Stars like grains of sand in my pocket.

THE KIND OF COMPLEX FRACTIONS THAT ARE IN NEED OF SIMPLIFICATION

2012-01-28T18:18:00.000-05:00

ABOUT LAST NIGHT…

No, this entry is not about the lame (but enjoyable, I think) 80’scomedy, but it is about the silent movie, “The Artist” that is playing at theRuth Sokolf Theater. Nebraska took me to see it on Friday night and it was rather nice date, complete with the awkward kiss good-night moment that I thought was cute. The entire evening had a really good feel to it and I am still smiling as I reflect on it as I am writing this. I wanted to mention this before I get into the internal discussion I was sharing with you about my observations on relationships and looking at the example that the Maybe Miss provides, especially since the secondary discussion is going to be a contradiction to the warmth of my Friday night.

I never really had the opportunity to go out on a real ‘date date’ when I was in high school. And though being on a military base is a lot like being a part of a big high school system with heavy firepower, I did not have many ‘date dates’ while I was enlisted, either. To be honest, my desire to really and truly ‘date’ someone probably was a factor in Tee Jay and I getting on as well as we did. We both knew we were attracted to one another physically, so instead of us worrying about that our relationship was one where things were able to develop organically.

Nebraska and I both knew that we were attracted to one another, even with our different personalities and reasons for our attraction. The hard part has been our getting to know one another in lieu of our own independent expectations of what things would be like between us. I have a lot of respect for her putting in the effort and commitment to our relationship and her trying to get a handle on me and my personality as well.

I think that we have gone to four movies together, two alone and two others with her daughters. The significance of the movies that we watched together is that they were both ‘Mark movies’, movies that I specifically wanted to see that exist outside the mainstream. The first movie, “Love in the Time of Cholera”, was purely unintentional (I think she wanted to catch "Michael Clayton" at the time ). Since we were supposed to go see a movie she had chose and I was just in a ‘follow’ mode, so I don’t know how we ended up in that theater. And “The Artist”, another one of the darlings of the film awards, was another of the type of movies that I am used to going alone to see. She mentioned that she wanted to see “The Artist” as well and why shouldn’t that be our first date of the New Year?

I brought the ‘Maybe Miss’ up because our relationship has begun to show itself as a clear example of when someone has not finished working through what they need to before they start a new relationship. The reason I am making this assumption is the timing of her dropping out and reappearing on the horizon. The winter holiday season is notable for a lot of things… bad turkey, crappy gifts, and drunks that last into the New Year and ruin more than a few resolutions on individual lists. But it is also the time of hope and promise for relationships, and whether it is new OR the rekindling of a past relationship. And it is the latter of this end-of-year observation upon which I am focused on right now.

When I met the Miss, I had just decided to open myself to someone without reservation. A little full of myself, I did sort of expect to move seamlessly from one status update to another, but I was only a little full of myself. Being confident isn’t the same as being cocky, so while I was impressed by her at first, the saw about ‘if things are seemingly too good to be true…’ kept hanging around in my thoughts. It wasn’t that I was necessarily looking for trouble as it was that there were conspicuous absences that made me say “hmmm…”

Since I am having trouble regaining my grasp on College Algebra (which did not prevent me from registering for the next math course for spring) and mucking along the boards to get going on my research paper, the Miss Maybe drew a shrug, and I kept on with what I was keeping on with.

Okay, maybe the kind of okey-doke that I suspect is being pulled is usually done by men, but that doesn’t mean that women can’t be equally as crappy. Now I could also be completely off, and that when she told me that she did not see us being able to go any further and now has had a change of heart, but really? You are expecting me to believe that?? Shee-oot, I still believe in the Knights of the Templars and the Tri-lateral Commission, and I am more Mulder than I am Scully, so…

IS “I DON’T KNOW” EVER AN ACCEPTABLE ANSWER?

Eh, not really, but when you are not going to change your course it is okay to not ponder on the things to your left or to your right. The only time you need to worry is when the objects in your mirror not only appear close but actually are, and if there is the a chance of a collision at an intersection. So for me, “I don’t know” means, “whatever I was doing before you were here, is what I am going to be doing after you leave,” and is a good enough answer to a question for me!

Besides I tend to look fondly on someone who is willing to go through a few thickets to walk with me anyway...

NOT A RULE… BUT IT IS A MAXIM WORTH OBSERVING

2012-01-26T20:28:00.000-05:00

LAST ENTRY WAS MAINLY FOR A SET UP

While I do feel remorse for some of the things I have done while I was ‘active’ on the dating scene, it isn’t that it was that difficult to ‘shake and bake’ and get someone out of their panties. For me it was less about my being a misogynistic predator as I feel that what happened was how I was observed changed. Though I am prolly a different cat from when I was 17 and headed for the Army, I don’t think I have essentially changed from the cat who was stuck in a sort of social limbo between ‘the freaks and geeks’ and ‘ the cool in-crowd’.

After all, I am the same eclectic, open-minded, fringe thinker that I have always been. I can see myself listening to the same kind of mopey, ironic, indie rock/electronic/classic rock music that I have listened to for most of my life. I still appreciate the opposing view before I disagree with whatever someone has to say and as always, I am willing to stand my ground even when I may have been wrong, and then admit to my mistake.

Now I don’t have a whole lot to say about my so-called love life because while it isn’t exactly non-existent, it has not become a first-tier priority for me. In fact, I don’t know what it would take for me to make a relationship something that is a part of my daily concerns. As much as I struggle with my classes I am not up for the monkey-shines and shenanigans that women play, and case in point was the mentioning of not just the ‘Maybe Miss’ popping up but the TIMING of her return to my life.

She slid out the back door in the middle of November, oddly enough, just when I thought things were about to ratchet up between us. Then, a few weeks into January I get the ‘howyadoin’’ email from her. Now I am wondering did anyone else catch the significance of the timing between our contacts? Trust me, there is and I will point out why some folks get all caught up when stuff like this happens.

Of course this would not be a Mark entry without a digression or two. In my Comp 2 class I am almost certain that there is a woman who has me on her wish list. I have caught her looking my way not because I am looking hers, but that I can ‘feel’ her looking at me. See, I sit in the front row on a diagonal from her seat. I have also made it rule to make sure I am vocal in whatever class I am in, so that the instructor knows that the cat with the injury is going to be a participating member of the class! So that means that while there is usually a reason to look at me as I am talking with the instructor or in the class discussion, still, I can tell when someone is looking AT me.

Last week she just happened to show me a picture of her ex-boyfriend when we broke off into workgroups… a cat of whom it could be said vaguely resembled me, as we both are big and athletic cats. Anywho, we were exchanging ideas and small talk in class until break time came and she got up to go outside. My comp class is on the second floor so that meant she had to walk downstairs and stand out in the brisk morning air… to smoke. WTF??

Were I doing any ‘active pinging’ in this quadrant, I guess I would have to put a red ‘X’ on the area where she would have been mapped. I haven’t hassled with a regular smoker since the 80’s and the ones who did smoke, Delta, Mookie and the SFC, really were not habitual, smoking once every so often for stress. At any rate, they did not smoke at the rate I once consumed Butterfingers!!

So I don’t lose anyone, the deal with smoking is a non-starter. That is one of the few things that absolutely make any relationship prohibitive for me. I mean, what, she is going to need one after we do the dirty and whatever? Dinner, on the way home from the movies..? What is THAT going to be like?

Back on track… so did anyone catch the significance of the ebb and flow to the Miss Maybe yet? Now your girl Deborrah Cooper would have you believe that only black men are capable of bullsh*t in a relationship but I am here to tell you that women smurf-up a lot of relationships too.

BUT IT IS ALWAYS EXPECTED WHEN YOU PLAY SO MANY ON THE ROAD

I really big on knowing as much as you can about your surroundings, knowing what kind of ‘grounds’ you are on whenever you are engaging a person in a relationship. Because I like to be ‘forward’ when it comes to meeting a woman, I scan and ‘ping’ to see if I can pick up the interest OR THE POSSIBLITLY OF INTEREST in a woman. Hey, just because I am cuddly does not mean I am not a predator myself! But just like a great white can run up on nearly everything in the sea but a killer whale so they steer clear when they see ‘em I ain’t so full of myself that I don’t know when I am not playing the game but am instead a piece on the board being moved!

When I met this woman I knew that I was not in a completely advantageous position when we encountered each other and that I put a lot into her good will in considering whether or not it would be worth me opening up. And I have to tell you that early into the dating that she showed up strong. I was impressed and I also thought that for sure, the possibility that she would be ‘different’ was strong.

Then came the reasons that make winning on the road so darned difficult… the restaurants are different, you are out of balance because the sights are different and you don’t know your way around. Could be a time change, traveling to a different time zone, and then ‘practice and preparation’ is skewed because you have to adjust for the facilities and its relation to where ‘the game is played’. So many niggling things that grow on the road along with the larger things that flat out become huge is a phenomenon that often occurs on the road.

What the previous paragraph translates to is that I had no way of confirming anything about her, well, not anything but crucial things that her early showing obscured me to. And since I don’t want anyone to think that it was sexual, I will say that it wasn’t anything remotely close to anything like that. But what she did was entered into the equation where I insert ‘character’ and the numbers began to look like Enron stock in the early 90’s.

But getting back to my football metaphor, she was like a mid-to-late second round draft choice, someone who may even slide into the 3^rd round having a good day at the draft combo and her stock rose beyond her actual performance resume. Once she gets into camp and into an actual game…

Now this is where so many of the women who go on to read stuff like “Surviving Dating”, do so and why they identify with the thin stereotypes of Tyler Perry fall into disarray. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out something isn’t exactly right, right? So why do women continue their relationship with someone who is not totally present or even giving them a reasonable facsimile of being there with you in the relationship?

DID YOU KNOW THAT ‘FRAISER’ WAS A..?

…political Tea Bagger? Jus’ sayin’…

...AND I AM STILL LURKING ABOUT..!

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

AND I HAVE BEEN SO TIRED

The week has been pretty long for a smurf! Not only do I have nothing to say (actually I do but you see why I said that in a few!) but I have finally figured out why my algebra class has vexed me… IT IS AN ACCELRATED CLASS! Each day I leave the class with the feeling that I would get this crap only if… but the instructor is not supposed to be taking it easy. She is a good instructor and I would recommend her to anyone, but it is going by a little fast for me.

Fortunately it isn’t a class for a grade… it is simply qualifying me for the college level math. So I am just going to pass the class and tighten my stuff up. I don’t like not doing better; but I am doing my best! Getting to the next class is going to be more than good enough for me.

Got to start doing some serious research for my Comp 2 paper… mine is going to be on why the death penalty should be abolished. I need to find 7 sources and the paper needs to be 8-10 pages. May as well get started now because February will fly by, especially with the weather here being a bit ‘softer’ than what my body is programmed for. There is very little snow on the ground and it was a 40 degree day in the 3^rd week of January. Can’t beat that!

From gestation to initialization, and now to actualization, the Nebraska Concept has been all about my earning another opportunity to live MY LIFE, the one that I envision myself living. Now that is meant to be in the present-tense as what that is evolves moment to moment as I continue to grow.

Some of the grounds concerning the concept have changed … for instance, I would speak of how I intended to dote on Nebraska and if things did not progress with her, then I would simply be a bachelor, chillin’ and doing my thing. At the time, I was not thinking that I would suffer my injury and having all the bumps and bruises that I endured in getting here, but I am here nonetheless, and Omaha has been quite alright by me!

While me and ‘braska have our ups and downs, I want to talk about why I did not think that I would be ‘actively pinging’ should that relationship not develop as I had hoped. It wasn’t that I would be so brokenhearted that I would not want to try to love again. One of the threads that I have strung along since I have begun my journal is that “at the entrance of another… the suck begins to occur to my life and my vision.” And that was what my desire for solitude was about. Not that I was “scared and scarred” by love, but I did not want to be distracted. I have been on the path I am on before and I would imagine how much energy it would take for a “whole” Mark to reach his goal. With my injury, how much prescient was that idea? Anywho, things morph and evolve and so have my plans. While I am more open to the idea of being in a relationship, over the summer last year, reasons why I did not want to bother with the “stickiness” of a relationship reared its head.

SEE, I TOLD YOU THERE WERE COMPLEXITIES

Before my injury I had simply grown weary of managing the different personalities that masqueraded as ‘unique’ but were more like a Tyler Perry character, and amalgamation of stereotypes and expectations that were marketed and imported into their mental hard drives. All of that is to say that each ‘unique’ personality trait was not really that ‘unique’ at all and just so darn boring in its predictability.

The girl who I did not give a nickname to because though I did like her and thought of her as a “keeper”, there is something special about the women here in Omaha. I don’t quite know what it is and that is fine. Because, there is a narrow spectrum of people that I can or am willing to let into my life, especially with me putting so much effort into making it happen. For instance…

Out of the blue the “Once Maybe Miss” hits me up via the e-mail… asking how a smurf’s been doing and talking about the holidays and all… you know, giving a cat the vague 411. Now despite my letting her know how much I thought of her she gave me what I will call, “the Cornhusker shake-off”. It was as subtle as an Acme™ anvil is to the Coyote, and it was another in what may be a series (collect all ten!) of unappealing characteristics among otherwise polite Nebraskan women.

Here is where the complexities get “complex” and I begin to remember why I did not think I would be dealing with the vagaries of women in general much less specifically. I mean, really… I ain’t saying what it is that has an odor… I just know that something smells!

For me, the clues are all about that there isn’t something completely jake with the lassies in Omaha but that is alright. Going back to my raison d’etre for being here and finding that ‘thing’ I am seeking…

In one of my entries I spoke about how there are immutable traits that a potential partner must have for me to consider a relationship with someone. They aren’t things that I am pleading for or requesting for; either they have them or they don’t.

School has reminded me that things aren’t okey-doke for me… but all still isn’t lost. Being by alone means that all or nearly all of my energies are marshaled towards targets that I have set for myself. And while it may seem like I am still running through complex thoughts, I am really not, as relative to how I used to see things. Instead of wondering like Mulder where everything connects and knows where the truth is, I shrug my shoulders and go on about my business.

With all that being said… I am going to get back to my work and I will be poking out when I take a break. Until then… see y’all later (unless I see you first!).

YEAH BOY… THAT'S RIGHT... IT’S THE SMURF YOU LOVE TO HATE..!

2012-01-17T20:26:00.000-05:00

HA, HA, THAT’S RIGHT… I’M THE SMURF YOU LOVE TO HATE

Okay, I really identify with Tebow… most of it is out of assumptions I have made about who he is and how he has dealt with acclaim and resentment. Can I ask you guys to tell me that you doubt that he won’t work his tail off to get better? Do you not believe he won’t take the tepid endorsement of John Elway, and Elway’s promise to work with him, and make the most of the opportunity as he can?

And then, if he DOESN’T make it as an NFL quarterback, do you think he will look back at what happened with bitterness? I do think that normal for even the most positive cat is to look back à la Sinatra… but who knows? Maybe it will make as small an impact on him to where it is something he never mentions. I think it is kind of like that for people that give it their all, you know? That is why when you have ‘clear eyes and a full heart’, that you simply cannot lose!

CORPORATE MEDIA IS A MUTHA-F*CKER

So the San Francisco 49’ers won a very exciting playoff game against the New Orleans Saints, with their athletic tight end, Vernon Davis, providing very clutch plays that directly contributed to their victory. You remember Vernon Davis, don’t you? If you read this blog regularly, you have a vague association perhaps. See, Vernon was the person that Mike Singletary unloaded on a couple of seasons ago and sent him to the locker room during a football game. “Can’t win with them,” the sports anchors on ESPN repeated with glee. But dontcha know honey pie, they took that ENTIRELY out of context? Or is it that they failed to provide context for Singletary’s statement.

Making a point of how during the same season, a few weeks if not the very next week, both coach and player were seen hugging it out after a tough, hard fought victory. In the off-season, Davis would admit to being a little unprofessional and saying that he prolly needed to mature more.

So let me get this straight… because unless I have missed something and let me tell you, I was at first looking for a reason to not like ‘Timm-uh’, when and where did he thank his God for a victory? Skimming his book, he has seen first-hand where God is doing his work, using him as a vessel for those efforts. I don’t believe that as humble as Tim Tebow is that he would flat out ask for God to help him on the football field.

You are going to have to provide a quote and reference for the quote because I am not buying it. I have only caught him close… and I mean close, not even crossing that line, where he publicly admitted to asking ‘you-know-who’ for help on the field. But even then…

BECAUSE SHE BREAKS THINGS DOWN SO MUCH BETTER THAN ME

Sherry has producedanother entry that I can connect with as she finds a way to describe what it is like to experience problems with your nervous system among the other breakdowns that go on with her disability. And unlike a lot of folks who can only bemoan their plight, she has a dignity that keeps me coming back to be there for her. Even though I am sure that we’d have a difference of opinion on certain things, they do not merit any reason to not care about her and wish that I could ‘be there now’ if she needed a friend or something.

I so totally get “The Thin Line” she talks about here… in fact, I am standing on one of mine as I write this. If I could describe “the static” that plagues me as eloquently as she does with her “Thin Line”, I would. But every time I have tried, it seems whiny and I don’t think of myself as a whiner. Besides, I am too busy trying to draw on lessons from my small successes to the lessons gleaned from others, well-known or not, to concentrate on putting my thoughts to my condition. The entry I made about my ‘what’s what’ islike only the third time I have ever looked at my full diagnosis… and I would have let Nebraska read it and even ask me about it but… an-knee-WHO..!

Because my experience has been one in which whenever I have spoken to what is confounding me or affects me personally, I receive shrugs of indifference. It has happened too long for me to reasonably expect anything different, and yet…

I enjoy being a positive force for not only others but for myself as well. The time for butterflies is before the lights go on and the curtain rises. After that, it is all ‘get into character’ and be what you are.

Got back the most recent quiz in College Algebra… and when the early birds arrived and started their good-natured ‘math is hard talk’, I spoke up. I told them that, “… I know that I am struggling and I spend enough time in the Math Lab getting help, so when I sit down and I am taking the quiz, I can’t think anything BUT that I got everything right!” Of course the conversation returned to their friendly but for real PMS’ing about the class and how it is structured. I got quiet and tried to pull myself together. It was a hard day, forgetting this, not ready for that, but guess what? I showed up and that is more than half the battle right there!

AND I THINK TIM TEBOW SHOWS UP A LOT, TOO

It is sooo easy, too easy I think, for people to give in and let things seep into whoever they could be, whoever they would like to be, and allow for the moment to get to them. After a awhile of doing this, it becomes easier and easier. And then what do you have?

Like I said, show me where he said “Thank you Lord for leading us to victory,” so I can change my opinion of him. Link me up to where he stood in front of a horde of microphones and cameras and begin talking about “the Lord this,” and “the Lord that,” when I know the HE KNOWS that God create them so different that they don’t even relate to one another. I mean if he is this Jesus-crazed Christian that the eff-ed press wants you to think he is, don’t let me wallow in my ignorance, hook me up!

What do I mean about “showing up”? Despite some events that were contrary to what I am going to assert about myself, my ex-wife still prolly gets moist thinking about a cat, and not just because of my “athleticism in the bedroom”. She knows and I think she really knows that I could be so much more when it comes to being a partner. I already have a love for her little girl that I don’t like to consider BJ as ‘her girl’ alone. That is my daughter’s oldest sister and for the first 4-5 years of BJ’s life, she was my ONLY daughter. There are other episodes that I just don’t care to mention that would leave an indelible and positive mark on her heart with regards to her 1^st husband…

…and one of the biggest qualities is the same kind of “be there” qualities that Tim Tebow has demonstrated on the football field. He commands a certain respect that when you ask defensive players in the NFL about him (as Sports Illustrated has) that they “give it up” for him. My ex-wife understand that there aren’t many people who would do what I did do to try to make our marriage work, which was quit boxing, and be happy with the decision, NO REGRETS. The biggest reason that it hangs around is that when I need a go-to reason for not wanting to have a date or anything that will be it.

OH NO, I’VE SAID TOO MUCH…

Sorry for boring y’all, but the Tebow thing, it hits close. It seems like people are creating out of cloth and fashioning a reason to ~~hate~~ not like Tim Tebow. I understand if folks on the ‘God Squad’ give you pause. Hey, the cats in the LDS hook ups on their bike creeps me out and the same for those folks who knock on your doors on Saturday mornings.

But I like to think that Tim Tebow, once you are his friend, you remain his friend. You could call on him and at 3 a.m. he’d drive to your house, with a tarp and a shovel in his trunk. The same way that I’d do (well, I would carry the shovel on my bike and the tarp would be in my back-pack but you get the picture) if it was needed…

Now when he starts talking about those things that I can’t accept, then I will deal with that. But Tim, not all the hypocrites and false Christians you know or have contact with, when he begins to be this person, I will look at him again. But I won’t let a manipulative media tell me what to think or describe to me something that I can plainly see for myself with my own two eyes…

WHAT’S WRONG WITH PICTURES OF KITTENS AND PUPPIES? YOU REALLY DON’T LOVE YOUR GRANDMA?? AND WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA SO MUCH???

2012-01-17T06:02:00.001-05:00

PRELUDE:

Had I know that this would have caught my notice the way that it has, I’d have used this topic to have discussed the last ‘Rules to Live By’ post that I made. You cannot convince me that Tim Tebow does not seem to embody the ideal expressed in the rule that states, “There is a time in a battle where both sides may consider themselves beaten. Then he who continues the attack wins.” During his winning streak there were several games that weren’t only dramatic comebacks but so unlikely that perhaps there was something… aw, that wasn’t it. Circumstances, fate, randomness, those are the things that are in evidence in life. But so is will, determination, and stick-to-itiveness.

Now at some point and time I may have to establish distance or at least create a buffer between me and Mr. Tebow, sort of like the one that those who support Coach Joe Paterno have to create, so that they can justify to themselves their allegiance to him along with his negligence in this matter. Recently I heard a clarification on why Jerry Sandusky was stripped of his ‘coach-in-waiting’ status in the late 90’s. Usually when someone is considered a CIN, they usually maintain that status until the head coaching position opens up. But Sandusky curiously was taken out of consideration because it was felt that he devoted too much time to the Second Mile foundation that he was a part of. Odd that this also came AFTER the first occurrence of Sandusky’s abuse, the one that involved the Asst. head coach and the 10-year old boy, where the assistant said he heard ‘smacking sounds’ (in one story) coming from the shower where he KNEW Sandusky was in with the kid. And don’t play like you don’t know… you most certainly can tell the difference between smacking sounds and ‘smacking sounds’. The assistant claimed he had a hard time telling Paterno exactly what he suspected, but I feel that somehow the news got out. So, from top lieutenant to bam! Hit the bricks is a big, big jump don’t you think? I am afraid that there is more mess to come out and if Watergate did nothing, it made clear that the cover up is often worse than the crime. But in this case, the old saying isn’t true. In fact, this is the kind of cover-up that keeps victimizing its victims.

POLAR ICING FIGURES (language advisory)

Before I was a cat with three daughters with three different women, I was a smart, sort of effeminate, bougie black kid who was seen as having no street cred. Not only that, I was seen as a ‘wanna be’ and in all my travels, I don’t think there is a place worse than the Motor to be called ‘an oreo’. But there I was, growing up in a place that was so not into soft brothers, trying to be whoever it is I was going to be. So I have had a long career of being someone who is a polarizing figure, and that it was an experience I gained even before I knew I was a polarizing figure. I have told myself that this is a time where being a little ignorant actually did me good, because instead of trying to hide and conceal myself, I have learned to appreciate and grow with who I am.

Polarizing figures tend to make us react and see ourselves in a different way, and for some, it is drenched in self-righteousness and for others it is fraught with ignorance. Then there are some for whom it is a case of misguided ignorance, where they are aware that there may be more to something but conveniently ignores this possibility, so that they can maintain an air of ‘plausible deniability’. Tim Tebow is one of those people who benefits from the ignorance of both his haters and supporters, and who remains a lightning rod of a figure.

One of the things that I wonder is how many people who are rational, generally clear-headed thinkers, are so outrageously wrong about Tebow. Unless I missed something, he does NOT ask God to help him win games, at least as much as it is out of line for asking of the Lord. In looking up the topic, there is too much for me to try to include in this entry and you are either going to have to research the topic yourself or trust that I did due diligence, cause I am not going to be linking you to anything. If you are a follower of a Christian faith, you are supposed to ask for exactly what you want to be delivered unto you. And there goes the freakin’ logical fallacy of God being too busy to intercede in a football game. I could never do something like that, but then again, I am not among the faithful. Those who are, it is their rules so guess the fuck what, IT IS COMPLETELY OKAY. It does not say that since Cindy Lou says God is too busy that he can’t stoop to helping you win the game or for the bake sale to be successful. So I wonder why people who aren’t ‘in the club’, feel compelled to say what Tim Tebow’s God will or won’t do. God kills grandma, innocent babies, allows for seal cubs to be brutally clubbed to death and for the mega-rich who were central in the global financial meltdown to go free. So go the f*ck figure, alright? Either you believe and follow the rules or you don’t. But you can’t impose your understanding of the rules when you have chosen not to play the game at all. Sounds about right to me… whether it is fair or not, well honey pie, you go ahead and run down to the safety of you cynical crowds. I would rather make up my own mind, thank you very much.

I don’t like Faux News for the same reason I am so staunch in this area regarding the public face of Tim Tebow. Roger Ailes has a better echoplex than Bootsy Collins, but the right isn’t the only side that are guilty of circular logic. Those who consider themselves intellectual and liberal thinkers need to stop listening to each other and allow for different voices to be heard.

As often and as scrupulously as I follow Tebow’s comments, I find NO EVIDENCE of his proclaiming anything in the name other than the opportunity he has to do what he does. I think once or twice he has slipped but DAMN MAN, he has to hear the same questions said different ways, and more than one of those asking the questions are trying to catch him the heck up. Geez Lousie Lasser, Mary f*ckin’ Hartman!!

EVERY MAN ALONE IS SINCERE, BUT AT THE ENTRANCE OF A SECOND PERSON…

While I have mentioned my ‘less-than-good’ qualities to demonstrate I am not a holier than thou, but thoughtful Utopian smarty-pants also need to get over themselves. One of the things that makes the demonization of the elite class is that they are as out-of-touch with the masses as they themselves accuse others of being. If good intentions meant something tangible, I think I’d be rich. This isn’t saying that they have no value, but let’s be honest –no matter how much butter or sugar you add to them, they still leave a cat hungry. That said…

CONCEIT TIME..!

Because I identify with the dilemma that Tim Tebow places on society, I feel like I get what the problem is. See, he is pigeon-holed and with him spilling over into the boxes in the ‘ice tray of character and personality cults’, folks have a problem making sense of who he is (he’s Timmy dammit! I thought you knew!!), just as folks have a problem figuring me out, given some of the meme’s society has created for some aspects of my life. The only reason I believe people are shockingly surprised is because they have closed themselves to whatever caricature they have of me, and that is how they judge me.

For an allegedly open-minded group of people, these same thinking folks are closed off when it comes to something they either don’t like or think that they can’t be wrong about. As Tim Tebow is NOW, not later when he runs for senate as a super-retro candidate in favor of outlawing abortions, repatriation of illegal aliens, and forcing the coloreds to use separate rest rooms and pick the lettuce that Pedro isn’t being allowed to pick. It bothers me because people treat him so unfairly and use the same kind of logic they reject when other use it to justify the oppositions position, and I have had to face that kind of sh*t for a long time. It is f*cked up and people lose out on what could be possible if only they allowed themselves to let their thoughts breathe a little.

THE BURNT TOAST AXIOM

This is the type of thing that I latch on and hold onto in my personal relationship. How close can you expect to become with someone when you know they are unwilling to look into something that is so damn facile. And you want to be a part of my life? Vainglorious! How do I tell myself that we are going to have a great relationship when the leading indicators show differently? I blew that reading with my starter wife, and as much as I regret losing Tee Jay, I would rather have been wrong about her, forfeiting happiness and love, than to risk spending the time in hell of discovering I am correct about a ‘rules violator’.

Why this is an axiom is actually attached to a life rule which I will get into later… and this will be the last of my super-black market essays on Tim Tebow and the horrible hypocrisy of the hater class.

COME ON IN AND HAVE A SEAT... HERE IS A SNACK AND A DRINK...

2012-01-15T12:10:00.000-05:00

WELCOME TO MY MINDHOUSE

Okay… my last algebra test was a case of ‘fail better’. I mean, I made sure to go to the Math Lab where I am expected at 9 o’clock every morning Mon – Thursday… next week, it will be time to hit the writing lab which I don’t frequent as much, but enough to where I heard one of the tutors asking someone about me… and if you don’t know why a person of the opposite sex is inquiring someone secretly about you, then I may need to give instruction on “how to pick up hints and clues before you make allegations,” entry!

Sometimes I wonder if I am a little delusional (wink,wink!) because I left school Thursday after grinding through my quiz thinking that I may have scored 100%! I ALWAYS leave taking tests thinking that I have gotten every question right because that is just how I do!! I think that people are off-put by my confidence and faith because I have confidence and faith! The way that I see it, if you put in the work and believe in the efforts you have made, then you get to expect the best of all results.

I sit and talk to people when they are concerned about things and I ask them if they believe in the work that they did, did they follow the processes to arrive at their answers as they were taught? Always, if they answered ‘yes’, I tell them to ‘worry less’. I know that is what I do!!

Taking the quiz, I erase and make sure that I go back over the steps … including solving for ‘x’. If things check out, then the ‘glove fits’, I move on to the next problem. That is why I always leave the room thinking that I have gotten all the questions correct!

In my comp class we are reading our claims aloud and getting feedback from our classmates. In order to get sincere and honest feedback on my paper, I FIRST contribute and participate in commenting on others, legitimately telling people that their papers sound intriguing and the thing is, it is the truth! I am really looking forward to the papers and I hope I get to read as many of them as possible. I think in a class of 19, only one, maybe two, may be clunkers. The rest are not only interesting topics but seem to be in very capable hands. I am actually looking forward to seeing what is on other peoples mind, even the conservative views that I may have quibbles with. They seem like they have strong feelings that I can learn from.

ONE OF THE MANY, MANY REASONS THAT I THINK FOLKS ARE ABSURD AND EITHER HAVE THEIR HEADS IN THE GROUND OR UP THEIR A$$

I suddenly sprouted between 8^th and 9^th grades. Folks still did not think I was ‘black like them’ but fewer were inclined to voice their opinions to my face. Shoulders rounded, biceps cut, a lot of thought had to go into the decision on whether or not to f*ck with me, and so they didn’t. And the reason I said that is to say…

… I get to talk like I do because not only do I have the ability to present my argument but if things devolves… p-p-p-pow! It’s welcome to the gun show! But more importantly, it secures my well reasoned argument, or so I believe. It allows me to project my opinion in a way that compels people to consider my claims, if nothing else. That is another thing that being confident allows me to be, to take up positions no matter how dicey they are, and secure and remain there, often making the other party either concede or reconsider what they thought.

But that is me… not only do I have the ability to persuade people but I am also willing to be persuaded myself. My opinion about Christopher Hitchens formed itself prior to my injury and it came with me as I catalogued my thoughts. Then I mentioned something to Beth about how I felt about ‘Hitch’ as she affectionately refers to him as, and do you know what I did after that? I researched more of his writing, watched some interviews and you do you know what happened? I saw him in a different light and am now inclined to agree with her (mostly) on Hitchens and his legacy.

You see what I did there? I took a position, researched the other side of that position, and weighed what I thought I knew against what I would learn. And voila, I learned something and gained a better understanding about the things that I did not know or had bad intel on about Hitchens.

Regular readers know that I feel that Ron Paul and the faux-New Objectivism that many of the utopianism that they espouses are wrong headed. One, many of them haven’t even SEEN the movie ‘The Fountainhead’ let alone read the book. And yeah, I am going to go to Redbox and rent ‘Atlas Shrugged’ to make sure the concepts of Objectivism are still as off-the-mark as I believe they are. But I won’t sit and wallow in my opinion without first at least TRYING to figure why ‘they’ say what they do and why I SAY what I do.

ARE YOU STILL WITH ME?

Currently I am on a Tim Tebow rant. I am doing well, if still going through ups and downs with my pal, mon amie, l'objet de monaffection, le facteur décisif de mon passage à Omaha, Nebraska. Maybe we will get things right and maybe we won’t. C’est la vie! Talked about my school and getting ready to do my Pell Grant. And you are now up to date on your brother from another mother!

What gets me about Tebow is how uncomfortable people are with what they THINK about him, about the things that they feel about him because he is making them question their beliefs… and THEY ARE NOT DOING THE DAMN THINKING. They may as well be back in the 50’s and thinking that the blacks are doing fine because they have their own stores and their own shops to go to (eh, there might be a case made, but not in this blog, and not today to be certain) and neighborhoods and schools where there are other people like them. And for real, that is the depth to their thinking (or so the Germans would have you believe) is limited by their preconceived notions about folks who aren’t scared to proclaim who they are or what they believe. Maybe it is intimidating, I don’t know, and that is because I don’t care (and from me, I don’t care means ‘I don’t care’ and establishes how little I feel about the opposing view). I want to ask you a question… do you any of you like the Baltimore Ravens? How about Ray Lewis?? He is a great linebacker and for sure a first ballot Hall-of-Famer. He was an All-American at the University of Miami, and played on a Super Bowl-winning team.

Lots and lots of folks like him, including people that I like. So because of them, I want the Ravens to do well, especially since I really don’t have a ‘dog in the fight’ this season. Go Ravens and Reverend Ray Lewis, who also watched a friend of his murder someone at a Super Bowl, killing a father and a son, someone who was struggling through life with his children’s Mother and decided to go hang out with his fellas when the Super Bowl was in Atlanta.

So… whether there is cheering for the Ravens or for Ray Lewis, how come there isn’t as much demonization of him for his profession of Christ, especially when it comes conveniently AFTER he watched his friend LITERALLY kill a man outside of the limousine they were riding in. A friend he would go on to obfuscate in his testimony, raising enough doubt to keep a murderer out of jail. And what does my man Tim do in his free time? You mean working in impoverished countries and helping out? Is that what everyone is upset about?

See, go on and invest some consideration and weigh your choices. Enough of y’all voted for ‘W’ and will prolly vote for some of the unelectables that the GOP will foist upon the electorate out of alligenance to whatever excuse you claim instead of real policy.

1500 +

And I still have more to say about the conundrum that I see because of Tim Tebow. I won’t let you haters of that freakin’ easy! I am about to personalize it, so I will return to ‘journaling’ and not spitting into the wind despite having it blow back into my face….

Tim Tebow and the Great Unwashed

2012-01-15T02:09:00.000-05:00

THE HATERS CAN ONLY KEEP ON HATING

Paraphrasing a quote said after Sonny Liston (and THAT is the cat in my profile pic..! But I like the ‘Santa Mark’ moniker..!) destroyed Floyd Patterson the first time, the New England Patriots win over the Denver Broncos once again showed that in a fair fight between good-and-evil, that evil must win. Let’s see… the Patriots have been found recording their opponents signals which is against the rules and have skirted the edges of several other rules. So lessee… are we really going to be thrilled and excited that Denver lost and we can make like Edward G. Robinson and join in a chorus of “Where’s your God now Tim?” If people only knew, but that is why Jesus Christ asked that we were spared, for we don’t know what the f*ck we are doing OR talking about.

As a brother who still wonders why Rod Gerald didn’t get drafted or why it was so hard for Doug Williams after the trail blazed by the like of Joe Gilliam and James Harris (oh, my a** about links… look up the names for yourselves if you care to) before cats like Randall Cunningham and Warren Moon took black professional quarterbacking to a new level of acceptance, the quarterback of Tim was the way brothers played the game. So some, but not all of the tension that black critics have towards ‘Timm-uh’, is because of deep resentment over the pigeon-holing brothers have endured. Now, there is a little more to say about black quarterback that won’t fit in this post. But since ‘sports’ here are seen as a metaphor for ‘life’, I am sure it will come up again. But other than Michael Vick, it STILL took 40 freakin’ years to allow someone with Tim’s skill set to play the position as a professional and partly, and with great reluctance, shape an offense around those skills. So to all the brothers (and sisters if you are one!), get the hell over it. It isn’t like they kept brothers who were runners before they were passers (again, paging Mike Vick) completely out of the game. Just the ones who did not have that quality that Tebow possess, and that is all.

While I am not sure exactly how highly touted Tim was going into college, I do know that he was much heralded going into Florida. Like most major major colleges, Florida had a bunch of talented kids go there to find themselves behind other talented, occasionally even more talented kids. And Tim Tebow is no different and if you did a Wiki on ‘Chris Leak’, you will find out why Tebow played FULLBACK for most of he freshmen year in Gainsville. Didn’t know that you say? Oh, I don’t doubt it… because of all the ‘jibber-jabber’ about how he is fortunate because they would not let black quarterback play that way back in the day, and how he still needs to work on his passing and progression reading of defenses… and how his ‘intangibles’ still should not mean he should deserve a starting position in the NFL at quarterback. But why did Matthew Stafford, whose stats coming out of college were questionable if not prohibitive, get the chance to start out of college… and as much as a winner Andy Dalton was at TCU, Tebow won in the SEC, for goodness sake!

Moving right along… so Tebow split time and played another position to get out on the field, when he got the chance to play quarterback, he performed at a high level AND inspired his team. And I don’t think that the Gators were a non-secular bunch of cats, do you? But after their loss to Ole Miss, Tim Tebow felt empowered enough to speak for not only him but the team at a press conference, where he promised that he would work harder than anyone and that he would push his team to work harder than any other team. Do you know who is allowed to speak out for others like that in team sports? The UNQUESTIONED LEADER is. Period. The head coach at the time, Urban Meyer did not think it was out of place and did not say anything contrary to what Tebow said and never undermined the speech at all.

Listen to me closely. If you or I had been on his team and if he, as the hardest worker and most accomplished cat on the team, had called everyone one out like that, don’t you know you have two choices; work hard or quit. He was going to push you until your heart burst. Is there anything wrong about someone who wants you to push to reach your potential? Teachers, coaches, supervisors, mentors, whoever, does this each and every day… and guess what? Not all of their beliefs are compatible with their mentored pupils or employees. Is THAT soo bad?

WHAT DO YOU THINK IT MEANS WHEN YOU GET …?

…To be the captain of a ship? As Phife said, if that is what you are, then you have to go down with it! Tebow has shown that he is willing to go down with it his men!

For sure, if I had to be pushed by anyone it would be someone like Tim, whose work ethic an SUCCESS were such that they were unimpeachable. Today’s game mean that New England is a better team right now, and that is all. End of story.

BECAUSE I KNOW YOU WANT ME TO TALK ABOUT THAT…

So I am going to talk about this. Is Tebow really asking for God to help him win a football game? Has he ever given God credit for more than giving him and his teammates the ability to win the game? Think on that… because the closest I think he has came isn’t when he makes such a statement but when some cynical a-hole projects those words and that sentiment on him. With his life spent doing ‘good missionary’ work as a teen around the world, he is uniquely aware of God having better things to do than help him win a football game. Or does he..?

Yet another reason that I am hard on myself is that I AM THE ONE WHO ISN’T HELPING MYSELF. Whether it was in my starter marriage or with Mookie Dee, I never got help because I WAS NOT HELPING MYSELF. Once I started putting my nose to the grindstone and dealing with my ‘what’s what’, do you know what happened? People started helping me out, whether it was with words of encouragement, prayer or material things, help came once I started to do something to help myself. I don’t know about you but do you get the feeling that Tim Tebow plays the victim card and waits for someone to come along and give him something, anything? Then because he is always preparing himself, if you DO give him something, he gets out and he does what he has been doing for most of the football season, he gets to working and making stuff happen.

SO FREAKIN’ THERE

I don’t apologize for Tim Tebow as much as I shed light and let people make their choices. Again, one of the many reasons that the cat is so polarizing is that the projection of piety done to him by the resentful, and the cheering of the sheep, who contradict scriptures by not doing unto others as they would have done unto themselves, just rub and creates a problem.

This would not be such a passionate display if there were not so many negative things hurled at the false image of Tebow that people create. Is he as ‘good’ a human being in human beings eyes as he is in God’s? I don’t think I would get my panties in a bunch regarding Tim if I thought that people did not weigh his positive traits as if they were noble gasses, and they thought that their perspective were free from bias… because it isn’t. hell, I don’t think the question is about his religion as much as it is a question of our own individual morality.

Quit hating on Tim because he would go save Private Ryan AND find a way back to the rear, Private Ryan and his squad intact! And unlike folks who hate Tim Tebow and the Christians that love him, Tim seems to remains the same. And his ‘the same’ is still a better person than many cane imagine themselves to be..!

IT CAN'T BE THE SAME AS IT EVER WAS

2012-01-13T22:03:00.000-05:00

LETTING THE DAYS GO BY…

Prologue:

The reason that it is a good sign for me to be able to draw motivation from what I am reading is that it is a signal that part of me is ‘the same as it ever was’ harks back to one of the Nietzsche quotes that I have dropped often (enough) in my blog.

“The formula for my happiness: A yes, a no, a straight line, a goal.”

Whenever you are reading this blog, you have to keep this in mind. I can empathize and provide succor for someone who enduring a particularly challenging trial for them. And I place empathis on the ‘them’ aspect of my empathy, because it is not for me to judge but it is for me to respect and give space to them and their emotions. A quote that has been attributed most often to Plato, governs how I approach every single person I encounter which is, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” This is philosophy that is often forgotten in open society, or if it appears to be adhered, it is only a superficial cover for the moment that they can ‘whatever’. Be ‘whatever’ a reveal of their lack of sensitivity to the homeless man that perhaps a little dignity could tip the balance of their lives, or the nods of understanding they claim for minorities that disappears in the salon’s of the well-to-do.

My last entry was written without much editing or proofing. While some of the small errors, like a –s here and a misspelling there are just par for the course, the ‘You Don’t Want To Go There’ segment read like a mess when I actually read what I had wrote, which wasn’t until after I posted it!

I meant to indicate that Tee Jay was comfortable with whatever light I had left on for the Delta Girl, having explained how I think and approach relationships. Other than Delta becoming a little uncertain when I looked like I was going to REALLY reach ‘the next level’ with my boxing, I did not have anything bad to say about her. And there is more to her story that is only to be whispered in my mind, so that I won’t forget what to do should I have someone in my life that fills my heart as those two women did.

Now, this is a prologue to this entry, which I was able to write after reading Sherry’s entry about her condition. I haven’t directly spoken to what’s what for me, but today I feel rather irie and today is the day that I do!

AND YOU MAY FIND YOURSELF IN ANOTHER PART OF THE WORLD

Now with this injury gaining notice because of what has taken place with our soldiers and more fair-skinned and revenue generating athletes, this my injury which goes by so many different names that I leave it at either TBI or CBTE and just go from there. Whenever it has came to providing a full description whether in general or specific to me, I get not just evasive, but super-black market vague because I don’t want to become more aware of what is going on with me. After all, I knew it was possible for most of my career.

I think that the super-interest in the condition grew out of the loss of millions in sports, when a star quarterback or linebacker was found to be suffering from problems with concussions. Before it was just for punch-drunk boxers and shell-shocked soldiers, especially since it was either a result of ‘service of the country’ or just some poor ‘spic or ‘smurf’ from either the barrio or the hood. But when cats like Troy Aikman and most recently Sidney Crosby… eh, y’all are big kids so you get the inference I am making. But let us not get lost in the politics of the condition and back to me!

Okay, I knew that there was a chance that this could show up on my path since I was 15 or 16, and I was sparring with a cat and got dinged. It was a different kind of ‘ding’ and I am going to leave it at that, only to say it was after that sparring session when I made the commitment to become a boxer.

When it comes to the ends of my career, the feelings that it has provided me with and the experiences that I have had are, to me, well worth the cost. Because I believe in what I do about my life, that my outcomes would have possibly been different if I had the kind of support at the start or earlier in my career at the crossroads of crucial conflicts that I would have been able to take different paths that may have led to different destinations…

… but I kept those for another day and knowing all the while how way can lead on to way… I own the travels down the path that I am on. What made Sherry’s post especially relevant is that today was a long day. My body feels as if it is revolting against me as I pushed through the cold (though it is cold, it simply is NOT the same kind of cold … but the wind is a little different, so there is that), a chill that I felt through the sinew and ligaments that hold my body together, and I was able to get back into the house and fall into my bed, home safely, with all the things that I took out of the house coming back with me, along with the peace and quiet that comes from being in a spot of serenity for me.

THE MULTI-AXIAL CLASSIFICATIONS

Axis I – Cognitive Disorder NOS, 294.9

Mooddisorder 293.83, Depressed Secondary to Cognitive Changes

Axis V – Current GAF: 50

There are other details on the Axis scale that would call to mind the things that I have believed all along with regards to ‘the environment’. That part of my diagnosis refers to my physical health and the kind of supports that I have at home in my life, which is why I don’t simply have ‘wants’ of a possible partner but needs that are non-negotiable. I don’t worry about what I am, because I know what that is. What I don’t know is what YOU are and until I do, I can’t let you into my life.

I spoke about how sister girls who happen to be single mothers are so full of that fact that they present their status like a badge or some sort of certificate that confers something or the freakin’ other unto them… adds to their wisdom and sense of responsibility. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate or feel that they a single Mom should not be noted, but hell, for a great many of them, it was a choice that had they figured out in ‘high school what they wanted’, they could have better prepared themselves for.

The smugness of this classification of women has conferred upon them is laughable. As it is, most of it is comes from an inflated self-worth. But I don’t have to get all into that as much as things are taken out of my hands. What I mean by that is pretty simple… the needs that I require of a partner aren’t things that can be displayed ‘sometimes’ or when it is convenient. In my assessment of why women in general and sister girls in particular, find themselves vulnerable and at risk, fearing to participate fully in a relationship, I think it is because of their own issues. They hide behind their children, their sense of entitlement, and ‘past good works’, which could not have been too good, and stupid rules that are reinforced through the media.

Look, I cannot help if ‘you’ cannot trust your judgment in such matters. I do trust mine and whether one questions my results or not, I can make a decision that is clear and precise. I do think I still that I am able to make good choices… I need to kick things up to make better ones.

Well, this is about as much as I can speak about what is going on with me. Diminished cognitive functions mean that I don’t have to put up with someone and their BS. I make my choice (for instance, to maintain my bearing with Mookie Dee and her cheatin’ heart) and then live by it. Just like I have aimed at for most of my life, but when I can reinforce my choices like this, I don’t even have to provide an external or internal reason. It is what it is.

RANDOM THOUGHT OR YOU COULD SAY THAT THIS POST IS A ...

2012-01-12T20:56:00.000-05:00

NON SEQUITUR

Right now this is my favorite song by the band Explosions In The Sky (EITS). Usually the video I would use for this song is another of the band’s live performance that is more emo than this one. This is a subdued, quiet, sonic introspection. This performance has a more considered sound to it, thoughtful even.
Midterms are next week and the college algebra has given me a flux. It reminds me that everything isn’t functioning the way that it should, mainly because of the mistakes that I make in the details of problem solving. Errors like skipping the order of operations, not changing the signs from positive to negative and vice versa, the frustrating kinds of mistakes that I KNOW that I never used to make. Because of those kinds of mistakes I haven’t reach out to anyone for help online because those aren’t the kinds of errors that anyone can instruct away.

Lessee… did I mention that Nebraska and I hung out New Year’s? It was a time well spent and I know that I really enjoyed her company and it was a mutual feeling. We are still working through our differences to remain in touch with each other. Not a lot more to elaborate on regarding our relationship or any other person, at least not at this time. One of the things that I have reaffirmed is that the window has been ‘narrowed’ when it comes to a significant other entering my life. My impairment won’t allow for things that are either contrary to my understanding or things that cannot be defended within reason, sensibly. Even if on the surface it would seem to make no sense at all.

WANT AN EXAMPLE..? WELL, HERE HOW IT GOES..!

My lovely ex-wife ‘friended’ me on Facebook. I was more than a little stunned when I saw her name in my in-box, but I went ahead and accepted her and while she hasn’t commented or anything, she is one of ‘tens of twenties’ that I have accepted and the thing is, my reason makes perfect sense to me.

First off, she knows how ‘crazy’ I am, so she should be able to handle the posts that I make that lean on the more obtuse in observations. If she can’t handle them, hey, she would not be the FIRST to ‘unlike’ me.

Second, she HAD to have been urged by our daughter to 'friend' me. While there is the possibility that the twins may have said something to her, I doubt that a conversation with any of my younger sisters (and I am including stinky-a$$ Jan too) would have that much influence. Seeing her name after the world stopped spinning, I thought about the advantages to our relationship.

I almost have to go back home, so maybe this thawing will encourage her to arrange or at least work with me on a sit-down with me and Skye. Who knows? The one thing I do know is that the ‘Foghorn Leghorn’ aspect of my personality, the fun-loving annoying a-hole, looks forward to whatever games she has planned. After our meet at the Friend of the Court, I could tell that she still has passionate feelings for me… maybe even to where she has pictured reconciliation or something between us. Ha-ha, it is to but laugh!! Maybe Skye and I won’t have anything facilitated by her Mom and me being ‘friends’ but I think I would feel good knowing that I turned over yet another stone to improve our relationship.

Oh, as to the possibility of ANYTHING happening between us… look, I am not drunk enough for her to take advantage of me and I don’t think it is safe to for me to consume the amount of alcohol it would take for that to happen.

I really wonder why people hate on Tim Tebow? If it was the more conservative, regressive associations that he had alone, I could dig it. But I still want to ask if the way that so many have reconciled their feelings for Michael Vick, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and too many baseball and football players to list, doesn’t make them feel a ‘teensy-weensy’ bit like a hypocritical hater?

This kind of contrast is all over the place in our culture, most of it negative. How did Newt Gingrich get to where he is in public life as much of a fat f*ck he has been in life? Or is the contradiction that we had a draft dodger to lead us into war? Charles Barkley was quoted somewhere as saying that Tebow’s act has gotten ‘tired’. I think it has a lot more to do with his being an example of someone who is ‘failing better’ at being the ideal that they have of their own self-image. He knows who he is and I think that is a threat that brings people out of the woodwork, quick to point out what he ‘can’t be’ and ‘who he isn’t’, ignoring that, and like the world devourer Galactus, Tim can “…be no more nor can he dare to be any less,” than who he was, is and intends to be. I think that he would bring enough to my life to mitigate whatever differences of anything we have, and that is part of the give and take of any relationship, is not?

WHEN IT COMES TO PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE OPPOSITE SEX…

If I have to struggle with anything, it is with what I can envision without any unnecessary degree of difficulty. There isn’t much to the kinds of things that I don’t agree with and are non-starters when it comes to negotiation in a prospective relationship. Not only do my needs warrant a certain kind of person, but I also demand a certain priority level in that relationship.

When a woman (fresh on my mind since I spoke of my starter wife) has to inform you of how important that their children are, the first thing I register is fear. I used to diagnose fear of what, but now that I have overriding needs and concerns of my own to deal with, I don’t care what they are scared or what they have been through… after all, and say it with me, they can, “Keep their problems to themselves, kid, I gots my own.” Should I care, I mean really give credence to what went down with them and some other alley cat? Nope, I never have, not after the intros and reveals that take place in the getting to know you phase of the relationship. And when it comes to me…

YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO GO THERE

In dating Tee Jay, she used to tease me in ‘that way’ about Delta Girl. I did not have anything bad to say, other than when it looked like I was going to turn a corner and go further ‘uptown’ in my career and she went all daffy on me. I guess that is why we did so well as a boxing couple… she knew what not to do. Not only that, she took ownership of her role in my career, as our plans involved my success being OUR success. So it isn’t surprising that we did well in winning the number of fights that we did.

And it also remains little surprise that I have not had that kind of support since that time. Could extrapolate as to ‘why’, but this is really pushing my limit and I thought I did not have much to say! I am SO TIRED, that I have to ask ‘how long can this go on?’

DO YOU LIVE WHAT YOU SAY? ARE YOU GOING TO SIT THERE AND LET YOUR LIFE PASS YOU BY?? WHEN DO YOU START DOING AND STOP DREAMING???

2012-01-09T22:06:00.000-05:00

AND I KNOW YOU ARE NOT SURPRISED...

I have some homework to get done and could make an entry about this term, and maybe this will be it. Now, where when I began keeping this journal and made mistakes, I attribute them more to fatigue and ‘brain cramps’ rather than the ‘static’ that kept me from writing and daresay functioning, to my highest capacity. It stems from a theory that I am finally putting into testing here in Omaha, the secondary reasoning that brought me here. This entry will touch on that but first let’s talk about some Tim Tebow.

The only time I was ever deployed in a military action, the operation resembled the same kind of operation that Bubba and Forrest got dropped into the ‘Nam in the movie (no, if you don’t know which movie I am talking about, then you don’t deserve a link to it!) only the difference was my deployment remained like that and it was not relatively short, it WAS short!! I don’t even mention that I went there and got a badge for it because it really wasn’t much. But what made it memorable wasn’t the mission but the readiness required of the troops involved.

Another young soldier, nerves telling him he was gung-ho about going, but I knew freakin’ better than that. I was a young soldier too, and the story had already been written and I knew how it COULD end. My goal became NOT letting the story end that way, at least not for me!

So I told the talky scared cat to “…shut the ‘eff-up, because I did not want to hear what he had to say, I am trying to listen to what the older cats who had been through this stuff are saying!” They knew what they were getting into and I didn’t, so let them do what they know, talk what they know, so I could learn and ‘know’ what they did about where we were going.

Now that we have entered the era of Orwell’s continuous war without end, I realize how fortunate I was for my era of military service. I did warn my sister about enlisting, but if you grew up in Detroit, it sorta felt, especially at the time, that it was a ‘six of one, half-dozen of the other’ kind of decision. The one thing that definitely tipped the scale was the opportunity to take similar risks to remaining at home, only there were benefits that merited the risk at hand. Or so it did to me at the time. Anywho, ‘knowing the environment’ is not only a question to ask for external discovery but for internal introspection as well. How prepared ARE you for where you think you want to go?

YEAH, I GOT IT FROM THOMAS… AND..?

I don’t think it is surprising that this video appealed to me, all these free spirited people, who were brought together by a unknown spirit. Thing about this ‘spirit’ is that it is accessible to all and it does not have to necessarily be one that involves the kind of ‘whatever’ that takes place at a Burning Man festival. To each his own, I say, and to the places that they are going. They don’t have to be the same as mine, because they are up to the individual. But in the concept of a loveship, a partnership, this gets lost as one or even both parties lack the wisdom and capacity to share of themselves and allow for a goal, singular, to be shared and become ‘goals’, plural.

One of the benefits of my injury is that I don’t equivocate with my beliefs, my faiths and my philosophy. I can share what makes up these things but there isn’t much give on any of them. “If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense,” is another way of asking “what’s my motivation?” when it comes to this ‘someone who is that someone’. See, one of the things that I discovered while with Mookie Dee, is that as much as I may have lost due to the permanence of my ability to access information, I still have more than the average cat or kitten. That said, I don’t have any reason to concede on any level of personal relationship status, too much of anything.

I am willing to take and live with the decisions that are generated by the troika of my being. If I came out west and discovered ‘hell on earth’ then damn bro, you are caught short! Hey, I am the captain of this ship and if it goes down, then down I go with it!! But I am not, NOT, going to concede points based on logical fallacies, myths and ‘tales told around the fire’.

My experience has been one where I have learned two things. One, don’t compromise on my dreams, no matter what. Being ‘attractive’ or what-the-hell-ever was a bonus in my life. I did not expect it at least not at the level it has reached currently, to be a big factor in my life. I was willing do my thing and let ‘way lead me unto way’expecting I journeyed down the paths that I would take.

And if “Miss What’s Happening” is unable to provide conceptual leadership when it comes to the direction of our relationship, then she will need to ‘guard her grill and knuckle up’ because I have got a plan and this is how it is going down. And this is part of the reason that I do admire Tim Tebow… and it is something that I have mention in several of my ‘sports as life’ entries. When your best player or player who is in a high profile position, also happens to be your hardest work and the first one to encourage teammates, then he earns the rank of ‘team leader’.

Now I don’t think that Tebow is the team leader… on the Denver Broncos, Champ Bailey and Clinton Portis fills the roles on defense and offense respectively. What Tebow has done is win THEIR respect and because of that, is elevated because of what he has shown, what he has earned.

And THAT is what I can follow. Someone who not only is willing to learn the way, but also will lead the way into the dark shadows gladly, not with fear. Otherwise, get out of the way, cause there are things to be done!

THROWING OFF WORRIES AND BEING AT PEACE

2012-01-07T17:45:00.000-05:00

I’D GIVE YOU ALL MY LOVE…

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

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

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

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

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

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

BUT MY HEART ITSELF, IS BROKEN…

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

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

I SIT ALONE AND WONDER WHY

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

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

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

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

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

OH THOSE HAZY LAZY DAYS

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

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

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

CHARACTER TRAITS pt 1

2012-01-05T18:44:00.000-05:00

“Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.”

-Charles F. Kettering

BECAUSE YOU REALLY, REALLY DO GET SO MUCH MORE BACK

I just can’t get the end of the regular session of the OUTBACK (and not the Capital One) Bowl game between Michigan State and Georgia. Another thing that I know about the school in East Lansing is that it is truly a community and going out on a limb (cause I have never been to Athens, Ga) but schools like Georgia, your UNC-Chapel Hill and most definitely your A², there is an air of entitlement beneath all the other unknown variables that await young adults away from home at university. Because I know what is like on the campus by the Red Cedar River, there is an identification that makes a State win a triumph for ‘all of us’. Not only did the Bulldogs have the Spartans beaten in the 4th quarter, but in the overtime as well. The differences between the two benches at the end of the game, and then at the start of overtime… just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes, I am telling you!

The Michigan victory in the Sugar Bowl was another game that served as an object lesson for me and also an example of one of my ‘Rules To Live By’.

“In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten; then he who continues the attack, wins.” –Ulysses S. Grant

I could have used this for my previous entry when I spoke about the State win over Georgia, but when it comes to Sparty, wins where they display that kind of character is de rigueur. Tom Izzo in coaching men’s basketball and Ron Mason head hockey coach uses ‘character’ as a metric in determining the kind of player that they recruit. For Michigan, it did not seem like that was the way things were done, that it matters what kind of person they recruited. I have this hazy memory of Michigan athletes being among those colleges whose athletic departments who had the most interactions with local law enforcement. But both with their basketball coach and their new head coach, it seems that it is just as important WHO a player is as well as how well a player can perform in their respective sport.

In one interview, Brady Hoke, the Michigan football coach, was asked what he told his players after a first half of ineffective football, at least, offensively speaking. “Just keep playing,” is what he told the reporter, the implication being that if they did not give up and kept competing, that something eventually would go their way.

So I guess it looks like the Wolverines have a coach that I can root for and the Buckeyes have hired another cat I could do without. I was never a Jim Tressel fan, mainly for some of the same reasons that some dismiss Tim Tebow. For me the difference is the confirmation of Coach Tressel’s hypocrisy. He cheated at Youngstown State, and I did not like that we Ohio State brought him in. It was only a matter of time he pulled some kind of shenanigans, and I do think there is something funny about Urban Meyer… from the way he left Utah and now the way he left Florida, both were departures that make me wonder about him and his piety. But that is me…

So Michigan kept playing even as they got outplayed for long stretches of the game and the opposing quarterback resembled Cam Newton at times. But the Wolverines kept playing and good things happen when you can hang in until the time bell rings.

TRANSGRESSIONS OF THIS RULE

There isn’t many times where I would say that it is okay to surrender or give up. Persistence for the most part is one of the characteristics of successful, if not happy (unless reaching happiness was included in their objective) people that I am aware of, had in common with one another. From actors and entertainers to scientists and scholars, the path to their achievement is fraught with failure. As Mark Twain spoke to when he said, “Ever tried? Ever failed?? Try harder… fail better,” the idea that you have to overcome setbacks is part of the process to achievement.

Yet there are times where it is better to fold your hand and wait until the next deal. Perhaps you have reach beyond what you can manage as a reasonable risk in case you are fated to lose not matter what. I offer myself as an example of breaking this rule.

A BRIDGE TOO FAR

In my early thirties when I still may have been among those among the ‘fringes’ of boxers who could on any given night win against a top cat, most likely give a good account of themselves in a loss, and beat up-and-coming cats who weren’t as good as advertised. I don’t think I could have been considered ‘grizzled’ but I was getting phone calls and after taking a break moving from Carolina back to the Motor, I started to take a path that was not too different from the one that Mickey Ward took that eventually led to his ascension to the folk hero status that resulted in a movie of his experience.

Living in Plymouth, I ran into Tee Jay at one of our employer’s sites and we started hanging out. ‘Doing as I do’, I let her in on the outline I had for my life and asked her if she was interesting in being a part of what I was doing. What I was doing this: I knew that I was into ‘extra time’ on my athletic odometer and I wanted to see what I could squeeze out of myself before I called it a career.

The Mickey Ward-Rocky thing happens in boxing a LOT more often that you’d suspect, and I did not even think of reaching that level. I would have been content to have reached the ESPN-Fox Sports level for a couple of fights, pocketed the money and called it a day. Not only that, who knows if I would not hit ‘the journeyman’s lotto’ and knock off a hyped prospect or contender sleepwalking on ‘my night’, you know what I am saying?

NOT THAT I MEAN TO RUN LONG

Anywho, I explained to her much what I have explained in my journal. Looking back over my adult life, the pattern of my relationship status v. personal achievement was pretty obvious as to the reasons for my fail. And that is why when I broke things down to her and she said “yes”, to the boundaries of our relationship, I think that things went well for us.

I slipped and lost one fight early in our relationship, but I would win four other fights and the future looked like the one that I, no, that WE, had envisioned together.

See, having that shared vision to work towards, everything else in our life together would fall into place. Instead of being a ‘random couple’, we were a team, both contributing to that thing that was larger than our individual desires, no one considering who contributed more, but making considerable contributions all the same. I also told her that I felt that I had my shot at ‘this and that’, both related in this instance, and that this was going to be ‘it’.

When our break-up occurred, it was not only the loss of a relationship. It also meant that the ‘timelessness’ that surrounded us was broken, and I was now operating in ‘extra time’. The concept of extra time is like the one regarding extra time in soccer. The game, like real life, runs on a constantly ticking clock. But just as the time in life can seem relative, extra time is the closest approximation to ‘measuring’ relative time against actual time, and it fits the concept that I am trying to explain.

But this is TOO LONG an entry… and I guess I will conclude another day. Right now, I am sitting on a ton of homework that I want to finish this weekend, even taking the pre-emptive step of canceling my standing appointments so I can go live at the library!!

SNOOTCHIE BOOTCHES!

THE CAPITAL ONE BOWL GAME

2012-01-02T18:41:00.000-05:00

THIS IS SPARTA

Michigan is where I was born and raised. It really was not until I was an adult and began my interpretation of the Dr. Seuss book that I began to acknowledge the Wolverines. I had not really cared one way or the other about them before that point. In fact, it was still a point of discussion with my lovely ex-wife during our marriage. I did not really began to pay them much attention until their amazing run to the NCAA title in 1989 in men’s basketball. I had sorta liked Glen Rice (pre-Sarah Palin affair!! Notice that rumor was never ‘refudiated’) and his story from being an also-ran in the fertile hoops area of Flint, to becoming the all-time leading scorer and one of the sweetest jump shooters I ever saw in college. Then there was Desmond Howard, who was simply a magnetic player. If I had a son, that would have been his name! So between those two individual and ‘the Fab Five’, I found myself being able to tolerate Michigan a lot more.

My cousin who went on to have a long and productive pro career and now coaches in the NFL pulled my attentions to Ohio State football. I always want the Buckeyes to win on the gridiron and in basketball as well. Two of my most remembered players are Carter Scott (which was unseated by Desmond as a boy’s name) and Dennis Hopson (Dennis, the Buckeye Menace!). It is a little astonishing that you have two schools with the basketball history of both Michigan and Ohio State is overshadowed by their dominant football programs. I mean between the individual players to the programs accomplishments, with all those National Titles, appearances in big games, any other school would feature basketball as a prominent jewel.

But always lurking in the background, much like the annoying little brother that former Wolverine football player once called them, was Michigan State. It isn’t that State did not have major accomplishments and notable highs. It is State that played in ‘The Game of the Century’ against Notre Dame in 1966. And Sparty had more appearances in the NCAA basketball tournament but still was under the radar. In fact, the star player before Magic came and would change their basketball fortune, Gregory Kelser, grew up in my general neighborhood (it is hard to say ‘my neighborhood’ as I grow accustomed to Omaha; the same distance is ‘across town’ here). lurking He would sometimes help his younger brother deliver papers and we would go at it in the newsstation, where we would pick up our papers for delivery. He was a little older than me, but at that age, 11 and 12 is a sight away from being physically and emotionally mature as a 15 or 16 year-old teenager. He would try to pick on me, and I was always like, “brother, I thought you knew! You can SAY what you want but it costs!”

The reality of it was still overwhelming. He was too big, too strong, and too fast. The reason I found this out was because it was the outcome of our ‘Foghorn Leghorn-Barnyard Dog’ relationship, with me playing the former! But because it was not a zero sum game, I never stopped being ‘me’, which was as annoying as ‘Obnoxio the Clown’. I would also invest in finding out about Michigan State and ballers like Terry Furlow, a Detroit product and that was when I noticed who played for State and who played for Michigan. It just seemed that the cats that played in East Lansing were different from the ones that would go to Ann Arbor. It was always like that.

I remember a football coach for State calling the Michigan people a bunch of ‘arrogant a$$es’ after losing a game to the Wolverines. I also recall when Kirk Gibson played All-American level wide receiver for the Spartans and he ran past, over and well, he never seemed to go around anyone too much, especially Michigan players!

IT DIDN’T START WITH THE FAB FIVE…

Michigan basketball has underachieved for many a decade. From the Cazzie Russell-led teams, to the squads they had in the late 70’s-early 80’s, they would produce teams that were loaded with talent, but for whatever reason, never got over themselves to actually win anything. This was never more true with the Roy Tarpley-Antoine Joubert led teams, always preseason favorites, only to take a gaudy regular season record into the tournament to lose in their first game to ‘Nobody U’. Meanwhile, over in East Lansing…

He is a respected NBA coach now, but Scott Skiles was a load as a high school player. From a small town in Indiana, a rural place that most of the athletes who go to State have in common, that hard-scrabble outstate ruggedness, and he was truly a wild cat. Had problems drinking and the coach at the time Jud Heathcote (with Tom Izzo on staff) flat out took Skiles under his wing. When the press was howling for Coach Heathcote to kick him off the team, Jud stood by him and you knew it wasn’t simply a matter of a coach giving a player special treatment. Scott was beset by the kind of demons that city cats are too self-involved to understand. For instance, I doubt if anyone in a major city like Chicago can understand what methamphetamine is doing outside of the city. But it is a scourge that is at least as harmful as crack cocaine was in the city and is harder to prevent. By that I mean I do believe that if the government wanted to cut into the cocaine trade, they could. But when you can go to a few drug stores and mix your supplies (the process is the risk escalator on par with those that exist in the urban drug scene), it is a different kind of fight. Jud being who he is, simply provided Scott with the stability and structure that allowed him to get to a place where he could make the most of himself.

Anywho, of all the State athletes in my lifetime, he used to take such a pleasure in beating the Michigan basketball team, that you would have thought that there was no greater calling in his life. Before the Fab Five, there was Joubert, who was as well-renowned as a high school player as LeBron James was when he was in school. This is not an exaggeration by any stretch. He was the most recruited player in the country out of Detroit Southwestern and he chose to go to Michigan, as their version of ‘Magic’ Johnson, the Lansing Everett (and Mookie Dee) alumnus. But he never quite came close to the lofty speculation that was made about him and essentially, that was that. Still, for his time and place, he was the measuring stick for Michigan basketball and supposedly the cat to make them a major player in basketball. Except, along with their gag jobs in the tournament, those teams had problems trying to guard Scott Skiles (who was immortalized in song by ‘A TribeCalled Quest’). I recall before one match up between Michigan and State, Joubert talked about how he was going to such Skiles down, despite his deadeye marksmanship and superior passing skills.

The game was played and Skiles would light the Wolverines and Joubert especially, up. One news report in either the Freep or the News over heard some of the smack talk on the court. “You better lose 20 pounds if you’re going to check me, fat boy,” was what was in the paper, a quote of Skiles to Joubert, who simply could not hold him (and really could have stood to lose 20 or maybe 30 pounds!).

Watching the first half of the Capital One Bowl game between Georgia and the Spartans was like watching your girlfriend out with another cat on the couch and he is on third base… and he is making the turn for home! I kept the game on and gritted my teeth, getting myself prepared to hear more crap about how much better the SEC is than the Big Ten. Then one of the announcers began to talk about the new attitude that has been put in place with Mark D’Antonio’s arrival as head football coach. This season’s seniors were his first class and they had never played on a bowl game-winning team. It recalled the situation a season (or was it two??) ago in basketball where there was a chance that Tom Izzo would have his first senior class of players who never got as far as the Final Four. I remember thinking as they Spartans would suck it up, including an amazing buzzer beater against Maryland, to reach the Final Four in Indianapolis, where they fell against Butler. It seemed to me that the underclassmen really were playing for the seniors. I know that the atmosphere at East Lansing really does work like that, even as the ideal is overused and seems Pollyanna in this era of the recruiting issues that makes the notion of playing for the team, quaint. Well, when it comes to the football and men’s basketball programs I want to believe that it is true.

The second half of the Capital One Bowl looked like one of the second halves of a State basketball game… the one in mind is a game against Derrick Rose’s Memphis team a few seasons ago, where Memphis had their lead cut but were still winning. But a look at the two benches could not have been more telling, as the Spartans players truly looked like they were warriors who had fought their way through the worst that they enemy could provide, and now they could sense victory. On the other team bench, the anxiety in their eyes and on their faces provide poor cover as they bore the unmistakable look of not just defeat, but worse, surrender. It wasn’t that they were destined to lose, at least not until they stopped fighting.

When the football team for State had fought back from a 16-17 point halftime deficit and then to drive down the field with less than a minute to play and score, sending the game into overtime, the sidelines were of such stark contrast that I had tears in my eyes. The Spartans looked as glorious as the fictional Spartans did in the movie ‘300’ did facing the approach of the Persians. And on the Georgia sideline…

ANOTHER THING THAT “YOU” CAN’T DO

It did not matter that the game was still in the balance or that maybe Georgia form the big, bad, SEC may have had better players. What they did not have was a better TEAM, one that was playing for something so much larger than their own individual glory, that they were not going to be denied.

Standing there on the precipice of defeat, several times the Spartans fought their way back to victory. Glory or doom, baby, glory or doom. No one is leaving until you give us what we came here for!

So I cried when Michigan State won today. I cried because it symbolized so much of what I hope to accomplish means overcoming moments where it may seem all is lost or I have to preserve for the sake of others, or just because the only option is to hold on and be strong.

MARK, DIDN’T YOU SAY YOU WOULD NOT MAKE AN ENTRY OF MORE THAT 1500 WORDS..?

Yes, yes I did Charlotte. So sue me.

IN THE NEW YEAR

2011-12-31T12:35:00.000-05:00

SEE, I HAD AN EPIPHANY ... AND I'D LIKE TO SHARE IT WITH YOU

There have been times where I have felt like writing and writing and writing. In my mind, the topics are just ‘stuff’, with some of ‘me’ in them. But for now on I am going to write and simply trust my readers, because anyone who follows my blog has not only made an investment, but an understanding as well. Still, this end-of-year kind of thing that that predictably takes place is still relatively new for me, as I prefer to think of the time as being ‘now’ for changes and that waiting for an arbitrary date to urge me to do something I either want or may need to do, never had any appeal to me.

When I decided to think more about myself and my needs (not that I did not before but now they have taken on a paramount importance to my vision I have for life, liberty and their pursuit) after ’07, it was the symmetry that the ‘Now clock’ that I had operated by was in concert with another kind of ‘time’. I was consciously aware of ‘time’ and the significance that I was intending to make such sweeping changes in my life, along with a kabillion other folks. The only difference between the paths that the many would take and the one that I would choose, is that mine would be a narrow path, the proverbial road less traveled, the road not taken.

THE WAY TO FREEDOM IS A ROAD SELDOM TRAVELED BY THE MULTITUDE

One of the reasons that I regret joining Face Book is its universal application as a default option on the internet. What I mean is that if you sign up for pretty much anything on the net, you can simply use your Face Book account to automatically sign you in to ‘whatever’. I don’t think that bodes well for things like personal freedom and government intrusion. But perhaps that is inevitable, and that is really going off the path for this entry. But I mention this as an example of the things that I observe as part of my normal process. There are things that ‘I think that I think’ and then there are things that I THINK THAT I THINK. This happens to be of the latter things that ‘I think’ and this is moving to the point of the matter.

A problem with my ‘all caps’ thoughts is that they were generated and vetted by the primordial brain and therefore are beyond my ability to explain, especially to someone so tied into their own sense of ‘right and wrong’, along with an preference for the safety of the commonplace. There is nothing wrong with ‘following the crowd’, per se, but when it comes to finding individual happiness and contentment, I am not sold on that as an approach, but I am willing to enter in fair negotiations with which to conduct a relationship under. And though there has been a complement of opinions that believe that being in a relationship, rather, the openness to a potential of a relationship, should be a part of my objectives. I don’t, and THAT has been what has kept me from setting my course for the upcoming year.

A couple of cats who did a summary of the past year and cast their gaze to the next year, Lou and Daniel, by my reading are pleased with the way 2011 went and look forward to having a 2012 that is at least as good, if not better than the year that is being left behind. Other than my probes into that possible loveship with three women since I have landed here, which confirmed beliefs that I hold regarding the different ‘-ships’, I am simply looking forward to doing more of what I am doing know only better.

NOT THAT I AM ‘WINGING IT’ BUT I AM STICKING TO MY STRENGTHS FOR MY RESOLUTION

from 'Work is not a job'... neither is 'life'

Just because it is a time of introspection and promises of change to come, I don’t think there is much that I want to change. As I said, I could get by with doing the same thing this year, only better, and qualify the year as a success. Go to school, pass my classes, then when summer comes, and host my babies. I guess that is the ‘plus one’ to my prognostication, having the Carolina Girls here and enjoying their visit.

When it comes to whether or not I will be involved in trying to be in a relationship, I have my doubts. Not that I am uncertain to the point that I would turn down the possibility of having someone special and unique in my life, but with this year as a gauge, the urgency that I think belongs on a relationship is not shared by women and that has been a trend that I have observed in the last 8 years or so, at least in my world. I mean, what if the interpretation of the Mayan calendar is correct (a hypothesis that is far older than ‘just now’) and this is the end of cycle of life here on Earth (and why isn’t that feasible? Science gives us dinosaurs and Ice Ages; Theology gives us cataclysm prior to ascension into paradise), is leaving this mortal coil without even the real attempt to be in love justified?

When you don’t go after your dreams and instead find reasons that they can’t be achieve or feel they are not possible, you don’t live a reality but a compromise. I haven’t done that yet, and having failed in achieving love and happiness, I refused to compromise on where a relationship should be placed in one’s life.

IN KNOWING HOW WAY LEADS ONTO WAY…

In all the rehashing and reframing of my personal history, I have left behind how out of sync I seemed to my growing up and how that led to a feeling of alienation that I have never forgotten about. This is feeling is what led me to the understanding that it is a choice to be happy with yourself and your life. Imagine your body as a vessel and that you have this one unique opportunity to put into its existence all the things that you want. If you choose to exclude things because you have made that choice, I don’t think that you can expect for life to deliver your wants to you. It doesn’t seem to me to work that way, and that is that with that.

I have made certain choices and not all of them have been the best choices. But I also own them and I do believe that in direct and indirect fashion that I have reaped the fruit that I have sown. And there is nothing that I have observed about life in general, it is this: You are not given what you want as you are given the chance to prove your desire and achieve your aim. In the film ‘Evan Almighty’, God, characterized by Morgan Freeman, responding to Evan’s wife, explained how things worked.

Anyone who has seen the movie knows how it goes… Evan’s wife (Lauren Graham) is speaking with God and expresses her confusion to him on what she should do with her husband, who was OBVIOUSLY suffering a psychotic delusion. And his answer, essentially that you aren’t granted what you want but you are granted the opportunity to be what you want, definitely struck me. Because it is the lack of meeting the moment that irks me when I think about my starter marriage and my fail with Mookie Dee, and it is why I have my regret over my relationships with Delta Girl and Tee Jay.

Living with the steadfast belief that I have had my opportunities to be that super businessman who parlayed his millions from boxing into a successful Presidential run, and that I missed the pitch, is different from living with a compromised. I haven’t stopped believing that greatness may yet be thrust upon me, and I am unwilling to make decisions that compromise that belief.

Because of how I see life, I am able to accept things like the indifferent and what are to me, peculiar, attitudes I have encountered in my sampling of women and their behavior, and not feel and not become chagrined at their development. Or lack thereof, as I still have my priorities to account for and goals to achieve.

Whether or not I receive any future opportunities to be ‘in love’ is not of major consequence to me. I have had mine. If I am the opportunity for another person, well, if I am 'their opportunity' aren't all, if not most, opportunities come with the provision that when they appear, they must be seized?

IT IS WHAT WE DO AROUND HERE!

2011-12-29T15:25:00.000-05:00

THE CLASSIC TRAITS OF A VIRGO

I don’t know if there are readers who pay close attention to astrology and the interpretations of the horoscope, but as a young adult I was told that I was a ‘typical Virgo’. Cherry-picking from one broad description ofa Virgo traits and characteristics, whenever someone would bring them to my attention, I thought to myself “My, isn’t that special!” I still did not put much stock into what others read into my star sign because I fit those traits before I knew or was aware that I am ‘supposed’ to be inclined to behave in a predicted fashion.

While this is only one of about a million-kabillion sites that profess to have an insight to the stars, this is pretty representative of what is said about a Virgo. Some of what is said I don’t have to make stretch much at all to fit me. Even so, I still put little stock into what a zodiac says, not because it is illogical to think that someone can be in tuned with the universe and divine such things. But I tend not to pay any attention to horoscopes much for the same reason that eyewitness testimony tends to be actually less accurate in many cases. People are only going to see what their minds allows them to see; I would not be surprise that what seems evident in my horoscope and clear in my entries, is still a mystery to others, if not outright bullcrap. Some of my best relationships have been with people whose signs clashed with mine; likewise, signs with which I should have been compatible produced ‘less than good’ results. So that is essentially that for that, when it comes to me and astrology.

WELL YOU ARE, AREN'T YOU?

Am I a philosopher? “To live alone,” says Freddie N quoting Aristotle, “one must be an animal or a God.” Adding his own twist, he adds, “There is yet a third case – one must be both, a philosopher.” I can imagine his chest puffing out as he says this, ego inflating all the while. Me, being a tad bit more modest, liked to use KRS- One’s response when asked, if he was a philosopher. His answer, “Yes, I think very deeply!” Is both humble and an accurate statement, especially since the average perception of me is one of my being a deep thinker. I have never been under the impression that I was not doing something that all beings do, make sense of the environment and draw on the connection of things gain understanding of where their relations to and purpose of their existing.

What, you mean everyone doesn’t do that? Use their ability to observe and draw conclusions that help them to shape their own direction in life? Well, excuse me! I thought that everyone uses their free will, conscious and intelligence to do that, but hey, assuming that is why they f*ck you when you are going through the drive-thru!

In my previous entry I mentioned that I noticed how things were going down with me and my relationships, but that was not when I tried to divine the course or ‘tracking’ I should make regarding my life. One of the first significant philosophical decisions I made in elementary school, when the busing threw off the balance that I had with my school mates. I remember as a child finding “The ParadoxicalCommandments”, and I made the choice to be who and what I believe, and to act on my own conscious without asking that the world treats me any differently for or because of what I do.

There was a time in my life where I tried to ‘relax’ and be more of a ‘go with the flow’ kind of person with less than good results. Even though there were some good things that occurred, like reaching an understanding with Nixxie and Pecan Sandie, as well as my relationship with the ‘beloved Tee Jay’, things came apart when stressed. Now whether this was due to inattention to detail or lack of being prepared for what could happen, the only thing that I was sure of was that I did not think through the situation. So I went back to doing what gave me the most spiritual and personal satisfaction, which was to ‘ponder life’s complexities’. Once I did that, I felt that I was able to pull myself up out of the depths that I had fallen, cope with the fact that I was impaired, and that despite what may not be ‘a favorable schedule’, that I could still go on and achieve…

AND WHEREVER YOU AREGOING THAT’S WHEREVER YOU ARE

Before I left for the Metroplex there were stirrings that maybe I should be a part of what I know is going to happen in my hometown. Beyond being my birthplace and where I could get the best chocolate chip cookies thathave ever been created, there is a je ne sais quois about being ‘from the Motor’ that is a tangible currency, even in Detroit. Beyond being tough and conditioned by some of the harshest societal elements, it is the things that can’t be quantified that make me and other expats different from natives wherever we go. Maybe it is because I don’t simply ‘expect’ things to happen and I am fully prepared to work at making something happen(my name is 'Easy' but I go the hard way out!!)… because I don’t sense a lot of that in people around here. Then again, I also am not going out of my way to get to ‘know’ the character of the Omaha other than superficially. I already know that I am going to be a good citizen and contribute in my usual fashion to life here in Omaha.

This year is going to be about exploring the ‘unexplored country’, both figuratively and literally. There are a couple of places that I want to go and there is a lot to see and do here in town as well. I am going to get up and get after the things that I want to have as a part of my life and incorporate them into my character.

NUMBER ONE

2011-12-28T12:14:00.000-05:00

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. -Henri Nouwen

Recently, I found these words surfing around the internet (is that what one does out on the information highway..? surf it.??) and it came back to me reading a post by 'the blackest man on the internet’, Denmark Vesey. I don’t know if DV is really a supporter of some of the things he says… I think of him like a Petey Greene of the internet, but who knows. He has made statements that makes me think he thinks that the libertarianism of Ron Paul makes for a viable alternative to the supposed two party system that we have controlling the government.

The idea of libertarianism sounds better than the actual practice of it. The individual is too self-centered to willingly provide for anyone other than themselves. There are too many things that must be accounted for, maintained, in order for libertarianism to work. I personally think that evolution taught us that we need to work together but we don’t always want to contribute to the benefit of the collective. And I use myself as an example, because as much as I want to be a giving and thoughtful person, there are some things that I would never do and I am glad to support those who will do these things. That said, I also do things to benefit others that perhaps those that do what I won’t do, such as go into the 3^rd world and provide aide, prolly would not do.

In its strictest sense, libertarianism leaves the individual to decide what is best for their own pursuit. But does this mean that a mother should drop their child and let it fend for itself? Should we allow for a mother who may be overwhelmed with the responsibility of motherhood fail because of a few less than good choices? Is it fair that some live in a tribe that is well-organized to handle such a breakdown while others do not? That doesn’t seem fair, it seems more like chance to me.

Also, how to account for the function of society without everyone contributing to the structure that maintains it? As flawed as the current system is, because of the underlying selfishness of the human animal, I would not want to trust that a group of people would get together and willingly help others, some of whom does not have the same ‘whatever’ to make something of themselves and in turn, contribute to society. There is a naïveté to libertarianism that seems quaint, almost child-like. But Ron Paul’s brand of libertarianism, leaning as it does on Ayn Rand’s philosophy, is badly flawed by that particular association. Anywho, there have been reports charging Ron Paul with making racially-charged comments in public, speaking to groups that are themselves racist organizations. Yeah, it bothers me, but I felt that if this was to punch a hole in his candidacy, good for that.

Some cat left a comment that was a reply to my comment… and I rarely participate in a comment forum on anyone’s blog, but I knew that my comment was going to draw some fire, so I checked back to see. Not only did someone respond to my comment but it would make for a feature in DV’s blog! That made me smile, because for me to have said something that ‘made sense’ is quite the accomplishment for me! While it did not rise to the level of an ‘internet sh*tstorm’, it did remind me of how I do try to own my persona, even out here on the web. I believe how I behave out here carries on to the carbon-based world in which we exist. I am certain as Ivory soap is pure, the cat you think you know via the blogosphere, is the cat you can expect to see IRL.

If The Rule You Followed Brought You To This….Of What Use Was The Rule?

-Anton Chiguruh, “No Country For Old Men”

The idea of codifying my life first came to me shortly after my relationship with Tee Jay fizzled out. I had thought that I solved for most of the character flaws that caused for me to perform ‘less than good’ in my previous relationships with women. There were patterns that continued to repeat themselves in spite of the constant self-evaluation that I put myself through on a daily basis. What was confounding me was my behavior and why I would make the same mistakes, and how avoidable that many of them, despite anticipating the potential for fail that they ultimately led to.

I would take most of that first post-Tee Jay year compiling a list of quotes and excerpts from books that I have read or would come across in some other media with the purpose of creating a physical reminder of who I was and the expectations that I had of myself and to help me in negotiating through the various personal relationships that I found myself in.

People often wonder why they make the same mistakes over and again, even when they believe that they are behaving differently or have made a drastic outward change. But whether you are a cat who can’t suck it up and drop that basket of fries like the shift manager told you to, or you are a woman who can’t understand why she is always broke when her hair is in a asymmetrical design not found in nature and in spite of her meager income, she has the hippest purse and at outfits in their closet, the answer always lies within oneself. There I think that there is a reason that people who are unhappy with themselves or headed towards that end, are often shallow and superficial. And I think that Sun Tzu said it best:

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

I think that is also a rule that speaks for itself without any particular interpretation. Know who you are and know what you are getting into if you want things to work out. If you know half of that equation then you will enjoy heartbreak and loss as much as you will experience joy and victory. And if you don’t know either, then you will fall into ruin. Period.

THIS WILL BE A REGULAR FEATURE

Especially with the uncertainty that has came with preparing for the new year, I believe it is essential that I go over the philosophy that I claim is mine. We have 43 more of these things left, and some will be timely and others will just be plucked at random and offered for discussion. Hope that those who read find something worth reading and I hope that I can produce content that justifies being read!

STAKES IS STILL HIGH

2011-12-27T17:29:00.000-05:00

HANGIN’ OUT AT THE MALL

Yesterday I rode out to the Oakview Mall in West Omaha. I had not been out that far west since I have been here. The number 15 bus goes out to ‘Lakeside’ and since the mall is on the way, I decided that yesteday was the time to go see what I could see!

The weather was nice (as it is today for that matter) and the mall was packed! As much as it is an issue for me being in large throngs, particularly when I am alone, I used to be a ‘mall rat’ of sorts. I don’t think I really qualified as a ‘rat’ because I never ran with a crowd or had a ‘partner in crime’ to hang out with. I liked going into stores and looking around at the different stores and what was available. From the mattress shops to the kitchen stores, along with everything in between, I used to go in and out, taking it all in and saying to myself, “One day,” when I came across something I would want in the future.

Filled with what seemed like a million after-Christmas shoppers, either looking for sales or returning gifts, I sort of felt overwhelmed by the experience. Something that I call a ‘sensory overload’ happens and my anxiety builds to where it becomes a
Red Wings calendar for the next year to put on my door and a tee-shirt from Champs.

Dealing with a sensation that made me feel as if I was trying to walk through a scene in the movie “Inception”, a desire creep into my thoughts, one that said that I was pushing myself too far and that I should have waited until someone was willing to take me out to Oakview. But were I to have done that, I would have taken that under consideration when I first thought about taking the trip. Not to mention my move to…

I am hoping to figure out what I am going to do for the New Year beyond a few material items and hosting The Carolina Girls. One of the things I want to do is change how I shop for food and my dietary habits. It is going to be a challenge as food prices have increased to the point where I understand why obesity has consumed the country. It is ‘break even’ if not a slightly better bargain to eat off the value menu than it is to try to grocery shop. So that is another issue that I am having trouble condensing into my personal forecast for next year.

This Xtranormal video kind of exemplifies in a humorous way some of the miscommunication and misunderstanding that goes on between black men and women. What you have is a college-age couple in a discussion about their relationship. I feel that this is where the ‘shortage’ of black men occurs, not in the shortage of brothers entering college or the numbers of cats who are ‘on paper’ with the criminal courts. It shows how sister-girls have a negative preconception of what makes a good partner.

I did not have to endure the ‘toilet tortures’ that this cat and some of my contemporaries did, but the rest of it… shee-oot, I still point to that as a possible are of concern! Though looking for a ‘blinged-out homie’ or a ‘sugar daddy’ has morphed into other kinds of caricatures or idealizations of men, it seems that what rings true in this video for me simply rings true for me.

I GUESS THAT’LL BE THE DAY…

Now that I have a little momentum going my way in ‘my so-called life’, the question about whether or not a relationship will add to my life in a positive way hangs in the air. So far I have had very mixed results with the few women that I have encountered here, Nebraska included. Each time the relationship seems promising, some or the other occurs, and then something else would happen, like a call doesn’t get returned or signal gets crossed. Before you know it… *sigh*

I called this entry ‘Stakes Is High’ because that is how I feel. Being out in the mall and having reality drop beneath my feet only to rise again when my knees got weak, I thought about whether this feeling would still be rising in me had someone been available to accompany me. But then I could not think of anyone who would have availed themselves of being out with me, without seeing going to a crowed mall simply to go, as being a waste of their time.

Having suffered the kind of ridicule for not falling within the spectrum of what some women are looking for, and then feeling that my efforts were disrespected or unworthy because of it, I don’t think I am as ‘open’ as being open to a relationship may indicate. I have to wonder with all that is in play for me, if I am willing to put myself and my ideals on the line for the chance to be in a relationship? My personal history demands that I have standards of partnership that I find conducive to not just ‘loveship success’, but does not place me in the balance should things breakdown between us.

NEXT: A RULE TO LIVE BY!

SONGS FOR THE COMPLETELY WONDERFUL PERSON IN YOUR LIFE

2011-12-22T11:02:00.000-05:00

…WHO COMPLETELY IGNORES YOU

It’s that time of year where the season crystallizes on widows of your life and obscures from view all the good things from the lives of those in loveless relationships, and suffering from deep loneliness. If that isn’t enough, the wanting of affections distorts what little that they think that they are seeing clearly and are wallowing in the misery of yearning for fulfillment.

Readers, it has been no secret that I am not someone who feels obligated to participate in the alleged revelry of this particular (or any, to be perfectly honest with you!) time of year. I mean the meme’s and cynical jokes about gathering people who at any other time you’d step around them as though they were a heap of dog poo that springs up on a run through the park, or it they were one of the indigent street people straggling around the sidewalk, clothes disheveled and looking like that cat in a recent episode of “Bevais and Butthead”, where they tried to cash in on the ‘Twilight’ craze by getting bitten and becoming werewolves!

Shee-oot! I would try to avoid that scene whenever possible! And almost by any means necessary, too! Going away to the Army cemented for me that I was better off alone, me and my holiday misanthropy (said with tongue firmly implanted in cheek!)!

On my Face Book page I did take the opportunity to post a Christmas song that I thought captured the pathos faced by the lonely by Prince. “Another Lonely Christmas” did speak to me but it did not say anything about how I was feeling or to any of what I may have been experiencing. What it did do was take me to yet ANOTHER song that captured the feelings that I would like to talk about here and invest a little more of myself and the emotional territories that I am rolling through right now.

YOU CAN’T MAKE ME DOUBT MYSELF…

…but you can make me feel lonely. I am not trying to talk from both sides on the topic of companionship. But while I was married ‘Last Christmas’, along with this song from George and Andrew, helped me to realize specifics about me and my ‘quan’ if you will.

Part of ‘life’s complexities’ that has left me vexed have to do with the obvious contradictions in people and how they express themselves. Talk inconsistent! People become so superficial around this time of year that I cannot stand it! They make like they are happy and are polite when you can recall their ‘non-Christmas’ character and you know of the rolling clouds in their souls. I can’t stand the platitudes and fake smiles that people present, especially the phony show of kinship, spirituality, and thoughtfulness. A gift from a girl in high school… an ‘Old Spice’ gift set from a drug store effectively ended whatever expectation I had of gifts from people, particularly someone I was in a relationship with. It wasn’t just that I got her something nice (whatever jean jacket that was de rigeur in the 80’s) for a present, it was what the gift SAID.

From that, let’s go to last year, my first in Omaha. Nebraska came by with cups, dishes and a griddle among her gifts and I could not have been happier! I had off-handedly mentioned that I wanted to purchase those things and voila! She and Santa made them appear. I can’t remember all the other useful and wanted gifts I receive, but I recall her telling me that her middle daughter thought I was going to cry, I was so happy! And I very nearly did!!

To me, those gifts said so much more than ‘Christmas’. They said, “Hey smurf, I really smurf you and I hope this is the start of our good smurfing together.” Which, along with a few other exchanges we had, made the development of our relationship so frustrating.

I don’t necessarily have the same expectations of people as I do of myself, but realistically, I thought we would have gotten along much better than we have. And this is where I will talk about the imposition of less than good feelings, which is why the Wham songs got to me.

In ‘Everything She Wants’ the frustrations that are a part of trying to please someone, or in this case, pursue, when their whims are unnecessarily mystifying were personalized by my ex-wife during our marriage and Nebraska for most of the first half of the year. In the former relationship, I felt that among the many fails that we had, not having a dedicated focus and direction left us adrift as well as rudderless. After that lesson, I have taken great pains in my self-assessment and establishing an identity for a partnership model.

With Nebraska, I could not even come to terms of how to discuss relations between us and the tenuousness that surrounded our relationship was tiring. It was in the summer as I finalized my status for school that I came to the conclusion that mirrored the conclusion reached by former Gov. George Ryan of Illinois regarding the death penalty (uh, guess who just finished an analyze an argument essay on that speech??). Something was not right and despite the original intent, something was not working as it should and there needed to be action taken.

‘Last Christmas’ sounds like how I felt with my ex-wife; and those feelings are ones where I feel that the whatever someone says to me, their implicit meanings are unsubstantiated as far as I am concerned. And as the question begs, ‘why ponder life’s complexities when the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat?’ More importantly, I have to ask myself a more important question… “Am I going to let someone make me feel like this?”

DON’T TRY TO MAKE ME BE NO HERO

Like a bottle of nitroglycerin that Curly has found, the contents of my heart are a little unstable right now. Well, they were. Often, it is said that a person, “Can’t put up with bullsh*t,” and don’t you just love the ones who say that they don’t? Because it has been my experience that those are PRECISELY the people who bullsh*t the most! They don’t realize their instability because they are delusional and can’t be honest with themselves.

So that is what is among my thoughts this time of year. For sure for all the ups and downs I have had, it was a good year and I can’t help but repeat how I am looking forward to 2012. After all, according to some interpretations of the long count, it could be the last one for the planet. Even if it isn’t, why are people willing to waste time being unhappy and settling for ‘whatever’ because it is all they know or because it feels ‘safe’?

RELATIONSHIP OF COMMAND

2011-12-18T20:20:00.000-05:00

THE INSPECTOR GENERAL IS COMING

I like to do my year-end review a little earlier than this, not because of some arbitrary date that everyone chooses to make promises to themselves that they will break, usually in short order. For me, usually November is when I begin to look back and assess how my year was and what I need to do to make progress to wherever it is I am going.

So far, this year has been a good one for me. It did not start that way with my getting struck by a car on the third day of 2011, but it is finishing well, with school going strong, a visit from Ken, and steady progress in getting myself together.

My early-winter blues hasn’t left me incapacitated and I have mentioned how they seem to be easing. I feel noticeably better these days and am once again looking forward to the future in my so-called life.

FACING FEARS IS ESSENTIAL…

…if you want to live your dreams!

Thomas posited a question about what people imagined about. One person left a comment that was so touching that I did not want to leave an extended ramble about the things that I imagine. Then I thought about how the things that I imagine are the things that I actually live.

My childhood included plenty of days spent wondering what I will be when I grow up. Since I am still wondering what that may be, maybe I am still a child, a boy in a man’s body! Can’t say that I did not think about the career/job, the wife, and I am sure I pictured the house and car. But my imagination has paled to the reality of my life because I believe that I have made headway on to most of my childhood projections. After all, I have not the foggiest idea of what I’d had been doing at this time if I hadn’t made the connection to Omaha when I was a young boy.

You know, once I got here and begin to feel comfortable here the real question for me is more like what can I imagine for myself NOW. My imagination never operated in the ‘macro’, like I whether or not we will have flying cars in my lifetime or have peace on earth; my imagination was more about what I could do in the world that I was in. If anything, my wanderings is more about what can I change in my ‘now’ so that I can fulfill and be worthy of the future that is pulling me forward.

Another little phrase that I use to ‘imagine’ my future with goes: “Others have done it before me; why can’t I?” The implication being that I should not fear pushing myself or enduring difficult times, as there have been others who have either dealt with or are currently coping with, difficulties similar to mine and go on to triumph over their obstacles. In the Saturday World-Herald’s local section, there was a story about a young man with TBI who walked at UN-O with his BA and is looking forward to graduate study. I imagine myself reaching my goal, a degree in whatever-it’s-in and while I was out in a glorious December sun, I had the sensation of living somewhere near where I was riding, in one of the apartment buildings, and working…

That was something that I did not see clearly. But like most everything I have sai ‘Geronimo’and taken a leap at, because I missed its edge, does not mean that it wasn’t there for me to have latched onto.

Maybe that feeling brings me to what I imagine… that I make better decisions and choices in those crucial moments where the hinge swings open either opportunity or ‘non-opportunity’ depends on which door I go through.

Another recent entry from Thomas that appealed to me at this is one here. I could go on and on about what I felt when I saw it, the idea that there is a throng of people trying to take the escalator when the stairs are available with unimpeded access. I don’t mind when things get hard for me because I felt that it was the testing of the deserving to what it is that they wanted of their life.

The biggest loss of my no longer being able to box is that my style of fighting, like my philosophy to living, was eclectic. But it was also visceral and when you got the opportunity to see me ‘do what I do’, you had verifiable visual evidence of what kind of person that I be! When you try to describe and tell someone that you are ‘this’, especially when they think you and everyone like you are like ‘that’, when you got to see me fight, also got to see ME.

Sitting here with the remnants of an episode of vertigo (which is what hied me back to my apartment) and watching football, once more I am reflecting on how good my life is and how much better it is getting. Not that things could be worse (and that is the same for errybody) or anything, but I like where I am at … and I like my odds at success. Isn’t it funny at how much better your odds become the harder you work and the more focused on the goal you are?

AND THE CLOUDS ARE LIFTED

2011-12-16T16:54:00.001-05:00

DARK NIGHTS

I have been up most nights this week (and the usual early morning wake ups) and it is today that the doldrums that I was going through last week has broken up and I am feeling better. Though I have not mentioned it that often, but I reference periods like that as ‘heavy interference’ because there is so much static scratching at my brain. This episode felt like what I would call a ‘brain cloud’ passing through, and now it has broken up.

For me the term ‘brain cloud’ referenced the feeling after being hit with a ‘particular’ punch and the effects would follow me out of the ring and stay with me for a few days. I had envisioned the bruising that had taken place passing through the hemispheres of my brain and the blackened blood breaking up the same way a light bruise breaks up beneath the surface of the skin. See, I KNEW the environment I was getting into and the risks that were involved. But I don’t know what kind of life it is without some risks… I am like, ‘well, what is it that YOU want in your life?’ There is some risk involve in too much to say anything is risky. Everyone does a value judgment and I have done and evaluated many of mine. There are things that other people have done and continue to do that as sketchy as some of my past acts are, I am like, “…but I would never do THAT sh*t!” This is part of the reason I suggest to people that ‘they can keep their problems to themselves because I’ve got my own’. I am not trying to get into a contest where I am trying to top your troubles or show how much more pressure I have to cope with because I am simply going to get after what I am going to get after.

So even with my mentioning that I was experiencing a case ofthe late-year blues and how foreign that it felt to me, it isn't always taken into consideration by others that even as they have to face and overcome dragons, that the only dragon in the world is the one that is in front of them and that no one else has any of their own to slay. That is why when my on-line friend was able to address my inappropriatenesswith restraint but making it clear that they were upset by my words, I was able to do my part in trying to make things right.

But it is also worth noting that my friend is also of a different era and has a different set of values than most of my contemporaries. I don’t know about any of you, but when I think of the character of those in his age group and my Mom’s, I always come back to the Mike Singletary’s press conference and that “…thinking it’s about them and not the team,” to describe how they can put off their ego and to consider for a moment what something it truly worth and to make the step to be gracious enough to provide the opportunity for forgiveness, rather than seek readdress for their impugned pride. That is because it is ‘all about them’. With that seeming to be a prevailing attitude, here I am, living at a time where I have to think about me a little, not because I am selfish but because thinking about pretty much ANYTHING takes effort for me.

MAINLY BECAUSE I LIKE McDONALD’S… A LOT..!

Actually I prefer Burger King, but to get the desired effect, I used Mickey D’s in my reasoning for joining the service.

See, after the abolition of the draft, the Army (as well as the other branches of service) became a de facto security apparatus for the 0.5% and their corporate interests. Still, knowing that as well as I thought I knew at the time, I could not keep myself from volunteering for duty. As much as I love you Mary, I am not going to volunteer for soup kitchen detail on my own, or any big coat drives. In short, being a ‘giving’ person and connecting to all,does not register with me. But I have said it before and will again, if I was in ‘wherever, East Coast’ with Mary and her good friend, she certainly could call on me and I will be ‘shakin’ it over’ wherever she asks me to be.

What? What do you want of me?? A few weeks ago riding my bike to pick up my medicine I saw some ladies in the drug store parking lot changing a tire. I stopped and with my ‘expertise’ (because I have none of that when it comes to mechanical anything), I helped them change their tire. Though Omaha is one of the friendlier and helpful places I have ever been, no one offered to help these ladies out before I got there. In fact, I think it was a matter of time… I just know that when I saw I could lend a hand, and that is what I did.

One of the things that I think my experience with life has been instructing me on is that when I have a good idea that I should stick with it. Whatever changes that needs to be made will occur naturally, as the world spins and as I continue to move forward down my path (because, after all, the one not taken bent in the undergrowth and led to ‘who knows where?’. I have spoken about it in a previous entry how my initial plan was to limit my interactions with the opposite sex to Nebraska and if that did not work out, que sera. But upon my arrival here, I was like, ‘I think you out to think about it,’ and I have, as many of you already know. See, while the incidentals to my initial model have evolved as the environment around me has changed, the main idea still remains unaltered.

FINDING A HAPPY PLACE

I warn people when we first get to know one another that I know I am going to mess up and occasionally piss the off, not so I can excuse being a butt-head, but that I have to learn where the limits are from where my ‘acceptable’ crosses over to your ‘annoying’. And believe it or not, the same thing has to take place in the reverse… forgiveness will be reciprocated because you have to get to know me.

The point of that is one of the reasons that trying to look for love in someone I already knew made sense to me, because someone like Nebraska (for INSTANCE!! Not for any other reason!!) would already know that I can be a jerk off, but that it was very likely not intentional. Not only that, they would realize all the other unmistakably positive things about me and would help me to further cultivate and refine those qualities.

I’M A GOOD GUY FOR A GAL..!

Shee-oot! It ain’t like a smurf ain’t had trouble finding a chick before!! But that was when I operated much differently and I lived according to a different paradigm.

I spoke about my soldiering and apathy for volunteering to illustrate a point. I get sacrifice and I understand that I should want to help my fellow man, I get that stuff. But what I also want ‘you’ to get is that I don’t like getting dirty, hanging around bland, unappetizing (to me) food is nauseating for me, and I would rather stay away from tools of any kind. But I do want to help and give to the community. What’s a smurf to do?

My interest in the military I think is a part of my youthful precociousness. There were influences all around me but I was pre-adolescent watching ‘The World At War’ and I did not think twice about doing Army ROTC in high school. Maybe I won’t help clean up a vacant lot or go pick up used clothes and bring them back, but I would die for you. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that if you needed my help and you called on me, that I would show up no matter the personal cost. And there are people who know this about me, so I don’t sweat the small stuff like being called ‘selfish’ by people who don’t know a cat. What that does, when you have CO2 alarm go off (which would cost me that month’s check), or to make their way to a wedding that would insure that I spent a year scraping by (not to discount those who have helped me out in crucial times, but why can’t I say this if only for effect?), say about me? Then there are the things that ‘we know that YOU don’t know’, which I have done for people regardless of how ‘out’ the action may have ‘put me’.

If someone would be willing to ‘help me to help them’, I am pretty sure what kind of person they would get for a partner. A little understanding and compassion is all I am talking about, and even then, not that much. I am a pretty repentant cat so when you catch me up in a mistake, more likely than not, I am going to admit to it. Because I know that I would do the same with you.

When I have to factor in my condition, then my desire for that understanding goes from a ‘looked for trait’, to being a requirement of my potential partner. And if that is too steep a toll for someone to pay… all I can say is, “Oh well.”

ONE FOR THE ROAD

Okay, on my way back in from the west side of town a little white lady was sitting at the bus stop, with a case of the mopes ‘n sniffles. I asked her what was wrong and she told me how she was threatened with eviction and how unfair it was that it was occurring now, so close to Christmas. She now had to scrounge around for money and it was going to deprive her daughter (at 18, I don’t know what she would expect of Santa given their what’s what, but that’s not for me to say) of her gifts. She started sniffling and what else could I do but give her a hug and let her cry on my shoulder? After a few minutes she pulled herself together and thanked me for my understanding.

Not trying to say anything… just sayin’ and it IS my diary!

MUCKING AROUND THE CORNERS

2011-12-14T20:59:00.000-05:00

DARKNESS FALLS EVEN IN THE GLOOM

There are times where I feel as though I am holding on to whatever I am holding onto with a white-knuckle grip and I am being battered by the debris field of an ongoing storm. I choose to hold on because it is my instinct and letting go seems to me so much the worse option.

I don’t spend a lot of time talking about my disability affecting me in any way primarily because I am still, ‘going out after it’, in regards to living a full life. There have been a lot of things that I feel has gone or broke favorably for me the last couple of years and I don’t anticipate that stopping anytime soon. After all, luck is the residue of hard work, and I do put in my work! Yet I think that not only does my disability get overlooked, but the consequences of my condition as well.

Sometimes I have tried to sit down and talk about what goes on with me but I get frustrated with how I describe what I go through each day. Trying to talk about the fatigue and unexpected soreness that I deal with or the sleepless nights, seems so common that for me to mention it, well, doesn’t really sound like its ‘disabling’ now does it? But it is all a part of my injury and a host of other things that are ‘no big deal’ to most people, which are for me, are hurdles that I have to deal with every single moment of every single day. I don’t ever put off onto my condition something that I don’t want to take responsibility for because of an action that I was conscious of. Yet and still…

Over the last few months I have done things to people that I care about that I have no idea of where the motivation to do them came from. I cannot explain why I chose my actions or what drove me to even think that they were appropriate. After the fact I was able to see how egregious my lapse was and how hurtful I truly was.

The thing about my acts is that they are all out of character. The instant that my transgression has been brought to my attention, I don’t even recognize the person who did them, only that my fingerprints are on the scene and I was at said place and at said time, so it had to have been me, even as unrecognizable as the act was when I accounted for my character. In short, I am taking what for me is an unprecedented step and putting off onto another entity partial responsibility for something that I have done.

It is with great deliberation that I say this because while it may have been a possibility floating in my stream of consciousness, by this admission that my behavior, my thinking, has become noticeably compromised is a grave concern. Another consideration is the medication that I am taking to manage some of what I cope with. Since near the first quarter of this year I have been on different medications, some of them the same only in a different dosage, and I do think that has played a part in my behavior as well. While it is with much chagrin that I pawn some of my erratic behavior on these two components of my person, I have no other choice. To claim what I did as ‘me’ would mean that there is some kind of explanation or reason for my actions and there simply is none at all. Not even a trace of anything that I can point to and say, “Oh, I did it because…” and either takes correction or makes one and move from there.

The barest scent of anything that I would have recognize of me were in anything that I did, and still it was too thin to have been explained. But it was enough for me to realize that it DID come from me and that whatever happened to the thoughts premise on its way to the world was beyond my conscious control.

WHICH BRINGS US BACK TO…

…Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do!

There is a reason that people constantly regret not following their ‘first thought’ or initial premonition. Even as circumstance change, when it comes to that first brief flash of cognition that takes place in the subconscious, things come back that moment when inertia became motion and stuff started to happen and control was given over to ‘whatever’ and became ‘just anything’.

While a lot of things have changed and a lot of other things had happened before I got to Omaha, what really never changed were my expectations of me and the course that I had charted.

Recently, an entry of Sherry’s that I found myself nodding in agreement with as I read seemed to capture the ‘confustration’ of dealing with issues that affect you every day and are never going to go away. Some people feel that it is part of their duty to remind you that others have had to deal with similar circumstance and they were able to blah, blah, blah. What, do you not think that I am aware that others who have still have gone forward and lived full and satisfactory lives, some even excelling at what they do? As much ESPN as I watch, I get enough of Merrill Hoge to know that there is still a bar that is quite high for me to aim for. That isn’t something that I need to hear or, at times like this, even want to hear. What I do want and prolly could use is a bit of understanding. And my most recent misstep was a clear demonstration of why I think that it would be difficult if not unlikely, for me to find that special ‘someone who is that someone’, to share and spend quality time with. Did I mention that I have expectations and ‘must haves’ in a partner?

And a lot of what I need was demonstrated ably by the response my friend had as we resolved our 'whatevers'. It was respectful and allowed the both of us to not only remain friends but to for me to hold on to my dignity. That was a win-win. But so many are simply out for 'them' and cannot see beyond their own sense of propriety and would take for themselves that which is available for everyone alike...

CAN YOU RECOGNIZE THE PATTERNS THAT YOU FIND

2011-12-11T20:54:00.000-05:00

ON BEING AN OPTION

Whenever I have mentioned that I did not plan on getting involved with anyone after I arrived in Omaha, I have received gentle rebukes and encouragement towards the end of my participating in a ‘love ship’ with a woman. Usually, the well-intentioned urging would include words that were aimed at, ostensibly, to boost a sagging ego, and to help buttress my self-esteem. For me, though the spirit of the encouragement was well-met, that I did not expect to concern myself with finding a partner to spend time with had been a well thought out decision that I had came to prior to the action plan that I operated under for most of the last ten or so years.

Much of why I felt that I was not going to be making myself available for a personal relationship was not because I had become embittered by any of my previous engagements. On the contrary, it is precisely because I have not experienced much of the heartache and pain that many talk about when it seeking love, I felt that I would not be seeking another chance at being in a relationship for that ambiguous period of time know as ‘a while’. There were certain goals that I have before me that I would like to meet and I have serious reservations that I can achieve my expectations and be a part in a relationship of pretty much any sort beyond ‘casual’.

I have since removed what I had intended to be a ‘hard cap’ on relationships; along with Nebraska, I have entertained the possibility of getting to know two other women, with mixed results. Under previous ‘operations manuals’, I don’t think that I would have allowed for the lingering on the periphery of my life as I am now. But since the relationships have not came at the expense of anything that impacts greatly on my life or in my spirit, I have continued to entertain the possibility that something of consequence may develop from them.

The consequence of becoming involved in a bad relationship is one that I cannot bear at this time and quite possibly ever again for the rest of my life. This is something that I had determined prior to the diagnosis of my injury and still feel is a very accurate statement. So it is HUGE that I am even amending the current protocols to allow for a relationship. This is a very solemn, perhaps grave, consideration for me to make. The major problems in my life has been either caused or greatly aggravated by the close personal relationship I have had in my life. What is even more disturbing to me is the profile of the relationships and its contrast to the typical relationship where the woman is in remonstration of her choice to involve herself with a man that falls short of being her ideal as a partner.

I have not hidden from the shadow cast by my ‘less than good’ behavior when it comes to relationships. Likewise, I have not overstated any of the positive aspects of my participation in said relationships, whether it was actions I took in my starter marriage or while I was engaged to Mookie Dee. But something that has repeated itself in both my family and my interpersonal relationships has, along with my own observation and interpretation of what I feel forms the constitution of good relationships, caused me to make an executive decision with regard to establishing relations with women.

When I bring up the story of how because of my Mother’s relationship with the boxer who was my biggest rival as an amateur boxer in Detroit, I wonder what has been the takeaway from that particular story. I repeat it not because it is the only one that I know, but it is the only one, along with what occurred when my marriage failed, that I care to use as an example of how betrayed I have been by those closest to me. It is with a thin, grim smile that I contrast how when my behavior was more objective with regards to others around me, that I was able to manage progress towards a goal.

AND THEY REDIRECT OUR VIEW

Given that I am being honest as well as accurate in my representations of my relationships, then I wonder what kind of trending, if there is any, that is noticeable to anyone? I am jus’ wonderin’ because I know what I see and believe, and more importantly, what I have had to actually live.

When I make a study of some of the complaints that women have of men available in the dating pool, I believe that I compare favorably to those desires and possess many of the traits that are said to be in demand. There may be things about me that might not fit a specific criterion, but overall I think I am as good a ‘draft choice’ as Tim Tebow, with all the questions surrounding him was prior to his being drafted into the NFL. Still, I don’t think that there has ever been anything about me that has engendered the lack of support or reliability that I have encountered with those who were the closest to me. There is a saying, “Keep ones friends close and keep enemies closer. But what is one to do when ‘friends and enemies’ are nearly indistinguishable? I don’t think I can be faulted for not wanting anyone close to me when it has been those closest to me that have done me harm and have let me down.

Maybe it is ‘just me’. Or, it could be one of those things that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, either way, the consequence is the same. I have been the one who takes the first giant step towards commitment in a budding relationship. Unusual or no, I am consistent with my feelings, thoughtful and understanding of others priorities and obligations, as well as being patient with the development of potential relationships.

So, with my vulnerability and prerequisites, I don’t know if the question that I have is about whether or not I fit into anyone’s expectation of a partner for life or not. The relevant question has now become does anyone fit into mine?

EVENINGS OF FUN IN THE METROPLIS OF MY DREAMS

2011-12-07T18:36:00.000-05:00

ON BEING ‘ IRREPRESSIBLE’

I just thought I would talk about being ‘irrepressibly happy’. It makes me think of the definition of a pessimist, who is an ‘optimist with experience’. Rather than letting the ‘experience’ be bad and by classifying it as ‘an experience’, then I could be an optimist with experience and still be ‘irrepressibly happy’. There isn’t a rule that said that said that experience had to be a bad one, is there?

My thing with my appreciation for Tim Tebow goes beyond my opinion that he doesn’t force his belief down anyone’s throat, but that he does not have that glazed-over ‘Stepford Christian’ look in his eyes whenever I have seen him speak. When he gave his speech after the 2008 game between Ole Miss and Florida, he did not seem any different to me than any other cat who was very passionate about football and that he was going to take full responsibility what goes on with the team and that did not happen until near the end of his speech.

It was never about him as it was about ‘the team’ (right Mike Singletary?). He never single out any segment of the team and by inserting himself in the promise, he announced what everyone on the football team already knew: Tim Tebow was the leader and wherever he was going to go, they were going to have to follow.

The speech also showed that he does have moments where he faces difficulty and disappointment that 'everyone faces' with the same kind of humility that he accepts his accolades and deals with his renown. Objectively, he is, to me at least, what I think makes for a good, maybe even great leader. I don’t let my subjective beliefs prevent me from acknowledging that someone ‘is what they are’. And I am more than a little uncomfortable with the idea that for him to be ‘right’ over what we disagree about that I may have to be annihilated, or at the very least converted, for me to live in ‘his world’. But whether it was on a football field or in a foxhole, he still is representative of the kind of leadership that I would be willing to follow. That being said…

THE DOLDRUMS

Lessee… from about maybe 4 or 5 till maybe I was about 33, I was that ‘irrepressibly happy’ person, always in a good mood and with a smile either on my face or just about to be placed there. The last 10 years have been dicey for me to say the least, and I feel challenged on every level of my existence.

Normally I don’t find myself with a case of the winter blues, and this is a little unnerving now that they have appeared and we are still in the fall! I really only note the winter’s arrival with the fact that it means that daylight is going to begin to creep back into the world. That is what getting up in the o’dark for a lifetime will do to you… give you an appreciation for the few minutes each day sunrise comes closer to 6 am than it was a days before.

IRL, I am doing well. ‘She-who-is-still-unamed’ is still around, so there is that. Got an e-mail from her yesterday and I am like ‘cool’. When something definitive about that relationship I will have to call her SOMETHING.

While I cannot stress how welcomed the turn that communication between Nebraska and I has taken, I am still looking for something that is to me, at least, what pornography is to Potter Stewart. So that is that with my personal relationships.

I don’t think that if there was a unique (since Nebraska is truly special and the ‘still unnamed miss might be’ is still a candidate to be special, I figure that I can create a designation to how critical they are in my life at this moment) person in my life that things would be measurably better for me. Whatever difficulties that I have to overcome STILL would be there even if there was someone in my life that I felt comfortably calling on for anything (and I cannot stress enough how encompassing that ‘anything’ is, by implication, it does extend to all areas of my life). For instance I did ask Nebraska for a favor, to pick up some bread, milk and sugar because I had overlooked the purchase and it was nerve-wracking for me. These were items that I needed and I feel that when a person is being asked, there are two answers to that question – ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If there is any doubt to the importance of a request, then I immediately will enter a default answer of ‘no’ and go from there.

Maybe that is harsh and a little ‘whatever’, judging from the unsolicited feedback I have received over decades of this policy. But it is something that has been implemented and has worked out to my satisfaction throughout my life. So I guess I would have readers know exactly how the story goes..!

…THOUGH AS FOR THAT…

I try to keep my entries to around 1,000 words… occasionally I will lift the cap and clock in closer to 1500, but if something is going to run longer than that, then that would mean it is an “Indy, the fire is going out!”, and that situation is one that I hope to avoid at all costs!

But this trending I am on hopefully will explain and clarify why I observe my relationships with people the way that I do, and if there is any comments, and just maybe, dear reader, you and I will get into a dialogue about it. But for now, see you later (unless I see you first!).

JUST AN ENTRY

2011-12-04T22:15:00.000-05:00

THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN A FOOTBALL WEEKEND

I almost literally ‘slept’ on the State – Wisconsin rematch and I had to set the alarm to make sure that I caught the Lions game (on as I type). This weekend, this WEEK for that matter, I have been drifting in and out of sleep which is SO unusual for me. Also, I have been dragging around in a funk, despite the many times I have logged in to see my grades! However, the lack of an incident or a happening preceding my mood, I hope that it passes just as it came.

Friday was just a long day. Monday will be one as well, because I have to go from school all the way out near where Nebraska works, which is on the west side of town, and that may be a few hours of appointment time there. Unlike the Motor, I have not traversed Omaha in the dead of night, or I should say, none of any length, since I have been here. A few times I have stolen out to go to the gym or taken a left on Leavenworth and gone to Baker’s for some groceries, but those aren’t big trips. Monday is going to be a ‘big’ trip, getting there as well as coming home. And that is something that I am not looking forward to.

Lou posted how much he liked Beethoven’s 7th and I went ahead and looked for it on You Tube. Because I am woefully out of sync with movies, I had no idea that it was used in the movie ‘The King’s Speech’. I don’t know if this is the full scene or no, but given the history of the moment, the immensity of it all, I get the feeling that it is a superb film. The music captures the moment and I kind of get the feeling that I can sense some of what the movement may mean to Lou as well.

I have let this video play and play as the nuances of the notes flow over me and filling the gaps left in the cracks of my current state. These are the moments when I feel this cloud come over me that I try to appreciate my solitude. See, I don’t think that company would improve my mood or lift my spirit. I guess it could it be said that maybe if I had a companion that I would not be in such a mood… I don’t know if I’d agree though. Instead of my ‘harshing someone’s mellow’ or being compelled to conceal how I am feeling, I just get to ‘experience’ what it is I am feeling and bring myself up out of it.

Anywho… the music actually helped pull me up some and I will get back into ‘being’ first thing tomorrow morning. But right now I feel a little tired so I am going to call it a night. Later!

IF ONCE IS HAPPENSTANCE…

2011-12-03T09:17:00.000-05:00

Me and Face Book … UGH!

I made an executive decision to de-friend the SFC, not because of something she said or did, but because of embarrassing actions that I TOOK while we were friends on the website.

One of the things about me and what I find ‘funny’ is that I don’t know of too many people that share my sense of ‘funny’. Not only that, I don’t know of too many people who think of Face Book as cynically as I do. Sometimes, it is as though am insensitive to the niceties of social networking in the modern age, and there are some things that are inappropriate to say or do on these social network sites.

What I did is only between the two of us, the reason that I mention is here is that…

…AND IF TWICE IS COINCIDENCE…

Got one new friend to replace the one that I ‘lost’ (I want to think it is only regarding the eponymous website and not our IRL friendship)…NEBRASKA! Our relationship has begun to improve over the last few weeks to a month, and that is a good thing. But it is the behavior of ‘the new Miss What-May-Be-Happenin’ that I am going to expand on here. From a prospect, she has gone down in the charts and though she has the metrics to be an ‘All-Pro’, there are other intangibles that puts things in what I call ‘the in-between’, that place that defies classification and there is no event that can be quantified as a singularity that caused the rift in spacetime that ‘the in-between’ exists in. After all, the ‘relationship universe’ is similar to string theory, in that Einstein’s physics begins to break down and all the rules that once logically were applicable are applicable no longer!

For instance, my entries where I spoke on the alleged ‘man shortage’, while I think that it is true overall, for the ‘sister-girl’ minority faction, because of their behavior there actually IS a gaping shortage in ‘bowl eligible’ men. You only have to look at two sets of numbers… the number of black women v. black men who get bachelor degrees (and if you look at advance degrees… the numbers are… ick) and then take a gander at the amount of brothers who fail to get high school diploma’s (is it just me or does anyone else hate when people use the word ‘degrees’ to describe what you get once someone successfully completes high school?) and the amount of cats of African-American ethnicity who are incarcerated. You don’t have to break it down by those who have diplomas or any other kind of education; the broad numbers are frightening enough.

Of course, there are two more statistics that are even more ironic when you consider them juxtaposed against one another. Of any demographic, no matter how you slice it, there is no group MORE likely to marry outside of their ethnicity than, you guessed it, the brothers. And who are least likely..? That’s right… the sisters! Ugh!! The humanity of it!!!

The thing about the shortage is that women may need to adjust some of their goals if they want them to include a husband/partner. There are plenty of other lifestyles for women to consider that can be as fulfilling as the so-called ‘ideal nuclear family’, which is another of those man-made concepts that may exist nowhere in nature. And this is why…

…THERE IS A REASON THERE IS A DEFCON 4 BEFORE YOU GET TO DEFCON 5

Spending a lifetime in the margins and floating betwixt cliques and groups in society has been to me, insightful. As much as I like the ‘formula to my success’ espoused by my man Freddie, the only absolute I really have is that I am very flexible. And that is maybe the only absolute there really is in life.

I am not certain if the SFC is going to continue to take my calls after my stunt, but it will serve as the ultimate lesson in how to behave in my friendships. I don’t think that I can say that there are reasons for my failings because that slope is extremely slippery, as slippery as the slopes that mankind currently is traveling, as if this dimension was a Phillip K. Dick novel come true.

But with Nebraska almost replacing her in my retinue of friends, we both will get to see if I can apply what I have learned, since both ‘de-friendings’ have my poor judgment in common.

As far as what any of this has to do with relationships, the answer is this: there is a point in relationships that once it has been reached, there can be no return. The people inside of their relationship are committed to whatever consequence that will come of the ‘singularity’ that they are involved in.

I am going to make a personal example of this with my last relationship, the one I was in with Mookie Dee. When I began blogging in earnest the last quarter of 2007, it was because I had made the executive decision to honor the feelings that I had for Mookie, in spite of what may (which was confirmed, and you know what I was able to ‘confirm’) have been occurring in ‘her relationship with me’. My thinking was that either she would respond to my participation in a positive way or she would not. And if she chose to continue with her behavior, which was destabilizing the relationship, then I would have to accept and enter her ‘answer’ to my actions. This would be the mark from which there could be no return.

Whether or not there is a ‘shortage’ of men, this where I think that the more dramatic heartbreaks and break-ups occur. I think that people tend not to accept responsibility for THEIR ACTIONS, and instead try to find ways to modify the actions of the other in their relationships. While I do think that it is okay to make a decision to take positive actions aimed at improving a relationship, it is not okay to take actions in the hope of changing someone. You can only control what you do, and having done that, the next step is to take action on the new information that has presented itself after you have ‘done you’.

It is from here, I believe, that there is no turning back. You have reached the terminal epoch in the relationship. And wherever you go from here, the ownership of the consequence is on you…