What's There to be Thankful for?

It seems like the whole world is full of thanksgiving praises today. Everyone is meaninglessly uttering the words "happy thanksgiving" without giving it much thought. But I can't help but wonder what there is to be thankful for. Sure, many people will point at a zillion things that I could be thankful for today, but none of them seem to matter. I just want my best friend back and I know nothing I do or say will change the fact that she's gone. Forever.

How was I to know that she was already dead inside?
How was I to know when she called me early that morning to thank me for being such a great friend that that would be the last time I heard her voice?
How was I to know when she told me she was sad she wasn't just talking about the usual emotional rollercoaster we all seem to ride at some point?
How was I to know that my best friend was gonna take her own life?

I should have sensed it.
She was my best friend.
She called me to say she missed me and wanted to get together for lunch last week.
But I was too busy.

I was too busy to sit down with my best friend for a lunch that could possibly have saved her life. Her family claims that she was happy and no one could have seen it coming. Everyone's still in shock and the constant police presence, probing questions, and the damn reporters are getting on my nerves.

I knew she was dealing with a lot of things.
I just didn't think it would go that far.
I tried to seek help for her.
I didn't try hard enough.
She didn't even say goodbye.
She didn't leave a note.
I don't know what her last thought was.

I am so overwhelmed right now, I can't think straight. This is the worst week of my life. If one more person sends some stupid text message wishing me a "happy thanksgiving", I'm gonna scream.

I am not happy.
And I am definitely not thankful.
No. Not today.

All I wanna do is curl up in a corner and cry forever.
Cry for my friend and all the pain she endured.
So many things I could have done differently.
But it's too late now.
It's simply too late.

I am having one of "those days". I assume at this point, every female knows exactly what I mean by that statement (sorry for the guys, no way to elaborate further).

A very unfortunate thing happened to one of my friends this past weekend. The kind of thing that makes you wanna scream something like "ALL MEN ARE ASSHOLES", but of course that's absurd, cuz not all men are jerks (this piece of wisdom comes from the fact that I'm in a good relationship. If I were single, it would be a very different statement). Been wanting to blog about it, but it'll probably have several parts to it and I need to embark on the writing when I'm not so mad and incoherent. Instead, I'll write random statements that have nothing to do with anything.
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Baby Oil. Who would have thought magic can be found in baby oil? That it can be used to take you to heaven and back? Maybe I'm the only person on the planet that didn't already know this. But now I do. Since I was 18, full body massages from my boyfriends were never delivered without massage oil. I used to have a fetish for massage oil, and if you can name it, I've probably tried it. Everyone I knew who was in a relationship received massage oil for their birthday because I believed they deserved it. The thought of trying something different never even crossed my mind until Steve came up with this silly fantasy: he wanted to see me covered in baby oil cuz he thought it would be sexy (someone's been watching too many music videos). I tried not to poke fun at this and went along with it. Nothing to lose after all. So what started off as slithering baby oil all over my body turned into a full-blown massage, and it was by far the best massage I ever received. Not to mention the fact that it can do a whole lot of other naughty things....I haven't so much as thought of buying massage oil in four months.
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This is dumb, but what is the equivalent of a wet dream for females? If I remember my class 6 science (or was it class 5) correctly, males have wet dreams when they have erotic dreams and orgasm in their sleep. Nobody mentioned anything about females experiencing the same thing, and I've never really heard about it. But, I have had orgasms in my sleep (and after a lot of prodding, I've finally gotten some of my friends to admit they have too), and I've never figured out whether this has a name or not. So if you just happen to possess that knowledge, wanna share?

Strange Dream

If dreams are a manifestation of your subconscious thoughts, then mine must be pretty messed up. I just had the strangest dream ever and it's actually quite disturbing. There were a whole bunch of people at a party, none of whom I recognized, but had an intuition that I somehow knew them.

I arrive at the party, which is being held in some kind of park. There are people chattering away all over the place. Someone pulls me over and says that they have the best barbecue ready to eat. They open a life-size oven and pull out the meat and lay it on the grass. Only problem is, the meat turns out to be my younger bro, barbecued from the neck down. He's well done, but his head is intact and he starts talking to me. I stare at him and at the person that pulled him out the oven. The person hands me a hack saw and asks me to start cutting up the "meat". Pretty soon, there's a crowd of people gathered around holding plates, waiting for the meat to be served.

I look at my bro's face and he smiles and nods. I start hacking away at his knee and I suddenly start crying, imagining the pain he must be experiencing. The people around me are cheering, my brother's trying to comfort me, and I'm sawing off his legs and thigh, pulling at the "meat" and crying myself senseless. Then I wake up in a cold sweat.

Tree Climbing

I was reading Jadekitten's post where part of it described the scars she got from her days as a tomboy, and that brought back a painful, albeit funny, memory from my childhood that I had long relegated to the recesses of my subconscious.

I was one of those kids whose parents flew to stato when I was a kid, therefore my bro and I ended up being nomads, moving from one family member to another (don't do this to your children people!!) Technically, my bro and I were raised by my grandma, but she was always sick and hospitalized, making it necessary for miscellaneous aunts and uncles to take us in. I think I've always had that rebellious, non-comforming bone in me, and it was no different when I was a kid.

If you were raised in shags, then you know all the bullshit that went along with gender roles. All the "girls are not supposed to wear pants" and "girls should always sit properly so you don't show men your underwear and seduce them" and "girls are supposed to do this and that". Well, I wasn't having any of it, and I often followed my bro and the "shamba boy" to take the cattle grazing, climb trees to get "maperas" and all that kind of stuff that would send my grandma screaming her head off.

This particular morning, I had done the usual chores around the house; washed dishes, swept the house (where were all the child labor laws? Seriously, I was six years old). While my grandma sat on the mat talking to the neighborhood women, I sneaked out and went to the shamba as usual. There was one particular tree I had been trying to climb all week but I didn't seem to get too far and I was getting tired of my bro laughing at me for being a "girl". I was determined to show him that I was no punk and if he could climb the damn tree, so could I.

So there I was, making good progress. My hands were holding onto a branch as I tried to lift my weight off the ground. One branch, two branches, up and up I went. Then...Shit! I was halfway up the tree when my hand slipped and I started my free fall. Lucky for me, there was a branch in my way that stopped me dead, almost literally. My heart was pounding wildly and the adrenaline rush almost masked the pain that was shooting up my spine, coming from my vagina. Great, just great. My bro started laughing, and like a defeated dog, I carefully got down and limped all the way back to the house.

Something was definitely wrong "down there" and the pain got worse and worse. I knew for a fact that I was in trouble, especially if my grandma found out I was climbing trees. A million different excuses ran through my mind, but none of them seemed good enough, even in my juvenile mind. So I slowly sneaked into the house and went to bed, knowing very well that my grandma would have a heart attack at my blatant display of laziness (a girl's not supposed to sleep during the day when there's work to be done, you know).

Eventually, there was no running from it cuz for one, I couldn't walk properly to save my life. My grandma ended up examining my vagina, and deciding that my injuries were serious enough, took me to her elder sister who practiced herbal medicine. The herbs I had to stick up that hole for a few weeks were enough to repel me from herbs for life. And my grandma made sure I put the herbs where they were supposed to go, going so far as to supervise my pee sessions. I guess there is no privacy where children are concerned.

Jade, thanks for that memory. I smiled all day, and for sure I'm calling my grandma this weekend to remind her how "evil" she used to be...LOL.

Decode This for Me

Ok, it's getting a little too serious with all this religion talk. Good topic F.D, it's been awhile since I seriously thought about religion, but I think I'm so done with that for awhile.

Now, back to Steve. He turned 29 a week ago, and he's one of those "I wanna get married and start a family" type guy (can't exactly blame him, he's probably on freak out mode seeing the big "three-oh" is around the corner). Honestly, when we first started dating, I thought it would be another short fling that would definitely be over after a month cuz I thought he would turn out to be like every other guy I'd dated and start trying to talk me into having sex with him. I usually don't become attached emotionally to guys, and can easily walk away unscathed.

The month came and went. I started experiencing emotions I'd never felt before. Somehow, none of my low expectations of him as a guy panned out. Instead, he turned out to be the kind of guy you wish you'd meet, but don't dare hope for. And so we kept dating. After a few months, he made it clear that he was done being in relationships for a joyride and he was looking for something serious. Ok, that's fine honey, except that I'm not looking for anything serious, let alone marriage, kids, etc at this point in my life. So after weeks and weeks of discussing this, we both decided that we should break up before things got too complicated. God knows how short that break up was. So everytime this topic came up, it ended with the line "we should just break up".

Eventually, we decided that it was useless to even try. Whenever I used to think about my future, I imagined myself as this successful career woman trotting around the globe. Marriage and kids never even crossed my mind. Yet, lately I find myself wondering what marriage would be like. Whether or not I can balance a career and a family successfully without going down the "mommy track" or being a horrible mother to my children. Why on earth am I thinking about this? Steve must be brainwashing me with all this bullshit talk.

Ok, so we're in love, but after next summer, we honestly don't know what direction our relationship will take. For some reason, we both seem to think we'll last that long. For now, we're "just dating" for the heck of it as we wait for our fate, the most depressing one being the possibility that I might move to another state so I can pursue a higher degree. That and the fact that we've both decided we want different things out of this relationship and none of us is willing to compromise, which means we have no future together.

So the other night we were just laying in bed talking about a lot of random stuff, when out of nowhere, Steve asked me this question: "What would you do if I got really serious and asked you to move in with me?" I don't know how I got out of this one, but I somehow ended up dodging the question. Now I need someone to decode the question for me. Is he testing me to see how I feel, or was he joking just to get me all hot and bothered, or was he serious? I do realize this is a dumb question to ask, especially since none of you know Steve, but maybe there's a certain guy code that I don't know about. Fire away!

The Future Diplomat...The Response

Wow, I knew I should have checked this page over the weekend, but was having too much fun to dare go near a computer. Advice of the day: Don't EVER arrange for a 6:00 a.m departure flight, with 50 minutes to connect to the next flight, AND expect to somehow make it to work for a 10 - 14 hour shift of gruelling brain activity three hours later. Chances are, you'll wake up late, nearly miss your departure flight, get a one hour flight delay in Chicago due to weather, miss your connecting flight, and arrive at your destination 2 hours later with only an hour to spare before you start work. All that means you'll have to call in at work and tell them you can only work a half day, no point in even trying to lie that you're sick.

Interesting comments on previous post. I can definitely see F.D and Joe rub each other the wrong way (no pun intended BTW). I will have to say that Joe has a point about going to church and finding sinners (you really didn't need to quote all those verses to make your point, but it's well taken). Only problem is, people act as though it's a crime to be a sinner in church, and you'd think some sins are worse than others when clearly, a white lie is as bad as murder; the perpetrators suffer the same fate. So this business of attacking others is truly pointless cuz I can assure you that all the mud slingers are not entirely blameless, just don't walk around thinking you're better off than the next person.

I will be the first to admit that church and christianity as a whole have had a positive influence on my life, just like Kenyangal and plenty of others, I suspect. If I hadn't had that influence, I don't know where my life would be right now, but I do know that it wouldn't be great. At one point in my life, I actually did believe in God, "felt" his presence, prayed for everything, read my bible everyday, and to epitomize it all, I got baptized. However, whatever it was I was searching for, I never found it in God, and I soon realized that to ME, it made no difference whether I prayed, read the bible, etc or not. Things happened anyway. I stopped going to church for a very short period of time, then realized that I'd never really skipped church and my week was never complete if I didn't take that break. So I kept going. And I still go. It's a comfort thing. Not the kind of comfort that makes me think I'm any less of a sinner cuz I go to church, but the kind of comfort I get when I eat I big fatty rich piece of German chocolate cake. And sometimes when I get sick of the "booty this, booty that" songs on radio, I simply switch to the gospel channel. The music is as relaxing as the R & B I adore.

Q, I admire your courage to step outside of christianity and explore other religions. In the end, sounds like you came right back to christianity, perhaps with a better appreciation for it than you did before. At the back of my mind, I don't question God, the existence of God, or any of the other questions many people struggle with. What I do question is His character. Weird? No, I don't know what kind of loving, caring God sits by and watches his people suffer, yet he does nothing about it when they cry out to him for help. That, right there, is my problem. Quite frankly, I don't care much for what other people in the church are doing. I don't care that Ted Haggard had gay sex, bought meth or did whatever, yet continued to preach. Nobody should let other people's hypocrisy affect their faith; after all, you're not worshipping church pastors, other church members or whatever. You're worshipping God.

Having said all that, I still hate hypocrisy, and that's why I refuse to become one of them. My spiritual life is as messy as my emotional one, yet I can't abandon it all together. Maybe someday God will touch me in that special way that others seem to be touched. In the meantime, I will continue being me with a clean healthy conscious. I will never use religion as an excuse for not doing something. Many people prove over and over that's not very effective and only end up living with guilt. Like Legal Kenya pointed out, this is a topic we can discuss till we drop dead, and nothing will have changed.

Religion and Politics. Everyone has their beliefs and nothing you say or do will change those beliefs. So to each his own. All the same, if you're in the U.S. and can legally vote, go out and exercise this freedom. Let your voice be heard and if you don't, then you have no right to bitch about things later. You have your chance, use it. Steve and I are voting tonight after he gets off work.

Ps. As requested, I'll stick to black font. I'm a colorful individual and the different colors do reflect my mood for the day, but I don't want anyone being blinded, so I oblige. Black only for now, until I can't stand it anymore :)

The Future Diplomat

Misleading title, I'm actually responding to the Future Diplomat's sexual morality posts. My response on his blog became too lenghty, so I moved it here.

I see where F.D's coming from and in many ways I can relate to many of his rants. I do go to church (every week in fact, unless I absolutely have something else going on) and I'm very active in that I run the PA system, PowerPoint, coordinate worship service and all the behind-the-scenes things that go to make the service a smooth and enjoyable one. For many observers on the outside, I am a committed christian and many guys around here know me as a "church girl". In reality, that's far from the truth and the only reason I do all those things is that I am good at it and the church could use someone that's willing to do it on a regular basis rather than relying on a volunteer from week to week. I've volunteered at hospitals, my school, at work, and to me, volunteering in church when they need a volunteer is no different. Anyone that's ever cared to ask me about my religious beliefs knows that I go to church out of tradition and not because I consider myself religious, "saved", or any of that stuff. It's just one of those things I've always done.

One of the things about christianity and all this morality bullshit that F.D points out is the hypocrisy that goes along with it. He raises a lot of interesting questions like who decided what books to put in the bible and which ones to leave out, why female sexual freedom is frowned upon etc. Personally, I got to the point in my life where I said fuck religion, fuck culture, I refuse to let those things dictate who I am and how I live my life. Yes, I'm that girl that requires her man to know how to cook and clean cuz I'm no one's housegirl. That I got from my dad. He's the best cook in my family and he's always happy to cook for us and does all the cleaning, even when my mom's around; not your typical African man.

I love masturbating and I'm not ashamed of it, and Steve and I do watch porn together occassionally and it's fun. Quite frankly, I think it's a little creepy to watch porn alone. I am very sexually expressive and uninhited, a fact that's surprised many of the guys that I've dated that always thought I was a timid "church girl". The more reason I am proud of my self-control and the fact that I waited until I was 22 to have vaginal intercourse, something that would have otherwise happened when I was 14.

Where does all this fit with the christianity and culture I was taught to follow when I was a kid? Absolutely nowhere because to some extent I'm sick of the hypocrisy that goes on within these two institutions. I would rather do some of these things out in the open and not be tormented by guilt than be the first to cast a stone when I'm engaging in "immorality" behind the curtain. I believe one can be a decent human being with a good heart without necessarily being religious. So stop with the stone casting already. F.D. you go on and do your thing. You don't have to defend yourself or justify your posts. If someone doesn't like what you wrote, they can go blog about it on their own blogs.
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I'm skipping town this afternoon after the funeral and I can't wait. I'm in need of a break after the week I've had. Especially at work. The damn FDA was around this week and that put everyone on edge and the work environment was totally unfriendly, not to mention the long hours spent there. Thank God my weekend started off right by going to dinner with Steve. He was looking yummy for sure, all dressed up. We had a great waitress who regaled us with hilarious stories of some of the weird patrons she's served before (my favorite was the couple that left a note on their tab asking if she would be willing to have a threesome with them. They even left a number) and at the end of the night, she got a humongous tip. All in all, the three figure dinner bill was worth it and after some great sex, Steve and I fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. Talk about a chilled out birthday. Now have yourselves a wonderful weekend!

Someone's Trippin' and it Ain't me!

Have you ever found yourself wondering what you would do if someone you love, say your cute "little" cousin, outted (is that a word?) herself to you? What would your reaction be? Perhaps you're the biggest homophobe on planet earth, would your views change because you love your cousin so much? Or perhaps you're the kinda person that's never given a shit whether someone's homosexual or not. I mean, what does someone else's sex life have to do with you, right?

Well, about a week ago, I was chatting with my seventeen-soon-to-be-eighteen year old cousin. She lives in a different state with her older brothers and sister and she's the last born. We all grew up together, had sleepovers, the whole works. I never really paid that much attention to her when she was younger simply cuz of the age difference, and I ended up being close friends with her oldest bro and sis. So this particular night, we talked on the phone a tad longer than we usually do, perhaps cuz she was the only one at home when I called. I was in the habit of saying hi and almost immediately asking to speak to the sis or bro.

I don't even know how the whole conversation started, all I remember is her saying that she was really confused. That statement came out of the blue and I wondered what the hell she was talking about. Without even thinking twice about it, she blurted out "I like girls". It took a few seconds for the meaning of her words to fully register. I didn't have a reaction. Perhaps I should have been shocked, perhaps I should have been surprised, perhaps I should have been...what? I waited for that reaction to come, but it didn't. Instead, I made sure she knew that I wasn't about to judge her. I have quite a few gay friends, and have even had chicks hit on me. I've never given it too much thought, mostly figuring it wasn't my business what people did in their beds.

As she went on to describe how scared she was, I actually felt sorry for her. I know her parents and if they ever found out, she would be dead meat. Especially her dad. Doesn't matter that she's a daddy's girl, he will absolutely kill her.

Her oldest brother found out she was a lesbian by reading a letter (or diary? Not too sure, but I guess snooping around runs in the family...lol). He took her out to lunch and told her that he knew she was a lesbian and wanted her to change (um...hello?) He then went and told their other sister, who acted like she didn't hear. She's never said a word to my lil' cousin about it and pretends everything's the same. At the same time, the oldest bro doesn't even talk to her anymore yet they live in the same house.

I thought she was done dropping bombshells, but boy was I wrong. After another few minutes of talking, she reminded me of a time they'd come over to my house for a sleepover when I was in 10th grade. I actually remember that time cuz after finishing primary school, sleepovers almost ceased to exist. Apparently, that was the first time she noticed that she liked girls because she fell for me (at this point I should really be shocked, perhaps worried? I search for an emotion, but nothing's changed. I'm simply listening). She was almost twelve then and when she went home after the weekend, she couldn't stop thinking about me.

When they came to visit this past summer, she'd been acting very strange and I even mentioned it to the bro and the mom, asking if she was having a particularly bad adolescence cuz some of her actions were totally irrational and dumb. Before I could ask her any other questions, she told me how hard it was for her to spend the week at my house, and she was trying to avoid me because she still has a crush on me. Ok, is this my kid female cousin trying to hit on me? Is she for real! This whole thing felt like a big joke. Of course I had no comment so I chose to keep my mouth shut.

I don't remember how the conversation ended, I quit listening after awhile. This past weekend, she wrote me an email saying that she'd been thinking about me all week. She knew I was her cousin and it was wrong, but she couldn't help it. I read the email as I was running off to work and didn't give it a second thought until she called me last night and asked why I hadn't replied her email. Ok, what the hell am I supposed to say? I know for a fact I have no sexual or romantic interest in girls (I can appreciate a cute booty or nice boobs, but not in a sexual way, sort of like noticing your friend has cute shoes on). At the same time, she is going through a stressful and confusing time in her life, and aside from the bro and sis, I'm the only person that knows she's a lesbian. Well, she trusted me enough to tell me, but now, how do I handle this supposed crush that's been there for years without doing any damage? People her age aren't exactly the most rational human beings on earth.

How do I let her know that I support her in whatever choice she makes and I love her regardless, but I'm not remotely interested in her (or any other girls) and quite frankly, she shouldn't have a crush on me cuz I'm her cousin. All this, without hurting her feelings or building a wall cuz I would still want her to talk to me when she's stressed out. Damn!

Tomorrow is Steve's birthday. Can't believe it, but he's turning twenty nine. We were joking last night about our age difference, and even though I've always dated older guys (I've done much worse than 6 year differences), he's never dated a girl that was more than two years his junior. We figured that the year I was in eighth grade, he was a sophomore in college...LOL.

I went out at one in the morning to get his birthday gift. Like most guys I know, he loves video games and one time when we were at the movies, they advertised Final Fantasy XII and he happened to mention that he wanted to buy it. Being a video game dummy, I enlisted the help of other guys and found out that it was coming out on 31st. Apparently, there was a possibility that it would sell out, and not wanting to take any chances, I went looking at 1 in the morn before the rest of the world woke up to go looking for it. I'm very proud of that small accomplishment and no doubt he'll love his present.

After lots of procrastination, I finally made dinner reservations for tomorrow night at my all time favorite Italian restaurant. He's never been there, but I hope he'll love it as much as I do. I just feel really bad that he decided to cancel dinner plans with his parents so he could go out with me. I haven't officially met his parents (been avoiding them like the plague, and I know he's been avoiding mine too, even though they keep asking when I'm gonna introduce him), so I didn't think it was appropriate to have a big happy family dinner. His friends are having a birthday party for him over the weekend, so he decided to just go ahead and spend the night alone with me. Mostly because we haven't seen each other in almost two weeks now, and I'll be going out of town the following day for another week.

On another note, I'm attending a funeral on Friday afternoon. The only funeral I've ever attended for a family member was my grandfather's and the last funeral I went to was in 2000 when one of my teachers died of AIDS. I have no problem with dead bodies (seen a lot of cadavers in recent years) but this is a different kind of funeral. The guy is being cremated and I know this is really really dumb, but I couldn't help but wonder whether we get to watch the cremation. That would be a little creepy, but I don't know which is worse; watching the cremation itself or being handed ashes and storing them in the house ("Meet the Parents" comes to mind here). Anyway, I'll buy flowers and hope for the best. I hate funerals....ok, I doubt anyone loves a funeral, but you get the point...