Zoya Tobey Is Back!

Zoya Tobey is this amazing, vibrant pink that is only here for a limited time! Use the code Tobey to get her free with any purchase at Zoya.com and hurrey! She will be leaving at the end of the month and won't be back until next summer. 

 

The Divorce

Izzy is getting a divorce. Well, not officially, but she is well on her way. She has moved with her kids across the country and is now looking for a lawyer. She is over it and beyond stressed. She calls me for support and sometimes I have no idea what to say. Everything I know about divorce I learned from Lifetime Movies! 

Yet Sally Fields and Tori Spelling are nowhere to be found in this drama which includes entanglements of the Jada Pinkett Smith variety, calling the police, email snooping, text spying, fighting, car keys hiding, sleep deprivation, credit card canceling, and a Kantana sword. This is real life, and I have never been good at that. 

This is so weird for me, because I remember when Izzy and her husband were happy and very into each other. They could not go out in public without passionate French kissing and butt slapping. Now he has changed his number and she has crossed about 20 states to get away from him. 

I was reading in The Bible just last weekend that Jesus is not down with divorce. Like, really not down with it. But I can't imagine He would be down with Izzy and her husband bringing their kids up in a situation that was becoming more and more loco by the day. 

I want my friend to be happy. Life is too short to be miserable. But it is still unbelieve to me how two people can be so in love one minute and resent each other the next. At the end of the day, a lot of money will be spent for funds, custody, and properties to be split, then for each person to go their separate ways and act like they never met. It almost makes you wonder if it is worth the risk. 

Izzy thinks so. She is already looking forward to finding a new forever love, one that is forever for real, minus the lies and calls to 9-1-1/.

Queen Communication

I graduated from college with a degree in Communications which I can't even believe, knowing  how poor my communication skills were back then. There were so many spats that I got into with my friends that were made worse due to my inability to communicate like an adult. That was then. Today, at 35, I'm just now learning how to talk to folks and how to put these new skills into action. I can't take all the credit. God revealed to me not too long ago that I was becoming nearly impossible to talk to and that I am a bad listener. Luckily, Corona has given me a seemingly endless amount of time to work on this. Now I am trying to spread the good news of good communication to my friends. It's been interesting. 

My girl Izzy is talking to a new guy. Everyday she calls me, upset over the communication in this budding relationship. He doesn't text her as much as she would like, and she feels like she is putting in most of the communication effort. 

"Why won't he text me?!" she demanded, beside herself. 

"Did you make your need know that you would like to be texted everyday?" I asked her. 

"NO! If he likes me, he should want to text me."

Sigh. Getting woke on how bad of a communicator I am has helped me to shed some annoying habits. Ladies, we are in 2020. Can we finally flush the Three Day Rule and the "He-Has-To-Call-Me-First rule that someone told us were the rules of engagement back when we were in the 7th grade? Me and many of my homegirls are nearly 40, and we are still operating under the dating communication rules from middle school! It's exhausting and as your friend let me tell you, it is also hard to watch. Stop making expectations without making your needs known! And if you like someone and want to talk to them, do so. I swear, you will feel better. 

In the name of good communication, can we also stop friend-dumping folks without letting them know what they did? Enough! Fear of communicating and having hard conversations is giving us the green light to dispose of folks that we are annoyed with but really care about. There is a chance that your friend doesn't know that they hurt you because YOU DIDN'T COMMUNICATE THAT TO THEM. 

Whew! Being the new self-proclaimed Queen of Communication, it is hard out here spreading the word. But for those of you who will receive it I tell you, communicating better can be scary, but it is also a life saver. Give it a try! Just don't be about it, talk about it. 

Aggressive Rats and the Single Girl

I heard somewhere that the Coronavirus has brought about a new species of aggressive rats. That's right! Just when we thought that things couldn't get any worse. And we are not talking Master Splinter here folks! Apparently, cities being on lockdown and a decrease of people being out and about. has contributed to a downturn in the amount of food and trash being left about. Because of this, rats do not have their usual surplus of food to get into, making them pissed off, hungry, and aggressive with each other. Some of these rats have gone as far as to become cannibalistic, nibbling on their fellow rat brotheran for the nourishment needed to survive. 

I thought that this was sad until my friend Tony told me that he was approached by a coworker to start an affair with her. You see, she knows that he is married, but still wants to get busy. She attempted to lure him into an entanglement by sharing with him her love of oral sex and the...logistics of her vagina. He turned her down, but she wasn't happy about it. Who knew that this type of crazy was happening between America's 9-1-1 operators? It seems as though closed businesses have made it almost impossible to go out on dates, and the Coronavirus in itself has made it unwise to be physical with anyone, even on the most harmless of levels. Tony said that his coworker was hella brazen and assertive. I guess the pandemic has now also turned some single women into aggressive rats. 

I assumed that a deadly virus being on the loose would somehow naturally decrease a woman's desire to get a man. I mean, giving a man a hug could end in you being put on a ventilator. But boy was I wrong! Apparently, at least in my friend group, this has cranked women's desire to get a man up a 100%. So many of my friends are joining apps and trying to get some meetups in before the cities go back to complete lockdown. Unlike with the rats, I hope that my friends don't start eating each other to thin out the competition. Tortilla said it best: People are dying of Covid-19. It makes you realize how important it is to be with someone. So true. No ifs, ands, or rats about it. 

Relationship Energy

So I was talking to a girl I went to college with last week, and as with most of my conversations with women in my life over 30, we discussed being single. Why are we single? What are we doing wrong? Why are men horrible? Are we ever going to get married? Should we just give up? You know, the typical panicked woman over 30 questions.
In this conversation, my friend tossed up a lot of reasons why she could be single. But what she didn't mention is what came through loud in clear through the convo without her knowing it: she still has a crush on her college crush. And you know who the college crush is: the man you had such an amazing chemistry with that you and everyone else but the crush thought you were going to marry. I know first hand that these crushes are hard to ditch. I had a laundry list of them until I was forced to abandon them. I mean, I really had no choice once the dudes got married.
Are you someone that believes in energy? After hanging up with my friend I came up with a reason why she may be single that was not thrown out during the call: perhaps she is still so emotionally connected and invested in this crush that she is giving off the energy that she is in a relationship to single guys.
"That's not it," P said when I ran the theory past him. "Men don't even think like that. Single men try to get with women whether their energy is telling them that that woman is with someone or not!"
I'm not so sure. I can't see a man that is serious about relationships and the prospect of getting married wasting time on a woman who was giving off the energy that she is with or in love with someone else.
So how do we cleanse ourselves of this "with someone but we're not" energy? Child, this is the million dollar question. The simple yet not so easy answer would be to just move on. Maybe get some of those energy crystals that everyone is talking about. All I know is that no one can occupy a space that someone else is already in.

The Hug

The other day I went with my Aunty to go pick up a pizza we'd ordered. While she was in the restaurant, I saw my childhood friend CeCe leaving the gas station.
"CeCe!" I yelled.
She came over to me and I was so happy to see her that I lost myself and I gave her a hug. Immediately, an alarm went off in my brain. NO TOUCHY! She didn't seem bothered by it, but I was so scared that I could've contracted Covid-19 that I almost threw up right there.
It's not my fault! In the area we were in, no one had on a mask. A young couple was making out by the burger joint pick up window an arm's length away from us. NO ONE had on a mask. It was a beautiful sunny day. I was seduced I tell you by the beautiful weather and by the fact that no one, and I do mean no one around me, seemed to be practicing any Covid precautions.
I always have known that touch is my love language, but Covid has shown this to me head on. I have literally be jonesing for a hug and as we all know, hugs are now a no-no.
You would think I would have gotten this through my head the last time I was in the grocery store. I ran into a grandmother from my nephew's pre-K play date, which has sense been Covid-canceled, and I was so happy to see her that I leaned in to give her a hug.
"No hugs!" she yelled so loudly that everyone in the store froze. The security looked over like he was ready to cuff me right there. Again, hugs are a no-no! Especially when it comes to elderly people.
I have tried hugging myself, but it's not the same, go figure. At the risk of sounding way to optimistic, I can't wait until Covid is over. I can't wait to touch folks again.

Mr. Nice Man

I think that I may have come across America's last nice man.  He is a member of my virtual writing group. He is sensitive. He is kind. He genuinely asks how you are doing, and he has a pretty smile. I told P all about him, and P said that he sounded like a...uh... b&tch ass nig@a who could possibly also be doubling as a gay virgin. This response is to be expected of P. In P's opinion, any man that honestly and openly acknowledges his emotions might as well me be wearing high heels and a pair of cotton panties with the words "insert here" stitched on the backside. What was shocking is that my aunty, who is as sweet as a fresh slice of key lime pie, agreed with P who, for all intents and purposes, is a prick. Aunty says that Mr. Nice Man sounds like a wimp.
Have you all noticed there is a war going on against kindness? I mean, seasoned politicians can't get through a press conference without throwing major, below the belt shade! But when it comes to girlboyness, it is especially dirty. I have been battling this war personally since elementary school when it comes to guys. I had a crush on a boy named Keith Edwards in kindergarten who introduced himself to me by walking over and kicking down my lego town. I have been getting my legos kicked by guys ever since. Ray Henderson in middle school. Adam Reid in high school. To go into the college years, I would need a drink, and to go into life in my 20s, I would need therapy.
The thing is that when I was fake in love with or crushing on or talking to these horrible guys, my heart was still pining for a nice man. A guy so great and available that it would be like he fell out of a Tyler Perry movie and right onto my doorstep. But it seems like NICE is the new NOT and is now equated with being unmasculine, weird, a front for something horrible, or even downright homosexual. I think that the real story here is not only have women become unaccustomed with kindness buy also more accustomed to cruelty, inappreciation, and abuse. For many of my girlfriends, it has gone beyond liking a bad boy and has stalled into unintentionally preferring bad men.  I prefer to no longer be stalled. When a nice man pulls up, I'm getting in the car.