Category Archives: Just Me, Being Me

And I Think I’m Going Out Of My Head

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My afternoon session over, I’m part joking around with a student and part mentally prepping for the next day’s training when my train of thought crashed spectacularly. It must have shown on my face.

Student: You okay?

Me: Yes. No. Tomorrow.

Student: Tomorrow?

Me: Yes, Tomorrow…

And this is what it sounds like when my brain fries

…and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty…wait no, that Shakespeare, that’s not tomorrow… creeps in this petty pace from day to day… NO!..Tomorrow never dies……what about tomorrow?… To the last syllable of recorded time… what the ever loving fuck?! I’m having a damn Shakespearean earworm!! …pace from day to day…day by day, oh dear Lord three things I pray…wait. What? No! My mind is shot…arrows… suffer the slings and arrows…GOD DAMN IT WILLIE SHAKES!…arrows…shot through the heart and you’re to blame…NO!…I will burn the heart…I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one… Oh Sherlock…Moriarty…Mycroft Masada Holmes…dammit no… Mycroft and Sherlock…broken heart…playing Operation…operations?…YES! Office of Operations! That’s who is coming in for training tomorrow!…

The mystery of tomorrow solved, I sigh in relief returning to what I was doing.

It was the very amused expression on my student’s face that informed me that entire stream of unconsciousness had in fact occurred aloud.

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For the record I referenced:
Shakespeare's "Macbeth” and “Hamlet“,
James Bond’s “Tomorrow Never Dies“,
“Day By Day” from the musical “Godspell”,
Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name“,
From BBC’s “Sherlock”, the pool scene
A friend and fellow blogger whose name (Mycroft Masada Holmes) coincides with a character from the show and finally,
An operating scene from BBC’s “Sherlock”

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At the halfway mark! Let’s see how others are slicing up their day:

10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 16

π In The Sky

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So today  is March 14th; or as beloved by most math and food geeks National Pi/π/Pie Day. What is that? some may ask –

Pi Day - fruit pie with some of the mathematical numbers of π as its crust - Google.

Pi Day – fruit pie with some of the mathematical numbers of π as its crust – Google.

*clears throat and dons  instructor’s cap*
March 14 is Pi Day. It is a day to celebrate the mathematical constant pi (π) and to eat lots of pie. Celebrated in countries that follow the month/day (m/dd) date format, because the digits in the date, March 14 or 3/14, are the first three digits of π (3.14), Pi Day was founded by Physicist Larry Shaw in 1988.
*class dismissed – tosses instructor’s cap*

With my usual burst of planning ahead, I had the brilliant idea last night to go to the supermarket and get what I need to make a pie to bring to work in honor of  the day. This would be fine on a normal day, however, yesterday was anything but normal.

I had completely forgotten that the City was preparing for Winter Storm Stella. Predicted to possibly dump upwards of two feet of snow in the Northeast within a less than twenty-four hour timespan, it was going to be a big one, and we humans (mis?)behaved accordingly. Why is it whenever the word snowstorm appears in the forecast, people in the City raid their local market as though it is the end of the world? I understand those who live in further reaches where getting to the local store involves just shy of a snow mobile and when honestly could be days before you can did yourselves out to restock. I’m questioning the City dwellers like myself where most businesses are back in business, if they even close at all, within 24 to 48 max of a storm’s start.

People stock up stormy weather essentials. This almost always includes what my fellow blogger Arjeah humorously calls a French Toast Alert. The trifecta of bread, milk, eggs that is almost always the first things to fly off the shelves.

Empty shelves from the bread section of a supermarket - Flickr.

Empty shelves from the bread section of a supermarket – Flickr.

As I joked later, add cheese to the list and one could have French Toast in the morning, grilled cheese in the afternoon and, depending on what’s already in the fridge, make a frittata later. All of which is a semi moot point to my being at the market at the moment – after all I wanted were ingredients to make a pie, right? Right.

I walked into the supermarket and saw the lines at check-out stretching nearly the length of the store. That should have been a deterrent right there, but I am stubborn. It took a full half hour to navigate through the store to learn other than butter and milk, the two things I did not need to make a pie, everything else was g-o-n-e. No sweet potatoes, no apples, no cherries – fresh or *shudders* canned – could be found to save my life. I repeated this at two other supermarkets to no avail. I mean seriously people! Did half of the City decide to make pie on their expected snow day too? Alas, no pie to be made last night.

So here I sit, on National Pi/π/Pie Day – currently still without pie – but the day is yet young, I’ve time to remedy this.

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Let’s see how others are slicing up their Pi/π/Pie Day:

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 14

Is It Only Pretty In Pink?

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WARNING: ADULT CONTENT AHEAD

A friend posted the following on her Facebook…

I was at work at the time and could not view it. I forgot about it and did not see the video until a day or so later.

At first, I just rolled my eyes, but then I just saw red.

A different friend had the same initial reaction I had in thinking how men around the world are a huge reason for a lot of the fucked up shit we females go through when it comes to feminine beauty, even down to our vaginas. Over the years, I have come across articles and advertisements with commentary on what should be the labia color, labia size, whether to be or not to be hirsute, a vaginal canal’s width and depth, the proper moisture discharge and content, and of course, the natural scent of a woman. I suppose that, with so many cultures using complexion lighteners to attain the presumed ideal (read pink) beauty, I honestly cannot say that I am truly surprised by this. However, I am appalled and frankly disgusted at the depth of how deep this desire, this need to achieve this presumed ideal for even our most intimate of places can go.

Stop the madness.

This brought up some far-from-scientific but highly interesting conversation twixt various friends of all genders over the next few days. In one such conversation, I groused on how most CIS men seem to behave as though any vagina that does not look like a Georgia O’Keeffe painting is unworthy. Of course, one of my idiot male friends then sarcastically asked which artist I felt best represented mine. Me, being me, immediately replied, “Rorschach.” When asked to elaborate, I said, “Each person sees something different in my lips.”

And calling spades what they are, the women who are doing this are likely doing so to obtain some ideal for beings who should have no say -in this very specific- so of our bodies whatsoever. Not that they should have it in any other body parts, but really absolutely none right there  – and yes, I mean men. Because as misandry filled as this is to say – no woman is likely going through labia bleaching, labiaplasty, vajazzling, and/or any other nonsense some women do to alter themselves from what nature intended for another woman. It’s bad enough we have legal legislation, by mostly men, trying to rule on what comes out of our bodies.

Now we have to put up with social legislation on how it should look before going in?!

Stop the madness.

I mean, seriously, we women go through enough shit on the daily with regards to our bodies on the parts that everyone can see. Are you effing kidding me that it has come literally down to that level? That some women have been made to feel so insecure about the appearance of their labia that they would subject themselves to that?

Stop the madness!

Because it seems to me if you’ve been invited to see this woman that up close and personal that you can make comparisons, you should be praising your local deity for the honors and shut the fuck up! Preferably by putting your lips on mine since you’re down there, I’m just saying…

And speaking of IJS – Stop the madness.

How I See It

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Writers see the world differently. Every voice we hear, every face we see, every hand we touch, could become story fabric - Buffy Andrews

Ah Buffy, I do not know you, but oh how writely (<- not a mistake), you’ve nailed this. This reminded me of a conversation I once had with a friend on how a Facebook post I once wrote came to be in the manner it did. It came down as such.

When I see/hear any thing, it’s all a matter of part of me registers it first. Casual me sees things at one level, writer me see things at a different level and poet me let things resonate on another. Then there are the times when it all converges effortlessly as one.

Looking at the last of autumn leaves on my street is rendered as follows–

The casual me says:

The trees on the block were so pretty last week, now all the leaves are almost gone, it makes me sad. 

The writer me tomes:

A week ago, this tree-lined block was in full bloom of autumn colors. Now only few leaves are left on graying branches to testify to that erstwhile splendor. It’s near maudlin in my heart to compare.

The poet me pens:

Leaving memories 
Reflected in these gray tears
Golds and rubies fall

(PS: Yeah, I know not the best haiku, but hey, not all my two-second poems are going to be gems – shoot me)

And when they all came together in the Facebook status post in question:

There’s a tree-lined block I walk through almost daily. A week ago this block was awash in the vibrant hues of fall. Today gnarled gray fingers claw at pink cloud-dotted cerulean skies, desperate to hold on to their remaining gold and ruby jewels in the ever shortening daylight of mid-autumn. I watch one such topaz jewel lazily drift to its final resting place upon the concrete. It felt as if watching a tear fall.

The same eyes saw the same street, the same leaf, at the same moment, yet each part views it, and thus tells it, differently. Still, not matter how it’s seen/heard/felt…

Warning: I'm a writer. Anything you do or say may be used in a story.

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Let’s see how others are slicing up their Monday:

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 13

 

Just Another

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Some slices of life will be of the mundane, this is one:

So it’s just another Sunday afternoon. In these final days before spring, Old Man Winter reminds us he’s still in charge. It’s cold outside, so I am inside. I spent part of the weekend bingeing on TV shows; a true Netflix and chill. Some parts were spent setting up potential subject draft for future essays. Other parts giving time to muse and dropping random lines of poems and prose in draft for potential future poems.  I even donated a couple of hours to laundry sorting and house cleaning – as I said, the mundane.

Still, I am hardly bemoaning of these more quiet and frankly necessary times.  Yes, these more mundane times help me to appreciate the times that are anything but. Mostly, they are needed and appreciated to help recharge the old noggin and give this body some rest beyond the basic, and there is never mundane anything about that.

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 12

Cold As

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Hung out last night for dinner and drinks with friends. On my way home this happened:

Male Friend I ran into on train: Have you been drinking?
Me: Yup.
MF: You’re drunk?
Me: Nope. Inebriated.
MF: What’s the difference?
Me: A) I can still pronounce it easily. B) I can still spell it slowly. C) You’re attractive, but not nearly enough for me to have illicit thoughts. D) I actually thought the words “illicit thoughts”.
MF: Damn. Even inebriated you’re cold.
Me: Yup.

For the record, even when sober, I spell inebriated slowly.

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Let’s see how other’s are slicing it up this Saturday:

10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 11

As Old As

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Killing time before class starts, my students and I are shooting the breeze about music. One mentions she will be attending Metallica’s upcoming concert in NJ, which I will attending as well. It segues into first album purchased (Micheal Jackson’s “Off the Wall”) and first concert attended, which for me was The Spinners with an appearance by Dionne Warwick. Only one student, not much older than I, knew of the group. Way to feel ancient Rai – geesh, but I guess it was better than none of them knowing, right? Right.

The student who knew of the Spinners sings out  “I’m sitting all alone by the telephone, waiting for your call..”

Not missing a beat I join in singing “…when you don’t call at all. It’s a shame, sha-ame.”

We trade lyrics and singers from the late 60s, early 70s for a bit. Clearly, I was familiar enough with the music of that time to have not just heard it from my parents collection. I am accused of that often enough that I just shrug it off for the compliment it accidentally gives. Meanwhile I can see the numbers crunching in his head as he looked hard at my face, which is never a good way to judge my vintage, by the way.

“How the hell old are you?” He baldly asks the burning question at last.

“Damn dude!” Exclaimed another student “You don’t do that!”

Without batting an eye, me – being me, answered in true me fashion.

“Let’s just say I was a cougar to Methuselah.”

There was a most awkward pause before some of them got it and laughed. While Methuselah had to be explained to the rest. It amused me immensely that I, the self-proclaimed resident heathen, made a biblical reference that went over nearly everyone’s head.

“And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.”
–Genesis 5:27 King James Version (KJV)

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 10

A Life After Death

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Legendary rapper the Notorious B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, was also known as Biggie Smalls professionally and Big Poppa by his fans, was gunned down in 20 years ago today at the age of 25. While the artist only recorded two solo albums during his brief life, his music has left a lasting influence to the point that many have called, and still call, him the greatest of all time, or the GOAT. Many young rap artists out today cite him as an influence. Fellow Brooklynite rapper Jay-Z gives a shout out to Biggie at nearly every concert to this day. For those who do not follow rap, or don’t even know his name, many at least recognize the most iconic image of him…

The Notorious B.I.G. – shot by Barron Claiborne for Rolling Stone magazine

The Notorious B.I.G. – photo by Barron Claiborne for Rolling Stone magazine

Biggie’s influence remains such that NBA’s Brooklyn Nets will celebrate the life of Brooklyn-born rapper when they host the New York Knicks at Barclays Center on Sunday. The evening will commemorate Biggie’s iconic legacy.

Wallace’s original stage name Biggie Smalls came from a character in the 70s blaxploitation movie “Let’s Do It Again” starring Bill Cosby & Sidney Poitier. At 300+ pounds and standing over six feet tall, the former drug dealer live up to the assumed pseudonym. When he was sued for using the name he became The Notorious B.I.G. Honestly, the law suit was a waste of time. Even for many of us with the vintage to remember the the character from the classic movie, the name Biggie Smalls will henceforth be associated with Big Poppa first.

Biggie, Biggie, Biggie can’t you see?
Sometimes your words just hypnotize me.

While not a devoted fan of the exaltation of sex and drugs that permeated rap at time, Biggie hit a balance that was not has hard hitting as some others like N.W.A., but was not anywhere near the easy-listening sounds of  say Heavy D.  So yes, I am a fan of The Notorious B.I.G.’s music and his smoother than silk delivery as he told his truths his way.

So today, on the anniversary of his leaving this world, my iPod plays all things Biggie, to celebrate a life that had such an impact while he walked this world.

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Sequitur / Non-sequitur:
I started this post on my cell phone – it amused to see each time I typed “The Notorious” it immediately suggested “B.I.G.”
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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 9

!! HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY !!

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Maya Angelou’s classic poem Phenomenal Woman as set to music by Amy Sky.

A loving reminder to all women that we are indeed phenomenal!

It’s International Women’s Day and I’m I woman. W-O-M-A-N! I’ll say it again!

Today is going to be ridicu-busy for me. If I don’t post something now – it won’t happen.  And who better than Maya and the lovely Amy Sky to say and sing it better?
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Let’s see how other’s are serving up their slices:

10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 8