Finding Cameron

I found my kindergarten/ 1st grade crush on Facebook! Well, I didn't really find him. He popped up as a friend suggestion. I don't know what made me pay attention to the suggestion. I usually ignore them because I NEVER know who Facebook says I should but there he was: Cameron. 

I went through his page with my stalker hat on, trying to figure out what he has been up to all these years. He isn't that consistent of a Facebook poster, but from what I could tell, he has had a good life. He graduated from an HBCU. He is a Sigma. I don't know what he does for a living, but he looks like success. The only thing annoying on his page is that he has a girlfriend and it looks like they do workouts together. Gross. 

Seeing that he had not posted anything in months, I decided to send him a friend request, not expecting him to respond. He accepted it a second later, and since then (which was Monday morning), I have been in a state of euphoria. 

Come with me on my mental spaceship to 1990, East Point, Georgia. I was obsessed with edible bracelets and glow in the dark scrunchies. I had a serious addiction to Fruit Rollups, and I was majorly crushing on the boy that sat beside me in class. His name was Cameron, and his voice was high and his laughter was loud and sounded like he was singing. His head and face were always shiny, like his mom put oil on his hair and then rubbed the rest of it over his face. I actually know that is what happened because my grandma did that to me all the time. He was mischievous, but he wasn't bad. He just liked to do little annoying things that got him sent to time out. And he had slits in his eyebrows. Child. I am into men today with eyebrow slits! 

Looking at his page, I realized that I have been into the same type of guy my whole life, which further feeds into my feeling that you are who you are when you are born and do very little evolving as you get older. The cards are dealt from the jump. Okay. I am starting to babble. The point is I recently came across the man named Cameron, smiling and being lighthearted on social media, and I can totally see why I was into him when I was a child. Just thought I would share. 

Summer Scents: Good Chemistry

I can be a little persnickety when it comes to fragrances, especially in the summer. For me, this is a time for softer, lighter scents, and often the ones that are recommended to me are way too heavy for the heat. Well, Good Chemistry has nailed it with this collection of beautiful summer scents that coasts on amazing blends of fruit and vanilla. Here are a few of my favorites:

When you think Sugar Berry, think raspberry with a touch of vanilla. Think beach vibes. Think vaykay. It's one of those fragrances that you wear and then end up sniffing yourself throughout the day. Yes, she's that yummy! 

Be careful with Cheerful Charmer, she's sexy! With hints of coconut milk, apple blossom, and vanilla, she's giving summer love. She's giving little black dress. She's giving good trouble all season long! 

Pink Palm is cute. She's clean. She's the fragrance that you reach for when you want to give them just a little something to talk about. A mix of dragon fruit, magnolia, and sugared vanilla, Pink Palm needs to be a staple in your purse for the summer. 

Not only does Good Chemisty have great fragrances, it's also a great company all around. Their products are dye-free, paraffin-free, paraben-free, and GMO-free. They are also PETA Certified Cruelty-Free and Vegan. Their fragrances range from $28.99-$12.99, so they are also affordable. I think that my absolute favorite is Pink Palm. Let me know which one you fall in love with. 

Black Doug Funnie and the Fight for Love

I have been dreaming a lot about men lately. P says it is because I am horny, but I don't think that is what it is. In these dreams, I am just talking to these men on some getting to know you, getting to know all about you type of stuff. Last night's dream was no different. 

Do you believe that God communicates with you through dreams? I do. So as a single woman dreaming about men, I am trying to pay extra attention to what God may be trying to say. I am in no way a dream interpreter, but I am going to try to figure out what He was trying to say in the dream that I had last night. 

Okay, so in the first part of the dream I am some type of Fear Factor death match with zombies and Jason and Freddy kinds of characters. After fighting tooth and nail, I make it out victorious. And I mean, I was fighting; punching, kicking, clawing, and even roundhousing these monsters. I think that this is representative of being single in Atlanta for over 15 years. I mean, can you think of anything scarier?

After I won the battle, I ended up in the lobby of my grandmother's old retirement home. I think that this is representative of my fears of being old and alone. There was a group of people hanging out in the lobby, and I was waiting for the elevator to go up to see my grandmother. I think that this represents how I often wish I could ask her for her advice. 

While I was waiting, a man taps me on the shoulder and asks me if I'm single. And I am like, "Yeah." He asks me how old I am and I tell him. Then he tells me how old he is, and I don't recall the age, but I know he was younger. Sigh. What I think God is telling me here is to not disregard the tenderonies even though He knows that I would like a man my age or older but hey, you can't argue with God. 

Talking to this man, I felt very happy and loved and at peace. He got on the elevator with me and my aunt, who appeared out of nowhere, and he was talking to her. I think God is reassuring that whoever this mystery man is, he will get along with my...interesting family. 

The thing that I remember most about this guy is that he looked like a Black version of Doug Funnie from the hit '90s Nickelodeon show "Doug". He even had on the same outfit and everything! And in my dream, I just felt like he was so adorable. 

P once told me that your dreams are not about what they seem to be about on the surface. I don't think this is true for me because God knows that I am not good at riddles. If He wants to give me a message, He knows He has to give it plain and simple. Hopefully, God is saying that my man is a loveable nerd, possibly born in the '90s, who will love me like Doug loved Patti. So now, my eyes are super peeled for this dream lover. If you run across a big-nosed Black man in a sweater vest and khaki shorts, send him my way. I'm trying to see something...

Bye-bye Boy Beus

Getting baptized was a huge event in my life. I made a decision to try to do better and be better. That included making a conscious decision not to lie or hurt people. I also tried to let go of some bad habits. One of these bad habits was spending time on Instagram being thirsty in a dehydrated fashion. 

After many nights of my friends dodging my phone calls or not finding anything good to watch on Netflix, I am sad to admit that I have fallen backwards into my favorite naughty pastime: profile stalking really hot men with dark skin and abs on social media. 

Cigarettes can be addictive. I know that firsthand from watching my mom kick the habit cold turkey. And alcohol is a nightmare too. A couple of my college friends have had to dry out from the bottle. But is there anything more addictive than tall, muscular, Black men on IG doing deadlifts in hoochie daddy workout shorts? It's like kitty nip to me! 

I shutter to think how many nights God has watched me under my blanket, scrolling through hunks until my thumb started to tingle. And let it just be known: I love them all. The physical trainers that meal prep grilled chicken breasts topless. The professional men that do tutorials on how to style a suit. The bearded brothas that lather their facial hair in Shea butter. The social justice hotties with wild locks and afros that wear tees with Africa on them. And who can forget the trap guys that do little videos from the front seats of their Dodge Chargers? I mean, the list go on and on!

After I got baptized, I stopped following a lot of these guys. It was for the best. I didn't see how I could be lusty and Godly at the same time. So, bidding adieu to the cuties was an act of good faith on my end. Then it seemed like as I got more stressed out about school and life and friends and work and whatever, I desired to look up the eye candy again. Somehow, I was able to refrain...until about 40 of them came up on my Explore page one day. That was all it took. Now I have moonwalked back down the rabbit hole of the fit and the sexy. It's a sad story. 

Now it is time to get back on the right track and ghost these guys. Even the sexy one with the beautiful smile that I tell myself I follow because he gives out great workout advice. Oh please. 

I will keep you posted on my progress. 

Engagement and the Retired Thug

My friend Angela recently had a Netflix and Chill day date that she was very excited about. Whenever she tells me about a new beau I hold my breath, because she is a notoriously bad partner picker, primarily because she is a heavy proponent of thug love. And I have been here through all of them: the trapper, the rapper, the swinger with OCD. Before she even got started with the story, I was already preparing myself for the BS. 

Apparently, this guy is not a thug...he's a retired thug. He's gone legit everybody, making gourmet food for a laundry list of clients. She said that he opened her car door for her and was a real gentleman. He actually sounded like he may not suck until she told me that he is engaged. 

I swear, anything flies in Atlanta. How do you date someone who is engaged?! I know that people are grown and that they are going to do what they are going to do, but Angela's baby daddy was a cheater. She has been cheated on before. I brought this to her attention and her response was, "Yeah, I felt some type of way about it. But I'm bored."

?

She assures me that the retired thug is nothing serious. She says he has proven that he can't be taken seriously because he is engaged and dating. That's the understatement of the season! As I continued to listen to the deets about the day date, I thought about his fiancé who was possibly snuggled with him at that very moment. I also thought about the boulder of karma that could be rolling full speed at my friend's face. Listen, when I was younger and did something stupid that was karma-able, I would dedicate some months to the universe for forgiveness. These days, I try to stay on the straight and narrow. I don't have months to give away! And neither does Angela. I see this going nowhere fast, hopefully. It's hard to watch friends you loved do dumb ish. 

The 20 Year Itch pt 2: Merch

So, yesterday I logged on to Facebook, minding my own business, when I came across a post from a Toni, a woman that went to high school with me. She's on the planning committee for our 20-year reunion. She did a post to let us know that the Target closest to our old high school sells the high school's merchandise, and we would also be able to purchase high school merch (t-shirts, hoodies, etc.), at the reunion! Yay! 

I stared at this post blankly for like five minutes. It astounds me how different other people's high school experience was from mine. When I think of high school, I think of bullying and being immensely unhappy. I think of how this high school was one of the last ones in Georgia to take down the Confederate Flag from the flapping proudly in its lawn...I think. Well, I assume it's down now. Back in the 99s and 2000s when I was there, the parents had voted to keep it. Can you imagine being 15 and Black trying to explain to a 55-year-old White teacher why the Confederate Flag is problematic?! There are no memories from this place that make me want to put on a tank top with the high school's mascot plastered on it, believe me. 

Oddly enough, Toni had reached out to me a few weeks earlier via Facebook message, asking me directly if I was coming to the reunion. She and the committee were trying to figure out how much food to get and what venue to book. Toni was always cool with me. We were in remedial math together. But my instinct to reading that message, which was very sweet by the way, was to tell her to kiss my ass! I wanted to ask her why she was so eager to celebrate this nightmare? Could my poor Black experience had been that much different than her middle class Asian one? I guess so. If it had not been, she would have known to not even waste her time reaching out to me at all. 

Merch. Incredible! 

Oh, and I didn't tell you the best part: Bradley Barker is on the committee too! This for me is truly unbelievable. Bradley was then what he is now: a fat, Anime-loving, horribly dressed weirdo. This boy was made fun of so badly for being himself that I used to wonder if the student body was in cahoots to make him lose his mind! He was socially rejected and lost every SGA office race you could possibly run for! I should know, I was his campaign manager for his race for Regional President of a club we were in together. I guess 20 years has erased these memories for him, because he is now posting on social media posting about reunion ticket sales. What?! The boy had been so hurt about losing the Regional President race that he literally cried in my lap! 

I can't wait until the reunion goes down so that the publicizing for it will end and I can stop being traumatized whenever I go online. I try to pretend like high school didn't happen, and I'm eager to do that for the next 20 years. 

COVID Brain

Question: has society become completely inept?

I only ask this because, as I go through life trying to handle business and participate in adulting, I notice that those that I am communicating with seem to have no idea what is going on. They never know what I am talking about. They can never find the email. Everyone at the call center has different info on their screens. Nothing is being shot with troubleshooting. All the agents are giving is the verbal equivalent of a shrug, whether your warranty is up or not. WHAT IS GOING ON? There can't be something in the water because there has been something in the water. I have noticed that there has been a significant lag in humanness since COVID. 

A long time ago, a breast cancer survivor came and spoke to the organization I volunteer with. She said that, because of the chemo she had gotten, she was very forgetful. She said that people would walk up to her, tell her about times when they'd gone out together and hung out, and she could not remember them. This is called Chemo Brain. I think that working America is suffering from COVID Brain. A mixture of being allowed to chill too hard for too long mixed with the nostalgia of receiving stimulus checks has made those required to be even mildly produce completely unproductive, and let me tell you something, I CAN'T! 

Sadly, I do not have the temperament for the neverending runaround that has become trying to get something done in the post-COVID world. This means that I have a frustration-induced anxiety attack whenever I need to contact the bank or anyone's customer service line. It's like walking on eggshells! I hope that the flow of life straightens this...situation out naturally. Every professional interaction I have can not continue to end with me screaming.