A Family Member at Work! (Conclusion)

This is the conclusion to my previous blog with the same title....

Well folks, my curiosity finally got the best of me about my work "family member." Today, as I celebrated my 2nd day of vacation, I casually exchanged e-mails with him (hell, I was bored and wanted to talk to him). Thankfully, he was willing to return the e-mails. So then he asks me to help him set up his 401K account, which warranted a phone call. As I was helping him set up his account, I heard him laugh. I asked, "What are you laughing at?" His reply: "At my manager." So I said, "Oh, so are you and your manager having a kee kee moment?" His reply: "Down!" (emphasis on the word of course) After this (and many other) discussions, my intuitions were damn near eating me alive, and I had to know for myself what was up with this dude. I slowly started to drop hints at him. This was our e-mail exchange:

Me: I have a question to ask you, but I don't know how you're gonna react. It's kinda personal.
Him: Then don't ask lol.
Me: LOL then it's gonna eat away at me. I wanna ask you cause I think you cool as hell, but I also don't want you to think less of me (or vice versa). *Sigh* What's a brotha to do?
Him: Lol nah I hear u, but we r just getting to be cool n I would not wanna mess that up. So just leave it alone lol.
Me: Do I have to leave it alone? LOL But for real, I know we're still gonna be cool. But dammit, my inquisitive side is getting the best of me. I gotta get this weight off my shoulder lol. I don't wanna ask you at work though.
Him: Go just ask.

OK....here goes...I took a deep breath and slowly typed what I had wanted to ask him for months now....

Me: Do you get down?

I hesitated for a few seconds and finally built up the strength to push the "Send" button. As I awaited his response, all kinds of thoughts came to my head:

What if he does? Has he been watching me too? Am I finally gonna have some real fun at work? (LOL) Was my sexual preference now gonna come up at work in the presence of other coworkers?
What would I say/do if he says no? How would he take it? Is he gonna be offended I even asked him that?
Why did I even ask him in the first place? Why did I let my curiosity take over me like that?

I'm sure many more thoughts came to my head, but I didn't have time to think of more, cause the reply finally came back. Ohhhhhhhhhh boy! The moment of truth!

Him: How did I know that's what u wanted to ask? Well sir, no I don't. But a good friend of mine does. N that's where I get some of the "how u doin" stuff from. Cuz I think its funny. N when u hang out with someone u usually pick up their outragous behavior, as in my case. But u do?? I am asking. Wouldn't make a difference to me.

Shit, he was being honest with me. The cat's almost all outta the bag, so I figured that this was the perfect time for me to tell him...

Me: Yup, I do. Damn...you're the first person that knows (outside of my friends that also get down). My own family doesn't even know, cause you know how we as black people can be!
Him: Nah. I kinda knew u did. That's y I kee-d with u about shit. I wanted ask. But I was like nah just leave it. But hell yeah we still cool. I respect u for who u r, and u have shown me who u are. So it doesn't matter what u do privately. But u kept saying "my boys my boys" about your people n I was like he definitely gets down lol.

O my! Let me find out he had his gaydar on the whole time lol. Apparently, I've been outting myself slowly around him. Oh well. But damn am I glad he took the news the way he did! I feel like a weight is lifted from my shoulders. I have NEVER told a coworker that I get down. Hell, my family doesn't even know! Now I feel like I can talk to him about anything, and I won't feel ashamed or judged (as black folk can do). Even though he doesn't proclaim to be a true family member, I can confide in him and make him an honorary member. Yaaaaaaaaay I didn't lose my kee kee partner! But shit! Now all my fantasies about him will remain just that...fantasies. Oh well....can't win em all lol.

Yes, I Want This Love

Those that really know me know my feelings about men and relationships. I am reminded of a song by Elton John called "I Want Love." I think it pretty much describes my views, for better or worse. I finally got around to finding the video on YouTube and decided to post it. I don't expect a whole lot of people to relate to it. But just listen to the words more than watching the video. This is my kinda love. If you don't like it, too damn bad LOL.

It's Nice to Have Family....Right???

The following posting was originally on my Livejournal page back in March. Since I'm a full-fledged Blogger now, I decided to put it on here. I made a few changes, but the bulk of it is still the same. Read on my fellow Bloggers...

I've been living with my aunt since 1993 after my mother's death. It was just the two of us until 1996, when she decided to (finally) get married. Back in 1999 or 2000 (when I was still in college), she came to me and asked if I would put my name down on a finance plan for some dental work that she needed done. Her credit was too bad (and so was her husband's) so, as a good and caring family member, I agreed to do it. Back then, my credit was excellent, so I saw no problem. And she told me that she was gonna keep up with paying the bill so that it wouldn't reflect negatively on my credit report. Hell, she was the one who instilled in me the importance of having good credit, so no worries.

Things were going well at first. The bill came every month, and I would pass it along to her so that it could be paid. For the first year or two I just assumed everything was fine. A few years ago, I noticed something weird that showed up on my credit report, then gradually the bills and phone calls from the collection agency came. I had my first discussion with her about it, and she again promised me that she "would take care of it." Me being naive (or just plain fuckin stupid!) took her at her word and didn't mention much about it again.

Earlier this year, the dreaded letter appeared in the mail....it was a letter from the Somerset County Courthouse, and I now was being sued for the full amount (about $2,700!) I found out that she did not make ONE SINGLE PAYMENT since 2001!! As if I don't have my own damn bills to about, now I gotta worry about this one. I walked my pissed-off ass into her bedroom and showed her the court letter. When I asked her why the hell she didn't take care of it before, she simply replies, "I forgot." You forgot???? You ain't forget to ask me to put my name down for this fuckin bill!!!!! I couldn't believe it. I don't think I ever felt more used and taken advantage of in my whole life. And to add insult to injury, she calls herself being Christian and gave herself the title of "Evangelist." Hmph! All she did was apologize to me, but I was in no mood to hear any apologies. That shit was for the birds a long time ago! All I wanted to see was money being exchanged. This is definitely going to affect my apartment search (since landlords look at credit reports), which is further adding to my frustration. I'm worried I might get stuck living at home even longer, at a time when I'm really tryin to change that. * Big sigh*

UPDATE: I ended up going to court this summer on my own (cause my fuckin aunt told me that she "wouldn't be able to make it") and speaking with the law firm that was suing me. (The law firm paid the bill to the collection agency, and now they were looking to recover that money from me.) With the help of a mediator, I agreed that I would pay them 80% of the total payment (roughly $2,200), which will be broken down into monthly installments of $300. After the bill has been paid in full, a letter will be sent from them to all 3 credit bureaus informing them that this bill has been satisfied. (This is the only thing on my credit report that is seriously delinquent.) What a hard lesson this was for me. I should've gotten something in writing from my aunt agreeing that she was going to pay the bill, cause I didn't have a leg to stand on by the time I got to court. They are not gonna wanna hear shit about how I thought my aunt was taking care of it. My name and social security number is on the bill, so that makes me (and me alone) responsible. Case closed. (Oh, did I mention that she has worked for various law firms for 30 years???). I love my aunt but I am disgusted by what she did. I have made it my top priority to get this bill paid by mid-2008 and not let anything like this happen to me ever again. Nice to have family, right? Right?!

A Family Member At Work!

I really love my job. It's smaller and privately-owned (which means I get recognized more easily for the work I do), the people are friendly and relatively down-to-earth, and because the company is constantly growing, there is lots of room for growth and opportunity.

Speaking of opportunity, I noticed this little cutie at my job about a week or so after I started working there (which was about 7 months ago). The old wishful thinking started to play in my mind. "Hmmm....I wonder if he gets down or not. He's a little cutie." Of course, nobody at my job knows that I do, but damn, wouldn't it be nice to REALLY confide in somebody at work like that?! He's 22 or 23, just graduated from college, and this place is his first job out of college. Been there over a year now. He's Guyanese (but I believe he's been in the US all his life) and currently lives in the Bronx. He sits on the other side of the floor as me, so we started communicating through e-mail. He's a cool dude, but sometimes he's hard to figure out. Sometimes he can come off as abrasive, but I can deal with that. Hell, that makes me wanna find out about him even more lol. But he also can be a little hard to figure out. But I'm a patient man, so I just learned to sit and wait for any signs.

The first sign came about a month ago. I came over to him to tell him that the CIO witnessed a coworker and I doing our little exercise regimen (push-ups) in some little room where our help desk is. He said when he found out, he "gagged." Red flag #1! Just to make sure I heard right, I said, "You did what??? You gagged?" He said again, "Yup, I gagged." Alriiiiiiight! A door seems to have opened. Let me sit back and wait for the door to slightly open again!

The second sign came earlier this month. When I asked him to buy something from a catalog for a kid's fundraiser, he took one of the catalogs and started to peruse through it. He saw some knife set and said, "I don't need that cause I already have a knife, and it cuts down (emphasis on that last word)." Hmmm....red flag #2! *Sound of the door slowly creaking open a little more*

But folks, today's e-mail exchange took the cake and solidified my belief that is dude is indeed a family member. I was telling him my little story about what happened on Friday....how one of the cleaning ladies threw away the food that was in the fridge (as she was told to do every Friday), and how she disgustingly dug all through the garbage with no problem to try to retrieve it for me (which she successfully did, but I damn sure didn't want it then. Yuk!) Anyway, after I told him what happened, this is what he wrote...."Oh no! I would have raised hell for that. The cards would have been read that day. Shade of all shade would have come out lol." Ladies and gentlemen, we have red flag # 3! *Ding ding ding!* When I read that, I could hardly believe my eyes. No straight man on their drunkest fuckin day would write anything like that. The thought of having family in the workplace sent me into overdrive lol. Now I'm left with a small dilemma.....I wanna ask him soooooo bad if he gets down. But how? And shit, what if my assumptions are wrong and he really doesn't get down? Then I'll be looking very stupid. I need to figure out something cause my interest has been tremendously piqued now.

*Sigh* What's a brotha to do?

Where Are They? Are We Here Already?

I was watching the news last night, and a segment came on about how Rev. Jesse Jackson was in Newark to lend his support/suggestions on how to curb the murder-rate problem that's plaguing the city. It seems like whenever you turn on the TV and there's some uproar about a problem facing our community, you either see Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.

Then the thought came to me....why don't we see any prominent black leaders within the black gay community? We have no problems discussing other subjects concerning our people. Is this subject still taboo on a global level? Cause God knows I do not want to see Terry McMillan representing us on another program discussing her hatred/bitterness about gays just because one (count em, one) deceived her! I think the leaders are within ourselves. Hell, who can better represent each one of us than us ourselves?

What does everyone else think?

The Day My World Stood Still

I seriously debated whether or not I should post this next year or this year. But I figured hey, why wait until next year? There may be someone out there that's going through or went through the same thing. They need to hear this story now!

This day, 14 years ago, will forever be etched in my mind. My beloved mother, Elizabeth Brunson, lost her battle with a horrible disease I was 15 years old at the time, and it was truly one of the worst days of my life. But first, a little explanation on how it got to that point.....

I have always admired my mother She went to college (Rutgers) and landed a good job with Blue Cross & Blue Shield (now called Horizon). But I admired her even more after my father passed away, and she was left to raise my 2 older brothers and I on her own. In 1988, she was determined to start a new, better life for us. So we moved from East Orange to a more peaceful Linden. Things were going pretty well for us. We had adapted to our new surroundings and loved it. We were experiencing a newfound peace.

Four years later, our serenity was tested. It was around 4PM (I remember Oprah being on TV), and my mother walked into the room that my brother and I were sharing. I was sitting on my bed doing my homework and when I looked up, my mother had a tissue in her hand and a look of despair She rested her elbow on the dresser and blurted out those awful words, "I took an HIV test today and the test came back positive. I have the AIDS virus." All my brother and I could do was just sit there and look at her. What can you say to a person that just told you something like that? She definitely didn't wanna hear that everything was gonna be alright, and she can get through this. Shit, we didn't believe that ourselves! I scared and worried for her. Questions just came running to my head: What are we gonna do if/when she dies? And who gave this to her? It was too much for a 14-year-old to think about.

Over the next few months, I watched my mother go from energetic and independent to a feeble, dependent woman who was losing her hope, faith and will to live. It was a time of few highs and many lows. Her illness prevented her from working a steady, full-time job. Weight loss, pain in her body, and constant visits to the hospital (that was attributed to her not taking her medication) were customary. Her condition also caused her to become irritable and cranky most of the time, and she often lashed out and/or kept saying how she wanted to die. It was so heartbreaking for me, and many times I just cried and prayed to God that some miracle would happen and she would come back to her old self, or at least not let this virus ravage her body and spirit. I felt so helpless, but I knew I had to be there for her and help her in any way I could. Many times I would go into her room and just kiss her on the cheek as she lay on her bed. I didn't need to say anything, because actions speak louder than words. She had found this facility in Newark (by this time, we had moved to Irvington) for AIDS/HIV-infected people. They feed them and take them on daily outings such as the zoo and restaurants. It's also a facility where you can sit around, watch TV, play games, and just sit and be with your family. This was during the summer, so many times I accompanied her to the facility. I just wanted to be around her as much as I could while I still had time.

But like they say, time waits for no man, and my mother was no exception. A few days before that fateful day, my mother once again entered the hospital. On a Sunday morning (around 9AM), my aunt (the one I stay with now) woke my brother and I up and told us the two words that I knew I was going to hear eventually...."She's gone." We both got dressed, and we headed over to my other brother's girlfriend's house to get him so we could all go to the hospital. It seemed like an eternity, but we finally made it to East Orange General Hospital and went up to the room where my mother had spent her last days alive. We entered the room and there she was, on the bed with her eyes still open. For a few minutes, we just stood there and looked at her. For my oldest brother, this was all he could take, and he broke down and walked out of the room. This was the first time I had EVER seen him cry. My aunt went out to console him. A few minutes later, I came out of the room enveloped in grief, and my aunt had to console me too. I cried for so many things that day: that I was never going to see her again, that I wouldn't have any more mother/son moments, that I would never hear her voice or see her smile again. But the main thing I cried about was that she went into eternity in some bare, cold hospital room without being surrounded by people she loved and cared about by her side. I couldn’t help but feeling guilty about it. I later learned that she also had a brain tumor, so I guess her body gave out from trying to fight off two maladies at the same time. And to this day, I’m still not sure who she contracted HIV/AIDS from. It could’ve been my father or a man that she was seeing at the time of her death.

So now here I am, 14 years later, reflecting on that horrible day and the aftermath. Honestly, there are some days where I don't think about my mother. Ironically, one of those days is Mother's Day, but that's because we were raised as Jehovah's Witnesses, and we didn't celebrate any holidays. But there are some days when she just pops up in my mind and I get really sad, especially songs specifically about a person's mother ("A Song for Mama" by Boyz II Men and "Thinking of You" by Lenny Kravitz immediately pop into my mind). I’m able to view pics of her with no problem. My cousin videotaped a cookout he had at his house, and it has my mother in it. I can’t bring myself to watch it because I don’t wanna remember her in her suffering stage. It’s painful when your father passes away, but when your mother passes away the pain is almost unbearable. I wish she could've been there to see me get my first job, graduate from high school and college, get married, have a child (if I do decide to do those last two things), and all the other joys of life. But I know she’ll always be with me in spirit and mind. But everything happens for a reason, and God was showing me just how strong a person I was (or at least needed to be at the time). If I can make it through losing both parents before the age of 18, I can make it through just about anything. This trial has made me into the strong person I never saw in myself. I'm not where I wanna be, but I'm definitely not where I used to be! And I embrace this lesson in life and get through it. Notice I said "get through it" and not "get over it," cause you don't ever get over the loss of a loved one; that chapter is never closed. And to all you out there having problems or differences with your parents, appreciate them anyway, because you never know when it's going to be their time to go. And when they do, it’s going to be one of the most difficult things you will ever have to deal with in your life.

And you know something else? I didn't even break down at all when I wrote all this (but my eyes did fill up with tears a few times). I am so proud of myself for this inner strength, but my mother would be prouder. Thanks Mommy, and I love you!

August 8, 1949 - October 3, 1993

Ever Wonder?

This topic actually arose when my good friend, his man, and I were walking back to the car after we had enjoyed the festivities of the West Indian Day Parade on Labor Day. I meant to post it sooner, but better late than never right? LOL Here goes.....

I was born in East Orange, but I moved out when I was 10. My friend was born in the Bronx, but he moved out when he was a kid too (can't remember the age). His question was direct and thought-provoking (as with most of his questions): how would your life be different had you lived in the inner city all your life? For me, I know for a fact that I would have more 'street smarts.' I lost that when I moved. And when I was robbed 2 1/2 years ago, having street smarts really would've come in handy.

So now I ask all of you who went through the same experience....have you ever wondered how your life would be if you lived in the inner city all your life? Would it have impacted your life positively or negatively? How/why?