by Perez, Nina
Introduction
In the summer of 2005 I found myself laid off from a decent-paying job and completely clueless as to what I’d do next. I was married to a great man, Donny, and we were raising a beautiful little girl, Kali, in the house of our dreams. I may not have known what I was going to do, but I knew I was tired of working in a job in service of others, helping them achieve their goals while ignoring my own. I was 31-years-old and hadn’t taken any real steps to make things happen for me.
I decided to go back to school, and without giving it much more thought than, “I should go back to school,” I enrolled in an Associate’s program for Journalism. Then I got the bright idea that I would teach myself one new thing a year. It could be something I’d always wanted to learn or had an interest in, or something completely foreign and terrifying. That first year, it was cake decorating. And for awhile I thought I’d actually try to make an income selling fondant-covered sugary treats, but it became clear pretty quickly that in order to do it for a living, you have to have a passion for it. Beyond making a birthday cake here or there for my daughter or husband, I wasn’t feeling baking as a career choice.
My passion was, and has always been, writing. So, at the end of 2005 I decided to start blogging. I’d found myself on a site called MySpace. It was like a really cheesy internet disco – all funky colors and scantily-clad women. If websites had an aroma, MySpace would smell like Drakkar Noir. But it had a place where I could write about anything that popped into my head, and amazingly enough, people wanted to read it. I would tell my best friend, Sophie, about the crazy things that happened to me at school or the witty things Kali – then, six-years-old - had said, and she’d say, “Don’t tell me. Blog it out, bitch,” altering the famous “Hug it out, bitch,” line from the popular HBO show, Entourage.
Blog It Out, Bitch became the name of my blog. At first, the only people commenting were the seven friends I had on MySpace, who also happened to be my relatives. Slowly, other people began reading, commenting, and staying. I consistently ranked in the top blogs on the site and within minutes of posting a blog it wasn’t uncommon to receive a dozen comments and three times the views. Being the first to comment, “First, bitches!” on one of my blogs became a rite of passage and, to this day, when I see it on other sites around the web, I am confident that somewhat annoying trend started on my blog.
One of the things I’m most proud of when I look back at those early years of blogging is that it wasn’t just a place for me to talk about me – even though there was definitely a lot of that. I posted commentary on pop culture and current events and regularly “pimped out” other bloggers to help them build an audience. It got to the point where I never bothered to check the top rankings and only became aware of my standing on them when others brought it to my attention. Logging into MySpace, I’d head directly to my blog to interact with the readers and friends I’d made all over the world.
After about two years, I started my own website with the same name (www.blogitoutb.com) and started to focus more on storytelling and talking about the things that most interested me: motherhood, marriage, writing, books, and watching massive amounts of movies and television.
It’s been six years and I’ve moved, written a book, graduated, and had another baby – a little boy named Jack, whose gestation and birth were chronicled in the spin-off blogs, Blog It Out, Baby.
The greatest things to come out of my time writing these blogs are the wonderful, supportive friends I’ve made. They are not minions. They are more than readers. So, for them I have compiled some of the best blogs I’ve written over the past six years. They remain in chronological order, though some of the dates may have been changed by a day or two.
I’m a different person than I was when I first started blogging, and that’s a good thing, but in many ways I’m the same… and that’s a good thing, too. I’m grateful that I have these reminders of conversations and moments I might have otherwise forgotten. I appreciate that I have reminders of the lessons I’ve learned in being a wife and mother. And I cherish the people that bothered to read them the first time.
Nina
Blog It Out, Bitch
Copyright © 2011 Nina Perez All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Nina Perez™
Atlanta, Georgia U.S.A.
www.blogitoutb.com
Table of Contents
Introduction
2005
2006
2007
2008
Blog It Out, Baby
About the Author
For all of my Myspace peeps: Consider this your handy-dandy guide to our time together at BIOB on Myspace. May you never again have to venture there. I’m serious. That place will give your computer AIDS.
Wife. Mother. Blogger. Bitch.
White Boy Crazy
July 9, 2005
One day my husband will kill me while I sleep. He will take his pillow and calmly place it over my face and press down until I am no longer breathing. I know this to be true because I am lazy, I am bossy, and I am bitchy. I would rather watch TV than do housework. Most of all, I know this because he is white. And that is just how white boys roll.
Being a black woman married to a white man has increased my chances of death by homicide about 74% according to the recent findings of a study I just made up. White men have a history of flipping the fuck out more fabulously than any other race of man. That’s not to say that Black, Hispanic, Eskimo, etc., men are not capable of committing horrible crimes. Of course they are. We all know it. But when white men snap they just take it to a whole ‘nother level.
I’m sure many of you reading this may be related to, or married to, a white man. Hell, you might even be a white man. And you’re thinking, “This isn’t true. Nina, this is a racist generalization.”
Hear me out: I believe that all white men have this special dormant gene I’ve dubbed, “The White Boy Crazy Gene,” or WBCG for short, which remains inactive until it is triggered. When the switch is flipped, a white man will commit the most heinous, scratch-your-head, that-motherfucker-is-crazy crimes you could never have imagined. The most common trigger seems to be pregnancy.
My husband, Donny, and I have a six-year-old daughter and over the course of our marriage we’ve discussed the possibility of having other children, but something always comes up that causes us to push the blessed event back a few months.
Sometimes, it’s been lack of money and other times my desire to finish school. I’ve even argued that we should wait until I lose the baby weight I’m still carrying from my first pregnancy ‘cause who wants to add fat to fat? The truth is: I’m scared. I don’t want to be six months pregnant and find my black ass crammed into a drum, weighted down by chains and cinder block, under Lake Linear. That would suck.
Donny is probably the last guy you would expect to snap and go W.B.C., and that is exactly why he’s a likely candidate! It’s always the most handsome, mild-mannered, even-tempered ones that snap. Just look at Scott Peterson! Then you see their neighbors and co-workers on the news talking about, “He was always so nice. We’re in shock.”
Bullshit. Somebody had to see that shit coming, and you can just consider this your fair warning so you’re not one of the completely snowed people on the news, or worse, the one crammed in the drum.
I’m so prepared for the day when Donny finally snaps I’ve even given my family and friends ways to save themselves, and the police, a whole lot of trouble trying to find out what happened to me. For instance, you ever notice that when men go W.B.C. and kill their wives they always give the same story as to when they last saw their wives alive?
“She went for a run in the park. She went for a walk. She went for a hike.”
My black ass does none of that. If Donny ever tried that sorry line everyone knows to head straight for the nearest cop and say, “He did it. You may want to check the backyard.” Now, if he said something like, “The last time I saw her she was sitting on the couch watching TiVo,” then he just may be telling the truth.
Separation Anxiety
August 19, 2005
Yesterday, due to car trouble, I couldn’t pick Kali up from school and I had to make arrangements for her to ride the school bus home for the first time. The stop is directly across the cul-de-sac from our house so it wasn't that bad. It's just that I had visions of those hidden camera news reports where you see kids beating the shit out of each other on school buses and the drivers sitting there like everything's cool. I had worked myself into such a tizzy that by the time the bus pulled up to the curb, and I waited for her to come off, I was giving every kid looking out the window the stink eye.
Donny wasn’t able to figure out what was wrong with the car last night, so Kali had to take the bus again today to go to school. By this time, I’d worked myself into a downright mental breakdown. It was like I was sending her off to war instead of the elementary school five minutes away.
As the bus pulled off and I headed for home, I turned around expecting to see her little sad face in the back window. Instead, I was greeted with exhaust fumes and not a glimpse of my baby as she had promptly taken a seat in the front - not thinking about anything except that she finally gets to take the bus like a big girl.
Idle Threats, They Work
September 22, 2005
I cringe every time I catch myself sounding like my mother. Not that there’s anything wrong with my mother – except she kills pets, but more on that later – it’s just that mothers of my generation like to fancy ourselves more contemporary and understanding than our own mothers who, most likely, grew up in that era of “spare the rod, spoil the child.” You know, a time when it was not only okay for parents to spank their kids without fear of reprisal, but it wasn’t uncommon for other relatives and neighbors to take it upon themselves to discipline the nearest kid getting out of hand.
We choose not to spank to discipline. Sparing a rod leading to a spoiled child doesn’t fly with me. Prisons, detention centers, and “special” classes for kids who don’t know how to act are filled with people whose parents disciplined by spanking. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who didn’t get spanked, who grew up to be well-adjusted, productive members of society. I refuse to believe the only way to get a child to behave is to incorporate hitting them.
But I will threaten like there’s no tomorrow.
“Kali, I’m gonna count to three and then you’re gonna get it.”
I never make it to two. I guess she figured, “I don’t know what this spanking business is all about, but I’m not tryna find out.”
Actually, she has had one spanking, but she doesn’t remember it. When she was a toddler, we let my little sister babysit while we went out to see a movie. When we returned, we found Kali had drawn all over the walls of her room. My little sister’s defense? “She said you let her!” Since we’d been trying to break Kali of the habit and this latest offense was massive (it took up a whole wall), I spanked her by way of three quick swats on her diaper. I felt so awful, and she looked so betrayed, that I cried harder than she did… for two days.
Note: Her wall art included lots of smiley faces with all the facial features in the correct places and her name spelled properly. She was three and I was proud. She may be hard-headed, but by God, my child was also a genius!
Here we are, three years later, and I’m still dealing with the same stubbornness. Only now, she’s old enough to understand threats and when I deliver them, I sound exactly like my mother. Our latest battle is bedtime. I try to put Kali to bed between seven-thirty and eight. It’s frustrating to tuck her into bed, only to find her out of bed an hour and a half later asking for water or another bedtime story – mainly because I know this means she’s going to be a grumpy mess when it’s time to get up for school the next morning.
The other night she came downstairs at 9:45, and sensing I was about to lose it, she cut me off as soon as I opened my mouth.
“Mommy, there are three things wrong with me: My stomach hurts, my ears itch, and my forehead is hot.”
And sounding every bit like my mother I said, “There’s about to be four things wrong with you if you don’t get back in that bed.”
This kid doesn’t realize how good she has it. I don’t make her turn off the T.V. at night and she has a night light. My mother wasn’t so accommodating. Bedtime meant no T.V., lights out, and she didn’t want to see hide nor hair of you once she said good night.
Every morning I wake Kali up with snuggles and kisses and tickles and love, and most mornings I get grumbling, crying, and stiff-armed for my troubles. A far cry from how my Mama used to wake us up. She'd come in the room, flipping the lights on, clapping loudly and yelling, "Come on, get up! Rise and shine." A drill sergeant had more finesse. I guess she thought this was invigorating – inspiring, even. It would be like, five-thirty in the morning, before the sun was even up. I remember the one morning I was brave enough to ask, "Why do we have to rise if it ain’t even shining?" A thrown slipper was her reply.
This morning, Kali gave me the roughest time yet. I got in the bed with her and started kissing, cuddling, and cooing, "Get up, Stinkerbell." She immediately started grumbling and clutched the blanket in a vice-like grip. I finally managed to remove the blanket and tried to get her dressed. I attempted to put her right leg in her jeans. No luck. So I threatened a spanking. Right leg goes in.
When it came time to try for the left leg, she got creative on me. She stretched her left leg as far away from her body as it would go and held it in place by the ankle with her left hand. Just imagine whena cheerleader kicks her leg up and holds it at her side. That was my child, yet flat on her back. All the while I'm coaxing and laughing because I cannot believe she is giving me such a hard time. She had that leg locked. I couldn't bend it to save my life.
“Kali, come on. We’re going to miss the school bus.”
“I don’t want to go to school.”
“Why? Because you’re tired?”
She nodded.
“Then maybe you should go to bed when I tell you to.”
“I don’t want to go to school.”
“You have to.”
“Why?”
Another way I differ from the way my Mom raised me is that I don’t believe in “because I said so,” as an answer. Making children aware of the consequences behind the things we deny them the opportunity of doing isn’t a bad thing. But, “because an education is important,” wasn’t going to fly with a cranky, sleep-deprived, hard-headed six-year-old who wants nothing more than to stay in bed, warm and toasty, instead of going to school on a cold, rainy day. So, I went for the jugular and ventured to a place that even my mother dared not go.
“Because if I don’t send you to school, I’ll go to jail. Is that what you want? You want Mommy to go to jail?”
Left leg went in.
Hey, I never said I wouldn’t exaggerate the consequences.
Boy Wizard, Girl Geek
September 30, 2005
It’s three o’clock on a hot, July, Friday afternoon when I enter my neighborhood Borders, excited that I’m about register for an early copy of the new Harry Potter book. There's a big purple and gold sign outside, announcing that the book will be on sale at midnight, but that the "festivities" start at 9pm.
There's a sign-up table near the entrance and there's already a rather large man and a slightly less large boy signing up. Apparently, the large man called ahead months ago and his name is on a list. He is handed a ticket and told that at 11:45pm ticket holders one through twenty-five will be allowed to get in line and purchase the first twenty-five books at
midnight. After that, they will call ticket numbers randomly, twenty-five at a time, and allow those ticket holders to purchase books - no more than three copies per customer. Just when I think it's my turn, the large man asks if the less large boy can register now for his own copy. He can. Before they walk away, the large man says to the sign-up guy, "I like your name tag.”
As he moves away, I can finally see the Borders employee forced to deal with all the anxious Potter fans. He's pale, a little heavy, and his mouth droops on one side. His name tag reads, Professor Flitwick. Cute.
I tell him I want to sign up, give him my last name, which he notes on a list and then hands me a ticket. It is done with all the fanfare of opening night on Broadway. I'm extremely embarrassed and quickly stuff my ticket in my faux Prada bag, but not before glancing at my ticket number.
1893.
Were these things handed out consecutively? I heard this particular store was only getting fifteen hundred books. Thank God the numbers are being called randomly, but what if my number isn't called? I don't have much time to ponder as I quickly head to the magazine section, still embarrassed for even being there. I wonder if there are any new logic puzzle books in.
As I peruse, I notice large man and slightly less large boy sitting down next to the comics, each reading one. Figures, I think as I smirk in their direction. Good luck ever getting laid, you two.
This grown ass man has reserved a copy of a Harry Potter book months ago, he recognizes the name of a character on the employee's name tag, not for its lameness, but because he has memorized all things Potter. Now he's sitting in a corner, in all his geek glory, reading comics.
