Me, Myself, & I

i HONESTLY just wanna stay home and watch nothing in particular until i decide to go to bed...

the fact that i don't want to go with you to the store, or even sit on the phone is not always an indictment on the relationship, an indicator of my lack of feeling for you. what it IS is me being a man; a man succumbing to his occasional desire to breathe, with little accountability... and while i think women CAN wrap their mind around the concept, very few can even begin to understand how much more often men feel it...

women plan trips; vacations with shared accomodations and iteneraries, spending literally days on end together. a similar man trip might consist of a shared lunch (1 hour) and late night poker game (2 hours)... women plan spa days, men watch the game

the fact that it leaves you feeling less than loved, unappreciated, secondary to something or someone else is unfair. i love you, even while basically ignoring the knowledge that you want to be with me... can't we hang tomorrow?

Ex-Factor

"good loving: the girls' got plenty good loving. ask me how i know and i'll tell you so; she used to be my girl... she wanted more than i could give, but as long as i live she'll be my girl"

everywhere i go, somebody is calling me Gerald (Levert). some combination of medium brown complexion, "good" hair, full beard, and large ass body "healthy" physique lead people to feel at ease comparing me to the late r&b legend. nevermind the fact that i actually sing a little as well, i'm mostly flattered by it all. but all of that is neither here nor there... daddy (Eddie) Levert and his band of merry men (the O'Jays) were on to something in their 1978 hit song...

we feel a connection with exes, an ability to sift through the mess that earned them that title. we maintain "friendships", or even when those aren't an option, we follow (read:stalk) them on social media and talk about them and their goings on with mutual acquaintances. we revel in their continued relationship issues and hate on anybody who seems to be filling the shoes we once filled. the kicker is that we do all of this knowing full well that we will never, and usually would never even want to, try those shoes back on for anything more than a semi-annual 45min romp/reflect/release party...

a friend once mentioned that one of my vicitims as my not too proud to pick up where i left off homie might call them ex bed buddies was keeping score as i made public appearances with new "interests". this not-so-silent songbird was privy to a LOT of the "miscommunication" that led the ex to earn "i don't fuck with her" status, so it was funny to us that what i was doing still mattered to her... but it did, not just to that mattress mistress, but to most of us. even when those blasts from the past are hindering present possibilities, we have a hard time just letting it all go...

even as i sit here thinking about the foolishness of it all, i stand guilty of "missing" this about that one or that about this one and wondering how a "how's everything" text might be received. but i am, and we all must, figure out a way to suppress those urges (do they make a patch for that?) and get on with getting it on in the present, with people who could still matter in the long run

Turn Down For What

(this blog post was originally intended to be something completely different. but something about the best laid plans of mice and men... so i ended up just typing, and only making grammatical corrections when it was done... my apologies for the possibly rambling,semi-coherent way it may come across)

so much of what we seem to place value in matters about as much as the Mary Anne or Ginger debate. we worry about people and things that are beyond our control. we worry about things that are within our control, rather than just handling them. we take meticulous care into choosing what pictures we post online based on lighting and angles and hair. we read other people's tweets and status updates, wondering who they're talking about. we hate on people who seem to be happy. we talk about people who constantly complain, or post too much religious stuff, or brag about their ugly kids. we compare our lives to those of people we barely know, never realizing that they "manage" that image we see in much the same way we "manage" ours. that, in fact, people envy the very things in our lives that we take for granted...

jobs, kids, relationships, friends, family, church, fashion, sports, school, music, travel, sex... whatever it is that we care the most about, it seems that living and loving those things would make for a much better time than constantly looking over our shoulder or giving the side eye at other people and their stuff

i dated a chick whose way of copping an idgaf attitude was disconnecting and saying "do what you do"... she was right (she was wrong about a LOT of other stuff but that's a story for another day) ...the point is, however; do you, and do it to the fullest. anything less is just pissing in the wind, wasting time. life is short, but it's the longest thing we'll ever do. why not do it, make the most lemonade we can

some company has a slogan like LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE ...i don't know that anything else really matters

I.J.S.

"...i've learned to love myself unconditionally" -India.Arie

self-awareness is a tricky thing. the proverbial look in the mirror reflects the monster that is 37 years of life: the 2 parent 7 kid yet disfunctional household of my youth, a less than stellar academic career that seemed to mock my intellectual "potential", a wonderfully productive (EricAlexErin) but ultimately failed marriage of 11 years, an inability to express emotion in a way that accurately represents my mood, quasi-productive professional ventures into education and state government, receding hairline, imperfect teeth, bulging waistline, that little fold of skin between my nose and forehead that makes it look like i wore a football helmet incessantly during childhood, that 10 day stint in Clayton Co. Jail back in '01, co-habitation (shacking), lies/deceit, fornification, adultery, bouts of broke-ness, bouts of brokenness, anger, disappointment, frustration, tears... i could go on but it'd read much like i imagine a Keith Sweat / Sade duet might sound

but like i said, it's a tricky thing. that same look also reflects the beauty of nearly 4 decades of growth, ever-continuing maturity, and lessons learned: an ability to comport myself in varying social dynamics, to express my thoughts tactfully and without fear, a gift for provoking thought, initiating and propogating conversation / debate, an ability to be monogamous (no small feat), "good" hair, handsome-ness, endowment, intelligence, spirituality, an ever-loving relationship with the Lord, leadership of an ever growing ministry, a constant and close relationship with my kids, pride in that same 2 parent 7 kid household of my youth as snot-nosed kids become well intentioned college graduates, angry and barely there dad becomes loving well intentioned father and grandfather (and in the church no less)... i could go on but it'd read much like i imagine an Al B Sure / K Michelle duet might come across

so i continue to look, and i continue to judge what i see, making adjustments as i go, making no apologies for my intent, even while apologizing for the execution or results... all the while loving what i see!!!!!!