A Black History Month Present From Me to You

My only problem with this is that I'm not in it.
(You all know how I feel about Harriet getting all the glory.)

Something to Blog About

So, I don’t know what’s particularly interesting nowadays, so here’s a look at the past week’s highlights—let me know which you’d like to know more about, dear readers.

1. The blacktress is officially booked on Quantas flight 740, departing San Francisco on October 11, 2008. I arrive in Sydney on October 13*-- holla!!! Eli Reed and other Aussie friends: I expect you to have 12 rugged men and 7 koalas waiting for me.

2. Tonight is date #2 with a hottie from NEW ZEALAND!!!
I mean, that’s practically like Australia (don’t tell him I said that—there’s apparently beef between the two countries), so it’s great preparation for the big trip. It also allows me to pretend like I'm dating Jemaine from "Flight of the Conchords" (let me look at my list....living the dream? CHECK! hot accent? double-check! love for a blacktress? mutha-CHECKIN' yes!)

He has even asked me to be his “summer girlfriend”—yes, please!! Best to go out with a bang, I always say!

3. This morning, I was on the Underground Railroad heading in the wrong direction (to the plantation), when a petite pregnant lady got on the train. Being NYC at rush hour, of course there were no seats left. She quietly stood and grabbed the pole, and I looked around momentarily. Not a single man, woman, or child got up. I got the woman’s attention and offered her my seat. She immediately accepted and I stood up over the young, able-bodied hipster guy who I had been sitting next to. He looked momentarily sheepish, then went back to reading his book on social theory.

I was so annoyed by this turn of events. Well, yes, I would have liked to sit, but I was more put off by the fact that I, a young blacktress, was the only person who offered to give this clearly-8-months-pregnant woman a seat on the train. She’s holding life in womb, for Christ’s sake! I can barely stand up in a pair of heels, so lord knows the day I accidentally get knocked up, I’m gonna need to take a knee every ten seconds!! And, on top of that, I noticed that when she sat down she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring—is she a single mom, struggling with the worry of how to raise this incoming fetus on her own?! My lord, if I had that weighing on my shoulders in addition to the baby weighing on my torso, I would probably be in a Jazzy Electric Wheelchair, much like this one:

It’s actually called a “Jazzy.”

The refusal of any man to get up off his ass and give her a seat reminded me of the words of a great poet—Nelly Furtado—in her hit opus “Promiscuous”:

“Roses are red / some diamonds are blue / chivalry is dead / but you’re still kinda cute.”

I mean, if that ain’t the gospel truth, I don’t know what is. If it was 1956, everyone with a Y chromosome would have gotten up when that woman came on the train, and some probably would have removed their bowler hats. Alas, those days of propriety are gone.

I guess I shouldn’t be so upset, though—if the old days were still around, I’d be sitting at the back of the bus.



*What happens to me for a whole day???? It’s like I’m in some transcontinental vortex where I cease to exist…..I smell a Sci-Fi channel original motion picture!

Black Aphrodite

Today, I’d like to talk about the foreign man.

I know I’ve mentioned him before, but things are really starting to get out of control. They just can’t get enough of the blacktress!

Saturday night (fully sober… ish), I was heading home on the train shortly after 2 am. This is something I never do at such an hour—especially when my meal tickets are on display and I’m looking grown and sexy. But I was feeling confident in the crowd waiting at the 2nd avenue station.

As I’m waiting, I notice an attractive glass of milk waiting for the train as well. I thought we looked at each other a couple of times, but by 2 am, my game was shot. I wasn’t even trying to smile then look away (that’s how I do, y’all!). In true crazy MTA fashion, an E train pulls into the F/V station. I get on it anyway, too tired to argue with the transit system’s madness. The attractive glass of milk enters and asks if the train is going to Queens. Between his accent and need to go to the outer boroughs in the wee hours of the morning, I knew he was foreign.

Oh, I should also mention that he was wearing a pinstriped fedora, much like this one:

I can often tell a foreign man by his accessories and/or number of buttons undone on his shirt. About a month ago, getting on the B train (hm… why do so many of my foreign encounters happen underground?…. The railroad to the freedom and free love!), I noticed a bald man making eyes at me. I then notice he’s wearing, like, 3 rings (none of them a wedding band—holla!), and I knew he had to be “the other.” On the train, we are forced together by rush hour crowding and I ask him where he’s from. He tells me he’s from Venice, Italy… before telling me I’m beautiful and should come visit him.

The rings don’t lie… much like hips.

Anyway, back to my current foreign correspondent: he tells me he’s from Greece and he’s an artist. I use my art magazine lingo and intellect to name-drop professors who work at the school where he studies. I also give him my business email, in case he wants to send me his work. The convo is effortless. Apparently, I’ve got more game than Milton Bradley, even at 3 in the am! We even start speaking in Spanish, so you know he’s down with the multi-culti flavor.

When I start to exit the station so that I can catch a cab due to train malfunction, he actually comes out of the subway and waits with me!* What?! I had no idea what was happening. When I insisted that he not miss his train, he said, “No, let me be a gentleman.”

A what?

I’ve heard tell of these “gentlemen,” but (as you know from so many posts) so rarely meet them. See, they don’t raise men right in our homeland. A stranger would never escort a lady out of the subway unless he wanted to drag her to a back alley and put her soon-to-be-severed head in a bag.

This is one more reason I’ve got to get out of America.

So, like, I know I can't put all my eggs in this foreign basket, but I'm not asking for much. I just want him to draw me a la Jack and Rose in Titanic, and take me to his homeland where I will become Black Aphrodite.



* Do you know three cabs REFUSED to take me to Harlem as I tried to get home?! The Greek man had to actually ask the fourth driver to, “take this beautiful woman home so she can sleep.” You know this world is too hot of a mess!

10 Signs....

I've come to a new conclusion:
Men are like parking spaces-- they are either handicapped or taken!

And this handicap can come in many forms: emotional, physical, mental.

You would not believe how many conversations I've been having with my lady friends over guy drama. And in every case, we give ourselves a hard time, yet when it comes to the guy, we have lower standards than a county technical college. WTF?!

I myself have resorted to interweb dating. Yes, I'm doing it. If the gays can, so can I. We are both equally oppressed. Now, while this seems "unsafe," and "sketchy," I've found that knowing a guy doesn't preclude the aforementioned sketchiness.*

To prove it, I am going to take you on a trip, back in time and relive one of the worst dates in the history of life. I tell you all this not only to further prove my oppression, but in the hopes that you, gentle reader, will not make the same mistakes.

Ten Signs the Date Should Have Ended At “Hello”

10. He comes to your door with his hair dripping wet and when you ask if it’s raining, he proudly says, “No! I showered for you!” Any man who thinks bathing is a cause for celebration is a bad sign. If he wants accolades for something that basic, he’ll expect 76 trombones every time he opens a car door.

9. He then holds up a box of wine and suggests you take it with you to the restaurant. Box wine is to only be consumed by the following people in the following situations: 1. teenagers at a house party; 2. college students in a dorm room; 3. a teenager, visiting a college student’s dorm room.

8. Quick to get this show on the road, you grab your coat. Once outside, he asks if you can stop by your ex boyfriend’s house and pick up something he left there. Anyone content to make you this uncomfortable before you even have anything invested in them is far too presumptuous. At this rate, the second date will be at his granpappy’s wake!

7. While waiting for a table, he tells you about his study abroad experience in China. His favorite souvenir: his worm, which he named! Initially taken aback by his love of insects, you then learn that this worm was kept not in a cage or a cup with a hole in it, like an inquisitive little tyke. The worm was inside of him! Yes, he had a tapeworm that seemed to be difficult to get rid of. This is a sign that the only warm fuzzy feeling you’re going to have this evening is nausea.

6. He then follows up this tidbit of information with chit chat about his foot fungus.

5. He chooses a Thai restaurant and sizes up every waitress in the place. When you jokingly ask him if he “has a thing for Asian women” he excitedly says, “Yes.” Great, you’ve got a fetishizer on your hands.

4. When asked what he does for fun, he says, “There are just some nights when you just want to go out into the woods with your best friend and do some mushrooms, you know?”

No, you do not know.

3. After walking you back to your house, he says “Whoa. I think I gotta drop a deuce. Did your food taste weird?” He then lingers in the doorway.

2. The next night, you see him arm in arm with an Asian woman! I mean, make a decision man! Do you want a ride on the Underground Railroad, or do you want to hop onto the Orient Express?! Stop jerking me around!

1. Upon recapping the night with your friend (who obviously did some gossiping and googling to make sure this man was worth his weight in pad thai), you find out that he may have fathered an Asian baby while studying abroad! Had you received this nugget of information three days earlier, the date would not have taken place. Anyone who is fathering babies, then leaves them to suffer with SARS should be nowhere near your safe space! Where’s your respect, woman?!

I guess I could have titled this post: "Does he have an Asian baby? And other questions you won’t remember to ask until you learn the hard way."

So don't give me crap for internet dating. As you can see, I have nothing to lose.

*Yeah, used the words "aforementioned" and "preclude." You didn't know Sojo could roll like that, did you?!