Operator: 911 what is your emergency?

Caller: My birthday cake is on fire.

Operator: Ma’am, stop calling here.

Tomorrow is my birthday. When my friends asked me how I felt about yet another year added to my age, I answered: I ain’t dead yet. I didn’t say greaatttttt, like cereal box Tony the Tiger. I didn’t happily clap my hands like an excited 10 year old. I didn’t answer with anything resembling enthusiasm. I wasn’t a toddler with a cake adorned with 2 little twinkling lights signaling a life that is fresh and new. Lighting my candles was borderline arson that threatened to burn my house down around my ears. With my luck the fire department would send Fire Marshall Bill to extinguish the blaze. Yeehaa, it’s my birthday. (Mouth formed in a hard line of sarcasm)

Apparently, I’m far from ecstatic. What is the source of this discontent you’re wondering? For people in hospital rooms fighting for life and breath, my attitude is borderline sacrilege. I have my health, a career and people who love me, what in God’s name did I have to complain about? What was with the discontent? Why was I both pouty and perturbed? I didn’t want to celebrate. Like Valentine’s Day for girls who are perpetually single, I just wanted it to be over. Be gone, Birthday! Be gone!

What was at the heart of this gloom that had fallen over my head and left my spirits in eternal mist? I investigated the source and the answer was right there. I didn’t feel like I had everything. Sure I had a book, a career and friends. But where the heck was the white picket fence; the impossibly tall husband with the broad chest? Where was the house full of kids that all looked curiously like the Jacksons? Janet, baby, go back to sleep, mama will be there soon. I wanted it all, deserved it all and boy was I tired of waiting. In a fit of pique I fired off an emotional text to The Most High.

From: the Super Sistah

To: The Lord – Almighty

Subject: It’s my Birthday – WHAT THE HELL!

Dear Lord,

I hope this text finds you well. That’s it for small talk! Yesterday, last year, five years ago and when I was sixteen, I prayed and asked you to send me a family. Where they at, Lord! Where? I’m tired of waiting. You are supposed to be the almighty, right? Grab some clay and build me something. Trust in me? I’ve been done trusting. I’m tired and I’m fed up. Why you keep sending me these knuckleheads with issues, father? If we attract what we are, what you trying to say, Lord? I know I ain’t crazy.

Look up Stephanie in the dictionary and under my pic it says, she who is anointed and blessed. So stop playing. I’m your daughter and I’m sick and tired of these antics.

Real talk? I’m giving you another year, two tops, and then I might have to build some things my own damn self. Yes, I ‘m blaspheming. SO what!

Don’t respond, G.O.D. It’s my birthday. I gotta go and cry into my cake so I can extinguish the candles.

Peace out, Jehovah, Prince of Peace. AKA – Lil’ Dove.

Signed, the Super Sistah

BTW – I ain’t dead yet. Thanks for that. Deuces!

Sent from SS iPhone –– 3/28/2013

Is our happiness based on what we don’t have or lack instead of what we’ve been given with grace? Does the birthday card of life deserve to be signed with a sad face?

Recently, I casually asked my dermatologist about one day getting Botox. He laughed in my face. “Go spend your money on something you need” he said and sent me on my way. Is he blind? Doesn’t he see the lines I see?

Every year I write a birthday post (See Old Dog, New Tale) because sadly, the Super is getting old. Grey hair EVERYWHERE old. Retirees tell me that I’m still young.  I’ve determined that this is what old people say to console each other. As yet another birthday blasts by, I realize that Jennifer Lopez notwithstanding, I will never be able to wear a super high mini skirt again without self-consciousness. Gone are the days where I chat with the drugstore clerk about anything other than anti-aging cream. Goodbye makeup free face maintained by moisturizer and four hours sleep. It’s time to get used to cashiers calling me ma’am, bitches, and little boys young enough to be my son trying to make a Cougar out of me.  To maintain muscle, I’ll have to up my workouts and…horror of all horrors… watch what I eat. Yeah, yeah, Father Time and I are enemies. I can complain for days, weeks if you give me some drinks, but the Super is all about encouragement, even if the encouragement is for me. So here is what age has taught me:

• I’ve learned tact. If a friend asks me if I think her daughter is a lesbian, age has taught me to say, “I’m not sure, but I’m here if you want to talk to me.”
• I’ve learned that “Karma is only a Bitch if you are” and “it’s none of my business what other people think about me.” (Stolen quotes but they’re all me)
• I’ve learned that if my boyfriend doesn’t like what he sees when I’m naked then he can take his d*ck elsewhere.
• I accept that I’m pretty enough. If I want to look like Halle Berry I have to have her parents.
• I now know that a thousand squats a day will not give me a Kim Kardashian booty.
• I realize that I’m not half as stupid now as I was in my twenties.
• I’ve learned that delay does not mean denial and everyday that I expect a miracle the closer the miracle is to me.

I won’t lie to you, getting older kinda sucks.  The gift of wisdom and foresight is rarely given to the young. Aging is inevitable so I’ve decided to be grateful that my heart is still beating, my body is still functioning and my mind is still sharp. In 40 years I’m looking forward to being a Super G, that’s Super Granny. Happy Birthday to me and all the other Aries.

Should we be able to freeze time like we can freeze our faces? Do we wish we could give our birthday some Botox?

Happy Valentine's Day

Back in the day if a man loved a woman he gave her father a horse, a cow and two mules. In them days, the price of your “PRECIOUS” to quote Gollum, cost a damn sight more than some chocolates and a Hallmark card.  Men understood that for the benefit of a lady’s time he had to put in some work. He earned her affection through the persistent pursuit of her heart. Fast forward a century and now some men have forgotten what love is about. On Valentine’s, which is the most romantic day of the year, stats show that most couple’s end up succumbing to what I call a Total Eclipse of the Heart. To translate Bonnie Tyler’s song into layman terms, it means that love fades to black. When women should be shaking the sheets on the 14^th, instead, most are showing their men the curb. I don’t have a Ph.D. in Sexual Healing but there is a reason for the fallout.

I’m attempting to get my self-help/dating book published.  It’s curious then that when I sprinted out of work on Friday I wasn’t running to catch a hot man for a hot date but to catch the library. My dating life in New York City might seem obscene to some and downright dismal to others. How much you commiserate depends on whether you go home to a man in your bed or to a vibrator with 4 batteries. Despite the glamour of the dating scene portrayed on reruns of Sex in the City, I’m no Carrie.  For most single girls in the city, there is no line of eligible bachelors waiting to wine and dine us and then pick up the check.  If we want to date regularly we can, but we’ve seen enough news reports where they find the desperate girl’s body in the trash to know that its best to choose quality over creepy.

When I explained my dating challenges to a friend he accused me of being picky. This is the label women usually get if they refuse to date the bucktooth guy from IT, the stalker neighbor from across the hall or their second cousin twice removed (shit, date him girl; it’s not like he’s close family).  The label is unfair but there is a good portion of the population that thinks that women should date anyone who asks.  For this reason, when I recently stopped dating a perfectly eligible man some of my single friends thought I might be crazy.  What you say now?  He has a job, all his teeth and he has a history of eating coochie? You don’t want him? Where he at? I’ll give him something dark and fiery. I’m assuming they meant loving and not a STD.  But I digress.  The dude and I didn’t get to the loving stage because there was no evidence that he felt passionate about me.  I’m not saying he should have tattooed my name across his pubic bone or sent me I love you cards signed with his tears, but similar to the tune En Vogue once sang, I wanted him to Give Me Something that I Could Feel.  Was that too much to ask? Raise your hand if you vote no. You can’t see me, but I’m raising both hands.  I liked homeboy and had amor loco for him (that means mad love) but unfortunately for us it was still a wrap.  Maybe I’ve read too many romance novels but I have no intention of being anyone’s 2^nd best.  What’s worse than being alone? Being a punnani placeholder for another chick.  Am I right or am I right? Holla if you hear me.

Are you a punnani placeholder? Should we date, mate and procreate with men who consider us 2^nd best?

don’t be #2

“Why you ain’t married? Whadup girl, how come you don’t have any furniture on your finger? You must be mean that’s why you ain’t rocking some dude’s solitaire! You’re pretty so what’s wrong withcha?” You’d think that the side eye, pursed lips and a get the hell out of my face with that bullsh%t profile would discourage strangers from attempting to start a conversation with a diss. No, not really. Often I’m left with the dilemma of figuring out how to tell a knucklehead with no game that his pickup line sucks? I must ponder on the right way to discourage propositions from admirers approaching forty who still wear low-hung jeans, who converse using questionable vocabulary, who have sketchy work histories and who admit to having at least one pending paternity suit on the books. It’s not to say that my more illustrious suitors don’t have these same inquiries dancing through their brains, but the first thing a college education teaches you is to keep stupid questions to yourself.

The older a women gets the more she gets harassed about her single status. It’s not the same for men. No one ever asks George Clooney why he won’t stop rotating ladies. Does he have a limp dick or prick? Is he stingy or stern with homosexual tendencies? Nah, he’s labeled a player and a pimp—a bachelor to the core. People don’t ask determinedly single men why they can’t catch and keep eligible tail. In contrast, the assumption for women is that we must be cranky, bitchy or crazy if we’re not hitched. The explanation is never that we’re waiting for Mr. Right to appear so that we don’t settle for less. It’s never understood that any woman can get a proposal. Somewhere on the planet someone will marry you if you perform yoga moves in the bedroom, give up half your check, support your man’s twelve kids and turn a blind eye when he creeps. Didn’t Whitney marry Bobby? Quantity abounds but quality requires patience and belief in one’s worth. One shouldn’t expect perfection but a little discernment never hurt.

The Super is single but doesn’t consider herself a spinster firmly on the shelf. I have prospects. Like George Clooney I’m a bachelor(ette)taking my time to taste, sample and select my mate. If I’m desperate for furniture on my ring finger, I can go shopping at Ikea. Decorating an apartment is easy. Decorating someone’s arm, life and heart is going to require more than a desire to wear a white dress.

Being single doesn’t always mean a woman is insufferable. Sometimes all it means is that the right man has yet to capture her heart. In the meantime don’t settle: select. Don’t make the mistake of marrying just any man to ease the loneliness.

Out of desperation have you ever considered becoming The Wrong Mrs. Right?

It was dead.  Lifeless.  It couldn’t have survived a fall from such a height and it hadn’t.  It lay there inert, crushed and broken. I looked down on its crumbled form and resisted the urge to drop to my knees and scoop its broken contents into my hands. Cupcake can you hear me? The red velvet cupcake with its butter cream icing from the hot new bakery Crumbs didn’t answer. I considered the 5 second rule of eating things off the ground and instantly realized that I had hit rock bottom.  It was official.  I had a problem. How could I coach and counsel women towards success when I couldn’t even master myself? I had an addiction to sugar like Eric Benet had an addiction to sex. We both needed help. The urge to eat the dusty snack from the ground was my sub-conscious crying out for help.

AA was for alcoholics.  Rehab for those with an affinity for the pipe. Weight Watchers was for chubby chicks with severe addictions to tasty snacks? The latter was me. I fit the profile.  I’d never met a cake, cream puff or pie I didn’t like and my obsession had finally driven me around the bend.  I’d always liked dessert a little too much which guaranteed that I’d always had an intimate relationship with the white stuff, sugar that is, I’m not Charlie Sheen.  If I didn’t want to be the size of Two and Half Men then I had to stop trying to commit sugar suicide. As it was my metabolism was staging a protest. My body was already making its displeasure known.  In the fitness classes I took as an antidote to over-consumption, my body couldn’t keep up. In my Zumba class my feet were like lead.  In kickboxing class the bag was beating the hell out of me. Two chocolate bars minus one workout didn’t compute. I was out of shape and my addiction to the sweeter side of life was to blame.  No one, least of all me, wanted to see a Super hero with a pot belly. My love affair with sugary snacks had to end. I couldn’t let the cupcake beat me. My hands trembled as it grasped the mutilated body of my sweet snack that had jumped to its death to avoid me.  One second.  Two.  Poof. The cupcake was gone. What happened? I suspect foul play.

My lips show evidence of crumbs. Did I kiss my cupcake goodbye before introducing it to the circular file-waste paper bin or did it meet with a more shameful digestible end? No one knows for sure and I’ll never tell.

Do your lips crave the taste and texture of the sweet stuff? Have you committed Sugar Suicide?

Some women are hoes. Capital H.O.E. ‘How you gonna write about empowerment and call women derogatory names?’ I can hear the criticism ringing in my ears. My response is that we can’t pretend that some women aren’t a little bit too free. I said it and mi nah tek back no talk which in patois means that I’m sticking to my guns. Now before the feminist black blogs come running to attack (you know who you are), pump your breaks a minute while I explain.

For those of you who remember cameo hair cuts, there was an old rap song by E40 called