Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Your space?

Okay, so I'm working on my school project about "The State of the Young Black Male."

I google the phrase to see what kind of articles
or studies have been written about the subject.
I come across a blog by a young man. It mentions
something about the life and times of a young Black man
in the subhead. He has links to his twitter account, myspace, facebook and Morehouse college.

The young man's blog include his thoughts on various
issues - the gay marriage debate in D.C., unemployment,
education, Michael Vick, Tyler Perry v. Spike Lee, the
Henry Louis Gates episode, etc. There are also several photos
of him, including one where he's wearing a Morehouse t-shirt.

cool.

So, I'm quickly scanning through the different blog posts and come across
one about his latest one night stand.
He writes how he went to a club in Atlanta, met a guy and followed
him home. He talked about the guy's Mercedes Benz and his huge, uh, "house."
Then he went on to discuss how they had sex for an hour and how
the guy gave him breakfast in bed the next day.

okay.

I get to another posting and it's about how he met a guy at Morehouse. He learned that the man worked on campus. One day, he went to the guy's office. They talked. Then he mentions something about an oral sex session.

huh?

After his post about a lap dance from a guy he had a crush on, I stopped reading.

What do you guys think about this?
What if a potential employer "googled" him? Is this any different than me talking about my bad dates?

My professors always warn us that what we put on the internet could follow us or for a better term "haunt" us for a very long time.

Thoughts?

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The Second Time Around

I came across a beautiful story in today's Washington Post.
It was about a man and woman who had found love again.

A year ago, the 75-year-old business executive and 78-year-old stylish woman with "gold earrings and auburn hair" were living in the same retirement community. One day he asked her to a ballet performance. Soon after, they were inseparable.

""We had a lot of cups of tea together. A lot of hours of conversation," the woman said in the Post article, "really getting to know each other."

They found they had a lot in common. Both of their marriages had lasted more than 50 years and both of their spouses had died in December 2007 from long-term illnesses.

And they both believed that they would never love again.

After dating for several months, the couple planned a trip to California. But before their visit, the gentlemen did the proper thing: He got on one knee and proposed to his lady love.

"I wasn't going to take her there and try to sleep in the same room without marriage." His petite wife agreed, saying, they weren't going to be "shacking up."

The couple got married this summer and are still adjusting to their life as newlyweds. They are both happy they found love - again.

In the Post article, the great-grandfather emphasized the importance of their union: "You're so used to sharing ideas, so used to planning, so used to doing for, doing with. It's everything," he said of their companionship. "It's everything."

I found lots of lessons in this story.

What are your thoughts?

Saturday, October 17, 2009

To Love and "Obey"

During the Real Housewives of Atlanta episode last Thursday,
former football player Ed, jokingly told his wife, Lisa Wu,
"You better to sit down and obey your husband."

It was all in fun of course. But what do you think of "obey" in terms of marriage?

Do you think wives should "obey" their husbands?

What are your thoughts on this?

Saturday, October 10, 2009

A Do-Over

In this month's O, The Oprah Magazine, columnist Lisa Kogan asks, "If you could redo just one moment in your life, what would it be?"

Kogan talks about how she regrets ditching her grandmother one evening for a friend's birthday party. The next morning her grandmother went in the hospital and she never came out.

"If I could just get one night back," Kogan writes, "I would have taken off my coat and sat back down, only this time I'd have faced my grandmother instead of the driveway. I never told her how smart and talented and brave and lovely I thought she was. I never found out what she did to make her skin so soft and her matzo balls so firm. I never thanked her for being my go-to grandma in the unconditional goodness department."

I know we're not suppose to live a life of regrets. But there are a lot of things I wish I could "do-over." There are some things I wish I would have said - to family, to friends, lovers. There are some things I wish I would have done - financially, professionally.

I would be in a better place now. Or would I?

I can only guess about what "could have" been. Ultimately, however, I have to live with the decisions that I've made and make the best of them. I can't live with an attitude of "woulda, coulda, shoulda", because when it boils down to it I "didn't," - do what I was suppose to do to become the person I want to be. My lack of courage or self-esteem are mere excuses for the due diligence and hard work, I "shoulda" done.

But hey, what's life without a little learning? Experience is always the best teacher.

What about you?

If you could redo just one moment in your life, what would it be?

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Seven Whole Days

I was looking through my Oprah newsletters and came
across an interesting question she had posed to her readers:

What Could You Give Up for 7 days?

When my car radio went out a couple of weeks ago,
I thought I would go crazy. But my daily commute
became peaceful, even meditative. I had the opportunity
to think about so many things in my life.

I realized that I really didn't miss the radio in my car that
much. But honey I was glad when it popped back on.

I know I can live without a car radio, that's easy.

But is there something (or someone - lol) that you absolutely
cannot give up for 7 days?

What are some things that you believe that you just can't live without?

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

What Do You Need a Man For?

Okay, I'm listening to Michael Baisden right now
and he's asking the ladies: What do you need a man for?

He's referring to studies that have found that women who are financially
stable are foregoing marriage because they don't want to deal
with men's "issues." (yeah, one of those reports)

So, Michael's asking, if you don't need a man to help
with the bills, what do you need him for? Romance? Sex?
Intimacy? Companionship?

Personally, I needed someone to change my light bulbs
because I have high ceilings, then I bought a ladder (lol :))

But seriously, I think there's a difference between
a need and a want. And in my humble opinion, a man is both.

What are your thoughts?