Perspective is the Cure for Self Pity

Okay:

Tomorrow will be the last day of a very, very, very long first week of school. This weekend my mother is coming back from a two-week trip to Africa and hopefully she'll be willing to take my daughter for a few days after she recovers from jet lag. Monday is a holiday. I need a break desperately. I've been ripping and running all summer. No vacation.

Who else has had a rough few months?

Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan: I always assumed that the best thing to be in America is a young, thin, wealthy, good-looking white woman. Following the trials and tribulations of each of these women, however, has shown me that things aren't always what they seem. While many of us may look at them and see spoiled little rich girls with too much time on their hands, I see tortured souls who yearn for some sense of normalcy. How would you feel if every time you went to the bathroom to vomit your lunch, you had to check the stall next to you for paparazzi? I know when I vomit my lunch (or decide not to wear underwear), I take pleasure in knowing that it is a private moment between me and the toilet bowl.

Michael Vick: Now if professional football players have to be subject to the same senseless rules and regulations as the rest of us, I'm not sure if I still want to play for the NFL. It's been a lifelong dream of mine, but now I'm having second thoughts. I mean, what's the point of being a professional athlete if you're not above the law? I know, I know. What about the millions of dollars in salaries, signing bonuses and endorsement deals? But those are just the basics. What about the perks? I get perks at my job. Free coffee and bottled water. Discount parking. Sometimes there are donuts. Football players deserve something comparable: groupies, diplomatic immunity, etc, etc.

Alberto Gonzales: I've made it a general rule of mine to never feel sorry for Republicans, regardless of the circumstances. It just doesn't make sense somehow.

John McCain: I've made a special exception for this guy, and him only. I like him and he's a P.O.W., so he gets a pass. His presidential campaign has been a horrible train wreck though. It's like watching a cat cough up a fur ball. It looks so painful, but you can't turn away. You have to see how it ends. You just have to see what comes out of this. I think, sad as it is, that he's just too ugly to be president. He looks like a burn victim with a really good plastic surgeon. Nobody wants to have to see that mug on the news everyday for the next four years.

China: What? China's been manufacturing sub-standard goods with cheap (and sometimes toxic) materials to cut back on production costs? GET OUT! Are you serious? Well, if we can't trust the Chinese then who can we trust? I mean the sweatshops, slavery, prostitution, child labor and general governmental tyranny is one thing, but lead paint in toys? Those commie sons-of-bitches! I guess we'll have to get all our produce from Iraq now.

Jalal Talabani: The quintessential whipping boy. He should come to the Capitol, bend over and pull his pants down on the House Floor and let the Democrats take turns kicking him in the ass and calling him names. Of course, they would foot the medical bill because the benevolent Dems believe getting sick or hurt (or falling into crack cocaine addiction and having children out of wedlock) should be free.

Larry Craig: Am I the only who is just not shocked by this sort of thing anymore? At this point, I think it's fairly safe to assume that all conservative Republicans are closet (or airport bathroom stall) homosexuals.

Owen Wilson: Is he cool enough to commit suicide? Don't you kind of have to be in vogue like Kurt Cobain or Chris Benoit?

Juanita Bynum: Why didn't Jesus tell her to duck?

All things considered, I guess I shouldn't feel sorry for myself what with all this pain in the world. I could be a lot worse off.

Thanks for reading.

Tip of the day: Men, never handle jalapenos then use the bathroom without washing your hands first. Bad things will happen. Sayonara!

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Broke

Okay:

I just checked my account balance this morning and...let's just say I woke up in a better mood than this. Funny part is, I made more money this year than I ever have in my life. Significantly more. I'm in a whole 'nother tax bracket. Just goes to show you: the more you make, the more you spend.

I now understand how people like MC Hammer and Mike Tyson can end up broke at the end of the day. Hell, I hear Michael Jackson is house shopping in Mitchelleville and hanging out with Marion Barry. That's a long way from Neverland and Emmanuel Lewis.

I've got a couple of vices that have driven me into the kind of debt I couldn't have imagined three years ago.

1. Drinking: I wouldn't call myself an alcoholic. True, I may have anywhere between five and ten alcoholic drinks in a week, but I usually take them all in one sitting. My solution is to buy all my liquor in bulk from now on and drink at home. A gallon of Johnny Walker can't be anymore than seventy bucks. I could drop that much in one happy hour if I have sushi. Sure, drinking alone is kind of pathetic, but this would also eliminate the issue of finding a ride home.

2. Eating Out: Since I quit smoking cigarettes, I now eat when I'm bored. As a result, I have gained thirty pounds in three years. I'm huge. Things jiggle. If I'm not engaged in some sort of activity I will invariably seek out food. I've managed to cut back on the General Tso's Chicken and the greasy subs since I noticed the Chinese man at the Hunan Delight around the corner finishing my sentences for me when I called in orders.

Chinese man: "Hey, buddy."

Me: "Is this Hunan Delight?"

Chinese man: "General Tso's Chicken, Crab Rangoons?"

Me: "Yeah...to 123--"

Chinese man: "1234 Main Street. See you soon, buddy."

Me: "O--kay."

Chinese man: "I just come knock on your patio door."

3. Shopping: I've really gotten into fashion during the past few years. I used to be into it when I was younger, then I stopped caring, and now I'm into it all over again. I shop when I am bored and/or depressed. I'm no label whore though. With $200 I can buy a pair of shoes, three pairs of pants and two shirts. And it will all be fly. It's really quite impressive. I have a talent for it. Ask someone who knows me. Maybe a solution could be for me to budget shop for other people. Instead of spending $300 on those jeans, call me. I'll take $50 for my services and make you look like you're on your way to the VMAs. I call it Econo-Chic.

At the end of the day though, my vices are putting me in the poor house. It's time to make a change. If I died tomorrow, the burden would be on my mother to settle my affairs. It would clean her out! It's better to leave something behind, no?

I've got a plan though.

1. I'm getting rid of my debit card. That thing is of the devil and it must be destroyed. You shouldn't have split-second access to all of your money 24 hours a day like that. It's a goddamn sham. Those bastards at Suntrust charge you thirty dollars every day you're in overdraft, yet continue to clear purchases and checks. I haven't bounced a check since 1999!!!

2. I'm going to close all of my auto-pay accounts. This service, while it is convenient, is for people who have a solid grip on their finances. I clearly ain't one of those people. I've got six or seven of those things dipping into my account every month. I can't keep track of it all. They don't even send me an email to warn me or anything. They just come and take what they want without saying thank you. A kiss or a reach-around would be nice every once in a while.

3. I'm cancelling all of my credit cards except for one. I'll keep one open for emergencies, but the rest of them have to go. The interest alone is killing me. One of them is like 26% or something crazy like that. That's mafia shit. Capital One is gangstas.

4. I'm giving myself a weekly cash allowance. I'm going to commit myself to spending X amount of dollars per week on miscellaneous expenses. No more Red Bull, no more Vitamin Water, no more $10 lunches, no more $50 happy hours, no more Starbucks in the morning, etc, etc, etc. Life is not a black romantic comedy starring Sanaa Lathan and/or Taye Diggs where everyone is inexplicably wealthy and never talks about work.

It's a four-parter. If executed properly and consistently it should be very effective. As a probable #5, I am considering consolidating my debt. This lady named Susan, who I apparently know because she always calls me by my first name, has been leaving messages on my voice mail for years. I'm gonna call her back and see what this is all about. If it sounds good, I may go for it.

Thanks for reading. Tip of the day: Don't do back door/front door without a thorough cleaning first. Bad things will happen. Chao!

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Brand New Day

Okay:

Tomorrow school starts up again. For teachers, tonight will be like New Year's Eve, except more depressing. Not that we don't love our jobs, but you know, it's "challenging."

In light of this, I've created a Priorities List. This is different from a New Year's resolution. This is a well thought out action plan. In no particular order:

1. Money/Credit: I'm dead broke and I've got really bad credit. This morning I was at the Gap in the Bowie Towne Center. The cashier offered me 15% off my purchase to apply for a Gap card. I had to tell him, my head bowed in shame, "No thanks. I've got really bad credit." See, these people keep sending me these letters telling me I'm pre-approved for up to $10,000 of credit. Then I apply and get rejected. Which makes me ask, what exactly do they mean by pre-approved? This is not unlike the seventh grade when Harold Lewis told me Tamara Austin had a crush on me and I should ask her for a kiss, only to find out that it was all a cruel joke and the two of them were in cahoots, taking pleasure and finding humor in my social ineptitude.

2. Weight/Health: I've blogged about this before. Two years ago I went to the doctor for a checkup. He told me I was overweight and that my cholesterol was dangerously high. He threatened to put me on medication. A few months ago, I bought some boxer briefs to see if I could sexy things up a bit. I looked at myself in the mirror and was shocked to see how much I didn't look like the guy on the box. I tried wearing them for a while, but I shot out the elastic. Now they just look like really nice boxers.

3. Education/Credentials: I've been fighting the whole graduate school thing for years, but last fall I finally gave in and enrolled at Trinity University. This time next year I should be about six credits away from a master's degree. If I've still got some sand left in me, I'll go on and get a doctorate. See, I can feel myself getting dumber by the moment, and before my brain turns to cauliflower, I'm gonna need a sheet of paper that says once upon a time I knew something about something.

4. Spirituality: I'm an adamant agnostic. But it hasn't been working too well for me. All the Jesus freaks seem to be having most of the luck. So I figure I'll find myself a church or something and kind of fake it til I make it. I'm starting off slow. This summer I watched Joel Osteen practically every weekend and I went to church like four times. Worst case scenario, maybe I'll get some good fortune rub off on me. Blessings by association.

5. Music Career: My music career has been dead in the water for the past 3 years or so. I've put out a handful of albums, but at the end of the day, it's a money pit, really. This year, I'm going to start thinking smart and figuring out ways to invest less money and make more profits. Look out for my guest verse on the "Crank Dat Souljah Boy" remix!

6. Love Life: I've been doing some serious self-evaluation to figure out why I have such bad luck with the ladies. I figured out that I have been projecting qualities that have been attracting the wrong kind of women. For example, apparently pulling out your penis at happy hour will not only attract drunk whores, but it will also turn off intelligent, progressive women. It has a bizarre two-pronged effect, see. So, this year I'm going to try to keep my Mr. Hyde at bay and drink the majority of my scotch in private.

7. Fatherhood: I do okay, but I could do a lot better. This year I'm going to concentrate on supplementing her education with mentally stimulating activities in the evening and on weekends. We will no longer be listening to UGK in the morning or watching Goodfellas before bedtime.

So, I hope you all are engaging in similar self-reflection, cutting back on the Trans fat and wearing rubbers and what have you. Thanks for reading.

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NC 17: Adult's Only!

Okay:

So, I haven't written about this subject in a long time. I've been trying to broaden my horizons, so to speak, but we're all grown here, right?

I've been single for almost a year now, but for the past few months I've been spending my evenings with the same woman. She's nice enough, significantly older. Our arrangement is unencumbered by expectations or labels. Very cosmopolitan. She visits me once or twice a week, sometimes she brings Hennessy, and we have "fun" together.

A month or so ago, mid-session, she asked me to do something that I normally don't do. Let's call it going the wrong way down a one way street. I'm young, but I'm no spring chicken. I've done it before. But to me, and chime in here if you have an opinion, it seemed like a lot of preparation with very little pay-off. I mean, it's more than a notion. If you're going to do it, there are precautions and procedures. I personally enjoy a less contrived, more organic, natural experience. Who needs all the bells and whistles?

So she asked me, mid-session, and I ignored her request. Later she texted me inquiring as to why I was non-compliant. I responded that I was making significant progress where I was stationed and that it seemed strategically unwise to switch gears, so I decided to stay the course.

I thought the issue was dead.

The other night, however, I had just finished a week of rigorous physical training in Therapeutic Aggression Control Techniques. I was bruised all over. She came to visit, but I was too pooped to be much entertainment. I did, however, want to relieve some of the week's stress. We began our session unceremoniously, with little fanfare or prep work. I immediately noticed that things were a bit tense and coarse. I assigned it to the skipping of the anticipatory set.

For a while I considered starting over with a new course of action, but, again, I was pooped. So I pressed forward. I figured eventually things would work themselves out. And eventually they did. The coarseness was gone, but the tension never left. I was puzzled. Then, towards the end of the session she informed me in some decidedly unladylike language that I had entered through the exit door.

Well.

I was shocked to say the least. I had a few things running through my mind, but the number one thing was whether or not I would be able to withdraw my troop without making a mess of things. I had heard horror stories, and I knew I was entirely too tired and sober to manage a massive clean up.

Fortunately, things were surprisingly normal. Off-putingly normal.

I'm not saying that I've been converted into a fan. In fact, I still fell pretty much the same way I felt a few months ago. But I've lost some of my silly fears after working with an experienced partner. Let's say I've modified my position (no pun intended).

Here's a metaphor: You've got a two car garage. On one side you have a 745 BMW. On the other side, you have a hatchback Honda. Sure it's nice to drive the Honda once and a while to let it know that it is not a non-entity. But, it may leak oil. The engine may lock up on you. All things considered, why would you want to drive the Honda when there's a beautiful, spacious and clean luxury automobile parked right next to it? Get me?

So that's how I feel about butt sex.

Certified and Dangerous

Okay:

I am now a certified trainer in all components of Dr. Steve Parese's Therapeutic Aggression Control Techniques (or TACT-2). I've got my brand new pretty license sitting right here with my name written in calligraphy on it. That means if your kid was my student and came at me with a pair of scissors, I could, ideally, take him down with causing injury to him or myself and keep him in a therapeutic hold for up to twenty minutes.

The operative word here is "ideally". (No discredit to Parese, who is well aware of the program's limitations). For example, I'm a 5'6" 180lb. high school teacher. That means most of my male students are significantly bigger than me. The operative word in that sentence was "significantly". Basically, despite my extensive, intensive training in these techniques, if a 6 foot, 250 lb 12th grader comes at me with a pair of scissors, I should probably initiate a special technique called Running. I am also certified in Running at High Speeds from Immediate Danger, but I seem to have misplaced my license.

Seriously though. I learned to escape from front and rear chokeholds and side and rear headlocks. I learned bear hug and double arm bar restraints. Had I learned these techniques before breaking up with my ex-girlfriend, I probably wouldn't have a dictionary propping up one end of my favorite wicker chair.

When a drunk 5'2" 160 lb. woman comes charging at you, red-faced with arms flailing violently, I, like most men, would initiate a firm double shoulder grab and shove. This technique is not endorsed by Dr. Parese and his Therapeutic Aggression Control Techniques program. However, it is endorsed by Ike Turner, Billy Dee Williams and the good people at Hennessy (with the understanding, of course, that they can and will not be held responsible for any broken furniture).

At any rate, I spent a whole week with Parese and thirty other trainees in a hotel in Linthicum, a small airport town right outside of Baltimore. The group was fairly evenly divided between black men and white women. Black women and white men were the clear minorities. The stereotypes played out as follows.

The black men, myself excluded, were, for the most part, large. I would put the average height at 5'10". They could've started a basketball team, and if we had more time, I imagine someone would have suggested it.

The white women were of average height and surprisingly athletic. Eventually it was discovered that they had all played field hockey or soccer in high school and all of their names began with the letter J.

The white men were all short and stocky. By short I mean shorter than me. By stocky I mean none of them were under 200 lbs. None of them seemed to like wearing shoes and it was eventually discovered that they were all wrestlers.

The black women were the fewest in number and, by far, the most diverse minority group. They were fat, tall, short, skinny, imposing and timid. It was eventually discovered that they were all program directors and, in all likelihood, would never have to implement the techniques in real life situations. Despite their knowledge of the physical demands of the training, they all came everyday with their makeup and hair done.

The racial makeup of the group was almost a perfect inverse of what I've seen in schools. I'm still not sure what that means, but I think it's significant somehow.

Anyway, I'll be sure to let you all know when and if I have to do a restraint on a student and how it plays out. Thanks for reading.

A Day of Reckoning

Okay:

Sometimes things come together like an impressionistic painting. You've got to stand back and squint to see it all. Scotch may help with the squinting.

Eight months ago, almost to the day, I broke up with my girlfriend of five years. It was an ugly, traumatic experience from which I was able to draw inspiration for three songs on my most recent album, Magnificent Bastard (shameless plug!). The breakup itself lasted eight hours and involved a fifth of Hennessy, a pack of Newports, a lot of crying, and a broken wicker chair. When life gives you shit, make music.

One of the more likable ditties, "Because", is a diatribe against the love-starved, and subsequently impossible, women I seem to attract for some unknown reason (read: sarcasm). The dozen or so people who visit my MySpace page every week seem to like the song okay, so Gill (my oldest friend and business partner) and I decided to shoot a music video for it to keep up with the e-Joneses and the new ubiquitous YouTube craze.

We went to shoot at a night club on U Street called Bar Nun that hosts a weekly Monday night open mic. Gill brought his gorgeous, extremely nice, cool and intelligent girlfriend of 11 years with him to operate a second camera.

Sidebar: Before I could get my first drink order in, a bald woman in full African garb did libations on the stage with a bottle of Dasani. I usually like to have a good buzz going when I see stuff like that. Helps me keep a straight face. These poetry reading types take this kind of thing seriously.

After the host, Jabari (another old friend), informed us that we could not shoot because it would infringe upon intellectual property issues with the live band, we went upstairs to see if we could steal a few shots at the One Luv discussion on The Art of Kissing.

I ended up sitting next to this little vibrant cutie, and with a glass of scotch in one hand, I turned into Blair Underwood on Ecstasy. You all don't know me that well but I'm quite the charmer when I'm dead sober to tipsy. Any point past tipsy is a crap shoot. Things could get ugly. Gill saw me siding up to honey and did some guerrilla shooting from across the room (sans release).

I was laying it down flat if I may say so. Come to find out, shorty is a writer and wants to be a teacher. I thought I had me a good one and, totally engulfed in conversation, kind of forgot about the whole video thing. Two scotches later I'm splitting my attention between her and the group discussion on kissing. At one point I grabbed the microphone and said, "Kissing gives me a chubby!" Sometime later I announced, "Making out is for punks, you sucka-for-love ass trick!"

Then, for some reason, when I finally redirected my attention back to honey, she told me she had a boyfriend. Why would she waste my time like that? (read: extended sarcasm). There were plenty of women in there I could have been working on all night. The bald woman in the full-length orange dashiki was giving me the eye.

We left some time later. While walking back to the car I started wondering why Gill, who is perhaps more reserved than I am but philosophically no different, has been able to make it work and I ended up single, playing the dating game in a city with the AIDS rate of a Brazilian shanty. The pitifulness of it all was evidenced by my fifty dollar bar tab and the lack of new contacts in my cell phone.

Do Gill and his girl have problems? Yes. Do they work them out and keep moving? Yes.

Did this all make me miss my ex? Yes. Am I going to call her? Hell no. Why? Because I don't have that kind of patience or energy. I'm just not up for it.

But standing back, and squinting, mostly because I was drunk, it seemed like somebody somewhere was trying to tell me something yesterday. I don't know what that thing is yet, but I'm listening intently for something that will help me make sense of all this.

Walking With My Daughter

Okay:

It doesn't get any cuter than my daughter. I did really good with this one. Unfortunately, her mother decided to disappear a little over a year ago. (I know, sounds like a premise for a campy eighties sit com, right?) So now it's just me, her and her grandparents. The three of us together cover all the bases. She's not wanting for anything, especially attention.

Because most DC public schools are undefunded and, subsequently, underperforming, I have my daughter at a school across town in my mother's neighborhood. And, yes, her friends have names like Hannah and Emma. Knowing how impressionable 6-year-old little girls are, her grandfather and I go to great lengths to make sure she remembers that she is black. "You're black," we say. "And don't you forget it."

Then she says, "Well, actually, I'm brown. If I were black, that would be wierd."

Well.

Yesterday, we walked from my mother's house to the bookstore up the street. We rarely go for walks when we're at my house because the only thing walking distance from me is a mimi-mall with a 7-Eleven, a liquor store, a barber shop, two Chinese carry-outs and a Dominos. We've walked there before but she's a little scared of the homeless burn victims.

As usual she starts talking almost immediately and won't stop. I'm not listening to much of what she's saying and I'm hoping its of no consequence. The bookstore is huge, and the children's section has chairs where you can sit as long as you'd like and read to your child. The white people here take reading to their children very seriously and the clerk, who looks a lot like Brandon Frasier in Airheads, has an extensive knowledge of reading levels and Lexile scores. Not being able to imagine exactly why a grown man dressed in black with a greasy ponytail and arm tattoos would want to work in the children's section of a book store, I assume he is a pedophile.

We buy her a book and I grab a cappuchino and a City Paper from the adjacent gourmet coffee bar, then we make our way to the playground across the street. We walk past the Yoga studio, the market with the fresh produce in bins on the sidewalk, the pizza shop with the white men in Duckhead khaki shorts playing ping pong out front, the sushi bar, the bank and the fire station until we get to the playground.

There are lots of white people out here with their white children, some with their adopted multi-colored children, all enjoying the weather and looking generally pleased with themselves. I have a seat on a bench and tell my daughter to go for it, but as I feared, that won't be good enough. She wants me to participate in this jungle gym business. She wants me to hold her legs while she makes her way across the monkey bars. She wants me to watch her slide down the sliding board. She wants me to run across the bridge with her. "Daddy's an old man!" I shout. "I'm not up for all that."

Before I can finish my sentence, she walks off. Only she's not upset, she's kind of amused. And I notice for the first time that she may have inherited my sadistic sense of humor. She thinks its funny to watch me get worked up and then walk off, leaving me to sit there talking to myself like a crotchety old fool.

I also notice that the overweight middle aged white women are doing a far better job of keeping up with their first graders. I'm giving serious thought to catching a cab back to my mother's house and these women look like they could run a marathon. Then it hit me. The're all housewives. These women don't work. Their children are their lives. Of course they're full of energy. Of course they're emotionally available to entertain, nurture and educate 24 hours a day.

This epiphany brings me great sorrow. I start wondering how bad I may be screwing up my daughter. Tonight we will go home, order a pizza and watch The Last Dragon. I will fall asleep half-way through and she will wake me up at the end, "Wake up, daddy! He's glowing! He's got the Glow!"

Then I think, maybe my daughter is privileged. Those white kids and multi-colored adopted kids learn a lot about how life should be. My kid is learning about the real world. She's learning about disappointment, apathy and boredom. When she grows up, she'll be ready for anything. Hannah and Emma are in for a rude awakening.

The Doctor Is In

Okay:

So everyone I know, co-workers, significant others, parents, siblings--they all keep telling me to go see the doctor about my knees (which are almost one hundred percent better now, in case you were wondering).

I have a personal aversion to going to the doctor. I'm not afraid of needles, or taking my clothes off or having my thang played with and examined. But I'm a 27 year old black man. In case you don't know what that means about doctor visits, let me tell you. I went to the doctor a couple of years ago for a throat infection. I'm thinking popscicle stick, anti-biotic, see ya later. No, no, no.

"How old are you, son?" he asked me.

"25," I told him.

He looked at me with a little sympathetic smirk. "No," I said. "I'm too young for that."

"I'm going to have to insist, " he said. "Now lay on your side. It will be over before you know it."

Then he broke out the latex gloves and the lube dube for my first and last prostate exam. I know it's supposed to be all the rave in the private bedroom moments of consenting adults, but I don't know how you women do it. I felt violated. It made a wierd squishy noise and he didn't even wipe me down afterwards.

That is why I won't be going to the doctor over this knee business. I'll take it like a man and walk it off before I let someone else give me the finger.

I saw my doctor at the 7-Eleven sometime after that. He tried to spark up some small talk but I couldn't even look him in the eye. It was very uncomfortable for me.

Next week I have to go to a TACT 2 training in Linthicum. They're going to teach me how to take down students who present a physical threat and put them in a "theraputic hold", whatever the hell that means. They told me to be prepared to get slammed around a little bit. I hope my knees are up for it. I guess I'll find out on Tuesday. Trial by fire, huh?

In lighter news, my latest album Magnificent Bastard was recently reviewed in City Pages. They seemed to like it okay. Check it out for yourself.

Don't forget to visit my website for the latest updates.

Thank You Jesus!

Okay:

So, a few weeks ago I screwed up my knees real good. I think I may have mentioned it in my last blog. Anyways, there were more than enough jokes to go around at work about my hilarious dead man's limp, from both students and staff, ranging from "Limp C" to the shockingly clever "Sir Limp-a-Lot". Between the jokes, the pain, the red bank account, the slumped love life and the failing of the Praxis, I was fairly depressed.

So, I did what I always do when I'm depressed. I wake up early Sunday morning and watch Joel Osteen. If he can't cheer me up, then I know I need a drink. Well, old Joel didn't disappoint. It wasn't a full recovery, but he did make me smile. He's just so white and rich and happy. It's not even about Jesus for me. I'm an adamant agnostic. I just like him because he seems genuinely pleased with himself. He makes me feel all warm inside about things. So warm, in fact, that I decided I would go to church. I wanted to spend time around happy people, people who are so blinded by their love of a ghost that things like credit scores and writs of possession seem trivial.

But before I left for church I had to watch the MacLaughlin Group. This also cheers me up. Joel made me smile, but I needed to laugh. And if watching Eleanor Cliff scream "Let me finish!" at Pat Buchanan doesn't make you giggle, I don't know what will.

But I digress. My family is Pentecostal. This means that I know the Bible better than most, but the extrimity of the doctrine surrounding this particular faith will send you one way or the other. I went the other.

Anyways, they own a church over on the infamous Hobart Street. My grandfather started the church many years ago. Now my uncle is the pastor. The ushers are my cousins. The missionaries are my aunts. And my father plays the piano. There are 10 pews and rarely ever more than two dozen "saints" (church members). My father, the paino player, and my uncle, the pastor, decided that they needed to improve upon the building to create more space. So, they started this thing called the building fund. Then they got someone to bring a bulldozer over and dig a big canyon-like hole in the backyard. Then they got someone else to fill that hole up with cement. For whatever reason, things stopped there. That was about two years ago.

They have "temporarily" moved services to a Christian school in Hyattsville. This is where I went this past Sunday. After listening to my uncle go on a thirty minute tiraid about how muslims are taking over the world and soon it won't be safe to worship the Lord anymore and women will "have to wear them silly lookin' thangs on they heads", the service finally ended. I went over to the makeshift pulpit (a lunch counter during the school week) to greet my uncle and father. They noticed my limp and became very concerned. "Have you gone to the doctor?" "You need to have that looked at." "You may have arthritis." "Why would you want to go running for the sake of running?" To which my father added, "I think I gave you bad knees. I tried to give you good knees but I couldn't find the good knees button."

Then finally, as I should have been able to predict, someone said, "Let's pray on them."

Before I could protest, they had already broken out the bottle of virgin olive oil. The next thing I knew, they were upon me. It was my uncle leading the charge. He took the oil and made a cross on my head. Then the church elders appeared out of nowhere and everyone had there hands firmly placed on different parts of my body. Then they all started praying at the same time. One of them went limp and started speaking in tongues. This went on for about three minutes. Then my unlce looked at me and smiled and said, "You should be fine now."

Well, I wasn't. My knees still hurt like hell, but I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings so I tried my best to straighten up and walk straight. As I laboriously made my way across the room, my aunts, the missionaries started shouting, "GLORY HALLELUJAH! He is Good! He is so Good! GLORY!" Apparently, I had inadvertently participated in a miracle.

Well.

That night my father called. "Are you okay, son?" he asked.

"My knees are a little better. Why?"

"No, I mean you personally. Are you alright? I've never known you to just pop up at church like that. I was hoping there wasn't anything crazy going on."

The old man surprised the hell out of me. Just him asking made things better. I realized that I had been moping around for weeks but no one had noticed, which was making it worse. I just wanted someone to acknowledge that I was out of sorts. Being human, man. Being human. What an experience!

Teacher Certification

Okay:

I just got back from taking the Praxis II and, boy, are my arms tired! The things that teachers are subjected to! It's like, society, practically across the board, agrees that it is the most important profession of all professions, and they show their appreciation by underpaying us and forcing us to go through a certification process that is the academic equivalent of a full body cavity search.

I get to the testing center around 7:30am. That means I had to cut my Friday night happy hour short to wake up, sans hangover, at 6:30am. Of course, my verification sheet has me registered in the wrong building. And of course, they take their sweet little time telling me this. I belong in the next building over. Mind you, I'm nursing two bad knees. (I destroyed them running in some sub par running shoes. FYI, Nike makes sub par running shoes. Who knew?). So, when I walk, it's kind of like a Cerebral Palsy/"Thriller" thing. People are holding doors for me, trying not to stare. It's a little embarrassing. There are a few cute women there, but what with the walk thing, I'm not drawing any glances. It's more pitiful than it sounds actually.

I finally make it to the appropriate room and sit down for the first time in a half hour. My legs are killing me. There's a room full of us sitting in there for about ten minutes or so when this woman walks in and announces, "All of you are going to have to leave and form a line outside. If you have to go the bathroom, do it now because I don't want to have to deal with the back and forth business." Think DMV before advanced computer networking systems.

An hour later, I'm finally sitting down again. The Alleve has kicked in, so my knees aren't bothering me so much. She starts to go into her spiel, which is laden with stereotypical sister-girl asides that have everyone laughing hysterically. Her routine reaches its climax when she chastises an African woman for asking to use the bathroom. "Lady, I done told you to use the bathroom already. Do anybody remember me telling y'all to use the bathroom? See, this is why things take longer than they need to."

I'm a high school English teacher, so I have to take a content knowledge test (read: 120 multiple choice questions about everything I ever read in undergrad--or everything I was supposed to read in undergrad). At any rate, that was almost ten years ago and I, like most of my peers, don't remember much about undergrad. Shall we say, it's all a bit of a haze.

What was more mind blowing than anything was the bold cultural biasness of it all. Out of 120 questions, only 2 dealt with works that were written by non-white authors! And I didn't know the answer to either one.

I'm not sure about the content knowledge test, but I am certain I failed the pedagogy test. They give you one hour to answer 8 essay questions. Halfway through, I realized I had misunderstood the directions and I wasn't able to complete the test. I hobbled back to my car, beaten and ashamed. My employer will not be pleased that I won't be certified until sometime this fall at the earliest. (The Praxis is only offered every 2 months or so).

So, I'm in a pretty bad mood. I'm feeling fairly indignant about the fact that I have to be subjected to all this. I'm a teacher for God's sake. I'm not building space shuttles here. They let that guy from N Sync be an astronaut and they're making me cross the burning sands to explain Shakespeare to teenagers.

I bet you old George W couldn't pass that thing either. I don't like that guy.