Tag Archives: Opinion

New Year’s REVolution

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Happy New Year!!! (sorta)

As much as I love the beginning of a new year, a part of me also hates it.  For the months of December and January we (women specifically) are bombarded with weight loss advertisements. Whether it is from a diet program or popular gyms, it is near impossible to go through a one minute set of commercials on television and not see one such during the holidays.  It has increasingly been this way since the ’80s when the whole exercise, once fad – now multi-billion business mantra , took off.  As always, ordering us to make it a part of our New Year’s resolution to lose weight.

There’s been an amazing fat-lash of sorts these past few years via notable blogs, websites and well known fat advocates shinning a very bright light on how the general public sees and treats (or more specifically mistreats) the fat person.  And also what we, the  fat people, can do to help ourselves and others accept, live and thrive as people who just happen to be fat.

HAES (Health At Every Size) has a wonderful campaign for January which I took to heart.

The following is my current Facebook profile picture and status update:

Scale with the word PERFECT taped over the numbers.

“I’m part of the New Year’s REVolution! My profile pic is an image that reminds me to love my body and screen out all the negative bullshit the diet industry tell us how we should feel about our bodies, our beauty, and our worth. Instead of New Year’s Resolution this year, what is your New Year’s REVOLUTION? Join the New Year’s Revolution and visit HAES Inspiration! http://2011revolutions.blogspot.com”

One of my friends bemoaned in a comment how she wishes more people believed in the words of my status.  What got to me were further comments on how some of her friends spend so much time in tears during the holidays at the barrage of crap from family regarding their weight. They take what their respective families say to them to heart and begin to believe these hateful things.  Having been a part of that myself I fully get it.

  • You’re never going to get a man with that gut.
  • If you lost weight we wouldn’t hear you stomping from a mile away.
  • Those pants would look so nice on you if your thighs weren’t so thick.

Not to mention the non-verbal passive-aggressive crap.

  • Serve my food a seven-inch dinner plate, as though I won’t notice everyone else has the nine-inch plates.
  • Cutting looks at public functions daring me to consent to more food when asked.
  • Look at a pretty dress in the size 8 rack, hold it out against my considerably not size 8 body knowing it was the wrong size when she picked it out, then put it back on the rack with  an exaggerated sigh.

Yes, family can be your best support system, but as every fat kid knows, they can also e the bane of your existence.  Friends we can tell where to get off when we don’t like what they say; also we have the option to break off that friendship, if the respect is not forth coming. Even extended family gives us the recourse to simply not be around the more negative ones once we reach adulthood.  However, there is no getting away from our immediate family.  These very people who should always have our backs are often the ones who hold the sharpest knives in stabbing us in it.   If you’re lucky a heartfelt talk may be all that is needed to get on the path to having a better relationship with your family. For others, a complete emotional and physical removal is the only choice.

It is a drastic choice and a hard one to uphold.  I remember about three years ago I watched as a friend slowly removed herself from her mother’s arms and walked away in tears saying “I told you never again and I meant it.” And this was at a mutual friend’s funeral. I found out later that in the midst of the hug the mother had made an unacceptable comment on her size.  Take into account that the funeral was the time my friend had seen or spoken to her mother in nearly two years, yet even there she stuck to her guns would not tolerate it.  It took over three years of estrangement to get there, but the two get along much better now. I have no idea if the mother changed her feelings about her daughter’s size, but she at least changed how she treated her child, now very much a grown woman, and that was enough.

Unfortunately, for most, changing the attitudes of your families about your fat is near impossible.  If you’re in a position where you have no choice but to deal with your family just remember the only power they have over your heart is the power you give them. The choice to not internalize the hurtful, and for some out right hateful, things said and/or done is your own.   Eleanor Roosevelt said it best “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”  If you put yourself through changes to make anyone other than the person staring back at you in the mirror happy, you will fail and likely hate more yourself in the process.  Therefore, the only attitude you can change is your own.  Accept your size. Love and appreciate the body you have and work with it.  Acceptance empowers you to move on and make positive changes FOR YOU, not anyone else.

To paraphrase something I’ve told another friend regarding weight —

What you need to remember to keep in your heart more is that, no matter how high or low the number, that which makes you a person,  is never going to be found on your scale.

That’s my New Year’s REVolution – what’s yours?

Hard Black Women

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“Why are Black women so damn hard? I don’t have time for their crap!”

Warning I’m venting…

I feel that most Black American women have had the wonderful pleasure of dealing with two layers of oppression: racism and sexism for the majority of their lives.   That can make anyone “hard”, tough,  especially if you feel you constantly have to “fight” just to come close to being on a level playing field. It sucks to have to go out into the world, face one or both “isms” in your professional time, then go out and face the same isms  in your personal time. This has been the plight of most Black American women in just about every era of this country’s history.

Does this mean Black women have an excuse to be negative? Absolutely not.
Does it explain why our collective psyche varies from Black women from other nations? Somewhat.

If we dress sexy, we are upholding the Black woman as sexual stereotype passed down from the slave masters, who used us as sex toys, when we had so much choice in the matter and then label us as promiscuous and whores for our troubles. .If we dress more conservatively, we’re accused of dressing like old ladies or a *gasp!* church girls, as though that is a bad thing.

If we are up on the latest street fashions, know the difference between Lil Wayne and T-Pain on sight and can neck roll with the best of them, we’re low-class and/or ghetto. Yet if we speak proper English, have clue as to how to set a proper dinner table and actually know the lyrics to songs played on non-“urban” radio stations, then we’re “Bourgie” (slang for bourgeois) or “Oreos”.

Who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be has all been influenced by our collective experiences. We cannot change that. Individually, we try to take different approaches, but collectively, our struggle is unique. We have had to (and continue to struggle with), defining what femininity and womanhood means to us; especially in relation to our men. Being a Black Woman in America often means defining our womanhood through our relationship to men in general, but Black men in particular.  In addition, all too often, the onus of responsibility falls on the Black woman and the finger pointing turns to us. We don’t raise our males correctly. We are not walking away from the abuse. We keep accepting the bullshit and so on and so on…

I don’t think I’m harder on men, specifically Black men. If anything, at times I think I’m not hard enough on some as I accept so much bullshit in various forms of oppression from “brothers” without consequence or recourse, that it all but destroys my spirit, all for the sake of being “loyal”.  This loyalty, innately expected of us as Black women, regrettably is one that is not often reciprocated in kind. This seems to be even more heart-breakingly true of my generation and the generations coming up. THAT, if anything, is what wears us down… makes us angrier than others, sadder than others, more depressed than others, etc.

Yet THE MOMENT we stand up for ourselves — we are hard, we are cold, we are “the bitch”; the ball breakers; the misandrists.

Females are taught from an early age to grow up and get married. Being in a relationship (preferably married), means at least one someone wants you (what’s love got to do with it? -as Tina would sing).  Therefore being single is to be deemed undesirable by anyone.  And the longer the woman is single, obviously, the more undesirable she must be – right?  Now add in being fat and oh yeah – Black.

Another problem… Black women rarely speak to anyone other than other Black women about this. Women who are more than likely also swimming in the same muddied waters.  The advice from many of our matriarchs whether by words or by actions, was to just deal with it. “A single man is over forty a confirmed bachelor. A single woman over forty is a shame.” Yeah, more lovely pearls of bullshit dropped into my once young ears.

Instead of coming to the defense of our fellow sisters of color, who speak out, many of us that raise our voices, often find ourselves stuck between a rock and a hard place alone. Because there is some invisible code of honor not to OUT our current public status of being too much to deal with. We are “airing dirty laundry”. How the fuck is it ever supposed to get clean then, if we can’t even acknowledge the fact the track marks exist?

As women in general, we’re raised to believe, it is expected of us to be so loyal with our men. We accept it. We suffer in silence for want/need of a man. We wear a smile and act like it is okay. We hold a great deal of our hurts and thoughts inside. We hold it in for as long as we can, and then lash out. If the relationship doesn’t survive, we’re now once bitten-thrice shy with the next soul, who inadvertently may suffer the penance of another man’s sins.   It’s generally unspoken, but that expectation of loyalty is even higher with Black woman in a relationship with a Black man.

Still, because he is a Black man, and I am a Black woman, I am supposed to be instantly all ready to drop my drawers (and you can’t begin imagine how much I abhor that word as synonym for underwear), simply because he decided my name is “Baby gurl/Mami/Boo” and wants to talk to me. If he wants a moment to see if I’m worthy of his body, why am I not afforded the same courtesy? If I give in too early, I am an easy lay/skank/freak and men don’t buy the cow if they can get he milk for free. If I make you notice my worth by waiting, I’m “playing” hard-to-get, or I’m gold digging and why should you work for it when there’s always someone more willing around the corner.  I’m punished whether I’m Madonna or Mary Magdalene.

Many women of color state having difficulty-finding mates of any color due to issues many in general state about American women of color. Some men take the rejections or run-ins with some Black women that they experienced (and I won’t lie – the are some negative ones out there), and then use it to color how they view all Black women. The men who complain the most about Black women being low class/ghetto – gold-digging/bourgeois (note the contrasts), are also quick to write off  my entire racial gender with impunity and never look beyond their own negative stereotyping. They are so content to push all women of color into one, maybe two, shallow categories and never see the reality: that we are so much more.

Yet these same men would never think of writing off another entire racial/ethnic gender as a whole due to a few negative experiences. For these men, other women are given the chance to have their actions and how they present themselves judged on an individual basis … but most Black women, it seems, are not afforded this courtesy. And it is a damned shame.

The beauty we admire on most classic statues is due to someone taking the time to painstakingly whittle/smooth away what’s seen on the surface and expose the warm exquisiteness within.

Do most Black Women have thick skin? We have to, to protect our hearts, minds, souls, selves.  But we are so worth the time and effort to the one who sticks with us long enough to get to our cores and find out.

Don’t They Know…

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I am hanging out with two friends this past Saturday, riding around Long Island.  It is mid to late afternoon when we are finally on our way home. Being near winter solstice, the days are short and it is already becoming dark.  Looking around, I inquire about the general demographic of the neighborhood.  When I express some surprise of the overall makeup of the area I am asked why.  I wave my hand around at the quiet peaceful pre-sunset street and ask  if either of my two companions notice anything  wrong, which of course they do not. We’re looking down a street with at least twenty homes of spacious lawns, tress hedges with in easy sight and not one house was decorated for Christmas.

Not. One. House.

Even I, who has been in a holiday funk these past couple of years, put up a tree and decorated my living room for the holidays a week ago. There we were driving through a semi-affluent neighborhood, that by my friends accounting had a decent enough Christian/Protestant influence and yet we could not see any indication that we were in the midst of the “most wonderful time of the year”.    It took three blocks of riding before we saw one house decorated for the holidays. We could actually count the homes as we rode around before we hit the highway.  Considering  it was exactly on week before Christmas, it was a pathetic showing.  Sun completely set as we’re coming off the highway into Harlem was only slightly more festive as we looked up at the various tenements windows all lit and sparkling.  It hit home further when we turned on the radio and it turned out the DJ was taking calls from listeners asking if they felt Christmas was less festive now than in years past.

Being raised with Christian and Jewish neighbors all of my pre-teens life, by December 15th all buildings were ablaze with festive lights and colors. Every block was a mini Las Vegas for a couple of weeks each year in December.  You could count the homes that did not have decorations instead of the other way around. It is something that has steadily decreased over the years and I sorely miss it. Several callers to the radio DJ expressed similar sentiments.  It was part comforting and part disconcerting to know I wasn’t the only one feeling this.

In my head, I could understand if I was living in a more culturally mixed neighborhood than what existed in my youth, but I‘m not. I don’t know if it’s the depressing economy or a subtle (and disappointing) downturn in society in general that has befallen the holidays over time, but I don’t like it. As I looked out my window earlier this evening and again found myself incredibly disappointed by the near dearth of festive lighting, I found my self desperately wanting to ask …

…Don’t they know it’s Christmas?

Rain or Snow?

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NYC snow and rain images.

Snow on brownstone steps / Puddle jumping in the rain

Question asked on Facebook:
Which do you like most Rain or Snow? And why?

As beautiful as fresh fallen snow is to look at, play in, ski-sled-snowboard through (and it really is beautiful) — shoveling that stuff later is a bitch, even with a snow blower. Depending upon location, enough snow can bring some cities/town to a grinding halt for days-weeks-months.  If you are a city dweller, it all turns into slush; which is just nasty (especially when it is yellow). Then, there is the wait while it melts and refreezes over night (and depending on the amount –repeats the process), causing dangerous driving and walking conditions. As it melts, it may cause floods, even days later. Not to mention, since it’s usually winter when it snows,  it tends to be – you know, c-c-c-cold.

Therefore, I say give me rain.

Give me:

  • A slow walk in warm spring rain.
  • The delight of a sudden sun-shower.
  • Forgetting you are an adult for a moment and jumping in a puddle.
  • Cuddling while watching a thunderstorm from the window (or the bed).
  • The sound of rain falling on a tin roof.

Even at its worst, even with flooding that may take days/weeks to clean, once it finally stops raining, it’s over.

So, what say you?

What Goes Around…

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I was almost-mugged last night and I find myself considerably nonchalant about this.

I have always known my neighborhood was not one of NYC better neighborhoods when I moved in.  At its best, this neighborhood may be described as barely decent. It has not been at its best for as while now. It has not reached ghetto status, but I definitely live in “the hood”.  Having come from a background of being the perpetrator of some dirty deeds as a teen, I’m even more vigilant against being the potential victim of such as an adult.  Which is what made what happened last night interesting to say the least.

I was not dressed-up, and it was not yet 11pm.  This is not late for my station at all so there is a fair amount of foot traffic. There were at least two people behind me and maybe another four others spaced out in front of me, when I disembarked.  I had my purse slung on my right shoulder, hand around the handle, the way any woman carrying a mini leather steamer trunk of crap would.  Because my back was bothering me the past few days, I did something I usually do not do. I used the handrail with left hand.  I was halfway down when I heard the commotion of someone running down the stairs. Again, not anything unusual in my neighborhood.  However, being pushed from behind and feeling a sudden tug on my purse was very much unusual.

As I said with my background, it didn’t quite work out the way as the attempt-ee planned it. I hold my purses in such a way that my fingers are usually intertwined in some loop or ring.  The bag can only slide but so far down my shoulder before my fingers are engaged in the instinct to tighten. It’s not that it can’t be snatched from me, it’s just that takes a more work as the attempted robbers. Most snatch and grabbers go for the easy looking targets, any sign of resistance, they generally just keep moving and find another (hopefully easier), target. That I was on stairs and not flat ground helped. My instinct was to pivot and grab the banister/railing to stop my fall, not extend my arm out. Between the unexpected grip on my bag and the way I was falling, it  allowed me to keep my bag as he had no choice but to keep running or risk someone grabbing him.  The people in front of me didn’t have a clue as to what happened as the guy ran past them. The guy behind me was dumbstruck for a moment, but stayed with me long enough to make sure I was all right as I finished making my way down the stairs.

The cost of keeping my belongings?

  • My wrist is a little sore from the sudden wrenching of the bag snatch and the grabbing of the rail to stop my fall.
  • A badly bruised hip and even more pain in my back, but thanks to Advil, Sweet Advil, today has been tolerable.
  • A minor chastising of myself for leaving that shoulder open. I should have thought to change the back to the shoulder closest to the railing I was holding, but yeah, I’m only human.

This is now the third time, I’ve been mugged in thirty years. The last time was nearly twenty years ago. This is the first time nothing was taken. As I was explaining why I was limping to a co-worker, he responded I was rather calm about it all things considered. I admit was fuming something fierce last night, but I was also in too much pain to do anything but take pills and go to bed.  Having had a night’s sleep, I honestly see it as one part Karma paying me back and part a sign of the times of the economy, that these types of up close and personal robberies are making a comeback.  Another taste of how my neighborhood is declining and there is nothing I can do about it. At least none that I’ve thought of yet.

Key word – yet.

It’s Not Always Black or White

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A week ago I am on line at Dean & Deluca at Madison & 85th when I feel a tug at the hem of my dress. First, let us step back and acknowledge that I was in a dress and high heels. For those of you who don’t know me well enough to understand the importance of this, it means I was dressed-up. I, who mostly run gorgeously amok in slacks or pantsuits and blouses with sneakers, occasionally wake up some mornings and let the girlie in me take over. I put some serious effort into looking more all-out feminine than usual by wearing an actual dress, high heels and seriously glaming it up. This was one of those days.

I look down and see an adorable ruddy-haired, freckle-faced moppet of sitting in a stroller that is she is obviously too old for smiling up at me. I look up to see a woman of what I guess to be Caribbean with her hands on the stroller handles (presumably the nanny or au pair) and another woman who is obviously the child’s mother standing next to them. I smile at the women, look down at the child and in the tone most adults reserve for speaking with young children address the child.

Me: My, aren’t you a pretty one!
Mother: Say thank you!
Child: Thank you!
Me: And how old are you sweetie?
Child: I’m six. Whose nanny are you?
Me: Why do you think I’m a nanny?
Child: Because you’re Black and….
Mother (really fast): She’s not a nanny silly girl! She’s just out shopping.

You heard that record scratch just then too, didn’t you?

It was a very slow rising of my head with the most patient and plastered smile on my face (thank you southern woman upbringing!) before I arched an eyebrow and addressed the dear sweet mother.

“Seriously? She’s all of six and already has the mindset that minorities must be in some form of servitude? How the hell have you managed to accomplish that despicable feat in such a short amount of time?”

The mother opened her mouth to speak, but I held up my hand stopping her.

“Children learn what their parents teach them, whether the parents realize a lesson was given or not. Now, unless you plan to raise her in a lily-white Stepfordian bubble where plantation rules apply and thus she will never know the truth, I suggest you check her burgeoning attitude and especially yours!” Those last two words were practically hissed; as I less than a foot from her face when I heard a cashier call out for the next customer and backed away.

The nanny/au pair was amazingly interested in a distant object – an apparently very distant object as glance over her before making my purchase. The mother at least had the grace to turn beet red before I turned away from her to make my purchase and leave the store.

The entire exchange reminded me of a Formspring question (several questions in one actually), which was asked of me a couple of weeks ago.

“Do you find more overt or hidden racism with people you interact with? Do you consider any of the people you are friendly with to display racist attitudes without intending to? Do you find yourself with racist attitudes towards others?”

I blew the question off on Formspring because I felt it was too loaded a question to be answered in such a fluff forum. So I bring it here…

“Do you find more overt or hidden racism with people you interact with?”

Even living in the “melting pot” that is NYC I would be a liar to say there is no racism here. More than enough yellow cabs ignore my hails in favor of others, to prove that point alone. It is here but absolutely more hidden, subtle, at least to me. There is the ever classic “shopping while Black” which happens whenever I am in any presumed (by the company’s standard) mid-to high-end establishment. If I have a moment of niceness and hold a door where a mixed group of races will pass through (such as a movie theater), generally, it is not someone of color who forgets their manners to acknowledge my actions and at least nod in thanks. Unfortunately, these are so incredibly commonplace that I know I have come to ignore it a lot more than I should at times. It is the more unusual encounters with strangers, such as above, that generally catch me off guard and illicit a reaction.

“Do you consider any of the people you are friendly with to display racist attitudes without intending to?”

Don’t we all, at some level, without intending to? Yes, those of us who are far from politically correct in our humor, who crack jokes at everyone’s expense equally, we get that. Still, who hasn’t had a moment something not quite right slip out of the mouth about another race/ethnicity? However, out and out “Oh no you didn’t!” moments? Only one friend once said something so outlandish as a joke and honestly didn’t have a clue as to how bad it was until he saw the expression on my face. I was so aghast; I could not respond and had to walk away. The next day, when I was in better frame of mind to voice my feelings with anger, but not blind fury, I let him have it. It was an ugly conversation. I know he walked away questioning the thought process that caused the situation to occur. It turned out to be the precursor to the beginning of the end of that close friendship. We still speak, but we’ve lost something that’s not likely to ever return us to the point of being close again. Still that was the exception. Luckily, I feel I can honestly say the people I am friendly with do not.

“Do you find yourself with racist attitudes towards others?”

I really, really, really wish I could give this question a heartfelt “Absolutely not!”, but I would be somewhat lying. When I run into situations like the one with the mother and daughter mentioned above, I do hear my mother’s racist attitudes against Caucasians a little louder in the back of my mind than what is probably good for me at that moment. I know that is where the “plantation rules” snark came from when addressing the mother, as that was one of her (my mother) favorite lines. One of those lessons learned, but this one was actively taught.

No one is raised to adulthood, in a society such as ours, without hearing stereotypes and other crap about other races, ethnicities etc. It’s what is done (or not done) with those little sub-programs running in our subconscious that defines whether or not a person is racist. Overall, I can honestly say, I do try to take in any situation good or bad based on the individual involved.

Is My Sister My Keeper?

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I hate it when one fat woman makes all the rest of us fat women look bad.

I was at a bus stop and heard this from a woman passing-by, speaking on her cell phone to someone else. While I do get the spirit in which the statement was meant, I found the actuality of it galled me. I mean was she (the presumed offensive woman)…

• being loud and obnoxious?
• wearing some major fashion faux pax (at least in the speaker’s eyes)?
• jolly (hey, there are some who really would think this a bad thing)?
• *gasp!* eating a croissant on the bus? (I have a few friends who will get that.)

When the Anderson/Lee tape was all the rage, did their actions reflect on every Hollywood couple out there? No. Well, I’m sure Tommy Lee was more than happy to be living proof as one of the exceptions to the rule about a certain stereotype, but I digress…

When Camryn Manheim appears on the red carpet looking magnificent, does it magically elevate all the rest of us fatties? Uh, no.

People constantly fight for their individualism, but are then grouped together and painted with the broad brush of one person’s actions. In a world a gazillion-plus fat woman, it’s a ridiculous conceit to think my actions will impact each and every other fat woman out there.

What sin was so egregious by this anonymous fat woman that her actions have now painted every living fat woman in existence with that stigma? After all, by this woman’s theory (the one speaking on the cell phone) she, I (and Camryn Manheim) now look bad through no fault of our own. So, how do we rectify it? Exactly, we can’t. As though we don’t already have enough on our already overfull plates! (Pun fully intended.) Each fat gal now has to also remember each and every thing we say/do/wear/think will reflect on every other fat gal out there.

But hey, no pressure…

Choosing Happiness…

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I once read somewhere…

There is a certain kind of person that leans towards happiness.

I’d like to think, in spite of the less than stellar periods that mark my life from time to time, that overall, I am that kind of person.

I’m happy overall, simply because I chose to be. My problems haven’t lessened. Those who have access to my Facebook statuses, see when my moods are more midnight than noon. Still, even when I’m in the midst of a personal pity party, a part of me always knows “and this too shall pass” and I will be happy again.

How I’ve learned to handle life’s many bouts of crisis diminutive and demanding come from two main sources, my late-husband and my faith (such as it is). From my late-husband I’ve learned how to compartmentalize. Decide what is important, and needs working on now. The non-important things are mentally shelved until there is time for them, or when/if the time comes, to move them further up my importance ladder. The things I have deemed important are then broken into two main categories. What can I do to fix/change/control/help/etc. whatever it is now? If there’s something I feel I can (or am willing) to fix/change/control/help/etc., that is what I work on to the best of my ability. However, if it is something I feel I cannot (or perhaps should not) do anything about a given situation, here is where my faith comes in. I simply “Let go and let God”. Once a decision is made between the two, I may still think about it, but I don’t worry about it.

Several have asked, how have I managed to move on so quickly from the loss of a husband of twenty years? Honestly – I woke up one day and chose to. I have an acquaintance, Donna (a wonderful Numerologist and avid knitter), with whom I once adamantly contested in having a choice about moving on with my life, instead of continuing to wallow in grief, when she initially presented it to me that way (as a choice). I honestly did not see it as a choice at the time, simply because I am not the type to wallow in anything emotionally negative for any extended period. Having since met with (and/or read about) other widows/widowers and have seen the variety in how we choose to cope, or not cope, I understand. I may not have been entirely cognizant of doing such at the time, but yes Donna, I see that now. I made a choice, I chose to be happy, or at least start the process to get there.

Some have called it avoidance, but that is not necessarily true. When I am avoiding a problem it worries my soul constantly until I deal with it, one way or another, by the means I mentioned above. There is a huge difference to my personal sanity (hah!) between when I avoid a problem and when I choose to place it temporarily to the side until I have the means/knowledge/etc. to work on it. It’s not exactly letting go if I’m letting it worry me now is it?

Various religions and/or spiritual paths seem pretty sure that happiness comes from within and that it is within our control. You know what? I can’t honestly argue with them. I am happy, as I said above, simply because I chose to be. And when I say happy, I mean happy with the three people I face in the mirror each morning; me, myself and I. As long as I know for myself that I’ve honestly done all I can (or should) for the situation, I’m good; therefore I’m happy.

Why? Because there are only sixty seconds in each minute and I only have X amount of minutes/hours/day/weeks/months/years/decades left of life. True to form, I suck at math and thus have no idea what X stands for. Therefore, I do not have time to waste but so many minutes on being miserable. We all have our spells on the crying couch, but it’s our choice as to how long we stay there. Yes, I know, it sounds oh so simplistic at the core, I do not deny that; but like everything else in life, it is and it isn’t. And yes, I really do run pretty much everything in my life this way, because it works FOR ME (your mileage may vary). I don’t argue with it any more because it makes me what?–miserable.

I think you have an idea now about how long I’m willing to put up with that.

Does Anyone Remember…

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Blk/Wht photo old-fashioned couple on a date.

Old-Fashioned Dating

Does anyone remember good old-fashioned dating?

Okay, not quite as old-fashioned as the above picture would imply -lol; but seriously…

You know a date? Where two people who are stranger got together a neutral place, had these things called conversations and bit by bit got to know each other. If you liked what you were seeing/feeling there would be another date to find out more and so on. If not, after an awkward email/phone call or two, you’d part ways and try again with someone else at some point.

There was no presumption of sex after the third or fourth date; let alone the second or first. The last three dates I went on, it just felt like there was this undercurrent of “going through the motions”. As though the date was only being done as the necessary evil/precursor. And maybe it’s me, but I swear that presumption is worse, with online dates. On my last date from an online site, after an otherwise pleasant evening, when he realized a kiss on the cheek was seriously all he was getting, he was obviously not happy. When I questioned his views on the lead question posted here, he out-and-out asked, “Who the fuck does like that anymore?” Uh, I do.

Has the act of sharing the most intimate parts of one’s physical self become that incredibly depreciated in these past two decades since I was last an active member of the dating scene? Please note, I am not including one-night stands for the intent of fucking for the sake of fucking. Nor for that matter am I knocking those first dates that turn into something more. They are what they are and I have done both, wholeheartedly in the past year of my reemergence into the scene with no regrets what so ever. For all of my very open views on sex and relationships, my date still has to prove he is worthy of me as I would like to think I am proving worthy of him. One date, hell five dates, is not necessarily enough time to be proven of such.

I’m a member of various adult sites, and the assumption there is even worse. Just because as a fellow member of the site, it presumed I must be ready to “play” since we’ve exchanged a couple of emails now does not make it so. What looks good on pixel, doesn’t have shit to do with face-to-face. We may meet and decide there is no chemistry between us; then what? I am quadruple leery of anyone presenting offers to play without first wanting to meet someplace neutral to see if we even like each other first. I have pissed-off plenty of such suitors when their offers are flat-out rejected due to such.

I also know that the assumption of sex is not something exclusively related to “I’m a fat girl – I must be desperate – thus easy” realm, because I know more than enough of my slim sisters going through the same thing. I’ve had conversations with other dating friends male and female and sex after the third date (on average) is –well, a given.

So what’s a gal to do?

A Good Girl Who Does

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15

As a thinker I excelled in science and chess
Bright in my other academics, I gave no less
Could mentally match just about whatever you bring
Daunted only by my emotional state, a very different thing
Ever curious, I took a shine to coition with ambition
Female born, however held a certain restriction
Gracious model of virtue? Hah! I never tried to be
Held back within all the rules of social complicity

Inquisitive, I felt it more honest than being just a tease
Justly stated, I would pursue my desires as I would please
Knowing that the names for me were much closer to ‘whore’
Love was but a word as the males I knew were free to ‘score’

Mainly, I felt you can’t grow a garden by reading a book
Negating convention I dared to do more than just look
Oh guys can easily convey how often they go to bat
Privately the girls aren’t ever to admit knowing any of that
Quietly I learned to hide how I came to know so much
Raging that a male is never asked to hide knowledge of such
So, I could hum the foulest limerick and still be called quaint
Talk knowledge of a hummer when I was barely twenty ain’t

Understanding people I had known only one or two
Vicious rumors and some cruel truths I muddled through
Watching eyebrows rise as double-standards reared its head
X-rated knowledge in a g-rated world was a hard path to tread

Years went by before I felt I wasn’t a freak
Zeroing in that I’m a rarity someone unique
Allowed myself to enjoy it all in its various forms
Because I refuse to stilted by social world’s norms
Carnal knowledge once bane, I’m now admired for
Day or night, finally happy, I don’t care any more

Every now and then I’ll get outrageous with a verbal gush
Freaking people out on purpose just to watch them blush

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And today’s form is an Abecedarius which is an alphabetic acrostic or a poem in which each line or stanza begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. Historically, it was widely used in religious aspects as the beginning of prayers, hymns and oracles. As time progressed, variations of the method developed and new types of acrostics appeared. Some methods included using the first letter of the first word (as I have done above), the first letter of the stanza or the first letter of the first word and last letter of the last word in each line.

dVerse Poets Pub – Poetics: The Art Of Rebellion