The Rest Of The Questions

You’ll never guess who has been occupying most of my free time. I can’t believe it either.

I’ve been hanging out with….don’t beat me up ya’ll. I’ve been hanging out with…~blushing~ a college boy. A young tenderoni from Morehouse that I will call BEEF. Beef will be a lady killer when he grows up but for now he’s doing a good job playing the role of my sometimes boy toy. LOL! Just playin…he got on my nerves very early by saying, “You can stand to lose a few pounds.”

I know! Dude is definitely young. Grown men and men with MANNERS know not to say anything like that to a woman, even if it’s true. And it’s certainly not true in my case, I love being on the thick side. He’s dumb. Had to leave him alone quickly. Gotta love these ATL men, huh?

Where is my side job taking me this Saturday?
You gotta love my side job. I work for a tour company doing PR on the side. They need me full time and I’m working on making that possible but for now I have to squeeze their work in when I’m not at the magazine. That weekend we went down to Alabama for half of the Civil Rights Tour. You guys, this tour is AMAZING! Imagine going down to Montgomery and seeing the very house that was bombed when Dr. King’s wife and daughter were first born.

Then imagine standing behind the pulpit where Dr. King gave one of his first speeches. I learned so much that day I couldn’t even charge my boss for the time because I sincerely felt that it was a gift to me. We visited Tuskegee University where I learned that George Washington Carver carved out the ideals of Blacks using physical labor to grow economically,versus Booker T. Washington’s emphasis on education. Correct me if I’m wrong because I was always bad at history. But this didn’t feel like a history class. This all day tour made Black History come alive and I can’t WAIT to begin actually pitching the information about this growing company. My goal is to have a feature story in as many publications as possible just in time for Black History Month. I have a lot of work cut out for me so I can’t waste any time! Yeah!

Which two of my friends have set wedding dates for 2007?
I think I already answered this question but damn…It’s hitting me that BOTH of my highschool bestfriends are getting married in 2007. Anna has set a wedding date for June 20 and Tamara’s wedding date is December 31st; a New Years Eve wedding. Now we just have to make sure that Tamara doesn’t chicken out. It’s a damn time with that girl!

My current lease ends on December 1st. Where will I be living next week?

When my lease ended, I really didn’t have anywhere else to stay. I didn’t look too hard for an apartment because…well…I’m lazy. I decided to stay in the apartment where I was so I only applied there and it took forever to get all of my paperwork in. Everytime I went to give them the deposit, something went wrong. They closed early, the money order machine was out of order, they changes policies on how they accepted money.

It was as though God didn’t want me to be in that apartment. I really felt as though I wasn’t supposed to live there but I couldn’t just sit and wait on God. Well, I could have but…not with Tamara as a friend. She was like, “DO SOMETHING!” So I did. After the apartment gave me a deposit requirement I couldn’t afford I turned to Craig’s List to find a place to stay and boy was I blessed!

I am experiencing an adventure I never though I would. I am now living with a total stranger in a beautiful condo in the Vinings area. That’s inside the perimeter of Atlanta. My roommate is a white girl who actually graduated from the illustrious UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA ~How bout dem GATORS?!!~ It’s my 2nd night in the apartment and we haven’t had any fights yet. In fact I make sure I’m in the room when she gets home and I don’t come out until she goes to bed.

I have no furniture and I’m sleeping on the floor and it feels like a camp out. LOL! This is so adventurous to me! Last night was my first night here and one of my co workers came over to help me unpack and he smoked me out on the patio and we talked for hours. After he left I went into my room and closed my door. I just stood there shocked. What the hell am I doing in some strange chick’s house? And she’s a white girl. Who’d have thought…

Wow. We’ll see how that goes though…

What happened between my editor and I that has made a dramatic improvement in our work relationship?

Well…from jump that chick has been unsupportive, overly critical and sometimes even childish in her interactions with the other people at work. When I first met her I was not impressed and you may have noticed that I never wrote about her because I didn’t have anything nice to say about that bitch. When I look at her I feel sad. Just sad.

So when she tried to get loud with me one day I had to call a meeting with the CEO. During that meeting I told her that her behavior was unacceptable and unprofessional and that I am not a child to be yelled at. I told her that she was not creating an environment in which a driven young professional could thrive. She insisted that I was not a good fit for my position and she thinks I should be demoted to a staff writer but I know for a fact that her opinion was out of her own personal insecurities because I enjoy working hard and long. Nothing ever goes smoothly but I never leave things unfinished and I always make sure that my staff knows I’m keeping an eye on what they are doing even when I’m not there. I take OWNERSHIP of my responsibilities but she makes it seem as if every inconsistency in the magazine, missing photos or stories that run late are my attempt to sabotage the damn magazine.

Everyone at the magazine, including the leaders have expressed how much things are running more smoothly since I got there. One by one they pull me to the side to give me advice or tell me I’m doing great. She’s the only one with the problem.

Imagine how sad a person has to be to sit and criticize someone all day. Anyway, after our conversation, she flipped. She never said anything negative to me at all again. In fact, if she had a correction to make, she would simply write it down with a happy face.

I was surprised when she called me into a meeting and told me that she was bringing someone else in to “help” me with my position. She hired someone else to do what I do. All of my friends were like, “THAT BITCH trying to fire you!” But I had peace. I have peace. She can’t take anything that God has for me.

MY LAST QUESTION about me waking up in a strange bedroom and not knowing how I got there- well, that will have to wait because I have work to do.

Let me let you in on a little secret. Between last weekend and today my life has completely changed 100% in every way possible. I’ll let you in on the details soon, but you will most certainly be shocked and amazed by what you are about to read. Those who have joined my email group will get the juice FIRST so check your inboxes!

Stay tuned…