Foolish Pride

*Got a break from the kid and the Hobbled One. Quick post!*

A friend of mine posted a status on Facebook talking about how she hates to ask someone for help, especially when there's a possibility of the person throwing it back in her face. She concluded by saying that pride is her own worst enemy. I feel ya, sista. I feel ya. Reminds me of one of my favorite Jay-Z verses from The Black Album...

I don't ask for nothin I don't demand of myself:
Honesty, loyalty, friends and then wealth
Death before dishonor
and I'll tell you what else...
I'll tighten my belt before I beg for help
Foolish pride is what held me together through the years I wasn't felt
Which is why I aint never played myself
I just play the hand I'm dealt
I can't say I never knelt before God
and asked for better cards
sometimes to no avail
But I never sat back feeling sorry for myself
If you don't give me heaven
I'll raise hell... til it's heaven.

My pride has toned down drastically over the years, but back in the day...Whew!

When I was little, my grandmother used to share her Yoda-like views on life. "Trust them new niggas over there, don't you!" "Hold things over your head, they will." I grew up afraid to take rides home from school from my friends' parents because my grandmother basically likened it to accepting a vial of crack from the dope man.

Over the years I tested her theory and 90% of the time she was right. Sometimes foolish pride is fueled by jackasses who use your moment of vulnerability to see if they can break you. Case in point: Remember the story about me almost winning the track race only to end up on crutches? If you don't here it is: Click Me. At the end of that story I needed a way home because I was in an insane amount of pain and needed a ride either to the emergency room or home so that someone there could take me to the emergency room. None of the coaches would take me home. The only reason given was that I lived too far away and they didn't want to get stuck in traffic.

I remember losing my bus token and the metrobus driver putting me off. I walked back to the school to see if a teacher would loan me a dollar and the sea urchin who ran the office wouldn't even let me back in the building despite me telling her what happened. So I ended up walking the four miles to my house. Then there was the time I found myself actually accepting a ride that a friend's mom offered. Immediately it turned into a 15 minute lecture on me inconveniencing her and her only offering the ride because it was late. "Where are your parents? Why didn't they come pick you up?"

Eventually you get to the point where you don't even bother to ask for help. You assume the worst of people and even when someone nice comes along, you just assume they're gonna turn out to be an asshole too. So when I was 16 and found myself stuck at Pentagon City Mall one night because I couldn't find my money or my farecard, I didn't even bother asking a stranger for help. I considered it, I won't lie. I stood outside the gate at the subway station for a good ten minutes trying to coax myself to explain my situation to the station manager with the hope that he'd see I was a minor and let me in for free. I even considered asking a passerby to loan me one dollar, but every crackhead in DC uses the "I lost my money and need to get home" excuse.

There was one woman who looked like she might believe me. She looked like a Sunday School teacher, but as soon as she laid eyes on me, she clutched her purse and that was it for me. I felt so bad to be helpless in the first place and I didn't think I could keep it together if someone cursed me out of accused me of lying or something, so I walked up the escalator, went down the street and didn't stop until I got to the 6th Street Exit.

Yep, I walked across 395 at 11:30 at night by my 16 year old self. People threw stuff at me, people swerved over onto the shoulder like they were gonna hit me and surprisingly about 5 different cops passed me without so much as slowing down. I could've gotten off as soon as I got to the DC side, but I was so pissed that I became defiant and said, "I'm gonna walk all the way to my exit." 5.2 miles later, I was off the highway and another hour or so after that I was home.

Foolish Pride, but pride nonetheless. Still beats low self esteem.

Stick the Landing

There won't be a post today. The lady that I married fell and sprained her ankle, so I'm Stay at Home Dad and Stay at Home Husband today. There's no hour of solitude (escape from the baby) because a hobbled woman is no match for my daughter. She had her leg elevated on the ottoman and my daughter began the first wave of her attack by picking up the bag of frozen peas on her ankle and dropping it back down from various heights. Wave Two was the old "climb up on mommy, starting with her ankle" routine. Finally, she just stopped being discreet and picked up one of the crutches and started banging her in the ankle with it (Tonya Harding in the making).

I won't lie and say that I'm not worn out and completely spent, but I'm gonna do for her what I wish had been done for me. I already wrote about my family's views on illness and injury: Unless it's something that won't grow back or heal before you die...keep it movin! I'm trying to get away from the old Allen remedies of baking soda, epsom salt and green menthol alcohol. Instead, I'm trying some of this fancy 21st century stuff like icing, bandaging, elevating and staying off the injured ankle. If that means that I have to wait on her hand and foot then so be it.

I was telling her how I sprained my ankle about a mile away from my house in high school and still had to go to the Safeway to pick up some stuff for my grandmother. I used the fences along the way to support my weight (and the two bags I was carrying) as I hopped all the way home. So please understand that when Kerri Strugg landed on one foot during the vault, I didn't see the big deal. My grandmother would've made her go do a floor exercise right after.

So, no post...Hopefully we'll resume tomorrow.

 

Threats

Okay so there was the shooting in Colorado last week and then today the cops raided a guy's house in MD who threatened to shoot up his office. They found 20 guns including a few rifles and assault weapons. This really makes me rethink those phone conversations back as a customer service rep.

No one ever calls a health insurance company when they're happy. In training they'd play calls but it was always to show us how fast we needed to be in locating information on the computer. Even when they played a "problem" call it was someone who sounded slightly annoyed. "Well gosh darn it, I just think this is unacceptable." I sat in training like, "I got this in the bag."

I quit after just three hours on the phone. My first call was that "gosh darn it" call and that was the nicest person I talked to the entire time I worked there. Every call after that was, "You stupid sons of b*tches!" After about 30 of those, I grabbed my coat, took my lunch out the drawer, logged out the computer and left my badge on the desk. I went outside and got in my car and just as I was about to pull off I thought about the fact that our fridge was empty and my wife was unemployed. I hung my head, grabbed my keys out of the ignition and went back inside.

I didn't get my first death threat until maybe day 4 or 5. The guy was mad because his policy was canceled after 4 months of nonpayment. He "ordered" me to reinstate his policy and when I told I couldn't he told me he was on his way up with a gun and was gonna blow my brains out. It was my first non-hood death threat, so I was a little nervous. I asked my cubemate if I should notify someone and she shrugged it off with, "They always say that." Just in case, I developed an exit strategy of tossing the computer monitor and chair out the picture window next to me and jumping into the tree outside the window. I even started parking my car underneath so that I could land on/fall through the roof.

By the end of my three years I probably got about a hundred subsequent death threats. As much as I wanted to, I never said, "You do know that we record these calls right? You also should know that all of the information that you put on your file is on my screen right now. So, John Smith of 123 Paper Street with wife Jane Smith who works at 111 Main street and has a daughter Jill who goes to ABC University are you really threatening me when all you know is my first name?" I never said it because I like having a job. Considering what I've seen on the news lately, I think I might have taken the people a little more seriously.

 

Temper Temper

It's getting harder and harder to go a full week without a gap in posts. I urge you guys to send complaints to the person in charge of programming:

The Child
4228 Wisconsin Ave NW
Washington, DC 20016

Some of you may have met her. If you've been in Giant, Safeway, Wheaton Mall, The Smithsonian or Wholefoods and you heard a child screaming at the top of their lungs and saw a handsome chocolatey short guy pushing a stroller with a twinkle of hope in his eye slowly fading away then that was her. She says Hi!

I've heard about terrible twos but goddamn. This girl has literally changed overnight. I wrote a post a long time ago about her having a meltdown in Nordstrom and me being confronted by the expectations of black and white individuals to pull a pot of soil out of the diaper bag, plant a tree, wait for it to grow, grab a switch from it and then beat the hell out of her. The black ones were cheering me on like the background people on the Streetfighter II game. The white ones had child protective services on speed dial. All were disappointed, because I used my Sesame Street voice to feign concern for her temper tantrum. Well that's become an everyday occurrence now.

Her: Apple?
Me: You want an apple? Here you go!
Her: F@#% you son of a b$&# I'll kill you!!!
Me: ...?

Surprisingly, she's still alive. I'm trying to give these parenting books the benefit of the doubt. She has my wife to thank for that. It's only because I had to live with the warlock that my wife became during pregnancy that I'm able to tolerate my daughter during these trying times. Back then I'd just draw a pentacle on the floor, encircle it with some candles and sit in the middle to protect myself from her. I got a lot of reading done in those circles and the parenting books would tell me that my wife was hormonal and unable to control her desire for blood sacrifices. Maybe the same is going on with my daughter.

[caption id="attachment_2558" align="alignnone" width="225"] What to expect when you're expecting[/caption]

She's freaking out for no reason because the hormones of her growth spurt are screwing up her wiring. Beating her with a tree trunk would only jostle that wiring even more. And if you think I'm wrong or have some science to prove that it's not hormones then just keep that to yourself. If there's anything I've learned from watching Batman it's this: Sometimes people deserve better than the truth. They deserve to have their faith rewarded. I'm the Daddy that she needs right now, but not the one that she deserves. I'm a silent partner, a watchful guardian...a Dark Knight.

The Young and the Restless

I just put my daughter down for a nap and judging by the condition of the house and how tired I am, you would think I just finished the Battle for Middle Earth. She doesn't do that heavy-eyed blink that normal kids do when they're tired. She's like a candle whose flame burns brightest near the end. You'll know that she's tired when she starts doing wind sprints in the living room while spinning in a circle like the Tazmanian Devil.

Maybe I'm getting payback from when I was a kid. When I look back at Head Start and Pre-School I realize that my teacher probably hated my ass. She didn't show it then, but, when I think about how my ONE child drives me up a wall, I can imagine that the thirty minutes that the 15-20 of us were supposed to sleep was like oxygen to that woman. My not going to sleep and constantly getting up to ask her what she was doing was my way of asphyxiating that poor woman. Just lie there and pretend you're sleep!

My kindergarten teacher, Ms Foushee (Foo-shay), didn't take any shit off us. This was back in the 80s when teachers used to beat kids in the classroom. Ms Foushee was quick to open up her drawer and look for an imaginary piece of paper as she said,  And Ordale, your grandmother gave me written permission to beat your behind if you act up! That's all it took. We'd all sit there with the lights off and our heads on our desks as she pulled her little portable TV out of her cabinet. Then as the piano intro started to The Young and the Restless we knew we were supposed to stay still until the saxophone came on for the intro to The Bold and the Beautiful.

Of course, being the mastermind that I am, I came up with a new plan. Now this goes to show just how engulfed she was in that show, because she didn't notice that me and the other four kids at my table would slip down to the floor and crawl to the coatroom where our backpacks were. We started bringing toys for the exact purpose of playing during that hour. I brought a flashlight from home and we'd sit in the dark playing with our stuff like we were running some kind of underground casino.

Then one day in the midst of us playing with the new Muppet Babies Happy Meal toys, that coatroom door flung open. As the light flickered on the first thing I noticed was that brownish yellow yard stick in her hand. In a raspy, church bulletin reading, old woman voice she said, I-I-I know y'all haven't lost your everlasting minds! The look on her face was what you'd expect if you caught teenage boys and girls in a closet together. We were five and innocently playing Muppet Babies. I was Gonzo. It didn't matter though. She beat the hell outta us, enough to the point that for the rest of the year I just kept my head on the table and tried to picture Victor telling Nicky he loved her, Cricket talking to Nina about Danny and Ms Chancellor being a wench. Then I'd go home and tell my mother what she missed on the stories while she was at work.

Join us again for The Young and the Restless

Roommates

Yesterday's post reminded me of something...I've been on my own for almost ten years now. I got my first apartment on August 2, 2002. I was twenty years old and realized that under no circumstances would I roll the dice again at a North Carolina Central University dorm. Part of my decision (but not all of it) was based on my luck with roommates.

I had four roommates in two years. Two weren't that bad, we just had lifestyle differences. One was just a blunt away from full glaucoma immunity. He smoked weed 12 hours a day in the closet by himself. Too many close calls with campus police forced me to move on. The other guy was like The Odd Couple. I sneezed and he'd scorch the earth with Lysol. He offered to teach me how to make up my bed because my corners aren't sharp. We split amicably to keep from killing each other. But...

I had a crazy roommate freshman year who was probably the sweetest and kindest guy in the world, and that made him public enemy number one as far as I'm concerned. When you're in the trenches of war the last person you want covering your back is a bright eyed bushy tailed pacifist. In his mind, our dorm was the Hamptons. In my mind we were in The Bronx. You don't leave your dorm room unlocked to go to the cafeteria in The Bronx. You don't fall for the "Your roommate said I could borrow his VCR" in The Bronx. He had to go. We can still be friends (Hell, in the future you're gonna be the best man at my wedding), but  I'm getting a different roommate.

Sophomore year I had a roommate who started off okay for about a week. Then I woke up one morning and he was sitting half naked at his desk sweating up a storm and chanting something like Rafiki from The Lion King. He had put a red light bulb in his lamp and was bopping up and down holding a cross. I'd been around plenty of crackheads in DC, but this was new. I grabbed a pair of those sharp metal scissors off my desk and put them under my pillow. He didn't seem violent, but just in case his God had a plan that involved me, I had a sharp metal object that involved him.

Things kinda went south after that. I guess during one of his seances to bring The Mummy back to life he was given a vision that girls shouldn't be in our room. It wasn't like I was running a brothel or anything. To be fair, I offered to keep them out when he was there, but he felt that it tainted the sanctity of our room to have them there at all. I countered with a very effective Last Dragon Sho 'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, 'NIG-GA PLEASE' stare. We made it a whole semester.

Finally, I got my own place. The roommates didn't scare me away. It was something else. I'll talk about that tomorrow.

 

College Bound

In an effort to depress myself I just googled tuition at random colleges. I was trying to get an idea of how much my rates should be when I prostitute myself to send my daughter to college. It depressed me, but for the wrong reasons. I was looking at the dorm rooms and the meal plans and I really wished I could drop out of this adult thing for a bit and go back to school.

I don't mean to finish my degree. I mean go back just to live there. I went to a small underfunded HBCU and my college experience sucked. I moved off campus my junior year, not because I wanted to join the exciting and fast growing field of paying bills, but because I got fed up with campus life. The funny thing is that my school wasn't bad per se, but I just had a string of bad luck that went on and on and on.

I have college stories that still give me night terrors. I could talk about the time someone went around peeing in the dryers or the time I got burned because the plumbing got screwed up and boiling hot water was flowing to the toilets. I could talk about how I had a crazy roommate who was borderline narcoleptic and used to fall asleep mid-sentence, drool like a heroine addict for twenty minutes and then wake up and keep talking. The next year I thought I'd do better and ended up with a roommate who used to get up at 5 in the morning, screw a red light bulb into his lamp and then start chanting and convulsing at his desk with a cross in his hand.

Those are the light stories, the ones that aren't worthy of a full blog post. I've seen some things man. I just wonder what it'd be like to go back to college now with the wisdom and pain that comes from paying bills for the last ten years. Also, I'd know not to pick a dorm on Skid Row. It's too late for me. My daughter is up to bat and while I want to be happy knowing that she'll get to have a better college experience than I did because she'll have two parents who actually went to college, I also remember some other things that happened in those dorm rooms. She may just be living at home...forever.

 

A Long Day

I have absolutely nothing to write about today. I'm tired and that seems to be my default setting these days. It's hard to believe that people used to tell me "Get some rest. You're running yourself ragged." Maybe that's it. I used up all of my energy in my teens.

In high school I'd get up around 7 in the morning. I had five minutes to get ready and then I'd be out the house so that I could play tag with the driver of the 7:06 bus. That bastard would see me running and speed up so that he could beat me to (and drive past) the bus stop. This was back in my track days, so I won most of the time.

One hour and one bus transfer later, I'd be at school. That's when I'd finish the rest of my homework that the concentration camp leaders gave us to do and then I'd give my blood offering to the education process for six and a half hours. Then I'd go to track practice for 90 minutes and then change into my work clothes. Forty Five minutes, one bus and one subway ride later, I'd be at the movie theater in Pentagon City where my job was to waste away my youth.

I worked from 5:30 to 11:30 and then I'd scramble to get to the subway before the last train. I'd get to my stop around midnight and then walk another mile to my house. I'd get in the house and make myself something to eat for dinner. Nine times out of ten it was a hot dog, oodles of noodles, a can of Bruce's Yams and some grape Kool-Aid. I know that's random, but we seemed to have an abundance of those.

Around 1 in the morning I'd make a half-ass attempt to do some homework. My school prided itself on giving out 2-3 hours of homework a night. I prided myself on not caring so they got about an hour of homework out of me. At 2 in the morning I'd usually start counting on my fingers the number of hours I had left to sleep. I'd end up talking to some girl on the phone for a half hour (Uh uh, no I'm not sleep) and then I'd go to sleep.

If I have any former high school teachers reading this, now you know why I kept falling asleep in your class. The weekends were no better. I just went to two jobs instead of one. I remember one teacher in twelfth grade came upon this profound idea: Why don't you just quit your job!? She then gave me the After School Special speech about how I was smart and had a future and I could be on the honor roll like so and so if only I applied myself and quit my job.

I can't remember exactly what I said, but it had a lot of words that you're not supposed to say to teachers. Something along the lines of:

Do you know how much bus tokens cost? College applications? How about deodorant, lunch money, laundry money, class dues? Then I pulled out my pocket organizer and showed her my list of expenses for the month. Do you really think I'm killing myself doing this because I WANT to? I don't have a choice.

She never brought it up again. Strangely enough, she talked to one of the administrators and got me a job at the school stamping textbooks, cleaning out lockers and organizing the files in the office. That just added another thing I had to do during my day.

The Boogeyman Is Real

I was going to write my review of The Dark Knight Rises until I saw what happened in Colorado. Now, my critique on a movie seems somewhat insignificant. Before my movie started a guy came in dressed up like Bane. His costume was authentic enough that people in the theater wondered if he was a fan or someone sent by the studio. Some people cheered as he walked in, but I immediately started counting the number of stairs to the exit.

Back in 1990 when The Godfather Part III came out there was a string of incidents where people were opening fire inside movie theaters. It happened three or four times, so at eight years old I added "getting shot" to my list of things that could happen at the movies.

When I got home and saw what happened in Colorado I was saddened by it for a number of reasons, some less obvious than others. I've always acknowledged that maybe I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to the amount of thought I put into personal safety, but I took it in good humor. An overzealous fan comes into a theater dressed like a movie character and I just naturally assume he's a lunatic who could shoot up the place at any minute. Yeah, I'm nuts.

But when I turn on the television and see that a man came in through the emergency exits with a gas mask on and tossed tear gas into the crowd and pulled out an assault rifle and a lot of people just thought it was part of the show...I don't get that sensation of vindication. I don't feel any of the joy that's supposed to come with See, I told you so! Instead I feel deeply disturbed that my most outlandish fears are grounded in reality. I'm saddened that the nightmares of my childhood are real.

Hotter Than July

It was 100 degrees yesterday. The windows of my car melted back down into sand. Still, you don't hear me complaining about it. I grew up in a special forces training camp not too far from RFK Stadium. I was part of a top secret program called The Poverty Initiative. My recruiter, Agent Grandma, saw to it that I was prepared to handle anything Mother Nature could throw at me.

Our outpost wasn't fitted with those fancy A/C units that you see in houses nowadays. No, our base was designed with the specific intention of being the world's largest heat sink, absorbing every single one of the Lord's bountiful sun rays. Agent Grandma was old school and believed that opening a window was beneath us. Instead she put up drapes...long dark drapes that were like giant runway lights directing even more radiation toward our home.

This was a woman who, to this very day, believes that microwave ovens cause cancer and thus refuses to allow one in her home. It's above my pay grade to know exactly what it was she saw during the war to make her distrust air conditioners, but to prevent old Charlie from sneaking one in the house she had all the electrical sockets specially designed to only have two prongs. In case someone did manage to sneak one in and find a Radio Shack that actually carried a three-to-two prong adapter, the security system would cause the Thomas Edison era fuse box to kill the power to the house. She was thorough.

Now that isn't to say that we didn't have some last resort cooling systems. She authorized the use of a fan for the downstairs area. That's fan (singular). One fan to rule them all. Whenever company came over I was proud to push the round thingy on the back to make it oscillate and share the gift of the arctic with everyone. Also, to celebrate my tenth anniversary with the agency she bought me a window fan for my room. Words fail to capture the way I felt when I first pumped 100 degree air from outside into my 115 degree room. It was like biting into a York Peppermint Patty (or sitting inside a convection oven).

I've seen things, boy. Things that would make a lesser man cry. I've seen ice cubes boil inside glasses of Kool-Aid and a pack of Skittles melt down into a simple syrup. So don't talk to me about hot. You lack the training and the qualifications to make that assessment. It's gonna be 95 degrees today. I think I might just put on a jacket.

 

Yelp Review of the Day

Big things have small beginnings.

I heard that in Prometheus this past weekend and, considering my current lot in life, I have to believe it. I was super hyped to see this blog mentioned in the paper a few weeks ago. I was honored to be asked to do a guest spot on the internet radio show shortly after and then to find myself as the Review of the Day for Yelp yesterday was an even bigger shock. Granted, it was just the DC area's Review of the Day, but still that's a lot of people to compete against.

I really want to believe that there is something to be had from this whole "writing" thing, but I can't lie and say that all of the people inside my head are in agreement. Everyone's blogging these days. I'm not the first person to talk about raising a kid. The English major inside of me weeps at the gigantic grammatical error that this blog has become. The future "I want to be able to get a job" me wonders if I've completely lost my mind by posting some of these things under my real name.

But deep, deep down inside there is a microscopic me standing there on a tiny pedestal wearing a Superman cape and looking off into the distance thinking "I'm gonna be famous one day!" I neglect to mention that "realistic me" has that little guy and the pedestal he's standing on locked inside a glass jar, on the top shelf in the back of the closet of a room in the basement that he doesn't go into. Still...he's there.

Random Daily Thoughts

Here are some random thoughts that popped in my head while I was clorox'ing the potty a second ago:

Random Thought #1

My life has become one long episode of that showLie to Me. I spend all day with this little girl trying to discover the truth. Just now she came to me and wanted a hug. That only happens in commercials when the dad comes home from work in a new Ford or something. What's her angle? Did she break something? Is there a spill on the floor? It turns out that she had gas and just wanted the relief that comes from her stomach pressing up against my chest and thus releasing her noxious chemicals into the atmosphere. She doesn't love me after all.

Random Thought #2

Why do I feel guilty for wrapping all the Dr Seuss books in my shirt. sneaking them out of the living room and hiding them in the bedroom? I read The Cat in the Hat seventeen times today and it's only 11:30AM. When I wasn't reading that, I was reading Fox in Socks. I have nothing to feel guilty about. I've done my duty to society. Before she was born I swore that she wouldn't be one of those kids babysat by the television, but I sure as hell just hit "Play All" on the Sesame Street folder on the DVR. My mistake was reading books to her with some theatrics and dedication. My wife had the right idea. Read it like an obituary and you'll only have to read it once. I'm the one who acted like I was auditioning for Juilliard.

Random Thought #3

I don't know what you're saying, but the parenting book says that I'm supposed to just play along. It was a lot easier when you just cried. I feel like I'm talking to James Brown. It starts off nicely with tayto cheep, tayto cheep. That means potato chip. Then it was war, war, war. That's water. I have no freaking clue what eg ga ie ghal ksje fie means. Then I end up feeling bad because you repeat it verbatim three times and look at me like I'm slow. Then you start crying like you're asking for oxygen and I'm denying it to you out of spite. I'm sorry. I want to communicate with you, but they don't make a Rosetta Stone for Gremlin.

Random Thought #4

I love my daughter. I want to believe that goes without saying. But am I wrong for drawing a parallel between that song in The Wedding Singer and completely polarized emotions that go with parenting? Even the strongest pragmatist has to admit that there was some rosy idea of what it'd be like to have a kid swirling around inside of them. Then you get one and they drive you insane some days. Maybe you'd find a small connection to this song too. Now of course not the part about "I hope you ...choke." But the whole transition from joy to despair...yeah that's kinda normal I guess.

Funny What 7 Days Can Change

Today is Sunday. By the time you read this it will be Monday. I usually write my posts the night before during the one-hour sweet spot that my wife gives me each night that I've creatively dubbed "me-time." It's a 60 minute respite from the child, kinda like a Scooby Snack, for keeping the child alive throughout the day. On the days when you don't see a post you can assume that I either fell asleep during "me time" or chose to spend it curled up in a corner beside a pile of my broken dreams. I want to do both of those things, but something is telling me to write. Friday was so bad that I really just wanna use the rest of today to get over it.

What happened?

Well let's see...Potty Training is harder than I thought. About four or five months ago she was fully trained. If she had to go then she'd say, "Potty. P-O-T-T-Y. Potty." I'd take her and she'd go. It was like putting a man on the moon. All the people who live inside my head were standing around inside the control room wearing white shirts and black ties congratulating one another. It was one small step for man, one giant leap for our finances. Do you know how much diapers cost?

I don't know if she mistook my pride for insolence or something. Maybe she found the list of stuff we were gonna buy with the $60 a month we'd save sans-Pull Ups.  All I know is that she regressed with a passion. It seemed almost deliberate. No more "P-O-T-T-Y." No more anything. She'd just stare at me as she shat in her Pull-Up. Fine. Message received. We backed off for a while. Let her breathe. Then came last month. We went back to potty training. Things were looking up...until Friday.

To quote Jay-Z and Too $hort, "It was all good just a week ago." Last week she was going to the potty with no problem. We even got some "victory" Sesame Street underwear (freedom drawers, if you will). Then Friday she started peeing off schedule. No big deal. Then she shat in her diaper. I wrote it off as an accident. Dora did ask some tough questions that day. I can't expect her to unlock her mind and control her bowels at the same time. She's only human, right?

But then she went again about 30 minutes later just as we were about to leave the house. It wasn't that excusable diarrhea consistency either. No, this took effort to push out. I was pissed because it took forever to get her dressed. Getting a two year old dressed is like reenacting a coyote-roadrunner cartoon in your house. I kept my cool though and stuck to the script. As a parent you have to remember your lines and stay in character.

You can't tell them that the family car is about to be towed because you're parked in a rush hour lane and it's almost 4:00. You can't tell them that you have no problem putting Dora and Elmo up for sale on Craigslist to cover the cost of getting the car out of the impound lot. Instead you just recite your lines, "Sweetie you had an accident. You have to tell Daddy the next time you have to boo-boo."

We went to the store and came back about 20 minutes later. I sat on the couch and tried to relax a bit by watching some TV. The kid was calm and acting normal again. The whole house was quiet except for the television and that sent my parental spider sense tingling. Unless they're asleep, quiet=bad when you have a kid. I looked down and she was playing innocently on the floor...with a handful of shit.

Not only did she go on herself, but she went into the Pull-Up and pulled some out and was making some kind of artifact on the recently cleaned carpet. I'm not talking about a wet-vac or The Rug Doctor from the grocery store. Our rental office actually paid someone to come in and do annual cleaning. It took a whole day and a half to get the carpet to dry and only three minutes for her to draw some cave painting on the floor.

I was done. I checked out at that point. It wasn't like going on herself was theonly crazy thing she'd done that day. The potty malfunctions were like the intermission between her usual "I'm a two year old ball of energy" antics of the day. I grabbed her by the wrists so as to not get any of it on me and tried to walk her to the bathroom. The floor looked like that "Footprints" poster (the one about Jesus carrying someone) because she'd apparently painted her feet with it first before going to the carpet. So I had to pick her up. I just dropped her in the tub and gave her a civil rights movement "We shall overcome" shower with the handheld shower head.

I dried her off and put her in the high chair while I spent the next hour cleaning the carpet. Fast forward to now and I'm still trying to get over it. All I keep thinking...

"It was all good just a week ago."

The Oath

Going to the playground is one of the leading causes of stress for me. It's not because my daughter runs around like she's been hooked up to a Red Bull I.V. drip, although that certainly doesn't help. More than anything physical, it's a mental fatigue. When it comes to the playground I abide by what I consider to be the parental equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath. The version that I created and repeat to myself whenever I step foot on a playground is:

I swear to fulfill to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will monitor, engage and interact with my child at all times

I will protect my child from herself

I will, so long as it does not conflict with the first two, protect someone else's child

I will consider all children more than two inches taller or two years older than my child to be a threat to her well being

I will treat all other adults as potential abductors, registered sex offenders and harbingers of the Outbreak virus

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter.

It sounds simple, but living up to this is incredibly tiring. I'm always conscious of the fact that the door swings both ways when it comes to this oath. On the one hand, I want to shotput the bigger kids who nearly trample my daughter, but before I can do that I have to run and grab her before she blitzes the line of one year olds sitting near the sandbox. My daughter is simultaneously predator and prey in the jungle gym.

Then there's the whole issue of, well, me. To my daughter I'm Daddy, King of the World. I'm a doctor, chef, teacher, potty training coach, recreation coordinator, etc. To every other adult, I'm a potential child molester. (Rule #5 of the oath) It helps that we're usually the only two Black people on the playground. That way they can easily answer the question every single parent has when they see a man on the playground, "Is he here with a child?" A quick scan of the playground, match the two dark pairs and bam...questioned answered.

I don't take offense, because every time I see a man go near his lower body, whether it's to scratch his knee cap or get keys out of his pockets, I'm counting in my head how long it takes him to return his hands to an acceptable place (by his sides), before I run him off the playground. Still, when it comes to Rule #3 (protect another kid), it gets tricky.

Someone left the gate unlatched at the playground and I saw this 2-3 year old girl pull it open and start to walk out. I looked around and couldn't figure out who she was with. My natural instinct was to run and get her, but immediately I thought about how it would look if the parent happened to look up and see me with their child outside the gate. If it were the other way around, the man wouldn't have time to explain. If he ever regained the ability to talk, walk, feel and breathe unassisted, then he could explain that it was a misunderstanding.

I yelled at one of the nannies, "Is she yours?" She wasn't but the lady ran and grabbed the little girl. If it had come down to it, I would've gotten the little girl, but I would've taken my daughter out of the swing first and carried her with me as sort of a shield. Luckily it didn't come down to that and if I can stick to rule #1 then I won't have any misunderstandings of my own.

The Perfect Tan

My mind goes to strange places. I was sitting at a stoplight yesterday when this White woman walked in front of my car. This is gonna sound weird, but she had the perfect tan. If tans could be measured on a scale there would be the guy from the movie "Powder" at one end and a person who took a few Ambien and passed out in the sun on the other end. This lady was perfectly in the middle and I've never seen that before.

It was a long light so I started wondering how she got it. Tanning bed or sunbathing? Then I thought to myself, "I wonder if another White person could tell the difference?" Women can point out a weave, wonderbra and girdle in a heartbeat, so it stands to reason that another White person could tell me how she got that tan.

Why the sudden interest in tans? No reason. It's not like I can get one. Black people do tan, but at my complexion you have to be practically sitting on the surface of the sun to get one. I'm not checkerboard Black, more like an Ikea Mahogany. I'm just dark enough to be pretty much impervious to the sun (knock on wood. I don't want skin cancer...we get that too). Although after my cruise to the Grand Cayman I was a nice rich M&M brown.

I don't know, I just found it interesting because it's something I've never really thought about. I know how the process of tanning works (the sun reacting to the melanin), but as a darker skinned Black person it's something that I just don't do. I put the question up there in the same category of racial exclusivity as the ones I used to get from the White girls in Duke about my hair. I had cornrows in college and they loved to touch and play in my hair especially on those "in between braidings" days when I had it out in my 14 inch radius afro.

My Black female friends took offense. "I'm not some dog you can pet!" But I didn't have a problem with it. As long as they didn't have an issue with me touching their hair, it was cool. They'd never seen Black people before or at least been close and comfortable enough with one to touch his hair and I'd never been close enough to someone who had straight hair that wasn't the result of Dark & Lovely, Motions or PCJ relaxers. I like exploring racial differences. I just don't like it when it's done from a place of bigotry.

So anyway, I wondered to myself how the intricacies of a tan work. Can you get one in a couple of hours or does it take a few days of repeated application? How do you get a tan but not sunburn? Do you have to factor in your upcoming outdoor activities? I know when you cook meat they say to take it off the heat before it reaches its final temperature. It's gonna keep cooking even after you remove it so you don't want to ruin it. Do tans work like that? If you walk 30-45 minutes to work each day in the sun, do you stop tanning prematurely so that your daily commute can "finish" it?

These are the questions that popped in my head as I waited for a very long light to change. Moments like these are why I need close White friends who would answer these questions without thinking I'm crazy. In return, I'd explain concepts like "ashy," and why most Black women swear by shea butter, which quite a few White people tell me they've never heard of before.

Oh well.

 

Back From The Pediatrician

Just came back from the pediatrician. I learned something new today: My child gets special treatment. And that's not a good thing.

The exam room walls are very thin which allows you to eavesdrop whether you want to or not. I heard peculiar things like

"Okay Julie we're gonna look in your ears."

"Matthew's getting one shot today mom." (He screams) "Good job Matthew."

"I'm listening to your heart. Hold her tight mom. Okay, all done."

[caption id="attachment_2469" align="alignnone" width="300"] Weird.[/caption]

Very peculiar indeed. Why? Because they do none of that with my daughter. You have to remember that my daughter came into the world with a rap sheet. While the NICU nurses were trying to suction the merconium from her nose and throat, she grabbed the tube and yanked it out. Then she rolled over on her stomach which is something two-minute-old babies shouldn't be able to do.

Since she was born people have been telling me how strong she is. The doctors say she's in the 98th percentile for height, weight and head circumference. The latter comes from me. The height thing...who knows. The point I'm trying to make is that my daughter is bigger, stronger and faster than the average kid. They tried that Sesame Street approach before. They won't make that mistake again. It was like watching Jason Bourne take out a room full of cops. Here's a picture of her going in for her checkup today taken from a surveillance camera in the office.

[caption id="attachment_2470" align="alignnone" width="604"] Take no chances[/caption]

 

It becomes a special forces strike team operation when my daughter shows up. "Okay Dad, you secure her legs. Nurse #1, you hold her arms. Nurse #2, keep her head steady. I'll use my body weight to restrain her torso." And that's just to listen to her heartbeat. None of you have the security clearance to know what they do to actually give her a shot.

 

 

 

Is He Dead?

I took my daughter to the playground the other day. She ran behind some little kid and fell. She got back up and continued playing.

That's the whole story. Thanks for reading. Oh wait, let me mention my sponsors...

This story was brought to you by competently designed playground equipment. She hit the ground and I noticed she bounced a little. That's because the playground she has today is covered in some rubbery material. Don't get me wrong, I used to bounce when I'd fall back in the day, but mine had something to do with physics. "For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction." You hit solid concrete (not rubbery) as hard as I did and the force of your bones breaking is matched by an equal and opposite bounce.

It's not completely the playground's fault. I was stupid. There was the time I thought I could do what I saw the trapeze artists do at the circus. I swung back and forth on the monkey bars and then tried to go from one bar to the other without actually extending my arms for the next one. I thought that momentum would carry me forward to the next bar.

It kinda did.

I went forward, my finger tips touched the bars as momentum carried me forward at a downward slant. My head went back towards the ground, my fingers briefly grazed the bars and then I regained consciousness about fifteen seconds later with a playground full of kids staring at me.

Why is the first question always "Is he dead?"

Then there was the time I thought I had a Guinness Book-worthy talent. I could jump outta the swings like nobody's business. I was Spiderman of the playground. I'd swing real high and time it perfectly so that I could leap forward and land about 15-20 feet away near the slide. All the smaller kids would stand in awe of me. I'd sign autographs.

Then one day it was breezy and something flew in my eye just as I was taking flight. I landed, but lost my footing and tripped as I touched down. My body continued forward, although I was now in the flying Superman position. I "flew" a few feet. Then I stopped. Then I was in the "just slammed head first into the metal side of a slide" position. That's the one where everyone crowds around and asks

"Is he dead?"

But winners never quit (neither do losers) and I got back on the horse the next day. I was back to my old self. A few days after that it was chilly, so I wore a jacket...a jacket with pockets on the side...a jacket with pockets that were in exactly the right position so that when you get really high on your swing... and motion to jump out...they catch the little hook that connects the swing to the chain...then you feel a tug...not a big tug...just enough of a tug to pull you back towards the swing... which is no longer beneath your bottom and is now behind you...meaning you get yanked backwards and down so that you are now falling to the nice un-rubbery concrete below. It is there that your head hits the ground slightly before your neck and spine. You're slightly unconscious when your legs make contact with the ground. You're also unconscious when they ask

"Is he dead?"

But you wake up when some adult stands over you saying. "No, he isn't dead, but I bet he won't do that dumb shit again."

What Just Happened?

It took me about five minutes to toast the potato bread, to cut up the onions and tomatoes and to spread the mayo, brown mustard and pinch of oregano on top of my $11/lb ham and my $8/lb mild cheddar cheese. The ratio of ham to cheese was a steady 3:1. I even sliced it in half and made it pretty on the plate.

Then all of a sudden a random vulture soared from the floor, violently landing in front of me and perching itself on the edge of the table where I was eating. It lifted the bread, licked the mayo off the cheese before throwing the cheese to the floor. Then it grabbed two slices of ham off my sandwich and put the bread back on top.

It stood there staring at me defiantly as it ate my ham slowly and meticulously as if my bewildered mouth-wide-open stare meant "enjoy yourself." When the vulture was done and the ham was gone it had the nerve to pick its sippy cup up off the floor, shake it in front of me and say "Wa-ter, Wa-ter, Wa-ter!" Then grabbed my hand, led me to the fridge, opened it and pointed at the water pitcher before handing me the sippy cup.

So in the words of her apparent mentor:



 

Ringing in 30

So yeah, my birthday was Friday as well. I didn't really bother writing about myself, because the infidels in my inner circle seem to only focus on "the child" who also shares my birthday. We had a great time. My daughter turned two. Enough about her. lol I turned thirty and I could think of no better way to celebrate it than to spend it with my wife, daughter and go visit one of my oldest friends who lives in Philly.

I think the whole "City of Brotherly Love" thing is more of a self-help daily affirmation or maybe a bucket list goal that someone came up with. I have never seen so many angry people in my life. I took a poll in my head and after crunching the data, I'd say that 92.5% of the people I saw were having a bad day. Once I was able to get around that, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. My friend played Tour Guide Barbie, so we saw all of the sights and I got to finally run the "Rocky Steps" which has been a goal of mine since I was a little kid.

The next day we went to New York. Somehow my wife managed to be the only human being on the East Coast who has never been to NYC. We gave her a quick 4 hour tour of the city by car. We went across the Brooklyn Bridge and grabbed a slice of pizza. Then we went to Junior's Restaurant for a slice of cheesecake.

sidebar: Best damned cheesecake I've ever had in my entire life. When I die, throw some in the coffin with me. I see why Puffy sent Da Band to go get some.

After that we headed to the Financial District in Manhattan so that I could take a picture with the Charging Bull. Maybe giving a burnt offering to the bull will give me better luck in the market this year. We rode past the new WTC tower and then headed to Central Park. I squealed like a little girl when I looked over and realized that we were stuck in traffic in front of "Spook Central" from Ghostbusters (my #2 favorite movie of all time). I took about a thousand pictures of that and then made our way through Times Square.

The whole trip culminated at Sylvia's in Harlem where I had the best macaroni and cheese on Earth. I have no doubt that it was served at The Last Supper. We turned around, went back to Philly to drop Tour Guide Barbie off at her house and then went back home.

Great time, great birthday and now I have the whole house to myself while the wife and little one are out. I'm about to lay on the floor, stare at the ceiling and enjoy complete silence. Also, I'll enjoy the security and peace of mind that comes in knowing the child is not in the house so you can lay on the floor and not worry about being impaled with a toy golf club, leaped on from the ottoman or smothered to death by a Pillow Pet.

Happy Birthday

July 5, 2010
approx 11 PM.

Doctor: You're dilated about blah blah blah
Me: The baby isn't coming in the next hour is she?
Doctor: Oh, no.

July 6, 2010
approx 5AM

Doctor: You're dilated about blah
Me: The baby is coming today, right?
Doctor: Oh yes.

approx 11AM

Doctor: You're dilated blah blah
Me: The baby is definitely gonna be born today?
Doctor: Yes. What's so special about today?
My wife: Today is his birthday.

I used to joke with pregnant women all the time. You're pregnant? Well you know July 6th is a good day to have a baby. It never crossed my mind that my first born would come on my birthday. Even when we got the expected due date, July 3rd, I thought to myself, close but no cigar. Then she missed her due date. Then none of the 4th of July fireworks did anything to scare her out. So on the fifth I was the most helpful man on Earth. I didn't want my wife moving at all for fear she would shake her loose.

I read all of the books. I watchedThe Miracle of Life. Nothing prepares you for a labor and delivery room. First off, the entire night was spent listening to other women scream for dear life in the surrounding rooms. Then came the decision of epidural or not. My wife went in there all GI Joe with the idea she'd deliver the baby herself to really get the "natural birth" effect. It was around hour number 5 when the nurse gave my wife the red pill. My wife thought that the last five hours were the main event and she was close to the home stretch. All that pain she felt was just part of being a woman but her journey was almost over and an Olympic medal was waiting for her at the finish line.

The nurse burst her bubble and did the Morpheus thing: "What if I told you that the last five hours were merely you stretching to prepare for the race and that you have about another 10 hours to go?" She unplugged from The Matrix. The anesthesiologist came, inserted the epidural and about six hours later that little button was my wife's new best friend. She was actually still pushing the button long after my daughter came out and the epidural bag was empty.

The delivery

There are some things that should remain unsaid. Until I get the counseling that I need, I will never get over what I saw in that delivery room two years ago. I don't know what I was expecting. I'm a pretty educated guy. I didn't think that doves were gonna fly out of it or anything, but I sure as hell wasn't expecting that. For about 12 hours nothing happened except my wife wincing over on the bed. Then the nurse came in and said, "You're at ten." The doctor showed up and since it's a teaching hospital about five other doctors came in.

So here we are with a crowd sitting on bleachers staring up my wife's vagina as we wait for my kid to come out. The doctor told her to push, the head moved forward. She stopped pushing and my daughter crawled back up inside. This went on for a few minutes then my wife decided she'd had enough. Her eyes rolled back in her head, smoke came out of her nose she mumbled something about "there is no Dana only Zool" and the next thing you knew blood shot out everywhere (not exaggerating) my daughter flew out and someone yelled "merconium."

A nurse hit the emergency button and a team of nurses came bursting in the door. The doctor explained that my daughter shat on her way out so we had to move fast. No tv-style "here's your baby," instead I had all of five seconds to cut the chord, they whisked her over to a table and started shoving tubes down her nose and throat to suction out all of the "stuff." All this time my daughter had yet to cry. She was purple and I was thinking the worst. I went over to the table and my daughter came online.

It was like when Li-lu was rebuilt in The Fifth Element. She roared, grabbed the tube and tried to pull it out of her mouth. The nurse said, "Is she rolling over? Grab her, I think she's trying to roll over." She looked at me, I said "it's okay" and she stopped. They finished their business, wrapped her up and handed her to me. We sat in a chair together while the doctors spent the next 20 minutes while all the kings horses and all the kings men tried to sew my wife back together again. No relatives could come in because they had to bring in someone to clean the blood up off the floor.

So I just sat there singing My Cherie Amor. It was the best birthday ever.

Rocket Man

Where are my manners? No holiday would be complete without another one of my Ducktales. I've already written about me setting the yard on fire. I can tell you about the time I found out why those fireworks from South Carolina are illegal.

The year was 1997. In keeping with the routine that I mentioned in the previous post, I was standing across the street from Lincoln Park waiting for the fireworks show to begin a few miles away down on The Mall. The usual crew was inside the park lighting the "good" fireworks from South Carolina and I decided that this year I'd go inside the park to watch instead of settling for the obstructed view across the street.

There's a huge statue of Mary McLeod Bethune in Lincoln Park. I can show you better than I can tell you.


 

People usually climb up on that to watch the fireworks. I had my five year old sister with me and both of us got up there. We were sitting there watching these two guys have an escalating fireworks battle. It started small with bottle rockets, then they brought out the little spinners that light on the ground, lift into the air and explode. This went on for about 20 minutes before one of them decided to bring out the big guns.

He had this big cylinder that he placed on the ground with a long fuse. He lit it, ran away and one-by-one it shot off about fifty little rockets that each exploded once they got about twenty feet in the air. The other guy, not to be outdone, pulled out something similar except his was a giant box. He lit it, ran away and it did the same thing except when they exploded they set the sky on fire. They were huge! I doubt very seriously that he bought those. They seemed like something you steal from a real fireworks show.

So anyway, everybody clapped and the guy did this fake bow. The other dude conceded that he lost. The "winner" went back over and pulled out another box just like the first one. He put it on the ground, lit the fuse and ran away. No sooner than he got a safe distance away, one of the rockets misfired causing the the thing to tip over...in our direction. There were about ten little kids under the age of seven on that platform with us. I wanted to help them, but you don't really wanna toss Black people's kids off a platform five feet in the air onto the concrete below.

"RUN!"

Some listened to me, some didn't. The ones who stood there wide eyed and bushy tailed became cover for me and my sister as we crawled behind them so that we could hide behind the bronze cast of Mary. It felt like one of those scenes from a Vietnam War movie where someone's crawling through the jungle trying to take cover behind a tree as other people are getting shot. Little kids were screaming "Ow" as they got hit by pieces of the firework.

We made it behind the statue, but that was of no consolation because some of the little rockets that came to rest on the platform were starting to explode. So now we went from dodging projectiles to dodging mini explosions. So, in keeping with the movie theme, we jumped off the platform a la Die Hard as the little things exploded and we ran out of the park. I got burned on my back, arms and legs. My little sister was unscathed. As far as I'm concerned, that was a big brother success.

Now I know why those things are illegal.

[caption id="attachment_2437" align="alignnone" width="400"] And knowing is half the battle![/caption]

 

 

 

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July!

When I was a kid this was my favorite holiday. I don't know what it is about little boys and controlled explosions, but I'd take The Fourth of July over gifts on Christmas any time. With my birthday only two days later, my mother used to make me pick whether I wanted a birthday present or fireworks. I always went with the latter, so we'd get a Moonshot Rocket from one of those wooden stands that spring up all across the city. Every year she and every other adult in line would complain about how much the price went up.

In all of my years living here I only know of one person who actually went down to The Mall to watch the fireworks. Everyone else I knew went to that spot in the neighborhood where they could see at least the tip of The Monument. Ours was up at Lincoln Park. They'd sit me on a trashcan so that I could see over people and we'd wait for the show to start. The pre-game show was brought to you by those people who went down to South Carolina to get the good (read: illegal) fireworks.

We'd watch the illegal fireworks with as much excitement as the real show. When both were over we'd go back down the street and light our fireworks. The next day I'd get up early in the morning and run up to the park with a trashbag, so that I could beat the National Park Service before they cleaned up. I'd scour the park for fireworks that people misplaced in the dark (and thus never lit) and I'd take them all home to light that night. Usually I would find about 5-10 fountains and a few packs of sparklers.

It's a given in DC that you're gonna hear fireworks being shot the entire month of July, so no one had an issue with me lighting fireworks on July 5th. It's also given that you'll hear people shooting at the sky when they run out of fireworks, so maybe that's why no one says anything to people lighting fireworks way after The Fourth.

Kiss The Girl

(Editors Note: This one's kinda long. Take a bathroom break.)

Three days until 30. Let the random memories roll:

They say you never forget your first kiss or first love or first "other thing," but let's just stick with kiss for today. I was a late bloomer when it came to relationships. It's funny because I started puberty at 10 and had a full mustache before I left elementary school. You'd think I would've had kids by the time I was 14, but I still hadn't kissed a girl. That changed in 9th grade.

My best friend lived across the street and his sole mission in life was to hook me up with a girl. I ended up talking on the phone to this girl that he met. Like all high school flings, we felt we had so much in common because we both liked the same 5 songs that they played on the radio and we both thought Friday was funny, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, we decided to meet up after school to go to the movies. I caught the train all the way out to Silver Spring, which wasn't cheap back then either, especially on a high school budget, and I met the girl.

Instead of going to the movies as agreed, she suggested we go to her house. "Okay, where is that?" She swore it was just a five minute bus ride away. Note: I grew up truly in DC. I knew nothing about Maryland, its bus systems or any of its roads. For that reason I had a rule to NEVER talk to suburban girls. If you didn't live in DC and weren't on a train route then you were short shit out of luck as far as I was concerned. But I liked this girl, so I made an exception.

Forty-five minutes later we were still on that damned bus. "Where the hell are we going?" She said it wasn't much farther. Eventually we got to her stop and we went and sat on some bleachers at a nearby school where we talked about absolutely nothing. It was that nervous conversation that kids have before they kiss for the first time. I went in my pocket to get some tic-tacs at the same time that she pulled some out of her's. We laughed and before you knew it we were doing what we were doing.

It sucked. I don't think she'd kissed anyone before either. Her teeth crashed into mine. She bit me. It was bad. But, practice makes perfect and eventually we got the hang of it. So then someone from the school told us we had to leave so we went to her house. I'd just graduated to kissing and was not looking to adding parenting to my list of skill sets so my plan was to just drink some Kool-Aid or something and go home.

We went inside, she put on a bootleg copy of Set It Off and then (of all things) she started vacuuming. I don't know if she was trying to show me her domestic side, but the vacuuming went on for about 15 minutes. Very weird. So anyway, she got that out of her system and sat on the couch with me. We kissed some more and things got a bit heated and she went from 0 to 100 really quickly. She asked me, "You wanna go upstairs?"

I most certainly do not.

"Don't you like me?" Yes, and that is why I don't want to go upstairs with you. Don't get me wrong, I'm not scared (I was) but my mother had me when she was 15 (she did) and I'm not trying to beat her record. "Come on, I just wanna show you my room. I have a computer." I felt like a toddler being offered candy by a stranger to get in their van. I won't lie, everything inside of me (and I do mean everything) wanted very badly to go up there. I imagined it being like a pleasure paradise and myself about to have a Prince Purple Rain "Darling Nikki" moment ("Sign your name on the dotted line, the lights went out and Nikki started to grind). But, I couldn't do it. Yeah, I was nervous, but it had more to do with me not wanting to mess my life up with a kid. That was always my fear.

Fate took it out of my hands though. We heard the sound of a key going in the door. "Oh shit, it's my parents. Hide in the basement!" What the fuck? Hell no! I'll go out the backdoor. "We have bars on the door and I don't have a key for it. Please go in the basement and I'll come get you when they go to sleep." What!? When they go to sleep? You done lost your goddamned mind. I gotta go home.

I smooth out my clothes, take my hat off and try to look like we were studying or praying or something and in walks (not her parents) her older brother...and three of his friends. He stopped dead in his tracks and just stared at me. I started thinking, "Goddamn I should've gone in the basement. I should've gone in the basement. These niggas are gonna jump me and I have it coming because I never shoulda come all the way out here with this damned girl." I considered just getting up and running, but the four of them spread out like they anticipated it.

The three friends looked at the brother like, "Say the word." In a strange twist of events which completely defies logic and "the big brother" code, he started laughing and said "Damn she getting her man in here. Imma leave yall to it." He went in the basement to grab something and they all left. "He gets on my fucking nerves, nosy ass!" I played it cool like what just happened was normal. She went back in for a kiss and I just sat there kinda confused like, "Does anyone in your family give a damn about you?"

I told her I had to go home and asked her to show me how to get back to the bus stop but she refused. "I don't want you to leave." Rrrright. (Reading off an imaginary script with no feeling whatsoever) Yeah, I don't want to leave either my dearest (insert name), but the fates have conspired that I doth go home. "Stay five more minutes and I'll take you to the bus stop." It was like 7:55 and at that exact moment I remembered something that a friend told me months, maybe even years earlier....Maryland buses don't run 24/7 like DC buses do. I asked her what time the last bus left and she looked down at the floor kinda before saying, "eight o'clock."

I wanted to curse her out, but I needed the map that was in her mind to get home. So I gave her the most passionate Billy Dee Williams-esque speech and kiss I could come up with. It must have worked because she was like, "If we run, we can make it." And run we did. It looked like the end of Ferris Beuller's Day Off. We ran through bushes, backyards, whatever and then we got to the bus stop just as the bus was pulling up. "I'm never gonna see you again am I?" I looked her in the eyes, gave her a deep passionate kiss and said, "Hell no."

I got on the bus and haven't seen her since.

Anderson Cooper Is Gay

Wow, Anderson Cooper came out. I must be the only person who didn't know he was gay. He says that he came out because he didn't want people to think he was ashamed or hiding that fact about himself. Also, he says he wanted to be yet another celebrity to step forward to hopefully make some kids feel okay about who they are.

I think it's a damned shame that people have to "come out" at all.

I don't pretend to understand the complexity of what it's like to be gay in this screwed up society, but I do wonder what it would've been like had the equality movement gone a different route. As far as I know the whole violence towards gays thing has been a one-way street. Celebrities are coming out to raise awareness by kind of saying, "Hey, you know the guy you like all the time on TV...he's gay too. So stop being a dick." I just feel like there are too many Anderson Coopers and Jim Parsons coming out and not enough "other" people.

I've had my fair share of gay men come on to me. I don't get offended by it or turn into a bigot. I actually see it as a compliment. "I'm so beautiful that women AND men want me. Booyah!" Almost every time it happens it is never the stereotypical gay man that you see on TV. Most of the time it's a dude that looks like Michael Clarke Duncan from The Green Mile. Even the strongest of bigots would be compelled to be polite in that situation and that's exactly what I'm getting at.

I think that more bodybuilding, football playing, "I pick up cars in my spare time" gay men need to come forward. If not that, then the Jason Bourne ex-special ops types need to do a PSA. None of that "It gets better" shit either. It should be something scary with a big dude bending a tire iron with his bare hands and the special ops guy holding a grenade and they should look directly into the camera a la Fight Club. "Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not fuck with us."

[caption id="attachment_2416" align="alignnone" width="450"] And if you have to cut "something" off to get your message across then so be it[/caption]

 

 

 

Hi, My Name Is...

Me:  Thank you for calling customer service, this is Ordale A. May I have the subscriber ID number that you're calling about today?

Person: What's your name?

Me: Ordale, last initial A.

Person:Cordell?

Me: Or-dale

Person:Wordell?

Me:Or, like truth OR dare, and then Dale like Chip and Dale.

Person: Or-dale. Well that's a new one.

I would like to dedicate today's post to everyone named John, Chris or Mike. Actually, this is dedicated to anyone with a common name that doesn't require repeating during introductions. I'm currently reading a book where the main character has a brief internal dialogue where she wonders how different her life would be if she didn't have a unique name. It got me to thinking: If you add up all of the times I was the new student, employee or in some workshop, how many hours of my life have been spent explaining my name?

People with common names don't have the faintest idea of what the hell I'm talking about. Let's say your name is Robert. You start school, work, rehab...whatever...and they ask you to introduce yourself. You stand up, "Hi, my name is Rob/Robert/Bob." Everyone says, "Hi Rob" and things move along. No one asks you to repeat it. They don't ask you if it means something. No one repeats it back with extra syllables, consonants or accents. Introducing yourself to someone takes all of three seconds and it's so fast that you probably don't even think about it.

Well lemme tell you something Bob. Us "strange namers" go through hell. At least I do. I prepare for introductions the way an opera singer prepares for a solo. I make sure my mouth isn't parched, clear my throat and do those weird lip exercises to aid in enunciation. Then I brace myself for all of the followup comments, keeping in mind that people usually don't mean any harm. I let the sardonic tones slide as people repeat my name and I feign a smile every single time someone tells me that they've never heard it before.

My name isn't that complicated. Or-dale. I went to school with quite a few Africans andthose are some tongue twisters. My heart goes out to them, because if Ordale throws people off then I know that the Temitopes and Olufemis out there just bring meetings to a screeching halt. People ask me if it means something. They assume that I'm only half Black and mixed with something else. I'm like a roasted pecan color and I've had numerous people ask me if I was half-white. Go figure.

Sometimes I make light of it and joke that my name is the result of giving hallucinogenic painkillers to someone during labor and then empowering them to name something. The truth, however, is always stranger than fiction. My mother was considering naming me Dale or Gale. She couldn't decide. In going over the names aloud she said, "Should I name him Dale or Gale? Gale or Dale? Gale OR Dale? OrDale." My name is the combination of Dale and the conjunction, "or," immediately preceding it during that thought process. That's it.

I lived in the principal's office in elementary school, so I came to hate the way my name sounded when said aloud. "Ordale Allen report to the office IMMEDIATELY!" I started using my middle initial in junior high to give it a different tone: Ordale J. Allen. It had a nice ring to it like Michael J. Fox, John F. Kennedy or Samuel L. Jackson. It sounded professional and went well with the fact that I used to wear suits to school once a week to hide the fact that I didn't have a week's worth of school clothes.

But that had unforeseen consequences. People started wondering what my middle name was. "If Ordale is your first name, what the hell is your middle name?" So then I'd tell them.

"Like Superman?"

Well actually that's his dad, but yeah, my middle name is pronounced Jor-El. My mother really liked the Superman movies and I think she had a crush on Marlon Brando or something, so she named me after his character. She just didn't know how to spell it, so I ended up with Jorrel. You'd think being named after Superman's dad would get you some cool points with kids, but it doesn't. Instead they point out another obvious fact.

"Your name rhymes! (Insert laughter) Or-dale Jor-rel!"

smh

Heat Induced Blog

If you can read this then you have electricity...or a charged cell phone. El Derecho or whatever the hell the storm was called that came through the other day knocked out half the power to my neighborhood. I'm fortunate because we still have power, but for some dumb reason I went outside.

Stupid.

Maybe I felt sympathetic to the dozen or so people camped out in our lobby. The high rise building, my building, is the only one in the complex that has power. So now our lobby looks like a hipster homeless shelter with surge protectors sprawled out on the floor and everyone charging their phones and laptops. It's like a very whitewashed version of Hurricane Katrina. People sprawled out on the floor sharing Triscuits and drinking lukewarm Poms.

As a show of solidarity I went outside to get the true homeless experience. I opened my car door and fire came out. It was like Backdraft. I leaped sideways to safety and everything. I looked like Bruce Willis. He wasn't in Backdraft, was he? No, that was Kurt Russell. Well then I looked like Kurt Russell. He died in Backdraft didn't he? Okay, then I looked like Kurt Russell but with a Bruce Willis knack for survival. It's hot outside.

The man on the television says that it's 97 degrees with a heat index of 104. That means that anyone, anything and anyplace outside my air conditioned apartment is dead to me. We have enough food to last until... (I'm checking the fridge)...tomorrow afternoon. 4:28pm to be exact. We have enough food to make it until 4:28pm, maybe 4:29pm  if I control my pretzel consumption. I'm not sure what we'll do for food after that. There's a family of squirrels who live in the tree outside my window. It's disgusting to consider, but I'm committed to my family's well being. Not enough to go to the grocery store in this heat, but enough to assassinate a squirrel.

How do you catch a squirrel though? Not getting eaten is kinda their thing. If I could slow one down... I hurt my foot on one of my daughter's mega blocks the other night. Those things are hard as hell. A well timed shot could possibly work. I'll open the window, toss the mega block into the tree. If I'm lucky, it'll land on the branch just as the father squirrel is leaving to go find acorns. He'll be so preoccupied with the daunting day ahead of him and the argument he had with his baby mama squirrel that he won't be paying attention and he'll trip on the megablock, stumping his toe. A squirrel with a limp is pretty much a squirrel without a future. Unable to hunt acorns, he'll begin to question his squirrelhood and plunge deeply into a state of depression. He'll begin looking for hope at the bottom of a bottle. Mama squirrel will leave him and he'll find himself standing at the edge of the branch pumping his squirrel fist at the sky cursing God for being born. His children now call another squirrel "daddy." Discouraged and completely checked out of life, he'll eat one last acorn and leap to his death.

I'll be waiting at the window with a net.

That takes care of dinner for Monday. I have no clue what we'll do for Tuesday.