Sunday, November 25, 2012

"Bloom where you're planted."

“Troubled little angel…. Inconsistent, flying high……. Most of the time…..”
-Chaka Khan

There’s been no shortage of things to talk about – people have died, awards shows have aired and we re’d up on the presidency, just to name a few. That doesn’t even take into consideration the smorgasbord of bullshit I encounter on the regular in my own daily life. But honestly, I really just haven’t been much in the mood to talk (or write, rather) about anything. The couple of times I did sit down and start to type out how I was feeling or what I was thinking, I’d go back, read it and end up deleting it. Some of the thoughts were all over the place and others were things that just needed to be done and not necessarily discussed.

I have had so many things on my mind the last couple of weeks I just didn’t know where to start. Then Chaka came on and… well…here I am.

I recently realized that I am once again trying to occupy two spaces, rendering myself unable to be whole in either one. Before it was an age thing – needing to embrace my getting older and leaving behind the activities and mindset of my younger self, allowing those whose time it was to have it. Now it’s a location thing. I am beginning to see that a big part of my inability to gel to life in Jersey is the fact that I haven’t completely stopped living the one in the Roc… only the Roc now seems to be the parents that moved my shit to the basement and turned my old room into an office.

In rare form, I talked with a friend about it and she passed on to me something that had been imparted on her years ago. “Bloom where you’re planted.”

Man... That hit home on so many levels. The simplest words always seem to have the greatest impact. I cried.

For starters, what I viewed as an effort to have my relocation have as little impact as possible on both myself and the people I was leaving behind turns out to really have just been an effort to stay relevant in a place I no longer am. That's really hard to admit to yourself, let alone say out loud. That’s not to say that I am not genuinely missed, but I’m not…..I don’t know… needed… I guess? I’m not sure if that’s the right word but it feels like the closest thing to right. Life there, as I would expect, has gone on without me, but it’s gone on in “change” which is hard to “fall in” to when you’re tethered to what was.

And after some thought, I’ve found that seemingly true in other spaces as well. Actually, it didn’t take much thought at all. I’ve always had difficulty letting go of things, people, spaces. Hell, I’m afraid to throw away mail I haven’t even opened, afraid that it might be something I need later. I still have business cards from three jobs ago, like I’ll one day have a need to impersonate a Frontier account manager….smh. That little discount at Enterprise is not that serious. I’ve had the same phone number since I first got a cell phone in 1999 and the same damn cell phone I’ve had since 2007. Who, but me, keeps a phone that long? Not many people, I’ll tell you that. And you know what else? I look around my house sometimes and it’s like I live in a really nice hotel. Most of the things I own that make a house a home are still packed up in the attic of my girlfriend’s house Upstate. Completely subconsciously, but it’s like as long as it’s there, I still have a foothold. Obsoletion is a striking blow to the ego, but a truth, nonetheless and I have never felt more than I do now, on an island – disconnected.

It’s funny – I started planning what would be my final birthday party Upstate and as I struggled with a guest list that didn’t consist of the usual cookout crew, I found that a lot of the people who no longer live there also no longer go back for holidays. In fact, many of them never go back. One friend in particular asked, “Why are you going all the way up there to have a party? It’s your birthday; shouldn’t people be coming to you?” He clearly didn’t understand the concept of how much easier it is for one person to make a trip than for 30 people to make one, but it did make me ask myself how many of those 30 would actually come? Maybe 5. The wind kinda left my sails and it made me wonder why it was so important for me to even have this party. If I’m honest with myself, I don’t even really want one. It’s just something I have always done. In retrospect, it’s also something I always think back on afterwards as an unappreciated waste of good money, even though it’s usually a pretty good time. I did it as much out of obligation as some people seemed to come year after year out of obligation. I can’t feel good about that. I guess I say all that to say the party is canceled. I am still going up to spend Christmas with my family, but I will bring in my birthday in the city in which I reside, in a conscious effort to begin the process of “blooming where I am planted.” A new year, a new beginning – for me and for those whose 2011 strides entitle them to celebrate it in whatever way they really want to. There. Dilemma conquered.

Now don’t let my rambling about this particular issue lead you to believe it’s been the only thing I’ve been mulling over, its just a fucken rabbit hole. I think it has been driving a lot of the other issues and the ones independent of it are things I don’t really want to get into. Like I said in the beginning, they just need to be dealt with, not discussed.

I think things will fall in line like they should if I just let them. I have lived the past two years as if Jersey is a place I am just passing through, and that may very well be, but it’s where I am NOW. I can’t keep being a visitor in my own life. I mean, before you know it, it’ll be over...

Thursday, November 8, 2012

*sighhhhhh*

Kidney infections suck.

Its only the third one I have had in my life (I think) but once you've had a bad one, you know when you've got another. The first one I had put me in the hospital for 2 days and I swear I thought I wasnt gonna make it out of there. When its really bad (i.e. you have had it a while, untreated) it can give you flu-like symptoms (chills, body aches, fever) that escalate to pneumonia-like symptoms (kill me now LOL). Shit is no joke. Luckily I caught it before it got that far along this time. But its still not fun.

If you can imagine a beating heart, enlarged and throbbing, that's what my right kidney feels like right now. It is VERY uncomfortable. It's hard to even sit still, but my hope is that this medication will kick in soon. Im 2 pills deep into the 6 that the doctor prescribed for me and so far, it's only gotten more uncomfortable, but that's how it goes - worse before better. But the "better" better come soon, I got shit to do LOL.

Ah well. At least I know why my back went out.

*sighhhhhhh*

Always something....

That shit cray.

Just some stuff I came across at http://www.buzzfeed.com/discovery/10-of-the-weirdest-alcoholic-beverages-in-the-worl-70b3


Pizza Beer


"This culinary concoction was first devised by Tom and Athena Seefurth after they came across a surplus of tomatoes and garlic." I guess sauce was just too easy, huh?



Bacon vodka


"Bacon makes everything better." Not vodka.



Scorpion


"This single grain vodka is infused with nothing but the highest grade farm raised scorpions. What about the deadly venom you ask? Not to worry, the toxins are neutralized via a special process before being added to the vodka. The scorpions are edible too, if that's your thing." It's soooooooo not my thing LOL.



Snake wine


"Snake wine is predominantly found in Asia and is typically produced by infusing entire snakes into rice wine. The alcohol is believed to have medicinal properties that improve everything from hair loss to sexual virility." Now that looks cool as shit. I'd buy a couple bottles just to put on top of the bar..... but I aint really tryna drink it. In my mind, that snake is alive and just waiting for me to pop the top LOL.



Three Lizard Liquor


"To make this reptilian beverage, lizards (three to be precise), typically of the gecko-variety, are left to soak in rice liquor. The traditional eastern medicine theory states that this allows the lizard's energy to be absorbed by the alcohol and thus transferred to whoever drinks it." This shit, Im good on.



Squirrel beer


"Billed by BrewDog as the "strongest, most expensive and most shocking beer in the world," this $765/bottle brew is 55 percent alcohol and comes encased in a taxidermic squirrel repurposed from roadkill."

*staringintothecamera*

Oh HELL naw!!! LMAO!

















Friday, November 2, 2012

Ranting

First let me again say thank you to those who checked in with me to make sure me and the midgets were good, both before and after the hurricane ordeal. Even for those who were just going through the motions, knowing it wasnt a damn thing they coulda did if I was hanging on to a lamp post, blowing in the winds, or had no real intention to LOL. I appreciate the thought.

That being said, going through the motions dont mean shit after the fact. If I get one more Facebook note talking about somebody "meant to check on me" or "was worried about me" from somebody who is not only tied to my Facebook but also has my phone number, I might have to snap. If you meant to, you've had nearly a week now to do it, so comments triggered by my random appearance on a thread 3 fucken days after the lights came back on should be passed upon. "Worry" dials numbers. Im just sayin. "Worry" led people I dont even fuck with no more to shoot me a text. So at this point, just keep the commentary to "glad yall okay" or some shit. Dont get all extra with all these supposed intentions. Matter of fact, if you aint said nothing about it by now, dont even bother. I aint mad - trust, I had other shit to worry about than who was or wasnt hollerin at me at the time, so it stands to reason that other people did too. Now that its over, just leave it where its at. If you're not a pivotal player on the court of my life, I probably dont even realize you never hit me up, so dont even draw my attention to it.

Sorry, but that kinda shit annoys the hell outta me. I dont like that faking and fronting shit....


*exhale*

[end rant]