Freeway of Love

Salutations.

I write to you from the comfort of my dorm room. A room that’s bigger than my own room at home, but somehow manages to still feel like a jail cell with the terrible paint color chosen for the walls, carpet thinner than a deer’s blood, and furniture – and I use that term loosely – stolen from the Rooms To Go donation box. Although I will say the desk I have is fairly new. Of course it wasn’t purchased right off the showroom floor, but rather the “buy one get one” half off rack. But that’s neither here nor there.

Last time I was here was at the beginning of the summer, and it has been quite an eventful summer, for me at least. I flew home in the middle of May for my sister’s graduation from high school. My mom got a buddy pass, which forced me to dress in business casual attire for the flight (since when did airlines have a dress code?). So by the time I got home, I noticed that a lot had changed around the house. New doors were put in. New furniture. New appliances. New everything. My brother moved out, and somehow that justified my mom purchasing an oversized sectional and a 50” HD television for what was once his room. Now there are two dens at home. The other den has a 40” plasma screen TV, a coffee table, and a leather couch. I’m not sure why that room even exists anymore because nobody goes in there. Family from out of state came for the graduation. I won’t address how some of them snored to the point where I thought our home was being bulldozed in the middle of the night, but I love my family. The speaker at the graduation asked the audience to hold their applause until after all the names had been called. Obviously they didn’t see the barrage of Negroes in the audience. You know how colored people are when their children accomplishes something. We have to make our presence known in the audience. And for some reason, we feel like the child’s accomplishment is OUR accomplishment too. Whether if it means cheering excessively or acting like bats on acid, we will make sure we celebrate. But oddly enough, the Negroes weren’t as bad as some of the White folks. Some of those White people had party streamers, silly string, marching bands, and acrobats for their children. Okay, maybe not the last two, but you get what I mean. But overall, we enjoyed the benefits of a White organized event – coordination, organization, punctuality, refreshments, and ample parking.

The following month, June, I drove back up to DC to get the rest of my clothes I had left behind out of the house I was living in. The drive was normal, done it a few times. It only took me about 10 hours, although the GPS said it would take 11 or 12. Like usual, I made my first stop at Jack in the Box in South Carolina exit 48B. Come to find out that location had closed, so I went to the next one at exit 54. Got my 4 tacos, a Breakfast Jack, and a medium strawberry Fanta with light ice and two straws. The drive was fine. I sang my heart OUT to nearly every song on my iPod. Everything was dandy until I got to Richmond. [sigh] There was traffic. I assumed it was normal traffic because it was around 4 PM when I was passing through. That’s when I realized the IQ of the city. I’m not sure who told the highway commissioner that it would be a good idea to do roadwork on the main freeway at 4 PM on a Friday and close two left lanes. It took an hour just to get into downtown. Then it took another hour just to get through downtown and out the city. On the drive back home, I made sure I littered on the freeway for Friday’s inconvenience.

July was just a bunch of nothing. It was hot. That’s about it. August things were pretty much the same. It was almost time to take my sister to school. She got accepted to college in Michigan. So we decided to drive up there. The last weekend in August we packed our things and headed up north. I drove because I was NOT about to sit in the car for 12 hours and be bored out of my mind. So I drove the whole way. We left in the morning, around 6:30 AM. There wasn’t much traffic, but driving up I-75 was amazing because there wasn’t a cop in sight. Then we got to Tennessee. It was nice going through the mountains, although I couldn’t enjoy them because you had to speeding to not get ran off the road. Honestly, the speed limit signs might as well just have a picture beam of light on it because you have to be going at least 80 to be relevant on the freeway. Even the trucks were speeding. I had to speed up because I was not about to be punched out the game by a ’92 Mercury Sable or a Geo Prism. Once again, not a cop in sight from Chattanooga to Nashville. Then we got to Indiana. I thought my friend was joking when she said there isn’t much to the state. Little did I know she wasn’t exaggerating by much. Indiana is flat, and full of a bunch of nothing. Cornfield after cornfield, and factory after factory is all I saw. I couldn’t wait to get to Michigan. But once again I was traveling down a boulevard of broken dreams. My sister’s school, and the surround area, are…like……like…if the characters on Family Guy were a college campus, my sister’s campus would be Meg. The most upscale hotel I saw was a Howard Johnson. The most upscale store I saw was The Gap. The most upscale restaurant I saw was Red Lobster. It’s the definition of basic. The city was just deathly boring and the whole city collectively is unneeded. But I’m glad my sister is in college. The drive home was 12 hours, and again I drove the whole way for the aforementioned reason.

So I’m back at Howard, and not much has changed. People still don’t know how to walk in the right side of the sidewalk. People still don’t know how to push in their chairs after leaving the table. And people still have the audacity to show up late to class and leave early. Although I will say that Howard, and the surrounding area are on the come up. Gentrification FTW. There’s a Potbelly across from Starbucks now. They even decorated the store with Howard paraphernalia. Property taxes and rising cost of living are doing the dirty work of getting the underprivileged Negroes out of the area. And it’s unfortunate, but I’m all for it. There have been so many Howard students that have been robbed (some at gunpoint) by people in the area, and that’s something we shouldn’t have to put up with. I’ve lived in the suburbs all my life, and we like to do stuff like walk to the store at 3 AM for ginger snaps, or garden on Saturdays. And now that more non-coons are moving in, the police actual come and patrol the area [happy face]. The projects are being renovated. The sidewalks and streets are repaved. And there’s people outside jogging. All the signs of gentrification in progress. But I have things to do, so I’ll keep you updated on the foolery.

My life at Howard University.

The Wheels On The Bus

Yes, I’m well aware that it’s been over a year since that last post. I’ve been busy. A LOT has happened. Well not really a lot, I just got lazy towards the end of the spring semester last year, plus I had a ridiculous amount of work to do. Was it because I procrastinated on my work? Not at all, procrastination is the politically correct term for a concept I like to call “Designated Time”. You see, when I get an assignment, I set aside a time for when I’m going to do it – at the last minute. Now, the last minute can mean the day before, up to three days before. Although three days is somewhat of a stretch because there are two days allotted to work in the assignment. I’m sure we all know most people do their best work at the last minute, so why not wait until the last minute? That, my friends, is designated time, a derivative of time management.

Well in the fall of last year, a crap load happened. I won’t get in to that, but let’s just say I have some of the best friends in the world. I have great parents who supported me all through the foolery. I also have to thank my idol, Bill Nye The Science Guy, for keeping my head level through the whole situation. With that said, the meat and potatoes….

[sighs] Another year of the annual homecoming festivities. Where should I begin? The girl who thought it was okay to walk around in public wearing an alligator print cat suit? Her partner in crime wearing a snake skin cat suit? The girl who thought it was okay to wear snow boots in the dead of fall? The gentlemen who spent their book voucher money on the latest Dada Supreme and Bugle Boy outfits? Whatever the case may be, with each year, Howard’s sense of fashion is mirroring the economic state of America – just getting worse and worse. Let’s get a few things straight:

I’m not here for cat suits.

I’m not here for girls who think it’s okay to have a two tone weave with unpressed hair.

I’m not here for the faculty and staff thinking it’s okay to “get their groove back” just because Frankie Beverly & Maze rubbed some Bengay on their knees and came out for a show. Howard can’t afford to have EMS on standby. And the streets are too crowded for Life Alert to hear your calls.

I’m not here for people living beyond their means wearing clothes they couldn’t afford even if it were on the wholesale rack.

And I’m DEFINITELY not here for boys thinking it’s okay to shop at Causal Male XL when their frame is similar to Gumby’s.

Oddly enough, there were more people at Yardfest (the free stuff) than last year. You would have thought Howard was giving out reparations. People came in their Easter Sunday best. But it’s not like half of them have been to church in months. Homecoming was the same foolery it is every year. So I won’t get into that too much. Homecoming will tell you who your real friends are.

Back to me, so I no longer live on campus. No more rules. No more visitation hours (as if ANYBODY adhered to them). No more running around the dorm having water fights. I’m on my own, in a way. Five days a week I take the bus and the train to and from campus. The morning commute is rather boring. Not much happens since it’s so early in the morning. The evening is when the nonsense happens. I take four different buses after class. I could take the train, but the common sense in me refuses to pay $6 to go from campus to home on the train. So I just take the bus. I always take my iPod so that I don’t have to worry about being bothered. But that doesn’t stop me from experiencing all the great people DC has to offer. Spending up to 2 hours on the bus, I’ve come to realize a lot of things about people who ride the bus. These are my findings:

1. People are not prepared. I really just don’t have time for stupid people. But I find it irritating when people get on the bus and don’t have their money ready. You should have had your transit card or cash, coins, iTunes gift card, etc ready to pay the fare. There’s no reason why you get on the bus and search through your bottomless carryon luggage some people call a purse. YOU KNEW 10 minutes ago you were getting on the bus. You should have taken care of that beforehand. Now, I can understand if you were running to make it, that’s justified. But when you’ve been standing at the bus stop for at least a minute watching the bus approach, there’s no justification. There’s nothing that irritates me more than when a bus stops at the corner, and the second the bus begins to pull off, the light changes and we have to stop.

2. People are loud. I was on the bus one afternoon and this woman found it necessary to talk to her cousin on the phone about an affair between a boyfriend and another person. How she’s not afraid to whoop her tail – mind you she was about 5 foot 4 115 pounds wearing Keds (ma’am, sit down). The high school kids get on the bus and act like a bunch of AHDA having children let loose in 10 acre McDonald’s play place. Then there are the people who get on with their iPods and are playing the music loudly, totally defeating the purpose of the headphones. I shouldn’t be listening to my music and then all of a sudden hear “…all you ladies pop your pussy like this…” Then there’s the middle to old aged men who get on and a civil conversation is almost like a shouting match considering the volume of their voices. I understand you’re trying to be heard, but I don’t think the people in Nebraska need to hear you.

3. People do not care. I can’t explain it, but a picture is worth a thousand words:

4. People over/under estimate. I’m slender person. I’m only about 5’7 135 pounds. Some people think that just because I’m small, and they’re big, that means the space in the seat will balance out. No. It will not. I’ve been through this a number of times. If anything, once the second and third layer of love handles settle into the seat, there will be hardly any breathing room for me. And I like to sit at the window. God forbid I need to reach into my pocket for something. 

5. People have issues. There’s always that one person on the bus or train who makes the ride uncomfortable for everyone else. This person is talking loud, appears to have a mental handicap, is pacing the bus, and basically preaching a Jehovah’s Witnesses “The Watch Tower” pamphlet. I’ve experienced a number of these. There was one night when somehow the Soulja Girl found her way to DC and was preaching at the Brookland Metro Station bus terminal. Her exact words were, “Your next boyfriend is going to rape your son.” She was quite loud. She was talking about some other nonsense. But the whole situation really called into the question the whereabouts of her straight jacket. There was another time at the same station when a man and a woman almost got into a battle. The woman was smoking around the man’s children and he asked her to stop. She must’ve found the proposal disrespectful because she started hollering like the ignorant coon that she was. She even threatened to fight the man with his children there. She would have lost anyway. 

But in any event, now that I have a lot more free time, I’ll be able to keep you updated on my daily travels and the foolery that I encounter on a weekly basis.

My life at Howard University.