Boys can be whores

I'm the first girl to cry foul when I see a boy get away with something a girl could never do. I notice more and more things the double-standard applies to everyday. I know one day I'll have to just lay it down and know that girls can't get away with EVERYTHING that boys can. I was just thinking aloud the other day about it. I wondered why are young girls encouraged to remain chaste, good and pure while fellas are encouraged to explore (with the opposite sex that is). It's weird that a girl can go all her life being careful about who she hangs with, what she does and how she's viewed to keep her sexual integrity. A guy the same age can whore it out without even thinking about how girls view him. A whole life is spent by each doing this and when the two finally end up together who wins? That's right the guy wins. He had all his fun in his younger days and now he's ready to settle in with a wife. A wife who (hopefully) didn't whore it out in her youth; a wife who is now vulnerable to whatever disease her husband may have contracted. A wife who has to accept the fact that her man has been with way more women and has probably done everything there is to do sexually with them. She can't surprise him (or maybe she can) because she's had less experience. However, she's stuck with whatever's left of the man's desire for a woman. That's okay? I'm not saying girls should be encouraged to whore it out when they are young but young men shouldn't be encouraged either. Everybody should just chill out. God knows I don't want to end up with a man who's been around the block so many times he's worn a path in the ground.

Hooker Heels

After years of anticipation, my mom and I finally made it to the much hyped $9.99 shoe store in Dallas. Every time we took the three hour drive from home we would see the sign pointing to the store where all shoes were only 10 bucks. We’re not talking busted shoes or no name kicks. We’re talking cute heels and boots. Things that we just couldn’t buy at home. Too bad all that anticipation was for nothing. When we entered this holy grail of shoe stores we were first hit by the odd but familiar mildew/must combination. Most likely coming from the flat, dark warehouse carpet lining the layout. Then, row after narrow row of stretched-out shoes in dingy boxes, some lining the floors. Since it was Saturday, the store was filled to the top with bargain hunters (like ourselves) thirsty for a deal. Unfortunately, the deals were solely dependent on one's taste. If you like strappy, 3-inch heel metallic red sandals with the extra thick sole at the bottom to help you if maybe you were a stripper to balance while you dip it low for a dolla then that's the $10 deal for you. Hey, you'd technically only have to do one dance (if you dip it enough) to pay 'em off. The shoe store discriminates against the rest of us sane individuals who can barely go clubbing in a pair of 2-inchers. High heels in general were not made for walking. I don't know who came up with that idea. I mean REAL walking: Walking in grass, over grates in the streets, walking down the block. NO! High heels, I'm talking about over 2-inches were meant to only take a female (or male, insert long snap 'cross the chest and a drawn out heeyyy! for all my feminine brothas) for a short trip down the imaginary catwalk in her room once or twice. That being said, nobody really wants to waste any amount of money on shoes that hurt or might seriously damage their feet after standing in them for a while. I don't really know were all these discount shoe retailers order their shoes but they all seem to be coming out of the same place. It seems like you can't even leave the store without seeing at least one pair of spike heel,peep-toe patent leather pumps with shiny, black varnish or the lime green floral print joints with the jewelry hangin' off the ankle. Better yet top that off with the boat like 3-inch pointy-toe heels in any color and you've just about been to every cheap shoe store in the nation all in one stop. Of course, all of them being only $10 bucks what more could we expect. Anyway, I know where to go if I need a pair of hooker shoes to go clubbin' in for a night.

I'm official

Okay, so it's been a long, long, long time since I posted. That being due to the fact that I've finally graduated into the real world. I got a job! A real one. One that pays the bills... all of them.... with money left over for me to eat. It wasn't until after I landed a job that I really felt like I graduated. That's probably because my mom told me that getting a job was the last step of truly being a graduate ( I think she just said that to encourage me to keep the job search going). It's a shame how starving college kids turn into starving "real-world" adults without any real turn around time and it didn't help that I graduated into the dreaded RECESSION. So quickly one acquires a certain stigma. What once was family members and friends showering you with monetary gifts because they knew you were a broke college student turns into snubs from the same people when you become a graduate. I was still starving and poor but because I'm not a student I can't get no love? Anyway, I know that's how the world works. After all with a degree I am capable of finding my place right? Still, I was hungry folks. I was used to having no extra money but never was I used to not being able to afford food. That's a basic necessity! I thought people always had money for food. How wrong was I? So now, after three long or short months depends on how you look at it, I finally have a job that pays the bills! So I've been spending the past few weeks applying, getting hired, going through orientation, training, decorating my new office (yes, my own office) and generally settling in. Now that I'm official expect to hear more from me....

Bikes in the Street

I'm from Oregon, a eco-friendly place filled with lush, green landscapes and recycle bins. The city has a "do something good for the environment" attitude about everything. So I grew up around a lot of bike lanes and Earth day celebrations. Bike lanes are something I wish I saw nowadays in Texas. I've always had a indescribable hate toward people who rode bikes in the street. People who think they are riding in cars; people who signal with their arms and stop at the light in the middle of the road during peak traffic. Yeah, those people. Too many times, I remember riding 2mph in the car with my parents behind some idiot on a bike. What was worse sometimes that idiot was riding alongside a bike lane. I don't care how much patience you have this will make you lose it one day. When I moved to Texas, I loved how no one rode bikes like that. I would never have to worry about seriously considering ending someone's life because they were holding me up riding in traffic. I've seen so many people on bikes out in traffic lately it makes me wonder. There aren't bike lanes here but there are plenty of sidewalks why don't people ride on sidewalks when sidewalks are available? Even though I'm sure it's perfectly legal for bicyclist to ride in the street among regular traffic isn't it dangerous for that guy on the bike to be riding between cars going 3o or 40 mph? As the person on the bike, I'm not sure I would trust everybody behind the wheel to respect my bike. If hit and seriously injured I could only take legal action against whoever hit me after the fact when it's too late. I would love to see people on bikes use the sidewalk when it's there instead of opting for the street. In the end, no one in a car really cares that your on a bike they just want you out of their way.

Bare Feet

So lately I've been noticing more and more girls walking around the streets barefoot. I don't know about ya'll but I think that's nasty. What shocks me is how it's even comfortable to walk on grass, asphalt, bark dust or whatever. To give these girls credit they're usually carrying heels so I guess that's legit. I've never been one to take my shoes off and walk on God knows what. I'd rather permanently damage my foot muscles wearing the wrong shoes than risk picking up whatever is on the ground. The other day I saw this girl walking and talking on the phone with no shoes on. I just wanted to shake her and say, "What are you doing," but I didn't want to interrupt her conversation. Anyway just an observation.

Customer Service

Anybody out there work in the service industry? Anybody out there truly believe in the phrase, "the customer is always right"? I didn't think so. Two weeks ago, I had an encounter with a customer that wanted me to perform something remarkable. I work in an office at a university and I deal with students all the time. I picked up the phone and instantly recognized the voice from when he called before. I remembered his voice because he did the same thing last time. Anyway, he had a question and I had no clue what the answer was. He said he had called someone at the university before and they told him the answer. The thing was he couldn't remember who he called or what they said. I took me almost 10 minutes to try to get him to understand that no matter how much rewording he did to his question he wouldn't be able to get an answer out of me because I didn't know, no matter how many times he asked for the guy in the office he would still be unavailable and most importantly I wouldn't be able to read his mind to tell him who he called in the entire unversity, which services 30,000 plus students, in the first place.

Yesterday, I was at Burger King when some guy went up to the front counter to yell at one of the workers. He keep saying, "Do they listen back there, do they listen?!"to a bewildered girl. She was shocked and didn't know what to say because apparently she had nothing to do with the order. I think the guy ordered from the drive-thru and came inside after he discovered his order was messed up. Had that girl been a complete stranger on the street I don't think he would've came at her like that. It was a bit disrespectful and I've been in her shoes before so I didn't appreciate it. Even if it is someone else's mistake don't lose your nuggets over something like a hamburger. I don't care how bad life is please don't take it out on others. We've all got something going on behind the scenes.

Don't expect a miracle out of people who are just doing their job. Make sure you evaluate yourself before you go blaming someone else for their incompetence when it was your impossible command that they were trying to satisfy.

So Exotic!

This post covers a topic that has been done to death but I've always wanted to voice my opinion about it so here goes... A couple months ago I wrote a paper for one of my classes about hip-hop music videos and what it does to the young, black female's perception of beauty. Naturally, after reading all this material, I realized that black females aren't really featured in hip-hop videos these days. Sadly, only their essence remains. There may be girls with "black" attributes, body shape, pouty lips etc. but they always have "other" attributes mixed in, long curly hair, freckles, fair skin to make them appear more exotic. If the girl is indeed "black", meaning she has more "black" attributes than "other" attributes, she is almost always over the top in some other area. She might have a huge booty or know how to shake it way better than the others. In other words she has to stand out or she doesn't get air time.

Anyway, I won't get into the whole light-skinned dark-skinned thing but do want to mention that to mention this... I've yet to understand why long hair on a black woman, any black woman, holds such fascination. It's like the whole world, or at least other black women and men assume that a black woman can't simply grow her hair past her shoulders without being of mixed race or having "good hair". If she does she's considered a wonder. The only reason this is attractive is because it gives off the impression that she is exotic or foreign and guys tend to swing more toward this hence the lack of real "black" women in music videos. This annoys me. All my life I've had long hair. I'm not mixed and I don't have special super powers I just took care of it and grew it long. I believe that any other black female can do the same if she takes good care of her hair and fights the temptation to cut it. Which brings me to my next point... Why is it such a big deal for a black female with long hair to get a haircut?

Yes, you guessed it, I've recently cut my long hair into a short bob and everytime I do it's a big deal. I've cut it before and grew it out again in high school and it was even worse. I get every kind of response. Anything from anger to shock. People, it's just hair. It grows back. It used to bother me when someone got mad at me for getting a haircut. I mean really mad. It's like they almost expected me to consult them beforehand so they could tell me that I couldn't cut my hair. I'm thinking they don't have to comb this everyday and take care of it non-stop. Long hair is pretty to look at but it's work to take care. Forgive me if I want to take a break from that. Even if it does make me look less exotic. If I'm that much less appealing by doing something as simple as cutting my hair I don't think I want those kind of close-minded people in my life anyway.

Keeping in Touch

I don't know what it is about keeping in touch that makes me run the other way. I'm not anti-social I do like talking to friends and relatives on a regular basis it's just that the whole concept of keeping in touch gets on my nerves. I tend to make it a chore. Then once it's a chore I don't want to do it anymore. I feel like there's an unwritten rule somewhere that says you have to call someone after a certain amount of time to catch up on everything you missed in their lives or else you're not a good friend, niece, grand-daughter, ex-roomate, etc. I just don't know what that time frame is. The end result: I go without talking to people for months for no apparent reason.

I have a friend from high school who lives in another state she and I talk on a regular basis. Regular meaning that we talk just enough to know of the other's major life-changing events like ("Oh, I got engaged") but not everyday stuff ("Geez, I dropped my toothbrush in the toilet again"). She could call me and we'll talk. Then a few weeks later I get this tingling urge and something in my head goes, "I think it's about time to call her," but I never do. The tingling continues and I blow it off time after time. I can do this for months. I'd rather loose touch with a friend than follow the urge and dial the number. It's ridiculous and pitiful. Then I look like an inconsiderate prick when they call me days, weeks, months later talking about how they haven't talked to me in FOREVER. I can't help but feel guilty.

Then once someone does call me after some time I know it's never going to be a short converstation. I always feel like I have to make up for not calling them by staying on the phone with them for 45 minutes to an hour in order to catch up only to realize all that was done about 15 minutes into the conversation.

On the other hand, sometimes I don't hear from people for ages and then they call me. I don't feel bad about them because in my head I'm thinking they're probably being just as lazy about calling me as I am about calling them. Those people I don't have to worry about disowning me. It's a miracle I still have friends at all. Just kidding but I never could get the keeping in touch thing right.

Mp3 player Madness!

I'm an electronics addict. I love anything that plays music, videos and or picture slideshows. I have a handful of usb cords and headphones stuffed in a random bag somewhere in my apartment that I never use. I have about fifteen different devices all of which basically do the same thing and I can't stop buying them. I don't know what it is about gadgets that makes my mouth water. Seriously, I don't think I'll ever be satisfied. In addition to this unholy craving for handheld devices, I am also very cheap and buy the low budget stuff only to replace it two months later because (gasp!) it breaks. I can't stand knowing that there's a cheaper versions of something out there that does the same thing for less . Sadly I apply this to more areas of my life than necessary. I won't apologize for it but sometimes it gets me into more grief than I would prefer.

This unquenching desire for bootleg electronics lead me to want a new mp3 player one day. I discovered and then instantly had to have one of those knockoff Ipod nano off the internet. I know what you are thinking and no it wasn't one of those plastic toy pieces of crap from China. I was a high-quality version of one of those toy pieces of crap from China. Apparently any electronic device that is expensive and popular, like the ipod for example, is replicated in mass quantities over there like it's no big deal. Anyway, I ran across a website called digitalkinz.com, which looked very legit, was in the states, had impressive video demonstrations and took PayPal. It couldn't have gotten any better! Sadly, what's too good to be true probably is. I won't go into details and turn this post into a rant about bad customer service but I should. I'm sure we've all been wronged by an internet "business" so I won't go there. I put "business" in quotes because these people have no clue what that means.

In a nutshell, I ordered the player then they canceled it and keep my money only to respond to one of my million attempts to contact them for a refund after I got a little pissy on their forum. I eventually get my money back but in the end their responses weren't even remorseful. Their automated ordering system accepted more orders then there were players resulting in the canceling of God knows how many orders including mine. That wasn't my fault, but instead of offering me some kind of special discount or first dibs on a new shipment they recommended that I buy my ipod from somewhere else. This took almost two weeks of constant e-mails and posts on their forum. All the while I'm checking their regularly updated website thinking I may never see my hard earned dollars again. That experience put a little salt in my game as far as mp3 players go. I did end up buying a legit mp3 player from a corporation that makes mp3 players and I'm very happy now. Every now and then I go back to digitalkingz.com to see what customers are saying and it's very satifying to see that they are finally losing customers from their lack of communication skills. I think I'll spend the extra money next time and buy the actual item instead of knockoffs from some no-name, third party dealer. Lesson learned.

Movie trailers that deceive; why Watchmen sucked

Aren't movie trailers supposed to whet one's appetite for a good time out at the theater without making the story out to be something it definitely is not? Aren't trailers supposed to be brief yet precise representation of the plot and not completely done over to look like a certain type of movie just to get people in the seat? The trailer is to the film what the resume is to the unemployed and like a padded resume from an under-qualified candidate the trailer totally had me fooled. Lets flash back to last weekend. I thought I was doing a good job when watched the trailer for a movie called Watchmen. I knew it was based on a graphic novel I had never heard of but that was about it. I watched the trailer and I got a comic book super-hero gone bad vibe. Eh.. whatever. I figured it was no different from all of the other super-hero movies I'd seen in life. I gave it a try on Saturday night thinking I knew everything I needed to in order to get this film. I realized about 20 minutes into the movie that the reason why I didn't hear that alarm in my head screaming, "Oh girl, this is not it!" was because they probably couldn't put all the unessecary nudity, pointless plot and violence into a 60 second trailer meant for a PG-13 audience.

Never before had I been so blindsinded by a movie in my life. Yeah, I could've done my research but looking back I would've had to read the whole novel to know what I know now. That's what trailers are for, or so I thought. If I had taken my younger, mature for his age sibling he would have been exposed to all kinds of things none of them positive. Instead I took mom and we spent a good chunk of time watching awkwardly inappropriate movie footage together. Everything from guts hanging off the ceiling to softcore porn got its screen time. Even if you had seen it all before it would have still bored you out of the theater. The plot spread itself out all over only it never put itself together agian.

The moral of the movie was that there is no moral, humanity is hopeless and people are savage. We're all going to destroy ourselves anyway so lets just have a good time. Uh, okay what's the point? Does the director want us all to just lay down and die? All I really want to do is destroy any evidence that this movie ever existed. It only satifies those who knew about the novel and even then it's not a comic book I'd want to be a "fan" of. I've learned my lesson; do your homework especially before you drag your mom out to the movies.