TODAY IS THE DAY THAT I BEING TO 'TALK PRETTY'

One of the reasons that I have allowed my journal to be poorly written has been the ‘journal experience’ I think that it gives to readers. I don’t think that anyone’s heartfelt jr. high – high school or even college journals would remind anyone of potential literary genius. Not to say that in some folks writing, the hint of possibility that a writer of great depth exists, but for what I cobble together here that wasn’t the purpose. The reason that I have persisted in my journaling is to have an outlet and to maybe make up for my lack of reliable relationships in my life. That was the reason I started to be social on-line again, first thru message board (where I met Nebraska in the early part of the decade), then again when my relationship with Mookie Dee begin to crumble.

I don’t say that with a bit of sadness or regret. It has been something that has been a part of my existence for far too long, a feeling that stretches back to elementary school. Once I picked up on that, it was a moment of enlightenment and things socially started to clear for me. This culminated for me in a conversation I had with an older cousin when I was in high school about the attitude that my life had and his advice was for me to learn and become more social, i.e., be niggerish. Prolly not quite that, but my out of stereotype interests and desires were isolating me from the larger body of my contemporaries, and left little misunderstanding to why I wasn’t invited on much of anything.

Getting back to the clumsy writing that readers bravely (because sometimes I go back over some of the copy and shudder… people actually read and tried to make sense of THAT twist mess !!) soldier thru here, I have decided to be respectful of the fact that I do have readers and that I do have a commitment to them and myself to express my thoughts more coherently and clearly. If it means I have to take my time and proofread, making needed corrections, then I will do just that. The excuse that my journal is ‘just a journal’ doesn’t wash. Not only that, it would be a staggering waste of technology that can help me develop and cultivate what may actually be a talent.

Again, thanks go out to you who read and dare say we few, we happy few, we ‘band of brothers (and sisters!!). I truly appreciate your comments and support.

Now, one of the reasons that I did not and still do not accept my cousin’s statement as true is that something in me early on saw that I was meant to be an exception to SOMETHING. It wasn’t that I chose to deliberately search for the unlikely combinations that makes up the pastiche of my humanity. Some things I was guided to and other things I saw and neurons started firing. And yet other things led me onto to other things and so it goes. The conundrum of seeing oneself in the flat hue of a stereotype is that it denies one access to the undeniable uniqueness of his being. I have been speaking to a young man who is close enough to my peeps to call a ‘nephew’ about making a change and taking direction of your own life, since his best friend, my actual nephew, is in the midst of his own ‘becoming’.

He has been filling out applications on line for summer employment and he went and got his big ?estlove afro cut to a low ‘wave cut’ length, to look more acceptable on prospective interviews. I have asked him about his grades and what he wants out of himself. We’ve kicked around the idea of him going to school for culinary arts and combining that with his want to improve his own physical fitness. He is a big boy and if he was a football player, he’d look like a high school defensive end or line backer. But he isn’t and he doesn’t want to start to ‘fluff out’ and grow to become uncomfortable with his image. So when we talk, I stress to him that he needs to make sure that he graduates by any means necessary (1-2-3, the name of the crew is BDP, and if you want to get to the tip top, stop the violence in hip hop!!), to give himself a chance at success. No matter what lies ahead, it begins with him making that first step out into the unknown.

We’ve had conversations about me and my ups and downs and I tell him that my experience is only worth so much. There are going to be more helpful and more effective people that will be coming into his life, provided he makes the right choices and not the easy or more accessible choice for the comfort of not having to earn a benefit. Should advantage come to you, it should come from focus and effort. That is when ‘right place, right time’ happens, because it is a shifting and moving thing, this ‘right thing’ and one can never allow himself to be satisfied with such achievements. Celebrate, and then be ready to prepare for the next stage of tasking that life has to offer.

Whatever it is, I said to him, that you focus on let nothing obscure or keep you from being able to see what it is you see. If you can’t make it out or it isn’t visible to you, then whatever changes you must make to see your goal or what you envision for yourself, make them. I gave the example of the rap star 50-Cent, but my personal distaste for him outweighed his appropriateness for out conversation. Instead, I used his mentor, Marshall Mathers, A.K.A. Eminem instead. Because this was a story with which he was familiar with all the barriers he overcame BEFORE he had to deal with curiosity of being a rappin’ white guy. He has seen or is at least familiar with where Em has come from and what he had to go thru to make it to where he is at.

I told him SOMEONE has to be first at something. Being focused on what you see and hope for is the important thing. You know what kinds of things had to happen for Eminem to get his chance. The thing he had to do was preserve and keep to his end of the bargain. He did that and life rewarded him with the opportunity.

THIS, I STILL BELIEVE

One of the grating things about the last year for me has been my weakness at accepting responsibility for any number of things. While I still will have a grudge (and who says all grudges are bad for you? Or even created equal??) toward my sisters and I can honestly say and expect to never see them intentionally again, the person that I can give a full share of ownership of the complexities of my adult life to, is my wife.

Because I still have great hopes for Skye and me, I can’t ‘X’ my ex out of my life as completely as I’d like. But during our wait together for our hearing, she mentioned things that I had discussed with her as we were getting to know one another. Hearing her speak about what I hope for with her and how I aimed to get us there was a reminder of her epic fail as a wife and partner. She then went on to display in front of the Judge/referee all of the qualities that led to our fail, her second fail in marriage and prolly will lead to her eternal loneliness as a human being. From ‘…but despite what I feel towards her, you make like her as a person’, I’d now prepare anyone who was to meet her through me with the phrase, ‘… and if you find any, and I mean ANY reason to ever understand where she is coming from, then I will think that you are shit too.’

I didn’t do that 20 years ago. Never too late to start.

COMING SOON: What is wrong with the picture in the Gen. McChrystal firing!