Soapbox 2010

(link to the article: I Hate Weaves)

"Cause he is the truth.
Yea, he is so REAL.

- India.Arie

I know when India.Arie wrote that song she was talking about love.  And no, I do not love this man ... but umm, that don't make this any less poignant.

A lot of people quote this particular Katt Williams sketch.  And if you haven't seen it, here are a few gems:

- I'm just here to remind n*ggas that life is short and you need to enjoy your m*therf*cking life. Stop being ungrateful about your g*td*mn life.

- (2:15) Ladies, you need to stop stressing all the time. You need to understand that if you are not the sh*t to you, you are not the sh*t to any  body else.

- (continuing on his message to ladies) You blaming us for stuff we are not even in control of "Well you f*cked up my self esteem."  B*tch it's called SELF ESTEEM.  It's esteem of your SELF. How did I f*ck up how you feel about you!

- You gotta be the sh*t to you ladies. Some of ya'll stressing entirely too much about sh*t that n*ggas don't even care about.

- Ladies, if your man is mad about your stretch marks, I suggest you stop f*cking with b*tch n*ggas.

- Ladies, you need to start taking responsibility for your own miserable life.  If you are over 25 y/o and you still walking around talking about n*ggas ain't sh*t, then you need to grow up with your irresponsible ass.  What you meant to say is that all the n*ggas you f*ck with ain't sh*t.

- You gotta be happy with what you got right now because you don't know what may happen.

So I posted this because yesterday SBM wrote a blog about disliking weaves.  I've read many anti-weave blogs, many natural hair is the best hair blogs, many diet blogs, many workout blogs, many how to find a man blogs, many what's wrong with black women blogs, many sit up straight, smile pretty, be subservient with a ph.d. and know how to cook blogs.  I've read them all ... and I only want to say one thing:

Love yourself.

Many women were in a heated debate over this topic. One man said he didn't like weave and it was armageddon for those who wore them.  I put my hand on my head, felt around in my tracks and laughed when I read it. Why? Because I love me.  I don't care if a man likes or dislikes a weave.  I don't care if a man doesn't like a thick girl.  I don't care if a man doesn't like brown skin toned women.  Hell, I don't care if a man doesn't like a woman with a million pairs of shoes. Why? Because I love me.  Like Narcist says, "If you like it, I love it."  No man telling you what type of hair he doesn't like should ever make you think about what that means to you.  Because it doesn't mean shit.  The only thing that matters is what YOU feel about YOU.

2010 is my Soap Box year. I'm preaching this all day everyday for anyone who will listen.

2010 is the year of loving yourself.
Love yourself better than anyone else will love you.
Love yourself beautiful.
Love yourself thin.
Love yourself smart.
Love yourself whole.

And don't expect ANYONE to do it for you.  Because NO ONE CAN LOVE YOU LIKE YOU CAN LOVE YOU.

My background:  I used to have such low self esteem.  I couldn't see my worth.  I never gave myself compliments and when other people gave them to me, I shied away from them.  For a long time I couldn't recognize the blessings that I had.  There is nothing sadder than a person who has everything and thinks they have nothing.  Nothing they get will ever make them whole.  That's how I felt.  No matter how thin, no matter how far in my career, no matter what musical note I hit, or what man I met, I was never happy.  I didn't love myself.  And loving me has made it so I am truly happy.  There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think that I am blessed and everyone should feel that way.  It's a blessing to wake up in the morning and a blessing to be able to open your eyes, and blessing to smell flowers.

Gosh, I'm emotional right now, lol.

All I'm trying to say is that in 2010 if you are going to make a resolution, resolve to love yourself ... and mean it.

Listen to KATT!

- Tha Management

Reconnaissance Mission

This past weekend my friend came over so I could help him do some research on his friends upcoming court case.  All I do for work and school is look stuff up on legal databases so I thought no biggie.  In order to get the statute that his friend violated we ended up going onto Maryland's state website and doing a search for his friend under the courts and judicial tab.

Let me explain this further.  Anyone who is sued in Maryland is listed under this tab.  And any court case you've ever been in is listed under this tab.  And its searchable. Yup.  Searchable.

So after doing the research I decided to look up my family, friends and a few of my exes to see if they'd ever been on that list.  What I found was an homage to my mom's wise saying that "I sure know how to pick em."

So almost every single one of my exes that I dated in Maryland had a court filing.  The most interesting was the ex that was arrested for both robbery and armed robbery (he proposed to me).  Another ex, Cat (had a miniseries dedicated to him last year) was in there for back child support, assault, a restraining order, possession etc. and the Dominican (the worst date I've ever been on in my entire life ... I've been planning on blogging the story because he is the date that I mention in the revelation), well, he had the longest rap sheet of them all.  He was in there for multiple assaults, dui's, multiple possession and paraphernalia charges, etc.  (No wonder he showed up to our date drunk and high, insulted everyone he met, and was very aggressive to me ... hindsight 20/20).

Then I started wondering.  Why have I never done due diligence on some of these fools?  I usually don't put any more work into doing background checks on potential dates than a light facebook stalking.  If I had seen what the Dominican was up to before that disastrous date, I could have saved myself embarrassment and a nightmare (he still calls me occasionally, I've never answered the phone). So ladies, before you go on that next date, do a search in your state (and the surrounding states) judicial records and see what he was doing before he met you.  You may avoid dating a stalker, drug dealer, a dude who has 4 kids and doesn't pay his child support, and baby mama drama.

NOTE:  I think its important to stress that people get sued all the time and the police arrest people all the time.  Just being on that list isn't enough to dismiss dating a man/woman (hell, my mom's on that list ... I teased her for quite a while) but if you are about to date a man it makes sense to make sure he's not prone to violence.  Your life is the most important thing you own.  Don't risk it in the potential name of love.

- Tha Management

Under the Weather

I haven't been feeling that great for a couple of weeks now and I know that should be a sign to go to the doctor but I hate going to the doctor.  So I'm trying to get past it.  Seriously.  My symptoms have been relatively mild (chest congestion, body ache, random fever) but the thing that makes it slightly unbearable (and the reason why I've missed so much work lately) is the fact that I am usually exhausted.  This all started when school started back up so I'm hoping I'm not allergic to law school (lol) but even this weekend amongst all my desires to be uberproductive, my body just wasn't having it. So I called off today (Monday) to try and get my affairs in order (study, wash my hair, watch over my fishies, cook, and clean up what I have left to clean in my apartment).

Problem is, its 10:50am, I've been up and down since 6am, and everytime I am out of bed for more than 15 minutes I need to take a nap.  I'm worried slightly, but I know a lot of this is coming from me not taking care of myself. I need to force myself to be active and I need to make better dietary decisions.  My self esteem has been pretty good lately, so I haven't been on the "I hate the way I look Diet" that I usually get on for the pseudo self esteem that I get from looking nice.  Feeling nice about myself is much better but I've been lax about my health and that's what's getting me down now.  I have every intention of starting to run again when the weather is nicer, but I can't imagine getting out of bed any earlier than I do now.

I guess I'm writing this post as a wake up call for myself.  I gotta power past this fatigue (or at least go see a doctor to figure out why I've been feeling like this) so that I can live better.  My bed has become my prison cell.

- Tha Management

Shoe Addict

We are homies now.  I figure its been a little over two years that I've had this blog and I feel like I can be honest with you. You know about my exes, my boring law school life and my theories of love but I've never told you my deep dark secret.  I'm going to let it out today because I figure if we are going to grow, I gotta be honest ...

Well, sigh, here we go ...

I LOVE SHOES.

There, I said it, woo sah.

Sometimes when I get new shoes I tweet it, but instead of doing that, I've decided to blog about it.  It really started because I got my first semester grades today and being an emotional shopper, I had to spend some cash to calm my nerves.  I knew I was dead wrong to go up to Shoe Woo at Union Station but I couldn't help myself.  That's when I saw these:

Boutique 9 Genarose Animal Print

Yea, I stopped breathing too.  They are a smidgen too big but when I stand up I think that they are an ok fit.

 If they were any smaller I may have circulation issues (I have wide feet).  Well, let me go ahead and show you  what I've acquired over the semester due to stress.  I cope with stress by shopping and well ... as you can see ... I was stressed.

Steve Madden Korset Boot

Enzo Angiolini Gray Pumps

Enzo Angiolini Suede Gray Ankle Boots

Bandalino Cream Slouch Boots
(they call them gray in the store PSHAW)

I don't limit my retail therapy to shoes though.  Here are two of the MANY purses I bought:

Rina's awesome Christmas present to me:

Comfiest Pair of House Shoes EVER

I bought all of these within the last three months.  I usually by a pair a week but I've been holding back.  I'm actually awaiting the release of a pair of spiky heels  on 2/5 from top shop, been stalking them for a while now.  I'm very excited ... and now you see my problem.  I'm addicted. I am all about the shoes.  I own around 100 pairs (seriously, I do give stuff to the salvation army btw) ... yea, I'm trying to get like HER *  ... well not really ... maybe.

And because I take a lot of pictures on my blackberry, some randoms:

Racist Cookies

Rina's Christmas Present from me (Redskins v Giants)

Graffiti at Brookland Metro Station

Festivus celebration announcement in Adams Morgan:

And me in my ruffle cardigan (yet another purchase --I stay at H&M, I know I have a problem)

Oh and my new favorite website: www.heels.com ... you can shop by heel height and as you can see, its usually at least 3 inch heels for me (I prefer 4+).

- Tha Management (ThaMgmt via Twitter)

*another article on HER - sigh, my momma calls me Imelda sometimes

The Black Girls Club - After Class Banter

I have two separate lives ... my law student life, and my regular life.  I never meant to separate myself into two people but I can't help it.  When you are in contracts and learn about fraud needing Scientor and I jokingly suggest that I would get a cat just so I can name it Scientor, if you aren't in law school, you may not laugh.  Hell, if you didn't have my contracts professor, you may not laugh.  BUT, there are times were our after class banter is accessible and today was one of those days.

One of the girls got married over the break (YAY).  Her husband is tall, fine and successful and the rock on her finger shines like ... wow.  So we all coo'd over the wedding photos and I commented on her facebook pictures with AWWW.  This makes the ratio of married to unmarried girls in the Black Girls club 3-3.  Well, 3-2-1 (one is in a long term commited we'll get married when ish calms down relationship).  Being one of the unmarried, unboyfriended and uninterested few, I threw shade long and wide (jokingly).  Why not?  One great thing about being single is teasing those who are not (newlywed got a concerned call from her husband wondering where she was, she gotta get home from class early now, HA!) because they have responsibilities that you just don't have.  But then I got to thinking, maybe there is something to this whole "marriage thing".  I've never been anti-marriage, but I'm pretty anti commitment right now but seeing my friends happy and married maybe think that there is something I may be missing ... fortunately for me, I don't care enough to figure that out yet.  If I learned in a week that I don't have time for a boyfriend subsequently the desire for anything more was quashed.

But I did get home and want some and there was no one there to quell that desire.  I guess score one for marriage, lol. 

The other discussion we had (which was quite heated) was that forming and joining the Black Girls Club was causing our non-black classmates to not associate with us. I was appalled.  I have friends of all ethnicities but I did form the BGC because I wanted all of the black kids to know and support each other.  (There are male members of the BGC but they don't yap like we do, they all about the studies, lol).  So maybe I'm at fault.  I invited all the kids, made the study group up, had us all smiling in each other faces and becoming bffs.  Maybe I should have invited some other ethnicities so we didn't seem exclusive.  Idk, but I do know that I found a common bond with the members of the BGC that I haven't felt with my other classmates.  Instead of Black Girl's lost we could be Black Girl's Exclusive or something.  I'm sure the stereotype will dissipate next year when we aren't grouped in sections anymore.

Oh, and I'm kinda feeling one of the BGCs male members ... He leaned over to tell me something today and my heart fluttered.  I gotta stop that immediately.  But let me gush for just a second.

His body, amazing.  He has shirtless pics on his facebook page and well ... damn.  Then one day he took off his sweatshirt in study group and the t-shirt underneath pulled up and I could see his abs, I involuntarily reached out my hand.  Like I said, I gotta stop this IMMEJITLY.

- Tha Management

My Weekend

This was my last weekend before school started so I decided to live it up and do nothing.

Saturday I slept in, didn't get dressed (at all - I wore my blue bathrobe all day) and played computer games.  Narcist came over and brought me some left over cupcakes from her cupcake business, Sweet Fillings.  We watched "Good Luck Chuck" and "Made of Honor" both sucked.

Good Luck Chuck made me tear up for a moment because of his assistant.  The movie was horrible and I'm sure everyone thinks that its a movie about Jessica Alba being clumsy but really, it was about a man who after he slept with a woman the next man she dated would be her one true love.  So women basically do anything to sleep with him in the hopes that it is true.  His assistant Reba goes online to research if the charm is true and the following happens (please watch if you can).


Good Luck Chuck-Reba Clip - Amazing videos are here

For those of you who can't see, Reba is a middle aged overweight black woman.  She dresses up in lingerie and attacks Chuck eventually landing on him and breaking his table.  She then begs him to sleep with her saying, "please, just imagine that I'm beautiful."

HOW DREADFUL. All I kept thinking when I saw this was, LOVE IS NOT WORTH YOUR DAMN DIGNITY. It's sad that women have to come off as such desperate creatures, but its even worse that this black woman, the only black woman in this entire film, degrades herself the most in order to find love.  I don't want any black woman I know to get this desperate.  Love ain't worth it.  I'm going to work hard to debunk this damn myth that in order for you to be happy you need to get married.  You don't.  Find happiness within yourself ladies.  If I gotta become a motivational speaker dammit I will.

Then I fell asleep watching The Kings of Comedy on Youtube.  It's been so long since I saw it, I laughed like I've never seen it before.

Sunday was a repeat of Saturday.  Me and the Blue Bathrobe hung around the apt for a while. I was going to go running but I didn't.  I was going to study, but I didn't.  I just laid in bed until about 1pm.  Then I decided to wash my hair.  I bought this organic shampoo from YES Organic called Giovanni 50/50 clarifying/moisturizing shampoo and it was amazing.  My hair looks beautiful.  Go get it.  That woke me up enough for me to get my day started so I made a banging dinner.  Dave put me on to a webseries called Anacostia that consumed me for a couple of hours until I went to sleep.  Here's a preview (Anacostia is a neighborhood in SE Washington, DC)



I also had a conversation with Narcist about part time jobs.  She informed me that while watching "Real Sex" on HBO she decided to acquire one.  Her first option was stripper but as she says "She is too clumsy and has no coordination."  There is also the issue with the fact that she can not walk around in heels.  "Wobbling strippers aren't sexy."  So she figured phone sex operator.  She actually applied to a few positions as well as to a psychic position. She tried to put me on, but I passed.  The last thing I need when I run for office (I won't be doing this) is for my career in phone sexology to be on blast.

All in all this weekend rocked. I was lazy, enjoyed my bed, and watched TV.  I will miss this life.

YOU MY BOY BLUE!

- Tha Management (ThaMgmt on Twitter)

Randoms

I start school on Monday and see my ability to blog becoming hindered again.  I've posting sporadically but there are still some interesting things that I haven't had time to mention all in one blog so I figured I'd do a random blog.  Why not right?

1. I made Apple Crisp
I have kinda been on my homemaker-ish lately and I decided I wanted to make a pie (there was an awesome recipe from Closet Cooking about Dulce de Leche Apple Pie and I was drooling at my desk.  I didn't know that pie took forever to make though, so I substituted apple pie for apple crisp which is almost the same thing.  So it didn't turn all gooey and bubbly like it was supposed to but I figured that that had something to do with my sugar to apple ratio.  I'll be making another apple crisp (I have a lot of ingredients left over) so that I can work on my sugar ratio.  In my grand plan I will make crisp than move on to cobbler and then to pie.

2.  I quit my "boss"
School and work have proven to be too much to handle at once so I am changing positions at my job.  I was remiss at first because I will definitely miss having a telephone number and a place to put my crap at work but having less responsibility and more time to study will be so beneficial.  It was a hard decision to make, especially when my boss asked me to reconsider ... but I had to do what was best for me.

3.  Emotional Me
I hoped in What Becomes of the Broken Hearted that I could tie some of my sad feelings to being emotional and luckily, I'm able to say that I am.  The day after the breakup I felt 50% better and today I'm at 95%.  The 5% is attributed to me being sad that things didn't work out because he is such a great guy.  A guy so great that we are still friends.  He even came over so that he could help me with my apple crisp.  Really, him not being ready may have been the best thing for me because I wasn't really ready either, I am just a stick with it kinda girl, lol.

4. Over It
I don't think I'm a bitter person and really me quitting dating was more me being protectionist.  The idea of dating and being in a relationship is really not for me right now.  I didn't realize how much work it was.  Work and consideration.  I like freedom.  That may have been why I stayed with PS for long.  I did whatever I wanted to do so his presence didn't really change anything in my life.  So I was comfortable.  If he was in the same city as me, I'm sure we would have broken up sooner. And I didn't really understand what a relationship would mean to my autonomy.  When people in relationships said "you don't have time for a relationship, focus on school" I thought they were jiving.  I get it now.  I don't have time for a relationship.  I'm focusing on school. Selfishness is a good look for me right now.

I think that's enough for now, lol.

- Tha Management

The Real Fool

Making up names for posts is too mentally straining.  I've instead decided to call any male who acts like a fool Fool for brevities sake.

I was on the train reading a booklet in preparation for class to start next week when this guy sits next to me.  I have my ipod on so I'm completely ignoring him.  Well, I tried to ignore him but he wouldn't let me.  (RANT: Why is it that the guys you don't want to have a conversation with can't take a hint? My turning my ipod up reading a book and not making eye contact isn't enough of a sign? No? It isn't?, summabitch ... END RANT)

Fool: (leans all the way forward while looking back at me so he can get a full shot of my face)
Me: (Shoot him the WTF face and go back to reading my book)
Fool: Whatchu reading?
Me: A book
Fool: Whatchu in school or something
Me: Yes
Fool: Oh where?
Me: (Insert law school here)
Fool: Really? What you go for?
Me: Law
Fool: Oh for real, you must be smart.
Me: SIGH
Fool: So my name is Fool
Me: Really? My BOYFRIEND'S name is FOOL (I know I said I was going to stop lying but he was a talker)
Fool: Oh for real?
Me: Yes
Fool: Oh, well I ain't got no girl but I got kids (this always intrigues me, so I start to participate in the conversation)
Me: Really? How old? How many?
Fool: I have three, 15, 14, and 1.  (Side note: I look at fool and put him at 40ish. Eww. Also, he's short and has plaits in his hair.  Double eww.  The fact that your child is 10 years younger than me? Triple yuck.  And that pube beard you are sporting on your mandible? Quadruple yuck. Kill yourself)
Me: Ok
Fool: Yea and the oldest one's name is Fool Junior
Me: Wonderful.
Fool: So call me
Me: No
Fool: Why not?
Me: My man wouldn't like it
Fool: So you can't have friends
Me: No
Fool: That's lame.
Me: Yup
Fool: So take my number anyway
Me: Nope
Fool: Take it
Me: Nope
Fool: Come on, call me
Me: I won't call you
Fool: Take my number
Me: Fine. I don't have my cell phone though and I don't have a pen
Fool: What about your ipod
Me: Fine (puts number in my ipod contacts)
Fool: You gon call me
Me: Nope
Fool: Call me
Me: Nope. I'm not going to call you
Fool: Ok, so when you going to call
Me: Not going to
Fool: (gets up at his train stop and whispers) Call me (complete with finger cell phone sign)
Me: Shakes head
Fool: and tell Fool(fake boyfriend fool) that you met the REAL FOOL

And so there you have it.  I met the real fool.  Oh lucky me.

- Tha Management

What Becomes of the Broken Hearted

If anyone saw the post that I put up this weekend (that I took down because I felt humiliated) they would know that I had a BF for a week.  I haven't really dated that many people as an adult so I wasn't aware that even a relationship that lasts for a week can end and feel like a tragedy.  I decided to email my friend and tell him to forget this week ever happened because it's easier for me to pretend like this never existed and treat him as such than to accept what happened, because I feel like a fool.  I feel like looking in the mirror and telling myself "I told you so."

I'm frustrated and disappointed for a plethora of reasons but I am attempting to attribute my heartbreak to being emotional.  I want to think that I feel too much and that this, like every time I cry at a movie, is just the result of having a huge heart ... but part of me knows that that's not true.

It could be the fact that I never asked my friend to be anything more than my friend.  I reiterated numerous times (and possibly to my own detriment) that I refuse to convince anyone to date me because I am a catch.  And I am.  I realized my potential to care about someone and to act on those emotions is very strong.  I instantly wanted to be better than other girls he dated (because he had been through so much).  I wanted to show him that good girls do exist. That there are woman who weren't crazy, emotionally weak (I'm emotional, yes, but I wasn't going to let his feelings ever be damaged because of that), or devious out there.  I wanted to be the best girlfriend and eventually more ... and not until the novelty wore off, but forever.  And I wasn't doing this to prove a point, its because that's who I truly am.  I am the girl who gets joy from seeing other people happy.  I am the person who gets a thrill from giving a sad girl her navigation system (long story) and the person who gets excited at the prospect of cooking her man a meal.  And even with those noble intentions there was nothing I could do to change the fact that he was doing something that he just didn't want to do.  Something that I was perfectly fine with him never doing.  Something that he never should have done.

I've also had this lingering feeling of being disrespected.  And the worst part is I didn't feel disrespected until he told me that he had disrespected me.  He went out with an ex with the intention of attempting to see if they could have a friendship and he didn't tell me ... I was nervous about going to the club and he went on a date with another woman and I never even batted an eye.  It wasn't until he told me that it was out of his character to act so wantonly to someone he dated that I found myself upset.  If not at anything else but the fact that I didn't deserve that.  Sometimes I feel like the most horrible women have men. I saw a youtube video of a girl jumping up and down on the hood of her man's car and the man driving away with her on top of it.  Clearly something was wrong with both of them but all I kept thinking of was, doesn't she respect herself? Why is a man worth that type of humiliation?  How does she act when she's not cursing and jumping up and down on the hood of a car? I could never be that way ... I will not regale you with the tales of how I am the best girlfriend in the world (even though I am, lol) because I feel like I've done that already with PS.  I just feel like I tried way too hard for him to not even acknowledge my feelings on something so transparent so quickly.

I thought of how he was with this same ex.  How he wouldn't even go to lunch with me because of how she would feel about him hanging out with another female.  I feel like I have a "kick me sign" on my back.  I'm hoping that this is just a side effect of me being emotional, but I honestly feel like there is something about me that signals that I am the person who should be walked all over, disrespected and ignored.  And I don't carry myself that way.  I am a very strong person but it seems like I'm dating on a broken record.

And so it makes sense for him to have broken it off.  I need and deserve better than what he gave me and he recognized that.  I can't fault my friend for being mature enough to know that, but I will still fault him for feeling like we had to be together in the first place.  We didn't.  I quit dating because I needed to for my sanity.  I felt like every guy I met was worse than the last.  That it was impossible to find someone who would care about me as much as I cared about them ... that would put the work into being with me that I would put into being with them.  And unfortunately, he just proved my point.

Like I said in "The Revelation,"  I feel like I'm taking a beating that I don't deserve.

- Tha Management

To Reiterate

I quit.

- Tha Management