THROWING OFF WORRIES AND BEING AT PEACE

            I’D GIVE YOU ALL MY LOVE…

Reading over my previous entry and its content, I think that I could have spoken on that particular ‘Rules To Live By’ more concisely.  Perhaps it was the clash of trying to find something to say and using Michigan football to do it with that tripped me up!

This Saturday night the Detroit Lions will be playing in their first playoff game since the early 90’s.  I figured that I could have a pizza tonight as I watch the game. Now my favorite pizza is a west side pie made by Bob’sPizza Palace back in the Motor.  Pie after pie, slice after slice, Bob’s could be counted on to not only satisfy my hunger but to improve my mood!  Now the best pie I ever had though, was a pizza made by a Pittsburgh place, and I wish that I could remember it’s name, because it was a highlight of my trips there (oh and the two of three fights that I  won there… let’s throw that in as well.!!).

My first trip to the Steel City was memorable for a lot of different reasons.  First, the people around and involved with the promotion were ‘Nebraska Nice’, meaning that they did not mind doing the small things that came with the big things to make the show go smoothly.  It was a classy operation.  Second, the lodgings that were provided, the Westin in downtown Pittsburgh was a HUGE suprise!  This was just a regular, super-ordinary show, no big names or anything, headlined by a couple of local cats that were hopefuls (one whose hopes I would personally ‘adjust’).  I only expected to get a room at ‘the Dew Drop Inn’ or some other low rate motel, thinking that if the room was clean and the ‘Jenny’s’ weren’t too loud as they plied their trade, I’d be cool.  But the WESTIN, geez!

After the fight, a six-round decision win, I smurf was starving!!  I don’t load up after the weigh in, trying to put weight or energy back into my body rather I try to eat a couple of Butterfingers and drink a Coke to steady my darn nerves!  So after a hard fought win, one of the people associated with the promotion drove me back to my room.  Once I was inside, I realized how hungry I was!!  Calling the front desk, I asked for a nice local pizza shop that delivered.  Now I was still driving then but I don’t go wandering strange towns at night.  Just sounds like a ‘Dateline I.D.’ story waiting to happen.  Anywho, I get the number and order a seafood pizza, and that pizza was the BEST PIZZA EVER.

The next time I was fighting near Pittsburgh, the event was not as ‘classy’ but it was still ‘at level’ when it came to the promotion.  I was on the Greyhound this time, not wanting to put the miles on my little BMW.  It did not strike me until I was at the downtown bus terminal to even think about the pizza.  So I called the Westin and they gave me the number to the pizza place and I had one delivered while I waited for the bus.  It was at LEAST as good, if not better, than the first pie I had!  The last time I went through there I had SD (‘member her??) riding shotgun and she agreed that the pizza was very, very good.

Said that to say this… Valentino’s, a pizza chain here in the Midwest, is a superior pie!  I like their pizzas and though they are more expensive than other spots, it really is worth it.  This year I am going to explore a little more because I want to take the babies somewhere when they get to town this summer!

BUT MY HEART ITSELF, IS BROKEN…

SD was the first woman that I would be intimate with in the ‘post Tee Jay’ era.  She is about 5 or 7 years older than me, and despite her interest in me, she offered our age difference as a weak impediment to our relationship.  I had already noticed a couple of grey hairs at the time of my own, so I knew I was getting older, right along with her.  She is an attractive woman, and she had some ‘quirks’ that I could relate with as they were in the same spectrum of quirks that I have.  We’d hang out, taking weekend road trips to places like Saugatuck to look at the antique stores and shops and riding out to West Branch in the upper part of the ‘mitten’, just to go.

Just to go.  I do a lot of things ‘just to’, not because I am necessarily that random as it is hard for me to explain, as it always had been, why I want to go and do things and go places.  For instance, I don’t think that I am going to mention that I am ‘from’ somewhere to anyone I meet, at least not offer that piece of information up early in the ‘get to know you’ part of the conversation. I mean the story that I cling to as the reason for me to move here won’t come across as substantial to others, but it was more than enough for me.  Since I do like where I have settled and it seems that the people ‘accept first’, nothing necessarily marks me as a foreigner, and I am going to go with that flow.  Besides I am getting tired of the ‘why Omaha’ response by people who have never been anywhere of note.  Why not Omaha?  If they had ever really been anywhere then it would be easier to explain.  But for them, familiarity has bred self-loathing, and whatever else they are going through… who gives a sh*t?  I know that I don’t!!

I SIT ALONE AND WONDER WHY

Whenever I would talk about my being single and not only being single, but when I would express my desire to be ALONE, I’d receive predictable feedback about how I am ‘this’ and perhaps someone else will be my ‘that’.  Or maybe I am someone else’s ‘that’ and the ‘this’ they are would be specific to me.  But I thought about why SD and I did not get along, the reasons behind Mookie Dee breakdown and the subsequent encounters with women after that relationship and there are noticeable trends that explains a lot of why some women are unhappy with their not being in a loveship and their subsequent bleak prospects for anything different on the horizon.

The reason that I no longer have those ‘stifled Friday nights’ that were common when I lived with Mookie Dee is that there is no one presently in my life to make the air around me feel stale and heavy, the atmosphere thick with tension, with their infidelity barely concealed.  And when I say ‘infidelity’, I am not talking about legs taking a walk and sharing what lies between them when they are spread apart with another cat.  That never really carried the significance for me that it does for most people.  It is the emotional abandonment that hurt and bothered me the most.  The possibility that there could be an explanation for why someone could be sleeping around is always plausible.  Maybe it could be that physically, there is no connection, or maybe there are ‘tricks’ that go ‘untreated’ that causes one party to explore fulfilling their desire outside of the relationship.  This is an idea that goes back to my short-lived courtship of my starter wife.

Back then (I have no idea if the same attitude persists with young black women now), sisters still left most of the fellatio to white girls, or so the meme went.  When we had a conversation that brushed that area, I told her while I don’t mind bangin’ someone out every now and then, I would NEVER marry someone who did not provide that as a part of their ‘sexual concierge services’.  I told her how that was a part of my sexual expectations and for me to marry someone who did not provide giving me a blow job as a part of their ‘service’, I would not even consider marrying her… and since we did eventually get married, I guess you can figure out how that eventually was settled!

I thought and still believe that keeping your partner satisfied in bed is something that is a place where the connection between people not only gets ‘sticky’ but also gives a measure of the health of the relationship.  Not being able to show this ‘someone who is that someone’ any of the standard affections that should be standard in a relationship is one of the more reliable signs that something isn’t right in a relationship.

Yet what had happen between Mookie Dee and I also had roots in an attitude I believe exist in relationships overall that I find bothersome. It is something that I have found in my interactions with women since, and while I could get into this ‘thing’ in greater detail, I won’t, at least not now.

OH THOSE HAZY LAZY DAYS

Because others have done it before me, I knew that I could do it, too.  This is something that I have believed in for a lifetime.  Achievement is all on the shoulders of those who have preceded us and when I found out what I found out… man, talk about a freeing experience!  One of the things that I have encountered is that there are a lot of people who DON’T know that they can do and instead lead lives of compromise and quiet desperation.

‘Knowing the environment’ or in other words, knowing that there is a cost for the things that you want to achieve is harmony in love is something that I think gets lost when it comes to men and women in relationships.  The balance has been upset and instead of a ‘zero sum’ you have one where each side thinks that there is an advantage to be gained and this approach reflects in the how and why for much of the discord between men and women.

I think for enough the prospect of having to be responsible for more than themselves when it comes to relationships is as harmful as any of the ‘usual suspects’ that plague relationships.  That, and too much insecurity about living to their commitment makes it a lot easier for people to justify their unwillingness to broaden their lives to include a relationship.  Male or female, wither justifications or not (and really there aren’t any justifications to keep a person from achieving something that they want), or excuses, I don’t know if it is worth the incomprehensible struggle of being with someone who thinks they know what they want, but is only more sure that they are not going to be taken advantage of.  Anywho, go Lions!!  Let’s all root for the good guys and today there are none ‘gooder’ than the Detroit Lions!!