First Kiss

I'm bored on a Saturday night, it's raining something nasty in ATL and I don't think I'll be leaving my humble abode tonight. Plus, I don't think I'll catch second wind.

For entertainment, I recall what I remember about my first kiss.

I remember some girl named Lindsey was having her 13th birthday party in a church recreational room. Her parents chaperoned the party. She pretty much invited the entire 7th grade class, plus a few people that she knew. Including Drew Cheeseman. Yes, Cheeseman.

Drew was a popular soccer player that lived in the suburb north of my suburb. I had met him before because his family was good friends with one of my friend's family. So there'd be weekends where I'd hang out at a friend's house and he'd be there. There was a bit of a minor flirtation...whatever type of flirtation that could exist amongst awkward 13 year olds.

Okay, so back to the party. Imagine a cheesy episode of Family Ties...there was an episode when Alex P. Keaton was at his senior prom with Ellen Reed, dancing to "At this Moment." That's kind of the setting, except we weren't wearing hideous 80s style prom dresses. However, I'm sure I probably french rolled my jeans. The DJ was playing a generous amount of R&B songs, given that there were probably 3 black people there, including me.



Drew was a soccer player. And for a 13 year old boy, he had that nice soccer player body. The song Pretty Brown Eyes came on and he lead me out to the dance floor. I remember feeling how strong he was and he was wearing Ralph Lauren Polo. Even to this day, the second I smell Polo, I get a slight throb.



Anywho....we started dancing. Closer than any of the other middle school couples were dancing. He started brushing his face against mine. I could feel his breath on my neck, and was not quite in control and/or had never experienced the physiological reaction going on in my body. You know, the one where you breathe deeper, your eyes soften, blood rushes to "areas."





Well, at one point, he brushed his lips against mine. This went on for a few moments and at once, his tongue parted my lips and I was having my first french kiss.

The next day I was completely embarrassed and apologized to the birthday girl. But yeah, the was my first kiss.

What was yours like?

Bunny...I go on and on and on...

So last night I had a good old time. I was inspired by all things 80s, so I dressed up in my best attempt to look 80s ish...(equippped with a pair of Jordache Jeans). I went to Atlanta's only non-pretentious sweat box club...and sweat it out like the energizer bunny. Thanks Mimi for a much needed night!

Upon first meeting me, one might come up with all sorts of assumptions. But when it comes down to it...I just like to dance. lol. And dance is what I did. I believe that instead of Mozart, my mom out headphones blasting Cool and the Gang on her stomach when I was still in the womb.

When the night came to a close, I do what anybody does and checks their phone. The ex sent some hate text messages and rather than ignoring them and going home, I pulled off of the highway and went back and forth with him via text for a moment or two.

And what it boils down to - I was in the wrong for my actions...despite the fact that when I did something a lil' less upstanding...we were NOT together. There was absolutely no commitment between us. So I do what I do, because I'm a grown @ss woman. But he fails to see how his constant rejection of me over a 7 month period was just as jarring to me. At the time that I needed him the most, he was no where to be found, and this is all of a month after him telling me that he was going to propose to me. I hate it how men disregard their actions and don't find any wrong in 1) telling a woman you love her, but not enough 2) providing false hope, talk about marriage, babies and the like one week and then about four weeks later stripping her of that. That shit is fucked UP. Anyway you slice it.

Writing Catholicism into Law hurts women.

Yeah, I said it. I'm not big on Catholicism, sorry if this greets you as offensive. I think it's one of the most oppressive forms of Christianity in existence. It clashes so heavily with culture, health and common sense. For example, people will disrgard rules about not having pre-marital sex, but will obey rules about not using any forms of birth control.

So Bush's McCain Administration's newest idiotic attempt at writing Catholocism into law is a bill that aims to redefine abortion. From the WSJ, "A draft regulation, still being revised and debated, treats most birth-control pills and intrauterine devices as abortion because they can work by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus. The regulation considers that destroying "the life of a human being."

I pick my bone with Catholicism because the law is essentially consistent with the rules around why a woman is not supposed to take birth control.

What the type of fucktardetry is that? No seriously.

Where are the religious conservatives in regards to Viagra?

Read it for yourself. Catholicism into Law.

Okay - I feel better

lol. I'm over at Huffington Post. I saw a headline indicating that Obama opposes slavery reparations. Instead he wants to invest $ into inner city schools and jobs for the unemployed. Not that every black person is in unemployed, in the inner city and under-educated; however, if you give reparations to some folks...you will have more Impala's sitting on 23s (did I say that right?). You will have more people wearing designer clothes, but not paying rent.

Reparations is a dumb idea in my opinion. Namely because MOST of us have European blood flowing through our veins. So would my reparation check be phased out after my blood test reveals that I'm 74.4234% black? Side note: I have a friend that did a genealogy study and based on her weird computations...she realized that she's 60% white. lol. Giggle giggle giggle. Huh?

We've got to understand that reacting to the past is the way to move into the future.

Again...teach a man to fish...and he'll never go hungry.

Slightly Frustrated...

With Obama. Yes, Obama.

Quite frankly, I don't care much as to whether we drill off-shore or not. I understand that we won't reap the benefits in the next 4 years...or even 8 probably. Quite honestly, the most revolutionary idea idea is the Pickens Plan. I LOVE it that a private investor is stepping up to drive change. Like why do we have to wait until the government makes a move?

I guess what I'm frustrated about is him taking a dominant stance...and then falling back on it. My recommendation would be...from the get, leave your options open. Tell us that you're #1 interest is repairing the economic welfare in the United States, which among other things requires dealing with the black blood oil. This gives you room to do whatever necessary.

In no way would I ever vote for McCain...he's all sorts of erratic and crazy. But I'm entitled to be frustrated with the man that will lead us into the next phase of this Country's life.

My new line

I just think your sexy...in a friendship kind of way.

nh

Miracle Man

My date went really well last night. He is a good guy...(Facebook Guy...whom we can now more accurately call Miracle Man). MM was very pleasant, easy to talk to, quite the gentleman...I can tell he's a pleaser. I say that because he let me pick the wine and the apetizer...two things that are shared; however, I noticed that he didn't really eat the apetizer (edamame). I do believe that he enjoyed the wine, Pinot Noir is my new favorite.

I think I made him nervous, I noticed that his hands were shaking a little bit. Taht's so endearing/cute. And he said at least two times that he thought I was attractive. I also gather that he's at a point in his life where he is looking for wifey instead of girl 6. So who knows, I'll continue having fun until it ain't right.

There will be a second date.

I realized that taking this lil' vow of celibacy makes dating 100X easier for me.

It's Official...hell has frozen over.

Two off the beaten path things have happened in the past hour.

1) My mother sent me a friend request on facebook. WTF. No, seriously...WTF.

2) 2-Year-Man-Ex called to "check-up," on me. I think he wants me to be miserable. So when I told him that I went to Charlotte, and am going out...I think he got the hint that I'm moving on. I am NOT playing any dumb games with him. He asks a question, he's got to be prepared for the truth. I'm no longer interested in trying to protect his ego.

Favorite Songs

and

An Ode to Image Consultants

You all are SO important...do we know who this is:



It's actually the man that I would give it all up for. lol

Would you?

Y'all know I love my msg board. Lol, so many great exchange of ideas. Anywho...check this out. The topic was unique date ideas and here is one that I absolutely loved. Would you do it?

You and your chick both go to a thrift shop with
a set limit on how much you can spend (lets say 20-30
bucks, funded by you) and buy some really ridiculous lookin
shit for each other...You then proceed to go grab a few
drinks and head to whatever event you had already planned
rockin the same gear for the rest of the night...Its
effective because its an unifying, let your hair down type
of thing and shows that you not only have enough confidence
to walk around looking ridic but also that you are into her
enough to still go to places with folks lookin at her all crazy
and you dont give a good got-damn about it

Confesion #4

I don't care much for reggae. I woke up way too early and I'm listening to the radio's morning mix and they're doing reggae. It's kind of like techno to me. Same general beat, can't really understand what the hell they are saying. I enjoy it for like 7 minutes; however, after that, I'mma need the DJ to switch it up.

Rarely do I find people that agree with me on that one.

Wait, Weight

I've hummed around that 2008 was a rather bad year for me. The ex-ex actually said something very profound that made a LOT of sense. Something to the effect of...SunFresh, your most inner thoughts/desires manifested themselves in a series of relationships that you had. So in the 2-Year man, you knew that you didn't want to spend your life with him, so your actions...while unintentional...lead to your break-up with him. In respect to the "Cruel"...you didn't care for a handful of those people, and the truth manifested...granted the delivery of the truth was rather ugly...it is what it is. While the transition period was rather painful, you're better off.

But the transition period. The loss of two types of relationships that defined a big piece of who I am within a one-month period was more than I cared to take. Even now, that ish hurts like hell at times.

Okay, this is a post about my weight. And I'm an emotional eater...not in the sense that I eat when I'm sad...quite the contrary, I deprive myself of food when I'm sad. Not consciously per se, but the feelings of anxiety & emotional emptiness fill me up to the point where I'm physically full and cannot eat.

I don't own a scale because I'd assume that I'd be obsessive. I measure my weight by the way clothes fit. Suit pants that used to grip my thighs, now hang off. Dresses that used to suffocate my hips now fit. I don't know that I've been this thin since I first moved to ATL and couldn't afford to eat (literally, all I ate was one 2 egg omlette daily b/c it was cheap, good and had necessary nutrients).

I also find it slightly awkward when people comment on my physique. Like Pool Boy assumed I had a rigorous work-out schedule. Ummm...last time I went to the gym....maybe beginning of July. Ionno, I guess in the same way that a person who gains weight is sensitive to comments about their changed appearance, I feel the same insecurity...cept society tends to reward people for being thin.

Aight - enuf random personal thought purging for the night.

Pool Boy

So another prospect is pool boy. I met him two weekends ago at Kickball Girl's (KG) pool. I could tell he had a lingering eye for me; however, I couldn't tell if he was just a normal guy around a girl in a bikini, or he was truly interested.

So he ran into KG this past weekend and made it known that he'd like to run into me again. KG got my approval to pass along my contact info...he called today.

I can't quite feel him out. He's cute, a former soccer player. He went a PWI in my conference and of course we had moments of talking shit to each other. I'll probably see him this weekend. He's a bit too skinny for my tastes. I like 'em at least 185...he looks about 160ish. I anticipate that one day I'll gain weight, and I don't want to be bigger than my man....so I'm trying to give myself plenty of room to grow. lol.

Anywho, we have a date on Sunday. I've got a date with Facebook Guy (FbG) Thursday.

I realized that I have started this dating thing rather late in life. I like the getting out the house and getting a free meal aspect of it...I even like the first few conversations. However, when a guy starts looking at me googly eyed like he wants to kiss me or something...that's when I freak out and play dead. (But of course, I'm not quite dead).

Matter of fact, Omlette-Poop man sametime'd me today to re-ask why I geared off task. I'm not forward enough to be like...it turned me ALL THE WAY OFF when you talked about eating omlettes and pooping (on the first official date). Now don't get me wrong, my sense of humor can be that of a 12 year old boy and I can giggle at all things poo related; however, it's not sexy. So when you try to do my favorite small of the back touch, instead of feeling warm and googly...I feel cold and tense. Which lets me know that you must quickly be friend-shifted.

Facebook Guy...

That will have to be his name until I meet him and get a better feel for him. So how'd we connect? Well...given that these are the days of the internets:

I frequent a given message board. One of the posters who lives in Austin indicated that he had a lot of friends in Atlanta and he was going to introduce me to at least one. So my message board buddy and I became facebook friends. On facebook you can send one message to two people. So this was my introduction to facebook guy:

SunFresh, meet Facebook Guy.

Facebook Guy, meet SunFresh.

SunFresh wants to find out where the kneegrows who's about some shit is in Atlanta.

Facebook Guy is a kneegrwo who's about some shit.

Talk amongst yourselves.

A little blunt, if you will...but the introduction was made. Facebook Guy sent me a separate message to start dialogue. We've agreed to meet up on Thursday evening for dinner.

I randomly get a text from him asking what my favorite drink is. For right now...Kettle One & Tonic. We will see where this one leads.....

Part #4: The departure

We left the hotel at about 11:45, knowing that we HAD to get starbucks if we were going to make it back home. So we sat down and he ate some fatty pastry while I sipped on my coffee. Ironically I like my coffee...regular, squirts of vanilla and enough cream/milk in it for it to turn my skin-color. And yes, to test, I put my hand near the coffee and assess whether or not I have enough cream/milk in it.

So we talk the last couple of minutes, and it's clear that we are both not super-excited to return to real life. He mentions that he's seriously looking to move out of smallville, VA in at least a year and is on a quest to test a few cities. So who knows, perhaps a fantasy get away weekend is in store to go to chicago and pheonix.

So we sit in Starbucks prolonging the inevitable for at least 45 minutes to an hour. We get up and he walks me to my car, we hug, kissed a small bit, make a lot of eye contact and I say...I have a corny gift for you. He smiles and is like, huh?

What brought him and I together was a desire to escape reality due to various losses that we had experienced in 2008. So, I got an old unused jewelry box and turned it into a memory box. On red construction paper, I printed "Smile July 27-28," the top of the box lid. Inside, I left the following message:

Loss leaves us empty.
But learn not to close
Your heart and mind.
Allow life to replenish you.
When sorrow comes
It seems impossible...but
NEW JOYS wait to fill the void

Accompanied by the message, I encouraged him to continue creating joy and packing the memory away in the memory box. He smiled a genuine smile, gave me a hug and said that he's definitely putting this past weekend into the memory box.

The best way to summarize this weekend...Create memories that resemble fantasies.

AWWWWEEEE...I just received the following message from him: so, wanted to say thanks again for a great weekend. i had a lot of fun and i was sad to see our lil get-a-way come to a close...it was perfect. thanks again for my gift, it was very thoughtful.
hope you have a good week ahead! viva la charlotte 2008!

Part #3: Cosmo Lounge The Forum

On our drive from Pewter Rose to Cosmo Lounge, we both fell in love with the vibe and energy of Charlotte. It is a very "new" city. Bright lights, modern architecture, young professionals.

But I started to detect the country boy in him. It was just little things, and it was cute. So I pointed out that I noticed the "small town," in him. I never realized how "city," I was. For example, a parking garage costing $5 seemed like a steal to me...to him, he wanted to search for street parking. After circling blocks a few times, he concurred that $5 wasn't TOO bad. Oh, and he wore a soft, slightly mesh Alumni collared shirt with Khaki's and shoes that weren't quite bball shoes, but they weren't quite casual either. Kind of like a hybrid between air jordans and doc martins. He got a recommendation to go to Cosmo Lounge; however, the bouncers shined their light on his shoes and denied him entry. To this he was stunned. He was like, "huh, they want me to dress up to party?" I said, it's all good, let's just keep it moving and find a spot where we can have fun and be comfortable. So we walk a few blocks and find The Forum.

The bouncer shines his lights on his shoes, and then motions for us to come closer. After we pass the ropes, eh bouncer says, "yo man, next time your in town just make sure to wear the appropriate shoes." He is taken back, but appreciative that this bouncer wasn't such a douche-bag about the situation. We go in and I kinda am tickled that black dudes are looking at me following him with looks of stupafication on their face. Ehhh, deal with it. The inside was smokey, packed and loud. So we decided to do a walk around and came to the rooftop area.

The rooftop was less mixed (I was a minority), but the crowd was less pretentious, folks were drinking and dancing to the sub-par techno music. We posted up against a railing and just played around dancing. At some point we start giving each other googly eyes, and he started teasing...doing some LL Cool J lick lips, smile, brush his cheek against mine but then look away. The inevitable happened, we kissed...and it was quite heavenly. From that point on, we just kept gazing at each other, dancing, joking, and stealing lil' kisses from each other.

Funny Random: At some point we're standing along, clearly into each other and two couples post up in our vincinity. The guys start up a conversation with us...and one goes on to tell us how he just bought an $8,000 hot tub that can seat at most 16 people. He indicated that the party over the VIP area was with him. We had notice how X-rated this VIP group of people were. We saw girl-on-girl kissing, some girl grinding her crotch area in a couples face. He goes on talking about his hot tub and how when 16 people are in it, no bathing suits are allowed because the detergent in the clothing causes unecessary bubbles. AND THEN HE INVITED US TO COME TO HIS HOT TUB. In case you didn't get all that...we were invited to swing with a group of about 16 people. Sexy Man and I are a bit more tame than that...so we declined. Mind you...these people are 35 and older...the average age was probably 40. RANDOM. Is that how y'all grown folk get down? hehehehe

Nonetheless, we had an absolutely fabulous time.

And I'll conclude by saying that while we didn't horizontal shimmy (or even Bill Clinton's version of it)...we had a lovely evening.

Part #2: Pewter Rose

Pewter Rose was his suggestion...and was it a fabulous option. It was intimate; yet inviting...the ambiance was absolutely fabulous. At around 8:30, a jazz set started on the side of the restaurant that appeared to be a lounge.

Conversation went from the rather shallow end of replaying events from the past, to depth about who we are, our opinions and how the past events shaped the way we view the world. I'll save his details to my heart...however, the one thing I put out on the table, as it was sitting in the back of both of our minds...was the vow of celibacy that I took for AT LEAST the rest of 2008. I explained to him that I hadn't truly experienced a relationship with a man that wasn't sexually-centric. To that he tipped his hat and our conversation went deeper from there. At this point we're revealing vulnerabilities and establishing safety and comfort.

We talked for 3.5 hours and noticed that it was 11 and the place was slowing down. We decided to go to the next place...

Part #1: The initial meeting

Okay, in case you didn't get this minor detail, this entire 24 hour weekend date was planned without SM (SexyMan) and I talking on the phone. Darn internet and text served as our only means of communication until we were staring each other in the face.

I timed the drive almost perfectly. We decided to meet at a Charlotte restaurant a 1 pm. I arrived at like 1:10. He was already sitting at a table sipping on a water. I walk in a bit frazzled (I was 10 min late because I stopped at the nearest McDonald's to reapply lipstick, brush some bronzer on, and spritz my smell good on). And I came trying to look casually dressed; however, I don't do good on casual, especially when making first impressions...or rather 2nd impressions 5 years later.

I saw him sitting at the talbe. Despite my poor eye-sight, I thought...he's still got it. I approached and smiled and he rose and gave me a good hug. He wore a nike t-shirt, khaki shorts and Jordans. He was shorter than I remembered; 5'10...yet he wore it well, at about 190 lbs. His hair was neat, and his Go-Tee accentuated his sexy lips. He greeted me with a casual, yet familiar warm embrace. I sat down and we began conversation...initially, it was casual, and you could still tell that both of us were nervous. But conversation unfolded. We caught up on the past few years.

People always ask what's the first thing you notice about a person and/or your favorite feature on somebody. For the longest, I was at a loss on how to respond to this question. It's his lips. The first 20 minutes or so while my mind was listening to his words my lust was watching his lips move.

Random funny, when the waiter brought our platters out (I had salmon and he had crabcakes) this older (had to have at least been 80 years old) white lady approached our table. Him and I discussed later that we had the same apprehension upon her approach; however, our worries seemed ridiculous when she asked, "Is that the grouper and crab cakes?" LMAO. We for sure thought that she was going to comment on the vanilla and chocolate swirl.

By the time we finished, it was approximately 2:40; check in was at 3, so we decided to head over to the hotel. He booked through traveloicty. When he said, yes there is a reservation under Sexy Man, the lady looked it up on the computer and said...it's not here. SILENCE....no offering alternatives, or a room at the same rate. Then another young man came out and helped to find our reservations. Let's just say that customer service was not this place's strongest quality.

We headed to the room and had finally started to warm up a bit to each other. Making silly jokes and trying to plan our next few moves. We saw that we had about 4-5 hours to kill before our dinner reservations at Pewter Rose, and we threw out seeing Dark Knight. My movie review will have to be a stand alone post. The movie was excellent; Health Ledger was PHENOMENAL in his role as the joker.

So we continued to fill quiet moments with laughs...and then it was 3:45...time to go see Dark Knight.