RIP Michael Jackson

I am still in shock about Michael Jackson. My heart is heavy but there is also this feeling that he is in a better place. He was too good for this place. In 50 years he lived 100 lifetimes. I’ve been listening to his music all day and I stand amazed at what he did. He bridged so many genres of music and people together and created something that will never be duplicated. There are no words. I hope that he is somewhere living out his childhood in another Neverland.

Finally play in peace MJ. Your work here is done and will never be forgotten.

Subconsciously conscious

Tonight the wife and I were laying in bed flipping channels.  We were both in a trance between HGTV and something on MTV. Subconsciously.It’s Saturday night. Nothing much to get into really. We ate linner–late lunch early dinner and somehow we ended up naked in bed afterwards. I woke up craving for ice cream. So after tossing the idea around we got up and headed to Atlantic Station because last time we were there we found this killer ice cream shop. Killa! This place is the business for real. They have everything under the sun. So we dropped in and ran into Jazmine Guy(weird huh?). She was looking quite thin and let’s just say that she is not aging well. (sorry Whitley!)

Love Laugh Live

My wife and I hung those three words across the wall from our bed. We decided to hang them instead of the picture we purchased yesterday with the goal to remember what is really important.

Over the weekend we finally consolidated our two homes and redecorated our home TOgether. The result—a beautiful fusion of who we both are. Last night was our second night in a row going to bed right before the sun came up. Our place is so beautiful and we were so excited that we couldn’t sleep!  What we have accomplished in the past 2 days is utterly amazing. We have completely transformed every room in our home and the real beauty of it all is that it reflects US as a couple (and that we came in right around budget—thank you HGTV!). Real talk—without the decor and consolidation, wherever she is…is home to me.  As I lay here in bed I cannot help but to reflect on how much she has changed my whole life. We met by chance with nothing more than casual intentions. Little did I know that night I would meet the person I would share the rest of my life with. I remember how hard it was to leave her side after our second date. I could not understand why I could not just get up and go home. After finally forcing myself out the door, I found myself in my place sitting on the sofa sulking. I was extremely miserable about not being with a womyn that I didn’t even know a week ago? It didn’t make sense.

So fast forward to one day I came over after work and I never slept at my house again. No formal discussion about moving in together. It happened organically and in the right time. Fast forward to us in San Diego exchaning vows, runnning down a beach and then hopping in a drop top with the sun beaming down on us. Neither of us got on one knee to proposed. Again, it just felt right and we followed our hearts. Fast forward to us being married (and yes its still legal despite Prop )which is a whole other crazy experience.  Challenging yes. Hard? Yes. Worth it? Hell yes. Even when she gets on my nerves I want her riiiiight beside me. When we argue it usually ends with one of us saying to the other, “let’s be friends.” We try to stay mad but then we start to miss each other and we want it to end. That is because we are best friends. There is nothing I cannot do with my wife and vice versa. She’s my lover, rollout partner in crime, my tag team and my boo. Fast forward to our 6-month anniversary a month ago and how I would say I do again(and again and again) because I love her more than I did then. Fast forward to last week when we made our plans for the rest of the year. We crunched numbers. Updated our budget and decided it was really time for us to merge completely.  We’ve been in la la land and whenever we have free time we just want to be together so we never rushed the “merge.” My house just sat over there and we just stayed here. Fast forward to us both purging and throwing out things we don’t need.  3+ trips to Goodwill…a full clean out of the place I own…to the crazy ass movers…add to that to 2 days of shopping, unpacking, drilling holes in the walls, hanging mirrors, window treatments…sorting out our 94394949 books (we have a MEAN library)…completely flipping our bathroom from city chic into a nice day spa…cleaning…storing…We finished around 4 am this morning.  Fast forward waking up in our beautiful bedroom to see Love Laugh Live and remembering all that is important.

Being tender…relationship roles

 

Yesterday on our way back from the Dogwood festival at the park we ran into my doorman. He cannot be any less than seventy years old. I always looked at him like a cool old grandpa. He would always give me kisses or hugs upon my return or departure from home. Strange? Ok, maybe but it did not offend me. He has always complimented me politely. It was something like my grandpa would do. Anyway, since I’ve been living with my wife I have not been home in quite some time. So he was really happy to see me. I introduced him to her quickly understood why I flipped my life up. He has seen the girls come and go. We had a quiet understanding. He never asked about my sexuality and I never really shared. He knew and I knew he knew. That was all that was needed.

So yesterday he was clowning around with us and asked my wife if she was “being tender” to me. On the way out we realized that he was curious about our roles in the relationship. I guess every lesbian couple has to go through this on some level. You might even get a question like, “Who’s the boy?” or “Who’s the girl?” It is amusing that they feel we need roles.

It got me to thinking today about roles in relationships and how heterosexuals do not have to define. I’m not offended by this at all. I actually think that since my relationship is outside of the norm for most that it gives me an opportunity to define what works for me or better yet, for us. So is she tender with me? (That question makes me chuckle.) My wife is extremely feminine on the outside. She’s wears the bangles. She rocks the big curly haired fro. She pops on the stilettos. She makes the hardest wife beater look girly. Well, maybe its that’s body, lol. I have the short natural. I’m rocking the cons or flip flops (I hate shoes btw—another post). Loose fitting jeans and my favorite v-neck t-shirt. I’ll throw on a scarf or a hat and I’m good to go. We’re like gay flare punk rockstars in our heads. (Yes, we have our own show!) On the outside I guess our roles are more define by the way we dress. I dress more tomboyish so I guess one would assume I’m the boy. She dresses more femme so I guess one would assume she’s the girl. I guess I’m supposed to watch sports, drink beer and fix things. And I guess she would cook, clean and follow my lead. NEGATIVE! (lol)

In all seriousness I think our relationship is extremely balanced. Sexually we can both be tender with each other. Quiet as its kept we are both most often non-tender if you know what I mean. It is whatever the other person wants. No roles. We just go at it and complaints are none here!(smile) Outside of the bedroom we just follow each other. She lets me know where I need to be. I let her know where she needs to be. I cook and clean when she’s overwhelmed with her classes or just plain tired. She fixes me coffee in the morning when I’m busy on a conference call. She reviews my presentations and gives me her honest opinion and feedback. I look at her papers and do the same. She holds me when I’m sad. Actually she holds me every night so I can fall asleep. I cannot sleep without it. When she’s down I go buy her cupcakes from her favorite place and surprise her. She takes out the trash more than me. She knows more about cars than I do. I do kill the bugs though. When I get overly excited she just lets me go off and then lets me calm down. There is no boss. It is a true flow of give and take. It is full submission from us both. There is no real leader. We are partners. Isn’t that how relationships should be though? I would think so.

So is she tender to me, sir?

Why yes she is.

Interior Design

 

I’m slowly figuring out what I want to do with my life and I think I have found something that has peeked my interest. Interior Design!!!

I’m not sure how I am going to tackle this interest but I am glad that I have found something that I want to know MORE about.

Stay tune…

The best life

 

Normalizing it

I could never date someone in the closet at this point in my life. I am not downing the closet because we all start there. It’s just hard for me to imagine going back there. Tonight the wife and I decided to go to our favorite restaurant for a quick bite after she got out of class. We walk in and the wait staff knew exactly where to sit us. (Yes, we have our own table.) It is very much known that we are together. Our favorite waiter was there today and he stopped by our table to chat about our weekend. Everybody in there knows us as us. They ask us about our vacations and what we’re doing. How’s school? How’s work? Blah blah blah. We are a open gay married couple and everybody respects that.

We stopped by Kroger to grab some food for the week and she pulled me to her and asked me to get closer. So there we are hugging in the middle of the soup aisle. I held her for a while without even realizing what it might look like to others. Then a second passed and I hugged her again because I am apprecitive her being open like that. It makes me even more open. There is also this small part of me that feels that our relationship changes people’s perceptions of gay marriage. No, this is no social experiment despite what some may think (hehe), but I do feel that it is our duty on some level to be the exception in order to normalize our choices to live our lives authentically–which is for us, being gay couple. No she is not my friend. She is not my roommate. Definitely not my sister (thank God).

When I went to the doctor Friday I asked the radiologist if my wife could join me in the back. I said it purposefully because I was not going to pretend. She was thrown a bit for a second but then she quickly said yes. Its funny when I say my wife to someone and how quickly they accept it. I walk away wondering if they think about it later or if they feel differently in their own personal lives. The thing is that even if they are against homosexuality they are forced in that setting to accept it. They are forced to treat us with respect. They are forced to come outside their straight bubble for a second and at least acknowledge that gay people exists and no we are not that different from them.

I’m reminded of this class I took in college about race relations during the civil rights movement. Progress was made with the help of white women and their families who employed a black housekeepers. Over time that black maid or housekeeper became a part of their worldview. They learned about their children, their husbands and other members of their families. They saw first hand some of the strife and hardships endured of the people they allowed in their homes every day and the very same people who took care of their families. It was a subconscious bond there. They were able to see that the color of their skin did not make them any less human and that they deserved nothing less than basic equal rights. The bus boycott would not have been successful without the help of whites that cross racial lines to promote equal rights.

So my point is that gay people have the duty and the right to normalize their choices to live their lives. Make no apologies and get out of the closets as fast as you can.

Music: The Dream

 

This is a NO. The Dream, in my opinion, is what is wrong with music today—it is too formula driven. With this latest release he lives up to his moniker, The Radio Killa. He has definitely KILLED the radio. Thanks Dream.

I’m annoyed when I listen to an album and all the songs sound alike. I’m even more annoyed when the sound is just bad. There are one or two songs that I can listen to but not without screaming or me getting annoyed with his “radio killa” name drops. Dude, I get it already. Geez!

I hope this is Dream’s last attempt at being in front of the camera and on stage. Some people just belong behind the scenes. He wrote great hits like “Umbrella” for Rihanna, “Bed” for J. Holiday, and produced “Single Ladies” for Beyonce. Go check out his work and collaborations. The kid has some good work under his belt. Somehow he missed the boat on his own stuff.

love LOCdown

…and the journey is about to begin…

I am excited because this is something I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time. I’m quickly approaching my 1 year anniversary of being natural and my gift to myself is to start the process to loc my hair up.

Gotta see this…

Last night we checked out On Demand and found this documentary. I have been wanting to see this for like EVER. Anyway, Bill Maher does an excellent job at making us look at religion for what it really is—MANmade propaganda.

Check it out. Even if you are a super religious person you should be afraid of what your leaders say and what they do NOT know how much they are proud of it.