I Quit!

I quit my job today.

I had just had enough. Balancing school and work was beginning to become too overwhelming and the recent lost of one of my co-workers just added to the increase in my workload.

I don't know about all of you, but I'm not the type of person who can hold down multiple positions and be happy about it. Sure, all women can become "superwomen" when the time permits, but carrying on the superhero burden, for me, can only only be suffered in minimal doses. I had been doing just that when my boss called me in to meet with her. I called out the previous day in order to finish some much needed homework and assignments I has piling up. When I walked in to work, our assistant clued me in that my boss was a little huffy over an unfinished assignment that has supposed to be completed a week ago. Irritated at the thought of being scolded for something that was not a priority, and something that I honestly didn't have time to do, the thought of quitting crossed my mind.

It stuck. I thought about my savings and how long I could last on financial aid. I had some student loan money piled up for a rainy day and with my salary as a part-time graduate assistant, I figured I could let this main job go. After my boss explained to me that she wanted me to finish my assignments more quickly, I told her that it was all just too much for me; I was resigning.

Walking home from work after I quit. (yes, it's only a 15 minute walk away) I realized that I was nervous. While in the delight of thinking that my time would finally be spent on me, than in someone else business or company, I, for a moment, was frightened at the thought of no safety net... no security.

Even now as I write this post, I'm nervous about telling Stacy that I quit my job.
What grown woman ups and quits her job in this economy?

I know I'll be fine for awhile.
But I'm a bit weary of the summer.
I applied for a grant to study abroad next year. Maybe this is all part of some master plan in which this job was just holding me back from following my true purpose.

I honestly believe that this is a good decision.
I'm excited, albeit a bit scared.

We'll see what happens. Thank goodness I'm a person who takes a leap of faith.

First Fight Part II

This was definitely the time when I needed to break out "Faking the Funk". I was totally upset and it seemed as if all my doubts and fears from the previous week had been actualized.

I was on my way to Quinci's house. I earlier told her that I was going out with Stacy and his friends for his birthday celebration and I wanted her to come along to even out the male : female ratio. But this time, I told her we were going to have a girl's night out instead; I planned to forget about Stacy and how upset he had made me... if only for the rest of the night. After I called her to let her know I was on my way, Stacy ringed me shortly after. Now, just like any upset girlfriend, the thought of ignoring his call crossed my mind. I considered it for a few moments but decided to answer and see what he wanted.

"Where are you?", He asked.
"I'm on my way to Quinci's", I said.
"Well, turn around and come back. I want us to hang out tonight."
"But I thought you were going to Love..."

He went ahead and explained that he told the boys to go ahead without him and that he rather just go out with me instead.

"Are you sure?" I asked.
I continued to insist he go out. I even offered to drive him and drop him off there to meet his friends. After all, I didn't want him to resentful that because of my bitch fit he wasn't allowed to do what he wanted. The sides had reversed; I didn't want him to be mad at me because I'd ruined his night.

"Yes, I'm sure. I want to be with you, I love you", he said.

On my way to his house, I still was amazed that he choose me over the boys. I think that sometimes us girls get used to getting the shorter end of the stick and so, in a way, I was upset at Stacy earlier but I wasn't surprised at his initial decision to go out with his friends. But when he told me he has changed his mind, and he decided to spend his birthday night with me and only me, please believe that I was grinining from ear to ear because I knew, for sure this time, that this boy must really love me.

Cause we all know when a guy's attention is fading, there's little a gal can do to pull him away from the prospects of a guy's night out. Although I argued that he should be with his friends, he choose to be with me.

Later, we went out and had a great night. It felt like we were first dating again: fun and easy going, without the nervousness of when people are getting to know each other.

I've realized that I'm beginning to really settle in this relationship and I've stop panicking when little things don't go the way I'd like them to go. Now, I think I better understand that our relationship is getting stronger and we'll be able to face the bigger issues and problems as they come.

Our First Fight Part I

I was a mess last week. Both Stacy and I were so busy that we hardly got a chance to see each other. The time apart from each other in addition to me pms'ing before my period, I had this distinct and overwhelming feeling that something was wrong. I felt like he was growing apart from me. I saw him only once in over a week, it seemed hard to get him on the phone, and even his texts were short and lack luster. 

Now I hate to admit this, but I found myself depressed at the thought of him growing apart from me... of him breaking up with me. One day last week, I caught up with a old girlfriend of mine and she went into this long winded story of how she and her boyfriend of three years recently split. I had actually went on a date with him before they got together so I felt like I knew him pretty well. He was such a great guy (too young for me) but it seemed like he was so sweet. And suddenly after seemingly 3 years of bliss, he up and quit her... just like that.

So rewinding back to last week... I'm crying about short texts and not seeing him... thinking of things I can do to keep him interested in me... as if there was anything to do to change someone's mind about ending a relationship once they've decided it was over.

Saturday was his birthday and I was so looking forward to seeing him, finally spending time and celebrating his birthday. I was so excited to play the role of "girlfriend" to the birthday boy. I just wanted to shower him with affection (especially since I felt like I needed to somehow justify why he should be with me).  So the whole day, I'm shopping for the perfect gift for him and trying to find a cute outfit to wear that night. He told me that he just planned to go out with his friends and me to a bar...nothing special. A little in the late afternoon he texted me to see if I wanted to go out with him for happy hour, but I was still at the mall. Once I finally got home, I realized I locked myself out the house and had call a locksmith to let me in. Fast forward to 2 hours later, I was dressed and ready to go out with my boo. 

Once I got to his house, all the guys were upstairs and staring at me as if they didn't know why I was there. I ignored them and went to go find Stacy.

"Stacy?" I knocked on his bedroom door.

"Hey you" he smiled at me, "I didn't know you were coming over."

"Yeah, it's your birthday! Of course I was gonna see you."

"Did you get my text?" he asked. I shook my head.

"We're going to Love tonight. I just found out we were going."

Love is a famous nightclub in DC. Not a place you bring your girlfriend to. It'd be like bringing sand to the beach. I understood what he was saying: it was a guy's night out.

I had just realized what he was saying and began to get quite upset. I mean, he had just spent the previous night with his boys and I hasn't seen him in a week. I had just locked myself out of my house and paid nearly $200 for a locksmith because I was in a hurry to find him the perfect gift. And he had the nerve to be putting on his Sunday's best to go out and celebrate his birthday with random nameless chicks instead of me. I was pissed. For sure.

He was leaving, putting on his dress socks and everything. I sat there looking at the floor, not knowing what to say, not wanting to say anything that I would regret and not wanting to show any evidence of hurt feelings. I stared the floor and decided to grab my purse and roll out. One thing I wasn't gonna stand for him was leaving me behind like a lost puppy. I decided that if he was gonna leave me to go out with his friends, I was gonna walk out first. So that's what I did. I walked out. 

"I'll see you later Stacy. Happy Birthday." I told him.

He called after me but I kept walking. I made it up the stairs.

Derrick asked me where I was going and why I seemed upset as I made it to the front door. I made it to the front gate and Stacy called after me from the doorway. I stopped and thought about it. A part of me just wanted to see if he would follow me...and he did. I didn't want to upset him on his birthday so I stopped and turned toward him so that we could talk.

"Why are you so mad, why'd you just storm off like that?"

I explained to him how I had been waiting a whole week to see him only to have him tell me he was going out with his boys... again. I told him about my day and how crazy it had been but I had been looking forward to celebrating his birthday with him for so long. He told me he didn't know I was planning to come over and that when he invited me to happy hour and I declined, he thought that I was busy. At this point, his boys were piling into the car asking him when he was going to be ready to go. I knew they were waiting on him so I told him to go ahead and go, I'd go and hang with Quinci for the night.

"Look, I'll call you tomorrow." he said "I promise."

"Call me tonight when you get home." I said and turned out the front gate.

blog update

So I decided not to finish part two of this story because, quite frankly, it would just be too much. Just trust me when I say this was a drama-filled story.

Moving on...

I'm starting to think about the future of this blog and where it should go. I still want to talk about my daily adventures, rant and raves, but I think I need to add more.

I'm thinking about what else I should add. Any ideas?

Jamaica -Part I

When we stepped off the plane it was magical.
I had been waiting for this trip for more than a year. I had saved and stashed, planed and bargained.
With my BFF at my side, I was finally going on my dream vacation to Jamaica.

The couple weeks prior to the vacation had been a whirlwind. The job was working my nerves and school was just a big fat mess. I needed to flee. I needed to get away.
In my mind, I had pictured how it would be: warm days chilling on the beach with margaritas and pina coladas. Working on my tan. Eating great food. Enjoying the night life and dancing until sweat dripped down my legs. Perfect huh? Well...

The night before flying down I hadn't got a wink of sleep. From trying to pack last minute to finishing up some homework and being ridiculously excited, I'd neglected to get some rest in order to be pumped as soon as I arrived. Nevertheless, I was tired the first night on the Island.

I hadn't seen Kristina in over a year so I was super excited to finally see her. And when we did...it was almost like we were in high school again. Taking silly pictures, gossiping, laughing at our own inside jokes... it was great.

On the way to the hotel, it was a perfect 85 degrees with no clouds in sight. I'd like to tell you what I saw on our ride to the hotel, but 20 minutes into our 2 hour drive, I had fallen asleep.

Upon arrival we were told that the hotel was completely full so they would have to upgrade us to the most expensive sister hotel across the way. "Fine by me" I said, smiling.

Kristina and I changed clothes as soon as we got to our room. We planned to check out the resort and beach and afterward have dinner. I wore a royal blue mini dress by BCBG that had a cut-out back. Is was a little short on me because of my ample behind, but since I was in Jamaica, I decided not to pay any attention to the dimples in my thighs. "Ah... more to love," I thought.

After dinner, the excitement of the day just couldn't compete  with my exhaustion. The traveling accompanied by no sleep had seriously wore me down. Kristina and I had decided to take a nap after dinner and get up around 10pm to go to the local nightclub, Jungle.

When I woke up in the morning, I realized that I has slept the whole night through. I asked Kristina why she didn't wake me up to go out the last night.
"You were snoring the loudest I ever heard you snore" she said. "I've never heard you sound like that ever before so I figured you were just too exhausted and I didn't want to wake you"
I laughed. I was pretty tired that night but I really wanted to go out. I didn't want to waste anymore nights in Jamaica by sleeping.

All refreshed and energized, we spent the day on the beach working on out tans. We did some body surfing, drunk margaritas and pina coladas. And made plans for the rest of our trip, especially finding someplace to go out to that night.

Checking in with the hotel staff, we heard of a party at a local bar. Kristina wore these hot floral tap pants she got from Faith 21 with a lace-racer-back top. I wore a strapless paisley dress with sandals. Normally, I hate having my arms out but since the Jamaican men seem so appreciative of our bodies, I decided to just let go and wear what I wanted.

When we arrived by taxi to the party, we noticed that the bar was more like an outside bar on the beach. There were only a few people inside but perhaps they had a late rush later. Walking up to the ticket station, I told the girl I needed two tickets for Kristina and I.
"That's $60."
"What?!" I asked. I knew she could not be charging us $30 each to get into a party on the beach. I mean, there wasn't even a floor in the bar. It was sand. And this was a third-world country no less. I thought to myself even the swankiest clubs in DC only cost me no more than $20 to get in. And because of this and the hotel staff telling us it was only $10 each, I only brought $40 cash with me to cover us both.
I tried to bargain with her, figuring that it might work. Most people will take a bargain if you ask politely. I tried telling her that we were told $10 each. Finally, I asked to speak with her manager.
"I'm the one in charge and $30 is the entrance fee."

I felt defeated. And annoyed.
Kristina and I started to walk  away and realized that we didn't have a way back to the hotel. We already paid the driver to take us and pick us up from the bar but we told him it'd be at least 2 hrs before we wanted him to come back. We had his number but our cell service didn't work out there. We asked the girl whether she would be able to call  him on our behalf so he could pick us up. She agreed.

We walked toward the main road to wait for our driver. A man came walking down from the ticket station and asked whether we had a way home. Kristina stopped and spoke with him and told him we were fine, just waiting for our driver. I was too busy thinking about what we were going to do for the rest of the night that I didn't even look in his direction.

He asked where we were from and whether we were enjoying ourselves in Jamaica.
"We would be enjoying ourselves a lot more if we were partying with you instead of going back to our hotel" Kristina giggled. "Do you work at the bar?" she asked him. Judging from the way she giggled I figured he must've been attractive. Kristina left no suggestions that she was going to be a "good girl" on this trip. She was going to do whatever and whomever she wanted.

"No, I work with the tourist agency. I put on these parties for the spring breakers who come down here and book their trips with us. I'm so sorry that the girl couldn't let you in but that's how much we charge for spring breakers" he said.

He spoke deeply in a rich accent. It was a mix of British and West Indian. I finally looked up. He was tall and fit with a deep chocolate complexion. Clean shaved with one of the brightest smiles I ever seen. He looked at me and his smile seemed to widen more. It sparkled in the dim light of the evening. No wonder Kristina had been giggling and carrying on. He was hot. Think: How Stella got her Groove Back's Winston Hot.


He asked our names.
"I'm Kristina and this is my sister" Kristina  said. "Whats yours?"
"Bradley" he said, and held out his hand for us to shake.

We stood there for about 20 minutes, Kritsina being her usual sassy and fiery -self  while asking Bradley every personal question she could think of. He found it hilarious and so did I. Kristina and I could tell he was enjoying all the female attention. And while she was so witty, he matched her wit with charm while I stood by and watched them talk, watched his gaze fluttering from me to her.  He was so friendly, I thought.

We told him that we hadn't gotten a chance to party yet so he invited us to the spring-beaker's "booze-cruise" the next day. We told him we'd made plans to go shopping then but we'd take his number down in we decided not to go.

"Well," he smiled, "I can at least give you guys a ride to your hotel, since your driver clearly isn't coming back soon."
We both agreed and he gave us a ride back up the short road to the hotel.

In the car, Kristina was holding no prisoners when it came to Bradley. She told him how attractive he was and how she had been waiting to meet a man like him since she stepped off the plane. Boldness was her fortay. I chuckled in the backseat, my face getting red with a mix of vicarious embarrassment and pure humor.
He just laughed and smiles and told her what a firecracker she was. And boy, did she love to hear that,
We finnaly arrived at the hotel and stepped out the car. He stepped out with us to say good bye.

While we were getting ready to walk into the lobby when Kristina turned towards him and asked "Do you find me attractive?"

I almost tripped up the stairs.

He laughed again "Of course I do! you're a very pretty girl." he said. Then, he aimed his gaze at me, "But your sister... you sister is absolutely gorgeous."

I smiled nervously, said goodbye, and started toward the door. Kristina rolled her eyes and followed me inside.

"This is some bullshit," she said.
I laughed.

Eating When it's Nourishing

My 28 Day Affair didn't last as long as I hoped.
Around Day 8 I really couldn't deal any longer with the starvation and restrictions.
I gave up and started eating.
Whatever weight I lost in the first 8 days I certainly gained back in the week thereafter.

So right now, I'm honestly still feeling uncomfortable with myself.
However,  I decided to take a step back and look at some of the issues I've been having with my weight, namely food.
When I think about it, I've never had a problem losing weight. It's the "keeping it off" and "not gaining weight" that I've always have a problem with. And that's because I eat too much.
I eat when I'm happy, when I'm bored, when I'm lonely, when I'm upset. Hell, I even eat for entertainment.

I've stopped trying to be angry at myself for this behavior. And I've stopped trying to beat myself up about it.
No more feeling guilty. No more pity.
It's occurred to be that I had higher self esteem before I started dieting and for me dieting and self-loathing seem to go hand-in-hand.

I'm thinking that I need to just accept me as I am. Inside it feels like I'm giving up. I feel like  I'll be a loser if I give up now.
But staying in a war with myself in which my self-identity suffers is just not a war I can win.

So, In the next few weeks I'm going to concentrate on accepting me how I am now.
Accept the bigness about me. The heaviness. The roundness.
The stomach and the arms. The face.
Feel my feelings without trying to numb myself with food.

Ask myself why I eat when I'm not hungry and realize what I'm doing before I start.
Quit dieting.

Hopefully, I'll be able to figure all this stuff out with me, about me when I'm able to feel and notice whats going on instead of ignoring everything.

And I've got to trust that acceptance, truth, and understanding will lead me down the path of my normal weight when I can start eating only when it's nourishing.

Big Girls Only in the Winter

"I like big girls," he said laughing. "But only in the winter".
I was still at Stacy's party, standing in the living room talking to Stacy's friend, Derrick. Derrick was explaining to me why his new girl was so tiny. As a 6'3', 230 lb+ man, I had asked him why he wasn't with a bigger girl.
"That's f*cked-up" I said laughing because it was kinda funny. I mean, I love big men personally, but I know a lot of phat girls (and boys) don't like to be with other big people. As Kristina explained to me awhile back, "TWO big people together is just TOO much."

Derrick continued, "I mean in the summer, she's hot, I'm hot--we're both sweating? No, It ain't a good look".
I saw his point but rolled my eyes anyway.
Derrick was a good friend of Stacy's and a regular at the boys' house parties/get-togethers. He was a big guy and really cute, funny as hell and sometimes brutally honest.
"I mean, there are rules if you're gonna be with a big girl. For one, she gotta have a pretty face."

The boys on the couch, Brian, and Joey,  chimed in, "Yeah, she gotta have body too. And a shape... it just can't be all fat falling over the place"
I looked away and started feeling a little self-conscience.  Weren't they aware that they were little talking about me, a big girl,  while I was in the same room?

Joey was particularly insistent. He added, "If I talk to a big girl, she's got to be pretty and have a good shape---even if she is a little fat. But it's cool because everyone knows a big girl will do more stuff than a little girl."
I figured 'more stuff' eluded to the sexual department.
"That's not true," I snapped, but all the boys nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, they will," Derrick said. "We've all had our fair share of the nasty big girls."

I went to go sit down and thought about what they were saying. Clearly they were stipulations involved if a man was  to be with a "big girl" or in my case, a "phatty". I thought about those few times in the past when Joey ( a verified male-whore) tried to get my number. One time, he even asked me out right if we could sleep together. Now, Joey was cute and everything but there's very little a man can say to me that can get passed my natural suspicion. After I told him "no" and walked away, Joey had gotten better at being more respectful and we were able to have a few chats without him saying something blatantly inappropriate. But this time I wondered if Joey only tried talking to me in the past because I was  pretty with a nice shape albeit a little fat or if he just wanted a rendezvous with a "nasty big girl". It made me wonder if phatties get an unfair share of jerks because of these stipulations.

The guys continued to talk about women and I took the opportunity to ask some random questions I had about the male perspective. I started with Joey; knowing he had slept with his fair share of single (and not-so-single) DC women, I asked him if there was anybody he'd consider being serious with.
"Yeah, I have someone I'm serious with right now."
"Oh , you have a girlfriend?" I was surprised.
"Well, she thinks she's my girlfriend and she's gorgeous."
"What do you mean 'She thinks she's your girlfriend'?"
He went on to explain that although he tells her that they're an item, he goes out with and sleeps with any other girls he desires. He claims he can't be monogamous but it is OK as long as he doesn't get caught.
" Why be in a relationship if you know you want to sleep with other women?" I asked.
"Because I don't want her to sleep with any other man."
The boys laughed.


That's when I realized that you can be phat, skinny, pretty, ugly, and everything in between and it'll have no effect on the way some men will treat you. Bad guys will be bad and good guys will be good. So, a phatty can meet all kinds of jerks while trying to find the one, but I'm sure a skinny gal can meet the same jerks along the way too.