Excerpts from the Diary of a Diva

"Now that you've been with New Boo for a while, you've got to train him..." That's what one of my girlfriends told me during a conversation about my love. She said that once you've dated a guy a while, you have to train him to be the way you want him to be. Huh? Train? Call me crazy, but the only creatures that need to be trained by me are children and animals. And New Boo is neither. He's a man. Not necessarily perfect, but way better than most. Honestly, I don't need anyone I need to train. I want a fully formed person. In my friend's defense, she prefaced her statement with, "I'm no expert on relationships." It should also be said that she's not the first woman to mention "training" to me. What IS interesting to me is that both women that mentioned it to me are completely single. I love New Boo just the way he is. We spent our first Christmas together. I gave him a few things I thought he'd like, and he ...

I am vexed beyond words about the situation with the two police officers being shot in Brooklyn. What bothers me is the blatant disregard for life -- on both sides. The man who felt like it was okay to take the lives of two police officers CLEARLY had no disregard for life because he took theirs and his own. And then there are the situations with Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Both situations show a disregard for life. For humanity, really. And it's painful to me that all of these families will have holes in them because someone felt like it was okay to take a life. There was a time in the not-so-distant past when people could fight and disagree -- and everyone went home to fight another day. When did it become okay to kill a person for whatever reason? As quiet as it's kept, by NOT indicting the police officers for killing those guys, it shows that life doesn't really matter. And it's easy to say Black life (and believe me, I do believe that it's open season ...

My period is late. What does that mean? Well, since New Boo and I have been trying to get pregnant, it COULD mean that we've been successful. Of course, I'm also 44 years old. It could mean that menopause has come early. Since it's only been a week -- and my body sometimes switches up -- I'm not overly worried about it. At least not yet. Stay tuned...

This is such a surreal place for me right now. I'm actually in a good relationship. I have a boyfriend who loves me and does his best for me. He isn't perfect by any stretch, but we can talk and dream together. That means so much to me. And it's so not where I expected to be. I'm the girl who always wondered who would want me. I'm not that easy to get along with, I snore, and I'm generally not the chick who gets the good guy. And please understand -- I do not begrudge the women who found their Mr. Wonderfuls before I did. I just always wondered where mine was. It was okay to be alone in my 20s and 30s -- even though I didn't want to be. You can still write that off as being young. But when you reach 40, things change. At 40, you can't blame anything on your youth. And you also start to modify your dreams. You realize that babies might not be on your agenda at this stage of your life -- even if you want them. (I actually had a man tell me once that...

I was listening to Pandora, and this song came up. I hadn't heard it before, but when I listened to it, I realized that this is just what New Boo is doing. For me. Because he loves me. 

There comes a point in every relationship where you go past the point of no return. When you've literally put everything on the table. You can end up revealing some things you never intended to or realized you'd have to admit. I've reached that point with New Boo. I went home for Thanksgiving, and New Boo stayed here. We kept in close touch while I was gone, but I know we missed each other. When I got home, he had dinner waiting for me and we watched TV and got reacquainted. Afterward, we had a discussion about what went on at home. One of the things that happened while I was gone was that one of the guys I slept with back in the day hit me up and offered me "birthday dick." Naturally I shut him down because I now have a man. And honestly, since I'm grown, that's just not cool. I probably should've been offended because, let's be real clear, this is how this guy always gets down. I had no intention of telling New Boo about that incident. But ...