DWB

I have been in NY 5 days, count them, 5, and I have been pulled over twice by police officers. Never a ticket, never an explanation, I don't even drive a nice car.

I do like to play my music loud though.

You know who the police don't like? KRS-1. Those fuckers LOVE to pull you over and a shine bright ass lights in your face, call for back-up to surround your car and make you wait while they run your plates and check your license, only to tell you, "okay, you can go now" because they didn't find shit, when you listen to KRS-1.

What was blasting out of my speakers when they pulled me over just now?

Check out the message in a rough stylee
The real criminals are the C-O-P
You check for undercover and the one PD
But just a mere Black man, them want check me

Them check out me car for it shine like the sun
But them jealous or them vexed cause them can't afford one
Black people still slaves up til today But the Black police officer nah see it that way
Him want a salary Him want it So he put on a badge and kill people for it

My grandfather had to deal with the cops
My great-grandfather dealt with the cops
My GREAT grandfather had to deal with the cops
And then my great, great, great, great... when it's gonna stop?!


God Damn! This is some bullshit!!

I'm Feeling Good From My Head To My Shoes...

I went for a run today. "Uhm ouch!" said my knees.

"It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you..." said my cartilage.

So, I went for a run, I came home and cooked for the first time in my new apartment. You learn lots of little things when you cook for the first time in a new place. Things like, "how the fuck did I move and not pack my plates? Where the fuck are my plates? Gladware? Do I have any fucking Gladware? Where am I suppose to put these leftovers?" Shit like that.

But, I just lazed around today, and felt like myself. I streamed bullshit TV on my computer. I took a LONG hot shower after my run. I cooked one of my many variants of pasta, vegetables, and sausage; this time I used spices like garam masala and coriander. (Tasty!)

I spent a good chunk of time thinking about my relationships with people, both the real ones that last through transitions, and the situationally constructed ones that don't make it, even with the best of intentions running on both sides.

Sometimes you can't tell which is which. Sometimes you can, but you just hope that you're wrong.

I Have A Crush On My Neighbor.

She lives beneath me. I think that she's kinda cute, and she has really good energy (whatever that means. I think it's what you say when you don't actually know enough about a person to list their attributes that you find attractive, so you have a conversation about "energy"; who could argue with "energy"?). I once had a friend tell me that I had "very clean energy" or maybe it was a "very clean aura". Not quite sure why, but it makes me walk a little taller when I remember that. What does it mean? Not much more than he likes me.

So, I have a crush on my downstairs neighbor. I've chatted with her for all of 2.7 minutes. She reminds me of someone I went to college with.

Problem: Not sure if she's a lesbyterian. Could be, could be not. Who's this guy who's always hanging around? Lesbyterians often have male friends. I have 2! So, I'm gonna have to feel the situation out.

Here's my plan: Bake some cookies, and take them downstairs as an apology for the noise that I've made while moving all my stuff. She invites me in, and I chat her up to see if there is anything compelling beyond her "energy".

Problem with the plan: she was outside yesterday with her man friend blasting some old school funk. People who listen to old school funk don't eat cookies. It's just a fact. Also, I don't bake.

Maybe I should take her some beer instead.

Problem with beer instead: Beer costs $12. Cookie dough costs $3.

Plus I didn't make THAT much noise.

IKEA, I HATE YOU!!!!!!

FUCK YOU IKEA!

FUCK YOU!

Yes, you, with your no word picture diagrams that make you think that the fucking holes on your furniture line up, but you don't know until you're done that they don't and you have no idea why shit isn't working so the only thing to do is grab a hammer and smack the fuck out of it.

Ikea, fuck you.

Fuck your little associates and their yellow shirts who tell you things like, "Oh you should be able to put this bookshelf together in 15 minutes." Really? Really Ikea associate!?! You make me think of words that I never say, like "fucktard" for instance! No, it will not take you 15 minutes, you will want to drink, you will decide that you are giving it away more than once during the building phase, you will do your best to bend solid wood to your will, and once it's done you will still notice all of the places that it doesn't completely line up.

Ikea, FUCK YOU!!

Fuck you like Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm, "FUCK HUGH, IKEA!"

Fuck you for not being honest and saying, "listen, really listen. Just pay the extra $300, this isn't worth the hassle. Now if you still want to risk it, then don't say we didn't warn you." Fuck you, Ikea for not making that your slogan!

My shelf looks nice though.

A Penske Truck, an Overhang, and Some Tarp!

Rented my moving truck the other day. Okay, first off, who's the fucking genius that designed a truck that only gets 5 mpg? Thanks for that piece of mechanical engineering Ford! (I was thinking that calling someone Ford would be the mechanical engineering equivalent of calling someone Einstein, but then I remembered that the truck was indeed produced by Ford Motor Company. I guess that makes it a pun. Pun may be a stretch. It certainly makes me clever though. Not budging on that one.)

So, a few suggestions.

Suggestion 1: Hows about you make the cab in your truck the same height as the top of the cargo box? That way I won't rent your truck and think that I have clearance through an overhang, when I CLEARLY don't. Hows about that for starters?

Suggestion 2: Hows about some steel reinforced corners, so that when I hit concrete at 7 miles per hour I don't bust a hole in the top of the truck?

Suggestion 3: Hows about youse guys construct of a material other than fiberglass so that when I bust a hole in the roof, and God gets his giggles by opening up the sky with a torrential downpour 15 minutes later, I have something that I can nail a tarp to in order to hold it in place and protect my things?

Suggestion 4: Hows about youse guys develop a lever that doesn't get jammed open, and then jammed closed every time you move it from one position to the next? Howsabout that? Big up on the not automatically locking when the door falls! I thought we were locked in the truck when we put the tarp up!

Suggestion 5: Would it be too much to ask for you to put some extra space in the cab behind the seats? You could put a bed back there and a mini fridge, and satellite cable, a broadband wireless router for internet. You know, just the basics. At a minimum, how about enough room for the seats to recline, seriously. I looked like a quadriplegic falling asleep sitting bolt upright. Not cool.

Suggestion 6: Why don't you just install a lock on the truck? It has a lever and all that other stuff. Why not just add a lock to this whole contraption, OR construct your lever so that any reasonable lock would fit, and I wouldn't have to go back to Target to get a second lock. (Also, it would be helpful if one of the mechanical engineers spoke to the Penske folks and instructed them to carry locks!! Then I wouldn't even have to go to Target!)

My poor mom! She decided to ride with me for my move and hang out for a few days to help me transition. Who knew that fateful day when a little tiny egg dropped down her fallopian tube that she would be sprinting through parking lots in the rain, carrying heavy-ass boxes up stairs, holding a tarp while someone tried to hammer into fiberglass, cleaning out a toilet on her hands and knees, washing windows, cleaning out cabinets, assembling IKEA furniture, and dealing with the crankiness of a 33 year old adolescent? That poor woman! That's big love.

Loose Associations

I ate expired meat just now.

I don't mean, "Oh... well, it expired yesterday, so it should be okay" expired meat. Oh no!! I'm talking, "Wait a minute! What's today's date? This expired on the 5th" expired meat. WELL past the expiration date.

Yeah, it is pretty fucking gross to eat expired meat, and I honestly don't think that I've done it before.

Here's my logic:

"Ah shit! This is expired!?! But, my pasta won't be good without canadian bacon... I need canadian bacon! Hmm... well, it has been refrigerated. It doesn't look bad; I mean, if it were going bad it would look bad, right? And, plus! During the war people ate expired meat all the time, and they were fine. In fact, people who live in Guernsey, who survived the war, eat expired meat regularly to this day.* They eat anything, and they don't even get sick from it. I'm cooking this canadian bacon!"

So, I ate expired meat. Now, here's the problem: Honestly, what does a war survivor's eating habits in the Channel Islands have to do with me eating expired meat in my fridge? Not a damn thang! Nothing. But, I ate it.

I'm still on the mend from this virus, so my immune system is already taxed. So, if ever I were going to eat expired meat, and admittedly there isn't really a "good" time to do it, while I'm fighting off the flu certainly is a bad time to give it a try.

It was tasty with my pasta though. We'll see how I feel in the morning.

CB that expired last week probably won't kill me, but it feels very dramatic to think of it like that. Ooooh! I just caught a stomach cramp!

* Citation needed

I Habe A Code.

Let's call it a 24-hour virus. You know, because I saw The Secret. From nowhere! Fucking nowhere, I came down with something today. I had lunch with a friend, went to a coffee shop to read a book. Felt a tickle in my throat. Two hours later, had a sore throat and achy muscles.

At this point my whole body is achy, I'm exhausted, and my throat is so scratchy that it hurts to talk.

Doubled up on nighttime Theraflu several hours ago- still going strong, but I'm exhausted. The sweetest moment came when my friend told me that I needed to get rest, and stop running in the street. All of my goodbye lunches, dinners, coffees, cocktails, and clubbing has caught up with me.

She came over to help me pick up some furniture that I bought, and then told me that this cold or whatever, is probably because I'm not resting and eating well, so she invited me over for dinner this week, and offered to make me some baked goods (fish or chicken). It feels like love when someone says you aren't taking care of yourself, why don't you come over for a home cooked meal.

It's a really sweet gesture when a friend notices a place that you aren't taking care of yourself, especially when it's somewhere that you hadn't yet realized.

Well back to The Wire. I really hope that I can get some rest soon.

What's Up Doc?

I have student health insurance. The RN at the clinic told me that it was the most useless insurance that she has ever seen in her life, and the strangle-hold that the insurance company has on students kept bringing up mafia references for her.


1.) The only place that your insurance covers you is the student health clinic (which is free even if you don't have the insurance), other than that you're on your way to paying down your deductible.

2.) Your deductible is $500 per semester, so essentially everything is out of pocket. (ha ha ha!!)

3.) The clinic is only good for "colds, STDs, labwork, and referrals," so if you actually need healthcare, expect a referral to a provider where you will pay 100% out of pocket.

4.) If you have the insurance, then you only have to pay a percentage for any lab work, and your prescriptions are free if they fill them at the clinic.

5.) The clinic only stocks over the counter drugs.

6.) Because it's free, the doctors and nurses love to just give you shit.

7.) At the end of the semester, it is entirely possible to get a bill for all of the "free" over the counter shit that you didn't actually want, because your "insurance" has some fine print that says it's at their discretion to cover drugs. (WTF!?)

8.) The clinic will not accept any other insurance plans.

9.) If you are a graduate student or you receive a scholarship, it is mandatory that you carry the school's insurance.

10.) The front counter staff appear to be trained to "not understand" or "forget" that you have the school's insurance plan and attempt to charge you full price for any visit. This includes calling other staff over to explain your charges to you.

"$78!?!?!? I just got blood drawn to see if I'm anemic!"

- words, words, words...

"Oh! Sorry. You do have the insurance; I didn't see that. That will be $5."


The point of all of this is that I like my doctor over there. It's a bullshit clinic, with bullshit insurance, and the whole insurance racket conjures up prison rape scene analogies, but my doctor is pretty cool. She's really brass tacks and impatient, straight to the point, type A personality, but each time I go in I ask her how she's doing today, and different questions about what she likes about her job, and why she likes working here as opposed to a hospital or other practice with more continuity of care. Her whole demeanor softens and she transforms into a person right in front of my eyes; a person with a sense of humor and a really interesting perspective on life.

She's what I like about the clinic. Actually, there are quite a few good folks over there. I ask them questions about themselves and how their days are going since they spend so much time listening to people complain and grouse (you know, cuz if you feel bad enough to go to the anal rape insurance student clinic, you must be feeling kinda bad. and when people are feeling kinda bad, they aren't usually in a great mood.) it takes its toll on a person, so i decided to ask them about them and listen.

turns out most folks don't do that, and they REALLY appreciate it. turns out your quality of care drastically improves when your provider feels re-humanized and remembers that you are a human too, rather than a problem awaiting a diagnosis. turns out, you can unearth some really great folks that you would have easily, and then intentionally, overlooked if you only stop for a second to take the time to find out about them.

my insurance is for shit though!

He's Got Game

I've listened to this call three or four times.



I had a strange encounter with a guy in a coffee shop a few months ago, and it made me think about Neil Strauss' book on pick up artists, so a few weeks later I saw the book in a bookstore, picked it up and read it.

Turns out to be a fairly good read. What I found most interesting, and there was a lot that was intriguing in the book, was that there wasn't actually anything that was magic or secret. It was like a well-kept weight loss program that actually got you to exercise and eat healthy well portioned meals.

The "secret" of The Game is that you need to figure out what it takes for you to accept that you are someone that other people would be interested in, and that other people are neither doing you a favor, nor acting out of pity, when they are engaging you; even when fear and insecurities scream to the contrary inside your head. And, once you are convinced of this, you actually teach people how to treat you and they follow your lead. Strauss offeres that a person's idealized self eats well, exercizes, is well groomed, is confident, and has interesting things to say, but none of these things are necessary for romantic success; it's just easier to believe in yourself when you do them. If you believe in yourself, truly, by being condescending, dominating, arrogant, and kindof a prick, these are all options that have worked for folks too.

The book frames it as, once you learn these techniques, other people will be drawn to and desire you, and you can have as much sex as you want, but I think that the insights of the book extend beyond sexual access.

It's a book that chronicles the experiences of men who are so beat down by their expectations that no one would find them worthy of interest that they are willing to spend thousands of dollars just to learn how to approach, talk to, and maybe one day kiss a woman. And waaaaayyy far off in the distant realm of possibility, they may be, just maybe, able to have sex with a beautiful woman. And, these men are transformed into hyper-confident, hyper-sexed, surprisingly successful pick-up artists. And, for some it spills over into success in other arenas of their lives.

Now, the book doesn't say this explicitly, but the recurrent theme seems to be, "What's it going to take to get you to believe in yourself?" And, until you get there, here are some tricks and a few gimmicks to get you over the hump. But, it's like those after school specials where someone gives a kid a "magic rock" to help them deal with some life struggle that they can't fathom being able to overcome, only to learn that it was just a regular rock the whole time, and all they needed to do was believe in themselves. Same shit.

Here are some tricks and gimmicks to help posture you as someone who believes in themselves. Try it out, find out that they work, and build up your self-confidence to the point that it is your expectation that of course people would be interested in you; talking with you, kissing you, sexing you, dating you, whatever.

Now, there were lots of strange things that the book explored and highlighted, and one of the most curious to me was the person midway through the "transformation", who would rely on the magic of the rock, but was still filled with ire and bitterness or just a self-deprecating awkwardness and insecurity that repelled people; a gangly adolescent hybrid that just looked awkward and uncomfortable, maybe even pained. That's what this call reminded me of. It sounds like this guy is trying to appropriate some of the tools of a pick up artist, but all of it is filtered through his bitterness and rage, and he just comes across as aggressive and desperate.

Today, he sounds rather pathetic, and you kinda want to run away and warn your daughters about what to look for and what to avoid when she meets men. But, with just a little work, Dimitri could be rather smooth and successful with the ladies. And that is a sobering thought that can make your spine tingle after you're done laughing at him and his flailing social skills.

Oh! I almost forgot. My favorite part of the call is when he passive-aggressively suggests that she look up "passive-aggressive personality disorder", particularly since his whole message is a big passive-aggressive stunt. It sounds like he wants to say, "Bitch! Why didn't you call me!?!" But, really, he wants to say, "It hurts that you didn't call me."

It's fine to have feelings, it's the shit that he's doing because of them that fucking inappropriate. And, in all seriousness, he's not that far off from being able to have good game. Not very far off at all, and that's what really disturbs me.

Pity Dates

Yup. I do them. I need to learn to stop, and CLEARLY I have some shit to work out on my end, but I will go out on a date with you, knowing that I don't like you simply because it's rude to say no, and I don't want you to feel bad about yourself.

Pity dates. Who wins with this dumb shit?

I blame my mom. (She takes the blame for so much bullshit. ...probably because so much of what's wrong in my life is her fault. Huh. I guess it makes sense then.) So, I blame my mom for all of those years of "be nice!" training which came with dire consequences for me if I wasn't nice. It seems kinda absurd now that I think about it. How do you terrorize little kinds into being nice? Isn't that what you're doing when you threaten to punish kids if they aren't "nice"?

Sounds kinda ironical.

Why was I suppose to be nice? Because people will feel bad about themselves if I'm not. Uhm. Horseshit! But, it's all entrenched in there, from way back when I was three years old.

So, because of my mom, from time to time I go on pity dates, which feel like an obligation, but to whom am I obliged? My mom in 1973? These women who get to endure an evening of me "being nice" and then not understanding why I am not at all interested in them? Who wins with this shit I ask you, really? It's dumb.

I say, be genuine. Let people know where you stand, and where they stand with you. You don't have to say, "uhm, I would except that you have yellow teeth." You can just say, "I'm flattered, but no thank you." And, if they press the issue then they are asking to be told it's because of their yellow teeth.

So, I had a date recently. I wasn't digging on her like I expected, but she kept asking me things about where I lived, and if I had housemates, etc. So, at the end of our drinks I walked down to pay, and I don't think I realized it at the time, but I must have walked way out in front of her, because I forgot that she was with me until the server handed me back my credit card, and SUDDENLY she was right there in my face! It was a little jarring.

So, we walked out, and she did that slight lingering thing. It was jarring, so I gave her a hug, said goodnight, and walked to my car.

We were in the middle of an interesting conversation when we got up to leave. I just didn't want to bring her back to my place.

So, I got home, and remembered that she told me she may not be doing anything at all tonight, and she kept asking me where I lived, and if I had roommates, and that she knew that part of town, and that I'm leaving soon, and... and my terror-enforced niceness kicked into gear.

I called her and told her that I just realized that things ended rather abruptly, so I wanted to say that I hope she has a good night and maybe we can see each other before I leave town.

Why did I call her? Because I thought it would probably be easier on her if she got to be the one who didn't call me before I left town, rather than being on the abrupt end and no call side of the stick. There may have in fact been some mutuality by the end of the night. But, pity won the day: "You don't want to hurt her feelings. Let her be the one who doesn't call you, rather than you not calling her. Be nice."

This shit is fucking dumb.

Do I Believe in God?

Short Answer: Yes.

Longer Answer: What the fuck is God?

I had a date last night, and over mojitos, which are proof that God exists (mmm!), she asked me about my educational history. It's strange, but you can trace my developmental path and the unfolding of who I am today by tracking my accumulation of degrees. The way that I assume some people reflect back and think about relationships or maybe jobs perhaps, as markers of who they were at distinct points along the course of their lives, I track myself based on who I was and what I was during different degree programs.

To be certain, I am a consumer of education. In fact, student loans are my only source of debt. Oh! Well, a hospital bill too, but I don't have consumer debt. I believed the lie that education was the route to overcoming the horrors of oppression. Education is how you obviate racism, right? Uh- no, but people like to tell you that lie when you're a smart little black girl.

So, I tried a path, didn't work, retrained through education. Didn't produce the results that I wanted, so I retrained through education. Decided that I'd like to be upwardly mobile, and decided to professionalize through education. Decided that I was tired of working for (sometimes with, but mostly frustrated by the for) dumbfucks who were grossly incompetent, so I sought advancement through education. This shit is starting to look like a hamster wheel. Dizzying, nauseating, disorienting, and it requires a lot of work without actually moving you anywhere.

Get a degree little black girl. Then your life would be what you dream of. More education little black girl, then you can be an astronaut. Graduate school little black girl, then people won't mistreat you. Have you tried a PhD little black girl? People who have a doctorate are never maligned. Little black girl. Yeah you, the one who's crying. Do you realize that the only reason life is so hard is because you just aren't really all that smart? So, go get a degree little black girl and stop making things so hard on yourself.

That's the dumb shit that oppression will teach you. It is your fault little black girl, so why don't you go somewhere and learn how to act right!