The trouble with having it bad.

Cupid sure has gotten lazy. I'll be real: in the past, i could literally feel the tip of his arrow going through my chest every 2 minutes. Each time i saw a beautiful smile. I had a crush a minute. It was insane. No wonder i flunked out of high school. That shit was serious, it was impossible for me to concentrate on supply and demand charts when She was seated next to me, ooozing with charm and beauty. And She was 12 different ladies in my pen-ultimate year of secondary school. i didnt go out with any of them, never ever fessed up that i was head over heals for them. I was such a scared kid.

And it wasnt puppy love. No, when i had a crush on somebody, it was embarassing. I am the epitome of the hopeless romantic with everything from corny poems to serenading. To be fair, i actually can sing, you know, i hold a tune fairly well. But that shit is embarassing. And it hits hard when it hits, right? Its not something you can help or something you can ignore...once it's in you, you just gotta wait it out like an un-identified fever. And these were beautiful girls, regal even. Way outta my league. I knew it but it didnt matter. It never does matter when a thing like this happens. Logic doesnt even begin to come into it.

Those were some seriously trippy days. It'd be like 5 shitty days and then one really great one where She cut the economics class to chill with me on a hot afternoon in the library. just talking, laughing, baring our souls to each other. The special days: when She told me something you know She hadnt told anybody else or when She just grabbed my hand, without even knowing it, and just stayed holding it for the longest time, totally unaware. That level of comfort and closeness that developed. And sometimes i'd think , "Fuck it, i'ma just tell her and to hell with what happens." And i'm thinking of all the "obvious" signals she's been sending me, the unsolicited flirting. it cant all be in my head. Then my trusted homie says, "man, when you're in love, you see what you want to see." So i'm riddled with doubt and never make a move.

There was this one girl, my "you got it bad" girl, i was insane about and she knew it and knew that i knew that she knew. Even though neither of us had put it out there. And sometimes, man, i knew she liked me, like was seriously in to me but i was such a punk i couldnt speak up. This one day, Valentine's day which in school wasnt a big thing(!), we somehow spent the whole day together doing all sorts of stuff from playing basketball to her whooping my ass in chess. And just sitting around talking and chilling. That evening, i was ready to tell her. i was set. Just needed a little boost from my homie, just to man me up a little. And he tells me that "you see what you wanna see" bullshit. I chickened out. Nothing ever happened with my "you got it bad" girl. We ended up great friends.

A while ago, we were playing truth or dare 21, great game, and she tells me she had the hugest crush on me back in the day and how she almost told me. What's worse, she actually confided in my homie and told him this at the time but, for whatever reason, he didnt ever tell me!!

She's getting married in July to a real nice guy. Nice going, Cupid. Great job!!

The trouble with reclusiveness

The other day my friend said to me, "Man you need a life. You need to get out there and make friends." I wanted to punch his teeth out, drag him in the mud and run him over with a 4*4 pick-up truck. Not because he had no right to size me up like that. Not because he sounded exactly like my mom when he said it.I wanted to puch his lights out because he was right.

No one wants to be alone.

And no one should be. No one should have to be or choose to be. It's the natural order of things. Actually you know another reason why i don't believe the Bible. Lord knows i love Him, but according to the Bible, it wasnt until Adam grew lonely that God, after having created EVERY other single creature in pairs realised that maybe he should do the same for man. Really.... doesnt God deserve abit more credit than this? Christians, i aint looking for a war but i've been prepared for one all my life. A war of words, that is. And no fucking bad words, okay? Other than that, bring it on!

I wonder if the reason i believe in aliens is that i need to believe in the possiblity that the reason i'm having such trouble with having actual friends as opposed to internet buddies and long distance correspondences here on earth is that i'm actually from another planet. There's this comedian who was telling a joke that started off asking people to raise their hands if they had more than 10 friends. The punchline was, "if you're raising your hand and you're over 35, you know you're counting co-workers!" The joke wasnt funny and i've ruined it. but that's not it; i used to have friends. I still have a few friends and these are the best kind of friends cos they dont want anything from me. i've taken a time-out on my life for the past 3 years and it's done me loads of good. I'm more spiritually sound than is thought to be possible. But it's cost alot of time during which i could have formed serious bonds with people. I have slowly but surely become some kind of recluse. It kinda crept up on me but i realised it for sure last weekend.

My mom had thrown a kind of traditional/ family gathering and there was quite a few people there. I usually hate these things cos it means alot of work no one is gonna appreciate and real exhaustion in the aftermath. Atleast i thought that's why i hated them. But on this particular day, i was just sitting there next to my only real friend at the "party" and he was working the audience with his charm and charisma, telling one funny story after another. I looked around and watched these people's faces as they responded to him and i suddenly felt disgusted to be there. It was the wierdest thing. I instantly hated those people for loving my friend and his jokes. I felt suffocated by all their smiles and just had to exit ASAP. It wasnt the local music or the fatigue that i hated about these shindigs. It was the people. And not just at the shindigs, but people anywhere and everywhere. I dont know why.

So i guess the trouble with reclusiveness is you're so concerned about being alone that you dont get to appreciate BEING alone.

"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone.”- Orson Welles.

The trouble with missing Christmas.

i hope i change when i have kids otherwise they're gonna have a real stingy, cynical and basically crappy father, that's all i gotta say. Sometimes i'd like to change. I'd like to not hate happy people. I'd like to look forward to the big holidays especially Christmas. And i wasnt always like this. Far from it. But one dark christmas night, everything changed.

When i was seven years old, snowy winter in Ottawa most of my family still living together (minus my mom), my dad came down to the living room and announced, very proudly," This christmas, i have a very special gift for a certain someone that's done us proud recently. A really cool gift, that cost over $100." Ooooh. He added the last part to really get our attention cos i can tell you, in 1990, 100 bucks was alot of money especially to a 7 year old kid. So i knew it was me my dad was talking about; of course it was me, i was the favourite! I was the pride and joy, the apple in my dad's eye. I was the big potato!

It wasn't me.

My dad was telling the truth. There really was a $100 gift. I unwrapped my gift with an inspired haste that christmas morning, literally tore the wrapping paper to shreds and opened the box: a sweater. Hum? That's odd? Why would anyone buy a 7 year old kid a $100 sweater? I couldn't understand it. Then i heard my big brother's shout of joy; my dad had bought him a Nintendo! My head was on overdrive trying to work the equation out... then suddenly the pieces fell in place. My sweater didnt cost no $100! Not a fruit of the loom sweater. No, the big gift that night wasnt mine; it was my brother's. Heartborken and disillusioned, reality crumbled at my feet. I might have lost out on the cool gift that night but you know who the big loser was? Christmas.

Never again would christmas mean anything even slightly joyful to me. No, it became the day the big potato was fried. The day the apple in my dad's eye was pitted. The day i had fallen from grace. That's the last time i can remember associating anything of significance to Christmas or a birthday.

The trouble with relying on un-reliable people.

I fuckin hate people that can never keep time.

Not just for the obvoius reason that its really annoying, but for an even more complex sociological reason: it perpetuates the stereotype that black people can't keep time. Who cares if it's true? We cant let the rest of the world know it. Hell no! We gotta atleast act like we have some instinct to look at our blinged out watches for more than just the cool reflection. Seriously, we spend like $2,000 on watches we never use for their intended purpose!! For real, when white people are late, they can't apologise enough. They say sorry like a million times, give you plausible reasons, even show up with an "I'm sorry i'm late" Hallmark card and a lollipop. But this brotha's gonna show up an hour late, all non-chalant and go,"Goddamn, that girl got a fat booty!!" And then he's gonna leave yo ass standing there to go after her to impress her with his $2000 watch!! Where the hell is my lollipop?

I love black people. I love all people, but some more than others. Beautiful people more than ugly ones. I'm shallow. But i'm reliable. If i say i'm gonna do something, i'm gonna do it or die trying. As long as it's within reason for me to do. Man i love my family, but i cant count the times someone in my family has let me down. The other week i decided to do a nice thing for my mom to kinda get her off my back for a while; i decided to buy her a small freeze her which she deperately needed for her up and coming catering business. I got online and found one for cheap, i couldnt believe it. Not new ofcourse, but its not like the food is gonna complain. Went, checked it out, real nice lady who was surprisingly comfortable around me and my homie despite us looking like a flopped underground crunk duo from ATL. Plus broke.

So the deal was set. Only problem was how to transport. For a while i was seriously thinking of just carrying it on the bus, In retrospect, that was a dumb ass idea for to many reasons, without even bringing the terrorist threat aspect into it. Luckily my unlce said he'd hook me up. He's a driver and thought he'd be able to squeeze some time in for me. He came through when i moved, though. i'm probably the only brotha to move house in a Mercedes benz S-Class! He came through that time. But on the day i was meant to move that freezer, the day i'd called the nice lady up and asked her to fit me into her busy moving schedule, the day i'd asked my homie to cancel his plans and come help me lift this thing, the one day i actually had the money to purchase the fridge, Uncle was nowehere to be seen. One hour. 2 hours. Next day. Day After that. The next week. He finally calls, the next Thursday.

This is a dude who calls me up to tell me how he bought a tuna salad thinking it was a chicken salad and .... that kind of story. but it wasnt until a week later that he decided to call me up, not to apologise for leaving me stading there looking like an idiot. Not to apologise for making my homie, my brother, my mom and that nice lady incredibly mad. Not to apologise for making me pay the nice lady and lose my money cos i never got the freezer. No, he called me up to tell me that he'd finally watched "Catwoman" and it actually sucked! I love my Uncle to death cos he's a funny dude but that day.....he was testing me for real.