Father of the Year?

29 year-old Desmond Hatchett (reportedly the father of 21 children by 11 different women), has found himself in court recently for failure to pay child support. If that weren't tragic enough, Mr. Hatchett said "I had four kids in the same year. Twice" But while he can't support them, he can remember their names, ages and dates of birth, and stated that all of the women knew about his large family - wonder if 4 of them knew they were all pregnant at the same time. Twice.

So blogger fam, what say you on Desmond Hatchett's "unintentional" family of 21 (so far) - should he be forced to have a vascectomy? Should he be allowed to keep procreating children he cannot support? What do you think about the women that have allowed this man to father their children (especially the later ones that presumably knew about the kids already born)? Octo-mom got a lot of flack for having 14 kids she cannot afford, but Octo-Mel (Mel Gibson) who is about to have his 8th child with his girlfriend definitely has enough money to support 8 kids. Is it ok to have a bunch of kids if you can afford them?

FUCK YOU!

I was visiting The Angry African, and yes, he is very, very angry today. And I am angry along with him. I second everything he said, and I will give you a little more.

When a man and woman go to the beach and get married, they call it marriage. When a man and a woman go get drunk in Vegas and get married by Elvis, they call it marriage. When a man and a woman go to the city clerks office to get married, they call it marriage. FUCK YOU! to the folks that think marriage is a religious event. It's not, so get over it. EVERYONE should have the right to get married to another consenting adult regardless of gender. And FUCK your civil union bullshit too.

In Memorium

He was my brother's best friend. Short, funny, loving, friendly, honorable. He was the oldest of three, two loving parents, younger brother and sister. I was about 16 or so the first time he hit on me, lol. He never stopped hitting on me after that, but I just thought of him as a second brother, I loved him, just not in the way he wanted.

When I was pregnant I went to visit him and his wife and new baby. He spent an hour rubbing my swollen belly because he just loved pregnancy and feeling a new life start. I think he just liked having an excuse to touch me for an hour, lol.

At his funeral I cried for his family, his friends, his children, his disease, his broken spirit, the war that ended but never left his soul.

They buried him in his uniform. I left him a note in his pocket to read on the other side.

To my second brother who served in the Gulf and also my uncle who served in Vietnam, I remember you this Memorial day and every day. Thank you for loving me and doing your best to protect us all.

There might be some truth...

I was over at GirlCas's page, she saw a Colorgenics result on someone else's page, I saw it on hers and here we are. I just got done writing my Annoyed post, so I took the Colorgenics test and here's the result:

Name: RunningMom
Date: 5/17/2009
Colorgenics Number: 32415607

---

You are tending to pursue your objectives with concentrated intensity and it would seem that whatever obstacles may come into your path, you will stick to your guns and will not allow yourself to be deflected from your purpose. You are striving to achieve recognition and what is more - you deserve it.

Most people are conditioned by their environment and you are no exception. You are an extremely emotional person - so much so that 'the wrong word' can lead you to tears. You feel other people's pain. You feel the need of sympathetic relationships and a pleasant work environment in order to develop and grow. You are an impulsive, loving individual with a great deal of inherent feeling.

Being a very proud individual, you tend to hold yourself aloof pretending that you are stoical - indifferent to pain and pleasure. This is not so, for in truth you are an extremely emotional individual, one that may make a hasty decision and perhaps regret it at leisure. It is time now to break the bond of detachment and be the 'you' that you would like to be - give vent to your emotions and enjoy yourself.

You are being unduly influenced by the situation that is all around you. You do not like the feeling of loneliness and whatever it is that seems to separate you from others. You know that life can be wonderful and you are anxious to experience life in all its aspects, to live it to the full. You therefore resent any restriction or limitations that are being imposed on you and you insist on going it alone.

You don't like authority and you rebel against all forms of limitation. You are your own person and you intend to stay that way and to get on in the world simply by your hard work and determination.

Yep. I agree.

Annoyed.

I got invited to a single mom's group through one of my friends. This group meets once a month at the church she attends and does something fun. Today we had a little food, a little pampering (the Mary Kay lady came and did hand treatments and facials) and we had a lot of laughs, a lot! It took us more than 3 hours to get through something that should have taken 30 minutes because we were having so much fun.

Here's the thing... I don't go to church because in my experience, pastors, preachers, deacons, ministers, whatever you want to call them - are hypocrites. In fact, many people in the church are hypocritical. I can't deal with it and still feel like I can like you the next day. In addition, I also feel like a lot of what is in the bible was based on who had the power, who wanted the power and what were they willing to do or say to get the power. So because of that, I'm just not one of the "believers" that's going to say, well the bible said... and live my life according to someone elses interpretation of what that means. I can't do it. I'm comfortable with a lot of things in the church, but if I feel like I'm being manipulated or worked over - I'm OUT.

So anyway... we're having a good 'ol time laughing, cracking jokes, etc. till someone starts talking about Tyler Perry. Lawd, why do we have to keep talking about this man. Leave him be! So one lady says something about TP, and another chimes in about him being gay, and another chimes in about him being engaged to a model. And I'm like - dude is gay, if the gay's say he is gay, and the gay's do say he is gay, then dude is gay. Folks just need to leave him alone and let him be who he is.

OMG, all eyes on me. So, they say - he just needs to pray on it and God will fix his gayness. God will fix it if only he prays to be "healed" - WHAT!?!?! All these ladies could tell by the look on my face that I was not falling for it. I said, um no - if the dude is gay, he's gay, or bi-sexual even but still gay, end of story. So, they say - you don't think that God can heal his gayness through prayer? Um no - I said: "no, I do not think that prayer or God can ultimately change the true sexuality of anyone, I don't." To which one lady replied "well then if you don't believe that, then you don't believe that God can do all things, be all things and heal all things"

Ok - lets just talk about that for a second. I believe in a higher power. I believe in prayer, I believe in the power of good intention, I believe that we are all destined for another life in another place in a different level of consiousness. I believe in a lot of things. I don't believe that homosexuals need to be "fixed" - WTF? I don't believe that homosexuality is wrong. I don't believe that homosexuals need prayer or healing or anything else that would be used to change who they are as it relates to their choice of partner regardless of gender. I don't. There isn't any thing to fix. (I thought all of this in my head..not out loud)

So then the lady says, "well then I will pray for you to believe that he can" - to which I replied "great, I'll let you know if it works" LOL!

She was caught off guard by that for sure. But she appreciated my honesty - or so she said. We were still having a good time talking and discussing and bantering back and forth but I know that I lit a little fire in a few of those folks. It's all good. I gave them something to think about which probably doesn't happen too often.

I can't be part of the flock. I can't believe all of what they believe, I can't agree with many things that "the bible" says. I just can't. I'm annoyed because all of my life I have fought for things that others dismiss. All of my life my thought process has gone outside of the norm and into realms that should be unknown to me but aren't. I'm annoyed because sometimes I feel like I am missing the weight that secures me to a community, a church, a home, a family, a confidant. I'm annoyed because I feel like I can only share my thoughts if I am willing to be the odd (wo)man out.

I'm annoyed because my separation feels like a curse when I know that it's a blessing. I am part of the higher power, I am part of the enlightenment, I am one of many that can share a different view point and get you to think. Sometimes I think ignorance is bliss. How simple it must be to KNOW that God is the truth and everything in him will be. To accept it, to know it, to feel it, to live it. Life must be wonderful under that umbrella.

But I can't get under, I won't get under. I need to make sure that I can feel the rain on my face, and the cool water on my skin. It's how I know I'm still alive. Me. It's who I am.

Think I'll get invited back?

Never Say Never?

Did I say I would never get another piercing? I think I said I would never get another tattoo.... the piercing is a definite maybe after seeing these pics... HOT!

Rihanna's rings are ok...

But Cassie's barbell's are fabulous!

Hmmm.......

Only 1

Only 1 person in my life knows about this blog. Due to his movie obsession we'll call him Net.flix. Obviously I trust Net.flix immensely. I know for a fact he can keep a secret, but that's another story for another day, lol.

I surprised Net.flix with my 1 out of 4 post. In case anyone is wondering, 1 out of 4 was the statistic last I heard, of women will be raped in their lifetime. 1 out of 4. Let that marinate for a second. How many women do you have in your family? How many sisters? How many daughters? How many aunties? How many friends? 1 out of 4.

How many women have you dated in your lifetime? If it's more than 4, then likely one of them has been raped.

There was an interesting article in the NYTimes Online shortly after I wrote my post. Here is a link and a excerpt that moved me:

Click for original article by Nicholas D. Kristof

“The criminal justice system is still ill equipped to deal with rape and not that good at moving rape cases forward,” notes Sarah Tofte, who just wrote a devastating report for Human Rights Watch about the rape-kit backlog. The report found that in Los Angeles County, there were at last count 12,669 rape kits sitting in police storage facilities. More than 450 of these kits had sat around for more than 10 years, and in many cases, the statute of limitations had expired.

There are no good national figures, and one measure of the indifference is that no one even bothers to count the number of rape kits sitting around untested.

Why don’t police departments treat rape kits with urgency? One reason is probably expense — each kit can cost up to $1,500 to test — but there also seems to be a broad distaste for rape cases as murky, ambiguous and difficult to prosecute, particularly when they involve (as they often do) alcohol or acquaintance rape.

“They talk about the victims’ credibility in a way that they don’t talk about the credibility of victims of other crimes,” Ms. Tofte said.

Net.flix and I were talking today and he said that he never knew this story. In the 8 years he has known me, he never knew that I had been raped. It certainly wasn't a secret, I have told people in my life, just never with this amount of detail, never with the admission of the guilt that I felt. Only that it happened, and I moved on. It got me to thinking about the people that read my blog, the men that read, the women that read. We have all been touched by shame or guilt in one form or another in our lives. You just might not know it. Hug the women in your life and let them know that they are loved unconditionally.

I can't even being to explain the relief that I felt in my heart after I got this story out of my body. Have you ever noticed that when you really go after something, things start to fall into place almost effortlessly? "For every action there is an equal reaction" but without action, there is nothing.

I heard Dr. Maya Angelou speaking on the radio the other day. She said that she doesn't allow words of hate to be spoken in her home. She doesn't allow people to disparage the character of others in her home. Dr. Angelou believes that words are physical. When you speak hate in your home or allow hate to be spoken in your home the words land on the table. The more hate, the more words accumulate... on the walls... in your clothes.... in your bed... pretty soon the hate begins to stick to your skin and get into your bones. Then it gets into your heart.

I want my heart to be free to love instead of fear. I want Net.flix to know how much I appreciate him as my friend, even though I know that he thinks he isn't deserving. True friends love without judgement, speak without malice, share without fear, trust without wavering.

LOL - No words necessary!