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Hard Choices

Uncategorized Sep 07, 2022

After my divorce I got involved with a man who was very different from anyone I had dated. We found each other online and I was drawn to his sarcasm and offbeat sense of humor. I was going through the divorce process and my relationship with him was not intended to be more than physical from the start. In retrospect, I can see now how going through the traumatic events leading up to my divorce and the messy, drawn out process itself influenced me to enter a relationship that I felt from the start wouldn’t be an everlasting one. I believe that this man was placed in my life for a reason and a season and I tried to extend it into a lifetime. Now as different as we were in so many ways this man really held me down during the ugly parts of my divorce. He listened to all my angry rants each time a new low was reached, he held me while I cried from holding the weight of it all and he gave sound advice for communicating with someone who’s shown you who they are. Although our...

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Texturizer

This was one of those pivotal moments I thought only happened in books or movies. An exact moment in time where you can pinpoint when something changed, when you knew that you would never look at things the same way.  When I opened up that cabinet under the sink and saw boxes and boxes of S Curl texturizer my emotions went from my mouth hanging open in shock to hysterical laughter to tears . I knew then that I had been looking at things through the wrong lens and while it was initially jarring, this experience provided me with a teachable moment that has served me well as I moved forward through life. Let me walk it back…..

A few weeks earlier I had received a phone call from an unknown number that had called several times  in a row before I finally picked up. An unfamiliar voice informed me that my husband was having an affair with a woman at his job,taking trips with her and bringing our 3-year-old daughter to her house. Apparently the woman calling worked there...

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Fuck your Woo Woo's

Maybe it was my fault for thinking I could just treat dance as some side hobby , something to do just for fun. After all I had bombed my audition at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, so maybe a career in dance wasn’t on my horizon. When I got accepted to Virginia State University I was elated to be going to an HBCU. I had gotten over the disappointment of being rejected from my first choice of school, (and my second, Howard university) and if we’re being honest and had made peace with the fact that I was headed to Petersburg, VA to study sociology. I fucked off my first 2 years of high school and I was paying for it.  While it wasn't an arts institution like UArts, and it didn’t have a dance program like Howard, it did have a “dance team” and offer a dance class in the form of a P.E requirement. I thought that would be enough.

 

Damn was I wrong. The dance class was miserable. We didn’t even wear dance attire, instead donning...

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The Fear of Powerful Women

What is it about a woman knowing exactly what she wants that terrifies and disgusts the masses?

Maybe it's the fact that you cannot shame a woman who own everything about herself. You can't weaponize the truth against her.

You can't get her to see herself as anything less than who she is because your validation is not required.

She won't be paralyzed by guilt or find herself drowning in self- sacrifice.

She won't feign satisfaction for the sake of your ego.

She has nothing to prove regarding her intellect, competency or ambition.

She will receive what she needs and disengage from the rest.

 

I can see why some find her dangerous.

She has found Supreme Acceptance and is not easily manipulated.

She is free.

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Everything I know about men I learned in the strip club: Lessons in Dating

Strip clubs can be fun and magical places. The combination of women, music and alcohol make for a highly sexualized fantasy world in which both men and women can get their needs met. The exchange of currency for titillating entertainment and attention are the same everywhere but depending where you are the experience can vary in a major way. Some clubs give you the feeling of being at a wild glamorous party where all the women are baddies and the champagne flow likes water. Others make you want to go home and bathe in bleach and leave you feeling sad & disheartened. 

 

Luckily for me the primary club I worked in over my 10 year run as a stripper was the former. Touted as the “World Largest Stripclub”  it was open 24 hours a day 7 days a week. There were  hundreds of beautiful women working at any given time, they had a pool for day parties, and a full service upscale restaurant attached serving organic non-GMO Mexican fare.They have champagne...

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The Cruise Of Lies

Let me tell you about the Cruise of Lies. 

 

This photo was taken on our first family cruise(which would become an annual tradition). I had made the decision to divorce my husband. My daughter was 3 years old. 

 

A few weeks earlier I had gotten the call that set everything in motion. A woman “anonymously” called my house to inform me that my husband had been cheating on me for some time with a co-worker. This was the culmination of many red flags that I ignored throughout the course of the relationship but that’s a story for another day. 

 

The decision had been made. Papers filed. He was in the process of moving out. This cruise was to celebrate my Grandparents turning 90 and it would be the first time we had all gotten together since my wedding. It was also the first  big family vacation for my daughter and I knew it would be the last one for her with her two parents as a unit. 



Everyone was so excited about this cruise,...

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Living According to YOUR vision

The year was 2003, I had gotten my very first Vegas gig and you couldn’t tell me shit. I didn’t know at the time that they were only looking to fill one spot and I’m glad because there were so many dancers and I probably would’ve been nervous. I got the spot and it was my DREAM JOB. Costume & wig changes several times a night (ok yasssss), mostly improv, a little simple choreo, 9pm-4am, everyone was nice and the money was GOOD. You really couldn’t tell me shit. 

 

Before moving to Vegas I was in a long term relationship throughout my 4 years of college. All in all the relationship had a positive impact on my life. He was a little older, very intelligent & extremely outspoken. He was a biology teacher but also could dance his ass off and naturally I was very attracted to that. The relationship had officially ended in part because I was dead set on moving to Vegas after graduation. He wasn’t in agreement with that choice for many...

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How to Make a Home in Your Body

You’ve spent most of your life locked in your head. Thinking, ruminating and worrying, only attending to your body if it demands your attention, or you want it to do something for you.

You’ve been looking outside of your own body to feel at home and it’s led to a distrust in your decision making, lack of confidence in yourself as a sensual being and an inability to regulate your nervous system.

When you are at home in your body you are connected to the intelligence outside of your brain. You are in tune with sensation, intuition and instinct.

And being in tune leads to confident decision making, the ability to be present and an abundance of sensual pleasure.

Come on home sis.
Sit down, take your shoes off, pour yourself some tea and get comfy.

 

1.  Notice - Make a habit of noticing what is happening in your body and how it feels in response to different stimuli or lack thereof.What does it feel like when you are breathing deeply? When you get angry? ...

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The World Is Your Stage

My greatest strength has always been in performing. I love to choreograph and bring out the best in others and I love being a student of dance in general but it’s in taking on the task of trying to convey something to an audience where I’m most at home. I’ve always loved dancing in front of people but I as I got older I also focused on my performance out of necessity. My body type, lack of flexibility and decent but not outstanding technique were all working against me but I knew that despite all of that I could always be a commanding presence on the stage. My kicks may not be as high, my feet may not be pointed as beautifully but damn it when I take that stage you will take notice and look at me.

My students that I set choreography for absolutely killed it the last time they performed. They commanded the stage and made people look. No one in the audience knew that their trio started as a group of 6, or that they had never twerked on stage before or that the...

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A Note About Self-Trust

Trust:

That when your body says rest, it’s time to rest.

That you will feel energized and spring into action when the time is right, no outside motivation needed.

That you do not need to be in constant motion to be productive.

That if you’ve been doing the work, the opportunities will present themselves.

That things are aligning in your favor that you don’t yet know about.

That authenticity will always be in demand and there is no need to alter who you are or pander to trendiness.

That your idea may not be unique but the way you execute it will be. Don’t be afraid to do what’s already being done YOUR way.

That you aren’t seeing even a sliver of your peers failures or disappointments .

That your worth is intrinsic and isn’t dependent on how many people purchase your goods, services or art.

That some seeds won’t bear fruit for quite some time.  They are still growing.

That it’s ok to redefine what success looks like to...

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