Soon Come

Poem for South African Women 

Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands
by the tens of thousands pound the fallow land
into new dust that
rising like a marvelous pollen will be
fertile
even as the first woman whispering
imagination to the trees around her made
for righteous fruit
from such deliberate defense of life
as no other still
will claim inferior to any other safety
in the world

The whispers too they
intimate to the inmost ear of every spirit
now aroused they
carousing in ferocious affirmation
of all peaceable and loving amplitude
sound a certainly unbounded heat
from a baptismal smoke where yes
there will be fire

And the babies cease alarm as mothers
raising arms
and heart high as the stars so far unseen
nevertheless hurl into the universe
a moving force
irreversible as light years
traveling to the open eye

And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
back into the mountains and
if necessary
even under the sea:

we are the ones we have been waiting for.

Written by June Jordan (1936 - 2002)

I have been in a pause.  I just started reading Alice Walker's "We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For" and she speaks of "the pause, the universal place of stopping...the universal moment of reflection."  I have stopped writing and I reflect on my life's journey to this moment often.  I sit in silence in my 3rd floor room and drift off into afternoon naps.  I ponder deep and shallow issues at stop lights.  I pause often.  I feel a shift in my spirit and suddenly the thoughts and feelings I kept bottled inside are once again ready to be recorded and shared.  So perhaps soon I will write again.  Maybe not!  But deep inside I feel that tugging and when the desire is strong enough I will submit.  Life is taking interesting turns, I am rolling with it.  School is going awesomely!  I am pulling down As left and right and am planning on finishing my first semester strong!  I am having a consuming textual relationship with someone, it fills my days with laughter and inappropriateness and I love it.  Mom is still floating back and forth between here and Canada, but Gran is coming from Haiti soon so she'll be back more permanently.  I am happier than sad, calmer and less frustrated.  I am much closer to 30 than I once was and can look back and accept the life I've lived thus far, what a gift. 

Textual Relations

10/13/10 - The last two weeks I've established a textual relationship with an old crush...the chemistry is amazing.  Like a volcano the vibe is casual but bubbling underneath is an emotional lava river, both of us wondering when to erupt and let it flow.  Perpetual singleness can leave you in an attention-needing - slightly desperate head-space.  I need to evaluate my motivations, my honest feelings.  Then again aren't emotions always honest in the moment, no matter what the catalyst?  I have been imagining marriage, children, my possible future with the men I've dealt with my entire life, much more seriously the past few years.  Some fantasies seem more attainable than others.  What am I willing to compromise in order to achieve my ideal family?  How honest can we both be?  And for how long?  Questions like this surface when I realize I feel a way about someone.

10/15/10 - Feelings are cool.  I've learned over the years not to let them get away from me.  It was an interesting day.  Saw my very first crush, someone I met when I was 9 years old in 4th grade and asked out on the phone (dying of embarrassment) in 5th grade, and it was like coming full circle from that shy middle-schooler to the outgoing lady I am today.  We basically caught up over lunch and it was nice to know that time puts everyone on an even playing field.  As far as my textual relations, he has definitely helped me stay focused on school by being my main male interest while being out of reach.  He remains just that, out of reach, and the realities of that distance are realer than anything.   

Fair to Middling

My older cousin always replies to my "how are you" question with "fair to middling."  I've been better than that since this summer and am carrying my contentment into the fall and new year.  I know I have a lot of untapped potential; career potential, physical potential, life potential.  I have to address all of these facets in order to claim authority over my happiness.  Being in school has really helped renew my self-esteem and has given me motivation that I want to extend into an ailing arena, my health.  I have always struggled with my horrendous eating habits and lack of discipline and self-control. When I was at my heaviest, it was less over-eating than the effects of medication, but still the lowest point in my exterior journey.  So now that I am my average weight, I really want to push past this fair to middling body and expose my true potential!  I believe I can do it, I just have to find way to reconfigure my lifestyle so that I can eat better and stay active without feeling like I'm missing out on indulgences.  It's never been easy to rationalize feeling deprived or miserable chasing someone else's standard of beauty.  What I'm realizing is that I want to be the leading lady in my own life, a concept I embraced from the movie "The Holiday."  So I've jumped the gun and decided to recommit myself to my fitness and emotional development, (weight loss and blogging) and these are my two pre-year resolutions!  2011 get ready!

Growing Older Not Wiser

My mother.  My mother is both free-thinking and liberal and the most childish, emotionally stunted person.  She asks me for $60, I give her $20 right away.  Later she says let's make it $100.  WTF.  I'm on unemployment.  I get less than $300 a week and have a $400 per month car note.  Are you serious?  Today I give her $30 more because that's all I can afford to part with.  I have a life, it takes money to socialize.  She comes in my room inquiring about the balance, irritated that I can't pony up the rest.  She sees I'm doing homework, reading at that.  She asks me if a book she brought with her is mine and I say no.  She continues to say, you must read this book, if you don't you won't be a good English teacher.  What?  I've had to deal with her manipulative, overwhelming personality my entire life.  This is why I can be so stubborn when I decide on something, because I'm hyper-defensive.  As I've matured, I've tried to be more communicative and less angry with my mother but she makes that virtually impossible.  I tell her to put the book in my closet on my bookshelf.  She does so begrudgingly.  I try to express my frustrations with her manipulative tones.  She avoids my confrontation, takes the book back and closes the door.  How am I supposed to be emotionally well-balanced with her as my model?  I feel like her love is a blessing and at once the most detrimental force in my development.  How am I to contend with her?  Is the answer as easy as separating our lives, our living situation?  I doubt it, she's my mother no matter the geography.  I doubt therapy is something she would participate in.  I can't even focus on my schoolwork right now.  I have to address this. 

All Matter

Bilal Oliver's new album Air Tight's Revenge is incredible.  I've been living off of First Born Second and his unreleased Love for Sale all of these years and finally his new music has arrived and breathed new life into me!  My favorite song "All Matter" asks, with yearning, "what is love?," answers descriptively "cool on the outside hot in the middle...you ain't even gotta try, all you gotta do is realize."  It's all matter.  That's what life boils down to.  Things composed of matter, colliding, interacting, reacting, loving.  On to that oh so elusive subject - love.  I feel like LL Cool J these days, needing love, hearing my conscience call.  Have I ever known love?  Have I ever held it in my heart and loved someone unconditionally?  I doubt it.  I doubt that romantic love is some latent ability that activates when you encounter your soul's mate.  Highly doubt it.  Instead I believe it is an accumulation of lessons you learn from significant others.  This is how you should love me.  This is not.  And so on.  My lack of relationships has me in a lurch.  Not enough lessons learned, which impedes my desire to learn with anyone new!  What a mess.  A lonesome mess.  My heart keeps telling me that I will know when someone is worth the agony, the trials of being taught to love.  So I will date with trepidation, and one day fall with my eyes wide open, into the most informative experience of my life.  Here's hoping. 

P.S.  Katie and I are going to see Bilal perform at BB King's tonight!  It's going to be an amazing day I hope I have the wherewithal to blog about it!

Goodbye Summer, Come Again!

          Haiti

My feet and South Beach

KMack and I in BK

Tomorrow is the 3rd day of my freshman year of college.  No it's not déjà vu, I'm 27 and a freshman once again :)  This summer was incredible.  There was hardly time for lazy days and lounging around, I was in the streets!  A lot of lovely evenings were spent in BK with my homies Katie and Steph, strutting through midtown, chillen in Prospect Park, drinking at the Beer Garden or Habana Outpost.  Met a nice guy out there too.  June the big deal was my Hawaii trip, July was all about Brooklyn, but August - August was international!  First my Uncle Glenn took me and my cousins to this awesome amusement park, Knoebels in PA for the 1st weekend of the month to celebrate me going back to school.  Great times!  One of the few situations where I could assume the role of a kid again!  Then the Monday I returned me and mom hit the road for...Miami!  We road-tripped and made it there Wednesday evening, with a kitten in the car!  Mom is still crazy, nothing changing there.  3 days straight I drove to South Beach and lay comatose underneath the summer sun, bronzing and basking in the fabulosity of it all, even had an impromptu lunch with a friend from Jersey.  Bought way too many beach towels but that's another story.  That Saturday, the 13th, we hopped a plane to...wait for it...haven't been there in 6 years...my mom was born there...that's right...HAITI!  It wasn't the wreckage and misery CNN would lead you to believe.  I believe that every time I visit Haiti I'm seeing it with different eyes.  I went often as a child, then at 10, 18, 21, and now at 27.  So many life experiences and so much maturity divide those landmarks.  So each-time is a first time.  Mom and I went to visit my grandma Monday and stayed till Wednesday.  The heat and mosquitoes made it a long, long, visit.  We were in Haiti 6 days total but I really want to go back next year, it's a part of me and I always feel a renewed sense of self and purpose when I come back to the states.  Best.  Summer.  Ever...so far ;)

On Schedule

I am officially back in school!  Yesterday I paid my first tuition installment and today I completed my course selection.  Last night I cleaned out my binders of notes from classes I took over 7 years ago.  It felt good, a clean slate.  My money is funny right now but I couldn't be happier.  Excited to do back to school shopping, the first day of school, learning again!  Essex County College is the best choice for my situation and I have full faith I'll have my Associates in Education within the next 2 years.  Hopefully I'll get an extension on my unemployment so I can focus on classes and transitioning back into student life.  If I have to work part-time, I've set up my schedule to be off Fri, Sat, and Sun so it can be done.  The future is getting brighter, I feel encouraged and so much love and support from family and friends, and today is the first day of the rest of my life!

Check-In

(June 14th) School is not going as smoothly as I thought.  I feel like I'm doing it all alone.  When I told my mother she didn't exude all the enthusiasm I'd anticipated.  I applied for FAFSA but I'm not eligible for a Pell Grant and I don't know how to proceed from there and tuition is due Monday for Summer Session II.  Maybe I'll have to wait till Fall just so that my money will be right.  On that same subject, I had to rob Peter to pay Paul just to make it to Hawaii to see my boy Brad get married, but I made it and it was all worth it.  Since returning from Hawaii on Tuesday I've stayed in the house.  It's cheaper, and money is gonna be tight for a while :/  It is what it is.  Unemployment is freeing and limiting all at once.  I don't know how my mood is right now.  I feel highs and lows all within the same day. 

(Today)  I'm already losing motivation for school :/  But beyond my indifference I may have to put it on the back-burner again because I just applied for a para (teacher's aide) position in NYC.  I have my fingers crossed.  I wasn't looking to return to work so soon but this would give me work experience in my field so I am taking a chance.  I've spent the last 2 weeks in the city A LOT and I'm really starting to love it, so it would be awesome to work there and have an entirely new relationship with NY.  Mom and I are finally on good terms again.  As well as I can hold animosity and resentment for her, it is emotionally exhausting and it hurts me to feel that way for long periods of time.  Our main issue is something we will have to continually work on, communication.  I berate her for excluding me from some aspects of her life but when I have certain feelings I hold them in and let them fester instead of constructively expressing myself.  One thing I have always realized is that my mother loves me unconditionally and maybe it will take me one day becoming a mom to understand how that love works.

Schooling the Youth

Like that Monster.com add, today was the day.  I applied for FAFSA and Essex County College.  Not difficult, but until today, not ready either.  Something went wrong with my application fee payment so I'll check on that in the morning, but if all goes well I'll be in classes in July.  What a long journey.  I haven't been in school since...errr um...2003.  So I'm humbled and excited because I will be on track to complete my higher education and becoming, an educator.  As much as people have tried to encourage me, my brother Brad is one of the few people that knows just how to talk to me, so that I get things done.  He's getting married next month, June 13th to be exact, in Hilo, Hawaii.  It's going to be a miracle paying for this trip and staying on top of my car note, bills, etc., but I promised and I wouldn't miss this for anything.  If he ends up getting remarried later on in life, I will NOT be in attendance, he knows this!
As far as being unemployed since March, it's a blessing.  I can remain on Unemployment, go to school full-time, and get my Associates ASAP.  I'm going to be majoring in Education, then English when I transfer to a 4-year, probably Rutgers (most of my family including my dad went to RU so why not!).  I'm highly optimistic.  And finally motivated.  Today is the day :)

Oh Canada

I'm in Montreal.  Been up here since April 16th, gonna be here till May 5.  Visiting my mom's bff and her 3 sons whom I've known all my life and therefore call my cousins.  I'm having a good time.  The last time I came up I was with my brother Jesse, and was not in a good head space at all.  Let's be real I was deep in a depression back in '03 and didn't have a good time, at all.  7 years is long time and thankfully I'm healthy and in great spirits.  I've been enjoying the quality time with moms and taking in some of the charm of Quebec.  One thing I've realized while in another country is that pop culture is not some general knowledge that crosses all cultural bounds.  It is very particular to age, race, culture, exposure, etc.  My sense of humor doesn't always translate (literally and figuratively) up here.  Case in point, I had to Youtube a Colt 45 commercial to show my cousin who Billy D. Williams was so that I could then explain a reference ("works every time") someone made while I was playing poker on Facebook.  Long story long, it dawned on me that no, everyone does not know who the smoothest black man in America is!  What a revelation.  So in a personal sense it's a further reminder that the world that revolve around me and the way that I interact with it.  Culture is pockets of subjective perspectives, joined together in the human experience.  While in Canada I'm realizing a lot of things, how much I missed out on by not having siblings, and that my grasp of French isn't completely gone, and also that spring time up here has its redeeming qualities, but these people need to get a grip, hockey isn't all that!

Fixation

This morning I need to talk about body image.  I just finished watching a documentary "America the Beautiful" about our fixation on unrealistic standards of beauty.  It struck a nerve with me especially now that the summer season is upon us and suddenly Facebook is inundated with stats touting gym, diet, and other things no one really worries about in the winter.  I have always felt like the biggest girl in every circle.  When I had a larger chest it was on the back-burner as I was being sexualized so that I didn't have a chance to feel fat.  When I was the smallest I've been in my adult life it was only after having an emotional breakdown my first year of college, I was skinny because of stress.  Not a good time to feel beautiful.  My body image has been fairly regular, having my most difficult times from middle through high school when I had a 36DDD chest.  Since 18 and my breast reduction, (now a 38D) I've been fixated on my stomach.  It's never flat, I feel like if it just disappeared I would be beautiful.  My clothes would fall correctly and I would be attractive and sexy.  After removing parts of my breasts in an unnecessary surgery I still don't feel pretty.  Think about it.  It's fucked up.  I always say to people, I love my body except my stomach.  My stomach should be the part I love the very most.  It is my womanhood.  I hope to one day bear children and it will become my crowning glory, growing life, nurturing a being.  A wise man once said:

B*tches need to stop blaming all your problems on us. Stop tellin' a n*gga, "You f*cked up my self-esteem." B*tch it's called SELF-ESTEEM! It's esteem of your motherf*ckin' self. How am I gonna f*ck up how you feel about you simple b*tch?

 That wise man was Katt Williams.  Beyond the crude language, he has a point.  It's impossible at the end of the day to blame outside sources for how I feel about myself.  I can pinpoint influences that have been negative or of detriment, but only I wake up everyday and critique my body in my full length mirror before I go into the shower.  Only I obsess over my stomach in bed at night, wishing it away, only I feel insecure when men tell me I'm beautiful.  That's me.  I do a lot of self degradation with little outside help.  The media may fuel the flame, my mother may ignite my fire at times, but only I keep it burning.  And so even as I have a date this morning with my friend Schnovey to go walking and shop for a fruit and veggies only diet (she also hates only her tummy), I do so with trepidation.  I have very unhealthy eating habits and I know that if I had a weaker constitution I could fall victim to an eating disorder, it's a slippery slope.  So this spring and summer I am going to work on building my self esteem, feeling less paranoid in society (I'm EXTREMELY self-conscious always feeling like people are dissecting me, it informs my actions when driving sometimes, I have anxiety at red lights wondering if the next car is looking at me, it's crazy!) and loving every part of me everyday.  Even if I aspire to lose weight and change my outward appearance, I want and need to maintain a positive self image.  Forever.  Period.

Handling Difficult Situations

I suck at life.  Have I started a blog with this line before?  Probably. Today more than any day I am really internalizing this statement.  It's fucked up how much I blame my mother for my misery.  Her absence has sent me spiraling into this emotional free-fall with no ability to brace myself for impact.  She was supposed to be home today.  Instead she decided to stay in Miami for an undisclosed amount of time.  She ran away from her problems.  Simple and plain.  It just so happened the worst natural disaster in the history of her native country happened in the interim.  I wonder how much she has learned in her 53 years, and I pray I don't repeat many of her poor choices.  Our lives are bound together through finance, emotion,  and obligation.  We have a bizarre dynamic where many times I play the parental role then regress emotionally to match her immaturity.  It's exhausting.  Sometimes she's a wonderful mom, that mom my friends used to envy when I was growing up because she was so fun and relaxed.  I know I missed out on many life lessons from her, things like discipline and self-control.  She has some enabling qualities, and many issues with money management.  She's a very unique, free spirit, can be  so loving, dynamic and charming, but she has these glaring emotional disabilities, and in this way we're just alike.  Oh God.  I'm so much like her.  I have to assert myself when she comes home, take the reigns of my life, and cut the fucking cord.  I'm 3 years from 30 and my life is floundering in mediocrity.  I see so many opportunities, paths, choices I can make.  I need her to help me get there.  I need her to be there for me just long enough for me to get out of here.  I need her to grow up, if only for a little while.

Workplace Tension

...is the dumbest kind of tension.  It is so insignificant in the grand scheme of life, and for someone like me who completely forgets all about work once I clock out, it's pretty entertaining.  I just don't care.  I have a pretty laid back job that involves sitting in front of a computer, printing wedding registries, registering couples, helping them decide on china patterns, and ringing up customers in the home store of Macy's.  All in all a fluff job with a decent pay for someone who has yet to finish college.  Now, all that said, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to effectively perform said duties.  I'm no Einstein, but I am very intelligent and more computer literate than anyone in my department, save my manager [he happens to be in school for IT].  My skills are vital to moving things along much of the time.  I'm everyone's go-to for computer/printer issues and even some register functions.  Therefore I can see how sometimes my technological IQ can be intimidating.  I am the youngest person in my dept. [only 7 people including me], my manager just turned 30.  The next closest in age is 40 and then it goes all the way up to 73 or so.  No one here is really a peer that I would socialize with in my natural environment.  And therefore many typical tensions may arise.  Racial, socio-economic, generational, these differences cause undue complications on a day to day basis;

*people hold in stupid things they think you did and bring them up with such a passive-aggressive casual accusation it makes me want to die laughing.

*some people are simply over-qualified for this position and refuse to tone down their professionalism.  There is such a thing as being too good.  It's just Macy's.

*I simply do not get paid enough to care enough to do too much.  Period.  Cut the check!

*I enjoy customer service but only when the customer respects me as a person doing a job and not a servant fulfilling my destiny.  Get a grip you ignorant insult to humanity.

But even after all of that, the people at this job are like a second family.  Sometimes we argue and don't like each other so much, but there's something about the workplace that causes you to be more open about your personal life than is necessary or even appropriate.  A bond is formed and a professional love develops.  Some of these people I will never forget.

Unconsciously

I wrote this poem 7/4/00, 3 weeks later I met Benito.  Life is funny.

I am desperately seeking.  At times I'm positive it's ineffable.  Substitutions are titled boyfriends, then exes, then bitter memories and anger, frustration, the lack of an adequate vocabulary.  I look elsewhere, for things less tangible and flawed, a concept, an emotional destination similar to inner-peace.  At times I think I'm crazy or depressed and cringe because the act of allowing the notion to run rampant in my thought process makes me sane.  I desperately seek a loophole.  Instant mental health.  Void of this torturous, pathetic, self-evaluation.  I'm devoured by confusion and fatigue.  I need options.  Constantly.  I'm lackadaisical, dare I say indifferent, overly sentimental and easily influenced.  Weak yet stubborn, free and savagely limited.  I'm ordinary AMPLIFIED, chaos condensed, packed in this shell pretentious people judge recklessly.  I'm a hopeless romantic, who can effortlessly distance myself from human affection.  I probably won't call you when I'm supposed to.  I'll stare at the caller I.D. in suffocating disappointment, you irritate me, don't love me, hate me or submerge yourself in your own existence.  Don't embrace me, not until I've found what I'm seeking.    - Pascalle Arnold

13 on the phone---

 I think that in a way, Brian is like a (the first word that comes to mind is) box.  I pour myself into him and he closes. - Excerpt from my diary dated 5/10/96

I still have little to no ability to communicate effectively with men.  When I was a teenager, and had my very first crush, talking on the phone was always a disaster.  Absolutely awkward.  Where most households are filled with conversation and social conditioning, mine was much quieter and introverted, my father would work on his computer, watch TV, sleep, and I would be left to my own devices.  So when it came to meaningless banter, I was at a loss.  A complete and utter, painfully uncomfortable loss.  Looking back on it, I feel the same uneasy embarrassment as I did while listening to my object of desire breath on the phone.  I always waited for them to initiate conversation.   Now talking on the phone is a talent, relating to men in a social setting is instinctual, but expressing deep emotions and frustrations brings me back to that place in my mind, 13, no experience with boys, nothing to say and no knowledge of how, even if I did.  It frustrates me because I am so connected to my thoughts when writing, they ease out of my psyche with form and purpose, but when in the presence of someone whom I love or care for, I am bone dry.  It's an irony that is not lost on me, yet a handicap I cannot conquer.

Do Not Pass Go

Some situations just cry out, no hell no!  Do not swoop down and try to help this person, they do not pass go, they do not collect $200.  No matter what your history is with a person, as soon as you make the first realization that they have lied to you with the ease of say, slipping into a coma, you immediately approach every "emergency" they have with warranted trepidation.  In layman's terms,  it's not a go.  When things seem etch-a-sketchy and your intuition tells you to stay your ass at home, hang up the phone, put that mess on silent, and stay in your PJs.  I'm responsible for no one but me.  Especially when I don't trust you as far as I can throw you.  Naw boo boo, being cute ain't cutting it in the '10s, I'm grown and getting older, can't and won't do it.  Can't roll the dice on my own piece of mind :o/

100% Funky

If I had to keep it 100 and/or keep it funky, as is the common request these days, this would be the state of affairs on the dating front.  The honest truth is startling, and can be hard to accept, but it is what it is!  I have a lot of loose ends, a lot of unfinished business with many different people, of whose feelings I can't speak for, but overall I can conclude that none of these men are the one for me.  In the interest of being direct and getting to the heart of each situation, I will only allow one sentence per person to illustrate what I feel is the lowdown.

Benito: Though difficult to sum up in one sentence, he is the antidote to my happiness, his personal instability and drama keep me feeling inexplicably obligated to be there for him.

Lenny: He is the biggest disappointment seeing as he was my archetype of true love for so long, sadly in adulthood he turned out to be a trifling adulterer.

Dontes:  Has just resurfaced in my life after being locked up again, and he seemingly still has feelings for me, only the shallow/superficial part of me finds this appealing.

Michael:  I wish I liked him as much as I want to, certain aspects of his personality turn me off, although I'll say he is the best match for me at this point in my life.

Sahir:  Is an amalgamation of every guy I've dealt with and regretted, my attraction to him is causing me to make many, many, many poor decisions.

Justin:  I am a glutton for guys that just aren't that into me, I realize he has his reasons for keeping me at arms reach but it has taken quite the emotional toll over the years.

Terrence:  I can honestly say I love Terrence more than any guy, in a healthy way, and his being in my life has been a blessing, if only he weren't so religious.

Kelvin:  I really like his novelty, he's so unique, intelligent, and we go on genuine dates, he's a keeper most definitely.

Zackery:  Had it not been for his misgivings with personal hygiene, we might still be together, he had a passion for me that is yet unparalleled and inspired me to no end.

And yet, NONE of these prospects has ever really breached the topic of a committed relationship, not w/o ulterior motives or some incongruities in the dating time-line, or worst of all, me initiating the discussion.  It's all so disheartening, to think that I am not the kind of girl that a man would want to lock down and forsake his single status on Facebook, makes you reconsider your market value, if you know what I mean, and that's as funky as it gets.

Publish Post

2 days off

Yesterday I got some errands done [plates/registration for the new whip] and went to happy hour @ TGIF with Schnovey.  It was great.  We always have ridiculous amounts of fun together.  That's my homey.  After that I went to my Grandmother's house and brought her a gift I'd had for her.  We talked for awhile.  When I brought up wanting to have 4 kids she said are there any prospects?  I said yea maybe one person except he's really religious [like her] and I don't want my children to grow up religiously oppressed, or forced to believe something w/o learning all that's out there.  She said that was "the devil" and I decided to forfeit the conversation.  I don't know what made me think that she was going to be open-minded about the fact that I'm not that beat for the greatest story ever told.  I left her house with another photo album to scan into my computer and a Lenox figurine of a black woman/angel with a baby.  I actually hate Lenox figurines because that off white/cream color they use is so dated and the pieces are usually hideous.  Leaving her home I went to hang with my sweety Terrence.  His boy Romaine was there, we had a good time hanging out, he's one of my favorite people, I tell him that all the time.  The next day I took him downtown so he could see about a new gig and he got me Subway, when I got home it was a wrap I was knocked the fuck out.  I had a weird dream, someone was getting married on the first floor of the beautiful southern style home with huge rooms and a wrap-around porch and my mother and cousin Mookie were there.  Last night I had a dream about Justin, which was equally weird, but judging by the way he treated me in that dream, it had a lot of truth in it and I take it as a warning.  Listen to your dreams people!  If of course, you can remember them [sometimes I can't].  Anyhow back to work, hope I see some cuties tomorrow [one in particular]! 

The Great [borough? city?] of Long Island

Naw didn't go to Long Island.  But had the damnedest time tryna have a good time tonight!  I got home from work and was determined to go out and enjoy myself.  First day of 2010, need to get it poppin, right?  Mannnn, I see my play cousin Jessie is going to support his pops down in Clark.  So I drag my homey Schnovey and we roll down there.  It's at the Crown Plaza Hotel...as soon as we pull in our parking space some dude hops out his pickup with a Kangol and a navy blue stepper suit on, that should have been all the warning we needed!  We get into the lobby and the party is non-existent, at 11:30, J arrives shortly after, we all take a group pic and decide to go to TFIG on 22.  Mannnn, it's stuffed to the gills up in there.  But we're next so we say let's wait <@ 12am> until a table opens up.  Finally one does and these two big burly bitches, who already had two stools at the bar, tell me that they were waiting for the table.  They sit their wack asses down and we are left to wait at the bar.  I hated on them the entire night, many Hungry Hungry Hippo references were made! They weren't even having a good time with eachother, what a waste.  Meanwhile we had a ball at the bar ki-ki-ing it up.  A little after 1am we finally get a table but the kitchen is closed.  We left immediately after only having had 3 Long Islands and an order of fries.  But it was exactly what I needed, if you can't party like a rock star, atleast laugh like a lunatic. 

Release

Let me take a moment to just let it all go.  365 days of life.  Is now another entry in the annals of existence.  And life goes on.  I have to be honest when I say, I don't know.  Am I still moving to Arizona?  Don't know.  Am I going to go back to school soon?  Don't know.  Will I find love and start a family?  Don't know.  I just don't have a clue, I don't feel the need to pressure myself with the gravity of all these answers.  I'm ok with not knowing.  The one certainty in life IS uncertainty.  I have learned this lesson many fold.  I think I am stuck in the past sometimes.  My mind is there, replaying my emotional lows, projecting those failures in my mind's eye, while my shell of a self goes through the motions in the now.  There's a disconnect.  I don't know how to be present in my life, because to me it's all so insignificant.  My job, my house, this new car, none of it matters.  My spirit is flickering, desperate for new places, new people, new sunsets, new moments of reflective silence.  I want to revive myself.  I want to forge ahead on a path even I didn't foresee, and finally feel that I am one whole being, alive in life.

My move was based on me wanting to separate myself from my mother, a necessary part of growing up and for my personal emotional health.  Then she jetted off to Haiti in November.  She's not returning till February maybe.  As I spent every Holiday somewhere other than home, I imagined that this is what happens when you no longer have any parents left, you lean on friends, you find a place somewhere, and wish you could be with the people who loved you the most.  It hurt, and initially the feelings were masked in anger and resentment, but I have moved on to a loneliness and searching.  I need someone to love.  Neither of my parents were equipped with the kind of emotive love that I so desperately desire to know, my father protected me, my mother encouraged me.  But I don't have a model of how to love on a basic level, I had no sibling from which to learn this ability, I feel like it is to my detriment.  At some point, all of my human relationships break down and I fill in the gaps with cold indifference.  That's my logic overcompensating.  I'm kind of like a computer and I don't compute certain emotions.  Not really.  It might seem dramatic but I need to learn how to love.  First though, I'll simply let go of 2009.