.38

I moved around A LOT when I was younger. That's one of the reasons I find "So where are you from..." to be one of the hardest questions for me to answer. Because really, I'm not FROM anywhere. I was born some place and then bounced around every 3 years or so.

But the one skill I developed from my travels was recognizing those people who would be friends for life. I am a really good pen pal and I keep in touch with people I haven't seen in 18 years (and at 26, that's saying a great deal). Even with my college group of buddies, I'm the one who everyone checks in with and I'm the one who reports how e'rybody's doing. So and so is married. So and so is engaged. Blah blah blah I've even been known to go off on people who don't keep in touch. Friendship is really a very big deal to me. Always has been. So when I think I've found a friend, and I find that I've misjudged them and they're less honorable or kind-hearted or...friendly...than I thought they were or hoped they were, I take it kind of hard. And yesterday, I found out that a "friend" pretty much dissed me this past weekend. Needless to say I was mad.

No, scratch that.

I was HOT! .38 (as my Dade County homies say)

There's gotta be some bad karma that comes to someone who pisses off a Muse. It's like upseting a god...or a demi-god. Plague upon your houses or something like that. Fire and brimstone.

As a Muse you can't just go around cussing people out. One cannot just send mean and nasty e-mails like...

DEAR MR. ASSHOLE,

I REALLY THOUGHT WE WERE BETTER THAN THIS. WHAT A DUMBASS I WAS. AND WHAT A WASTE OF A NUMBER YOU TURNED OUT TO BE.

KISS OFF,
AM

But really...where's the class in that? There requires a modicum of refinement and finesse when expressing your displeasure as a Muse. And what better way to GO-OFF than in a poem. And not just any poem--that ol' free verse/slant rhyme stuff is not classy. But what better than a Shakesperean sonnet. And who better than myself to cuss-a-nigga-out in iambic pentameter. So without further ado, may I present...

A Scorned Woman's Sonnet

Like suffocating in the open air,
Like drowning on the driest of dry land,
I just cannot seem to catch my breath;
And, I just don’t quite seem to understand.

You and I were little more than friends,
Just gentle passersby, in the grand scheme.
But now, as I see how eas’ly you dismiss,
I begin to see how little I did mean.

As daily I spent hours at your will,
I for hours flirted on your line.
And with no expectation from the act
Except to know the pleasure of your time.

And when we talked, the subjects—what array!
From poetry and love, to faith and courage.
I felt more intimately your comp’ny I must know
And set to planning when our bodies would converge.

The act was rushed, no time for true romance.
How unnatural it really all did feel.
But later when you smiled, the light I saw
Made the moments that we shared seem that much more real.

But then no calls, no chats, no little notes.
Your presence was as distant as the stars.
Your absence made me see I’d made a friend
And that I’d miss you now that you are gone so far.

So when I heard that you were here in town,
Imagine my shock, surprise and my dismay.
From a so-called friend, what heartless disregard!
Feeling slighted, I have little left to say.

Maybe if you hadn’t meant so much,
This wouldn’t hurt and I’d not gone berserk,
You once had my heart in the purest way,
But not no mo’! O’ what a selfish jerk!

Broke

"One day I'll look back on these times and laugh. But right now...the shit's not funny."
AM 1998-2005 (almost daily)


I never came from a family of money. But, we weren't poor. We lived in a real house with a backyard. Both my parents had cars--nobody was riding MARTA to work. Our lights and phone were never cut off. We never had food stamps, nor did I know what a food stamp was.
BUT!...when we got money to go shopping for school clothes, we got $100...for the year (but not including Christmas). We always had lunch money, but on many occassions, it was $1.35 in dimes and nickels, transported in a plastic sandwich bag. My mom would spend $300 on groceries in one trip...but the food had to last the entire month. When it was gone, it was gone. I went without glasses for about two years longer than I should have because I had braces, and some how there was an unwritten rule that no two kids in our household could have the same ailment at one time. My sister got the glasses, but her teeth are jacked up 'til this day.

Do you hear that?...the tiniest violin playing in the background...?

Okay...so as I'm reading this, it sounds much worse than it was. We really weren't poor. We just didn't have any extra. So when it got time for me to think about which colleges to apply to, a very strange pain came across my mother's face when I told her that I was applying to Princeton. I had straight A's, a 4.0 GPA...I was in every club, and despite my lack of athletic ability (I have no hand-eye coordination whatsoever...I can't even play videogames), I added sports to my Curriculum Vitae by managing the basketball team. I knew I'd be fine. So I bought myself a plane ticket to New Jersey to visit the campus, a ticket I might add, that was purchased with the proceeds from my blood, sweat and tears at Chuck E. Cheese, and crossed my fingers that I'd meet Toni Morrison while there. Unfortunately, my mom cared very little about all my excitement about attending Princeton University (my dad cared not at all) and popped ALL my little bubbles, saying "you know...we haven't saved ANY money for you for college. Sorry."

there goes that violin again...

I was pissed at the time, and all I could think was..."one day money will not be an issue like this...it will get better..."

Cut to college, where I was studying English at Florida A&M University (faaaam-u, faaaam-u, faaaam-gotdam-u...alright, alright, alright...), on a full academic scholarship, but still struggling. Everyday I prayed, "God, please let things get better. One day I want to look back on this time and laugh, but right now...this shit ain't funny." After college, it got no better. I was mother to a newborn baby; her dad was trying to break into the entertainment industry in Los Angeles and not working consistently; and, I was stuck trying to financially keep my family together. Times was hard, I tell ya'. But recently, I took a position that I see is really going to allow me to be financially in a much better place and to be in a position of influence. The money ain't great just yet...but it looks like there will certainly be some much brighter days ahead. So now I can look back and see the comedy of the last 8 years of my life. (Wow...that made me sound old!) As things are getting better, I guess the shit really was funnier than I'd like to admit.

My list of experiences being poor and down-trodden that could one day be material for a sitcom.

1) Juanita does Arby's: I worked at Arby's at home during the summer, so when they rebuilt the one in Tallahassee, I was a shoe-in. I worked the drive-thru and entertained myself by talking to the people in the speaker with my best impression of my favorite spanish instructor, la puertoricana Dra. Trujillo. I have scars to this day from the slicer and the fry lamp.

2) Peter Cottontail: Because of my work at Chuck E. Cheese's, I had experience with character suits. It may sound funny, but how else would I have been able to be The Easter Bunny at Governor's Square Mall? Sadly, I was fired for a failure to show up to work. It turns out that I did not have enough gas to get me to work...not even enough for the car to start. I didn't have a dollar so I couldn't take the bus. And, I didn't even have $0.35 to call work and tell them I couldn't make it. I kept thinking how sad it was that I lost a job over $1 when there are people who drop $20,000 in a day on a purse (shout-out to Kimora Lee Simmons). The worst past was that it was payday.

3) Singing for my supper: I love to sing. I love music in general. So when I was approached with the opportunity to sing lead for a band, I jumped at it. We performed old blues standards and newer jazz and contemporary hits (Ella Fitzgerald, "Pick Up The Pieces", "Cantaloupe Island"). I thought it was great. But somehow, the crowd in little Quincy, Florida wasn't feelin' us all that much. There were 4 guys in the band. We rehearsed 3 nights a week until 2 or 3 in the morning. Our gig was every Sunday night. So when we got our $50 check at the end of the evening, split 5 ways, all we had was enough for a meal at IHOP. If you didn't get a drink or leave a tip, you had $3 to take home.

4) Door-to-Door: I sold high quality knife sets door-to-door. Just the thought of some stanger coming to your door with a butcher knife and a pair of scissors strong enough to cut a penny into a corkscrew sounds dangerous. I think the general public thought so too, because after buying the $200 sample set, gas and additional daycare expenses, I think my net income was $-120. I did make the week's highest sales in our store once. $800 in knives and accessories. The poor saps. (Hi, Mom!)

5) Homeless: I was almost evicted from an apartment because my scholarship money from the school was 8 months late. I was a full-time student and working 3 part-time jobs but still couldn't keep up. My apartment manager came to my house one evening at around midnight, throwing things at my door, demanding that I get out, threatening me, and telling me his kids would starve because of me. I moved before they could officially start an eviction process. I stayed with a girl in my classes whom I didn't know very well, but who was very nice. She let me sleep on a mattress in her computer room for 3 months. We almost killed each other, but are good friends to this day.

6) Good eats: I was in really good physical shape in college mainly because I either didn't have time to eat or enough money to eat. Freshman year I ate Tuna Helper every night of the week. Now the smell of it, even the sight of the box makes my stomach turn. By junior year (when I was working at Publix, on campus, and singing at the club, my lunches consisted of a coke and a snicker's bar and dinner was hot tea and toast. Oh, yeah!


So now, I can look back at these times and chuckle. (I won't laugh b/c I'm not out of the woods yet... Credit repair is a beyotch!) But I'll tell ya, at the time...that shit was NOT funny.

FanMail

Dear Muse,

What the @#$%^&! man!? Where have you been? It's one thing to post once a week. I'm okay with that since you seem to be too stubborn to do better. But once a month?! Girl, you better post something or i'm'a hack into your site and post for you.

Signed,
Feenin' Computer Guy


Dear Feenin',

My bad, homie (and all those with the same sentiments). Things have really been pretty crazy on my end. I was travelling for two weeks straight and had minimal access to the internet. And while that is really the truth, it's an excuse. I have just had so many thoughts clogging my brain that it had become engorged worse than a new breast-feeding mother's tits. (I need to wear cabbage leaves on my head.)

I've been really upset about the Gulf disaster and its farther reaching implications. Obviously, race issues have been on my mind. But, you know, if I were homeless before Katrina, I'd be an angry bitch right now. I heard a radio station d.j. (more than one actually) say, "don't bring your old clothes down here for donations. Go buy new clothes or bring gift cards. These hurricane victims are proud people. They're not like regular homeless people..." I wanted to go down there and slap someone. What is a regular homeless person? I just get so pissed by people who are so class concious that they neglect others because they don't see themselves as connected to the problem. We have to stick together. I don't know how we'll be better as a people (a human race) unless we start to show some solidarity.

Martin Luther King said that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." If we don't start to see that one person's suffering is also our own, we will never grow. We can never be better. I just don't know how one goes about creating that kind of awareness, though. That's revolutionary thinking and people are afraid of change. And like most people my age, I don't like to wait for change. I like to see immediate results. But you can't fix 100's of years of shadow bondage, mental incarceration, in a day or a year. It takes many life times to change people's hearts and minds.

And when I see people like John Roberts sitting in confirmation hearings for the supreme court, I wonder if we will ever know justice or peace or freedom when the system that is made to protect our civil liberties is so inherently flawed. *sigh*

But other than that, I've been good. Thanks for asking.



Dear AM,

Whatever happened to that guy your were digging a few weeks back? Is he still around? Did he forgive you for being so crazy?

Curious Kat


Dear Nosy Feline,

If you must know... The guy from August and I are pretty much a done deal. I don't think I was what he was looking for. Strangely, though, I was exactly what he needed. I think people come into our lives for very specific reasons. I was so concerned about trying to figure out what he was to me, I did see that I was placed in his life to help him realize some things about himself and no the other way around. Soon after our visit, the communication came to an abrupt halt. We still chat every now and then, but nothing like we used to. But I think I made a strong impact on him. And I still think he's great.

On a more promising note, I've started dating again. Like, for real, dating. I have few guys around who are keeping me company, although in none of them do I see a future right now. See, I need to find somebody with vision. I am truly a work in progress and if I meet someone at this point in my life, he's gonna need to be able to see past some of my current situations to realize the masterpiece. The guy from August, I think, lacked the foresight to see the finished product and turned his nose up at my half blank canvas. I need someone who knows that in white spaces lie abundant possibilities.

I had planned on using the fall to "get right." My daughter is spending the month with her dad in Long Beach, so I've finally had a chance, for once, to have some me time. I wanted to work out, go clubbing, get my freak on.

I've done very little of any of those things.

I've been working late, so most of my time is spent in the office. Dating has been consistently infrequent. And my personal trainer is one of those that I'm dating, so when we do, on the rare occassion, have a chance to get together, our plans to go running or lifting are replaced with cardiovascular activities of another kind. Now, we work out almost never, because he thinks that I'm fine enough and that the "little baby fat" that I have can be sweated off in the sauna. Sounds like he's trying to game me up.

Too bad it's working. ;)