The Halloween Dilemma

God grant me the serenity to...scratch that. God, please give me the strength to walk three miles to this little girl's school, and, when I get there, please bless her with a pleasant disposition that matches the reward she's going to get tonight in the form of me walking around the neighborhood begging strangers for candy. Lord, let not her heart be full of "three-year-old-isms" that cause me to regret spending the last week going from Halloween store to Halloween store, which is incredibly tedious when you don't have a car, all in the name of finding her a costume. And Lord, heal her feet which I'm certain she'll claim are too tired to walk from her school to the Metro. For whatever reason, the minute she sees me she instantly becomes unable to walk four feet without wanting me to pick her up. And if it be your will, may we not have any parent-child altercations that make me say "Forget it, we're not doing anything tonight" thus hurting myself in the process, because all of this will have been for naught.

Amen.

When I was little, Halloween was the ish. I couldn't wait to go make my rounds. My daughter doesn't even know the holiday exists. She's three and kind of...above this whole childhood thing. This is one I wish I could blame on Co-parent, but it's my doing. You see, like me, she suffers from motivation-deficit-disorder. If there's no incentive to care, then she doesn't. Brace yourself...she's never had candy before. I'll give you a minute to digest that.

By the time I was five, I had a mouth full of dice. I've responsible for more dentist retirements than anyone else in the eastern US. So, when she was born, Co-parent and I made a pact that she'd never know about candy or sugar or fast food until it was absolutely necessary. We kinda treated it like adoption. "She doesn't need to know. Apples are her candy now." Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those parents. You know, the kind who feel like kids should only drink agave nectar-sweetened beverages and eat less than 1 gram of fat a day. That's not me at all.

I truly believe in my daughter's God given right to eat after midnight and wreak havoc on the town with all of the other gremlins hopped up on sugar. Just not now. Give it time. Let me enjoy having a sweet, loveable child as long as possible. Then when the time is right she can turn into a caffeinated hellion. I'm the same one who has her thinking that those 39 cent toys from Party City are high quality AND believing that Toys R Us and Target are places people go to play with toys INSIDE the store only. Whenever we get to the register she hands me the toys back by default.

I know that this world will eventually come crashing down, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Still, this all presents a problem tonight. How do I convince her to leave my side to go retrieve candy from complete strangers when she has no interest in it whatsoever. I really want her to experience Halloween and trick or treating. Okay, I'm lying. I really want some Reese Cups for myself, and I don't want to buy them. They taste better when they're free (and after they've been in the freezer for a minute). I'll figure something out.

Let Your Fingers Do The Walking

I was at a bar the other day that had the old X-Men 4-player arcade game. Seeing that thing triggered memories that I'm certain my brain worked really hard to repress. I'm the poster child for the other side of child neglect. Yeah, you got your hungry malnourished kids who (rightfully so) get the bulk of the attention, but there's a whole different sect that no one acknowledges...the bored kids.

Saturdays were the worst part of the week for me. I had to be the only kid who actually liked going to school. There was stuff to do there. Half of it I didn't want to actually be bothered with, but still you get what I'm saying. Around 10AM every Saturday my grandmother would leave to go to choir rehearsal. My mother would go to... I honestly have no idea where she went. She was like Batman in the sense that she just disappeared mid-sentence. I'd wake up just as she was leaving and see her throw down a smoke pellet before hopping out the second floor window.

Once cartoons went off, my Saturdays freaking sucked. I was an only child back then, and because I was home alone the only rule was that I couldn't open the door for any reason. That meant no going outside. The first hour or so was fine, but after a while I had to get creative. Seeing that X-Men game reminded me of what I call "The Phone Book Period."

You know how kids used to call and make prank calls back in the day? That was me minus the prank call part. I used to just call places for the hell of it. The MLK Library used to have a number that you could call that would play recordings of a new children's story each week. The number was in the blue "information" section of the phone book. One day I noticed that there was a number for the historical weather data. Why not? What else was I gonna do to pass the time? I listened to that. Then I called the Boys Town Hotline, not really knowing what that was for. When they realized I wasn't at risk for anything they told me to hang up.

That led to me just calling all kinds of numbers:

• Metro for bus times just to see if they could accurately predict when the next bus would go around the park up the street.


• I called the city to report a dead cat.


• I was famous for calling to request "more information" on...everything. Lincoln Tech, D-I-Y home repairs, The Army

After a while I ran out of places to call in that section and started going through the actual Yellow Pages. I'd tell people I was doing a report on something for school and needed information. I talked to lawyers, electricians, plumbers...anybody who would talk to me.

Now that I think about it, I used to do the same thing when I was even younger. I'd dial 7 numbers at random and talk to whomever answered. "Hi. I'm Ordale. What's your name?" "Does your mother know you're on the phone?" That stopped when some man said he was going to track me down and kill me. I was either five or six, so...welcome to DC in the 80s.

Anyway, this all goes back to the X-Men game, because I remember calling every listing under "Arcade Games" to see if there was somewhere I could buy the game. I was tired of losing quarters and assumed that it must be cheaper to just buy the whole thing.

"Hi, my name is Ordale and I'm trying to buy the X-Men game." If they didn't hang up after hearing my prepubescent voice, they sure as hell hung up once I told them that I had a whopping $77 of birthday money to spend on one.

"Now, my grandmother said she's gonna give me $25 for my birthday, so I can go as high as $100 if you can hold it til July."

(Like most things, there's no reason for this story...just popped in my head just now as I was going to bed. And just that quick...End of Story)

Mocha Svelte

I haven't had much time to post anything lately. I've been running around a lot. Literally. It's awkward to talk about break-ups and divorces and people dying. Well, actually it's not awkward for me to talk about it. I guess what I mean is that it's probably awkward for you, the reader. I've been there on the receiving end before. What sounds like humor could really be cries for help or something. You never know if you should laugh or call someone. I guess you just have to take me at my word when I say that you can put the phone down for this next one: I kinda wish I'd capitalized on that divorce/break-up/heartache thing a little more.

I was too caught up in being sad and feeling betrayed to really appreciate the positives of what was going on. I'd never gone through it before, but now that I'm on the other side of it, I look back and see all of the pictures I took during the spring. The first thing that comes to mind is...Damn I was skinny!

Now if you've never seen me before in person (the beauty will captivate you), then let me describe myself to you. I'm very pretty in a handsome way. I'm an Ikea mocha dresser color, and I look tall if you kneel down at the base of a hill. Weight-wise, I'm....I don't know. In my head I'm stocky, but most people say I'm average. I don't have low self worth or anything. Clearly, anyone who describes himself in the pantheon of do-it-yourself furniture has high self esteem. I just remember what it was like when I ran track and was really, really skinny. Back then I looked like a crackhead. Now I just look like a recovering crackhead.

Anyway, right after "the fall" I lost about 20-25 lbs. It just happened. I wasn't hungry. Too busy crying and moping around. But I remember the day that I went into Nordstrom and tried on clothes. I realized that I dropped three pant sizes. I remember thinking, "Man, if only I could afford to buy something out of here." So then I went to TJ Maxx and balled out of control. I was svelte! And I never get to use that word enough when it comes to describing myself.

Two weeks ago I went back to Nordstrom to pretend that I had money, and the same shirt that I said I'd come back to buy in the fall didn't fit like it did in the summer. There's a quart where my six pack used to be. So that prompted me to go for a run...like, immediately. I don't have a car anymore, so I ran home from the train. Since that time, I've been doing my usual 3 mile walk to and from my daughter's school, plus running 3 miles a day, and riding my bike whenever possible.

I lost five pounds last week, which is cool, but I had to work for it. That sucks. Like alimony, I've become accustomed to a certain lifestyle. I should just be able to listen to a Mary J Blige song or something, and then lose all desire to eat for two or three days. So anyway, I say all of this for two reasons:

1) I had nothing else to write about, but my readership has doubled in the past three months, and I don't want to lose you fine people. I had to write something!

2) It's encouraging to put your weight loss goals on the internet, because it forces you to stick with it out of sheer fear of embarrassment after talking a good game. I could've just put this in a Facebook post, but my friends have that on lock with their Runkeeper posts and their "I think I just invented cooking" food pictures.

So after all of that plus running behind a three year old who runs on nuclear power...I'm tired. But guess what, I'm not gon' cry, I'm not gon' cry, I'm not gon' shed no tears. (Damn, doesn't work anymore. Guess I'll go do a sit up or something.)

Crazy Sexy Cool

Well, as a NonCablelite (like the famous tribe from the Bible), I wasn't able to watch the TLC movie last night. I doubt I would have even if I did have cable. I can guess what happened though. They made a bunch of records, but not a bunch of money. One of them dies at the end.

Okay, that was wrong. I take that back.

I was actually a huge TLC fan back in the day. I got my first CD player for my 13th birthday, and I literally ran 3 miles to Nobody Beats the Wiz in order to buy CrazySexyCool and II. Those were the first CDs I ever owned. A part of the original trilogy of "Wow, CDs cost more than tapes. I guess I'm not buying any more of these." For two years I held it down with Boyz II Men, TLC and Bone's, E. 1999 Eternal. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Like getting a CD player in '95, I was late to the pop culture party when it came to TLC. Once again for those just tuning in, I lived with my grandparents who listened to gospel and talk radio 24/7. Add to that the fact that I didn't have cable or know anyone who did, and the only time I ever saw TLC was when they were on Arsenio. As a matter of fact, I didn't see any of the videos from Oooh On the TLC Tip until I was in college. But I remember exactly when I first saw Red Light Special.

There's a special moment in every 12 year old boy's life when his family finally joins the 1980s and gets cable. For me, this was 1994. I spent the first night trying to squint through the scrambled lines of the premium channels (Yeah, those channels too). I stumbled across The Box (Music Television YOU control) during that special scene of Red Light Special. You would've thought I'd discovered fire. I went to school the next day with a ton of questions: "I just saw this video with these three girls playing cards and halfway through one of them..." My friends knew what I was talking about when I said, "I just saw this video..."

I ran to the library with my new knowledge of TLC and checked 1994's version of the internet, Infotrac. It was like the Atari version of Google: All of the magazines in one CD-ROM! With the magic of a dot matrix printer, it only took 2 hours to print off 20 pages. I tore the little holes off and headed home. For the next few months, you could find me in the magazine aisle of the  Safeway on Naylor and Good Hope Road at least once a month reading up on the exploits of my future wives.

You could also find the posters that magically disappeared from Word Up and Right On hanging up in my locker. Just Chilli though. The other two didn't interest me. I thought T-Boz was playing for the other team, and although she was fine, I felt LeftEye was more trouble than she was worth. But Chilli...sweet, innocent, "Now every black girl with curly hair is gonna lie and say she has Indian in her family" Rozonda Chilli Thomas. We were gonna get married and have cute, dark skinned, curly haired, 4 foot tall children. She was so bad that not only did she have teenage girls lying about their heritage, they were doing everything except hold a magnifying glass up to the eight or nine strands of baby hair that they had gelled to the sides of their head.

But such a thing isn't meant to last. Aaliyah blew up a year or two later, and suddenly TommyGirl, long weaves and the possibility of a lazy eye were in style. I never looked back. Chilli settled for Usher and that was that.

We'll always have The Box and video #440.

Testify

You accuse me of a, please let me testify
You accuse me of a, you accuse me of a
Please let me testify
Before you lock my love away...

If you were in Giant at 7pm last night, you no doubt witnessed what you think was bad parenting. There was a handsome 5'7 lad with a 3'4 kid in tow. The kid was crying and saying she was hungry. She was begging for things that would make the average parent cheer with delight: apples, bananas, rutabagas. You might have even heard her say "Ow, help me. My eye hurts." After watching the guy, let's call him "Me" for simplicity's sake, ignore her and walk out, you probably said to yourself, "He's a horrible parent."

You accuse me of a..., please let me testify
Before you lock my love away...

If you'd been a fly on the wall 5 minutes earlier at 6:55, you would've seen her screaming outside the Giant saying that her eye hurt. You would've witnessed me scrambling to check her eye as I tried to keep her from making it worse with her Metro-germ-lined fingers. At 6:55 you would've seen me running full speed with her in my arms into the Giant and heading for the bathroom to wash her eye out.

But that still wouldn't help your opinion of me at 7pm as you saw me walking out of the store and ignoring her as she continued to scream that her eye was hurting.

Please let me testify. You accuse me of a...

You had to be with us on the train about 30 minutes earlier around 6:30. You might have noticed it, but I sure as hell didn't catch it. I have a great memory, but it's more of a long term storage thing. I can tell you what happened 3 years ago, but not three minutes ago. It takes a major event to jog the short-term memory.

So if you'd been there at 6:30, then maybe you would've realized right away the correlation between that moment and 25 minutes later at 6:55 after I'd run full speed into Giant searching for the bathroom as my "frantic" child screamed and held her eye.

6:55pm- "My eye hurts. Help me. My eye. [screaming and holding eye]
6:30pm- Her: "Can we go to Giant?"
Me:  "Not today. I don't need anything from there."
Her: "Can we have Cookie Dough Ice Cream?"
Me: "No, you can't eat that everyday. You had it yesterday. No ice cream today."
Her: [crying]
Me: "Sit back and stop whining. I said no."

6:55pm- [On the walk home, passing Giant] "My eye hurts. Help me. My eye. [screaming and holding eye]
Me: Okay, keep your eye closed. Let's run in Giant and find the bathroom. I'll wash your eye out. Don't touch your eye!
Her: "Ow, ow, ow, the agony, woe is me, vision is fading, blindness is imminent."

6:59pm-Me: We're almost there. Keep your eye closed.
Her: [Both eyes wide open] Can we have cookie dough ice cream?
Me: ...

I turned around, and walked out as she began proclaiming how hungry she was. She began yelling for anything she saw that would keep me in the store. As I walked out, I was tried and convicted of bad parenting by a jury of my peers.

[In my head I heard the last verse of Common's song, Testify]
Common:

The court awaited as the foreman got the verdict from the bailiff

Emotional outbursts tears and smeared makeup

He stated, he was guilty on all charges

She's shaking looking like she took it the hardest

A spin artist, she brought her face up laughing

That's when the prosecutor realized what happened

All that speaking her mind, testifying and crying

When this [kid] did the crime, the queenpin

California Love

Whenever I travel I take one of my daughter's toys with me. It's a ritual that started by accident a long time ago. Small kids are squirrels in the sense that they hide things everywhere. You never know when you'll be standing on the subway and reach into your pocket to find eight cheerios and a half-eaten hot dog. I went to NC a couple of years ago and found one of her toys in my bag. Now I make it a point to take one with me every time I travel.

Like the movie Inception, it's my own personal totem. Boy, did it come in handy this weekend. I just got back from L.A., and if not for the totem, I would've gladly stayed in that dream world. I had no desire to come back to DC...at all! If not for my daughter, I'd still be there.

If you read my last post, then you know that this was a consolation prize since Mother Nature has apparently banned me from all islands. It was a star-studded flight. Goose and Maverick piloted us there, while I sat next to the monkey from Outbreak. After 6 hours of her non-stop coughing and sneezing, I realized that I should probably enjoy L.A. as fast as possible before I died or turned into a zombie or something.

I landed at 1pm. By the end of the day I'd been to:

• The Griffith Observatory where I took pictures of the LA skyline


• The Hollywood Sign


• The Warner Brothers Studio Tour where I saw the set of Two and a Half Men, all of the cars from Batman, took pics on the couch from Friends, and saw Rebel Wilson (Bridesmaids, Pitch Perfect).


• The Walk of Fame where I saw the saddest street performers and impersonators (more on them later)


• The Grauman (TCL) Chinese Theater where I saw Gravity in 3D in their newly renovated IMAX screen


• Rosco's Chicken and Waffles


• The Santa Monica Pier

Believe it or not, I didn't rush through anything. I only slept a total of 9 hours over the four days that I was there, so I had plenty of time on my hands. The WB tour was fantastic, but the Walk of Fame has to be the most depressing thing I've ever seen. I heard about the impersonators and the folks walking around in costumes begging for you to take pics with them, but I really wasn't prepared.

The first thing to catch my eye was the 5'10 black guy who had to weigh about 230-250 in black pants, a stretchy shirt, a green vest like something you'd rent from Men's Wearhouse for a wedding or prom, and a black mask. You know who he was supposed to be? The Green Lantern! Then there was his buddy, Batman, whose costume appeared to be carefully woven from Hefty trash bags. Then there was Catwoman who had a body to die for and probably the diseases to die from judging by her "costume." Honestly, if she took her mask off at night and worked a few corners away, it would not surprise me.

The WORST offenders, hands down, were the Michael Jackson impersonators. There were three: Black Michael Jackson, Brown Michael Jackson, and Gray Michael Jackson (Charcoal "Wesley Snipes" skin + White makeup=Gray). Gray Michael Jackson wasn't that bad. He just kept prancing up and down the street like it was the Billie Jean video. Black Michael Jackson...where do I start. This dude stood at the end of the block in a frozen pose pointing at a sign that said, "tips make me move." I stood there for five minutes waiting for someone to put money in the jar (I wasn't going to). He never moved. I was impressed that he held that pose for so long. Finally, some kid gave him a dollar and he started dancing. What...the...hell? An epileptic having a seizure could've done better. And that leaves my favorite, the highlight of my trip, and the reason I had to leave the walk of fame...

Brown Michael Jackson looked a hot damned mess. He had plastic surgery to try and make himself look like him, but I swear to God he had it done at a daycare with some left-handed scissors. He looked horrible and had a jheri curl that looked JUST like the one Randy Watson had in Coming to America. He was wearing what I can only describe as a fire engine red onesie. It looked like the pajamas you wear to go to bed as a kid with the feet in them.

He was blasting Thriller and walking down the street with a large American flag draped over him as if he'd just won the Michael Jackson Olympic 100 Meter Dash. He had a single stem rose in his mouth. He put the flag over Michael's star on the Walk of Fame, and walked around it like three times. Then for no reason whatsoever he did a cartwheel over the flag. Not even a good cartwheel. It was like a "I'm out of shape" fat person cartwheel where your feet aren't even vertical. Then he sat down on the flag, started crying and shouted, "I LOVE MICHAEL JACKSON! I LOVE MYSELF!" Then he got up, picked up the flag and reset back down the street so he could do it again. I had to walk away after that. I completely left the area. I could take no more.

I didn't mean to dedicate so much of the post to that, but it's a tragedy that had to be told. LA is the city of dreams, and that stretch of Hollywood Boulevard is the septic system where the broken dreams flush back out into reality. I hate when these posts hit 1000 words, so let's wrap it up:

I paid extra for the VIP tour of Universal. I got to take pics on some movie and TV sets that are usually closed to the public. I went to Malibu for a day and FINALLY got to a beach! Anyone who knows me personally can tell you that I'm a HUGE Back to the Future fan. As a kid I tried to build a time machine at least once a week. I have the near-electrocutions to prove it. Anyway, not only did I see the original Delorean from the film, but I also went to Marty's house. The owners weren't thrilled about me taking pics of their house, but they'll get over it. I also went FULL GEEK and drove my car around the mall parking lot from the movie all while making the time travel noises in my head.

I ate a lot of good food, saw every tourist attraction I could think of (Venice Beach is a horrible, horrible place), crashed a banquet at a hotel that was much nicer than the one I was staying in, and I put 400 miles on the rental car. I had a blast! Then I looked at my totem, and drove myself back to LAX. 12 hours later, I was back in DC taking my daughter to school this morning.

Awesome, awesome, awesome trip! After the year I've had, it was just what I needed.

If you're reading this

First let me say that I'm writing this from my cell phone which wouldn't mean much if I were a constant texter, but because I'm not this is very tedious. Who knows what havoc autocorrect is gonna wreak.

Secondly, if you are reading this then it means that I have safely landed in the Los Angeles. I'd like to thank god and the wannabe fighter pilots up n the cockpit of my plane. What they call turbulence I call a laxative.

Originally I was suppose to be going to The Dominican Republic. Mother Nature has apparently forbidden me from going anywhere near the Caribbean. This is the fourth trip to be rained out by one of her mood swings/tropical storms. On second thought, forgive me Mother Nature...my plane hasn't landed yet and all it takes is a gust of wind to give the happy to lucky cowboys up in the cockpit another reason to play Top Gun.

I've always wanted to go to Cali. We were poor when I was a kid so the closest I got was a palm given to me at church on Palm Sunday. So wish me luck everyone. The flight attendants are telling me to power down my phone. It seems like a Windows phone, not an iPhone, would crash first. (Horrible joke considering I can't jump out the plane from here).

I'm hitting submit even though I'm sure this will hang until I get service again. If you don't hear from me again next week the.ln either I was discovered and am hobnobbing with celebrities, or I've succumbed to whatever virus the Outbreak monkey sitting next to me has been coughing into the air the entire flight.

Gotta go. Angry flight attendant. If you don't hear from me, see to it that my daughter gets my makeshift Palm Sunday Palm Tree.

Back to School Night

I had my first Back to School Night last week. It was weird. I still remember being in Head Start as if it were yesterday. My grandmother left me there, and I stood outside of the circle crying as everyone else sang The Hokey Pokey. Critical of people even back then, I stood there trying to figure out why I had to put my left foot in only to take it right back out. And why am I shaking it all about? This song is stupid. 

Anyway, it was weird because there were pictures all over the classroom. In just about every one of them my daughter has the same this is stupid expression on her face. Let me clarify: she is not a disagreeable child. She's extremely pleasant actually, but she is my child nonetheless. I can imagine what was going through her mind.

There was a picture of the whole class sitting on the tiny carpet on the floor. In the background, my daughter can be seen sitting in a chair. I imagine she thought the same thing I would:  My butt hurts on the floor. How about we all sit in chairs since that's what they're for. 

They had drawings on the wall. Out of 18 kids, only two of the pictures didn't look like cries for help. Draw a picture of a time that you were sad. One kid drew a picture of a single celled organism with blue dots coming out of it. I assume they were tears. The Michelangelo of the class had a picture of a humanoid with an upside-down U where the mouth should be.

Then there was my daughter's picture:
47 lines  of various colored markers all pressed onto the paper with varying degrees of intensity. All headed in different directions. The proud parent in me is almost terrified at the level of realism and scientific insight. Other kids tried to draw a scene of an event that made them sad. My daughter, on the other hand, drew a picture of her neural network, more specifically, the increased activity occurring in her prefrontal cortex. My daughter drew sadness as scientists are just recently beginning to understand it.

I could have explained it to her teachers, but I don't want them to treat her differently. Plus, I didn't want them to feel insecure about their inability to coach a mind as brilliant as hers. I doubt that they even noticed that her self portrait looks a lot like a DNA molecule.

[caption id="attachment_3661" align="alignnone" width="300"] Image courtesy of Renjith Krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3660" align="alignnone" width="300"] You almost can't tell them apart.[/caption]

I'm Shutting Down The Studio

Due to a lapse of government funding, this blog is closed.

So I'm making my 3 mile trek through Rock Creek Park as I attempt to go pick up my daughter when I encounter this:



My immediate thought was, "Wow, they just shut down God. I guess if I keep walking all of the trees, dirt and rocks will be gone." Naturally, no one paid this sign any attention. I am not a government worker, but I'm certain I'll be affected by this soon enough. The same people who are so concerned about the economy don't seem to recognize the impact this will have on treasuries, consumer confidence, consumer spending, and (hopefully) their ability to get reelected.

The highlight of my day was watching the WWII vets walk right through the barricade in front of their memorial down on the mall. All of this is just infantile, and reinforces my long-held belief that I made the right choice turning down "a bright future" in politics. At the conclusion of my summer internship in a congressional office back in high school, I was offered the opportunity to stay on throughout the year. I gave a semi-professional declination, one that was completely undone by my commencement speech at the closing ceremony for the program.

In not so many (or so nice) words, I basically told a room full of congressmen that they don't do anything. Not only did I burn bridges, I set fire to highways, tunnels, and dirt paths. I'll never forget the one (and only) person who approached me after it was over, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton. She told me that I was absolutely right, and that she appreciated my candor. My old "mentor" told me I was an idiot. "Say goodbye to that school trip to Europe."

In hindsight, it was probably the dumbest thing I've ever done at a job, but it was also the most sincere. The things I saw just bothered me. They bothered me so much that I pretty much set ablaze a fully paid European study tour (Rome, Paris, London), a guaranteed scholarship to college, and a TON of professional references.

Would I do the same thing today? I don't know. Only if it could prevent me having to explain this to my full-bladdered three year old on the way back home:

[caption id="attachment_3653" align="alignnone" width="604"] No, you can't go to the bathroom, because Congress needs to use it. Right now they're full of...[/caption]