I have some people that, while we were growing up were the best of friends.  We laughed, talked, cried, shared and seemed to do everything together.  Back then, it seemed that we would always be in separable, and we wanted it that way, we were so close that we couldn’t imagine life without the other in it.  As we started to live our lives, things did change, it seemed the friendship didn’t as we thought that we could adapt to the “adults” we were becoming.  I won’t say that we became “different people” per se, but we started living lives that just didn’t mesh anymore.

“Not meshing” is an understatement, the once closely bonded relations started to become toxic.  I can’t speak for the other person, but I can say that I stayed in the friendship because I really felt that she’d always need a friend, no matter how difficult things got, I sincerely wanted to be there for her.  A few more years went by and being in that friendship got so toxic and hurtful on both sides, it was like we were swimming in a bath of sulfuric acid.  After a huge blow out a few years ago, we finally called it quits.  She doesn’t talk to me and I most definitely don’t phuck with her.  After many years of lies, accusations, mistrust and so many other things that have no place in any relationship, let alone a friendship, it was over and instead of feeling angry or sad, I felt a sense of relief.  Finally.

The thing that sucks the most is that our families and friends were caught in the crossfire.  I know that her parents really reached out to me when I was younger and needed someone to be there.  Like many teens, I had some tension at home and it was nice to have parental figures outside of the loop that could help me think with a clear head.  I miss them, and the mutual friends that we have, I am in contact with them and even though I do wonder about how my friend and her kids are doing, I dare not ask any of them.  Even the thought of hearing about her life floods me with a sick feeling of impending doom, knowing that the propensity to hear about some high level of unnecessary drama exists, that I tend to just pass on asking any questions all together.

Do I wonder if she ever thinks about me?  I guess I’d be lying if I said I didn’t but I don’t want her to ask.  Things had gotten so bad that I just assume she not even say my name.  Sounds harsh, huh?  Life is harsh sometimes, it’s just the world that we live in.

I did a lot of thinking about this and what I came up with is that it is fine to wonder about people in one’s past, hoping that they and their families are healthy and prosperous, but it is also okay to leave them right where they are, when one feels that everything else that comes along with them is a disturbance to one’s own sense of balance.  Sometimes, you can wonder about the past and still know that the past being in the past is the best place for it.

Some people define themselves based on their current relationships.  Although I hear this a lot more about women than men, there are men who do it too.  I have an ex…*Smh*, (the first issue is that I have to admit to dating this guys about 5 or so years ago)…..anyway, he’s an ex, that keeps reinventing himself, he just never reinvents himself into anything anyone can actually use.

My ex is Sicilian, yes, it matters and you will see why in a little bit.  Moving on, there is a feature on one of my social networking sites that lets me know when people remove me from their list.  As a habit, when people’s name show up there, I look to see if I was actually removed or if they just turned their account off temporarily.  I don’t freak out about either, but I do suffer from normal human curiosity.  When I saw “Sam Sausagehead’s” name show up, I did my normal checking and yup, he’d deleted me.  Apparently I did not fit into his new life philosophy which is:

“13 WORDS LIVE BY(((((WE MUST SECURE THE EXISTENCE OF OUR RACE AND FUTURE OF ARE WHITE CHILDREN))))))”

That is a direct quote…. I wanted to make sure I used a direct quote so that NOTHING gets lost in translation.

Let’s begin with the obvious….his 13 words to live by, took him 14 words to quote.

Are vs. Our .. was not a typo, that’s his thing..funny how he spells “existence” correctly, he must have had help with that one, and decided to try “our” on his own and failed.

Before I finish breaking down the REST of his stupidity, I don’t advocate bigotry or racism, I see no use for it, however, everyone has the right to believe what they wish, as long as their right does not infringe on the rights of others.

Now, here are some of the fine points of his foolishness of which I am sure he is unaware:

Remember I said he was Sicilian?  Well, the island of Sicily is where many African’s went to avoid the slave trade, meaning, many Sicilians are mixed with the blood of African’s.  Maybe I’m wrong but I am thinking that the separatists groups are allowing in people of African descent, if they are, the rules have changed greatly.

Next, it is my understanding (apparently not his) that one is not embraced by separatist groups if one has been involved in “race mixing” or having been intimately involved with someone outside of their race.

What is so bad about all of this, is when I mentioned his “reinvention”, I didn’t even use his name, he’s just so random that my friends knew EXACTLY who I was referring to and this is some of what THEY had to say about the “new him”:

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA…”ARE WHITE CHILDREN” ??!”

“And so, I MUST ask this Stang: what EXACTLY did this “entry-level fucktard” say to convince YOU to let him “hit it” ?? I’m just curious because at one time, this was YOUR “man”, right ??  (can’t stop laughin’)”

“I counted for 14 words, but hey what I do I know, I have a diploma :-/  “

“Well DAYUUUMMMM…you’re fuckin’ up the program, Stang !! It’s ‘once you go black, you never go BACK”, not “once you go black, you’re gonna’ say FUCK THAT’ !! lol”

“‎Stang, you BET not be talking about who I think you were because if so, I don’t have the patience or the “stash” for this phuckery on my day off!!!!”

“Pfft I JUST got here and I knew who this was about before she finished writing it… He always was my fav fuctard “

To the separatists that may be reading (yes, I do have a few), I want to congratulate you all on your newest edition.  I have sent you all a gift of extra filters, with him running around there, you all will have one hell of a time keeping up the gene pool…….Salud!

I am a huge fan of one being who they truly are, no more, no less and if one feels the need to totally reinvent oneself for the sake of a relationship, for goodness sakes, read the instructions first.

You know, since I’ve been single, I have been playing the dating game and not playing well apparently.  Then I stopped and re-read, comments and things from my readers and I think a bunch of us have been so knocked around that we should be lined up in the dented and ding section at Sears.

Of all the baggage that I think we carry around, the dysfunction that I think we drag from relationship to relationship the most is distrust.  It’s easy to decide that people are shit but it’s not so easy to let our guard down and allow them to become sugar again.  It’s like you meet someone you totally click with and instead of being totally excited at first, the feelings inside are more like

I can attest to the fact that letting that guard down is one on the hardest things to do.  I don’t just have guards, I have stone walls, moats, drawbridges and the like…lol, getting in with me is almost list breaching the castle in the Prince Caspian movie….LOL.  Still, as in the movie, it is possible to get in.  Most people who have had their emotional foundations shaken in bad relationships develop those barriers but even so, we  are aware that in order to move on, we have to be willing to drop the bridge so to speak and invite someone in our fortress.  But when?

What is it that decides we are ready to let our guard down and try this madness again??  Is it the person?  Time?  Gut feeling?  I think it can be any of the three.  I believe so strongly that the right person can walk into our lives and stir up the feelings that we have been protecting behind those, what we wanted to be, impenetrable walls.  They stir up the feelings of trust, compassion, passion, desire, need to love and the need to be loved.  The biggest feeling that is awakened is our feeling of vulnerability.  I know that I can deal with almost anything but the feeling vulnerability throws me for a loop.  Why?  Because that means, my guard is or is on it’s way down and whoever I’m letting it down for can hurt me.  I’m like most people, not a huge fan of that.  The funny thing is, it’s easy for us to say that when we’re vulnerable, someone can hurt us but the flip side is that when we’re feeling vulnerable, someone can love us and help us to feel more emotionally safe.

Some people require time but if we start planning our emotions based on time we can schedule in our blackberry then we have become entirely too regimented or we have become entirely too regimented.    We can’t plan when to start trusting people in the Captain’s log but we can use the log to document when started to feel the joy and relief of letting someone in.

Where we get screwed up a LOT is we don’t trust our gut.  Our instinct is something we’re born with for a reason.  It’s been my experience that some of the biggest dating and non dating problems that I’ve had in my life didn’t stem from my intuition being wrong, they came from me ignoring my physical cues.  I think that many of us are guilty of “giving people a shot” per se.  How many people have you gone out with and you had the attitude “Meh, we’ll see what happens, this might work out” versus “Wow, the chemistry with this person is awesome, this is going to be a lot of fun”?  I know I have, I think we may have all had the urge to settle even though we don’t have to.  I think that if we trust our gut and let our guard down, we might be making a more accurate decision.

Sure, there is always the possibility of getting hurt no matter when we drop that guard but the other opportunity is there also for happiness, no guts, no glory………right?

So how do YOU decide it’s time to start lowering your guard with new people you date?

I know there is that book that “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” but the reality is that is so inaccurate.  The title of that book assumes that men and women are from the same solar system.  That is so incorrect.  Men and women tend to do things much more differently including, not limited to but especially communicate.

We women have a code that is not hard to figure out.  If it’s a daily chat about current events, then it’s a talk.  If it pertains to something bothering is, then it’s a conversation.  If it’s an exchange with our significant other about something we think they’ve done wrong, then its a discussion.  Finally, when we are convinced that we need to have a banter and things are going to go the way we are getting ready to dictate, then it’s a TALK.  I know that I used “talk” twice but you have to understand the inflection.  The one in all lower case is a casual dialogue, the one in all caps is the one that most men try to avoid.

Men, they do things a whole different way.  If it’s a chat with a woman about current events it’s the opportunity for them to nod their head, hope we get to the point so they can go back to what it is they would really rather be doing.  If it pertains to something that is bothering them it’s their problem and would rather figure it out themselves and wish we would just shut the fuck up and quit asking so damned many questions.  If it’s that exchange with their significant other about something that they are sure is going to end up being their fault no matter what they say or how they try to defend their thoughts or actions, it’s time wasted because they think they already know the outcome. Finally, if it’s that conversation where they think their woman is getting ready to dictate some shit, it then becomes a conversation with their boyz about how we are not runnin shit but our mouths and that he’s grown and will do as he pleases.  See how that works?

Guys, there is no way around the obvious, we women want to have a verbal exchange about EVERYTHING.  Period.  Nothing is a simple yes or no, everything has to have an explanation, reason or excuse none of which can be achieved without talking about whatever it is.  If you come home from a long day at work and announce that you need to run to the store, it would seem that we should just say okay and let that be that.  No such luck, we are, without a doubt going to want to know why you didn’t go to the store on your way home.  If you called on your way home and said that you needed to stop by the store then we are going to want to know why you didn’t tell us what you wanted from the store when WE went to the store the day before.  See?  Everything is a conversation.  It’s not just because we want to be nosy, although that is a huge part of it but what we are actually trying to figure out is why don’t you all do things the way WE would have done them.  As much as we talk, you’d think we would just ask you all that question directly but then that would require you all to give us an answer and the reality is we can’t hear your shoulders shrug and we kind of know that’s the answer we are going to get.

A man can come home after a long hard day at work and say “Damn, I’ve had a long ass day”.  I think men would like it much more if we said “Aww baby, I’m sorry to hear that” then do something nice for him to make him glad he’s home.  Nope, that’s too much like right, we want to know WHY his day was so long and hard.  That’s right, women insist that you live that long hard day twice, once in real time and the second in the play by play we want when you get home.  Why do we do that?  Because we ASSUME you all are thinking like us and want to talk bout it……most of the time it does not cross our mind that your day has been long and hard and you just want it over, we’re sure that you want to process out your day just like we do.  I know, we’re wrong again.
One of my favorites is when a guy is outside working on his vehicle or something else mechanical that we may know nothing about.  He can be outside cussin up a blue streak because the fix is not nearly as easy as he thought it would be.  More often than not, we approach him and his project empty handed with the million dollar question “Baby, what’s wrong with it?”  That leads him through this long ass mechanical explanation that inevitably ends with us asking “Can you fix it?”  Common sense would tell us that if it were that simple, it would be fixed already or damned close and he wouldn’t be cussin.  If he has to say “no” then we’ve just pissed him off by making him admit that he’s been working on something all day that he can’t do shit about.  Trust me ladies, he really appreciates that.  

Men typically don’t like to discuss their financial troubles with us either.  Why?  Well, I think it’s the same reason that my dad didn’t like discussing financial issues with my mom, after he went through all of that explaining, she wasn’t going to offer to get in her pocket so he thought it was pretty much a waste of time  .

The biggie is when it comes to discussing relationship issues.  We women LOVE to talk about what the current relationship status is, where it’s heading, how long we’ve been headed that way, what each of can do to make the trip more pleasurable and why we’ve not been able to get where were going in a lot less time than it’s taking us to get there.  Every day.  Ladies, the guys dig us, they really do but more often than not, they are not going to analyze our relationship the way we do they do it a little more like this…if they meet a woman, go out, she kisses him he knows she likes him.  He doesn’t need to talk about that.  If they have been dating a while, they have sex, he likes her and the sex is good and he says something like “you know that pussy’s mine right? Don’t be givin that shit to anyone else”, then he’s established that you’re exclusive.  When you get pissed at him and quit givin him the pussy, he knows there is a problem, when he starts gettin the pussy again, he knows the problem has been solved….lmmfao.  See how that works??

So what’s the fix??  The reality is there isn’t one really.  It’s been my personal experience that women and men really can discuss their problems but we need to just use fewer words.  I don’t say that to insinuate that men are remedial or dumb, that’s not it, they really just don’t wanna hear a lot of unnecessary words.  It’s been my experience that they want us to just get to the damned point.  Kind of like we were taught in school, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line….we women seem to like to take the scenic route.  All the time…ha ha

I feel totally justified in putting it all out there like that because I am guilty as the day is long….so, guys tell me, do you think we women talk too much most of the time??  Ladies, can you admit that we talk too damned much??  I can lmmfao!!

Original Blog Post 9/25/2009

This might be a question that only my guys can answer.  I think we as women can TRY but I think they hold the key on this one.

An ex-boyfriend of mine called and said “Hey, I’m coming to town, you should really give me some pussy while I’m there”.    *Scratches head (MINE)*….Hmmm, I did mention that he was in EX right??  Just checking.  So I asked him why I “should” and he responded “It’s not like I’ve never had it, you need to quit bein so mean”.    Right.

Okay, so he and I had managed to maintain a friendly relationship since our break up but he started me thinking.  He really said that with some sense of entitlement in his voice.  Why is it that so many men think once they have had sex with a woman that she’s an open door with a broken hinge, able to be opened whenever he’s ready without resistance?

I understand that women and men view sex very differently.  I throw it in there with the relationship thing and sex is a part of something different and men, apparently are not trying to have to whole meal, they wanna order their shit a la carte!

On further thought, maybe some women DO think the same way and since I don’t I am not aware of it so I guess  the question of the day is:

Once you have had sex with someone, do you think as long as you all are on good terms they should let you go back “just cause”?

It’s days like today that make me really glad that I have a journal.  This day was not fit for man nor beast, let alone me.  It actually started Monday night when my insomnia kicked in and I was still up on Tuesday morning when the sun showed up.  As it got later in the morning, I just decided to go ahead and fix my breakfast and get my day started.  My day was pretty much planned out and looked like this:

1. Get started on homework.
2. Take my dalmatian to the groomer
3. Come home and wait for my UPS package (I <3 new phones)
4. Go pick up my BFF from the train station
5. Stop by Walgreen’s and Petsmart
6. Come home and call my vet about my dalmatian’s degenerative joint disorder
7. Finish homework

Now, remember, I was sick the past few days so I had to make sure I got this stuff done.  That all sounded orderly enough and should not be too much of a problem, so I thought.

The first glitch in my day (after staying up all night the night before) was that it started to rain.  So, I called and cancelled the grooming appointment and got on the homework.  The light rain turned into a thunderstorm which, in the middle of my homework, knocked out my internet connection.  I called AT&T (did I mention I can’t stand those folks?) and they assured me that it would be up in a few hours (in dog hours).

I looked at my watch, my bff was due in at the train station in about an hour and UPS had not showed.  The douchebag that has my route will not ring the doorbell, he knocks like a half a knock and then leaves (with his lazy ass), I didn’t want to miss the package, so my dad came out to door-sit until I got back from the train station.

I grabbed her from the train station and went to the pet store only to find that the food I give both of my dogs had gone up about 5.00 per bag….oh well, shit happens.  I grabbed what I needed and headed back to the house to relieve dad from his post…lol.  When I got home, I still had no internet connection (I am glad I queued blog stuff the night before) and UPS had not arrived.  That is when my dad let me know that I have a crack somewhere in the foundation of my house and I have water in the basement (this day just keeps rockin on huh?).

So, I figured I’d call the vet and see what else we could do about my dalmatian’s (her name is Scamp) joint disorder.  I was crushed when I found out that the vet and myself were having the “quality of life versus the quantity of life” conversation.  The sparks notes version of the deal with my dog is that when she had her 6 and 9 week puppy shots, she got insanely ill which caused major joint damage.  Back then, I refused to put her down and here I am, 11 years later, with a beautiful dog that is just in too much pain.  I have done everything I can for her, it’s just that time, and it’s killin me.

Moving forward, I called AT&T back, come to find out, my service had BEEN back up, someone on THEIR end managed to reset the modem settings and the issue was simply that the wireless connection needed to come back up.  So, I had to work with their tech support and needless to say (since most tech support departments are not in the  U.S) I had to deal with someone who spoke some random variation the English language that I did NOT understand.  His English was so bad that he’d have to get better for it to improve to the status of “broken English”, if that’s not bad enough, he had the nerve to talk to me like I was stupid.  That call went on much longer than it had to (mind you, UPS still had not arrived).

FINALLY, at like 7:30 pm, UPS shows up and just as I had expected, he did NOT ring the doorbell, I just happened to hear him and as I opened the door, he was on his way back down the walkway.  I yelled at him and made him get his work done and deliver my sh!t.

So, I did manage to grab a nap for about 2 hours or so and now, here I sit, wide awake… rambling on and on about something that doesn’t mean anything to anyone but me, but hey, that’s why we have journals right??  I’m sure I will have another one of these ramblings on Monday, after I show my Scamp the ultimate act of love and compassion.

I think that this song sums up my whole day in about 3 minutes and 46 seconds…..lol

The first time I tried to make this announcement, it sounded like a PR release and that’s not what I had in mind.  Due to creative difference, I have decided it best that I move Ask Stang back to one of my own blogs.  I had a great time working with Def Glam but some things don’t necessarily work out the way it’s planned.

I am moving it back here to the Stang’s Journal, as I think it would just be a better fit rather than trying to combine it with the Odd News and Ramblings on the Stangzine site.  My journal is a more personal place for me and I think that the column would be best suited for this part of my network.

So, beginning today, Ask Stang will post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, right here in the journal.  I promise, I won’t be moving it again and I thank you so much for stumbling through this with me.

I do have some irons in the fire regarding being a contributor for other networks, but we will just have to play that by ear.

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