"You done good..."

I wrote a story that I knew was going to get people to talking, and I wanted to make sure I toed the line because the subject matter was sensitive.

So I ran it by my mother.

My mother underestimates her value. She's a wealth of institutional knowledge when it comes to life in general. She advises me when I'm steering in the wrong direction.

She's my personal dictionary.

So I sent her the story, which talked about how an exchange between two councilmen, one black and one white, that involved evoking a cotton field had spurred conversations in the community about whether it was racist, simply over the line or whether blacks are hypersensitive when it comes to certain things.

She said it brought back the story of how she'd been shot in the leg (not by a real gun, but injured nonetheless) while visiting family in Alabama. They took her to the hospital, but she wouldn't be seen.

That's 1960s Alabama for you, when George Wallace ruled with an iron fist and black people weren't worthy to him til he lost the ability to walk and later became "born again."

"You done good," she said. That's all I needed.

Not well, but good. You know how the vocab has to be a little hood when you do something better than well - like puttin yo foot in some food?

Is it possible to bring a blessing your way?

I asked for the job situation to get better. I asked that love no longer pass me by.

And, as usual, that money become less stretched.

All have been accomplished.

Did I do too much?

I'm one of those people who believe that everything in your life CANNOT go right at the same time. Right now, though, it is.

Can you truly pray you way out of a rut?

I'm beginning to think it's possible. I've never been the most religious person. I've always had a spiritual backing to my thoughts and emotions. I pray when I'm not in need.

But I've been a praying fool these last few weeks. Trust me when I say I've felt "in need."

I've asked for one thing recently, and it appears to be coming my way. But if it does, what do I want for? I guess there's the fact that the girl and I are in different cities. But that's never been a problem for me. I dunno.

I hate feeling like this, like there's nothing for me to strive for in terms of personal wants. It's a place where people get, then become apathetic and complacent, lacking the drive to push out of the current state of being.

I always want more.

But how do you want more when everything seems so good?

Baby steps

A month ago, I couldn’t squeeze a stress ball. This morning, I bench-pressed 100 lbs.

Maybe I underplayed the seriousness of the injury I suffered to my hand in that car accident.

It’s my nature; I don’t like to make people worry.

I remember getting out of the car, looking at Nina in all her mangled glory, grabbing my laptop bag and telling an editor I wasn’t going to finish the day. It was 9:45 in the morning.

I tried to act like I was fine. I played tennis the next evening, just to test out the grip of my hand. It hurt like hell.

I didn’t say anything. But I decided then that I needed to see a doctor. My mother was acting anxious. My girlfriend had already threatened to come take care of me. Neither of us could afford for her to make that trip.

“You sound so far away,” she said as we spoke by phone that day.

“I’m laying down,” I said.

It was a lie: I was in the kitchen, standing. The call was on speaker, the phone sitting on the counter. My hand wouldn’t stop shaking as I held the phone.

I worried about not being able to hold her hand, or a cup for that matter. I worried the numbness that came and went wouldn’t subside. I worried, because there was nothing to my pain that the eye could see, that the doctor would tell me to give it time.

When I finally got to him, he told me to work through the pain. My kind of doc.

The accident had also left a large gash on my forehead, fluid on my knee and a lump the size of a golf ball on my shin. When I put my hand to any of them, I couldn’t feel it.

Leaning on my left hand for most of the last two months has been cumbersome. Every so often, I would forget and grab something – a book, my tennis bag, Charlie – with my right hand. Then I’d grimace if no one was around while trying to complete the action.

Ever have a thought that something might change you forever in a way you never expected? I did. And I didn’t know what would happen if my hand never gave me what it used to give.

I set the barbell down and stayed there awhile, reclined on the bench, silent. I almost cried. It had been two months since I even tried to pick up weights in the gym.

After today, I’ll make it much sooner next time.

"Who's feeding you these stories?"

That's the question I got this morning from a source about a story I wrote recently.

With all the drama going on in Warner Robins, I've been getting notes thrown at me, calls to look into everything, e-mails from anonymous accounts, even random people coming up to me at lunch giving me things I need to verify.

In the meantime, I keep doing my job.

While some of the rumors I'm approached with wet the palate, they're never able to be determined. And I've probably heard them before.

I've got stories I've been working on since before the relationship between the city's mayor and council hit a feverish pitch.

If I've written about something, I'm making sure to keep up with the developments.

And then there's the stories I do in between to keep my sanity intact...lol

It's the life I chose. And I wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

"Is anybody out there?"

I've been looking for a place to talk about my craft, and the oddities that make their way into my stories as I navigate my way through life. I asked for a blog at work, and was even told yes.

I'm still waiting.

Those who know me know I'm not really too patient. When the going gets tough, the...

Basically, I'm pumping some air into the blog.

You'll see a little something here about what's going on with me -- be it at work, on the tennis court or even as the lady and I work on our "second time around."

I couldn't do it without you, my loyal readers.

Is anyone still out there? Hell, does anyone still blog?

I hope all is well, and I hope to get people back in the habit of checking this place out.

Caught up...

I bit into the apple.

I always seem to find the wrong apple. I always seem to bite off more than I can chew.

In Warner Robins, the apple came in the form of a girl -- 19 and about 5-foot-8 with sun-kissed skin, hazel eyes, blonde highlights that flowed down her back -- I met on an assignment covering something wack.

She told me about Georgia Bob's. I had to check it out. Oddly enough -- and a month later, no less -- she was there when I went.

The food was bangin. I'll definitely be back (but they can keep that concoction they tried to pass as banana pudding).

We sat there and talked. It was weird, because I haven't had a real conversation with a girl/woman in years (unless she's Cunty). We talked about everything from the state of the economy to the excitement for Whitney Houston's new album (which my boy says stinks, but we'll see).

Sunday night, I got invited over for a movie. "There's nobody here, and I hate being in this big house all by myself," she insisted.

I went.

I was there for an hour before we got the movie in. Seems neither of us had seen The Hangover, and she had it on bootleg. We were sitting through the previews when I felt her breath on my neck.

"I hope you don't mind..." she said, trailing off between kisses on my neck.

I was getting seduced. And I was liking it.

Innocent turned to full on when I realized she had her hands on my waistband, sliding the zipper down my Polo jeans.

Just when she slipped her hand inside and was pulling the toy out the cereal box, in walks her mother, groggy and yawning, wiping snot from her eyes...

(to be continued...)

A sign of the times

I've had a hard time keeping my apartment clean lately. It's not the size (which I'm still trying to get used to) or the fact that I work long days at least twice a week, and still find time to fit in tennis, too.

My life is in disarray.

I've yet to adjust to the new climate and culture of my new habitat. I haven't really given myself a chance to sit still and say, "so, this is gonna be done here, and here, and here, and here.

The only thing in my life that's on a schedule is Charlie (and she's doing fine by her standards). So I'm taking Lazy Sunday to get my act together.

I need to eat better: I may have IBS, or be slowly becoming lactose intolerant. Either way, I'm cutting things out of the diet to determine the correct route for fixing things. The first sign that something was wrong? The fact that I'd lost 15 pounds in less than two weeks, then put it all back on overnight -- with the tight stomach and cramping and back aches that come with a sudden body change. I was tempted to do like my melanin-challenged counterparts and simply get a colonic. Aah, but that pricetag is a bit too much... lol

I need to respond to the demands at work: I was told specifically what I'd be covering when I got here.

Boy, has that drastically changed.

Now that I'm doing the job of two people, I need to do a few things to make sure all the stress isn't falling to me. My editor needs to know some things (such as that business portion of my beat) need to be reconstructed on my beat. I also need to figure out how to let him know politely that I'm paid for 40 hours, so I'm about to start putting in 40 hours. I don't make enough for the madness!

I need to be on that treadmill: I got on the other day after realizing I was walking around hungry, but my stomach was full. Three quarters of the way in, panic (and back pains) set in. I know it wasn't because I hadn't been on the treadmill in a month, but still...

I'm headed out to Kroger to get some things to get the week going. Then I'm back to the house, cleaning up and washing/ironing clothes for the week ahead.

Peace.