Water-n-Oxygen

I just waxed my own lip for the first time and it went very well! I'm feeling like such a G I thought I should write about it, lol.

So I was talking to my homie Ms Heartache about my experience & telling her that I think I wanted to try to do my eyebrows & underarms next. We're all super pumped up, not because we don't routinely have these things done but because we are just figuring out that it is just as easy and a lot cheaper to do them ourselves! I understand that this is not news to some ladies who've mastered the art of self grooming long ago but I never thought I would be able to pour hot wax onto my skin & rip it off all by myself. I feel like a big girl... & a recession-proof frugalista diva!

Anywho, in addition to commenting on how much this would save me time & money I commented "& this will make me a good wife because if I can do this all the time, ANYTIME by myself, my future husband won't know that I wasn't born hairless!". I know that guys know most females have extensive grooming habits but I started wondering if they really know how involved the processes can be. And this isn't limited to grooming. Do guys really know all of the things we do to keep it sexy???

Hair done, nails done, everything did. That's pretty standard but did you know that we put bronzer on our boobs to enhance the look of our cleavage? Or that most females order light meals on a date not because they don't want to look fat & greedy but because they don't want to have to worry about a heavy meal's digestion & "exit strategy" if she decides to go home with you that night?

Women are perfect imperfections and the difference between a lady and an average chick is that a lady is able to manage those imperfections effortlessly. It's definitely ok (and highly recommended) to let your guard down and give your man as much as the real you when you are in a committed relationship but there is no need to get completely laxed with your physical appearance and throw out the window the things that first attracted him to you. Men are very aesethic creatures, being pleasing to the eye is always a plus.

I love my WNO fam so for Valentine's Day I am giving you the gift of music. Here is the first playlist I have put together to put you in the mood for that special day.

I have to admit, CallMeKarrie is a very low-tech diva so I was somewhat limited by the song choices this particular site offered but I think you will still enjoy it. I will try to post a new playlist every other day from now until Valentine's Day. Thank you to all of my Facebook & Twitter friends that submitted song requests. I will try to get every one on a playlist.

Please leave a comment to tell me what you think of this playlist and what other songs you would like to hear.

Love,

CallMeKarrie

Hey WNO fam! I'm reading a cool new book and wanted to share it with you. It's called Bitch is the New Black and is by a young, black and fabulous journalist named Helena Andrews (who is quickly replacing Necole Bitchie as my imaginary BFF).

Being the urban wanna-be Carrie Bradshaw that I am, I had heard of Helena and her book before it went on sale this past summer but initially had some reservations about diving head first into it. With mainstream media shoving the single, black, professional female meme down our throats, I was afraid that Helena, and the intelligent & credible sister that she is, may be jumping on the bandwagon & negatively cosigning. Although I liked what I had seen of her in interviews, I was afraid that her book may position her as the Michael Steele of single, black, professional females, lol. The book sat in my Amazon shopping cart for months and I finally purchased it with one of my fabulous Amazon giftcards I received for Christmas. I'm glad to report that I am half way done reading the book and that my initial fears are unfounded.

**CallMeKarrie Time-Out: That paragraph was full of fellatio imagery juxtaposed with socio-political commentary. See what I just did. I talk dirty but my mouth clean. Take that, take that... Now back to my regularly scheduled program**

I'm not on Helena's payroll, so I will end my praise here for now. Not sure if I'll do a formal "book review" but I will def refer to it in my posts. Its a cool book, check it out and tell me what you think.

In closing, I'll leave you with my favorite line from Chapter 1 that got me hooked:

Only Jesus knows how badly I want to f*ck him right now.

Hilarious!

**I’m making short-term goals when the weather folds**


Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, Cuffin’. Yup, that sounds about right. It’s that time of year; leaves turn color, the air chills and all of a sudden everybody is in a relationship state-of-mind. I would never promote entering a relationship for shallow reasons, buttttttt… I’m about to promote entering a relationship for shallow reasons, lol.

Here are CallMeKarrie’s Top Five Reasons You Should Cuff or Be Cuffed (in no particular order… & they’re not my Top Five, just the first five I could think of):

1. Snowed-in Buddy – The Mid Atlantic Region was hit hard last winter w/some of the highest snowfalls we’ve seen in decades. Snow is Mother Nature’s fluffy white aphrodisiac that you won’t catch charge for. Snow is also a get-out-of-work-free card. & nothing is better than being bunned up all day & night knowing that you won’t have to get up for work in the morning.

2. Shovel Buddy – While all the indoor activities of Reason 1 are fun, sooner or later reality hits and you will have to leave the house. If you get snowed-in w/someone, you also know that they will be there to help dig you out. << double entendre

3. Gifts! – There are a lot of gift-giving holidays during Cuffin’ Season. If you are racially-ambiguous enough to claim to be part Christian, Jewish & Pan-african, your boo will buying or making you gifts for weeks!

4. You’re usually fat & less attractive this time of year – Keep it real. Most people work out hard to perfect their “beach bodies”. When it’s cold outside we usually let ourselves go a little and enjoy all of the great holiday food. Only your boo (and some chubby-chasers) will think your new pouch is cute.

5. Its too damn cold to creep, make booty calls & go to the club – No explanation needed

Have you cuffed or been cuffed yet? What are some other good reasons to cuff or be cuffed???

Yesterday was World AIDS Day. Relationships and dating can be full of wonderful things, sex being one of them, but it is important to be responsible. When you have unprotected sex, you are literally putting your life in the hands of your partner.

I remember Hydeia Broadbent from her appearances on Oprah and other large media outlets as a young AIDS victim and advocate. She is beautiful and her philanthropy is amazing & inspiring. I was pleased to see her recent blog post on Necole Bitchie yesterday. Although doctors believed she would not live past the age of six, at 26, Hydeia is still dynamic in her AIDS awareness efforts.

Here is Hydeia's blog “What does HIV Mean To Hip Hop”:

Since HIV is hitting the African American community the hardest it should mean a lot. While HIV is not something that just affects African American, and Hip Hop is not something just black people enjoy or support, we can’t ignore the facts.

Just like Hip Hop runs through the blood of our inner cities, so does HIV. Like Hip Hop, the fight against AIDS has been watered down. We are complacent with the medical advancements made just as Hip Hop is complacent with its commercial success.

Hip Hop’s lyrical content seems to be only about sex, popping bottles, and clothes. It has forgotten how to make people think. Today’s Hip Hop reflects a void of understanding within our community.

When it comes to AIDS in the African American community we have chosen to turn a blind eye and not talk about it. It makes us comfortable to ignore the subject. The fact is our community is being hit the hardest. How can we remain silent any longer?
What happened to the Hip Hop campaigns in the early 1990s that told us to “Rap It Up?” Maybe some people are happy that we, as a community, have not learned how to work together in fighting HIV/AIDS or learned how to educate our brothers and sisters on safe sex. A line that replays in my head from Nas’ song “If I ruled the World” exclaims, “It’s elementary, they want us all gone eventually.”

AIDS has not gone away. It has become a silent killer in the African American community because we have forgotten how to speak up and speak out. We don’t seem to care about our neighbors or ourselves. This is evident in the lack of responsibility people are taking with their own sexual health. CDC estimates that more than one million people are living with HIV in the United States. One in five (21%) of those people living with HIV is unaware of their infection. This means that people could be unknowingly infecting others. At what point will we start talking about HIV without our minds drifting to the long held misconception that it is a gay disease? The H in HIV stands for human, meaning any part of the human body that gives life, or preserves life can transmit HIV.

While African Americans make up only 12% of the US population, we make up 50% of all new diagnosis of HIV. For my African American women, HIV infection is nearly 15 times as high as that of white women and nearly 4 times that of Hispanic/Latina women.
My Black men, unlike the lyrics in today’s Hip Hop would have you believe, our sexual behavior does have consequences. You account for two-thirds of new infections (65%) among all blacks.
We have to talk to our sexual partners about HIV and STD’s like our life depends on it because guess what, it does. We have to become responsible for the images we portray and the lifestyles that we glamorize. I challenge you today to: 1) Get tested. Know your status. Early detection can be the difference between life and death. 2) Educate yourself on HIV/AIDS. 3) Talk about it to your family friends’ co-workers. Talk about HIV on Twitter, Facebook or whatever social media site you may use. Just speak up.

AIDS is killing our people because of our fear of being judged if we bring up the subject. Well excuse me but I cannot and will not sit back and watch the demise of my community because of fear of what people will think of me, can you?
Who will be the new pioneers in Hip Hop? Who will be the new voice of protest within our community?

December 1st is World AIDS Day. This is an opportunity to raise awareness, commemorate those who have passed on, and celebrate victories such as increased access to treatment and prevention services, BUT December 1st is also the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott.The act of one person standing up for what is right set in motion the act of followers following and speaking up!
Who will be the Rosa Parks of today?

Twitter: @HyDeiaBroadbent
Website: http://hydeiabroadbent/

I had a spent a great weekend with my family a few weeks ago during the 4th of July holiday. This makes the third consecutive year that we have gathered at my cousin’s mini mansion in Northern VA. Her community is adjacent to a country club that does the most magnificent firework display and the HOA throws an amazing block party (I’m talking DJ, moon bounce, BBQ, tiki bar…). To me, this weekend is like the American Dream personified – celebrating the freedom of our nation and being surrounded by so many seemingly perfect families. Of course, no family is perfect however two successful parents, 2.5 adorable kids, and a luxury SUV & sedan in a two-car garaged all nestled into statuesque single family home in an affluent suburban cul-de-sac can often seem that way (I left out the manicured lawn, but you get the point).

After the fireworks, the women in my family sat around the fire-pit, drank mojitos, and listened to my cousin tell how her fiancé proposed to her on a gondola in Paris (or Venice… I forget, they went to both, can’t remem where the actually proposal took place, lol… anywho, how AWESOME is that!). Near the end of the story, we start to hear some screaming which we first assume is coming from the kids in the basement. Then one of my cousins signals all of us to stop talking and points across the backyard to a neighbor’s house. At this point we all hear a blood-curdling scream followed by:

I HATE YOU!!!... How could you do this to me?!?!... In front of my family, you
embarrassed me in front of my family!!!... You said you would never cheat!!!...
It’s OVER!!!

Well damn.

Of course, we all know that money cannot buy you love or happiness and we are all one jumpoff away from having our lives turned upside down by infidelity [INSERT TIGER WOODS JOKE] but this was truly a sad sight. On the outside, these people seemed to have so much, but inside, a marriage was falling apart. After hearing my cousin’s story about her proposal (and downing quite a few mojitos) I was sure that I was going to dream a fairytale that night but this episode really bought me back to reality.

Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?

Other than occasionally announcing my current celeb crush, I really have no desire to blog about celebs. I am a self-proclaimed blog junkie and read 90% of the top gossip blogs daily. And while I do somewhat envy the pseudo-celeb status that gossip bloggers like Perez Hilton and Necole Bitchie (who is my BFF in my head **in my Wendy Williams’ voice**) have achieved, I can honestly say that gossip/celeb blogging is an arena CallMeKarrie prefers to stay away from…

HOWEVER, WTF is going on with The Dream & Christina Milian??? Messy, messy, messy!!! So Dream & C. Mili are def not the first couple to have a public separation. Hell, their separation isn’t even the most dramatic or entertaining but it does elicit an endless slew of side-eyes and SMHs.

Since I’m not in the business of gossiping, albeit lucrative, I’ll present the “facts” as I understand them:

· They eloped in Sept 2009
· They had a formal ceremony & honeymoon in Dec 2009
· Baby Violet was born Feb 2010 (which means Christina was pregnant when they eloped)
· We haven't seen any pics of Dream & Christina since she had the baby (they said it was because she lived in LA & he was in ATL working on the album)
· Pics (that were taken recently) came out this week of Dream bunned up in the Carribean w/his assistant
· After the pics leaked, Dream released a statement saying that he & Christina had been separated since late last year (IDK how that happens considering they got married late last year, LOL)

Some bloggers have called Mr. & Mrs. Nash out, deeming this whole fiasco as one big publicity stunt. While I do believe Christina may have known about the affair long before the pics came out (woman’s intuition) and decided to turn a blind-eye knowing she would be the benefactor once the sh*t hit the fan, I do not believe she is a co-conspirator. And while the beach pics w/the assistant do look staged, I can’t for the life of me understand how anyone, including Dream, would think this would help him sell albums.

As far as the statement Dream made about them being separated since 2009, he’s just campaigning for an annulment instead of divorce because there is NO PRENUP! His albums do ok (I guess) but he also wrote Billboard hits such as Umbrella for Rihanna and Single Ladies for Beyonce so Christina will hit the divorce jackpot. Elin Woods. (shoutout to the guys @ verysmartbrothers.com who inspired that Drakeism)
Somehow I don’t think this is what Beyonce had in mind when she said “you can be my sweet Dream or a beautiful nightmare” because you Mr. Nash are NEITHER!