don't it always seem to go...

couldn't sleep. internal clock's kinda off. not hungry. it's just as well. i think i'm supposed to be fasting. life is currently constant. drama is at a minimum. emotions are under control. productivity is increasing. so is cash flow. i spoke to someone at my church who holds major sway in the financial aid department of a college i need to get (back) into. she expressed in no uncertain terms that she could definitely help me get it crackin' again. starting with an offer to waive the application fee that i was not looking forward to paying (again). God knows how bad i wanna get back into college. i'm not a big reader, but i function at my best when i have intellectual stimulation around me. it's tantamount to the endorphine rush that athletes supposedly get when working out. i must say it's supposed because i have never experienced such a rush from any strenuous physical activity (reference in previous blogs my proclivity for quitting things).

but i wanna do this again. again, i'm not fond of reading. but this is my element. when many things are not going right, i can always reign things in, get really cerebral, build up my ego and then try to branch outside my comfort zone again. i pass the campus nearly every day on my way to someplace else non-academic. seeing the lines of cars there makes me long for the days of hustling to find a parking space. watching students cross the street heading towards the campus makes me slightly envious that it's not me with a sack full of papers and books hurriedly hoofin' it across a busy street lest i end up late to the class of some professor who takes a quiet personal pleasure in making students ask how high he'd like them to jump. not that i actually like those type of professors.

"late last night, i heard the screen door slam / and a big yellow taxi took away my old man / it's like don't it always seem to go / that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone / they paved paradise / and put up a parking lot" - joni mitchell, "big yellow taxi"

but i miss that world that made me feel elitist and fulfilled when i stretched out my "muscles" to clear whatever bar i set my sights towards. when parents were paying for my tuition, i wasn't nearly as motivated to attend. not that i really regret any of the 7 years and counting that my college "phase" has stretched, because i've enjoyed this time of my life immensely. also, i'm not eager to bustle and mill my way into a throng of faceless, automaton 9-to-5 employees who trade sizeable chunks of their time for size-challenged paychecks.

yet, i do want to proceed. i want to move. i want to gain some ground. i want to "claim this bit of dust in the name of Mars" (esoteric looney tunes reference). speaking of which, while the entire endeavor is wholly adult, i have ironically enjoyed something of a secondary childhood concurrently with this experience. there's a way that college students are treated. people tend to look fondly upon those in route to bettering their socio-economic status. such is treatment that i haven't seem in supreme earthly form since my grandfather passed. speaking of which, he's again a formidable reason to continue pursuing this. as a man with high respect for education, but severely limited ability to pursue it, his wish for me was always to get an education and "have command of the english language". i think my english accomplishments are doing alright for now. if i could just get underway with snagging this degree, then i think i'd be alright.

did i forget to mention that i don't really care about the degree? that's actually one of the lesser draws towards my college education. since i'm well on my way to building a successful web business minus significant help from my accredited education, i don't necessarily see the degree as a means of getting where i wanna be. honestly, right now, i am where i wanna be. everything's not perfect, but things are good and i'm happier more often than i am not. what drives me is conquest. i must conquer college. if i were to drop out, that would mean that it beat me. and that's just not happening. my mother applauds my tenacity. she may be chagrinned to find that said tenacity is partially an outcropping of the stubbornness and rebellion that she failed to quash in me as a child. i shouldn't be so proud of that. forgive me God and forgive me all. ;-)

anyway, as it stands, the semester starts today. i am neither enrolled nor registered in a single class. if the contact at the college can't bring christmas to me early by helping me get into college this semester, plan b is to take a couple courses at the local community college that will count towards my major. none too pleased with that option seeing as that campus is more like an underfunded public high school and has yet to hold a candle to my previous university experience as it relates to inspiring those cerebral rushes. and i guess it's hard to feel elite at a college where classes are $18 per unit. i'll get over it. as i always knew when i originally let burnout push my college career to the back burner that i would appreciate it when it wasn't available later. later is now, and i can't wait to get started.

it's 4am. if there is any clever and intelligently artful way to closeout this wordy discourse, i am not interested in staying up until 5am to find it. therefore, goodbye and good night.

amplitude to equilibrium

it's the same syndrome that seems to happen when i take to making regular journal entries. best intentions turn into... writing only when depressed or upset. hence, the total work becomes dumping grounds for everything that goes wrong. when things are going great, i'm too busy living la vida lovely to stop and comment about it. thus, anyone who reads only sees entries where foibles and unfortunate undoings are occurring. this may lead you to believe that my life is one that is never ever drama free. it's not true! it's not true! i can be happy! i can be satisfied! it's great to know that i'm not forever doomed to be a malcontent. a week prior, that's exactly what i was. but it's weird.

despite the huge rub that happened at that rehearsal, i thought i'd be in the doghouse with God. it's been so the opposite. the perfect picture of grace. i've been productive, i've been pleasant, and most enjoyably... i've been paid. can we all take a moment to let that word reverbrate with the pause it's due?

{takes a moment}

do you know how long i've been on broke negro status? do you know how inconsistent stuff has been? like tupac said, "i love paying rent when the rent's due." same thing with dmv registration and tithing and car payment and what have you. this is a stability that i wouldn't mind getting used to. so right now, i'm just trying to stay on top of my game, keep from rocking the boat, and still have energy left over to enjoy life. i didn't however take time to keep folks updated on what's going on throughout the week. essentially, i like to wait until i get closure on a situation, or at least an intermission before i comment on it. i hate when folks tell stories and leave cliffhangers hanging with no regard to the audience on the edge of their seats. so i collect the info and then i report what i saw. anyway, maybe i'll start doing that audioblog thing. yeah right. i don't even have a cell phone. i like it like that. that way, when i leave the house, the house actually stays at home, thereby enabling me to leave it. i don't necessarily like for folks to be able to yank my chain whenever they feel like it.

"gotta go to a place where i can explode... where they don't ask me questions... where they don't even know my name..." - bernadette cooper, "the underground"

anyway. my web business is going great. by the grace of God, my creativity is keeping up with demand. whatever causes my emotional states to wildly fluctuate is on vacation indefinitely. i feel like i'm in balance, even though it's not me balancing it. opportunity is everywhere. i don't have to go in to work until later this week. i can work at an outside office, but lately it's been nice to take care of business from home. i've slipped back down to 148 pounds, which at 6'1" means i'm skinny as heck, but healthy and safely away from that whole pregnant look that failed to elude most of my beloved uncles. what more can i say? top billin'. ok. that's all. lol.

"dude. you are so not listening."

i'm almost loathe to present my point of view because i'm anticipating being shot down... but it seems that my family is ignoring me like a "raven-haired younger sister". my church family, that is. and they really are family. i love them dearly, but sometimes i want to take a couple of 'em by the collar and clack their heads together like coconuts. i was the first keyboardist to show up on our team, however as musician after musician more talented than i continues to show up, i'm increasingly less needed/appreciated/regarded. there's a new bandleader and he and i don't seem to see eye to eye often despite our attempts to show love and not rub each other the wrong way. it seems that at his core, he just wants me to do what he says the way he says it and not give him static. i can do that. but i can't sustain it forever.

so i'm alternately singing with the ensemble since the abundance of musicians "frees me up" to do what i really love to do, which is sing. problem is, more talented vocalists keep funneling in as well. a particular one of the praise & worship leaders is a high-voiced tenor who can often squeak out soprano parts in his sharpened falsetto voice. very nice guy, everybody loves him, but... but i am thoroughly disenchanted with his style of leadership. he has this penchant for lofty, wordy gospel songs that are driven by 30-40 voice professional choirs, have complex musical arrangements, and melodic intricacies that i can't really appreciate. though i grew up in church, i was never by any means a "church boy". phenomenons such as "shouting music" and all the other trappings that came with being a member of a "black" church were lost on me.

perhaps if he were better at adapting these songs to the optimum abilities of our 8-9 person ensemble, i wouldn't take issue, but his arrangements of these songs have everyone shouting at the top of their lungs. some can do it, but it's not good for those of us who don't have octaves upon octaves of vocal range to play in. if i'm not in tip-top condition when it's time to do this, my voice cracks. also, he often requires specific sounds, tones, and dynamics to emote in certain songs. i can do those, right? but not when forced into this compromised corner of my ability.

this director has a certain style that when separating parts tends to lean its weight towards treble-intensive high soprano parts. i'm actually a baritone with tenor range. i've made it known several times recently that the parts i'm assigned are too high for me. he just assigns me the tenor part and says sing falsetto and do the best you can (note: from lowest to highest it goes... baritone, tenor, alto, soprano).

if everyone was singing falsetto, i wouldn't have a problem. but i'm whispering out these parts in the least strong part of my voice while flanked on both sides by stout black men who can belt out their parts easily. it's discouraging. i feel uncomfortable being forced to sing a part that doesn't fit... incompetent because i'm the only one who can't hang with these rollercoaster vocal arrangements... and upset because no one seems to notice or care that i'm languishing here... compounded by the fact that it seems to make no noticeable difference to the group as a whole whether i contribute or not... which makes me feel insignificant... which makes me want to go back to doing what i do best: quitting and switching to something else (i'd do this more often, but the problem is... after awhile, there's nowhere else to go).

there are people who share my frustrations, but they've been routinely ignored as well. more mature than i, they have learned to adapt to being invisible and have done so for years in environments exponentially more adverse than the one i'm in. no one has listened to them yet, so i almost don't even want to undertake the task of complaining.

"who really cares when i talk, what i feel, what i say... / who wants to take time to understand / i would like someone to heal me with some empathy / i can't find nobody not really" - alicia keys, "nobody not really"

why? because if i'm asked what i would suggest to remedy the problem, what can i say? "send me a dozen roses everyday and i'll feel loved"? that won't work because i'll know that it's only being done to placate me. what's more, i know our leadership team doesn't make concessions like that anyway. i'd be labelled a spoiled child and sent away lollipop-less. what i really want is for someone to first, care that the situation is a problem for me and second, make some attempt however menial to alleviate the problem. right now all i'm getting is dismissed, and i have to tell you, folks, it's really not going over well with me at all.

ok, i got somethin' 4 u...

how about just read this blog and it'll save me a whole buncha explainin' about what happened to me wiggin' out and being hysterical on wednesday. all through wednesday. and then thursday morning. tapering off by the late afternoon. it was like a full 24 hours of being dazed after taking an uppercut to the jaw. by the way, don't ever leave a free account at washington mutual more than $500 negative for more than 2 months. um, they will close it and start "seizin" stuff as they fancy. *sigh* man. details later. i am really sleepy right now and you just don't know how much i need to go with that feeling.

where's ashton kutcher when you need him?

for the last two weeks, my comfortable work environment has been disrupted by an off-the-wall character frequenting the office space. i knew nothing about this guy who was a friend of my business partner mike's brother, but after a few interactions it was apparent that he was gay. that's not a problem in itself. i believe homosexuality is wrong, but i'm pretty non-judgemental. i'm not "homophobic" and gay people don't "scare" me. however, i was a little put-off that he seemed to be particularly attracted to me. you know... why me?

at the stage where he was just pleasant whenever i came in and making uncolored observations like "oh you look very nice today", i was ok. not the most favorable, but in small doses, the attention can be reframed as flattery and dismissed without incident. however, questions like "so do you have a girlfriend?" and "where do you live?" followed. about this time, i gave vague answers. i don't just tell any random stranger where i live, you know? suddenly, i'm getting regularly pelted with randomly interspersed, incendiary comments ranging from the overtly sexual "can i make love to you" to the disturbingly satanic "i am the devil", "i want to kill you", and my least favorite of all "can i have your soul?" at one point he sent me an instant message on my screen that just said "die." i was beyond incensed.

the guy's comments however offensive were always delivered in monotone timbre with a smirk like jack nicholson's in batman, and deadpan eyebrows. i couldn't tell whether he was joking or serious, and sometimes the guy did say stuff that was entertaining, but most of the things directed toward me were not funny. still, i never responded in any unkind manner, so one might have assumed i was ok with it. my business partner knows my values and he also knows that i don't normally tolerate such things, so i was a little miffed that he didn't set this guy straight about being as disrespectful as he was. yet, my humor is sarcastic and sometimes cynical, so he probably thought i was kidding when i forebode, "mike, you better come get your boy". i was completely serious. incidently it's probably because mike's asian that he didn't pick up on it. if i was around black folks they would have read the tone in my voice and properly interpreted "[i've just about had it with this mess, so] you better come get your boy [before i have to deal with him]." because cultural difference lead to legitimate ignorance, mike's not getting charged with any personal offenses in this case.

all came to a head when out of nowhere he quipped from behind me "mark, let's go make hot sweet love" while simultaneously touching my arm in an unsettlingly gentle manner. at this point i dropped my pleasant exterior and told him twice flatly "get your hands off of me now". the comments are one thing, but invading my personal space constitutes a physical threat and that's too far over the line. i wasn't sure if this guy was a stalker, serial killer, sexual derelict, satanist, or unholy combination of all of them, but i was done playing nice. if i allow myself to be pushed to a certain point, i will abandon all good-natured diplomacy and revert back to the primal problem-solving technique of whooping some ***. i could envision myself just turning around, grabbing him by the neck and jamming him up against a wall to drive home the point that it would be disadvantageous to harass or pursue me any further. when i started thinking like that, i knew it was time to go.

i've already blown up once at mike and made myself look like the quintessential hypocrite by cursing him out in front of people who only days previously saw me worshipping earnestly on stage before an audience of hundreds. i had no interest in dealing with backlash from starting a fight in a small room in someone's house with a lot of expensive and delicate equipment nearby. so i left and slipped over to a get-together with some friends from church that i had previously planned on missing. the two environments were like night and day. walking in and seeing their faces was like leaving a 70 degree swimming pool to slip into a warm steamy sauna. it felt really good not have to "watch my back" for a few hours.

"when anger really gets the best of us / we've really lost our heads / often say a lot of things, oh darlin' / wish we'd never said / ...i ain't gon' let you get the best of me, babe / i'm gon' go somewhere and cool / this is not the way my heads supposed to be, babe / got me feelin' like some silly fool / but i know a real nice place where i can go / and feel the way i'm supposed to feel." - marvin gaye, "anger"

removing myself from hostile stimuli was a good thing. came back later and was able to pull dude aside and calmly state what bothered me, what's not acceptable, and that i'm not mad, but lines need to be drawn and not crossed in order for me not to wild out on him. he was cooler about it than i'd expected. i thought reason would have been lost on him since he was one of those dolphin types who think everything in life is fun and games and don't take anything too seriously. i was quite relieved though to have confronted the issue and gotten an understanding without flipping my lid and having to make somebody hate me.

in a perfect world, i could have been able to end my blog here, but no. there's gotta be more. i was hanging out with hakim, mike, and his brother's friend. hakim was mentioning his work with children. to which the same guy who i was convinced was gay replies something to the effect of "when i have kids, i plan to..." » and i was like whoa.. "kids? but i thought you were gay!" » "dude, i was only kidding about that. i have a girlfriend! you thought i was serious?" » "mike, why didn't you tell me he wasn't gay?"

"the wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion." - proverbs 28:1

somehow mike had remained cluelessly oblivious to the fact that i really believed he was gay and "after me lucky charms". so now i look like the reprehensible loon. i completely got played like a bad episode of punk'd. i tried to tell them it's no different than when i wigged out on the gaggle of underage, unattractive, portly girls from church who were more than mildly obsessed with me. that was met with raucous ridicule which found me once again in the old familiar position of being pointed and laughed at in public by my peers. i thought that once i graduated from high school this wouldn't have to happen again. so now mike has me labeled as a consumate homophobic and i just know i'll have to endure tauntings and rehashed reminders about this for a minimum of 3 weeks unless someone else does something dumb to take the attention away from me. i'll get over it though.

for lack of a complete thought

for lack of a complete thought, i have not blogged at all in what seems like an age and a half. so here's a smattering of scarcely related happenings that have been going on recently.

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i'm doing a rigorous design package for a new hip-hop artist named jaMaL. i finished his cd artwork design in a hurry so it could go to print in time for his planned independent release date. however, a major label that was courting him previously is interested in sweetening their deal. apparently their first offer was nice, but offered nothing he couldn't accomplish on his own. i already have a very nice arrangement to be compensated for my work, but if he and his management do strike a deal with this major label, then my compensation goes from "very nice" to "very nice" plus a bonus "oh my God".

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last week was trying in that i stacked up back to back appointments and deadlines for 5 days straight. it was a nice amalgam of in-the-office and out-of-the-office, but it was all work. i would complain about the drain, but it was nice to make rent ahead of time without having to sweat for once. i don't plan on doing this all the time, but i still prefer it over having a full time job dominate my life, time, and passion. this way, i stay paid, and no one jobs gets sole control over me. i come in and do my thing, and if at anytime the situation becomes impossible or unprofitable, i can kiss them off and fill that time with some other money-making venture.

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i got a revelation last week that even though i'm not good with children the way many of my friends are, i just realized, that i'm great with old people. which is funny because those same people are put off by the elderly the way i am by kids. so this rocks! i have a special power to use as an antidote to when i was a kid, i liked grown folks better than i liked kids. i loved to listen to them talk, and hear stories that predate the 60's in 1st person p.o.v. not to mention it seemed like they always had candy close by. it was a sweet deal. i remember how my mom used to make us go to convalescent homes when we were kids just to spend time with the people to help out. my sister didn't take to well to it, but aside from the unpleasant smell, it was more than worth it for me. helping people out who don't have full use of faculties was it's own reward. i've oft been called an old soul, so maybe that's a niche i need to explore some more.

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i've been encouraging a close friend of mine to go off to the college of her choice even though circumstances around her are threatening to keep her grounded to her current living situation like a gravitational pull. if i were in her shoes, i don't think i'd have much of a problem. i consider myself an escape artist. when college was suffocating me, i took leave. when ex-girl #1 was playing me with a friend of mine, i cut her off. when my full-time job started driving me crazy, i quit. when ex-girl #2 played me too close, i broke wide. i saw a bumper sticker that said "when the going gets tough..." in big letters (and something too small to read below it). so i just filled in: "the smart go somewhere else". perhaps that's not a good thing. i reserve judgement on it until later.

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i'd been disillusioned about friends who were once so close, but have since gone separate directions and scantly keep in contact. i just assumed that that's how it goes, but my old friends Aaron and Ara both contacted me on the same day and i'll get to see them again soon. this is a good thing.

Today I dreamed / of friends I had before / and I wonder why / the ones who care don't call anymore / my feelings hurt / But you know I overcome the pain / And I'm stronger now / There can't be a fire unless there's a flame. - Seal, "Don't Cry"

I can't wait for 5 o'clock. I want out now.