Updates

This is my first serious attempt to get back to blogging so bear with me. I haven’t had anything to write about and if I did I didn’t have the energy to write it unless it was 140 characters or less. (Tweeting @wifemomcynic is so much easier.) That’s what being knocked up’ll do to you. Yep…we’ve got another kid on the way…a girl this time. She should be here by Feb. 6. I hope she comes before then because I’m sick and tired of carrying around this extra 23 pounds. But I really hope she’s here before Feb. 12. That’s my husband’s grandmother’s birthday. She died this year and I promised my father-in-law that if the baby was born on her birthday, we’d name her after her beloved great grandmother…Flossie. Flossie was indeed a delightful soul, but I don’t think even she would be okay with naming a young child that in 2011.

In other news, for the past several months I’ve been toying with the idea of launching a new blog about dating. I want to call it Guerrilla Dating for Black Chicks. Think guerrilla warfare tactics applied to dating. But I hesitate because there’s so much to cover and it’s really been kind of hard to get my arms around the unique and multi-layered, multi-faceted issues that black women (and men, for that matter) deal with in the dating world. It’s a conversation that seems to have reached a fever pitch this year and having spent so many of my adult years on the dating scene I feel compelled to weigh in…heavily. And you can tell by the title I’ve got tons to say…tons.

So that’s where Wife.Mom.Cynic. is…the last eight or nine months with no blog posts can pretty much be summated in two paragraphs. Right now I need an injection of clarity and creativity to get Guerrilla Dating for Black Chicks going because I promise it will be a wellspring of unfiltered admonishment, guidance and guerrilla tactics that are guaranteed to work...maybe.

Stay tuned…and feel free to shoot me your ideas, two cents or questions.

In the meantime, isn’t this the most disturbing depiction of a child conceived in love that you’ve ever seen?

New Post, New Look and Badu's Badonk

The reason I haven’t blogged since January is because I’ve been in Europe and I’ve been trying to get pregnant. You really should be rolling your eyes right now because the truth is we were only in Europe for 10 days in March and I center “trying to get pregnant” around two to three fertile days each month. So really the only real reason I haven’t blogged is because I’ve been lazy and scared.

We all understand lazy, or at least most of us do, so I won’t deal with that issue now (and it is an issue), but the scared part? Uh, yeah, that’s been a problem. I’ve talked here and here about my debilitating fear of failure. Seriously, I really should make another appointment with my therapist to cover some of the things we didn’t get to when we last met. I swear, I wish they offered month long sessions where you could just move in with your therapist and unload on them all day. Oh. I guess that’s called rehab. Yeah, I’ll take some of that too. But anyway, I get all caught up in whether or not a blog entry is going to be Pulitzer Prize material, and if not, I scrap it, turn on TV and lament the passing of my writing life.

*sigh*

Ok, so enough of that. I’ll work on doing better.

Sweetness and I did have a great time in Europe. My brother Jonathan tweeted a prediction that Zach’s little sister “Paris” would be conceived on our trip. Didn’t happen, in fact, I got my period at the Louvre. I hope that doesn’t discourage Jonathan from finishing fortune telling school.

Anyway, London was nice, but Paris stole my heart. It’s a fantastic city with lights and jaw-dropping architecture and passion for food and drink. The men wear slim trousers and interesting shoes and the women are thin, but unashamedly eat large wedges of quiche and drink the goodness they call cocoa. It’s pure chocolate, people, melted into a cup! I’ll go back to that city again and again.

In other news,
• I’m excited about healthcare reform. I didn’t have insurance throughout grad school and it sucked. Can’t imagine never being able to have access.
• I’m a little disturbed by Erykah Badu’s butt in her new, controversial video Window Seat. It sure is big for such a small person. Sweetness and me watched it together last night.
Me: Oh. My. God. Becky…look at her butt!
Sweetness: *fixated, silence…hits replay*
• I didn’t spend 300 bucks on that My Baby Can Read program, but my baby CAN read. Proof is here.




Until next time...

Please It. Tease It. Take It Away.

Ah, the life of a stripper. Flexible work schedules, daily affirmation from men, throwing yourself around a pole and landing in a big ‘ol pile of hundred dollar bills. It’s no wonder us girls with regular jobs secretly long to be like them. Yes, I said what others won’t admit. We envy them with their ultra-glam, showgirl makeup and great bodies and gold medal-worthy acrobatics. We long to walk in their clear, acrylic shoes, if only for a moment. Well, last Saturday I got my moment.

A week or so ago, a friend, who shall remain nameless, emailed me to see if I wanted to join her and a group of girls for a pole dancing “exercise” class at a place called The Girls Room on lower Greenville here in Dallas. It took me all of one second to email her back, “Sign me up.”

So we get there around 1 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon and dozens of women are filing in to a single room with about 20 or so stripper poles in it. I’m thinking, uh, there’s not enough poles in here for all these women. But far be it from our lovely hostesses to leave any of us poleless, we got to double up. Yep, two to a pole. Each lady and her partner had to take turns. Luckily, I took a good friend with me so I didn’t have to slither down the same pole as some strange wanna-be stripper I didn’t know.

The lady who led the class was quite engaging. I don’t know what her background was, but let’s just say she had skills. She’d definitely done this a time or two. She taught us what she called “stripology.” In a nutshell, it’s the science of the tease. It’s the art of creating fantasy. All of us eager pupils leaned in and listened intently as Sexy Socrates explained the three-step process to us:

1. Please it. This involves showcasing the goods. It’s why your audience is there – to see something.
2. Tease it. This is the fantasy part. You’re supposed to be suggestive, but not indulgent.
3. Take it away. This is your money-maker, she explained. The idea is look, but don’t touch. Everyone goes away empty-handed, but always come back for more.

Please It. Tease It. Take it Away. This, my friends, is the secret. It’s the reason why even in a weak economy, not one strip club in America has had to downsize. “Please it. Tease it. Take it Away”, we repeated as we moved through our “exercises.” “Please it, Tease it. Take Away,” we chanted as we gyrated around the base of the stripper pole. It was kind of empowering actually; exhilarating even. I mean seriously, how often do women get to boldly and publicly embrace our God-given femininity and sexuality; to scream from the mountain top, I am woman; hear me roar? Never. So, say it loud (but not if you're at work): Please it! Tease it! Take it Away!

And then it was time to get on the pole. Surprisingly enough, it was a lot easier than I thought. I was under the impression that it was going to take a whole lot of upper body strength to get up and around the pole, but actually it’s all physics. When you grab the top of the pole with your right hand and wrap your right leg around it at the knee, really all you have to do is push off and lean forward and away you go. Momentum does the rest. Amazing, huh? And to think, I thought I didn’t have what it takes to work at a gentleman’s club. By the end of the class, I was making two complete revolutions around that thing. The challenging part is the landing. It’s hard to gather yourself fast enough to land softly on pointed toes, but I figure if I keep going I’ll get that down too.

A co-worker told me there’s a formula to use to come up with a good stripper name. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with Stephanie Graves, but I guess it’s not catchy enough. Anyway, she said to take the name of the family pet you had growing up and use that as your first name. And then take the name of the street you grew up on and use that as your last name. My dog’s name was Sadie and we lived on Vapor Dr. I can hear it now. “Fellas, get yo’self a cold drink now, ‘cuz it’s about to get steamy up in HERE! Puh-leeze welcome to the stage Saaaaaaaadieeeee Vaaaaaaaaapoooooorrrrr.

Then I’d, please it, tease it and take it away!

One more thing, I have video of this. I thought about posting it here, but it contains extreme sexiness, and I don’t want every strip club manager in Dallas trying to get me to come on board. No sir, I DON’T want the opportunity to make in two nights what I make in a whole month as a publicist. You can’t lure me in with your thousand-dollar per shift job, but thanks anyway, sleazebag. I did, however, show the footage to Sweetness. I swear I thought he was going to pat me on the head. He was like, “Yeah, uuuh, well that was hot, baby. You did good.”

I don’t think I’ll be getting any of his dollars…yet.

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