Late Nights and Books of Gobblety Gook

Mental Rehab Post #24
Nothing like real life to get your head out the clouds, or your own ass, and get the new-ish you headed in some direction. It may not be the direction you want to be going, but anyplace other than here might be a better yet. My grandfather used to counsel that no matter how bad the storm got, even if you were just crawling along, to "keep moving." It's a bigger metaphor than I remember.

Last night I got home around 9:30pm, figured out what i was going to make for dinner. turned on the oven, opened the laptop to get started on the next portion of Research assignment, worked through roughly 90% of it....and then suddenly it was just after midnight. Just like that. Whoosh. I had fallen asleep.

So dinner was lunch meat sandwich and glass of kool-aid.

Since I was up, I went ahead and re-read for the class I had tonight. This would be the class I think I understand the most. And quite strangely the words on the page had returned to gobblety gook after the previous two weeks I had thought I had a good handle on things. I actually like the prof, he's quick on his feet, a good communicator, interesting to listen to, so I had been getting it the past few weeks.

But I got my first memo back last night before my other class, and that may have colored everything.

In class I joked after we reviewed how it was supposed to look that she could just keep mine. I wasn't that far off. Apparently I'm going to have to either unlearn how to write like I'm writing now, or learn how to turn off one type of writing and turn on the other. It's a tricky thing. Most people don't write except when they have to, but I write because I like it. It's how I express myself. So I'm going to have an issue a lot of my classmates won't: how to change a fundamental part of who am...In addition to a fundamental change in my way of thinking, which is the overall process of law school.

Great.

On the social front...well, that about wraps that up.

Shade is in town for, er, something. We're doing a birthday brunch this weekend. We've been on the phone a lot the past few days as she clarifies her current relationship with her ..um... suitor. I always find the idea that a woman can be confused about a man's intentions a funny concept. When we were eighteen we were supposed to be coy. As we get older we all should have figured it out somewhere along the way. To get what I want, I have to give them what they want. And I keep meeting people who act surprised that other people have their own wants and needs.

And I guess we'll call her Spanky...is also in town for the FAMU-TSU game this weekend in the Georgia Dome which it looks like due to my educational responsibilities, I will NOT be attending. A four hour football game and the hustle bustle before and after is just too much. Spanky will be disappointed, or not, because I think her "plans" will be arriving. A hour and half for brunch on Sunday for Shade's birthday might be too much as well, but that will be a "game time" decision.

Work is work, only really compressed. I'm still the point man on so many issues it's not funny. And the soap opera drama...if only I could put the names to go with this. The chick whose going away party I attended a few weeks ago had a skeleton bone fall out of her closet since she left. She was the "office tease." Which in turn dominoes this other party's business into the street. That would be the "office high post." And since it involves married and unmarried peoples involved in increasing unlikely and odd combinations of nekkid shenanigans and the associated falsehoods plus misrepresentations that accompany such occurrences, let's just say I don't even miss television right now.

Now this isn't the first time this has happened around the office. Where I work is a colorful place that just seems to be a hotbed of ... she used to do what, Maury "you are the father" moments, criminal enterprises, odd couplings and drunken confessions, but this one is just so...blatant. And since the parties came across as the kind of people who just didn't do this type of thing...you know.

Anyway...Paper looks on schedule, homework done for Wed. class A, working Wed. class B tonight, done my reading, started on my outlines...starting to get in the groove of this. Maybe.

Barkeep...a tequlia shooter with a dash of St. John's Wort.

I took Wednesday off...

This is Mental Rehab Post #23
Just when you think you've everything under control, or in my case when you've just got everything semi where you can see it, if you lean real far and squint, life takes your best laid plans and concepts and goes "I wonder what would happen if I did this?" and then stands back to watch the fun. It's as though someone up there doesn't have enough to do already.

I took Wednesday off from work to catch up on the homework I was supposed to have done Sunday when I was out doing good deeds. I have a month of off time that I haven't used yet - and that doesn't roll over - so I figured what is one day in the grand scheme of getting where you want to be. Since I've been there I've given the company back roughly 13 weeks of vacay time, and we won't even go into the bonus money they were nice enough to let me know they were supposed to pay me...right before they changed the program and didn't make it retroactive.

But as actual events unfolded, Wednesday was when I figured out why people take such great pains to make the bathroom of their homes, especially the master bath, more than just a utility room. I now understand the moldings, plants, the artwork, the layout consideration, the occasional view and the whole idea of making it into a space of light where one can find oneself against the back drop of a cold cruel world.

Guess why.

I'd been a little queasy Tuesday night, but I shrugged it off. I'm a guy...you shrug things off. If it persisted I was going to go back to my Grandmother's tried and true flour, warm water and salt recipe to quiet it down. But when I drifted off I thought I was fine.

At 4:30am I found out I wasn't.

At 6:00am I still wasn't.

You can go in varying 15 and 30 minute intervals from here.

I tried to do a little reading for class but couldn't concentrate. I leafed through some magazines and looked at the pretty pictures. I considered painting the bathroom walls a ocean blue. I lay on the bed for while guessing the worst was over...but I was wrong. I drank the Milk of Magnesia. I leafed through the pictures in another magazine. I considered painting the walls of the bathroom a Terra cotta orange. More of the Milk of Mag. I realized I needed some new magazines.

I think I lost between five and ten pounds in 8 hours.

My original plan had been to rise early, make a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns, and get started with the homework. The research assignment was to be done by noon. If I finished early I was even going to see if I could get my haircut. Run by the bank and grocery store, back by one thirty. Read up on the other assignment, brief a case or two. Get to campus around five ready to go, not rushed. Bright eyed and bushy tailed is how they used to say it.

The...er...exodus stopped around 1pm. Let's do the math and see just how far off schedule I was?

Way far.


So I battled through the assignment I knew was due first. The one I had started last week but had let slide because I didn't think the questions were that hard. I am so brilliant! And then I started on the assignment I knew was also due the same night, but second. The one I had actually taken the day off to do but had been preempted, yeah that one. The one a classmate said had taken him an hour to do the first 10 of 30 questions. An hour doing the easy ones before the essay answers....

So I bared my teeth, winked at the crowd and dove in headlong.

And for those who wonder, in the little impromptu competition in class, my answers for the team were correct. I even got a small pack of M&M's a prize, thank you very much.

But I start on next week's homework tonight. Know this.

Barkeep. One of them Pepto Bismol martinis

They got me...

Mental Rehab Post #22
I believe I may have bitten off a bit more than I can chew. Or want to swallow. Or something. There are times in your life you get overwhelmed. And at those moments we have choice. We can a) cower and fret and accomplish nothing or b) we can grin like we know what we're doing, give the crowd a wink and go at it like there's no tomorrow and the clock says it's 11:59.

Guess which camp I'm in?

There is no weekend recap this weekend because my weekend while emotionally fulfilling was a educational disaster.

Saturday and Sunday, at the behest of my junior partner and erstwhile chum Schmoopy I marinated about 24 pounds of prime chicken and slaved over a hot stove using my Grandmother's recipe to make Sweet Potato Pie. The chicken I parted out into two pound bags, drenched in Soy sauce, this yellow stuff, some other stuff and then a broth and stuck in the fridge and then the pies took like forever. Measured wrong then other stuff, and I also figured out why my pies never quite taste like my grandmothers. Now all have left is the get the crust like her's and then I'll make them and she can eat.

We all got together for the final cooking. After we'd spent all day in a very nice house in Sandy Springs drinking wine and fretting over minor stuff, myself and the rest of the aptly named Team Rafiki (I may not have spelled that right) drove our dinner of chicken w/gravy, mashed red potatoes, corn, mixed veggies and salad down to this house near Grant Park for families in transition, people who've been dealt a bad break and are working to get back onto something. I loathe to say homeless because they're just folks who for a bit of whatever could have been me.

See, old Schmoopy is all into giving back, and since I support her 1000% that means I am too. Lucky me.

It was emotional. One girl got a little teary in the kitchen. We held babies and I cracked jokes and served food and I felt bad because the cake we got had nuts in it and the little guy who wanted cake couldn't have any. I may have to do that again because I think I owe that kid a dessert.

And all this emotional uplift was buoyed by Sporty's response to her birthday words. She said they were more important to her than the oft desired "three words." Okay...that's a little scary really. But I'm not asking no questions.

But as an educational situation, I blew it. My second memo is due and I've only skimmed the cases. My class preparedness has to get done, so everything else slides to the back for a minute. The simple assignment I thought we had one of my classmates said took him an hour for the first of 12 of the 30 questions. And I'm behind on the digital lessons too.

And I'm sitting here writing this.

I gotta get some sleep. And get it going. Be caught up by Friday. Watch me now, smile, wink at the camera. Here I go.

Barkeep. Let's get some!

Tick tick tick

Relapse Post #2
It's Sporty's Birthday today. I hope she's having a great time. I just realized one of the reasons I'm not actively pursuing the one or two opportunities I may have had...it's that I don't want to be that guy that talks about the last woman to the next woman. It's sad, it's creepy... and I don't want to be that guy. Whoever it is deserves my complete attention.

What follows is what I sent her today, in addition to the actual physical gift she got earlier this week. She used to joke that all my gifts came with words, and they did. Only this time the right words weren't ready when the box was.

It's a derivative of something I read and it just fit her, but it's the first time what I have to give in words isn't mine. The words come a little harder now.

For your birthday I wish for you these things...

a place of comfort when things appear difficult
endless hugs when she feels low
friendships that make life even better
and beauty for her to know

laughter to echo though her soul
countless smiles to brighten her day
faith for when she feels empty
and joy for when she finds time to play

confidence for when she doubts herself
and courage so she can achieve
the patience to wait until the world is ready
and love because that's how it should be.

Happy Birthday Sunshine...

Thoughts of things past

Relapse Post #1
This is Sporty's birthday weekend. First time in a long time we didn't hang out. Journey of a thousand miles starts somewhere. And me with no frequent flier miles.

I still think of her daily. It's sad that I still do that, but I can't help it. Why can't you just let it go you ask? It's over, it's done, why are you still here is the question? If you can toss away a relationship like a napkin without a look back, then it it says at lot about you and how you think of people. I like to think I'm more than that, better than that. And since I've tried living my life on other peoples terms and having found that my opinion does really mean something, this is how it is. I'm not gonna apologize for who I am or how I feel.

It will fade eventually...hopefully. Until then I see her face and imagine her in scenes in my mind and as I trod the path of daily life, both fantastic and mundane, the simple and the exciting.

A black sweater dress from a magazine ad drapes over her body.

A hoodie and jeans, her head tilted to the side just slightly. Her face shines out.

Profiling in the back of the Bentley, shades on.

Just a towel, her skin slick and wet.

On a motorcycle, red and black with her number on the side, a devilish grin on her face.

In a sleeveless deep purple evening gown holding a champagne flute.

In a tank top and long shorts, sweaty with her hands wrapped fresh from a boxing workout.

In a mini skirt and halter top, leaned against the bar taking shots of tequila.

In a man's t-shirt and boy shorts, on the couch curled up and comfy.

Laughing as the jeep gets airborne as we race over the dunes.

Grocery shopping.

Stockings. Garter. Bustier.

On the beach in Greece, in a bikini top and a wrap, watching the sunset.

She is far too much to classify with a single image of imagination, to much to see as anything but whatever it is she wants to be. That's why the vision varies. Strong, sexy, elegant, fun, cool, comfortable. Sporty.

The last one is a memory.

Her elbows on the table, hands on her chin cupping her face, her eyes kinda looking up.

She would do it occasionally during our conversations after a dinner, as we sat soaking up the ambiance and alcohol. It was the only time I ever heard her little girl voice. It was the only time I ever liked hearing any woman's little girl voice.

Absolutely beautiful.

It's so hard to let go.

Poetry

Little bits of heaven
rain sometimes
fall in the drops between drops
the space between spaces
and potential fills with
the collective of humanity's dreams
rough and unrefined
raw as the hand hewn breadth of our souls
we are filthy with dust of life
hobbled by fate and illusion
the spill
cleanses us of regret
and leaves us pure
for the coming of tomorrow
for the coming of hope
for the arrival of the next dream
and the world continues

I wish it would rain.