[My Life] No Room for Carebears

I still feel a bit numb. I really suck at being an adult most of the time…

Last year, I was knee deep in work drama bullshit, juggling my spiraling emotions and obligations while dealing with life in general. The year before that I was at Staten Island University Hospital emergency waiting room with half my face burned waiting on news on if my grandmother was dead or not. April 27^th will mark the 2 year anniversary of the accident that lead to my grandmother’s death. The fire was not the direct cause, but the infections afterwards were too much for her body to bear. It took seconds for a spark to climb up my grandmother’s sweater sleeve and spread across her upper body causing 3^rd degree burns. It took seconds for me to react in putting out the flames, calling 911 and keeping her calm until the ambulance arrive. Sadly, it took seconds for a fire to change my life forever. I watched for months as one of the women I loved most in this world, fade away from me and there was nothing I could do about it. I could not understand why I survived with just minor burns while she received the brunt of it all. I am haunted by those images, the resulting smells and my disfigurement and almost every time I close my eyes I can still see her looking back at me.

After her death, people would come up to me, telling me that she was in a better place, even though I could not phantom how being DEAD beats being sick, I would smile and nod, hoping they would just leave me alone while I suffered. I was constantly told, constantly told that I did everything right and sometimes shit happens… and I look at them with tears in my eyes like a child asking: “Why?... Why does shit just happens?” I looked to mother to make things right. To undo what was done and make everything all better, but in my selfishness, I did not realize that my mother was just a child too. She was a child who lost her mother and I didn’t know how to comfort her like she had comforted me in the past.

When death happens in a child’s world, the parents or some adult figure gives them some sort of comforting words to make the pain not disappear, but understandable. Yet, nothing is really understandable because no one knows what is next after this life, so we say things to force us into a false sense of security. Oh happy joy… What sucks about adulthood is that you know about the same amount about life as you did as a child. You just learn how to sugarcoat things to make them appear better than it actually is.

No, Johnny… there are no monsters in the closet… There in plain sight.

Kenny.

[My Life] Lie

I was talking with a friend of mines the other night and I told him a story about one of the many fights I used to have with my grandmother a couple of years ago. I brought my dirty dishes into the kitchen where she was busy in front of the sink washing and watching the movie Rush Hour on DVD. “Grandma, can you wash this dish for me, I’mma be right back…” I asked her. She took the dish and I ran to the bathroom like my life depended on it. I was back in least than 3 minutes, looking for the freshly washed dish because I was going to get some more food. In the cupboard, there the dish was and when I pulled it out, it looked the same as it did when I handed it off.

“Grandma… Did you wash this dish?”

“Yes…”

“Umm… no, you didn’t. You just put it back in the cupboard”

“(My full name) I said I washed it” she yelled at me.

“No you didn’t… You just put it back with the clean dishes. That is so nasty…”

She narrowed her eyes at me and asked: “Are you calling me a Liar?” Now, that might’ve worked when I was a teenager, but as a grown man, not so much. “Yes!” I replied. “You Lied! That means you are a LIAR!” She rolled her eyes at me, grabbed her cane and shuffled out of the kitchen cursing the day I was born. My mother ran into the kitchen minutes later asking me what happen and I told her that grandma was going through one of her moments. “You two are going to drive me fucking crazy” she said, rolling her eyes which seems to be a family trait. Just for my own security of mind, I took out all the dishes and rewashed them. Overkill I know, but that is also another family trait.

I have to admit that remembering the story brought a smile to my face. Even though my grandmother has passed on, I still remember all the good AND the bad about her. For some reason people forget the bad things that a person did when they were alive and just relive only the soft and cuddly moments. She had major faults just like everyone else and had no problem showing them.

But there is a reason why I brought up this story. Why do people ask you the silliest question of “Are you calling me a liar?” when you catch them in a lie. Little white lies, tall tales, all those fabrications or just a way to avoid the truth, right? I don’t know why my grandmother lied about something as simple as a washing a dish, but the bigger questions is why did she challenge me when presented her with the truth. Was questioning me going to for some reason make her the right one? I know that I am not the only one who has experienced this before; I just find it so damn interesting.

Kenny.

[Lifestyles] Thank You for Stalking

I was walking home from the Western Beef on Monday, the time of course escaped me and it was earlier than I thought it was. As I was passing the Family Dollar, I thought it was a good idea to finally pick up something that I had been looking for which was Milk of Magnesia. I wanted it for 2 reasons; I’ve been having problems with my stomach for the last few months and I heard that using Milk of Magnesia can help clear up complexion problems like blackheads.

This Family Dollar had gone through a metamorphic change last year when it went from a crappy rundown little hole in the ground to a stylish brand new crappy hole in the ground with a freezer that doesn’t smell like dead rats. I’ve shopped there many times, ever since it was one of the first stores that opened up 10 years ago when the neighborhood started going through an urban renewal that transformed the old abandoned sanitation garages underneath the 3 line train track into ugly furniture and franchise stores. When I entered the store, it was almost a ghost town, with probably 2 or 3 customers wondering around. I scanned the store to see where the healthcare or bath products were located which was in the front of the store, isolated in its own U shaped area. While I was looking through the shelves, I noticed this little African man started buzzing around. I turned my head towards him and he suddenly started to “face” (To “face” is to straighten out the products on the shelves, place them correctly under/above the tags and remove what doesn’t belong) one of the shelves. That’s odd, I thought. With spider sense tingling, I went up to him because I needed to make him useful.

“Do you have any Milk of Magnesia?” I asked.

“Um… um, no… um, we sold out of it” he replied with this deer caught in the headlights expression.

“Okay, do you have anything similar?” I asked not letting up.

“Um… I don’t think so…”

He walked me over to the same area that I just left and pointed to an empty shelf, exclaiming that there was nothing available. However just below that empty shelf were bottles of Milk of Magnesia, so I pointed to products and asked: “What is that?” His facial expression was priceless. I picked up the bottle and walked away from him without another word. As I went around the store, picking up knick knacks here and there I noticed that the he would still wonder around. By the time I finished shopping the little African man was behind the counter with another employee figuring out facebook mobile. As the other employee rang me up, the African man asked me if I found everything I was looking for. I ignored him, thanked the lady for my changed and walked out of the store.

Shopping while black is nothing new to me. When I was a teenager going to school in lower Manhattan, I would shop at some of the stores in the area and I always got the feeling that someone was watching me. At a grocery store on East 14^th street (I don’t remember the name since they long went out of business), I went to buy something to snack on and was detained by security. Of course they let me go, but I was so embarrassed that this man pulled me out of line and asked me to remove everything out of my pockets. I swore to myself that I would never go to that store again, no matter what and I kept true to my word on that.

Recently, when I went to Trader Joe’s in the city, looking to see if they might have certain herbs and spices that I can’t seem to find in the stores in my area. I went into my bag to get out my notebook that contained the shopping list when out of the blue one of the workers came up to me and asked me if I needed help. At first I thought that was really nice, I politely told him no and that I was okay and continued looking for stuff. About 2 minutes later another employee proceeded to do the same thing. I was in the middle of a crowded aisle with people gleefully snatching stuff off the shelves at a staggering pace (They have a lot of good healthy stuff there I recommend people check the place out) and this employee seemed to come directly to me and no one else. After the 3^rd time, I felt like I was being singled out. I started to notice a security guard walking around me. Now there was a very diverse clientele shopping around there, but every time I moved around there was a security guard standing to the right or left of me or an employee smiling in my face asking me if I needed something.

Was it just paranoia? Probably. Was I being stalked? Who knows. I put everything back where I found them and walked out the store.

Kenny.

[Lifestyle] The Ides of March.

Have you ever heard of the saying: Beware the Ides of March?

It stems back to when Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 B.C. on the Senate floor by his friend and many enemies. I remember hearing that saying when I was a teenager in my high school Latin class. The teacher explained that the phrase meant you have to be careful with the company you keep because not everyone has good intentions. Today, that should reign true more then ever.

At every given moment some one is betrayed by some one they know and/or love. It could be an affair, revealing personal information to a third party or some kind of action that removes the trust two people have for another. So how do you deal? In the movies, we either see a happy ending or no real ending at all. On television, there is a conflict and within the next 20 minutes there is some kind of resolution and the preview for the next week show comes on where everyone is skipping into the sunset. Rarely do we see the process that goes into repairing the consequence of a betrayal. We see the thought, the action, but never really the detail that goes into repairing the tears created. What do you do? How do you forgive? Can you move on? They’re mindless questions that have a true purpose.

In my life, I always have my guard up when dealing with people. Well… I shouldn’t say always, because there have been times that I allowed someone in. It only takes one time for me to realize that I can’t trust a person or that person is not looking out for anyone but themselves and will not mind selling out others in the drop of a hat. I only put myself out there one time and in that one time, I foolishly did not listen to that part my brain screaming DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! I thought it was going to be much different experience then it was, but in the end I was left broken emotionally. A part of my soul died, because every time I look back and see the events unfolding I want to crawl into a corner and mourn. In my 30 years, I have learned that there is really no instruction manual when it comes to life, we deal with things as they come and hope for the best. But what if the best doesn’t come and you’re left wondering why your heart is on the ground torn into pieces...

Kenny.

[My Life] B is for Failure

Last week I was tired and didn’t feel like cooking dinner. I wasn’t in the mood for Chinese or Pizza and the fact that it was a gamble that if I eat either one of those, I would be hovering around the toilet for most of the night, made the choice of not getting them much easier. On my block there is a Subways restaurant. Every once in a while I would get a foot long sandwich, but this day I felt like getting a soup. There was one guy behind the counter helping a customer when I walked in. I took my place at the end of the counter and waited peacefully as the man ordered almost everything in the garnish section into his sandwich. As he was finishing up, a couple walked in talking to each other loudly, not really paying attention to the fact that other people exist. After the man paid for his order and took a seat by a group of chair in front of the store, the couple stepped up to the register and the female asked the Subway employee if they had a certain type of bread. The guy nodded, and she proceeded to ask for a sandwich completely ignoring the fact that I was stand just a few feet away. I looked at them like they were stupid and was about to say something when the Subway employee pointed in my direction and said that I was next. The woman looked at me, rolled her eyes and continued the idiotic conversation with the man she was with. Well fuck you too, heffa! I thought.

I order a chicken noodle soup and some of those hippie potato chips they have in stock. As I was leaving, I noticed the Department of Health rating posted on the door. A “B”. I hesitated for a second and wondered, why did this place get a B rating? I rarely notice those ratings before, but this time it stood out to me. My first thought was to return the soup, get my money back and just make something at home, but since I already left and have never been sick before by the food at that establishment I thought against it. When I got home, I crashed on the couch and tuned into a Blog Talk Radio program that one of my internet friends host every Wednesday and I went in on the soup. After I was done, the thoughts of the B rating were completely out of my mind… Well, that was until the next morning that is, when my stomach started acting funny. I made some peppermint and ginger tea my mother brought me a few weeks back which did the trick.

Before I started the rest of my day, I thought maybe I should look into that Subway B rating since it was from the last place I ate from. I went to the New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene web page and after reading about how they graded resturants, entered the restaurant name and my zip code into the search query. Not only did I see the results for the Subways restaurant on my block, I saw ALL of the results for my zip code.

  

From the DOHMH’s “How We Score” PDF:

“If a restaurant scores 28 or more points on its graded inspection, the Health Department will continue to inspect it roughly once a month even after it receives a grade card. The inspections will continue until the restaurant scores below 28 or is closed by the department for serious and persistent violations.”

The Subways had 17 violation points and as started to go further down the listing I saw other places I frequent had many more, one place getting 24 violation points. Let’s just say I freaked out a bit and made a mental note to pay attention those signs in the future, because when it comes to my food, a B rating is not good enough.

Kenny.