Sparks *editted*

6 more days...



Monday was exactly 5 years since kesi and I first kissed. I'm sure I told this story before so I'll summarize:



We were in the cafeteria and he was sitting directly across from me. I was eating my usual granola and tea (I ate light back then) and he had chicken. After a few minutes, I turned to his friend and made a comment about no one wanting to kiss me (lie! I called myself the kiss ho), and he said, kesi will. My plan was working! And so I drank some tea to make sure there was no granola in my teeth and went for it.



It was literally short and sweet. But I felt... Something. A spark, if you will. My face was red, I know it. And what with all the uproar of people making out across cafeteria tables, lmao. He was blushing too. But he composes himself better.



That little kiss made all the difference. It was that spark.cliché huh? But really, there was clearly something deeper there. We were drawn to each other. I feel it still when we kiss. Even if its just a goodbye.



and now its 5 whole freaking years later! Its funny cuz sometimes I think I should be tired of him. But I'm not! He really is the only one. Swoon. There are times I wish and hope every one that's in love can relate, and moments when I hope this is just a feeling that's ours. 5 years. Yeah. Its better than I could have thought.

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Gum tats

Oh you heard me: gum tats. Let me explain...

Today I asked Hartford about her tongue ring. She said she got it and a tattoo when she was 15 and rebelious. So my manager, who is from ghana, said that back home she woulda gotten a spanking, even at 15. This prompted five of us to trade war stories about crazy things we did when we were young. Such as:

*shaving her eyebrows at 15 and really screwing it up.
* wearing makeup to school at 12 and getting caught when my mom came to check me out of school
*getting a tiger tattoo at 14
*sneaking out
*shaving our arms

And the top of the top: my ethiopian friend said that she tattooed her gums. We thought she was joking. Who does that? Then she said in Ethiopia dark gums are sexy, and hers are pink, so when she was 17 she got hers tattooed. She said she couldn't eat or go to school and her gums bled for days. We were shocked. She even showed us her lower gums which were still pink. Clearly she won that contest.

So, barring any strange plastic surgeries, what crazy thing did you do as a youth? Is it permanent? Or is it just a good laugh?
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Two thoughts

1. I have been blogging every day because I found out that you can email posts straight to your blog. In the settings tab there's a spot where you can create an email address for your blog and mail straight to it. Yay! Only you can't add pics or labels. I can just add those in later...

2. I want some m&m's. Ok, not just any, but the ones that say something. Maybe, happy birthday, or yoj- what Lauren and my DC peeps call me, or anything awesome. Giving a person monogrammed m's is such a cute idea! I wonder if they do peanut or just plain...
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Show me

I love that John legend song. It perfectly describes my relationship with God. Sometimes I have so many questions.

I had a funny experience the first week of the year. It was during a conference full of college aged Christians. One of them said to me, "I'm a follower of Jesus and I would like to pray for you. Is that ok?" as a fellow follower of course it was. It really brightened my night-it was already midnight and I had to work til 3am. Another offered to pray for my legs so that I wouldn't be in pain after standing 10 hours 4 nights in a row.

How does it come so naturally? I don't have it like that. I grew up in church and as I said before my mom (and several of my aunts) are ministers. I have no shortage of people to go to. But I don't know. I'm in a position where I feel like I need to feel like God is not a friend-of-a-friend.

I have been feeling it lately. Pressure. Work, home, school... People say, have faith, but I can't help but worry. Kesi wrote me this note years ago that I still keep. Every time I find it, I put it somewhere else so I can find it again, just when I need it. "don't worry babe. He never gives you more than you can handle." I know its true. But I can't help feeling heavy.
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Guess its my turn.

Sigh. Not liking today. Wasn't my day. I only have 7 songs on my berry and I can't really put new ones on because they have to be reformatted. Blahh.

I was late for work. And hungry. And then I got into some kind of funky disagreement with someone I care a lot about, about someone I care a lot about, and the day sucked more.

Its cold outside. My computer is very slow. My throat hurts and I need a hug. Its going around, I tell ya. I'm the 5th or so person to write a blog about how crappy I feel. No silver lining on this one. Just blah.

wah!

Apparently I'm having trouble commenting on people's blogs if they have word verification, which cuts down commenting on half the blogs I read... Boo. Its not fair. So don't think I don't love you guys, I just can't comment til I get on an actual computer. And I can only type but so much before it says the "field is full.". Sigh. Still love the berry though.

I am hurting for a day off. The only day I have I have to go to the doctors. I'm so tired and I want to see kesi while the sun is shining. More

berries

So... I won a blackberry. I also wrote this great post about it that I can't edit,and don't have the strength to retype. But I am super excited with the pearl. This is a $400 phone that I was gonna buy myself for my birthday and I won it!

I'm on it right now if you can't tell. I won it from blender magazine; whenever they publish your quotes in there you win something. I made a comment about flava flav, lol.

This is a good sign for the year. Now if I can get the word out about my birthday party...

shalom in the home.

1. my mom just called. our roommate moved out. didnt know we had one? 3, actually. she has kids too. but i dont much talk about my family so i dont much talk about the others in the house either.

my mom's been kind of annoyed on this woman, who she worked with and saw hard on her luck 4 months ago. she'd make comments about my dad being around as if my mom still wanted to be with him. they've been apart for years but are still friends. and, hello, they have two great kids! case you didnt know i will always need my daddy and he'll always be around, no matter how grown i am. not only that, but roommate and her kids are a bit sensitive. my fam is one which doesnt tolerate whining and says what we mean. but her kids cry over nothing and it drives me nuts. it also wakes me up when i'd rather be sleeping.

top of the list: not very hygienic either. and that's where the drama began. last couple of weeks my mom had been asking about our face towels. where are they? joy do you have any with your stuff? (i do my laundry separate) she even purchased a cute lil set. they disappeared too. so today my mom wrote her a letter before church- they dont go; my mom is a youth minister- asking if they could take the towels out of their room so she can wash them and open the windows to air out the room. she also wrote out the money she'd given us the past few months and stated that she was writing to keep the records straight. i kid you not there was a basket and a half of just towels. ew! this is probably every towel they ever used while staying with us. i'm not gonna make this a laundry list, no pun intended- cuz there's more i could say.

so apparently the letter offended roommate and i was awakened by them once more, packing. no skin off my back. i'm still pissed about buying food i never get to eat. she and my mom got into an argument where she once again brought up my dad and how her kids dont have that support. not to be mean, but that's not our fault. she also listed "all she's done for us" and my mom said that it was never discussed that those things were to replace the money she owed because all we needed from her was money. i'm sure she cried, and i'm sure my mom was unphased. except that she called me to tell me what's up. she was really trying to help this woman get ahead. but you cant help someone who doesnt want it. i felt like i couldnt move freely in my own house sometimes. and mikey got blamed for the fruit flies. i didnt like that.

2. Speaking of mikey, i noticed the cutest thing today: sprouts. i dont know what they are, some kind of berry- he eats them once a week at least, but i know how they got there. the tank is pretty warm, and i tend to spray water daily. and seeds dont digest... i dont know how to take care of plants. i'm hoping he'll eat them before i have to find out. he'll need a bigger tank soon.

3. this star is driving me up the wall. i want to be done with it already. i'm almost to the tips of the star, but then i have to do the background til its 6ft long. i have another project lined up after that which i'm excited about, which is making the current one more of a pain. i'm gonna keep going though. gotta get that dough.

laurenday

saturday was laurenday. even though i had to work. we had fun.

i woke up that morning sick throat swolen, feeling like boo boo on wheels. might have had to do with my 56 hour work week... but i was determined to exercise. i did holly's express workout. 15 minutes. i felt pretty good and it was nice to do someone's exercise that i dont just know from the fitness world. it made me feel less pressured. next i'll try out kendra's work out.

lauren came by around 2. i had to be at work at 3 but i really didnt care because lauren is NEVER in town and i'd been working so much i was over it. she got her blanket! she wanted to wear it as a cape. lol no, please. especially since it was hotter than necessary out. btw it was a granny square design and it was beige, chocolate, black and hot red. she picked the colors in a fit of confusion but they looked so good together. she asked me how i chose the colors; i was like, you did. she was trying to decide on one or two and i just got every one she asked for. i also gave her a belated friendaversary gift, a silver card holder that says "Its not shopping, its retail therapy" on it. cute!

we look forever with my brother in the dollar general. ugh. my mom's card was acting up and i was over it. i was gonna be late for work! over something not particularly fun. so i paid for the stuff so we could damn go.

lauren's car- truck- is nice. its roomy. and all new and stuff. i cant work her cd player but i think that was a result of me not paying attention. we went to checkers, which i hadnt eaten at in a year. yummy. then i went to work. boo.

after work we went to a party. it was for lauren's mom's friend, so we were the youngest ones there. but it was still survivable. this man came in there in a cool mo dee hat with a feather in it, and tassels on his jacket. i mean this was the biggest hat i've ever seen in actual life. he thought he was so fly! at one point, after lauren and i refused to dance, walk it out came on. oh my god. these people should never be allowed to hear an unk song again. awful. so we got up to show them how its done, then promptly sat back down.

then we went to the waffle house. it was like 2am and i ordered the chocolate chip waffle. it wasnt the bomb. this man kept turning in his booth to talk to us. ick. then we had to go! why?

i cant wait til next month. i'm having a birthday party and hopefully she'll be back. i'm glad she spent her only weekend off until jesus returns in atlanta so we could hang out.

i got a problem ya'll

i really do.

if you dont know, and where have you been, i have a fro. its easy to maintain but my hair tangles easily. so i like to braid it or put it in a ponytail. but... even then it still tangles. and i hate it. and i tend to try to get the tangles out, without proper tools. and i pull my hair out.

that's my problem. i'm always pulling my hair out. i'd rather the hair be gone than have a knot in it. i leave dna everywhere. i have split ends. i think that's why my hair is still the same length since i originally stopped perming it. the front knots less and its longer. i barely mess with it. but the back has yet to touch my shoulders. i been growing my hair since i was 15.

shit ya'll people are starting to notice. this girl at my job and i were talking and she said, why are you always pulling your hair out? i asked kesi and he said he noticed it too. i do it without thinking. its bugging me and i dont wanna be bald!

its a compulsive disorder. its called trichotelomania, or however you spell it. i heard about it a long time ago and the name stayed in the back of my head and i denied it. but now i'm concerned. what can i do? do i need a therapist? help!

maybe its me

the Hater's birthday is this week. so i decided to give her a new name. taps. because whenever something ridiculous is going on at work she'll reach her foot over and tap me as if to say, we'll laugh about this later. and usually we do. the truth is: we're actually friends.

it goes back to what i said a few months ago. friends hold grudger longer than the person originally wronged. in this case, i was annoyed by taps's every move toward b, especially when he was talking to hartford, because he told me once or twice that he was done with her cuz of all the shit they went through. i never really gave her a fair chance. so who's the real Hater? she was very rarely mean to me, baring that time that gave her the original name. i dont even count that time at the club cuz if someone was dancing with my ex i might have to give them stank looks too.

so maybe i'm the Hater. i mean, at least in this situation. but i can admit my wrong doing... this girl doesnt even beef over the little inside jokes we tend to accidentally not include her in. i was the one who chose sides.

so yeah we're cool now. i just had to express my faults. luckily i never told anyone she knows about how i felt and my opinions; not enough to poison anyone against her. but that doesnt take away my misgivings about feeling that way and holding on longer than i needed to. i'm trying to work on letting people change.

the anniversary that isnt

me and kesi's anniversary is in exactly one month. this time 5 years ago he was dating a nympho psycho with a big rack- yeah i had to mention her breasts- and and i had just ended my two year dream sequence gone horribly wrong. but in the spirit of lauren's what-ifs, i'd like to tell a story.

may 2001. mr dream sequence had just broken up for the first time. he read me a letter over the phone that he was possibly going to mail me (Ew, tacky), a letter which included lyrics to a song sung in german which he was so nice to translate for me. lauren why did i like him? and then i cried and told him i loved him and that if he wanted to break up i wouldnt object.

my friends decided to cheer me up and not let me live in a stank. i love them for that. i went to prom with brandi- the one who just got married. we even took really cute pix in our dresses in front of her dad's bmw. we looked like a car ad. another thing i needed to indulge in was my craft. on the day of my ex's prom was the poetry/ fashion showcase. (Can we bring up how equally tacky having a fashion show interspersed with spoken word acts really is? what the hell was our teacher thinking? my parenthesis are now reserved for the mentioning of tacky items in this story.) i could still enter because i was in it the year before and he knew i'd be prepared as i was a drama major.

so the friday came and i was decked out in my showcase tee and black on black skintight zebra pants. i still have those pants and they still fit. i think i wore knee high lace up army boots too. (yep.) and who else was there, hair half braided, lookin so cute? kesi. and also lauren- modeling, naturally- and our friend kyle. the majority of the pre-show was spent running around with the boys being silly. but at one point the flirting began.

something i was, and am, always proud of is my underwear. back in high school i'd wear skater jeans and they'd always show. and if they didnt, i'd mention them in conversation. i've since grown out of that. but that day, lmao. so yes i had on my zebra pants. and there could be no vpl. so i wore a thong. not just any thong, a hot topic g-string with a pocket in the front. i loved them. and i decided, being single, someone should know about them. i may have even gotten a little skanky and managed to show them without giving everything away. but i remember him having the knowledge that i was wearing a thong and him approving. oh god.

the flirting carried on to the stage. we had to sit, cafe style, onstage, during the fashion portions. and when it was our turn to speak we'd get up from our table and go to the mic. we sat next to each other, and pretended to pay attention while we were really being asses and joking around. my math teacher did a poem about how we get on his nerves. or that's what i remember of it. lines about boys with half done hair and girls with short skirts. of course we pointed each other out when he said these things. kesi was on the stage looking like that episode of martin when he joined the cult and his hair effed up. i remember kesi's poem- elements of destruction. it was really good. i've since read it many times. my favorite line: its a wonder man doesnt get and erection at the sight of mass destruction. deep! i mean, we were 17. i did a poem about my ex and the moment i think we started drifting. it was titled christmas.

i think that day of the showcase was when i really started to like kesi. i denied him and anything really serious because i knew he was a good guy and that i was still messed up over my ex. i didnt want to hurt him or waste his time. but what if we had started something that night? did seven months really make a difference?

my vote is yes, it did. in those months alot happened. for one thing, i became a stronger, more independent person. more centered even. and he became the kind of person who could handle a girl like me. the girls before me showed him that, by comparison, i'm not so crazy. chances are i would have never gotten to know him like i know him now if our relationship would have begun then. i was not a person who could have given myself like i do now.

things happen like they do because they are meant to be. he and i are meant to be. that day was just a preview that maybe one day we can tell our kids when we explain what fate is.

update:

i have my paypal situation handled. my account is under kaorijoy@hotmail.com. my other account seemed to have no password attached... how odd. anywho, my site should be up by my birthday. that's one month. i'm working on that, planning my party and someone else's, work, and a dallas cowboys star. my first big sale, which will in effect pay for the liquor at my party. i am considering adding hats so if you all wanted one it's 10 for that. smooches.

The year so far

new year eve was nice. we stayed at home, as usual. i dont really like to be out on the eve. i begged not to work so i wouldnt have to deal with getting home. kesi and i look shots of jose cuervo black and christian bros. i cant do brandi. it burned from the lips. i didnt get drunk- i dont like to be drunk- but i did get a nice buzz. kesi's bro said i was acting really mellow. we kind of peer pressured everyone who came in the kitchen to do a shot. except our pregnant friend. we tried to hold her down but she got away! JUST KIDDING!

we rung in the new year with silly pix and highly inappropriate jokes. lol i honestly dont remember any of them though. the jokes that is. i remember the pictures we took, one with kesi's youngest brother holding a box of corn flakes, cuz their mom didnt want it in the shot. he put it in front of his face.

i sent a bunch of emails then we hit the hay. yes, at about 1am. my baby had to work. early. people called me all night long and for the most part i slept through them. i woke up at 630 with him. did i mention i hate mornings? i wake up at 10 or 11 on the average day.

but yeah it was a fun night. i did everything i wanted to. i dont make resolutions, cuz i drop them as soon as i realize i forgot about them. i am putting myself on junk food restriction for my birthday party. if one more person tells me my butt is getting bigger, so help me...

hope yours was all you wanted. happy new year!