An Exercise in Futility- Just a Thought

8 Apr

God is love

And love is blind

 

And Ray Charles was blind

So Ray Charles must be…

 

GOD!

 

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Wednesdays are Awesome!

7 Apr

I want to start Wednesday with a song. Yes it will be that type of blog. It’s hump day and I am happy that the work week is halfway done.

Per the wiki entry:

Everlong” is the second single released from the Foo Fighters‘ second album The Colour and the Shape, released in 1997. The song was conceived when Dave Grohl returned home to Washington, DC following the initial recording sessions for the album. It was eventually recorded as part of the second set of sessions, which took place at Grandmaster Recorders in January-February 1997.

 

It’s from one of my favorite albums, The Colour and the Shape.

Enjoy bitches!

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Chelsea Walls Poem- I Want…..

6 Apr

I want to be a lost poem in a stranger’s coat pocket

That conveys the importance of you

To assure you of my desire

To assure you of my dreams

I want all the possibilitiesof you in writing

I want to give you your reflection

I want your eyes on me

I want to travel to the lightness with you and stay there

And I want everything before you to follow us and can trail behind me

I want to never say goodbye to you.

Even on the street corner or the phone

I want…

I want so much I’m breatheless

I wanna put my power into a poem to burn a hole in your pocket, so I can sew it

I want my words to scream through you

I want the poem not to mean that much

I want to contradict myself by accident and for you to know what I mean

I want you to be distant and for me to feel you close

I want endless days when it’s day and nighttime never to end when it’s night

I want all the seasons in one day

I want the sun to set up before us and come up in front of us.

I want to water up to our waists and I want to be drenched by rain up to our ankles with holes in our shoes

I want to think your thoughts becuase they are mine

I want only what is urgent with you

I want to get in the way of the barriers and I want you to be a tough guy when you’re suppose to be like you are already

And I want you to be tender

Ant I wanna say we met for a reason

And I want that reason to be important

And I want it to be bigger than us, I want it to take over us

I want to forget, I want to remember us

And I want your smile always and your grimaces too.

I want your scars on my lips

I want yor disappointments in my heart

I want your strength in my soul

And I want your soul in my eyes

I want to believe everything you say and I do

And I want you tell me what’s best when I don’t know

And when you’re lost I want to find you

When you’re weary I want to give you steeples, cathedral thoughts, and coliseum dream

I want to drag you from the darkness and kneel with you exhausted with the blinding light blaring on us…

And…

 

 

This is one of my absolute favorite poems. It’s from the movie Chelsea Walls.

 

 

Lunatics in Love

5 Feb

Flower was the new person that joined in the game of musical roommates I tortured myself into playing . Lizzie, one of my best friends had wised up and moved out into her own cubby hole. She had enough of all the craziness that had transpired between all the different people we had the so-called pleasure of living with. Her time was up and she was ready to move forward and out.

Eric(my current boyfriend at the time), Thomas, and myself had to find a replacement for Lizzie. We were still suffering from the battle wounds left from Hurricane Blithe and her psycho, drug-dealing, prostituting boyfriend. That’s a story for another time. We were also suffering from the disorder of being college poor. One of the major symptoms of this disorder was the predicament of not being able to afford the all the letters to spell the word “poor”. If we were playing Wheel of Fortune, we could only afford to buy one consonant and a vowel, hence spelling “po”. It’s a terrible disposition to be in.

That’s where Flower came in. Flower was one of my closest friends. We had been through quite a bit together. Boyfriends, ex-friends, being broke, having no food, crazy sex stories, and her ever so colorful, “There was this one time I was so high, I stayed in the restroom for hours talking to the cat food, because it had the answer to all the mysteries of the universe,” story that littered our conversations. We comforted each other over the crushes that we obsessively had on our “dream guys.” Overall, everyone got along with each other, having Flower as a roommate was going to be a plus and a step in the right direction. In my mind this was going to be the perfect set-up. Yet again, I should have noticed the trouble that was coming up the road, right as Flower moved in.

During the first week of Flower’s move in, the current boyfriend she was leaving, Matthew, decided to lose his mind the second she walked out of the door. She had prepared for the day to leave Matthew, but some reason it just didn’t seem to sink in till the week she actually left. That week, Eric, Thom, and I saw insanity at its best. Matthew decided that it was in his best interest as well as Flower’s to get her to move back in with him.

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

Unfortunately we all didn’t get the memo on this… but Matthew decided to stop by the house everyday to profess his love for her. And he showed it too, in many ways.

First, by climbing up the side of our three-storied townhouse, Flower was on the third floor of course. Matthew professed his love for Flower all night and during the day on his breaks from work. This went on for about two weeks.

Second, he would harass us about why she left him. In particular, he would harass me. Our typical conversations would go somewhat like this:

Matthew: Why, why would she leave me?

Me: (Silence and a blank stare)

Matthew: Didn’t you know she was going to do that? You must have known.

Me: (Silence again and a blank stare)

Matthew: Yeah you did and you didn’t tell me, that’s how I know you don’t like me. (Gulp)I love her so much!!!(Wheezes and cries)

Me: (Silence- insert crickets chirping and other various insect sounds going on in my head)

Lastly, he had this weird obsession about why I didn’t like him. Gee, I wonder why I wouldn’t. Maybe because he was a obsessive, controlling dispshit, who screamed to the tip-top of lungs like a banshee and climbed up the side of our apartment as if it were a jungle gym at the playground, disturbing us and the neighbors by being psychotic. But hey, what the hell do I know?!!

Now granted, she hadn’t completely broken it off with Matthew(why?, who knows?), but the only way to get rid of a crazy is to date another lunatic.

And that lunatic came in the form of a door to door magazine salesman named Bobby from Florida.

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Children of the STD

5 Feb

Calvin had always reaffirmed the idea that he wasn’t good enough for me and that I was altogether different from all the other girls he had ever dated. (Sounds of the world’s smallest violin playing) I thought he was full of bullshit until recently. I found out some disturbing background history and news about Calvin, that profoundly placed him in my big ol’ pile of stinky losers. He’s fits snugly right in between the male, drug dealing, prostituting, kleptomania suffering ex-roommate of mine and the ex-skinhead who perpetually cried at the drop of a hat. I will delve further with details on those crazies later.

I found out from the same coworker who reunited us together in the first place, (and by the way it didn’t feel so good!!) that apparently he had forgot to mention to me that he has a four year old child, that apparently nobody in his family knew about. My coworker had just found out about the child about two days before.

He has two children from a woman who literally tried to have him killed, like a scene from Pulp Fiction. Only thing missing was a gimp, Ving Rhames, and John Travolta dancing at Jack Rabbit Slims. This woman by the way is his current girlfriend and she cheated(while she was pregnant with the second child) on him with a guy who is..here’s a “Wild Things” moment; currently dating one of Calvin’s ex-girlfriends. It feels like a game of six degrees of Kevin Bacon is going here.

Here’ s another doozy, the aforementioned unknown male has came out of the closet. He’s gay. These people should be the poster children for STD, birth control and what happens, when a bunch of crazy ass people decide to share their loins with like…

EVERYONE ON PLANET EARTH!!

So to add insult to injury, Calvin ended up moving to the bustlin’ town of Shreveport. He had gotten a job opportunity to help out in the reconstruction of Louisiana in the aftermath of Katrina. But as always things in Calvin’s life goes awry, and of course he gets evicted from his apartment,and the FBI, Bomb Squad, and other various government security and policing agencies scoured his apartment because he had somehow managed to hoard grenades, bullets, and various other assault weapons and rifles from his stint in the military. They also found computer parts strewn across the apartment, from computers that he had taken apart and never got around to assembling them. So, he looked like a terrorist, or someone hiding terrorists, or someone who lives in a terrorist compound.

All in all, I would have to say that I lucked out. Maybe Calvin was right, maybe I was too good for him. No, actually he was definitely right.

Thank God for the small blessings.

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The Floating Dinner Tab and a Menage-a- trois

5 Feb

 

Now fast forward: 6 to 7 years later, I just got out of a long relationship, and have suffered through kissing a couple of frogs and having some hiccups along the way. I started working at my current job and befriended a coworker whom I discovered was related to Calvin. She proceeded to tell me about everything that had gone on in his life for the past 7 years. She informed me that he was released from the military and was living at home driving his mother crazy. Through my coworker, Calvin and I found ourselves talking again. But this time something seemed a little different about him, he seemed a little “touched”. We started hanging out again, and during this series of encounters I got huge signals to leave him alone.

SIGNAL 1: One night on my way home, I got a call from him. He asked me what I was up to and I told him that I was going to stop to get a quick bite to eat. He asked me where I was heading and that he would meet up with me. So I headed to one of my favorite Taquerias nearby. I sat down ordered my food and waited around for about an hour. He finally shows up, and places an order. We talk and catch up a little, and he proceeds to tell me that he really wants to be with me, but doesn’t know how he feels about the situation.. remember we just got reconnected. He doesn’t know anything about what’s been up with me, so he’s getting really intense pretty quickly. By the end of the night, our conversation had worn thin and I was ready to go. When I got my dinner tab, I noticed that it was pretty expensive for the food I had gotten. When I inquired to the waiter of what was going on Calvin decided to tell me that he added his food to my tab. He stated that he was broke and he thought I wouldn’t mind, if he added his food  on to my ticket.

Our conversation went like this..

ME: Ummm, you didn’t state anything about not having any money.
Calvin: You know I don’t have a job, so what’s wrong?
ME: Let me recant our phone conversation.. ummm lemme see.. yeah, you didn’t say anything about not having money or not having a job. How do you know I would even have the money to cover you?
Calvin: I dunno, you know I care for you.. so I thought you could cover me.

Anyway, to avoid having him wash the dishes, I covered his ass.

SIGNAL 2: A couple of weeks later, he decided to meet up with me and some friends at a bar. He had money this time. Seemed like everything was going okay, after we left the bar, we retreated to my friend’s apartment to drink more and chill. Calvin proceeded to attempt to make out with me and my girlfriend at the same time, by hiding it. He would feel me up inside the apartment and then go outside to feel her up. I caught on pretty quickly, cursed his ass out and lost his number quickly.

But like a life sucking parasite or a venereal disease you can’t seem to shake, he kept creeping back into my life.

SIGNAL 3: Months passed by and around my birthday, I received an email from him. Usually emails on a person’s birthday have the usually sentiments and salutations like.. “Happy Birthday” or ” I hope you are having a wonderful day today, best wishes” . But this email was different, it consisted of 12 simple words…

YOU AND ME
AND A THIRD GIRL
MENAGE-A-TROIS!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

That brought a tear to my left eye. The sad part is he was getting freaky after sending me a “GOD SAVES” email.

To be continued…..

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Crazy Ass People- Calvin

5 Feb

Last week, I learned about some disturbing news about a guy I had dated on and off over a period of time. For intensive purposes, names will be changed to protect the identities of the people involved in this story. This is part 1 of a three-part story….

Back in high school, I met Calvin* through one of my classmates, Lanelle*. She told me that she desperately wanted to hook me up with one of her cousins(Calvin). I was pretty skeptical about it and I was only 17 years old, to naïve to recognize or even realize what I was getting myself into.

On our “first” official date we went to see a movie, at the time he drove real fast and crazy in this cherry red Pontiac grand am. I don’t even remember the movie I saw. All I remember was that he had his tongue down my throat the whole night. He dropped me back at home after the movie was over and I never heard from him again or at least I thought it would be the last. The next day Lanelle*informed me that Calvin* must have really liked me because she caught him drinking kool-aid out of a champagne glass and dancing in his underwear. I laughed thinking to myself and believing in the possibility of having my first real relationship.

Silly, silly me.

Weeks would pass before I found out that he took off to join the military….

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R.I.P. Jerome Stevens

5 Feb

My grandfather Jerome and my great aunt Sis both died on Wednesday, July 18th.

It had been a while since I had last seen him.

I didn’t really see much of him when I was younger, I have little glimpses, little flashes of light posing as my memory of my grandfather. All I can remember was the fluffy gray and black hair with a pinkish-white patch on the right side of his head, the exuberant laugh, the round shaped blublocker glasses, and the quick talking that kept me in a daze. I constantly pull at my mother and ask:

“What did he just say?”

She would just shush me or sternly instruct me to ask him to repeat himself, to which that was a quest I would have no part of.

He would always question why we didn’t come by more often, and for many reasons, the excuses stretch over minutes, the minutes became hours, the hours became days, the days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years and suddenly I was about to graduate from high school.

I remember calling him up and I planned on inviting him to come to my graduation. He gruffly told me no, and then hung up on me. I was 18 years old and very angry at the time. From that point on I decided that I wouldn’t talk to him anymore. He had never did anything for me anyway.

And life continued on….

Until one day, my mother called me to tell me that grandpa had wanted to see me. He wasn’t feeling well and he wanted to see me one last time. I kept asking my mom why, why does he want to see me now. He had so many chances when I was growing up and of course there was that little important thing called a high school graduation, he skipped. I told her I would think about it. Time kept ticking away, and my mom kept asking me if I went to see him.

Eventually, I gave in and called him. He was happy to hear from me, he told me that he loved me and that he was sorry for yelling at me all of those years ago. See, what I found out later that prompted me to call him, was that he had a stroke. He was too embarrassed to come to my high school graduation because he could barely talk or walk. He didn’t want me seeing him that way. I promised him that I would come by and see him.

 It never happened.

So as I sat at the rickety funeral home this morning, with the water stained walls, tan carpeted accents and the cheap flourescent lighting, I looked around at the small room of people who were all there to honor my grandfather’s life. Unlike most blacks, his wish was to be cremated; but my grandfather was very unconventional.

The preacher made an interesting point, human beings can’t control our sunrise or sunset, but that dash or time in between the sunrise and the sunset is what we have all the power over. And it’s a short period of time, when you think about it.

November 23, 1931-July 18, 2007.

How did my grandfather use his dash? What am I doing with my dash?

I know one way I could have used my dash more, by making more of effort to forgive him and planning more time to see him. I wish I could have seen him right as his sun was setting. I would have sat there with him and told him:

“I forgive you.”

Rest in peace Grandpa, your sun has set, your ship has sailed… to someplace beautiful!!

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The Unwanted

5 Feb
He wanted me at first sight.
A yearning deep within
Year in, Year out
Until 5 years came
And went by
His love for me died
My heart squandered all

I am the unwanted

A year alone to devise my thoughts
I search for a father that labeled me his “Little Child Lost”
Wondering and waiting for his call
He finally called, and I was found.

He turned my world upside down
Denying my existence denying me
I wasn’t his child now, nor will I ever be
He didn’t want me

I am the unwanted

Damaged goods was what I became
I tried to figure out a way to numb the pain
Praying and hoping that one day I would fall asleep and never wake up.

Until I met the man who helps me breathe
He is my biggest supporter
But he’s also my harshest critic
He loved/loves me with ease and difficulty
He sees things in me that I don’t see

Then August came and we almost went away….

I am the unwanted

Similar to his love that comes and goes, so does he
It reminds me of my younger days when I picked petals off of a flower

August- He wants me not
September- He wants me
October- He wants me
November- He wants me not
December- He wants me
January- He wants me not
February- He wants me
March- He wants me
April- He wants me not

The flower has been plucked naked just like my spirit.
It’s vulnerability I wear on my sleeve

I am the unwanted

By April’s end, I was sick as can be
Didn’t know I had a baby that dying inside of me
Everything seem surreal to me
Mom’s too caught up in her complex web of deciet and attention

To give or provide any adequate affection
All she talked about was her baby to be
Even though she wanted to die during my infancy
She never really wanted me
Never really once seeing me
Dying slowly on the inside, which seemed like an eternity

So anyone can see
It seems that nobody wants me

My first love…
The sperm donor…
The one who helps me breathe…
My mom…
And the baby who never came to be..

I am the unwanted

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Barfly

5 Feb

I thought I start my blog off with a poem, I am collecting together some stories to chronicle the many misadventures of life.. The title of this poem is entitled Barfly. It’s an ode to my flagrant and numerous liaisons of drinking and getting tipsy.
Enjoy.

BARFLY

Barfly..
Every Sunday by and by
Time after time
Week to week
Month to month was I…
I became a barfly with my own unique style
And sense of self…
I venture to and fro
Bar to bar to bar
To pub
Meeting people that amuse and satisfy…
My willing appetite’s hunger for zeal, zest and life.

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