THE O'EO COOKIE

Saturday, November 27, 2004

Saga Palm Drama!

Don't MAKE me have to kill you over a saga palm.

Lord, please deliver me from the greediness of my coworkers.

This happened about 2 weeks ago.

There is a landscaping crew that does all the buildings in the office complex. Every few weeks they tear up all the perfectly good plants and in goes a new theme. I do not know what happens to the old plants but I bet they are thrown away. Seems like a waste because they redo the landscaping so often.

Well. There were 3 large saga palms that had been there for about 2 years and when I was coming in from lunch I noticed that they were digging them up. I went over and asked about them. What would happen to them. They were beautiful plants. The landscaper told me they would be thrown away. Well, I promptly asked if I could have one. He said, " yes!"

The palm was a huge thing about three feet across and if you know anything about saga palms they are like weapons. The fronds are needle sharp with huge thorms sticking out from the base the leaves are coming out of. Put that under a window and burglars will thing twice and if they are not familiar, they will thing twice the next time they see a saga palm. They are deadly.

I told the landscaper that I would to get my keys. He said I needed to wait until they had left and they would leave the 3 palms here sitting. He said he did not want the workers to see him giving me one of the palms. He asked if anyone else would want the other 2. I told him I was sure someone would and I would go back to the office and see. All was set. He left the palms, I went back upstairs and told a coworker , "G", who had just bought a house and was talking about doing some landscaping. I figured she would like one. Blackberry...you remember her from this post ...was sitting with her in the break room.

She said that she wanted a palm and so did Blackberry. I figured all was okay. Why the hell did I think that? It was that damned Blackberry who was sitting there.

Well, my plan was to somehow get that palm in the back seat and get it home. I had no idea how Blackberry and "G" were going to get their palms home.   I waited the time frame for the landscapers to go and I went back downstairs to load up my palm. There was no palm. The palm was gone. All the palms were gone.

I was livid. Absolutely livid!!!! There was going to be hell to pay. I just knew that they had taken all the palms and as it turned out they had. I looked for Blackberry and "G." Both had left the office for various reasons. One had a doctors appointment and one had an early out. But you know what. I was gonna work it with Bell South. I asked around the office..very calmly if anyone has seen who the palms were taken home. I went straight to Blackberry's crew and found out she got another employee with a pick up truck to load them up and take them to their houses. Blackberry and "G" live about 15 minutes away in the same direction on the interstate.

Hot damn! Those bitches were not getting away with that.  I had Blackberry's home number as she was my mentor for a short while when I first was employed. I dug that number out and called. I got an aswering machine.   I left a stark, raving message that was over the top but I had to be sure she got the message. I told her that she was an evil, greedy person and that she would have no knowledge of those palms until I told her about them and that for her to take them all was selfish. She knew I wanted one.  I told her that she had better make arrangements to get my palm back to this office ASAP because if she did not I was going to google up her address and get it myself. In addition, I told her that  I did not have a number for "G", but for her to call "G" and give her my message VERBATIM!  I was coming to get my G.D. palm one way or the other.   I told her I was going to hunt them down because they were not going to get away with this with me.

I waited. I got a call from Blackberry about 8pm that night. She was apologetic and said that she did not know that the coworker with the truck had taken all 3. I told her she was a liar.  I told her she was trying to take that palm just like she takes all the food from the office functions. I told her the difference was is that I was not the office. I will not let what she is trying to do happen to my things.

She tried to say it was a misunderstanding. I said "WHATEVER!"  I told her you had better just tell where where I can pick up my palm or when you are bringing it back to the office.    She said that I could get it from "G's" house. I got her number and called "G". They had obviously talked and both were sorry and it was a misunderstanding.    "WHAAAATEVER!"

I got her address and went over to her house the next day at 8pm and got my palm. I came prepared just in case I had to load it myself. I had thick gloves and a 2 heavy shirts on. She did not even help me load it up ...I did not think she would... but you would think she would. She would not have know about the palm except for me. But, I got it home.   Happy as can be, it now has a very large terra cotta home and looks great on my patio.

Don't MAKE me have to kill you over a saga palm.

O'EO @ 10:01 am | Oreos (7) | Permacrumb

Friday, November 26, 2004

Black Men and Sexuality

OLYMPIA, Washington (AP) -- A man was convicted by a judge Monday on charges he deliberately exposed 17 women to HIV by having unprotected sex with them. Five of the women have tested positive for the virus, which causes AIDS.

Anthony E. Whitfield, 32, faces a minimum sentence of 137 years in prison on the 17 counts of first-degree assault with sexual motivation and other charges.

Health officials said as many as 170 people may have been exposed to the virus because of Whitfield's actions, counting subsequent partners of women he slept with. No additional people have tested positive for HIV, but 45 refused to be tested or couldn't be found. [More here]

I think that is just as bad as brothers pretending to be straight and they are gay. It is all murder to me. It is far worse if gay men hide it and date/pretend to be straight. All the lives they affect. Wives, girlfriends, kids born dying with aids. It is a disgrace and why is it happening? Why does the pressure for black men who are gay greater that for other races? Does anyone know?
I thought with Ellen D. coming out and Rosie O. both men and women who were gay would feel better about that lifestyle choice. Seems it only relieved the pressure on white gay people. I know it sure did in our office. We had so may people come out of the closet when Ellen did it was ridiculous!

Some Gay Black Men Are Keeping a Deadly Secret
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
04.21.02; Denise Hollinshed; Jennifer LaFleur

Some health experts believe that a double lifestyle by men, called being on the "down low," contributes to the spiraling AIDS rate among blacks. While figures show that some white and Hispanic men also hide their sexual orientation from their heterosexual partners, for African-American men, the pressure to hide is greater.

"There's very little research here," said John L. Peterson, a researcher from Georgia State University who has studied AIDS in African-American communities. But Peterson said that blacks who identify themselves as gay face ostracism from their families and communities. Many black men are reluctant to admit their sexual identity even to themselves.

The phenomenon of hiding sexual identity may account for recent findings from the CDC indicating that 64 percent of all women who get new HIV infections are African-American.

The mounting number of AIDS cases among African-Americans in the St. Louis area has spurred concern and discussion. While blacks made up about 20 percent of the region's population, they accounted for 64.6 percent of diagnosed AIDS cases. Nationally, more than half of new HIV infections occur among blacks, although blacks represent only 13 percent of the population, according to the CDC.

Funeral home director Carl Officer, the former mayor of East St. Louis, said he has been staggered by the number of young men and women with AIDS whom he has buried and the condition of their bodies when they arrive at his facilities. "This is genital genocide," Officer said. "It is a very serious, painful, expensive, debilitating way to die. I've listened for the last couple of weeks to what biological and chemical terrorism could do. In many cases those are perhaps a mercy killing in comparison to dying of AIDS," he said.

Many organizations in the St. Louis region are bringing in speakers to talk about issues like the down low lifestyle. "I feel so scared for sisters who are now dealing with the invisible black man. We will continue to lose sisters because men will not come out," said J.L. King, an activist, educator, author and divorced father of three adult children. According to King, white gay men have their own churches, clubs and bars where the word can be spread openly about disease prevention. It doesn't work that way among down low blacks, he said.

Many women who learn their male lovers have infected them feel shame, humiliation and disgust. One mother with AIDS, whose lover had HIV when he left prison but didn't inform her, stressed the use of condoms, whether a person is gay or straight. "I don't know one black, red-blooded man that's going to tell his woman he's bisexual or that he has been messing around. Just be aware. Don't be ashamed to bring out a condom. If a person doesn't want to use a condom, then let him go," she said.

And it is not happening over here in America. This is a problem world wide. Over in Britain there is a big campaign urging gay me to come out of the closet.

Black Britain urged to accept gay men

Campaign: Posters discuss responses to homophobia



By Dominic Casciani BBC News Online community affairs reporter

The UK's leading HIV and Aids charity is beginning a campaign against homophobia among black communities - saying enough is enough.

"I told my brother and he didn't talk to me for four months. Now he keeps asking about my girlfriend. Well I tell him about relationships - but there's no girlfriend and he knows that. It's just his way of blanking it out."

I know my Mum would never accept me ... she's not prepared to talk about it and would never speak to me again if I told her.

James
James is young, bright, black and gay. When he was 19 he tried to kill himself, partly because of the fear of telling his family he was gay.

It was a conversation about that incident that led him unintentionally to tell his brother he was gay.

The reaction was hostile and James (not his real name) is even less likely to tell his mother.

Among black men, his experience is not unusual. The Terrence Higgins Trust, the UK's leading HIV and Aids charity, is launching a campaign to tackle homophobia within black communities. [More here]

While searching the web I came across this book which should make for interesting reading.

One of the Children: Gay Black Men in Harlem

Author: Hawkeswood, William G.
Genre: African-American
Publisher: University of California Press
Released: 1995

An anthropologist's attempt to de-exoticize gay Harlemites
A Review by Stephen Murray
02/17/2003

Harlem
Charles Rucker
Buy This Art Print At AllPosters.com

One of the Children: Gay Black Men in Harlem is a posthumously edited and published study of some gay Harlemites. Although he knew that "most gay men born in Harlem or living in Harlem do not 'hang out' in the scene there," that many have non-black partners, and that more than a few have sex with males and with females, Bill Hawkeswood selected for interviewing fifty-seven black gay men (twenty-seven Harlem-born, fifteen moving there as adults) who identify themselves primarily as black, "pursue their gay life in Harlem," and are racially endogamous in partner selection. More than half (thirty-four) were 'hustlers' (rent boys); twice as many (twenty) lived alone as lived with lovers. Hawkeswood attributed more conscious calculation and choice about where to live and socialize than seems likely�certainly more than are warranted from his data.

A white New Zealand anthropology graduate student at Columbia, he claimed that "by creating a social network of informants around myself, I was able to observe and participate in the everyday lives of the gay black men I wished to describe." Most ethnographers probably underestimate the extent to which they observe an ego-centered network and confuse those they know with a pre-existing community, and many have been very casual about "sampling," but claims about "most" of a population (in this instance, most gay male Harlemites being well educated, actively Christian, employed, providing economic and other kinds of supports to their natal families) are not very credible when based on a deliberately biased sample of an idiosyncratic network. [ More here]

My thoughts are: If you are gay, just stand up and be gay. Noone cares really. It is okay. At least I don't. If you are gay, well you just are and I am fine with that. Just stand up and be who you are. Don't continue to hide behind your penis and pretend to be straight!!!!

One of the Children: Gay Black Men in Harlem

O'EO @ 10:45 pm | Make a comment | Permacrumb

Poor Blair Underwood--Fired Again!

Why can't Blair Underwood keep a job? Man it seems like he is always the star or a lead character in a failing sitcom or soon to be cancelled sitcom or drama. LAX was just cancelled. I was hoping it would be a hit for his sake. At least he has some "stick to it ness" as my mom used to say. He gets right back up and keeps on going. Those hollywood stars must not be properly aligned over his head. Maybe he needs to consult a crystal ball to help map put his future!? He needs some help! And a hit tv show. He has 3 kids to feed.

O'EO @ 02:52 pm | Make a comment | Permacrumb

Revival of the Black Press

By Mark Fitzgerald
Published: November 26, 2004 10:00 AM ET

CHICAGO Nervous laughter echoed from the audience of movers and shakers gathered at a DuSable Museum reception this summer to formally welcome Roland S. Martin as the new executive editor of the Chicago Defender. On stage, Cliff Kelley, the most influential talk radio host in black Chicago, was kidding on the square with Real Times LLC Chairman Tom Picou about the awful quality of the African-American daily not so long ago.

"I used to tell him that I had a great slogan for the Defender: 'Yesterday's News Tomorrow,'" Kelley laughed, as Picou, who years ago was the paper's president under its old Sengstacke family ownership, tried to look like a good sport. "There was a reason we called it 'the Offender.' We used to ask him if they had any proofreaders on the paper. We'd say, 'Ebonics was invented at the Defender.' It didn't seem like the paper could get worse, and then, things got worse."

By January 2003, when the Real Times group of investors from Chicago and Detroit bought the Defender and its four sibling weeklies for $8.1 million from the Sengstacke family, the Chicago paper had been surviving for decades as a shadow of its former self in editorial quality, readership, and financial viability. In the early 1950s, the weekly Defender circulated nationwide and hit its peak sales of 230,000 copies. In 2002, the last time it filed an Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) Publisher's Statement, the daily Defender sold just 14,629 copies a day in a city of 1.1 million African-Americans.

The decline of the storied newspaper � once so powerful it is credited with setting off the Great Migration of African-Americans from Dixie to the industrial cities of the North after World War I � symbolized the state of many black papers across the nation. Too many markets were crowded with black newspapers that were thinly financed mom-and- pop operations competing for readers and advertisers with error-riddled, irrelevant articles presented in dated layouts and smudgy reproduction.

But now, the black press is on a rebound, pushed by a sophisticated readership increasingly loathe to accept mediocrity, pulled by owners who realize their old business model is utterly broken and advertisers who now demand a more specific return on their dollar than a feel-good vibe.

"The black press has gotten the memo that change is required," says DC Livers, who catalogued more than 400 black newspapers and other publications as editor of the new Black Press Yearbook: Who's Who in Black Media. "They're starting to understand that their reader ... expects the black press to be as good as the general market [paper]."

Robert W. Bogle has seen the changes firsthand as president and CEO of the nation's oldest black newspaper, the 120-year-old Philadelphia Tribune. "Being black," he says, "won't get you over � and it shouldn't. You've got to be competitive."

And just as the Defender symbolized an industry in trouble, the paper now is the most talked-about example of a possible black-press renaissance.

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Thursday, November 25, 2004

Slippery Slope

If you think the brawl between the Pistons, the Pacers and the public started with Ron Artest's hard foul on Friday night, then you just haven't been paying attention. The tensions that led to that melee have been building for years, as the gulf between athletes and fans has widened, standards of civility have declined and the lust for violence has intensified. It's been getting increasingly nasty out there, on the field and in the stands, and the malice at the Palace was just the next step down the ladder to who knows where.

The fight was deplorable, yes, frightening, yes, but shocking? Not really. Not after we've seen Texas Rangers pitcher Frank Francisco angrily toss a chair into the stands, breaking a woman's nose; not after we've seen Tie Domi of the Toronto Maple Leafs wrestle with a fan in the penalty box; not after we've seen spectators rush the field to attack Kansas City Royals first base coach Tom Gamboa; not after we've seen Vernon Maxwell of the Houston Rockets charge into the stands to punch a heckler.

All those incidents happened within the last 10 years, and they, along with many others like them, led to last Friday night. They are all evidence that the player-fan dynamic has changed for the worse. Athletes and spectators don't like each other anymore, generally speaking, and it only takes a few overpriced beers in the hands of the wrong people to make the hostility leak out.

The money is part of the growing disconnect. Fans resent the obscene salaries that the players are making, and players resent the fans' notion that those big paychecks make them fair game for the most vicious heckling. The antagonism between the two sides is like a fuse, and the cup of beer thrown at Artest was just the latest match, causing the biggest explosion we've witnessed. So far.

There was a time when even that pent-up resentment wouldn't have caused the kind of ugliness we saw Friday at the Palace of Auburn Hills, when it wouldn't have occurred to fans to attack players, and players wouldn't have dreamed of charging into the stands. That was before the standards for acceptable behavior changed, before we started serenading opposing players with obscene taunts, before we began chanting "Bull----!" when a referee makes a call we don't like.

It was also before everyone got so angry, and we're not talking about sports. We flip each other off in the car more, and fire off angry e-mails, and it's no surprise that when some of us go to a game, we're not just looking for entertainment, we're looking to let off steam. We want to see Ray Lewis pulverize a ball carrier and dance in celebration. We can't wait to see Shaquille O'Neal�flatten Kobe Bryant�the first time he comes through the lane. Is it any wonder that some of us want to do more than just watch the mayhem, that we want to be part of it?

Throw alcohol into the mix and the whole thing explodes like a Molotov cocktail. NBA commissioner David Stern sounded sincere when he said that the league would consider restricting alcohol sales in the future, and there's no doubt that turning off the taps at the start of the fourth quarter, for instance, would reduce the likelihood of brawls like the one on Friday night.

But the Pistons-Pacers fight wasn't just the result of a few fans having about a dozen too many, and it wasn't just about Artest looking for trouble and finding it again. The brawl came about because of far deeper, more complicated problems that can't be completely remedied with more security or more sobriety. The tensions that led to the melee won't go away overnight.

Maybe the only positive development in Friday's fight was that no one was seriously injured. We may not be so fortunate next time, and despite everyone's remorse and the stiff penalties that have been handed out, there will almost certainly be a next time.

"http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/phil_taylor/11/22/artest.fans/"

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Turkey Anyone?

O'EO @ 11:29 am | Make a comment | Permacrumb

Things to Be Thankful For!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! We have a lot of things to be thankful for...family, home, food to eat, transportation..you know all the basic things.

There are alot of things we take for granted in everyday life. Little things we do not even think about on a day to day basis. They are all so ingrained in all we do. Here are some other people and things to be grateful for:

Sarah Boone: inventor of the ironing board

Walter Sammons: inventor of the hair comb

Lydia O. Newman: inventor of the hair brush

Madam Walker: inventor of various hair products for black hair

Lloyd P. Ray: inventor of the dustpan

Thomas W. Stewart: inventor of the mop

George T. Samon: inventor of the clothes dryer

John Love: inventor of the pencil sharpener...

The list goes on and there are many more daily items that were invented by black people. All the items above were invented by black people. Not only were black people the backbone of this great country we live in but we invented many of the useful, everyday things we can't live without.

O'EO @ 09:45 am | Oreos (25) | Permacrumb

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Oprah's Favorite Things 2004

How does one get on the list for the show? I want her to be my santa one year!

Dooney & Bourke Leather Duffle Bag 1-800-347-5000; www.dooney.com

Miraval Resort and Spa�Life in Balance 1-800-232-3969; www.miravalresort.com Orbitz 1-888-656-4546; www.orbitz.com

Dell� 30" Wide-Screen LCD TV 1-800-BUY-DELL; www.dell.com/oprah

Eileen Fisher Hooded Waffle-Weave Merino Stretch Zip Cardigan and Merino Stretch Drawstring Pant Available at Eileen Fisher stores, or by phone and online. 1-800-eileen2; www.eileenfisher.com

Maytag� Neptune� Top-Load Washer and Drying Center 1-800-688-9900; www.maytag.com

Lollia Lifestyle Collection Hand Cream and Foaming Bubble Bath In Breathe and Relax fragrances. 1-888-8LOLLIA; www.lollialife.com. Also available at Kokopelli: 1-630-325-1996; kokopellihinsdale.com. And at Anthropologie and Bloomingdale's stores nationwide.

Hand-Blown Crystal Champagne Glasses by Deborah Ehrlich Available at Takashimaya New York: 1-800-753-2038.

Quilted Jacket and Cashmere Scarf by Burberry Available at Burberry stores nationwide. www.burberry.com

Apple Bottom Jeans by Nelly 1-800-637-9594; www.applebottoms.com

Museum Automatic Art� Watch by Movado 1-888-4MOVADO; www.movado.com

Bourjois Lip Products Silk wrap case, which includes one crystal lipstick case, one lip brush, 10 lipsticks, 4 lip glosses and 2 lip liners. www.bourjois.com and www.sephora.com

Gourmet Florida Key Lime Bundt Cake We Take The Cake: 1-888-901-CAKE (2253); www.wetakethecake.com (You'll find the bundt cake by clicking on Mail-Order.)

Italian Water Garden Tea Service Available for purchase at Room with a View: 1-800-410-9175; www.roomview.com. For other stores near you, please check the VIETRI website: www.vietri.com.

SpecialTeas Fine Tea Gift Certificate 1-888-enjoy-tea (365-6983); www.specialteas.com

Williams-Sonoma Home Bedding 1-888-922-4110; www.wshome.com

The Magellan� RoadMate� 700 Thales Navigation: 1-800-669-4477; www.magellangps.com

Dell� Pocket DJ� www.dell.com/oprah; 1-800-BUY-DELL

Sony VAIO� S260 Notebook computer Available at Sony stores or by calling 1-877-865-SONY; www.sonystyle.com

OfficeMax Gift Certificate 1-877-OFFICEMAX; www.OfficeMax.com

BeBe Winans' My Christmas Prayer & Starbucks Gift Card Available at Starbucks locations in the U.S. and Canada, while supplies last. www.oprah.com

O'EO @ 04:12 am | Oreos (2) | Permacrumb

Monday, November 22, 2004

More Greedy Black People

This is an update to the first post: here!

We had our office luncheon on Friday and it was just as I knew it would be. The office supplied the meat and all the employees had to bring in assorted side dishes. There was so much food it was ridiculous. We were to told to bring in a dish that feed 10 people. There are about 75 peopel in the office so you do the math. how much food did we have? Food for an army! Way too much for the office.

Well it began right after the meal as far as the food hording. Their are 2 main culprits who do this. As they shall remain nameless, I'll describe by color. (As you know...I am an oreo so is is all about color) The worst of the two is Blackberry. She is just as her name. A dark elderly woman, petite and one who has been with the company for 29 years. She makes over 75k per year. Blackberry is known for bringing her baggies and zip locks from home and waiting until the office is deserted. She will then go to the kitchen with her purse and briefcase and fill up those baggies with food and stuff them in her purse and briefcase.

Makes me sick just to think about it! Aint' she got no home training? Ain't she got no pride? Hell no. She don't care!

The other culprit is...let's call her Redbone. That is her color...a lite skinned middle aged woman, wavy hair...you know... what used to be called mulatto in earlier times. She is know for bringing in Walmart bags and going into the kitchen before ...BEFORE!!!!!..any office function and loading up for later. She will wrap up all sorts of meat and cheese in that walmart bag and then hide it in the vegetable crisper until later....or in her words, "putting up a plate for later." A plate would be one thing but she loads up pounds of meat. Pounds! She has been with the company for 15 years and makes over 50k per year. No pride at all. Not after the function...BEFORE the function begins. You would think that she had work to do at her desk when the function was goin on but she does not. She is eating with everyone else and it is not the food she has horded away and hidden.

And of course all these women are in a cliche together. I was sitting at a table and they came to sit near me. Surprising as I am not a member of the group. Black berry has jokingly told me that I am not quite black enough to be in their social circle. One of the other ladies they socialize with made greens and when I got to the buffet line to that dish, it was all gone. That herd of black women are always the first in line. Well all of a sudden someone produced a plastic tupperware dish of greens. They had scooped all the greens out of the pot on the buffet line and put it in a plastic dish. They passed the dish around to all at the table but me. I was skipped right over. They all had greens and noone else did. How damned rude was that? If you are going to pass something around the entire table include everyone. I was sitting there first. But, it was par for the course and nothing that was a real surprise. I just announced...."well at least we know where the greens went."

I ate and left. Later in the mid afternoon alot of us went back for dessert. We could not eat it at the main lunch. There was just too much to eat. There was blackberry and redbone taking whole pies and wrapping them in walmart bags to take home. DAMn! What is wrong with those women? They had wrapped up one apple and 2 sweet potatoe pies. I know that when the office closed, they stayed late. I left them there. The office closes at 5, I left at 6 and they were still there waiting for eveyone to clear out to that they can go pack up the turkey and ham and take it home.

They did a very good job of clearing out the food because the next day there wre just about turkey scraps left. The office had lunch again if you wanted left overs but my desk mate and I got the scraps of turkey that was left. Those vultures had stripped the refrigerators clean of meat. I went hunting and saw all sort of walmart bags hidden in the vegetable crispers. I peaked and it was all the turkey wrapped up and hidden away.

Why these well to do women are acting like bag ladies is beyond me. They make good money and have been doing so for years. They live in what are really mansions and drive cars like the Infinity and the Escalades. They are dripping in money. Unlike some others....me. I have only been with the company a few years. God help me from every becoming lilke them. The day I walk in there with a baggy in my purse is the day I would need to be carted off to the funny farm.

Those greedy black women are getting on my last nerve. Now I know that there may be many white people who fill up at a buffet, but the degree to which these women do it is appalling and embarassing! All the white people in our office talk about them like DAWGS!

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Sunday, November 21, 2004

Harrington and Grad School

The spring after the horrible Christmas episode, Harrington decided to get his masters in business administration. He signed up for the weekend graduate school designed specifically for working professionals. Intense school on the weekends and it lasted for about 2.5 years.

After the holidays Harrington said he wanted to take a little break. I asked what that meant as it seemed we really did not have a strong relationship anyway. He said that he wanted the opportunity to maybe go out with others....just on some dates...nothing serious and no sleeping with anyone. He wanted time to figure out where our relationship was going. Sounded like a good move. Doesn't absence make the heart grow fonder? We set some rules for both of us. We could go out on fairly platonic dates if we wanted but there was to be no sleeping with anyone else. If we really liked the date and felt that that person was someone we wanted to sleep with, we were to let the other know that we wanted out of the relationship for good. Harrington was in school all weekends so our time was limited to weeknights. He would come over to my house or I would go over to his house 2 times a week. We would still go out if we could and on Sunday nights we would go out to jazz clubs.

I was miserable but what could I do. I have never been one to run after a man. Maybe that is my problem. I do not know. Seems I can only have one for a short while. Noone ever stays for long. I did not initiate this arrangement, this break, this whatever the hell it was. I was interested in what he was doing in school. I even wanted to go up and tour the campus with him one weekend. I asekd to do that but the answer was no. So...noone he was associating with in grad school and that new circle of friends knew about me. I felt he was slipping away but there was nothing I could do.

I realize that most men are lying bastards but never has it been proven to me with so much bravado in all my years of dating. That lesson comes back to me over and over again. As if I had not learned it enough already.

He had a few papers to write and Harrington was not computer literate. At that time computers were not as common place as they are now. He had a computer and I offered on more than one occassion to type for him. I was the manager of a rehabilitation facility at that time and had access to my own computers at work and home. Harrington declined my offer. He said that he would get his office help to type. Other times he said a friend who was a typist would do it for him. Okay! All those things were valid and someone was typing for him. I was not sure who it was exactly. Well on another occassion he mentioned that he had a paper to type. I offered again and was rejected. This time he said I would not know how.

Now the muddy waters were clearing. He thought that my youth meant I did not know anything... I was dumb. With that statement, other past statements that were said to me hit home. He really did not think that I was as smart as him , if not smarter. God damn him! I was smarter. I had 4 years of college just like he did. I had a professional job, I was a social worker and therapist in the medical field. God knows I had a good education. In addition to keep current, I had to take continuing education and I was signed up for graduate school at Duke University. This was a sista' with skills and an education. I think that in all his years of dating since his divorce, he had dated a lot of younger women and maybe they all did not have the skills I had. Maybe he felt that anyone younger than him was not on his level. Little did he know that he was not on mine.

As it turmed out when he had that last paper completed, I asked to see it. Standard typing. Nothing fancy. I asked who typed it and if it was someone he was dating. He said it was. I let him have it. I could have certainly typed his fucking paper with no problem. We had a big fight about that. I asked how old the woman was that he was seeing and it was someone close to his own age. We were still on some sort of break/but still dating period.

I remember when I was a teen, I used to read Harlequin Romances. I read hundreds of them. That was how I learned how love and relatonship are supposed to be. No matter what, you may go thru some sort of adversity in the relationship, but in the end a knight in shining armor is supposed to come in on a white horse, sweep you off your feet, plant a big kiss on your lips and the two of you go riding off into the sunset together. I realize that every man I have ever dated, I have expected to sweep me off my feet and ride off into the sunset with me. Where is my knight? He is lost out there looking for me. I am here! Right here! Please come find me!

Well, I was looking for Harrington to be my knight. This was the adversity part and all was to work out in the end. I kept secretly hoping and waiting. While this break was going on , I did not date anyone else. Just him. I just knew that it would all work out in the end. I already had 2 years invested...now going into three. I wanted to ride off into the sunset with him. It would be a pretty nice sunset as he had a little money and we did have fun together. Our main differences came to doing things outdoors. I was more into that and he was not. We had many other things in common. The love of fine art and reading, jazz and going out!! He was not a stay at home fuddie duddie.

I was unable to place a name with this other woman he was seeing suposely not seriously so we continued on like we were. I was still in waiting mode. Don't good things come to those whow wait? Maybe this does not apply to men. Spring break was coming and I wanted us to spend that week together doing something. He was agreeble to that and I thought maybe we had just turned a corner. I invited Harrington to go home with me to meet my parents.

He did go with me. I had not told my mother about our age difference. I do not tell my mother about any relationships I have because when I did in younger years...not knowing...she would get all up in my bizness and cause trouble and turmoil. She did enough to run any men off I was interested. So we arrived at the door and she just happened to open it. She was in appropriate as usual. Before she could even say hello she had her hand over her mouth and was bending into her "I swany" moves. You know "I swany." It is that move that all elderly black women know about. "I swany" is from the 60's and earlier. I just looked at her. She finally straightened up and let us in. We got in. I told her we coudl share the same room. BIG FAT NO to that one. If you are not married you cannot sleep in the same room in her house. That really was not a big deal. We had a good weekend seeing all the sites aroung town, going to the beach and eating out. We headed back home on Tuedsay with no other plans for the rest of the week.

O'EO @ 05:17 pm | Make a comment | Permacrumb

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Yeah it's me. The O'EO Cookie! Angry at the ignorance that still enshrouds some people. This is all about me, just for me to rant and rave about all things past and present. Female geek hanging out in the blogosphere.