Desperate in Detroit

I'm a 20-year-old college student caught in a turmoil of emotion. My parents were divorced two years ago. It left my mother and me on our own. Not long after, to my great joy, my mom was back in the dating world. I was shocked the night Mom brought one of her dates home to meet me. She later explained that it was time for me to become aware of her new lifestyle. She was now living her life as a lesbian, and I had to accept it. I immediately moved in with my father and refused to return my mother's phone calls. I miss her, but I can't come to terms with this. What should I do?


Leslie says...


What should you do? Try not being so judgmental. She is still your mother. So what, she wants to date women now. Does that negate all that she has been to you? I would hope not. If you feel this strongly about it, try talking to your mom. Tell her how you feel, and start by apologizing for the wreckless treatment of her feelings. You don't just up and move out like she has the plague, or has done something wrong to you. In time, you may be able to come to terms with her new lifestyle. If you never do, however, you are free to feel how you want. But don't completely sever the relationship with her. She will always be your mother...and most times, you only get one.

Feeling Guilty in South New Jersey

I had an affair with a married man several years ago. It ended, and now I am friends with his wife. I want very much to tell her about the affair because I feel so guilty about it. I see her every day. She has joined the same church I go to, put her kids in the same school as my kids, and we go to all the same parties and have the same friends. Everyone knows about the affair except her, and I feel uncomfortable every time I talk to her husband or when conversations arise regarding cheating. I know I'll feel more comfortable around her if I get this off my chest. Should I tell her?

Leslie says...

No you should not tell her. You only want to tell her so that you feel better, but in turn, you will make her feel horrible. And that's not cool. If you want your adulterous conscious cleared, go talk to a priest or minister or somebody whose profession is to hear confessions. But don't ruin "your friend's" life with this old information. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, and this is one of those times.

Richard in San Francisco

I need your input. Young women today are wearing low-rise pants, short tops and thong underwear. While my wife and I were dining at a restaurant the other night, a woman was sitting with her back to us. She kept leaning forward over the table to talk to her date, and when she did, her top went farther up and her pants crept down, exposing the top 3 inches of her posterior -- with all that implies. I didn't want to eat my dinner while looking at the great divide. My wife said to do nothing and not to look. Should I have tapped the woman on the shoulder and asked her not to bend over, or should I have asked the waiter to do something? Luckily, she and her date left before our main course was served. It's the second time this has happened. What do I do the third time?

Leslie says...

I agree with your wife - do nothing and STOP LOOKING! Women are never going to stop wearing clothes that expose their thongs or "great divides," and it is not feasible for you to ask waiters or restaurant managers to make these women cover up. So to keep your pressure from rising, you just need to stop looking, or ask to be moved to another table. It's not that serious.

Sink or Swim in Arkansas

I am a 30-year-old woman who has been dating a man I'll call "Paul" for almost a year. I love him and he says he loves me, but sometimes I have a hard time trusting him. Women call him here at my apartment at 4 a.m. They also leave messages on my answering machine inviting him over for dinner. Paul won't call them back if I am around. He says they're "just friends," but then he tells me he doesn't know how they got my phone number. (It's unlisted.) He swears he hasn't talked to any of them in more than a year. Am I just being insecure? If so, how does someone deal with these feelings of jealousy? Should I believe him and take the chance of drowning, or get out now and go on with my life without him?

Leslie says...

Dearheart, you have a hard time trusting "Paul," and I have a hard time believing you are serious. You cannot be this gullible and simple. Can you? You know daggone well that your beloved Paul is NOT an honorable man. And he's only getting away with this because you're letting him. Women call your apartment at booty-call hours of the morning, and he says he doesn't know how they got the number? Or that they're just friends? You're not being insecure, sweetie. You're being dumb. And if you don't wise up, then you deserve the heartache that being involved with him will bring.

Should you believe him and take the chance of drowning? If you know there's a chance you might drown, why are you wasting my time?

The Consequences of Rejecting a Man

Just in case you don't watch the UPN sitcom "Girlfriends," let me briefly give you the gist of what happened in last night's season finale:

"Joan" was dating (or rather going out with and sleeping with) two different guys at the same time. One of the guys was a basketball player ("Jovaughn"), and the other guy was something like a TV producer. (I can't recall his name on the show right now, but he's played by Wayne Brady. So for the sake of this post, I'll call him "Brady.") Anyway, Joan really liked Jovaughn, and Brady really liked Joan. For a little while, she tried juggling the two men, but eventually decided that since she liked Jovaughn best, she would end things with Brady. Besides, she said, Brady was too nice a guy to continue stringing along. [Let me add that one night, Brady told Joan that he loved her, and Joan said she loved him too, although she did not.] Joan confesses to Brady that she had been seeing him while seeing "a famous, rich basketball player." Of course Brady was hurt and upset, being that he really liked Joan, and thought she liked him too. He said he didn't want to be with somebody who didn't want to be with him.

Fast forward to last night's episode. Joan went to an A-list party in Hollywood, got drunk, got sick - the whole nine. She's sitting outside on the steps when Brady arrives to the party. She immediately perks up, jumps up, makes small talk, and asks him for a ride home. And then Brady lets her have it. I can't believe you would ask me for a ride after you did what you did to me. You're not even that cute anyway. You're not as hot as you think you are. I despise you. You slept with me to get on the cover of this magazine. You're trash. And he bounced.

Now, my question is this: why do men wait until they have been rejected to demean and trash-talk a woman? If Joan was all these horrible things all along, why was he still content to date her? Why did he tell her that he loved her? (And for those that didn't watch the show, he really did love/like her.) But now that she had chosen another guy, she was a whore, she was ugly and all these other things.

The first answer that comes to mind is he's hurt. We all know that a man's ego is HUGE, and they are more sensitive than women. They fear rejection more than women, and so they lash out in their hurt. But is that it? Is this "phenomenon" that simple? Even though this happened on a show, I've experienced it enough to know it happens in real life too. A man approaches you on the street, makes his interest known, but when you make it known that you're not interested, you immediately get called all kinds of b&tches, and get told, you weren't that cute anyway! How does that work? I was cute enough a few minutes ago, but now I'm ugly?

Or was I always ugly (to him...cuz I ain't ugly, lol)? Was it that he only wanted sex from me in the first place? What was/is it, men? Why do some of you do that?

What Do You Think He Had to Say?

Unless you live under a rock, you've heard of the tragic story of Yvette Cade, the 32-year-old woman who was set on fire by her estranged husband at a T-Mobile store in Prince George's County. I wasn't able to catch her appearance on yesterday's Oprah, but some friends did and all agreed that her story is a very touching one. Praise God that it's also a victorious one because Yvette did not have to be alive today!

At any rate, I just finished reading the article about her "tale" in the Metro section of today's The Washington Post, and while her entire story is touching and inspiring and very sad, something stood out as I read:

"Cade said she has had no contact with Hargrave since he attacked her. Two days before his trial, though, she got a call from jail and believes he was trying to reach her.
'Ten forty-seven at night, I get a collect call from a correctional institute. I couldn't believe it,' Cade said. 'What would he have to say to me? I was supposed to be dead.' "

I don't know why, but this struck a nerve with me...because I'm wondering too, what would he have to say to her? The nerve of him to call her after he did what he did. And I don't just mean setting her on fire; I'm talking about physically abusing her in the first place. I guarantee you he wasn't calling to apologize, and if I'm being presumptious, so what. Through all I've heard, and by the mere fact that he was capable of going to her job and dousing her with gasoline and putting a lighter to her back in the first place, he doesn't strike me as the apologizing type.

I really don't know why this has upset me so, and I'm trying not to lose sight of the fact that Yvette is still alive. And again, I thank God for that. But why did he have to go and call her? And I wonder what he had to say to her.

Yvette and her family are in my prayers. May God continue to bless and keep her.

Ya Filthy Animal

OK. So I know I've been gone a minute. For the past two weeks, I've been commenting on Royce's Daughter and DurtyMo's blogs, and welcoming my Ace Boon, A. Marie, to the wonderful world of blog. And actually, RD and DM's blogs had inspired another subject - different from the one I'm about to discuss. I had been working on it all day at work, and last night, before I left, I was getting ready to post it...but the site was down. So I couldn't. No big deal. I'd just do it in the morning. Log off, gather my things, get ready to leave, hit the bathroom on my way out.

Imagine this - the bathroom has given me this morning's blog. If you're a woman (even if you're a man), you might already know where I'm going. So you know this will be gross, but unfortunately, it is also true. Women, ya filthy animals, I'll address you at the end.

First, the stench was overwhelming. It made my eyes water. No exaggeration. I thought maybe somebody had tracked pollen inside and my allergies were getting ready to act up. When you first walk into the bathroom on my floor, there's a short walkway. You have to walk up this little walkway, then turn the corner to the main bathroom/stalls. It wasn't until I reached the main bathroom area that I realized it wasn't pollen...it was somebody's butt! No, nobody else was in there at the time, but I guess it was the remains of all the booties that had used the facilities that day. I couldn't describe for you the smell if I wanted to. Just nasty! But that's not all.

Next, there was the search for an appropriate stall. Rarely can you enter a woman's bathroom and go into the first available stall. Instead, you have to push open each door and examine the stall. The first one I peaked into had period stains around the seat. The container for sanitary napkins was overflowing and the green paper from a sanitary napkin was exposed from inside. So was the yellow and white paper from a tampon.

So I push open the next door, after nearly losing my lunch, and dried up urine stains on the front of the toilet seat greeted me. And if that wasn't bad enough, there were fresh stains on the toilet seat, and toilet paper strewn about on the floor.

At this point, I'm really considering holding it until I get home. But I know that I wouldn't make it, and so I press on...to the third stall. Evidently, this was the stall that all the fonky people used that day because as soon as I pushed the door open, the smell liked to knock me out. NO really, I was about to pass out. (And let's just say I'm giving women the benefit of the doubt by saying more than one person used that stall, because if it was just one butt out of which that odor came, I need to check her pulse cuz she DEAD!)

I hurried up and shut that door, took a couple of deep breaths - I'm telling you, the smell was alien - and kicked open the fourth and final stall. (By then, I was more than annoyed and my bladder was killing me!) The fourth stall - the handicap stall - was in the best condition of them all, but it wasn't exceptionally clean or anything. I just couldn't hold it any longer.

NOW, ladies, what's up?! Why do I have to blog about bathroom and hygiene ettiquette? I know we could all share our stories about how filthy and stank public bathrooms can be, but um, WE'RE THE ONES USING THEM! WE'RE THE ONES MAKING THEM FILTHY AND STANK! So what the problem is?!

Part of the problem, I know, especially for bathrooms at work, is we have to depend on the maintenance people to clean them periodically throughout the day. And I have had many conversations (with Babybear, DurtyMo and Sandybaby (when she was here)) about the nasty conditions of the bathrooms and how the cleaning people (LOL @ that's what we call them) don't clean the bathrooms properly. I remember we all talked about this one feces stain that stayed on the bathroom wall, right behind the toilet, for weeks before it finally got cleaned. And as much as that is proof that the cleaning people don't clean the bathrooms like they should, I can't really blame them. Why should they have to clean up behind (let alone smell) a bunch of nasty, filthy women? Their job is to clean the bathrooms, I know. But our job is to keep them looking and smelling better than we do.

Condition of the Stalls - Whenever you finish squatting, don't you check behind you to make sure you haven't dripped on the seat? Well, you should. You know sometimes we don't pee straight and there's spillage. LOOK FOR IT! Turn your lazy, trifling behinds around and LOOK! If you've spilled, wipe that crap up! Don't leave it there to dry and crudd all up for the next woman to have to look at when she comes behind you.

Which brings me back to the feces stain on the friggin wall. How in the hell did it get there? Who did it? How do you do a number two and get feces on the wall, ya filthy animals?! And then how don't you know you put it there? Benefit of the doubt again - you didn't know it had splattered (I guess) onto the wall. If you had turned around and did a spot check, then you would have noticed and hopefully wiped it up. UGH!

And OMG, when we are on, ladies, we have to be even more careful. The same spillage rule applies. Look for any leaks. God knows we don't want to come in and see dried up RED. Can you imagine the smell of old period? Come on now. But beyond the spills, be courteous and wrap your napkins up tightly/securely. When I go to dispose of my own, do I want to see a half opened napkin inside that bin? Um, NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Make sure what you are disposing of goes completely in the container, paper and all. And if it's full, for goodness sake, don't force it. Bring it out with you and put it in the big trashcan. I don't want to see it when I walk into the stall, nor when I go to dispose of mine.

Condition of Your Butts - I feel like somebody's momma trying to explain to her daughter the importance of good hygiene. But the truth is, ladies, some of us ain't washin our behinds. I know you ain't because I smell you. The odor in the bathroom sometimes is sickening, and not that I'm the queen of smells, but you know when you're smelling a dirty mop used to clean the bathrooms, and when you're smelling a dirty arse. LOL!

One of our premarital counseling sessions, on sex and intimacy, included discussion about hygiene. I never would have thought it was that kind of issue, but it is. You can't expect a man to look forward to being intimate with you when there's an odor, can you? (Of course the same applies to men who want to go play ball all afternoon, then come back home, looking for the woman to want to get at him right then. No, honey, go use some soap and water first and then come holla atcha girl! LOL) And I'm talking odor beyond what's normal. I'm talking repulsive odors that only come from not washing. Ladies, nobody wants to smell that. Take care of it, hear?

All of the Michael Baisden (sp) shows this week are repeats. They're a bunch of "best of" shows. Well, anyway, yesterday's was about getting tested for sexually transmitted diseases. I was shocked and horrified listening to the number of women who said they personally know women who have never been to a gynecologist in their lives! If I may borrow an expression from the GGs, HUNH!!!!!?!!!!!

If I didn't know any better, I'd think they were lying. I can't imagine any woman never being seen by a GYN. Does she realize the bacteria and everything else she can have unknowingly? Forget about the diseases she can have and unknowingly pass on to a man. All I could think about was if she doesn't care enough about her cootie to go get it checked out by a GYN, then she probably doesn't care enough about it to wash it! And I was smelling her when I went in the bathroom before I left work. Filthy self!

And that's all I have to say...because if I keep going, I'll turn crass. (And I've consciously tried to remain polite.)

My point is/was this: women need better hygiene and bathroom etiquette. It amazes me how nasty we can be sometimes. Makes me wonder what other nasty habits we have, but I digress. I have to go to the bathroom again. Oh gawd! Yall pray for me.