Single in the City

So I've made the move to NYC and as I patiently wait for my life in NY to take flight, I've realized how incredibly lonely I feel. Now, before it's even suggested let me say that I have friends, four of them; however, as great as they are there's still a little something missing. A Man! I know a strong "independent women" like me, should feel secure enough in herself to be single and proud. Well I ain't, I would like a man!

Someone strong, handsome, funny, sweet, and romantic; there's more but I don't need to go into too much detail. Now granted, I'm not truly at a place where I can meet a man halfway but I still want one. (I'm making it sound more like a toy than another human being.)

I'm at the age where I feel like my "clock" is definitely starting to tick, but in all honesty I'm not really at a place to get married or have children. I'd love to settle down and wait for that great guy who's going to become my husband but, again, I just don't think I'm REALLY ready. Professionally, I've just restarted my career and personally, I'm still in the process of doing some spring cleaning in my heart, mind and soul. After reading The Conversations by Hill Harper, it's made me realize just how un-ready for a serious relationship I am. It didn't help that I had a conversation with a young man that furthered my belief, in my not being ready. I can't even form a friendship with someone of the opposite sex; I'm almost teen-like. I blush when he's around, and I think I form an attachment waaay too early for words. I get a little sad when he's not available, I get excited about him when I know I'm gonna be around him….

What the hell is my problem!?

I don't even really know if I like this guy, but I'm showing all the signs of someone who is severely open off of him. I think he likes me too but… he's not being as proactive as I'd like him to be. I mean, I want to be pursued for once. This is the part I don't like!? I wish I knew how to go slower to "be light" just enjoy the flirting for what it is, just aimless flirting; I mean if it turns into more in the future, great! In the meantime, it's stupid to get over indulgent in a man, who may or may not have interest in me. The downsized to all of this…. I am soooo sexually frustrated its not funny. I miss sex! I don't want to but I do, badly. This is another reason, why I need to step back. The last thing I need to do is to start up a sexual relationship with someone. I don't know that I can do a serious relationship but I know I don't want a sex-friend.

The only thing I can do is be patient but I'm not a very patient person… I'll fill you in if something happens.

The Day the Music Died!!

Does anyone remember when it happened!? Was it the day Souljah Boy got approval to release his second album? Or did it happen long before?

Don't get it twisted I admire Souljah Boy for everything he's done, when have you ever heard of a 15 independent record label CEO, who's actually have nationwide success; but really "Kiss Me through the Phone", "LOL, Smileyface"? Is that what our generation is capable of musically!? Really!?

If you're confused about what I'm talking about, go to your parents house (or for some us their room) and ask them about their "Album collection". Now you may not know what an album is, but they should be able to explain it to you or possibly even show you one. Matter of fact, I'll do one better go to your nearest computer and locate the following tracks:

Michael Jackson – Get on the Floor

Jackson 5 – Love Song

Dobbie Brothers – What a Fool Believes

Jackson 5 – Never Can Say Goodbye

Teena Marie – Square Biz

Dazz Band – Whip it

Just to name a few of my favorites, but I'm sure other Music-Heads will be able to recommend some others for you.

These songs epitomize what music used to be, the only technology they used (for some) was what was needed to record it and make it listenable. If you listen to some Motown oldies, you'll know what I'm talking about; some of the recordings are soo raw, that you can actually hear the conductor count it off. They used instruments, real instruments not the ones on the studio's computer but ones you actually have to hold in your hand. The difference in the quality of the music, not the lyrics, or the singer, but the actual music is amazing. Especially music from the 60's and 70's, the way they used the different instruments to create the sound that they had, it's emotional. Check the profile, I told you I LOVED music.

Just listen to the music of today and compare it to music of the past. You can't, there's no comparison. When I listen to my mom's music, I'm sometimes embarrassed by some of our music. You know there was a point-in-time when record labels wouldn't hire producers or sign artist, if they didn't have some sort of musical ability. You had to be able to write and play an instrument. Old school producers like Holland-Dozier-Holland knew how to play most if not all of the instruments in the studio. Yeah back then some studios had actual instruments in them. When you recorded a track, it was almost like performing in the studio. Nowadays, some artist don't meet their "band" until it's time to go on tour which as we know changes the sound of the music completely.

When did we get to the point where the only requirement as an artist is that you be pretty or "marketable"? Some producers couldn't play an instrument if you put a gun to their head. Everyone is sooo amped about using the newest musical technology devises but hand them an instrument and they look lost. Awhile back I happened upon a YouTube clip of Just Blaz playing the drums, I almost cried. You could tell he enjoyed playing them, and his confidence while he was playing them was almost orgasmic.

Now for some of you I may have lost you at "LOL, SmileyFace" but the rest of you understand where I'm coming from. I know I speak on your behalf when I say to up-and-coming producer and artist, when I say bring back the music of the past… music so good it makes you cry… music so good you don't need the artist to sing on it. You know some old school songs are almost seven minutes long. New school songs end at three minutes, the MOST!! WTF!! By the time you catch the groove the song is over.

Let me just say, I commend artist like Solange Knowles who had no problem bringing back the old school flavor to music with a modern day twist. If you don't know what I'm talking about, RUN to your nearest music outlet and purchase, yeah I said it, PURCHASE Sol-Angel and the Hadley Street Dreams. That's music that I can stand behind.

 

To Post or Not to Post

I wish I could be the type of blogger to post something every day but since I write from the heart, sometimes I just might not have anything to say. I take that back, I may have something to say but it may not be enough to post in a blog. Mini blogging is another alternative, sometimes my heart leaks onto the updates in my twitter account. If you're on twitter follow me twitter.com/Ily_NoEhMi , trust me you'll enjoy following me. Plus you can check out who I'm following, everyone's cool and funny. If you don't have a twitter account, I suggest you get one; progress may be a slow process but that doesn't mean it doesn't move forward. Get up on it, if you set up your account and feel like you still don't get it. Hit me up and I'll help you out, plus I'll enjoy making a new friend or two.

See Ya on Twitter!!!

FAME – I’m gonna live forever!?

No, this not a post on the new Fame remake (which I'm still unsure about seeing), but more so about having Fame.

People talk about Fame as if it is life's greatest accomplishment. The line from PCD's When I grow up sticks out in my hand the most "we all wanna be famous… you know what it's like to be nameless, u want'em to know what your name is", is this really how we all feel!? No lie, sometimes I think that I too, would LOVE to be famous but then I watch the news or E! and I realize FAME has a serious and sometimes deadly price to it.

Think about all of the famous people you know and you'll notice for every good side of their fame there's something negative about it. Then again, think about all of the "famous" people that we as a society idolize to which you can't even remember what the hell makes them soo famous; THE KARDASHIANS (as a group), Paris Hilton, Tila Tequila, the list goes on and on. This group is a different post for a different day.

This morning, as always, I was forced to listen to HLN and the first topic of this particular news show was Michael Jackson. Although it pains my heart to bring him up, I have to get this off my chest. This "poor" man has been dead for almost two months, and yet we still can't stop talking about him. This morning they were talking about the police (and Feds) raiding the pharmacy that filled MJ's prescriptions. Albeit this is something they would publicize even if it wasn't MJ, because it is a homicide case. The problem with this story was that the topic of discussion turned toward paternity of his kids. What the hell did this have to do with someone killing him? How or WHY does that even matter to you and me? Truth is it doesn't; and we know that, but do we really care about respecting the dead to stop it? Nope. For the sake of rating this will probably continue for another year or two. People don't realize that these same kids that they are trying to claim are just that, KIDS! Putting their FATHER (because until now that's all they knew) on blast is not helping them at all.

I think Katherine Jackson's attorney said it when in his statement released yesterday (don't quote me – I got it from Natasha @ theybf.com) "These genetic lottery attempts aren't going anywhere. They have no legal standing. They may seek 5 seconds of fame but the claims have no merit."

Journalists like to portray themselves as being "smarter than the average bear" but they're willing to dumb themselves down, all for the sake of ratings. There is no way and hell, you can honestly tell me that you believe the nurse, the chef, and the ginger-bread maker's bullshit stories. BTW, am I the only one who realizes that the baker and the ginger-bread maker, should be the same person? ... I digress. Here's the way I look at it.. If you didn't care enough to help this person in life, I don't believe for a millisecond that you really give a SH!@ about helping them in death!? Same thing goes for the people who leached I mean worked for Anna Nicole Smith.

I just don't understand how, at no point-in-time did any of you feel it was necessary to say to someone outside of the close circle, hell even the police "Yo! [insert name here] who's supposed to be [insert celebrity or average joe name here]'s blank is [insert shady deed here] to them?" If you worked with Anna, Michael or Brittany and you knew that someone they trusted was taking advantage of them to the point of killing, or in Brittany's case almost killing, them, and you stood by and did the "ooohp nothing to see here, la la la la la", *hands in pocket looking away* you should be ashamed of yourself. Your conscious should phuck with you to the point of insanity, because YES YOU DID THE WRONG THING, and you didn't do you job as a HUMAN BEING to at least TRY to help someone in need. Let's call a spade-a-spade, we all aren't hero material, but how hard can it really be, to call the hero? Hell our modern day heroes have their own easy dial extension "911". Granted some of them can't be trusted but really, you don't think saying "Hey ya'll, the reason MJ & Brittany are acting foul is because someone is drugging them" won't get SOMEONES attention!?

That folks is the down-side of fame. Greedy people (with no shame) will leach onto you and suck the life out of you, literally. Unfortunately, greed is the type of self-induced drug is addictive to the point where it'll kill you, or someone else. Times like this makes me very appreciative of my circle of friends, our motto is truth first, feelings later; but some celebs aren't lucky enough to have this around them. Everyone around you wants to be a part of what they feel is the gravy train, and no one is willing to lose their first class ticket to do the right thing.

Having fame is like being the driver of the party bus; while everyone on the bus is having a blast, you're the one doing the hard work making sure the bus gets from point A to point B and so on. But once the ride is over, everyone quickly runs off, leaving you behind to clean up the throw up in the back. Only this is the one occasion where people will actually come back to throw up on the bus some more.

You Lying MudaSuckas!!!

So I'm going through Celeb-Twitterville (which is basically going through the different celebrity profiles in Twitter), when I come across Star Jones' Twitter page. Immediately I start to think, "Damn she's lost a lot of weight" which is promptly followed by "WTF!! Wasn't her claim to fame (at one point) that she was representing plus size women of America (or something like that, don't quote me)." Then my co-worker and I start talking and she reminds me of Ms. Mo'Nique and several other women who "jumped ship" to swim in the ocean of conformity. Now you know me, always eager to stop the naysayers before they start; I have no problem with Full figured women (FFW) losing weight for health reasons. It's very important to make sure that you're eating right and getting some form of exercise in your life; for me it's (trying to) exercise portion control, dancing and the occasional Pilates session. My ISSUE is that you have all of these FFW's using their size as their "niche" to get into the industry (music, comedy, theater, whatev), only to then ditch the niche once they've broken the "glass-ceiling" in effort to look like every other Hollywood stereotype. Granted some of them haven't come close to your typical size 0 starlet, but I'm sure in the back of their they are definitely trying.

To be honest with you, I don't even have a problem with that! If you're a size 24 and secretly you really want to be a size 4 then go for it, do you! But don't feed us the "Real Women Have Curves", and "Skinny bitches are evil" bullshit! Keep it gangsta!!

*tell em why you mad son*

I'm mad because there are A LOT of young FFW's in training, that don't have health issues, but have emotional issues because they (like many of us before them) have fallen for what society has told them, or unfortunately, showed them about "ideal beauty". They believed you when you dished out that B.S and "sopped it up with a biscuit", supporting all of your endeavors because they believed that YOU were out to show the world that Real Women Do Have Curves and yes, some Skinny Bitches are evil. Now imagine their… frustration to see you bend in conformity, walking the red carpet as a size 8. If you had to lose weight for health reason that's one thing but losing weight for vanity after you called yourself a "representative for the FF community is just hypocritical.

Young'uns lemme tell you. I'm a SHAPELY size 22, and the smallest mama EVER wants to be is a Size 16, maybe even a 14, but that's my lowest and if anyone has an issue with that, I have round, perky derrière for them to pucker up too.

Keepin Gangsta!!!! Cuz the FFW revolution BETTER be televised, blogged about, read about, and respected!!

Holla!

Are you Marriage Material

Now before I start this, let me just say that I’m an old fashion girl with old fashion values….

Are you marriage material? To many people this question can seem stupid and pointless but to me it’s a very honest question that you should ask yourself before you make the decision to either put yourself on the market for marriage or accept someone’s proposal.

The dictionary defines marriage as 1 a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) not posting this one because I don’t think it’s correct, it’s my blog I post what I wanna!!!> b : the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock c : the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage2 : an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities3 : an intimate or close union http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marriage

Now all of that is fine and dandy but I think there’s more to it than what dictionary defines as marriage. It’s my belief that marriage is a bond, between a man and a woman under GOD that they will Love, honor, and RESPECT each other for the rest of their life. Notice how I capitalized the word respect? While some would believe that the most important part of a marriage is Love, I think that Respect is more important than love, reason being you can’t love someone if you don’t respect them. People who enter into marriage under the guise that they will LOVE each other FOREVER are usually in for a RUDE awakening 5-10 years into the marriage (maybe less for others). Now does that mean that there aren’t couples who do LOVE each other FOREVER, NO! There are some couples that genuinely love each other but when you look at their love, you realize that their love has evolved with time because they’ve respected each other. They’ve respected each other’s wishes, beliefs, opinions, sexual habits, interest and all of the above. You can’t presume to stay HAPPILY married to anyone if you don’t respect them, and their needs. Now that’s not to say that you and your needs should fall by the wayside because they should be just as considerate of your needs as you are of theirs. If they aren’t then, Houston you have a problem! Please remember that marriage is a self-LESS act.

Now this is where I’m about to piss a lot of ladies off…

When you go home to your husband (presumably at a decent hour, previously defined by you and your husband) you need to check your I-am-an-independent-woman-hear-me-roar-I-don’t-need-a-man attitude at the door. Cuz, let’s be honest if you didn’t need a man then you wouldn’t have gotten married, or you wouldn’t be dating for that matter. Oh, and please spare me the I-just-date-for-the-sex bull-crap, women are not built to LOVE ‘em and leave ‘em. You may have fooled yourself to believe that in the short term, but after a while…. (That’s pure experience speaking)
Single women, in the words of T.I, “be clear”: Ain’t NO real man gonna settle down with a woman whose mantra in life is I don’t need a man!! Would you date a man who felt like he didn’t need a woman? Nope. (Keep the lies moving). Look at our mommas as perfect examples, many of them are the DEFINITION of a strong woman, but when your dad (or her boyfriend, depending upon the household) came around she was this defenseless women, who couldn’t even open a jar of jelly (mind you she opened that same jar for you the day before). They know that YOU HAVE TO LET A MAN BE A MAN!!!! Single women always have a hard time with this one, but it is what it is. LET the MAN BE a MAN!! There’s no other way to do it.

REDIRECTING….

They say in happy marriage a happy wife is a happy life, but that works both ways. Try not to be consumed with your needs, think of his, and vice versa. Most recently both CoCo and Jada Pinkett have both done interviews where they’ve listed sex as a contributing factor among other things to their happy marriages. The crazy part to me is not that sex or in CoCo’s case, submitting to your man can be attributed to a successful marriage but the shocking part is that people are surprised by this. Hel-low, men like sex, and so do women, why not enjoy it together!? SIDENOTE: if you’re married and you don’t enjoy the sex it’s time you and yours had a heart to heart. No bullshit!! Women always surprise me when they’re like “he’s having an affair” and when you ask about their love life she gets all confused like “what does that have to do with anything?” It has everything to do with everything!!! Personally speaking, if I were MARRIED to someone who refused to have sex with me, I would probably cheat too; especially if I didn’t want to file for divorce. This is an obvious example of disrespecting your partner’s needs. If for whatever reason you no longer enjoy sex, physically, emotional or whatever, then you might want to seek counseling as a couple to determine how to resolve this. I understand that as we get older our needs change but you can’t expect your partner to deny themselves because you lost interest. I know this seems hypocritical of what I said early, but it’s really not. If they denied themselves, and you didn’t deny yourself then the relationship would be heavily one-sided. Being self-less applies on both sides, finding a HEALTHY compromise is always the alternative. By the way, even though both marriage and sex are self-less acts, honesty is key. If you faked it your entire relationship, please don’t think that in marriage he’s just gonna wake up one morning and get it right. COMMUNICATION is a very important part of respecting someone, speak and listen.

LOL, I can go on and on with these examples but long story short, if you aren’t willing to be self-less (both men and women) you might want to re-evaluate marriage.

I'm back....

Need I say more, there's soo much going on it's not funny. Several things have been pressing on my heart so without further ado.....