Monday, June 18, 2012

RANDOM BUT NOT SO RANDOM THAT NO ONE KNOWS WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT


BRIEFING

I lost my third phone this past year over the weekend as I went to Target to pick up a storage bin for some odds and ends that I have sitting on my bed.  Que sera, as I “knew” better than to push for the jump to Target.  The Maybe Miss offered to take me, which changed in mid-stream to “pick me up from the store”.  Not that there was anything wrong with her picking me up as the situation had changed, but it was a deviation from my own intention and plans.  At any rate,  I would like to find a phone case that I can hook to my carabineer key ring, but I have not found one that would allow me to do that as of yet.

On my post about the Warrior Run I was asked how a person can increase their speed as they run.  While the quick answer that comes to mind is “to run faster”, it is not as easy as all that.  If you run on your own, it is difficult to push the pace than it is when you have a person who is faster than you are setting a pace.  But that is not a sure thing, as the person setting the pace could pace you into exhaustion.  And the treadmill gets BORING!  I could not imagine running at a static pace for too long a time.

Since I am an “urban” runner, when I run I try to use different landmarks for my “fartlek” or speed play running.  Maybe I will run extra hard for a block or maybe I will sprint for half a block during my run.  Also, I try to be cognizant of my turnoverrate and stride when I want to run faster. But most important, is my will to improve on my previous time.

I have kept time and details about the route that I run for my entire athletic career.  The times that I have now go back as far as the mid-90’s.  That is another way that a person can improve their performance, by tracking their times and how they felt during the run. Speaking of running, I really need to get off of my duff and hit the road!  I have been super slack the first six months of the year.  For me, running during the hot weather is a challenge, but when I have not been running in a while is far more risky than if I was starting out in the cold weather.  Heat stroke is a lot sneakier that frostbite!!

Though it started out cloudy on Saturday, the skies cleared and both Saturday and Sunday afternoon was pretty.  But I was worried Flat Ruthie would get wet on Saturday and Sunday, it was well enough that I found my way back home safely!!  But when KT is here, we will go places a-plenty!  I am looking forward to taking her to places I have been saving to share with a special person and she is most definitely a special person in my book!!

RANTING AND RAVING AGAINST THE MACHINE

I have not talked about the Single Mother’s Club or the Sisterhood of Bitter Black Women in a while, mainly because I have not had to deal with any of them directly or in principal.  The main thing about the categorizations is not about my disdain for women who are in either or both groups, but the stereotypes and contradictions that they cling to, which inevitably begins their swirling descent into a vortex of self-fulfilling prophecy.


There premise that women have a harder row to hoe and therefore are superior is inductive reasoning at its worst.  Ginger Rogers may have been a superior dancer to Fred Astaire in a given circumstance, but, in saying that she was a superior dancer and making the comparison with motherhood/women’s competence socially/societal, it is only a valid inference if a woman IS indeed “Ginger Rogers”.  Additionally, men in general and specific, would also have to fail to be “Fred Astaire”, given that the meme is used to measure competence not just as an individual, but as a partner in a relationship, too.  Me, I prefer to go LloydBentsen and state the obvious about women, in that “I knew Ginger Rogers, and she was a great woman.  You, ma’am, are no Ginger Rogers!”

I have little empathy for women who are not only not the mythical superwoman that they envision themselves of being, but who perpetuate the same kind of nihilistic behavior in relationships that keep them and their counterparts at a “competitive disadvantage” when it comes to finding a partner.  To wit: the sense that make a single Mother immutably more capable and sympathetic than the non-custodial Father is horse-hockey!

My starter wife was worried that our girls would “like me better” and would chastise me for “thinking” (in her small imagination, she had convinced herself that…) I thought I was a better parent than she was.  The small and petty obstacles that she erected between me and our daughters go unprovable as how do you quantify that kind of thing?  It is heresy and sounds like sour grapes, so it goes unsaid.  Not only has that, the judicial system and society demonizes the non-custodial parent.   

From my perspective, the moral smugness of single Motherhood is as unjust as the situations that set them in their circumstance.  Starting again with my starter wife, who did not think as a single Mother that she would ever get married, got married to me.  Now if she had wanted a marriage as badly as she told herself and her coven of SMC or BBW, then all she had to do was stop beating me.  Oh, and stop being jealous of me.  And then there is … in short, she needed to get the f*ck over herself or find a therapist to help her with her issues!

THEN THERE IS THE WAY TO TALK WHEN YOU WANT A JOB

Now being separated is not the ideal way to raise children but if you are going to put in the, wait for it, LEGENDARY effort that single Mother’s are known for, it can be worked out.  And here is the motivation for the post.

I received a Father’s Day email from Lexxie this past weekend.  Not that I was overwhelmed or anything, or taken with any feelings of verklempt, as that sort of thing doesn’t really impacts on me.  I mean, I will say and do what I am supposed to do, and hopefully that brings the person some fulfillment.  The fact that I was thought about usually is enough, but in Lexxie’s case, there is more than meets the eye.

Since I have seen her last in 2010, her and her Mom has been mostly incommunicado since I have been in Omaha.  Calls to all the number that I have for them have been unreturned as well as dozens of emails.  I was just going to call the Social Services in Carolina to see if they had an address or any information on them.  The email allowed me to breathe and feel comforted that they are not dead, just ignoring me for whatever reason they have for doing so.

While younger, like Skye, Lexxie is old enough to make up her own mind about whether or not she wants her Father in her life.  But again, thinking about how society would have you believe of the sacrifices that Single Mother’s make for their children…

Now Nixxie and I were both friends before we began to bump uglies, so when we became pregnant, we had that to fall back on.  Pecan Sandie has always been a bit unstable, so her not keeping in touch is truly par for that f*cking course.  But Nixxie and I have always had an amicable relationship, through her pregnancy and obviously since we have had our daughter.

We talked about how things would go between us as parents and the kind of relationship we envisioned for me and our daughter.  For the first seven years of KT’s life, I would get in my car, whether in Georgia or the Motor, and drive to spend a few weeks with her and KT.  While this was something that grated on Sandie, it was something that I think Tee Jay would respect me for, as well as something else for my starter Wife to hate on.

I still remember the spring that I told Nixxie that I could not swing a visit to Carolina.  That would be the summer that I would learn that seven (going to be eight!) were allowed to fly!  And then when I would enter a relationship with Mookie Dee, KT  and lil’ Mook blended right on in together.

OR SO THE GERMANS WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE

The last time I saw my middle daughter was the summer that saw me lose my darling brother.  Mookie Dee, for whatever reason, decreed that KT could not sleep with us, if for no other reason than, “she does not allow that”, claiming that she did not let her daughter sleep with her after she turned 8 or 9.  Me, on the other hand, knowing that at 11, this was prolly the last year she would want to sleep with her Father, agreed.  That is a big regret right there.

For the last five years I have been mostly bouncing around, briefly holding onto possible stability in the D.C. Metroplex, before I got to where I am now.  And while I have some other thoughts about my journey, what I am mostly thinking about is the joy that I will have when I go to Eppley Airfield this Saturday to receive my daughter.  This post was mainly generated out of the bullsh*t of single Motherhood and its exalted status in society.  It is not that the men that were a part of creating a child(or –ren) were totally bullsh*t, but sometimes, the single Mother’s themselves are bullsh*t too.

I know how fortunate that Nixxie and I have the kind of relationship that we do and that our daughter has both a Mother, a Father, AND a step-Father in her life.  It makes me wonder at those whose claim to measuring their relationship with a man is based on “the kind of role model” he will be, continually f*ck that sh*t up, and they ignore the impact that it has on the spirit of the household.

Of course, all of THIS may too be bullsh*t, but it is my blog and my bullsh*t to own!

4 comments:

Christine Macdonald said...

I love taking a peak in to that creative and funny mind of yours.

Well done.

xxoo

Anonymous said...

I see a fair amount of that bitterness quota at the food pantry where I volunteer, & have also encountered it recently when I tried to help a few floundering people with my medical dx. I think it crosses over color & gender lines to : People who feel powerless & instead of doing anything constructive about it they want to blame YOU.

I am in no way saying all people in bad situations think or behave like this, but the ones who do seem to have a long list of how & why the world has F'd them over & how they have stood fast & true, but still keep getting rained on.

<not buying it. ~Mary

Babz Rawls Ivy said...

((HUGS)) I know you will have an amazing time with your daughter!

I am not in the convincing business... meaning I am not going to tell you that there are Sisters who do not act a fool for a man, do not act a fool with a man or against a man.

Keep the faith and strive for a different kind of woman... one that will bring something to the table other than an attitude.

Looking forward to hearing all about the visit with your daughter!

Ken Riches said...

Hate the no returned calls thing, just say'n.