PAULA NEAL MOONEY

That's what I asked this morning. I wanted to make sure. He was kind of dogged and dissed and dismissed by me last year, in 2011, at times. And 2012 is so much different -- we feel so much closer, so I needed to verify. He answered, "Just keep running the race, and don't worry about whether you're in the race or not." I am his. He paid for me , putting down a seriously healthy and worthy down payment. The best dowry any man could ever pay for a woman, or anybody... "I already told you 'It is yours...'" He told me, and doesn't lie. It was nearly 10 years ago when that promise was spoken resolutely in the space of my tummy, and it's almost our anniversary. At least, the 10th anniversary of that powerful spring day when the Holy Ghost showed me without a doubt that Christ is real -- and He is closer than we sometimes think. Or act like. But I am moving on. Moving forward. Despite mistakes. Keep on trucking...

Playing around with Essence makeover tool - love the Emmy Listening to Frank Ocean's "Thinking About You" song below is quite addictive -- just like my Facebook friend and others claimed -- and his status update sent me back to that song again. I first heard it on an episode of Awkward Black Girl , after I soaked up all available videos of the runaway Youtube series -- and I tracked down the song and listened to it again and again. Is it the 24-year-old's amazing Prince and D'Angelo-styled falsetto and songwriting skills that are attracting millions? Or that F-U bravado that gave him the boldness to change his last name via Legal Zoom and say such outlandish things in the press that we know he must not have a publicist yet? I've been thinking about forever, too... It's not just the cadence of his play on words -- that "though I'm lying...down thinking 'bout you" lyric is so boss -- but the sensitivity and real-ness displaye...