A Moment For Giving Thanks

Okay so for the past two days I haven't been able to finish blogging about my mini-saga because I have had a headache out of this world.... and i'm not one to get sick let alone headaches so when i get one, i am all out of whack cuz i am out of my element. not sure if i am stressing cuz i am living and luvin life. not life "life" but the over all picture of life.

yeah, that's the best i can do at explaining it, so either you gonna get it or you ain't. so is life

but the other day things were just falling in place for me even when things were going wrong. i still have a dilemna, well not really, but i kinda sorta do..but i can't talk about that right now, i gots to unmuddle the madness so i can make it somewhat followable.

so i met up with molasses and he asked me what my angle was..why was i doing this? i mean i'm at the welfare office in the morning, i am trucking around helping needy kids, etc. after that, was i doing it to write a book to glorify my struggle? he's saying all this as he is adding more clients to my workload. yeah, i am sure that check is gonna look halfway decent whenever i get paid. i had to chuckle cuz i could have simply stated that i already have two completed books and another near completion so i really didn't need any more material...yeah i know, and i am working on that too.. this too shall pass. anywho, i didn't respond, i just smiled and lived in the moment and thanked Jah.... molasses didn't even understand how God was allowing him to bless me and at that moment even though i was living on borrowed time cuz i don't really do the borrowing of money, i didn't even feel like i was struggling. maybe it was because the "stressing" wasn't there because it had been replaced by faith.

so today i went to see one of my clients and well it just does something to me when i cross the the river.. it so distinctly different from when i cross the park. i mean to see the popo station themselves on the corner as the elementary schools let out... i'm like wow, not even high school, elementary. i'm like they are babies, what could they possibly be doing to warrant this type of attention....then these "babies" pass by the open windows of my cars and i'm appalled at the language erupting from their lips...like for real you what 7 years old and calling someone a B*** and telling someone you gonna F** them up. then my client tells me how the slumlords property managers refused to fix her leaking toilet talking about she has two, use the other. and he was of the other persuasion so you know he wouldn't have been talking that smack across the park. so she wakes up to her ceiling caving in from her toilet running.. so now they have no choice but to fix it but they leave the cracked ceiling... so yeah i'm like, document, take pics and forward it to the health department.. i would be calling everyday saying i got feces on my ceilings.. i'm not sure if she does, BUT, it is a toilet and feces does go in a toilet and it would be a health violation AND the health department would surely respond and her property manager SLUMLORD would certainly respond faster the next go around...if the government didn't yank their government contract with them... i was dumbfounded watching this smigger walk to these residence with an armed guard trailing behind him. if you scared what you doing in the hood? take yourself back across the park.. don't be across the river exploiting people who already rubbing two nickles together trying to make a quarter. i mean it's broad daylight bruh and the popos cruisin this neighborhood every 3.5 minutes and if you think that highly about the people you renting to, what you let them sign the lease for? i wish ole man wanna be a freak would come knock on my door with some heavy artillery talking about he wants to inspect my house to see if i have cleaned up...hmph the world would finally get to see what a beast i am in the courtroom.

so as i drove back across the river to get my child from between the river and the park, i let out a big sigh and said thank you Jah because even though i would love to get a place across the park i am so glad we are at least across the river... things certainly can be worse even when we are at our lowest point and i am extremely grateful my child doesn't know the difference between a fire cracker and a gun shot.

Reclaiming my cheez (Denial)

De* Nial

~ the state of mind where we refuse to see things as they are and for what they are... so nope, i wasn't trying to reference that body of water that runs through Egypt.


Denial comes in many shapes and forms but with the same results: stagnation and counter-productiveness (just to name a few) i will most likely touch on a couple more outcomes by the time i finish with my personal roundtable.

So, i was talking to Ms.2good about some randomness about what was being broadcast on the radio. Something about how Keisha Coles didn't want Frankie to have her own reality t.v. show. and i was like yeah, i guess not. and Ms.2good was like yeah, she probably doesn't want her mama to keep embarrassing her. she probably feels as long as she has her on her show she can kinda control the foolishness. she needs to take her off completely and just use her other mama.

and i was like, you can't be serious. i mean i watch Keisha Coles and i am not a fan of reality t.v. but when i know it's coming on, i am trying to watch it just so i can hear "how ya duing?" and "you ain't gonna keep treating me like i am a crackhead.. you can go pee me, i'm clean...well, you can't pee me now, but you can pee me in the morning." and i know a whole bunch of other folks who tune in to see what kinda of foolishness Frankie is gonna introduce, meaning, we ain't watching it for Keisha. now don't get me wrong, i love Keisha and i think it is commendable how she is trying to keep her family together and looks out for them, BUT ~ FRANKIE makes the show. therefore, it was my thoughts that Keisha didn't want to allow her mama to get her own show because she was afraid of what would happen to her ratings. and so i voiced my opinion because that's what i do... free of charge.

and then even though i should have stopped right there, my soul was already agitated because i had been dealing with full grown people that had the "i gots to be seen syndrome" and it was blowing me (but that's for a different time and a different day), i didn't. i went on to say to ms.2good:

it's funny because i don't think it's an issue that Frankie is/was a crackhead. do you think Keisha is the only person in the world who has a crackhead for a mama? do you think Frankie is the only crackhead in this world? what i think the issue is: that we are too ashamed to admit to ourselves and to the world that some of us need help. that some of us have crackheads for mamas. and we so ashamed of this fact that we refuse to see the bigger picture which is: there are crackheads out here having babies and they need help. but until we stop being ashamed of this fact, we will never be able to help these addicts because hiding them when company comes over or yanking them off t.v. shows or not talking about them does not fix the problem it just sidesteps the problem.

and if we think that by not addressing the matter at hand is what's best then we are living in a state of DENIAL and we need to look at ourselves and ask why does Frankie make me feel uncomfortable. why does her existence rattle my peace.
******************************************************

So, My Child was missing Dirty..not sure why, but i don't get into this madness, i just do what i need to do to calm the building storm of longing and feelings of abandonment...yeah, i took him to see Dirty and boy was that a homerun. NOT!!!!

this fool comes a strutting across the street and i simply tell MY CHILD, here comes your father. he's like where. and i'm like there. and he's like "who that homeless looking old man?" (if i had any water in my body at the time, i woudda pist my pants) i was like, um why did you say that? "because he looks old and he looks homeless, or something." so when this fools gets to my car, he reaches for his old faithful tool, A LIE, when my child asked him why he was late. i just shook my hand because my child is just that, MY CHILD, and he wasn't going for no banana in the tail pipe. He was like "what, was you hiding or something becuz we didn't see you and the people inside said you had gone for the day." now i am in my car ready to drive off and take at least one of this fool's foot with me. so when he proceeded to answer this question with YET ANOTHER LIE, i had to intervene. there's a lot of things i will tolerate, lying to my child when you have done nothing but donate the tadpole looking thing to create 50% of his DNA is not one of them.

and if you believe this is not the case, you are in DENIAL.

so this fools goes on to expose how delusional he really is. it's one thing to think that my child is going to buy your okiedoke because your other children do, it's another thing to think that i still want you. DUDE, didn't you just say that i don't call you and talk to you? didn't you just say how i must still hate you for all the stuff you have done or tried to do to me? and yeah spitting on me and hitting me goes in the try category. and we know it was a try cuz you still among the living. but for you to honestly believe that i still think about you, let alone discuss you, well, that's just sad. didn't my child just tell you from the back seat that i don't talk about you at all. that i don't mention your name. why would i? after you showed me your true colors and i took the blinders off, didn't i tell you to vamoose? well that's what i meant. and then your comment that i will be happy one day..um in case you missed it, i am happy now. believe that.

~ so as i am driving away saying all the things that i wanted to say to this fool in my head that i didn't say out loud because MY CHILD was all ears, it got me to thinking about how many people are in denial about their relationships.... be it with their spouses/sig. others, themselves, their children, their friends, and even with GOD.

how we just refuse to see what's really real. or maybe it's not that we don't see it, we just don't want to address it because it makes us uncomfortable or it embarrass us. maybe we're hoping that if we keep redirecting your attention to some other nonesense that you will not notice the obvious. like if you leave the house with two arms and come back with one and you keep telling me to look at your new shoes thinking this will hold my attention enough to not realize that you now one arm joe. what the..!!! slim, trust and believe, as banging as your shoes may be, i know that you left with two arms and came back with one and trust that i am gonna be asking you about your missing arm, sooner or later, and if those banging shoes ain't a ten, it's gonna be much sooner than later.

so let's get to it, if your man/ woman wasn't any good when you met them, what makes you think that they gonna be some good 4 years later? now, i am not saying people can't change because people do it all the time. heck, i am changing (queing up that Jennifer Hudson) but I WANT TO CHANGE AND I MAKE A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO CHANGE. but people don't change as quickly or as easily as changing some drawls. so if he was a no good so and so when you met him, UNLESS he wants to be a good for something so and so, he is always gonna be what he was when you met him, maybe even worse. because remember, we typically send our representative when we initially meet someone because we want to impress the other party. so if his representative is triflin' well, you betta use your NIKES and run on outta there because sistah you can't change him, and if you think you can, um yeah *thunk* you might want to grab yourself a V-8 cuz you gonna need all the vitamins you can get for this bungyjump without an elastic band that you have signed up for.

and if she didn't cook, didn't clean, and only wanted to spend your moolah when you met her, um why do you think buying her a Betty Crocker, a Hoover vac, and telling her you need to save your money is going to matter one bit to her 2 years later? you knew she wasn't martha stewart when you met her, don't get mad now.

yeah, we can't get mad when people show us who they really are and we sidestep it, or ignore it because who they are makes us uncomfortable, doesn't fit neatly into our box, or into the pretty picture we are trying to paint of our lives.

~~ see i wasn't mad at Dirty for lying because he had shown me long ago that was who he was: A LIAR. i was mad that he would lie to my child in front of me, knowing that i would not stand for it. now there was a time when i was naive and thought i was exempt from the lies, thought i was special, but when this fool lied to me, to my face, told me something that i knew was a lie, i knew that the picture i had painted of our relationship was just that: a picture because the reality of our situation was nothing like what i had created on my mental canvas. and because at that point i had already taken the blinders off and had decided to deal with what was really going on and not what i wanted to be going on, i was able to recognize the BS and respond accordingly. However, when i was living in la-la land, believing this fool was gonna change, and was gonna change for me, i was in a state of denial and my refusal to see the truth and accept it for what it was: the truth, began to take it's toll.


******our refusal to not only see the truth but our refusal to accept the truth will manifest itself in our lives somewhere. (you can take that to the bank)

REclaiming my cheez (The Breakdown)

So, i have been blogging in my head trying to get the message/story/events down in a manner that was easy to digest. i mean i have been disgusted with a lot of things, but at the same time, i have been happier than i have been in YEARS!!! yup, me, happy, can you believe it?


well, i had a lot of things going on and it had been a long time since i had place my thoughts in cyberspace and i was like how can i just make it all relate and make people understand why even though i always go ghost, how this time was different, and how this time was so fulfilling and how this time was the start of something new.

then i had a convo with an ATL WB and it just all clicked. i was gonna talk about my transition and growth in terms of :

• Denial,
• Acceptance/Acknowledgement,
• Adjustment, and
• Forward Movement/Progress

(please don't hold me to this... i may add,change,delete the breakdown at any point along the way...but that's life, it's very fluid)

so, now that i have laid my foundation, i think that i am ready to regurgitate my journey thus far with the blinders off and the bag out of reach... may the pieces splat in a comfortable way because i have no intentions of cleaning it up.

Reclaiming my CHEEZ (series)

So I have been M.I.A. again, but this time for a good reason. I have been living!!! and well, sometimes when you're living, you just don't have time for anything else; especially when you ain't been living for soooooooooooooooooo long.


However, it's been hard because I have sooooooo much to talk about, which is why i am going to do this post in a series, with a lot of sidebars that don't have much to do with anything.


for instance, the other day i went to the welfare office, i mean the department of human services and four gunmen ran up in there. i mean for real dudes, who yah gonna rob in the welfare building. i mean we trying to get ours, translation, we poor, and what little we have, we need. but for real, these dudes ran up in the place chasing this dude they were trying to rob on the street for a chain. i'm like this is the '09, are we back to robbing peeps for their jewelry? i mean i know it's a recession but dang!! what's next, back to jacking starters and jordans?

but that's not the thing that really irked me, what irked me was how it was like a movie that had gone wrong... i mean it was almost straight comical as i replayed the events to my cuzzo and them. i mean how is it that gunmen can just prance into a GOVERNMENT building with guns out, yeah i said out, not hidden! i guess that would be because there are no metal detectors, which leads me to my next issue. how is it that a place where indigent people, people down on their fortune, frustrated people, desperate people, and at times volatile people come to seek help only to meet rude, nasty, ignorant, misinformed people/workers who somehow think the money that I(we) are seeking to receive is gonna come out of their pockets, accounts, check, or their baby's college fund doesn't have a metal detector and ARMED guards?

i mean there has been plenty of occasions that i wanted to bust someone upside their head in there just on GP. i mean just because i need assistance does not make me less than. i am sure that if Massah wasn't pimping me, i would be able to buy and sell you and your entire family, but since he wasn't paying me no where near my worth and the fact that MY CHILD has to eat, i am here doing what a good mother who has worked 3-5 jobs at a time since the age of 16 would do: GETTING MINE!

then there is the situation with the guards running...well it wasn't quite a run because their weight and lack of exercises slowed them down but it was much faster than a jog.... i mean i don't know if i am mad seeing how they only had a stick and handcuffs, but i mean at least pretend to be tough or something or know how to defend something besides the delivery boy dropping off your next meal. then what was the deal with the silent alarm that had flashing blue lights?

i mean if you gonna have lights, i want the whole shabang..i want a siren, i want the building to shake...i want everything...i mean if you gonna let the perps know you have given the bat signal to the po-pos, i mean really let them know, don't half do it.

i still don't quite understand the logic behind allowing people to still enter the building or the fact that we were told that if you go out it's on you, i can't tell you to stay but if you go out it's on you. what in the hamsammich!!!!!! um, i don't think that was ranked in the top ten responses you give potential hostages.


i have to say i was impressed with the new recruits who responded. they seemed so, um, how do you say it? what's the word i am looking for? oh, yeah...NEW!!!! i was waiting for someone to pull out their pockethandbook.

needless to say, i felt that i would be safer leaving the building, especially seeing that i was on a time schedule. i needed to get MY CHILD enrolled in the park summer school at a discounted rate cuz mama cash flow is at a trickle. well, i am glad that i left when i did because i got to see some special type of po-pos perform.. still haven't been able to find out who these fools belong to, but they were a sight to see. from their flying through traffic with their special sirens, cutting people off....their high speed maneuvering...made me think that a movie was being filmed... i hurried up to see if they were going to jump out of their cars and roll on the ground with their guns out...but i was like them, too slow and missed their car exit. but i am sure had they arrived some 25 minutes earlier when the events took place, all of their theatricals would have been worth it... ...maybe.


the best part about this situation was: it didn't even make the news. makes you wonder, was it because it wasn't newsworthy? was it because nobody got shot? or was it because the last thing the government wanted to masses to know was that they weren't even safe trying to collect benefits?

some things we will never know. i guess that's life. and i guess that is sorta why i decided to find time to get back in the swing of things with my blogging.. cuz life happens, it happens to all of us. for some it comes at us full force and hits us right smack dab in the face...for others, it is like a sightseeing tourmobile, it's a pleasant journey, allowing us to get out at designated locations to enjoy the scenic overlooks. for others, it's like a rollercoaster ride, with some highs and some lows.

yeah, life happens and if we aren't careful, we may miss out on the lesson that life is a ride that we can truly enjoy once we recognize who belongs in the driver seat.