Ethiopian Cab Drivers?

So yesterday I decided to get out and explore the lay of the land a little. Been in the apartment a lot and just wanted to get out and check things out. I figured I should go to the most ethnic spot I could find near by just post up and read and take in my surroundings, so off to Starbucks I went.

I guess I should point out that I never go to Starbucks and not because of some deep rooted "I hate corporate America" mumbo jumbo, no I never go to Starbucks simply because I do not drink coffee. Although if there was a survey I would have to admit to a deep dislike of corporate America, anyway. 

So off I trek to Starbucks, by the way, have you any idea how difficult it is to order something from there if you aren't a coffee drinker. Note to self, look for new place to watch people. Anyway I settled on a protein drink, with the consistency of clay (which was gross) and some brownie muffin with a fancy name, that, was pretty good. Posted up in the corner and just read a little, but mostly did my best to look like not so creepy, new to the area guy watching people in a public place... like a creepy guy. From my not creepy observations I noticed a ton, just a straight up ton of men all deep in some sort of exciting conversation, they laughed the spoke eloquently, they debated, all in all it was a good time for them. However all in all it was in some other language, and I had no idea what ethnicity they were. Honestly, I was baffled. They looked black like me, but not 100% but they didn't look Indian either, I really was lost, and had no idea what they were speaking. I quickly ruled out the possibility that it was English, well, cause I speak that, and ruled out Gibberish, as I am a keen speaker of such, which I've never taken a class for but my Grandmother often has told me. "Boy you're speaking nothing but Gibberish again" although I don't know what it sounds like, I would assume I would recognize it, seeing as I speak it and all.

The fun and merriment continued for a little over an hour, me never actually understanding them, but also never blowing my cover as a semi creepy guy watching people. I was wrapping up and noticed that all the men (15-25 coming and going) wore business shirts and slacks and khakis, but a lot of them wore flip flops, sandals or tennis shoes. Which was confusing the life out of me. Were they all business men... who wore open toed shoes? or just really over dressed sanitation employees... who again, wore open toed shoes. I pretty much was getting a little baffled, ad my creepy guy level was probably increasing as I drank my play doh energy drink and was down right squinting at these men to figure something out about them. With that being all the Starbuck fun I could take for one night I wrapped it up and headed home. (where The Lady and I had our first spat, which is all cleared up now thank you, I'll discuss later, read: sometime next week when I can put an objective level of hindsight humor into it but anyway back to the original post, cause this is a really long parenthesis)

I pretty much had decided to go again tonight with The Lady, to see the flock of kinda black like me, open toed, dressed up, non english speaking guys to see if her detective skills could be of assistance. Until, I got to the office and was just recapping my adventure to my co-workers when one of them said in a matter of fact way. "You know that Starbucks right by where you live is apparently a large gathering spot for Ethiopian Cab Drivers". 

You don't say.

This should be noted

I'm going to get right to the point on this one.

I hate reality television. I feel as though there isn't one show of the genre I have ever seen that in any way shape or form was funny, enlightening, entertaining, or as some would say "worth a damn". I especially loathe the ones with contestants who are competing in a house for some sort of monetary prize. The whole concept drives me insane, "friends" forced to live together and describe their events to some camera man as if it happened days ago when in actuality it just happened 15 minutes prior. Imagine if every 45 minutes your boss made you come into the office to discuss, on camera, everything you had just done and what made you do it. No wonder these people are going crazy and bugging on each show, a lot of people don't know this, but they don't put tv's or radio's in those houses, thus forcing the people to interact more often, and thus create more "drama". 

Where in lies the drama of people sitting around voting one another out of a home, or eliminating each other for some random job, or the affection of some total stranger. Ohhh and don't even get me started on the shows that just follow someone (or a family) around, edit it, and call it a show. What in the damnit are doing here people? This is what most people would call being lazy, there are no plot lines to these shows, as we watch them go run errands and to the stores, shop with friends and buy things we could never afford, or break up with boyfriends, leave drunk messages, and gossip. When did we reach the point in which watching other people do nothing constitutes as actually doing something? 

That's all I wish to say on the topic, though I could add more it would progressively get angrier and the night is young so I'd rather not get all worked up over nothing...or something for that matter.

How to hit on a woman

Okay so here's a quick little how to I felt obliged to write on after seeing a miserable attempt on the bus this morning.

In no way do I consider myself a Casanova, however I do understand the most basic of human interactions. So I'm on the bus this morning and a very pretty woman gets on the bus and right behind her was this guy who had apparently been hitting on her at the stop and decided to keep it up on the bus...much to my delight.

Ole girl sits down and my man sits right across from her (strike one, don't hover). He apparently keeps their "conversation" from the stop going in which he's asking her about her profession. "So what, you're into advertising and shit?" (yeah, I'm gonna need you to not refer to her job as "and shit") I will admit her politeness was quite the gesture, I figured for a sister she was gonna snap at my man, but no she let him keep going, again, to my delight. Oh, perhaps now is as good a time as any to point out that she was dressed nicely in a tan business suit with some serious heels on, while Thug Mammal No.4 was wearing cut off jeans, yes cut offs, apparently he was auditioning for the part of Incredible Hulk, a flannel shirt unbuttoned with a white t, book bag,  and the most tattered Redskins hat of all time, oh that's right, and a skate board. Which leads me to wonder, why ride the bus if you already have a skateboard, are you gonna catch a ride to then...go ride? 

Anyway Thug Mammal No. 4 and his skateboard continue further with his attempts. Somewhere between babbling something about "damn gurl you got it" "what stop you getting off at" she managed to drop her politeness and start to give him, the scowl. Again, gentlemen you want to steer clear of telling a woman she has anything so ambiguous, women do not like getting or having anything unless they asked or planned  for it, read: weight, kids, engagement rings, or TM No 4's with skateboards, and also you don't just ask where people live not in this being the easy to stalk era. 

Needless to say, at some point I could no longer contain myself and blatantly started laughing at the situation. Which to some might seem bold, but see, I have been practicing my "get out of my face" face (bear with me, it's a working title) a practiced stare that fends off birds, children, old white women and most notably strangers in public. So when ole boy gave me a look that said partly who are you, and partly wanna ride my skate board. I shot him a glance that said wholly "don't start" and "no thanks I'm not into skate boards". For whatever reason, the shenanigans came to an end and he leapt from the bus at the next stop and scurried off into the horizon cut off jeans in tact.

Okay so perhaps this wasn't as much as a how to as a brief replay of my hilarity early this morning maybe I should put a more in depth how to together.

Great Open Spaces

In a town so big there remains one place to go where you can get total quiet regardless of what may be going on in the outside world, and that place my friends, is an elevator. I live on the 16th floor of a 26 story apartment complex, and it continues to amaze me how quickly people will stop everything they are doing to not talk in an elevator. Maybe its because in actuality you are in a lit closet dropping hundreds of feet with total strangers, being kept alive only by your faith in an elaborate pulley system. Yes, a pulley system, for those of us public school kids that would fall under the category of simple machine. For those of you private school kids, let me borrow some money.

Everyday I board the elevator and plummet 160 feet to the ground floor with total strangers of various backgrounds, all of us eager to not speak, or make eye contact. Come to think of it, elevators might be the most anti-social facet of American culture. Here we stand doing our best to look at the ground and at the random mirror thats in all elevators, note, its only there to make it look bigger. Though lately I have my suspicions that there may be a camera on the other side, but maybe that's a little paranoia. Anyway, here we fall, quietly and staring at the ground, when if you think about it, perhaps we should be a tad more jovial, considering what's at stake. I mean, if the cable, from the aforementioned elaborate pulley was to not do its job, speaking of which, what is the active verb for what a pulley does? Would it be pulleying, pulleyaing maybe ? sorry, okay so if the pulley were to not pullify and we all fell to our demise, how silly would it be to go out in silence. At least we could have the decency to shriek and carry on with our new best friends.

Which is why I've been making it my sole purpose to be the most jovial person ever on an elevator, I been starting with a ritual of shaking everyones hand, pressing the button for their floor, whistling songs, quoting shakespeare, handing out moist towelettes, (side note I spelled towelette right on the first try no red underline ) whatever it takes to get the ice broken, mind you this has led to my photo being plastered all over the apartment offering a ransom for my bounty. Okay so perhaps I made that up, not the part about the spelling towelette right on the first try though. Anyway the elevator is a trip I actually do look forward to riding it with strangers and making them slightly nervous by standing juuust a little too close, not close enough that i'll get tazed, but close enough that I can read the "is this guy serious" look on their face.

Oh the simplicities that make me smile

Get on Sir!!

Auggh so much involved with moving in and getting furninture and learning the new area, sorry again for delayed posts.

But alas, I have started taking the bus to work, and while this may be old hat to some, this is brand new living to me, and by brand new I mean totally foreign and slightly exciting. So the job will pay $120 a month towards my monthly commute, after some leg work I have figured the cheapest route is bus travel. Though it should be noted my leg work was initially driving to work every day and paying $10 dollars to park in a garage. Also I assumed I could beat the system by parking in surrounding neighborhoods in the free 2 hour spots moving my car every few hours, that was a smashing failure, to the tune of a $45 dollar ticket the first day I tried. So bus it is my friends.

Yesterday was my first day, and you would have thought I was a third grader getting ready for the first day of school. I went online figured my route and marched on the bus stop, home made lunch in hand, turkey sandwich and pepperoni to be exact. Standing, ever so valiantly, on the wrong side of the road, at the wrong stop, fortunately I noticed my error in time, jogged across the street and stood patiently. Now the bus shows up there's a guy talking to bus driver and I make the foolish assumption that he is getting off the bus...no no no he's just up there talking for talking sake. So while I wait at the door trying to be patient, I must look like some out of town bumpkin to the bus driver, a freshly bald shaved black woman with HUMUNGOUS star earrings who so kindly shouts to me, GET ON THE BUS SIR. I practically leap the three steps to get on and forget to pay, then I get all nervous that I'm going to get kicked off. So while I sit there I'm trying to figure a way to put my money in the meter, but I'm so nervous as to not step across the 'do not step across"  yellow line. So I just sit there on the edge of my seat in my own little world of paranoia, between the need to pay, the ever so mean bus driver and old guy still talking to her, the moving my car every few hours option isn't looking so bad.

I finally get the courage to leap forward jam my $1.35 into the receiver and sit back down, practically out of breath and kind of proud of myself. Then it dawns on me that, this is not the same way I drive to work, now I'm bugging, I keep looking for familiar signs, stores etc, nothing, and by the way, I have the strong feeling that I may be the only one on the bus who speaks only English. After another 7 agonizing minutes the bus gets back on ground I'm used to, see apparently buses have to pick up other people and this requires going through neighborhoods and stopping at apt complexes, ahhh wise ploy, in my haste to use public transport I forgot about the other 2.4 million people in the area who might need to get around as well.  Finally I get to the "drop spot" aka bus stop but admit it drop spot does make it sound cooler, so there I am at the drop spot which is only a mere 6 blocks away from the office, after a brisk walk I arrive to work, sweaty, baffled, and only 45 minutes late...tomorrow I decide to take an earlier bus.

My Disclaimer

I sometimes (read sometimes as 80% of the time) feel as though I have to come across nicer and softer than is needed. By the way, if you're against black man rants now would be an opportune time to find something else to do, and no I will not be blaming the man for anything, okay, back to what I was saying...

Unfortunately we live in a world whereas people who look similar to me get arrested for crimes, make videos and songs about crimes, play video games about crimes, all in all its a crime based mentality. See, but there in lies my dilemma, I personally am not really a crime guy. I like to live the "legal life" as I have come to call it. Which basically means, I do things like, go to work, go home, don't break laws, whistle while I walk etc. I do however love a good song about breaking laws, or a movie where breaking laws is the principal theme, so in that regard...hells yeah I'm into crime. 

See, and since this form of communication is all font, you do not have the luxury of knowing that I, at times, have a rather deep voice, a voice that carries, and can be intimidating. On top of that I can get pretty passionate about things I'm really into, it would suffice to say I have been kicked out of lectures, events, speeches etc for getting "too loud" with my opinions. So over the years I have been training myself to curb my enthusiasm.

So I find myself, often trying to bust my butt to make sure I am coming across as a friendly non crime loving soft voiced ally. ESPECIALLY in the working world, anytime I make a comment or get animated about things, I have to quickly follow it with, "we are friends", or if I disagree with someone, Ill have to chase it with "now, I'm not attacking you or anything but...". Mostly cause I know that I run the risk of intimidating them all real quick. Its actually hilarious, to me, cause there is a certain point when I'm getting animated in which I can see the look on peoples face go from, "hes making a good point" to "oh no, he might maim me". In which I for about 2 seconds think, you punk, followed quickly by "but you know Im not arguing with you". My mother often tells me...boy you got to bring it down, people don't know how to respond to the scary black man...oh yes they do... tazers baby.

So more or less I would like to just say, no, I am not a ranting raving loon, on the tip of a crime spree middle american peers and cohorts. But alas I am merely a wise sage, filled with the gift of animation, and the ability to command a room with my mere presence, my deepest apologies God did not bless you with the same abilities and no, I will not cower down to make you feel more adequate, less threatened, comfortable, or at ease. As my crime loving counterparts might say "get on my level".

...but you know I'm not talking to you right, cause, well, we're friends.

Adult world...where 9pm bedtime happens

Sorry for the long delay between postings, was back home for the weekend and moving in...but moving on.

I could, in theory, make one long post here about everything on my mind, but as I've been told, some of you are at work when reading this so I'll break them up. Let me first say a few things about the working/office world that me and some of my buddies have started to notice.

Adults, love meetings, absolutely love them, why? because meetings give you an excuse not to work. I have come to find out that half the fun of a salaried job is to successfully figure out how to fill in your co-workers on your last meeting while simultaneously keeping them in awe of your upcoming meetings. See in the work world, a meeting is the equivalent of a college guys post bar hook up. "Dude, you totally won't believe the 3 hour power point I just nailed, had that thing up on the wall, everyone in the room was jealous, and don't even get me started on my word docs everyone was trying to get their hands on...". Needless to say meetings actually keep you from doing your actual job, which surprising to me, is often the least of anyones concern. The main objective of work is to appear to being doing something, hence always bragging about your UPCOMING hook up-er meeting. "Yeah I got this tight little overnighter coming up with the accounting division, shooot you know it's gonna keep me up all night, probably gonna need a few Red Bulls, get jealous". 

One might be inclined to think that the average work week could be condensed to a 30 hour format. However I honestly think that what happens is people get out of college and get adult jobs and become fascinated with the idea of "playing grown up" and secretly take joy in going through all of the intricacies they have spent years watching their parents go through and years training formally (college). We get excited with buying suits, new pumps, neck ties, cashmere vests, office friendly skirts etc. And for the first year or two love to tell family and friends that we, after years of practice, have landed a job, yet in actuality having a job more or less means, a place to go from 9ish to 5ish, a place where we can remain and eagerly wait to go join our friends and our real true love, the couch.

Over time you stumble from the "playing grown up" phase and quickly cross into the threshold of "larvae grown up/young pessimist". A stage easily noticed by your desire to gripe about everything from music not being as good as it was, to fashion quickly changing, to gas prices, to God knows what (think of this as your adult life terrible twos) in short, you and your buddies gripe about everything, and you love to gripe. Don't worry I spend 74% of my time griping, and oh how I wish it could be 75% but I've got to eat and sleep. Soon after its full fledged "pouty adult" mode in which you have reached the zenith, and nothing is as good as it once was, food tastes worse, kids aren't as smart, oh the list goes on. Needless to say, I have come to the opinion that from birth to death we just progressively get more things we take joy in not having joy in. If that makes any sense.

And am I the only person who feels as though staying up till Jay Leno comes on is almost an accomplishment? Damn I used to think Conan was a great show, now I don't even know if it still comes on, I find myself, after work, thinking...whew what a day, time to kick back and relax and go gripe about some stuff on the news. Next thing I know I'll be dead sleep and baffled as to why no one bothered to tuck me in, and crabby about it. I think I'm just gonna start setting my house clocks three hours fast so I feel like I'm still cool, but then again what would I have to complain about then