• I hate it when thin people complain about their no to barely existing stomach or body fat.
• I hate it when thin people try to give bigger people dieting habits. We don’t all lose weight the same way and we should consult the real doctors about how to lose and maintain a healthy weight.
• I hate it when people who recently lost weight try to make themselves look better by saying “You better lose weight before you look like a morbidly obese person.”
• I hate I when people who recently lost weight try to disassociate themselves with you because they need to hang out with people who look like them.
• I hate it when thin people put you on blast because you ate 5 cookies and try to make you seem like a rolly polly because you just enjoyed a like snack (personal experience)
• I hate it when thin people say they will be your gym buddy so they can track how you lose weight (personal experience)
• I hate it when thin people eye you up and down like you are the scum of the earth because you are wearing a neon shirt
• I hate it when thin people try to compare your thickness to other big celebrities and say you look like them but only better
• I hate it when thin people read obesity statistics and tell you don’t end up one
• I hate it when thin people say you are big but you look good. Why would you say that? Do we say you are thin and have cute clothes but your face looks like a busted can of biscuits.

Grammy award-winning artist Maxwell knows how to makes the ladies swoon over love, sometimes lust and passion! I just finished listening to "Pretty Wings" again for the millionth time but every time I listen to the song I actually listen with my heart, ears, and mind; and it seems like for the time being while I have Maxwell flowing through my veins the world is going to be alright. I should be in bed resting for the next day of work but I had to get Maxwell in and out of my system.



I want  to break the song down verse by verse into how it makes me feel. Please bare with me as this will be a lengthy post but hopefully you will glean insight into my thoughts and maybe it will fuel thoughts for your own blog about this song or another! I have to preface this by saying I strongly believe this is  love song true to form but I like to read between the lines so maybe songwriters Maxwell, David H and Menard wrote this song with other emotions in mind. My thoughts are mixed according to the verse.

My thoughts:  When I play this verse over and over again I think of when people say God put others in our paths for reasons that are unknown to us until after their purpose has been served. This can be true of lovers, friends, mentors, relatives, people we turn to when we are down and when we are up or just anyone along the way that help us on our journey in life. Now we know that everyone put in our path should not be in our lives but somehow they end up in it and we have to deal with it the best way we can. Time will tell when enough is enough and it is time to move forward. 

I know that is hard for rape victims, boys and girls being trafficked every day around the world, those being domestically abused, alcoholics, drug addicts, etc. But I strongly believe that sometimes we are put through ringer as a test or challenge but it is how we come through on the other side and unfortunately not all people make it but there is so much damn pressure in the society to be thin and look cool! Every corner we turn this is something lurking in the shadows. For those who continue to strive and make it to the other side those bad days will soon fade and there will be "no remnants, no trace or residual feelings."



My thoughts: I actually think about love when I listen to this verse. As for the smiling face, I see the pure joy my niece and fiance bring into my life! My niece has a beautiful soul and she always makes me smile and laugh. I love her to absolute pieces and I get sad that I can't see her everyday. She told me twice out of the blue "I am proud of you Desi." I didn't even know she really knows what proud means but she made me happy because she can see how much I care for my family and my job--even if that appreciation is not returned on both fronts at times.

My fiance just makes me smile when I see him peacefully sleeping or when he talks a mile a minute. I told him that tonight but I feel I have extremely bad luck in my life that I won't be able to see that forever. Death will come one day but that is not what I mean. You can never truly have someone, maybe pieces of them but you can never really have them. Sometimes we wake up and don't see the same person anymore but I am optimistic that things will be okay because as he says, the more you think negative the worst things will get. I do hope that true love can last forever but we don't know until forever comes to an end but to be optimistic I will believe it is true.


My thoughts:  Life never plays fair and neither do people! To be completely honest, we are always playing some type of game even if we don't want to admit it to ourselves. We play politics at work, love games, money tricks, toying with friendships, family members, etc--we are all emotional athletes in some type of form. Once we are done mentally psyching people out, we cut them loose or they cut us loose. And once the whole ordeal is over or maybe even during we want to play even more games and act as if nothing is wrong. What is the prescription? I would say truth pills to be honest with ourselves and others about what we truly want and we wouldn't have to be dishonest or unkind for the benefit of ourselves while hurting others. Lets try to hurt people less and start helping. This is true of myself as well. People should learn to set themselves free of whatever holds them back from doing this.

I also think about how we hurt people in relationships. People have the right to change their minds about how they feel about others and/or circumstances but we can say one thing and mean another, thus never truly being honest in a relationship. If trust and honesty haven't been established in the beginning, that will be hard to gain as the relationship gets deeper. Without trust its like wearing a mask and everyday is Halloween and how can one clearly see what is real with a permanent mask? "Had to leave, had to live" is powerful because one cannot stay in a blind and dishonest relationship. Leaving and living sounds right in this situation. It's not as simple as that though. If one is truly miserable and can't stand a certain situation, that person should change their situation for the better. However, sometimes leaving is not the answer because it can make things worse.

My thoughts: I am not sure if love can set one free unless the love is not a good one...there is good and bad love. Bad love is dishonest. Dirty. Disloyal. Debilitating. Obsessive. Evil (a lovely oxymoron).  Pretty wings don't sound positive...animals or insects with wings never stay in the same place or maybe they come back to the same place often but things with wings need to be free and unburdened...like some love or lust. Things with wings are never to be tied down...no one or nothing can truly have it, like the love I mentioned earlier. You can never truly have someone.




Photo courtsey of ConcreteLoop.com

I met up with Sheena, Kami and Keisha for a Sushi dinner at Iron Sushi on E. 10 between First and Second Ave. Sheena went to a rave in Flushing, Keisha and Kami went to Karaoke at Duet 48. I wanted to go to Karaoke but decided to go home because it was cold but as I was making my way to Crumbs I decided to go see a movie. I ended up seeing "Dear John" starring hottie Channing Tatum and the lovely/ultra hot Amanda Seyfried. The movie still has me thinking so much that I needed to blog about the movie.

"Dear John" is film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' novel of the same title; for those of who don't know him, he is well known for his novel "The Notebook." Well Spark's must be a bucket of love or knows how the human heart works because this movie had me reeling with love and joy. If a film critic asked me, I would give this movie four thumbs up not because it was a romantic tearjerker and we sometimes need that in our lives but because it was close to reality. What do I mean by real? I felt I was Seyfried's character Savannah, I felt I was in the movie watching her not just on the screen but actually there. The movie emanated so much emotion and truth...it had me thinking of my past relationships.

I hear most people never find true love. They have to settle because maybe they are getting older, have kids, money troubles, too comfortable or tired of playing the game. Savannah married Tim because she was a goodhearted person and saw someone in need and denied herself of true love because she saw someone who needed her more and was there in the moment--not at war where John felt he was needed more. Maybe he extended his tour because he loved his job and his country more than Savannah or maybe he felt guilty for not stepping up to help his country in a time of need. Tim needed Savannah more and John needed to support his country more. At the time they just did not need each other like they wanted...key word "wanted."

Life has a funny way of throwing people in our lives at funny times. People are put in our lives to serve a purpose and once that purpose is over they disappear or step down from duty. Some people are staples in our lives because there is a part of us that will always need them.  Savannah and John fell in love within two weeks of knowing each other...what purpose was that? Who knows but it happened. We never know why people come into our lives. Now we should know by now that everyone that slips into our lives does not need to be there.

I think about this when I hear women being beat by their husbands, boyfriends or significant others for many years and never have the courage to walk away. Maybe that is the devil or pure fate. Why would fate put bad seeds on our path or journey? Only the person can know but I hope everything and everyone comes with a lesson. Believe it or not, this was the topic of my conversation at dinner tonight so maybe I need to explore this very thing more.

However, Seyfriend and Tatum have amazing on screen chemistry. I looked into Tatum's eyes and I saw that he is a better actor than I thought. He stepped out of himself and became vulnerable and lovable. Seyfried showed she has diversity in her roles and that she is truly a beautiful actress. Not beautiful appearance (because we all know she is) but her talent and technique is completely beautiful. She is believable and she took on her role. The movie was well executed. I also loved how the movie portrayed how miscommunication can get in the way of how we truly feel about people--the same way John and his father were never able to truly communicate until the last minute.

This was a great movie and I recommend this movie for those who want to see a great romantic movie but who also want to see a movie that explores what it means to be human--love, emotions, communication, sense of duty, wanting versus need, sense of lost time, pride, guilt, parenthood, etc. This movie has it all. Kudos to the entire movie crew because this movie was executed well. I cannot compare this to "The Notebook" because it was truly a completely different movie experience.

PS- What is with these movies with kissing in the rain? Ask a black girl to be kissed in the rain and she would complain about her hair!! I know I would. 

The rise of social media has been increasing at outrageous numbers over the last several years. There are times when I feel all I do is check my Gmail account (email), Facebook, LinkedIn, update my Twitter status, bookmark my favorite content and vote for others, and watch web video! I have to admit I rarely use MySpace and Friendfeed. I am also signed up for Squidoo and Noovo, which I have yet to find use for.

However, sometimes I check-in to most of these networks all in one day and maybe that is a bit obsessive but when and where should I draw the line on how many times a day I should "check-in?" Speaking of where to draw the line, as I write this post (which I have not done in a while) I can't help but research hard facts about social media use and consumption--and that has become quite an obsession in the last few weeks. With all these questions, I ask myself "Is social media becoming a burden?" Yes!!!

According to my own business definition, social media is a way to connect with existing and potential customers online to promote and share content and hopefully they share content among their own individual networks. Thus, companies have tools to listen, monitor and respond to how the market reacts to their brands in the marketplace and online. Hopefully the feedback that is received is then used to improve products and/or services, and can even provide ideas for new products and services.

The personal definition of social media is for individuals to connect with their friends, family, colleagues and others to share content, keep in touch and aggregate the amount of information they take in daily. People use social media for different reasons. For example, musicians use MySpace to share their music and get discovered by record labels; filmmakers use YouTube, MySpace and similar sites to showcase their past and upcoming projects; Comedians use all social media sites to show the world how funny they are and to get others to viralize their hilariously entertaining videos; Hobbyist use social media to instruct other individuals on how to learn necessary skills to master a certain craft.

All the uses for social media are great but there is so much to see, do, watch, listen to and read about that social media has become an addiction. What are the symptoms for social media addicts? In my opinion, social media addicts check their blackberry every 25-30 minutes to read the latest email, update their twitter or Facebook status or forwarding content onto others. Other symptoms are stiff neck, blindness (from the computer screen), slight deafness, blisters from sitting in one spot for so long, etc.

What is the cure for social media addiction? Dare I say one whole day without checking-in but that just sounds crazy. What is the percentage of people that relapse? Probably everyone who is reading this blog post and forwarding it on to their friends! Just kidding but it's extremely hard to be weened off of checking-in because it is the way of life and we may have to just accept that. How would we have known about the earthquake in Haiti, or the Christmas Day Underwear Bomber and any other the important breaking news. We would be at a lost for information because newspaper readership is down and I am sure most people don't watch the news all day long.

What do you think about social media addiction? Share this post with your friends, family, colleagues and others and see what they have to say. Start a mini debate.