I only send a group email itinerary to celebrate my birthday when my new age ends in a “0” or “5,”
so turning 49 was a low-key celebration, where I texted a few friends for fish and chips at an English-styled restaurant.
We enjoyed dinner so much, that we took no pictures.
We managed to take a picture of dessert, Guiness Chocolate Cake, since our feeding frenzy had slowed down to “normal.”
A third friend showed up just for drinks and presented me with gift.
All I really wanted was the pleasure of her company, but I’m always happy read a friend-recommended book.
The restaurant gifted me with another dessert, which I saved for a few days later.
My older, wiser self knew better than to load up on desserts all on one day.
On the day of my actual birth, I woke up early–
or a Saturday–for my usual Inferno Hot Pilates class and took a birthday picture with the teacher before hand. She had the nerve to ask if I would wear my tiara during class. Uh, no. Not trying to worry about looking cute during a grueling session. Plus, her idea of celebrating my birthday was to mention it several times with a smile while turning up the challenge level. Hopefully, surviving her class was foreshadowing for being up to the challenge of a new trip around the sun.
After regrouping at home, I went to a massage appointment. I’d met the masseuse while getting dressed in the yoga locker room the day before. We hit it off because she used to work for the first CBD company whose products I’d tried. I told her briefly about the CBD that I sell. When we walked out together, a yoga instructor wished me happy birthday. The masseuse immediately offered me a birthday massage for 50% off. We compared schedules in the parking and found a compatible time on my actual blessed day.
Rounding out my special day, I attended a baby shower.
My friend was well aware that it was my birthday and told me to stop by for cake. Dessert #2 the second day in a row! We message one another Monday through Friday since we both work for the same company, but from our respective homes; so it’s wonderful when we see one another in person. Plus, another coworker came up from San Antonio, which was quite a haul since she lived farther away than I and it had taken me nearly an hour.
But check out the mermaid chocolate cake!
I’m so happy the woman who cut it only gave people either a top or bottom half.
And no baby shower would be complete without the happy parents to be for the second time around.
Months ago, a friend of mine invited me to participate in a literary event, which included submitting several pieces to a juried magazine. As usual, I’d been juggling a lot of other things at the time and looked for several reasons to decline since participation involved an overnight trip. After he sent me a copy of last year’s magazine, however, I was convinced.
At least I didn’t have to write any new pieces, thanks to past essays I’d written for the Austin Writers Roulette. As a matter of fact, I submitted pictures of myself in the costume that accompanied those essays. I sent more than what was needed just to give them a selection to choose from and, of course, because my writing, in some circles, may be considered a little controversial.
Fast forward to the first Wednesday in September. Allegedly, GPS doesn’t navigate well to my friend’s house. Plus, he had to send me a picture of his house since he’d planted large shrubs in front for privacy. Oh, and the name on his mailbox isn’t his.
So, he emailed me his best recollection of the driving directions,
but following them was more like a scavenger hunt. I had to call him twice for clarification because the terrain didn’t match the instructions. I wasn’t going to stop and ask anyone.
My general philosophy about living in Texas has been that I live in Austin, which happened to be in Texas like a liberal island, surrounded by a sea of conservatism. I drive around the greater Austin area and occasionally Houston, and fly in and out of Austin, but never in the 10 years of being an Austinite have I driven to a Texan podunk town.
My nervousness about driving out of the liberal oasis manifested in thinking that one of my tires seemed a little wonky. I kept praying that I wouldn’t have a blowout since I didn’t want to suddenly have to discover just how racist people were if my car broke down.
Once I pulled into my friend’s driveway, instead of getting out of the car, as I would have normally done, I called him to verify that I was in the right place. I described his truck and his grown son’s car because, as I joked with him, “I sure in the hell don’t want to knock on the wrong white person’s front door!”
He gifted me a bottle of red wine, not merely because I’m a red wine drinker,
but he thought it was funny to give a former math teacher wine that had “Trig” in its name. I was more than ready to have a glass of wine once I arrived although I had a glass of merlot that was already opened along with a grandma’s slice of homemade chicken pot pie.
Then, I brushed my teeth, washed my face and changed into a dress that accompanied one of the things I’d planned to read at the literary event. My friend and one of his NY poet friends were also reading during our shared 45-min segment. I teased my friend about importing two black women for this thing. He told me that black people only made up about 1% of the population; however, he needn’t have added the Klan rally stories he “entertained” us with on the drive over to the event.
Even the poet shared how her grown children had advised her to call them periodically because they feared her being in the middle of Klan country. We were all banking on the fact that since this literary event was sponsored by a university, we’d have a liberal audience.
Once we arrived, we set up our books in the reception area. Fortunately, the walls were pillow padded since they regularly displayed art. I’d bought push pins to hang up my poster.
We walked across the yard to the conservatory building where we’d perform.
Although we arrived a few minutes “late,” the organizers were still putting the final touches on the tech equipment. I’d only seen the computer and projector, but the last performer actually used a microphone, which would have been a good option for all of us had we’d known about it.
Together, we represented a variety of creative forms:
poetry, music, clothing, essays and paintings.
My friend started off by explaining how his two books were published by a small press,
in which his NY poet friend appeared in both and I appeared in the second.
She read some beat style poetry to my friend’s flute improvisations.
Then, it was my turn. Normally, I’m not too nervous to perform, but I worried that this audience may have been far too conservative to appreciate my liberal bent. So, I eased into it.
First, I explained that the 12-doll pattern cutouts of curly Afro’d women represented the 12 generations of mothers in my lineage. Then I read the accompanying piece, “All-Knowing Mother,” a Mother’s Day tribute to the generations of black women’s mother wit. Toward the end of the piece, it laments about how much of their knowledge had been lost during the time blacks were not legally allowed to be literate. If any conservative member of the audience winced at my references to slavery, I didn’t detect it.
Instead, I segued to my next reading selection by saying, “If nothing in that first piece shocked you, then surely this will.” I explained that my first novel was a racy story about a woman looking for Mr. Right and still being smart about it. I tested the waters by reading the first sentence in the book. I paused after nervous laughter broke out when I said, “vibrator.” I eyed the crowd and asked, “Shall I continue?” They laughed again, so I continued.
After a few short paragraphs, I read one sentence with so much gusto that I merely had to dramatically pause and look at the audience again for them to fill in the blank of the male body part that I hadn’t said. More laughter. By the time I got to the phrase “cock block,” the audience was prepared to hear a vulgar action verb.
I’d only read the first page and a half from my book, but I’d worked it for every glorious, scandalized word and thought it conveyed. The audience greatly rewarded my performance with their clapping. At that point, I had completely forgotten my paranoia of reading in a conservative part of Texas.
During intermission, a woman beat a path to me. Not only did she buy the copy of the book that I’d read from, but we had a very touching conversation about how she strongly identified with the whole pursuit of love and still have a sense of integrity. We also talked about the writing process. I only gave her two pieces of advice: consider self-publishing to minimize the gate keepers and definitely pay to have professional editors tear her manuscript apart. I admitted to paying 2 different editors before I published Tribe.
Once the event was over, the host’s father approached me, saying that he loved my dress, but unfortunately couldn’t hear what I was reading. I reached into my purse, and gifted him the print out of “All-Knowing Mother.”
In the reception area, one of the servers confessed that many of them had thumbed through my book and had thoroughly enjoyed my writing. After so many years of not reading from Tribe to an audience, I was as entertained by their discovery of this story as they were to the story itself.
I paired a glass of red wine with a chocolate and coconut dessert, magic bars, that Mom used to make when I was growing up and sat down beside a woman who turned out to be the writer in residence for the university that sponsored the literary event.
Throughout our conversation, newly won fans of Tribe paid me for a copy of the book and handed it to me to sign. Experience definitely pays off. Instead of asking them their name, I personalized it by writing everyone a unique message, signing my name, and dating it. No more worrying about if I spelled their name correctly.
Once we returned to my friend’s house, we ate more savory food since the reception was more of a dessert and drink event. I didn’t mind starting with dessert first, but that didn’t do much for actual hunger. Afterwards, I showered and went to bed. I was happy that they were also ready to go to bed. Normally, I wouldn’t have gone to bed quite that early, but after worrying while driving and worrying before reading, I was more than ready to rest for the drive back the following morning.
I’d repeatedly said that I wasn’t getting up early and I didn’t. At least for me. I got up my normal time, ate breakfast, packed up and had brushed my teeth before my friend woke and asked if he should make me breakfast. Ha! At that point, all I needed to do was put my things in the car and drive home.
Since I’d just driven there in less than 24 hours ago,
the route was still fresh in my mind and I had no problem reversing the trip–except for when I came upon a slow procession. At first I couldn’t make out what I was seeing because I couldn’t readily process a fishing trawler traveling by land. With police escorts in the front and wing cars on either side. That entourage delayed me by at least an hour.
Even so, I didn’t stop off to gas up my car until I got to Georgetown. I figured that was close enough to Austin that my presence wouldn’t trigger a “gassing up while black” interaction.
I’m well aware that just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean that nothing would have happened had the general population known of my presence. I’m just happy nothing bad happened and I got to share my work with people who had not previously heard of me.
Almost by fluke, I found out about the 7th Capital City Black Film Festival.
First thought that crossed my mind, “Why haven’t I’ve heard about this before now?” The second thought was to find out whether I could volunteer for this. Yes and no, but ultimately yes.
Once I checked out the website, I discovered the deadline to submit interest in volunteering had past. Here’s where I played the race card: “late” for black people tended to be marked by how much shit still needed to be done, especially since the festival hadn’t yet begun. In this case, I was right on time.
Keeping with that theme, I strolled up into a very short line to take a picture with festival ambassador, Sherri Sheppard, after I’d finished my duties of helping people check in. I didn’t get a chance to give her my card even though it was just on the back of my ID case. I didn’t want to be that person to hand a celebrity something when I could clearly see she had nothing to put it in. Yet, I managed to network with others; so perhaps something will become of those conversations.
I loved being immersed in the creative energy of black filmmakers
since blacks only make around 6-8% of the population in the greater Austin area. I always have the silly idea that I’ll know more people than I do at black events. Although the event only had a few hundred people on opening night, many were from out of state.
Before screening a movie, the founder of the festival, Winston G. Williams (rt)
and staunch black film supporter and first recipient of the Harlem Lights Award, Julius Tennon (AKA Viola Davis’ husband, center) awarded filmmaker Deborah Riley Draper the Harlem Lights Award, which recognizes luminaries in all fields, especially creative ones.
The last interview I listened to,
Zakyiah Larry discussed all aspects of filmmaking with actress/producer/director Tangi Miller. Honestly, Miller wore so many hats because a black woman’s work is never done. She lamented about the times when she had to hurriedly do her own hair and makeup because none of the hair/makeup artists knew how to properly style black hair nor had a makeup foundation to match her skin tone.
Furthermore, and this part truly perked up my ears, she briefly discussed how she buys commercial real estate in order to generate passive income since “more doors, more money.” She cautioned anyone starting off in the industry to have another source of income that didn’t essentially require trading time for money since projects may be far and few in between. I gave her an “Amen” to that whole line of logic.
No matter whichever creative path I choose, seems like all roads lead back to investing into real estate. I didn’t need to attend this festival to get that idea, but it was wonderful to get another dose of truth from a completely different source than I’d had.
My family lived on a military base when my father was stationed at Little Rock Air Force Base. My best friend, Bill, who lived across the street had two younger twin brothers and a stay at home mom.
This was back in the 70s when kids could play around the entire neighborhood without parental supervision. Mom often joked that if anyone had actually kidnapped me, they’d bring me back.
Occasionally, Bill and I ended up at his house. Inevitably his mom would offer me a cookie. As a little kid, I was addicted to sugar, which may have contributed to my over-the-top energy, but I still managed to be so skinny that Mom bought me size slim clothes and hemmed them because they were too big. So, any offer of sugar was readily accepted—even when I should have known better. Not that I would have understood the dangers of consuming too much sugar at such a tender age, but that this scene had repeated itself too many times with the same level of disappointment when I received a Nilla Wafer.
In my mind, then as now, Nilla Wafers aren’t cookies. They are the crust to a banana pudding. Perhaps a cheesecake crust when you forgot to buy graham crackers and didn’t want to return to the store. Had I been a snarkier child, I would have asked, “Where’s the rest of the dessert?” Yet even my sugar-addicted mind knew that wasn’t polite and may have earned me yet another Mom-administered whupping. So, I accepted the Nilla Wafer politely even though it wasn’t a real cookie like an Oreo or chocolate chip. Even those healthy cookies, peanut butter and oatmeal, would have been better than those banana-pudding-crust cookies.
So, what triggered this little trip down memory lane? I’d read an unbelievable passage in a fiction about a grown woman eating half a box of cookies, which turned out to be Nilla Wafers. As if!
I had to put the book down and start typing this rant out on my phone as I waited to get a mani pedi. Some things just can’t wait until I get home to my laptop. Plus, one of the best things about being a writer is that any moving experience becomes fodder.
One good thing about moving, especially after nearly a decade in the same apartment, was taking that inevitable trip down memory lane of forgotten items. What to keep, recycle, trash and donate.
I unearthed a lot of teaching materials that could have been either donated or recycled, depending on whether it was something that I’d originally created or bought and what condition it was in. The only teaching material that had originally stumped me was my favorite math manipulative.
I had two briefcases of this manipulative, which I used to teach perimeter, area, surface area, volume, equations, team building, and as a reward to students who’d finish their work a few minutes early. For this manipulative, where simple geometric shapes to the most complex structures could be created, I knew I couldn’t just drop it off at my neighborhood Goodwill.
Initially, I ran through a mental checklist of all the teachers who I knew. I drew a blank for math teachers who I knew years ago. The other teachers who I was currently friends with didn’t teach math, but I figured I could get a recommendation from them to gift it to a creative math teacher, but even that felt unsatisfying.
I set the briefcases aside and continued to go through my things, trusting that the solution would come to me. Part of the reason I’d started packing more than a month before my move-out date was to organize things in a logical manner.
Hours later, I had the perfect solution. I knew two very smart women who homeschooled their kids. As a matter of fact, I’d met their kids and knew they would undoubtedly cherish those manipulatives, as would their parents. Even the kids’ fathers loved building things. It wasn’t too much of a reach to visualize the entire family, happily unplugging from their electronic devices to “play.”
I checked my calendar and confirmed I’d planned to meet those two women a few weeks after the move. Although I would have loved to offload those materials prior to the move, the wait was worth it.
I arrived at the restaurant first and got our table. Once I sat down, I opened both briefcases for the first time in several years. Although all the materials were stored neatly in ziplock bags, they were unevenly divided between the two cases. I closed them and waited until the first of the other two women arrived to help me sort them out. Besides, I wanted whichever woman who happened to arrive first to choose which case she wanted since one was slightly bigger than the other.
Everything unfolded beautifully. The first woman who arrived assisted me in systematically inventorying the contents of both cases. Afterwards, she chose which one she wanted (the bigger of the two, of course!), and I placed the other case across the table for the second recipient who still hadn’t arrived.
Using the materials, I quickly assembled a cube. I told her that with the various length and colored struts, she could recreate the complex structure of the ball that held the structures in place. Then I set her off on her own.
When the server came by to take her drink order, she told him, “I can’t be bothered right now. I’m playing with these toys!” He and I laughed at her. I suggested she try the raspberry martini like I had since we usually had similar tastes. She readily agreed and kept playing.
At this point, the second woman arrived. I explained to her that the second briefcase was hers. I also shared how I came to gift them my favorite math manipulative. During that explanation, another server stopped by our table to inquire about the manipulatives since he was an architecture student.
The reality is, there are some possessions more meaningful than others. As much as I’d enjoyed using those manipulatives with my students, without students, they were lying dormant. I’m so happy knowing that two young families are about to spend hours of quality time creating math-based structures.
I’m always amazed how silent those assholes who make a snowball in the wintertime as visual “proof” there’s no such thing as global warming are when we have record high temperatures year after year.
I met my writing group at a restaurant and hoped I’d misunderstood the organizer’s text when she stated that she was sitting to the right outside as one approached.
She’d accurately communicated her location. Despite the drawn patio shades and ceiling fans, nothing could properly cool off 107 degrees in the shade. At one point, someone commented that the temperature felt cooler, to which I joked that it had probably gone from 107 to 105 since we were in Texas. I was right, as confirmed by the weather app on my phone.
That’s the same temperature as my Bikram yoga class, which was how I knew on some level what the temperature was before consulting my phone. And just like in Bikram class, I refrained from drinking alcohol. I opted for a glass of water and a mocktail, consisting of a refreshing mixture of turmeric, ginger and tonic water.
Although extreme heat causes sluggishness, I don’t credit the weather with my lack of creative motivation. My writing has dwindled to a trickle as very few of my good ideas and snippets of witty dialogue seldom make it on paper.
I’ve been far too preoccupied with making money, especially residual income. As I invest in one entrepreneurial thing after another, the day itself doesn’t actually get more productive in order to accommodate all the reading and studying I need to do to keep up.
At the same time, I don’t want to be that extremely reclusive person who works from home and hardly ever goes anywhere. Sure, that’s a great way to save money. Plus it’s tempting to stay out of this heat, but I suspect my increase in reclusiveness has played a role in why my writing has dipped.
I’m just about done with unpacking, so at least that part of my energy will no longer need to be diverted. Besides, the newly organized walk-in closet and bookshelf should, in the long run, be more conducive to projects in the future. Just need to get over the hump, whatever that truly is.
Which version of it do you tell? Is the wolf the bad character? Does the huntsman save the day? Is grandma feeble? Does Little Red still walk the straight and narrow because the whole journey symbolically talks about losing her virginity and the red denotes her menses?
It’s hard to be woke. Sometimes you lose sleep over it. Other times you lose your voice. Not laryngitis, but from other people more woke than you shaming you into silence. They don’t want you to say anything unless it’s a regurgitation of what they said or an apology. Then they judge your apology.
Political correctness is imploding, causing us to wonder what the world is coming to…the end, most likely.
We’re all taking potshots at the dominant narrative. If you don’t believe it, trying going in front of an audience and telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood. You’ll soon uncover the emotional landmines. Just establishing common ground with another person can be challenging. An entire audience is a mixed bag of tricks.
No one wants to hear that helpless woman trope anymore. If the big bad wolf eventually kills grandma, we want to hear that she whups his ass in the beginning of the fight. When the huntsman arrives on the scene, he’s backup and a couple of times, Little Red has to save him during the course of the battle.
At the same time, we want to see the good in the wolf. Don’t wolves travel in packs, displaying a strong sense of community? It’s rare and dangerous for a wolf to remain alone because their survival rate goes down outside of a pack. So, when the wolf encounters Little Red in the forest, was he looking to join her pack? Lone wolves have usually separated from their pack due to a scarcity of food or mates. Was he looking for both? Maybe grandma’s feebleness wasn’t due to a lack of physical strength, but her closed mindedness toward a wolf trying to be romantically involved with her granddaughter and start their own pack.
Now for those of you who’d dare say, “But wolves and humans can’t reproduce!” May I remind you that in this story, wolves and humans somehow speak the same language? So, we’ve already left the realm of reality straight out of the gates, but that doesn’t stop some people.
Remember during the Star Wars saga when a black actor, John Boyega, played a storm trooper and some assholes lost their minds because they didn’t believe storm troopers could be black? They could believe all that other fictitious Star Wars shit, but a black man being a storm trooper was too much of a departure from reality.
But back to Little Red. In the woke version, she’s not all pure and innocent because that’s an impossible standard. All the other characters are interesting subplots with a mixture of good and bad because they reflect us.
The truth is: everyone’s a wolf. We all have the potential to terrorize or revitalize our community. And you can’t have a community without the struggle for limited resources.
Every conflict may appear to be due to the difference of race, religion, sexual orientation, but it’s not. If you look past the flavoring, the real beef is some limited resource. Given the fact that there’s always more need than resources, some people are very committed to hoarding those resources. One of the best ways to control resources is to control the narrative.
And woe to those who find themselves on the wrong side of the dominant narrative or political correctness. And those who think that one day, someone not in their own demographic will suddenly wake up and start telling their story accurately are truly pursuing a fairy tale more than Little Red herself.
Political correctness began as a positive movement to challenge the dominant narrative that wrongfully kept resources from people who were viewed as the Other. The Lesser, Mostly Undesirable Other. I say “mostly undesirable” because the degree of otherness is how one measures status. And status dictates resources. So, no matter how seemingly homogenous a community is, we will never eliminate “otherness” as long as status and resources depend on it.
For those who desperately cling to miniscule differences among us, turning a blind eye to the glaringly obvious commonalities we share, they faithfully repeat the dominant narrative—even if they don’t benefit from it because that’s part of their American Dream. They will continue working hard and to reap the rewards because they don’t see themselves as part of the 99% Other.
For those who challenge the dominant narrative, recognizing that they are systematically denied to reap the rewards despite how hardworking they are, they faithfully repeat their own narratives.
And the one percenters? They love the clash of 99%. As long as we don’t unite against them, things won’t change too much at the top. After all, they have the most resources available to roll with the punches no matter what the dominant narrative evolves into. Why it’s rather entertaining to watch the extreme dominant narrative defenders battle it out with the extreme politically correct crusaders.
Now back to Little Red. How do you tell her story?
My roommate rented the moving truck and I hired the mover.
Never before in life have I been so self-conscious of “moving while black,” but in this current political climate, I seriously considered getting a canvas banner printed up with all three of our pictures on it with a caption that read, “Don’t Call the Cops: Your New Neighbors Are Black.”
Obviously, I didn’t do that. First of all, I was just moving from one apartment to another within the same complex. I’d lived in this community for 9 years; so there was a good chance that surrounding neighbors had already seen me even if they hadn’t seen my future roommate or cousin who helped with the move.
Secondly, this was a pretty mixed neighborhood. It wasn’t as if we stood out as the POC who may have been mistaken as burglars, brazenly stealing things from one apartment to another just down the parking lot.
Lastly, I didn’t have the bandwidth to get a canvas printed up. Although I’d begun the process of packing/donating/recycling/trashing on July 1st, I still had other shit to do besides the move.
When my cousin saw how close the new apartment was to the old apartment,
his mindset changed about putting everything into the truck. Things my roommate and I saw as “heavy,” he saw as “light.” I rather enjoyed the one-man strong parade. Too bad I only took one picture of him carrying the bed frame. I’ll just have to hold in my memory all the other times he balanced a heavy box on either shoulder and walked with ease down a flight of stairs and the parking lot.
After everything was moved in, we took our group picture in front of the Uhaul blurb, which depicted a runaway slave going to Canada to be free. Thank God our move wasn’t as fraught with danger.
Best of all, no one called the police on us. As I celebrated that low expectation, I thought about how the police in The South had originally formed to protect people who consider themselves “white” and their property, including slaves. That full-circle thought just exhausted me even more.
Better to unpack all my boxes before I continue unpacking the history of the police in The U.S.
For the first time in a decade, I have a roommate. We moved into a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment. Now, we have two TVs. Initially, we planned to put her larger TV in the living room and my smaller one in my bedroom.
My bedroom must also have an office space since I work from home. At the same time, I tried to accommodate the placement of the TV. It perched on the bookcase, facing opposite the bed. Then, once we moved the desk into the room, I had to rotate the bed 90 degrees, which meant it no longer faced the TV. Not only that, the TV cord didn’t reach the outlet. Plus, with two TVs, we’d only get one cable box and would have to pay extra for an additional cable box. Or we could pay a one-time fee for a streaming app.
I figured all the TV considerations had just mentally taxed me because it was moving day and I was tired. Yet, upon further reflection and rest, I had the solution: get rid of my TV.
I’ve not had a TV in my bedroom since college. The reason the TV doesn’t comfortably fit in my bedroom now is that it no longer belongs there. It hasn’t belonged there for 3 decades and cannot easily invade that space. This coming from someone who can happily read in the living room on the sofa while the TV is on because now, that’s where that contraption belongs.
This is an external example of “compartmentalization.” Certain activities take place in certain rooms. As I proved to myself within the first 24 hours of my new place, there’s more to it than merely putting a TV into a room and plugging it in. The entire dynamics of a room changes to accommodate a TV. What’s the point of having one in the room if it cannot be viewed comfortably?
My bedroom arrangement maximizes sleeping and, during the waking hours, working and reading. If I want to bask in the presence of a TV, the living room is where that worship takes place.
For the past week, I’ve taken a daily dose of CBD oil along with a dose of an anti-inflammation booster after exercising. At the end of the week, I attended my usual Friday noontime Bikram power hour class and discovered a breakthrough.
According to the Bikram dialogue, yogis should only stretch as far as we feel a pain sensation due to stretching–not sharp, shooting pain. For nearly ten years, I thought I’d done just that. Perhaps when I first started the practice, I had.
Then, this past Friday, I went deeper into every posture. Apparently, my “stretching sensation pain” was actually inflammation pain. The CBD and booster worked on my endocannabinoid system, which effects all other known body systems of beings with spinal cords.
So, I started taking CBD to alleviate the pain in my permanently injured left ankle, but all the inflammation in my body has been lessened. Not only that, but I’ve slept better, have had better concentration, and, if I’m not mistaken, my allergies, which the city of Austin had given me, has all but disappeared.
Not bad for taking two products. Since I’ve become an Ambassador (sales rep) for the company, I get them wholesale. Another perk is that I have the opportunity to make money 7 different ways as an Ambassador. One of the ways include residual income. That was definitely a plus since I wanted an opportunity to make money where I wouldn’t be dependent on trading time for money.
Then, the company has wonderful bonuses such as making car payments for a Jeep, giving us money for the sole purpose of donation, paying for healthcare, then something that has no appeal, but I’d take it if I got it: a motor coach.
As a matter of fact, when I attended the presentation, I was so impressed with the business opportunity, I signed up as an Ambassador before I’d even tried the products. I could clearly see how this entrepreneurial opportunity had fewer moving parts for me, plus support, with the added bonus of offering products that aren’t hard sells. And I know hard sells, such as health care discount plans over the phone.
I’d heard that the 7th day would be magical since we offer 7-Day challenges of CBD mini bottles, so people can see how well they like the product. Now, I’m looking forward to the 90th day. That’s another point where CBD consumers have reported significant changes, especially those of us who take the weight loss booster.
Granted, I’m not obese, but why wait until I reach that point? As everyone eventually discovers, as we age, it’s more challenging to maintain our weight. We can have the same diet and workout routine and gradually gain weight. I’ve not gained so much that I need to buy a bigger size, but some clothes are fitting snugger than they used to.
I look forward to seeing in 3 months how much microdosing CBD has affected my postmenopausal marsupial pouch. I’ve even heard men marvel at how the weight loss booster has melted away their back fat, love handles and thighs.
On the business side, I will evaluate whether I’ll still need to work my daytime hustle. Being on CBD has made that mindless job more pleasant. I still make the most of it by watching training videos and reading books in between calls, minus the mental strain that comes with customer service. It’s just ironic that now I’m doing better at that job and hitting my numbers for bonuses. That’s going to make it a little more tempting to leave, but since there’s no residual income, I’m sure my “last straw” will eventually arrive.
