10 Movies the Never Cease to Scare Me Shitless

I don’t like labels, but let’s just say there are several things that probably earn me a spot in the “Black Girl Nerd” category.  I’m a sex-ed geek, the trivia game at Buffalo Wild Wings brings out the cutthroat competitor in me and scary movies are kind of my shit.  I’m not talking about the heavily computer-animated-zombie kind, or the increasingly insulting remakes like Carrie and Texas Chainsaw Massacre marketed to generations that wouldn’t know scary if it fell from a bucket of pig’s blood on prom night.  I’m talking about good old, so cheesy it’s actually pretty fucking frightening 80’s type of horror where monsters were the creations of sick and twisted make-up geniuses and killers were played by real actors.  Horror movies are the only movies I’ll even consider buying a movie ticket for and there are some movies that no matter what I’m doing, if I scroll past them on the preview guide, they’re getting watched, no matter how many times I may have seen it.

So in honor of the holiday that celebrates both diabetic shock and horror gluttons across the globe, allow me to present to you 10 movies that scare the hell out me every single time:

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When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong: 7 Ways To Lie the Right Way

Let me tell you something that most people won’t say because a very morally misguided part of them thinks they’re not supposed to: The truth is seriously overrated.  What all of you prancing around in your self-righteousness fail to understand is that life is not going to treat you anymore special because you were honest.  Life is not a Disney movie and you won’t get to be a “real boy”, marry the prince or reunite with the family you were violently separated from because you told the truth. In real life Pinocchio stays a puppet and Gepetto moves to South Florida with a retired lunch lady. The ugly step-sister gets knocked up by the prince while Cinderella remains a side jawn. And Bambi grows up to be a teen mom spending her Monday morning waiting in the WIC line. In real life it’s not the hero that necessarily wins, but the character who minds fucks this life thing the best. So all of you running around thinking you’re doing us all a favor by telling the truth, nine times out of ten the only person you’re making feel better is yourself.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that some things are better left unsaid and sometimes the truth does more damage than any lie ever could.  The truth is not pretty. It’s easier for Congress to say “We can’t agree on a budget.”  Rather than, “We can’t accept a Black-ish president.”  Lies make life more exciting and the problem with most people today is that they mistake discretion with omission. Just because there’s no picture on Instagram to prove how delicious your Black Pepper Jamaican shrimp from Cheesecake Factory is, doesn’t mean you’re not keeping it real.  My fiance’ doesn’t need to know that I ran into my ex-boyfriend at the Rite Aide and he told me my ass got fatter.  Does it mean I love him any less? No. I just don’t think that my man should be my best friend, because that’s what best friends are for: to talk about cramps and birth control and how I wish he would pay attention to my whole vagina and not just my clitoris.

But if we’re going to keep life interesting, we’ve got to do it right. There is an art to lying and we need to pay this craft the homage it deserves.  Because when it’s done right, everyone’s a little happier.  Corrupt and deceitful as all hell, but happier.  Here are a few tips on lying…the right way:

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By the Way…My Dreams Came True Last Week

Well one of many that is.  In case you’ve completely ignored my Instagram or have yet to believe in the power of Twitter, you may not be aware that in one of my many lives I am a complete sex ed junkie. I started out my professional career as a sexual health educator and ever since the first day I left work smelling of latex and explaining to my mom why my trunk is filled with condoms and a phallic teaching tool cleverly named, “Woody”, I’ve taken pride in being called “The Condom Lady”.  I get geeked off of perfect use vs. typical use rates and can discuss mutual masturbation like this morning’s episode of The Today Show.

One of the things I hope to accomplish with this silly writing dream of mine is as it states in any piece I sign my name to is to “help young women build their self-esteem and make well-informed choices about their sexual health”.  So being the vision-board making, “The Secret” reading idealist I am, I believe in the power of speaking (well in this case tweeting) things into existence.  A few months backs I tweeted my undying devotion to Bedsider, a site from the folks over at The Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy that focuses on sex-ed for adults in a completely not-lame way. Well apparently the Twitter Gods heard my prayer when I gushed about my dream job and what resulted was an opportunity to be posted on Bedsider’s Tumblr.  It’s cheesy but I am living proof in the amazing power of never being the one to tell yourself “no” and that every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.

Last week my first post in a series on sex in long term relationships went live.  It’s called “I Broke Up with My Birth Control” and is for any woman who’s ever gotten fed up with the bullshit that can come with falling in love with a birth control only to realize you can’t afford it.  Shout out to Bedsider, The Affordable Healthcare Act and my awesome sister for playing photographer for ten minutes!

I Broke Up With My Birth Control

Vexed in the City

The writer struggle is exactly that: a struggle and I don’t think any of us can do it alone.  So I try to always take the time to give props where props are due and Vexed in the City is my current obsession.  It’s full of random musings on life, love and career with plenty of the expletives that too often get held up in our heads.  Every once in a while I read a piece that I’d wish I’d written myself and Opal Stacie is behind one of them.

If you’ve never worked a job that’s inspired an “I Quit” fantasy, then you’re living life wrong.  Because Lord knows if I ever get the call from MTV or Oprah that they need a writer and I’m the chosen one, I’m going to be doing a lot more than dancing off key to Kanye
West’s “Gone”…

Why I Quit My Job and DGAF About It

10 Ways to Instantly Be More Confident

We’re all self-conscious and I’ll be the second to admit it (Kanye was the first if you missed it).  If you chronically second-guess yourself,  rehearse what your going to say at the weekly office meeting twenty times before saying it and have a mini panic attack every time you’re forced to do an icebreaker with complete strangers, the following is for you:

1. Fake it ‘till you make it.

I have to give credit to my little cousin for teaching me this one (she’s on the right).  This chick could come out the house looking like a combination of Sweet Brown and a ghetto harajuku doll and get her catwalk on like, “And what?”  She may have a felt a mess but she damn sure didn’t look it and even if she had a huge pimple in the middle of her forehead, she’d get some black eyeliner and make it a mole.  And you know what?  Fools would compliment her like, “Your beauty mark is so different and exotic.”  Never underestimate the power of decent posture and a positive attitude.

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Trust Issues: Why I Don’t Believe ANYTHING I See On TV Anymore

Source: DennisWyman.com

I was watching Elizabeth Smart on the Today Show yesterday morning.  She spoke about the new memoir she wrote about her 2002 kidnapping that both shocked and confused everyone with access to a news network.  I forget that it occurred more than 10 years ago and that Elizabeth is married and a whole adult by now, but it still struck me funny that during the whole interview she had this weird plastic Disney smile plastered on her face and I half-expected bluebirds to start fluttering around her head before she broke out into song.  It was, as I tweeted, “eerie”.

I didn’t really follow the Smart case when the kidnapping first took place.  I had graduated the year before and although I had a high school diploma I still wasn’t into all of that mature-adult-staying updated-on-current-events stuff.  But if you were fulfilling your responsible adult duties at the time you may recall that the case involved a young Caucasian teen that was abducted from her Mormon family home one night in Salt Lake City. There’s harp playing (literally), a homeless prophet, sexual assault and possible Stockholm syndrome that all take place over a nine-month ordeal that ends up with Smart reuniting with her family.  Although this was a family’s tragedy, the story was breaking news gold.  Lifetime couldn’t have written this shit any better.

As I’m watching this Barbie-esque blonde speak so articulately and self-composed to Savannah Guthrie, I found it extremely difficult to be sympathetic.  In fact my first reaction was suspicion.  Instead of applauding this young woman for being a survivor and moving past this traumatizing ordeal I found myself wondering if her family had set the whole thing up for publicity.  I wondered if somehow the media had a hand in it because every year or so America needs a story of good vs. evil to believe in so we can all unite against a common enemy: terrorists, pedophiles, the debt ceiling.  Every blogger has an opinion, every news network has ratings to keep, every editor has the version of the truth that will pull in the most viewers and thanks to all of this I have trust issues with TV.  I don’t believe ANYTHING I see on TV.

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14 Things That Grown Ass Women Don’t Do

Source: http://www.Liquida.it

It’s funny how what it means to “be grown” changes as you get older. You think when you’ll have sex you’ll finally be a woman.  If that doesn’t work, you figure when you get your driver’s license you’ll have more independence and be grown.  When you realize you’ve screwed yourself out of a chauffeur, that shit gets old quickly and you assume one day when you’re out on your own with your own spot you can claim adulthood.  But then you realize you can’t cook a three-course meal to save your life and still don’t know exactly how a 401K works.

I personally don’t think anyone truly feels like an adult.  You just end up feeling like an older version of yourself with more responsibilities who’s just winging this life shit hoping that no one catches on to the fact that you really don’t know what the hell you’re doing.  So it always amuses me when I see women running around bragging about the benchmarks of their womanhood. “Yeah girl, I’m grown.  I mean everything is in his name but I pay the cable bill.”  “Yeah I went to the club and not the PTA meeting, but I’m somebody’s mother.  You can’t tell me shit.”  “I don’t have time for little girls on my baby’s Facebook page. #BadBitch #OnMyGrownWoman #GetMoney #MainChick.”

I can no longer sit around and watch you Babysitter’s Club, Easy-Bake Oven broads make a mockery out of what it means to be mature.  I don’t care what your driver’s license says, being an adult is about more than making babies, paying bills and having a job. It’s about telling the truth when it’s easier to lie, being on your best behavior even when no one is watching, “liking” or “following”, and being humble to the fact that you don’t know half of what you think you do.  Here are 10 things that don’t have anything to do with being grown:

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I’m Black But I Am NOT Trayvon Martin…

Source: Bossip.com

As an African-American, unfortunately you come into this life pretty confident that at some point you’ll be a victim of direct racism, discrimination or labeled with some generic stereotype like “hoodrat” , “angry” or “baby mama”.  At the very least, you’ll be the victim of your own paranoia that every curious question, side-eye or muffled giggle is a slight at the color of your skin. But what I learned this weekend is that even more than that there’s the very real possibility that other races will make you into their own personal Rosa Parks.

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