Fuming Quietly, Blessed Slowly.

I'm fuming right now. Sigh. I don't know why. My temper and I have been doing real well. So why am I fuming right now? I got into it with a good friend of mine (well, we didn't REALLY get into it, that's just the way I see it right now) and I told her most of how I felt about the whole thing...now I just need time to get over being upset...why am I upset again?

Oh. Oh yes, that's right. I know why.

I feel sometimes like I am the most misunderstood understood person sometimes. Basically, I'm very open, honest, forthcoming, yadda yadda...and then there's a side of me that switches on and off at the first hint of trouble on the horizon, mainly because...well...who the hell wants trouble on the horizon? If I feel threatened, misunderstood, taken advantage of, or treated with kid gloves, the switch goes off, and doesn't come back on for a few days (or weeks) depending on the situation. I still don't think this is healthy, but I learned a while back that it's me. Period.

So today, I suppose the switch is off. I feel misunderstood and handled with kid gloves. But there's a bigger part of me that's afraid of everything. As I become more sure of who I am and what I bring to the table, I also become acutely aware of the people in my life and what they contribute, thus making me very wary of bringing aboard new people. I feel like I rushed this one. Did I? Only time will tell if I made the right decisions. I'm 95% sure I'm good. It's just the moments like these where I have doubts. I HATE having doubts.

Sigh. This is SOOO not where I wanted to be today.

Of course, there are other things on my mind right now. Working out my other blog and all of my business information has me a little weary in the head. Common worries like what's going to happen if/when I quit my current full time job and go for my dream and whether or not I've saved enough currently plague me. Confusion about the pseudo-relationship-but not really-thing that I have going on comes to mind more than a little bit. Worries about my little girl growing up petrify me. Wondering if anyone truly understands is always in the back of my mind. I fume quietly twice as much as I fume aloud.

But I am blessed slowly. This I know. The things that I worry about come to pass in their own time and work themselves out. Another good friend of mine was unemployed for a few months and yet managed to make it through to employment in a rough economy, all while keeping her head on. Being raised as a Caribbean woman has definitely taught me the power of perseverance and strength, two traits that I am exceedingly grateful for. I know that I have the tools and the power to make it through anything that is thrown my way. And, realistically, I know that the current set of friends, despite having arguments, disagreements, or the like, that I am surrounded by are in it for the long haul.

I am fuming quietly...but I am blessed slowly. I chose to focus on the fuming before...but I am focusing on the blessings now.

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The Beautiful Nightmare

You ever have a dream that was so real, so life like, that you woke up and it took you a minute to realize that you were dreaming? What if that dream scared the mess out of you? Not a nightmare...a DREAM...am I making any sense here?

My daughter was sick for the better portion of a week the week before last. I've been Airborne(ing) it, hot toddying it, and Vitamin Cing it up for weeks now, to fight off the cold that she had. It got me anyway...and the nighttime coughing, sniffling, sneezing, help you go into a drug induced mini coma medicine did NOT work. AND I was all out of Buckley's.

Grr.

So I've been fighting this cold all week. I felt physically better this weekend, but the fight wore me out, so much so that I went to sleep at about 12 pm and didn't budge until 2 pm. I had a dream during that time. It was so real that when I woke up, I found myself confused - where had everyone gone? It wasn't an unpleasant dream...in fact, I found myself happy as a clam.

And then I was scared shitless frightened beyond belief.

It was a dream, right? So what was I scared of? All of my...well, EVERYTHING, was lovely and successful, so why was I suddenly so afraid? I mean, in the dream, I was this attractive, successful, happy girl with more than most, and everyone around me was happy, so why did I wake up frightened? I'm not afraid of succeeding or reaching my goals...so what was it? It was very weird is what it was...

Do you ever find yourself awaking from a dream and wondering if you're ready for all it entails? Why do you think some people are so afraid of success and/or happiness?

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Cyber Stalking - LAME!!

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and they were telling me about an ex of theirs who was tracking their movements through Facebook via other people's pages. After my initial reaction of disgust ("you're using my page to do WHAAAT?") I stopped and pondered for a minute. Maybe there was something to this cyber stalking thing.

(guffaws) Like hell there is! How lame can you get?

I mean, let's think about this for a minute. You and your boo-of-the-moment are doing your thing, enjoying your sexing 'living in the moment', and then, suddenly, the moment's passed and one of you moves on but the other one doesn't. They are caught in the trap of good sexing 'living in the moment' and have it confused with a committed relationship. You know, the ones where the two people actually have relations outside of the 4 am relationship. That sort of thing. So now, shorty's desperate. They're trying to figure out what went wrong, where it went wrong, and what they can do to rectify the situation. Problem is, nothing was wrong necessarily. It is, simply, that the moment has passed.

The average person might chalk it up to experience and either vow not to get into that type of jump off relationship again. Others, such as the one my friend was referring to, begin to send out 'feelers' via email and/or text message to see if they can get the other party to bite. Or they decide to "follow up" with their former 'friend' through other mutual friends, all waiting for the opportunity to 'relive the moment'. Sigh.

Now. In my typical informative rambling manner, I must go over some key things. A 'moment' is defined by Merriam Webster Online as "1 a : a minute portion or point of time : instant b : a comparatively brief period of time". See that? Brief. Simple. Moments such as the 'buddy' relationship last for a 'brief period of time' until one of two things happen: the two parties decide to turn it into something more, or they decide to go and pursue what they really want, hereby ending the 'buddy' relationship. Simple. Sometimes, one or both parties don't know what they want, so they run and hide and avoid how they truly feel. This is rare. This is not the norm. Having many male friends, I have heard from their experiences that this is the exception and not the norm. Imjustsayin. LOL.

So anyway. If you find yourself going to look at your cut buddy "friend"'s page, and you catch yourself following them from page to page to see what they're up to, or you find yourself asking mutual friends ridiculous questions about their actions, press pause...back up...and reconsider. There is a good chance you're cyber stalking and thus being lame. Don't do it.

Have you ever known a friend to 'cyber stalk'? If so, what did you say to them? Have you ever been the one 'cyber stalking'? What did you do once you realized what you were doing?

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Them: "You...elitist!!" Me: "GASP! Yuh cuss meh?!" (Or is it?)

More and more I find myself leaning towards the books of sociopolitical commentators and satirists. Books by Bill Maher made me laugh until tears streamed down my face, reads by Dr. Cosby and Rick Shenkman made me chuckle and say, "You know...that's true..", Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" gave me new insight into capitalism and how it affects sociology, and Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck made me fold my arms, snicker, and say, "Huh...never thought I'd say it, but that's pretty true..." Of course, out of fear of losing my black card (I'm just kidding...sort of) I've also read any and everything W.E.B DuBois ever wrote, am currently re-reading Richard Wright's "Black Boy", collect Toni Morrison just for the challenge of reading the prose, (yes, this is a dichotomy, but she writes fiction books about the sociological aspects of black society, in my opinion...it's just a hard read...LOL), and Dr. Michael Eric Dyson and I have developed a love-hate relationship.

And this is where I begin the rambling. Intellectually, of course, but rambling nonetheless.

I recently was introduced to Dyson at the Harlem Book Fair when my best friend bought me his book "Debating Race with Michael Eric Dyson". Now. I try to stay hip to what's going on within today's society, particularly items having to do with race relations and the like, because these things tend to interest me. So it surprised me that I had not heard of Dyson prior to this moment. Perhaps I was just too busy dealing with my business. I began reading his book - it was a compilation of conversations with regard to race relations he'd had with political analysts and the like. Having received both his bachelors' and his Ph.D degree in religion from Princeton, Dyson managed to work his way up to discussing his views en masse in a variety of topics, the largest being his bifurcation of what he perceives to be a divide between the youthful hip hop culture, and the older soul culture, his "Afristocracy" and his "Ghettocracy". Other earlier books of his included "I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr." and "Between God and Gangsta Rap: Bearing Witness to Black Culture".

Huh.

As I read his book, I found myself teeter tottering between enthusiastic agreement and utter disbelief. A moderate, I often stand on middle ground, choosing to find the positive and reflective argument on both sides, and encourage compromise, something that Dyson, as a staunch liberal, does not do very often. I vividly remember thinking to myself as Bill Cosby ranted about the state of black America, "yes! you tell 'em, Bill!!!" So when I came across Dyson's book, "Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Have the Black Middle Class Lost Their Minds?" in the public library, I decided to try Dyson out again.

The more I read it, the more it upset me.

While Dyson points out a lot about the judicial system and how certain aspects of it are stacked against the minority in particular, he does nothing, in my opinion, to bridge the gap between Cosby's words and his own opinions therein, other than to quote Cosby as applicable to the chapter. I found myself often shaking my head - and not in a good way. Even though Dr. Cosby's past is dotted with a touch of scandal, for the most part, he has done nothing but give back heavily to impoverished communities such as the one he came from in Philadelphia, as well as paying for the college education of well over 500 youth over the course of the years.

The frustration from where Cosby speaks from, to me, comes from a place of hurt watching his community. Cosby notes, "Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic and lower middle economic people are [not*] holding their end in this deal. In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. In the old days, you couldn't hooky school because every drawn shade was an eye. And before your mother got off the bus and to the house, she knew exactly where you had gone, who had gone into the house, and where you got on whatever you had one and where you got it from. Parents don't know that today."

There are a few things with this. For starters, it is pretty evident that Dr. Cosby is speaking very, very generally. I know personally good parents who end up dealing with rough children when they come from married two family households, just like I know of many single parent households where the parent knows every last thing that is going on with their child, and they just don't play that. (I am one of those single parents.) So no, it doesn't apply to all parents.

Working in the system, however, I can honestly say that this stigma is very real, in existence, and sad. I speak to parents EVERY DAY that tell me that they don't know where their kid is, why they weren't in school, and flat out say that they don't know why I keep asking or calling. I know students that regularly miss their scheduled SATs and don't see the big deal in it. I admonish students ALL THE TIME for wearing their jeans so low that they might as well not be wearing them at all, for calling their teachers by their first name, for chilling on the corner smoking weed or for cutting their hair in the bathroom when they should be in class, the lazy ungrateful and it baffles me everyday.

I understand Bill Cosby's random tirade. I have one every day in my office. My coworkers laugh. But it is no laughing matter.

So no, Dr. Dyson, I do not agree with you. I do understand that many of our new generation comes with a certain set of baggage that we did not necessarily have in our heyday. I understand that there are obstacles. But our ancestors cleared many of the bigger obstacles. Yes, the system is stacked against us, but we are aware of that now. In our urban cities, we receive funds all the time to be educated against this sort of thing. We are now using our history as a crutch. We are! I read that book and I said to myself, "here goes one more lazy negro manual book making excuses for us". The valid points that you make in the book about the judicial system and the like are overshadowed by many of our unwillingness to, quite frankly, LEARN.

Someone called me an "uppity negro" elitist the other day. In years past, I thought this was an insult. But if being an elitist means that I find our current state unacceptable and inexcusable, then I wear that badge with pride.
I do have solutions for some of these things, but they will be in a different blog. This one's long enough.

What did you think of Dr. Cosby's assessment of our current society? If you are familiar with Dyson's work, what did you think of his assessment? What do you think we, as a growing society, can do to address the growing problem(s) in our community?

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