There Can Be Only One

Somehow, in all my blogging, I forgot to mention that my identity was momentarily stolen.

Yes, some bitch ass out there was racking all sorts of random purchases on my credit card. Among the purchases were:

-Vista Print business cards (I think?)
-Netflix
-Proactiv

I stormed into Chase on Friday morning with a printout of my account summary and demanded to know what the hell was going on.

Of course they had to go through each charge and verify whether the charge was legitimate or not. Helloooo - have you looked at me? I don't need Proactiv to preserve my sexy! *rolls eyes* There can be only one me!

Thankfully, the customer service representative at Chase knows me, and was extremely patient with me at a time where I just wanted to indulge in being the typical (but justified!) angry Black woman. Most of the charges have been put back in my account, except the charges that were still pending. Apparently I have to go back to the bank tomorrow to dispute those charges. Going through this experience makes me want to mimic the old people, take my money out of all banks and just keep it under my bed. I understand this is not wholly practical, but you all have no idea how violated I felt with someone having all my information. The weird thing is, I haven't lost my bank card. My brother believes that someone was able to retrieve my web information from on-line. That is the only thing that makes sense - especially when I looked at the list of purchases that were made. Some of them were for like $1.92 at Google Tree and things like that I've never even heard of. They were teenagery type purchases.

I am still pretty up in the air about what to do about my money. Should I switch banks? I just don't know. Chase hasn't been too bad to me before. Well except for the fact that they're a bunch of capitalist bastards. I am considering joining the local credit union associated with the college. The only inconvenience is (of course) I would have virtually no ATM's. Whereas the best thing about Chase is they're virtually everywhere. Right now I'm concerned with filing my taxes. And I'm going to file my taxes even if I have to buy a Visa giftcard, put the money on that, and then file. I'm anxious because I need to make sure I have my refund before next month when I have Mr. Man's birthdaversary.

Yep. Birthdaversary.

Mr. Man's birthday and our anniversary fall on the same day. I already know (in theory) what kind of gifts I want to give him. I am very conflicted about one of the gifts. I'll start with the inexpensive gifts:

- a Queen-sized red, black, and green crocheted blanket. My coworker refused to have me pay her to make it. I only had to buy her the yarn. I want him to have something representative of our people. But more importantly, I want it to be one of the first things we have that can be passed down and around throughout our family.
- a Tupac Shakur hardcover book. This book is the bomb. It's like a real live Tupac scrapbook, and he is a HUGE Tupac fan. I want it for his coffee table.
- Silk pajamas and a coupon book. I know you're like "Big deal. Coupons and pj's." But you didn't ask "What kind of coupons?" lol. This is the nasty part of the present, lol. I'm still working out the particulars...but to make a long story short - they're sex coupons, lol. And the silk pajamas are just because the poor thing tries to get his Cliff Huxtable on all the time, lol.

Now those three gifts - are inexpensive but they have meaning. The big gift I wanted to get him was an I-Pod Nano. It boggles my mind that he's a musician and he has the world's worst MP3 player. Like every other day he's asking me for batteries, lol. Matter of fact I never kept batteries around until I met him. So I wanted to get him the I-Pod Nano. To ME, the price is reasonable - I mean altogether, the I-Pod would cost $201.60. I don't think that's too bad. Obviously I am being price conscious, lol - because I'm getting the Nano, not the freaking I-Pod Touch. Also, I keep telling myself that the gifts are for his birthday AND our anniversary.

As much as I try to rationalize the purchase, I still have a feeling we'll end up in a Lucy and Ricky disagreement. "Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do!" "But Rickkkyyyyy...I just wanted you to have something special..waaaahh." I'm still pretty undecided about the purchase.

I was irritated, agitated, frustrated, and missing Mr. Man something awful last night. There was no real reason for the -ateds. Well, there were. Coming off of my period I was really just holding in my desires to be with him until the weekend. So not having that release that I was expecting set me on edge a little bit. Not good, not good. On one hand I wanted to talk to him - on the other end I didn't, lol, because then I'd be reminded. I tried to keep myself as busy as possible, but it wasn't working. I didn't find my book Soledad Brother, or the book on the Black Panthers, or the book on Marx. I was disappointed. No sex. No Soledad Brother to stimulate my brain. No money since my accounts are frozen. Yeah, I was feeling pretty blah.

So, I did the only thing I've done habitually since I was 18. I called the only person I ever call when I don't know what to do with my life. It was 11:30PM and I had only talked to Mr. Man for 5 minutes. I called Chris.

He was awake. Did my best to sound as non-bothered as possible. It didn't work. He asked me what was going on. I felt super guilty. I turned the tables. Asked him why he was up so late on a Sunday night. And it was good that I did that because Chris had some things he had to get off of his chest. In between being sick, (he had pneumonia!) worrying about his family, and being lonely he's been dealing with a lot. I felt responsible to an extent.

Chris is one of my closest friends, and for a long time he was THE closest friend. But since I've been with Mr. Man, I haven't been as good a friend to him. I was thinking about this hard. Our friendship worked partially because I stayed in his ass, lol. I wasn't willing to let him let me fall to the wasteside. And I think he began to rely on that. Chris never did a good job with that, it was always my responsibility. So when Mr. Man came along - priorities shifted. I personally recognized that it wasn't fair to be with Mr. Man and still make Chris my number one go-to guy. I wasn't going to have that relationship - something goes wrong with Mr. Man I run to Chris, the one I used to love. Uh uh. Not me. I wasn't going to play those kinds of games.

So, even though I was all sorts of -ateds last night, I didn't necessarily broadcast them to Chris. By the end of the conversation, there was no real need to. Talking to Chris really made me feel good about my relationship. He was really giving me some props for the type of woman I've become, and how I'm balancing it all. That meant the world to me. Chris personally told me what Ericka had told me some weeks back. The affirmation felt good. And my -ateds melted away as I realized today is actually my 11 month anniversary. I was feeling bubbly and very much in love by the time I was done talking to Chris. He made me realize something that I knew already, but need a reminder of often: Life is too short to satisfy every damn body, and we should apperciate the things we have while we have it.