Friday, April 25, 2008

Lifelong Problem

About the age of 11, little boys begin this process called puberty. Their voices start to deepen (some of them), they get pubic hair, their underarms start to sweat, they start to increase in height and weight, and a few more things change and get bigger.

Well all of these things happened to me when I turned 10 years old, one of them started and didn't stop. When my underarms started to sweat, they didn't stop! I could be in an air-conditioned room at 40 degrees with air blowing directly on me and my underarms, forehead, and back would sweat. When I would eat certain food *not necessarily hot or spicy*, my forehead would sweat profusely. I could take a cool shower and I would start sweating immediately afterwards. But none of these embarassed me as much as my sweaty ass underarms.

Because of this, I learned what colors you can wear that don't show a change in color when wet. This limited what I could wear. I learned to wear a jacket at all times. Of course, this caused my body temperature to increase and caused more sweating. I buy new t-shirts every 3 months. Nothing is more unattractive than pit stained t-shirts. I learned to make excuses for sweating by saying things like "oh, i'm hot-natured" *how the hell can you be hot-natured?*. At one time a few years ago, I developed a social anxiety and avoid people because they act as though they have never seen someone sweat before.

This condition is called Hyperhidrosis and I have it and have had it since puberty. Like any other condition, you can't understand it if you don't have it. You don't understand how it feels to feel that drip of sweat under your arms or on the tops of your forehead. You don't understandthat anxiety that you know it's going to start and not stop for hours. To know that your shirts are going to be soaked in a matter of minutes. The funny thing is that you know what is happening and that causes anxiety. In turn, the anxiety causes you to sweat more.

I've tried all kind of products from plain anti-perspirants to prescription strength anti-perspirants. Nothing has ever worked consistenly. I did have one product called Certain Dri. I had to apply it before bed and it actually worked. The issue with Certain Dri is that it caused my underarms to burn like fire. It felt like I was putting a lighter to my underarms. I had to stop using it.

I talked to my dermatologist about ways to solve the problem. Her first suggestion was to try Dry Sol and I did. It didn't work. Her next suggestion was to have botox injections on my underarms. That sounded wonderful, but it was painful and $750 per session 4 times a year was a bit out of my budget!

Then I saw a commercial for something. That something was Degree Clinical Strength.
Of course I was reluctant, but I said, what the hell and decided to try it. To my amazement, it has worked. The only downside is that it cost about $10 and since you have to apply it 3 times a day, it the stick only last about 2 weeks. But you know what, that's a price that I will pay. I have noticed that my sweating has been reduced my maybe 90%. Becauase of the reduction, my anxiety has decreased also, which has led to what? A reduction in overall sweating!!!!! No one knows how happy I am.

Now all I have to do is go out and buy new t-shirts and a lifetime supply of Degree Clinical Strength!

AND LET THAT BE THE REASON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Norris

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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

"And Let That Be The Reason"



So we finally did it! The blogger family reunion was a whole lot more than what a person can call fun. We finally got together and it was a blast. I'm not going to give a whole rundown of the weekend, but I can't stop thinking about how much fun I had. If you want to know what happened, yo ass should have been there.
Even though we didn't follow all of Warren, Cocoa, and Darius's planned itinerary, everything seems to go have gone well. It's widely thought that when a group of Black, gay men get together, there will be drama. There wasn't any, and we all got along. The sun didn't throw any shade off of any of us and I am most happy for that.
Now what I will say that what got a few of us perturbed was that we had to sponsor one person who came to Baltimore. But we handled that in a manner that didn't disrupt the flow of the weekend.
So hopefully we will hit up San Juan next year and have a few more bloggers attend.
Sooooooo "Let that be the reason!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And if not "Eat it"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

I Don't Know If I Can Feel Sorry For Her

I just don't know if I should feel sorry for this woman. I would like to because her husband is trying to just kick her out, but she did sign a prenuptual agreement.

But I can imagine her anger. She pretty much gave up her career to support him and be his wife and this is how he repays her!!! I think "Waiting to Exhale" should be required reading for all women and gay men!!

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Sunday, April 06, 2008

People Get On My Nerves

It seems that people love to fuck with me at the airport. Read this or this for the 2 other encounters I blogged about.

So i'm in the airport in Atlanta waiting for my flight to Tampa today. I walked up to the gate with my Orange Chicken and lemonade from Panda Express, I sat down and started to eat my food. When I arrived at the gate, I noticed a line of about 20 people at the gate counter. I then overheard the gate agent tell the people in line to please have a seat and they would be called when their seats were assigned. Apparently, they were passengers on standby who missed their earlier flight due to weather and long lines at security. Some of them took seats and some of them decided to remain standing in line.

A second gate agent was handling passengers who were already confirmed on the flight. Just as I finished eating, she called my and the names of 2 other people to come pick up new boarding passes for upgraded seats (it pays to fly an airline exclusively). So I get up and walk to the counter. While standing in the line for upgraded and confirmed passengers, a guy in the standby line (white, of course) picks ME (the only black guy) out of a line of people to tell me something.

White Guy: Sir you're going to have to go the end of the line and wait like the rest of us.

Me: No I don't.

White Guy: And just why not?

Me: I don't because I was called up here by the gate agent. I'm flying first class and you're flying standby in coach. So could you please go back to your standby line?

*He then steps back into his line looking stupid as hell*

White Guy: Sir i'm so sorry...

Me: Please don't aplogize to me for your racial prejudice. Just change your mindset about Black people.

And with that, I picked up my first class boarding document and boarded the plane.

Here I am a Delta Gold Medallion member minding my own fucking business and this white guy decides to pick me out of a line of people to tell me that I need to go back to the end of the line. Why the hell didn't he address the 2 white guys who approached the desk at the same time I did? Sometimes, white people get on my fucking nerves with their prejudiced thoughts and actions. It's like they think that they are entitled to everything and other races are supposed to cater to them. Experiences like these can cause a person to honestly become prejudiced also and i'm trying my best not to become what have experienced.

But you know what? I've learned that this shit is going to happen just because I'm black. And it's going to happen for the rest of my life. I can't hate the entire white race because I encounter some stupid individuals who think the worst of my race.

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Wednesday, April 02, 2008

I Wasn't Going To Do This, But...

...I just wanted to let it out that I have been seeing someone for the past 3 weeks. There is nothing really to report and i'm just going to take it as it goes.

This is finally one I didn't meet on the internet. We actually met through a mutual friend over a year ago and there was an attraction from the beginning. We've flirted with each other, but never went any further than that. But about 3 weeks ago, while having brunch with my crew at my apartment, I asked him on a date. The date included dinner and a movie and he was great company.

Over these last few weeks, we have been having a lot of talks about different subject including money, goals, sex, family and a few others. I initiated the talks where we have a different conversation and focus only on that subject. It's a great way to guage his conversation skills and to learn more about him. It's funny that we agree on a lot of things about life and how we want to live.

The one thing that we have not done is have sex. And that won't be happening for a while. Why? Because I decided to wait to have sex this time. I'm not putting a time limit on it, but it'll been when I'm comfortable and he says that he understands and can wait. Sex complicates shit and i'm trying to keep things simple.

So far things have been nice. We aren't a perfect match, but do perfect matches even exist? Like I said, i'll just keep it simple and see what happens.

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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Is This Not The Worst...

...picture you have ever seen???





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