Keeping Up with the Jonzee

Naw...you still at the right spot.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Keeping Things Correct

This is my blog. For all intents and purposes, though I try to make things titillating for the few special souls who read it, first and foremost its for me to say whats on my mind. As you can imagine, I have a lot to say. And from what I can tell, the same is true for most of the people I have become acquainted, in some cases, growing friends with.

But after I wrote this post, I been holding back on saying what I want to say. Funny thing is, I would put this post up there with one of my better joints. But the man who was the subject of the post? Well, he felt otherwise. We had some beef for a minute over this one. Particularly, after an email he sent in response.

But at the end of the day, its my blog and I feel I should be able to express myself in a free (and responsible) way.

So here goes. I'm pretty pissed right now. OK, perhaps pissed is not the right word. More like resigned and don't really care about talking to him--my significant other that is. We live a good distance from each other now, and after this past weekend, I really don't have much to say. Hadn't seen him in more than 2 weeks. I knew he was tired so I expected after chilling and sleeping all day on Saturday, we would have some quality time on Sunday. Nope. Got dissed. Monday, got a little lunch and then homeboy slept 3/4's of our last couple hours together.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am overreacting. I get that whole being in the same place with someone is spending time--in some instances. And no I didn't sit around moping cause the muuufuuca was sleep (but he got the evil eye and the nearly silent treatment by time Sunday evening rolled around) Yes, I went about my business. I went to see the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright at Rankin Chapel. I went to my sorority meeting. I went and had lunch with a friend. But at the end of the weekend--of which he sat on the couch( or the chair; or the bed; or the chaise) damn near the whole time, I can't help but ask an incendiary question...

WHAT THE HELL PURPOSE WAS IT TO COME DOWN TO "see me" IF ALL HE WANTED TO DO WAS SLEEP?!!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Scoring a Teacher




At the beginning of the New York City Public School academic year, NYC Ed implemented a complicated satistical analysis system to rate the worth of a teacher based on a student's performance on standardized tests.

When are the purveyors of these policies both locally and the federal level, going to recognize that making good teaching be measured by standardized score results is more like comparing apples and monkeys than apples and apples?


America falls further and further behind in educational achievement and attainment across the board--from middle to poor. Learning how to repeat and memorize information does not nurture critical thinking--the bedrock for innovative approaches to problem solving. Our ideas keep being more efficiently duplicated and improved upon abroad rather than here. LBJ had it right with the Westinghouse scholarships and other programs to encourage youth to pursue science and math. W

Why don't they just tell us that they want to flush the public education system down the toliet and stop playing with our emotions over continuously stupid initiatives that cannot and will not address the bigger macro problems with the public education system (including my favorite issue--eroding parental involvement and increasing responsibilities for teachers to play babysitter and disciplinarian.)

Argh! And my daddy wants to retire and be a school teacher. What in the hell was he thinking!?

Monday, January 14, 2008

Fuggin' it Up

I love the emotionally unavailable man. Brothers with all the goods--but none of the ability to be emotionally available. They are usually smart, witty, good looking, gainfully employed with good credit, love they mamas--and have abandonment issues of one sort or another.

The last one I let take me on a 7 year roller coaster. I said I would never write about it. But after the "Slish"ster asked me about my tendency to undo a good thing especially as it relates to my current s.o, I thought I might as well do it.

**wavy dream scene takes you back to Spring 1999**

I was standing on the Fulton Street subway platform, with my big ass head phones listen to the Love Jones soundtrack after anothe back breaking day earning tution slinging pizzas and beer on the Seaport, when it happened. I knew he was the one. Dude had this goofy but sweet country ass way about him. We worked together. But I had never really said more than a couple of sentences to him. Wasn't my type. At least at the time. I was all about Brooklyn boys. He was the whitest frat boy black man I had ever laid eyes on. But standing on that platform that night, trading my Love Jones for his Aquemini, we bonded.

After that meeting of the minds, I started hanging with the restaurant crew--which means I was a part of a living breathing daily soap opera--full of who's sleeping with who, who passed out on the ferry and didn't make it home till five, who was so and so's real baby daddy. Drinking after work. Having a blast.

Drunkeness led to loose lips one night and some chick told Country that I wanted to "blow his back out." And cool flirting turned to damn near unbearable sexual tension. Summer rolled on. And the rule became that we were "just kicking it, she's not my girlfriend or nothing." (wonder what movie that's from?) His roommates became my boys. Debauchery in full swing.

Summer ended with three weeks till my new fellowship and new place would be ready. He said come stay with him until my place was ready. The new place was pretty much a closet in an insane asylum. Temporary became damn near permanent.

Let the games begin.

For two years we lived together. But were never together. We had two damn near knock down fights over chicks he was fucking, dudes he thought I was fucking (was not), and the "come close now go far away" crap that he used to pull. Whenever we got too close he pushed me as hard as he could, including the one time he said to me regarding the possibility of the death of my first love, that "everybody dies get over it." which turned into people's shit getting put in plastic bags and put on the street in a snow storm.

Eventually, we both moved...to D.C. I said I was going and the next thing I knew he was going to, of course telling everyone including his Mama that I was following him.

Another 3 years of "kicking it". Always the same. I would move on to an emotionally available (actually needy was more like it) man during one of our many hiatus' and he would come back and I would fall for the ...hook line and sinker.

The day I decided to cut that shit out, he comes with the "lets do this...as a three month trial." and I fell for it.

One car wreck that damn near killed me and a fat white girl later, we stopped talking. I went on the celibacy road for nearly two years. And lots of shit became clear as day. Including the fact that I must have been crazy as cat shit. Boy, my friends must love me, cause they listened to me pine away about it forever.

NYC saved me. Going back to school saved me. Not being able to reach out and touch that fool saved me. Growing the hell up saved me. I stopped falling for the traps--though I did fall in once or twice right before the decision to be celibate.

See, I got clarity. And the moment after it my mind and sense so clear I met Big T.

And I been trying to fuck it up ever since. He's cute, strong, witty, sensitive, ambitious, damn good in bed and guess what? Emotionally available as hell and patient with a slightly type A personality like me.

So what's the problem? Fear and lack of control.That's what its always been.

I'm working on it.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Mr. Johnson? Please shut up.

I immensely dislike you, Bob Johnson. I mean don't get me wrong. I respect your business savvy, after all you created BET. And back in the day, your station connected me to hip hop and black culture in away I could not get in my 95% exurban community--particularly when rabbit ears were having hard time picking up 98.7 Kiss down in the City.

But over the years BET became a cess pool of 'ignant shit. You've been a cheap bastard when it comes to making your NBA franchise some contenders. And after meeting and speaking with your wife on a panel regarding philanthropy in the 21st Century, and the stupid shit she said about saving children and giving her money to the poor, unfortunate children in Fairfax and Loudon County VA, two of the most well off public school systems in the nation, my dislike for you makes me wonder where your real motivation lies.

Personally, I think your more Clay Davis and less Stan O'Neill. Its all about them dollars.

And now here you come with this foolishness...


The controversy over what Ms. Clinton meant by her remark regarding Dr. King and John F. Kennedy were not taken out of context. She simply didn't think through how it was said. The whole thing has been fanned into flames by the media. Not Mr. Obama's camp. Many heard the remarks, including Donna Brazille, former campaign advisor to the Clinton administration, and in Ms. Brazille's words "it's unfortunate...I'm disheartened." to put it nicely. The way it came out may not be the way she meant it, but once things are said sometimes its hard to rescind and get folks to forget.

And speaking of people saying stupid shit that offends you, Mr. Johnson, it was you who said something about "...while he was down in the neighborhood doing whatever he did.", which was then construed to be a direct attack on Mr. Obama's admittance to some small experimental drug use when he was in college, when you were down in SC talking about how "appalled" you were.

Thanks for using you black card again--how convenient.

Bob Johnson, you ain't Oprah. Perhaps, people ooh and ahh at you once in awhile, but Oprah you aint. And your lack of elegance shone through brightly while speaking on behalf of Mrs. Clinton. Im glad you got your latest 15 minutes.

But Like I said. You aint no Oprah

Thursday, January 10, 2008

I'm voting for Obama, dammit!

Okay, so at the beginning of this whole thing I was one of those "I don't know who I am voting for." folks. I initially felt like after one term in the US Senate that Mr. Obama was going to be in over his head. I thought to myself, Hil has legacy, she has been a relatively great Senator for the state of NY, and lawd knows the woman is smart as hell. But then I remembered the Democratic convention speech that Mr. Obama delivered. And how it moved me in such a way that I started calling all of my friends around the country and blathering on about hope and saving the nation. I sent video versions of the damn thing everywhere. It brought me back to a time when I was obsessed with the history of US politics--begging my grandfather and father to tell me about hearing John F. Kennedy deliver his inaugural speech. Or my great grandmother talking about FDR during the Great Depression. I felt nothing but inspiration from the stories they told. Obama invoked the same.

To me the greatest leaders have been visionaries--not necessarily super detail orientated. They have the fresh ideas and an understanding at a macro level of what said ideas mean and there consequences. They surround themselves with smart, engaged , detail orientated people who can implement them. One just need to look at local politics in certain US cities to see what a strong visionary can do. Patrick O'Malley of Baltimore, Richard Daley of Chicago, Mr. Bloomberg of the great city of NY (now if he were running, I might have to...) Yes, there were forces that helped them in their missions, but they have showed strong leadership, significant intelligence, and have surrounded themselves with the best and the brightest, and have inspired millions to stay in the city, reinvest, and in many cases rebuild. I believe that Mr. Obama can do the same for a nation.

To me Hilary is showing that she is simply apart of the political machine that has run politics for what seems like forever. After all that crap about fair competition and not stooping to the level of negative retorts she went straight Karl Rove. I think Americans are tired of that crap.

The world as we know it has been so doom and gloom since 911. Its time to stop rolling out the dead bodies to keep us so fearful of everything and everybody so that we give up all of the freedoms we have been blessed with as Americans.

And please stop rolling out these old civil rights leaders who have not adapted their approach to fighting the good fight since 1971. I WILL NOT be scared into voting for someone just because the other might lose--shit Hilary's got her own set of enemies across this country and they might outnumber those against Mr. Obama. Then what?

I'm keeping hope alive and believing in Obama.

Friday, January 04, 2008

Committed

So I did it. I been rocking "le puff" for more than five years. And now it is on its way to locking. I been on the fence about it for 2 years, but upon the big move to B'more I decided fuck it.

The hair tour has been an interesting one. Shoot, I remember the day I decided to let my perm go like it was yesterday. Hair crisis #4081 on the morning of a little hookie event with my big headed brother from another mother, DP. I had just moved to the District, and had finally moved up off my cousin's couch out in "planned community", VA. No money to set the hair straight. Particularly weary of spending my last few dollars on them chicks who made my hair way too poofy (thats the way when you got so much hair, they want to charge you extra.) So I tried to blow dry it, pin it, plait it. A mess.

I came out the bathroom in tears. Hair washed for the third time, and big D, doing that shifting from one foot to the other thing, was lecturing me about time or something. I explain the crisis and he simply looks at me and says, "why don't you wear it like that?" Simple. Plain. Goes back to watch the tele. I look in the mirror at the semi-wavy curly thing and say, "fuck it". Thats all she wrote.

I guess locing is my latest "fuck it" moment. Honestly, all of my moments have worked our well, so I'm not worried. Its gonna be a minute, the wavy straightness on the edges and the thickness in the middle means I gotta go get it palm rolled every two weeks or its starts to unravel and we have hot mess time. But I must say, Im digging my new profile.

I do miss the fro', but Lawd knows it was hard to comb!

Thursday, January 03, 2008

How's that Working Out for You?

People been asking me alot lately how I like my new gig. My response to the question has shocked and surprised me. I think I am finally a grown up.

I knew when I took this gig that in someways it would be a lateral move--not money wise but title/duty wise. I know its only been a month--and the technical savvy that I continue to hone will be useful--I need to manage people, projects, and travel a bit. But the good thing I can say is that I am not in panic to roll out this time. With it being just a job, if gives me time to put into my own shit. I just know that by mid-2009 I gotta be moving on to the next opportunity. Its time for me to do me.

So, I guess this post will also serve as my annual "What I'm going to get done" this year post. In doing so, that means I gotta look back on the list of what I was supposed to do in 07. How convenient.

1) I'm still going to go to law school. For some reason, folks think I have been in school for ever. Maybe because for 8 years I talked about going back to grad. But just to set the record straight, I have not been in school forever--I took an 8 year break, damn it.

Why law school? More choices. Having a legal background, if you want to be a developer can do nothing but help. And if I become lazy, I'm going settlement attorney--9-5 and a good 6 figs a year. (and do my own development on the side)

2) Get my finances in great working order so I can buy some real estate.

My favorite white man suggested I make my own living quarters my first project. My objective is to buy a boarded up 2 or three unit--and rehab the hell out of it. That shouldn't be a problem finding in B'more.

3) Lose at least 15lbs.

I swear, for the last two years I have had this goal. Was doing pretty good while in school--but then the stress of life with idiot roommates, crappy paying jobs, compounded with the daily dose of living in NY metro--I plateued.

4) Be a better girlfriend.

Um, I'm mean and evil. I get it from--well you know. I don't know why, but I just feel this need to pick on him sometimes. Im vying to not do that shit this year. Cause as sweet, and kind, and teddy bearish as he is, he is also no punk--and I am sure I will get the cuss out if I keep it up. Why crap on a good thing, ya' know?