Blurred Vision

So I have this theory that may seem a wee bit crazy, but stay with me. I have this theory that a person who accuses someone of sexual harassment is usually (and yes that's a gross generalization) not solely "disgusted" by their actions, but moreso, the accuser is not attracted to or could never envision themselves getting physical with the person doing the harassing.

This is not to say that if the harassment happened that person shouldn’t complain. Or that they weren’t in fact harassed. But…Let’s just say that Danny Devito told you to bend over and show him what you were working with. A definite eww right? But let’s say Idris Elba [or enter who you think is sexy as fcuk here] donned in a flyy suit and speaking in his British accent told you to bend over and show him what you were working with. Well. You just might pause for a minute. Think it over. Swoon. Laugh it off and be like, “you so crazy.” And you still might report his ass to HR. But I bet you women would be calling you all type of names. And wouldn’t believe for a minute that you turned him down. I mean we all remember the Isiah Thomas case, right? Right. And what was said about her looks. Meanwhile he ain’t even that fine.

So the point of all this. And there is a point. Kinda. Is that perception is a motha. I recently went out on a date. The guy was cool. But there was no real spark. Our conversation fell flat. I mean if y’all think I’m on joke time here, imagine what I’m like in real life! A barrel of laughs I tell you. So you know I kind of need the same. Yes, men, it's true that women want someone who will make us laugh. So yeah our convo just wasn't working. And while I was being nice and engaging, in the back of my mind – I was like oh when will this be over? But him. He was enthralled by me. He was planning our next dates. Yes, that’s plural. And when I mentioned to him that I had been to see a Broadway show recently. He was like, “yes we can go to New York together to see a show.” Say whaat? Dude you crazy. I don’t even know you.

And then I had a flashback. To a guy I was dating last year who I was totally feeling. Had me sprung. Head over feets. Our conversation was easy, breezy, beautiful Cover girl. He made me laugh! He got my sense of humor. We had a good rapport. So when he said, “we should go to New York to…” I was totally on board! Hellz yeah! We totally must! When we going? Tonight? I got a bag packed! And I got some leave. Let's roll!

Yeah perception.is.a.motha. For realz. Cause how you see things can and will determine your response to sit'chuations. How you treat a person. How you approach life. If that's a half full or half empty glass you're drinking from. Perception will have one person thinking they're on the best date ever. While the other person is planning their outfits in their head for the next week. Will have you thinking the man you had the best dates with was being honest and not at all spitting "game." And so when you hold him up for comparison, this guy you aren't clicking with is soo daggone lame. Will have you wondering if perception is reality. Or if reality is perception. And then thinking that maybe, just maybe, life is when the two are blurred together and it's up to you to start to see things clearly so you can understand it all.

That’s my time y’all! Happy Rum Punch Friday!

on submission

so recently i've become addicted to twitter. not sure how it happened although i think that rum punch's persistent nudging had something to do with it. now i've got something called twitterberry on my phone and i check that thang like every 5 minutes. one of my fav twitter's is @lilduval. dude is a true comedian. his tweets (i always chuckle at that word) have me literally laughing out loud while i'm sitting in the middle of a crowded courtroom waiting for my case to get called.

the other day he got on the subject of submission and amidst all the tweets for shits and giggles, he dropped some gems like:

people kill me talking bout i dont never wanna get married. thats a damn lie u just dont wanna marry who wanna marry u

yall better stop listening 2 neyo cuz we only want our sidechicks 2 "have her own" yo main yall have 2gether

and just cuz u got more than yo man doesnt mean u cant be submissive to him he is still the man.

every woman that thinks im trippin give yo self bout 2 more years of that single shit i bet u everything i just said pop back up in yo head.

this idea of submission is an interesting one. clearly lil duval has strong opinions about this submission thing. like many men he feels a woman should submit to a man and that a woman's ability to submit may depend on her material status and earning capacity vis a vis her man's. yet he doesn't really define what it means to submit although he implies it may have something to do with having "less than" the man or at least creating the appearance of "less than."

submission is something every woman thinks about at some point as she considers herself in a relationship with a man. this is especially true for black women and I say that only because I am a black woman and that's the only existence I know. cause ya'll know we black women are too independent, too bossy, make too much money and can't be bothered to listen to no man tell us what to do. or so i've been told.

but dear readers at the 5 spot, what do ya'll think. what does it mean for a woman to submit to her man/husband? should women be submitting to her man/husband?

what say ya'll?

waiting game

Never met anyone like him before. He was different. Nerdy, so to speak-- she liked that. Also, younger than she, but not significantly so, and he had that definiteley not been her MO before. And he lived in Philly, not too far where distance becoems a tiebreaker.

He was educated, driven, ambitious, all the virtues the men of her past couldn't seem to muster at the same time. So yes, she liked him. Matter of fact, she loved him. And yes, he was the one still is maybe. But see when she liked him, she was still in a long-term relationship that was unfilling. And it took her 10 years to figure that out. And Mr. Nerdy, had been waiting on her intentions to dismantle it all. She took her time, not because she wasn't serious she was, but because she had to make sure her heart was truly over senior beau.
So, Mr. Nerdy waited.

As for my friend let's call her Glen Livet and Senior Beau -- it had grown stagnant, no growth. And I must not dismiss the fact that at the time her Senior Beau was 12 years her senior when she met him at 21. CRAZY! I know. Years filled with too much drama.

And in the meantime, Mr. Nerdy had baby mama issues to tend too. He had a daughter and was still spellbound by the yoke of the mother. Felt irresponsible if he was abandoning his "family", but he never articulated that information to Glen Livet. So, on that fateful day of Christmas 2000 (Mr. Nerdy's birthday), Glen Livet knew her life needed change and she was willing and ready to emabark on a new chapter in her life with Mr. Nerdy. He wasn't ready, she didn't spend Christmas in Philly. So, she let it go and moved on....

Moved on... yet she moved backwards perhaps?

To a flame rather high school sweetheart. All these years through the decade with Senior Beau, the tangoesque relationship with Mr. Nerdy, and the brief dalliances with others he heard Glen Livet's trials and tribulations. She shared that with him as friends do. He was her friend -- a sounding board. She was single, yet wasn't sure if she was ready to mingle. But single nonetheless and no kids. funny how most the serious relationships she'd encountered the men always had a child/ren. Ol' Sweetheart absorbed it and heard it all. And she interpreted that to mean, she knew where she was in life and understood her vision. A vision that included marriage and children to follow in that order... So, she rekindled that relationship with Ol' Sweetheart.

No marriage and a child.
And she's sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss.
Not sure where she's going, what direction she's headed. Confused of how she arrived at this place. Trying to figure out how she got here. Why she's still there? She reckons it's for the child to acquire a relationship with her father -- a relationship she has never known. And her unhappiness is visible. For her, emotions have always been written on her face.

And now.
Mr. Nerdy is whispering in the background. The writing is on the wall -- it's over. "This is our time. We needed our experiences to get us here." He claims he's older and figured it out. I want you. I'm still in love with you. I'll move to your city, for the convenience of you and the child. And make it happen!?... And she doesn't know, what to do. Well, rather she's unsure of what to do. She's already done 4 years with babydaddy.
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Ok, folks this is a true story. As true as a heart attack. And Glen Livet has beat me down to share this story for some time. She's seeking thoughts and analysis. Perhaps a fresh perspective. So, please dissect, deconstruct, and discuss.

cheers,

Bellini

Heard it Through the Grapevine

So one of the things that we ladies here at the 5spot planned to do during our vacation down in New Orleans was to work on a house through Habitat for Humanity. This activity became more exciting to me than the fact that we were going to the Essence Festival that Friday night-and as a chick who wasn’t a Beyonce fan I have been converted, that chick is a master performer! Anyways, when I told a coworker that I was going to New Orleans-so good luck with all the mounting projects that were being assigned to us-she asked me what I was going to do. I proudly told her that I was going to help build a house. Well I can’t tell you how pretty my halo and wings looked reflecting through her eyes. I must say Angelic Amaretto is quite a beautiful sight to see.

Okay so cut to last Wednesday when I came back into the office tired and tanner and the one coworker I told has since told other random coworkers about what I planned to do on my vacation. There I was sitting at my desk, catching up on emails and fighting fatigue when Old Man Pseudo Boss came over talking about glad you’re back Amaretto, how was building houses. Um what? Houses? Do I look like I work for Centex Homes, I was only going to “help” build a house-one singular sensation. And so the fact that my coworker told OMPB didn’t really vex me because she talks to him a lot, but it was when Worrisome Willy, Fat Boy, and Trying Tanya all asked me how was my time building houses was…I got a little annoyed. Moreover, at the end of the day my coworker comes over with shock and sadness on her face to say OMPB just told her that I didn’t even build a house on my vacation! There, ladies and lone gentlemen went my halo and wings.

So what happened? Well, why we didn’t make it to the building site really isn’t important. We aren’t blaming anything on da alcohol. But I can say that it really was a perfect storm of a series of unfortunate events that lead us to site see and chill at the pool until it was time to eat.

But the moral of the story is that you can’t trust coworkers with nothing! I mean really it’s troubling that my name came up in at least 5 conversations unbeknownst to me. And worse yet, the information spread was oh so very very wrong! The whole ordeal reminded me of the corporate communication course I took in my freshmen year, I mean as a student I really didn’t care about the world of working but they did list the Grapevine as one of the major forms of communication in the workplace. Three cheers that I can remember that! And all I can say is yes and Amen! It’s amazing how somewhat true information or even bold faced lies can sound like God’s Gospel after traveling through the Grapevine. Now I’m wondering if so-and-so really slept with him and Jim to get that promotion. Or if they are going to really take all of our cubicles away and have us work at rectangular desks in an effort to be green and save money! That stuff in the office air just cain’t be trusted…ever!

Imma have to get Courvoisier to photoshop me with a hammer in hand and President Obama cheering me on in the background, talking about Yes We Can! Then Imma frame it and put in on my desk under my Marid Gras beads…let’s see what my coworkers will say about that!

See You In Seven

Dating Singles with Babies

Every once in a while, there is a recurring theme that pops up in regular everyday conversation. For the past couple of days the single man with no kids or baby mama drama seemed to rear its head in a few. As Belini would say before I commence this conversation with you guys, here is my disclaimer “I believe there is a quite a few single brothers out there without children, which means there are quite a bit of baby mamas out there with babies.” Therefore I am always pleasantly surprised to find a brother without a crazy baby mama (leaving this statement for you Rum Punch…chuckle).

Last week on my way home, my neighborhood RayRay was screaming at the top of his lungs “No way ma’. I ain’t going to have another man raising my baby… that is my blood. My blood! You can’t make me feel good about that!”

Okay! RayRay… but you live at home with your mama. (chuckle)

Now I could go on and on about RayRay’s situation but that is not my chosen topic of discussion today. My topic of discussion is single folks with children and dating. I have dated men with children and it is always a touchy situation when the baby moms hear about you in the presence of the children. And likewise for the single mothers I know in serious relationships with men other than their baby daddies.

With that said, back to my disclaimer, in this day in age, as single mamas and papis set out to find their life partners and become serious with their partner. Should this new potential life mate not assist with the raising of you child, RayRay? Why are you so threatened? Are you not doing all that you can do to provide for your child? Hmm…

Listen, I know a man with two mothers. Two mothers he loves very dearly. I also know a single lady who met the love of her life while she was raising a two-year old little boy by another man. She was the one that told me, if you are serious about being with someone you love all of them. If you really want to make a life with them, you will work to be apart of there life. So RayRay when D’Angelo brings his woman dinner after a long day at the office, he is going to bring enough to feed junior.

I am going to serve this shot to you straight brother, if you doing your job, Jr. will have two pops. No chaser, check my disclaimer, this is the state we live in… you know what you have to do.

And on that note, I will conclude with a clip from one of my favorite movies.

Much luv until next week... peace :)

P.S. Courvoisier doesn’t condone the introduction of people you dating to your children unless it is serious. But it is what it is, let a him/her help out once in a while… this is a team we are building.