He walked all the way there. It was about two miles. He needed the time to fully decided that he wanted to do what had been convincing himself of for months. He needed an answer. Where ever it came from.
When he arrived at the towering doors his steps became shorter. His pace slowed. He examined the height of the regal, wooden door, wondering if the sculpted figures on the front were mocking him or telling a story that he didn't get. Once inside, he avoided eye-contact with anyone and everything. He eyed the red carpet in front of him. Candles lit the place and sun pushing through stained glass windows. He looked up only to find that no one was looking at him either. They seemed lost somewhere in the ceiling or buried their noses in their own clasped fingers.
He walked to a small room off to the right and kneeled in front of a decorated curtain.
It's been awhile, he started to explain. I think I may have lost my way.
Dear Blog, can you forgive me? Can I write again?
Randomness .....
I always thought my life would completely change when I turned 30. ... It really did too. .... It's not at all the way I imagined. ..... I really know a fair amount of very successful people. They make me proud and jealous at the same time. That's real. .... I can't remember a time in my adult life when there was this amount of quality music available. .... Kanye, Jay-Z, J. Cole, Drake, Wayne, Wale, Big Sean, Trey Songz, Rick Ross.... that's just off the top of my head. ... What happened to the days when all I knew was dancehall? .... Those were the days. ... When you had madd fun at a party and never even thought about taking a drink. .... I really need to start working out again. .... I've thought about running, Cross Fit, MMA, boxing. .... Clearly I'm bored. ... 50,000 word novel writing challenge. ... Damn that's a lot of words. .... I'm still stuck on randomness. .... Are you down? Are you down? Yeah, I'm all the way down. .... Drake sings and Trey raps. The world is upside down. .... Lately I've been wanting to dress more like a grown up. That means I'm getting old. And when my salt and pepper comes, I ain't dying it. .... Sigh... writing might be fun again. ....Head nodding....
Me
Monday, November 7, 2011
Monday, August 2, 2010
Thought of this in the car...
Channel-surfing at 1 a.m. and there's nothing on. I just turned off the replay of Weeds. I know I should at least being trying to sleep but for some reason I don't turn off the television. I just lay there figuring that I'll fall asleep eventually as long as I'm tired enough. I keep the phone in the bed with me sometimes. I try to keep it out, like a newborn it keeps crawling back into bed with me when I try to banish it to the nightstand.
I kept waiting for Her to call. I knew she wouldn't. I knew that wouldn't call her either. Maybe a text message. Yeah, a text message is less intrusive. There's less of an obligation to respond. I texted her this morning. She didn't respond. I knew it would too much to text her again. I wondered if she was busy or forgot about the text or just chose not to answer. Too many damn variables in this new method of communication. Too much damn guessing. Is she mad at me? What's she doing? Is she trying to figure out what to say, drop her phone in a ditch, fall in a ditch herself, is she just ignoring me.
Screw it, I said. I checked her Facebook. No status change in 15 hours. Twitter? No updates. She dropped off the social media map.
So now I'm thinking about all the reasons she could be pissed at me. Not just why she didn't answer this text message but why she probably won't respond to the next one either. Now I have to track Facebook and Twitter updates to find out what's going on. Even that thought made me feel like a stalker. Oh, what if I check her blog? Does that make me a stalker? Or I could Google her. Google knows everything.
I closed the computer. This morphing into Magnum PI was not on my agenda for the night. Back to the television. Rocky is on. Maybe I should text her again. Wait, did it just vibrate? Oh it didn't. Well I've always loved this scene in Rocky.
(see i'm trying new things in my blog... hopefully it's good)
Randomness...
The worst thing about the summer is that baseball is the only sport in season. I'll be excited for an NFL preseason game at this point, which is kind of like going to the park to watch some 40-somethings play three-second hold. .... "My foot's sleeping on the gas. No break pads. No such thing as last." ..... I was 30-plus minutes into a run and felt a small explosion in my calf. Ok I'm exaggerating but I did feel a build up and a pop. That on top of my Achilles hurting on my other leg. Now I'm walking around like a 70-year old with surgically-repaired knees. Probably going to run today anyway. ... I remember when V-necks were an experiment. Now I can wear one every day in a week. .... It's amazing what a few push-ups can do for your confidence. .... She's having the best summer ever. I'm happy and mad about that. .... I think I'm making progress this summer. Slow motion for me. .... Amare' Stoudemaire should NOT having any commercials mentioning the NY Knicks and NBA championship in the same thought. There's nothing to be said for setting yourself up for failure. Stupid. .... Everything in moderation is such a great saying. It's true in every aspect of life. .... I never thought being a good person and caring about people's feelings could be a detriment in life. That don't even make sense but it's true. .... Weezy really has a verse that starts "Oh shit motherfucker God damn/kicking bitches out the condo like Pam." That shit sounds like he's throwing a temper tantrum. .... I just wanna roll a blunt with my list of regrets. Burn it all. Burn it all. I'm starting it fresh. .... I really realized I have to thank God for the real friends in my life. I don't use them like I should but I'm grateful that there are people willing to put up with me. .... I find myself being a lot more selfish that I've ever been. And I think that's healthy for me. ....Reimbursement checks are like finding $50 in a pair of pants you haven't worn for awhile. It gives me a yearning in my loins. .... Real quick.... Darnelle Rives is well within his rights to holdout of training camp. ... Owners in all sports don't give two shits about players unless they are making them tons of money. Those players the owners call "close personal friends." ..... I hope the Giants don't suck this year. The Mets suck giants Ape testicles. .... The Knicks are still going to suck and I'm still going to watch them. ... Sometimes I want to be on Twitter but right now all my tweets will be subliminal. ..... I chose to refrain.
C
I kept waiting for Her to call. I knew she wouldn't. I knew that wouldn't call her either. Maybe a text message. Yeah, a text message is less intrusive. There's less of an obligation to respond. I texted her this morning. She didn't respond. I knew it would too much to text her again. I wondered if she was busy or forgot about the text or just chose not to answer. Too many damn variables in this new method of communication. Too much damn guessing. Is she mad at me? What's she doing? Is she trying to figure out what to say, drop her phone in a ditch, fall in a ditch herself, is she just ignoring me.
Screw it, I said. I checked her Facebook. No status change in 15 hours. Twitter? No updates. She dropped off the social media map.
So now I'm thinking about all the reasons she could be pissed at me. Not just why she didn't answer this text message but why she probably won't respond to the next one either. Now I have to track Facebook and Twitter updates to find out what's going on. Even that thought made me feel like a stalker. Oh, what if I check her blog? Does that make me a stalker? Or I could Google her. Google knows everything.
I closed the computer. This morphing into Magnum PI was not on my agenda for the night. Back to the television. Rocky is on. Maybe I should text her again. Wait, did it just vibrate? Oh it didn't. Well I've always loved this scene in Rocky.
(see i'm trying new things in my blog... hopefully it's good)
Randomness...
The worst thing about the summer is that baseball is the only sport in season. I'll be excited for an NFL preseason game at this point, which is kind of like going to the park to watch some 40-somethings play three-second hold. .... "My foot's sleeping on the gas. No break pads. No such thing as last." ..... I was 30-plus minutes into a run and felt a small explosion in my calf. Ok I'm exaggerating but I did feel a build up and a pop. That on top of my Achilles hurting on my other leg. Now I'm walking around like a 70-year old with surgically-repaired knees. Probably going to run today anyway. ... I remember when V-necks were an experiment. Now I can wear one every day in a week. .... It's amazing what a few push-ups can do for your confidence. .... She's having the best summer ever. I'm happy and mad about that. .... I think I'm making progress this summer. Slow motion for me. .... Amare' Stoudemaire should NOT having any commercials mentioning the NY Knicks and NBA championship in the same thought. There's nothing to be said for setting yourself up for failure. Stupid. .... Everything in moderation is such a great saying. It's true in every aspect of life. .... I never thought being a good person and caring about people's feelings could be a detriment in life. That don't even make sense but it's true. .... Weezy really has a verse that starts "Oh shit motherfucker God damn/kicking bitches out the condo like Pam." That shit sounds like he's throwing a temper tantrum. .... I just wanna roll a blunt with my list of regrets. Burn it all. Burn it all. I'm starting it fresh. .... I really realized I have to thank God for the real friends in my life. I don't use them like I should but I'm grateful that there are people willing to put up with me. .... I find myself being a lot more selfish that I've ever been. And I think that's healthy for me. ....Reimbursement checks are like finding $50 in a pair of pants you haven't worn for awhile. It gives me a yearning in my loins. .... Real quick.... Darnelle Rives is well within his rights to holdout of training camp. ... Owners in all sports don't give two shits about players unless they are making them tons of money. Those players the owners call "close personal friends." ..... I hope the Giants don't suck this year. The Mets suck giants Ape testicles. .... The Knicks are still going to suck and I'm still going to watch them. ... Sometimes I want to be on Twitter but right now all my tweets will be subliminal. ..... I chose to refrain.
C
Thursday, July 29, 2010
When the Sun comes up....
The best thing about the morning is when the sun creeps into your room. Through the window and onto the floor. It climbs the bed and touches you. It warms you and jars you just enough to stir you into consciousness. Another day. A new one.
There's a reason why the morning smells the way it does. It smells fresh, unspoiled by the stresses each day may bring. It hasn't been polluted yet, or trampled, or spit on or bombarded by noise. It's open to opportunity and bright and tranquil. I guess that's why you're supposed to thank God for new days. Everyday is like a do-over.
I forgot that for a while.
I like the crap from each day pile on to the next one, and then the next one. After awhile you get buried in all that crap and it's hard to come out because instead of looking at the next sun you keep studying all the crap surrounding you. Sometimes when it's like that no one can pull you out. Even if they extend a hand, you either reject it or pull them in with you. But there's a point that I realized that you have to pull yourself out. Had to figure out a way to look and appreciate when the next sun came up then I had to figure out when the hell I was going to do with this fresh new, shiny, tranquil day. I'm still figuring it out.
I stopped blogging because I thought I had nothing to write about. I couldn't stand watching myself write about the same things over and over. About frustration and struggle because it all looked like I was sinking, instead of pulling myself out of the crap. I decided to stop for a minute and really think about what makes me happy. And when I couldn't figure that out for the life of me, it made decide that, well, that's what I'm going to do with the opportunity that each sunrise presents. I'm going to find out what really makes me happy and what we'll keep me happy.
Running. Exercising. That makes me happy. I like to be challenged. I like to see how far I can push, I deep I can dig. I want to find out where I'll break, or if I'll break at all. I like that the reward is tangible. Bigger, stronger, faster and all that.
It's also important that I do things for myself and that I make some decisions based soley on my own personal best interests. I would literally make decisions based on which route would piss off, disappoint, or bother the least amount of people. I barely ever said no to anyone but myself. I have to laugh at how stupid that even sounds in my head. I realized that sometimes the best thing for me to do is to sit my ass quietly in one place and do nothing. Or read. Or write. Or just think about what I need to do that's going to continue to make me happy. It's working on not being stuck in the crap that makes you walk around like you're a rapper, saying you got the whole city on your shoulders, the whole state on your back, or the whole world rotating on your head or some other nonsense.
So recently I've started to take account of the sunrise. Since everyday is a shot at a do-over, a chance to do it better. To be better. So I've made friends with Gym again but I've been cheating with Running. Gym understands. She's happy if I visit. Procrastination is a torn in my freakin' side but that's partly because she has a partner that takes me upstairs and then I don't feel like doing anything.
If you've followed this blog in the past you'll get the personification. You will also remember this:
Randomness.....
Is it gay that I get an erection from the thought of Chris Paul playing for the Knicks? I'm sure it is. I don't care though. .... Damn the people in charge of the New York State budget are a bunch of cocks. I wish we could just round up like 12 really hood dudes and go up to Albany and just beat the shit out of everyone. That'll teach 'em. .... I didn't do anything work-related today outside of a few emails and two meetings that I barely paid attention in. At least I was productive yesterday. ..... I feel so many changes coming. .... I thought yesterday that I'm literally "training" to be 30. I'm running. I'm eating better. I'm cut my hair differently. It'll all been a win. .... This is the first time I've blogged in like 2-3 months and it was probably 2-3 months before that. .... I've tweeted about 10 times in the past 3 days. ... That's more than I've tweeted in the past 2 months. .... I've decided that I'm not longer taking blame for shit that ain't my fault. Enough of all this nice guy shit. .... Dough to get, more shows to rip. I suggest you all roll wit the clique. Who ya wit? .... Why do the Mets suck so bad? If I was more into baseball I'd be supremely pissed off right now. .... Giants and Jets in the SuperBowl? No? ..... Did my first "real" track workout in about 6 years the other day. I layed on the floor in my bedroom for hours afterward. Layed on the floor the next day after I ran and went to the gym. .... I know my abs are under there somewhere. .... I was told I was an "inspirational writer" and that I was "movie star hot" in the same week. I should be gassed but I don't believe any of it. ... Don't worry my swag is in tact though. .... Wait is the word "swag" played out? ...... Ah well. Just happy to be back. Good morning.
- C
There's a reason why the morning smells the way it does. It smells fresh, unspoiled by the stresses each day may bring. It hasn't been polluted yet, or trampled, or spit on or bombarded by noise. It's open to opportunity and bright and tranquil. I guess that's why you're supposed to thank God for new days. Everyday is like a do-over.
I forgot that for a while.
I like the crap from each day pile on to the next one, and then the next one. After awhile you get buried in all that crap and it's hard to come out because instead of looking at the next sun you keep studying all the crap surrounding you. Sometimes when it's like that no one can pull you out. Even if they extend a hand, you either reject it or pull them in with you. But there's a point that I realized that you have to pull yourself out. Had to figure out a way to look and appreciate when the next sun came up then I had to figure out when the hell I was going to do with this fresh new, shiny, tranquil day. I'm still figuring it out.
I stopped blogging because I thought I had nothing to write about. I couldn't stand watching myself write about the same things over and over. About frustration and struggle because it all looked like I was sinking, instead of pulling myself out of the crap. I decided to stop for a minute and really think about what makes me happy. And when I couldn't figure that out for the life of me, it made decide that, well, that's what I'm going to do with the opportunity that each sunrise presents. I'm going to find out what really makes me happy and what we'll keep me happy.
Running. Exercising. That makes me happy. I like to be challenged. I like to see how far I can push, I deep I can dig. I want to find out where I'll break, or if I'll break at all. I like that the reward is tangible. Bigger, stronger, faster and all that.
It's also important that I do things for myself and that I make some decisions based soley on my own personal best interests. I would literally make decisions based on which route would piss off, disappoint, or bother the least amount of people. I barely ever said no to anyone but myself. I have to laugh at how stupid that even sounds in my head. I realized that sometimes the best thing for me to do is to sit my ass quietly in one place and do nothing. Or read. Or write. Or just think about what I need to do that's going to continue to make me happy. It's working on not being stuck in the crap that makes you walk around like you're a rapper, saying you got the whole city on your shoulders, the whole state on your back, or the whole world rotating on your head or some other nonsense.
So recently I've started to take account of the sunrise. Since everyday is a shot at a do-over, a chance to do it better. To be better. So I've made friends with Gym again but I've been cheating with Running. Gym understands. She's happy if I visit. Procrastination is a torn in my freakin' side but that's partly because she has a partner that takes me upstairs and then I don't feel like doing anything.
If you've followed this blog in the past you'll get the personification. You will also remember this:
Randomness.....
Is it gay that I get an erection from the thought of Chris Paul playing for the Knicks? I'm sure it is. I don't care though. .... Damn the people in charge of the New York State budget are a bunch of cocks. I wish we could just round up like 12 really hood dudes and go up to Albany and just beat the shit out of everyone. That'll teach 'em. .... I didn't do anything work-related today outside of a few emails and two meetings that I barely paid attention in. At least I was productive yesterday. ..... I feel so many changes coming. .... I thought yesterday that I'm literally "training" to be 30. I'm running. I'm eating better. I'm cut my hair differently. It'll all been a win. .... This is the first time I've blogged in like 2-3 months and it was probably 2-3 months before that. .... I've tweeted about 10 times in the past 3 days. ... That's more than I've tweeted in the past 2 months. .... I've decided that I'm not longer taking blame for shit that ain't my fault. Enough of all this nice guy shit. .... Dough to get, more shows to rip. I suggest you all roll wit the clique. Who ya wit? .... Why do the Mets suck so bad? If I was more into baseball I'd be supremely pissed off right now. .... Giants and Jets in the SuperBowl? No? ..... Did my first "real" track workout in about 6 years the other day. I layed on the floor in my bedroom for hours afterward. Layed on the floor the next day after I ran and went to the gym. .... I know my abs are under there somewhere. .... I was told I was an "inspirational writer" and that I was "movie star hot" in the same week. I should be gassed but I don't believe any of it. ... Don't worry my swag is in tact though. .... Wait is the word "swag" played out? ...... Ah well. Just happy to be back. Good morning.
- C
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Trying something new....
Dear Me,
Sometimes I sit and stare into space and allow my thoughts to take me over. Sometimes it’s too much and I feel like I’m bubbling over. Other times I feel like I’m imagining that my pot is so full than the next drop is going to force things to spill to the floor. I’m trying to realize that when you hold on to things that the next thing just gets added on.
Then everything feels like too much.
The next thing is always going to set me off. The next straw will always feel like the last straw. How do you let go of the past when the past feels so much like the present? I couldn’t find the words before to describe how I was feeling. I always used these active verbs or flowery words. I feel like I’m “overflowing.”
I don’t care that it’s pouring. I know sometimes that when it rains it pours. But it doesn’t have to rain all the time. Not all the time. I don’t care about getting wet. It happens to everyone. I just need some sun. A rainbow. A lull in the action.
My friend said I was irritable. On edge, he said, like everything is going to aggravate me. Damn, I never thought about that way. Maybe that was too simple. Maybe it’s just me. Actually I know it’s me. Now. But it’s because I’m tired of standing in the rain and throwing a tantrum isn’t going to help me get dry. Waiting for the sun to come isn’t going to stop the rain. I’m standing in the rain angry and sulking and anything that happens is the next thing that makes me want to scream.
I can’t be like this.
I spoke at a career fair the other day for mostly teenagers, all in GED or alternative school programs. Kids that have had trouble with the law or discipline. They were all respectful, all quiet. Even the ones that didn’t care what I had to say at least pretended to pay attention. Including the three kids someone sat in front of me that barely spoke English. That time I was the one that ended the conversation. “So, thanks for stopping by guys.” I held out my hand for a farewell handshake in case any of them misunderstood.
I told almost every kid that sat down that finding a career was finding a way to marry the things that you like, with the things that you’re good at. There has to be a balance. The balance presents the challenge. For the most part, I felt like a spokesman for Read Across America. I kept telling them they need to read. That I read on the train. That I liked to read when I was younger but I didn’t actually read much because that required me to sit in one place for a long time. I told them that I always wanted to be smart, and to sound smart. For that you need access to lots of words. Where are words? Books. That’s right kids.
Reading. It’s like a vacation for your brain.
I promise I’ll try to write more,
Me
Sometimes I sit and stare into space and allow my thoughts to take me over. Sometimes it’s too much and I feel like I’m bubbling over. Other times I feel like I’m imagining that my pot is so full than the next drop is going to force things to spill to the floor. I’m trying to realize that when you hold on to things that the next thing just gets added on.
Then everything feels like too much.
The next thing is always going to set me off. The next straw will always feel like the last straw. How do you let go of the past when the past feels so much like the present? I couldn’t find the words before to describe how I was feeling. I always used these active verbs or flowery words. I feel like I’m “overflowing.”
I don’t care that it’s pouring. I know sometimes that when it rains it pours. But it doesn’t have to rain all the time. Not all the time. I don’t care about getting wet. It happens to everyone. I just need some sun. A rainbow. A lull in the action.
My friend said I was irritable. On edge, he said, like everything is going to aggravate me. Damn, I never thought about that way. Maybe that was too simple. Maybe it’s just me. Actually I know it’s me. Now. But it’s because I’m tired of standing in the rain and throwing a tantrum isn’t going to help me get dry. Waiting for the sun to come isn’t going to stop the rain. I’m standing in the rain angry and sulking and anything that happens is the next thing that makes me want to scream.
I can’t be like this.
I spoke at a career fair the other day for mostly teenagers, all in GED or alternative school programs. Kids that have had trouble with the law or discipline. They were all respectful, all quiet. Even the ones that didn’t care what I had to say at least pretended to pay attention. Including the three kids someone sat in front of me that barely spoke English. That time I was the one that ended the conversation. “So, thanks for stopping by guys.” I held out my hand for a farewell handshake in case any of them misunderstood.
I told almost every kid that sat down that finding a career was finding a way to marry the things that you like, with the things that you’re good at. There has to be a balance. The balance presents the challenge. For the most part, I felt like a spokesman for Read Across America. I kept telling them they need to read. That I read on the train. That I liked to read when I was younger but I didn’t actually read much because that required me to sit in one place for a long time. I told them that I always wanted to be smart, and to sound smart. For that you need access to lots of words. Where are words? Books. That’s right kids.
Reading. It’s like a vacation for your brain.
I promise I’ll try to write more,
Me
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Release...
I'm writing this because I want to write something else and can't find the words. So here I don't have to search for words. I just let them come to me. .... I guess that's lazy. I'm just trying to get the ball rolling. .... Anthony Hamilton just beasted this song in my ear. ... Her Heart. ...I keep thinking of something my mother said to me. ... "And who do the strong turn to?" ... What if I'm not as strong as I thought I was? Who do I turn to then if I've always thought I was the strong one? .... I can't remember the last time I was so happy to just stay in the house with my family as I was for the past two weeks. ... In my house everyone is reserved to their own corner, doing whatever it is they do and when we gathered in the living room suddenly I felt like we were having a house party but all the guest lived in the house. ... No matter how much I read, or what I read, I still can't find the inspiration to write something brilliant. I think I realized that I don't know who I am as a writer. I've found my voice as a reporter, although I feel like I've lost that at times. But the "writer" I'm supposed to be is a stranger to me. ... I'm not sure I've ever met him before. ... I'm finding that when I read I simply want to be like the author I'm currently reading. I wish I could see through his mind's eye and shape words and space the way he's crafted it. .... The best piece of writing advice I've ever gotten was simply to "Write what you see." ... I don't want to write a story that I wouldn't read. And I certainly don't want to write another hood classic about an athlete that never made it in sports but somehow found another way despite his inner demons and addiction to women's affection. .... The greatest minds are always the most flawed. That's way the geniuses we know also seem so crazy. ... Maybe I'm too normal for my own good. ... Lately my Randomness hasn't seem so random. ... Maybe it's forced. ... I need to write thought. I need to purge. I can't keep suffocating on my own thoughts. ... No, I'm more in control than that. .... I'm the one suffocating my thoughts. .... 2010 is time for action. More action than planning. More doing than thinking. ..... I've been sleeping better lately. Not sure why. .... I can hear the ticking instead of me. I'm just waiting for the BOOM.
-C
-C
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Relaxation....
Randomness...
Through my headphones Erykah Badu is massaging my shoulders with her strong, rapsy melody. ... Maxwell guides my thoughts into tranquility. ... Sade provides the haze of smoky incense. .... I gotta get up, Jill Scott says. "Sometimes I feel like I'm working for nothing, trying to get something. Everywhere I turn I'm faced with another bill." .... But I gotta get up, she said. .... That's what I say. I gotta get up. Complacency is an endless path to nowhere. Spinning wheels. ..... Who do the strong turn to? Damn that's a good question. .... Sometimes sharing really is caring. .... I look in the mirror and I don't always see me. ... I see the me that I used to be sometimes. Other times I see the person I think I am. But whoever that person is, he's beginning to feel like a stranger. ... Being trapped inside yourself is pretty weird. .... Who has the key to that dungeon? .... Oh right. That would be me. ... Common just came through on Pandora. Good timing. .... Seven presidents tried to reform health care. More presidents than I've been alive for. Now Obama wants to wrap "Change" in a box with a red bow and have this bill signed before Friday. Merry Christmas America. ... Funny that no matter how much I read about it and listen to people talk about it, I still don't really understand how it's going to change my life personally. Maybe less cash getting jacked from my check. Shit, Merry Christmas to me. ... Cincinnati Bengals wideout Chris Henry died during a domestic dispute with his fiancee after falling off the back of the pick up truck she was driving. Don't know if she killed him on purpose but I do know that he jumped onto the rear of the car shirtless with his arm in a sling. ... They both clearly did something stupid. But it's amazing to me that people make jokes when men are injured and even killed in domestic arguments. Steve McNair. Arturo Gatti. Chris Henry. Tiger Woods is the only one not dead although he's being killed by the media outlets across the country. ... Then some broad named "Snookie" on MTV's Jersey Shore get clocked in the face and then there's all kinda of domestic violence conversations and information on hotlines being aired. .... It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Unless it's a man. Then it's still fun and games. ... Knicks are 6-2 in their last eight games and I got to take my nephew to his first Knick game about 10 rows back from the visitor's basket at the Garden. I think I would have pissed myself in excitement if I did that when I was 12. .... He may not have truly appreciated the experience. But he will one day. And I'm grateful for that. ... I'm really fighting the urge to hate Christmas this year. I almost went ape shit in Green Acres last night. And it wasn't even packed. I was just tried of roaming around looking for stuff to buy with money that I didn't have. So I left before I planted a bomb by the Haagen Dazs stand. ... Last night I talked to God. He didn't answer. But I hope He heard me.
C
Through my headphones Erykah Badu is massaging my shoulders with her strong, rapsy melody. ... Maxwell guides my thoughts into tranquility. ... Sade provides the haze of smoky incense. .... I gotta get up, Jill Scott says. "Sometimes I feel like I'm working for nothing, trying to get something. Everywhere I turn I'm faced with another bill." .... But I gotta get up, she said. .... That's what I say. I gotta get up. Complacency is an endless path to nowhere. Spinning wheels. ..... Who do the strong turn to? Damn that's a good question. .... Sometimes sharing really is caring. .... I look in the mirror and I don't always see me. ... I see the me that I used to be sometimes. Other times I see the person I think I am. But whoever that person is, he's beginning to feel like a stranger. ... Being trapped inside yourself is pretty weird. .... Who has the key to that dungeon? .... Oh right. That would be me. ... Common just came through on Pandora. Good timing. .... Seven presidents tried to reform health care. More presidents than I've been alive for. Now Obama wants to wrap "Change" in a box with a red bow and have this bill signed before Friday. Merry Christmas America. ... Funny that no matter how much I read about it and listen to people talk about it, I still don't really understand how it's going to change my life personally. Maybe less cash getting jacked from my check. Shit, Merry Christmas to me. ... Cincinnati Bengals wideout Chris Henry died during a domestic dispute with his fiancee after falling off the back of the pick up truck she was driving. Don't know if she killed him on purpose but I do know that he jumped onto the rear of the car shirtless with his arm in a sling. ... They both clearly did something stupid. But it's amazing to me that people make jokes when men are injured and even killed in domestic arguments. Steve McNair. Arturo Gatti. Chris Henry. Tiger Woods is the only one not dead although he's being killed by the media outlets across the country. ... Then some broad named "Snookie" on MTV's Jersey Shore get clocked in the face and then there's all kinda of domestic violence conversations and information on hotlines being aired. .... It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Unless it's a man. Then it's still fun and games. ... Knicks are 6-2 in their last eight games and I got to take my nephew to his first Knick game about 10 rows back from the visitor's basket at the Garden. I think I would have pissed myself in excitement if I did that when I was 12. .... He may not have truly appreciated the experience. But he will one day. And I'm grateful for that. ... I'm really fighting the urge to hate Christmas this year. I almost went ape shit in Green Acres last night. And it wasn't even packed. I was just tried of roaming around looking for stuff to buy with money that I didn't have. So I left before I planted a bomb by the Haagen Dazs stand. ... Last night I talked to God. He didn't answer. But I hope He heard me.
C
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Thoughts in Flight
I got on the plane like I normally would. Just boarded behind everyone, falling into line then looking for my assigned seat. When I’m going on a long trip I tend to fall into a zone. Faces become mostly indistinguishable. Something like leaves passing each other in wind.
I took my seat. I almost always fly next to the window. I clipped my seat belt and immediately pulled out a book. I don’t sleep on planes. Or in cars. Or any other mode of transportation for that matter. A dark-skinned girl with tight corn-rowed braids sat in the aisle. She looked oddly familiar. Odd because I felt like I had known her briefly at some point in life. Maybe we had a conversation once.
An older white woman sat in the middle and seconds after I had sat down she asked someone in the row ahead of us if she wanted to switch seats so that she could seat with her friend, who turned out to be my familiar stranger. She also looked familiar. But not like we knew each other but familiar in the kind of way that people in New York City look familiar. Like she surely resided in one of the five boroughs and because on first glance, in my estimation, she was either Dominican or Puerto Rican, she was either from the Bronx or somewhere in uptown Manhattan.
In truth, it didn’t matter to me. I’m mostly anti-social. Especially when I’m traveling. So cracked open my book, “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. Something about the completely white cover had always drawn my attention but even the foreword grabbed me. I hadn’t finished one page before my familiar stranger leaned over her friend and made a joke I barely remember. Something about what I was going to do to keep my seat since that friendly white lady had given up hers. I smiled and chuckled to be nice, even though I had barely heard her.
I kept reading but I couldn’t shake this feeling. I just knew that these girls were going to talk to me at some point during this flight. And since it was nearly six hours from JFK airport to Phoenix (I was on my way to Portland), I was hoping that they would strike conversation later rather than sooner. I only have so much stamina for small talk. I could tell they were good friends. The kind that laugh at nothing together because their presence makes each other happy. I buried myself in my book. My familiar stranger promptly sunk in her chair and dropped asleep and her rotund Latina friend in the middle plugged her ears with her Ipod. A couple silent hours passed.
“Whatcha reading?”
I knew it was coming. The rotund Latina with the Ipod eyeballed my book in a way that said she wasn’t really interested in my choice of literature but that she felt like talking and her friend was sleeping and that I never do a good enough job of seeming unapproachable.
“This book called “Blink.”
“What’s it about?”
“I just started but so far it’s about how we make snap decisions. It sort of about how we process things unconsciously before you can even think about them. Or something like that. So far he’s just talking about how some people brought this thing called a kouros, which is statue of a boy standing with his left foot forward and his arms to his sides, to a new museum and they had all these experts and historians look at it to make sure it was legit. They ran all these tests and decide was real. Then some other people came in and peeped that it was fake on first glance. And it turned out that the status was fake – some hybrid of a bunch of variations of the same type of statue. I’m not sure where it’s going but it’s interesting so far.”
It was a long-winded answer, which made me laugh at myself but it only made it seem like maybe I really did feel like talking. I told her it’s not the kind of book that I’d typically read.
“What kind of books do you read?”
I walked into that one.
“Eh, I’ll read anything I can get my hands on mostly. I don’t really know. I secretly want to be a nerd so I’ll read just about anything. Like the last book I read was The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, the guy that wrote Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.”
I knew it was the end of the reading time. She wanted to talk and it was a long flight and it was be polite and hopefully interesting to indulge her. Turned out she was from the Bronx and works across the street from my in Washington Heights. So I was right on both accounts of her Latina-ness. She went to school in Plattsburgh, where I was two weeks earlier, but dropped out because there’s nothing to do in Plattsburgh except find trouble. So she came home.
She was into photography and took a few pictures across my lap and out the side window of the mountains and that were somewhere on our way to Arizona. She was on her way to Vegas for her birthday. Just decided to up and go with her friend two weeks ago. Found a cheap flight. She was the type that would probably do almost anything for the thrill, including hurling her probably-275-pound self out of a plane at 16,000 feet because her white friends in Plattsburgh thought it would be cool to burn some weed, get sauced and go sky-diving. She gained my respect right there.
We talked a little more. I got tired and started thumbing through pages of my book which signaled to her that I needed a break from talking to strangers. Even if this one was particularly interesting. We landed. She gave me a weak handshake and said that since we worked across the street we would probably bump into each other. She paused as thought she was waiting for my to ask for her contact information. I didn’t. She told me her name. I promptly forgot.
I often say I hate to talk to people. Although that’s what I do for a living. I told her I was a reporter so I write for a living. She said that made me a nerd. I took the compliment. I told her to behave herself. She was going to Vegas. She said she wouldn’t. She was right. Vegas is for misbehaving. I was going to Oregon for work. Behaving was my only option. That was fine with me. Sometimes I’m content to be a leaf blowing in the wind.
Occasionally when I’m covering a race out of state (I’m a track and field reporter), I see a team that I cover. I usually pretend that I don’t see them. I’m sure they do the same. I think I spend enough time invading their personal space when they’re panting and holding down vomit and wiping spit off their faces after a race. So I try to stand clear if I see them in the airport or anywhere else that’s not a track or a cross country course. So when I saw Burnt Hills in the terminal in Phoenix, I tugged my hat a little lower and tucked my chin to my chest and lost myself in my Blackberry.
Then next time I looked up I saw Bernard Lagat, one of the best distance runners in the world waiting outside a Starbucks in the terminal with Abdi Abdiramhnan. They both competed at the University of Arizona and I knew that Lagat lived in Arizona and was sponsored by Nike, which told me they were both headed to Portland as well for the meet as Nike representatives. Not long after, I saw Brian Grant walk by. I only remembered that he played for the Miami Heat but later learned that he was from Oregon and the people out there remembered him as a Portland Trailblazer. They were all on my flight. You’d think I had chartered a Nike jet or something.
But Lagat and Abdi definitely walked into coach with me while Grant lounged in first-class. Being the best in the world in track and field doesn’t always mean you’re rich.
I walked on the plane after everyone else. Everyone but Abdi and Lagat. Somehow I ended up between them as we handed our tickets to the gate clerk and entered the vestibule that takes you from the gate to the plane. I asked Abdi if he wanted to wait for Lagat (I called him Bernard for some reason) and he just nod as if I had known them both and let me go ahead.
“Where’d you get that bag from?” he said behind me.
I was wearing an USA Olympic Trials backpack I’d bought in Eugene, Oregon when I covered the 2008 Trials. I casually told him that I went out there for work, that I wrote about track and that it’d be a long time since I’d raced. I had to throw in that part so that he knew that at least I used to run. He seemed genuinely disappointed, like somehow he was no longer allowed to speak to me. By then Lagat had joined us and we chatted a bit about the fact that they were making us check our bags. Some nonsense about there not being any room in the overhead bins, which seemed strange to me since the people telling us that didn’t have on headsets or walkie-talkies and were outside of the plane just like us.
Either way, I spoke to a couple Olympians, saw an NBA player and chatted with a overweight girl who happened to work across the street from me and wasn’t afraid to plunge to out of a plane to potential demise soon after rolling up an L.
The plane landed and I picked up my rental and headed toward the hotel. My phone rang.
“How was the flight?” a friend asked.
It was cool I guess.
I took my seat. I almost always fly next to the window. I clipped my seat belt and immediately pulled out a book. I don’t sleep on planes. Or in cars. Or any other mode of transportation for that matter. A dark-skinned girl with tight corn-rowed braids sat in the aisle. She looked oddly familiar. Odd because I felt like I had known her briefly at some point in life. Maybe we had a conversation once.
An older white woman sat in the middle and seconds after I had sat down she asked someone in the row ahead of us if she wanted to switch seats so that she could seat with her friend, who turned out to be my familiar stranger. She also looked familiar. But not like we knew each other but familiar in the kind of way that people in New York City look familiar. Like she surely resided in one of the five boroughs and because on first glance, in my estimation, she was either Dominican or Puerto Rican, she was either from the Bronx or somewhere in uptown Manhattan.
In truth, it didn’t matter to me. I’m mostly anti-social. Especially when I’m traveling. So cracked open my book, “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. Something about the completely white cover had always drawn my attention but even the foreword grabbed me. I hadn’t finished one page before my familiar stranger leaned over her friend and made a joke I barely remember. Something about what I was going to do to keep my seat since that friendly white lady had given up hers. I smiled and chuckled to be nice, even though I had barely heard her.
I kept reading but I couldn’t shake this feeling. I just knew that these girls were going to talk to me at some point during this flight. And since it was nearly six hours from JFK airport to Phoenix (I was on my way to Portland), I was hoping that they would strike conversation later rather than sooner. I only have so much stamina for small talk. I could tell they were good friends. The kind that laugh at nothing together because their presence makes each other happy. I buried myself in my book. My familiar stranger promptly sunk in her chair and dropped asleep and her rotund Latina friend in the middle plugged her ears with her Ipod. A couple silent hours passed.
“Whatcha reading?”
I knew it was coming. The rotund Latina with the Ipod eyeballed my book in a way that said she wasn’t really interested in my choice of literature but that she felt like talking and her friend was sleeping and that I never do a good enough job of seeming unapproachable.
“This book called “Blink.”
“What’s it about?”
“I just started but so far it’s about how we make snap decisions. It sort of about how we process things unconsciously before you can even think about them. Or something like that. So far he’s just talking about how some people brought this thing called a kouros, which is statue of a boy standing with his left foot forward and his arms to his sides, to a new museum and they had all these experts and historians look at it to make sure it was legit. They ran all these tests and decide was real. Then some other people came in and peeped that it was fake on first glance. And it turned out that the status was fake – some hybrid of a bunch of variations of the same type of statue. I’m not sure where it’s going but it’s interesting so far.”
It was a long-winded answer, which made me laugh at myself but it only made it seem like maybe I really did feel like talking. I told her it’s not the kind of book that I’d typically read.
“What kind of books do you read?”
I walked into that one.
“Eh, I’ll read anything I can get my hands on mostly. I don’t really know. I secretly want to be a nerd so I’ll read just about anything. Like the last book I read was The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, the guy that wrote Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.”
I knew it was the end of the reading time. She wanted to talk and it was a long flight and it was be polite and hopefully interesting to indulge her. Turned out she was from the Bronx and works across the street from my in Washington Heights. So I was right on both accounts of her Latina-ness. She went to school in Plattsburgh, where I was two weeks earlier, but dropped out because there’s nothing to do in Plattsburgh except find trouble. So she came home.
She was into photography and took a few pictures across my lap and out the side window of the mountains and that were somewhere on our way to Arizona. She was on her way to Vegas for her birthday. Just decided to up and go with her friend two weeks ago. Found a cheap flight. She was the type that would probably do almost anything for the thrill, including hurling her probably-275-pound self out of a plane at 16,000 feet because her white friends in Plattsburgh thought it would be cool to burn some weed, get sauced and go sky-diving. She gained my respect right there.
We talked a little more. I got tired and started thumbing through pages of my book which signaled to her that I needed a break from talking to strangers. Even if this one was particularly interesting. We landed. She gave me a weak handshake and said that since we worked across the street we would probably bump into each other. She paused as thought she was waiting for my to ask for her contact information. I didn’t. She told me her name. I promptly forgot.
I often say I hate to talk to people. Although that’s what I do for a living. I told her I was a reporter so I write for a living. She said that made me a nerd. I took the compliment. I told her to behave herself. She was going to Vegas. She said she wouldn’t. She was right. Vegas is for misbehaving. I was going to Oregon for work. Behaving was my only option. That was fine with me. Sometimes I’m content to be a leaf blowing in the wind.
Occasionally when I’m covering a race out of state (I’m a track and field reporter), I see a team that I cover. I usually pretend that I don’t see them. I’m sure they do the same. I think I spend enough time invading their personal space when they’re panting and holding down vomit and wiping spit off their faces after a race. So I try to stand clear if I see them in the airport or anywhere else that’s not a track or a cross country course. So when I saw Burnt Hills in the terminal in Phoenix, I tugged my hat a little lower and tucked my chin to my chest and lost myself in my Blackberry.
Then next time I looked up I saw Bernard Lagat, one of the best distance runners in the world waiting outside a Starbucks in the terminal with Abdi Abdiramhnan. They both competed at the University of Arizona and I knew that Lagat lived in Arizona and was sponsored by Nike, which told me they were both headed to Portland as well for the meet as Nike representatives. Not long after, I saw Brian Grant walk by. I only remembered that he played for the Miami Heat but later learned that he was from Oregon and the people out there remembered him as a Portland Trailblazer. They were all on my flight. You’d think I had chartered a Nike jet or something.
But Lagat and Abdi definitely walked into coach with me while Grant lounged in first-class. Being the best in the world in track and field doesn’t always mean you’re rich.
I walked on the plane after everyone else. Everyone but Abdi and Lagat. Somehow I ended up between them as we handed our tickets to the gate clerk and entered the vestibule that takes you from the gate to the plane. I asked Abdi if he wanted to wait for Lagat (I called him Bernard for some reason) and he just nod as if I had known them both and let me go ahead.
“Where’d you get that bag from?” he said behind me.
I was wearing an USA Olympic Trials backpack I’d bought in Eugene, Oregon when I covered the 2008 Trials. I casually told him that I went out there for work, that I wrote about track and that it’d be a long time since I’d raced. I had to throw in that part so that he knew that at least I used to run. He seemed genuinely disappointed, like somehow he was no longer allowed to speak to me. By then Lagat had joined us and we chatted a bit about the fact that they were making us check our bags. Some nonsense about there not being any room in the overhead bins, which seemed strange to me since the people telling us that didn’t have on headsets or walkie-talkies and were outside of the plane just like us.
Either way, I spoke to a couple Olympians, saw an NBA player and chatted with a overweight girl who happened to work across the street from me and wasn’t afraid to plunge to out of a plane to potential demise soon after rolling up an L.
The plane landed and I picked up my rental and headed toward the hotel. My phone rang.
“How was the flight?” a friend asked.
It was cool I guess.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)