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| How can you not love this place????
Someone please take me back to Barbados!
Just got back from the best two weeks I've had in years. Not only did I spend my time on beautiful beaches, but I ate great food, listened and danced to great soca and calypso music and got to spend time with family I haven't seen in years. Also got to meet some of the new additions to my wonderful family. This was my first time back in 8 years. I WILL NEVER STAY AWAY THAT LONG AGAIN. After spending one day there, I don't even know why it took me so long to go back. In fact I am already planning my next trip. Crop Over 2008, I will be jumping down Spring Garden on Kadooment Day!
Now it's back to work :( At least I have a wonderful tan! | | |
| I have this amazing friend. Let's call him "George." Before I get into this, I think I should explain my views on friendship... Some people call everyone their friend. For me friendship is much deeper. I usually keep people at a distance. I like being around people for the most part, but I don't invite them into the intimate parts of my life. I may know someone, talk to them and hang out with them, but you may not be my friend. A friend to me is someone I trust and someone that I can be me with. Initially you may be a friend, but if something happens that shakes my trust in you, you get demoted quickly. Could be something subtle or something huge, but whatever the reason, I don't think of you as a true friend any longer and most likely you'll never get close enough to me again to move back up. So I have a lot of acquaintances and associates, but very few friends. Defensive mechanism... another post for another day...
Back to "George"!
Anyhoo, we've been through so much together. Some good and some REALLY bad stuff. I've known him my whole life. Literally... He's a few years older that me and our families have been friends for well over 30 years, so I have literally known him my WHOLE life. My mother and his family can tell me stories about us playing together when we were little. When I was 12 and I discovered that I like boys, who do you think was the first boy I had a crush on? Yup, my trusted friend. I was pretty bold at 12. I walked right up to him and told him that I liked him.(God, what I wouldn't do to have that much confidence and be that open now) Then that night after we got back from whatever family gathering we were at, I found my mother's phone book and called his house. He very promptly told me that I was way too young for him. And I guess a 12 year old is pretty young compared to 15 year old! When we were in our early twenties, we actually dated seriously for a while. Our families were pretty sure that we headed for the altar. Things did not work out and that was when things got bad, but in the back of my head I knew that we would make it through. With as much history as we have and as close as our families are, I knew that we would be fine.
Why am I writing about this you ask? Yesterday was a pretty traumatic for me... DRAMA!!! I won't get into that because that's WHOLE OTHER POST! But as usual when I called "George" he was right there to pick me up, even from 450 miles away. And amazingly, after talking to him for about a half hour, I felt so much better. Because we've known each other for forever, he knows exactly what to say and do. Whenever I need him, he's always there. He always tells me the truth (even when I don't want to hear it) and I have learn to listen to him because he is always on point! Anyway when I woke up this morning and I was going over the events of yesterday. I woke up feeling a little sad. But then I remembered that I had "George" and that when I needed a pick me up, he would be there. So this is a tribute to good, old friends... There's nothing better in the world than to have an amazing friend who's got your back. Fortunately for me, God loaded up my cart when he was giving out friends, because I have four other AWESOME friends that like "George," ALWAYS got my back!
I can only pray that everyone in the world has a "George" in their life!
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| My MP3 player crashed on Sunday and no longer works. Unfortunately, I only purchased a 1 year warranty, so I am screwed. I have been trying to figure out how I am going to get by without my MP3 player. I take that thing everywhere with me. I use it in the car, when I am doing chores, while I'm at the pool, the gym, everywhere. In desperation, I dug up my portable CD player. That thing might as well be an 8 track machine to me! I don't remember the last time I used it and the idea of changing CDs to hear different tracks from different artist or having to make a mixed CD is just so foreign to me. I don't want to take a ride in the time machine! And the one thing I LOVED about having a MP3 was the shuffle feature. I loved knowing that I have 600+ songs and any one of them could play next. I know am exaggerating, but for those of us that like to have all the latest gadgets, I am hurting. I was forced to listen to the radio in the car this week. Today is only Wednesday and I already remember why I stopped listening to the radio. Thank goodness ESPN radio is back in the DC area.
The funny thing is, my MP3 player is not the only innate object that I love. I have Tivo. I love Tivo and I hate TV without Tivo. When I visit people who don't have Tivo, I get a tiny bit frustrated while watching a show. I've become accustom to fast forwarding through commerials, pressing pause if I get a phone call while watching the show and reviewing the show just a bit when I miss something. I am sucker for technology!
I'll probably have a new Ipod Nano by this weekend! I will load it with all the music I saved on my PC, while I am watching a show that I Tivoed! | | |
| If anyone knows an answer to my question, I would love to hear it!
I've been dating for about 13 years now and finally, I've learned how to get a man's attention... Completely ignore him and show as much of a lack of interest as possible! I'll never understand why that is, but it seems to be the truth. Every relationship that I've thrown myself into has ended in disappointment. But for the last month and a half, I've been showered with endless affection from a man who thinks that my feelings toward him are indifferent. Now don't get me wrong, I do like this guy and I am having so much fun with him, but I'm not telling or showing him that! And too be honest, I've come to terms with the fact that I just might not get married, so I don't look at relationships as something that has to grown into a long term thing. I just want to have fun and I think that may be attractive to him as well. My last few relationships have pretty much made me a cynical witch, so I made a decision to not get too invested in this new thing I have going on. And I behave accordingly. Keeping him at a distance, seeing him only when I feel like it, etc. Now I am being pursued like I've never been pursued in my life. I mean, he called me every day for month trying to get me to go out with him before I actually agreed to a date. It's actually fun to be the one in control for a change. For me, and I hate to say this it's kinda turned into a game. When I sense that he's starting to give up, I show just a tiny, piece of the nice women that I actually am. Just enough to make him wonder if there really is a sweet, senistive person underneath the causal, sarcastic and detached persona that he has grown accustom to. My mother always told me that I give too much too soon and that's why men lose interest in me. I guess she was right, because I am giving nothing and I feel more appreciated than I have in a while. During a time when I was feeling pretty crappy, a great ego boost came around and made me feel amazing! Even if this thing doesn't go anywhere, it will serve its purpose... to make me feel good for awhile.
Now that I am armed with this piece of knowledge, my dating life should start to become a lot more interesting! I don't know what my future holds as far as men are concerned, but God I hope I am wiser this time around. | | |
| I've had this site for some time, but I never made a post. Mostly due the fact that the only reason I signed up for Xanga was so that I could read the inner most thoughts of one Dr_Omels. However, a good friend and fellow xangaite (don't know if anyone actually using the word "xangaite", but I am gotdamnit!), bclorio, wrote a post about country music and confessed that he liked it. Knowing him, he wasn't really confessing, just stating a fact. But the wording made me think about my current musical taste and how it developed into what it is today. Then I was compelled to write about it.
As a black woman, I often get comments when I tell people that I really like rock, pop and alternative music. It's as if I am suppose to only like R&B, hip hop and rap. And for a long time, I only listened to R&B, hip hip and rap. Do you know when I stopped being a serious fan of contempary hip hop/rap? When rappers and hip hop artists started talking about the most frivilous things. I can't relate to being obsessed with someone's "Grillz", riding around in Bentley or every day hustling. I am not a hustler, I don't drive a Bentley and I will never put materials that are menat to be worn as jewelry in my mouth. Why would I want to listen to music that glorifies that? I just can't relate. What I can relate to is an artist's raw emotion transformed into a song (check out 2 AM by Anna Nalick as an example). Thus the opening of my mind to all music.
Hip Hop has changed so much in the past 15-20 years. When I was coming up (I am about to date myself...) in the 80's and early 90's, hip hop meant something. It was an expression of a people's place in society and it was used as a forum to educate young people about the injustices in the world. It use to make people think! Now don't get me wrong there are artists out there that still try to enlighten people. There's The Roots, Talib Kweli, Mos Def and Common. Even OutKast falls into that category, but you'd never know it because their best songs don't make the light of day. But the average teenage whose musical taste is determined by the songs that the R&B/Hip Hop radio stations give the most airplay to, probably couldn't name one of their songs. Do you know what is top hip hop album on the Billboard chart is this week??? "Pimpalation" by Pimp C. Hmmm... I don't think I have to say anything more...
Most hip hop music is so mindless now. I feel for my 15 year old sister who may never know what truly great hip hop is. She has no interest in the music from the past, "it's for old people" she says. She would rather do the "Shoulder Lean." If listening to and appreciating good hip hip makes me old, just call me Grandma! | | |
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