just be IT!!!

you already know what day it is...

and in honor of the sweetness and flavor that is the ever lovely suga-n-spice...we will continue with the official friday proclamation....

IT IS FRIDAY....AND BY DAMMIT, WE WILL BE HAPPY!!!

and i urge you....don't wait on your happiness...

don't wait until you get that job...or pay off that bill...or buy that house....or find that relationship...

find something to be happy about today...

even it's a small thing...

because life is too short and there is too great a chance that while you are waiting to flip that happiness switch...you will wake up to find that life has passed you by...

or you may not wake up at all...

i believe that happiness is not a continual state of euphoria...

instead it is a string of encounters that make you smile...people in your life that you like and that love you in return...accomplishments that bring you satisfaction...jokes that make you laugh and the occasional occasions where you know joy unspeakable...

you just have to recognize it as such and choose to let your happiness outshine your burdens...

so...please, please, PLEASE...

don't wait on your happiness...

just be IT!!!

afterthoughts...

remember that store?

claire's bought them out...in 1999...which takes me to the artist formerly known as...who along with that whole Y2K waste of money, time and resources...convinced us that the world was going to end at the stroke of midnight...or at least shortly thereafter...with the expected chaos...i was not out partying like it was 1999...i was sitting in the house on the couch with my then boyfriend tuned in to cnn thinking we'd see all these news reports of the world ending one time zone at a time...

anyway...back to the store...they sold accessories...you know earrings and watches and necklaces and bracelets and purses and scarves...and such...all the things that you could use to complete a look after you've bought an outfit...the last thing you would buy...

or...in other words...not anything that you really need...things that you could really actually do without...if we're being honest...

and let's be honest...i don't answer your calls because you call me at the oddest times....at 941p on saturday...at 1018p on wednesday night....at 813p on friday evening...

as if you'd done everything else you'd wanted to do that day...been everywhere you needed to go...seen all the people that you wanted to see..conversed with everyone else that you needed to talk to...

and finally....you get around to me...

as if i was the last thing on your mind...

an afterthought even....

you oughta be in pictures...

my girlfriend is bald...yep...bald...or...actually...she has a high and tight...i know...cause i shaved her myself...

and now...my girlfriend feels like tony the tiger....

GGGGRRRREEEAATTTT!!!!!

and THAT is big news....

my girlfriend ain't been bald since the first moment a bit of peach fuzz began appearing on her triangly little head around about the age of 12...

now...one time...i did perm the hairs of the girlfriend...not that she needed it...cause i got good hair on my girlfriend....(you know i got indian in my family)....that's right...no taco meat here...

the perming of the hairs of the girlfriend were a result of total boredom one saturday night...too much time on my hands and a bit of left over dark and lovely...

i came away with a snatch that looked like it had just stuck it's clit in a socket...bad move...but...the hairs of the girlfriend did lay down really well coming out the shower...and were long enough to cornrow...well...maybe if i added a little bit of b35 weave...needless to say...the hairs of the girlfriend were trimmed to a respectable length immediately...

shortly afterwards....i purchased a mustache trimmer... (this was before i knew they sold mini women's shavers) and that is what i have been using to keep the hairs of the girlfriend in check...

well...recently...it was gently suggested to me that perhaps if the girlfriend were hairless, it would make a certain activity more enjoyable for a certain someone...

and here again...one night shortly thereafter....and as the result of total boredom...too much dayum time on my hands and a brand new shick lady razor that i bought ONLY because it comes with this neat little hook with a suction cup that hangs it on the wall of that shower...

i take the beautiful new razor out of its wrappings...step in the shower and commence to lathering up the girlfriend...

a short time later...after some creative bending, stretching, reaching and perching of my feet in some unusual places...i am left with an almost completely hairless girlfriend...i left the triangle be...just a close trim with the electric trimmer...

and i am amazed...the girlfriend not only looks great...but feels even better....

who knew the girlfriend's skin was so smooth?...it actually debunks the cliche as soft as a baby's bottom...i now know that a baby's bottom is so smooth only because it ain't got no hair on it...so...from this point on...i will know announce the cliche as...

as soft as a hairless girlfriend...

lo and behold...behold and lo...i am now even more in love with my girlfriend...i was in love with her already before...i mean she gives me such great pleasure...how could i not be?....but since she went hairless...that whole self love thing is like a new experience everytime...and the new feelings that i am experiencing when i.....okay, wait...overshare...i'm blushing here and i'm oh...wait...mini spasms in memory...let me step away for a moment...

okay...back...where was i?...oh...the...er...um...new feelings...okay....enough about that...

unexpected result....the girlfriend is really quite beautiful...looks like something out of one of THOSE magazines...

she oughta' be in pictures...

gvneneup?

gvneneup?

new word...pronounced "giving any up?"

word origin...the word verification phrase from sj's blog...

definition....well, i'll come back to that...

i've really got too much time on my hands...or actually...no...i don't...because right this moment...i should be somewhere on westview drive or laurel avenue getting ready to come up behind the hammond house, cross over peeples street to make the loop around the west end mall and head back to the house for the completion of a 5 mile walk before it gets africa hot out there....which this morning may remain overcast so...i'm thinking i've got a few minutes....

let me air out the dusty corners of my brain for a bit and talk about some things that i've been kicking around in the wading pool of my mind...and what i really mean here is...things that i'd planned on making a post out of...but in my infinite laziness...well...you know...excuses...and we all know what mary kay says about excuses..."Excuses are LIES."

at any rate...gvneneup?

yeah...i'm giving some up...in fact...just bought a new box of lifestyles...the 36 pak...

word definition...self explanatory...

happy birthday, @sswipe...

today's my ex-husband's birthday....

most of the time...i am actually quite thrilled at the fact.....

dayum...interruption here....why the hell is good morning america showing a rectal exam ON CAMERA???

okay...back to my regularly scheduled rant...

um what was i saying?...oh...the @sswipe's b-day...

most of the time...i am completely thrilled at the fact that he is my EX husband and totally pleased that things turned out the way they did...

i mean, hell, after two years and a half years of marriage, he left me for a damn stripper that he'd met less than a month before....

and to PROVE how strange my way of thinking is...i actually ADMIRE the fact that he left me almost immediately instead of trying to screw around with the stripper and maintain the marriage at the same time...

i guess dude realized that his multi-tasking skills are not up to par...

i still think it's rather fcuked up that he did it while i was pregnant, having my car repossessed and convincing the fort bragg housing authority kick me out of post housing while i was supposed to be on complete bedrest while carrying his child...

hence the @sswipe title for the day...

although, sometimes..........i wonder...how life would have been had things not happened the way they had...

i probably would not have miscarried at 20 weeks and my son, kevin kyler smith would have lived longer than 35 minutes and i would now be mother to a 9and a half year old...

um, just thinking about that makes my heart skip a beat...me? a mother? to a 10 year old black boy? in america? in these last and evil days?

on second thought....thank you so much, @sswipe...

and because i know you still check my blog out from time to time...please consider @sswipe a term of endearment...

the other day...when we were IM'ing...you asked for my phone number...and i didn't respond...in case you didn't figure it out...i'm not giving you my number...yeah...i paid some lip service to seeing you the next time you're in atlanta...

but...truth is....

we don't have anything to talk about...and i don't want to see you...

but not because of any lingering anger left over from 1997...

it's because i'm not your friend...remember...i said "let's CALL it friends and leave it at that." (translation: we don't really have to BE friends...)

think about it...there is really no point...there is nothing you can add to my life anymore...i am reminded about that bible verse that talks about only a dog returning to its own vomit (ew...not a good visual there)

and if you can't add anything...i'm certainly not going to allow you to take anything away...

i don't want to hear your lies about how unhappy you are with your wife...while you try to get next to me telling me that i'm still beautiful and that you still love me...(i know i've taken good care of myself in the last 9 years but i also know you don't love me...you just regret walking away from me because i live my life in a way that proves i never should have married yo' a ss in the first place...)

what you need to do is remember what made you notice your wife all those years ago...start back romancing her and fall in love with her all over again...

and...keep in mind...that while i will send a friendly email from time to time and engage in the occasional IM conversation....when i'm bored...especially when i'm bored...

all you are is a faint memory of a time past...a reminder of a relationship whose potential was never realized...the father of a child who was destined not to survive and whose delivery room inked footprints are still among my most precious possessions...

you are a blip on the radar of my life whose effect fades with each passing year...

even so..i am grateful for the lessons that knowing you taught me...figuring how to pick up and move on after a great life disaster...realizing that although i am not perfect, i am strong...learning that depression is a normal mental state (as long as you don't wallow in it)...that standing at the edge of insanity can make you really appreciate your sane days...and that even without you doing a thing life will go on...just as it always does...

but still i remember the date you were born...so..

happy birthday, @sswipe...

and i mean that in the nicest way possible...

190.4...a new number...

six months ago...

i said this

and promised you that in 6 months...i would tell you what it meant....

well...that was my weight on january 9, 2006...and was VERY unhappy about it...and it was starting to effect my health...my breathing was becoming difficult when lying down, my digestive tract was off and i didn't sleep through the night....

well...here we are 31.4 pounds lighter...and i am really feeling much, much better...

i am no longer having any respiratory or digestive issues and i now easily sleep through the night...and my speed around the softball diamond has increased...not to mention...i have fewer shin splints...and no longer worry with knee or back pain...

the weight loss doctor that i am working with wants me to get down to 170...she says that 170 is a good weight for my 5'10" height and will give me a normal bmi...

although...i'm actually feeling like i want to stop at 180...i will decide as i am nearing those numbers...

because i don't want to be a skinny b!tch...

plus...don't nothin' but a dog want a bone...

fears...

early morning conversation....

him: i love you..and i don't ever want to lose you...

her: i love you 2...and i never want you to walk away...

i want to always remember...

i want to always remember this day...

i want to always remember the sun...

always remember the crowd...

remember the clouds in the sky...

always remember the music...

i want to always remember this feeling...

i want to always remember you...

what is love?

i've been coming into realization that i just don't fall in love like i used to...

i fall into like...i fall into lust...i fall into fondness...i fall into admiration...but i just haven't fallen in love...

so much so...that i have been trying to answer the question of what love means to ME...not society's definition...but my own...

because of that...i really believe that while i have been loved in my life...i have yet to really experience THAT love...

whatever THAT love happens to be...

and i've come to realize that i must be patient for it...because everything that sounds like love and looks like love and feels like love and smells like love...

is something else altogether...

and i am afraid that i may not recognize it at the encounter and that it just may pass me by....

Piece of a Dream

I had this dream that I used to keep high on this shelf. It was a visual display of every hope that I had resting upon this THIS that you and I were making up as we went along.

I can clearly remember the day this dreamscape began to form in my mind. Our paths crossed at a time and place so unexpected and in a way that was so delightful, I was convinced that it must be destiny.

So, I set up my canvas and began to choose my colors and consider my technique to determine what style this artistic creation would be. As days moved into weeks and into months, my vision became clearer and a magnificent montage of moments developed from the darkroom of my mind into a scene that was sometimes Monet-esque in its muted beauty, Grandma Moses-like in its simplicity, reminiscent of Norman Rockwell in its All-American-ness and perhaps even held abstract shades of Picasso's most intruiging creations.

It was a lovely happily ever after I dreamed up for you and I. A crazy combination of totally different styles of visual expression colored in by love, laughter and passion that somehow meshed into perfect picture of all that I knew we could be.

One day, I was cleaning up a few dusty places, re-organizing some areas and throwing out the things that I no longer needed. I pulled my dream down off its shelf and upon close inspection, I found that some of its colors had faded. The vivid reds, bright blues and striking yellows had somehow lost their lustiness over time. And seemingly from nowhere, pieces of my portrait were missing. Entire scenes erased with no explanation.

Hoping you could help me figure out what was wrong with this picture, I turned to you. Looking into your eyes, I instantly realized that although you stood only a few feet from me, we had grown so far apart that you may as well have been half a world away. The shock of that blinding moment of clarity caused me to lose my grip on the handmade frame. I was held rigid as it slipped from my grasp and crashed to the floor. My dream lay shattered in a million pieces.

Wordlessly, you turned and walked away, leaving me alone to clean up the mess that we had made together.

Heartbroken, I pushed the debris into a closet and closed the door. I knew that I needed to retreat into my special place, take time to regain my composure and figure out to move on.

Slowly, I found the path to renewal and began to heal and determined that from this, I would become stronger. I soon returned to the place of my brokenness armed with cleaning supplies and the knowledge that it was time to clear my closet of this skeleton.

I paused over some of the scenes. My Monet-esque scenes were even blurrier through the tears that were cleansing my spirit. I could see the influence of my own elder mother's advice in the practical poses of my Grandma Moses phase. My childlike hope for a storybook life was evident in the places that I created the scenarios of a Black Norman Rockwell. And in a strange way, the purported madness of Picasso was easily evident in the randomly patternless abstract shards that I found.

As I discarded the broken bits of who I wanted us to be, I noticed a particularly beautiful scene that I knew that I did not want part with.

So, I took this piece of that dream and put it back up on my shelf. From time to time, I pull it down, take it to my special place and sit in the sun remembering what was good about this dream.

Knowing that life continually presents me with new dreams to dream.

whispers...

My heart is whispering words that I don't want my mind to hear. I have been to this fork in the road before. And while I know that I cannot freeze time and hold at just this point in the road, I wish that I could.

So, while the roads are diverging like a mu-phucka, I do not want to take the old familiar road nor do I have interest in the road less traveled.

I just want to stay still, right at this place. I want to stand silent in reflection of what has brought me to this place. I want to lie down and wallow in the warmth of this moment. I want to sit in the eternal sunshine of this spotless time.

And I want to close my ears to the words that my heart keeps whispering.

I do not want the feelings that my heart is dancing around to take root in my thoughts. I am not ready to consider the possibilities or the limits of all that could be or not. I do not want to acknowledge the fear that will inevitably creep up on me.

The thoughts, the possibilities, the limits, the fear.

And the whispers.....of love...