So I've found my new cure for keeping people I don't want to bother me interupting me at work: headphones. (Anybody under 26, you know you don't bother me and I enjoy chatting it up with you because you actually talk about something interesting.)
It doesn't matter if I'm actually listening to something good, currently John Legend, or just hearing the background noise and the noisest of all neighbors (anybody who works at 8455 knows who I'm talking about). If I have them on, I don't get bothered. They make it seems as though you don't want shit to do with any interruptions, and well, that's the truth.
However, this morning I made the mistake of leaving the phones in the car, and I got caught trapped by a drive-by conversation I could have done without - the one other black male who currently works in my office. He's nice, but senile.
He started rambling about Mizzou-UMKC game last night, and how Mizzou almost lost. Not that big of a deal right? No. But he somehow ushered his point into how he used to play ball back in the day with his brother and friends in his neighborhood. He said he used his jumping abilty to balance out the fact that he's 4-foot-7, and his outside shot? You didn't want him to take it, because he'd drain it. Then he went into how the problem with today's black youth is how there are no neighborhoods because of cars and bad parents.
What does any of this have to do with Mizzou or UMKC? I don't know. All the while, I just sat here with my hands still typing on my keyboard as a signal trying to convey the message "I'm busy, so would you please keep to steppin, and stop with your unnecessary comments?!"
Duk, you have to know what I'm talking about.
But no more of that. The problem is solved. Headphones. Legend's Live it up is playing now, and passers-by are ignoring me like I want.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Do you remember when times were hard, Oh so hard ...
Ye vs. 50
I'm not going to get too far into this at all. Mr. West wins easily because of this one ignorant ass statement by Mr. Cent.
Fitty tells GQ that President Bush is "a gangsta," just like him, and that he'd love "to meet George Bush, shake his hand and tell him how much of me I see in him."
How much of 50 Cent do you think George Bush sees in himself?
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Sole Searchin ...
Eyes wide open; a boy confined by darkness understands not where to step. Knowing his soul exists, he, full of fear, does so anyway without course, but with cause. He hears a voice inside telling him to be still. He rummages about, in search of what he came with, yet somehow misplaced. His measures are as rocky as a trembling quake. They are symmetrically placed in a manner befitting a commoner anointed a king. Unbeknownst to him, though. Struggling with the premise of continuing to err, the child, still wandering, falls. No hands come to aid him. He shuts his eyes. A tear trickles down his broken face, and dries in the coldness of the night. He asks for illumination, and laments for help while fading into a slumber. Finally, he is still.
Morning comes, and light is ubiquitous. The stumbling blocks are now visible. The thorns, avoidable. The water, clear as day. He stands, and walks toward it. He kneels, and pans the water attempting to cleanse the dust off his brow. For the first time, a man sees his manifestation. He experiences joy. His lonely search for his soul complete in a reflection. Now he understands, what he knew not. The man grasps what he before had lost, never to let go of it again. Abiding by what he knows, he, and his love, is limited by nothing. His throne is ready for him, and he is prepared to take it.
Scripts do not get this good ...
and know/no I didn't type this out. I searched and found it somewhere. But this is proof that this was some good shit, as only I would say. If you haven't read my earlier posts, this is a monologue from When Harry Met Sally, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite movies.
SALLY: When Joe and I started seeing each other we wanted exactly the same thing. We wanted to live together but we didn't want to get married because every time anyone we knew got married it ruined their relationship. They practically never had sex again. It's true. It's one of the secrets no one ever tells you.I would sit around with my girlfriends who have kids and...well actually my one girlfriend who has kids ... Alice... and she would complain about how she and Gary never did it anymore.
She didn't even complain about it now that I think about it. She just said it matter of factly. She said that they were up all night and they were both exhausted all the time. The kids just took every sexual impulse they had out of them... and Joe and I used to talk about it and we'd say "you know, we're so lucky we have this wonderful relationship. We can have sex on the kitchen floor and not worry about the kids walking in. We can fly off to Rome on a moment's notice."And then... one day... I was taking Alice's little girl for the afternoon 'cause I promised to take her to the circus and we were in the cab playing "I Spy". I spy a mailbox. I spy a lamppost. And she looked out the window and saw this man and this woman with these two little kids and the man had one of the little kids on his shoulders. And she said "I spy a family." And I started to cry... you know, I just started crying.
And I went home and I said, "the thing is, Joe, we never do fly off to Rome on a moments notice."Anyway, we talked for a long time and I said "this is what I want," and he said "well, I don't." And I said "well, I guess it's over," and he left. And the thing is I... I feel really fine. I am over him. I mean I really am over him and that was it for him. That was the most he could give and every time I think about it I am more and more convinced that I did the right thing.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Love is patient ...
"If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now." ~ Marcus Aurelius
Be still. Don't react. Act accordingly.
It's time to get introspective and maybe you'll pick something up for yourself along this journey. These three words - love is patient - are the key to defining love. People look at patience and see it as the ability to wait on something when maybe that's not what you want to do.
I'm not sure that's not what 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 was trying to convey at all.
Be Still.
When you steer yourself through the rest of the definition in The Bible, it's telling you in a complicated manner to be still. Through good times and bad, sickness and in health (Think of marriage vows). Don't count wrongs. Don't be irritated. Don't be jealous. Don't insist on your way. It's trying to teach us how to keep our cool not matter what comes our way accepting the positive and the negative with each succint breath as though they were the same thing.
Too many times I'm at fault for reacting in a negative manner or even just wondering why people do ill things and trying to do things to correct their behavior. It's really wasted time and space. Yeah, I wish I could go back and do a hundred things differently. But at this point, it's time to stop charting my gaines and losses, and start counting my blessings.
I've gotten away from this line of thinking in recent months, and allowed my anger and frustration to get the best of me at times, and where has it gotten me? More frustrated and enraged. But I think it's time to get back to what I know is good within me, even if I know how tough it is. I know it's right.
I recite different pieces of this classic poem - If by Kipling - at times to renew the resolve of my beliefs. I think it aligns itself perfectly with the "patience is love" theory.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son.
A Couple of Things...
I've decided that I'm sticking with the full beard look also known as "The Grown Ass Man" look for a few more days/weeks ... it's growing on me, and it's rare that this ever does.
If Wildcat-squared had anything to say about this ... well she wouldn't say anything she just come at my face with shaving cream and a razor blade. My reasoning: the weather; the fact that there are plenty of guys I know who can't grow facial hair; my brother looks older than I do at times because of his facial hair, and I can't stand it. Tell me what you think ...
Also, I'm going through some old records (CDs) trying to get a good feel for my music. Here's a sampling of what I found. It definitely has a grown ass (black) man's feel to it:
Jill Scott - Beautifully Human: Words & Sounds, Volume 2
Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill - the title track is something I'm feeling in my soul right now ...
John Legend - Get Lifted, Live at the Knitting Factory
Mike Phillips - Uncommon Demoinator, You Have Reached Mike Phillips
R. Kelly - Happy People
Rapheal Saadiq - Ray Ray
Donell Jones - Where I Wanna Be
Joe - All That I Am
Love Jones - The Soundtrack
Mary J. Blige - What's The 411?
What Women Want - The Soundtrack
Justin Timberlake - Justified
Big Luther - A Mixed CD
Anita Baker - My Everything
There's some great stuff in there. So as a write tonight - I'm going to make myself start something that I've been wanting to start for a while, and blog a little more - these are the records I'll be spinning. Smile.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
I think entirely too much ...
I'm still reflecting about things that happened last week. I think the conversations(AIM) I had with a new friend that I probably should have gotten to know a whole lot better four years ago combined with other stuff has helped to open my mind up to a new way of thinking.
Here goes: I'm finally content with the fact that I may not be married within say the next five years and that I'm not in any serious relationship currently. If you know me, I like the idea of being able to have that "only other half that makes you whole" but I'm really good right now considering some of the news I got last week.
First off, Nick and Jessica are calling it quits (I'm serious about this as well ... lol) after ? years (i really don't know). Secondly, word has it that my dad and my stepmother are now seperated. Thirdly (not a word), I learned on Thanksgiving of another seperation that placed a stamp on my thought process about a serious relationship:
---------- told me that she had been seperated from her husband for a few months now. She said she didn't have a problem with except for when her oldest child, who is not old enough to watch a PG movie without mom, mentioned that it was bothering her.
At that moment, I stood still with a blank look on my face just wondering how, if ever, I'd be able to deal with the idea of being seperated or divorced. I think I have had a big enough problem coping with splitsville in my serious relationships, and I wonder how I'd deal. It's at that point I realized that my relationship problems - minus one issue - are trivial.
Moreover, I can't imagine having kids amid that situation. You have to really be strong through an incredibly tough time for someone else. My mother recently told me that she had this experience when she and my father divorced ... I thought to myself "It takes me 24 hours and a few good conversations with friends and myslef just to really pull myself together after a bad fight. How do you do that?"
Anyway, I just wouldn't wish this on anybody. And now that I think about it, I really want to be sure I'm on the same page as my significant other before things really get serious so I can hopefully avoid the d or s word. I think of so many stories of people married before 25, and divorced before 30. I think the best way to avoid that is to not get hitched until the latter age. Shit, if even then.
... I'm still think about the potential for several "When Harry Met Sally" entries, and I'll get there in a day or two, maybe. But I must say it has to go in the top 10 of movies I've ever seen. Not top five though.
The things I'm going to hit on this week: 1) why you shouldn't date someone you're not attracted to. 2) Can men and women really be platonic friends (WHMS)? 3) .... a mystery to even me.
Well after Harry Met Sally ...
So I'm watching this movie for the second time, and I'm not even halfway thru it. But I must say, this is one of the best movies that I've ever seen.
Have you ever watched a movie where you didn't really need the picture? This script is that good. Anyway, I've got an abundance of blog topics/relationship bullshit to write about thanks to Billy Crystal Lite and Meg Ryan. Stay tuned ...
