My Random Brush with Royalty

I rolled over this morning at 5:50am, cold and reaching for my blanket. But you know how it is when you wake up an hour or so before you really are supposed to get up. I couldn't fall back asleep. Then I remembered this "Royal Wedding" shindig was on. Well, as much as I side-eyed the big hoopla made about Kate's and William's extravagant nuptials, a little teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, meeny-weeny bit of me was happy for them. Not that their happiness makes any difference in my life. But you know with so much bad, mean, ugly, depressing, sad, and every other dark and ominous thing going on in the world, I'm just glad to see a group of people not crying about their home being torn to shreds or some frantic Middle-Eastern people screaming at the news camera crew. A breath of fresh "short-lived but welcome anyway" air, if you will. 

I lay in my bed and watched all the singing, praying, and I couldn't help myself. It did my heart good. Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer was throwing in their little tidbits of how graceful the Queen was when they met her, or how mannerable William and Harry always were when they spoke with them, and how beautiful Diana was when they talked to her and I thought to myself, "Hmmm, I got a royalty story myself." 

And I do. 

Wanna hear it? 

Here it go. 

So, it was the second day of my maternity leave. How do I remember it was my second maternity leave day specifically? The first day of my maternity leave, I drove to my parent's house with Joe. I had already gotten out the Explorer, and was walking around to get Joe out of his car seat. As I silently cursed at all his straps and buckles, I heard a "pop, pop-pop-pop, pop". 

Was that gunshots? 

My head bounced up and I looked around just like the ditzy blonde in the scary movies who very shortly after get killed. "Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop" They were definitely gun shots. Five doors down two guys decided to pull up to a house and shoot it up. 11:30am. Didn't look pressed for time or anything.  And they were standing in the middle of the street outside their car.  Not another care in the world. 

 Just-a-shooting.

I ducked back in the car and hurried to get Joe out.

Somehow the carseat gods were with me and he quickly became untethered so that I could run with him (thrown over my shoulder) to the back of my parent's driveway. 

I'll bet there was never another 9 month pregnant lady carrying a 23 month old boy who ran as fast as I did that day.

"OPEN THE GATE, OPEN THE GATE!"  I was yelling to my Dad through the kitchen window.

I was scared, even though it wasn't the first, or even the eighth time I'd seen some shooting going on right on that same street.

But you just never get used to folks shooting a few feet away from you, let me tell YOU.

Anyway, that's how I know it was the second day of my maternity leave: I was skeptical about parking on the street in front of Mom's house.  (Oh, you didn't think I was gonna let a few gunshots keep me from over there, did you?  Even until this day, that is still my home, occasional gang-violence and all).

I was repeating the same actions.  Get out the truck.  Walk around to Joe's side.  Open the door.  Except this time I was a tad bit more aware.  You gotsta get up pretty early in the morning to sneak an ol' neighborhood shoot out two days in a row on me. 

Lol.

"Roxanne!"

It was Mrs. Dawson, she lived across the street from my parent's house.

"Morning Mrs. Dawson."  I casually yelled but not looking at her, about to walk with Joe up the driveway.

"The Prince is over there!"  She said excitedly.

"Huh?"

"The Prince is over at Crenshaw!"

Well you know what you think when you hear that.  The "the" automatically goes out the window and you think, PRINCE ROGER NELSON is over at Crenshaw?  Crenshaw High School?

What's he doing over there?

I looked over towards the school and saw a few of the older neighbors walking towards Crenshaw's popular garden that the horticulture class tended to so well.  They had even marketed a line of salad dressings that was sold in the grocery stores in Los Angeles.

"Prince?" I said.  I couldn't understand why the older women were walking to see Prince.  Oh, I was quite confused.

"Prince Charles!" Boy, she was amped.

"Oh.  Oh, really?"  I said, turning in the direction of the garden.

Like the rest of the little old ladies, I started over towards the chain-link fence and saw a tall white man talking to a few teenagers.  Joe was holding my hand.

Now, I don't fancy myself as a person who falls apart whenever someone famous is around.  Living in Los Angeles meant you may occasionally see a star shopping on the same rounder as you at Macy's.  No biggie.

But that fast I got...all...giddy.  

Excited.

That IS The Prince.  I'm sorry, I don't care what you say, there is something unnervingly fantastic about meeting royalty in a big sundress and sandals when two minutes before the most exciting thing you were thinking about doing was making a grilled-cheese sandwich and watching television.

And what exactly do you say to a Prince?

I thought about the I Love Lucy episode when Fred told Lucy (who was wondering how to approach the Queen) 

"Aww, you just slip her the grip and say  Hiya Queen!"

Smiled to myself while I continued over.

I got to the gate and this tall, white man who turned out to be the very same Prince Charles walked up to the fence and stuck his hand through the chained link.  He was red, probably because he was overdressed for the unseasonably warm day it was in Los Angeles.

I looked around, expecting some man in a black suit with black glasses and a microphone wire in his ear to jump in between us, telling me to step back.  But nobody did.

There was no media there, no news crews, no big Crenshaw gospel choir singing songs to him, no ceremony, no nothing.  Just the Prince and a couple other folks.

I picked up Joe and then grabbed Prince Charles' hand.

"God Bless You."  He said with an expected but still shocking English accent.

"God.  Bless.  You."  I said back.  Silly, I know, but it was a special moment.

He grabbed Joe's hand and said "God Bless You" to him, and Joe looked up at him non-chalantly, much more interested in the chicken walking around the garden.  Yes, chicken.

He smiled genuinely at us.  And I must say, for a man, he was quite graceful himself.

The whole thing was so..weird.

Weird.

Yesterday I'm ducking bullets, today I'm shaking hands with royalty.  All on the same block.

I put Joe back down and we walked across the street to my parent's house. 

Wow, I just met Prince Charles on the corner of 8th avenue and 50th Street.

Random, huh?

What a Touch Can Do...

It’s been a while since I’ve written something, you know, with these videos and all…

 However, I had to write today.  Sometimes it’s just like that.

 And I have to tell you something.

So, I know most of you know that my mom died from breast cancer.  I’ve all but beaten you over the head about that fact.  And you guys probably know how much I miss her, because what child doesn’t miss their deceased parent?  And you’ve probably heard me say that we’re coming up on her 5 year anniversary of her death, which always makes this time of the year pretty much a bummer. 

 I really do miss my mom. 

What you guys don't know, though, is that I never got to have that last little chat with my Mom.  The cancer took over so quickly that by the time I got there to her, and I mean within a few days, she was no longer talking.  

You know how you envision having those last words...like it happens on TV and the movies.  Well naw.   It don't quite happen like that.  

Anyways, usually when we come up on the date, I try to keep it all together, because you know, I got a family, and I got work, and I got school, and I got all kinds of crap that I gotta take care of I ain’t really got time for no breakdowns.  Besides, people don’t wanna hear you whining and crying all the time about these things over and over again.  Death is a part of life…as we get older we best go on and accept our mortality is definitely on a timer. 

It’s all downhill from here baby!  Lol, okay, not to be all Debbie Downer and all…

Ok, no, seriously.  Let me get to what I gotta tell you.

I don’t get much sleep.  I can’t tell you when was the last time I’ve slept 7 hours straight.  It’s more like I do 4 hour intervals.  So, if I go to sleep at 11, the eyes automatically pop open at 3. 

And this is where it gets tricky.

I usually get up, go use the bathroom, check on my children, and then get back in the bed.  The goal always is to immediately go back to sleep.  That is indeed the goal. 

Now, if I can keep the brain from taking off on you know, thinking about what I want and don’t want, have and don’t have, need and don’t need, lol…then it ventures off into what errands I have to run the next day, what I should’ve done today, and if I’m feeling especially insomniacal (I know, not a word) I may start running down a whole list of worrisome shit that just turns an innocent little pee-break into an all out 2 hour session of staring into the dark.

Eventually, I just go on ahead and do what some of my other friends usually do, which is roll over, grab the phone, and look at my YouTube.  Look at Twitter.  Look at Instagram. Look at my emails.  Look at my itsrox Facebook.  Look at Huffington Post.  In that exact order.

Welcome to my night-life.  Ain’t it exciting?

Anyways, last night was one of those nights.  At 5:00am, though, I decided that enough was enough, and Roxanne, take your ass to sleep.

So you know how you do, you start thinking about not thinking about anything.  And it must have worked, because before I knew it, I was at a dinner at my Aunt Linda and Uncle Junior’s house.

And they aren’t even married anymore, haven’t been for a long, long time.

But I was my age today, and all my family was there.  All of them: aunts, uncles, my nieces and nephews.  My oldest brother’s extended family, which wasn’t odd but it was.  I remember handing my nephew Brandon and my brother’s sister-in-law’s son Alex a couple two liters of soda.  My Dad.  A whole bunch of friends.  And we were standing in a long line to the kitchen.  The sun was low through one of the windows, so the hallway we were standing in was sorta dark.  That’s how I knew it was a dinner.

Anyways, I was walking back from giving my nephew the stuff, and when I came around a corner, my Mom was standing there.

Now, at first, I thought this was going to be like the countless other dreams I’ve had about my Mom, because I have dreamt of her often. 

We’d be out shopping.  Or we’d be at my parent’s house on Sunday.  I even have had a couple where some crazy scientific find allowed her to come back from the dead.  Those ones are kinda weird, because she never really talks, just kinda stares at you in a Michael Jackson Thriller-like way, and I’m telling you, you don’t want to see your mom come back as a back-up dancer in a Michael Jackson video.

Anyways, I looked at her and smiled and she smiled back at me.  Then I waited to see if someone was going to say something to her but no one did.  Then I realized that this dinner was for her, and that we were all gathered together in her honor.  This dinner was for her, and she was already dead.

I stepped closer to her and suddenly I had the strong scent of her Alliage perfume she always wore.  She had on one of her regular suits that she wore to church.  And she had just the tiniest bit of glow.  Not one of those Glenda the Good-Witch glows, but more like a spotlight was shining on her from the top.

Nobody could see her but me.  I mean, I never asked the folks in line, but all this exchange of me standing and staring and her smiling and shining never seemed to affect anyone else there.  The line was moving ahead paying no never-mind to me.  Actually, I don’t even think they could see me anymore.

When I got the closest to her so I could touch her, she felt like a person.  In real life, you guys.  Not the “dream” touch.  The dream touch is when they feel…feathery…not actually a real fleshy type feel.  No, this was the real life touch.  I felt her.  She was warm, and soft, but not to soft.  Firm.  Yeah, my mom was always firm.  And I could feel the little hairs on her arm. 

My mom was STANDING THERE.  She was standing right there next to me.

So I reached out and hugged her so tight.  And I thought that the dream would fade away but it didn’t.  I felt her in my arms, could smell her in my nose, I could feel her.  I could feel her.

She laid her head on my shoulder. 

It felt like 15 minutes.  It felt so good.  Then all I got to say was “Mom, I miss you.”

That bounced around, reverberated all through the wherever we were, like it echoed all through the boundaries of that existence….then I felt myself waking up. 

And you know, then I had to spend the next hour trying to get myself together.  Funny, I had been thinking about doing some kind of tributary video for my mother, but if you could see Rocky’s face right now, you would know that a video just wasn’t in order.  And my swollen eyes is proof of that. Y’all can see me without makeup on, but y’all ain’t quite ready for the ugly-face cry.

No, the ugly face cry is what you don’t want.

It was such an experience I don’t even know if I would call it a dream.  It sounds so clichéd and all, you know how people say I wish I could just touch so-and-so again, and magically things would feel ok?  I would roll my eyes inwardly at that because my feeling would be “I don’t want to just touch them.  I want to touch and see and talk and laugh and spend time with and look at and experience them.”  What is a touch going to do for me?

But I know like I know the alphabet that I touched my mother last night.  And what that did for me was a lot.

Dissecting Love Jones

So I was home all weekend, the kids were gone, so it was nice and quiet around my house.  Sunday, I decided to get with ON DEMAND, and see what they were talking about.  I promise you I love ON DEMAND.  Whatever you miss during the week just catch up on Saturday and Sunday. 

I had remembered a couple days before reading an article on NecoleBitchie.com about this year marking the 15^th anniversary of Love Jones, and they interviewed Nia Long and Larenz Tate to discuss the affect this movie had on black romantic movies, the poetic movement, and just African-American culture period.  I know you all remember the explosion of what I like to call “bro-mantic dramas and comedies” that came soon after this movie: Love and Basketball, Soul Food, The Best Man, Brown Sugar, Disappearing Acts, Deliver us from Eva, Two Can Play That Game, The Brothers, The Wood, The Inkwell (which everyone felt was corny but to this day I am so touched by that coming of age tale that Tate delivered with such artistic sweetness) and the many other movies that I may be forgetting about.  For a minute there all you saw on the big screen was Sanaa Lathan, Gabrielle Union, Taye Diggs, and Morris Chestnut. 

I hope they saved some of their acting money because them days are long over. Loooong over.  Hell I just saw Morris Chestnut was in some Sunday afternoon BET stage play a couple weeks ago.  And the shit was horrible.  I mean, is this what you’ve been reduced to Morris?  What is going on with Morris anyway?  He used to be so chocolate and so chiseled and so smooth and so sexy…now I just look at him and I get that same confused look my little Shih Tzu Jazmine gives me when I fuss at her for chewing up a crayon on the floor.  Like, huh?

However, I digress.

So um yeah….the movie.  Love Jones. 

You guys I love this movie.  I love this movie.  I love it for its sexiness.  I love it for its rawness of Chicago.  I love it for the realness.  I love it for the music.  I love it for the hairstyles.  I love it for the clothes.  I love it because I enjoy watching Long and Tate’s chemistry.  I love it for the camaraderie of the ensemble cast.  I love it for all the twists and turns in the plot.  I love it for its subtle nuances.  I love it for its passion.  I love the whole be-bop groovy language.  I love it for all the memorable lines:

“It’s was like…it was like his dick just…talked to me.”

Hypnotized pause by Josie, then dreamily: “What it say?”

Nina trying to sum it up, can’t, then comes up with: “Nina…”

And who can forget “I love you….that’s urgent like a mothafucka.” 

Y’all, Love?  Yeah, that shit IS urgent like a mothafucka. 

But anyways, like I said, I love this movie.  Probably more than I did back in the day because after watching it yesterday with new (old, lol) 41 year old eyes, I realized that the movie I remembered was somehow different.  You know, it was the same movie, but my understanding was different.  Yeah, that’s a better way of saying it. 

I saw the exact same movie differently. 

First, let me tell you guys how I remembered it.  Nina and Darius had started off with the usual fireworks that new relationships provided.  She wasn’t sure she was over her ex, so she wanted to go back to make sure one way or the other.  Meanwhile, Darius goes, finds another woman to fill Nina’s place.  When she returns, she finds him with another woman.  She goes off and innocently with a friend of his, not sure what her intentions were with Bill Bellamy’s character, if she used him for companionship, to make Darius jealous, or if she genuinely liked the boy (which, eww, I know Bill Bellamy was big time back in those days but he has never been anything more than comical to me) but whatever.  Nina finds her way back into Darius’s arms, however now with all the baggage that dumb decisions, unconfirmed betrayal and good old fashioned busted up trust supplies.  Immaturity and inability to express themselves appropriately, the rocky relationship soon succumbs under pressure and like the saying goes, another one bites the dust.  Then there’s the ending, where Nina and Darius hook up after a year apart, and find themselves in each other’s arms again.  It never was clear if it was just for that moment or if they actually made a go of it, you know, what with her in New York and he still in Chicago.

And that’s generally how most would remember it I believe. 

So why, then, when I watched it yesterday, did I get so annoyed with Nina?  My beloved Nina who I copied her cute little flip hairstyle, cute knitted caps, and y’all can’t tell me I wasn’t cute when I wore the little short vest with the long button down shirt underneath it.  Man, I loved that style so much I feel like I could still wear that to this day. 

But yeah, I was annoyed.  Because for the first time, I saw her initial mistake to make the whole thing come down much like a Jenga game tumbling to a close.  Some say it’s his fault for not saying how he truly felt when she announced she was going back to New York, but I just don’t see it that way.  You see, why did she even tell him what she was going back for?  It was a fairly new fling, I truly think she would have gotten off scott free if she would have just said I got some work to do in NYC, I’ll be back. 

No, she wants to test Darius’s feelings, put up to it by her girl.  See if she could get a rise out of him.  Game playing 101 ladies and gentlemen.  Oh, but it doesn’t stop there.  Because when she returns and Darius isn’t at her beck and call, she goes out with his boy.  For real?  And that boy especially?  He was slimy from the beginning, I still for the life of me couldn’t understand what she was thinking.  The booty call man?  Just…no.

Then it goes on as these things go: she’s mad at Darius for not telling her about Lisa.  Gives him hell for not even asking if she slept with the booty call man, and then explains that she can’t trust him.  *insert little Jazmine the Shih Tzu face here*

I just shook my head.  Nina, Nina, Nina. 

I remember little stupid discrepancies like these when I was younger, my inexperience and embarrassment at communicating on a level that a man and woman in lust must now maneuver around holding me back.  Feelings got involved and I was ill-equipped at handling them.  What did I know?  I messed up a few good things with a few good guys simply because I didn’t admit to myself that my actions changed the course of their stay.

In simpler terms, she fucked that up. 

I know Darius played his part, but I now kept seeing him more reacting than at fault, him more rebounding than shooting the ball, him scrambling to pick up her pieces.  You know, between his sometimes unhappily married friend giving him relationship advice and his other friend stabbing him in the back, I thought he was doing damn good just sticking it out there with Nina.  Because with all the bravado and machismo he put up in front of his friends, that boy was sprung. 

I know that a lot of problems with relationships today is the inability to step out of one’s self and see things from their partner’s perspective.  We are sometimes so fixated on why we are pissed off at them that we refuse to see how we played a part in all this pissedivity.  Who started what?  What came first, the chicken or the egg?  Where is the beginning to this unhappy, wobbly circle?

I know some wouldn’t agree with me, but women gauge the temperature of their relationships.  If the woman is unhappy, then the whole thing suffers.  Nina’s trust issues came not just from her getting out of a bad relationship, but instead of immediately talking to Darius about her true feelings when she returned she let the boil of game playing fester until it became a gaping wound that couldn’t be fixed.  (That withholding sex scene after he’d hit it a good number of times before just made me mad.  She was lucky she didn’t get hit.)  The temperature she set was foolish at first, then it was suspicious in the end.  Relationships can’t last under suspicious eyes.  No trust folks.  So watching the movie yesterday made me see that my cute little Nina who I championed all them years ago, for a lack of better words, was tripping.  Damn. 

Go on and celebrate the anniversary by watching Love Jones and reminisce on true good black cinema (and then go on and pop in that Tyler Perry movie and really accept the death of black cinema for good measure).  Did you guys feel she was more at fault than Darius?  Felt Darius was more at fault than Nina?  Or were they about equal?  Am I too hard on Nina?  Tell me what you think.

itsrox

Do You Know What Your Style Personality Is?

How important it is to know your style?  Well, I believe it is the all time most necessary thing – you have to know what looks good and what is not for you. 

With all the fashion trends and their never-ending turns, what’s hot today may be all the rage, but that still doesn’t mean that you need to climb yourself up in that outfit.  Just because it looks good on the mannequin…humans are a whole nother thing.

The situation:

How many times have you seen one of your girls in the cutest little strapless jumpsuit.  You run on down to the store and get you one just like it.  Rush back home, put it in your closet and say to yourself “I am going to wear this bad boy to the party on Saturday and I am gonna be cute with my heels and my little purse and I’m gonna wear my drape earrings and my long necklaces and….blah blah blah.  You KNOW you fixin’ rep for real!  Saturday, you get your hair done, fresh eyebrow threaded, take your bath and then go to put on your glorious jumpsuit.  You look in the mirror….ummm….then you turn around….hmmm……..then you back up from the mirror and straighten the outfit out…..uuhhh…..walk up close to the mirror again…shimmy your shoulders so the material lays correctly….wait a damn minute here...then the frown comes.  What the hell?  This is…this ain’t workin’.  And you can’t figure out why it looks crazy?  Well, I’ll tell you why.

Because you didn’t take into account that you and your friend have two entirely different body types.  What works for one does not work for all. 

A few general fashion tips:

In general, there are rules that if you stick to them, you do a little better when picking out your clothes.  If you are short, try to find clothes that elongate your body.  If you are a bigger girl, don’t wear humongous clothes.  Women always think they need to have on super big when they are full figured, but what’s more important is that it fits.  Not that it has a whole bunch of room.  This is double important for girls with big boobs.  Because big boobs look even bigger in a super blousy shirt.  If you have broad shoulders, wear things that soften the points of your shoulders, not bring attention to it.  Racer backs makes broad shoulders look even more broad.  If you aren’t hippy, create the illusion by breaking up a shirt or a dress with a belt.  Short legs, don’t wear cropped pants or longer dresses (that cut you off at the shin).  It gives you that chopped off look.  If you want to not make hips look so wide, wear a blouse or jacket that stops right at the fullest part of your hips.  The material lays right on top of your hip and gives you a clean straight silhouette.  These are just a few.  Many of them are common sense, but I’m telling you, I see people all the time who don’t really know what looks good for their body.

Do you know what you like?  What your style personality is?  Me, I love frilly, feminine type clothes, but I also like to wear things fitted and close to my body.  I feel the best when I have on something that I feel sexy in.  And sexy doesn’t have to be revealing.  So don’t mistake the two.  I have a long sleeve silk florally shirt that has long blousy arms and ties around a very high neck and I think it is one of my sexiest shirts.  It’s something about the material, and the beautiful pinks and purples and periwinkles in it.  I love jeans.  Mostly because you can dress them up or down.  I’m not much of a dress person, but I always feel pretty and girlie in them.   I am not much of a trend person, but I will season my wardrobe with a few of the latest and greatests (and I wont spend a fortune on ANYTHING trendy), but for me, I like to keep more traditional.  I love the whole military look out right now, but except for this red blazer I have, I don’t think I’m gonna fully engulf myself in the look.  I’ve seen the long cute double breasted trench coats and all that, but I imagine that it may not stick around past this season. So no.  You know what seemed to be a pretty good investment?  Patent Leather.  I bought my first pair of patent leather shoes w/ the peekaboo toe that everyone was (and still is) wearing back in 2005.  Do you know they are  STILL running strong?  Patent leather, I keep thinking it is going to fade away but nope, it is still giving us a run for our money.  I just saw that the new thing right now is neon paten leather.  Which I’m still not sure if I will add to my collection….well.  Maybe.  I think the best investment I made back then were some patent leather boots from Nine West that I still wear today.

Owning the attitude:

Feeling good in your clothes is another so important thing.  When you have on an outfit and you spend the entire time pulling the hem down or readjusting yourself in it, or you hate to look in the mirror because you don’t like it or you can’t stop looking in the mirror because you hate it, then that isn’t the one for you!  Nobody or nothing can make you feel cute if you are awkward in it. 

What I won’t wear?  Can’t do the flat shoe.  I have tried you guys.  I am still trying.  I been trying to get a pair of the cute flat boots that come up to the knee  that everyone has been rocking for about two boot seasons now and no dice.  No go.  It goes back to the way you feel in something.  Heels make me feel sexy…flats make me feel….well, flat.  Boring.  And though people don’t believe me, sometimes flats hurt my feet.  My arch, which is high, really appreciates the support of a high heel, if that makes sense.  But it sucks, because I WANT to like a flat shoe.  You know, all my friends have the cute flat boots, they throw on their UGGS (which I hate by the way…UGG just has to stand for UGGly…yes, I know they are amazingly comfortable and soft and warm…) on the weekend when we run to the mall or something, and then here I come out the house with the heels and everyone thinks I’m doing the most.  Really Roxanne?  I just don’t own a flat shoe I feel good in.  Sue me.

Get to know YOU!

I want you all to be really aware of what you buy, what looks good on you, and most importantly what FEELS good on you.  I think if you keep in mind that we are in a recession and your purchases need to be smart both economically and aesthetically, you’ll be on the right path.  Because the two go together.  Don’t be afraid to go into stores you don’t usually frequent, because that may just be the place that you find the perfect shirt, pants, or dress.  Take risks but let them be calculated.  Buy cute, buy quality, buy (some) trends, buy fun, buy stylish.  Buy smart. 

 itsrox

What NOT To Get Your Girl For Valentine's Day

I was casually strolling through my FB home page and I came across one of my girls who's status said she’d got a ham for Valentine’s Day.

A HAM.

What exactly does this say about how you feel about a woman? I mean, I'm asking: that is a legitimate question. Sigh. Men, this is not ok, nor is it acceptable. A ham? For real? I don’t give a good goddamn if she looks like she hasn’t had a meal in a week, we do not want MEAT for Valentine’s Day. We just don’t.

So men, in order to avoid this type of mishap from occurring again, I have put together a very comprehensive list that you can even print out and take with you to the mall to assure this type of fuckery doesn’t happen onecst again.

And that ain’t no typo. 

Here we go: TOP TEN THINGS NOT TO GET YOUR GIRL FOR VALENTINES DAY

1. Anything Made By Baby Phat, House of Dereon, or RockaWear – Assuming that most of you are over 18 reading this, please pass up these designers. No grown woman should be walking around with a sweatsuit with a big foil cat taking up one complete leg, jeans with multicolor letters sparkling all over it, or one of those gold and silver bomber jackets. 

2. Flowers From The Grocery Store – Yeah, yeah…I know we like them fine when you pick them up for us occasionally and for no real reason, but it’s Valentine’s Day. Let’s break out the exotic flowers from the real floral arranger. We are over the chrysanthemums and baby’s breath.

3. The Baskets They Sell On The Corner – Now men, nothing says “I didn’t even think of you until I had to stop at the Chevron” faster than one of those sorry baskets from the tables taking up one full corner section of the gas station. And if you REALLY want to piss her off, tell your girl you spent $85 on a stale box of chocalate covered cherries, two plastic wine glasses, one long stem fake rose, and a bottle of Andre’s Blush Champagne. 

4. A Gift Certificate To Get Her Car Serviced – I know we been saying we need to get our oil changed and tires rotated, but we also need a mammogram and you don’t see us asking you to smash our titties down between two plates do you?

5. Lingerie – Men, we know how you see this: it’s a win-win for everybody right? Well….first off, you had better made sure that it’s going down that night. Because when she opens this particular box, it can either be on and poppin', or it could get the serious side-eye. Bad. Secondly, you guys rarely know our lingerie sizes. Don’t nobody feel like contorting into this tiny bra that cuts all into our back fat, nor do we have 25 safety pins at the ready to reconstruct this big ass gown you bought us. 

6. The Dreaded “Stuffed Animal Holding The Heart” – Please don’t do this to yourself or her. 

7. Sex Toys and/or Porn – Ok, so let’s assume that it’s implied that it is GOING DOWN on Valentine’s night. If it’s the 1st time, and you guys haven’t had a good thorough talk about fetishes and the sort, do NOT choose this time to whip it on her. The whole “Hot Caramel and Creamy Ass Gang Bang Trilogy”? No. The Silence of the Lamb mask? Alarming. 

8. Virtual Valentine’s Day Card – Men, unless you are thousands of miles away and simply can’t get to your woman, please do not send this as a gift. Women like to know you put some thought into their presents, not forwarded an email that your boss sent to the whole staff in your office.

9. Perfume from the Drug Store – You figured you’d at least get a card, right? You are running into CVS and right at the door is a great big gigantic posterboard promotion of Halle Berry’s perfume. You think: HALLE BERRY = GOOD, PERFUME = GOOD, and $12.99 = GOOD. You just killed three birds with one stone, right? Wrong. Cuz WE think PERFUME = ROACH SPRAY, BODY WASH = YEAST INFECTION, and TALC POWDER = WHO THE HELL WEARS THAT???

10. Your DICK *extreme language warning* – Men, I hate to break it to you. But we don’t always sit around dreaming of jumping on top of you. Even if we do, that is IN ADDITION TO the gift, not THEE gift. After your girl took off work, made sure the kids were out for the evening, slaved in the kitchen making you a wonderful meal, wrapped up your gifts (plural), and got dolled up and she presents all this to you, do not gesture to your lower parts when she excitedly asks where is her gift. Do not then further exacerbate the situation by unbuckling your belt and pants, leaning back and putting your hands behind your head, implying “It’s all yours baby”….I can’t speak for all women, but I believe I can speak for most when I say that the only way you gonna feel any breath on the that mothafucka is when she leans down to see if there is a Tiffany & Co. necklace hanging around it. You can shine it up all you want with baby oil.  You can even spray glue on it and get some rainbow glitter and sprinkle it on there with blinking signs with arrows hanging on the bitch and everything...keep that bullshit to your-DAMN-self.

Ok men, you can do it!  That should be it…Happy Shopping! 

itsrox

My Hair, My Business...

Ok everyone, so I wrote this next little piece right before the Chris Rock movie/documentary "Good Hair" came out.  I guess sometime back in maybe around February, 2010.  No, maybe before then...I'm not sure.  But anyways, I would suppose it is slightly dated (especially since I've been having my weave now for over one and a half years now)...but hair talk is always relevant I'd think.  So with that being said...enjoy.  

itsrox

I have been wearing a weave for the last five weeks or so, and I just love it. I love my short hair too. It’s all about flexibility. If I wanna have a short, curly and spiky Halle Berry’esque do, Taki (my wonderfully patient stylist) hooks it up. Do I want a Rihanna bang? Super-straight Chinese-bob? Long and flowlicious down to my bra strap? A couple frantic texts to my stylist and after she undoubtedly shakes her head in a “what is this child going through today?” kinda way, she always answers my texts with what I wanna hear:

Sure Roxanne, we’ll hook it up.

I love my stylist. (Shout out to Taki!)

Anyway, my weave. It seems to be such the topic lately.

With Chris Rock’s new movie “Good Hair” coming out, Oprah’s and Larry King’s recent exposure to “extensions”, and the ridiculous bandwagon that Tyra Banks has jumped on claiming that black women don’t love themselves and are bonded by their weaves (sigh, she SO gets on my nerves), it has given the white folks special license to just ask the most stupid and asinine questions around about my various and ever-changing looks.

It used to be, “Is that all your hair?” and “What does it feel like, can I touch it?”, to which they always got a curt NO and NO, along with a slight roll of the eyes.

Sheez.

But now that mainstream media has took it upon themselves to tell us black chicks that we don’t have to hate our natural selves so much, the white folks I run across done went crazy.

“You can’t grow your own hair out?”
“Is your hair too (uncomfortable silence)…thick…to be straightened?”
And my favorite:
“I bet you like your hair better that way” (that way being my Jennifer Aniston a la “Friends” weave I recently had.)

Sigh.

I hate that Tyra especially has decided for the rest of us that we are in bondage. Especially because she has been admittedly been wearing a weave/wig for as long as I can remember, however, just because she decided it wasn’t for her, all of a sudden, we have to follow suit? Naw sis, God ain’t put that one on my heart just yet. (And let me just tell you that she may be going natural on her talk show, but she sho’nuff weaving it out on America’s Next Top Model…I’ma let y’all marinate on that one.)

I change up mostly because I am more concerned with looking the way I feel best about myself. I can run down a list of thirty styles I have had in the last twenty years. And that has run the gamut from dookie braids, kinky twists, fake dreads, straw curls, cornrows, crimps, stack curls, press, perms, weave to my butt, super short, curly afro, claws, feathers, bobs, colors from platinum blonde to koolaid red…I have had it all. And throughout all those styles, I really just thought I was changing my look according to my mood. I had no idea that I was putting myself and the whole black race down because I chose to not walk around with my hair not in its back to the Motherland state. Not that there is anything wrong with the teeny-weeny-afro. I admire anyone who says “f*ck it”, cuts it all off, gets up in the morning and just GOES.

But if we don’t chose to be that way, then all a sudden I got this deeply-rooted detestation for my culture, my race, my skin…Lord have mercy.

Last night, I was watching Monique’s talk show (and not anymore with all that damn screaming and dramatic “…and BABY” that she has to say all the friggin’ time…but I digress) and I was getting so aggravated with the hair talk. This shit ain’t secret. We all know that Tran Nguyen who owns Beauty Town over in the strip mall who can’t speak English but can tell you which type of hair does what and can count your change back to you better than the teller at the bank is the one making the dough. We know that there is quality weave hair (Indian, Malaysian, Remy, etc.) and there is some mess that will grab on to your comb and refuse to let it go (Brandy’s brand, Hollywood, and other unknowns – if the hair is on sale two bags for $10, do NOT get this brand). We know that if we perm our hair it’s gonna be straight. If we lock our hair, it is in its most natural state. Steam and fog is the anti-Christ to a freshly done coif. Sex after a five-hour stay at the beauty salon is doable, but you better believe I’m about to become an engineer up in this bed, stacking and rolling pillows, neck-lifts, and strategic positions that ain’t gonna smash the entire side to look like the resulting hair from a cleared out bristle-brush.

I mean, what is the f*cking big discussion?

Um, no Larry King. You have not told me what I didn’t already know.

Thank you.

I just think that whatever you do to your hair, it should be between you and your scalp. I shouldn’t have to contemplate what America thinks I feel about myself. Damn, don’t we have enough to worry about with makeup (vibrating mascara brush or mascara comb?) and clothes (they said one size fits all????), now I gotta cut off my perm and go au-naturel so Patsy over there realizes I am staying true to my blackness?

I think not.

Nobody loves a new fresh hairdo more than I do. Every two weeks at the salon is like a mini-birthday party for me. I don’t care if I’m there one and a half hours or six. I get out that chair and I am ecstatic. 

I don’t know about you, but I love ME and MY HAIR. Honestly, one doesn’t have much to do with the other. 

You can grow it out, fine. You ain't got no edges, great. Your hair is brillo-pad tough, alright. Your weave is silky-straight, whatever. You like the braids, cool.  They got something out there for ALL of you. Hey, if you like it, I love it. Let’s just stop all this foolishness y’all.

It is just hair.

Sex on the First Date?

Growing up, I was a wee little thing.  Skinny.  Boney.  (Ohhhh, I STILL hate that word).  Many of you who know me personally probably remember. 

So nobody was clamoring and knocking down my door to “get with me”.

And by “get with me”, I’m talking about Doing the Do.

The Nasty.

Boning.

Screwing.

Getting some.

Fucking.  

Oh sure, I was known enough since I was a cheerleader and I was always easy-going and I drove my own car and I hung out with Menina, who was arguably one of the prettiest black chicks at Palisades High School back in the day. 

What I like to call “popular by proximity”.  Ha.

But that was SO it.

I think most of the guys thought of me as their sister.  And whomever I had a crush on, they didn’t have any idea.  Instead, I had to hear about some chick in my inner-circle that they liked. 

“Try to get Tish’s number for me.”

“Yeah, alright.”  Roll the eyes.

Get your own damn number, shit.

So I was a virgin on prom night.  And for a long time after that, but that's neither here nor there.

While all my girls were trying to figure out their dresses and hairstyles and shoes and limousines and all that, ole Rocky was trying to figure out if that night was gonna be the night she had her back blown out. (lol, that expression is so damn funny to me.)

 Then the bottom fell out when my “boyfriend” at the time told me he couldn’t be my date and I ended up going with a 22 year old drug dealer by the name of Lucky (I have no idea what his real name was) whom I met exactly two days before prom .

And ain’t nobody ever been further away from getting a piece of ass than Lucky was.

I mean, I was down to do it with the boyfriend, but I’ll be damned if I was giving it up to this man I didn’t know.

I mean, I ain’t no scallywhop or nothing.

And it was the first date.  The only date really.

Sex on the first date is a no-no.

Or is it?

Today, with all the diseases and talk about unwanted pregnancies and crazy folks on the loose, it is a whole lot to worry about when you go on a date with a new guy or girl.

I know that when I have a conversation with my single friends and they are talking about a new man, the whole sex issue is a major part of the discussion.

“He is so friggin’ sexy, Roxanne.  He’s got these big arms and chiseled chest and an ass you can open a can of vegetables with.”

“Really?”  I’ll say, smiling to myself.

“Yes.  Goddamn fine.”  They’ll say.

“So, you gonna give him some?”  Is the eventual question.

It gets tricky here.  Because your girl wants to tell you the truth without looking like she should be sporting her limegreen fishnets and feathers on the Ho Stroll.

 If it is not an immediate NO, then the answer always has all these contingencies.

“Well, if he seem like he’s cool and if we’re feeling each other and if he doesn’t say anything stupid and if he smells good and he has on the right clothes and his teeth are perfect and he pays for dinner and he opens the doors and he looks in my eyes and if he don’t have kids and if he’s never been married and if he’s…” 

Girl please.

Yes or no.

It’s such an easy question.  Do you or have you given it up on the first date?  Or if that is giving way too much information from you personally, how about you give your opinion from a bystander’s view?

You can start it like this: “Well, I personally never have done it on the first date but…”

See? 

What says you?  Sex on the first date?  

.