More than Just a Social Network...

Twenty four hours ago I received proof that twitter is more than just a social network.  It came in form of a text from my Soror Z who said she had bad news.  She told me that she'd called to check on our Soror Cryssy Davis and was told that she had passed.  Surely I was reading this incorrectly. No way this was right. Maybe she'd dialed the wrong number.  So many things went through my head.  How could this be happening? She has two young daughters under age 4- one only a few months old.  Surely they have not lost their mother.  And then the tears started to flow.

And honestly they haven't really stopped.  I got no sleep yesterday.  I got on twitter early, hoping to have been awakened from what seemed like a bad dream.  What I saw only made the flow of tears increase.  so many people loved Cryssy. She touched SO many of us and what's weird is that a lot of us haven't met her face to face.  It is proof that you can love someone you haven't met that, that they can be an important part of your life, through texts, emails and tweets.

I hadn't known her long but I knew her long enough to know that she had such a big heart.  She was full of love and genuinely cared about people.  After having her baby she was the one checking on me when I was having a rough time and in need of encouragement.  I can't tell you all how much it meant to see the simple message "how are you doing today baby girl?"  You just had a baby, I should be checking on you, but she had to make sure that I was doing okay.

She definitely left an imprint in my heart and memory forever, and I noticed today the amount of my Sorors who felt the same way.  Some new her longer, some had spent time with her in person, but we all loved her and we all miss her already.  And her love reached so much further than just my sorority sisters. Other friends of hers who also loved her, and who were brought into our lives by her, people who I can also say that I care about, expressed their love for Cryssy.  In the end one thing was evident-- no way was this "just twitter." It's like we have a little family.  A crazy family that makes us laugh, gives us advice, shares their lives with us in so many ways.  I plan to start meeting more of my twitter family, but even if I don't, they all have a special place in my heart.

Don't Put a Bad Word in Your Soul...

The picture above is a tweet from Kirk Franklin.  It pretty much speaks for itself.  This is why you shouldn't ask everybody to pray for you.  And it's why I can't understand people who still support Eddie Long and others like him.  Why are you still sitting in THAT church on Sundays? 

You're Just Like a Pill, Instead of Making Me Better You're Making Me Ill

Suicide has been in the news a lot lately over the last couple of years.  Accounts of teens deciding to end their lives for one reason or another, often due to bullying.  I think about the topic of mental health often, especially as it relates to black people.  I read somewhere that at least two thirds of the black people who need mental health treatment do not receive it.  Although cost and availability are often an issue, I think a bigger one has to do with a stigma placed on mental illness in our community.  Someone who is depressed is often told to "pray about it" or to be positive or optimistic.  Sometimes they are even made to feel like they have no right to feel the way they do, because somewhere someone is in a worse situation.  I think that last one is what I hate the most.  Who are we to tell someone that their situation isn't "bad enough" to be depressed?  Sure someone else's life may seem worse to us, but there are always things that we as outsiders can't see.  That person who's life seems worse may have a stronger support system, or could be seeing someone for psychiatric help.

In the end, it's always easy to say that suicide is never the answer, but obviously, to a lot of people it is.  So tonight on twitter when I saw that a young lady was tweeting as she attempted to commit suicide, I took it seriously.  I prayed and hoped that someone she knew had gotten to her before it was too late.  Her tweets played out like a public suicide note, citing an abortion that she regrets, and a guy who allegedly coerced her into it and later broke up with her.  Several hours earlier she'd even mentioned anti-depressants, but that she felt like the side effects outweighed their benefits.  I wondered to myself if she'd ever been to a mental health professional who could evaluate her and explain the pros and cons of these medicines to her, and hoped she was okay.

Then it started.  For some reason I decided to search her twitter name, to see what kind of things were being tweeted in response to her tweets.  People accused her of faking this suicide attempt. First off who are you to say that someone you don't even know is faking something? And even if she was trying to get some attention, it's obvious that the girl was in pain and needed someone to help her.  If she was faking, maybe having someone reach out to her would have been what she needed to see that she needed to get some professional help.  Other's made jokes, and tweeted her asking if she was dead yet.

Someone in a different state called the police, and it seems as though someone was able to get to her and get her to a hospital.  I pray that this is true and the young lady is still alive.  What really scares me, however, is the people who may also have searched her name, seen the ridicule she was receiving, and decided that they would not seek mental help for themselves, in an attempt to avoid the same.  People often say "it's just twitter" and it is so obvious that it is SO much more than "just twitter" and I wish people would think about the consequences before being so insensitive.  Everything is not a joke, especially mental illness. Just remember, someone close to you could be struggling with something similar before joking about someone committing suicide.

My Vision Board

Vision Boards.  I heard about these a little over a year ago.  I was never big into Oprah or similar shows, and no one I knew was really talking about them, so I had no idea what they were or what the purpose was.  A vision board is a way to use the "laws of attraction" to make things happen in your life.  You get a board and put pictures or words that represent things you want out of life.

I started w/ this plain cork message board I bought at Walmart like a year ago. (Yeah, that's how long it took me to get this thing moving.)  I thought it was too plain. I wanted it to be happy and colorful, because I need happy and colorful right now.  So I covered it with scrapbook paper.  Sparkly, colorful, girly scrapbook paper.  And added a blingy sticker.  To me the hard part was finding pictures or sayings that represented what I want.  I'm still not 100% done with it.  I had to go through SO many magazines.  (Between my parents and I we have subscriptions to Essence, Ebony, O, Men's Health, Ladies Home Journal and Prevention.)  I actually printed a couple of things that I knew I wouldn't find in any magazine.

Things represented on my board: getting my DVM, money (financial security, stability, debt management), marriage and family (meaning babies), health (spiritual, mental and physical) and weight loss, new car and house.  I didn't put anything related to friends and family on there because honestly, that's a pretty good part of my life.  I have awesome friends and family.  Even if they get on my nerves occasionally I couldn't ask for better.  I also need to find something to represent travel.  Because that's something I want to be able to do.

Here's some pics of what I have so far:

Crazy + Racism + A Book...

So here are some excerpts from Pat Buchanan's book.  I'm not going to comment, I just wanted to share.  You make up your own mind about what you think about it.  I just think that someone needs to take his dementia meds.

12 Pretty Racist or Just Crazy Quotes from Pat Buchanan's Book

My Uterus, My Property... Trespassers Shall be Shot

My uterus is angry.  Why? Because politicians keep trying to control her.  Right now I don't want a baby in my uterus, why the hell would I want a damn law maker in it?

Today the House of Representatives passed the "Protect Life Act."  If you guessed that this has something to do with abortion, you are correct.  What do you win for guessing correctly? If you are a woman and want to buy private insurance to pay for your abortion needs, that's a no-go.  And if you are pregnant, and that fetus poses some health risk to you, and you are on your death bed a doctor gets to say that they will NOT perform an abortion to save your life, because that fetus is more important, even though if you die, that fetus damn sure won't live.  (Scientifically a fetus is not a life during the time that it is legal to have an abortion mainly because it wouldn't survive outside of the uterus, but I digress.)  I don't see how anyone thinks that it is okay to say "you may be currently bleeding to death, or suffering some other life-threatening issue due to this fetus, but I refuse to save your life because I think abortion is wrong."  I can understand not wanting federal money spent on abortions (Although if a woman who is on medicaid is raped, I don't see why that abortion couldn't be covered, but again, I digress.)

Why does this issue piss me off so much? First, if you believe in abortion, or not, if it's not your uterus, it's not your damn business!  Another reason is because many of the opponents of abortion are men, who will never carry a child in their womb.  Until they can grow a uterus, anyone with a penis should step away from this issue and have a seat.  A third reason is the position of the parties.  Many of the pro-lifers are Rethuglicans Republicans.  You are so big on saving lives but you won't hesitate executing people.  If life is precious, life is precious.  You can't pick and choose (unless you are a republican, apparently.)  I don't believe that people should use abortions as their form of birth control, but sometimes things happen, and if you recognize that you aren't ready to raise a child, you should be able to decide not to do so.  There are tons of kids in this country waiting to be adopted-- why add to that? And Lord knows the repubs aren't going to come out of their pockets to help clothe, feed, diaper or educate the babies they are trying to force people to have.

The bottom line is this: A woman's decisions about her reproductive choices belong to her, and no one else.  So politicians, and anyone else trying to tell a woman to have a baby, not to have a baby, not to have more babies, or to have babies before they are ready should just shut the hell up already!

Take Note...

It was the announcement that overshadowed this year's VMAs.  Beyonce and Jay-Z are having a baby.  Great for them.  Congratulations.  As usual, Beyonce's stans couldn't contain themselves.  People starting comparing how she looks as a pregnant woman to other formerly pregnant stars, made a fake twitter account for her fetus, even asked where they could send her gifts.  (Not that she'd want or need anything you'd send her because the heffa and her husband are paid.  That baby will be pooping in silk/Egyptian cotton blend diapers.  Pacifier? Probably made of platinum, pearls, and diamonds.)

Now don't get me wrong, I love some of her music, I like some of her movies despite her lack of acting skills, and I can admit she puts on a hell of a show.  But I feel like the world is over saturated with Beyonce.  It even went as far as one person saying that we should "take notes" of Beyonce and Jay-Z's courtship, marriage, and pregnancy.  Really? I mean it is great that they did things the "old fashion way" (first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Beyonce with a baby carriage) but take note on them?  THIS is what is wrong with America, and particularly the black community.  Worried about the wrong things.  There are so many other things that are relevant and important of which we should take note.  I made a list:

1) Education.  Everyday on twitter someone posts some new ignorance.  A girl spelled "faucet" as "phosite" today.  One guy posted about a woman being on her "minstrel cycle."  I even had a follower try to shade Drake's lyric's about the square root of 69.  Drake said it's "8 something" this guy said it was 7.  The last time I checked 7 squared was 49.  George W. Bush said "no child left behind" but clearly not only children but some grown asses were left stranded.  Our kids aren't reading or taking school seriously. Barely passing is enough to them, but what happened to striving for excellence instead of settling for mediocrity?  Maybe they should have taken notes of what their English and Math teachers had to say.

2) History. Today there was an awesome (though brief) tribute to MLK on BET.  "Martin Luther King: Alpha Man."  He's great.  But the youth today? They don't appreciate what he and others did for us.  They don't even know how Emmett Till was or why he is important.  A few weeks back I saw "Who is Emmett Till and what's wrong with his face?"  Seriously? If you don't know your history, you repeat it, and we are already there with James Anderson being killed in Mississippi.  But I bet no one is taking notes on that.  They aren't even TALKING about it.  I posted links to the article on Facebook.  I got hardly any comments.  I post a picture that someone made as a joke of what this Bey-Z baby will look like and I got several comments and "likes" within 10 minutes.  Martin Luther King did not have a dream that one day little girls would "take note" of Beyonce and her lacefronts and onesies.

3) Politics.  It's complicated, sometimes it's boring, but we should still pay attention.  Take note of which of your state's congressmen vote for or against certain bills.  Which ones were willing to let our nation default to make President Obama look bad.  Which ones are against helping the unemployed.  What is going on in your city and your state.  Are you paying attention to your local police, school systems, etc?  Are you registered to vote and exercising your right to do so?  Or are you the person who doesn't vote but then wants to bitch when the politicians are doing things you don't like? Take note of that.

4) The economy. It sucks.  People are struggling financially.  But how many people are even making good financial choices? How many people were in line with the Cool Greys came out-- spending their rent money? How many people are spending their money to wear brand names they see celebrities wearing (a lot of times celebs are gifted items by the designer they don't even pay for that stuff) but your kid is walking around looking like Annie before she met Oliver Warbucks?  How many people are living beyond their means to try to impress others, instead of living within? How many people have plans for their financial future? Take note of that.

5) Our children.  I mentioned education, but the youth of this country are just... well I have no words.  The guys wear their pants hanging off of their asses so low that they have to hold them as they walk.  The girls are 12 dressing like they are 21.  People are becoming grandparents in their 30s.  Kids are dying, selling drugs, going to jail.  They don't have real mentors.  I see people say that they hope their child has athletic abilities "so he can go to the NBA or the NFL."  Is that all we see in our children? You don't want your child to be a teacher, doctor, lawyer, or the next president? You are fine with your child's role model being Beyonce, Keri Hilson, Lil Wayne when it should be you, the teacher, the engineer? Why aren't we taking note of what is going on with our youth?

I don't want anyone to take this rant the wrong way.  I have celebrities that I love.  I'm a fan of certain singers and actors/actresses, but there comes a time where people need to pay attention to the real issues of life. And I realize there are people out there who are aware of the more important things in life, and I salute you.