Blog 10

The “F” Word

No, I am not talking about feminism. The other “F” word, the dirty “F” word, my favorite “F” word. Fuck. I like the word fuck, it can be used so many ways.

1.) Fuck this.

2.) Fuck you.

3.) Get the Fuck out of here.

4.) Shut the fuck up talking to me please. (This is my personal favorite.)

Sometimes saying the “F” word adds character to your sentence. I know when to use the word. Its not like I am walking up to a bunch of unruly children shouting, “Shut the fuck up!” No. I normally use that word when I am upset or I just feel the need to get all of my cuss words out before I go into work. (Can’t swear at the patrons right?) Men use cuss words ALL the time. My mother never cusses, (if she does, call the law because something is about to go down, she just doesn’t use the language.)

My dad, well that’s a totally different story. I rarely talk to my dad, but I know what kind of language he uses –it isn’t very pretty. I know that men and women use choice language. Sometimes you get angry, and if dropping the “F” bomb makes you feel a little better, great. If not, well that’s okay too.

I know, I know, where am I going with this right? Well, the other day someone kept talking to me. I asked them to please stop talking to me. They didn’t listen. I asked again. Hey, I’m trying to do somethings can you stop talking to me. Once again, “Hey, can you please stop talking to me.” They still get the hint. Finally I said, “Please shut the fuck up talking to me.” You would have thought I poured alcohol in their eyes, stepped on their feet, and sucker punched them. Their face instantly looked like they ate a sour piece of sour ball gum. “Ooh, that language is not very becoming. Ladies shouldn’t talk like that. Women shouldn’t use that language.” And on and on like an Erica Badu song.

Um, Mister Man, are you saying that its okay for men to spout off cuss words whenever they want? I wouldn’t have talked to you like that if you would have just stopped talking to me. However, you kept going. I had to shut you down. Now, its not nice to talk like that to anyone. I don’t care if a man or a woman said it to me, its just not nice. If you don’t want to hear the “F” word, then shut the fuck up and I won’t have to tell you to do so!

Blog 9

If I Ruled the World

(Men would automatically know when I was interested in them. They would be able to sense that I was not attracted to them and wouldn’t be able to even ask me if I had a boyfriend. If they started to, they would get tongue tied and have to ask me about the weather. But shit like that only happens in comic books and this, this right here is real life.)

Last week I blogged about my good friend Gary. Well Gary came into the library today. I think he knows that he has now been de-friended, un-friended, he is no longer in my friends. He no longer speaks to me and today when he came in he just stared at me for a long time. Actually it made me feel quite uncomfortable. I wanted to give him an explanation, but I felt like that he might get the wrong idea from it all.

This is going to sound kind of mean, but I wish he would just use another branch. I don’t think its fair, but I can’t get him kicked out of the branch because he hasn’t done anything. Nor do I want to get him kicked out. I just want him to know that him staring at me makes me uncomfortable. If I told the security guard about it, it would open up a can of worms that I don’t feel like trying to squash with my 5 inch peep toe pumps.) And to be perfectly honest I don’t want any problems.

If I had my way, this is what I would say to my [not so] good friend Gary.

Gary,

What’s up, hey, hi there, how ya doin? I’m great. Just not looking for any new friends. I hope I didn’t offend you when I deleted you from my friends, I just felt that you took it too far. Calling me sexy and posting your phone number on my “wall” for all of my 200+ friends to see was inappropriate. I told you that I had a boyfriend. What I didn’t tell you was I need to keep my personal and professional life separate. That was my mistake. Its fine to still keep things cordial and speak, I just don’t really want you in my personal business. And please stop staring at me like you wish someone would cut my feeding tube.

Take care, and have a nice life.

That’s what I would like to say to Gary. However, I felt like if looks could kill, I would be lying in a hospital because he was trying to kill me with his evil [wonky] eyes. (Okay that was mean, but I’m a little pissed.) I should have been smarter about the situation, but really he should have known better. Especially when I made it quite CLEAR that I was NOT interested at all…

*Please note, I am not placing any of the blame on my [not so] good friend Gary. I take full responsibility. Just chalk this ish up as a lesson learned.*

Blog 8

Yeah, Um… NO!!!

I am a nice person, or at least I like to think that I am. Don’t get me wrong, everyone has their days when its just like hey –I don’t feel like being bothered right about now! Something happened to me the other day and so I feel I must share with my class along with anyone who happens to stumble across this blog.

I often go to the Main Library to study. Its nice to get away from my branch and I don’t have internet at home. That ish is about to change. (Can I say ish on this blog? Too late…) Well, I go downtown to study and a patron that normally uses my library walks right past me. I started not to speak, but I did –in hindsight not saying hello would have been a good idea. Well, Gary (yes I am using his name on this blog, I doubt he’ll read it) takes me saying hello as an open invitation to sit down and start a conversation. Booooo to him right?!

He starts telling me how he is new to Fort Wayne, that he likes it here, that he uses the library a lot. (Good for you Gary, I am happy that you like the library, I like it too!) Then comes the questions…

1.) Do you have any kids?

Why is this the first question men ALWAYS ask? No, I don’t have any kids. I would like to wait until I am married, but if that doesn’t happen that’s fine I still want children. I didn’ t say all of that, I just gave a simple no.

Then came his [ultra shocked] reply — “You don’t have any children?” I swear I feel like dude just hit the jackpot or something. He must have been feeling talkative, because he kept the questions coming!

2.) Do you have a boyfriend?

Nn–Yeah. Yes. Yes I do have a boy friend. He has a child. A Son. Ooh, his son is so cute and so age appropriate too!

(He probably knew I was lying because I started talking way too much. He knew it. But didn’t ask me for my number, and didn’t offer up his. Thank God, seriously. I hate having awkward moments with people I deal with on a daily basis.)

Well, he asked if I had a MySpace or Facebook page. I told him yes. (I love social networking.) He told me to look him up and add him. I said the obligatory okay, (knowing that I would not add him) and told him I needed to get back to studying. He walked off and I thought good, please leave me alone.

I never added Gary. I thought he would take the hint. I assumed he would take the hint, but you know what they say when you assume…

Gary comes to my job and tells me that I didn’t add him and I just give him a blank stare. (How dare he call me out for not adding him to my friends list on Facebook!) I say, “Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow.” He looks at me and says, “Or, you could do it now.” (I am sassy by nature, I wish that ish would have kicked in…) I look him up and he says, “Right there, there I am.” Now I have a friend on FB that I don’t want, who can look into my personal life, who can stare at my pictures, send me notes andwrite on my wall. Why me? Why?

HUH!!!

Fast forward to yesterday. All is well, I am enjoying my day and I get an email stating that my good friend Gary posted something on my wall. Yay! What a great day today is going to be!!! Yippie Skippie! (The previous statements are dripping with sarcasm.) This is what Gary said,

“hey how r u doin how is work goin I just got a new phone its a blackberry this is tha # 260 602 **** gary fill free to call me or text my mins is free at 7 pm if its ok with u if not its cool if u don’t wanna call we still friends take care sexy.”

Huh? I de-friended his tail (I really want to say another word) right away. I told him I had a boyfriend. Leave me alone. I don’t use these sites to hook up with people, I use them to stay in touch with friends and family that I have not seen in ages. He was really never a friend and he sure isn’t apart of my family. I only added him because he hoovered over my computer until I added him. I didn’t know what to say. I was pissed. I am not attracted or interested in this guy at all. Not to say that I am Nia Long, Beyonce, Angela Bassett, Tina Turner, Halle Berry or some other beautiful movie star. But I am LaDonna Chambers, and I am not interested. At. All.

I deleted him from my friends and now I am happy again. If he asks me why I’ll tell him that I like to leave my professional and personal life separate. Sorry. Well, not really.

My point is this. If I don’t add someone as a friend I am a bitch. If I do, I’m too nice or desperate. Where is the in between? There isn’t one –go figure.

Blog 7

Women In Rap

There is a lot of buzz about an up and coming female rapper named Nicki Minaj –basically that she is the hottest one out as far as females are concerned. She recently was a featured artist on one of my favorite songs –Five Star by Yo Gotti. While some may question why I like this song, (especially because of the lyrics) I’ll admit its a club banger! It makes me dance, the beat is tight, yada, yada, yada. I like it. Oh well.

However, I was highly disappointed with the remix. The remix featured Gucci Mane, Trina and Nicki Minaj. I’ve heard Trina rap and her lyrics are okay at best. However, with all the hype about Nicki Minaj I was not impressed with her lyrical skills.

I just had a epiphany
I need to go to Tiffany’s
Fendi on my slippers
And my cookies always slippery

Um where is the lyrical genius at?

Then I looked her up on youtube.com. She gave an interview and she talked about how she wasn’t bringing any sex to the rap game, she was bringing sex appeal… Hmmm. Really? If you are bringing sex appeal, why do you have to mention your “cookies”? (Cookies is another word for vagina.) I looked up some other songs by her and kind of get it, but not really.Then I googled her and TONS of provocative pictures popped up.

I’ll admit, Nicki is a beautiful girl. Stunning even, one of the prettiest smiles I’ve ever seen, but am I missing something? Where does it say that the less clothes you wear makes you some sort of force to be reckoned with? I thought your wore less clothes when you are hot… I don’t get it. I miss Lauyrn Hill.

I just hope Nicki doesn’t follow the footsteps of Lil Kim… Please God NO!!!

Blog 6

Daddy’s Girl

I’ve never had a relationship with my father. Nope. Never. We live in the same city, probably a five minute drive from one another. However, I don’t know his address, and I am sure that he barely remembers mine. I don’t know his phone number and who knows if he managed to program my in his phone –he damn sure doesn’t program me into his life.

I sometimes wondered if I would wind up dating an absentee man because my father was often MIA from my life. I am proud to say that I don’t go for men like my father –I tend to choose men like my Uncle’s –Dale, Lionel and Michael. All of them are my mothers brothers. All of them are family oriented, loving, funny, caring, handsome (yeah, I said handsome), smart, wise and so much more. Yep. These have been my father figures, the ones who helped me when the road got tough. These are the type of men that I like to date.

I know it seems kind of weird that I am blogging about my father, something so personal, so intimate for a class, however it was on my mind. I am on the verge of telling my father to kick rocks, don’t call me and I won’t call you, shut up, eff off, flip em the bird, good bye. I’ve been thinking about telling him that I don’t want him in my life any more, that I don’t care to speak to him. That if he sees me on the street then maybe he should, walk on by. That my life was better because he wasn’t apart of it.

But, how do you tell someone who you are supposed to love that? How do you tell your father of all people, that you want to have nothing to do with them? How do you tell them you were never a father to me –you were never there. How do you quote Carl Thomas (I wish I never met you at all) to your father. Yeah, some might say easy… But, for me, the way I love –its too damn hard.

Someone once told me, you’ll stop when you are tired of being tired. I’ve been tired for a while now, but I’m really tired of being tired today.

Peace.

Blog 5

Happy to be Nappy

Nappy Hair. Yep… Nappy. Buck shots. Nap balls. It didn’t matter, if your hair wasn’t wavy or straight like white people –you had nappy hair.

When I was younger that was the one thing you didn’t want to have as a child –nappy hair, thick nappy hair, a kitchen, bead-a-beads. You better hope your mom gave you a kiddie perm or a relaxer so give you that “white girl” stuff. As long as you didn’t have nappy hair, you were cool.

Fast forward, I am twenty eight and happy to be NAPPY! I wear my natural hair in a fro that I like to call my “Angela Davis.” I love it, my mom loves it, my friends and family love it so much that I have converted most of them to natural. My best friend Danielle did the “big chop” (cutting all of the perm out of your hair) a couple of years ago and she hasn’t looked back.

My co-worker went natural (freeing herself from her attachment to chemical relaxers) about a year and a half ago. She doesn’t rock a fro, but her hair is beautiful and healthy. She’ll never get a perm/relaxer again. People come into the library day after day and compliment us on our hair. When we tell them what we have done their response is this, “My hair is too nappy. I can’t do it.” I want to scream ARE YOU SERIOUS? WHO TOLD YOU THAT LIE? I want to let them know that our hair is beautiful be cause it is ours. Whether is is loose and wavy or tight and curly with a beautiful all around kink. Our hair is beautiful because it is our own. Who said that I had to look like a blond fair skinned barbie to be pretty? Who said that my hair had to be bone straight in order to be considered beautiful?

WHO SAID I AM NOT AMAZING JUST THE WAY I AM?

Just the way God intended to me to be?

Yeah, my hair may not be bone straight. I may have to wear a scarf to keep this wild (beautiful) stuff in line. So. I. Don’t. Care. I’m beautiful, inside and out. I am happy to be nappy!

Peace and Love!

Blog 4

Here We Go Again

I like parties, they are intimate, fun, and generally everyone has a good time. This weekend there was no exception to that rule –well, may there was. My best-friends sister had a surprise party for her boyfriend. I was invited so I went. Once all the fuss was over we sat down to eat. I grabbed a Pepsi. Not my favorite choice of drink while at a party, but I am slowing down on the liquor. (Kind of.) My bff was supposed to make jello shots, but she forgot. I offered to run to Wal*Mart to buy some jello and we could put it them in the freezer, they would be done in no time.

I went to Wal*Mart, she went home to grab her liquor and we came back to the place of the party. Well, we make the jello shots and start passing them out. (I like them so I made sure to grab at least four –what can I say it was a pretty big party.) Well towards the end of the night we made the last batch of jello shots and started passing them out. Who doesn’t love a shot?

One guy had been flirting with me all night. I ignored it, I kind of hoped he would get the hint. Nope. Well, as we are passing out the shots, (I already sucked mine down) he asks, “Hey, how do I do this?” (In front of his buddies. I shrugged my shoulders –thinking –hey idiot, its pretty self explanatory.) He looks at me and said, “Like this?” Sticking his tongue in the jello shot in a really sexually suggestive manner. It was inappropriate. I shot him a disgusted look (I can make some pretty mean faces when I want.), and walked away.

Talking to someone after the party I said something about it. Their response was, “Oh, you know how men get when they are drunk.” Did that really just come out of your mouth? Seriously? I have issues with that. Who wants to go some place and have to worry about a drunk man? Don’t get me wrong, I am well aware that many of us have had too much to drink at one point in time. However, please be respectful.

Then I came across this…

Some things are not acceptable, I don’t care if we are in a relationship or not…

Blog 3

I Feel Like A Woman

Today, while walking into my place of employment, I spit. Yep, I spit. I felt a mucous build up in my throat and I got rid of it. A man walked past me and asked/said, “You know that’s not very lady like, right?”

*Really? Who cares what you think.*

The other day while I was at work, I cried. I cried and cried and cried. For all of the things that I want, for many of the things that I will never have. I’m a crier. It feels good when I am allowed to release –real good. My co-worker asked me if I was getting ready to get a visit from good ole Aunt Flow. I told them no. But, I wish that was the case.

*Not mad that they asked that, but why do my hormones have to be “raging” in order for me to really let loose? Can’t I be happy, sad, mad or whatever I am feeling at the moment.*

I give those two examples to say this. I see men spit ALL the time, I don’t make any comment on it. I see women spit too, I throw no shade. (Meaning I don’t give any side-eyes, nor do I comment.) I don’t care if you spit, just try and spit in the grass so I’m not walking in it. I don’t carry a case of tissues in my purse on the chance I might have to spit. I try to do it in the grass. Don’t tell me that I am not a “lady”. If you are man and you happen to enjoy the colors pink, lavender, teal, or some other “girly” color –I’m not going to judge you, please don’t judge me.

Also, I cry. Not because I am a woman, but because I am human. Don’t make the assumption that I am being overly sensitive because my monthly cycle is about to arrive. I’m human. Let me be me –tears, spit, dresses, pants, smiles and all.

Blog 2

Treat Me Like I Want to Be Treated

The other day while I was at work this man decided to “flirt” with me. First things first, I don’t date men that I work with or come into my job. (Working with the public is weird for me like that and it makes things worse if a breakup goes bad.) I decided to ignore him. What’s a little harmless flirting? (Even if it does make me a little uncomfortable.) I hoped that me ignoring him he would be able to take the hint and leave me the flip alone. No haps. He wasn’t letting up.

I checked out his stack of DVD’s (that made me feel like I worked for Blockbuster instead of the library) and told him to have a nice day. (Maybe the only thing I should have said was the date his movies were due back.) His response was, “Thanks baby, you have a good day. I’ll see you soon.”

My skin began to crawl and I was disgusted. This man comes into the library on a daily basis. It seems like he singles me out when he needs help, even though there are 4 other people who work here. What am I going to say, “Sir, I don’t like that you called me baby –it made me feel uncomfortable, I don’t want to help you anymore…” –will that fly? I don’t think so. I also don’t want to say anything to the security guard, because (in my opinion) it’ll make the situation worse. According to him, I may just be “overreacting”. (I know that’s not the case.) However, how much is too much? When is enough truly enough?

This isn’t the first time that I have felt uncomfortable while working with some of the patrons at my job. One patron rented tons of books, games, and videos from my branch –we’ll call him John. Naturally, I knew his name because I stared at his library card all the time. Flexing my excellent employee skills one day I said, “Have a good day John!” He didn’t know my name so he took this as perfect timing to learn my name. He grabbed my name tag (which hung conveniently on a lanyard) starting at the top by my neck and slid his hand down –brushing his hand across my breast. I was livid. Why couldn’t he just ask me my name? What made him reach across the circulation desk and fondle me? I immediately told my manager what happened and the next day she said something to him. He said that I was making a big deal out of nothing, and that’s not how it happened. (Oh, so I’m a liar now?) I disliked this man so much. What gave him the right to violate me like that? Did he truly think it was acceptable?

After that I stopped wearing my name badge because I didn’t want to deal with any patron who thought that feeling me up was okay. John didn’t speak to me for a couple of years, which was a-okay with me. He just recently started speaking to me again. I speak, but I make sure our conversations don’t linger. I would hate for him to think it was okay for him to say something inappropriate and then I’d be marked as the one who was “blowing things out of proportion”.

I type all of that to say this –why do [some] men think that women want that type of attention. I don’t. Especially if I am at work, and if I don’t know you I don’t want you to say those types of things to me. Nor do I want you to touch me. Since when is it okay to go around calling women names like, baby, sugar, sweetheart, love, gorgeous and so on? Bottom line –its not okay. Nor is it okay to molest me. I spend most of my time either at work at or at home, I like to feel comfortable in both places.

Blog 1

This is my first post, a practice post for my Women’s Studies class at IPFW.  Hmm. I don’t know what to write, which is funny because I LOVE to write and I almost always have something to say. Right now I am drawing a blank.

So, I guess I’ll start off with a little about myself. My name is LaDonna, I would post my last name but the world is full of many stalkers. Since I am fly, I’ll play it safe and avoid giving excess information about myself. I love art, mainly body art. I have 9 tattoo’s and I love them all. I would like to have more, but my mother loathes all but one of my tattoo’s. Although I don’t have children, I love them and cannot wait to become a mother. Wait, let me re-phrase that. I love children and am very excited to become a mother when the time is right!

Also, this isn’t my first time keeping a blog, I blog about knitting a lot over at www.blackpurlgirl.blogspot.com. However it has fallen off, I’ve neglected my blogging duties, partly because I was enjoying my summer too much and didn’t have time to think about blogging! I’m not sure how I feel about wordpress just yet. It is kind of confusing and there seems to be a lot going on with it. I’ll figure it out I’m sure!

Hmm. Let’s see. I am a black woman. A believer, daughter, lover, fighter, sister, aunt, cousin, mentor, knitter –and so much more.

That’s all for now. If you would like to know anything else feel free to ask –be warned, I may not answer! ;o)