Who's phone RINGS anymore!?

This is a blessing for anyone with a phone that like ringtones. I have a special ringtone for EVERYONE  and EVERYTHING that my phone does. I was paying before I found the site. Its free all you have to do is make an account (they just ask for like your phone number and an email). I think about it like MySpace for ringtones. I figured I been complaining a lot lately so I thought I'd be helpful, lol ;-) enjoy. 

Tones

You're Welcome. . .

I Scream This Shit on the Way Home!

There are times when one must use their own words. However there are also times when others penetrate our souls with such precision with their own articulation that we have no choice but to let their words bleed for us . . . This is one of those times, "tell everybody that you know. . ."

Written a YEAR ago, apparently, I never hit "Post"

I missed work today?!?! What the fuck! This may sound bad but missing work isn't what's bothering me. What's bothering me is HOW I missed work. What's bothering me is the pain steaking efforts I went to in order to NOT miss work. How all the obvious signs were there that I was GOING to miss work however I chose to ignore them and her I am, at HOME, when I need to be at WORK! Let me take you on my journey. . .

A few days ago a good few friends of mine said something along the lines of "hey jay, what's good. We are having an event at our school in connecticut and would love for you to attend." Naturally I said "SURE GUYS, no doubt." Once I said that I immidietly started calling around at my job to see if anyone was avaliable to fill for me while I was out for the days of the event. 

Let's back track a little just so you have some sort of frame of refference. My job had these point systems where they track attendence. It's VERY inadiquait but hey, it is what it is. When you have unexcused absences they are called "occurneces." 9 of those within a year and you get "diciplinary action." Basically it's a write up. You don't want that. So the point is I have over half of my 9 and I'm not looking to keep racking them up. For the record, you get them for ANYTHING. being 1min late (litterally), not wearing the right color, raising your voice at a supirior ANYTHING. So nine may SEEM like a lot. But when EVERTHING counts those are taken up QUICKLY. 

Ok, so I'm calling around and NOBODY is available. It doesn't help that the time I need someone for is a sunday. the ONE day that people are admit about NOT working or having be a "personal" day. So a few days go by and I'm thinking "Damn, I really want to go to this event but I WILL NOT be able to find anyone to take it." Well, I had one last option. We have this thing called a "trade board." It's not a real board it's virtual. You can post your schedule on it and if somebody else is free and would like to cover for you they can assign their name to it, you get an email saying your no longer responsible for the schedule, you thank them and it's done. Needless to say that SUNDAY schedules usually sit there for sometime, lol. However, somebody was gracious enough to cover my sunday schedule, HAZAA!! I'm FREE! 

Naturally I start planning out my weekend. Now I didn't post my whole sunday schedule just the former half because I didn't want to have to wake up early after being out the night before and just risk the chance of over sleeping. So I adjusted it to be in at 6pm. I know what you're thinking even after a night out, being to work by 6pm is TOTALLY doable. and your right, for everyone EXCEPT me :-/. 

SO naturally I make my schedule, adjust my time, go out have a great time get ready for work with a little time left for myself and I think. Damn, I'm really tired. I didnt get much slee 

I wonder what makes people so cold. Talking to people makes me realize that as a generation we are so sarcastic, bitter, angry, at so many things. Everyone hides be hind snide remarks and hard masks. They refuse to open up even when shown kindness they slap away open arms of hugs or they just straight punch you in the chest. I don't understand it. Wait, I do, I understand it, the world is a dark place and it's hard to stay kind and warm when everything around you is cold and gray. But, DAMN, is anyone human anymore. Just a quick thought. . . ok over and out.

The funny part is, the person that inspired this will never even read this. . . :-/

In a World Full of People

   Normally, being who I am I would never let my fears be known to others. Regardless of what some might say or think it IS a weakness. It’s something that other people might use to manipulate you or hurt you. However, I’m going talk about my fears, my biggest fears at that. I hope that by talking about them I will force myself to confront them, or them to confront me and maybe help myself take a step or two past them.

 

Here goes. . .

 

   A1, Number uno, BIGGEST fears: Rejection and Loneliness. I’ll try to keep this semi-brief. If you're reading this I know you must be interested but at the same time you weren’t looking to read a book about my life, lol. Rejection by itself is not really a big deal to me. I have a tough skin about that. Rejection of my true self is what scares me to death. I said I have a tough skin about rejection. Well, that skin is just that I choose not to be myself. It’s sounds strange that somebody can NEVER be himself. However its true, I suppose I started being that way as a kid. I always had a sort of gawkiness about me. I like Star Trek, Star Wars, I like to play pretend (alone, LOL), I would go in the bathroom when my mother wasn’t home take 10 toilet paper tubes stack them up in the tube and light them on fire for NO reason, sometimes I would go in the bathroom and just make faces at myself to see how I look when I make faces (I still do that I must admit). I was that kids who would walk into a group of other kids with those conversations that go like “You know when you’re doing _____ and this happens?” then everyone else says “Ohhh yeahhh, I do that TOO” but when I would add my comment  “you know when you do ____ and _____ happens” everyone would just stop and look like “No. I never do that.” Then I felt stupid. My mother never made me feel like I should be more “normal” or do things that the other kids did just because they were doing them and I should “fit in” but over time I started to notice that I was different and had a hard time making friends. I’m an only child so friends were kind of important. I didn’t want to spend all my time alone. Its funny because as a child and even now I can only deal with people for a particular amount of time (not even a LONG time, lol, like a few hours. A whole day is PUSHING it). Nonetheless, I valued friendship and acceptance. So with that said, I learned what people liked, what people wanted in friends, and what kind of things were “popular” “cool” and “normal.” So I kept my personal interest and true likes and hobbies to myself. When I was outside I sort of became my “public me” the person that was likeable and appeasing to others and made me “normal” and “cool” and eventually once I mastered it “popular.”

 

   People often tell me that that I have “an answer for everything”  “That I’m a smooth talker” “I have a way with words” “or I’m “interesting” I’ve been called “an observer” “Observant” and “watchful.” I always take what people say with a grain of salt, however, comments like those DO ring true. Its no coincidence that someone who wants to fit in so bad and avoid rejection would be a good listener, be able to read between the lines or make acute observations about people or groups. If what you want is to be of interest to people than you need to shut up and see and hear what people are interested in, lol! As far as having an “answer for everything” which is something I hear ALL the time. Whenever a moment occurs when people feel the need to say that is when I “slip.” I mentioned before I have built this sort of “public me” not even purposefully or even consciously (although I am conscious of it), but he’s there regardless. And sometimes the “real me” slips thought a little and if you have been talking to the “public me” for a little and then there are some inconsistencies it’s like “huh.” So at those moments I have to kind of patchwork the public me up in mid conversation. The things is, at this point in my life I have been, I guess for a lack of wanting to sugar coat it, “faking it” for so long it’s just innate that when I see people starting to see the real me I get scared about it and start talking over him or around him. I get funny and joke and all those things because I know that if you get to look at the real me two things might happen 1) it’s like, “WTF, who the hell is this” and 2) You might not like it. I can deal with one, but to be honest I don’t think I can deal with two. I mean naturally this “Public me” is not perfect and some people don’t like me. But I can brush that off by simply saying “fuck them, they didn’t know the real me anyway.” And, you know what? THAT WORKS, I have never felt like I really had to deal with TRUE rejection except once in 8^th grade when the FIRST girl I every really liked and I mean as close as you can come to real LOVE, in the 8^th grade at least, rejected me and I was really being myself (who knows maybe that’s what started this whole deal). But yeah, the only issue with this is that as an adult, I really don’t know how to introduce who I REALLY am to anyone. I have been this way, with this duality of personality for so long that it’s just become part of me.

 

   I suppose with the whole rejection thing its kind of like waiting for a bus that doesn’t seem to be coming. Once you start waiting it just getting harder and harder to leave until you become more DEDITCATED to catching the bus than to getting where you’re going. You start thinking about how long you’ve been waiting, about how as SOON as you leave the bus stop you are going to see the bus pull right past you, how you refuse to miss this bus cause you just spent 35mins waiting!! And you totally loose track that the bus is only a means to get where you’re going. I suppose it’s the same for me in some ways. I want people to just be cool with that which I am normally, quarks and all so I build this “bus” to get people to the real me. I figured I’d bring them in on the “public me” and drop them off at the “real me”. But I been waiting so long on showing them the real me that I start to think “damn, if I show them the real me will they even see it as being genuine or fake because they only know me as nothing but who I’ve been.” But that’s not who I am. . . . . . . . I’m going to let you read that over and catch up, I’ll wait. . . . . . . . . . . Ok, so there that is.

 

   As far as being lonely. I suppose the connection is as obvious as it appears. I just don’t want to be alone in life. I don’t just mean friends though. I want that unconditional connection that you get from your brothers and sisters (although I don’t have any) or your mother, or for some, their husbands and wives. I guess in my attempt to thwart loneliness I have created this persona of an ultra likable person to avoid rejection and being left alone.

 

   Somebody said something to me a little while ago that rang SO true to me it was scary. To be honest it made me retreat from them because it was as if she saw me. All my mistakes, flaws, quarks, shortcomings, lies, secrets, fears, insecurities and all. It was like when she said it she was talking about ME! It was so specific to my life and who I am that I thought there is no way this is just some shit she heard and wanted to mention. This was her telling me I SEE YOU. I see the real you and it scared me because I wasn’t ready for that yet. We were talking about the double standards about men and women and how women do things and they are judged and how men aren’t judged by the same standards. Then we moved on to how when time goes on and people eventually get to the point in their lives when they want to get married and have families and all that and the tables turn a little. Where women once were judged on what they were DOING it is now men who are judged on what they HAVE DONE. I can never remember the exact quote but to paraphrase it was something like; will the woman that you love except you and all the things you’ve done in the past. So its like saying yeah she might like who you are now or who she sees in front of her but when you two really get to know her and she sees all the mistakes you’ve made and the baggage (emotional or otherwise) that you carry will she be able to accept THAT too. That totally just compounded my fear by validating it. I was at a point where I was trying to convince myself that “hey, maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the only one thinking about this too hard and nobody else even cares.” You know that place where you try to well up some courage to over come something. You gotta talk yourself into it, lol.

 

   I think that to date that is the most accurate way that I can think of to sum up what my biggest fears are. Just being accepted for not just who I am now but for who I am, have been and can possibly be in the future, unconditionally. I know I have the capacity to be like that but I know that it’s only facilitated by knowing that others feel the same way. I refuse to be taken advantage of. Put myself on the line and have people shit on me when I know that I wouldn’t do that to them. . .

 

   Ok, I’m going to just stop here because I have to go to work, lol. But hopefully you didn’t get the lazy eye trying to read all this and maybe I will come to some conclusion later and it this will have been a step to that conclusion. In the mean time I guess I’m just stuck “Alone in a world full of people. . .”

 

 

pEacE

Keep the Party Going. . .

    Ok, so it’s been about a week. Election time has come and gone and here I am. I’m going to start by saying this. I did NOT want to write today! Not at all, things are NOT going smoothly have not been for sometime. I really would like to use the time I’m spending writing to sort out some personal things that are really burdening my spirit but I said I was going to do this and what’s the point in saying it when the first excuse I get to avoid makes me renege. So here it is.

 

What I think about Obama:

 

       I didn’t want to post anything about the election before it actually took place. I’m not suppositious but I didn’t want to jinx anything. I mean every little bit helps right. So I just kept my opinion to myself. However now that he is good and elected I can bust this metaphoric lexical nut! So, here’s the part where you all blow up. But, really, I was NOT excited when he won, I wasn’t crying, I didn’t have any real deep emotions about it to be honest, of course I’m going to tell you why.  I have been struggling with something since Obama became a legitimate candidate for president and it’s becoming more of an issue now that he IS going to be the next president. Basically, is he Black? Now I know that there are many people that are like “are you serious, of course he’s black.” The whole one-drop rule and all that right? Wrong! Obama is a person of color, undoubtedly. HOWEVER, his actual life experience, what makes him, him and gives him his sense of loyalty and character are NOT from the same “salad bowl” American experience that we all share as “average” Black Americans. He grew up in Hawaii with a white family and his father is AFRICAN so to visit that side of the family he went to Africa, not North Carolina, not Georgia, Not Alabama. Not the places where true African American culture was born, the place where EVERY Black person can trace their heritage. Where you learn about what a lynching is and what it means to have to fight for the right to even LOOK at somebody of a different color. I’m ranting. The point is that his “Black experience” is not traditional so by default what Black is to him is not going to be inline with what the greater part of Black Americans feel like black is. His ideas about what’s important to “Black America” aren’t going to be innate in the way that yours or mine would be. Black is more than just a brown layer of skin to me.

 

        Also, I have not fully come to terms with the fact that Barack, although a great guy is a watered down version of a Black man. Ok ok ok, don’t lynch me yet. What I’m saying is look at him, soft-spoken, lanky, slightly goofy looking, hairless (no beard, no mustache, or sideburns) Ultra light skinned, half African half white guy. He’s about as far away from a Black person you can get and still be called “African American” when 99.9% of people think of ANYONE Black, regardless if the person is Black or White, Obama is NOT what they picture. Is that good or bad? I don’t know, but that’s not the issue. The issue is does he really represent the “Black Community” in AMERICA? I for one am NOT so sure. People are calling this some major victory for Black people (well some people are others are trying to steal it like they do everything else and call it a victory for the nation. A Straight Black victory would be too much to handle. Again, even in asserting that his Blackness made this historical it cannot be TOO black so we have to water down the strength of the idea that a Black man can be president and look out for HIS people like the presidents have done who supported slavery, segregation, and other forms of oppression it was clear that as a “WHITE president I’m going to look out for WHITE interest”) so yea, even though people are calling this a victory for Black people I see this more as a compromise. We wanted a Black president and they said no. They told us that we are afraid of you, you are big and black and scary and we don’t want to give you any power. You might turn around and remember all those centuries of oppression and brutal mutilation to your family structures and psychological genocide that we have put you through. You might get upset and turn around and put US in the cotton fields. So what did WE do? We said ok, we are going to show you that we love you enough to let us be in charge. We shaved our face, we cut our course hair, we trimmed down our naturally more muscular builds, and we even went as far as to literally water it down a little with some white. Then we brought Barack to the table and said ok, so, he’s not going to steal your wallet, or rape your daughters. Hell, most of US don’t even think he’s black, how about now?! They took it and we got to have a “Black man” in the white house.

 

           So I say that to say this, the major issue is why do we as a people have to cater to White America? Obviously it’s because they hold all the keys to all the doors. But why do we have to be so happy about it though? When Lincoln wins and frees the slaves to benefit WHITE people because he wanted to urge them to fight and have southern slaves migrate north (NOT because he was just that gracious) that was ok. But for Obama to run and say hey, “I’m Black, things have been fucked up in this country for Black people since they GOT here and I would like to help make things better for my people WHILE I build a better country” would be political suicide.

 

In a conversations I recently had with a good friend of mine he said:

 

Standards are set by the majority in any country. Of course. Just like a white person in a Black neighborhood, the white person is expected to conform to the standards from which he is a minority. He will start to listen to the music, wear the clothes and take on the language.

 

And to assume that Barack Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton, John McCain, etc. all live their day to day life under the conformity of the professional arena is GROSSLY inaccurate and unreasonable.

 

           I live in HARLEM NYC! The definition of White people moving into your shit. And let me tell you my brother that is NOT what happens. When an elitist majority that feels entitled to, well, everything, and has on some level superiority complexes moves into your area, even if there is just ONE. YOU become uncomfortable. They do not change because they see no need to. It’s like the “White man’s burden” they came in and saw something different and did NOT think “oh, lets learn this” they thought “This is different from how we do things and so it MUST be wrong and needs change because we have he ONLY way”

         And white people are the MINORITY here. They are the largest singular group but as a whole there are less of them than everyone else. So the standard is very much misrepresentative of the actually population of the country. Lastly all those presidents did what white people do, they got into the white house to push THEIR agendas and to CHANGE the standard. The exact opposite of conformity. They what they do, they just call it “reform” it’s one of those words you hear a MILLION times on CNN but never really get a real definition of, like “Insurgents.” So do they live their day-to-day lives, no. However they don’t conform they push the environment around them become as close to how THEY like as possible. Unlike what Obama has to do which is the opposite, he tries to conform to be accepted.

 

          The reason I say that is because to say that Barack or anybody the runs for president must conform is not wrong, but to say that it’s just the way things are naturally is. A Black man doesn’t just have to conform he has to concede parts of himself, parts of his soul (defined by Webster’s as “a sense of pride shared between African Americans). A white man doesn’t even know what would feel like because they ARE the standard.

 

          Lastly, I just want to say that I’m happy that Obama won. I may not know if I like Obama but I am SURE that McCain was the wrong choice. I just hope that Obama can live up to the standards he let be built about himself and that he gets a VEST!