2006-06-16 - 12:11 p.m.

The closer it gets to 2:00pm, the more I get a sense of how absolutely uncomfortable I am going to be.

The Patch aka Ortho Evra. I DO NOT recommend the damn patch. To anybody. Period. Granted, it did work for the month I used it. But not without some uncomfortable side effects.

First of all, within 5 minutes of applying said patch, I was overcome with emotion. All three times. It seemed as if every last one of them hormones RUSHED into my blood stream just as fast as they could. I though the thing was time released?! Apparently not. At least for me anyway. I would get extremely frustrated. Damn-near teary eyed at any little thing. Be ready to TOTALLY bitch out anybody or anything that even seemed like it was about to try and get on my nerves. Would actually start SWEATING. 'Twas ridiculous.

Secondly, that thang made my butt cheek itch like CRAZY. All around the edges that weren't supposed to come loose but did every single time. Had me all out in the streets, scratching my butt cheek in a square at any random time, people around or not. I couldn't take it! Thank goodness it had to be changed every week and placed in a different spot. Otherwise, it woulda been gone after the 7th day.

Third, it was SO visible. Here I am, smooth chocolate brown, with this big 'ol beige patch. My coworker, who is a pale hispanic, also commented that her boo was very turned off by the appearance of it.

And my fourth and final issue with The Patch, the reason I am dreading this 7-hour car ride I am about to participate in??!! I used the damn thing for one month (3 applications), and here I am with another f'd up period 17 days after my last one ended. What the ?!?!

My stomach is HURTING! Last night, I was SWEATING LIKE A MUGG! I woke up this morning and remembered how wet I was when I woke up in the middle of the night and I was like "Ewww, gross!". My head has been ACHING. I'll leave the rest up to the imagination. Suffice it to say, I am truly not a happy camper right now and I am definitely not about to be a happy rider. Nobody better say anything to me the entire trip. Just let me sleep. Periot!

But let me not get it twisted - I am happy that it performed its function properly. I really had a reason to be fully impregnated right about now so "Hallelujah, Amen." in regards to The Patch working. But for real, I'm just gon' hit up that Deproprovera shot and call it a day. Once every three months, and that's it. Periot! I let my gyno talk me out of it the first time but he best believe, when I walk up in there next time, I'ma have my hand out for that prescription.

So yeah, I'm going up to Tallahassee to surprise my older cousin, Nay Nay. It's gonna be me, my cousin Shon-Ra and her husband, and Nay Nay's younger sister, Sitty. My uncle is here from Texas but people act like it ain't no big deal so I'm going along, leaving him behind. I feel bad about it but nobody else does. Honestly, I know that if I don't go, my cousins here and my older cousin are gonna be looking at me crazy, that's the only reason I agreed to go. Otherwise, I'd stay down here with my uncle and his family and have a good time.

I found out that it's also gonna be a trip for us to drop off Sitty, as she wants to try living up in Tally-ho for a while. I've been saying that she needed to go up there for years. She has some mental issues stemming from childhood that have really stunted her social growth. I just feel like the slow pace of Tally is much better suited for her and will allow her to get on her feet much better than trying to exist in Miami. There's just way too much going on down here for her to be able to do that.

I'm very happy with this arrangement. She'll be able to escape the smothering presence of her mother and become the individual she was meant to be. I love her, we're days apart as far as age (I was born in mid-January, Sitty was born in mid-February), grew up almost like twins when we were little and now, I barely see her three times a year 'cause she doesn't like to leave her house. No family functions, no going to the movies, no shopping, no nothing. Just staying at home.

So I'm praying that this will be part of the turnaround we've all been praying for in her life. Nay Nay has a friend that lives up there and works with the emotionally disturbed so I'm hoping that she'll be able to help Sitty make a lot of positive steps.

I love my Sitty.

Speaking of people with emotional issues. So my godson's mother is going through crisis. Long story short and incomplete: She got pregnant in high school from her boyfriend of one month. They were tumultuous the entire time she was pregnant, which is basically the length of their relationship. It's not love. They don't even truly know each other. He cheated on her while she was pregnant and after the baby was born. He chases her, she chases him....

A Jerry Springer situation fo' sho. Got me all up in the mix. Police, court, restraining orders. All that.

So I called her on Sunday 'cause I was in the neighborhood. She didn't answer and never called me back. I found out that her mother had to take her to a psychiatric "crisis" center because she started talking about she couldn't live without her baby daddy and she didn't want her baby no more, etc., etc.

Even though my 6-year-old little cousin Ti-Ti, who is staying with us for a week, nearly drove me to smoke crack the other day with all her jumping around and talking, I would willingly take on the responsibility of raising my godson. I would seriously and quickly drop all of my other "responsibilities" to handle him. Truly, I would. I cannot fathom the thought of something happening to him at the hands of his distraught mother.

And being empathetic with people's mental issues as a result of watching Sitty deteriorate over the years, I could understand his mother, Mo, being unable to cope. She just left her teens and is already the mother of a son, she's been "sheltered" by her mother while being an observer of verbal and probably physical abuse towards her mother by her own father, she probably had my godson thinking it was a way of keeping her baby daddy and now here she is, single, got a restraining order against her baby daddy so she can't see him or talk to him (he refused to sign the acknowledgement of paternity at the restraining order hearing, by the way, even though he admitted on record that he believes he is the father)...

I can't even imagine.

So if raising a child is what I would be asked to do right now, I'd take it on. I know that's a lot of talk from a young single un-pregnant woman with no kids who comes and goes at any time, day or night. I have no experience. I get tired at the sound of a child talking. I'm always tired, period. But if that baby needs a loving place to go, I'm here.

Now Mo's mother, Jess, is saying she wants custody. I don't think that's a good idea because Mo and Jess live in the same apartment. So if Mo decides she's ready to hurl my godson over the balcony while Jess is sleeping, what's gonna stop her? If it comes to that, I'm on the baptismal certificate. Like Shon-Ra said last night, I "got all the rights in the world to get that baby". If need be, I'll use 'em.

I could not imagine myself raising a child, much less a little boy. But I feel like I have that internal "mother" thing going on. Children are not necessarily high on my list of favorite things but they sure do make me smile and totally miss my childhood.

Like I said, my Uncle Kenny and his wife Lou and, of course, their granddaughter Ti-Ti are staying at my house for a week. LORD, I wasn't sure that I would make it. I'm just SO used to coming in my door, getting comfortable in my housedress, if that, getting in my bed and chilling. Tuesday, I came in the door and had to play hostess IMMEDIATELY. Cooked a full meal. Cleaned up. Got folks comfortable. Tried to settle my body down. Had to sleep on the couch in the family room...

When I get a house, I'm gonna make sure I either have a guest bedroom or purchase a pull out bed/couch.

I'm just realizing that I won't be sleeping in my bed until Sunday night and then I'll be right back out of that come Wednesday when I go to Costa Rica. Oh goodness...

I started working out again on Tuesday. It felt like I hadn't worked out in a year! LOL. But at least I didn't have to do it like I was starting from scratch. I haven't backtracked that much.

After my workout, on my way from the gym back to my office, I noticed how much better I was breathing than when I walked to the gym in the first place. All I could think about while I was working out was the day I start jogging in the evenings. I keep putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. I need to jump on that for real like right now today. But I can't 'causa the houseguests as well as my responsibility to the theatre right now but when I get back from Costa Rica, it's on.

What else? What else?

Oh yeah. TheBouncer told me to look up flights to come up there. It would have to be in August 'cause I'm busy until then. I'm just done with him but I'm not letting on and that's just wrong. I wouldn't mind going to see him but 1) I don't feel like going up there and actually seeing his situation. I know he doesn't have anything but he's gonna go out of his way to buy up all this crap to "show" that he's doing well for himself and end up coming home with nothing, knowing that he does not have to prove anything to me. 2) I'm happy knowing that I'm not pregnant and I prefer to stay in this frame of mind. I know if I go up there, it's gonna be an all-out "fest" (that I will enjoy, I'm sure) and I don't wanna take one more chance of getting pregnant. I'm done with all that worrying. 3) He's gonna try and have me paying for shhh since he's so-called paying for my ticket and I don't feel like spending no money. If I fly all the way up there, I'm tryin' to be taken care of and he ain't got the means to take care of me the way I wanna be taken care of. Yes, in his case, I sometimes get to be all about the money 'cause he's a broke/stingy Aries at times and it ain't nothin' more I can't stand than a broke/stingy man.

So I'm thinkin' I need to stay my brown butt right on down here in all this heat and call it a day. How to do that without hurting his feelings? I don't know. Maybe it's not possible to do it without hurting his feelings. Like I said, I don't know.

That out of sight, out of mind thing really works.

Okay, I just did something I've been building up the nerve to do for months. And now that I've done it, I'm not all excited about the outcome. Basically, it's something I shoulda done when I first thought about it 'cause it just wasn't as hard as I made it out to be.

In an unrelated note, I just don't like people trying to fill my head up with what they think I want to hear. Just tell me the damn truth. Trust me, if it's the truth, I can handle it. Now if it it sounds fishy, I'ma call you out on it. I will surely prove the falseness of something where true information was previously given to me and then you try to walk up on me thinkin' u gon' catch me slippin' and lie about it. For some reason, I always find out the truth right before I'm told the lie. That's God lookin' out for me. It'll be totally unsolicited and he'll have me see the light before the darkness of the lie crosses my path. Thanks for that Lord.

But yeah, like I was saying. I have unnerved quite a few folks with this quality. I am the last person anybody would need to lie to. I don't need nobody makin' nothin' sound fly to me. The truth is the flyest thing I could ever hear and I totally appreciated it. Love it, even.

But yeah. I cannot stand a lie. Granted, I tell my fair share but that is because, as Tae (my best friend) pointed out, I let people put me in a position to lie. I don't feel like going somewhere but I feel guilty about letting somebody down so I lie about it. But I tell little white lies and I'm very scrupulous about diggin' in my stash. I do it in order to save certain people from hurt I know they are not capable of standing. Other than that, everybody gets the truth out of me.

So why can't I get it in return?

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