Almost every day of my life, if I am walkin my daughter to school, grocery shopping, or anything else that a girl has to do on the day-to-day, I get those quintessential questions; "Hey gurrrl…So how was it?" What's it like now that everybody knows you?" "What are you doing with yourself now?" "How is everybody treating you?" I thought this edition would be the proper edition to let y'all know that the world is full of funny people, some of them crazy and the universe seems to have a magnet right on the junk in my trunk. Now that both shows are over, the days are never normal for me. Yeah, even for the big girl, she couldn't just go back to Jersey and have everything be OK. So now, a strut down the block ends up to be a run to the bodega. Otherwise, I just don’t get anywhere. Not that most of the time I had anyplace to be, but just those days where you're hustlin to get across the river for an interview, those are the days that everyone seemed to be out in the street wanting to holla at you. Not to mention the bruthas? There is NO shame in their game! And I’m no longer in the position to "Keep it movin" and just walk on by like I never heard them talking to me. I GOTTA stop, say hello, have a conversation, and THEN keep it moving. See, I didin’t win and I’m like right in the heart of where everyone and their momma watches the show, and then they come out in the street to talk about it. And the bruthas? I'll say it again, relentless. Every man thought they had a chance with me. Even the little hustlers. The bruthas who were to busy to even speak to me, because I was too big to fit in their little ass Mercedes, were now tryin to give me a ride to the PATH train, to the bus stop, they wanted to walk me to my house, get my number, and then some of these boys would have the nerve to ask me to hook them up with the other girls. Let me break it down for you:

BRUTHA: “Hey…. Hey yo! Hey yo Like Dat!”
ME: (Waving hello from across the street) “Wassup baby! How you Doin?”
BRUTHA: “Yo Like Dat! Come holla at a brutha!”
ME: “Thank you for the offer baby but I gotta make a move”
BRUTHA: (As he is crossing the street) “Aww come on!”
ME: “Baby, walk and talk…. Walk and talk, I gotta make a move across the river!”
BRUTHA: “Well OK I hear you boo. So what’s goin on wit ya?”
ME: “Nothin baby just chasin that paper”
BRUTHA: “You weren’t really feelin Flav like that were you? Cuz….”
ME: “Flav was a very nice person. I liked him for who he was and if I had a chance….”
BRUTHA: “Well I’m just sayin, that little black…… lookin at you now…..in all yo thickness….you need a man that can handle all that!”
ME: “Well thank you brua, thank you, but I’m good.”
BRUTHA: “You good?”
ME: “Yeah, real good.”
BRUTHA: “What, you got a man or something?”
ME: Naw I don’t have a man.
And at first, I said “NO” to anyone that asked if I had a man. My man is French and we had grown people’s arrangements. This was nobody’s business what they were and I didn’t want anyone putting everything on front street for me to hear about it from my momma later. I didn’t want it in the tabloids or on somebody’s silly blog. So as far as the world was concerned, Like Dat was single.

ME: “Hey listen baby, I appreciate you talking to me but I gotta go and I gotta make a phone call.”
BRUTHA: “It’s all good. But hey, can I get yo number?”
ME: “Aww see. You should know better than that boo. A sista like me don’t give her number out.”
BRUTHA: “Aww OK. I feel you. Peace then."
ME: “Peace baby.”

See. It wasn’t easy for da big gurl. You would think there would be, but there are some freaks out there that would take 'em 300 pounds if they could! And I don’t hate on a brutha that loves the thickness, just, where were they when I was single? My personality always kept me popular with the gents, so it was never about a dry spell. I like them a whole lot older than these little hustlers out here now and that was the problem. Still not the straw that broke the camels back. That's when a brutha just don’t know how to stop, when he just won’t quit. It’s when the brutha will keep his hustle up even when you walkin down the street with your man.

You ever have those days when you’re running so late that you hope nobody tries to stop you in the street? One of those days where you don’t want the phone to ring, the bus to be late, or the car to run low on gas because you just gotta get there? This was one of those days…bright, sunny and beautiful. You wanted to be outside and you wanted to get all your business done so you could play in the street. Hell, I wasn’t working so there was no reason to be inside on a day like that. However, I had business that needed to get done before we started playing. On this day, the lord was just not letting me get out of the house on time.

I decided to go with my man to watch a movie he was gonna review for a film week in New York. The phone wouldn’t stop ringing all morning and we needed to be in the city by 12. Now that I’m Ms. “LikeDat", I take far longer to get ready than I did before, and my man, well, he just wasn’t havin it. So I threw my outfit on really quick, accessorized with a pair of my "Get down the street with the quickness insurance" (sunglasses) and walked out the door…but all I did to make this easy didn’t help at all. As soon as we got around the corner, a brutha starts callin me out. Now you know the rule in the ghetto, I can’t keep it moving and act like I didn’t hear anyone. They would think I was acting like my shit don’t stink. So I said “wassup” to the brutha and kept on walking with my man, but this brutha, something was wrong with him. He was fast walking to keep up with us, and was acting like my man wasn’t even there. His hustle was all crazy, like a man with a serious problem. He was wearing all the latest gear, but it was all brand new, and it wasn’t matching. Like he had a blue Gino Green hat on with a light brown Fubu jacket, green Tims and black Akademik jeans. All with the price tags on them. He kept asking me the same question; “Hey, can, can I get your number?” and every time I said “No baby I can’t give my number to you” he would stutter “But, but, I have a job!” and continued to follow us down the street. He was behind us, he was along side of us, he was in front of us for a minute, and he kept just asking the same question all the time. When he finally stopped that madness, he kept following us and saying to me “Take my number…551-662…” and I just kept walking down the street. I thought that would be the answer, that he would get the picture, but it didn’t. He just kept walking down the street with us, saying everything over and over again, like a broken record. At one point I turn and looked back at him to realize he had followed us 5 blocks from where he was standing outside his building, and he was STILL running his mouth.

I didn’t know what else to do. I smiled kindly enough; I said “No” politely enough and walked as fast as I could. This brutha would not stop. He was short, young and persistent. I couldn’t get what was up with him. He was showing no respect to my man who was right by my side, and he did not understand “NO” It was like we were speaking French to him. My man, well, he really doesn’t have patience for ANY of the little hustlers out here, so by the 15th time he asked for my number, he turned around and got straight up in the little bruthas face and told him that I was his girl and to leave me alone… that STILL didn’t stop him. I was like “Man I got a stalker on my hands now and I don’t need this shit on the way to the movies” but it was all to much for what was actually happening. I mean, stalkers are crazy but this boy started to seem challenged to me. So when I turned around and saw how far he had followed us, I stopped right in my tracks, turned around, looked him dead in his eyes, put my hands on his shoulders and said:

ME: “Look, this is not gonna happen, so stop.”
CHALLENGED BRUTHA: “But, but, I have a job!”
ME: “Look, please understand. I thank you for your interest but that is my man standing right over there.”
MY MAN: “Yeah come on man, we got to go!”
CHALLENGED BRUTHA: “Take my number down, 551…662”
ME: “Look, PLEASE. I’m not taking your number. I’m not going to call you, I’m gonna let you go and keep walking with my man, and you’re gonna go home OK?”
CHALLENGED BRUTHA: “But, but, but, I have a job!”
I let him go, waved goodbye and walked away. He just stood there, stupifyied, like he did not understand why I left him there. Finally, this time, he didn’t keep following us. He just looked at us like we were a car accident happening right in front of him. When I looked into his eyes, you could tell something was wrong with him. You could tell that he had a disability of the mind, cuz I don’t know how many times you told him, he still didn’t get it like the rest of them. This was the first time my man witnessed what I was going through. Stuck in between trying to be nice to everybody and trying to get where you need to go, the celebrity sometimes got in the way. My man, well this time it smacked him right in the face. No more stories about how it took me 2 hours to walk 4 blocks, or how I was taking pictures in the grocery store which was why I was late making dinner. No one ever can get it. They think you are crazy or just makin it up. Your friends just want you out in the street to be seen with you and your people don’t care or don’t understand that sometimes, you get no peace.

Fans will be fans, you can't stop them and you don't want to. Every time I ran into something strange, no one ever meant any harm. It can be hard, hard being noticed every day, people yelling your name from 5 blocks away that you don't even know, and people interrupting you when you are on your phone talking business. Also, some mornings you wake up thinking that everything is the same as it was a year ago. You get dressed, grab some coffee, go outside, and realize it's not. You realize it's a whole new world, that's straight up street and you are the pavement. You can either choose to love it or choose to hate it. I’m going to choose the choice to love it, because at the end of the day, after every brutha that tried to holla, after every meeting you were late for, after every crowded train you were on, people shouting your name in front of everybody, there hides a little girl, or a little boy, or a big girl, someone that came out of their shell because they felt like you represented who they were and what it was like where they were from. Someone who appreciated you, just saying hello to them and said thank you for it all. For everything you did. In the end, you made someone out there happy just for one small moment and made memories to tell your grandkids about for the rest of your life.