Hey Folks,

Miss Jenkins motivated me yesterday with the announcement of her personal blog, so I wanted to let everybody know that I’ve officially launched www.therealslimjackson.com. It’s my candid personal blog for all topics. So if you ever enjoyed anything I posted on 3 Ways, please make sure you check out my personal space. Pause. And more importantly, make sure you subscribe via email or your favorite RSS reader. With this being new, I need all the support I can get. Lastly, you know I won’t crowd your email or RSS with filler and annoyance.

So yeah, I look forward to seeing you over at my new site and hope you’ll join me in my journey to fine tune this craft called writing. Love yall. Hugs for women. Daps for dudes. Hide ya kids. Hide ya wife.

-Slim

P.S. Seriously though, check out the site. Let me check it now > I’ll check it later

*End Transmission*

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Hey boos!

I hope this random post finds you well. Since my last post on Three Ways, I have gotten closer to graduation, fought a severe case of senioritis (because the fear of failure has cured me), and *drum roll* started my own site. Yep, that’s right. I started a new blog called Rewriting Herstory.  It’s not fancy like Three Ways, but I wanted to keep on writing, except this time, it’s more personal…it’s me writing about my past and present journey through this thing called life.

I have a few posts up, so I hope you stop by and check it out. You can subscribe, comment, lurk…whatever your heart desires.

Looking forward to seeing you around my e-hood,

Make sure you add Slim and Crew on Twitter. We keep the party going all day long!

Miss Jenkins

Eff this being the last eff em Friday.

Eff all the changes that are taking place in my life in the next 2 months. I guess it’s a part of life though, right?

Eff living in America. I need to move to the West Indies asap.

Eff Louisville for effing up everyone’s brackets.

Eff St. Johns for failing. I should have known better.

Eff people who don’t appreciate the greatness of March Madness.

Slim Jackson

Eff the end even though it’s kinda like a new beginning.

Eff my NCAA bracket. I’m losing. No Charlie Sheen. No winning.

Eff the drinking this weekend. All I ask is that the room don’t start spinning.

Eff perfection. I’m fine with being flawed. No Curt Henning.

Eff the fact that this game is over. It’s finished. Ninth inning.

Eff my eating habits. Unhealthy, but my clothes fitting.

Eff drama, lies, deceit….bullshitting.

I’ll see y’all on another blog, facebook, or when I’m twitting.

Seattle Washington

Eff St. Patty’s Day.

Eff waking up in my own bed naked, not knowing how I got there. But err, uhh, thank God I didn’t wake up in someone else’s bed naked, not knowing how I got there.

Eff the fact that this is the best way to go out. Like you expected any better.

Eff this oncoming hangover.

Eff it all. I love y’all. Be amazing. Peace.

You Turn for the Last Time,

The 3 Ways Crew

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*Takes a sip of water and stands with legs trembling at the podium even though nobody can see it**

Yeah… *cough*

It’s crazy for me to think that I’ve been writing and/or blogging since May 2008. I remember when I started my first site, The Ramblings of an Articulate Black Guy. It was just me and my computer or blackberry keyboard producing a bunch of randomness. Topics ranged from politics to social commentary to reckless Craigslist ads to relationship dynamics to the passing of my dad. I remember the first people that commented on my site; some of which are still around today. I remember when I asked Seattle to contribute a post and then it turned into a regular thing. I remember how me and Miss Jenkins used to talk about our blogs and one day we decided it’d be a genius idea to launch a group site. Originally, it was gonna be called Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. For whatever reason and probably for the better, we chose to go with a witty sexual innuendo. And since it was 2 men, 1 woman, and not a train, Three Ways to Take It worked perfectly.

We were all fans of simplicity, so it was easy to select a theme. None of us knew anything about banners so we left some generic sh*t with an umbrella there that had absolutely nothing to do with the site. Somewhere along the way, we scrapped that and moved to an even more simplistic theme that people told us reminded them of another popular blog. It pissed me off. But since I didn’t know a thing about website development and was too busy trying to write that hot fire, I let it go.

Just like any other blog that has well-written and interesting content, we grew. 200 views became 1,000. We cheered and drank. 10 comments—5 of which would be from us—became 100 comments. We high-fived and took shots. 100 subscribers became 400 subscribers and we ordered strippers against the wishes of Miss Jenkins. Somewhere along the way I promised RCLS all the ganja he could possibly inhale in exchange for a weekly posting. Then he told women why they should swallow and traffic blasted off. It exploded so much that we won Best New Blog in the 2009 Black Weblog Awards. Not too bad eh?

We continued with much of the same in 2010 with the theme you see today, but things started to change. As we each reached new achievements in our lives away from the keyboard, it became a challenge to stay on track online. Where we used to lurk in the comments all day, we had to start allocating time just to do so. Seattle and I ended up in new gigs in NYC, RCLS was busy wearing suits and proving that dark-skin negroes know how to talk, and Miss Jenkins was tugging on her perm in some exam or lost in Lexus Nexus at some firm. 2010 was a great year for us personally, but it obviously took its toll on the blog and led us to the point that we’re at today.

**Takes a sip of vodka from a 2nd glass on the podium, takes a deep breath, puts hand over microphone, then tells himself not to bitch up**

I was gonna say that I’m not sad that this chapter of my writing is coming to an end, but I am. 3 Ways is probably the first thing that I actually built from the ground, developed into something appreciated by more people than I could have ever imagined, and will be bringing to an end. It’s tough not to feel some type of way when I consider the hours, energy, and heart I put into helping make this site what it is and was. And even though I’ll still be writing and running Single Black Male.Org as well as launching my own personal blog in the near future, it feels like I’m doing away with a part of myself that has shaped me and kept me sane during some of my toughest times over the last few years. It sorta feels like losing a best friend. Damn, I guess this is what passion feels like in retrospect.

Anyways, I want to thank all the people that have read from their phones, laptops, desktops, iPads, and whatever other devices are out there. It’s been an interesting journey as a writer and I can honestly say I’ve grown a lot in the time I’ve been writing for this blog. And as I said when I announced the we were closing down shop, don’t drop us from your RSS feeds yet. I’ll probably use the site to make an announcement about my personal blog and if anything else major should happen in my life. It’s been ridiculously real. As for everybody else still connected to me on social media, I’ll see you shortly.

Forever Thankful,

Make sure you add Slim and Crew on Twitter. We keep the party going all day long!

Those of you that really think I’m finna write a lovey dovey farewell post, raise your hand.

Those of you that are actually sitting somewhere with your hand raised, slap yourself with the other hand, then find the nearest window.  If you’re at least two stories up, just jump. Please.  Ok, suicide isn’t funny, but it’s just a joke.  Why so serious?

So I read Tiff and Seattle’s posts earlier this week, and I have to say, I cried, I laughed, then I cried again.  Their love for the site, the readers and the little community we built was evident in their postings.  And I’m pretty sure Slim’s gonna go on and on give his own eloquent musings as well tomorrow.

But…I’ve known these people for a few years, and have a pretty good handle on how their minds work because I’m psychic.  Since part of the appeal of Threeways was our refreshing and honest point of view, I’ve decided to share with you excerpts from the posts they really wanted to write, plus an excerpt from my post, had I actually written one.

Miss Jenkins

“…Much like my torrid one night stand with Seattle, I wanted this website to go on forever, but alas, reality has set in.  I’ve been able to grow right before your very eyes as a writer and a person over these past three years, and I will continue to bless these internets with my presence and serve up literary chin checks because I’m a muthaf&%@#$ gangsta.  But please believe once this day job money kicks in, the only thing I’ll be writing is checks, hopefully most of which are drawn on the Bank of Seattle Washington.  RCLS, drop dead.”

Seattle Washington

“…I know all of you adoring fans will miss me dearly, but never fear, because not only will I be on twitter, I’ll be tagging along on Slim’s tour of the country.  You won’t be able to miss me, I’ll be the guy standing on top of a car, wearing Gucci sunglasses at 3 AM yelling, “Ladies and Gentlemen…Six Foot Sexy has just left the building!!”  That’s actually how I leave most buildings anyway.  Like I told Tiff after I shtupped her, the pleasure was all yours, folks.”

The Formerly Honorable But Still Rather Articulate Award Winning RightCoastLexSteele, I Invented the Long Humorous Name Sh*t

“…I can promise you that I’ll sign up for twitter and you can follow me there, but I’d just be lying.  Despite the fact that I’ve written posts on two different blogs on a regular basis, have a Facebook page, an Android phone, Gmail, and numerous debit and credit cards, I’ve taken the moral stance that having a twitter account is just crossing a line of privacy that I’m not comfortable stepping over.  Go figure.  All is not lost however, for I shall make appearances over at SingleBlackMale.org every fortnight or so.   The rest of these hacks probably won’t admit it, but I know I’m the reason why you guys came back everyday, so hopefully my absence here won’t drive you into a Sheen-esque bender.”

Slim Jackson

“…Word.  Say it with me, now… B*tch, I’m about to blow up!  Seriously though, I don’t think I can sum everything about the Threeways fam up in one post, so this is actually a post to announce my 5 post series about my Threeways journey.  I’ll still be slanging the wordsmith bloggingsworth hotness over on SBM.org, on twitter and hopefully pretty soon live in a city near you.  So check in next Monday for the first post from my farewell series called “Getting These Lazy Negroes To Work.”

On the real though, it’s been real folks.  This isn’t a goodbye, just a See ya later…

**puts on dark shades and points two fingers to the sky**

Winning,

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I have a folder full of .gifs and pics that I wanted to use at some point. Now is as good a time as any.

It’s funny.

From the moment we started this blog questions were constantly asked to each other and ourselves. It ranged from “What will my pen name be?” to “Will they think I’ve gone too far with this one? to “Will I put my face out there?” to “How do we make this site even better?”  But when the time came to say goodbye, no questions were asked. I knew. I knew before we brought it up.  Mostly because my life has changed so much since we started about 2 and a 1/2 years ago.

In 6 months I had three different jobs, moved to two different cities, started really living my dream and career-wise ended up where I wanted to be 4 years from now. It’s been a tornado and I feel as if just woke up from a Dorothy-like dream. Except instead of ending up back home, wandering around in black and white, I’m in Chicago and I’m a nice chocolate brown. That only adds to the surreal feeling of it all.

All this change just added to the constant crossroads I stood at when it comes to Three Ways, the “Seattle Washington” name and anything else blog related. While my boy Slim, and many other writers, have embraced this blog world, eventually revealed their faces and jumped in head first (pause?), I held onto the anonymity and in turn held back a bit on my personal life. I admired the courage, but knew I couldn’t go balls to the wall with this blog thing. It didn’t feel right.

One, if it weren’t for my boy Slim Meech here, I’m not sure I would’ve even hopped on a site to write or been on Twitter with such frequency. Truth be told, I’m not even into the blog/Twitter thing like that. Don’t get me wrong, I had fun though. And two, there was always a small self-imposed wall between me and the Internet that I didn’t want to remove.

While I got personal a few times, there was much more I wanted to share on the blog and with the readers daily, but it felt like it was too close to home. Yet, I couldn’t hold up a faceless Seattle or constantly filter myself to keep any real details hidden.

So for better or worse, I pulled back. I delved into my writing at work, pushing further in my career and devoting my energy into other places I could actually put all of it into. I can see my exes shaking their head and saying, “He still ain’t changed.” Anyway, I wish I could’ve taken the proverbial trip, opened up, revealed my face, but my career is more important to me. Too important. And some things just don’t mix.

Nonetheless, I love y’all and the time here.

Even though I’m not on Twitter like that and am now leaving these e-streets, I had an amazing time. I learned a lot from the readers and my fellow authors, became a better writer, rekindled some old friendships, gained a few friends in real life as well as on the Internet and somehow had an e-kid along the way. Shout out to my e-baby momma Sowhatiff. Plus it was cool to be a C-rate online celebrity for a little. I’ll leave the A+ life to Slim, stay behind the camera and just be a part of his entourage. I’m calling it now folks – watch that man.

That’s it. I wish y’all the best. I’ll be checking in here and there. Shout out to my fellow writers, the cooler folks I met from the other blogs, the fans that have been here since day one as well as the readers that are just joining us. And to all the people that read but never comment, y’all still good with me. Well, that’s all I got. Til the next time.

Yelling, “Peace” with a Guinness in my hand and a smile on my face,

Make sure you add Slim and Crew on Twitter. We keep the party going all day long!

When we started this blog almost three years ago, I couldn’t imagine this day. I couldn’t imagine all the experiences I’ve had between then and now, the stories I’ve shared, and the responses I’ve gotten from our readers. I couldn’t imagine the transitions I would make as a woman, as a “writer”, as a student, as a soon to be career-lady. I couldn’t imagine the community that would become Three Ways.

Writing here started out as a hobby, then it became a part of my everyday life. And like life itself, my motivation for writing changed. My goals for writing shifted. My desire to share ebbed and flowed while I struggled in my personal life. I went back and forth between writing for laughs, to writing for impact, to writing for a cause, to writing for myself, and back again. All the while, as I went through all these transitions, you kept reading. You wouldn’t pop up in the comment section everyday (or ever); you wouldn’t always agree with what I had to say or how I said it, but you were still there, on the other side of the screen, somewhere, reading what I had to say.

You have no idea how humbling that is.

I will always be grateful to every reader who has passed through the pages of this site: those who started with us and who have since moved on, to those who are just joining us as we make the last curtain call. As a writer, my goal is to one day be transparent. To write uninhibited. To reach beyond my own insecurities. To tell my story. As a woman, I want those same things. This blog, your presence, your comments, your support, have been an invaluable part of my journey thus far, and for that, I thank you.

So what will I be doing going forward? Besides trying to find out Seattle’s place of employment so that I can collect my back-child support, I will be growing up. As many of you know, I have been a student all my life. This year, I will be graduating for the last time (I think) and will be making a huge transition into the workforce. This scares me to death, but I am excited as hell. For one, these loans are getting old. I’m ready to earn a paycheck. I’m also ready to see what the “real world” has to offer.

I will continue to write. I will be keeping up my tumblr and I will still be on the twitters. I’m working on a personal blog, but it is in its very newborn-like stages. Once it’s up and running, I’ll let ya know. Until then, stay hungry, stay humble, keep looking inward, and keep living life for you. I will be trying to do the same.

See y’all around the e-hood,

Make sure you add Slim and Crew on Twitter. We keep the party going all day long!

Even a hero needs eff off time.

Seattle Washington

Eff my vices. They’re hard to walk away from and they’re always right there wherever I turn.

Eff getting award and being too humble to tell folks about it. Shout out to my boy for telling me to announce it to the fellas at least. Pics to come.

I don’t give an eff about much else. Pops is in coincidentally town tonight and we’ll be at the award show stuntin. Hard.

God is good. Wow, can’t believe I just typed that.

Slim Jackson

Eff how squirrely my mind is right now because of all the stuff happening. Running a growing blog, handling the day gig, and filming a show. Life is picking up ridiculously.

Eff the fatigue still plaguing me. I really need to change my sleeping pattern.

Other than that, life is good.

Miss Jenkins

Eff spring break ending. My tanning isn’t done yet.

Your Turn,

The 3 Ways Crew

Make sure you add Slim and Crew on Twitter. We keep the party going all day long!