Non-Fiction

…well that’s what it feels like.  Shoot, I forgot that I had this blog until I accidentally logged in.  I’m here now and totally surprised that this thing is still standing.  So, why not write?  I have to organize my thoughts before I dive too deep.  Hopefully I can remember to come back this week.  I think i’ll start with a new theme. 

until then.

Ok for as long as most of my friends have known me they have always wanted to know why I hate Chrismas.  Today one of them asked.  Finally…here is the un-minced, completely revealed reason why as replied to one friend via email.  And I quote myself:  

“Several reasons…my family tends to die being the more prominent reason.  I cringe when the phone rings because I’m expecting to hear that another relative or friend has died.  I’m always alone…as I will be this year.  Growing up, if my mother couldn’t afford something I had to hear her damn near beg my forgiveness about getting whatever she did purchase and make promises to get me whatever it was “as soon as she could” rather than just saying Merry Christmas…not because I was a brat but because she felt awful about not being buy it in lieu of paying the bills..then she would go off and be depressed the rest of the day because of it.  Then I felt obligated to console her and confirm that I still loved her…even though I was never upset about getting said specialty present.  Um..what else.  OH Christmas is ultra commercialized and people (my mother included) are made to feel that on this one day they must shower their friends/family/homeless/orphans people etc etc etc with gifts to show love.  As if all my love given on any and all other days of the year were to be negated by this one day if I don’t give a gift.  I have to listen to TERRIBLE super sing songy music that is supposed to get me in the mood to celebrate but all of these stupid radio stations ASSUME that everyone likes Christmas…well guess what.  I DON’T!  and it pisses me off.  People and entities I’ve never heard of before come out of the woodworks to get my money during this season for various charities.  Are these charities not worthy of my money any other day of the year.  Why do people feel that they must put in an extra effort because its Christmas?  What about on a hot summer day when these same people are in need of food or water…they get ignored.  What about the 17 year old I just donated a ton of items to??  No one told me about her before it became “Christmas Season”  and the group that represents her…never heard of them so why are they just now coming to me for help?  Why not email before hand…she’s certainly been in existence for 17 years and an orphan for at least 12 of those and for this entire year that she’s been 17 they knew that as soon as her birthday rolled around she would be an adult and still not have anything of her own.  They could have helped her way before now.  Was it the wrong season for help??  Is there only one season for help?  What about forth of july (my fav holiday) or March 18^th (no particular day)???  People that never call do call, I get emails from near strangers saying “give a little love on Christmas”— I loved your behind every other day!  Was that not good enough??  In otherwords people are F-A-K-E for who knows why because of Christmas….I could keep going but as you probably can tell I get more hostile about it the more I think about it AND the closer it gets to the day.  I’ll recover on 12/26…the 2^nd best day of the year…the best is 12/31 at 11:59pm.    

Woo saa…”

I don’t like clutter.  If the average person looked at my apartment now they would think I needed to do a lot of shopping but in actuality sans a few items I have everything I need.  And I like it that way.  My anti-clutter belief spans nearly my entire existence. I don’t believe in having things just to have them.  Everything serves a purpose and if it doesn’t it will soon leave my presence. When MP3’s came out I bought a 30GB iPod and purged myself of my HUGE CD collection.  I might have 20 cds left from what was hundreds. When I got tired of carrying an iPod and a cell phone I silently willed Apple to make a combo.  A few months later they revealed plans to release the iPhone.  Guess who no longer has an iPod. My desk at work looks barren when my laptop is not set up and I’ve been trying to give back the second monitor that they set up for me because I don’t use it.  Why do I need two?  IT wont take it so it sits there blank, all day everyday.  The only two items and provide proof of my employment are a picture of my daughter and I and a mug that I don’t use (mental note…need to toss).  Every three to six months I scour my home for needless things and either donate or trash them.  While my daughter sleeps or is away I repeat the process on her toys.  I only toss the ones that I KNOW she doesn’t play with.  Every few weeks I do the same with my cell phone address book.  Acquaintances also walk this line of fate.  I don’t believe in keeping people around that aren’t positive and don’t serve a purpose.  Don’t we all serve a purpose for someone else?  I may have acquaintances but I don’t keep them.  I keep friends.  Friends are priceless and can never be discarded.  Every now and then I mentally review my acquaintances and decide whether or not they should remain in my life.  This isn’t a “What have you done for me lately” check list thing, I’m not that shallow, but more like a decision based on their commitment to me and mine to them.  Can I trust them?  Can we talk, really talk?  Do they call for nothing or do they call only when they need something?  There are other things to consider but those are the main ones that can be formed into words.  A lot of it is just a feeling.  I expect to be just as important to my friends as they are to me.  And my friends are really important to me.  I’ll answer the phone anytime of day, night.  I’ll come to their rescues if I need to and can whether that be monetary, in conversation or just being by their side while they wait for a tow truck to come get their broken down car.  And my two bestfriends…forget about it.  They can have the world.  Either way the past few days have challenged my purge beliefs.  Factually, this one pseudo-friend is teetering on the edge of abusing my friendship and I’ve started to evaluate but I’m torn.  There are some very stressful outlying issues that are causing my pseudo-friend to behave in a certain way.  I’m having a hard time being supportive because my friendship is being mishandled.  My compassionate side is battling with my purging side.  It’s rare that this happens with me, I’m pretty decisive.  A war has begun and I’m stuck in the middle. 

Leaving the house this morning I realized that I needed to slow myself down.  I was rushing and had forgotten at least 4 very important items.  Bad combo.  So I decided to place my day in suspended animation while I collected my scattered mind.  I entered the same state I always do when I’m bothered to no resolve.  Kind of an active meditation.  Auto-pilot if you will.  I warmed up my cherry pop tarts and sat down cross-legged on the floor to watch the Snorks on Boomerang.  I love the Snorks.  I love Boomerang more.  The pop tart/Snork attack didn’t help so for the most part I’ve been traveling through my day in the same state.  I’ve barely communicated with anyone. Until now, I’ve been working and listening to music.  I haven’t had much of an appetite after the pop tarts so I haven’t eaten. I skipped my Starbucks run to and my coffee buddy knows something is wrong.  I’ve decided to purge myself of the words running around my mind.  I keep checking my email.  I don’t know what I’m looking for but I eventually got this from Om.com: 

 “November 28, 2007
Evolving Beliefs
Leo Daily Horoscope You might be convinced of the soundness of your opinions, which could lead you to defend them ardently today. While having a strong sense of dedication to what you believe can be healthy, today you may want to consider the beliefs underneath your opinions and why you feel that you need to uphold them so vehemently. If you can, you might take some time to examine your beliefs by asking yourself where they came from, what you do to mentally reinforce them, and how these opinions manifest themselves in your life. You could find that even though you may think of your opinions as being open and sensitive to the needs of others, by holding onto them you are in fact closing yourself off to a large part of the world.

Analyzing where we get our beliefs and how they influence our lives lets us see that even if they seem liberal, remaining unfaltering in our ideas is limiting. When we realize that our ideas that seem so strong and solid actually come from a multitude of sources and that what may seem like something we have always believed is in reality a combination of many ideas, we begin to understand that being unwavering doesn’t help us preserve our beliefs; it simply keeps us from evolving. As you scrutinize the basis of your beliefs more closely today, you will notice how fluid they truly are and that it is a natural part of the process of life to be open to new ideas.”  

Food for thought.  Now, back to auto-pilot.   

Not too long ago a Caucasian coworker and I were discussing devastating health issues and how they can run through a family.  Things like breast cancer, diabetes and hypertension came up.  We talked about the disparities between races and eventually she asked me why Black people eat the foods they do.  She was referencing things like Ribs, Chitterlings (isn’t that the proper spelling?), Hog Maws, Ox Tail, Chicken Wings, Pig Feet, Corn Bread, Collard Greens, Turnip Greens, Chicken Gizzards, Grits, Sausage.  Should I keep going?  Although, I wouldn’t touch over half the items on that list I already had the answer on the tip of my tongue but I took a deep breathe, swallowed and reminded myself to be tactful before I began.

Trust me it was a necessary process. 

I smiled and said, “Well if you think about it back when we were slaves we were only GIVEN the scraps of what our masters ate.  All the meat dishes you asked about were nothing more than scraps back then.  That’s what we were allowed to have.  So we ate what we could, made it taste good and now they are more popular dishes.  As for the vegetables, we grew the hardiest crops.  We couldn’t do delicate items like lettuce because we didn’t have time to maintain them.  We were too busy looking after master’s farm.  So yea, all of those diseases probably are more prevalent in the black community.  After hundreds of years of eating all of that stuff I would expect it to work its way into our genes.”

As I finished I let my smile fall.  She looked as if she would shed a tear any moment so rather than comforting and coddling her I turned and walked away. 

I think she stood there for a moment or two. 

Ok ladies, its time to have one of those heart to heart talks that I normally have with a few of my female friends from time to time.  We know that the liberation movement happened years ago and now women are moving to get more equality.  More and more contemporary women have decided that anything a man can do she can do better…or also.  I fully support you…because yes, we know…we don’t need a man for nothin!!  Not true, but we like saying it, huh?  Now that we got that out of our systems ladies PLEASE STOP THE MADNESS.  I’m sitting here talking to one of my male friends about his Thanksgiving Holiday.  What should have been a pleasant family gathering turned out to be drama filled and chaotic all because of a jaded woman. 

I’m going to tell you what happened and then we will review the lessons of the day:  My friend has a younger brother, Lil Bro is 31 to be exact.  They were with the fam eating and Lil Bro’s fling, jump off etc, began calling him repeatedly.  She’s not his girlfriend but IS someone he’s having sex with.   To clarify, he doesn’t have a girlfriend. He’s not cheating on anyone.  So, she calls and calls and calls and he doesn’t answer.  Miss thing gets her panties twisted and she decides he’s doing dirt.  She hops in her car drunk and rudely interrupts the family gathering by ramming her car into his.  Then, miss thing keys his car.  When Lil Bro comes outside to see what’s up she decides she wants to fight him.  Lil Bro was down to whoop that ass but Big Bro wasn’t having it.  Miss Thing almost got her ass shot though but gratefully the gun jammed. Otherwise this would be a completely different story. 

A little more background info:  Seems that Miss Thing and Lil Bro had been F-buddies for about 7 years.  She had never made Wifey status and she knew that.  Miss Thing extended herself to have Lil Bro invite another male friend into their escapades which he did often.  And then came this fiasco. 

On with the lesson:

 Mistake One:  “she calls and calls and calls”  For WHAT?  99% of the population, especially those with cell phones, has voicemail..  Ladies, he KNOWS when you are calling.  I hate that I have to say this but just call once and leave a message or don’t.  That extra 1% has caller id.  If you claim to not be desperate don’t act like it.  Remember what actions do?

 Mistake Two (we’re going to fuse two here):  “To clarify, he doesn’t have a girlfriend…..  she decides he’s doing dirt” And how did we come to that determination?  If he’s single, there is no dirt to do.  You can’t get mad even if he does have someone over there.  You’re not the main squeeze. 

Mistake Three:  “drunk” NO! Just no on all levels.  NO! 

Mistake Four:  “rudely interrupts the family gathering by ramming her car into his.  Then, miss thing keys his car.”   This passage makes me weary so while I would like to just reference the comment for Mistake Three I feel obligated to make a fresh one.  Are you F-ing Kidding me??  Ok first on a family centered holiday you hop your drunk ass in a car, go careening over to someone else’s house and then you ram your car into his?  So did you not realize that in order to damage his car you had to damage yours too??  Cause I know I’m not messing up my stuff purposely for anyone!  Ditto for the Keying part.  Its childish. 

Mistake Five:  “she decides she wants to fight him”  I’m weary again.  Ok , so yea, no man should EVER hit a woman for anything EVER.  Now that I got my PC statement out.  She deserved to get her ass beat down.  I don’t blame Lil Bro for going after her.  Let’s be real.  Chances are Lil Bro is taller than her.  He may or may not weigh more.  We just don’t know but biologically speaking scientists have proven that men have more muscle than women.  Dumb ass…

Now that we’ve reviewed the lesson and we know the mistakes she made let’s have a sista girl sit down.

My main question ladies, is WTF????  I’ve been hearing more of these stories recently and I just don’t understand.  Why are you trippin?  You are just as equally worth your weight I gold…platinum, if you prefer… as the men you are fighting for.  Why would you put yourself out there like that?  I’m not talking about the sex.    If you get down like that you just get down like that.  But if you DO make sure it’s because it’s something you want and not just so that the man you are digging pays more attention to you.  Only you can be real with yourself and decide what your true motive is.  Don’t put yourself in the position to be an F-buddy if you can’t take it.  An F-buddy is just what it states.  Nothing more.  Truthfully speaking, not many of you can take it.  If you are the F-buddy you have no claim to him or his fidelity.  Above all, don’t settle for F-buddy status if you really want to be Wifey.  It’s futile! 

This last part is about you not him…I don’t care what happens to end a relationship have enough dignity about yourself to not go around screaming, becoming a stalker by telephone or otherwise, harassing the new girl, claiming pregnant to keep him, wrecking cars or anything else retarded.  The end of a relationship always hurts, we know this BUT life really and truly goes on.  And usually gets better.  Even if he completely dogged you love yourself enough to avoid going out like that.  Remember, you attract the company you keep by being who you are.  If you don’t like the selection don’t keep doing the same sh*t.  Oh, and one day every woman will be a “new girlfriend”.   We want him as unscathed as possible so we don’t have to do too much work to convince him that we are sane.  Do unto others…

–spoken