Made U Look: Spring Forward into These 2014 Fashion Trends

Source: CelebBuzz.com

It may be hard to believe, but soon we won’t be playing hopscotch with unshoveled sidewalks and wiping salt off our combat boots before they eat away at the faux leather. I’m glad I don’t have to let go of my layers just yet, but spring can’t be but so bad if it means I get to rack up the Bill Me Later balance I spent all winter paying off.

Last time this year I was filling my closet with skater dresses and wedge sneakers.  Luckily some tried and true trends are still hanging in there for 2014, but there’s also a few new styles that should be making an appearance in your closet as soon as that groundhog stops stalking his shadow:

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10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Twat-Blocking

Trust and believe that one day I will be on MTV’s Girl Code, or at least writing for them, but in the meantime I’ll allow their material to inspire some of my blogs.

Today’s topic is “twat-blocking”.  It’s the practice of preventing your girl from scoring with a guy. Kind of like the art of cock-blocking but with a Kotex.  Some of us twat-block with the best of intentions, like we don’t want out girl to get roofied or regret twerking on that guy with the dirty urinal breath.  But sometimes we just want to get in the way because we’re not getting any play.  If you’re not sure where you fall, ask yourself these 10 questions before getting your Warren G. on trying to regulate:

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7 Mistakes Thirsty Women Make

I’m good for labeling thirsty behavior, but let’s be clear: every IG like or comment, every enthusiastic flirtation and every text that comes after midnight is not necessarily evidence that someone is in need of a Deer Park smoothie.  The difference between expressing your attraction to someone and obeying your thirst is as simple as a little self-respect.

For example, Rihanna puts up yet another picture on IG of her scantily clad cakes on somebody’s yacht and gets over 30,000 likes in five minutes.  Someone comments, “Damn Rih Rih’s body is nice as shit.”  Someone else comments, “Why don’t you let them cakes cook on my dick?”  See what I did there?  Anyone with eyes can see that Rihanna’s sexy, but the second comment takes the admiration to an entirely unnecessary level and leaves its author appearing severely parched. Most self-respecting men wouldn’t approach Rihanna that way in person, but for some reason when it comes to social media, self-respect doesn’t get you followers and re-tweets and that’s what it’s all about…right?

If there’s any month that brings out the thirst like no other it’s the peak month of cuffing season: February.  Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching and women everywhere are putting in work to make sure they get their 7-11 roses and Russell Stover’s Cherry Cordials.  But ladies, please remember, your self-respect is worth more than some red cellophane.  In the next few weeks women will over-analyze, manipulate and lose all common sense all with the goal of getting a life-size teddy bear as proof that their man really cares.  They’ll completely forget what an asshole he is for the other 364 days of the year  and by President’s Day he’ll be back to rejecting your phone calls and then telling you three days later, “I was in the studio, Bae.”

So this Valentine’s ladies I encourage you to see through the candy hearts and Hallmark cards and make sure your man is truly into his role in the relationship and not just playing the part for one day.  And no matter how good the dick is, no matter how many friends come to work Monday morning rocking something new on their left hand, no matter how depressing it is that the only thing you’re looking forward to in February is that coffee table you’ve been eyeing will be on sale for President’s Day, don’t let  your thirst show.  Here are a few mistakes thirst will have you looking slightly Sahara-ish:

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Pimpin’ Yo’ Personal Life: Are Celebrities Using Their Private Lives to Gain Publicity?

People love weddings and babies and not always in that order.  There’s a part of me that is truly happy when I witness a celebrity I’m a fan of finally finding love and starting a family.  Even though I don’t know them or the details of their lives personally, some celebrities just give me a good feeling.

When Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Ari Parker got together I was excited, because for years it seemed that I was watching their sexual chemistry unfold right before my eyes when they co-starred on the Soul Food series.  When Tia Mowry announced she was expecting baby Cree, I was so happy for her.  It seemed like she and husband Cory Hardrict had a relationship that had taken time to grow naturally and between balancing a rocketing acting career and keeping a low-profile personal life,  I felt like things were coming together for her at a good pace. What I love about Nicole and Tia was that I knew them for so much more than being mothers and wives and when their pregnancies and marriages occurred they seemed like authentic life events and not like accessories created to help revive failing careers.  It’s one thing to share moments of your life with fans, but lately it seems that instead of pushing their new album or movie, celebs are pushing their personal lives.

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You Can’t Squat With Us: Do Gender-Neutral Bathrooms Make You Uncomfortable?

Source: NyDailyNews.com

I remember my first experience with a unisex bathroom.  I had snagged my dream job at Planned Parenthood and as I squatted in a stall in the ladies restroom during a break at orientation, I noticed a laminated neon sign posted on the door that read something like, “Our bathrooms are open to all people regardless of what gender they choose to identify or not identify with.  We ask that you respect our staff and guests’ right to use whichever bathroom they please.” At that moment I instantly knew I was working at the right place and all I could think was how awesome that was.  Afterwards whenever I was at a gay club with my friends it was no shock to me to see men and women using whatever bathroom they wanted, and honestly I loved seeing gay men in the bathroom helping their girlfriends with their hair and makeup throwing shade at every girl with an unevenly arched eyebrow.

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12 Signs You Need to Take a Break from Social Media

I remember mornings when I would wake up and actually get out of bed, pee, brush my teeth and get ready to start my day.  Now I wake up and instantly look at my phone so I can see all the new IG likes, Twitter followers and Facebook comments I got in the wee morning hours. I check social media throughout the day way too much for my taste and use the excuse that I’m a writer and I like to see the feedback I’m getting for all of the great work I’m putting out there. But the truth is most of the time I’m bored, I’m nosy and sometimes I feel like Grumpy Cat is the only one who really “gets me” besides Jim from The Office.

One week this year I promise to take a break from social media because I know I have a problem.  It just won’t be this week.  If you’re doing any of the following, it may be time for you to get your social media sabbatical on too:

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God Bless The Blog That’s Got Its Own: 2013 in Review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

In 2012, I made a commitment to myself to blog at least once a week. One of the goals on my vision board was, “I will not freelance forever.” As 2013 came to a close, I began to think about the progress I had made in my career being recognized by my peers and growing as a respected blogger and I began to feel the slightest bit sorry for myself.  Yet another year had passed and I still wasn’t anyone’s staff writer or assistant editor and I was still pitching more than I was being published.  Towards the end of 2012 I really contemplated chalking it up altogether and going to grad school to get a “real job”.

But what I hadn’t realized was just how much I had invested in myself.  Sure I may not have made as much side money freelancing for sites like MadameNoire and even writing a series for The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy’s Bedsider site, but I found my voice again.  I saved some of my best ideas for my site and wrote about them in a way that I wanted to.  It stopped being about the money and was more about the message.  And sure some pieces got like 2 hits, but some got a few hundred.  And that’s because this past year more than ever I feel like I’ve finally found a weird little writing community that finally gets me.  Thought Catalog gets me.  Chelsea Fagan gets me. Ryan O’Connell gets me.  Opal Stacie gets me.  BlackGirlNerds gets me. Ksenia Anske gets me.  Kendra Koger gets me.  There are so many people who have inspired me, have told me I inspire them, have read, shared and enjoyed my work and who visit my blog day after day even if I’m not exactly posting ten new pieces every day.  Thanks so much for helping me quadruple my hits this year.  Every time I feel like shutting it down, one of you tweets me, follows my blog and reminds me why I created BulletsandBlessings in the first place.  Thank you.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been blessed to meet some pretty awesome editors in the past few years who have taken a chance on me and haven’t really censored me, and for that I am forever grateful.  In fact I feel like the best way to return that favor, is to help uplift other writers.  But more and more I am gaining the confidence that I can do this on my own.  I’ll still continue to freelance and reach out to all kinds of audiences, build my network and experiment with different ways to promote, but in 2014 I’m going to continue to build BulletsandBlessings to see how big it can actually get.  I think the least it deserves is a new layout, it’s own domain name and then we’ll see where it goes.  But whatever happens, just be reassured that I’ll continue to be insanely random and talk about the shit that matters most to me whether it’s public transportation slowly making me lose all faith in mankind or OVOFest 2014, because if 2013 proved anything, it’s that the shit that matters to me actually matters to more people than I think.

At the end of 2012 I pulled 5,700 views.  At the end of 2013 I pulled 23,000.  Maybe they’re not Necole Bitchie numbers, but that must mean I am doing something right.  And apparently you all really, really love when I write about H&M.

Click here to see the complete report.

Ho Ho Ho Hangover: 12 Tips on Coming Down from Your Holiday High

As I took down my Christmas tree Sunday afternoon I realized three things:

1.  It’s all over. Drunken gingerbread house construction, Wine and Wii Weekend featuring Just Dance: New Year’s Eve edition, and all the gifts I DIDN’T get.

2.  The next time I put up this tree I’ll be someone’s wife.

3.  I paid way too damn much for these glittery-ass Home Depot decorations not to come with any hanging hooks.

A recent British study further confirmed that Monday, January 6^th would be the most depressing day of the year.  It was the Monday after the holiday break and all this week people are returning to their 9-5’s with the realization that all we really have to look forward to are a few three day weekends sprinkled throughout the winter and the occasional snow day shutting the city down. It gets better: You have that godforsaken lull between February and April where the weekend is the only time you don’t have to deal with a supervisor whose enthusiasm for their work retired about three years before they did.

If you’re anything like me, you had a great holiday filled with family, friends and successfully not breaking your budget to make everyone’s Christmas dreams come true.  Still, I dread getting back into the normal 9-5 grind knowing that my only relief will come courtesy of MLK Day.  If you had a less than happy holiday, you may be happy to see it all come to an end, but realize you too don’t feel like you have much otherwise to look forward to.  Well, there are 11 other months that you can make the most of.  Keep your head up despite coming down from your holiday high with these 12 tips:

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Turn Down For What? Because We all Can’t Be “Winners”

The day Mark Foster wrote the 2010 hipster hit, Pumped Up Kicks he actually wanted to go to the beach.  He was sitting in the studio on a beautiful day struggling between what is all too familiar to many writers: Inspiration and Perspiration. “I was a block away from the beach, and it was a beautiful day. I kind of just wanted to just be lazy and go hang out at the beach or whatever. But I just forced myself to write a song… By that time the next day, the song was finished.”  Foster didn’t know at the time that by putting Columbine to a catchy beat, a song that he didn’t even feel like writing would eventually spend eight consecutive weeks at the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 and snag Foster the People a Grammy nomination for best performance by a Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

I fell in love with Pumped Up Kicks last year when Pandora randomly played it on my Neon Trees channel.  I was late as usual, long after the hipsters had moved on to the next abstract indie song.  I was uncomfortable with the idea that I was bobbing my head to a song that is virtually about popular kids dodging bullets from the kid in class who sniffs Sharpies so I decided to look up the meaning behind it.  Mark Foster’s philosophy completely changed my approach to blogging because I kept thinking that the one blog I abandoned and decided not to write because I’d rather spend my day browsing MediaTakeOut could be the blog that gets me a million hits. It could be the blog that changes my writing career.  And I always figured that’s how that moment would happen:  It wouldn’t be the blog where I talk about empowering our youth or reproductive justice . It will be the blog I write about Dwyane Wade making babies on a break that gets me noticed. The one I didn’t even want to write.

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There Is No Change With Out Challenge: Vision Board 2014

For the past few days I’ve been scrolling through statuses on my Facebook timelines anticipating the departure of 2013, but I must say I disagree.  2013 was pretty damn epic for me and I’m a little sad to see it go.  I may not have challenged myself as much as I wanted to, but the times I did, it paid off, even if it wasn’t exactly how I expected.

Inspired by blogger, Necole Bitchie, about three years ago I begin a New Year’s tradition of creating vision boards.  If you haven’t had a chance to connect to your inner, new-age mother earth, you may not know what the hell I’m referring to. A vision board is a collage of images that represent your dreams. It could be words, pictures, places, material things -all put together on a poster board (I do mine digitally via Publisher or Oprah’s  “O Dream Board”. )

The purpose of a vision board is to realize your future, and to activate the law of attraction and move from daydreaming to living your dreams.  You may have heard of “speaking things into existence”. The law of attraction believes that by simply believing in your goals and having the confidence to claim them out loud, those goals will find you.

Before I present to you what I hope to speak into existence for the new year, allow me to remind you of my vision board from last year.  My vision boards are usually a collection of quotes, pictures and intentions.  But the biggest thing: Ever since I began creating them, I’ve accomplished a majority of the goals I hope to each year.

After I create a vision board, I make it my Facebook cover, my desktop background and my twitter cover; I put it anyplace I know I have to see on a daily basis. Vision boards subliminally help me to prioritize.  I saw the Toronto skyline every day when I logged in my computer, and was reminded daily that creating memories with my friends in places that I’ve always wanted to visit was more important than another pair of platform 5-inch heels. As a result I did less shopping and more site-seeing this past year. I focused my energy into the things that I reminded myself all year were important to me.  Before I knew it I was sitting seventh row at OVOFest in August having one of the most epic trips I’ve ever been on with my best friend.

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