The troubles with being Rich.

The Trouble With Running Away From Yourself

2010-02-28T11:37:00.001-08:00

“Because I am a Hunter.”

We have a huge fight on Valentine’s Day, the worst blow out we’ve ever had and all because our timing is off. I’m unavailable when she needs me then she has to leave as soon as I’m able to make time and by nightfall, we get together more out of protocol than desire… And it shows!

“For I am a Hunter.”

I can’t seem to find myself, gather my thoughts to place my attention in her care so we barely speak. I guess she just doesn’t know what to do with me when I’m like this and figures its best to just leave me alone. I say, “Please stay… don’t let tonight end like this.” And she does; she stays with me. Then things go from bad to worse.

“…I want her
For I am a Hunter…”

We fight. Things are said that can be apologized for but never really taken back. I hurt her knowingly for the first time in our relationship. Deliberately, just to see her flinch with pain because I’m angry. I’m “not trying”? I’m NOT TRYING? Does she have any idea how much money I’ve spent that I absolutely can NOT afford, especially now? That I snuck out of bed this morning to surprise her with breakfast and a rose that she pretty much ignored saying, “I wasn’t kidding when I told you I don’t like flowers…” ALL girls like flowers!!

“…I see her therefore I want her
I am a Hunter.”

She turns to the wall, away from me and informs me she just wants to sleep. I apologise, I try to give as sincere an apology as I’ve ever given but then she digs in at me again about how I’m just not trying and “whatever, I just want to sleep”. I see RED. I can’t believe how fast and how much I get angry and I can feel myself on the verge of saying something I will regret but I can’t stop myself. I don’t want to.

“Why did you even come to me? You should have just stayed wherever you were… I was happy before you came; now you’re here and my day sucks. Do the math.”

I go take a piss and I’m swearing out loud now. Why won’t she react? Why is her back still turned to me? Is she crying or laughing at me? What the fuck does she want from me??

“…I am a Hunter
I see her, I want her
She flees
I’m pleased
For this is what Hunters do
We chase...”

I announce that I’m leaving, she says “Leave.” I try and slam the door behind me but it won’t. Why does she frustrate me so much??!! I don’t ever let things like this get under my skin, I can take it but this time, this One… she’s lodged so deep she could lose herself inside my nerves. What am I not doing that I’m supposed to? Everyone wants a piece of me and there’s only so much to give and I understand that growing up means having less and less of yourself to your own devices but her too? She’s the one who’s supposed to understand and hold me up not shoot me down! Because if she’s just another one of Them who want more from me than I have to give… this can’t end well for any of us.

“…We spot
Then ready ourselves for the shot
Hoping they run
Hoping they smell the powder in the gun
Or the iron of my spear
I am a Hunter
I am who she should fear…”

It’s coming to 2 am; I’ve been walking in the cold night for hours now with no direction. My shirt is sticky with sweat and my soul is weak. If only I could be someone else for a bit, just to know if my life really has become insanity or if there is hope out there for the likes of me. Just to see the world through some other soul’s eyes for a microsecond but I know the truth and it’s that there’s nowhere to run.

You can not hide from what’s within and you cant run because the trouble with running away from yourself is that no matter where you go, there You are.

She’s awake when I get home and I can tell she’s sorry but doesn’t know how to say it. I want to tell her I’m sorry but who I am won’t let me. We go to bed with an ocean of unspoken emotions between us wondering if the other has drifted too far into open water. Neither of us is willing to concede an inch yet we’d both of us forget this all as soon as it was over. Just how to begin, how to find our way back to each other…

I am The Hunter.

The Trouble With Seeing Things Clearly

2010-02-23T03:08:00.000-08:00

I am barely 16 when I land on a photo of the New Zealand All Black’s Jonah Lomu, this great bulk of muscle and skill, a legend in the making, carrying tennis superstar Martina Hingis -my crush of the month- effortlessly in his huge tree trunk like arms.

She is so pretty. And I am nothing like Jonah Lomu.

Of course, Mr. Lomu will in 6 months be diagnosed with cancer from which he will thankfully recover but sadly from which his professional career will never, at least not fully. This is the peak of his career, his celebrity… his moment, and he has no idea. Right now he is the king of the world and as he thoughtlessly balances my Martina on his bicep, an awkward 16 year old Ugandan boy, a ball of confusion and insecurity, thousands of miles away in a deep insignificant hole of darkness… I lose my train of thought I’m so filled with envy.

But neither of us can see 6 months into the future.

I walk around carrying that photograph in my mind: her genuinely flirtatious smile, his natural charisma flowing through every inch of expertly toned muscle, she’s probably laughing at one of his jokes and he’s probably laughing too, a bear of a laugh as he swings her about like a paper weight… giggling suggestively… my crush… my secret dream…

My enemy.

Years later, I come across another photo of Martina Hingis and I barely recognize the dream I once cherished. It’s the same face, the same rosy cheeks, the same smile even… almost. It’s the eyes, there’s a certain glow missing. Her eyes were once an inferno but now they are a chimney place fire, steadier, more reliable, more realistic.

At some point romance goes from wine and roses to beer and pizza yet the sky stays ocean blue above so we can carry on.

This girl is on my brain. Not Miss Martina Hingis, no. She’s moved on and so have I. This girl is no dream; she is soft skin and salty tears. I cannot scrape her tender ways out of my mind or her offensive jokes out from my eardrums. Round and round she circulates through my system till my very core is tattooed with her existence and there is no escaping the reality of her or the pinch of her responsibility.

She is My Awakening.

Cherish. But her friends call her Cherry. I call her My Valentine and she gnashes her teeth together for we are in mid-August and she’ll be going back to school in a week. We crowd together in the dark on the furthest corner of my bed, staving off mosquitoes and timelines, feeding greedily off of each other’s warmth as if we can feel the end around the edges of the bed and as long as we stay on it, love will last forever. She runs a toy soldier across my back, calling for back up and shouting random orders into the moonlit room and I secretly thank the powers that be for cutting the electricity off this night.

Leave the world out of it and love can be a beautiful sanctuary.

She coughs lightly into my chest then sniffles. Is she crying?

“No… it’s just… all of this… next week… you get?”

“I get.” And then nothing-… Not a single word of comfort or gesture or famous quotation springs to mind. I am naked and alone in the darkness, unable to find some white lie that will stretch love over us like a childhood blanket. Things will always be this way because even if we close our eyes, the world around us carries on; bills must be paid, fridges must be filled and hearts must not be disappointed.

All hearts except our own.

Ours are expendable.

She feels the helplessness charting through my body and squeezes tighter with her eyes shut, fighting off scenes of our future spent struggling to find time to be together, time to be in love. Struggling in vain. I want to tell her it will all work out somehow, that we have the power to live the lives we’ve always dreamed of. I want to say-

But I don’t because the trouble with seeing things clearly is that there’s no going back to ignorance.

You can’t unlearn the often weighty truths about the ways of this world. That it will go on with or without you or that there are only a few dates between wine and beer. That dreams, no matter how lucid, are still just dreams and at some point you have to work harder at fighting off the things you don’t want like homelessness or disappointment than the things you claim to cherish like midnight scrabble or tiny marching hands in the moonlight.

But always the sky stays ocean blue above us so we can carry on…

The trouble with telling it on the mountain

2008-02-24T20:43:00.000-08:00

I venture out at red dawn.

This little schoolboy determinedly shuffles his way to the future, gingerly hanging on to his big sister's hand. The sun has begun its slow ascent to the heavens in the horizon beyond them painting the illusion of their own emergence from the darkness. Schoolboy falls back, momentarily escaping the grasp of his nonchalant sibling, instinctively cautious of the attention seeking light. But big sister knows best; ignoring his hand now, she grabs hold of his schoolbag and drags poor schoolboy into the mirage of spectacular illumination.

What is light if the road astray be lit?

Weeks off my medication and it becomes clear to me that here is where i want to be. Wandering through this concrete-free jungle, waiting to be mauled by my own misadventures. Civil unrest abound, a city populated with poverty. And the dust... in mushroom clouds of dust and doubt. Yes, certainly where i want to be. Only -and this merely a light inconvenience- but not how i want to be.

Who was Sweet Coraline?

Will i ever know? An angel sent to piece me back together? Or the love of my life, divine but mortal? Sent to get me through and if through then for what and for whom?! I am confounded by this enigma, consumed by every dream and every delusion. Driven from immortality to insanity. All for what? But He does not answer for i should not ask. Who am i to question so loving a Father? Yet still why, why, WHY? My faith is at risk.

This hill is as steep as it seems endless. The mighty sun rests heartily in its berth now but has not yet punched in for the day so the morning air is still crisp and moist. I must rest; I crouch by the side of the road to catch my breath. The world around me has begun to come to life. A not so desperate housewife sweeps a pile of dust into a larger pile of dust in her front yard, hoping to find some fulfillment in her cloud of doubt.

We are kindred spirits.

Her broom stroke is wide and strong but there is no energy behind it. Her back gracelessly hunched over, her face more focused on the dirt ground than is necessary. Barren, i assume. Her sympathetic husband's reassuring kiss on the cheek as he leaves for work confirms it. "I love you regardless." I wonder if she hears this. And if she doesnt, why go on sweeping? Is it a leap of faith or a question of keeping up appearances? I need to understand it.

Cora, Cora, Cora! Was that even her real name? Will happiness without her ever be the same? Or even possible? After my "episode" a bunch of people came to see me. Mostly my family, well most of the ones that dont hate me, friends, some others that mistakenly presume to be friends.... everybody. Everyone except her. I'd stare at the bedroom door, hoping to telepathically woo her into coming to see me but apparently lacking the cosmic energy to do so. Waiting for a bus that was never coming.

At last i reach the summit. I make it a point not to to look over the edge of the cliff; not yet. I must savor this moment. this pre-climactic orgasm of anticipatory achievement. This is where i want to be; standing on the edge of the world, happiness and true accomplishment within my grasp. She should be here with me. You should be here for me.

I open my eyes.

Reality couldnt be any clearer. I look down on the rest of these mortals from the summits above and see ants in a liberated colony. Free with no idea of what to do with their freedom. The air has never been fresher, the warmth of the sun just starting to seep through. Do any of them know? We work, we push, we march, we seek.... but here at the summit, the answers dont even matter. The world is simply a bigger place than we will ever be able to comprehend. So the rules, the routines, the norms.... yes, they do apply in the real world. But in the scale of things, they are not what matters.

She once said to me, "forever and ever and ever and ever...."

I open my eyes.

The trouble with the aftertaste.

2008-01-21T04:26:00.000-08:00

My dad drives me home from the hospital. Its pouring hell out here... of course. Not enough for my soul to bleed, it has to rain cats and dogs too!! Fine, big man in the sky. I can take it. Just keep dishing it out, my love for You is unshakable.

( Dear God, in case You read this, i wasnt challenging You or even testing Your limitless powers. Please dont unleash Your divinely inspired wrath on me. Your humble servant, John X... ok, i know You know its me... i was just messing with You... not in vain or anything, i would never do that. I heard Ray take Your name in vain last week and i cautioned him about it but i dont know if he took me seriously. You should look into that by the way. I love You, Rich.)

This should be the easiest part of the relationship, the post breakup stage. To be honest, i've gotten a kick out of how good i am at this in the past. But this time its different. I've been with Angels and Goddesses in the past but Cherries, I'm finding, are a flavour of their own. A flavour that no matter how hard you try to wipe out, just seems to leave a bitter taste. "They say you cant turn a bad girl good/ so once a good girl's gone bad,she's gone forever/ i mourn forever/ shit i gotta live with the fact i did you wrong forever..."

"You'll have to clear out the spare room, " daddy's calm voice stirs me out of my self-inflicted misery. "I'd filled it up with my newspaper collection. Stupid Sudoku!"

We can both laugh at that unpretentiously. He's all i have in this world, this gentle giant steering me clear of my angst. Perhaps the reason why my love for my father is so deep is that he never kicks me when i'm down. Oh you can be sure he knows how to dish out the tough love like the time i cut my arm on a low branch and he poured salt in my eye claiming it would distract me from the sting of the alcohol he was applying to the wound. It worked, regretfully. No my dad knows how to be A Dad, but because he's had to raise me on his own, he also knows how to be a shoulder to lean on.

"No, daddy, i'm not gonna impose my self on you."

"What? Are you too good for my crummy little house now?" He knows the game i'm playing. Just cos i'm wounded doesnt mean i should show it. No, he has to ask me to come stay with him. Thats how it works.

"No its not the size of the place, its the rats!"

"Oh, they're 'rats' now! They used to be your play buddies!" his laugh is a hearty one and it warms a place deep within my spirit. "I'm sure they've missed your company as much as you've missed leading them." Maybe i will survive this. I simply dont know anymore.

The first step is to delete her number from your phone. The very last thing you want to do after a breakup is find yourself tempted to call her or even worse.... sms her! It seems innocent and hurt-free but it never is. Many a terrible marriage have been temporarily resuscitated over the dreaded reconciliation sms and almost always ended with painful results. It is a tough first step but a necessary one. C-H-E-R-R.....Y. Delete. Are you sure? Yes or No?

Yes.

You keep wanting to have evolved beyond a certain point. The relationships grow more serious, last somewhat longer and you find yourself thinking, "wow, this might be it." As you grow older, that thought becomes more of a desperate hope, " this better be it!" So many people out there seem to live out fairytale romances with the lightest of ease and in the early stages, you begin to believe you might be one of these people. The ones that make love look effortless. But no one wants to be involved with a martyr simply because no one is willing to live up to the martyrdom. No one says anything. You bear it out and try to focus on the funny faces and lovemaking sounds. Until one day she stares you in the face, teary eyed and as beautiful as the first time you fell in love with her and asks, "Why cant i make you happy?" And you know what the worst part is? Its not that you dont know the answer to that question. No one does. The worst part is that she does make you happy. Happier than anyone you've known before her.

So why dont you tell her that? Why dont you hold onto her? Knowing what has come before and recognising that this taste is a completely unique one, why do you have to be you? Is it curiosity or some undiagnosed pathological condition? You tell her you dont love her and then she stabs you.

I have to remember to block her email address (same reason as the phone number deletion) and start to sort out which people i will be able to avoid because they belonged to our life as a couple. Have to get rid of all her stuff, throw it in a box and bury it in some hard to reach place. Not even a boxful , didnt even last a month. But enough in there to destroy me. I'd like to throw it out as i have done in the past but this time i just cant. The inexplicable taste of cherries invades my senses, momentarily overwhelming me. But no..... lets see, have to remember to get my place fumigated, to intoxicate it with a poison less deadly than the one she laced me with. Need to work her out of my system.

I should have loved her. Should have told her that i did love her. That i still do and fear that i always might. Even my hypotheticals are non-committal at this point. Perhaps it will never happen, not the way i had envisioned it would. Each time it happens, i reflect on how much harder this break up is than the last one. How do i find the words to express the empty, painfilled love sewer i now find myself suffocating in? I wish for misery... for pain, hurt, cold, warmth, ANYTHING!! But i am banished to this.... to THIS. Nothing and nowhere.

It was her. It still is. Stab-wound aside, she fills my heart with unbearable warmth even now. The worst thing i can do at this point is think about her but its all i want to do. Maybe if i think hard enough, some cosmic waves will be transmitted that will cut through the cynicism of this world and find their way to her to let her know that i was stupid and wrong. And STUPID. I just need to know what to do now. What do i do now???

"You man up, son, " my dad swoops in and rescues me again. My safety net, backseat driving me clear of my own troubled self. " You man up and do what any man with even an ounce of honour would do."

"I know... i know...." he's right, the lovable bastard.

"You take a deep breath, suck it up, get down on your knees and beg for her to look at you again."

What??? I mean, "What???"

"The time has come for you to ask yourself if you're gonna be able to live with the fact that you lost her. This one." We pull up to the comforting familiarity of my childhood home, the very foundation of who i am. "I've known you longer than you think and she loved you better than you deserved. But its never too late until you give up."

"So i just,,, just win her back, huh?"

"Well, get her to look at you first without wanting to plunge a kitchen knife into you. Lets start there."

"How did you know?"

My Support Rock steps out of the car and heads to the front door, grinning, "I loaned her the knife!" Heartless bastard! "Now get your ass in here and come say hi to your rodent buddies." He disappears into the house.

Get her to look at me.... Is there any chance that she might? Can i dare to hope? Because if she looked at me, talked to me then maybe... just maybe....who knows? "Thanks for helping me with my bags!" I yell after him. Maybe i will survive this. C-H-E-R-R-Y. Delete. Are you sure? Yes or no?

Am i?.... sure?

The trouble with going back to sleep

2008-01-14T05:46:00.000-08:00

"Butterflies."

Her silky eyelids flutter to life but dont open, she purrs softly onto my chest, her cocoa skin melting into my pure chocolate. "Why are you awake at... what time is it?"

I ignore her drowsiness and cant be bothered to check; i'd have to move my wrist and right now, with this delicate damsel nestled safely between my arm and my ribs, humming her sweet harmony into the early morning light, the last thing i want to do is move. "Its early, cherry lips. Go back to sleep."

"But you're the one waking me up, " her luscious lips start to plant wet kisses on the cleft between my rib cage and then all over my chest. "Why...are you talking... about butterflies.... this early?"

I could lay here forever. This lady is out of this world. This moment.... how does one capture a moment like this? The freedom to let go and just be, to ingest her intoxicating post-coital aroma, wildness seeping through her honey flavoured hair. "You've got me thinking about butterflies."

Her kisses move up towards my neck and lower jaw, her hands moving south, pinching and teasing my lower abdomen muscles. "Let me into your world; i want to know what's on your mind."

"Well butterflies... you've- hey, woah there.... dont be starting what you cant finish." But her sensual hands wont listen; they have a secret mission of their own. "I was laying here, watching the sun stretch its way across the room and start to pour over your body...."

"My hungry body, " she's coming alive now and inevitably, so are parts of me.

"....watching it dance across the floor, crawl up the foot of the bed and inch its way up your leg..."

"Which leg? This leg?"

"Yes, this very long leg you've curled up over mine, inching its way up just like this, just like my hand, taking its time...."

"Take it.... take your time...."

"... getting to know every curve of your golden brown, every line of your sand coloured skin, stealing its way up passed your knee..."

"Thats right.... get passed it, go passed it... up..."

"... tenderly lighting its way up to your silky smoothness, gently carressing your cocoa brown, rising higher still towards your...."

"Dont tease me.... please!!...."

"Shyly at first as it hesitates around the fullness of your curvaceous roundness but then suddenly.... filtering its way through to your intimate glow.... and swallowing you up whole... drowning you in it glorious light...."

"Yes,... yes... yes... yes.... yes.... yesssssssssss......."

I dont know how much time passes. Maybe an eternity, maybe time stands still. There is no room, no bed, no world; there are only mirrors. A multitude of them, each one an art piece capturing us in the still motions of a passionate fusion. We are vampires feeding on each others' flesh, hungrily devouring the raw mixture of animal sounds and ebony sweat pouring out of ourselves, pushing the tempo to that uncharted territory of mutual ecstasy where we collapse in each other' arms, glowing with satisfaction, spent.

How does one savour a moment like this?

"Are you ever going to tell me?" our glistening bodies lay apart now, on the floor, both of us gasping for breath, " what was the whole thing about the butterflies?"

"Well i was looking at you, just like i'm watching you now, shiny, glowing, spectacular and i thought to myself: what do butterflies know of beauty?" I cant help but smile at my own corniness.

She lays silently staring at the ceiling, in some far off world where such sentiment can be absorbed without the slightest hint of irony or sarcasm. She lets herself enjoy that short moment when she can believe it is genuine. Then that naughty grin returns to her face, "Whats the point trying to woo me, sir, when we've already had the sex?"

I laugh because she's funny or just because she makes me happy. " Maybe i'm being genuine, ma'am, " i pull her hunger towards me and climb on top of her oily, voluptuous body. She looks absolutely edible. "Or maybe.... maybe i'm just thinking of repeat business."

We are lost before we can come up for air.

The trouble with not staring at the cleaveage.

2008-01-11T10:54:00.000-08:00

She's got something wedged in her teeth. Hmmm... Now there's a lot of things a barely employed bachelor who's got a lifetime subscription to pubic transportation is willing to put up with to have some sex with a person who's not his right hand, but you gotta draw the line at some point. Really. Only, how do i tell her without being insensitive? Not cos i kind of like her unintended humour but more cos i've worn my palms raw with self-love and i cant afford a blow-up doll. Alright, focus: the sensitive approach. C'mon, think!

"Your teeth... yuck!" Wow, that sounded much less barbaric in my head. And i'm pointing... why am i pointing???

"What? Have i got something...? oh, this is really embarrassing!" She almost knocks over my drink dashing for the toothpicks and starts clawing away at her teeth like she's dueling with a sword.

"I think the bathroom's through the back there," I'm still pointing.

"Oh, no... what if someone sees it before i get there?" She claws away. What a selfish bitch! What about me who has to sit across from her and see it now?? Some people.... only thinking of themselves!

"Ah, dont worry..." shit!!! uh... name, name, name, "...beautiful. They'll all be staring at your ass anyways." I'm not sure why she laughs at that but i'm too busy high-fiving myself for that close save. "No, to the left... your other left.... thats right... wow, thats a pretty huge chunk of.... what part of the meal was that?"

"Oh, Rich! Will you stop being silly and help me out?" (Silly?) "There did i get it? I felt... Did i get... oh, you know what? You are no help at all!" Shielding her mouth like she's hiding weapons of mass destruction, she scurries off to the bathroom. I gotta give it to her, though. She sure knows how to shake what her momma gave-

"Is everything to your liking, sir?" Oh oh... boobs. See, this has been torturing me all night! These 2 bountiful bullies, these 2 divinely crafted , heavenly inspired, beach volleyball sized, raisin... yes, probably raisin nippled-

"Boobies." Uh oh.

"Pardon me, sir?"

"Huh? ...what?" In times of danger, deny everything and act dumb!

"I'm sorry i thought i heard you say... boobies." She's a minx this one, i can tell by her playful and almost suggestive grin that she knows exactly what i said and exactly why i said it.

"Well i didnt." I cant do this. I'm on a date with this lovely girl- for god's sake what is her name???- and i cant be flirting with the waitress no matter how appealing they are. I mean she. No matter how appealing she is. I gotta keep it together. "I said 'rubies'."

"Wow, now that's one more euphemism i need explained to me," she's clearing the table, bending further over, dramatically languishing about the harder to reach areas. She knows exactly what she's doing, this one. "Have you made your selection for desert or would you prefer...," bends forward, they're facing me dead in the eye, taunting me," something off the menu?"

"Aw c'mon, lady, thats not playing fair!!" I take a wild sip of my generic brand non-alcoholic wine like i'm an extra in a 50's diner-set melodrama. "Look, honey, this here is bigger than the both of us."

"What are you on about, mister?"

"When i walked into this joint and gazed over at you by the bar through the smoke filled crowd, heard the swell of the piano man's crescendo, well i realised nothing i knew before that moment counted for a damn."

"Well go on, tell it, " she's playing along now and the rest of the dinner room just fades into the night as i lost myself in the playfulness of her eyes and steady rise of her bosom. "Tell me how it ends."

I reach for her hand and feel what i have only seen simulated in some of the corniest movies ever made, heard belted out in the countriest of country songs: not love. No, you cant fall in love with someone you haven't known for more than an hour. But here in her hand, in her eyes, in those ginormous gigabytes of hers i feel the potential to be absolutely lovestoned by this vixen. What the cynics wont live up to is that even though it never happens as its sold in those cool Coca-cola advertisements, love does strike even though its usually at the most inconvenient-

"Oh, and your date returns, " she withdraws her angelic hand, holding eye contact for a second extra as the restaurant regrettably re-emerges. "Hey, at least we'll always have-"

"No! You cant leave yet!" If i let her go then everything i've been upto this point has been a front and worst of all, i'll be proving those damn cynics right. I cant let that happen. "I'm gonna call you tonight, just write your-"

"Are you crazy? You're on a date with another woman and you think-"

"Dont act like this was all in my head. Look, just give me your number and if you want you can go file for sexual harrassment afterwards." I sound almost desperate but i cant let this one get away. And it not just her awe inspiring rack. Sex is the farthest thing from my mind right now. 3rd farthest thing. Okay, 7th... but its not the number one thing on my mind.

She's thinking about it but in retrospect, i think she always knew she was going to jot that number down on her little pad. I might have thought i was in control of that situation but i've come to realise that we rarely are. Oh they'll let us act like we're steering things but we never stop to wonder how we always end up exactly where they want us.

"Hey honey, sorry i took ages." Oh, the other one's back. I'm through trying to recall her name. Yes, its a little cruel of me but some things are bigger than myself, i think." Is she taking our dessert orders?"

"No, apparently everything here sucks, "Gorgeous laughs as she struggles with her pen, wrestling to get it to work. And right then, the most incredible thing i have ever seen happens. She lifts her foot to her side- she's wearing black tennis shoes, slender delicate looking feet, no i dont have a fetish- anyways, she raises her foot to her side, lowers her insolent pen to the sole of her shoes and scribbles a bit, then lifts it back to her notepad and writes. It's working fine now.

I am awestruck by this creature. She is Xena, Warrior Princess, she is Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs, she is Lara Croft: Tomb Raider right now! She rips the sheet off and hands it to me, her smile radiating across the entire room and i wonder what other breathtaking magic tricks this goddess is capable of.

"Whats that?" asks the other one. Why am i here with her? I contemplate just telling her the truth to save us both the lies and unreturned calls to follow but Gorgeous steps in.

"It seems he really enjoyed our wine selection so i just wrote down a couple of good years for him to look up." She is too perfect to be real. "Well enjoy the rest of your evening and hope to see you again soon, " she means just me but adds, "back here in our lovely restaurant."

She walks off back to...well wherever they go when they're not taking our orders. Into that hidden dimension of waiters... well, waiting. The waitress who took the order of my heart. Yuck... i almost choke on my own vomit form that last line but the sentiment is real. Can it be real, that mysterious and oh so wonderful, pulsating-

"That was weird," the other one speaks. I cant wait to drop her off in her lair and be rid of her. "A big breasted waitress and you didnt even glance at her cleavage? Not once? I dont believe it!"

"You've still got some stuck in there, lady," Hey, its the only way i can think of to shut her up. That doesnt mean i'm all misogynist. She pulls out her portable reflective surface and examines her entire jawline for foreign objects as i pour over my little note from the magical fantastic beauty. I feel like a 12 year old kid reading an explicit note passed around illegally in class. Below her number it says:

"Expect a call from my lawyers on
that sexual harassment thing. And
stop staring at women's breasts,
Coraline.
p.s. my friends call me Cherry.
You can call me... whatever, just
call me tonight."

Then a smiley face.

I have a smile on my face, too. And thats how i met my sweet Coraline, the femme fatale i didnt realise i was in love with until after she stabbed me.

The trouble with being crazy

2008-01-09T01:57:00.001-08:00

"You're such a bastard!" Uh oh.... deja vu. I stealthily draw my left eyelid open: okay, no one on the left side of my hospital room. Just a bunch of heart monitors and respiration machines. Then my right eye...-

"Holy banana skins!!!" Its her.

"Dont be so dramatic," she soothingly brushes my fuzz covered cheek. I involuntarily cringe at her touch; she withdraws, hurt. "Look, Rich, if i had come here to hurt you...."

"I know, i know. Its just the after effects of the coma." Please dont ask me to explain what that means, PLEASE.

"Oh," she buys it. The last thing i want is to upset her all over again with only the two of us in the room and my body still unresponsive. How would i defend myself against Jack the ripper here if she struck again? Oh no, gotta keep her calm until i have some back up.

"Listen, baby," she's back to the loving voice of my sweet Coraline, "I.... I dont know what to say or how to begin to apologise.... what you must think of me...I...."

"Hey, no... All that is water under the bridge, honey," I have to force that last bit out. Where the hell are the nurses when you need them??? Alert, alert, alert!!

"Cant you just be honest with me, Rich? Just this one time? Please," she's getting agitated. Not good. "I stuck a knife in your chest! A kitchen knife!"

"You just went a little cra-.... i mean, things got really heavy..." Alert, alert, ALERT!

"Crazy? You can go on and say it." The sweetness is gone; this doesnt bode well for me. "Say it, just be honest and say it. For once in our relationship, just say what you really think, you bastard!"

"Hey lets calm down, honey." Nurses, hospital security...anybody?

"You lying heartless bastard!!" Her eyes are blazing a marvellous red. "Just say it! Its on the tip of your breath so just go on and say it!!"

"Crazy, Okay! You went crazy!!! There. You were fine one minute and then the next thing i knew you're this raving lunatic!!!! This crying, knife wielding stark raving mad lunatic and i am terrified of you!!!"

She's silent again, staring down on the hosipital parking lot through the window. This feels so familiar and i think i'm having a heart attack. My heart rate monitor is beeping like a horny rabbit. Where are these damn nurses?? If i could just move my left arm to hit that button....

She turns towards me, all the emotion drained from her tearless face. She reaches into her purse as she walks over to my steel cold bed. This is it.

I always thought i wasnt afraid of death. I mean, if you look at how i live or more accurately how much i dont live, how empty and shallow my existance really is.... who would even miss me? They might come to my funeral, sure, might even wear black. Wont wanna talk about me for a few days, might even cry a little. But their lives will resume. They'll watch the IT Crowd without me and laugh, they'll pig out on terrific tuesday's 2 for 1 pizzas and enjoy it. They will make love to Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite and breed envy with their telecom job promotions, paint their nails flourescent green and flex their oiled 6 packs at a beach barbecue with old high school buddies.

They will live and i wont.

...She floats over to my bedside, this angel of death, and from out of her handbag-

"Please, not like this!"

- she retrieves a tape recorder.

Wait, a tape recorder?? "What the fuck?"

"Not guilty by reason of temporary insanity." Her voice is back to that of the cherry blossom i could have fallen in love with. "You said it yourself and now i have it on tape. So if you decide to press charges and take this whole thing to court... well, you wont win."

"Wait.... what the fuck are you...?"

"I know its a really bitchy thing for me to do. But we both know i dont deserve to go to jail. I loved you, Rich, and you used me. Hurt me. I realise now that my retaliation was quite posssibly an over reaction but.... Look, i am sorry i put you in a coma. But the hurt... we share the blame."

"So you're not gonna finish me off?"

She slides the tape recorder back in the handbag i bought her for christmas. "You're gonna be fine. I met your dad downstairs on my way in and he said he's spoken to the doctors. Clearly he didnt know i was the one who put you in here. Lets keep it that way. It hasnt hit you yet what all this means but when it does, remember: you stabbed me first." She kisses me on the forehead and her lips are surprisingly warm. "Goodbye, babe."

As she walks out of my hospital room, i stare at this creature that i forged out of the loveliest girl i'd ever known. Long gone is my sweet Coraline; this new beast is capable of such cunning and craftiness. She deals in my currency now and i'm responsible for that.

"Hey, Cora," she pauses at the doorway, her hand massaging the doorway as she had once massaged me, "you wont tell anyone about the "banana skins" thing, will you?"

She smiles that gorgeous cherry red smile of hers. " I think we can both keep a secret."

And then she's gone. Out of my dimly lit room and out of my life. And the funny thing about the way life works is that it occurs to me that in all the time i had contemplated loving her, maybe i had.

Maybe i do.

The trouble with having a beautiful beard

2007-12-30T11:17:00.000-08:00

The heat is unforgiving, vengeful even. Almost like i had been cheating on it with the winter and now its getting back at me by open flame grilling me to a fine crisp! And where in the world am i? And whats with all this desert sand? And why is the right side of my chest so... oh, yeah.

I can not believe that crazy bitch stabbed me.

"You had it coming, reverend," this Asian hippie who must have been too young for any of the revolutions just pops up besides me, stroking his gloriously long beard. How i envy that beard.

"Who the hell are you and why are you talking to me?" Damn him for having such a glorious beard.

"Walk with me, reverend, i have the answers."

"Why would you think i'm a reverend?" I laugh at the idiot with the majestic man hair. "I hardly believe in God."

"Ah hah! So you DO believe in God but just not all the time."

"No, i believe in God all the time, but just not a lot. And quit stroking your magnificent lion's mane of manliness!"

"Sorry, rev., force of habit." He moves his hand to his chest hair. "Come, sit with me. Let us enjoy this Pete Sampras tennis match together."

Pete Sam-.... what the hell is he talking about? We're in the middle of the desert being baked by the most paranoid sun and there's Pete Sampras playing the most unspectacular tennis game of his life!

"Wait, what the fuck is Pistol Pete...oh, i see.... this is a dream, isnt it?"

"A lucid dream, actually." Even his arms are hairy. "You're in a coma, reverend."

That bitch! That crazy bitch put me in a coma!! Stupid cherries! "So who are you supposed to be?"

"I am your Qi. I am the mental projection of your spiritual life force and this monotonous tennis match in the middle of the scorching desert is your nirvana."

"Right, right.... and all that means what exactly?"

He's back to stroking his marvellous face carpet. "I dont really know."

"You dont know? So when you told me to follow you claiming you had all the answers, really you had nothing at all and just wanted to sit down?"

"Precisely."

""Precisely.""

So we sit there in silence, watching Pete Sampras play Pete Sampras in the least eventful game of tennis ever played out in a coma induced delusion.

"Actually this doesnt count as a delusion, " the Asian hippie interjects, "its a lucid dream. Lucid... dream."

We sit there, stroking our beards... well he's stroking his and i'm drawing outlines of where mine should grow if i'm ever able to wake up from this coma. After a while, i barely feel the heat of the sun and it gets almost interesting to watch the world's best tennis player fail to beat himself. I'm starting to enjoy my own little Nirvana.

"You know you cant hide here forever."

"Shut up, Chewbacca."

"My name's Leonard."

"Really? My Qi is an Asian hippie named Leonard?"

"Right go ahead and focus on that like thats the wierdest thing going on here!"

He's so right i want to punch him. "Okay so what am i supposed to do?"

"I cant tell you what to do...wait, wait, wait... i cant tell you what to do but i can tell you why you got here."

"I'm here because a crazy bitch plunged a knife into my chest. Not exactly the biggest mystery there, Lenny."

"No, reverend, that is the how. But the why.... you see, even though your mind is convinced that the she-woman whose knife betrayed your ribs is the devil incarnate, the reality is you are here because your heart believes you are to blame and that you got what you deserved. These two ides of your psyche could not reconcile that fact."

I cant look at him. The beautifully bearded bastard is right and i cant bare to look upon him in his rightness. But he cant be right, can he? I mean SHE stabbed me, right? I'M THE VICTIM HERE!! This fool doesnt know what he's talking about!

"You know something, mr. fancy bea-...." But he's gone. Its just me, my nirvana and my two Samprases, biting the dust in the desert.

The trouble with cherry orchids

2007-12-29T14:40:00.001-08:00

"You're a bastard!" she spits at me, the venom radiating from her eyes. This girl hates me right now... LOATHES the very breath of me. Somewhere within this volcanic rage, buried beneath the unforgivable hurt is she to whom i promised the world. How did i ruin my sweet Coraline?

I might have loved her; kinder than the red cross, as ambitious as a hollywood hooker and her breasts were amazingly firm. I mean, what was there not to like about her? She didnt nag me nearly as much as my mother and all 3 of my friends loved her. So why couldnt I?

"....swore it was the last time, you asshole!!!" She's screaming things. Important relationship stuff i should be listening to but every time i try, i just kind of zone out between the obligatory attacks on my anatomical inadequacies (all false, by the way) and try not to laugh at how cute her tiny little face looks when she gets mad.

I should have loved her. We didnt kiss the night we met. A friend of a friend's house warming party, lots of reggae music and boxed wine. An hour into the evening, i walk up to her and boldly ask why she's been staring at me all night. A sly grin forms in the corner of her mouth- sparkling red lip gloss- and without a word, she reaches up into my mini afro and pulls out the biro pen i had been searching for earlier that day! Stupid sudoku!

I didnt see anyone else the rest of that evening.

It's one of the things i could have loved about her, (Oh! Now she's throwing stuff at me. Not going well at all.) When i was in a room with her, thats the only place i wanted to be and she was the only woman i wanted with me. I was inexplicably drawn to what i later found out was cherry blossom lip gloss. Date no. 2. Her lips tasted like a wild cherry orchid in the spring time. But is that reason enough to stay with someone?

"Just tell me you dont love me and this is over." Oh no... when did she start crying? She's not supposed to start crying till after i leave. Thats how its supposed to go. She's ruining it! "Look me in the eyes and tell me none of this was real."

What does one say to that? Because she obviously doesnt want the truth at this point but she most certainly doesnt want to be lied to either.

"Of course there were parts of it that were real. You're the most lovable person i know, angel." My father, who often mixed up philandering and philanthropy, taught me the art of being dishonest without telling lies. Invaluable! And i dont want to lie to her. Not my springtime cherry orchid.

"Then why are you doing this? Why are you leaving me all alone?" She actually wants an answer, this one. Usually, they just get so mad that they kick you out and throw out whatever stuff your cheap ass has placated them with during the relationship. Then you ignore their increasingly desperate late night calls of potential reconciliation (time heals all wounds) and within a fortnight, you're absolutely free of her, granted you stay totally away from her or anyone or anyplace that had anything to do with your days together. Thats usually enough.

But Cherry blossom wants actual answers. Shes staring me down despite the ocean flooding her face. "What did i do to make you want to leave?"

"No, sweetie, its not you. Its me." When you're backed against a wall, no more rabbits in your hat and out of ammo, in desperation reach out for the classics. "I have stuff going on with me that i need to fix. You're wonderful, babe, really you are.... i'm the one with the problem."

Has it worked? She looks away from me. Is she buying it? She gets up and sort of drifts off to the window, just stares out on an unfriendly world thats more welcome a sight than i am right now. Cant tell if she's stopped crying. She's silent. My cue to leave.

As i grab my jacket and head for the door, i think of the best line to leave her with that'll make absolutely sure that she wont call me tonight. Clean break and all. Something originial; she was after all my cherry blossom. I feel a slight sting in my side which is un-characterisitic of such moments. Guilt? I'm not absolutely without feeling but this was never meant to last. It never is.

I reach for the door knob and there's blood dripping down my arm. Wait... blood?! I turn and woah! There she is, right next to me, the tears silently flowing down her cheek, passed her shiny bright red lips, down passed her outstretched arm that is wielding a kitchen kinfe. A knife that is currently lodged inches deep into my rib cage, blood soaking my vintage "John Mayer Trio September '04 Tour" t-shirt. Bright red blood, the colour of cherries.

"You said you would protect me," this is a tone of her voice i am completely unfamiliar with: Scorn. My body's slowly collapsing to the ground, i'm passing out. "You say you have a problem but i'm the one in pain. Me!!" Her face is tiny again and if i wasnt spilling so much cherry orchids, i would have laughed. "Well it's your pain now, you son of a bitch! You should have loved me. You should have... just... loved me...."

She's right. All the cherries in the world and i'm turning blue...

The trouble with being a beast.

2007-08-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

Fuck boda boda cyclists.

They are kings. My hatred for them is merely progressed envy of these rulers of the city. No one would dare admit it but these beasts run everything that moves on 2 or 4 wheels in this city. They dont abide by traffic lights or traffic cops. Fuck traffic lights. I wish i had what it takes to be a boda boda king like these mofos but i just dont have their magic. Just step out into the street and you'll know what i'm talking about.

She ruined my entire day. I never even had a crush on her or anything. Barely know her or got the chance to get to know her back then and now she's ruined my entire day? Fuck her! WHy should i care that she disapproves of how i am. She doesnt even know WHO i am, right? Fuck her.

You know what? Fuck women at large.

And not just figuratively. Be they angels or godesses, fuck em all. They're just here to ruin you. Oh be safe about it but fuck em. Cos none of them cares. No one cares, man. Some just think they do but once they realise they actually dont, you're done in, right? Fuck em. You want reality, i'm giving it to you. This is the world as it actually is.

Fuck dreams.

You know what happens when you stop dreaming? You wake up and ACTUALLY live, you sumamambitch. The world is now, life is here and now. Stop saying things like "one day i hope to be...." First off, no one gives a shit but secondly, you're wasting precious moments. Life is now; get out there and get to living . Be selfish, be rude and be ignorant because ignorance is bliss.

I was absolutely fine about it but then she had to punch holes in my mirage of an existance. Fucking witch! They're all witches, man. Yes, i like her. She's cool and her accent makes me laugh. And she's hot. No, i dont like her like that. Still have deity issues. But she's not a horrible person. She just shouldnt have come at me like that, you know, all honest and shit cos i was happy until she pointed out that i couldnt possibly be.

Swearing is cathartic.

Very much like hitting a child only legal and not cruel. Swear as much as you can and in as many languages as you can think up. Putain de merde de connerie! We are beasts, all of us so dont turn your back on these bloodsuckers or you'll lose your neck. Fuck shirts and ties. They are costumes to identify the worker bees and distinguish them from the drones that feed off of them or the emperials that rule over them. Like boda boda cyclists.

I SHOULD start drinking. And smoking. Fuck tobacco companies but i should start killing myself with all their poison because no matter how saintly you might believe you are living, we are all fucked from the on-set. Genesis chapter one. verse..... fuck verses. We were doomed right from our creation. "gods envy us because we are doomed" my ass! They dont envy shit. Next time you're on the back of a boda b just ask them. And God is just a dude. He's an alien from another planet where humans are pets so we're a fucking pet project. Why do you think we can not decisively pin point man's origin? Fuck aliens, man. They should come rescue us.

Fuck cancer.

My friend's girlfriend's mom has just been diagnosed with that shit. Fuck Delilahs, man. They're just there to fuck with you anyways. Go out there and fuck em all, just be safe about it. Be a dog, be an asshole cos life is now and it doesnt wait for nice guys. And i aint even misogynist. I'm just a heterosexual male beast. She doesnt even know me.... who is she to make a judgement call on the way i am? Fuck her.

The trouble with being a beast is it sucks to be tamed by a weaker creature especially when she doesnt know the first thing about you but reads you like a fucking open book.

And fuck her boyfriend, too.

The trouble with being in a lovely daze

2007-08-04T07:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life.

They took my dream and told me that i wasnt good enough. Took my dream and crushed it. They is me and i am they. I am them and i am lost.

They took my dream and scattered upon the waters of the ocean; i watched my dreams sink to the bottom and fade to obscurity, swallowed into the darkest night. I am them and they took my dream.

They took my dream and woke me up so i can never go back to sleep.

The trouble with being in a lovely daze is that you're woken up to: "whats the point?"

The trouble with coming home

2007-07-10T04:55:00.000-07:00

Faith is unconditional. You believe or you dont.

I get angry when i play the lottery and dont win. When i actually go out, purchase a ticket, select my numbers, sit my ass in front of the screen and watch those numbers start rolling only to witness a set of unfriendly results turn up, my shock is matched only by my outrage! What kind of world would allow this?!!! For the longest time, i believed i was the only one who felt this way but it turns out Renee has the exact same reaction to this lunacy!!

I'm an Aries and she's.... well she's not.

Most say our faith is misplaced. That lotteries are just a way for you to pay to get screwed without breaking any laws. That the odds are stacked against you. During my life, i've managed to convince myself and others that i was a maths whiz in school. Nevertheless, i've always maintained that the odds are 50:50. You do or you dont. You win or you lose. If i dont go out and by a ticket, i lose. Then logically, if i DO go out and buy that lottery ticket, I should be living large come nightfall, right?

Wrong. Fucking wrong.

So what does it mean to have faith? I could never have guessed what it would be like to come back to this place or what it would mean. All some people remember about me is my crazy rants about breaking free of it all. I've been asked how come i never feel homesick but its only cos the people asking dont understand that a home is not a place. Home might be how a place makes you feel. Or people. But its got none to do with maps.

"Home is where the heart is."

They get my jokes here. I'd missed that. in fact i was downright sick of having to explain why i found funny what i find funny. Not here, though. And the hugs are warm, the smiles are genuine. They smile through their eyes. There's people here that know things about me even i dont understand. But bigger than any of this is that there's people here that have faith in who i am. Not because of any one thing. Not anything i could tell you. But its kinda like how we have faith in God: without need for proof or justification. The same way God believes in us.

No, they dont see me as their god.

This has none to do with religion. For the record, i am not affiliated with any religion. This is about faith. Someone either believes in you or they dont. Its not enough just to say it though. I've had people tell me that they'll believe in me once i make it. What?? I call these people assholes. Non believers. (What does it say about me that i call them "assholes"? You be judge.)

I've told only 2 people outside my family, adopted or otherwise, what i intend to do with my life. Their reactions were not dissimilar except for one particular aspect. Where the first one did her best to act like she believed in me, the second didnt even bother. I at least appreciate the latter's honesty.

But you dont believe in someone after they've already proven themselves.

Here, in this place i'd forgotten, there are those whose faith in me feels like home. And all i feel is guilt because i know that i had swept this part of me into a dark corner and let it turn to dust. You see, the trouble with coming home is that you realise a part of you never left. You just let yourself forget those who truly loved you. Those who never took without giving, who never laughed at your jokes insincerely or sent you forwards they'd never read. Those who criticised your wild facial hair but never shunned you in public.

You let yourself forget those who had faith in you.

Will it matter to them if i never succeed? I dont believe thats how faith works. See, as long as i still get that monthly urge to rush on down and get myself a lottery ticket and still get excited as the numbers begin to roll, it doesnt matter if i never win. I'll be outraged and i'll denounce the lottery as some trick to sucker people into losing their money but i'll know deep down that that urge will return. And when i go buy that ticket again, plop in front of that TV screen, i'll be on the edge of my seat when those numbers start rolling.

Every single time.

"The road is long and the hours many
but still i dream of home.'' - Anonymous.

The trouble with being a hippie.

2007-06-29T05:44:00.000-07:00

DC is my hippie.

Nothing had me more anxious about my return than the possibility of my friends having outgrown me. In some cases, that did come to pass, or the vice versa. Well, in one case mainly as its the only one i feel bad about. My adopted brother. To see how far apart we've grown does sadden me somewhat but time will tell.

But DC is still my hippie. How perfect life would be if we could just go on and fall in love with each other! If i could feel for her the way i felt for She. That would be game, set and match right there. To fall in love with my best friend. But life always has to be a tricky little fucker, doesn't it? Cant give it to you easy!

We've all felt like aliens at some point, like something about who we are is fundamentally different from the rest of this planet's population. Like we dont belong. We've all felt like that, right? No? Well fuck you if you haven't, you're fucking weird! i have and sometimes still do. Only it has recently morphed from alien life form to aging hippie. My big sister would have you believe that its got to do with astrological signs but i dont know about that.

Why do i always have to have it my way even when the freeway is FREE?

Why am i so obstinate about things i only half believe in? Why cant i stand rules and/or discipline? Why do i have to question everything before i accept it? Why do i still refuse to accept things that have been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt like the lunar landing or country music?

How did i miss out on my revolution?

Dc is my heart. I've said that before but only recently did i come to understand it. Only she has me figured out even better than i know myself and she doesnt even realise it. I have an ex-girlfriend and a mother who would pay to be in that position. Well, 2 if you count She. Did you ever wonder what if those tall dark and mysterious men were only that way not because they were trying to be sexy but because of evolution, a deep seeded love for chocolate ice cream and spectacular failure to unlock said mystery?

Yes, i just attributed darkness to an insatiable desire for chocolate ice cream.

You wouldnt believe how overjoyed she was to see me. Well 'overjoyed" kinda says it all, doesnt it? But it was more than that. She didnt believe me at first but when it hit home that i was in town, she damn near jumped through that phone to give me a hug! That brought me home. That made this entire trip worth it.

See, DC makes me happy for reasons and in ways i cant explain. And what's unique here is that i have the very same effect on her. There are ways in which our minds are in sync, not quite finishing each other's sentences off but she's down to ride with my wildest ideas. We have a connection that i'm worried i will never be able to share with whoever i fall in love or falls in love with me.

The last time i saw She, it occurred to me that whereas before, thats the only place i wanted to be was with her, it wasnt like that. Not that day. No, i wasnt wishing i was with DC either. But it didnt break my heart for us to part. Sitting there across...well kinda next to her, watching her stress over some family issues and not being able to do a thing to help her, i felt impotent. Not sexually( hell i was hornier than a Nairobi fly!). I just felt less of a man for being less than what she needed. When i left her that day, or she left me, i realised that there was too much history between us and not enough chemistry.

Of course this didnt sink in for 2 weeks.

I met someone recently who i can say has helped me realise where i want to be and its not how i'm living. She's not a rebound. I'm not in love. Yet. I just love being around her if only because i dont have to try so much. In fact i dont have to try at all. I am enough the way i am, and she seems to feel good when i'm around her and that feels great. It just works, being with her. No, we dont have a DC connection and i dont feel about her the way i felt about She. This is just a friend.

But why dont DC and i just get married? We've both mentioned it as has the rest of the world. The answer is quite simple: we are both romantics and the key to romanticism is total disregard for logic and common sense. At the end of the day, neither of us just wants to settle for each other because we both know the difference between loving someone and being in love with them. Now that i know how it feels to be so gone over someone that i would risk totally ruining myself, i cant unlearn what that feels like and i cant settle for simply being with someone who makes me happy, nay, jubilant and understands me. I cant just play it safe. It wouldnt be fair to either of us even though it would probably be happier and certainly easier.

Oh i get where you're coming from on this one, Cupid. And i'm with you.

Its that the trouble with being a hippie is that the world is full of squares and they constantly invite you to their parties so they can "civilise" you, make you one of them. And they might be right. But i want to risk destruction and ruin because i now know what it could feel like.

ps; for the astrology buffs out there, DC and i are both of the same sign. Coincidence? You tell me.

The trouble with being a rock.

2007-03-30T23:08:00.000-07:00

Simon, the apostle, was given the name "Peter" or "Cephas" both of which mean Rock. As cool as you may want Jesus to be, that wasnt His way of saying "You rock, Simon." It was much more meaningful than that. He was saying, "You're who I'll lean on for support."

Just how much does that count, though? To be someone's rock. Well, i think it depends on the person, really. Take for instance Shaq the baller telling you that you're who he relies on to hold him up when he's feeling tired or exhausted. That dunking hulk of a man saying YOU've got his back. Pretty meaningful, I'd say. Now take the same circumstance but substitute Shaq the baller with Shaq the actor. Are you starting to see what i'm getting at?

Maybe its just me, then. I've actually taken the time to notice that i enjoy being able to help certain people out more than others. To loan someone a few euros, help them move, feed their fish or just be there to listen... it all carries different weights with me. Not dependent on the actions but the helpEEs. To be there for my family is nothing spectacular simply because it comes with the territory. Same goes for girlfriends, room mates and most other friends. With total strangers, it feels awesome but dies out mad quick with the realisation that even if by some miraculous coincidence my random act of kindness should save their lives, i'll never know about it cos i'll never see them again.

But with certain people, it means absolutely everything. There's not even a category for these people because their roles in your life evolve. Perhaps they become friends or ex-lovers but they are somehow never forgotten. It might be cos of the particular moment in your own life when you were able to be there for them; just maybe, you were saving each other's lives.

I made this curly-haired friend. We were classmates, really, and not much else outside of school. I cant ignore the fact that there were only about 4 of us within our age range in our class which might have had something to do with it, but i'd like to think it was more than a lack of options. As it turned out, only a handful of us made it to the next level and it was only then that we began to form a friendship. Upto that point, there had been only one thing out of the ordinary; this wierd, almost undetectable vibe between us. See, i have a really hard time locking onto these invisible hints, subliminal signs or whatever from the opposite sex because i've been wrong in the past, (then later found out i was actually right and not just imagining it) so that kinda fucked up my confidence. Lets just say it was a kinda flirt that remained classy, which is the biggest reason i was intrigued by her because class cant be taught, only learned. To be sexy AND classy is a rarity.

It'd go something like:

Me: Oh so you have dance classes, tonight huh?

She: Yeah, ragga tonight.

Me: I keep waiting for you to invite me since you refused to dance with me in class. One of these days i'm just gonna show up at your dance school. (awkward pause) Haha.(Wow, that was lame!)

She: You should.

Now pay attention; this is where the classiness comes in: she doesnt say that last part in a way to suggest, "You should.... after which we'll fuck each other's brains out." At the same time, its not: "You should....if you want me to call the cops on you, you fucking psycho stalker perv!" No, the way she says it is the perfect flirt because i have no idea what she means by that but the look on her face when she says it has the slightest hint of naughtiness. People think there is such a thing as sexy talk. Its got nothing to do with the lyrics, man, its all about the intonation, the innuendos. Just enough mystery to make you go, "Wait did she just..... naaaah. I'm getting ahead of myself. She didnt just... did she?"

The chances are she did.

Anyways, we later became actual friends and even though language was still a barrier, we soldiered on as best we could. Besides language and my own timidity, i was still very reluctant to try and push for anything more simply because i didnt feel like i was in a place where i could play that role for someone. Sex never even came into it and the fact that i was in an "open long distance relationship" at the time ( what does that even mean?) all felt kinda besides the point. But we'd text each other, nothing spicy and not frequently plus we had this silly running gag where she was Angelina and I was Brad and if all else didnt work out, we'd go to Hollywood and become famous. Cos thats how easy THAT is.

She wanted to be a policewoman; her childhood dream. Now this is a hot, blonde chick, 22 years old and really into hiphop/ragga. She had tried out for the french version of pop idol. But being a police person had always been her dream and her main motivation for staying fit. To be honest, i dont know what the police are like in their private lives but lets just say, she's the kind of police woman you would want to be stopped by, ok?

I remember this one time in class we were doing this activity about body parts and the game was something like hand-to-hand, cheek-to-cheek and so on. Now to kinda spice it up, the teacher threw in ass-to-ass and surprise, surprise, i was partnered up with Police girl. Now for the record, i am not known for my ass gropings and wont claim to be a connoisseur of asses but that was THE softest, most tender tissue i've ever been in contact with. It was like... wow, i have SO veered off tangent on this one.

One day, right before class, she shows up just in time, as always, panting from having sprinted from the parking lot. She's got her results back from the police academy for the 2nd round of entry tests (she'd passed the 1st); she tears the envelope open, we're all watching her face to see her expression, all even more excited than she is, just following her eyes as she reads the letter and there it is-

Right there.

Blink and you might have missed it. Just a flicker. I dont know for sure that anyone else caught it but its cause i was watching her eyes instead of trying to read the letter that i saw it. In the briefest flash, i saw her dream die, right there in front of me. Its the rarest thing, to watch a part of someone die, right before your eyes. Its far scarier than a rare glimpse of vulnerability or fear.

Apparently, she'd failed the 2nd round of tests and would have to wait a full year to be able to try out again. She broke down in tears and kept apologising for crying. Normally, that would have been the point where i would have felt helpless because i dont hardly ever do whats necessary. Oh i do the right thing most of the time, but you'll find that the right thing and the best thing are not always the same. However, i instinctively knew what my Police girl needed. A stiff drink.

We cut class that day. Her, my road dawg Piet and I. 22, 18 and 24. Now she didnt want to drink, neither did Piet and i'm a teetotaler so we did the next best thing. We just went and sat in this cafe, the type normally filled with pensioners reminiscing the bad old days. And we had coffee and pastries and just talked. She was still crying half the time, even when she laughed and it was okay because it pre-empted any awkwardess that would have existed had she tried to pretend that everything was okay. I've learned, perhaps from some self help book or a fortune cookie, that one of the worst things you can do when someone comes to you with their crisis is to try and outdo them with your own crises. You might think you're helping them realise that everyone has problems and they're therefore not alone but what you are in fact doing is making them feel like their problems are silly and insignificant in comparison to yours.

So instead, we started telling the dumbest and most disgusting jokes we could think of. Now with the languge factor, it was a bit harder for me cos i had to translate everything but i got them both to laugh and they got me to laugh and we just sat there blaming The Man for being an asshole and kinda plotting our own revolution. We talked about everything and talked about nothing. We thumb wrestled - oh yeah, i always beat her at this and she always beats me at rock paper scissors- and just hung out. And all the while she was crying and apololgising for crying and she was so beautiful even when she cried that i just wanted to take her in my arms and tell her it'd all be alright even thought there's no way i could possibly know that for sure.

Hours later, when we finally left that cafe, the 3 of us vowing we'd be young forever and then going our seperate ways, i couldnt remember feeling better about anything i'd ever done in my entire life. Now to anyone else, this would seem regular and lacking in originality or colour and just a friend doing his duty. I get that. But to me, it meant that the world was still a beautiful place. It meant that there is still enough love left in this world to save it. And that there was still something beautiful left in me worth sharing with the world.

I only saw curly girl a couple more times before i left the country. Maybe twice. We texted each other the night before i left. Somewhat ambiguously. I'm glad i never developed a crush on her because those things really suck the life out of me. If things ended on that note between us, i would have no regrets. But thats not to say i dont think about her anymore.

Anyways, the trouble with being a rock is that you're so busy trying to stay solid that you dont give a minute's thought as to what will become of you when you start to crumble. The answer to that is quite simple: dust.

"I would rather be ashes than dust; i would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot..." -Jack London.

The trouble with being a bully.

2007-03-15T04:01:00.000-07:00

The only time i ever stole something (meaning outside of my home because some old wise guy said there is no such thing as stealing within a home, and thats a home as opposed to a house because they're not the same but i'll clarify that next time)....anyways, the only thing i ever stole antyhing, i got my ass kicked for it.

It is also the only time i ever got my ass kicked.

The article in question was, somewhat ironically, a karate magazine. I couldnt help laughing at life's cruel sense of humour, myself. It was my first term of secondary school, an all-boys boarding school for that matter that i had gone to by choice. See, i had no idea it was an all-boys gig; all i knew was, every guy in the neighbourhood where i'd grown up had at some point gone to that school so it was definately the only school i wanted to go to. Not too bright. i remember getting there, those regular "first day at school" jitters creeping up my spine but quickly replaced with an awkard sensation of bewonderment: a school in this country where the girls' uniform was identical to the boys? Who would have believed it? ...And, hey, how come all these 'girls' are so flat chested and.....wait a second; wait just one second. Those arent girls at all, are they? Not even flat chested ones. THEY'RE BOYS!!! THEY'RE ALL BOYS!!!!

I was not pleased.

Perhaps i was lucky enough to have an older cousin there and a much older neighbour there to protect me from the bullies. Not just any older neighbour but infact the ringleader and most notorious of the bullies; they called him Impossible! Even the teachers called him that. Not the way you'd say Mission: Impossible. But the way you'd witness a guy get tattoed by a 4*4 pickup truck and then miraulously get up and just shake it off and you'd go, "Impossible!" It was like being sent to hell but having the devil on your team. All term long, I wasnt touched. Wasnt even looked at sideways. Sure i had to surrender all my money and food supplies but hey, i didnt go to sleep afraid of waking up with a raw anus. Sure i had to wash Impossible!'s clothes all term long but it was worth it. This would however be the sourse of my ass whooping.

One hot afternoon, having done what i considered to be an outstanding job of Impossible!'s laundry; see thats how you get through doing things you dont want to. Its all about how you look at it; that's the key. I was so pleased with my job that as i laid Impossible!'s clothes on his bed in his empty room, i let myself relax a bit. kick my feet back and picked up a magazine lying in a corner. "Wow, karate! Something new. What the hell, i'll just borrow this and hand it back to him when i'm done. In a coupla days. "

"A coupla days" turned into 3 weeks.

By the time i got wind of the storm ahead, i was already in the eye of it. A friend of mine came rushing into our dorm looking for me. He said Impossible! was looking for me. He said Impossible! had been going crazy over some magazine that was missing from his room; a karate magazine. That he had been asking around and someone had mentioned that they had seen me with a karate magazine. Only then did i undersand what he was saying: IMPOSSIBLE! was looking for ME.

When it came, it wasnt anything like i'd imagined it might be. See in my head, it was a classic texas showdown. I, ofcourse, was Wyatt Earp staring down this villain at O.K. Corral, high noon, dust blowing all over the place, soundtrack. Fantastically western. But the reality was nothing like this at all. It was more like a toreador staring down a bull thats realised the bull fighter's got not tricks left in his bag. thats what it felt like taking a blow from Impossible!'s clubs for fists: it was like being run over by a bull.

And just as i crumbled to the ground in agony, it came to me; a childhood memory of this kid in my kindergarten class, this typical geeky, nerdy kid who would always hand over his treats at snack time. See i didnt know it then, but I was a bully. I never hit him or anything; i dont even remember threatening him or being mean to him. But i remember him being afraid. I didnt understand it then but he was afraid and i took advantage of his fear.

So at the end of the day, the trouble with being a bully is that you gotta understand that karma is gonna catch up with you sooner or later. It might be your former victim getting a makeover on some reality show to come back and kick your ass or winding up at some tax office in a position to ruin your life.

Or it might just be staring down a bull at the O.K. Corral.

“If you let a bully come in your front yard, he'll be on your porch the next day and the day after that he'll rape your wife in your own bed.” Lyndon B Johnson.

The trouble with new year's resolutions.

2006-03-09T07:16:00.000-08:00

I met someone. Well we didnt actually meet and in the end, it may not have been as significant as i intially thought it was, but i guess i should i start from the beginning.

New Year's Eve 2006: i had managed to squirm my way out of spending New Year's with my family. It's not because i dont love them which i do. But every holiday is the same sequence of events: "we're not going to do anything", " i wish we could do something no matter how small", "we're doing a small thing but invivting just family members","... and close firends", "...and not so close friends", "...and generally anyone who's not doing anything else", "...plus some of those who already had plans but who we'll now ask to cancel those plans so they can attend our shindig." You get the idea. What follows is a mosaic of awkward unpleasentness and neverending boredom smothered in desperate anguish topped off with persistent irritation. Fortuantely for me, i dont celebrate any of the major holidays for one reason or the other. But New Year's is mine, my one day to let myself get lost in the public euphoria.

Anyway, this year i got away from my family and was over at a slow moving party helping an "uncle" of mine dj. Really i was just watching him; all i did was lift the speakers and endless trunks of music, he carries about 5,000 cds to each gig he plays. It was a fun night, a few interesting people, or people that seemed interesting. I hardly talked to anyone there (surprise, surprise) but still managed to have a good time.Great food, open bar for the djs ( that included me). Got to dj abit at the end, about 5.30 am when only the people that were too drunk to leave were still there. And i made my new year's resolution as i do ever year. It's not a very sensible ritual as you really shouldnt wait till the turn of the year to improve your life but there you go, i still do that. So my vow this year was to pick my life up out of the gutter i'd abandoned it in. Very simple.

For the most part, i've stuck to that resolution. I usually do cos i make my resolutions pretty general and easy to stick to. Last year it was "keep it real." I've had atleast one paying job this year, even though it was for a month, and i'm restarting my classes in a while, slowly getting myself onto some kind of path to somewhere. I think the long break i took off from being part of the living world has done me alot of good in that i have a better understanding of what's important to me and what really isnt. I've learned to prioritise and compromise. I cant think of 2 greater tools for getting by. You'd be surprised how much you can get accomplisehd by implementing these 2 keys into your life. Try it.

I realise now this has almost nothing to do with the person i met. Like i said, we didnt actually meet but we bumped into each other on the net. The only reason it's worth talking about is that for the first time in a while, i actually looked forward to talking to someone. I found myself waking up in the middle of the night to check if she was online cos she's in a different time zone cos i really enjoy talking to her. There's alotta people that open their mouths and make alot of noise but dont say anything. I like the fact that She actually has something to say, something that's not quite been said before.

Perhaps one of the saddest thing i ever head was this guy on TV that was trying to demonstrate the death of originality. He said that in Germany or some place, they have a competition where you're asked to prepare 16 bars of original music and that in all it's years, no one has ever managed to produce a combination of 16 bars that's never been played and recorded. I might have the figures wrong or the story, but the gist of it was that everything that is, already has been. It got me wondering if i could muster up an original thought, something that no one in the history of time has ever thought about and eventually i succeeded. I wont share it cos it doenst matter what i thought about but that i did think abut something no one ever had. how can i be sure? It's just one of those things you know, you know?

So talking to this girl, i felt kinda alive, a little bit happier than usual. It was as if we'd known each other for ages and we shared things i'm pretty sure neither of us had shared with anyone else. That kind of thing is easier with strangers that are not directly attached to your daily life. It felt great waking up looking forward to an offline message or something to that effect. I dont know, maybe it's died down now that we know each other abit better. I still look forward to running into her, i'm just not losing sleep over the fact that we didnt talk today.

And that's alright. I dont mind feeling dead inside most of the time; it's enough to know that its still possibe for me to feel alive every once in a while.

The trouble with being an accountant.

2006-03-01T06:37:00.000-08:00

I hate that everyone around me thinks they know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. I hate that i'm the only one who knows for sure that i dont know what i want to do or how i'm going to do it. The difference is, they've convinced themsleves that they've figured it out and are thus pursuing their respective illusions whereas i, in my profound knowledge of being ignorant, have put my life on hold until i figure things out and am thus confined to self stagnance.

Ofcourse they are much better off than i am for atleast they'll have their shattered illusons to fall back on when they realise it's too late to pursue what they actually wanted all along. Better to be an unhappy accountant than an ambitious bum which is where i am surely headed if i dont have a life altering epiphany one of these days. It's just that i'd hate to be an accountant. Even for the maffia, which is about as exciting as that job can get.

When i finished 'O' level, we had a long 9 month break from school during which i hoped desperately to get a job because i knew the idleness would kill me. My dad's "friend" offered me a job at his company. Really it was to grease relations with my father whose approval this smart businessman needed desperately for a government related contract. On the day i was meant to go in for an interview for the job, i got dressed real serious looking, the one time i can remember not feeling awkward tucking my shirt in. I wanted to impress the dude which would in turn make my dad happy which i felt he deserved for putting up with me. I get to the guy's office and he's this short South Korean gentleman, dressed in all black and looking like he was straight out of a James Bond movie. But he was really nice; we talked about ice cream ( he owned an ice cream producing company among other things) and eventually he asked me what i wanted to do. I'll tell you now i was thrown by this question. Completely blindsided. I really should have expected it and it had occurred to me that he would ask something to this effect but all the talk about ice cream and the different flavours just sent me off track. I couldn't respond.

It didnt sem to bother him; he musta needed that contract real bad. So he walks me around one of his plants asking me if i could see myself doing any of these jobs for him: everything from working in what was essentially a large freezer filled with several vats of milk to driving one of his delivery vans and every process in between. I liked the driving gig but i didnt have a license yet so i couldnt take him up on that. I found myself rejecting one position after another until at last, the guy seeming increasingly desperate, made a job up for me on the spot. He said he'd set up an office for me to count money all day. That's it. Just sit there, count and bundle money all day. I thought about it for a fraction of a second and politely turned him down saying i probably wasnt cut out for the ice cream industry, being lactose intolerant and all. He was disappointed but was decidedly more relieved that i wouldnt be working in his plant.

At the time, i had my eye on a job working in an internet cafe an auntie of mine was setting up at the time when there was only a handful of them in our city. My dad was obviously disappointed least because i didnt even get that internet cafe job and ended up sitting around the house all 9 month of that never-ending vacation but i figured there'd be plenty more oportunities to buy his love with equally self-serving gestures.

The point is, sometimes it's not about knowing what you want to do; it's about refusing to do what you know you dont want to. And that's why i pick bum over accountant in a heartbeat.

The trouble with having it bad.

2006-02-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-02-08T13:22:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-02-01T12:52:00.000-08:00

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.