1544: sTunts, shOws, tricKs and mesS

Wednesday was Sacred

2007-08-11T23:25:00.000-07:00

My father turns 69 this Monday. He’s been celebrating the entire weekend—parties, barbeques, cocktails at the Lounge. You would think aging would slow him up; weaken his knees a little, soften his flame. He’s just as liquid as a twenty-year old staying out until the wee hours of day. Sure. Kudos to being 69!

I haven’t seen my WomiE worth anything all week. I spent last Sunday with him, we woke up, I dropped him off at work, we smooched goodbye and here it is Sunday morning a week later. No happenings. Wednesday has normally been our night to catch up with each other, after the weekend and before the next. I would spend the night at his place bringing by the subway sandwiches for dinner and we’d, innocently enough, spoon ourselves to sleep. We didn’t get to have Wednesday this week. Wednesday, instead of making it a WomiE night, I opted to go home after work (in Pilsen with Aaron) and prepare myself for Taebo at the Y(MCA), where my roommate works, Thursday morning. Aaron and I didn’t even wake up early enough to make it to class and alas the night with my WomiE was forsaken in vain.

I made it to the gym Friday morning. I went to the Bally’s downtown on Washington. I was in the middle of training my baby-biceps when WomiE makes his morning call.

Morning.

Morning!

Is everything okay?—he says.

What do you mean?—I say.

I mean I didn’t get the chance to see you all week, are we alright?

Yeah. Of course we’re okay, Mister Baby. What makes you think otherwise?

Wednesday was sacred.

So I felt bad. Really bad. Jerome sent me a text message a little over a week ago(mind you this is a separate occasion) and I, again, was in the gym, this time on Howard pushing at some machine to make it seem as if I knew what I was doing, but the message read *Just a Reminder, I Love You* and I almost cried. I’ve notice I gotten too concerned with trying to become a more productive person, a more active being, that I’ve misplaced my responsibilities as a confidant to my WomiE. I didn’t get to touch my Mister Baby all week and the effect is taking its toll.

Being Magnanimous DC Pride; Dear Tim double M

2007-06-10T08:37:00.001-07:00

I flew in on Saturday to chillax with a buddy of mine, William, who’ve I’ve known in some detail for the last four years. This was my second trip to DC. My first time, last year, was absolutely spontaneous. It was one of those Laverne and Shirley moments, I drove down with Kindrick, a friend of mine, who had conned me into going on a road trip, suggesting we steal away to a water park for the weekend yet haphazardly found ourselves perusing the local gay wires of DC electricity. But I met William when I was late 18, early 19. Found him online, on yahoo, or to the contrary, he found me online, on yahoo. One of us said hi and the rest has been nostalgia, this sweet gospel of an undertone drumming to the tune of kinship, brotherhood, brethren, whispering: William and Ken friends ever since. Needless to say he was the first person I ever met online, my first socially gay encounter with a male that didn’t have a “teen” tagged to the end of his age and wasn’t out to kill or peel me outta my skivvies. Not that anyone’s ever tried killing me prior to William either. William kinda dispelled for me the notion that I was the only black male queer locked in Chicago. At the time we met that’s where he lived. Here. Close by the Wrigleyville area, I believe, somewhere north and northeast. At 19 I knew nothing. Gay boys for me existed few and far between the next one I’d find someone where unscathed and flamboyantly bright. William was proof for me that gay-guys could honestly be gay guys. I’ll forever love him for that.

But I saw you twice during my time down in DC Memorial Day weekend, and with all that burns in me I wanted to stop you and say Hello. Hi, Tim’m West, I’m Ken. Actually I’ve rehearsed it (because I’ve always imagined that one day I’d inevitably meet you, we share several mutual acquaintances) we would be walking towards each other, you would be unaware, occupied with the company with whom you were walking with, and I would pretend to not notice you or your company until you an I “obliviously” thump, smacking hard into each other…(this is part of the plan). You would look at me mean, maybe dust at the wrinkles I just imposed on your shirt, dimpled from the collision, and you’ll wait to hear an apology or an excuse me, anything to prove that I had, somewhere along my journey of living, been given manners, and you’ll look up towards me after too long a spell of silence, pragmatically suggesting for me to speak, issue you your apologetic dues, and with both my eyes, dizzy but unbowed, will return a look of displeasure commingled in curiosity, and as if the epiphany had lit the bulb over my head I stare at you, clutching my pearls, as if to finally recognized you and then lust your hand into a shake (but we don’t shake hands yet, we “hold them” as if we’re about to shake); firm, clasped, gripped, stiffened wrists, veiny forearms, eyes locked, I would notice your breathing.

In rehearsals (because, again, this is rehearsed) after I coach our hands to hold, I say something to the effect of: Tim’m?—as if you were this best friend I had found after years of missed birthdays and unanswered emails, in disbelief. And you would agree “yes”, not speaking, but nod, prophetically lowering your head into a bow like a king nodding his soldiers off to fight. And then I’d say something to the effect of: Well (eye contact), I do apologize for running into you like that. (Pause) Hi (I’d smile. We would then shake hands), I’m Ken (and I’d smile again).

And yet that’s as far as my imagination has figured, Mister West. I’ve been pretty occupied with this idea of being magnanimous—doing what needs to be done, accomplishing what needs to be finished, staying bright above all the stars. I first saw you at the convention center, Tim, and your face, I have keep so vivid in my head, having danced with this idea of greeting that face for so long, to be magnanimous was to have braved the opportunity to meet you, implement the smile-shake-introduce-and-smile technique, lit a conversation, tickled you out of your number and became your instant bosom buddy. They would taunt us, Tim, we’d be so fierce! Who’s that walking up the street, they’d say. Oh its Ken and Tim. Ken and Tim? Yes, Bitch, Ken and Tim! It sounds so perfect. We have everything in common! You being blessed to be you and I, in essence, striving to become you. But the moment I saw you I wasn’t magnanimous for a reason. The demographics, between us, Tim, have somewhat changed. And I told myself when I saw you, as my heart kicked up in speed, and my stomach knotted, and my nerves jittered, and my ankles weakened, that there goes a man that can appreciate why I love who we share in common. And had I not been so swift to I collect back my belongings, though my personal beliefs disallow for the idea of a man being capable of rightfully owning another human being, even in marriage, Jerome Harper belongs to me—and I might’ve lost him to possibly anybody, possibly you. And the idea of losing him, when I saw you, scared me, Tim, because you have to understand I’m aimless without him. So, there’s something new we share, Mister West—outside of the writings and the poetry and your presence in the community and my desire to be a positive influence to the community, we share a man in common and I feel so absolutely inconsolable that I couldn’t forget that when time had given us permission to meet. Tim, I got dizzy.

Being magnanimous would’ve carried my feet over to your booth in spite of— strangled any an all inhibitions, killed any an every fear, torched the great wall of insecurity I might’ve had about I being who I am in regards to you and whom we share in common. Consider me a victim to that type of love that makes you bleached happy about living in it, singing old Whitney Houston lyrics during a staff meeting to commemorate it, the kind of love that ails you to write a hundred and fifty four some-odd sonnets to figure the shit out and die centuries before ever fully discovering loves meaning. Consider me a victim to his ever-so brown, ever so beautiful everything. I got dizzy knowing you got too close. And whereas I thought I was better than being shaken aback by something so out of my control—I guess I am human.

The second time I saw you we were at the picnic, you were a few gay-guys behind me. I took your picture. You were oblivious. Not nearly the step I wanted to take or as close to you as I imagined our first encounter to be but I’m learning that being magnanimous requires a process with acquired steps. Hi, Mister Tim’m, I’m Ken.

2007-02-04T15:49:00.000-08:00

I'm StiLL Mad!!

2006-12-31T17:57:00.000-08:00

FuCK the new year! There isn’t a God-DanG-ThanG new about the year—its just another difficult day on a different calendar. Jerome left me by my lonesome this weekend and I feel so scatter-brained. No one's been able to entertain me, either they’re unavailable or inadequate and maybe I just can’t get over the dramatics of being abandoned the ENTIRE New Years Weekend but its like having an upset stomach—a nausea seeping dark into my tummy thinking about how alone I feel this new years. VomiT!!!! I’m so disappointed in today.

I think this has been the second most shittiest consecutive New Years I’ve had in all my 23+ years of breathing. Last year I upset my family by not coming home and this year I ruined I and my husbands relationship and so he flees the country for the ENTIRE weekend. I’m actually sitting in his apartment right now supposedly getting dressed, supposedly packing my trinkets—I’m suppose to be out of Jerome’s place before he returns tomorrow night, but I haven’t been focused enough to box my shit. I. Am. Mad! Like a growling dog, I am so mad.

I wanted to have sex last night. And as I was looking at the list of prospects I found it easier to stroke my own troubles away, towel dry the remains, and rinse away the residue… and still I’m mad. I didn’t get in the house until about 4 this morning, I had a couple of drinks at a bar with this guy who I met randomly on the street. Of course he thought I was gorgeous—of course he just really wanted to get in my pants. But I appeased him for a few cocktails, sat at the bar to bat my eyes and guzzle free glass after free glass of something frilly and sweet. And I looked at him, this guy, this practically random guy, and I listened to him “marveling” at me and felt him perusing my midsection with his thick palms pressed against me, excusing himself because, as he said, the bar was so crowded, he was being forced against me.

You don’t mind?—he whispered, lips in my ear.

Of course not, I said, shaking my head, ridding my ear of his lips.

Why should I mind? You have no other choice but to run your scaly pudgy black fingers across my FlaT, WashBoard, Usher-brand abs because the bar is too crowded. Why wouldn't I understand SUCH logic!?!? Balderdash!! I should’ve puked all over him and danced the Irish Tango on his forehead stabbing the points of my shoes into his eye! Bullshitter!!

But I kept on sipping free drink after free drink. I had already made it in my mind that it wouldn’t go any further than him offering me drinks and I accepting them with a smile.Though secretly I actually became fond of sitting at the bar being offered up the sauce and fawned over like an Asian dish garnished with Geisha. I’d make a perfect blonde woman; legs crossed at the barstool, no panties, red lipstick, stilettos and a smoke. But I’m still mad.

My father went partying tonight, its actually my parents 26th anniversary and this year they decided not to do anything special. So he hit the streets. This morning, I spent the rest of my morning, after the bar, asleep at my parents in the basement. We, my parents, sisters and Kiwi, my niece, toasted to the occasion. I was already half drunk and drowsy from having just gone to sleep maybe two hours prior, but we all raised our little glasses, Kiwi with her sparkling white grape juice and the rest of us with wine, and cheered for 26 years well done. Kudos, Mom and Dad!

Aaron and I are suppose to be moving in together come this February. We found a place in Pilsen. Kimora suggested it to us, and the place is beautiful, and I am excited but I do have reservations now…. Not about moving in with Aaron but about the apartment. Utilities aren’t included and what I hear/what I fear is that gas is gonna bite us right in the ass. I hear gas could be and extra 300 bucks a month and in the art of trying to rationalize everything and trying to put everything in some sort of financial perspective, because I really do like the place but, I have to worry about the other necessities...i.e. furniture, DSL, American Express, the love card, and the all around economics of being able to maintain the place. I don’t wanna just live in a shell. This move is to help cure both of our issues with completing school . We thought that maybe if we were in the presence of someone with the same mindset; homework, finals, and studying—we could get shit done. But I'm begining to think I’mma need some rent assistance. I'm begining to think I need a second job…

FUCK the New Year!!!...I'm still mad!!

William.Krobert.PhoTography

2006-12-27T11:29:00.000-08:00

*pronounced (Crow-Bear) Krobert. Its French...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/williamkrobert/show/

Flickr

2006-12-23T16:18:00.001-08:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Off on ThurdaY

2006-12-21T11:31:00.000-08:00

The Christmas tree in the lobby of Jerome’s building?—looks like somebody new takes a gab at throwing up on it every night. It seems like every night I’ve come in late from work does the layer of tinsel get thicker and the ornaments get more obscure. Chords are everywhere, there’s this thick black electrical wire lagging from the ceiling to the tip of tree, I assume to keep it lit. The tree looks like it was decorated at gunpoint. Pitiful. And of course I still know about this eyesore of a tree because of course I’m still here ( I haven't been kicked out yet).

Mister WomiE-Baby and I are off today, and whereas we decided to spend this time together we didn’t anticipate on WomiE getting sick. I dubbed him the name Mister Baby because of how grouchy he gets when he's sick. There was gonna be sex last night. Today. Tomorrow. Plenty of sex. Sex, in an over abundance of. But now, because he's sick, HE’S gonna spend time on his side of the room as I’m gonna spend time on mine and the only time will we come together is when I decide to “cream” him so that he may drift off to sleep. He complained all last night on how all he wanted to do this morning was sleep, we bought NyQuil, we bought Theraflu, but what better a sleeping pill is there than being masturbated absolutely empty. So we dried each other out…

Not my idea of the type of night I wanted to have, But it was better than drinking the entire bottle of NyQuil. RomiE was out like a light.

Work last night was rather funky. We got two new temps last week, both women. The latest is four foot, eleven, wears her hair in an up-do, Stephanie Mills look-alike. Well, during her first couple of days, whereas I thought I didn’t like her, primarily because I thought she was too loud and too ghetto and she seemed perturbed by my very homo-electric personality at work—I spoke with her yesterday and though she’s still a little too urban she does have a sense of humor, so I can appreciate her a little more. The other lady feels like she’s been there forever; talks to everybody, laughs with everybody—just like family. But little miss Stephanie is slowly working her way up the ladder.

Work was funky because Yolanda is on vacation for the next two weeks. Yolanda is the lady I ride home with every night after work, either she drives or when her car isn’t available RomiE picks us up in my fathers truck and takes us both home. But she’s gone for two whole weeks, two entire weeks!!— and I’m already beginning to miss my ride-home buddy. Alas… Me, Yolanda, and Tinesha, one of the leads at work, were suppose to have dinner tonight at Cracker Barrel, in commemoration of us all being off, but then someone decided to move the Holiday Party to Thursday/tonight and so Tinesha decided to ditch us and switched out her day off to Friday! PunK! So Cracker Barrel is cancelled unless Yolanda wants to go without her.

Did I mention I hung out with my D-man yesterday and he drove me downtown where I walked and shopped more than my shoes and wallet cared toexercise??? Well I’ll get into that another time. WomiE’s up now, dragging his little sick self around the house. Maybe I could go put my mouth on ‘em.. Maybe he’ll go back to sleep…

2006-12-19T12:48:00.000-08:00

Dear Jerome...

2006-12-19T11:37:00.000-08:00

Doc Golightly: I love you Lula Mae.

Holly Golightly: I know you do, and that's just the trouble. It's the mistake you always made, Doc, trying to love a wild thing. You were always lugging home wild things. Once it was a hawk with a broken wing... and another time it was a full-grown wildcat with a broken leg. Remember?

Doc Golightly: Lula Mae there's something...

Holly Golightly: You musn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get, until they're strong enough to run into the woods or fly into a tree. And then to a higher tree and then to the sky.

...Well I think my problem has been being too “grand” of a person to understand life isn’t about lilies or made up of sugar. I remember being told that my problem was that I couldn’t accept reality. That I lived disillusioned an until I woke up the world around me will come smashing down on my face. A part of me still holds steady to that list of all the things I think I wanna do, of all the places I think I wanna see, of all the people I think I wanna be with—I don’t feel comfortable with you knowing that there is a list. What’s gonna happen is that I’m going to do everything that I think I want to; break out on my own, be as raunchy and as merciless as in the snap of the word FaG, make all the wrong decisions for myself, do everything I think will make me whole and by the end of that journey feel as vacant as I began. On one side there’s the prospect of Ken and Jerome always being this unit I’ll measure the rest of my life with. I love you because I felt and feel most invincible with you…I love you because seldom to never did I look into my future and see anything that we couldn’t negotiate. What couldn’t Ken and WomiE do….???—stay together??? Its like I can’t turn the faucet off, baby. I never gave up. Never. I’m sitting here now, looking out your window, in the apartment that we planned on making our home, trying to figure out how t’fix it.

I think I make myself physically ill when I think about how negligent I’ve been; how I did this, how I was the one reckless, how I could be so bold as to stare in your face and trick my eyes to say nothing, hoping you knew nothing, thinking if I kept quiet long enough time would cure my sensation for wanting to be “22”. Box myself silent. Anchor down the Phoenix. But I am wild.

If there ever were a soul in the world that should wake up today apologetic—you won’t understand the magnitude to which I love you, Jerome—the amount of love?..is dizzying. I’d cut my wrist and bleed myself dead if I could fix it. All I wanna do it fix it. And now I’m thinking about our children, that we won’t have, or the home, that we won’t buy, and all the other ideas that’ll perish in the holocaust of not knowing what follows a separation. Don’t be nice to me, Jerome…I ruined us!! I think this woulda been easier had you yelled.

But I guess kindness does kill faster...

2006-12-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

And I'm Telling You!!!

2006-12-18T10:03:00.000-08:00

WomiE: she look a HOT FOOLish MESS

WomiE: sounds great though

Moi: LoL

Moi: i like her hair

WomiE: no you dont baby, no you don't

Moi: LOL! I DO! I do like her hair! Watch how it shakes as she sings

WomiE: that is what I am doing. That is a FOOOOOOLLLLLL.

WomiE: ...and that face she is making... she is not attractive at ALL

Moi: she IS damnit! She just makes ugly faces when she sings, she's one of THOSE kind of singers

WomiE: That last part is Hilarious!!!!!!!!!

WomiE: she sucked all the oxygen out the room

Moi: LOL

Moi: she did

Moi: i thought she belched

WomiE: LMAO

WomiE: I am listening to it again

Moi: ok

YesS I'm StiLL CompLaiNinG!!!

2006-12-18T08:04:00.000-08:00

There's actually been several revelations in my pathetic little life. First they finally got enough spunk in their steps to hire me at work. I now have medical coverage. School is out for another semester, and in a haste to fill up my class schedule, FOR the semester, already a week into the SUM of the semester, I wound up taking an ASL class, american sign language, Biology, a Film class, and a specialty writing course, Story and Journal, which translated into 3 projects, 4 papers, 1 presentation and 105 pages worth of written material for the fiction courses, and that doesn’t include exams. The film class???…doubled as an additional Fiction course, and I, of course, am a fiction writing major. If you can only imagine the woes. I got through with just about everything except the 105 pages. I think I might’ve stretched it to 80. But then again, who cares, semester ended.

It’ll be my luck someone tries to fail me, or worse, give me a C minus, WHICH, I found out by speaking with my Advisor, is like failing anyway because you don’t get graduation credit for the classes you recieve below a C in if the class is congruent with your major. Balderdash! So I'm a lackluster student?? So heads may have to role. But here’s my excuse….

Jerome and I have been on the verge of moving ALL semester. Apartments had to be viewed, calls had to be made, we spent several nights calculating our finances, we even went on spending diets, i.e, I had to give of Jamba Juice and he surrendered Starbucks. If anyone can relate to the stresses associated with having to move; finding the movers, gathering supplies, boxing your shit, letting SBC know where to reroute the services; I was burdened ALL semester LONG. Give me a break (WHICH is the bullshit I’mma tell my teachers, whence they try to fail me: Give me a BREAK). And not only did Jerome and I forge forth in pursuit of Love and the respect of loving, but going to work became taxing. There were several layoffs, a few people quit, a lot of temps got cancelled and before I could rub the dust outta my eye, our crew of 16 people got spliced in two and receding yet still. Talk about overtime. Days when I would normally get off no later than 10 in the evening, I’m lucky now to get off at 12 in the morning. AND DON’T Let there be another hostage/suicide-takeover situation happen in our building (did you hear about that???). I didn’t get off until 2 thirty Saturday morning having started work 4 o’clock Friday evening. The buses stop running, getting home becomes a concern and class is always less than eight hours away. Don’t you need 8 hours to sleep??? I digress. You can’t call off—I’m a new hire, I’m on probation until January 10th, there was no vacation time—they hired me too late in the year!! What am I suppose to do but go to work and go to school. I need assistance…I need to call Oprah.

So the move happened the weekend of Dec. 16th, this past weekend, which just so happened to be finals week AND the week everyone went on vacation at work. Here am I on Monday having survived it all, slept barely a wink and scheduled to be at work tonight. YaY to da Me!

I’m adjusting my major, I believe. I’m adding Marketing as a minor. I hear its gonna set me back and extra semester of schooling, which I figure to be okay provided I get what I need out of the program. I bought my camera, I bought my laptop, I finally saw Keith’s new apartment, Jerome and I broke up, I’m in the market for my own place, Kimora refuses to speak to me, Dreamgirls, starring Jennifer Hudson, will soon be out in theaters, I don’t wanna go to work tonight, I believe I’m in need of a shave.

Ciao!!!

2006-08-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

My allergies kicked in. It happens about every year around the same time when the summer dips into fall do my eyes tend to get itchy and I wake up with my sinuses in a frenzy. So now I’m like this sneezing wheezing ball of mucus-bagina. WomiE like the word Bagina…it rhymes with vagina. VomiT!!! It’s sort of dizzying being this ill. There’s a ringing that happens in my ear, I’m sensitive to the air conditioner and my nose is stuffy but always running. I don’t get it.

WomiE insisted I take a Tylenol last night to help me sleep but sleeping with allergies has never been the issue…waking up with them has. So maybe I should take a Tylenol now. WomiE, take care of me…

Keith is scheduled to move the weekend of September 9.

Mark your calendars for Sept. 9-10. It is the official move weekendand I am requesting.......HELP!You all know me and know that moving pushes me to the brink ofinsanity. Some would argue that a big push is not needed for that.We will be working along with professional movers, but I am onlyhaving them move large items (yeah the TV), but if they go a secondover the two hour limit. err well hmm.Thank you in advance!!You are not required to do both days.

So I’ve marked my calendar for that. School starts the 5th of September and I have everything squared away except for my classes. I need to register. But, financially, SallieMae and I shook hands on another loan, so I’m set. They ARE gonna hire me at work. Josephine, the BosS, asked me late last week and we went over some of the paper work together. I’m not as enthused as I should probably be but maybe when the benefits kick in my attitude’ll change.

Secretly I'm Oprah: the Science of JuiceoLogy

2006-08-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

My goal for today was to wake early this morning, make it downtown, go to the Gap, run over to Bally’s and visit my RomiE at work…but it’s so dreary outside—it’s still raining. What a drab!

It stormed pretty damn good last night. I got drenched walking from the bus stop to my doorstep. No fun.

D-man’s been acting cynical lately. McLyte is coming to town this weekend and so his little antennas are pointed an erect. He’s cautioned everyone NOT to include him in any plans for Saturday because his Babe (McLyte) is coming to town. VomiT!!!

—Capt’n, I did wanna mention that I didn’t want you going to Jamba Juice without me. Because there are lot of serious decisions that MUST be made in order to create the perfect smoothie, a lot of mistakes can happen. Not that you would make mistakes, your intelligence has been breathtaking, but there does exist a science to Jamba Juice that most are unaware of. JuiceoLogy.

First, deflowerment cannot happen at all Jamba Juices, such atrocities can lead to travesties and first impressions are hard to recant. I’d hate for you to be displeased. The shops at 20 North Michigan, The Hancock Center, or the 190 west Madison Shop are always pleasant enough to stroll into. NEVER, if you can help it, dine at the Jamba Juice in the Citicorp Metra Station. Talk about HOLE in the WALL.

Second, some smoothies aren’t fit for First Timers. Please VOID all drinks under Menu Category, All Fruit Smoothies. You’re NOT ready yet [Sidebar: The WORLD wasn’t ready yet]. Stick with their Functional Flavors; their Orange Dream Machine, their Mighty Cherry Charger, or their Acai Supercharger (which is one of my favorites). Jamba Classics are also very friendly for your first time; their Mango-A-Go-Go is a good one—RomiE often orders that— their Caribbean Passion is rather mellow, or if you’re looking to play it extremely safe, one normally can’t go wrong ordering a Strawberries Wild. In fact if it wasn’t so telling as a beginner’s Drink, I’d insist. But then you’d be recognized as a virgin…and castrated. I didn't want that on my conscious.

And since, it being one of my favorite places on the planet, I’ve grown accustomed to treating all of my referred-Jamba-cliental-prospects. Nurturing their first visit is what tenderizes m'soul. Check the résumé. I've deflowered:

Aaron
my Tannis
Gakaa, the Lesbian
Willy
Wally
Dontae
Christina
and WomiE

Secretly I’m Oprah. But someone has to oversee this event and engage you in a toast. So why can't it be me, Capt'n??? Bottoms Up!!

Cheers!!!

P.S. Sweet Pea Keith was approved for the apartment today. He signs the Lease tomorrow. Congrats!

2006-08-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

I've been humming this ALL day and I can't get over how cute this tune is. EnJoy!

Peachy...peachy apples

2006-08-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

Have you ever cooked naked over grease???

Well… yes, I burnt my penis. But RomiE went to the store this past weekend and bought fruit. I’m just not too sure what kind of fruit it is. They look like peaches but taste similar to apples…Papples, maybe?—peachy apples.

The very next day after swearing off Jamba Juice for LIFE, I Had another smoothie; a Power SiZe Peanut Butter Mood with a double shot of Protein, no bananas, thank you. Deeeeelishhh!

—Kimora what was meant by referencing RomiE’s and my finances as “ours” is simply that. One plus one has always equaled two.

—Capt’n, thank you for your suggestion. That is something I shall slowly put into practice, but put into practice nevertheless.

—and Jason B, it was OUR pleasure. Thank you for inviting lil ol’ us. What should be in the works is a plan for us to someday, soon, do it again.

Other than that I’m speechless. I feel really blasé today—like vanilla. Last night I prepped a 191 at work, and did I mention that they’re thinking about hiring me. SHHHHHHHH!!! Keep your fingers crossed!! I’m not suppose to know. Damon and Sharonda told me. FALSE: actually Damon took the liberty of shaking my hand one day and saying Between you and me, Congratulations. I didn’t know what congratulations meant or what he was shaking my hand for, I was just excited to be touching 'em. But by the end of last week, the BosS went on Vacation, and Sharonda, one of the leads, told me, that Jossie, the BosS is looking at me to hire, she’s gonna ask you when she returns from her vacation, she said. In two weeks. I could be fired between now and two weeks. But we shall wait and we shall see. Praise be to Jehovah.

But RomiE’s been thinking about going to school. He wants to further pursue his education and snatch himself up a degree at Roosevelt University, quit his job and submerge himself in the college atmosphere of downtown Chicago. So between completing his FaFsa, and between swimming, and buying Papples, RomiE’s been worrying himself thin over the whats and hows of his essay. What should I say? How should I say it!

Calm down, WomiE. Relax.

What I’ve asked him to do is get his first thoughts out on paper, and what he’s done is just that; he’s such a good listener. But by scratching your thoughts out like that you make yourself a clay to sculpt into the perfect essay.

After completing his first draft which involves more than just a response to the essay prompt, he’s sequestered a few opinions from coworkers and has decided to sail into a totally new direction for the essay, which is fine, but brings us back to square one; the Worrying Square. I just hope that material he’s mustered for his first attempt doesn’t get forgotten and fall by the waste side because it was obvious how urgent he felt the need to write what he wrote after I read it. Peachy...peachy apples.

The Essay, Draft One

February of that year my mother/best friend died of cancer after a vicious battle. My mother taught me In the late winter of 1996 the biggest disappointment of my life to date occurred. In that I could do anything if I applied myself. After her death, I lost this lesson and it has taken 10 years to get it back. Fear and ignorance have kept me from attaining my ultimate goal—a college degree. Fear of failure and ignorance to the fact that failure is part of life.

In 1997 Saint Martin de Porres, my high school, closed to very little fanfare. The one and only time that a Catholic School education was a hindrance was about to present itself. The Chicago Public Schools stepped in after the closing of SMDP and opened Southside College Preparatory on the sprawling campus. One problem—my knowledge of religious history did not translate into CPS credits. After a summer school stint and a US Postal Service Graduation in 1998—it was time for some searching. These searches lead me to Champaign-Urbana on my father’s dime. He was sure my immersion into the “college scene” would make me snap out of my two year funk. No such luck. Living in ChamBana taught me one thing and one thing only, how to get to “C-Street”; the only gay club in the area.

Jerome Harper, Sr. or Dee Dee, as he was called, was born in 1953 on the

“Low End” of Chicago’s South Side. He served in the Army during the Vietnam War, owned a business in the 1980’s and was great at real estate investments. Until I moved back to Chicago in 1999 from downstate partying, this is all I really knew about my father. We were close, he seemed rational and he loved me—that was enough right?

I once read in a, National Geographic, the results to a contest they sponsored. The contest, “Pitch the greatest invention of all time”, had entrants from around the world. The winner was from Any City, USA and his invention, Hindsight Correction Lenses, would have been instrumental in my life. Those lenses would have stopped me from thinking that Jerome, Sr. would have been “okay” with my coming out the closet. Those lenses would have stopped me from being disowned. They would have ensured I had a place to live, food to eat and money to pay for school. But it was only a contest to pitch the invention.

I am now humbled at how many families were willing to take me in and let me sleep on a sofa or crash in an empty bedroom. I jumped around for a year or so—settling in with my first partner. This living situation led me to look for work that would ensure I was away from home as often as possible. Late in 1999, I became a flight attendant with United Airlines. That job and that relationship lasted about a year. As short lived as it was, it reminded me of what my mother tried to instill in me—all things were possible through me. While I was reminded of my mother’s thoughts, it took four or so more years for me to really get it.

In 2003 at the age of twenty-three I was licensed to sell real estate in the State of Illinois for a brokerage firm. I had managed the technology in for the previous three years. I sold one house, a 500k townhouse to my sister and brother-in-law. That sale took over four months to complete and when the math was done I made less than $20 an hour. I soon opened my eyes and saw that the agents in the office were miserable. To be successful they had to work 60, 70 and 80 hours a week. The price they paid was too high for me—I lost interest. I felt that in order to make “real money” and have a quality of living I needed an education to back up the license—you know, “work smart not hard”.

At the time I was at Century 21 I was taken under the wing of one of the founders of our 30 year old firm. He suggested I look into Roosevelt University; I did. Roosevelt impressed me immensely. At my age I was elated to see a university with an adult learning program with majors I was interested in. In addition there was a graduate program in Real Estate furthering my interest. I took the first step and began to think about how to pay for this new endeavor. I filled out the FASFA and soon realized I was in trouble, the government wanted my estranged fathers tax information. Upon seeing this I gave up—there was no way I would approach him and ask for his 1040.

Soon afterwards I left Century 21, my job for over four years, to find something that would allow me to grow more. I joined the throngs of unemployed Chicagoans and hit the pavement. With my background in Real Estate, my agency placed me at the John Buck Company. This placement made me realize I wanted something other than real estate. After that assignment ended I was placed at an “obscure” organization called, The Chicago Community Trust. After the assignment I was asked to interview for a full-time position at “The Trust”. While working in philanthropic services I was introduced to forms of philanthropy and community involvement. This introduction led me to entertain community involvement. This year I was invited to the local board of directors for the Chicago Youth Centers in South Shore. Since my election to the board I have been named the Chair of the development committee. Involvement in the community in which I live, is of the utmost importance.

Attending Roosevelt University will allow me to sharpen my current skill set and develop more. Formal education is the piece of the puzzle that I am missing—vertical mobility is not possible for me without it. The program offered in organizational leadership is especially on task with my goals for my life.

Peaks and Valleys

2006-07-28T07:54:00.000-07:00

I said good-bye to Jamba Juice yesterday. RomiE and I have been tracking our expenses in an attempt to save money—its time to think about loan repayments, the business, the building, a huge house, preferably in Evanston—and we arose at the conclusion that the majority of our money is exchanged for take out and what that translated from my spending, among a list of other purchased nonsense, was an excess in Jamba Juice. I go to Jamba Juice twice a day almost, and my drink is always Power Sized with extra boosts of energy or protein, or if I haven’t eaten anything all day, fiber—10 dollars a drink. Then there are those weekends when I’ve eaten one too many roast beef sammiches or RomiE’s sat up in the kitchen all night broiling pork steaks and my guts, then after, feel grungy, I go to Jamba Juice to purge my system with a 2ounce shot of wheatgrass and Acai Supercharger…power size please. But, alas…no more.

The class that I Failed last semester…?—No longer no more!!! I called Polly, I emailed Polly, I harassed Polly and FINALLY Polly changed my grade!

Ken:
I submitted a grade change form on Friday. It could take a
while to process through. I changed the grade from an F to a C. I
wrote comments on your full movement, which is available with your folder in the
Fiction Writing Department.
Polly

Junior Year, watch OUT! Not to mention yesterday was my Last day of summer classes of which I passed yet another class which only puts me further in the running for becoming America's Next Top Model. YaY me. So I’m excited! All my little erogenous zones are blushing. Maybe I should masturbate.

Sweet Pea Keith is moving yet again. This would be like the fourth move in 3 years. He said he found himself an apartment on Jarvis which is just about where he lives now, so I’m hoping the haul won’t be so bad.

Several things have been going on between Mister Brown and I…outside of regulating our financing, but we took our first trip outta town the other week to Benton Harbor, Michigan where we visited Camp Rosenthal and canoed with the children. We spent the rest of that weekend with Jason B. of Chicago at the Venetian Festival and on our way home, RomiE and I detoured to Michigan City where we shopped. I found myself a fabulously fitting Pea Coat, which was necessary for the wardrobe, and RomiE picked himself up a pair of TimZ, size 14.

A week after that we worked each others nerves and this week we’re kissing. The peaks and valleys of love, my people, the peaks and valleys of love.

DaRRyL is that YOU...!?!?!

2006-07-14T06:35:00.000-07:00

IN Response to DaRRyL's Comment Look who I found in the middle of Hyde Park stopping traffic.

I Found my KeYsS!!!

2006-07-13T09:38:00.000-07:00

...And my Lesbian, Gakaa, officially turned 22 today. Congratulations Lesbian!! WeLcome to Club 22.

My little sister, Karen, aka Nappy Head bka Booty Meat, was asleep when I got home today. Yesterday I spent the night at my parents house with the intentions of finding my keys, because that’s where I lost them, and didn’t. I left the house for class early the next morning to return later in the afternoon after class to search again for my keys and Karen was still asleep.

She lost her job last week. She use to scoop ice cream like I use to scoop ice cream, day in and unfortunately day out until one glorious day, December First, in the year of Lord 2o-o5, I broke FREE from the shackles and emancipated myself—I quit! And as life progressed, I now work at the Money Factory **ken winks***

But Karen looks so weakened by her time off. It doesn’t feel natural with her always in the house, always in bed, always asleep. I’m actually beginning to get jealous. She told me the other day that she’s going to enjoy her vacation; finish a few puzzles, complete a couple of books, and worry about finding new work next week. Sounds innocent enough. I just wish her the greatest of fortune.

In Other News:

I spent the night with Mister Baby last night and as I was leaving, this morning, for cLasS… AGAIN (I need to find a new morning activity, I’m always going to cLasS) there was this school bus of boys parked right in front of the building. I took one step onto the pavement and they went BaLListiC!!!

—He a Fag!
—Look at ‘em!—He gay!
—Did you see the way he closed that door?
—Oh my GOD he gay!

And I’m all like, well, damn, could I at least make it across the street before m’day goes bad? So these little boys keep at it, and the way they bus was parked I had to walk the length of the bus to pass them. So I’m walkin’, they bashin’, I’m walkin’, they bashin’, and its not like they were trying to be discreet. I’m sure they’re not the first person(s) to see me on the street and instantly think FaG, I’m sure when I wear my high-heeled boots with the classically pointed toe nuns run for their wimples, but damn, have some decorum. So finally one of the little boys must’ve, either, said it too loud or too much: He GaY, and as I detoured to his window, killing him would’ve been to obvious, I looked at all their little dirt black faces in dingy white T’s and realized they’re not even Lower middle class. Killing them would have only made me tardy for school. Had I’d been some ritzy-titzy, embellished, finger poppin’ sissy, I woulda snatch out one of m’hairpins, castrated them, killed them and wrote the shit off on my taxes.

But,

because I’m SomeOne Greater than Love (LoL, was that overkill???) I merely corrected the little
monster:

Extremely Gay, Bitch!!

SomeOne Greater than LoVe???

2006-07-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

Amazing it is to love!!

—and you shall fall underneath my rainbow

in cowering cold,

and, I, your heart, will bid you no harm,

keep you from harm,

harm protect you from—

that I may one day roam the earth with you

‘til the stars buckle from that amazing quake of

the feelings that I do feel for you.

You my light. My northern star.

I wish there was a list, a score, even, that gets detailed and tallied and given, from god, to every individual, as a reminder or memento of all the beautiful things that have been said of our efforts during our lifetime.

I’ve been emotional since I woke up and RaVeD last Thursday about how horrific my day went. Last night, at work, was just as bad. I had to reset my passwords AGAIN, which took forever, they made me stand up all night an open the envelopes, which is totally degrading of a chore, and when it came to actually prepping, I was thrown off balance with having to do everything else; the password resetting, the opening, the worrying about making rate, IF I could possibly still make rate. When the Leads came by to pass out the work EVERY ATM they gave me was fat with cash. And to a Prepper, which is what I am at work, too many cash envelopes can destroy your rate and slow you down. I prepped about a 160. VomiT!

I’ve been seriously involved with 3 men….*cough*, *cough*…ahem…I’ve been serious about 3 men (which is the more honest of statements); one of whom I don’t speak of, another of whom I won’t speak of and then…there’s RomiE, who I articulate everyday. What I would like to say in homage to Jerome is that, after my Second husband, who I won’t speak of, I toast my glass in Rome’s favor being it that I didn’t believe I could ever be loved as much by any man again… and to my surprise my Brown Baby has Loved me something awful! Thank you.

But, onward and upward!

My D-man, and I didn’t mean to make this post out about love, but out of love my D-man, who is unfathomably infatuated with McLyte renamed me, in her honor, SunLyte. That was DaRRyL’s way I saying, I Love Ken.

The prettiest thing that I believe I’ve ever heard, and there’s been an adequate enough list to choose from—husband two, actually, was in the lead for a long time running with his suave voice and talent for making everything vocal sound beautiful, I remember one time in particular, him, husband number two, staring at me, and we were face to face, close proximity, maybe on the couch, I was probably in his arms, and as if the epiphany had just lit the bulb over his head, he looks at me and admits to say, Ken, you are one Beautiful Black Boy.

There’s this other guy, who has remained, for years…(several), on my list of Favorite People to Sleep With, that invited me to spend the night at his place after not being able to see each other in ages. We were all roached up in the bed watching a movie and we start roughhousing, tickling each other, popping pillows across the room; the preludes to sex. But he grabs my arms and draws me in for a hug. A serious hug. An “I miss you” hug. He’s kissing me on the ear and in between kisses he says, Do you, kiss, know, kiss, what I missed about you? kiss—and I’m not taking him seriously, I laugh a little, I figured he was gonna something kosher like my crotch so to appease him I ask what, what could you possibly miss about me?—and in a very serious, very solemn tone, he kissed me again and said your energy.

I was strumming through the net the other day haphazardly fishing through blogs and I came across a friend of mine’s page that I didn’t know existed. I didn’t know because he didn’t tell me. On his Blog he links to several different sites all of which he is fond of, as well as feature two links in his BlogRoLL entitled, The Faces of Loves. Since I hadn’t clue that this page was even alive, I didn’t expect much when I clicked the links in the RoLL; first link:

Soy Sauce & Pork Rinds: A Man’s Voyage of Self which belonged to Walter Kimora Lee White and the second:
SomeOne Greater than Love belonged to me.

It makes me wonder what other beautiful things are out there that I haven’t heard or won’t find because its not linked to anyone’s page. It begs the question, Really, someone greater than love???...Me?

And I think what knowing or hearing or seeing these random acts do is reinforce the positive, reinforce the light. There are people who like me, there are people who love me. I don’t think I would’ve considered myself as someone greater than love; I have too many bad days at work, I shit too much. Someone greater than love in my mind doesn’t shit. But I’m honored that my mind doesn’t supply the majority.

The poem above was written under the dynasty of my “first husband”, whom I don’t speak of…he doesn’t know it exist.

A caLL to the Front of the Courts!!!

2006-07-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

So last night at work was a bust. My IDs and passwords, to my computer, didn’t work, I forgot cash in an envelop the night before which ruined production fro the previous night, and last night they held a half-hour STAFF meeting, to scold me, in my honor.They moved my seat last night AND I prepped an extremely low 130. They’re not going to hire me. I was on the verge of tears.

When I was in the basic training; Military Branch: the Marine Corps, and when something would go awry, which was everyday, I would break ranks, crawl in a corner, cover my ears and sing His eye on the Sparrow to myself. I can’t sing, which probably provoked the ear-covering but if we are life size representations of our own collective efforts—the decisions we make, the movies we watch, the beers we drink, the friends we entertain, the industrial endeavors, etcetera…I’m thinking music is as profound of an influence as anything else in my life. If I were to consider Ken my own nation, His Eye on the Sparrow would be Ken’s anthem. Coolbean Green is the color that represents Ken and a Dove would be the national symbol.

A caLL to the front of the Courts!! What I think needs to happen or what I hope to happen is to solicit a tiny but genuine request from Omar. HI OmmiE! I, like most, saw your clip on Jamal’s blog and because we’re all fixtures in this Gay Black BloGGeRViLLe Community, I would like you to be the voice of my Anthem. I was thinking your next YouTube debut would be of His Eye on the Sparrow, if that’s an okay enough request. Please feel as free to comment.

I stumbled over a few more prophetically-appealing, thought provokingily auspicious, everlasting, ever-growing words to add to the Good Word List. I bet they thought they escaped! Ha!

Glitch
Incredible
Grave
Louse
Allegiance
Cringe
Perpetuated
Prevalent
Propel
Discretion
Flounder
Privilege
Animosity
Charisma
Armada
Segue
Flinch
Lows
Discrepancy
Ailment

Let 'em RavE!!!!

2006-07-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Ever feel conspired against? Like there was some sorta strange energy in the cosmos working to ruin you? Like there was this prophetically blue being, with eyes the size of jelly beans and brains as big as Canada, floating on this whiff of smoke, managing you like a limited edition Voodoo Barbie and your day like chess. Sabotage!!!.....Checkmate!

Well funny that I mentioned it, but I woke up this morning feeling like something just needed to be shattered—a collarbone, a cell phone, a walnut, a window…something. I needed to shout! And I didn’t necessarily understand what the feeling was until I managed to leave the house for class this morning on time for the bus to only watch the buss pull off without me…

But why, you ask. Why would you get up so early in the morning, fight with your sister for the bathroom, shower, masturbate, fall asleep, and wake back up to leave the house on time, which is a rarity for you, to make it to the bus stop for class and watch the bus pull off without you?

Because my bus card was no longer in my pocket…

From what my memory serves me of this morning, and it usually serves me well, as I locked the door to my parents house in pursuit of the bus stop, I slid my bus pass in my pocket. My right pocket. I remember because I’m righted and my right hand is where I held my keys, the keys that I locked my parents front door with, and the card. I remember because I was fighting to manage both my keys and my card with locking the door and to prevent furthering the argument, that’s when I slipped the card into my pocket.

So why, you ask, if indeed you pocketed your card, why wasn’t it in your pocket when you went to retrieve it?

I have no idea. The bus came. Creeked. Stopped. And zoomed off. I was still left on the corner. Someone pLEASE check the cosmos!!

I eventually made it to class. Footlocker still hasn’t come off my shoes yet, and because the buses are rerouted downtown, catching them is a bitch. I’m hungry, I’m sleepy…I’m cranky. It’s nobody’s day today. PMS?—maybe…but I doubt it.

I’m thinking if Damon doesn’t show up for work tonight today would’ve been a wreck of a day.

I fear for the people at work.

But I found my phone yesterday, and I’mma attempt to spend the night with my Brown Baby tonight. Cash put me on his BlogRoLL, so this is my SHOUT OUT to Cash, and MISS Walter Lee White agreed to dinner!...but we are NOT going to Fogo da Meat-Rack!

The venue is till pending.

Dear Mrs. White...

2006-07-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

Aside from losing my cell phone and keys this weekend it was one of those family reunion type gigs—one of those annual picnics in the Dan Ryan Woods that if it were not my obligation to attend I would not have gone. I invited my RomiE as a means for him to understand the logistics of my family; to show him why, when I refer to them or don’t refer to them enough, why I don’t. I invited Aaron because Aaron Garrett Popcorn enjoyed accompanying me last year when I had forced him to tag along and be my guide. You wouldn’t have liked it, Walter, I didn’t like it. The food was parched and the Doritos were stale. I sat at your tent and gobbled up your goodies because you offered up your love through well slaughtered and bar-b-qued meats, and we, fat bitches, MUST eat. To accept your invitation and engage one polish to the next was my way of accepting and showing you that I indeed love you back. You would have come to my family picnic and wretched at how many Marlboro’s got smoked, at how many children there were, and at how all those children had the same loud-mouthed mother. You weren’t invited because in NO way, form or fashion was the Williams and Hale’s Family Picnic of Walter Kimora Lee White prestige. I didn’t invite you because I love you.

Be it may. We have some unfinished business to tend to. I and my RomiE owe you dinner, do we not? Good dinner. Last I saw you, you were two oriental whiskers shy of being whisper thin and I’m thinking I want a bounty worth of food. I’m craving to see you eat. And what I’m thinking, tell me if you object, is that I would like for us to go to Koi’s, in Evanston, for sushi. To do this I’m also thinking we need to know your schedule; when is the GREAT Walter White available for cocktails and croissants? I presume it would have to be a weekend, I work evenings during the week, and it can’t be the weekend after next, RomiE and I will be outta town. But this weekend is fine for me and the weekend after next would be perfect—but what feels right for you? Talk to me, Walter, let’s get this here in rotation before we start collecting social security.

Ken

P.S

How was the weekend? I believe you had a birthday. Congrats!

Friday Morning

2006-06-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

I haven’t seen RomiE since Pride, which feels like forever, but has only been a couple of days…I got to smooch him last night. After work last night I came running over bouncing from bus to bus and smooched him square on his noggin…more than once, actually… and in the vicinity of everywhere.

Actually being that it is Friday morning, I have the morning off from school and he has a half of day at work.

Summer school started on the 7^th. I’m taking one class; Sociology 201—3 credit hours; Monday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. I'm working to get some of these Gen.Ed's out the way. As of today I’m believe I’m fairing rather well; there was a paper, done—a presentation, presented, and a midterm, passed. Plus the teacher likes me. Which shouldn’t fraction into deciphering my grade, but having the teacher like you tends to make their grading quill a tad bit more lenient. Praise God.

But RomiE should be on his way home…with pizza. Giordano’s deep dish.

I invited RomiE to my family picnic on the fourth with my dad my brothers and all their relatives who are VERY straight. My Sweet Pea, Aaron Garrett Popcorn, is tagging along with me this year too. I invited him last year and he seemed to enjoy himself well enough I thought what the hay, it won’t be fun without Aaron this year, so he’s coming. My lesbian is going to be there. She’s like family anyway, so it’s more mandatory that she goes, esp since my VERY straight brothers are exceptionally fascinated by that whole woman-kiss-coochie thing, they insist that she come. Pussy is way too extreme of a body part for me.

And talking about extremes, Brownberry, the bread people, have this whole wheat bread that Jerome and I bought in bulk January, and it’s been sitting on top of the microwave ever since. Well just last night as I came scampering from across town to view my Brown Baby, I was hungry. There wasn’t too much in the fridge and the options even lessened in the cabinets but we had eggs and there was that bread. Two months ago, when I came to my RomiE’s hungry I looked at that bread and said it HAD to be spoiled. But when I opened it there wasn’t moldy spore in sight. So I ate it. Last night when I saw it sitting there, unmoved from the last time I had moved it, I KNEW it had to have sprouted fur and became a liquid…but it hadn’t. Quite the contrary, it was still wheat bread. So I ate it.

But I wonder, and this is probably a question I should pester the folks at BrownBerry with: How is your bread doing that?

I looked to see whether or not the bread had been doped up preservatives…but it hadn’t. Or at least the packages didn’t admit so. And I would like to believe Mister BrownBerry wouldn’t falsify such information. I would sue. Maybe BrownBerry is really what wheat bread should be like. Maybe REAL wheat doesn’t spoil….EVER! I guess the only creatures evolved enough to survive a nuclear bombing are roaches and BrownBerry wheat bread. This is something I definitely have to look into. I’m curious. It’s been half a year and That bread is still standing.

RomiE's home...

Not your Hair, huh?

2006-06-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

What she'd be better off humming is: I'm not this album.
Has anyone heard India.Arie’s newest CD, Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship?

It has been “tradition”, as farfetched as I can stretch that word, tradition, to buy and support India’s work since her debut in 2001. In fact, a little Ken trivia for ya, India.Arie’s Voyage to India was the very first album I ever purchased—Acoustic Soul was burned. But the objective was that I had THEM. I was collecting them. Like trinkets, I was savoring them…for posterity…for my grandchildren. Alas.

My sister, who loves me, but could never bring herself to admit it, Karen, bought me the CD. It was on sale at Circuit City. And after reviewing Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship featuring the hit single, I am Not my Hair, lets just say….India, please, kick it up a notch! Even the title is wordy. VomiT!

But in the weather today, on the home front, my lesbian is going to teach me how to swim this summer. Supossidly I’ll be taking my first dive into the pool at Ridge Park this Sunday but there’s been debacle about going to the Taste of Chicago and Rainbow Beach in the spirit of gayness on Sunday. The park’s opening hours cascade with the other events. Alas. I haven’t purchased a pair of swimming trunks yet, so If by Sunday swimming is till up for debate we’ll just reassign Lesson 1 for next week.

But in the weather today, on the personal front, I did go shopping as I promised myself. We (as in myself) bought shoes, T’s, socks and drawz…so far. I shelled out 300 bucks for 7 pair of jeans and 3 pair of khakis…4 pair of which didn’t fit/and or I didn’t care for the style, at Gap.com, so they MUST go back; and FootLocker, where I, of course, purchase some foot gear, stiffed me twice on a pair of Sketchers I’m itching to sneak my feet into—they’ll be arriving Tuesday.

As for the underwear, the collection is starting off small and modest. Very modest. As of now I don’t own a fancy pair of anything yet, everything’s still boxer brief-ish. I’m still getting warmed up.

Words. Words? Words!!

2006-06-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

It’s actually a part of my Columbia College Curriculum as a Fiction Writing major to envelope myself with words—immerse myself in the landscape of the language. Since I FAILED a core class last semester, due to lack of progress, due to inadequacies in my performance, due to Polly not granting me my grade, I would like to jump start junior year by familiarizing myself with a body of prophetically-appealing, thought provokingily auspicious, everlasting, ever-growing list of words that I would like to formally introduce to you as, in laymen’s terms, the Good Word List. Take a gander!

Suspect, Douse, Con, Par, Deterrent, Deviant,

Posh, Sham, Soot, Priority, Galore, Corroded,

Stained, Drained, Fussing, Mandatory, Demolish, Ample,

Sway, Glop, Gouge, Spit, Vomit**, Rump,

Pinch, Zap, Mayhem, Bada Bing, Garble, Burbling,

Sort, Tussle, Pluck**, Quark, Acquire, Fraudulent,

Beseech, Brie, Gaudy, Opt, Belligerent, Deliberate,

Repent, Cure, Wares, Bother, Nimble, Slander,

Formula, Morose, Mundane, Error, Evade, Avenues,

Gruesome, Genesis, Genocide, Guts, Adage, Belch,

Interrogate, Kudos**, Privilege, Moonshine, Haggis, Sever,

Hippie, Stingy, Perhaps, Scrooge, Moxie**, Ruckus,

Clap, Surge, Alas**, Jabbed, Roped, Meager,

Render, Muck, Murky, Herald, Puss, Twit,

Snuff, Alleviate**, Candor, Cocktails, Calamari, Duffer,

Automated, Leggy, Decipher, Implosion, Damaged, Deranged,

Verbal, Cornball, Acorn, Syphilis, Arose, Bladder,

Burst, Unzip, Spite, Smitten, Debacle, Squalor,

Smug, Nifty**, Thus & Such, Embellish**, Arbitrary.

2006-06-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

If you’re dying to know a secret—I’m not one to gossip, but if you’ll listen I’ll tell ya—I hate that picture.

I’m sure you’ve all seen it, esp those who keep themselves abreast of all the Ken and RomiE trivia there is—bouncing from blog to blog—flipping from mine to his and, initially, vice versa. If you’re itching to know something about Ken, Mister Brown’s “estranged” other half—Ken hates that picture! I mean really…?—Look at it! Of course RomiE is as fine a brown as any boy can aspire; but me?—I look like a fag! Which doesn’t really say much provided that I am quite the homosexual, and though a gurL mustn’t be made to reveal all her secrets, that picture is quite the blabber-mouth.

But sure… I love ‘em.

When he first posted the picture I immediately went into objections, Please, I asked him, take it down, its ugly. When he saved it as the backdrop for his desktop, I again obejected, please, I asked him, take it down, YeRomiE, its ugly. But because his head is so full of meat (which is a running joke between RomiE and I about how, when he wears caps, he can never quite reason his head underneath the hat) he clearly refused on both accounts.

As of today they stand as monuments in place of, in remembrance for, what “was” and the possibilities thereafter, the pictures on his blog and desktop. And however no one’s gathered enough nerve to call Jerome out on it and say: Hey, Mister Baby, I know you’re mourning over what you “think” has ended, but that picture, Jerome, is bogus! Please take it down, I understand that it’s more my responsibility than anyone else’s and since I can’t fathom denying him what he feels is so pretty, I now advocate that he keep them up.

I salute you, even, by posting the picture myself. Hoorah!

I don’t think it’s over. What I think is that you’re concerned about me riding off into the sun with some large man with chocolate nipples and you wanna make sure that doesn’t happen during your lifetime. So by “getting your man back”, which infers that you lost him, you can prevent me from leaving. What I’m needing to stress is that I’m not going anywhere, baby. You haven’t “lost” me. That picture?—the one that I hate so much, is tolerable because I know we’ll be around to take better. Rushing into something that we’ve, primarily, you’ve insisted couldn’t work, or isn’t working, twice, is risking another high altitude of hopes for crushing a third time. I love you Jerome. Love doesn’t die after divorce nor does it “accelerate” after marriage. I would like to take my time with you, is what I’m thinking. I would like for you to take your time with me. We’re both scrambling to figure this out and finding nothing for the solution. But if I’m to honestly listen to myself, the advice my head’s been feeding me, and the promise I made to myself to listen to that advice, I’m thinking we deserve time.

2006-06-06T09:50:00.000-07:00

I need a new look. I’ve been wearing the same beard and overalls since the days of Yonder, and I’m thinking its about time to shed some of these old feathers.
My mother has always told me if I ever decided to carry an empty cup downtown I would make a killing with the change.

But the problems been I’ve never been a dresser; not even remotely fashion inclined. I’ve never cared for clothes that way. Fashion’s always been to hard to follow: today Tyra’s wearing *Pip* tomorrow she’ll be wearing *Pop*, who has time to keep up! Please understand I’ll enchant and bedazzle when necessary but I’ve arranged my lifestyle to never require such a wardrobe. I think my best outfit is when I’m naked but I’d be fined and arrested had I aspire to look my best everyday. Chicago wouldn’t understand.

So what I’ve done is stay modest. Very modest. I’ve been shuffling around Chicago in the same kicks for 3 years now. Of course neither shoe has a sole, and they’re both sporting a reputable mark that looks somewhat like a hole but they walk comfortably for having serviced me a billion miles of sidewalk.
I think being beautiful on the inside was more my focus. <------ which is such a lie!!!

I told this one guy, who was normally use to seeing me on special occasions up to par, that, after he caught me roaming Chicago in less than adequate attire did he approached me later to remind me just how inadequate I looked that, upon him punctuating his sentence: Ken, you looked homeless (Period) did I remind him that the beauty of my spirit has always and forever out weighed the beauty of my face. *snap*

Sure that was crock of Hippie shit but the ideas were valid, beauty should come from within and shine outwards versus you finding it on sale.

I’m poor!! I can’t afford prada shoes! And even if I could I’m really afraid of being conceited. Its easy to fall in that whole Diva-Fag-MeLLoDramatic mindset. RomiE had taken me shopping ONCE and I RUINED the entire dressing room snapping my fingers at the attendants, demanding to see more. More, damn YOU!!!

Diva! I don’t think the earth could handle me.

What I need to do is begin small, purchasing only the staples of a good wardrobe—the necessities…the needs. Starting with underwear. I want a good collection of underwear cuz I don’t have any. I’ve worn my little man-panties so thin they’re sheer. So that’s where I’mma begin.

I’m thinking boots, I’m thinking coats, I’m thinking T’s and Polo’s, I’m thinking Marshalls and Tj Maxx! I’m thinking FootLocker, 2 pair for $89.99.

Lets see what happens.

2006-05-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

I found myself in DC for the weekend. Totally unexpected...totally by surprise. Pride here I come!

Assassination by Friendly FiYa: The Sky and all her Treasures

2006-05-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

Whats funny is how after a breakup the grapevine gets a memo. The little telephone poles of faggotry get buzzed from here to the White House and all the information about YOUR breakup gets scrambled across the community. The first persons to hear?—who knows, but the first people to respond are those eX’s or those dips, all the boys you told: I can’t pork you no mo’ cuz I’s married now, come crawling outta the framework of old decrepit houses to say:

wassup?

The sky and all her treasures… is how you respond, evading all their attempts to inquire about sex and how “good” it was 3 years ago, when, 3 years ago, you had it last, you didn’t think it was good; and how “nice” it would be for you to venture to make arrangements to do it again now that you’re back “on the market”. And you cringe because you know it’s imminent that you have that conversation with him [or the hims] but you avoid it because, though you told him that your reason for not sleeping with was due to your new relationship, your new relationship probably had little to any reason dealing with you making that decision.

So you say shit like the sky and all her treasures to catch ‘em off guard and divert the conversation elsewhere.

But it never seems to fail. I figure the population in Chicago’s gay black community is rather small, if we all keep fucking each other we’re soon someday gonna catch one another’s germs and know where they came from. So I guess when a relationship is brewed that same force leaks the same information the exact same way as when someone breaks up; everyone knows. And I often wonder, is there a protocol, does an agenda get followed?—who calls who and tells who about whom first? Is there a phone tree set up in the Rainbow Coalitions office that’s implemented immediately upon word of either a wedding or divorce? How does everyone find the fuck out!

This guy who I was in love with, madly in love with, I could tell you the story but it tends to make me nauseous, hit me up on messenger the very moment Jerome and I broke up. Talk about vulture. And so it had been my goal, during the conversation, to not bring up Jerome because I didn’t want to admit the breakup to this person, it’s none of his concern, and he’s so predictable I knew where he was going to take the conversation had he found out.

Well its like he knew already, because after we exchanged our hellos, he flat out and asked, How are you and Jerome doing; and I KNEW he knew. He’s never cared to ask before. And when I went to interrogate the question of how in the hell could he have found out, I asked myself and in a silent, yet displeasing acceptance remembered that I do maintain a blog…and that blog is incredibly public. Damnit!

Next Step: Employment!

2006-05-23T10:51:00.000-07:00

I did fantabulous at work last night. Yep, yours truly prepped a whopping 223, One thousand and two envelops in less than 5 hours. Next step, employment!

I did fail a class this semester. I’m still waiting for one more grade to come in but I received a

B in my Intro to Poetry Class
B+ in my Child Development class
B- in my African American Culture class
And an F in my Advanced Fiction Class

My GPA is shot. I wonder will this affect my scholarship. So the goal for the past few days has been to GET IN CONTACT WITH POLLY, my Advanced Fiction Instructor. I can’t imagine why SHE of all people failed me…undeservingly. Sure I was late to class more often than not… sure I exhausted all three of absences. But I called! I turned the work in as consistent as it came to me, as much as possible, and wrote whenever I had the chance. I gotta life outside of Advanced Fiction, shit! Fiction wasn’t my only priority! I had 4 other classes, 5 other projects, 7 papers, four essays AND three oral presentations. I’m fired UP!

So I need to find her number and contest my grade. I sent Polly my last 20-some-odd pages via email and my fear is she doesn’t check her school email address, which would explain why I have the F, if she didn’t receive my work. But I sent it. So now I’m trapped in Limbo, two credit hours from being a junior, which is really presumptuous of me seeing that I’m still waiting on a grade, which could very well be another F…and then I’ll be 6 credit hours from being a junior. Damn. This is too much money to be squandering. Polly is gonna give me my credits damnit, or we will NOT friends!

2006-05-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

No matter how you slice it, and one can surely argue against, but I believe our breakup was premature. It feels premature. It feels as if we still hold some sort of obligation towards each other outside of being “friends”—sure, we’re friends, or friendly, or friendlier than friends, however you wanna class it, but the obligation feels much more profound. I can’t look at Jerome without knowing, no matter what our label is, that he’s mine. Its going to be wrong, no matter the circumstance, if and when we decide to move on. And I say that thinking I being his friend will have to stand by and watch this, console and nurture his new budding relationship because that’s what friends do, right? And I’m trying to decipher how possible it would be for me to do that knowing no matter whose he’s with—Jerome is still mine. I can imagine my temper. I can imagine the annoyance of having to keep up appearances, batting my eyes in compliance to an argument they’ve (Jerome and the new Guy) had and having to give objective advice about what actions need to be taken. He loves his Almond Milk?—he should!—Cuz I loves me some Brown Boy. But Romie inquired what I might’ve learned from our breakup and if I’m made to think about it…

I learned that if I followed my head and not my heart I would’ve dodged several bullets with you. I learned had not any of these instances happened, that catered to our downfall, had we proceeded with our relationship, you not being able to recognize the light that burns inside me, I learned that you would’ve still been dating a false image. I learned that you only live once so its better to love hard when loves approaches than live without ever loving and I loved loving you. I learned that friends are hard to manage and lovers are even harder. I learned to never take morning classes when your husband is a cuddle slut. I learned to always close messenger when finished. I learned your boiling point, Jerome. I’m learning you.

I might need to step down when the next guy comes along; pectorals raging, and his dick of dynamite. As of today I couldn’t imagine being able to handle it. I could see you recycling back into the habit of “live-in lovers” and movie nights with big dumbass mushroom burgers with the new beau and I can’t imagine when there will come a time when you telling me that will feel appropriate and nor do I think it just if I’m to be a friend to you and be excluded from your exciting new relationship. Vomit! I’m working with a lot. I’m going to miss a lot. ...but i guess i am ready to take over the world!

In Other News

2006-05-18T13:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, I just checked my grades again. One B+ so far, GPA slightly spiraled up but the semester’s over!—and I’m sure I failed…something. So, lemme sit back and watch the F’s roll in.

I spent the night with my Romie the other night. We had very stimulating conversation
Very stimulating sex and very stimulating sleep. He spooned me. World-ClasS spooned me.

He’s been urging me to live in the dorms at school, which is what the conversation was about. RomiE thinks it’ll be the best for me and my [not-yet-diagnosed] ADD. I’ll be immersed in the culture of the school, live not but moments from work so on those dreadful Monday nights/Tuesday mornings I won’t have to struggle so hard getting home. It sounds pretty fair. My deepest concerns are the finances. How practical is it for me to live in the dorms. I’ll check it out though. It’ll definitely be on my mind ESP if I fail something this semester. I wonder how much better I’d do with my education not having to worry about the commute AND actually commuting. That’s a huge hassle. But what if I can’t stand my roommate, and he farts to much or ISN”T gay friendly. But then again, it’s Columbia…it’s a gay school. But what if he’s a smoker, or a partier, or swinger? What if he turns our room into Mans Country the cum and fuck, or Columbia, the Coco Dorms? That won’t bode so well for my education now would it? I mean sure I’ll be immersed in the culture; boy booty deep, preferably, but I’d never get any homework done! The goal is to complete college NOW while my patience hasn’t run thin. There aren’t any breaks with this college. Either I do it now, or it doesn’t happen. I could see myself getting lazy and not wanting to return if I were to take off a semester or three. So I need to remain on task. Focus, Ken, focus.

In Other News:

I’ve conquered mountains at work! I prepped a whopping 200 on Monday. I made rate!—which, again, is one of those money factory terms of flipping/counting 200 envelopes per hour…and I finally made rate. I counted exactly 200…well, 199 point 8 something…so I rounded it up to 200, but it’s all the same.

And...

Kim, my older sister, graduated from her culinary program last Saturday... and RomiE was invited.

2006-05-11T10:22:00.000-07:00

I kinda feel sick, then again, i kinda don't. It won't sink in until we're pressed to move on. Until i move out the house, until i'm back at home, until i'm knee deep in parents. I think i do feel sick. But we broke up last night...this morning actually--this morning that actually marked us an official 7months. We broke up for all the same reasons we came together, because he is RomiE, and I am Ken.

I associate enough of what happened due to my inexperience and I have a lot of maturing to do. And though i hadn't planned on a break-up, i don't need to be RomiE's boyfriend to love 'em, i'm excited that we both came to it mutually. Maybe one day when i'm feeling more amorous i'll delve into the story a tad bit more...but...

...right now...

...thinking about it...

...i kinda feel sick...

Seal Lullaby

2006-05-06T11:15:00.000-07:00

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.

The storm shall not wake thee, no shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

—Rudyard Kipling

Mister Brown isn’t speaking too much this morning. I’m kinda worried. I can always tell when he’s upset when he wakes up and doesn’t smooch me, gets in the shower and doesn’t invite me, be in the same room and barely acknowledges me. When I asked him IF there was something the matter he said: No, I’m fine, baby. But later confessed to something being on his mind, but what, he didn’t tell me **ken sighs***. Normally if it’s I with the problem and I who isn’t speaking RomiE sorta urges me into dialogue —dialogue is always healthy. I’m kinda disappointed I didn’t push him more to talk.

He went to lunch with his brother today—giving me an opportunity to work on this paper I owe in my Critical Reading and Writing class without distraction. But I think I’m more concerned about RomiE than the paper…I hope everything’s ok…I don’t think I’ve been a bad boyfriend.

I’ll talk to him when he gets home.

Gulping for Guppies

2006-05-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

My husband and I sorta got ourselves into a little….gulping collision, lets say. Lets say there was a spill on aisle four… the snake spit, the volcano erupted, the chicken choked!—and miraculously there was no clean up. Tummy’s got grumbly and babies got digested.

But he doesn’t like the taste and though, if optioned, I wouldn’t buy a boy-cream-flavored latte either but I don’t necessarily mind…the taste. The amount is something different. I don’t wanna DROWN either! So, we, RomiE and I, were thinking, what were your thoughts...?

Ready for the Weekend...

2006-04-26T11:46:00.000-07:00

We had sex this morning—great sex. Earth shattering. Blinding. It’ll scare you to know what goes in our bedroom-type sex. I think RomiE kinda wore me out. My thighs haven’t conformed back to normal.

I shaved yesterday. Everything! I forget how pretty I am under all this ape-wool. I’ve recently gotten into the practice of shaping my beard versus cutting it completely off…less irritation—and I like what it does to my face. It makes me look adult. But I shaved everything except for a few pews—can’t afford to be irritated down there—no use upsetting the boys, they’re my livelihood.

I took off work yesterday, and did I mention the bird that CRAPED on my head Monday. Geeze-o-Petes! That little sucker crapped smack dab in the middle of my head right before class and I had to suffer through my day with the impending Bird Flu virus smuggled between my hair follicles. Maybe that’s why I shaved yesterday.

I need to clean out my system and take my ass to Bally’s. Wasn’t Bally’s in my New Year’s Resolution?—who knows? But I’m getting a tummy…well, ahem, I have a tummy. And as soon as I figure out what I’m gonna do about this camera situation i.e. getting one, I’mma show you all my fat.

I’m looking at the last couple of weeks of classes, and I think I’mma fail something. This is actually the conclusion I come to at the end of every semester, but it always feels like I’m gradually getting worse with my studies. If you ask me I’ll tell you… this semester I’m just tired. I’m taking 5 classes, 17/18 credit hours, four days a week—all of which are early in the morning except my Monday class which starts at 1 and then I work 5 evenings a week. So my day usually starts at six-thirty when RomiE’s god-awful alarm clock starts screeching its head off and ends somewhere around 1 or 2 am after work, when I’ve made it home, eaten something, fought with homework, reading fiction, prose, poetry, and snuggle just under my RomiE to sleep. And that doesn’t even include living and family issues and friends and having to travel throughout the city to GET TO school, work, family, home, and friends.

When the weekend hits…I’m just ready to sleep. And right now, looking at what’s due tomorrow and my progress on that project…I’m ready for the weekend.

2006-04-23T23:16:00.000-07:00

BURN BROKE BACK MOUONTAIN. BURN!!!!!

I can Speak to that: My messy, drunk and sleep deprived weekend thoughts

2006-04-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

*in response to Brown Boy

Please don’t let this man fool you, Ask him, did he NOT walk out the room while Jennifer Hudson was still singing. Did I NOT have to twist his arm to watch, A Chorus Line…was he NOT apprehensive about Beyonce at Wembely…in FACT he was SO much so that, though he watched, he went Grumble-Grumble-Grumble ALL the way through the movie, ruined the experience, brutalized my emotions, and if he feels that he “endured” what he claims to make me tick for my sake, without going into the lions cove kicking and shitting……..PLEASE don’t let this man fool you.

I like going to the movies…on occasions, provided that there’s something of substance to watch. Doofus Movie 4 is only entertaining IF you like that certain humor; otherwise you’re being held hostage for 2 hours in a theatre watching imbeciles on screen being imbecilic. Life is too short for that. Had this been something he rented and brought home I might have been swayed to see a couple of scenes, give ‘em a go, let him try and persuade me to find the humor…see the “funny”. But he didn’t. He suggested, knowing full throttle that Doofus Movie 4 isn’t on my scale of funny, that I pay, sit in a crowded theatre and indulge him to watch Doofus Movie 4. And mind you when he propositioned me with the IDEA for going to the movies this weekend he prefaced it by saying,

Ken, I wanna go to the movies this weekend, but you’re not gonna wanna see it.

O, what is it, Baby?

Doofus Movie 4...

You’re right.

And then he went gummin’ all at the mouf about taking his little brother, who he felt also didn’t wanna see DM4.

I think there are a number of factors to consider when involving oneself in your lovers hobbies. One of those factors being is that you are not your lover, there are things that he is going to be into that you are just not going to care for i.e. my fascination with voices and your craving to watch certain things. Neither of which are wrong and neither of which are necessary to conduct a healthy relationship, because what that does, me and my music, you and your movies, is distinguish us as individuals. I don’t need you to sit on the futon and indulge me to listen to Lauryn Hill for me to love you or Lauryn. Lauryn Hill is going to be enjoyed with or without you suffering through it behind me bleeding at the ears. And if its that much of a torture for you in that you can’t stand to listen gospel music, you can’t stand to watch musicals, you can’t stand to hear Jennifer, than I’d rather you not sit and suffer silently. And I hope you wouldn’t need me to be in a theatre, bored out my wits, for you to love me or whatever it is you’re desperate to go see, that Mister Baby would insinuate problems elsewhere.

In my understanding of how far one should go in taking on/sharing in their lovers “hobbies” (which I use rather loosely) is just to appreciate that this, whatever this is, is what’s making my Mister Baby tick. And in that appreciation I’m asking you to appreciate that this was NOT about going to the theatre, this was about the movie you were desperate to go see. If it was just the experience you were looking for, me and you together at the movies, than we could have simply seen something else, but it wasn’t about that experience, YOU wanted to see THAT movie, and it wouldn’t have been much of an experience with me Grumble-Grumble-Grumble all the way through it.

Comments please…

2006-04-12T11:53:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of Sweet Pea DaRRyL....Ain't he pretty!!!

Which means I love you: Happy 6 months!!

2006-04-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to watch porn this morning but none of the DVD players are working…more or less I am unable to work them. Crap-Damn. I could try fidgeting, a little harder, with the television in the front room but there’s just too many gadgets associated with that TV—I fear I’d fuck something up. And then everybody’ll know I was beating off to porn. Not good.

By the way I’m at Keith's house. I don’t think I’ve ever made mention to my Sweet Pea Keith in this arena. I come by his place weekly on those Monday/Tuesday mornings when I get off work at 3am and the bus home stops running. Luckily the Redline train runs all night and Keith lives at the end of the Jarvis stop. I spend those nights here.

I walk in, open the door and the dog barks. You never know who you’re gonna find when opening the door. The possibilities are infinite. Aaron’s usually getting ready for work, Kindrick’s normally asleep and I either flop on the futon or take refuge on the sofa in the living room. Last night Paribe, Keith’s WaLmart buddy, was on the couch sleep. I nearly scared him shitless trying to lie down. I didn’t see ‘em! But, fortunately, we dodged that bullet. Aaron surrendered the futon, and I didn't crush Paribe, but that’s all beside the point… I love my Sweet Pea Keith. There’s actually a running list of people that I refer to as the Sweet Pea’s [which means I love you] :

Sweet Pea Roger
Sweet Pea Walter
Sweet Pea Aaron
Sweet Pea Karla
Sweet Pea Kayla
Sweet Pea Kindrick
Sweet Pea Dontae
Sweet Pea DaRRyL
Sweet Pea Chuck

But Sweet Pea Keith inspired all of that.

RomiE and I hit 6 months today. Applause. Applaud because neither of us have ever sustained a relationship passed a year (and that was one of my concerns in the beginning) but applaud because, if you’re all caught up on your RomiE&Ken trivia—applaud because we…or I, didn’t think we’d make it so far. I’m happy we made it. I was approached by one of my Sweet Pea’s today who nearly unscrewed m’man-berries (the twins, the boys—the balls) when she heard the word celebration.

Sweet Pea: there needs to be NO celebration
Sweet Pea: you should celebrate everyday
Sweet Pea: not at this silly point
Sweet Pea: it's not like it's been 10 years
Sweet Pea: don’t have me go off on u

Me: you just did

Sweet Pea Keith suggested there be some sort of candlelit dinner and provocative horseplay, afterwards, in a private, but genuine, commemoration of the occasion.
He claims that six months is a year to gay people, a feat that mustn't be left unappreciated because not most gay relationships see this side of six months. And I guess there’s something that can be said about how time is managed on the Calendar for Queers. I would actually love to rejoice in celebration for today. But, in turn, I rejoice and celebrate every night that I’m able to leave and return home to that face, his face—RomiE’s face, that mirrors everything we accomplished within the whole of our six months spent. Thank you, Baby.

Happy 6 months, Mister Brown!!!

Thank you for Today

2006-04-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

I got mugged last night on the street, on my way home by two teenage boys with barely any fur on their faces. We have guns they said. Empty your pockets they said. Wheres the cash they said. I don’t carry any… One of them slugs me, knocks off my glasses, takes my book bag and empties it out on the street. Nothing?—they said. I don’t have anything….they interrupted well don’t flinch. And I thought to myself if this was that part in the movie where the victim gets shot…I might not survive this.

I was on a crowded bus once, sat in the seat right behind the driver pressed in between a wall and woman. I forget whether or not I had something particular on my mind or if I was just fascinated with my reflection in the window opposite my seat…but what I recall is seeing myself. The bus crashes…well almost crashes… slams on its breaks and cries to a stop. And as everyone’s being thrown forward—I remember someone losing a purse, I remember change spilling, keys falling, children crying, women screaming, gents gasping for god…I must’ve just sat there unblemished in the window, eyes still fixed on my image in the window and rocked with the pull of the bus as not even concerned with what was living around me.

You hear of such things like this happening to other people and you sympathize, and you empathize and you try your best to envision how or what your reaction might be had it been you—but it isn’t you and it wasn’t you and if it were to ever be you you’d assume yourself to be as much of a wreck as they insist they are. It didn’t even occur to me what was actually happening while it was happening. The only thing I could understand was the floor of the earth…her ground…her soot and concrete. I might’ve even been looking for my reflection again, somewhere in the glass shards glistened across the sidewalk. I’m sure it would have served as the one thing my eyes would have fondly made out without glasses, my reflection.

The other one took a swing, I moved, he missed. Don’t flinch!—he said. My older brother Curtis, before he died, journaled about death. The night he wrote the entry he spoke about how he almost lost his life in the same manner his mother lost hers. He spoke of the incident, which I can vaguely remember, and how fortunate he felt to have surpassed and survived. The irony of what fell is that death caught him in a clap of surprise the same way he felt honored that it hadn’t. And so now that I find myself journeying to journal about that same honor and relief as if I’d been cleared from anyone else’s attack or from ever having my life cradled to the precipice of it all ever ending on a whim… if last night was truly the end, I thought…I’m proud that I was calm enough to accept it. I saw the earth for what she is, in that moment…dirt, and gravel and glass and I don’t think had they pull the trigger, or had there been a trigger to pull, I’d be missing anything. I’m not sad because it happened rather I’m more concerned with this feeling of nothingness swelling inside me because it did happen.

I’m thinking I’ve loved all I can, been loved all I can, seen all the love that I possibly can, and so there’s nothing I’d lose by leaving. Please take my money if that’s all your asking and I would’ve lassoed the stars and boxed the entire whole of the galaxy if that’s all they were asking; but it seems like such a struggle for our generation stay alive. I remember when 20 seemed virtually impossible. After high school it was a race to see who’d survive. Norman didn’t make it…Crystal didn’t make it…Chris didn’t make it. Johnny was out of state at school when he was robbed, beaten and shot for a pair of shoes at 19—And though I’ve been blessed to see 22, it feels almost impractical, at the least of all absurd, of me to anticipate seeing thirty. The luxury of watching my children grow and hair gray is a privilege I’m not privy to. And to say that I’m grateful that what potentially could’ve resulted in my death last night didn’t would somehow be neglecting that I will soon someday die. They say dodging one bullet is a miracle and dodging two, impossible. I recognized, in that moment, searching, in the fragmented glass shavings, for my reflection, that this could very well be my end, and I’m okay.

Whatever spooked them into running away—they did. They took off down the street and left me standing to collect my belongings. My glasses were gone and my phone was gone. A witness, through a window, called out to me and called police. She invited me inside where I phoned Jerome, who came rushing to my service…

I don’t know if I prayed, God… and a part of me feels like this was God’s way of reminding me life is fleeting, be careful how you live. And it was in realizing that, and looking into Jerome’s face did I appreciate that I’m not just living for me—my life doesn’t just affect me! How totally selfish can I get!?!—which brings me to my knees in the humblest of poses for apology because if I didn’t then, Jehovah, or hadn’t since then…with all my heart decked across the table and arms sprayed to the heavens…thank you. Thank you for today.

2006-04-01T00:35:00.000-08:00

The due date is style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"> week.

NO Touchy! Disperse!

2006-03-28T12:26:00.000-08:00

I have a comrade who JUST lost her virginity to this LAME she claims to be her friend!—some country huckleberry nigga with an endowment probably the size of his brain, all of which are meager. Whatever. 19 is too young for “girls” to be having sex. Boys, Shims, and she’s can fuck all they want—break ya back out and fuck all ya want, but please let the ladies stay ladies. Stay a Lady, Comrade.

Forgive me... I’m just emotional.

I think if I were a girl…first off I wouldn’t be GAY, hallelujah, but I’d definitely be on my P’s and Q’s about my pudenda. NO touchy. Sex honestly isn’t worth the headache, being a girl. My comrade called me, nearing tears, after having been taking advantage of by this LOSER that she calls a friend. And as the story goes she was drunk, he was drunk, there was a party, a back room, a futon….and lets just say cherries got popped, and bleeding yet still. What were you thinking, Comrade!

I know this other girl, at the money factory, where I work—and we’ve gotten pretty close. She’s the little pimp, and I’m the little homo and we’re always together at work, fussing like we’re married. So one day she tells me she likes dick, and I’m all like well yeah you’re “suppose” to, whatever that means, and then she goes, I like dick in my ass.

And don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fair share of cock in the shit chute BUT for some strange reason it’s feels WRONG when girls play into it. You get fucked in the ass, girl?—WHY!?!

Getting fucked in the ass isn’t becoming. It’s not this season’s new pink! Its WORK, bitch! It’s an effort of mass proportions, MASS proportions—a strenuous effort of pure concentration, of tact, and control and strength and WiLL!! Hallelujah!!

WE wouldn’t get fucked in the ass had we been blessed with other Options and YOU, girl, were born with OTHER options! Maybe that’s why I think its improper for girls to even bother with sex—it’s like they just don’t know what to do with themselves. How does one even approach asking a woman for anal sex?

Hey baby, can I hit dat ass?—

And if that’s what he says, I would then HAVE to question further his sexual appetite, because that’s the type of CRAP you say to another MAN in a fuck house with your finger half up his ass already. I can’t even imagine that appealing to women.

THINK: All that pussy and he wanna FUCK you in the asS?

He didn’t even have the common curtsey to fumble his penis into your hole, missing your twat, by accident, of course and wait your response. Instead he just assumed you were gutter trash, felt there was nothing to lose, and outright ask, lemme hit dat asS, hoe.—and does he call you hoe?!?

Sweetie, he gay. And so you won’t have to wind up on Oprah in twenty plus years, sobbing while he's wearing your stilettos, tell him, with the full authority of your being: You have been BARRED from the pussy, Brutha! Disperse!

NO touchy!

2006-03-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

Today is Monday, back to school, back to work—buh-bye weekend. Drats!

Whatever! It was a great weekend...

2006-03-26T15:32:00.000-08:00

I went to Mrs. Fields Friday before work—she has a little cubby-hole in the wall on the first floor in the building where I count the money, and my fat ass loaded up on cookies. I ain’t never been to a Mrs. Field’s a day in my life but just because I had cash in my pocket I had to spend it. Eight cookies…ten dollars. And I told myself as I was paying, being over charged for them cookies, ain’t no batch of eight cookies worth no damn ten dollars esp when two of them greasy little suckers were supposedly free. But I passed Mrs. Fields her money and she handed me my expensive ass bag of cookies as I made sure to snatch ‘em from her trifling self. That is why I don’t carry cash.

RomiE and I joined Netflix… well he joined Netflix in hopes to educate me on all his favorite films. I, in turn, shall teach him the romanticism of musicals and “the classics”, which aren't really as "classic" as they are my favorites, plural, starting with my favorite, singular, which we already watched, A Lion in Winter and A Chorus Line, which is actually plural, two. He loved them. Both of them! And I believe my lesson begins somewhere next week with something like, Birdcage, which I hear is a staple of Gay Americana, and Paris is Buring, which I hear is a documentary of the Balls in New York. Yay me, huh?

I tried my hand at eating my man’s cakes the other evening while he was still half-sleep/half-woke…more sleep than awake. And though I’ve never been one for ass eating…ahem…though I’ve never eaten ass—the idea of burying my face in the crack of someone else’s hole has always rendered me intimidated, yet for some strange reason, the moon might’ve been full, I felt inspired, and was lead, lips pursed, to the crack of my brown baby’s bottom. Needless to say I’ve had bad ideas before…needless to say I’m full of bad ideas. Did I ever tell ya about that one time at band camp? ...Of course I didn't, bad idea. Therefore it is also needless to say what made that idea so bad is that one's natural reaction to an unwarranted ass invasion is first to clench, second, to cuss. Not such a smart move waking your man to ravage his ass. Inspiration nearly cost me my nose in the clenching. I guess I caught him by surprise. He growled at me unfavorably.

He sleeps pretty vivid anyway, my RomiE. Once, I had woken up early and was watching him dream (I’m such a cornball) because he’s so animated while he sleeps. It’s like watching a movie. There’s always whispering, and hand gestures, and laughing, and he’s always playing more than one character. So it just so happened I was watching him this particular morning and his mouth is going and his body’s twitching and suddenly, out of the blue, RomiE socks me in my jaw. BAM! He wakes up, I’m scrambling to find my face scattered across the floor and he’s all confused to what the hell happened cuz he just woke up. Turned out he was a cop in that dream, wrestling down the villain. I so happened to be in close proximity enough to be caught the actual villain. How quaint. I guess my jaw understands.

RomiE and I got to go to the movies this weekend and Kindrick and I went out to lunch. I even got to see my D-man at home, this weekend, and we caught up on all the latest Jennifer Hudson garble. Whatever! It was a great weekend.

As for the movie, V for Vendetta, which everyone should go see and read Mr. Brown’s review, we saw it on Saturday. I think D-man would enjoy this movie. Hell, I did.

So before you View me Void on this Visceral Vice, remember to Vouch and make Visible first your Voice, and Verbalize your mental Vomit. Never Vote against Vixens in Victoria’s secrets or Vandalize Vintage Volumes of Virgin Vaginas—for that, my friends, would be considered Vile!

Confused? Then you can call me V!

A string of Embarrassing Things

2006-03-23T07:51:00.000-08:00

So I embarrassed myself at work yesterday. I was doing this project for school which had me calling all of the Greater tri-state area of Chicago and the little subsidiary boundaries in between for information about yamma, yamma…and yamma, and I ran into this lovely woman named Patricia, who catered to all of my question, during my spell on the phone. In fact she was so excited to talk to somebody that didn't call to complain, after the conversation, which took fifteen more minutes than I hoped it would, she gave me her office number to, someday, call her again.

So because that conversation went so well, I was happy. But because that conversation was fifteen minutes more than I anticipated…I was running late, for work. So I jump in my coat and hit the streets, and as I’m realizing that it’s too warm for a coat, I’m high off happy-endorphins and I call my boss to give her the heads-up that I’m running late. I dial the number. I get her voicemail. And so as I leave this wonderfully intoxicating message of my whereabouts and the reasons for my tardiness and so forth my dumbass gonna end the message saying:

Hope to see you soon as possible. LOVE you Josy (my boss), buh-bye.

I told my boss I loved her. I TOLD my BOSS I LOVED her…her! How disgusting! So I’m on the street and I’m freaking out and situations like this only invite the recollection of other embarrassing moments.

Did I ever tell you about the time I was asked to read poetry at this art gallery shindig? Well I was taking this Poetry class last semester, and poetry classes at Columbia are little circles for ritzy elitist to jerk their jollies, quoting Shakespearian monologues while smoking Cuban cigars, so I always felt like a fool sitting amongst them, cuz I can jerk off at home. Well anywho, I had a spoken word artist in my class, this urban little white guy—and I loved him! Of course I wouldn’t leave him a message saying that, but I loved the spoken word artist, and in fact he was a fan of mine as well. So long story short he was running a non for profit organization for people of the arts and they were putting together a gallery or something and he liked me so much he wanted me to read at his function. They had my name printed on flyers and everything. So naturally I’m thinking its my time to show up and show out. I call all my peoples and everyone shows up to watch me read at the gallery thingy.

I and my entourage of family and friends were just about the only black people there. And if you don’t know my writing…I write about either being gay or black…and if I’m feeling spicy enough, I’ll write together the two. It just so happened the spoken word artist only knew of my writing from what I had written in class which never occurred to me until I sat on that stool in front of all those people at the gallery to read because not once in class had I ever brought those black and/or gay aspects of my myself into my writing in that class. So Tom, the spoken word artist had no idea the damage I was about to cause.

I had only prepared 3 poems and after looking at my audience of lipsticks and fur coats and heels with diamond studded watches that mirrored blonde hair, I knew then that none of my material was appropriate. I was about to scare these people. They just weren’t my audience. So I open my mouth, introduce myself—some listen some don’t, and I preface the first poem as being a work in progress which was my round about way of saying forgive me:

The sun is Made of Niggaz!

And I died. I died but I heard my mouth kept moving, so I assume I kept on reading. But the last visual I had of that evening was Tom’s jaw falling to the floor, and the last thing I heard where hearts breaking. THAT was embarrassing!—because I had two more poems to go.

I wound up calling Brown Boy who told me not to panic and call my boss back and explain the situation, apologize and take my ass on to work. I did. but she smiled at me all night long. Here was the poem if you were wondering how it finished.

Untitled

The sun is made of niggaz—
So I’m the one to die?
And this you tell me face to face for lies you hadn’t cared to hide behind
On a star who’d whisk me into the flaming
Torture, of the blackmen blazing,
Raging loud and louder raging
To stoke a fire forever flaming!—

Just to see me dance.

Pop and fizz you’d watch me
roll about the sun flick-flickering
breathing stopped
but you keep tinkering
hoping not
that I stopped breathing

Just to see me dance.

You’ll laugh until you’re flushed with soreness
For I am but fuel for the flame.
And condemn, you will, another man to madness
For niggaz all dance the same.

Dear D-man,

2006-03-22T07:42:00.000-08:00

I have to pay the Love Card toady and I forgot my freaking password to the Bankone site, which is being taken over by Chase.com in a matter of days, and the bill is due tomorrow. Crap!

I’m on Spring Break!—which really isn’t a break from anything, with all the homework I owe. I’m behind what can be considered forty pages in my Fiction class, a few journal entries in my Critical Reading and Writing course….and a few responses to our online forums in my Poetry class… and its Wednesday…so the week is almost over…the only week we were given for spring break. So this morning, what I intend on doing, after I blog my fingers to a pulp, I am going to write some fiction so as I crawl my ass back to campus on Monday I’ll at least have something to turn in. Someone was telling me CTA, Chicago’s public transit system, was going on strike. Maybe that’ll bide me more “homework time”. I can only imagine the mayhem.

Anywho…I have this paper cut on the finger in between the middle finger and pinky. Does that finger have a name?—and I have a corn on my big toe, right foot. When I use to work at the ice cream shop, which would be the perfect opening to a novel, the markings of a good days work would be chocolate on the forearms and/or waffle cone batter on the sleeves and shoes, all of which were oblivious to you until you got home to shower because only when clean would you've been able to recognize how dirty the ice cream shop had made you... At the money factory, however, it seems to be the daily order of things to receive corns and paper cuts without ever having to exert yourself. So I assume when one does go above and beyond, and flip all the envelopes that desperately need flipping and count all the money there is to count, they’re hands are fixing to look like pulverized deli meats. And I have a paper cut. Yum!

Well, I was looking at my feet, which were pretty until this job, and had come to the realization that I could now never become a foot model. Which was really tough to get over (not)…but NOW I have a corn which means that NOW I can never make fun of “those other people” who have corns because NOW I’m of “those other people”. Crap! I’m happy this won’t weigh heavy on my self image, otherwise I’d be ruined. In essence work is okay. I’ve gotten faster at counting the money which is probably the highlight of my week. I prepped a 116 last night and a 157 on Monday, which means I managed 116 envelopes an hour yesterday and 157 envelopes on Monday…the money comes to us in envelopes. I don’t know if I’ve ever explained that portion of my job to you. Forgive the confusion. Just know that I’m getting much faster and much closer to “making rate”, which is another money factory term, of 200 envelopes per hour, per night.

RomiE and I are doing well. In fact he attempted a project I have due the Thursday I return from spring break, for my science class. What a man!—right?—so that’s well in to the works.

Last night, which is something I feel I need to address for myself more so than anyone else…last night I think I realized that we, RomiE and I “live” together or/ are living together. Shhhh!!! I’m still trying to digest it. I can't remember the last time i saw my mother, or that couch in the basement where I slept. This is heavy. The RomiE, the apartment, the bills, the solidifying a future—a wholesome future together. I think I’m thinking too much. But I saw the light in his face last night when I asked him were we, in fact, living together?... And the smile he gave served to answer my question better than any words he could have ever afforded. Yes.

Sincerely,

SunLyte

C'mon, you've Gotta be kidding me!!!

2006-03-06T13:36:00.000-08:00

I normally don't blog twice in a day but this I had to vent.

So I'm walking outta the house, heading for class, and just for fun I check my coat pocket for my Upass. I can't ride the bus to school without my Upass. So its not in my coat pocket, so I check my pants pocket, and so its not in my pants pocket. I'm like, okay, I'm cool. RomiE, in an attempt to keep me organized gave me this "purse", is what I call it, that’s stores all of my credits cards, ID's and such. So I'm like my Upass should be in there. I grab my purse, unzip it….and nothing, no Upass. So I freak, I started snatching looking behind shit, under shit, flipping covers under comforters and I can't find my Upass. I'm running late for class. So I then debate whether or not to even go.

If there was a quiz, I missed it, so why even bother, right? But then I realized I still have to go to work so I still had to find my Upass so I might as wel take my ass to class too, cuz if I was gonna not go to something today, I would not go to work but I have to, so I might as well take my black ass to class.

Fifteen minutes from that revelation I found my Upass…stuck in some miscellaneous crevice of my purse. ArGH!!!! Sorry about the house, RomiE. So I'm running down the street, pushing little kids outta the way, and there's no bus, AND its snowing, so I'm cold. SO I give the bus (the 75th) a few minutes, decide its not coming and start walking down to the other bus that actually drops me off in front of my school building (the number 14). I get mid way and the 75th street bus pulls up behind me. What a wasted walk. I get on it-it takes me to the end of the block where I get off to wait on the stop for the OTHER bus, the number 14. It doesn't come. There grows a crowd of people you would not believe and the freaking bus does not come. I'm tapping my shoes, I'm checking my watch, I'm counting sheep and the 14 doesn't show up. FUCK. Class starts at One o'clock, and here it is 12 forty something. It takes the number 14 at least 20 minutes to reach my school…and its no where in sight. So finally it shows up. But the crowd so thick on the street, it passes me up. FUCK! The next bus after that was a number 15, which doesn't go anywhere near my school but puts me in the vicinity to catch another bus that does, so I take it. Times ticking. I call my teacher, leave a message, tell him I'm gonna be late, and get off the fifteen and was just in time to actually catch a number 14 bus that was running behind it.

So I get to class twenty minutes late, and the only seat available is this seat next to the my teacher who is already in mid lecture about rhyming words, (it’s a poetry class). So I look at him, and he looks at me, and I swear this class is so boring, it borders torment. I fell asleep. I feel asleep so hard I heard my head knock against the table when it crashed. I woke up, class was damn near over. The teacher had paired everyone off in these little discussion groups and after I woke up he assigned me to this pair of white boys and I'm looking all stupid cuz I don't know what's going on and they're well into whatever the hell we were assigned and I'm like…yeah….I see.

Class end with my teacher announcing that our "Anthology projects" are due next week, and how he was looking forward to seeing what we came up with and I'm like FUCK! I thought that was dues last day of class, May 13…but misread the due date because OBVIOUSLY its due March 13. I'm going to fail something this semester. I just emailed another teacher about an extension on a paper that’s due this Wednesday. I won't be able to finish it. In my defense I was given the prompt for the wrong paper but did recognize it until last week and she gave us 3 weeks for this assignment. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Well she asked if I needed more time on the paper, and I was going to tell her no but in light of now having to pull together this other project I'm gonna need the time to focus. I am so tired of this already. I got my work station set up at RomiE's, I'm hoping things are gonna have to get better. They just have to.

I'm hoping.

Jennifer emailed me back. She sounded all excited about the idea of owning that camera and said Chris, her brother, another Photography was intending on purchasing the exact same model. I plan on calling her tomorrow. Right now, I need to think of poetry and lunch. ArGH!!!

Maybe Jenn's outta Town...

2006-03-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

Breakfast this morning was oatmeal. He, as in RomiE, ran off to work and I satyed home, at the new computer, which we set up this weekend and bought a brand new desk for. It sits in the media room i.e. the USE to be empty second bedroom—empty until we stuffed it full of desk and electronics. We also ordered the room a Futon and bought the bed a frame yesterday too. In fact this weekend was pretty much dedicated to getting stuff done. We got dishes, a blender, a toaster, new accents for the bathroom and a computer!—I have my homework station and RomiE can download his music without ever having to borrow the laptop from work EVER again. This is good. Things are happening.

So I found the camera that I THINK I wanna buy—a little more than I would’ve bargained for, but I think I can afford it. I’m sure this puts the I pod and Laptops on hold until further Junior year, but I think it’ll be worth it. I wanna get serious with my photography.

What has me liking this Camera, The Nikon D200, Is that the number of megapixels for the price are just outrageous. !0.2 megapixels for under 3 grand AND the camera comes with lens…most professional Digital SLR’s, if you didn’t know, don’t come with a lens, normally you have to buy the body of the camera and THEN shell out hundreds upon thousands of more dollars to buy a lens, and though this camera’s a meager pennies outta my price range this seems the better deal. I can’t imagine passing up a bargain. My mother use to buy candy coated raisins from a dark man in periwinkle blue seeling merchandise outside of the grocery store, just because they were cheap and on sale. They were nastiest things ever christened by artificial flavoring and brought no benefit to the household except during the holidays when we were able to unload our cargo of rainbow colored raisins to charity. All of that to say I’ve dealt with worse and I need a camera…so I’m thinking this might be it. I emailed Jennifer, from the OckenPhotography studio, whom I use to work with, about my decision and asked her for advice:

http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product_Code=NKN+D200%2fKIT&JRSource=zdnet.datafeed.NKN+D200%2fKIT#productTabDetails

THIS, Jennifer, is the camera i'm tempted to purchase. THIS, Jennifer, is the camera, i want you to teach me how to use, THIS, Jennifer, is the where i THINK i wanna begin learning all there is to know about digital photography so i can be a photo-snapping guru like you and the rest of the Oken clan! Jennifer!! Talk to me, Damnit!

Okay, so the issues i'm having with THIS camera is that its a tad bit outta my price range...maybe a couple of hundred bucks, but its only a couple hundred bucks is what i'm thinking..and i gotta job. Just my luck after saying that, they'll fire me next week, but we'll hope for the best, shall we. Anywho, on the Plus side (the side with all the plusses on it) its a 10.2 megapixels SLR for under three grand, so I'm excited AND it comes WITH a lens versus without... and from the many i've seen that seems to me a bargain. But who the hell am I, right? Because i no nothing about purchasing SLR's, it being all fancy and cheaper than what i've seen others to be, might not mean much.

What i do know is that i want a REAL camera, semi-pro to pro--none of that pick-off, wanna-be shit. I can't afford to upgrade every other year so I need to get what I can get NoW while i can afford to get it. Ya feel me, Jennie-baby?
Bottom line is I need to talk with the professionals! I NEED you! You're my resource. Advise me, Resource! Guide me, Resource!

Thank you for listening to my rant. I hope i haven't scared you. How were the weddings in February? Talk to you soon.

Ken

And she hasn’t emailed me back. Secretly I want her to direct me to something cheaper. Something just as nice but something even cheaper. I even checked on ebay for the camera and it was still pricy, and the sales I saw on ebay had the camera but without the lens. ARGH!!! I want this camera. ARGH!!! I want a camera… but this camera would be nice. Maybe Jenn's outta town...

D-man and the Munchkin Heels

2006-03-01T13:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday turned out perfect. I got to the clinic, they called my number and Low and Behold, I’m AidlesS! So now I can cut my wrist and bleed all over the children and only have to worry about staining their Girbaud because I, Ken Robert Williams am Aids free. Completely without aids!

I called RomiE immediately, who had gotten worried that something might have went wrong, but I’m negative. The counselor at the clinic showed me the little slip of paper, pointed to my name and showed me where it said I have no HIV causing antibodies in my blood…or something to that affect, and then said, You’re negative. I cried! I wound up texting DaRRyL the good news…and what I love about DaRRyL is that he responds to everything very DaRRyL-Like. I just never know what DaRRyL's gonna say and just when I think I know him and he’s been as innovative as one can possibly be, he spins his little head like a top and clicks his little munchkin heels and reminds me that DaRRyL isn’t one to be figured out. I love my D-man.

The word for today is Delayed

2006-02-28T07:40:00.000-08:00

I think I’m about to go to the “clinic” and pick up my test results—the HIV test I took all but a month ago, that I haven’t returned to receive the results. I don’t wanna go. I’m worried. My body’s been feeling a little fatigued lately…hopefully it’s due to early mornings and late evenings…and the weather. But I’ll see. We’ll see. I just told RomiE I was headed on the road to “Knowing”, I'm going to the clinic, I said—asked him to pray until I call with a response. ***ken sighs**He's been wanting me to go.

Well, keep your fingers crossed. I’m crossing my eyes, my ears, and toes, for that matter.

Where were you when 'Tasia sang Summertime?

2006-02-24T08:53:00.000-08:00

What’s up with American Idol. It’s like the third world power or something. I was talking to my DaRRyL this morning and he confirmed that, not only is Idol a three day a week gig, but the producers are dragging their feet with producing the final 15, 12, or 10 JUST to keep the show running—and they know America’s watching!

I use to be a dire Idol fan. I was of the days when Fantasia sang Summertime. I was at my parent’s house on the phone with Keith staring into the TV. My world use to shut down and cut off during the hours of Idol, and though I’ve grown past that, seeing that I’m at work during Idol time now, I’m pretty positive a large weight of the country still slows up to watch—but for three days? That’s insane!

I get this image of little children growing fat on the carpet in front of the television, sitting Indian-style or lying sideways propped up by an elbow. They're immobilized and don't blink, as not to miss a moment of Ryan Seacrest and his hair. The sun rises on ‘em and the sun sets on ‘em… and just as they swell into plush little balls of pork, stretching out their uniforms until the P in their Polo shirts pop off, America announces the winner. Interesting.

I wonder how many children don’t get conceived because of this three day blackout. I wonder in a few years will scientist ever classify this a phenomenon; I wonder will this ever escalate into talk-show topics: Husbands leaving wives who watch too much Idol and vice versa; newspaper headlines: America the 3 day Zombie. I can’t figure out the scheme of the show but AI is earnestly milking America, and just like little gluttons we gobble up the crumbs.

Absolute Hysteria!

2006-02-19T23:44:00.000-08:00

We took a number from our Asian gal pal, Walter White and found our evening occupied with baking cookies, RomiE and I—the house stunk of Pilsbury and chocolate.

Shopping went great yesterday! The Lesbian pulled through, as I knew she would and we loaded up her little car with every little goodie we could find. We hit at least four places, spent at least six hundred dollars and we got the cutest, most beautifulest set of flatware EVER!—from Tar’get, thank you very much.

So the house feels like love, now. Everyday, more and more, bit by bit, stone by unmitigated stone, this feels right, RomiE and I. I guess that’s what a kitchen full of yummies does to a couple. The house feels like love. We woke up this morning in love, folded in each others arms like fingers and he cooked us breakfast (with our shimmering new cookware, by the way); made my eggs fresh to order, grits, sausage, bacon, toast and all to think, this is what love looks like in the morning.**ken exhales*** Amazing.

My niece Peat-Peat, the baby, turned one today—and though I’m not big on birthdays, my older sister had a little gathering at the house for her last night. So after running ‘round town RomiE and I ran home, dropped off the goods, picked up the Lesbian and drove over to my parentalz where the festivities were held. My older sister cut some cake, Gakaa (the Lesbian) picked up some tacos and after the kids fell asleep we, the clan (Gakaa, the Lesbian, my sisters, RomiE and I) watched the Exorcist of Emily Rose. I love how everyone gets along, my little family and B/F. It was a beautiful night that bled well into a beautiful morning. Thank you Jehovah.

O, and did I mention RomiE kinda met my mother yesterday. We (Gakaa, the Lesbian, my sisters, RomiE and I) were all huddle up in my youngest sister's bedroom watching the movie and my mother peeked her head through the door. Praise the lord RomiE and I weren’t lip-locking but she saw ‘em... said hello and was non the wiser. I’ve been waiting for Kayla, my oldest niece, to blab her micro-motor off to May-ma (my mother). Kayla’s pretty indigenous for tattle-telling. And though I’ve been assured my parents “know” already I still would like to refer myself operating under the Don’t ask, Don’t tell Policy. If my parents don’t mention it, no matter how painstakingly obvious IT is… neither shall I. Clearly this is there way of saying, Ken, I don’t wanna talk about IT, so why force ‘em. Scary, huh?

I was finally able to get my scale yesterday. Yep!—another wonderful purchase at the beautiful land of Tar’get. Now I can keep track on how fat I’m getting. The goal for this year is to reach a clean 190lbs, which is like thirty pounds far into my future. But I’mma make it. I have faith. I believe in me!

Taking inventory on what we bought yesterday it’s easy to spot the things we’re missing. Personally, there’s just a couple utensils I just believe a kitchen’s gotta have… George Foreman Grill being one of them. But we need to pick up a blender, I need to make my smoothies, and I’ve got to get my Jack Lalanne’s Power Juicer Elite—I’ve had dreams about that juicer! Juicy dreams! So I've got to have it!

I also need to think about getting a few computers, one for the house and maybe a laptop for myself. I find myself needing to write in the most inopportune of times. Like for example: the shower; something hits me and I just have to jot it down before I forget—this, though, is probably a bad example, being that purchasing a laptop wouldn’t prevent that problem from happening. But you get my drift, I need a laptop. I also need to quiet my journaling at night like this. Bedtime is Mister Baby's time (LoL, I love this petname shyt. It's absolute hysteria). But Romie wants to get in some spoon time and I can’t be spooned hugged up to a keyboard. So I guess I’mma give ‘em a go at it. He’s such a cuddle-slut.

And Lord knows I love it!

Ciao!

My mesSy morning thoughts II: POisoN aND poO

2006-02-17T22:38:00.000-08:00

So its like 12 o’clock in the morning. I’ve just spent an hour reading, on the bottom of a cold bathtub, homework, and I don’t feel sleepy. I feel like there’s so much to do besides sleep… but haven’t figured out what. RomiE’s asleep—he was knocked out before I was able to locked myself up in the bathroom to read. My little Brown Baby’s tired **ken sighs*** Ahhhhhhhhh… Nite-nite, Brown baby. Did I tell you RomiE loved his Love Day present? The bear that I bought him for V-Day a.k.a. Love Day. He named him Rupert after Stewie’s teddy bear in Family Guy, and stood him home on the mantle of the fireplace, in the living room, like a trophy until he thought Rupert to get lonely by himself on the mantle, of the fireplace, in the living room, and before I could blink Rupert had graduated from the mantle of the fireplace in living room to the bedroom in the bed. When I find myself spending nights away from home, Rupert, I hear, “keeps my side pretty warm for me”. Have I created a monster? Could they be having an affair? RomiE has even called me at work to the business of: Rupert wanted to know if you were coming home tonight, using the bear as a method for voicing his own concerns of whether or not I’d be able to make it home. I can’t help but admire the syntax of our relationship. We poo in front of each other. In fact I make my way to the bathroom every time RomiE says he has to go JUST so I can be in the room when he does it. And we hold conversation. I make him talk to me. Great conversation!—I talk, he poo’s. Some of the most mentally stimulating material ever gets entertained in those i-watch-he-poo’s moments. And dare I say I love it. I do!

We’re going grocery shopping in the morning—well, correction… when daylight strikes. I’ve personally been itching to get this done for a while now. Those cabinets look like poor Ethiopian after having having split a single grain of rice amongst the family; starving. I get so sorry every time I open them, hoping at least some stray can of bean curd might’ve taken pity on their emptiness and crept in there bellies for the night, just to keep warm, just to quiet their grousing, the cabinets—but nothing. Supposedly, we’re borrowing my Lesbian’s car, the Gay-mobile, the Gakaa-mobile. She, as in Gakaa, is suppose to be dropping off her vehicle in the morning ‘bout 10ish so RomiE and I can scurry ‘round town and do our business. But I haven’t spoken to her all day. My fear is by me not having called her today, as a reminder for tomorrow, might’ve influenced the possibility of Gakaa having reason to forget… I should have called. I should have faith.

**ken sighs***Ahhhh… RomiE just rolled over on my leg. He’s even cuter when he’s cutting off circulation.

I’m not a vegetarian anymore! Well, in essence, and according to this book, I never was a “vegetarian”—eating fish “disqualified” me.**ken’s eyes roll*** Semantics. But maybe about a week or so ago I ate pork and, just today, followed that up with a Monte Cristo from Bennigan’s, which is nothing but a tempura fried ham sammich. My belly isn’t too happy about that, I’ve been fermenting the oxygen all day. The ozone is ruined!—complete an utter dismay! The people at work will never hear of this. Me turning back to meat?—to laugh! It sounds sinful. They nearly had a fit when they found out I was a…well, when they found out I didn’t eat meat. I guess they figured that only happened overseas, in third world countries, where luxuries such as meats aren’t privy to everyone with legs. Who in their right mind would choose to deprive such luxuries in the free world, right. Who?! You don’t eat no meat!—they’d say with their fingers gunning my face, as if I admitted to being a perv. It’s only meat, people. Calm down. Damn…no, I’m not the guy on the R. Kelley sex tapes, that my friends was R. Kelley, your children are safe with me! I just don’t eat meat. Get over it! Sue me. Boy, I tell ya, people get so bent outta shape about nothing. So I’ll wait to drop that bomb.

Lord knows I’ve already given them the “poison” speech. The speech where we’re all sitting at the lunch table and everyone’s chowing down on something dead, humming sing-alongs, belching cow bells and slurping sheep, and someone dares break over the sqeaming of little piggies being wretched apart in BLT to ask me (who isn’t eating a thing) with deer barnacles falling outta their mouths, did I care to share with them their meal.

Now, I’ve practiced this speech several times. Spent many years, before the days of my non meat eating, giving it. Its starts with me staring at the person, the imbecile who inadvertantly insists that I, Ken Robert Williams, would dare partake in such vile behavior as eating of the meat; partly empathetic, partly enraged. Giving everyone present a chance to witness my face, holding them, from hence forth, accountable on knowing to never again ask that question because this won’t be repeated, and with my right hand—because I’m right handed, cover my heart as if to declare: How dare you!— still partly empathetic, still partly enraged. Insulted! And in very slow paced sentences, as if I were adreesing an audience of delayed learners, I express what I call, my version of the answer “No” that hums to the tune of: I (period) Do (period) Not (period) Eat (period, look at their food, period) Poison (period).

And they instantly understand.

By the way, who won?—

2006-02-16T00:17:00.000-08:00

I got my baby back Super Bowl Sunday. RomiE, my baby, called me over to hang out, we had spent that prior Saturday together gunning down egg rolls and fried rice and he “claimed” he had so much fun Saturday that he wanted to continue the weekend and hang out again Sunday... I agreed. He had his little brothers car so we met up, grabbed a little lunch/dinner/coulda been breakfast, picked up a few movies and went back to his place. We’re sitting on his bed an ere goes that awkward silence that happens when there’s so much needing to be said but no one if anyone has the guts or gall enough to say it so to fill that awkward void of silence both parties just start yammering about dust bunnies and toe jam, much like this

—Yeah…so how many did you say you saw?

—‘Bout a billion of ‘em.

—You don’t say. A billion, huh?—them is a lot of dust bunnies. Did ya’ count ‘em all yur’self?

—Yeah. But hows 'bout that toe-jam?!

Literally he’s talking to me all about how many rhinestones it takes to sew something Prada and I’m talking about how great it is to be bulimic, neither of which were interesting…and we’re just rambling on, an on, an much to do about nothing until he sits up.

He tells me he wants me back. Matter of fact he reads me chapter twelve of B Boy Blues and says, Ken, my house isn’t a home without you; says he hasn’t been the same since I’ve been gone: he’s lost sleep, late to work, irritable… and that's when he gave me my invitation back home.

We celebrated our first Valentines Day this year. I got him a Buil-a-Bear and he gave a me a key to the apartment. Part of me is thinking: Wow...it hasn't sunk in yet. The other part is grinning a mouth full of false white... I'm home, you guys! I'm finally home!

Not for Jay

2006-02-05T07:49:00.000-08:00

O. My. God. Jay died. It feels like there’s almost a fight for people to make it outta their 20’s alive. Jay died…yesterday. He just made 23, if he was even that old. Just graduated college, just moved back with his family…he was just 23—and died. I know old people, misers even—plagued, crippled, grumpy…old people, who, by judging the stats, are past their expiration date…I don’t mean that, lord. I don’t mean that. I just can’t believe at 23 it’s time to go. Not for Jay—and Jay wasn’t particularly my favorite person in the world—you had to appreciate Jay for Jay, he wasn’t for everybody. He was one of those people that you always felt concerned about because he lived pretty raw. The “I don’t give a fuck” raw. And life whether we acknowledge it or not is risky business and living everyday on the edge as if it were your last, is how I felt Jay was living, isn’t as cool as it sounds. But not at 23. Not for Jay.

I’m one of those of people who, no matter the circumstance, find light in the darkest of corners—at least I try. I overlook a lot. I forgive a lot. I hope a lot, and probably pray more than I should—all of this to say, though I don’t think 23 is ever the right time for anyone to go—especially for anyone as alive as Jay was, but maybe it was best. Maybe before you die you’re given the decision not to by a tiny voice in the dark. Maybe letting himself go was a conscious decision after doing all the things he had cared to do, seeing all the places he cared to see, loving all the people that cared to love him back. I wonder how much of him, if not all of him, thought it was time…and let go.

It was to my understanding that he found out he was positive late this past summer. I would go to his funeral if I were asked—not only to pay respect but just because I don’t feel this too be true yet. He was Aaron’s best friend. And Aaron I consider like family. I wonder how he’s handling the news, if you can call something this distressing news.

Ciao.

Was this really about the badge?

2006-02-03T07:09:00.000-08:00

I would like to pay homage to how real my job is (though I’m just a temp). I use to work in an ice cream shop where I spent almost 3 years smiling over a sugar cone, scooping vanilla. See, that’s me smiling! But those years have long subsided and are considered dead now that I’m employed (as a temp) at the money factory. I got a work badge last night!—well, maybe the night before last. My first official work badge! A badge that operates all the elevators after hours, our own personal after hour elevators that go specifically to our floor, so I never have to go through security like the common visitor and get a pass again. NO!—no passes, thank you, I have a BADGE! My first badge ever! EVER (I’m beginning to like the word EVER)!

I refused to take my picture for my badge, which is funny because, thinking back, I don’t think they offered to take my picture. I don’t believe temps are afforded images on their badges—but I would’ve refused anyway, damnit—my hair is nappy. ...And did I tell you "Damon" (another feeble attempt of mine to issue another “false” name to a very not-so-false person) shaved. His head. I’ve noticed I got it really bad for bald heads. Brown Boy has a beautiful bald head…in fact, every guy that I’ve ever been serious about wore a pretty damn good bald head! Well except for… uhmmm….**thinking of a name replacement*** don’t wanna give away too many identities here… “Michael Shawn” who wasn’t “bald” but balding, so he was almost perfect. I’ve only been serious about 3 guys and by wind of Damon’s newest do, he looked as if he was auditioning for wife number 4. Understand, “Damon” is gorgeous with or without ever touching a razor, but believe you me, chile, when I say he walked through that door shining as brown as his black asS could shine, chile, if I wasn’t bound by proper workplace decorum I was going to pump Damon pregnant. ON the money!—cuz we work at the Money Factory i.e. we count the money. I was, hereby, going to impregnate “Damon” on the money. I don’t think Damon knows my affinity for a clean shaven head of brown. I don’t think Damon knows my affinity for him. But he sholl was gonna find out last night, chile!—cuz I was ready!

I was born to be radical, damnit!—I’m American!

2006-02-02T06:06:00.000-08:00

I was reading over my last post thinking: How rational of me. How accepting. Especially when I think this situation deserves WAY more attitude than what was given. I got on the train headed to work yesterday, after writing it, pisSed!—you could see the fumes steaming outta my ears, I was so pisSed. What a crock of hippie-shit! My right as a walking, talking, breathing, seeing, eating, pooing, brown boy loving-emotionally driven man is to be angry! And I will not allow my rationale to infringe upon my rights as a radical enthusiast of this country! I was born to be radical, damnit!—I’m American!

So, lemme reiterate…

I am NEVER, EVER—not in a million years, not a week from now, not tomorrow, EVER, in the eyes of everything pure and holy, saint and saintly, right or conditioned wrong!—EVER, blowing his job, her job, a job, my job, any job, NEVER giving into the slightest temptation (this is beginning to sound like a creed) of "the boy" and/OR his Pootie Tang, EVER again! EVER!

Have I made myself clear! **ken sighs***

The truth is Roger’s back in town…well, we’ll call him Roger **ken winks***. “Roger” was one of the three people on my, To Do, list, emphasis on the Do. Was meaning that Roger's name, along with the rest of the list, got scrapped after RomiE and I got together. Yesterday Romie hit me up on messenger, all buddy-buddy-like, and told me how he set himself up an Adam4Adam account. Personally, I don’t think I was ready to hear that, especially when ONE!!—I still can’t fathom sleeping with anyone else except for, maybe, the policeman and “Roger”—and I don’t intend on sleeping with either of them ANYtime soon; and Two: I’m sick. So maybe I’m jealous. RomiE gets to do whatever he wants with whomever he wants as I cheer from the sidelines WAY out in the bleachers: Yay, RomiE!

This isn’t a race to see who gets over whom the quickest. Love doesn’t die it only manifests and blah blah blah… This is not coolbeans. I lost my train of thought...

As RomiE’s EX turned friend I’m excited for him, provided I wish I could be doing it too. I feel obligated to coach him, in a way; prompt him to totally be himself for the next guy where he won’t have to look over his shoulder every time he wants to hit the club and light a cigarette, when he could just as easily date a clubbing smoker. It’s not fair of him to pretend. Likewise, this way, I don’t have explain why I visit Sweet Pea Keith or spend nights with my DaRRyL OR still converse with "Nate". So it’s about time I shave myself from this experience and see what life ailing decisions I make on my own before I get too gray to make them (have I said this already). It’s been a while since I’ve been able to think outside the influence of a relationship—so I’m excited for myself. Settling down just ain’t for everyone and maybe it's not for me. There are times when all I think about is reconciling with Jerome—the single world is a mesS. But if all I'm fearing is the single world, just like understanding that Jerome and I are going to move on in other relationships, I'll just have to get over it.**ken sighs***

Lemme call Roger…

BlesSed

2006-02-01T09:52:00.000-08:00

I’m infected! Virally! I’m virally infected! FUCK!! This totally ruins my self-image for the future. I had to go to “the” clinic today, one of those backwoodsy ordeals. The kind of place where the entrance is through the alley under a sign scribbled "Here" and you have to find the makeshift brick that opens the makeshift door. You could definitely tell who hadn’t been there before—the pink little girls with insecure faces, the kind, who at first glance, regretted ever losing their virginity to that guy who had knowingly fucked them full of aids. The kind that are too scared to set their purses on their laps afraid some trickster, laden with lice, might make off with it... leaving a trail of famine.

I got there pretty early this morning. I had DaRRyL wake me up around 6, which worked out perfect cuz he naturally rises at 5. I didn’t roll outta bed until half an hour later, hopped on the bus and rode my way uptown. I was at the clinic before it even opened searching for the “makeshift brick” when, at the stroke of 8, I was escorted by an officer into the building. I think they have their own police. Of course it took the doctors forever to see me, but I’m a beggar so I can’t choose (beggars can’t be choosers), no insurance?—no questions, no qualms! I sat, feet together, very patient, favorably hoping for the best. Eyes all virginistic…waiting my turn. And I guess outta everything possible to catch, what I have is pretty okay. I’m pretty okay. I feel okay…sorta. DaRRyL asked me, later when I got home and signed on messenger, how did I feel (or something to that nature) and I said, As best as one could feel with this condition, and so DaRRyL asked, Blessed?… And I guess…Yes. I feel very blessed. This won’t be the end of the world. Thank you Jehovah.

Since I was on a roll today I opted for an HIV test too. Get it all outta the way! Know my status and all that jazZ! Maybe I should wait to rejoice until after I get back those results. ~~It’ll just be my luck I not only have this but I’m positive too~~. Lets pray not. Everybody join hands. I’m taking classes off the rest of this week. I think I need time to reflect. A part of me feels ruined like I can never have sex again—I owe it too the world to never have sex again **ken sighs*** I need to get a hold of myself.

Ciao!

Momma, Don't make Me!

2006-01-31T09:34:00.000-08:00

Drats…so today I’m going to the “doctor”. I don’t wanna go! That’s it!—I’d rather stay home and wait this out, pop a bag of popcorn and watch a movie, read a book, do some homework! Something! Anything but go to the “doctor”. Please, Momma', don’t make me!

This is a picture of me on my first day of class this semester. My face always looks so busy. I mean really, them glasses, that hat…and good lord that nose. I gotta work on filming my face better. But I got my refund check from school this weekend, and what a mighty good check indeed. Yum! So I’m getting the camera, not too sure what brand and all that jazZ but it’s going to be a digital work of art. Oh, and I gotta pick up Photoshop too. Ebay, here I come!

Well lemme get outta here before I just don't go. **ken sighs***

Ciao!

Lemons, huh?— And you expect me to do what?

2006-01-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

Usually one of the first assignments in a Columbia College fiction class is the dream story. If you’ve gone through the program chances are (and I’m willing to bet) that you've been assigned to write at least five of those stories. I was never good with the dreams stories, I’m way too conventional a writer to write ‘em. But I’m always assigned.

The dream stories are the stories told with your hair down, without any inhibitions, disclaimers, reasoning, sense or logic—I’m talking persistent exaggeration. Cut throat. Gully. Gutsy. Ruthless; fertilizing the desert with a new born pigmy from Guinea and up springs pandemonium-type-shit. Outta control, crazy type-shit. I remember my first semester here, Fiction One—a total virgin to this type of serious approach to writing, I didn’t know how to go about writing a “dream story". Sure Felicia, my teacher, read a few examples, forged a few ideas but insisted that we let the idea to create fuel the only momentum we needed to pursue the assignment. What a crock of hippie-shit! I came out of my first dream story, in Felicia’s class, scared clear with a body of work that was soooo traditional it had a corset. I was too squeamish to write anything else. Low and behold five core courses later I have a better handle on who I am in relation to the “voice” (there goes that word again) of my work so now I feel able to write with that certain GRRRRRR: not appropriate for children under the age of 12. In fact looking back t’where I was then, t’where I am now…I’m proud to see change—a visible change. The me now wouldn’t have written what the me then did. To hell with censorship!—I say raise your quill and write!

Before, everyone’s stories read the same. It's always been boy meets girl, girl likes boy, boy climbs that ever-shimmering braid of streaked blonde hair and slays the menopausal dried prune of a dragon. They wed—he's knighted, she's queened; they pork—reproduce, he gets an office job in the city, she trains the offspring at home and they live happily…forever. Unimpressive, I know, right? We haven’t been given anything. When I open a book, or sit under that light at the dining table with my newspaper and/or magazine I’m looking to either be taught, entertained, or intrigued. I’m daring the author, of whatever material, to illustrate what I haven’t seen, gossip what I haven’t heard, prove what has yet been questioned, and let me know, with each line of your prose, who you are and be present in every word—make that connection. I wanna be connected! I’m expecting by sight of the last period in the last paragraph of the last page, after your last word has been punctuated therein lies a revelation of sorts.

Being an active writer myself I know the extremities, I know just how stressful it is having to cross reference every single idea in order to manifest at least one of those ideas into something “fresh”(my Beginning Poetry Workshop instructor uses the word fresh. I hate that word). And I’ve learned that searching for that fresh idea—that numero friggin’ uno, that no one’s ever committed to story is virtually impossible. Chances are Palahniuk’s probably written it. So I’ve gotten over it…suffice to say I won't ever find the needle in the haystack! So to put that burden on someone else would be most unfair. I’m understanding that the importance of reading rests not solely in respecting/enjoying the “ideas” being presented but in how those ideas are being told, the individuality of the storytelling. And what that does is allow for the same stories we grew up under to be resurrected and retold in a different voice, in a very different way.

What I like about time is that it affords change. Change my thinking! Journaling has always been that resource—that box full of little fortune cookies, in the back of my mind, where I pull most of my ideas/fiction from. I believe a successful writer is a writer that writes, a well-practiced writer, a well-rehearsed writer, a muddy, gutsy, undertaker-type son of a bitch! And always, if you can, use the word bitch. Bitch fits in just about every scenario except for the Bible (the Holy one). But, sure... I remember before I began writing how I refused to let my writing be dictated by how black I was or by how gay I was. I always figured such stories were already being told, who would care to listen to another black gay man ranting? I didn’t want to be that typical of a writer—to only conjure up sad love songs about my life in the Lifestyle. I wanted to reach a “broader public” (secret: I still don't know what that means). One with hair sparkles and pleated skirts sitting in diners with their legs crossed, sipping from coffee cups, I suppose. Boy, was I such a prude!

First rule of writing is to write whatever is taking your attention. Whatever comes to your mind, whatever your pen is itching to scratch, whatever story you’re ready to tell—tell it! Write it!—and write it until your fingers bleed with the best of your voice. So know yourself. You have to know yourself!

I don't go to fuck parties cuz I don't like getting fucked. I don't play in traffic because I don't like funerals and I don't eat carpet cuz it gives me the runs. I know myself!

When its a question of prose I love sentences. The long ones, the short ones... the compound sentences with semicolons and dashes with commas oozing from verb to pronoun. The fragmented ones. The one-worded ones. The ones without any punctuation at all, and the ones with too much. The well written ones, the ones not so well written. The rhyming ones, the complex ones, the ones underlined in green by Microsoft Word that has every grammatical error imaginable but reads oh so well. I. Love. Sentences.

Writing is a craft as much as it is an art. Grab that boy meets girl story and toss in a couple of aliens, add a few brewskies and weasel in the word bitch, and you’ve cooked yourself something authentic!

Its about reclaiming your platform and making the story your own! Taking charge of the lyricism (which is a very good word) and crafting your work. Know yourself! Think: How would I read?—and get that down on the paper because you can’t be able to thoroughly transpire those other awesome ideas (that Palahniks probably written) into Nobel Prize winning material until you’ve successfully mastered yourself. I believe as writers we have to remember that we are the product of our circumstances which is an experience just as relevant, if not more so, than any fictional idea ever created. So know yourself, and write what you know however you love it.

Did I lose focus!?

So I go into class prepared for when the instructor says : Dream story. Next class. 5 pages, pronto!—I'm prepared for scribing all those eccentric ideas—being consciously incorrect, chronologically abusive, maddening, zany, enthusiastically unrealistic, ballsy, ballistic, and totally without reason. Fiction at its purest! So imagine t’my surprise, will you, when we (the class) get assigned the Infamous dream story, due ‘top of class next Friday, with its gutsy allure stripped from the occassion.

Polly, my instructor, instead wants a real dreamt dream...untainted with all the extra. And I thought to myself: self: how droll… I dream in gray **ken sighs*** what fun is that!? You can't just give me lemons, I'mma skinny bitch, I can't make lemonade! We cain't cook!

Surely she'll learn, Damnit!

I Love my Brown Boy!

2006-01-25T13:47:00.000-08:00

I spent the night with my RomiE last night. Take THAT you evil demon spawn, WW! But it was time we most needed to share.

I went to lunch with him on Monday, I think it was... right after class and it was awkward talking to him without tagging every sentence with an I love you, at the end. We kept everything very simple, very nonchalant, very low key—no eye contact, stare at the ceiling, admire the art on the walls, eat briskly, talk about the weather; remind him it's cold. We had Sbarros for lunch, the pizza joint, in the food court area of his office building. Quaint.

He looked great—he did everything but shine like a penny, or gold coin, I love my RomiE, he is so brown **ken sighs***.

But I spent the night with him last night. I walked in the house and I could tell that he’d been smoking inside, a promise he intended to keep, until we broke up—he figured no use for it. The bedroom looked empty but familiar—all of my things had been returned to my parents house so I had nothing of mine there except for the slippers I gave him… and him. I told my little sister, whom I confide in often, that I was going to RomiE’s house last night. I almost promised her that RomiE suggested I come over so we can “talk” and end this foolishness, make up, and wake up to resume where we left off. But we didn’t.

We talked, Romie and I, but not about getting back together—he wanted to give me a sense of closure. He thought he owed it to me. We concluded faulting the principle of the issue. He realized I wasn’t budging on my decision and I realized he wasn’t either—no compromising, no deal, I guess. I love my Brown Boy. He kissed me last night, first time we had touched in what feels like an eternity. In fact, I was so busy feeling sangry (sad&angry=sangry) I hadn’t noticed I missed kissing him so much. He kissed me and I got t’thinking I might be looking head-first into a kissless future—a kissless future and no RomiE. So I kissed back. I’m sure neither of us expected to get as carried away as we did but I love my Brown Boy… and if I can’t get carried away with him then who can I get carried away with?...—my thoughts exactly. I love my Brown Boy.

Where's that Bobby Blake tape!?!?!

2006-01-22T06:55:00.000-08:00

So this is that Sunday before school begins, and yes Salliemae dispersed that good ol' gov'ment check. Betta had, Sallie! I think I might wind up changing the tempo of my entries… bring in some fictional material, mix it up a bit. This blog was purposed to assist me write through my classes this semester. Blogging keeps me conscious of my audience, which is “crucial” to writing—gotta know who you’re writing to, and it gives “the voice” a good workout—getting that (the voice) on the page, as they would say in the department. Fiction Department. My goal is to make page count—having to struggle the last few moments of the semester going blind at the computer trying to jerk off the remaining twenty pages has been my song for the past two semesters. It’s impossible!

I need to learn how to write through trying times and bad semesters, (cuz I'm a writer) so I blog! This is why you’ve been created. This is the age of discovery—I’m going to discover how to do this. With your help, whomever you are. My concern, though, for the semester is (and I always have a concern) is that I’m bearing more than I can carry. Instead of pacing myself and being practical about the semester I feel like I bulldogged my way through my schedule. I’m taking two fiction courses, no less than a hundred typed pages, I’m taking a history, a literature course, tutoring and a science—expecting a serious amount of writing for each class. I work five days a week, in school four days a week, weekends equal homework—its best that I don’t have a boyfriend walking into this, I’m looking at a lot of nonnegotiable reading. I’m growing my hair this semester and I’m trying to gain weight—I’mma busy little bee, at least I will be; school early in the morning, work late in the evenings. Keep your mind on task, Ken. Focus, Ken, focus. So there in a nutshell is it! No partying, no drinking, no smoking, no dro, no boys, no Brown Boy, no sex…well maybe a little Brown Boy… and BusS Loads of masturbation! No pun intended.

Watching the Dreams Die: Don't blink...

2006-01-20T11:41:00.000-08:00

What hurts most is watching the dreams die—having blueprinted the simplest of mornings to our entire future and having those same plans suddenly ripped apart… in my face…by his hands as if saying they weren’t good enough. I’m more disheartened than anything. I couldn’t look at him, I could fault him, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t blink. If I blinked I cried. If I cried I would keep crying. If I kept crying I couldn’t stand. If I couldn’t stand I couldn’t leave, and it was time for me to go—hail a cab and evaporate. I wanted to raise my voice in objections; this is arguable, Jerome, you cannot be serious! But he hadn’t flinched a whisker from the moment I walked through the door 'til I sped off on the bus the next morning. He knew what he going to tell me before he said it. He rehearsed it. This is how it is, he said—so diplomatic, so well-reasoned, We can’t continue this; as if this had never a meaning.

I picked up my things from his apartment last night; both trunks, my clothes and toothbrush. I had cried to the point of dehydration, face scummy with snot, holes worn under my eyes from wiping tear after tear after tear after tear. Ken, I begged myself, please say something—he picked up my trunk, Ken don’t let him take that trunk outta this apartment, and walked it to the car…Ken. I had to scream before I spoke—I had to scream because if I didn’t I woulda cursed at him and this wasn’t his doing. It was mine. On one side I feel if it wasn’t this issue that separated us it would’ve been another. I’ve just never seen something with so much potential die so hard so fast. He closed the car shut and suggested we be friends after this—he suggested/assumed I could possibly look at him without ever wanting him, talk to him without ever pleading for him, love him without ever loving him again. Damn, Jerome…damn. He suggested I forget how he sleeps and how breathes while he dreams. He suggested I forget how I was almost there, Jerome!—How I almost had it! I almost memorized your breathing!—and now you suggest I forget? You suggest I can handle the idea of you sharing what you called our bed and tolerate my successor calling you Brown Boy?...Brown Boy? You tell that bitch you’re my Brown Boy!

So be friends? Be friends but forget our home in Evanston, and forget the building, forget school and starting our own business, forget the dreams, Jerome? Our dreams?--and how you make me feel. Absurd!

But for you, Jerome?—anything…name it! It’s a power that you’ve always had yet never exercised! Exercise it!

You said, Jerome, not my words but yours, I will be here for you as much as you would like me to be, all you have to do is call and I will be there. Don’t lie t’me, Jerome!—because I want you here NOW. I’m still waiting for my invitation back home. I wanna come home, RomiE.

But promise me…please promise that on graduation day you sit in the middle between my family and friends, because that’s where you belong, and promise me… please promise that you’ll be standing beside me when I sign my first book, Jerome…and promise me… please promise that if this was true love that you fought your damnedest and if this is the product of all that potential and all that true love…so be it, but promise that you’re fighting with me… I can't see the keyboard, baby...I blinked.

I love you…
Ken

2006-01-19T10:33:00.000-08:00

i'm heart broken...

Admitting is the Prelude to Solution

2006-01-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

Okay…so life is hard…and no one tells you this—instead, they just shoot you out their shaft, wean you off their titty and raise you to run this marathon asking you to look both ways before crossing, because you might get hurt. They don’t/won’t/ haven’t/fail to inform you of the pillars cascading on the road, the gates needing to be climbed, the hurdles needing to be jumped—from day one rather it’s a race to get you on both feet as fast as feasible and evacuate the stadium, leading and leaving you on this "quest"...alone.

Being gay?—just as hard. For most it’s a life of mascara, hiding behind telephone poles and frayed wires, concealed and afraid, resting all laurels in the sanctity of the shadows, trusting in no one except for your shoulder, the only other person privy to your secrets. For a great fraction of others who rejoice in their preference, parade and take pride in their sex and sexuality its having to withstand the ridicule, living under the stereotype, surviving the eye cutting, tolerating the finger, the bashing, the Klan, their family… **ken sighs***more so their family. It’s a living that’s appropriated the Lifestyle—as Lifestyle of underground bathhouses, and public bush fucking. And then there’s the slim few—that slice of pie that sits easily misinterpreted because its always larger than it seems, who don’t hide but won’t advertise, are proud but won’t parade, who, if they could, flick the switch and be as normal as mom and dad had wished them to be, would. I’m a part of that fraction, however large or mundane that population actually is, if there was a pill—and though I’m more comfortable with myself nowadays—I would consider it.

There’s nothing beneath or above the rainbow that I dislike more so than what lies before and behind it; uncertainty. It can be argued, with great enthusiasm: straight people this and straight people that and straight people are just as uncertain if not more uncertain than the gays. And I would say to you that living the life of riley as a straight man doesn’t bare the same risks as living the Lifestyle as a gay one does. There are guards needing to be kept up like appearances and Prada purses. Those children under the rainbow that understand themselves to be either straight or bisexual because they walk the streets undetected and may sometimes dine on a plate twat are nevertheless still children under the rainbow.

I’m not healthy, for no one’s fault but my own. And I don’t offer this information for anything other than a mere tool for voicing the issues—get 'em out there, get 'em heard; admitting is the prelude to solution. I couldn’t tell you what’s wrong—I don’t know whats wrong. My goal right now is awknowledge the problem and submit a name to it, define it and take care of it. What I can say is if the Lifestyle was a more honest lifestyle, i.e. if our members treated each other like brethren rather than boy pussy, the liberties we deserve as a community would be given to us, not taken. But because we practice instead of preaching we only scar our chances of being viewed as anything legit. I wanna reach out and say my illnesS, if it is an illnesS, is due to someone neglecting who they truly are, and in that neglect havoc is spread, the community suffers and the Lifestyle is blamed. I shouldn't isolate this in saying "my illnesS", I'm speaking more holistically. In no way am I putting blame on anyone for whats happening to me—I accept full responsibility, but I find it all the more humorous how we refer to ourselves as a community when we don’t afford one another the proper communication.

I've been meaning to get this rubbish outta the way!

2006-01-15T00:34:00.000-08:00

Fine, I posted it! Finally! Wheew. This is a shot of moi and my beautiful entourage of Nieces (Kiwi & Peat-Peat) who came out to support me at this art-gallery-function-type-deal I was invited to read at. The photo was taken by my gay gal pal, Gakaa (Gah-Kah--soft on the A's). Thanx Guys!

is this what they meant by Chicagoans being overweight oversexed…

2006-01-13T09:37:00.000-08:00

I feel like I need to reintroduce myself! Hi… I’m Ken. Brown Boy’s beau. He seems to be quite the stellar blogger! That’s m’baby! ClasSesS are back in sesSioN the week after next so I need to call MisSeS Salliemae to see if she dispensed that good ol’ gov’ment loan! Palms need t'be greasSed! Gotta put that on the morning’s agenda.

1. Ken, call Salliemae!

But anywho, lets talk work. I have to be at work when the city shuts down. When ALL the buildings are emptied…and Chicago’s skyline is nothing but sheet metal, steel work, and glass—everyone’s rushing to get home. I swear it happens all at once. And they just flood the street, these people—briefcase to brown suit. The taxis are honking, pedestrians are throwing themselves against the light, busSesS are backed up for miles and these people are just steady coming—falling from the sky, inching their little way outta of the city whereas I’m fighting to get in. Let me by… please! I stepped on this one woman the other day. In my defense I didn’t see her!**ken winks*** What I think happened, in her struggle to maneuver through the crowd, I’m steady pacing, oblivious to anything 4ft and below and she’s strolling along side me pushing through the people. I pay her no mind because I'm steady pacing, she’s steady pushing; I pace, she pushes, I pace, she pushes, I pace, she pushes pushes pushes. She gets tired of having to work so hard, barely getting anywhere. She suddenly figures (I saw the light go off) it’s more strategic for her to jump in front of Mister Tall & Oblivious, me, assuming I’ll just stop and graciously let her in. I ain’t no Volvo!—I ain’t lettin’ you in not a DAMN thang! So she cuts in front of me and got stomped! MercilesSly. I wasn’t stopping! Risk my life, for her!?!—Get off the busS, Rosa. You must be crazy.

Killed her almost instantly, it did. I scraped the bottom of my shoe and scratched her off my conscience. There’s just too many people! Had I stopped in mid-street with a traveling herd of businesSmen behind me, I would’ve been killed! But that’s the risk you take, it seems, being downtown during rush hour. Toodalo.

To make it to work by 5, I leave the house about 3ish, allowing myself ample enough time for any sort of setback… i.e. CTA running behind schedule or having to whoop the asS of one of those filthy-mouthed, heathen Chicago Public School System children. They’re like litter, little jacked-up balls of paper dispensed on the side of the road…every friggin’ where, at the same time, on the same streets, flocking from one corner to the next! Utter madness! Why do brown children do this?—fight and curse and sag their jeans, demean, and disrespect?—and these girls? are light-years worse! Why? There’s an etiquette to being brown, damnit! Someone needs to teach these children before the next generation becomes a culture of halfwits and imbeciles. And the way these kids breed, the next generation is soon to follow.

2. Teach the children. STAT!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch! Where was I?
O’. Right. Work! So here I am, downtown, fisting my way in. The crowd’s buzzin’; I’m puzzled to where all these people are coming from, unconcerned to where they’re going as long as they get outta my way, and I stop to pasS this blind lady—old as the Koran. Since it was warm yesterday (Correction: warmer than its been), I assume her caretaker (or whomever) felt it viable to stick blind asS grandma in tank top and Speedos and splash her with a fat-asS bucket of rouge; The reasons why they should be fired: Next on Oprah, is an entirely different blog topic BUT not only was grandma blind beyond belief, underdressed, traveling a feverishly crowded street with only the aid of her “seeing-eye-cane” (I also own a separate set of reservations about blind people using sharp pointy sticks in order to see. What can you see with a stick?) and in danger; to add insult to injury Becky (the loser caretaker/bitter grandaughter) sent gramps wandering downtown with her kid sister, Dot. Sabotage!

I thought to myself: Self, they’re not gonna make it, are they? Somebody obviously sent them out here to die (i.e. Becky). I could see the headlines now: Slain on the Streets of Chicago: Tiny Tyke & Grandma. Casualty of War! The Perfect Murder…**ken sighs***Poor Dot. She was so little, looked like she just learned how to use them little legs. I kept wondering what evils could a blind old woman and toddler muster to deserve such treatment. None. I could think of nothing. Damn that Becky!—whoever you are. It felt like the appropriate opportunity to demonstrate a little civic duty, intervene with much needed intervention —bust out my mortal garbs and save ‘em... both, Grandma and baby. Suuuper Ken!

...But to save them meant to stop. And to stop meant being trampled by all those hurrying people rushing to get nowhere. I, too, was running late for another adventure at work. I wonder is this what they meant by Chicagoans being ~~overweight~~ oversexed…oversexed and over populated. I hope they’re okay!

3. Find Grandma and Dot.

My mesSy morning thoughts: Clearly Insecurity!

2006-01-11T10:56:00.000-08:00

I think I decided to grow my hair yesterday. I can't remember 'cuz I woke up angry at my hair this morning. But, sure—the decision’s been made! I’mma make it happen for twenty-o-six. Everyone seems to have these long, epic-length, novel-like new year resolution lists... sorta making me jealous. I want one!... So remind me to make one, ’kay?

I’ve been dating my RomiE for what today has marked as three loaded months! Loaded with surprise, mishaps, beer, controversy, beer, sex, smooches, sex and discovery. What I’ve discovered, as anyone else would’ve, spending as much time as RomiE and I do, are our differences. The dark doom clouds of the relationship, so to speak, but not so dark… just mere observation. For example he’s a cuddle slut, and I’m a cover hog. He raises the toilet seat and I sprinkle it. He drinks out of glasses and I guzzle from cartons. He wears slippers and I ruin socks. He has a cabinet full of smell-goods and I sometimes forget deodorant. I wondered was any of this "normal", me being the flaw. We woke up together one morning (which is just about everyday now) and he rolled his nose under my arm. You smell like a steak sammich, he said and kissed me goodmorning. I thought "wow, clever, RomiE equating my odors to food—food which he is fond of…steak sandwiches. It's a compliment, right?! He didn’t seem offended."

But I got t’thinking just where are my scruples!?!

Mama always said "save all flaws until after the wedding. After the wedding and not a moment before!" Of course she only advised this to her daughters and encouraged me, to otherwise, spray now and aim later. But being that I’ve found myself on the submissive end of a gay relationship (the bottom) I feel I should’ve been coached to withstand and with stain all of my urban, primitive, male instincts; the public crotch scratching, eating without utensil, the random bouts of “morning thunder”…all day. We’re not married yet!—And I might be forcing him to tolerate someone he's not ready to. Clearly this is my insecurity!

A part of me finds nothing flawful (which is a terrible word) about "morning thunder" in the afternoon to late evening. I’m a guy…doing very guy-like things. I shower, shit and pisS with a distinct regularity. Am I never to hold my penis again in liberation—joyful of the fact that I’m a male in a male dominated world. Should I practice my curtsy? This is different, I feel very different in this relationship.

And then there’s the other side, totally unprovoked by my RomiE, that wants to embody all the grandeur qualities of a Stepford wife who finds such acts as nose digging an eating the golden-green-gold, lewd and repulsive. There’s a part of me that knows he wants refinement, and I want to become that for him. I’m just not sure if refinement is me.

RomiE likes showing me off which is fine ‘cuz I make a very cute accessory—verrry cute. I was built for public appearances. We’ve been to parties, family gatherings, clubs, social events, his office…you name it, we’ve done iT! But that’s who I am when I’m on display... the Stepford wife. I’m good for that token smile and handshake; a few jokes to get the locals buzzin’ but that’s pretty much it unlesS you catch me on a good day and I’ll do fucKing standup! Get off the busS, Rosa. Get off the busS! I just worry about having to maintain that personality at home.

With those beans spilt I know my Mister Brown loves me for me. These were merely my messy morning thoughts for the blogging gay community—a little untidy…yes, I know.

Happy 3 month Anniversay, Baby!!

Hey, hon! Lets's talk Carpet: shag green Pudenda...

2006-01-10T07:18:00.000-08:00

I start a new job today and my nerves are busting through the roof. I’m nervous! NeedlesS to say my only motivation is paying the bills. Were there not bills needing to be polished off & slicked down with a little…how do you say?—cheddar! I would NOT be going.

My little sister turned 20 today! All hail to time ticking away. She’s a dusty old maid now. Better get her a rocking chair and cat! Which, by the way, is the purrrfect segue into this intimate case study of mine: The problem with lesbians…too much cat (and I say this with the utmost love for my same-gender-loving female breed. As queer as I am, gurLs in gLasS houses shan’t throw stones. I can’t afford to poke fun)! My best gal pal, Erica, who you’ll often hear me refer to as either Gakaa, pronounced Gah-Kah (soft on the A’s people, soft on the A’s), or the ever more clever of titles: the Lesbian, as if it were her royal birth rite; is in fact, you guessed iT—a lesbian! And not to generalize everything, but Erica makes lesbianism seem so hard, uptight, difficult…demanding. And I wonder if its due to having to eat all that carpet (arguably the problem with most straight men in America too)—all of that plush, crush, shag green pudenda. Talk about stuff that’ll make ya’ sicK!—(wheatgrasS, Alicia Keys, Million Dollar Baby and shag green pudenda? YuCK!). You’re telling me every time we get together, upon your request, I have to eat your carpet?—do you not see the irony here!?! Please, where’s the fun in that? And then you’re telling me if I don’t eat your carpet I have to risk damaging my pudenda by way of slapping “our carpets together” (like dolphins) until you have me buy a huge vibrating PiNk penis to penetrate you with, when instead we can easily wade in the bushes, spread eagle, until a real man falls in and porks us both pregnant. I don’t understand lesbianism. Silliest thing next to BET. There’s just no substitute for a healthy, sturdy, helping hunk of man meat—attached to a man!! It just ain’t proper without the man included.

Well, however the cookie crumbles, I just don’t get iT…but maybe it’s not for me to get. **ken sighs*** I love my Lesbian.

I'd Shake your Hand but...

2006-01-09T17:26:00.000-08:00

I’m a writer. At least that’s what I’m paying tuition to be called. I go to Columbia—Columbia College, the arts and media school in the armpit of downtown Chicago. If you’re ever in the vicinity and itching to take a look-see just follow the trail of blue-haired smokers, and more than likely it’s probably that building—that large, brick, mortuary of stresS and strangled art, floating on a cloud of nicotine.

I’ve lived in Chicago all my life. Only few and far between have I ever seen grasS grow beyond her borders and the times that I have: Detroit, San Diego, Venice, and a few pastures in between... the grasS still grew green which made little difference to me as I was never obligated to cut it. Yes, I am proficient in lawn mowing, as well!

In some circles I am considered an artist and if you talk to the right people they’d agree. Those that neglect art as being the epicenter of who and what I am are perpetrating and have no prior "Ken" experience and are thus considered the wrong people—discard their opinions. Immediately!

I’m walking in this bright and audacious New Year blind folded yet spirited. What’s suppose to transpire this year, and by "suppose to" I mean I’ve prayed relentlessly for it so I hope it to happen: I am to turn the delectable age of 23 in early October, I am to finish my sophomore year of school and god willing further pursue monogomy with my lover, enter my junior year, make enough moolah to begin repaying these loans, and devise a plan of action for the immediate years following Columbia. Graduate school, perhaps? Rome, here I come! I’m excited! There’s so much to be excited for! I have beautiful friends, a (moderatley) healthy family (provided they quit coughing), and I love living. Thank you, Jehovah!

So without further ado, may I please welcome you to, my home, my cyber abode of thoughts and fiction and whatever the hell else I bring to the table! 1544. Thanx!

Ciao!