Hidden beneath the surface
But not too deeply
Is a me that you almost know
And he makes you think of him
On occasion
As if it were a dream you’re having
Where the person is the person
But it’s a totally different person
I don’t look like me
Or sound like me
But it’s me
You know it’s me
But it’s not the me you know
So you shake it off
As it were sleep in the dead of night
While you’re behind the wheel
On a long trip
With nowhere to go
Have you read Jaded's blog? It's about the debacle of a patch the NYM are putting on their uniform. There's a mini-contest to see who can do one better (unofficially) because I said I could ask my daughter to do one better. But I decided that *I* would give it a try. Scroll down for my submission:
One of my son's favorite things to do is mess with my digital camera. All he has to do is ask for it and I fork it over. I just find it interesting, the things that come back to me inside my camera. It's BLEEDIN' out there, so we're staying in until Spring ... so all the pictures come from within the house.
How the fuck did this boy get the camera out of me before he cleaned up the mess he made inthe living room? Dammit!
I'm not sure what's so damn interesting about ceiling fans, but kids fucking love them. I was afraid at first that there would be stuffed animals hanging off the fan paddles (they are, after all, MY children), but then I remembered that they were all still in the dryer. Interesting color scheme I've got going in the living room, huh? And the vaulted ceiling is nice ... until you realize that you have to pay to heat all that mother fucking space.
This is Lucy. (Yes, I name my plants - shut up). Lucy has been through so much, I can't even begin to tell you. When I moved into my house in 2001, the tenants before me left her. I don't even know how old she is. But she survived Hurricane Sasha (Sasha being that long-haired domestic house cat I had before the kids were born who would hide in the couch cushions and lunge at Lucy's leaves. That bitch ate so much of Lucy, I can't tell you), and my brother- and sister-in-law who stayed with us for a year when they were like 12 and blamed Sasha every time they fucked up the damn plant. Yet, Lucy remains. She's having babies - see the bottom of the pot?
Apparently, my son does NOT have head lice.
He's obsessed with his nose. Maybe it's the asthma. But, still - no signs of a cold.
***
I really love it when he takes the camera - he also puts it in video mode and has taken the most outrageous videos. The first time he was out taking videos, I had to stop it. Don't ever let a 5 year old loose to take videos candidly without first explaining that you never, EVER take a video camera into the bathroom when your sister is taking a bath.
I'm just sayin
***
I love being a dad, folks.
I've seen scores, if not hundreds, of pictures of Barak Obama - but I really like this one. I think he looks better in a light suit like this one. The earth tones do his complexion justice, I think - the maroon in the tie? Love it. But that's an aside - and I just wanted to get it out of the way because I didn't want to interrupt the flow of thoughts that are about to spew from the depths of the depths of me.
I read this article in the Red Eye. It's a free edition of the Chicago Tribune that you can get free on most every corner in downtown Chicago and at pretty much every train stop known to Chicago man. I'm not an avid reader - mornings are my nemesis and I can't commit anything to every morning except pure disdain. Mornings interrupt my favorite pastime, encroaching on my blessed sleep and pouncing on it out of nowhere as if morning were a wild tawny Sphinx and my sleep a loving, peaceful, oblivious bunny watching butterflies hover by effortlessly.
WHAM!
Bunny dead.
Tawny Sphinx belly full.
But this article was one I wanted to read - The End of Racism? it asked, and I rolled my eyes. Seriously?
No. I meant it. Seriously!?
Why is this even a topic of conversation? Why am I sitting on this here train reading an article asking a question akin to "Was Jesus White?"
HELL NO! What kind of stupid question is this. How many blonde haired, blue eyed Prince Charmings do you know that are born in Bethlehem? I know of none. Jesus wasn't Aryan and Barak Obama's presidency does not the end of racism make.
But as I considered that read, and all the hoopla in the news over the past 18 months ... I thought about where this was coming from. And I boiled it all down to this one quote I found in another article about what Barak Obama's race is:
"He can't be African-American. With race, white claims 50 percent of him and black 50 percent of him," Ron Wilson of Plantation, Fla., wrote in a letter to the Sun-Sentinel newspaper.
Ok, I won't even get started about the fact this this jackoff is from PLANTATION, Florida. I'm not going there. But the idea that Barak Obama suddenly CAN'T be African-American is a fucking mess. Forget Barak Obama's own words when he said, "I identify as African-American--that's how I'm treated and that's how I'm viewed. I'm proud of it" and forget about the fact that with this quote the man flatly said that "African-American" is a way to be TREATED ... I won't even go there either ...
Where am I going?
Remember when McCain gave the mic to that precious old lady during one of his "Town Hall Meetings" and she said that Barak Obama was an Arab? Remember that? Remember when it seemed that ALL of West Virginia was refusing to vote for a Black man?
Oh, right - he's a fucking nigger when he's running for office ... but let the man actually WIN ... and suddenly,
"Of course Obama is black. And he's not black too," said Rebecca Walker, a 38-year-old writer who is of Russian, African, Irish, Scottish and Native American descent. "He's white, and he's not white too."
So, let me get this straight. Nigger when running for President. "Not Black too" when he wins. Interesting. The "one-drop" rule takes on a whole new meaning when the man wins, I see. Now that he's going to be sworn in as President of the United States, he's not Black because he's at least "one drop" White.
Don't come at me talking about racism is dying. It's not. Maybe, MAYBE i'll give you that overt racism is being swept under the rug temporarily - sure, some people actually have examples to attest to that "fact." So, I won't argue with you (unless you live in West Virginia) - your personal experience is valid and you have a story to tell.
But this isn't about you - because those of you that read my blog don't fall into any racist category I'm referring to. I believe that wholeheartedly. Be ye Black, White, "one-drop" mongolian. "LATIN" (that one kills me - it's latinO) - whatever. If you're here ... you good. And I'm hoping my comments section doesn't blow up in some discourse about whether or not you feel I'm pointing a finger at you personally. I'm not.
I'm simply saying that I find it interesting that 8 months ago we were talking about whether or not we could vote a Black man into office ... and today, we're talking about the fact that he's not really Black because he's half White ... when historically speaking, that man is Black as HELL. BAH-LACK AASS HAAYY-EEELL.
So please, stop the bullshit. And start treating him "African-American" like the man say! (I say with the ONLY faggoty twang of sarcasm while flipping my hair, turning and walking away dramatically)
*slams door*
returns momentarily
Cuz you KNOW you don't look at the Obama family portrait and see three Black females and a White man.
leaves
*slams door*
[muffled from other side of door] He Black!
You know those doldrums that make you feel like nothing's right? When you're all alone with your thoughts (even if you're in a crowded room) and feel ill at ease with life as a whole? When you begin to wonder why you don't have what you think you should have, or what you want to have? When you realize that you want more because what you have is all crap?
I go through those times every now and again, a ritual of sorts I suppose. I've accepted those times as a part of life, as those emotional valleys that I need to walk through in order to climb out of and overcome. That's not to say that I enjoy them - but I accept them and behave accordingly. I try to have more alone time; I try not to really associate much with people. Instead, I let music roll over me as if it were a watery wave of the sea and I spend time in a musical underwater world with just me. Kinda like spongebob, but without the crabs and stuff.
I think I suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder at times ... but not the kind diagnosed by psychologists for which I need Ritalin. I'm talking about the kind of attention I want from a mate - that kind of Attention Deficit. There really is no pill to swallow for my type of ADD ... it's the type of ADD that could only be cured with the perpetual smell of dick on my hands.
Did he just say that!?
Of COURSE I did, this is JGC, dammit!
But not just random passersby dick - but one dick in particular. The same dick. The same smell, everyday. The kind of scent that sticks to you like feathers stick to a man rolled in tar. I mean a GOOD smell! MMMM. MMMM. MMMM. A smell that only you can smell. That only you can recognize. The kind that makes you know that Chante's not the only one who's got a man at home (even though she doesn't anymore) ... The kind that makes you smile in the middle of a serious work meeting and garners funny looks from associates and co-workers. THAT kind.
I was feeling that ADD this week, pretty regularly since about 10:15pm on 12.31.2008 when Carson Daily started asking everyone on TV who was going to get their New Year's kiss. That fuckface ruined my night
awwww, come AWN, Carson ... that wasn't even on my damn mind!
So, I was a little bit down after that and I transcended into the new year rather ambivalently. (Only here at JGC can we talk about the smell of dick on the hand and also use the word "ambivalently." I love JGC). That ambivalence turn to a bit of moodiness the next day and I found myself really feeling the JGC-defined ADD coming on. I wanted a man's attention. Yes, it's more than sex, but the need for flowery JGC language takes a hold of me and I can't help myself. (dick scent on the hand is pricelessly funny and there's got to be a shock factor - otherwise, who would come!) But I figured I wanted some stability and someone to call home.
I declared some months ago here on JGC that I wasn't looking for it and that if it happened it was a bonus - and that remains true. I'm not out there looking for a relationship. But not looking for it doesn't mean I don't think about it in my underwater spongebob-without-the-crabs world when i begin suffering from JGC-defined ADD.
Look, if Starbucks can make names up and act like it's Old English, so the fuck can I
So, it would be really nice to have a Venti Man Mocha Latte, with an extra pump and one Splenda. (Not too much sugar, please) But I'm not out there with my Venti Man rifle like some Faggot Elmer Fudd during rabbit season.
I just wanna FUCK like a rabbit with someone whose company I actually LIKE
Until then, I'll focus on completing my degree (no, I HAVEN'T finished my paper, carajo!) and after I get it in May, who knows - maybe I'll take up prostate milking.
Is there a class for that?
(oh, I have a date on Monday - I'm praying both of his eyes point in the same direction at all times, that he doesn't fall asleep spontaneously and without warning or suffer from tirouettes syndrome or have a peg leg with a kick stand or have a nasty facial tick or a missing tooth or collects body parts in jars of formaldehyde ... pray with me)
I really just wanna take one of my son's toy trains and beat the ever living fuck out of it, for posterity's sake. May it lie stomped on the ground, destroyed in effigy if only because there really isn't a real little mother fucking engine that could. As I sit here and struggle with this stupid fucking paper for a class I didn't finish last semester, I encounter the same roadblock that I did over a month ago. Writer's block, a marked desire to do anything else, a refusal of my brain to comprehend what the hell it is I'm SUPPOSED to write, a boycott from thinking about anything academic ... all of it. I just can't seem to get this shit done. And what would it hurt my son if I destroyed one of his toy trains? Huh? He has dozens and scores of trains laying at the bottom of toy chests all over this house - he won't really notice, right? He won't ever know that I tore one of his trains to splintered little bits and I'll still be the best daddy in the whole world to him, right?
But I'll know - and it'll eat at me that I destroyed something that he so loves. A train. A fucking TRAIN. And what a conundrum I find myself in - the story of the little engine that could is mocking me and I can't do anything about it, not even in effigy, because my son LOVES trains.
I don't want to do this paper - the class is stupid, I won't need it and I can't be bothered with this nonsense! But I HAVE to do it. Stupid, no good, life lesson, blah blah blah, bitch ass paper.
THERE! I said it.
In other related news
My professor from another class, my independent study, wrote me that he enjoyed reading my final paper about how my being Latino and having a marital connection to the Black culture has shaped my world view and my professional practice. He mentioned how the minority perspective isn't really represented in the curriculum in the university and it really should be.
I politely wrote him back (names changed to protect identity's, cuz that's how we do here at JGC, unless you're picking your nose in public and I have my camera phone):
Thank you HARRY; I really did enjoy this project. I agree that these perspectives should be better incorporated into the DEPARTMENT'S curriculum. I have enjoyed the curriculum and have learned a tremendous amount about the AE field since starting in January 2006, but very little of it (in my opinion) focuses on power and other issues that the typical minority deals with in the classroom. I understand that to many people these types of factors are invisible and I don't fault anyone for being oblivious to forces they do not know about, understand or have had to live with, I really don't. But I do believe that adult educators need to be made aware that these issues are very real because they impact transfer of learning in tremendous ways.
Have you ever tried to research the history of the education of adults in the Black community? No? Interestingly enough, data is scarce.
Really!? Scarce? You mean people haven't been documenting things about the Black community? stttttoooooopppp.
But I really did enjoy that independent study, which I chose specifically because no other class I was taking or had taken was dealing with it. We'll see. I wonder if he'll ask me to get involved in some diversification effort of the department's curriculum.
I know, I know - who am I kidding. He's not going to change a fucking thing.
I'll let you know if I'm wrong - but I think I'm more likely to see Jesus do The Chicken Noodle Soup.
Lettin' it rain, and pourin' it out,
JACK
PS (notice how I totally diverted even YOUR attention away from this stupid fucking paper I have to write ... ugh.)
