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Wednesday, January 18, 2006

The Depantsing Brief Current mood: curious Category: Blogging I bet that every school in every city has had a depansing epidemic. You know, kids running around trying to drop each others trough for masculine supremacy. Usually, it was the jocks getting their pleasure from the the spaz kids, running and fleeing in terror one hand reaching for safety the other clutching their soon-to-be ankle height pants. Clinton Rosette had it’s own scare in 1990 but it was the spazzes who drew first blood on the cool kids. Here is the story of how one stupid kid got his most satisfying revenge but then paid the ultimate price…. Contrary to most thoughts, I was not always a popular kid in school, in fact, there was a long time where I was roundly hated by most of the student body. Well, I guess hated might be a strong word, more like disliked and ignored by. But I digress. When you change schools you would think it would be a good opportunity to pull yourself up. You get to meet new people who know absolutely nothing about you and then you can make your own new personality. I’ve had many chances in my life to change my personality but unfortunately I had to wait until everyone else matured before I was really appreciated. Back in fifth grade, however, I wasn’t doing to well. My three best friends, Chad, Justin, and Ben were all apart of the popular, jocular crowd. Yes, even in fifth grade we had already decided who was going to be popular for the rest of their DeKalb lifetime. It was deperssing. Justin and I had known each since I moved to DeKalb. For those of you who don’t remember big Justin, he was the kid that was 250 pounds - his butt cheeks weighed more than I did. For the first four grades of life, Justin and I had an understanding that I was his friend and not the other way around. A load amongs boys, Justin used the ease of his weight and personality to make friends with all the other athletic kids in school. When we played summer baseball, he hit the homeruns and I did the striking out. But when we got to Clinton Rosette Middle School things changed. Sure, I was still the too small, too dorky black kid that everyone had come to avoid because of my messy desk and propensity for booger eating. Justin, however, had grown tired of my style and decided to branch out. Whenever we were at school, he did his best to avoid hanging out with me. I was left to hang out with the spazzy kids, the ones who were always last pick for dodge ball and other caste relegating games. When we’d ride the bus home, he lumbered to the back with the rest of the cool kids and although I tried to sit in the back the other kids gave me the "Forrest Gump treatment" relegating me to sit on the bus hump in the front next to Joe the bus driver, our friend from the Ukrane. Anyways, one day after school, another day of embarrassing life-altering failure, Justin and I got off the bus to head home. For some reason, I got a little lippy with him. I think I made some comment about his big cow shirt being perfect for him. I dunno. Anyways, for some reason the Big Ugly was not in the mood for my lip and he started chasing me around our subdivision. I figured ol’ Justin couldn’t catch me due to the excess girth and all but I have always and forever been slow of foot. The big nasty caught me by my pants and like Michael Jackson at Christmas began to dig at my pants. In front of the bright world, Justin managed to pull my pants, exposing my tighty-whiteys to whoever decided to walk by. Luckily, I had managed to clean up whatever doodies that might have happened that day or there would have been an even bigger show. He held my pants down for a full twenty seconds as I twisted and writhed, wriggled and cried. The emasculating damage had been done. I was hopping mad. No way had the big ugly caught me, then taken my pants down. NO WAY had that just happened. My skinny black legs slinked back into my pants and I sulked back to my apartment. No way would I tell my mother about this. My mother and his mother had worked together for five years and any punishment that he would get would only lead to much more dire consequences. I hatched a plan to get my payback for the depansing. For losing a friend to the dark side of popularity. For just being one of the have-nots. The next day started out just as any other would. Justin, Hymein Ahn and I waited for the bus to pick us up I made small talk with my unsuspecting vanquisher. I put him at ease about the day before telling him that there were no hard feelings and yes, I should have known better than to say anything about his sensitive stomach. The bastard laughed. I smiled. We got on the bus as friends again but little did he realize that Brutus would have his day. As with all of the other schools in DeKalb, you have to wait outside in the cold until the bell rings before they let you in the building. It’s one of the dumbest rules ever. I mean, heaven forbid we go inside of the school on a 5 degree day or even go straight to our classes. I believe the teachers were getting it on before the whistle. I can only imagine what the youngest teachers did after the horn. Ms. Mason and Mr. Buckner would have made an interesting couple. Anyways, we got off the bus a full fifteen minutes before the bell. Justin headed toward his cool friends and I walk towards the door to find a way to keep some sort of body heat with the other also rans. At least that’s what I wanted him to think. There’s something extremely gratifying to see a well crafted plan work the way it’s supposed to. This wasn’t really a plan but it still felt nice to see the Big Ugly get his. I waited until he was next to all his friends and I watched. Watched knowing that I was destined to be with the scrubs, my anger rose. I couldn’t take it. I had to make a move. I walked over, calmly of course as to not give away the element of suprise. The next thing I knew, I was five feet away from him and his friends huddled under the big planted tree in the front of the school. Justin wore blue sweats to school that day because you could get away with sweats in middle school and not be thought of as a dweeb. Swirling with yesterday’s debacle, I reached out with two hands and grasped quickly at his sides. I yanked. The next moments are a little blurry. I do remember his pants being around his ankles but nothing else. Mainly because you have to run pretty fast after you do something like that in front of the whole school. No, I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. No, I was not trying to make my mark for the little guy. This was just a personal vendetta that needed to be filled. The rest of my school mates looked on with stunned silence. Can you imagine a kid purposefully pulling another kids pants down for no apparent reason? The excitement would be overwhelming in fifth grade. They began to jump and point like monkeys. Sweet revenge! The rest of my day at school I spent as if my life were going to be snuffed out at a moments notice. Luckily, I was in all the nerd classes so there was never a chance I would ever see Justin at school. Still, I didn’t know who would do his mighty bidding, so I kept my head on a swivel. Never let my guard down. You guys think I’m paranoid? Well, this is where it all began. But Justin never did was able to make a move on me at school. But I knew that waiting for the bus he might be able to hit his mark. Joe pulled up with the number 9 bus about ten minutes after the bell rang. Justin waited in line with the rest of the Village kids, looking earnestly for little black buddy. Coyly, I waited as long as I could before I got on the bus. When Justin made his move to get on the bus , I did the same knowing that he wouldn’t be able to get me if he was already sitting down. Right before Joe the Ukranian closed the door I pulled up and tried to get on the bus. Joe was a little peaved but he nevertheless let me off the bus. Now, Joe and I never did get along. No one ever really understood what he was saying half the time and he was a bit of a curmudgeon anyway. One day, Joe and I got into a bit of a verbal disagreement. I cursed at him in english and he let me have it in whatever slavic gibberish that he knew. I damn near got suspended from the bus. So, the bad blood being established, it was probably not a good idea to make my nemisis wait to pick me up. I would pay for my insolence. That day, I relished my loser status, sitting as close as I possibly could to our bus driver. I tried to butter him up, ask him about his day, anything that would make the man open the door as quickly as possible. The plan was to run as fast as I possibly could before Justin lurched from the back of the bus and caught me. A head start would be needed from my small legs to escape him. We pulled up to the Crane Drive entrance of the University Village. I looked at Joe. A sneer came over his face. The door would not be opening today. As the bus stopped, terror struck my little body. We sat for a full five seconds with the door closed, Joe’s excuse being that he didn’t want anyone to miss their stop. The JUDAS!! With each second, Justin pulled closer behind me. I quickly turned my head and tried to muster a truce of some sort. He stared. Joe finally opened the door and I tried to make a break for it but the big Ugly was fast at my heels. We got past our apartment buildings when he finally did catch me. He pinned me to concrete. I tried to get up. No dice. Again with the digging at the pants but this time there would be a stiffer penalty. He pulled my pants off of my body, past my shoes and kept them. Then, he pulled my tighty whities exposing my childhood to the world. I got up furious and I flapped in the breeze. The Number 16 bus, with all the high school kids, pulled by just as this happened. I can imagine what they saw. A little black kid pulling his fruit of the looms back to his waist. Then, seemingly very angry, the little black kid, with his secure panties back in place, frantically running after a bigger kid who seemed to be laughing hysterically. A full two minutes of jumping and scraching later, the bigger kid, tiring of his pleasure, giving the little kid his pants back. I did not cry though. No, there would be a lot of swallowing of pride that day. I lurched back to my house. After a fantastic start the day would end with another bitter, and horrible defeat. The next day at school the fallout of the Great Depantsing Fiasco was apparent. Two kids in the cool group depantsed each other with great glee. The next three weeks kids were dropping trough left and right. I, like Rosa Parks before me, had suffered so that others could prosper. And that is The Depantsing Brief.

I don’t know why I wrote this considering it was the day after my 25th birthday and I should have been in a far better mood than I was. But I didn’t go out the night before and maybe I felt just a little bit spiteful for not having a birthday party worth a damn. Anyways, I ran into Gracia about three weeks ago and she read this and didn’t think it was half bad, although she did make sure she told me there were a few details that I got wrong but of course I got details wrong. I’m a journalist. Anyways, if she can have a sense of humor about this than I guess so can I….Read on. There ain’t no Part II yet.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Two bears….PART 1
Current mood: listless
Category: Blogging

This is the story of two stuffed animals that I’ve received over my years of falling in love. I hope you enjoy it because it’s not going to be a masterpeace…just a piece of my mind.

It was Halloween 1995. I was a 6 foot, shoe-string skinny back up center for the woeful, underacheiving Lowell Cardinal J-V basketball team. We didn’t stand for much really, just a chance for us to do something other than study and maybe put it on our college applications. Anyway, I had about an hour to kill before practice and I was doing what I always did - roam the halls, contemplating life and the reasons why I couldn’t get a girl up until that point. I walked down towards the band and thought about grabbing my trumpet and soothing myself in the quiet rooms with a solo from the heart. Today, I decided to steer clear of the depressing and keep walking down the stairs towards the gym.

To get to the gym from the band I had to walk through the ROTC area. Standing down there with a couple of her friends was the girl who sat behind me in Latin class, Gracia Mui. I had never really thought too much about her. When I first met her she had kind of an orange color, she wore glasses, and, from what I could tell, didn’t really extend her fashion to anything outside of a windbreaker and jeans. Never would I have thought that Gracia and I would ever make a connection on any sort of level.

Gracia and I never really talked all that much in the year and a half we knew each other. Sure, we often cheated off of each other but that’s what happens when your goal is not necessarily to learn from OVid and all the other great writers of antiquity but instead to find a way to increase your vocabulary. So I suprise even myself when I struck up a conversation with the girl on the day of her ROTC inspection. I had seen her in the getup before - green blouse with light green shirt, green hat in hand, shiny black shoes with skintone stockings leading up to a short green skirt - but on this day her crooked smile and tomboy hair cut did it for me.

We started talking. About what, I dunno, we just talked. Her friends came and went but we kept talking until for some reason she asked me to give her a massage. I hadn’t given a woman a massage since my mother stopped asking me in sixth grade but I still had some good technique. She fell like puddy in my hands and she shrugged and grooved her shoulders with my hands as if it had hapened before, we were in synch. After a while I stopped massaging, but I kept my hands on her shoulders. I hadn’t touched a girl this way in years and it just felt right. My hands eased down to around her waist and I just stayed there, not thinking about sports for a full twenty minutes. At 3:30, she had to go line up for whatever she needed to do. Instinctively, I gave her a hug and ran off to practice.

I went to the gym and then realized that I still had twenty minutes before practice. So I went back outside to talk to her but I didn’t really have anything. She was just standing there, her skin didn’t turned to gold, her green uniform suggested role-play, and her light brown eyes sparkled to me. I walked back to her put my arms around and leaned into her. With nothing left to do, I gave her a kiss on the cheek. (Now, I wish it was that simple now…I could never get away with doing what I did now unless the girl had been drinking…wait, hold that thought…more on that later…)

In the light ran my body melted with my new found lust. I’ll admit to you that I have a tendency to put a little too much on relationships but it had been seven years, I think I was entitled to give myself a pat on the back for a second. I didn’t have a costume but for some reason I felt like trick or treating at 5 pm. I went to every house telling each occupant that I was “MR. Happy Guy!”

The next day I went to school and I really didn’t know what to expect. Was she going to rebuff me? Would she say she was drunk? Would she say that the kiss was payment for the massage? I would find out soon enough; our first class was Latin. I took my seat behind her and we didn’t say anything the entire time. Not a word to each other an understood silence that there would be more about yesterday later. If there was anything that Gracia and I had it was an ability to speak without talking. After class we went our separate ways but we would soon reunite.

It waited until lunch. I was on my way through campus trying to find Jaymee so that I could stalk her some more when I made my way towards the ROTC wing. Gracia stood outside the room as if she had expected me. We chit-chatted for a second but eventually we made our way outside. My sweat operated my hands, and it mechanically grabbed for hers, and she took it like a seasoned pro. She walked me down the hill towards the gym and we sat down outside the door.

I didn’t really know what to say. Was she going to give me the “let’s just be friends talk?” I hoped not. I asked her anyway just to see how she felt, what she wanted to do. She didn’t want to talk. My first kiss, and it came underneath the lunch area, outside the gym doors and in front of the gardner’s dog. That’s right, in the middle of the groping, the shoving of the tounges - which I think I performed masterfully by the way, a small white poodle-looking (can’t really say, don’t know anything about dogs…) dog appeared from the bushes and watched. He probably thought I wasn’t doing any better than he could. Gracia and I had our first moment. We laughed and a relationship was born.

For the next month we became school exhibitionist. The poor Lakeshore kids. If any of them had just looked towards the high school across the fence, they would have discovered Gracia and I fondling and tounging each other. It still makes me think what irreparable damage we might have done to the younglings. Luckily, there were bushes in the ROTC area that we could hide behind but they didn’t do everything because anyone in RO could come out and see us having at each other. I didn’t care though. I had spent my last three years scouring porno magazines, finding any way I could to forward my non-existent sexual experiences, but NO MORE! I had a girl.

A very strange girl, though. She was the first girl in Lowell’s history to join the Boys Drill Team. So yes, that meant I was in the emasculating position of being on the basketball team but dating someone who actually wore the pants/skirt in the relationship. (Although, I give her credit for wearing skirts at all. Ever since, I’ve wanted a girl once to wear a skirt, you know, for easy access and all, but has that ever happened? No!!! Not once have I been able to slide my hand for a greasy finger when the time really called for it. Thank you Gracia for your confidence in your legs…) For christmas, Gracia asked me to give her 25 dollars. For an inexpensive concert ticket? No. For a new windbreaker or some shoes? No. If you guessed that it was for a swiss-army knife. You’re a winner. It would not be something that one would expect his girlfriend to want but the sap that I was, I stole the 25 bucks from my mother and gave it with two blind eyes to my loving better half.

The next day, Gracia had my Christmas present. She took me to her lair in the west wing of the school and showed me a snow white, bear shaped candlewick. Well, it was more than that really, it had a bow and it looked like there was some real love and care put into this thing. Or maybe she might have spent more than 25 dollars on my gift. I was so excited that my girlfriend cared soo much about me. It was the zenith of our relationship, the culmination of weeks of understanding and compassion. We even talked about marriage! Yes I was in love….

But, love and making out, and doing foul things in front of pre-adolescents will only get you so far really. So it’s Valentine’s Day and we’re on rocky roads. You know in every relationship there’s that turning point, well ours revolved around sex. I needed it, and she needed to wait until marriage. For the few weeks prior, she began to ask me what we had in common. I couldn’t think of too many more things other than ROTC, which I joined at her behest (yes, I can admit this now that the only reason why I joined because my girlfriend wanted me to. So no ladies, I’ve been p-whipped for ten years!) It seemed like there wasn’t anything going on for us anymore and she would soon give me the Hiroshima treatment.

She invited me over to her house after school because her parents were gone (had they been there I wouldn’t be writing this right now…) and I talked about Valentine’s day and what a great time we were having together. She wanted to really know what was going on for us. I kept pushing her with my rosy optimism, telling her how much I still wanted to be with her. She finally pushed the button on my ass with a story that told me everything had I just wanted to listen. The white candlewick bear, the bear that I thought she had given more that 25 dollars of high school blood money to buy, was really just a salvation army throw out. A bear that her father had saved from someone else’s home and now infested mine. I was digusted! She didn’t really care about me the way I thought but instead of being irate and acting as angry as I felt, I took it. I sat there and took it. She asked me if I was mad, feeling that maybe this would be her chance to leech out of the relationship but I wouldn’t let her have the satisfaction, not on her home court. For the first of many coming times, I swallowed my pride.

The next day, she asked me again. I told I didn’t know. On the one hand, I knew it was probably time to end this thing, my friends had asked me for a month why I hadn’t dumped her yet. We didn’t have anything in common at all and you can only taste seven up from someone else lips so many times. She also began to tell me things about her life that I probably shouldn’t have known. The fact that I was her 32nd boyfriend (yes, Lauren, I have been on the other end before….). The fact that she loved nothing more than to watch Bruce Lee movies and practice her martial arts (not making this up!!!). We were just different. I was a lover. And that’s what made it so difficult to break up with her. There was only one other girl that I even thought about in high school but she was older, way hotter, and completely out of my league. So there I was with a girl I was no longer attracted to but who I still needed because there was no one else to make out with.

She asked me again to break up five days later. This time I really didn’t think about anything but how much of a headache thinking about our breakup was for the last four days. I needed it to be over. It happened so weird though. I was walking to class and she was walking to hers. We saw each other in the alley and she just asked me between classes…and I said yes. That quickly, that simply, four months of Gracia and Jamil were over. Sure, we did what most couples do. We did the whole awkward make out at band concerts thing. And the whole awkward, I’m in ROTC and I know I should quit because this is really embarassing but I still need to go here because I can’t let everyone else know I joined because of you thing.

The worse was when I found out that three months later she went to the Junior prom with some fake-fob douche bag named Dominic. Ugh! Not only that but apparently she fell in love with the mook because they were fucking like minxes. And all I had was this stupid bear. This stupid fake porcelean candle wick bear. I held onto it though. Oh yes, i held onto it because I had to have some reminder of the lying that women could do. That they, Women, Are always and forever, Full Of Shit (WAFOS!). It was gritty but I would get my revenge on womenkind but for all the wrong reasons.

One shining moment
Current mood: sleepy
Category: Blogging

Ok, so everyone has that one time in their life that probably describes them better than anything else. Well, this isn’t that story. This story is about my first of many embarssing stories about my life and let it be no suprise that it happened in DeKalb. If there was ever a time that I felt more awkward and out of place, it was in that town. Not even in high school, where normally puberty and random laws of adolescence should have taken every bit of my sanity, did I feel so weird. This is the beginning of my life.

This story starts with Mrs. Heuer, my second and fifth grade teacher. A large, red head, Mrs. Heuer was in charge of the drama department at Jefferson Elementary. She was probably the most creative teacher I ever had and she always treated me kindly. Unfortunately, I don’t think the kindness that I received was appreciated by my fellow classmates. As would be a theme for my life, I was the social outcast, hanging out with the dirties, grousing my nose for boogars, even hanging out with girls…and liking it! I eked out an existence keeping my nose to the grind and those other weak metaphors and similies used for staying away from trouble. Unfortunately, trouble would find me.

His name was Kabuya and he was the biggest, blackest, most exotic Black kid that I think I’ve ever known. There’s no mistake with the capitilization of Black, either. Kabuya was the athlete, always first picked for soccer and kickball in gym. We started out with a tentative understanding, Kabuya was the star, Udeme and I were the other black kids. We got along and kept some sort of bond between us (the start of some sort of Black Student’s Union, I guess). The two nerds happy to be friends with the cooler African.

Well, one of the happy nerds became a star, well sort of. Mrs. Heuer, as was her wont, produced a short play with the third and fourth graders in the school but she needed someone to say the key lines….that someone was me. The only second grader in the dumb play, a young thespian with no ego. Oh, if only Mrs. Heuer knew what kind of trouble she was getting us both in.

One day before lunch, Mrs. heuer had to leave the room for a little time and she left her star pupil in charge. I dunno whether there had been an upswell against me, or my natural dorkiness brought out the worst in people, but Kabuya started to talk. He rose to his feet, all 63 inches of motherland, and began to get mad as a stallion, and I was his rodeo clown. Next thing I knew, the big bastard shoved me into a trash can. Oh the white boys danced that day as well as the rest of the charges in Mrs. Heuer second grade class. I stewed. Mrs. Heuer returned to the room, the hot sparks of the trash can lighting a fire in my small body. We heared the bell, and Mrs. Dolores Heuer lined us up by sexes for the daily grub.

Still angry, I was not in the least bit interested in being in line with any of the jagoffs who had just taken part in my mockery. Seeing a shuffling, flailing student in her lunch, I guess she had two options a) take the kdi aside to shut him up….or b) the passive approach, get the kids to lunch, and get him the heck out of me. Now, normally I was a congenial child, not one to start fights, so the former seemed like the right decision. Mrs. heuer approached me and attempted to pacify me but I had none of it. My fury over beeing slammed into a trash can, the laughter of the other 25 gremlins in our class, and Mrs. Heuer’s codification reached a breaking point…and I snapped - well, I guess to be accurate, I slapped. It was the shot heard ’round the milk and cookies. Stunned, Mrs. Heuer grabbed the offending appendage and ran me down to Dr. Healey’s office. The notorious slapping of the best teacher I’ve ever had been completed.

Mrs. heuer gave me a lot of time to think about my disgression. Sure I was angry but more than ever I was embarassed by my actions…slapping a teacher. And you know what really bugged me more than anything was that I knew that this would be the moment of 1988, our second grade year, and I would not live this moment down for years.

Friday, December 02, 2005

this is for all my homies in Columbia
Current mood: energetic

This goes out to all you bar hoping bastards that don’t have a woman so you go out so you can take one home. We’ve all been here before so now you’ll know what to do the next time someone says….

1. “Excuse Me.” (male to male) — “Get the hell out of the way.”

2. “Excuse Me.” (male to female) — “I am going to grope you now.”

3. “Excuse Me.” (female to male) — “Don’t even think about groping me, just get the hell out of the way.”

4. “Excuse Me.” (female to female) — “Move your fat ass. Who do you think you are anyway? You are not all that, missy, and don’t think for one minute that you are. And get your eyes off of my man, or I’ll slap you like the slut you are.”

5. “What do you have on tap?” — “What’s cheap?”

6. “Can I get a glass of white zinfandel.” (female) — “I’m easy.”

7. “Can I get a glass of white zinfandel.” (male) — “I’m gay.”

8. “Can I have a white Russian?” (female) — “I’m *really* easy.”

9. “Can I have a white Russian?” (male) — “I’m *really* gay.” (Not totally accurate…I do drink them)

10. “That person looks really familiar.” — “Did I sleep with him/her?” (REALLY ACCURATE)

11. “Can I just get a glass of water?” (female) — “I’m annoying, but cute enough to get away with this.”

12. “I don’t have my ID on me.” (female) — “I’m 16.”

13. “I don’t have my ID on me.” (male) — “I don’t have a license since I got pulled over and blew a 0.4 after my last visit here”

14. “You get this round and the next round is on me.” — “I’ll be leaving before the next round.”

15. “I’ll get this round and the next one is on you.” — “Happy hour is about to end. Beers are now a dollar, but by the next round they’ll be $3.50.”

16. “Hey, where is that friend of yours?” — “I have no interest in talking to you except as a way to get your attractive friend into a compromising position.”

17. “Ever try a body shot?” (male to female) — “I am even willing to drink tequila if it means that I get to lick you.”

18. “Ever try a body shot?” (female to male) — “If this is how wild I am in the bar, imagine what I’ll do to you on the ride home?”

19. “I don’t feel well, let’s go home.” (female) — “You are paying more attention to your friends than me.”

20. “I don’t feel well, let’s go home.” (male) — “I’m horny.”

21. “Who’s got the next round?” — “I haven’t bought a round in almost 3 years, but I am an expert at diverting attention.”

Thanks to Bryan Ross or whoever he stole this from…

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Random musings in November
Current mood: bouncy

So this is what I’ve been thinking about the last 2 hours while trying to get Van Note’s demoralizing comments out of my mind…..arrrggghhh!!!!

- Am I the only one that hopes that my ex’s end up with someone not as good as me? Just that whole, “ha, they couldn’t do better” feeling….just lovely….’. And I guess the same thing goes for girls that I used to have crushes on but never did anything with. I am a sick human being.

- Why don’t people embrace Carlos Mencia the same way that they do Dave Chappelle? I mean, I know he doesn’t have the same exact genius with sketches that Chappelle does, but anyone who knows Mencia, knows that his humor, his comedy is probably more poignant and funnier than Dave, yet we all still wanna be Rick James! What gives?

- Why do we get such pleasure out of seeing men get hit in the nuts? Come on, I know you ladies secretly get a kick out of “play fighting” with your man and then sneaking one in below the belt, watching him doubled over in pain. At least one of you? I know, and I’ve only hit one guy in the nuts personally, but it’s just so damn cute to see a man reduced to the fetal position, ya know?

- Why does half an hour seem like such a short frame of time when you’re watching T.V. but when you’re actually doing something, it seems like forever. Even if it’s something enjoyable - like sex - it seems like even 5 minutes can take forever (take it from a man who’s had trouble making a minute stretch….) but when you’re vegging out watching a Law and Order rerun it can go from 8 to midnight quicker than….well, quicker than I can.

- What is it about accents that makes someone of the other sex seem so attractive….I have no blurb…discuss…but keep in mind, the man in the picture has been my boyfriend for a year now and he’s from deutschland.

- How long does it take for someone to stop missing you? And if they haven’t seen you for a while, and then you leave, and then they see you again…did they ever really miss you?…I dunno I can’t explain really.

- Do you really have to read a book to be literate. I’ve been reading Spark Notes.com to keep my mind sharp for the last few months…last night I read Absolom! Absolom! and today I read Anna Karenina. I don’t think I actually missed anything (exceot maybe the beautiful prose), but if I told someone this, they’d laugh. Does it really matter if I actually read or does it matter that I’m trying to learn?

Ok…I’m done…needed to get that off my chest…..go away now

I don’t know if any of you have read the first blog…i really don’t think you have…so I’m going to bring another one from the dark side over here because I have nothing else to do….enjoy

If it’s so wonderful…why am I with my mother?
Current mood: drained
Category: Blogging

I’ve never been a big fan of holidays. Most holidays are bogus because really if you cared enough about the person that day is supposed to celebrate you would have already think of them more than just once a year. Like Valentine’s day for instance. I’ve never had a good one, can’t say that I know any guy who’s had a good one and even when they’re not completely unpleasant (like when I’m single…sorry ladies), there’s always some lunkhead who’s going out of his way to make his girlfriend feel like a queen…. and rubbing it in your face so that you can feel that extra special sting. Ok, so that’s the hallmark crowd. Now there’s something to be said for the actual holidays. Those are different kind of pain! You see, because I don’t particularly like my family so much, holidays can be kind of tedius. Well, I shouldn’t say that I don’t like them…it’s just that I have nothing in common with them. I mean I’m the swinging, partying, too cool for school, fashion jet-setting son of the doctor. The son who thinks he’s too good for everyone so they all really love having me around. Most holiday gathering consist of me grabbing a plate full of food, with any luck before grace is said so I don’t have to hold my cousin’s sweaty hands, and then jamming downstairs and parking my ass in front of the nearest cable television to watch whatever game is on…..whatever game is on. The family? Sure, they’d rather have me upstairs talking about asinine topics like “When are you gonna get a job?” “Who’s the latest white girl you dating?” “Why can’t you be such a raving prick?!” (Ok, I made the last one up….but you could see that happening from someone couldn’t you?) So, as you can see, holidays aren’t my thing.

So that brings us to thanksgiving. Tomorrow probably will lead to more of the status quo. My great aunts splitting a 24 pack while they play some card game that went out of style in the ’50s. My mother pretending that she gives a shit about anything going on, only there because she’s still wants to act like we have family here. My cousins - in name only because I don’t ever talk to them, they don’t ever have anything interesting to do or say….well except for my special cousin. My special cousin, named so because I can’t remember her real name, is a crackhead. Everyone’s got one, right? Well, she usually comes in as a wild card just after the second game. I think it’s a crime that my family doesn’t want her around. They seem to love soap operas when they’re on T.V., I figure having an emaciated, hungry and wigged out crackhead in for the holidays helps them get over the void of it all. The last time I saw my special cousin, she brought her special friend,….and the crack. So stocked with her ammunition, she proceeded to spring us with unremarkable phrases and just all-around funk. Cousins crying, aunts embrassed, mother confused…..me, thoroughly amused. This year, I’m hoping that the Cowboys win, special cousin brings in the holidays, and the cranberry sauce splits the stuffing just so. Happy Holidays….

So I have a blog on myspace….and I’ve already written a lot of other blogs there so if you want to catch up, go get yourself a myspace account and read them there. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait and read these in order from the beginning two months ago.

Welcome to DeKalb, Illinois
Current mood: chipper
Category: Blogging

This is more for me so forgive my indulgences. Over the next couple of weeks I’ve decided to back track over my life in school and see what made me, and how things have gone so terribly wrong. This will be a grade by grade look at the crimes, the heights, the mighty lows, and just about anything I can remember from the 12 years that I spent at free school. We’ll start on September 15, 1986….the day I moved to DeKalb….

Kindergarten/1st Grade
A great time for most, I suppose. You begin to interact with other kids not related to you, so all the things that you did that could be construed as embarassing, guess what……they will be embarassing. Think back to it…..macaroni art, milk and crackers, absolutlely no attention span, nature walks, and kids still wetting themselves in class (and no, fortunately, I was not one of them)

Teacher(s): Mrs. Dayton and Mrs. McKenzie
I don’t remember too much about either one of these ladies although they probably had a huge influence on my life. You see, Mrs. Dayton saw the promise in me (more on that later) and Mrs. McKenzie, in her own unique way, cultivated the last half of the year, my experiences.

Best Memories:
1) My first Kiss. In about October, I belive, Mrs. Dayton took us on a nature walk through the Jefferson Elementary wooded area. We had to pair up and I got stuck with this little blonde girl named, Lindsay Johnson. Lindsay was a very flirty girl, I believe she kissed every guy in class, very in charge of her sexuallity. I wasn’t anticipating anything (a foreshadowing of days to come with females), I had no idea what was on her little mind. While Mrs. Dayton prattled on about the trees, the leaves, and god knows what else (I mean did she think any of this would stick…we were 5!! ), Lindsay, like an experienced pro, took my chubby little black hand into hers and made a real boy out of me. Sort of. She leaned in a gave me probably the wettest kiss I would ever get on my cheek . Thoroughly disgusted by the little whore’s action, I wiped it away. Undaunted, she came in for another one, not quite as forceful, but with a little more love . Still not knowing what to think, I again wiped her DNA from my face and hoped that she wouldn’t preen in again. No luck! Again, she leaned, and again I took it, and in a wee bit of foreshadowing for the rest of my life, I finally just gave up and let her have her way. I didn’t know too much about anything,

2) Skipping Kindergarten. Why does anyone skip kindergarten? Hell, why does anyone have to go there in the first place? From what I remember, the Kindergarten teacher might as well be a glorified babysitter for your kids. Sure, she throws a book in front of them every now and then but I think the main purpose of that is to see if your lazy ass parents actually did any nurturing during the first 5 years of your life. Here’s how it happened. The young progidy, yours truly, was asked to read page 1 in our new readers. Instead of turning to Page ..1 like the rest of the macaroni mafia, I turned to the first page I saw in the book and began to read the copyright page . Even though I was too stupid to recognize which page ..1 was, Mrs. dayton thought that Kindergarten was not enough for burgeoning intellect. Apparently she told my mother and Mrs. McKenzie, and they each decided that I should move on up….but the tough decision was up to me. Now I could have stayed there in kindergaten, I had first graders coming swooping me up for reading class, all the other kindergaten kids were in love with me, and I had a little blonde girl on my nuts. My life would never reach a higher peak. However, I gave it all up so that I could be in 1st grade. The youngest member of Mrs. Mckenzie’s class….looking back I should have just kept eating my boogars and remained the cool kid in kindergarten, instead of the social leper of the first grade….

Best Friends: I had two friends, one by default and one because he was even weirder than I was. Justin Amstutz was the son of my mother’s advisor at Northern. Justin was the biggest first grader in the school, fun-loving, popular, and probably just a little annoyed that this little runt followed him home from school every day . Unfortunately, I lived in DeKalb Plaza, and Justin lived on the other side of town. Because of this, mother moved us out of the Roach Motel and into the Village in the spring of 87. My best friend in first grade was a kid named Udeme Ukete from Africa. Now Udeme was the only kid in the class who routinely beat me in math quizzes and spelling bees, unfortunately he thought he was 106 years old (true story, told me in the lunch room). So, I’m the weird little 5/6 year old hanging out with a 100 year old kid, and I ate my boogars, and I lost shoes at school….You tell me, was there any chance I would have ever gotten laid in DeKalb….even a little taste? Ever?!

Weirdest Memories: I lost a lot of shoes in Kindergarten and first grade….Not like pairs of shoes from my cubby hole or something…no, I’d lose a shoe at a time. I’d lose them at school, I’d lose them on the bus, I’d lose them down drainage ditches…..who sticks his foot in a drainage ditch? So I would come home with a foot with a shoe, and then a foot with a sock like I was a homeless hobo. So no kids, I’ve always been a little off….

OK….that’s all I have about Kindergarten. There really wasn’t much to it. I kissed my first white girl (oh the troubles….the troubles ) I made lasting friendships with two kids I haven’t talked to in 15 years. That’s it…no more…..