I've Got A City Love

Some of you may or may not know that within the last year I moved from Atlanta,GA to Chicago, IL. Well in my journey to the Mid-west I did at one point in time actually live in the City of Chicago.... then things fell apart (it's a long and shitty story) and I had to moved outside of the city limits to the suburbs. Next week marks a year of  living in this suburban town and I fucking hate it!!! Oh suburban life isn't for me at all. Some of you are now questioning well if you hate why don't you just move back to the city? Well the city is expensive and while I do have a job (which is 10 minutes from where I live). I've learned from the school of Hard Knocks, that living above your means is not the business and if I moved the city right now I'll be eating tuna out of a can every night for dinner. So in a way I'm trapped and not in a damn closet. I'm not sure if y'all have ever seen the show Suburgatory, its a cute little show. I honestly don't even know how or when I started to watch it but man can I relate to this girl's pain. The show is basically about a high school girl named Tessa, she and her father move to the suburbs from Manhattan and she fucking hates her life there. Well me and Tessa are one in the same. There are so many reasons why I'm not about this suburb life but I'll only touch on a few.

1) The distance- When I tell you I live far away from Chicago, I live far away. There's the boonies and then there's a place further than the boonies, called the back woods and that's where I live the back woods of Illinois. It's the worst.... when people ask me where I live and I tell them. Nobody knows where the hell I stay at. That's how you know you live out there, folks have never heard for your town. People at times name neighboring towns and I say well I live like 20 or 30 minutes pass there. I swear people look at me like I live in the middle of the wilderness. That drive from where I live to the city is no joke, and don't even get me started if there's traffic. Which there always is... tag on another hour to my time and as we all know gas prices are sky high.

2) Wildlife- When living in the backwoods you are bound to run into creatures of the forest. These creatures I'm referring to are deer. Listen if anybody who knows me in real life knows if there's one animal I'm scared shitless of its a deer. Why? Well for one they're wild animals and you never know what they're capable of. They also like to stand on the side of the road waiting to jump, like they're waiting to jump in like in double-dutch and if you've ever hit a deer with your car (which I have been in the car when someone else did) they well straight up tear your car up. Recently I went running in a park behind my sub-division at 6:30am and as I was jogging along there it was the biggest damn deer I've ever seen in my life in the bushes; literally 1.45 feet away from me. I saw it and it definitely saw me and what did I do? I turned around and ran like the damn wind, I hadn't ran so hard since field day and I was running the 100m sprint in 6th grade. So yeah I ran away from a deer, I know if the deer really wanted to out run me it could have but that was my first reaction, to run as fast as I could. Listen that wasn't Bambi I ran into in that park, it was wild dangerous animal. For a week I didn't have air in my house because a rabbit, chipmunk, or some kind of damn rodent ate through one of the wires outside for the ac unit... yeah these are suburban problems.

3) Nothing to do and nothing to see- Other than my family and my one coworker I like I know not a single soul out here in No Man's Land. There are only two kind of people here 1) families and 2) retirees and that's all folks. There are really no people my age here, just people going to PTA meetings and the other half going to AARP meetings (if they have them). Everything closes at like 10pm, even on the weekends. Shit half the time I'm still getting ready to go out at 10pm, I'm a night owl and now I'm being forced to be a day one and it fucking sucks.

Living in the suburbs has made be really realize that I'm a city girl. I like the noise, in fact I crave it.... I can't stand when things are too quite. It makes me feel like I'm in the beginning of a horror movie or something. To me if things are too quite, that eerie quite some shit is about to go down. I need the police sirens, trains going by, people on the street talking, loud music. Hell I even miss the city smells... you know that sweet smell of the sewer, piss, and come kind of street meat mixed together. I miss all the things the city has to offer that the suburbs don't. I'm not the three bedroom house, with a garage, and white picked  fence girl. I know the city has its downside the crime, how everything is more expensive, blah, blah... but for me that's part of city life. I'm in love with the city (not just the City of Chicago) and according my mom it's been a love affair on going since I was 3. She told me story  once about before my family move to Atlanta and was still living in Chicago, we were on our way downtown one night and she said my little eyes lit up, they were dazzled by the city lights. She said she knew right then she had to get my ass down south but that's neither here nor there. But point is that this love affair is still in a continuum and I don't see that changing anytime soon.  

What Means The World To You

You know for some people certain things take top priority while in a relationship but I ain't here to talk about that today. I want to talk about those things that aren't a priority to me while in a relationship. The shit some may flip the fuck out about if their boo did or didn't these things. While for me these things are just the icing on the cake.... what some people fell to realize is that the cake itself is the most important thing. So with out further adieu, here's a list of things that I don't give two hot damns about while in a relationship

1) Strip Clubs- I have a friend that was damn near in tears when she found out her man went the strip club and I just couldn't give her the sympathy she seeked from me at that moment in time. I was just sitting thinking what the hell is the big deal? He went to look at some girls shake their ass and titties... big whoop. If she would've told me he went to some type of Magic Mike strip club...well Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio we have a problem. Honestly you can't even inappropriately touch those girls without some Debo looking ass dude coming to damn near break your arm if you get too close. Also they don't even get butt ass naked in a lot of the strip clubs north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Maybe it’s the Atlanta in me but strip clubs don't bother me, I have been in enough to see what goes on there and I don't care. Now if these fools are going to the strip club on their lunch breaks and spending rent money on some fake ass Buffy the Body... well then that's another story.


2) Porn- Well it kinda falls into the same category as the strip club. I really don't give a damn about him whacking off some Lacey Duvalle flick.... now if its Mr. Marcus and some other man. Then that's a damn problem. I don't expect him to stop looking at porn and pleasuring himself, just because he's with me now. Hell he's been doing that since he was 12, he's just suppose to stop because he's has a more available box now? Yeah he's not going to stop. Some women think that they should be enough and he should have or want to do it anymore. Well do you need to need to eat, sleep, and piss... well then he needs to masturbate. His need to whack off more than likely has nothing to do with you, even if y'all have a healthy sex life....he's still going to need to let some steam off by himself. It just is what it is and I'm find with that, as long as he doesn't use my good towels.

3) Calling/texting- I maybe a different type of girl but I don't need my bf calling/texting me all the damn time. I'm not the busiest woman in the world by no means... but I do have a life. I don't feel the need to call/text my man or have him do the same thing all the time. This isn't the real life version of Save by the Bell, I don't have to know what you ate for damn lunch, or that the new intern spilt coffee on you tie. Just like he doesn't need to know me and my coworker spent 30 minutes talking about who should play Christian Grey from 50 Shades of Grey. All that extra shit isn't need, as long as I know you're okay, safe, and your day is going decently, I'm good. I don't need to be all up in my phone like I'm Kelly Kapowski and your Zack Morris…. dude I have a job and you do to (or we wouldn't be dating). If I'm always talking to my bf on the phone or texting him, what the hell are we going to talk about when we see each other? The phases of the moon... I already talk to 5-6 people on the phone regularly everyday.... and at this time I can't add someone else to the rotation. I don't need as Trey Songz would say, a LOL smilely face dude at this moment in time.

4) Going out-Look I've never been a homebody, it’s out of circumstance that I'm force to be in my house a lot more than I like to be right now. With that being said I'm not exactly a Lindsay Lohan circa 2009 party girl, smoking meth and getting kicked out of bars but I am most definitely a girl that enjoys the nightlife or day life at that. So what kind of hypocrite would I be if every time my man goes out I give him this face? I'm not going to trip if he wants to hang out with his friends because I'm more than likely out with mine somewhere. I'm really not going to be concern if he likes hanging out in bars in Boston or anywhere else for that matter, where everyone knows his name. If I trust him there's no need to be steam pressed about him going out, if I don't trust well then maybe I shouldn't be dating him in the first place. 


5) What his friends/family thinks about me- Now it would be ideal if they liked me and we all got along like a cute little episode of Full House but it’s not necessary. I’m dating him not his crew. I had to learn that, hey not everybody is going to like. For whatever the hell reason and that's cool. This isn't high school and I'm not here to get your vote for prom queen. Its okay not to like people but it’s not okay to disrespect people. His people don't have to like me and vice a versa but we do have to respect each other. Now if the respect isn't there; well that's when shit gets tricky and something has got to give. Because I'll be damn if I go to his family cookout and they're serving me BBQ wings from Winn- Dixie and drinks with Everclear Vodka in it. But mean well back at the ranch they're eating BBQ chicken from Whole Foods and drinking Ciroc.... absolutely not!! 

There's No Crying In Baseball

You know some people are just criers and that’s perfectly ok. I place no judgment on them for that, sometimes the simplest things (that’s what most people think) can set them off and they proceed to cry you a river. I have friends that are easy criers, sometimes their cries don’t always indicate they’re sad or they have a serious problem. It’s just their release mechanism, everyone’s release or coping mechanism is different. Some people rage against the machine, some drink themselves into a drunken stupor, others take a nap, and some just cry about. I think I’m a combo of all those things, I been known to have my One Last Cry like Brian McKnight and they proceed to drink some wine and take my ass to bed. Please believe I’m not above crying about any damn thing. But what I refuse to do is cry at work. Let me re-phrase that, I refuse to cry in front of people at work because I have cried at work (like 3 weeks ago when I found out my dog died).

I’ve cried at plenty of times at work it’s just in the privacy of my car or the good old bathroom stall of the women’s restroom. See every time I’ve seen someone cry at work in front of people…. Well the shit is just terrible. Terrible I say!!  First if you’re crying at work people are going to gather around like they are witnessing the birth of Christ and ask what’s wrong. So there you are snotty nosed, puffed eyed, and red faced… just a hot mess and now you have to explain to people (1/2 of them you don’t like) what the fuck your problem is. If it’s non-work related people are going to be more sympathetic towards you but if your ass is cry because your supervisor chewed your ass out in the 9:00am meeting and you go to your desk at 9:30am crying….. People aren’t going to be so understanding. It doesn’t matter if you’re a male or female and if some gives you a tissue or not.  They’re all thinking what the hell is wrong with this bitchass. You will be ever and a damn day be labeled as well for lack of a better word a crybaby. Women you already know office politics are harder on us, is it fair no but life isn’t fair. So if you start going up in your place of employment crying like someone stole your bike, you will be JUDGED and labeled. People are going to throw your ass into the emotional, unstable, and difficult to work with category. People will avoid doing things to set you off…. It just becomes this all around nuisance. I know from first-hand experience how crying at work is just not the move you want to make.

At the time I was working at my after school job while I was in high school. I worked at a local grocery store chain in the Southeast region of the country. As Monica would’ve said “It was just one of those days where I wanted to be all alone” Now I can remember exactly why I was so upset that day. I believed  I had a shitty day at school, I want to say I got a not so good grade on my physics test, I’m sure something about a boy was bothering me as well, my mom had pissed me off, and I quite possibly could’ve been on my period.  Anyway I get to work, I was a cashier there. Now I distantly remember Simply Red’s Holding Back the Tears playing over the loud speaker at the store .My boss says something to me I have no idea what, but I was standing next to one of the bag boys and after whatever the fuck my boss said to me I burst into tears. Now I stand firm in my conviction in that Simply Red’s Hold Back the Tears is the saddest and most emotionally turbulent song ever written. I think hearing that song sent me over the edge and the waterworks ensued.  Yeah it was pretty bad, so bad in fact my boss sent me home for the day. Not in a bad I was suspended from work way but in a; you’re clearly going through some shit and you need to go lay down or something kind of way.  However before I went home I was bombarded with a 100 questions about what was wrong with me, and I couldn’t answer any of them because there was nothing really wrong with me to be crying like Trey from Boyz in the Hood after Ricky was shot. So that made me cry even more…smh. While I was weeping like a baby, I heard the bag boy say “well damn I’ll go get the buggies from outside, there’s no need to cry”. So there started the rumor around the store from that day until the day I quit was that I was crying and Waiting to Exhale because I didn’t want to get the buggies from outside. That was SOO not the case but it didn’t matter that’s what people thought. So whenever something went down at work, people would say don’t upset her, you know she’s sensitive, you’re not gonna cry about are you? So learn from my mistake at 17 don’t ever cry at work unless somebody has died or something. You better do it like Samantha Jones from Sex and the City and hold your composure until you get to the elevator.

I Was Just Frontin'

I was shooting the shit with a friend of mine the other day and somehow and someway we started talking about how some women change their whole damn demeanor once a man enters the premises.   Now the man doesn’t even have to be her “type”, attractive, or someone she could see herself dating, the only criteria he needs to cause such a change is a penis. When I say change, I’m not talking about simple things. There are certain things I’m not going to talk about around random men, such as my mind-numbing cramps, nipple sensitivity, my latest pap smear results, or just anything that has to do with my reproductive organs. Yeah there’s no need to have a briefing about the state of my vagina around men that aren't going to see it. 

What I’m referring to are women that as soon as they sense a penis in their atmosphere. They stand up straight, stick their butts and chest out, they put on perfume, fluff their hair, and start whispering like Marilyn Monroe. They from the pic on the left 

to the pic on the right . They just don’t do this shit for their men, no they put on this show for all men, that aren’t immediate family. Now I understand trying to put your best foot forward and dangling bait for men you deem attractive because I’ve done that and will continue to do so, but what I’m not about to do is to that all that extra shit for the knot-kneed mailman. Absolutely not!!! A lot women particpate in this nonsense, it just isn’t that damn deep.

It’s not only a physical front these women put up  either, not only are these girls changing into Betty Boop without a clue, they’re losing their personalities as well. Example I few years ago I was at my cousin’s house in NYC and her friend was in their talking about how Superbad was the funniest movie she had ever seen and whatnot. As I had seen Superbad I agreed it was a pretty funny movie, 30 minutes later my cousin’s boyfriend and two of his extra-regular ass friends are at my cousin’s place. They had just seen Pineapple Express at the movies and said it was the funniest shit ever. Now I had seen Pineapple Express too, it was funny but in my opinion it wasn’t as funny as SuperBad. This was also the opinion of my cousin's friend as well, but 30 minutes later when these dudes are ripping Superbad to shredded cheese. This same girl who said Superbad was the funniest movie she's ever seen now agrees with the humans with the penises that Pineapple Express was funnier O_o. The rest of us girls were just looking at her like she was crazy.... but she was unbothered by us because she's now sitting at the cool kids table with the boys. 

Chile I guess.... It just seems like behaving in such a manner would be exhausting. Honestly how long can one put up this facade.  Like if you like 2 Chainz but some dude doesn't, he thinks 2 Chainz shouldn't even be rapping on Sesame Street. What the hell are you gonna do? Agree that your favorite rapper is wack or defend him like The Union did against General Robert E. Lee and the Confederates at the Battle of Gettysburg??? Do you know that every time No Lie or Riot comes on and you're around this man, you won't be able to lose your mind!! Well if you want that life, more power to you but I 'm sorry I'm not about to fake the funk for anybody. You can either love or leave me alone~ Jay-Z 

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