Going away, to come back.

Sometimes you have to go away in order that you may come back. It seems silly, or at least trivial. One might ask, why go away, if you’re only coming back? Well part of it is that when going away, there is no guarantee that there will be a coming back. It is not automatic, that going away will always lead to a return, if so there wouldn't be any going away in the first place.

It's just that …
…sometimes you have to leave, situations sometime get to the point where your presence is unbearable. Or sometimes it’s not you, but you just cannot stand the present conditions or company so you have to leave. Some times love requires you to banish loved ones away. This can be a painful requirement.

I have seen all of these events. Not always has it been me, but sometimes it has. Not always at home, but always close to home.

They say if you love someone, set them free and if they are yours then they will come back to you. Sometimes love requires letting go. Sometime love requires leaving. There are times when reason dictates painful decisions that betray the heart; when such times prevail it is important to remember that sometimes you have to go away to come back.

To not lose hope is one of the hardest tasks during these times. Remember that coming back is no guarantee. But what is it? What is the lesson? It can't be simply reduced to teaching the party that has left that they did not know what they had until it’s gone. No, not that easy. Not as easy as saying that a respite is needed; no a respite suggest that we know that there is a return

…and the truth is, we just place hope against hope that there should be and will be a return. But hope is sometimes all that we have. Hope that if we listen to the voice of God closely enough we will realize our destiny; be it in the return or in the exodus. Our hope is that we will be in concert with the correct movement of the writer of our story. And hope, my friend, springs eternal.

The Obelisk

All I want for christmas...

Merry Christmas Cowboys Fans!

handle my biz, I scramble like Randal with his

(Randal's a former member of NSBE)
I have been derelict on blogging these days. Finals and issues. But Thursday I wanted to but it’s been a couple of days since, and it wasn’t until my mom asked me about the apprentice finale, that I thought again about blogging on it.

To understand you one must first know that I belief that the apprentice is one of the most riveting shows on television. I feel this way partly because of the fact that the apprentice shows the reality of racism in America on T.V. So much to my …(Surprise? Chagrin? Delight? I don’t know you pick one.) Donald Trump hired the first Black Apprentice in four tries.

Now wait a minute… If you ask me ( and by default you have by reading my blog) there was still racism in this selection.

Let me give you a little background, not assuming you watched.

First off, Randal scared me in the beginning the first week his grandma died and he left to go to the funeral. I just knew they were going to jump on it. But much to my (Surprise? Chagrin? Delight?) they embraced Randal, including Trump and told him to go and be with his family. It didn’t hurt him.

Ok, so the next week Randal comes back to lead his team to it’s second victory. Going on in the season, whenever Trump decides to give the losing team and advantage by letting them pick someone from the winning team they pick Randal. Danger, he looks good because he’s obviously the most coveted player, but then he’s been picked to go on the losing team and thereby has been placed in a loosing situation. This happened three times.

Now you also must understand this about Randal, he owns his own corporation with five of his ( black ) college cohorts. He holds five degrees (can’t you just hear a Kanye sketch?), one from MIT (arguably the best science and engineering school in the world) and he studied at Oxford (Oxford? In England? Yes!)

So fast forward to the finale. First off Randal has a task that was to be held in a baseball park, compared to his counterpart’s indoor event. It rained on his parade (and even if he had the tent he still wouldn’t have been able to hold his event outside) he pulled it off. Just like Kwame pulled his off. Not to mentioned raised $11,000.00 for charity verses the other girl’s 0 (yup that’s the number zero, not an ‘O’, zip, zilch, nada.)

*Sidebar* The sister stood by him and worked with and for him. Just like sisters really do. I want to hear the same level of voices praising Marshon as were criticizing Omerosa.

Well when trump finally got to the board room all he could say negatively about Randal was that he was too nice. The other girl was only 23, who knows where she went to school and if she’s coming straight from the workforce or the college. The only thing she could say about Randal was that “education is not everything.” All Randal had to say was, her record is 1-2 and mine is 3-0.
When Trump finally got to the hiring he said Randal… and paused for what seemed like 30 seconds… you’re hired. But check this…how bout he asked him if he should hire the other girl too.

Randal: “It’s called the apprentice, not the aprenti” “No Mr. Trump.”
Was that hidden racism? My take on it all? Why did he wait until he got a black apprentice to ask if we should hire the runner up? You’ll see Randal as much as you see the big nosed girl that he last hired and that he only felt ok with hiring him because his model girlfriend is pregnant. Can’t wait to next season.

* This just in, I went looking for pictures of Randal and there on the news articles, apprentice fans are sounding off about Randal’s selfishness? Racism’s still alive, they just be concealing it. Here is another perspective on it from palm beach post and another good one especially the comments by A x B http://blog.inc.com/archives/2005/12/16/donald_trumps_apprentice_finale.html*

Helplessness

Ever felt helpless? Have you ever been in a situation where you cannot do anything to change it one way or the other?

There are times when God puts us in situations that make it evident that we are not in control; when such times prevail it is ours to determine whether or not God is really in control.

Sounds simple enough to do, because if you grew up like me, God is always in control, total control. Well if that is so, then how do you explain the Tsunami, slavery, or still born babies?

Prayer changes things? Well what happens when you pray and things don’t change? It’s pitiful when those who are to inspire hope and encourage the soul find themselves inconsolable and in need of inspiration and encouragement? It’s funny how there always those leveling moments, where we are all reminded that we are all on an equal playing field.

Only God can soothe the soul, only God can give peace.

Put it in God’s hands? Of course, even though it already is in his hands. I guess it’s something we have to say so that we can release the worry and help us to realize that there are some things that are just out of our hands.

Don’t get me wrong, I know God doesn’t owe me any favors.
And though he slay me, yet will I trust him.

But don’t you have some unanswered prayers that you want answered more than others? Like this one I’m like for real, for real God. I need you to do this one God.

I know that I needed to work on my appreciation.

I hate going to God’s class rooms.

But if you don’t know, you have to go

And I guess I needed to know… that I am helpless without him.

Lyric of the Week (week 12)

One of my favorite albums of all time, I know I know, somepeople feel it is
a manhating movie but I enjoyed the music. It is a classic, one I've bought
twice over. With Not gone cry, sitting up in my room, why does it hurt so
bad, The shoop song, this was just another classic that I wanted to speak
for me this week.

"Let It Flow"
Artist: Toni Braxton
Album: The Waiting To Exhale Sound Track.

First thing early Monday morning
I'm gonna pick my tears away
Got no cause to look back
I'm lookin' for me a better day
You see the thing 'bout love
Is that it's not enough
If the only thing it brings you is pain
There comes a time when we could all make a change

Just let go
And let it flow, let it flow, let it flow
Everything's gonna work out right,
Ya know
Let go, and let it flow, let it flow, let it flow
Just let go

Don't nobody want no broken heart
And don't nobody want no two time losers
Ain't nobody gonna love you like you are
If you take whatever he brings your way

You see the thing of it
Is we deserve respect
But we can't demand respect without change
There comes a time when we must go our own way

Just let go
And let it glow, let it flow, let it flow
Everything's gonna work out right,
Y'know
Let go,a nd let it flow, let it flow, let it flow
Just let go

Sometimes love it can work out right
Sometimes you'll never know
But if it brings only pain in your life
Don't be afraid to let it go

Lyric of the Week (week 11)

(Tell me these brothers aren’t cool.)

I couldn't tell which album this was for this group, but it seemed to come from a self titled album. This song was a hit in 1972

The lead singer was a drummer for another group. And when the former lead left they picked him up. I remember as a youngster my moms told me that he was paralyzed in a car crash. There was a question about his sexuality, but there hasn’t been another voice like his. I remember Eddie Murphy did a joke about him, “You got, you got, you got, what I need!…” It’ funny that he was called on the carpet for the same offense.

Well the singer is Teddy Pendergrass and the group is Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. Teddy was such a strong presence that people thought that he was Harold Melvin. Another Gamble and Huff produced group, they had so many good songs:

The Love I lost
Oh, I….Oh I…. Miss you, Miss you, Miss you, Miss you, Miss you, Baby!
Bad Luck
Wake up everybody, no more sleeping in bed.

But his song is one of my favorites.

Artist: Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes
Song: If You Don't Know Me by Now Lyrics


If you don't know me by now
You will never never never know me

All the things that we've been through
You should understand me like I understand you
Now girl I know the difference between right and wrong
I ain't gonna do nothing to break up our happy home
Oh don't get so excited when I come home a little late at night
Cause we only act like children when we argue fuss and fight

If you don't know me by now (If you don't know me)
You will never never never know me (No you won't)
If you don't know me by now
You will never never never know me

We've all got our own funny moods
I've got mine, woman you've got yours too
Just trust in me like I trust in you
As long as we've been together it should be so easy to do
Just get yourself together or we might as well say goodbye
What good is a love affair when you can't see eye to eye, oh

If you don't know me by now (If you don't know me)
You will never never never know me (No you won't)
If you don't know me by now (You will never never never know me)
You will never never never know me (ooh)

Top ten reasons why I (now) blog anonymously.

I have had several experiences this year that sent me with tale wagging back here to my anonymous blog. Almost every installment in this series of unfortunate events had to do with a blog post that I wrote or that someone that I know has written. And even now, this blog is read by a few family members, friends and etc.. So even here I am not completely free to as Sly would say “B-mice-elf.” (Not that they have made me so, it is I who have bound mice-elf)

So here I woke up this morning thinking about blogging and what to blog today, and almost every potential topic got knocked out because my blog is not completely anonymously. So here I am blogging about what I can’t blog about, that’s the best I can do. So…

here’s a list ( I feel a list may let me get it off my chest.)

1. Anything too closely related to, closely related to, anywhere nearly related to my ex-girlfriend.

See people who know my ex read my blog. There are some that would love to report on it, or will put two and two together and ask questions. And my ex isn’t 'ex' enough for me to blog about. You know what I’m saying? Well anyway, she tends to respond to anything said about her in a way that’s….wait, have I lost my mind, what am I doing?

2. My arrogant classmates and professors.

There are people who read my blogs and the stories that I tell could potentially be heard and relived, retold and rehashed. My insights could be exposed to the subjects of said diatribes. And next years course works is supposed to be mainly group work. Never mind the fact that my grade is hanging in the balance as far as my professors is concerned. And just in case you’re wondering, although I don’t have any professors as quirky as Dr. Hoabs, The others have enough of what flickr calls “the interesting factor” to blog about . But for fear or retribution I don’t.

3. My family.

Wouldn’t do that anyway.

4. My stalkers

Well shall we say the people that like me and that I don’t necessarily like them back? That sounds better than stalker. But when I obviously don’t like them back and they still like me then they have begun to cross the stalker’s Rubicon. Some of them I’m sure read this or could easily find me. One person googled me and sent me an e-mail (never gave her my e-mail, phone # or web address mind you.) and one of her comments was “There is a lot of information out there on you.” This was in an email who's opening line was "first, I'm not a stalker." Check out my website now, I took every piece of personal info off it (the sad thing is google keeps cached pages of sites in perpetuity.) But I could never blog about an incident like that.

5. My potential love interest.

See numbers 1, 4 and 6. Oh and BTW there are no potential love interests at this moment. For real there aren’t.

6. Past love interest.

They seem to always be looking for themselves in my writing and even though they are past love interest they seem to be all too interested in my current love life. (Notice I didn’t say girlfriends, it includes them, but all love interest aren’t all girlfriends.)

7. Unresolved issues.

I have these privacy factors and these weaknesses. The combination of the two could be exploited. Often times they have been. So I don’t like to expose my unresolved weakness to my enemies. And yes, I have enemies. Seems to be that I have more of them than friends right now. So my weaknesses and unresolved issues I hold close to the vest. Although blogging has been so cathartic, I’d love to put it down but you know how people do.

8. The need for audience vs. writing to no one in particular.

It’s so cool knowing that someone is reading. But for me to insure that I had to share the blog with people I know (guess I could’ve shared it with people that I don’t know, but I have this feeling that it wouldn’t be valued.) Well then I run into the problem that this list describes. But if I didn’t, I’d abandon my readership (as if I have a readership), and to do that would be to rely on people randomly stumbling upon my page and that just is not good enough. (Actually I do have some daily readers, I did drop one to the wayside because I said something that she didn’t like.) It’s not cathartic if no one reads it ( well for me it isn’t, because I can hear the argument in your head already.)


9. Enemies.

"When we ride on our enemies!" --Tupac
I used go around referring to myself as Raymond and quoting the title of a popular TV show Everybody Loves Raymond. The truth, is they don’t. In fact they love you or they hate you, I’d prefer indifference right about now. And I know my enemies were checking up on my old non-anon blog, and if they were paying attention or have


10. My friends
I have a lot of female friends and they are just that friends that are female. There is this overwhelming majority of people that believe it is impossible to have opposite sex platonic relationships. Well I have accomplished that on several levels and maintain them well. But numbers, 1, 4 and 6 can’t get to that. So they go about proving this wrong. Attacking my friends intentions, mine and the things that we do that are platonic, although they could be done as a couple, are often portrayed as only couples stuff. So I can’t blog about baby sitting a class mates children this past weekend, why?…. because I baby sat with a female friend.

Philly most wanted....

....a win.
I am watching the nastiest sports fans in America sit in their stadium, quitet as church mice. They are getting their tales kicked 28 to nothing in the second quarter.

I had to say that.
Feels good.Guess there won’t be any moon walking and Michael Jackson moves for the rest of this season.

This just in, the game ended with Philly being shut out 42 to nothing. The worst losing margin since the 60's.

Looking for a school board chair? Check manhunt.net

My daddy always said go with your first mind. And since I’ve been in Richmond, whenever I watch the news two things have been consistent:

1.) Two or three people have been murdered and that seems excessive ( Even for someone from DC and Prince George’s county MD.)

2.) I have seen a story involving the Richmond School board chairperson .

Now this wouldn’t have been so much of a big deal if the guy didn’t look, well, let’s say that he didn’t look anything like what you’d think a school board chair would look like. While I acknowledge then and still now that I was being prejudice because of how he looks. Yet every week I keep turning on the news (granted I don’t watch the news everyday) I keep seeing this dude. So much so that I went out to dinner with some of my school mates on Friday, and we were at a sports bar, watching LeBron, but sure enough they had the news on one of the TV’s and there he is. So I told my classmates that I thought it was because Mayor Wilder has thrown the school board out of city hall to make room for other city agencies. The mayor threw them out in the summer but they didn’t find space, and he said this fall that no matter what he has to get out, the city’s spending a million a year on extra office space. I’m thinking that because I have the TV on mute most of the time that I can’t tell you why he’s on TV so much. I think they’re the bus drivers are striking and now they’re debating on giving them 50 cent more an hour to raise their salaries to 11 an hour.

But then I’m afraid my suspicions were confirmed last night.

The School Board chair is suspected to step down tonight (December 5th)
NBC 12 news story
Why you ask?

This man has a profile on manhun.net

Ok, now I can’t tell exactly, but it looks like a site for anyone looking for a man, anyone.
Meaning women seeking or men and men seeking men So now, I’m sitting here chatting with one of my friends that has a entire family involved in the public education system . And it hit me the kind of person they had over these children, maybe I’m still being prejudice.
They say that the picture wasn't bad, even though he was bare chested, but the profile was.

What do you think?
It seems like evil to me, it seems like another way that they have these kids set up for failure.