Thursday, January 27, 2005
...One Summer At Camp Whatchamacallit...
even in a perfect world
where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights
& be working on the sequel...
--"Everyday I Write the Book"
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Underneath the elevated train around the corner from my house, the strivers are usually out in full effect around 7am waiting for the liquor store to open. As I walk to the train station, I do my usual morning hello's and I proceed to the train. We're all familiar enough to one another that we stop a chat for awhile. This includes the "working girls" in my neighborhood. Sure, they're at work, but they always spare a moment to fancy me in a little exchange every now and then.
THEM: Good mornin' baby, how you doing?
ME: I'm alright, and you?
THEM: I can't call it, you got the best hand!
And like that we continue on with the task at hand: work. This morning, I decided to catch the bus, and after maneuvering through all the dirty snow piled up at the King Drive bus stop, I found just enough room on the barely snow-free space where someone else was waiting for the late (as usual) bus. Within fifteen minutes, I found out that she is the mother of three grown children--one son living in San Jose, another in Shreveport and a daughter who lives here in Chicago. I also found out that she is a former English teacher with the Chicago Public Schools who has come out of retirement to teach special needs students. There we stood and talked like old friends, and I must say that started my day just right. Now that's the kind of morning I like.
I wish it was warm, but this is Chicago. The city whose motto is "if you don't like the weather now, wait a few minutes until it changes". What it should be is "if you don't like the weather now, you're really going to hate it when you turn that corner." The hawk is a very attitudinal bitch whose business it is to cut you to the quick.
For some reason, I started thinking about summer camp once I got back to my office. Those summers spent away from parents at places named after the surrounding woods, usually names you don't remember (like now, but at about 3am, I'll remember). It was popsicle stick houses and macaroni necklaces that were to die for; the daily craftmaking days while happy campers consume mass amounts of sponge cake and bug juice. Truthfully, it had nothing to do with income--we were all poor, but my-oh-my, our mother's love never let us know that.
Summer camp wasn't that bad. It was where I made my debut as a performer with the other guys from my cabin as we sang that soulful hit called "The Mighty Pimp" at the camp talent show (this guy named Eric taught us that one; someone in his family was a pimp or something). I went to camp each summer and winter from the time I was eight through high school and had fun each time (but I feign ignorance when asked if I went).
One summer my sister and I were about to go to camp, after hardly getting any sleep, it was fianlly almost time to go meet the bus at the Henry Horner Boys and Girls Club where my mother worked as a secretary. We were packed and anxious as hell. I was ten and my sister was eleven, and both of our years combined made us ready to get the hell out of the house for a month becauase we had HAD IT with the whole cleaning up routine. Cleaning up in our house was not relegated to that one week per school year that the catholic archidiocese let us out of school. My mother, on several occasions back in the day would put the dishes you didn't wash or the trash you didn't take out in your bed!
In the summers, we welcomed the mosquitos and wooden trails; the fresh smell of manure in the mornings from the farm right next to the boys cabins, and most of all, we were ready to not clean up a damn thing for one whole month and live out of suitcases and sleeping bags on the bunks that had survived a foreign war before being donated to the camp we were at. However, before we went anywhere, my mom needed us to go to the store to get some snacks from the corner store.
She had already fried the chicken at about four that morning, seasoning it with the Chinese Five Spices she'd added to the batter (our favorite). There were bags of vegetables for us to share, but we didn't have those other two much needed staples: chips and pop.
"I need you two to go to the store and get you all something to drink along with some chips," she said, and after handing us what was, to my eye, a fist full of dollars, we were off.
Down the six flights of stairs, we exited out the back of our building to cross Lake Street where Lil' Joe's corner store was. Sandra Homan, this crazy lady who lived on the first floor of our building (in one of the 4- and 5-bedrooms that usually housed families of sixteen) was working that morning. We absolutely hated her! She and the majority of her sisters were crazier than cat shit, and were notorious for starting up a lot of mess because there were so many of them. But it wasn't like they could fight. Their whole family got beat up by the Adams clan (beautiful people with names like Mozella, Goldie & Baby Sister) who lived on the third floor. There were a lot of them in that three bedroom apartment, and they fought just for fun (sometimes one another)--and won!
So, we get our snacks and pay her. Sandra was what we called a "surp head": she got high off that toxic cough syrup (among other things). As usual, she was moving like someone had inconvenienced her. All the while she was getting our change together, my sister made that sucking noise with her mouth that everyone knows means "bitch, hurry up" and Sandra knew it, but we were the last two kids she wanted to bother, seeing as though our older sister had beat up four of hers on more than one occasion. After finally getting our change, we ran back home so we could finally get our camp experience underway.
My sister handed my mom the change and we both headed back to our room to get our suitcases, but not before putting the chips and juice (we liked pop, my mom required juice--and not those colored sugar water ones either). Before we got to our room good, we heard my mother call us to the kitchen.
"Where is the rest of my change?" she demanded.
"We gave it to you, mama. That was all of it." we both answered in unison.
"You both have got to be kidding me. Can you two count?" she asked to no one in particular as she snatched our purchases from our separate bags to do a count on her own.
"Look, where is my change you two. All of this didn't cost as much as I gave you. This is some dollars short." she calmly reasoned.
"Mama, that's all the change that Sandra gave us," my sister revealed.
Now, how do two children at the store together forget to count the change we'd been given? We had just paid for the same thing we bought any time we had change to burn, but it didn't occur to us to count our mother's change against what we knew the items were worth. I felt embarrassed immediately, and my sister was hurt, because she was older and hadn't thought to count the change either. Just as the tears were about to come down so we wouldn't be beat, her other personality came out, and this one we knew well, but thank god it wasn't for us.
"Get you all's shit together and come on! I'm about to beat this bitches ass 'cause this isn't the first time her dumb, dope-fiend ass has tried to cheat somebody. I'ma show that bitch she picked the right one today!"
And with that, we had to rush and grab our stuff and follow our mother back to Lil' Joe's where we knew Sandra was about to get it. It was like the scene out of that mini-series "Lace" when Phoebe Cates comes down those stairs and halfway to the bottom she says to the three women she has summoned to meet her, "Okay, which one of you bitches is my mother?"
It went down equally as stunning. She all but pushed the door off it's hinges as she walked right in to Sandra's counter where she was sitting behind the warped, linoleum-covered rectangle on two crates stacked atop one another, nodding. The exchange went exactly like this:
MAMA: Look, you ignorant junkie bitch, just give me my goddamn change or I'ma fuck you up in this goddamn store. I don't want to hear nothing you have to say except my change hitting this fucking counter!"
SANDRA: What the hell are you talking about, I ain't got your change. They must've dropped it going back to the building.
MAMA: Sandra, you not fucking with one of these ignorant ass project girls you eyeball on the side. I'm a grown woman, and if you don't hurry up and give me my change, I'm gon' beat your ass right here, right now.
SANDRA: You ain't gon' do nothing to me, 'cause I can make a phone call and settle this right now.
MAMA: Who you gon' call, that stud-broad ass sister of yours? Well tell that BITCH she can get fucked up, too! Give me my change or get fucked up, plain and simple!
My sister and I were used to this. My mom, an otherwise patient and reserved woman; a single parent who worked three jobs while going to college was doing a kick-ass job raising four children in Chicago's vertical experiments, did not play when it came to her kids. This mathematics/computer science major of a mother would get down and dirty with the best of them, and because she didn't like Sandra anyway, my mother was more than happy to give the dope fiend a beating to remember. I recall being extra happy about this (as I said, we absolutely hated Sandra Homan). Just as my mother was about to go OVER the counter to grab her, Sandra slammed the couple of dollars and some change down on the counter.
MAMA: Thanks, you young, ignorant ass bitch! Your luck runs out today, because when you get off work, I will be waiting on the other side of that door for you, and make sure you call whoever the fuck you need to. Like I said, you can all get fucked up!
My mother took the dollar bills and put them away, but I'm pretty sure if I'm remembering right, she took the remaining coins and threw them in Sandra's face.
We went straight to the boy's club, walking back across Lake Street behind 14o N. Woods where the club was. In silence we walked; my sister and I trying to hold in our laughter and fear while our mother led the way. After a barely inaudible series of curses and swears from my mother, we made it to the club and immediately found our friends in the lobby while our mother went to sign us in. When she came back, she was smiling again. We could hear her recounting the scenario to her co-workers, who also knew Sandra and all the other Homan females.
Camp was a success that year as usual. Me and my sisters would later find out that my mother, indeed, waited on Sandra Homan sitting at the Lake Street bus stop which was right across the steet on the northeast corner of Lake and Woods. She and my godmother Louise had a bottle of CAW (cheap ass wine) which they drank as they waited on Sandra to get off work. As my mother expected, Sandra called her sister (the "stud-broad"), but when she saw my mother, she politely turned and walked back into the building. Sandra spent the night in the store that summer day in June of 1983.
Years later, with families of our own and hosts of nieces and nephews to boot among us, my sisters and I have held on to three lasting lessons:
1. Count your change before leaving the counter.
2. Always pack vegetables in your children's lunches.
3. When people try to give you too much, call them a slew of stud-broads
and ignorant junkie bitches.
That year at summer at camp, I also learned a little something extra about why it's not a good idea to put a bunch of ten year old boys in one cabin and not expect the playful joking to turn into something else. But those memories of Camp Winona (finally I remember the damn name) can't be written about--too many people involved, and confidentiality agreements were signed (just joking...um...yeah, just joking).
where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights
& be working on the sequel...
--"Everyday I Write the Book"
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Underneath the elevated train around the corner from my house, the strivers are usually out in full effect around 7am waiting for the liquor store to open. As I walk to the train station, I do my usual morning hello's and I proceed to the train. We're all familiar enough to one another that we stop a chat for awhile. This includes the "working girls" in my neighborhood. Sure, they're at work, but they always spare a moment to fancy me in a little exchange every now and then.
THEM: Good mornin' baby, how you doing?
ME: I'm alright, and you?
THEM: I can't call it, you got the best hand!
And like that we continue on with the task at hand: work. This morning, I decided to catch the bus, and after maneuvering through all the dirty snow piled up at the King Drive bus stop, I found just enough room on the barely snow-free space where someone else was waiting for the late (as usual) bus. Within fifteen minutes, I found out that she is the mother of three grown children--one son living in San Jose, another in Shreveport and a daughter who lives here in Chicago. I also found out that she is a former English teacher with the Chicago Public Schools who has come out of retirement to teach special needs students. There we stood and talked like old friends, and I must say that started my day just right. Now that's the kind of morning I like.
I wish it was warm, but this is Chicago. The city whose motto is "if you don't like the weather now, wait a few minutes until it changes". What it should be is "if you don't like the weather now, you're really going to hate it when you turn that corner." The hawk is a very attitudinal bitch whose business it is to cut you to the quick.
For some reason, I started thinking about summer camp once I got back to my office. Those summers spent away from parents at places named after the surrounding woods, usually names you don't remember (like now, but at about 3am, I'll remember). It was popsicle stick houses and macaroni necklaces that were to die for; the daily craftmaking days while happy campers consume mass amounts of sponge cake and bug juice. Truthfully, it had nothing to do with income--we were all poor, but my-oh-my, our mother's love never let us know that.
Summer camp wasn't that bad. It was where I made my debut as a performer with the other guys from my cabin as we sang that soulful hit called "The Mighty Pimp" at the camp talent show (this guy named Eric taught us that one; someone in his family was a pimp or something). I went to camp each summer and winter from the time I was eight through high school and had fun each time (but I feign ignorance when asked if I went).
One summer my sister and I were about to go to camp, after hardly getting any sleep, it was fianlly almost time to go meet the bus at the Henry Horner Boys and Girls Club where my mother worked as a secretary. We were packed and anxious as hell. I was ten and my sister was eleven, and both of our years combined made us ready to get the hell out of the house for a month becauase we had HAD IT with the whole cleaning up routine. Cleaning up in our house was not relegated to that one week per school year that the catholic archidiocese let us out of school. My mother, on several occasions back in the day would put the dishes you didn't wash or the trash you didn't take out in your bed!
In the summers, we welcomed the mosquitos and wooden trails; the fresh smell of manure in the mornings from the farm right next to the boys cabins, and most of all, we were ready to not clean up a damn thing for one whole month and live out of suitcases and sleeping bags on the bunks that had survived a foreign war before being donated to the camp we were at. However, before we went anywhere, my mom needed us to go to the store to get some snacks from the corner store.
She had already fried the chicken at about four that morning, seasoning it with the Chinese Five Spices she'd added to the batter (our favorite). There were bags of vegetables for us to share, but we didn't have those other two much needed staples: chips and pop.
"I need you two to go to the store and get you all something to drink along with some chips," she said, and after handing us what was, to my eye, a fist full of dollars, we were off.
Down the six flights of stairs, we exited out the back of our building to cross Lake Street where Lil' Joe's corner store was. Sandra Homan, this crazy lady who lived on the first floor of our building (in one of the 4- and 5-bedrooms that usually housed families of sixteen) was working that morning. We absolutely hated her! She and the majority of her sisters were crazier than cat shit, and were notorious for starting up a lot of mess because there were so many of them. But it wasn't like they could fight. Their whole family got beat up by the Adams clan (beautiful people with names like Mozella, Goldie & Baby Sister) who lived on the third floor. There were a lot of them in that three bedroom apartment, and they fought just for fun (sometimes one another)--and won!
So, we get our snacks and pay her. Sandra was what we called a "surp head": she got high off that toxic cough syrup (among other things). As usual, she was moving like someone had inconvenienced her. All the while she was getting our change together, my sister made that sucking noise with her mouth that everyone knows means "bitch, hurry up" and Sandra knew it, but we were the last two kids she wanted to bother, seeing as though our older sister had beat up four of hers on more than one occasion. After finally getting our change, we ran back home so we could finally get our camp experience underway.
My sister handed my mom the change and we both headed back to our room to get our suitcases, but not before putting the chips and juice (we liked pop, my mom required juice--and not those colored sugar water ones either). Before we got to our room good, we heard my mother call us to the kitchen.
"Where is the rest of my change?" she demanded.
"We gave it to you, mama. That was all of it." we both answered in unison.
"You both have got to be kidding me. Can you two count?" she asked to no one in particular as she snatched our purchases from our separate bags to do a count on her own.
"Look, where is my change you two. All of this didn't cost as much as I gave you. This is some dollars short." she calmly reasoned.
"Mama, that's all the change that Sandra gave us," my sister revealed.
Now, how do two children at the store together forget to count the change we'd been given? We had just paid for the same thing we bought any time we had change to burn, but it didn't occur to us to count our mother's change against what we knew the items were worth. I felt embarrassed immediately, and my sister was hurt, because she was older and hadn't thought to count the change either. Just as the tears were about to come down so we wouldn't be beat, her other personality came out, and this one we knew well, but thank god it wasn't for us.
"Get you all's shit together and come on! I'm about to beat this bitches ass 'cause this isn't the first time her dumb, dope-fiend ass has tried to cheat somebody. I'ma show that bitch she picked the right one today!"
And with that, we had to rush and grab our stuff and follow our mother back to Lil' Joe's where we knew Sandra was about to get it. It was like the scene out of that mini-series "Lace" when Phoebe Cates comes down those stairs and halfway to the bottom she says to the three women she has summoned to meet her, "Okay, which one of you bitches is my mother?"
It went down equally as stunning. She all but pushed the door off it's hinges as she walked right in to Sandra's counter where she was sitting behind the warped, linoleum-covered rectangle on two crates stacked atop one another, nodding. The exchange went exactly like this:
MAMA: Look, you ignorant junkie bitch, just give me my goddamn change or I'ma fuck you up in this goddamn store. I don't want to hear nothing you have to say except my change hitting this fucking counter!"
SANDRA: What the hell are you talking about, I ain't got your change. They must've dropped it going back to the building.
MAMA: Sandra, you not fucking with one of these ignorant ass project girls you eyeball on the side. I'm a grown woman, and if you don't hurry up and give me my change, I'm gon' beat your ass right here, right now.
SANDRA: You ain't gon' do nothing to me, 'cause I can make a phone call and settle this right now.
MAMA: Who you gon' call, that stud-broad ass sister of yours? Well tell that BITCH she can get fucked up, too! Give me my change or get fucked up, plain and simple!
My sister and I were used to this. My mom, an otherwise patient and reserved woman; a single parent who worked three jobs while going to college was doing a kick-ass job raising four children in Chicago's vertical experiments, did not play when it came to her kids. This mathematics/computer science major of a mother would get down and dirty with the best of them, and because she didn't like Sandra anyway, my mother was more than happy to give the dope fiend a beating to remember. I recall being extra happy about this (as I said, we absolutely hated Sandra Homan). Just as my mother was about to go OVER the counter to grab her, Sandra slammed the couple of dollars and some change down on the counter.
MAMA: Thanks, you young, ignorant ass bitch! Your luck runs out today, because when you get off work, I will be waiting on the other side of that door for you, and make sure you call whoever the fuck you need to. Like I said, you can all get fucked up!
My mother took the dollar bills and put them away, but I'm pretty sure if I'm remembering right, she took the remaining coins and threw them in Sandra's face.
We went straight to the boy's club, walking back across Lake Street behind 14o N. Woods where the club was. In silence we walked; my sister and I trying to hold in our laughter and fear while our mother led the way. After a barely inaudible series of curses and swears from my mother, we made it to the club and immediately found our friends in the lobby while our mother went to sign us in. When she came back, she was smiling again. We could hear her recounting the scenario to her co-workers, who also knew Sandra and all the other Homan females.
Camp was a success that year as usual. Me and my sisters would later find out that my mother, indeed, waited on Sandra Homan sitting at the Lake Street bus stop which was right across the steet on the northeast corner of Lake and Woods. She and my godmother Louise had a bottle of CAW (cheap ass wine) which they drank as they waited on Sandra to get off work. As my mother expected, Sandra called her sister (the "stud-broad"), but when she saw my mother, she politely turned and walked back into the building. Sandra spent the night in the store that summer day in June of 1983.
Years later, with families of our own and hosts of nieces and nephews to boot among us, my sisters and I have held on to three lasting lessons:
1. Count your change before leaving the counter.
2. Always pack vegetables in your children's lunches.
3. When people try to give you too much, call them a slew of stud-broads
and ignorant junkie bitches.
That year at summer at camp, I also learned a little something extra about why it's not a good idea to put a bunch of ten year old boys in one cabin and not expect the playful joking to turn into something else. But those memories of Camp Winona (finally I remember the damn name) can't be written about--too many people involved, and confidentiality agreements were signed (just joking...um...yeah, just joking).
Friday, January 21, 2005
Broke My Heart
"...this is a show tune, but the show hasn't been written yet..."
--"Mississippi Goddamn" by Nina Simone
This is that defining moment which I have completely accepted that it is over. This should have been a love story, but even that is pending some sort of investigation or interrogation underneath bright lights.
in this union we have adamantly
worked to make one another
scream for dear life;
new lives without one another
becasue life together
with all its perks
is what we've hid
behind/had in mind
i could say i'm happy in love,
for that is the truth
yet, i am one and none
particular and insignificantly
numb
I could probably mail him letters, but I won't--he'll never read them. I have spelled it out in languages even unknown to me, and he lived only in his reality. So that is where I found a space for too many years now. No regrets, just questions about the questions. I'm no longer concerned about the why-not's and the repetitive notion of finding strange hands in his sweaters. Look at me! I have almost set you free in the purple rain, but this damn window is painted shut and no amount of tears are going to loosen it.
He built walls and I, whether concurrently, before or after him--I built them, too. It was an experiment, you see. I was assured that these situations were all smoke and mirrors; that my satisfaction was guaranteed/insured/nothing to fear. But pockets have always spoke to me, and I never wanted what was in anyone else's. Least of all, his. What could I do when he looked at me the way he did. He wouldn't hurt a fly, I thought. Did he just say he loved me, still?
But I have that...that fear because the truth is a mother-fo'-yo'-ass, and not ironic at all. It is not ironic that little black boys couldn't have these talks before the cycle of silence impacted our teens; who'd have thought it would last close to twenty odd years for both of us. And we both tried to love one another. I know that, but it means only so much when you think about it: what you did.
we suppose
where to go leads back to
the beginning
where once, two people lived
together in something
like a metaphor.
some defining part of speech
where silence gave or took
the last syllable of his name
I tried to hold it close to me, claimed it as my saving grace. "It" being the specific act of being commitedly together, taking on burdens still lingering; spirits loitering. He said he loved me and meant it, but the un-doing that let him know he could love & be loved was much more beneath the surface. Hands will never know you, and minds will stutter mid-thought at you. Everything I thought I knew, was sure of, went out the door when you came back around. But you referenced nonexistent beings and prefaced everything with the history of you, not knowing I wasn't some hard-to-reach island. If I am already here, how can you discover me?
not alone, i insisted on believing the
irony of sunshine in winter
breakfast cereal at night
love, nonetheless, i confess
that i, too, am strange & unusual
we suppose
does not become something else
eventually
It is snowing like mad here, and watching it all just fall and accumulate is making me feel a certain way. However, I'm going to watch the stillness of my neighborhood from my window on the third floor and imagine that all the cars leaving trails of tire treads and turned corners have safely made it to apartments and homes near and far. As Bronzeville is blanketed, I accept that I can no more change this fact--that it is over--than I can change the weather.
All I can do is let it cover the place; let it shower the sidewalks and walkways in front of all the rehabbed properties from Lake Michigan to the Dan Ryan Expressway. Maybe this time, our footprints will disappear beneath the mounting matter, finally severing any way back to one another.
liar, leaver
dancer, believer
This should have been a love story...really...
--"Mississippi Goddamn" by Nina Simone
This is that defining moment which I have completely accepted that it is over. This should have been a love story, but even that is pending some sort of investigation or interrogation underneath bright lights.
in this union we have adamantly
worked to make one another
scream for dear life;
new lives without one another
becasue life together
with all its perks
is what we've hid
behind/had in mind
i could say i'm happy in love,
for that is the truth
yet, i am one and none
particular and insignificantly
numb
I could probably mail him letters, but I won't--he'll never read them. I have spelled it out in languages even unknown to me, and he lived only in his reality. So that is where I found a space for too many years now. No regrets, just questions about the questions. I'm no longer concerned about the why-not's and the repetitive notion of finding strange hands in his sweaters. Look at me! I have almost set you free in the purple rain, but this damn window is painted shut and no amount of tears are going to loosen it.
He built walls and I, whether concurrently, before or after him--I built them, too. It was an experiment, you see. I was assured that these situations were all smoke and mirrors; that my satisfaction was guaranteed/insured/nothing to fear. But pockets have always spoke to me, and I never wanted what was in anyone else's. Least of all, his. What could I do when he looked at me the way he did. He wouldn't hurt a fly, I thought. Did he just say he loved me, still?
But I have that...that fear because the truth is a mother-fo'-yo'-ass, and not ironic at all. It is not ironic that little black boys couldn't have these talks before the cycle of silence impacted our teens; who'd have thought it would last close to twenty odd years for both of us. And we both tried to love one another. I know that, but it means only so much when you think about it: what you did.
we suppose
where to go leads back to
the beginning
where once, two people lived
together in something
like a metaphor.
some defining part of speech
where silence gave or took
the last syllable of his name
I tried to hold it close to me, claimed it as my saving grace. "It" being the specific act of being commitedly together, taking on burdens still lingering; spirits loitering. He said he loved me and meant it, but the un-doing that let him know he could love & be loved was much more beneath the surface. Hands will never know you, and minds will stutter mid-thought at you. Everything I thought I knew, was sure of, went out the door when you came back around. But you referenced nonexistent beings and prefaced everything with the history of you, not knowing I wasn't some hard-to-reach island. If I am already here, how can you discover me?
not alone, i insisted on believing the
irony of sunshine in winter
breakfast cereal at night
love, nonetheless, i confess
that i, too, am strange & unusual
we suppose
does not become something else
eventually
It is snowing like mad here, and watching it all just fall and accumulate is making me feel a certain way. However, I'm going to watch the stillness of my neighborhood from my window on the third floor and imagine that all the cars leaving trails of tire treads and turned corners have safely made it to apartments and homes near and far. As Bronzeville is blanketed, I accept that I can no more change this fact--that it is over--than I can change the weather.
All I can do is let it cover the place; let it shower the sidewalks and walkways in front of all the rehabbed properties from Lake Michigan to the Dan Ryan Expressway. Maybe this time, our footprints will disappear beneath the mounting matter, finally severing any way back to one another.
liar, leaver
dancer, believer
This should have been a love story...really...
Because It's Cold As Hell!
It's colder than a whore iin church outside! I should be used to this now, but I still can't get ready for the Chicago winters after all this time. Even colder are the people, who are cold all year around except for a few days in July in August. We do warm up, but because our seasons go from artic to hell then back again, everyone has an attitude.
Take for instance my commute this morning. Now I admit I should have a fare card, but that's beside the point. So my train is coming and after putting in all my coins to proceed through the turnstile, I rush through as soon as the last coin is dropped in. I immediately fly up the stairs screaming "hold the train!" because being the fool that I am, I thought my hollers of wait would register to the wonderfully accommodating driver. Instead, we lock eyes as I make it to the last step at the top of the platform and she looks like she can't possibly open the train doors for me. And seeing as though the train hadn't pulled out yet, I felt I had a shot, right? Wrong! Ole girl politely pulled out of the station not giving a fuck that I was standing right at the door about ten seconds before the train pulled out. Thank you CTA Green Line...I am blue still, hours later, from enduring the bonecrushing cold whipping my ass as I smoked a cigarette on the nonsmoking platform (yes, I didn't have my gloves on which is why my hands are now rebelling as I type). She was cold, indeed, as only a Chi-town woman can be.
The beauty of the moment happened after I finally boarded the next train (which was five minutes late) and got to the next stop remembering that I had my computer bag with me before I made it up the stairs in time to be snubbed America's Top Model-style by the train lady. Where the hell is my laptop? The one I don't own, the one from my job with the faulty zip drive...yes, people, I had left it at the turnstile downstairs because I had to free both my hands to meticulously drop each and every coin down that blood-sucking fare box! So, I had to get off the train and luckily, a train going back south was not far behind. Would you believe that because the ticket agents know me (I've given them Christmas cards and received a few allowances to go through the handicapped turnstile-which is always broken), one who had seen me earlier held it for me. "Baby, I was gon' pawn this, but you know I lovez me some u!"
Needless to say, as cold as this city is...there are still some warm folks out there.
...meetings all day...gotta get going, but I'll be back. I have a few theories on love, but I must consult with Donny Hathaway & Roberta Flack before I share them (this means that I have to get off work, go get a pint of Evan Williams and sing the hell out of "When Love Has Grown" a few times before I can muster up the right language...after all, I vowed no more cynicism in 2005).
I close this post this afternoon imploring everyone (or anyone...friends, family, didn't you get the email telling you all to read my shit?) to contemplate Donny and Roberta as they professed in "You Are My Heaven":
If someone tries to tell you
that I do not love you
tell them they must be out of their
minds...
Take for instance my commute this morning. Now I admit I should have a fare card, but that's beside the point. So my train is coming and after putting in all my coins to proceed through the turnstile, I rush through as soon as the last coin is dropped in. I immediately fly up the stairs screaming "hold the train!" because being the fool that I am, I thought my hollers of wait would register to the wonderfully accommodating driver. Instead, we lock eyes as I make it to the last step at the top of the platform and she looks like she can't possibly open the train doors for me. And seeing as though the train hadn't pulled out yet, I felt I had a shot, right? Wrong! Ole girl politely pulled out of the station not giving a fuck that I was standing right at the door about ten seconds before the train pulled out. Thank you CTA Green Line...I am blue still, hours later, from enduring the bonecrushing cold whipping my ass as I smoked a cigarette on the nonsmoking platform (yes, I didn't have my gloves on which is why my hands are now rebelling as I type). She was cold, indeed, as only a Chi-town woman can be.
The beauty of the moment happened after I finally boarded the next train (which was five minutes late) and got to the next stop remembering that I had my computer bag with me before I made it up the stairs in time to be snubbed America's Top Model-style by the train lady. Where the hell is my laptop? The one I don't own, the one from my job with the faulty zip drive...yes, people, I had left it at the turnstile downstairs because I had to free both my hands to meticulously drop each and every coin down that blood-sucking fare box! So, I had to get off the train and luckily, a train going back south was not far behind. Would you believe that because the ticket agents know me (I've given them Christmas cards and received a few allowances to go through the handicapped turnstile-which is always broken), one who had seen me earlier held it for me. "Baby, I was gon' pawn this, but you know I lovez me some u!"
Needless to say, as cold as this city is...there are still some warm folks out there.
...meetings all day...gotta get going, but I'll be back. I have a few theories on love, but I must consult with Donny Hathaway & Roberta Flack before I share them (this means that I have to get off work, go get a pint of Evan Williams and sing the hell out of "When Love Has Grown" a few times before I can muster up the right language...after all, I vowed no more cynicism in 2005).
I close this post this afternoon imploring everyone (or anyone...friends, family, didn't you get the email telling you all to read my shit?) to contemplate Donny and Roberta as they professed in "You Are My Heaven":
If someone tries to tell you
that I do not love you
tell them they must be out of their
minds...
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Call Me Angry...You Might Be Right
I've finally found out that truth in words...like those words my mother told me long before I wanted to believe them that reminded me of the cycle of life. "Your life changes just when you get comfortable, so don't ever get to comfortable with mediocrity!" These are words that have had a rippling effect, as just when I try to believe that people are people, somebody/something/some place comes along and adds their inactive shit to the mix.
Today, I say, "for real? Really?"
Really! I have had it, but in addition to that, I'm finding myself once again finding that safe space to retreat to, and this time, my exile will be self-imposed as opposed to me taking anyone else's drama. Here's to life--the comedy of errors & eras of decadent foolery!
In this here year of our Lawd & Saviour Hay-Seuss Crist, I will complete the following before 2006 comes around (and the killer bees get us all):
Today, I say, "for real? Really?"
Really! I have had it, but in addition to that, I'm finding myself once again finding that safe space to retreat to, and this time, my exile will be self-imposed as opposed to me taking anyone else's drama. Here's to life--the comedy of errors & eras of decadent foolery!
In this here year of our Lawd & Saviour Hay-Seuss Crist, I will complete the following before 2006 comes around (and the killer bees get us all):
- I will watch reality television shows and talk shit to the screen from beginning to end and do my dishes on commercials.
- I will conduct a nationwide search for literate human beings who agree with me when I say a good book makes a good read AND a great tool to whack ig'nant folks in the puss.
- I will pray consistently that I do not run into my students at the liquour store (however, if they're selling greens, I'm buying in large quantities).
- I will be a better friend to my friends, and only laugh uncontrollably when those who aren't my friends anymore (probably never were, either) speak to me if we're, by some mean trick of life, forced to be around one another because of mutual friends.
- I will work more diligently on my writing, saving the task of rewriting for those days I need to get out of doing things I don't want to do with folks who really aren't worth the time.
- I will not feel guilty about #5
- I will actually write on those occasions that #5 has to be enabled.
- I will visit my dad more and quell my desire to address him with, "hey deadbeat, what's the bizness?"
- I will get myself flowers once a week and tell the checkout ladies, "these are for my boyfriend...I know his allergies will love these puppies!"
- I will take all this cynicism in me and bottle it up somewhere and only refer to it when it's time for the black gay boy pity party to start.
- I'll honestly do better in my relationships with myself...which means no more cheating with my left hand.
- I'll clean my mom's basement, for real this time (?).
- I'll pay my bills on time.
- I'll get my thesis done.
- I'll get my thesis done on time.
- I'll lower my intake of caffeine.
- I'll smoke less cigarettes.
- I won't tell people "I did this before I went to see Mandy Moore in concert" when they ask why I cut my locks off after 8 1/2 years.
- I'll remember to tell people that I really didn't see Mandy Moore in concert (but the very first concert I went to was the Jets at the UIC Pavillion in Chicago back in 1985...whoa!).
- I'll stop calling the cops on the prostitutes who parade in front of my building.
- I'll stop giving the prostitutes in front of my building any ammunition to keep asking me "do you want some good head?"
- I'll stop thinking that it's good to lead prostitutes on.
- I'll keep the peace going from 9-to-5 (but before or after those hours, I can't be held responsible for my actions--there is a war going on).
- Make this my last gripe with the world and beyond
- End this now and go smoke a bit (not Whitney Houston smoke...but the blue light in the basement during rent parties on the West Side when Angelo & 'nem got that Cuban green from them cats in K-Town).
Anyone who reads this, know that I'm okay if you're okay, and if you're okay...well, good for you & so what (just joking)...keep that same old feeling and pass the love around before you're up at five minutes to midnight wishing you weren't so angry.
You might be right, call me angry today, cuz tomorrow I'll be someone else (but still me, all jokes/all the time!).
