I would describe him when we first got him he was scared of everything... he didn't like the dark and hated the rain. But he was also full of joy he would chase butterflies, roll around in the grass, and eat vegetables out of my mom's garden (which she hated). He had some trials and tribulations too, like when we found out that his eyelashes were growing inside out, and that he would eventually go blind but we saved his eyesight. My Step-dad somehow found some organization to pay for the $2000 surgery. The time I came home from work and didn't find him in out in the yard and almost had a heart attack. I searched and searched for him for hours, only to find out my brother had left the backdoor open and Smokey had only gone across the street to my neighbor's house and he was keeping him until we got home. He never strayed to far from home. 

There was the time we had other dog for awhile and her and Smokey got into a fight, and although that dog was a Japanese Akita and twice the size of Smokey (serious that damn dog was my height on her hind legs and I'm 5'10) and Smokey surprised everyone by literally beat the dog shit out of her before the fight was broken up. The absolute most memorable thing about him was when my Grandma died and I would just go sit on the back porch before anyone got home and Smokey would come up and sit with me and wouldn't move until I moved. He just somehow knew I need someone around and that is what he would do,  just sit with me. I didn't feel like talking or discussing my feelings about my Grandma's death, I just wanted to sit and be silent and that's exactly what Smokey would do with me. I could go on and go about Smokey, because that's how much of an awesome dog he was. Actually he was more than a dog he was my friend.... one I'm going miss very much. You know some may think that grieving a dog is trivial and that there's bigger issues going on in the world. That's true but to me this is my reality now my dog is gone and I'm sad....very sad. I feel like Jennifer Aniston in the last 5 minutes of Marley and Me. They didn't lie when they said a dog is a man's best friend and right now I miss my friend.  Love you always Smokey. 

Why I Don't Go Through Phones

If there's one thing I refuse to do anymore in a relationship it is going through my boyfriend's phone, facebook, twitter, linkedin, AOL, blackplanet, or whatever the hell else. I implore you good people don't do it either, there's no happiness for you there. If you don't want drama then leave his/her phone alone. Here's why..... I once upon a time while involved with a guy looked through his phone without his knowledge. Although it didn't lead to 808's and Heartbreaks immediately, it was the beginning of the end for us. What I exactly found in his phone wasn't grounds for immediate dismal, like he was wasn't sending dic pics to the local tramp or anything but he was in contact with other girls and there was some slight flirting involved. Needless to say I wasn't a happy camper after finding the info. I had to put he's phone back on the coffee table when he came back from outside and had to sit there watching House. Like I didn't just read on his phone him text some trick "How things going at work, sweetie?".

What really pissed me off about the whole situation was that, I couldn't give him the Prince side-eye and bust his shit wide open about texting bitches and calling them sweetie. Why? Because I was wrong for going through his phone, so therefore saying anything to him about it would've been an admission of guilt and I wasn't going to add insult to inquiry. So there I was stuck.... I had to play it cool. When all I wanted to do was slap him in the back of his head and throw his phone out the window, I was mad as hell!!! There he was on the sofa cooler than a polar bear's toenail and me madder than a son of a bitch. After about an hour or so, I realized the only person I should have been mad at was my dumbass. I was the one sitting on the sofa mad as fuck and he's over there with not one fuck given. I couldn't react because if I did what whatever piece of a relationship we had at that point would've just vanished.

If I said anything he would've gotten mad, we would've had an argument and then I would forever and always in his mind would've been that sneaky, untrustworthy, paranoid, and 1-3 steps away from being  Glen Close ass in Fatal Attraction. So that night I decided to never to that shit again to myself. Like I was having a shit fit in my mind but on the outside I had to act like Mary Poppins or something. Telling myself just a spoonful of sugar will make the lies down. 

For the next few days every time that boy said he was going out, there I was sitting around smoking cigarettes at night (I honestly think I played that song on repeat for a week after going through his phone... smh at myself). I was driving myself crazy, thinking was he really at his boy's house or is he with that bitch? Did he ask her how her day was today? All kinds of questions ran through my head. Questions that never would've been there if I had never looked through that dude's phone, a week before that I was walking around singing "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood". A week later I'm on some Kelis "I hate you so much, right now" shit but I did it to myself. If you go looking for trouble, don't get mad when you find it. So after that I decide to keep my sanity, and not take up a part-time job of being Nancy Drew. I just couldn't do that to myself if it gets to this point.....

      

Ummmm then yeah it maybe time to give it up and turn it loose. I mean you know when shit isn't kosher in your relationship, going through the trouble of becoming the newest member of the Hardy Boys isn't going to ease your mind, when you find whatever it is your looking for. If anything the info you're looking for is going to send you over the Edge of Glory, so unless you're ready to let the relationship go to the landfill or have the "talk" about what's really Eating Gilbert's Grape in your relationship. Leave his/her phone alone. 

The Facts Of Life

I usually don’t think my Dad makes any sense when he gives me advice…… honestly between the accent (he’s Nigerian) and the parables he speaks in, I just don’t get it most of the time. Also maybe I don’t try hard enough  to get it either but there’s one thing he said to me when I was a teenage that has always stuck with me. “You don’t have to tell people how great, rich, smart, funny or whatever superior quality you think you have. They’ll know it when they see you, verbalizing it won’t be needed.” At the time he said this to me I was living with him and I was about 14 and I got these brand new Gucci shades and I has most teenage girls would wanted to go stunt in front of my friends. So when my dad realized what I was doing he pulled my highfalutin ass to the side and told me that above statement. He’s was basically saying humble your ass down because what you’re about to do is just plain tacky and I didn’t raise a tacky daughter. That day and what he said to me has never been forgotten, a lot of the other stuff he said to me when he was trying to get his Cliff Huxtable on has been forgotten but not that. What he said to me that day has stuck with through the years and if I ever have kids I will instill this in them too,why??? Because it’s the damn truth, like Paul Pierce. 

If you got it like that, than bragging and boasting is never needed, going around like Blair from The Facts of Life ain’t what's hot on the streets. That’s how you get your teeth kicked in on the streets. Someone I know that's WAY older than me is going around acting like a hybrid between Blair (Facts of Life)and Regine (Living Single)….. I want to tell her so bad to come back from that filet Mignon world she thinks she’s living and realize that she’s really in a cubed steak reality. Now sometimes the Blair’s and Regine’s in our lives aren’t really out here intentionally being shady and malicious. Sometimes they really don’t know any better…. They didn’t have that Nigerian dad there to remind them to humble themselves or maybe they did but they just didn’t give a fuck and didn't listen. They’re like Cher from Clueless….. they really have no sense of reality. They’re in their own zone where they have revolving closets and send chocolates to themselves because it Tuesday. They are fucking Clueless about their bougieness. These folks I can deal with, they just don’t know any better. 

Then you have the others (like the person I mentioned earlier) that like to give their resumes and credentials before they even give you their names. The people that perform stunts and shows, just shade folks. The pretentious folks that are here only to make themselves feel better about their lives by making you feel like a thrown away Pound Puppy. See now that’s that Shit I don’t like!! These people LIVE for any chance to make people feel like dust bunnies. Every chance they get they feel the need to throw shade. All they want to do is make sure you and everyone else knows that they are the shit. If that  means telling you how they were prom queen in 1999, scored 1600 on the SAT, went to Yale, they drive a Bentley, fucked 1/2 of Young Money before a show. Whatever it is that will make others take a second look at their lives and ask themselves what the fuck they're doing wrong in life? This is how they get their lives. All these people need to go kick rocks with no shoes on in rush hour traffic. Because in all honestly your life ain't about shit, if you have to throw shade every chance you get to validate that all is well in your life. All that showing off is really unnecessary..... only people like Rick Ross can get away with saying shit like "My bitch bad.. Looking like a bag of money". Otherwise you look like a bougie dumbass.... I'm just saying.

  

I just know I never wanted to be that girl that as soon as they walk through the door people are already rolling their eyes and thinking “look at this saddity bitch” before I even say one word. That just ain’t me, I’m only slightly bougie. Like Whitley Gilbert on a Different World, I’m more like her towards the later seasons. The first season when Denise was on there she was almost unbearable, her personality was polarizing. At the end of the show she was more human, yes she was still that bougie girl from Richmond , VA but she had gone through some shit, and humble herself. Life has a funny way of doing that from time to time. So if you're truly the shit there's no need to tell everyone, they'll just know it when they see it 

How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore?

Omg… I haven’t talked/seen you in forever!!

Why haven’t I heard from you in soooo long?

I sure everyone has heard these two lines or variations of these lines before in their lives. Nothing in the world irks me more than these two lines!! It’s almost like hearing someone scratch a chalkboard to my ears. Like how do you even really response to this question? The way most people go about it is to give the usual bs reply, “I’ve been busy”. That shit means any and everything but also means absolutely nothing at the SAME DAMN TIME. Shot out to Future for making that phase oh so catchy and irritating at the same damn time. Since my birthday in May I’m starting to realize I’m not the girl I use to be in high school/college. I mean there are some characteristics that still remain but others have definitely changed.

 I came to this conclusion recently when some asked the above question by someone. The old me would’ve replied saying “Oh… I’ve just been busy with work blah, blah, no hard feelings”. The semi-new Me +is not here for that bullshit. First I think about why I haven’t talked to this person in sooo long in the first place. Is it because I’ve really been busy but still consider this person a friend or is it because I just don’t see it anymore for this person to have a substantial place in my life?  Now what I mean by the latter statement is that have I not spoken to this person because we have an argument and we’re beefin now (because that’s a different story). Maybe we never had a fight but there’s something about this person that I just can’t get down with, well at not anymore. They bring nothing to the friendship/relationship table but their damn selves. Maybe dealing with them takes Jet fuel engine energy levels and my ass is somewhere on 5 miles to empty. It could be because I’m just plain old over them but more importantly it could be I’m only checking for people that are checking for me. That’s exactly what I’m going to tell you if you call me saying why we haven’t talked. I’m not going to give the semi polite “I’ve been busy” answer. I’m, going to tell you the phone works both ways and if you’re checking for me I’m checking for you.  If you call me every so often, with that “How come I ain’t heard from you bs”. The conversation is already going start off on the wrong foot because now I’m defensive.

Calling someone in that accusatory manner does nothing for your case, as to way that person hasn’t reached and touched your hand. It just reminds them why they haven’t talked to your ass. Like I’ve said before there are some people you can go days, weeks, months, and even years without talking to them and you guys won’t miss a beat, the friendship is still intact. Then you have people you could talk to everyday and that shit sounds Martin in House Party mixing and that dude kept bumping the turntable, beats missing all over the place. To those folks I say Good Day….. I don’t care how long I’ve known you. The relationship/friendship is going to have to change. If that means I have to drop you from my top-five or talk you on a less frequent basis, well so be it!  Listen…. I’m at a place in my life where I can’t do all this Save By the Bell/ Sweet Valley High drama all the time. I mean everyone has their moment but my God some people that’s all they have going on. Some Zack Morris, Kelly Kapowski, A.C. Slater love triangle bs that’s it nothing more, nothing less. Listen this ain’t high school anymore I can’t listen to you in study hall or after school at The Max talk about how you’re going to DIE if whoever the fuck doesn’t ask you to the winter dance. I know that’s not what they’re literally saying that’s what the hell I hear when they’re talking. I’ve always been a little boy-crazy myself, I’m dramatic too but I’m not out here living my life like I’m Brenda Walsh from 90210 either. So if this is you, I’m so sorry but I’m not here for the dramatics anymore. I have a job and bills and that’s all the drama I need.