Life of a Male Secretary

A story from my book..."Who is SEan"


Life of a Male Secretary by MDW

How the hell did I get here? Maybe today will be the day I quit.

I hate my life. I hate my job. I considered briefly throwing my alarm clock out the window because it began to depress me. The sight of it sitting in a corner like a rabies-infected dog ready to devour me if I got too close threw off the Feng Shui in my apartment. It was never a welcoming sound, like police sirens when you had more than the drinking driving limit. The rude bitch was loud and uncouth. It agitated heartbeat. It made reality real. Every morning, just when the bed got comfortable, the blanket just right and I was having that dream where I’m a filthy rich Super-friend, the alarm would sound. Every morning I would try to ignore and refuse my eyes to open. I’d ball myself into the fetal position and rock back and forth begging for five more minutes. Finally, I would have to get up and journey barefoot across the cold wooden floor. I pressed the snooze, which meant in ten minutes I’d have to get up and press it again, and again, and so forth until I’m late for work. I never understood the alarm clock. Was it there just to annoy me? With alarm clocks, it’s always Monday, again, like some fucking cruel joke.

I am a male secretary and everyone looks at me like it’s my fault.

My day begins with a cold and raining Chicago February. Outside, the sky is a miserable sick looking gray and I hide behind dark sunglasses because it’s the perfect excuse to not make eye contact with strangers on the crowded Chicago "L". I hate public transportation. It just feels unnatural that so many people are awake and rushing towards jobs they would quit in a heartbeat if something slightly better came alone. To make things worse, on the "L," this baby starts screaming lucid shameless shrieks that claw at eardrums, refusing to be ignored. That damn baby, flings himself to the floor, tears at his clothes, bangs his head, spits and kicks everything in sight, including people. I tell myself if he kicks me, I’m going to kick it back. His disheveled mother, panicking, can’t help but feel the inches of anger directed at her. It’s eight o’clock on miserable Chicago Monday morning and nobody wants to deal with the demon child or hear his cries. Shit, we’re all crying on the inside. But the baby, doesn’t care or know silence, just raw emotion. I feel jealous. I, like the other sheep, pretend to be polite and understanding when I want to tear my Brooks Brothers uniform from my body and fling myself on the floor and scream. I want to be naked. I don’t want to go to work. I don’t want my life, but I’m too lazy and a coward to change anything. I envy the baby because I know I will never scream in public again.

I turn up the music on my MP3 player because I know I shouldn’t be thinking such thoughts. I feel nauseous, it’s the hangover, but like a good boy who eats his vegetables, I swallow the feeling of the chunky vile resentment rising to my throat. Maybe today will be the day I quit. I get to my job and it’s still there, mocking me and pretending to be indestructible. A naughty fantasy about dynamite and wrecking balls gets my dick hard, but when I push through the revolving door and walk towards the elevator, the thrill goes flaccid. I step on the elevator with the crowd and press the button for my floor. I close my eyes to savor those last few seconds of freedom before the metal doors to my hell open and I become a slave again. I don't even have to open my eyes to know that it’s my floor. I turn off my music and remove dark sunglasses. I pry my eyes open and just like a veteran Broadway star, I know the show must go on. I wait for the metal curtains to pull themselves back. Suddenly, I'm nervous and my mind goes blank. I panic in silence trying to remember my lines. I breathe in hard and out quickly. I violently pull my facial muscles to something that closely resembles a smile. I try to convince myself that if I'd just relax, don't fight it; it'll all be over with quickly. I can feel the resentment rise again and acid turn in my stomach. I put a mint in my mouth and try to awake that sparkle in my eyes. The metal doors open and I step off the cliff. I become somebody else. Everybody pretends.

I say "good morning" to the first person I see, which is the receptionist. We both don’t like our jobs, but we’re polite about it.

All the female secretaries, they don't trust me. They look at me like I walked into their immaculate, aromatic, ladies only bathroom naked and drunk, and started pissing on the floor. I'm the only male out of fifteen secretaries. They hardly make eye contact with me. They only speak with a head nod or awkward smile. It's like I make them nervous. They just can't seem to figure me out. Most of them are older and well medicated. They are grandmothers or mothers with children in high school. On their desks and computer monitors are pictures of graduations, weddings and births. They don’t seem to have a life. They are always trying to feed me sugary donuts or some bullshit they baked the night before. They’re conversation is redundant, something about a daughter in love with the wrong man or a flawless and prodigious grandson who’s coming to town. I listen with blank eyes and a rehearsed smile. The other secretaries are the silicon blondes. They wear designer short skirts and speak like sharp edges. Their fake breasts laugh at every Executive’s joke. The look in their eyes is always hungry. They want to be the wife, not the secretary. They frighten me. They remind me of National Geographic deadly predators who appear regal and refined but in a fraction of second their angry claws could rip through your flesh with intense pleasure.

My place of torment is a corporate Law firm with about 400 employees and only five of us are black: three black lawyers, one black male secretary and a part time black receptionist. It’s an observation that only minorities recognize. The day I interviewed I knew I wouldn’t get the job. I am a black male who doesn’t smile which is often mistaken as militancy. I don’t have a nurturing bone in my body and believe wholeheartily in color people’s time. I get there when I get there. I’m a rebel with no fucking cause. I was sure they would see through me. Everyone at the interview reeked of Mozart and Chopin while I was desperately trying to hide my love for gangster rap. The first thing they told me was that they were looking for someone polished. I was recovery from a two-day hangover. I couldn’t possibly believe that I would fit in. I pondered how I was going to hide my addiction for surfing for porn on the web or nightly binge drinking and strip clubs. Somehow among the frigid silicon blondes and mothering grandma’s, I fooled them. Thank god for altoids, Listerine, Visine and affirmative action.

At the office, there is always somebody’s birthday, anniversary, promotion or new pictures of somebody’s baby. The older secretaries go wild over such celebration. They reserve the conference room and order ice-cream. I hate the mandatory celebrations. We gather in the conference room and for thirty minutes I suffer through dry conversations about kids, hemorrhoids and mortgages. The agony teases me like a rusty knife and threatens to kill but instead it just annoys. Every other week, someone is passing around the picture of somebody’s toddler or selling their fucking kids cookies or some bullshit. Nobody believes in birth control anymore. I wonder how they would react if I passed around the results of my latest STD results.

My boss, I'm his first male secretary and I know he's not too comfortable with it. I try to smile and appear perky like the other grandma and blond silicon secretaries but it’s very difficult considering I’m a black male who doesn’t smile. I grew up in the ghetto with cockroaches and bullets and smiling would’ve got you bullet in the head. It just feels blasphemous.

My boss has this picture of himself on his desk in one of those silver family frames mostly used for graduations or weddings. Instead of the cliché, it is a picture of him holding a dead baby deer in a headlock while his right foot stomped down on the mother's head. There are no captions or subtitles with the picture, but I get the sickest feeling that he killed Bambi. My boss, he would never ask me to get his coffee. He rather ask one of the other female secretaries and it pisses me off. I feel jealous because I want to get that fat bastard his coffee. It’s my job. My boss is so fat he could sell shade. He also has crossed eyes. My boss sweats like a keg of beer and breathes like a diesel engine.

My boss is always asking me inappropriate questions like if I caught that basketball or football game last night. I don't know how to tell him that I don't watch sports, so I find myself studying the sports section before work or buying copies of Sports Illustrated to casually place on my desk just to keep the lie alive. My boss calls me names like "buddy" or "bud" with every sentence as if I'm his friend. I'm beginning to think that he thinks that's my name. My boss, Dan, is from Georgia where it's pronounced "jaw her!" My boss, when he calls out my name, I'm not a grown man anymore with my own apartment and drinking problem but a small child or adoring pet, all bright eyed and wagging my tail as I anxiously wait for my Master to give me a command so that I can get a treat. When I hear my name, I jump from my seat and race to his office knocking down anyone who gets in my way. I find myself giddy with nervous anticipation and I don't know why. My boss, when he's talks to me he doesn't look me in the eyes. It makes me feel as if he is embarrassed for me because I'm a man supposedly doing a woman's job. My boss tries to comfort my masculinity by hitting me in the arm or going into long rants about sports and cars or grabbing his nuts when he talks about the "hot" receptionist with the big knockers. I just nod helplessly. I'm always nodding helplessly. My boss and I, we always get to a point of complete uncomfortable silence. He’s nervous around me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m black, or a man. Maybe it’s both.

I hate my job. I hear the alarm clock going off. It’s Monday again. Everybody pretends.

The premise: “Can you survive?” --Man vs. The ghetto

Survivor: a person who continues to function or prosper in spite of opposition, hardship, or setbacks. A person whose will to live out shadows insurmountable or often impossible life quicksand. The nakedness of man dealing with the absurd. Existentialism.

Beyonce wrote a song about it. In the video, she and the one surviving Destiny child member and some new chick ran around in somebody’s backyard in torn seductive dress that tugged at their titties and hips like a dirty old man. They looked lost like Beyonce lost one of her good wigs and Kelly and Michelle were desperately helping her look for it before she decided to shave their heads and make her a new weave. In the song Beyonce screams that “thought I couldn’t breathe without you, I’m inhaling. Thought I couldn’t see without you, I got perfect vision.” I guess it was a slap against the other three females who came and went like “bitch I got your man or bitch I got your career.”

ABC has a show called Survivor were 12 people subject themselves to destitute places or broke budget beach resorts and have to compete and survive against one another for like six months . The winner gets one million dollars. It’s a stupid show. It’s not even entertaining. I say take away the cameras, put them in the middle of the jungle and after six months, see who survived. I say don’t vote each other off but kill each other off. That’s real survival.

I remember the book I read in elementary, Lord of the flies; an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding. It discussed how culture created by man fails, using as an example a group of British school-boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves with disastrous results I remember being emotionally destroyed when the character Piggy got killed. They beat him in the head with a rock. I never looked at my friends the same again. I identified with Piggy, mostly because I was a fat kid and sensible, effeminate and artistic. It’s a fat kid’s nightmare to be trapped with the same assholes that taunted you in civilization, now have no parental guidance. I decided that life was a jungle, polite prison and I needed to learn how to fight.

I don’t believe survival is voluntary. It’s live or die. It’s a fist to the stomach that knocks the wind out of you like that silly game boys played in middle school. It’s being knocked to your feet, unable to breathe, gasping for air, and the will to breathe again so you can kick your cousin ass for breaking the rules s and catching you off guard. When I think of failed survivors, I think of Amelia Earhart whose plane disappeared somewhere Pacific Ocean. She didn’t survive. I think of that guy from “Into the Wild” who decided after reading Thoreau he wanted to go live in the forest with the trees. He was found dead like a year later. Was he an idiot? Did he volunteer for his own death for no fucking reason other than idealism? Pretty words aren’t going to feed you when you run out of food. You can’t talk a bear down with quotes from your favorite author. I think of that guy who went to go live with the Bears. Grizzly Man is a 2005 documentary film by German director Werner Herzog. It chronicles the life and death of bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell. The film consists of Treadwell's own footage of his interactions with grizzly bears before he and his girlfriend were killed and partially ingested by a bear in 2003. Why would anyone want to go live with wild Bears? He wasn’t surviving. He was an idiot.
I don’t believe true survival is voluntary but reactionary. Lately I’ve become obsessed with a show called “Man vs. Wild.” The premise: “Can you survive?”

Imagine you took a dream cruise. I guess in my case one of those overtop gay cruises filled with drag queens in Rupaul high heels, butch Rosie O’Donnell dykes, old rich men, hot young drug addict whores and lots of liquor. I don’t think you are allowed to eat on a gay cruise. It’s not one of those family cruises where people go away for a week and gain like twenty pounds. A gay cruise, hitting the gym is mandatory. Now imagine suddenly the “Chlamydia and Gonherrea”cruise ship crashed against a big rock. I guess a gay titanic. During a morning hangover the ship is sinking fast and it’s up to you to stay alive. I would first have to ask myself why the hell I am on a gay cruise. I hate boats. I get sea sick something horrible. Yet, unlike most black folks I can swim but I don’t want to test my skills in the middle of somebody’s ocean.

Now imagine after you spent a horrible couple of months on somebody’s island with drag queens without their make-up, you are rescued. On the way back to what you hope is a liquor store, your helicopter crashes on a jungle island. I know that’s fucked up. First I would have to ask myself why am I in a helicopter flying over a jungle. The question is could I survive. No. I would be dead in the first ten minutes. I can barely wash my own clothes. Everything I cook burns. If there isn’t a takeout menu, I will starve to death.

The last scenario. Imagine you are in Antarctica climbing some mountain. You slip and fall and there is a snow storm. You have to survive the brutal cold. First, I would have to ask myself why the hell am I in Antarctica climbing a mountain. Did I think weed was going to be at the top?

The unimaginable or absolutely insane is the premise of the show “Man vs. Wild.” Some guy named Bear Grylls consistently tests his limits on where or what he can survived just in case. I think Bear Grylls sounds like a porn name. I find the show entertaining like watching a car crash. I keep watching to see if or when he will get himself killed. At 23 years old, Bear, climbed Mount Everest. He is obviously a thrill seeker. I can’t imagine me ever being stuck in the Sahara Dessert. I can’t imagine myself cruising a swap just for the hell of it. Bear is willing to eat anything from mosquitoes, worms and even Camel hearts. Before I eat a worm off a tree I would have to be really really hungry. I don’t even like sloppy joes. I don’t like food that doesn’t match my dishes.

I guess my frustration is that I’ve defined his adventures as useless information. I don’t ever see myself in a Jungle running away from a lion. I can’t outrun a lion. I haven’t been to the gyms in years. I watch him getting himself stuck in quicksand and I think to myself, why? There are no quicksand traps in the hood. It’s not like I’m going to be in a rush to work and suddenly fall in quicksand.

So I decided I should get my own show, Man vs. the Ghetto. I was born in the Texas projects. Every day was the question “Will I survive?” In middle school it was can I make it to ninth grade without joining a gang. Of course I watched the movie “Colors” and decided I might like getting initiated. It was a male tradition in my family. I joined the East Terrance Gangsters or “ETG.” I figured since my older cousin was one of the leaders I wouldn’t have to get my ass beat. I was wrong. Joining a gang wasn’t like my family could just buy a wing at some university. I hated being in a gang. I didn’t like the wardrobe. I just didn’t see myself wearing dickies, a wife beater and house shoes. It was a ridiculous outfit. Also, there were no medical benefits in being in a gang. If you got shot and killed, there was no burial funeral money. Somebody would poor out their beer when they get high and think of you, but who gives a fuck. I also asked about their scholarship program. There was none. There was also no democracy. We didn’t get to vote our leaders into their positions. I put in my resignation the summer I decided to go off to math camp. I broke the “don’t ask, don’t tell rule.” I said I was gay. I was quickly honorably discharged but I still had to braid Ray Ray hair for the next four years.

In the ghetto I needed to learn how to survive if I accidently stepped on some angry drug dealer white sneakers. That’s a real test. I say pretend like you are retarded. Stop speaking in tongue and glorifying God. I think it’s a rule that a gansta can’t kick your ass if you start singing a gospel song at the top of your lungs. If you step on an angry drug dealer white sneakers, don’t become confrontation. Immediately back down. Tell a joke. I once saw this kid get his ass beat for stepping on the wrong angry black male tennis shoes while they were playing basketball. Instead of the kid apologizing and pretending he was retarded he worsened the situation by being confrontational. I guess he needed his niggard moment. He got a niggard ass whipping. I don’t need to win any fights. I just need to live. Also another reason how to get out of a fight is to stump the gangster’s intelligence. It’s like giving a robot unsolvable problem that contradicts its programming. My best friend once got out of a fight with my gangster cousin by demanding him to write him a five page argument on why he wanted to fight him. Of course my cousin feeling conflicted originally set out to write the paper but not getting past more than five sentences. It was genius.

In the ghetto, the number one rule was not to stay at any house party after 1am. Because usually that’s when everybody starts getting real drunk and high and then the fights start. Especially get out before 2am because that’s usually when the drive by happens.

My life in the projects had always been about survival. I needed to not make eye contact with the wrong people. I needed not to show people into my home. My grandmother every time she bought something usually covered it in a blanket and snuck it into her house.

I think to myself, how long would so called born survivor, survive the ghetto? His gay porn name alone would get his ass kicked.

I drank the Obama Kool-aid

Growing up in the hot filthy Louisiana sun, I thought it was a good day when my grandma let me make the “kulayed” or correctly “Kool Aid.” I would run into the kitchen, grab the big glass container, and make the agonizing decision of grape or red. If it was fried chicken it was always red. If we were eating ribs or pigs feet, it was usually grape. Sometimes I mixed them together to make a dirty purple surprise. My kulayed recipe was usually 3 liters of water and 8 cups of sugar. It was like drinking diabetes. The kids loved it; the adults usually diluted it with bathtub rum or something. I guess that’s how MD 20/20 was born. I liked how the red or grape color "lipstick" the lips. After a few cups of red my lips were the shade of classy hookers in the red-light districts of New Orleans or deep black liked I smoked crack. Those were the days.

I have this friend from college. He can be somewhat of an asshole sometimes. He always mentions a person race for no reason. He calls his black friend, the black friends as if for some reason he needs to mention the disclaimer before telling the story i.e. (I’m going to Chicago to visit my black friend. You know he’s black). I often wonder does he mention me that way. I’m like if you visiting a Chicago friend, why not just say that. Why tell me he is black? I don’t give a fuck. I asked him when he is online with me does he tell everybody I’m his black Yahoo messenger buddy like I wake up in the morning say to myself what a great day to be black again. I don’t tell anybody he is Mexican. Maybe it’s because I like the element of surprise like guess who is coming to dinner. Does it even matter?

This friend in casual conversation asks me if I liked Kool Aid. I told him that I was black, of course I liked Kool Aid. I also like greens, fried chicken, and watermelon and pigs feet. I’m southern. I asked him did he like Tequila, cheap beer, fry all his food and wrap it in tortillas with beans and cheese. I asked him did he like driving in a car with twenty of his closet relatives stuffed like sweating sardines. I asked him if he was in America legally. He didn’t find my rebuttal too humorous.

A person culture can have double meaning. Fried chicken became a negative staple in black life. Fried chicken has a longer history for blacks more so than KFC or Popeye’s. It was the meat that was the cheapest and lasted the longest without being refrigerator. Its roots are deep in slavery. The slave-owners at the time didn’t feed their slaves caviar and good champagne instead slaves often had to eat what others would not eat like the insides of the pig, it’s feet, make cornbread that would last a couple of weeks. It was “eat or starve.” I can’t pick cotton on an empty stomach. It’s called soul food for a reason. If you don’t feed me right, the sole of my foot might get stuck up your ass.

A person culture can also be used against him. I liked in the book “Invisible Man” when the main character has to make peace with liking sweet potato pie. What was once a childhood delight suddenly as an adult became a racial footnote? I know the feeling. When I was a kid one 4th of July I was sitting on the porch eating my cold piece of watermelon. Sometimes in Louisiana the white tourists like to browse through the ghetto for some fucking reason. Anyways, the white couple wanted to take a picture of me eating my piece of watermelon. I like attention so of course I had no problem. It wasn’t until my grandmother came running out of the house, swinging a frying pan, snatching the camera and slamming it to the floor. I didn’t understand why she was so upset. She called them every name but a child of god. She grabbed me by the arm and made me sit in my room for the rest of the evening. I didn’t understand. I thought all the nice white couple wanted was a picture of a black kid with nappy wool hair, no shoes or shirt chewing at his watermelon like the sun melts ice. What was the harm? I understand now.

During the President election so many Fox news pundits kept referring to Obama effect as the Obama Kool-Aid. Even on the view, Elizabeth Hasselbeck would refer to the other three women as drinking the Obama Kool-aid. I felt since the term was originally phrased by Bill O’Reiley the suggestion was double negative. It was not just pointing out the fact in patronizing humor that Obama was black without saying I guess you bitches are drinking the Obama malt liquor. It was underhanded. Also, it tried to link those who supported Obama as being brainless followers. It was trying to sneakily say that voting for Obama would lead America off a cliff. They kept saying he wasn’t ready as if he still needed to reformed, one of the favorite Republican words.

The history of “Don't Drink The Kool-Aid” goes back to November of 1978 when the world was shocked by the suicide deaths of 913 members of the People's Temple cult. Jim Jones, the leader of the group, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown, Guyana, a remote community that Jones carved out of the South American jungle and named after himself. The mass suicide occurred after U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan of California and a team of reporters visited the compound to investigate reports of abuse. After some members tried to leave with the congressman’s group, Jim Jones had Ryan and his entourage ambushed at the nearby airstrip. He then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide. Jonestown tragedy is the saying, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.” This has come to mean, "Don’t trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side."
I find most Republicans a little on the kooky side. The past election was so corrupt and mean spirited. They called Obama every word but the child of god. At first he was a Muslim, terrorists, socialists and then communist. It was as if they were Jim Jones afraid of losing power so they tried to convince their entire base to drink their Kool-Aid.

It’s fear that leads us to the dark. I’m so happy America didn’t fall for the same ole tricks. Tricks or for kids. Voting consciously is for adults. Obama was right. Don’t boo the opponent, just vote.
Yet, for my own humor, I started thinking if Obama was a Kool-Aid what flavor would he be? I really don’t see Obama drinking Kool-aid. I see him more as a tea drinker or coffee. He is a health freak.

But if Obama was a Kool-aid these are my suggestions for General Mills:

Ashy knees Negro flavor – a mixture of grape and red, a good dirty purple.
Hawaiian Punch funkdafied – Black cherry red mixed with pineapple for his Hawaiian roots and a James Brown split of banana.
Ghetto booty mullato – Lemon flavored spiked with cherry grape.
Obama Tropicana elected – mix all the flavors together and see what color happens.

If I was a Kool Aid what flavor would I be? These are my suggestions.

Drunk – half rum, some sugar and lemon
Bacardi grape sublime – Grape Kool-Aid with bathhouse rum
Liquor – Fuck the Kool-Aid, just give me a shot.
Hare on the dog orange – Orange Kool-Aid and orange vodka.

In other words, now that I’m a grown man, I like my Kool-aid with as much liquor in it as possible vs. sugar and served with a nice fat blunt.

Afro-existentialism

Sundays are my bad television days. I mostly watch reality television (if there’s such a thing anymore). I watch everything I tivo-ed from Project Runway, Charm School, I love New York, Flava Flav and now it’s the real Desperate Housewives of Atlanta. I tried watching that Paris Hilton show “BFF” but that dizzy blonde just makes me angry like “no sex in the champagne room.” I hate when people try to become respectable.

I was watching the Desperate Housewives of Atlanta and considering the economy I felt a little jealous. They went on about spending seven thousand dollars on five pair of shoes. The first episode one of the wives bought an Escalade, all cash. It was all I’m so damn fabulous and rich. One of the ladies even donated $15,000 to her church. She said she gave every week. When I was going to church back in the day, they were lucky to even get the lent out of my pocket. My grandmother used to give us money to put in the basket but I usually put it in my pocket. I figured god would understand. Yet, with all their money and stunting, they were all still some unhappy bitches. They fought over the most ridiculous things like a name being forgotten for a party. It meant war to them. I changed the channel. I knew there were real people in the world at real war and could care less if they didn’t get into black Barbie’s party. So I started to think, what was really important to me?

Do you know what is important? It’s such a selfish delusion. When I was five years old, my light blue blanket with the yellow stars was the most important thing to me. I went everywhere with that blanket, no matter how smelly, dirty or unattractive it got. One day it came up missing. I found out years later my mother burned it. When I was thirteen years old getting an ear ring was the most important thing to me. I let a cousin stick a dirty needle through my ear and it got infected. My grandmother still beat my ass before she took me to the hospital. I remember looking in the mirror at my ear, swollen to the size of a lemon, and thinking to myself that I looked cute. When I was fifteen years old, losing my virginity became the most important thing to me. I didn’t want to die a virgin. I didn’t want aliens to come to the earth or a meteor without me ever had gotten my dick sucked or at least felt up. When I finally had the experience with Tanika it was horrible. I felt she was too aggressive. I felt I didn’t like it. I felt she was missing something like a dick. When I was seventeen years old moving away from home was important. My grandfather made me get a job my senior year in high school at the Mega Grocery store. When I graduated high school they offered me the manager position. I was already the janitor, cashier, busboy, buttboy or whatever menial job they threw at me, so I wasn’t surprised they wanted to ruin my life forever. I told my grandfather they offered me the job and he suggested that I didn’t go off to college. He said happiness in life was marrying a good Christian girl, a good job and to go to church every Sunday. I wanted to bitch slap him. I wanted to runaway to New York. I wanted to explore the world. I wanted to get as far away as possible from San Antonio, TX. I did get out of San Antonio. In the big city life was too fast. Too cold. I got caught up in too many things. Sometimes I wish I would’ve taken that Mega Grocery Manager job. I would probably own the damn store by now. Instead, I’m hiding out from my drug dealer because I owe him money.

Importance is what makes us feel safe. The war in Iraq should be important to me, but it isn’t because I don’t feel directly threatened. I should care about a lot of things that’s happening in the world. My sister calls me every other day to complain about the price of gas. I have to explain to her that I live in a metropolitan city with great public transportation. I like walking. It keeps me skinny. I would be as fat as her if I still lived in Texas. She drives to her mailbox. It’s only at the end of the driveway.

So what’s really important, make me feel safe when I lay my head down at night? I would like to say my family, but I can’t stand 99 percent of those bastards. I would like to say my friends, but they are mostly aging alcoholic drag queens that I only see at the bar, or dug addicts, or sex addicts, or born again Christians. I would like to say my job, but I’ve been chronically unemployed since the late 90s. I would like to say love but I can’t seem to make that work in my favor yet. Youth was once important to me but it betrayed me. I got old. As I approached thirty, I had to ask myself what really is important to me because I didn’t feel safe anymore in my life. I asked one of my born again Christian friend what was important to him, and he said having a close relationship with god. I laughed for a week. I remember a couple of years back, the only thing important to him was scoring a bag of Crystal Meth and fucking all weekend. Now he prays to Jesus. I try not to judge. I guess change is important to me. The opportunity to change. When I watch reality television I ask myself will those people every change. It’s sad that the most horrible representation of them is forever embedded in American culture. Can Omarosa stop being a bitch? Can New York ever just be Tiffany? Can Flava Flav stop procreating?

I think we have to allow ourselves to change. Vote Barack Obama, 2008.

Sand castle discos and wet dreams.

Last night I started packing my suitcase. I dug out the globe from the back of the closet and spun it wildly like spin the bottle, trying to see where it would land and where I should move just in case Obama loses. I feel as if I am a participate on American next top model. If I don’t win this shit, I’m fucking hitting it. I’m not going to be crying into the camera talking about maybe next time. If McCain wins I am on the first flight back to Africa. I’m sure I got relatives there.

Last night I got drunk and started looking at airplane tickets. Actually the prices weren’t that bad. I could fly to Kenya for under a thousand dollars. I can go to Cape Town for $1200 and that was round trip.

Maybe I would pack a bag and head to Japan. I like the Japanese. I could get a job teaching Ebonics.

I had a horrible dream the other day. The election is driving me crazy. Some nights I wake up screaming please Sarah Palin don’t shoot me; I’m not a fucking moose. Some days I wake up thinking John McCain touched me in my private place. Some nights I wake up thinking Joe Biden is a republican under cover. Sarah Palin may say something stupid shit but she doesn’t threatening the voters if they vote for her old man the world may come to an end. Biden is such an idiot.

And then there’s suspicious voting booths. If you press Obama it logs in McCain. I don’t want to go to jail on election day for having taken my computer monitor and thrown it through a window. And then there’s that email that tells all black people to vote on November 5th. And then there’s the Bradley effect. The Bradley effect, less commonly called the Wilder effect,[1][2] is a proposed explanation for observed discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes in some US government elections where a white candidate and a non-white candidate run against each other.[3][4][5] The effect refers to a supposed tendency on the part of some voters to tell pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for a black candidate, and yet, on election day, vote for his or her white opponent. It was named for Tom Bradley, an African-American who lost the 1982 California governor's race despite being ahead in voter polls going into the elections.[6]

I was thinking maybe I should just vote for McCain. Every year the person I vote for on American Idol never wins. Every year my choice for Project Runway never wins. It’s like I suck at predicting reality television. So how in the hell am I supposed to pick the right presidential candidate. It’s like I’m bad mojo. I think I will enact the niggard effect. I will tell everybody I’m voting for John McCain and change my mind once I ‘m inside the voting booths. If all the Joe Plumbers think I’m voting for McCain, maybe they will vote for Obama. It’s genius.