Throwback Tuesday part I

My apologies ya'll, its another crazy day in la officina and I am trying to fight off the cold my coworker brought up in here-why don't people just stay home when they are sick? I think me myself personally will be leaving working early myself! So I am going to have to give ya'll another Amaretto throwback. I wrote this over two years ago and I think the sentiment still rings true, where is the time going?

See You In Seven
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Holding Back the Years

I can’t believe that it’s already November. What happened to those seemingly endless summer days of childhood? Seriously, what happened to this past summer? As the calendar keeps advancing I keep pushing deadlines for personal goals farther back. As Stormy said, 30 is the new 20 right? So having it all together which includes-career, doting husband, 2.5 kids, house (maybe in a gated community) and all around fabulousness-can wait until I’m forty, because I don’t think I’ll have it all within the next four years. And while I don’t want, nor plan to wait that long, I do wish I could hold time back a bit.

A couple weeks ago I ran into a dude I went to high school with. He was neither friend nor foe so I was going to act like I didn’t see him. But he decided to say hello and so we got to talking, well gossiping about our former classmates. He told me about so and so who lost their mind in college drinking and “experimenting.” And about such and such who quit her job because she’s engaged to some rich guy. And he, himself was expecting his first child with a girlfriend. So many changes have occurred for some people yet sometimes I feel like I’m in the exact same place I was nearly ten years ago.

These type of conversations get one to being introspective and I began to think about young Amaretto and the person she was. Back in the day, it was so important to get my crush to notice me. So I would plan to accidentally bump into him in the hallway. There was always a plan to smoke and drink at someone’s house when their parents were away. And Friday and Saturday nights were spent cruising the streets in a friend’s broke down car-sanging along with the radio. Good times! But along with the trivial there were plans for what my adult self would do…

I guess this is what getting older is like. Planning, living, revising, reminiscing, wondering, and letting go. This song has been speaking to me lately. It was hot when I was like four and the video’s fashions are quite hilarious. But this British group, Simply Red must have known that folks would be able to relate to the feeling and fear of wasting our limited time…

Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to my future and keeping my past where it belongs- behind me. It’s just sometimes I think about young Amaretto who really thought I would have it all together by thirty. Such a lofty, and maybe slight crazy, goal-but even still, I don’t want to fail us. Occasionally I wish time would slow up, but since that’s not going to happen I’ll keep striving during these years to make young Amaretto’s dreams my reality.

Life's Order

Excuse me if I sound like Amaretto today but this weekend totally reminded me that life works out differently for everyone. So why are we still saying that life’s story is written this way?

• Graduate form high school
• Go to College
• Graduate from college
• Get a good job
• Get married
• Buy a house
• Have children
• Live happily ever after

Supposedly in this order is the best way and the most common way to get to the happily ever after. Well I am about to say out of all the people I know this has worked for only 10%. Real digits.

Much luv until next week… peace and Wale (like whale without the h? or Wales without the s? chuckle)

Me, Myself and I

Localicious, do you watch Girlfriends? I’m asking Localicious because I know that she’s definitely our one reader. Lol. No, I’m kidding. Everyone out there, do y’all watch Girlfriends? Do you remember how after Toni married Dr. Todd, she found out that he was broke and deep in debt – which meant they were in deep debt, and yet she went out and bought this ridiculously expensive purse? That was kinda selfish.

And while Toni was never the most generous person, she definitely didn’t try to make any significant character changes once she got married. I mean ideally it should happen before you got married as you’re working on you (heh), but definitely after you got married, you should start learning the word sacrifice. And compromise. And wrong.

Anyway. I have been thinking about how one can become set in their ways. Settled in their singleness. Comfortable being companionless. I know an older woman who has never been married, who rarely dates, who recently got asked out by a seemingly nice man. And she hesitated. And seemed kinda annoyed by it. Like how dare he come all up in my space, wasting my time, asking me out on a date. Now, here I am at 28, like SQUEAAALLL!!! Are you gonna go? What are you gonna wear? And so on. And she’s looking at me like, “chile please.”

And as I get older and roam this Earth alone and start not really minding that I’m alone, I wonder, what will happen if someone comes into my life? Will I be able to consider someone else’s feelings? I mean the last time I was in a real relationship, if I came home from dinner and had leftovers – I hid them in the vegetable crisper cause I didn’t want to share!!!! That’s kinda selfish. Lol.

And um I’m still that same person. Probably worse now cause I really haven’t been with nobody in forever. But when there’s no one to hold a mirror to your relationship behavior, how do you know how you’ll be? Or how do you know that you'll be better than you used to be? And if you do know the things that you should change, your growth opportunities as it were, is it worth trying to become a better person when it feels like you might be alone for what seems like infinity?

And so then I was thinking about how maybe, perhaps, people who get all used to being single, alone, by they damn self, end up missing their blessing because wrapped up in their comfort can be routine and resistance. The routine of going from work to home to work to church to home to gym to work to hanging with the same friends to work to home. Vacation! Work to home to work. Resistance to newness. Resistance to changing one's self, or character, or circumstances. Or even just stepping out there into the unkown.

Cause being alone, even though there can be gripes and complaints, is easy. You know what to expect when it's just you. You don't have to answer to anybody. Or ask somebody what they want to eat. And then cook it. You know where you keep everything. And you know how you like everything kept. And you don't have "time" (that's in air quotes cause in reality you do have the time) or patience for no one to come messing things up. But maybe that's all just a front cause you're afraid of being part of a two cause you know that ish is hard. That is ish takes work. That ish takes all of you.

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

You get the live, long version, cause Sony won't let me put up the video which I love! Shaking my fist at the man!

words of wisdom for road weary women

over the weekend, i got into one of my bi-monthly funks.  you know how you just get annoyed with everything and everybody.  on saturday i was kinda feelin that way.  i was a lil sick and tired of living the single life.  f' what you heard. sometimes a woman needs the comfort of a man.  not sporadically but every day of the week.  to come home to.  to build with.  to pour all your love into.  or at least to accompany you to the late night spot to dance to ?uestlove on the turntables until the sun comes up.  i'm just sayin...

i see you over there giving me the side eye like, isn't this the same chick who a few weeks ago was talking that "single women ought to stop focusing on the ring, the dress, the flowers, the chapel, the status, the "married" box on applications, age, mamanem, being the last one, a house full of cats, dying alone, and all those other foolish images that spring into their heads when they get all worked up about not being married....and DO YOU!"

yes that was me.  and i still believe that women shouldn't be hunting marriage for marriage's sake.  marriage aint all its cracked up to be.  and what snapped me outta my funk this weekend was a call from a male friend of mine.  he got married this past june and is now feeling like his marriage is falling apart.  as i listened to him vent i had a couple of thoughts:

what that got to do wit me?

damn gina....you aint made it 6 months!!

ima need people to stop, look, pray, & discuss before they leap into marriage 

after talking to him, i let out a long sigh of relief.  despite all the challenges of being single, at least i don't have the headache of being legally tied to someone who i'm having second thoughts about sharing the rest of my life with.

and then, as i  usually do when i need to vent, i talked to rum punch about it and she made me feel soo much better.

me: yeah, ima just gon head and be single for [insert indefinite time period here] 
rum punch: lmao, that really made me laugh

me: craziness all around

rum punch: well you'll be single, until you’re not single cause someone worth your time will make u not wanna be single :-)

words to live by!

forever grateful...

100 Yard Dash

Some my favorite music genre lies somewhere between Earth Wind and Fire and the Delfonics. Thanks to Mamma and Pappa Amaretto I love, enjoy and appreciate most music that was weeeeell before my time. When music was played by musicians and not computers. When singers could actually sang...and they looked like regular imperfect people-fat, ugly, wore their wigs crooked. I think those are the good ole days. I like the songs from the 60s and 70s because their songs were subtle. I'm not saying that folks weren't trying to get all up in each other's pants, but men at least took women to dinner first. They were all mad about having to buy a little $8 drink!

Take Slave's Watching You.

Do you notice that this song song is about stalking? I remember being in the car with my dad driving and we are both grooving when I realized this man is stalking this chick. But it was so clever and almost sweet. R. Kelly could never pull this off! Instead I get to hear how R. Kelly talking Invented Sex. Really Mister Kelly? Ugh!

Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong decade. I'm an eighties baby with a sixties baby's soul. I think that's why I am totally feeling this song. Raphael is channeling some good stuff with this!

Did you notice that he's singing about his attraction to this woman? He's not trying to "Superman" her or have her lick his Lollipop...well maybe he is. But I like the fact that he wants to sing her a little song first!

See You In Seven

Forever!