The Educational Weekend

I learned a lot…

Ok…where to start? It’s always easy to say you know something but much harder to put that knowledge into action. Well this weekend was just the kick in the ass that I needed to help me turn all that around. I’ve always been the type to put others needs before my own. Now don’t get it twisted…I do at times have an extremely inflated sense of self and can get into a Biggie and Method Man state of mind (Fuck the world…don’t ask me for shit) but if I know you and you aint made it to the shit list yet…I usually put you first…after my moms and shorties that is.

So Friday…I’m stuck behind this desk till 10:00PM. Now I’m enjoying the flex schedule that goes along with these late Fridays. But I’ll be damned if it wasn’t supposed to be a three week cover until they filled a job that opened up here. This shit is killing my Friday night debauchery. 10:01 hit and I was headed home but I really missed the calling of my watering hole and I had gotten a call just a half hour earlier from a friend, Tina, that was down in the spot that told me it was popping off in there…so I busted a quick U and headed into DC. She was right…it was packed and all the familiar faces were there. I felt like George Wendt rolling up into Cheers…”Norm!!! Noooor-man!!!” LMAO!!! Anyway I snuck in a quick double shot of my favorite sipping cognac…caught up with a few old friends and found my way to Tina’s table to give her some face time.

To any brothers that may have found their way to this blog let me share this with yall so maybe you too can learn this valuable lesson I was passed on at that table. Tina got up and disappeared for a while at which time her girls were left to give me the third degree about what was going on with me and their girl. I gathered from their tone that they were being told have truths and partial stories…or maybe it was just the liquor talking. When she got back she got to whispering to one of her girls I just met that evening. Brothers, here’s where her girl dropped the scoop to me.

“So what? She just wanted the dick with no strings attached! Whats wrong with that? You guys do it all the time!”

WHATTHEFUCK??? Right there I knew the stories she was passing on weren’t on the money cause the dick or any strings that might be attached to it never came up in any of our conversations. I looked over at her and she turned bright red. I snuck up close to her free ear and asked if that’s what she wanted. “Negative” “Maybe” and “If so whats wrong with that” is all she responded with.

After all this talk lately about the reversal of rolls in this society I wasn’t too shocked by the news. But ladies…if you wanna be out there getting a piece from whoever then own up to it…don’t get shy about it.

None the less…it wasn’t gonna happen that night. She had plans to meet up with some friends afterwards and I was just too tired to play 3:00AM booty call. So I walked her to her whip and saw her off on her merry way.

5:00AM Saturday morning I’m awakened by Jay-Z singing “Turn my music high-High-HIGH-ER. You don’t know what you do to me” which I set as the music tone on my new celly. I pick up the call and was greeted by Tina on the other end telling me she couldn’t move her legs and they were burning. I can hear her slurring her words a bit (obviously still a bit under the influence) so I don’t panic too much but just ask her is everything aight.

“Yeah I was just working out the other day and my legs are killing me…what you doing?”
“Its 5:00 on a Saturday morning shorty…what do you think I’m doing?”
“Oh…ok go back to sleep.”
“Gee…thanks” I mumbled to myself after she hung up…”aint this a bitch”

Right then I could tell Saturday was gonna be one helluva day.

I tried to get a few hours sleep before having to return to work early that day to take care of some business that just couldn’t wait until my scheduled time of arrival. Between the work related calls and the frustration I was feeling it was a wash.

So I get off of work at 6 that evening race to BWI airport to pick up a friend and his girl that are flying back home from the Midwest and make my way out to New Carrolton to spend some time to hear about their trip and throw back a Corona. Jay-Z screams out once more and I hit my call button to see who’s looking to have a conversation with me. Tina. She’s in Adams Morgan with her friends and is wondering if I’ll be able to make it out there. Now I’m tired…but I enjoy her company…she makes me smile (at times other than 5:00AM on a Saturday morning that is) and I decide to make my way through the Adams Morgan traffic to see her. After an hour of cruising trying to find a parking spot, cause I absolutely refuse to dish out 15 bones to park in a damned lot, she hits me up again and lets me know that a spot is free in front of the spot that they are just leaving. So I rough off a few gawkers straight Brooklyn style and zoom into the spot…LIGHTWEIGHTS!!! LMAO!

We make our way to Heaven and Hell and cop some drinks. I had a great time with her and her boys. They all went to college together so I’m not really up on all their jokes and stories but I don’t feel like too much of an outsider and hell I’m so tired right about then that it really don’t matter one way or another to me. 12:30 rolls around and I see that they are in no way near finished partying so I tell shorty that I’m about to jet. I give into her request to stay a little longer. I just love a woman in a skirt and the way she puts her cheek to mine so that I can hear her voice over the music…so I give her another half hour. 1:00AM rolls through and the thought of the long drive home to VA or even the thought of an alcohol induced night of passion just isnt doing it for me…so I bounce.

Sunday morning makes it’s way to existence and I’m awakened early by my youth telling me that their moms is on her way early to pick them up. Now this may not shock you as much as it still does me but know that this chick is an hour late for everything…I’m literally talking EVERYTHING!!! So I get one head cut and the other two braided up nice and tight and shove em out the door. I get an invite to be the third wheel to the movies and decide to call Tina up and invite her. She declines…so I decline…and Sunday goes out like a lamb.

Monday morning. I get my shorties off to school and crash on the futon for another hour before the idea of dinner comes to mind. Damn I hate cooking. So I shower…and get ready to do battle with the army of cicadas that are infesting the area. I hit 411 to get the number of the fashion company my girl Pumpkin-Head Jodie is doing her 40 hours a week at. Today…May 24th is her birthday and I gotta wish her the best. She’s been in my life since I was 16. She was my first love. She unwittingly helped me get my life back on track after I went through my divorce and I at least owe her a call.

“(Insert company name here), how can I help you?”
“Yeah is Pumpkin-Head Jodie around?”
“I believe that Ms Pumpkin-Head has stepped out to lunch. But let me buzz her to make sure”
Buzz her? I guess that super long title she ran off and tried to break down to me really holds some weight…cause I’ve never known someone that could be ‘buzzed’…LOL.

I get her voice mail and proceed to leave one of my long winded messages of birthday glad tidings while mispronouncing her latest boyfriend, JR’s, name.

As an aside: She, as well as many others, feels I do this on purpose… (Although in her case it might be true…hell she was my heart damnit!!! LOL) but the fact is that I know quite a lot of women. Women that go through men like they do lipstick colors and I just do not have the free ‘known-good’ brain cells left to waste on these Geek-of-the-Weeks. So I park all these fuckers’ names in the half-baked cells that are on their last legs on the right side of my cerebellum...so I can get real creative with em when need be. When they put a ring on their fingers and a bun in the oven I’ll commit their asses to memory.

Anyway Pumpkin-Head Jodie hits me back minutes later. I hit her with the 20 questions about her b-day weekend and grill her about what Ray-Jay, her black male model boyfriend, got her. I think I’ll put up a separate entry about her later on in the week. She can’t realize how big a part she played in my life and I think she deserves it.

So the kids are in bed Monday evening and my celly starts to play a salsa cut letting me know that I’ve got a text message waiting. It’s Tina asking me if I enjoyed my movie on Sunday. I let her know that I decided not to go cause I didn’t want to play the third wheel. It turns out that she didn’t come because she was tired and all I could think to myself was “I was tired every time I took my ass out to see her this weekend”. But the lesson to be learned is to do what you want and nothing more because no one owes you anything in return.

My Weekend...all late and shit!!!

I know it’s late but better later than never right?

Now I work Saturdays, unlike most, so my weekend is Sunday and Monday. But Saturday I was able to get up with a good friend of mine and do some hanging out...if you can call it that.

A little background intel: This friend I met some months back...during Happy Hour at my favorite watering hole. She caught my eye and kept my interest by being more amused by her own jokes than my man sitting across from her was. I love a woman with a sense of humor even if it’s a strange one. *short version* We finally got together and have been pretty cool friends since. It doesn’t seem to be progressing past that...but its cool cause she's tons of fun to hang with and sometimes seems to be just as bewildered by this whole dating/relationship thing as I am...which is a plus in my book.

So...me and my planning originally had a birthday house party, a games party (spades, dominos and such) and as a back-up a house party out in Southeast with a DJ and the whole nine. By the time I got off of work the house party was done...the games party was cancelled of course and I forgot to get the address for the party out in SE. Trust me...it did not end well. After driving around aimlessly for a while we finally found an all night diner and watched the end of the LA vs. SAC game. Go Lakers!!!! I still had a good time though I can’t say the same for shorty.

So Sunday morning...way too early mind you...my adopted lil sister V calls me up to invite me to dinner. She tells me she had a breakfast planned but had to switch it up due to cancellations (yeah she's the Martha Stewart of my two adopted sisters...LOL). At the mention of breakfast the sleep rushed outta my eyes and it was all a go. So my son and his anti-social ass decided playing upstairs with his friend would be more exciting than joining the rest of us on an outing so the three of us, my daughters and I, made our way into DC to her townhouse after making a quick stop for some sparkling wine and mango juice (I told yall she was a damned Martha Stewart).

Breakfast...I can’t tell you how good it was. Biscuits...eggs with stuff in there that I'm sure the more sophisticated palate would recognize...shrimp something or another and another dish I'm just too damned gully to describe helped my hangover lovely. Damn I love that girl...LOL.

The afternoon held a special surprise in store for me as my phone rang and I received an invite to do something I had been dying to do. After securing my shorties at the baby sitter (their damned momma) I was picked up by a young lady I'll refer to as...well damnit I can’t think of name on such short notice...but she picked me up. And drove me to the airport...actually just outside of the airport where she shared the landing of airplanes with me. You sit there and these big ass metal birds fly over you so close you swear you could just reach up and touch em. The water of the river at your feet...the sun beating down on you...and good conversation...I was won over. The day was now a good one.

I could only secure my sitter for a couple of hours so I couldn’t stay as long as I wanted. I wanted to learn more about this young lady. Learn more of her language and culture. Just enjoy sharing her space in that surreal place. But responsibility can be a bitch sometimes so we had to cut it short. But it’s on my "To Do Again" list...definitely.

My Monday...was a flop. I had plans on visiting a friend for the first time out in B-MORE. She wasn’t up to it...and I could hear it in her voice so I gave her a graceful out...and she "reluctantly" took it. I came into work...and pimped the J.O. for their bandwidth and surfed the web to my hearts content. You know I realized...work isnt a bad place as long as you can do whatever the fuck you want and get there and leave when ever you feel like it. LMAO!!!

Aight...I'll let yall know how this coming weekend is if nothing more pressing comes up before then.

The Update...

Many asked me how the Princess enjoyed her day so I figured I'd put it up although there's not too much to talk about.

Lemme recollect (insert dream sequence music and fuzzy visuals here...LOL)

I took my sweet time getting to work yesterday morning...but what's new? I stopped off at the bank to pick up the little change I thought would be necessary to get everything that Klarque requested. I stopped off and special ordered her cake and slowly drug my ass to my desk.

6 1/2 hours later I told my co-workers that I was out early to go make my pick-ups. The cake looked wonderful. What is it about having a cake box in your hand that makes everyone smile at you? I picked up two small happy birthday balloons on sticks...cause I'd be damned if I'd add to my spectacle with them jokers floating up above my head drawing more attention.

I made my stop at the Ballston Mall and was ecstatic to find that there was a Kay-Bee toy store one flight up. Yall wanna know what I got her dont you? Damn yall nosey...LOL. Let’s just say I got her what she asked for and some things she didn’t ask for but really wanted. I copped my son a new basketball...a small price to pay for the house he's gonna buy me on that NBA salary...PSYCHE...and a blow up dinosaur for my three year old....she likes to ruff people off so let her get gully with air-filled tyrannosaurus rex for a while.

Oh and to anyone planning on toy shopping...I spent over 50 bucks and got 2 free toys for spending that much. So if you're gonna spend some toy money...go check em out.

So now I look like a hot ass fool. A cake in one hand...a bag as tall as me filled with toys in the other...trying to maneuver my new cell phone (Nokia 3300) to reply to my text messages and find my favorite MP3 cuts. Right there I decide that hitting a bus and a ten minute walk aint gonna cut it. 15 dollars and a short ass cab ride later I'm home.

The Princess loved all of her things...especially her cake. I've been officially crowned the Bestest Daddy in the World and you know what...I think she's right. LMAO!!!

La Princessa

May 12th, 2004...A very special day in my life. 7 years ago I was introduced to a young lady that I had been waiting to meet since I was the tender age of 12. 7 years and nine months ago I got some booty…those were the days…LMBAO!!! Today is my baby girl’s birthday. Klarque a true blessing in my life…she saved me…and truly made me want to be a good man.

6:30AM the princess’ voice encroached on the military coup that I was waging in my dream. The bad guy slipped through my fingers and made his way to his is getaway car. I had him in my sights and with the first shot shattered the back window of his PT Cruiser. As I adjusted my aim the word daddy made me ease the pressure of my trigger finger off of the trigger of my sub-automatic machine gun. I could never do wrong in her presence. “Daddy”, she repeated again as I struggled to make my lips return her call. I rolled over and there she stood with a proud smile on her face. “Daddy, today’s my birthday.” Like I wasn’t there 7 years ago to witness it…or even the past month as she reminded me daily of the approaching event. “I know baby…Happy Birthday sweetheart” I told her…giving her the ok to start the celebrating that she had caged inside her tiny body.

“You know all that stuff that I wanted? You don’t really have to get it for me.”
Imagine my shock…LOL. “Really baby? You don’t want anything for your birthday?”
“Oh I do want the stuff…you just don’t have to get it for me today if you can’t.”
She’s always thinking of her Big Dog Daddy Dearest…LOL.

But its her day so I’ll be making a few stops to pick up the individual chocolate cake with the pink icing and the pink flowers, the My Little Pony (I think her imagination must have escaped her when she made that request…cause who still has My Little Pony on their wish list?) and a black counterpart to the Barbie doll she requested (last year was Moesha so I’ll have to see who’s the latest black woman out with a doll while I comb the Ballston Mall toy stores on my lunch break.).

He brother even threw me a curve today when he asked me to pick her up something for him. Kye doesn’t do birthdays. He wants grown up shit at the age of 10 and you can skip the cake and balloons cause if it don’t run on the smallest fucking batteries out…he don’t want it. I can’t believe he’s getting into it.

“Kye, today’s my birthday” the princess told him.
“Yeah…good” he replied like he couldn’t give a hot fuck.
Disappointment spread across her face like teenage acne.
As she walked to her room to get her hair products he covered the side of his face and whispered to me, “I know what I’m doing” to calm the confusion that was obviously showing in my eyes.

So she got her hairstyle of choice…her hair out (no ponytails today)…part down the middle…all going back with a curl on the ends. She followed the ritual and made her way to the mirror to look over my work…like her tiny ass actually pays me or something. After testing the bounce with the palm of her hands she gave me acknowledging nod for a job well done. That’s my little diva in the making. Let me take the time out now to apologize to the man that she chooses to settle down with. Because I’ll be damned if I’ll apologize after I meet him and that poor chump will never live up to the standards I’m getting her accustomed to. It’s good to be the king…but even better to be the daddy…*BIG SMILE*

As they left the house for the school bus this morning…”*POUNDZ*…G’s and O’s” (which stands for Goods and Outstandings…the level of work and behavior I expect them to put out at school and the only acceptable grades on their report cards)…I could actually see her getting older with every step she took. My loving baby…my prissy pre-teen…my wise-ass teen…my hard working college student…my independent young woman…my happily married wife…my mother of three…my daughter. I pray I’m here to meet them all.

Above the neck:

Tracy Dixon. She was a tall young lady for her age at 12. By the awkward way that she carried herself I could tell that she had just experienced a growth spurt and had yet to grow accustomed to her long limbs. She was the sweetest thing. I could tell at the time that she wanted to get to know me better and I had a hidden attraction to her as well. But she wore glasses. And every one knew at the time that “boys don’t make passes at girls that wear glasses”. So why did I dig her so much?

It took me some time and plenty of secret crushes, on girls in glasses, to realize that I was not one of those boys that they were referring to in that quote. In high school and my freshman year in college I realized I had the same crush for a tall cheerleader named Tonie that wore glasses as well. Was it the glasses or what they represented?

To me there are two types of beauty that I am attracted to…

1. The classic beauties…the Lena Horne’s , Phylicia Ayers Rashad’s, Angela Bassett's and Sanaa Lathan's . Women whose looks will not fade with time.

2. The ones, I lovingly refer to as, having something extra going on above the neck.

Through Tracey I learned to appreciate the little (for lack of a better word) flaws. From glasses to freckles...slightly cross-eyed…prominent noses...prominent foreheads and bright read hair…I started to love it all.

Trying to explain my personal preference to my boys is a waste of course. They’ve labeled it everything from The Bench-Warmer Complex to The Second String Syndrome. They don’t understand that the shell is just something that I see as an initial attraction and it’s the personality, whit and charm that keeps me there…that makes me covet that woman’s time and attention.

So to all the Tracey Dixon’s of the world…who shy away from the limelight…who think that a winner with a million dollar smile and matching personality are out of their reach…fear not. Here I am. *big smile*

What a Morning...

Sunday morning. There’s no other way to describe it but to simply lay out the facts as they took place and hope you guys understand…here we go.

…It’s just too early in the morning. You know when you can hear the birds chirping loud as fuck outside even though it’s still dark? “Shit, I know that I have insomnia from time to time but what the fuck is their reason for being up so fucking early in the morning?” Not being able to sleep I went out early this morning to pick up a few things that I needed and was just getting back home. From the front of the house I could make out my ex-wife’s buzz-saw-esque snoring all the way from her bedroom. The very thought of her under the same roof sent chills up and down my spine and the sound of her snoring just reminded me why I divorced her ass. I checked the display on my cell phone and saw a “new message” icon yet I got no damned audible notification. “Fucking Nextel” I mumbled to myself as I called to check the message. A sly smile comes across my face as last nights events begin to play in my mind. It’s Danny (yall remember…the Bitch from the ‘Beware of Bitch!!!’ entry). She’s obviously trying to three-way me with one of her girlfriends on the line playing around, (which she often does thinking I haven’t caught on to the juvenile trick by now). As I listen on she thinks that she has disconnected my voice mail but she hasn’t and she continues to talk shit to her girl. There’s a knock on her front door. “Damn I gotta get Verizon cause you can hear everything through her fucking phone” I thought as I continued to listen to the message. As she opened the door I heard a very familiar male voice. A horrible Bill Cosby impersonation was doing its best to herd her from her foyer to as close to the bedroom as he could get her before starting an impromptu SMASH session. This was the first time ever I heard my world famous Bill Cosby impersonation played back to me out of a phone speaker and trust me I was not impressed. “Mental note…my Bill Cosby needs some work.” I smiled as I listened to the final seconds of the message filled with heavy breathing, ripping of clothing, sharp squeals and a quick “Girl I gotta go” CLICK.

BOOM BOOM BOOM! “Who the fuck would be knocking on my door before sunrise?!!!” I opened the door to see my man Gee from work. He’s so recently separated from his wife that I was sure that he was having problems sleeping like me. At that un-Godly hour of the morning when you just have to get out of the house the hardest thing to do is figure out a destination…I intuitively figured out that I must have been his and let him in. No sooner than I heard the creaking of the rear bedroom door opening did I see my ex-wife standing in the living room with us. I almost forgot that at times she could be quite attractive. That fair skin, jet black Indian hair and that drop ass that always got me standing at attention. Looking at her I could see how she trapped me at the tender age of 19. But that perturbed look on her face at that very moment reminded me just why I finally broke free. I ignored her and finally began unpacking the bag I walked in with. Some toiletries, adult diapers with the little blue and pink RocaWear logos all over them and a long denim skirt. “Shit!” I said to myself when I realized that what I thought was adult diapers was in fact some no-name maxi pads. “What you got tampons, Bruh?” Gee joked. “Fuck you man” I said as I picked up the skirt, deodorant and other things and headed off to the shower. I quickly hopped in the steaming shower wondering to myself if I was actually planning on putting on that damned skirt or if it was just so damned early in the morning that I was not yet in my right mind. Just then Gee lightly tapped on the bathroom door and let himself in. “So bruh, is it a girl or a guy?” he asked. “What? Da’fuck you talking out man?” I answered, for the first time starting to question his walking all up in the bathroom with that soft ass tone of his. “The person your wife is fucking around with. Is it a girl or a guy?” I couldn’t recall it but I must have at some time informed him that not only did I know that she was cheating on me but the fact that she was straight gay when we first met. “Man I got no clue. Don’t matter either way…I just hate being lied to”.

BOOM BOOM BOOM! I heard a knock on the bathroom door. All I could make out from the small voice on the other side was that it had to use the bathroom. The voice grew louder “I just need to use the bathroom!” It was my eldest daughter informing my son that she was about to invade on his shower time like it or not. This was a familiar sound in this house, but not this damned early in the morning. I rolled over wiping the sleep outta my eyes and trying to focus in on the red blob of lights that stood on the face of my digital clock. “6:00AM!” I was still trying to separate fact from that horrible dream I was having. “Shit the school bus don’t even leave till 8:00.” My head started to clear up and the sexual overtones of that dream began to disturb me a bit. “Was I about to put on pads and a skirt?!!!!” PWAHAHAH!!! The thought was funny as hell to me. “HOLD UP!! Today is Sunday. Da’fuck is everyone doing up so early?!”

I fought my way from under my covers when I felt that the Heineken I chugged right before hitting the sack last night was resting on my bladder and trying to fighting its way out. “I guess that might explain the adult diapers in the dream” I was thinking as I made my way down the hall towards the bathroom. “Mental note…designer adult diapers. Generation X aint gonna want to be pissing on themselves wearing the same adult diapers that their grandparents used to rock. We’re label-whores and just too flossy for that shit.” I could see the bedroom door closing as I was walking up on it and figured that I missed my opportunity to greet the lady of the house. God bless the woman that I finally settle down with, cause that 6 year old princess is gonna cause all sorts of hell for the woman that tries to take any of her attention.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! There’s nothing in the world like that morning piss for a man…the soothing sound…the white porcelain.

“Little-Man…uh…its six o clock on a Sunday morning. What are you doing in the shower?”
“I just felt like taking a shower”

“Da’fuck?!!! Am I still sleeping or what?” I asked myself as my eyebrows rose while I tried to figure it all out. Then it came to me…slowly at first. “He just felt like taking a shower. OH!!!” I smiled…flushed…washed my hands in silence…and gave him his privacy. Thank God I had the wet dream talk with him 3 months ago on his 10th birthday. I exited the room thinking that I’ll talk to him later on and see how the whole Boys to Men development thing is coming along. Maybe even pick his brain and see just who this morning’s object of his affection was. Man if my dream was as wild as all that…his must’ve been a mind blower.

“And it’s only 6:15 in the damned morning” I shook my head as I lay back down under the covers. If this day was a domino game…I’d be knocking on the table…PASS BEYOTCH!!!!

As a young-grasshopper:

You know what? I'm far from a desperate type of cat. Sure I go through the occasional drought from time to time...but I've had more than my share of sex as a youth (yeah I was a little man whore) so I dont complain at all when they dry spells come. But I tell ya what...right now...I could use a lil' water. Sweat...or any other fluids that might come to mind...but I could use it.

It got so bad that I couldn’t even think of a word to put in this blog today except..."I could use a nice strong SMASH session right about now". LMAO!!! I thought of it as writer's block. But being the young-grasshopper that I am in this great world called BLOG...the great sensei Elle (You happy Elle? There goes your name again LMAO!!!)…sensing a great disturbance in the Force came to my assistance. With her Kush and Sandalwood incense filling up the air...sitting cross legged (right over left) in her meditative seemingly comatose state (all of this figuratively of course) she listened as I explained just why I felt I had no story to share with you all. And lemme tell ya this people...when you got a fine ass sistah like Elle on the line...coming off sounding desperate and horny is not at all how you want to appear so you know I must have love for her to dish out all my B.I. Business like that.

"Use the Force, Wirldwyde!!"
"Uh...Elle...I'm at work right now and they frown on masturbation here...although I'm probably freaky enough to do it"
"No, young-grasshopper, write what's on your mind...even if you think no one wants to read about it"
"You mean...'if I write it they will come'?"
"Yeah whateva floats your boat."
"OHHHH! OK. And...uh...let’s just keep that masturbating at work thing to ourselves aight? Cool!"

Words of wisdom...it pays to stay in the good graces of a guru.