Hip hop music, also called hip-hop or rap music, is a music genre developed in the United States by inner-city African Americans and Latino Americans in the Bronx borough of New York City in the 1970s.
Its been a year since grandma had her first TIA, mini stroke. She can’t walk anymore or even stand up on her own to get in the wheel chair, I helped with her on Tuesday while my aunt was on vacation and I just kept breaking down into tears the whole time. I had been having trouble eating for a few days so I was really weak and could barely lift her with my other aunt. I just couldn’t believe how much changed in a year.
Tonight, my brother and I rode in the old bus in a Christmas parade with our dad. We weren’t super into it but we really wanted to spend time with him while we still have the change to. It has all been so eye opening to how fragile life is and has left me in a state of anxiety that I can’t even explain. I lost my friend suddenly to heart failure on October 22 and then they put grandma on hospice on October 25. She is still alive and they do not say she is dying but I can’t understand why she can’t talk anymore or even really move her arms and legs. I guess that’s what strokes do but it has been so very hard, I cry every day.
My former brother in law and neices’ father tragically took his life on Nov 16 and I have not really been able to come to terms with that one year.
That leaves me with the last concern that I am afraid to even write about. It had been months and then finally I had heard something promising and then nothing. If I wasn’t close enough to check on her nearly daily, I would be struggling even more. I hope that it doesn’t bother her that I just need to see her car continue to move and on my hardest days I make sure I am even more accurate than that. So I will just keep dreaming as hard as I can and sending my unwaivering support over the breeze.
I have been struggling so terribly emotionally but she did send me a picture the day after she said something to me and it has been helping me push though, oh how I love when she sends me pictures.
• byShe Says • InMovies, R&B • Comments Off on If I could make you stop and take a look at me
The last few months have been extremely difficult. This movie came up in conversation and of course, I needed something to do with all these emotions.
I spent the evening helping my oldest aunt take care of my grandmother. It was exremely difficult and I kept breaking down in tears. I was supposed to stay the night but had so much anxiety about it, I made myself sick.
• byShe Says • InPop, R&B, Soul music • Comments Off on Have you ever tried to find the words but they don’t come out right?
Today has been really difficult to hold it together. Last Tuesday was an emotional roller coaster and I still don’t know what’s going on, but I have a good idea.
The flame extinguisher is at it again and its far more serious than I can express here.
Then this song came on the radio when I was coming home from Jeremy’s house. I enjoyed it too much and then laughed at the thought – in 1998, this is certainly what I was listening to and I have some very nice archived tapes to prove it.
Around 1998, I was in middle school – enjoying cable TV in my own bedroom. Within a few years, I would be tying up the home telephone line for hours downloading these songs on Napster. That may have come a few years later.
Today, I heard this classic on the 90’s on 9 and it was just what I needed. Not my typical genre of choice but it was for the last few years of that decade. Middle school dances were will with R&B.
It reminded me of the time that I was sitting at the light by Palmer’s (was heading West for record purposes) and The Cardigan’s Lovefool came on. You can bet I raced to message her and tell her all about it.
This week, I have been working from home because my car messed up last Thursday. I just parked it and didn’t look back – I had no time for bad news. Well, just before 5 PM I see that I have a text and check my phone and it is my aunt telling me that my grandma fell and hit her head and was on her way to the ER but my grandma wanted her to tell me. being stuck at home, trying to remain calm and work became extremely difficult. I didn’t really have any information and I knew that my aunt was busy dealing with that so I tried not to ask too many questions but I was in a panic. I certainly cried on many calls today – quietly but I think something you can tell.
Tomorrow, the 2nd is my grandmother’s wedding anniversary. I am pretty sure that it would be her 74th wedding anniversary but she probably only got to celebrate 51. He passed away a few months before their 52nd, unexpectedly – and I have been terrified of losing her ever since. None of her children thought she would live that long without him. They were so in love and the most positive influence in my life. For every time I have heard, “Damn, you’re pretty normal to come from all that” they have always been the reason. My father’s siblings included but I was a poor trailer trash kid that was barely making it that got to spend the weekends and summers in a very structured environment. It may have lead to plenty of psychological problems, but it wasn’t due to anything that ever happened there – I was very well taken care of. They all knew what my brother and I had to go through and they did everything they could to make sure that we had everything that we needed. My grandpa picked us up from school every Friday to go stay the weekend with them nearly until he passed.
Well, I am crying writing this and really need to get to bed but when I felt like I needed someone, I knew that she would be okay me with me needing a little support. I never expected her to actually read it past seeing it in a notification but she did more than that. I spent a few moments wondering if it was a dream but probably only due to my level of physical exhaustion and possible disbelief. I was actually getting into a U-Haul to drive it when I saw the message come in. I set my phone down nervously – I knew that I had to wait at least a few minutes before jumping to read it. That was hard but I am sure that I waited at least 5. Because – I was driving the U-Haul. When I looked at the notification, I had to screen shot it for that future love story that I am writing. It’s completely in my head but forming more and more every day. Today, during my attempts at being innocent, I used an octopus emoji and a turtle emoji – because how else will I say – all the things I wanted to say.
It wasn’t long before I thought about the irony in this match. How the turtle can hold its breath for many hours and is aquatic, it can not actually stay under the water forever. Then I had to go the other way, I have heard that an octopus can walk on land when it really needs to but it can’t stay out of the water long. It wasn’t long before I was wanting her to read The Little Mermaid to me and I don’t know the Disney version. I never even let my morbid day dreams of the drowning turning drift over to her digitally but I did spend the day writing up an email. There was lots of deleting – I wish I had a type writer so that I could rip the page out of it and crumple it up and throw it across the room each time I start over. Selecting all and deleting all of my words is just less satisfying.
My heart is beating a little different today. I don’t feel so alone. When I was stuck at my house – trying to work, thinking about my grandma in the ER, I was a mess. They sent her straight back and passed up everyone but I guess that is what 89 and 3/4 gets you. I actually can’t think about it at all without crying but I know that she is holding my hand and I am sure that she understands more than I do how important moments like this are. They wanted to keep her overnight because she has a concussion but my aunt didn’t want her staying in the ER with so many sick people – There are nearly 1,000 new cases reported in her county just in that day. It’s so sad that we are afraid of hospitals now – well, I always have been but I am afraid of most things. Like scheduling an appointment with a new doctor – that’s a catch 22 or something. The up side is that my boss thinks I am extremely dedicated when in reality, I am just afraid of getting kicked out of another one of my comfort zones.
On a completely different subject but related to an email that I sent that kind of makes me blush thinking back on it – I wonder if she knows that I haven’t been interested in a single woman since I met her? It’s a confusing fact because I have some self-defeating defense mechanisms and back in 2013 I was a much different person. I did run out to remind myself that people still wanted me. Then I ended up with Maddison because I thought that if I tried hard enough, I would eventually have feelings for someone – which in a way is true, I have plenty of feelings about her but none are romantic and they never were. I can’t find my point but in my email I am pretty sure that I told her that I had been messaging two girls to try to leave her alone. I hope someday she finds out how ridiculously innocent they were. To start with my profile only said friends because is by far all I want – unless our name is that one name, I will make any exception for her.
She is such an artist and with my heart is no exception. When I ended up reading the message that I spent about 20 days checking for, I just stared and read and reread. I told myself that’s not what she means by it. I reminded myself it was no accident and then I just let my weird R&B song that has worked it way into my days.
This is not my normal musical preference but in about middle school, I was all about r&b. There are 2 stations near me and when I hear a song I know, I stop to listen but when this one crossed my radio – it was the first time I could actually understand what the heck Nelly was saying but when I hear songs that speak to me like that, I just freeze – I can’t imagine who is picking out this sound track – they have me.
You win this time Nelly but I don’t plan to be touched by any more of your music.. but tonight, I am.
Then she said words to me. I need to go find her in dreamland. What will be the next 20 year old song that I ‘hear’ for the first time?
The last one was live and still has me slightly beside myself when I think about the way I felt as I understood the lyrics in the hardest way possible.
Sometimes I wonder about the subliminal messages that music has embedded in me: no reason.
Last night I threw an emotional fit, alone – because the Alanis Morisette concert that I have been waiting for since December.
I signed up to get a pre-sale ticket and those went so fast, I thought that I would be able to get a ticket with seats after pre-sale was over but those also went so fast that I ended up buying lawn tickets for $120 each – when the pre-sale lawn tickets that I thought I was too good for sold for $43 each. I was so pissed at myself – and NOW – I won’t even get to go. I didn’t really have the $240 to spare at the time but I did it because I thought that I would finally get to go to a concert with her. Hell, at the time, I thought that we would be living together by now and practically married – but I guess that is what happens when you life in a fantasy world and forget to ground yourself with reality.
Ultimately, I know not to depend on anyone but myself and to never get too excited over anything. When I get good news, I try my hardest not to tell anyone for fear that it will disappear before it ever happens. I grew up knowing that marriage wasn’t for people like me. I knew that my father would never be able to afford a wedding before I even understood that I was gay and once I realized I was not only poor but gay too – I knew there was no chance at ever having a normal, happy life – but it hasn’t kept me from dreaming about it.
In 1999 when I realized that I was only interested in women, there was no hope of legalized gay marriage and I thought that legal marijuana was just something people talked about – like feminism. The concept was great but the world would never stand for any of that. At the time, I didn’t even smoke but my dad did and I knew that it was enough to cause worry for my family. I knew that it made me have to lie to people that I loved if the topic ever came up. It was controversial before my sexuality ever existed.
Today, I am going to complain about something that doesn’t even matter but has me in a rage all the same. Madd has spent the last 3.5 years manipulating me and finding ways to control me and sadly – it usually revolved around her children. The hardest part about the relationship – wasn’t even the abuse – it was trying to act like I cared and I was interested when the world around me (including her) knew my heart was elsewhere – just waiting.
Well in 2017 sometime, she met some mechanic that came to work on our cars. Her name was Sarah and she owned a mobile mechanic shop. My pride was not feeling it when Madd stayed up all night with her working on the car – because “She needed help.” I doubt we got a discount for this help but either way that is when that started. Emotionally – I didn’t give a shit – I wished she would leave so I could go back to waiting peacefully. I learned quickly that there is no waiting when there are 2 small children involved.
Eventually she started threatening me – when i didn’t want to have sex that she was going to go have sex with Sarah and eventually she did. Her mental health issues exacerbated mine and we fought all of the time. She would try to control me, I would try to resist – she didn’t like that. As I learned more about the men she had dated in the past, I realized this was a pattern and she was not happy that I would say no from time to time.
Well the point of that is that we would break up all of the time – never get back together but break up constantly. Basically, she would tell me if we were together or not it seemed, because I found out in January – after she started sleeping with Sarah or I believe they prefer to call it fucking for some reason – but after I got pissed that she was ‘fucking’ Sarah she informed me that we broke up sometime in November. I decided to take it and run, though my pride and ego were a bit bruised.
I will spare the details of New Year’s Eve 2019 when she ditched me to go pick up Sarah and have a mental break down / fling for a week or two. I ended up having to go to the doctor to get my Xanax refilled. She made it very public so all of my friends and reports knew at work when we returned. Then a week later, I was informed that I was getting laid off – so suddenly I didn’t give a fuck about Sarah or Madd or anything else but what the hell I was going to do.
It took me 5 weeks to land a job – well I was hired on that 5th week – the very day that my love swooped down to save me. Well, she probably doesn’t know how powerful she was but she has a way of giving me strength when I need it most. That was February 20th. It was a long 2 months. My brother started breaking down. I think that he felt he had to leave. He has been living with me for free for years but I have had a decent job where I barely notice the impacted. I would live here alone anyway – there is no way I would have a roommate. There are less than 5 people that I am willing to live with and he is damn lucky that he is one of them because it is not because he is a good house mate.
But anyway – somehow she knew that I needed someone right then. I was losing everything – or so it felt like. I have my theories. It starts with wondering if her friend that happened to be on my brother’s facebook before any of us ever met – contacted her because he was having his own set of breakdowns, which were much worse and much more dangerous than mine. I just slept all day, he was done. I had to field so many texts from concerned friends – including my aunt and my 87 year old grandma is on his facebook. For a while, it was my full time job just watching him and telling people he was… okay.
This post was supposed to be about what happened to me yesterday and why I am incredibly let down yet again by someone that I never really trusted but took it upon myself to protect her 4 year old daughter – because I feel like if I don’t no one else will. So its relevant to say that January of 2018 we got in a fight, on the 18th. Do to her choice in fighting moves – she now has a pending case for unlawful restraint. I really didn’t mean to cause that charge by what I said – but they asked what happened and I told them.
She is significantly bigger than me – possibly twice my size and I feel like that probably played into it. The ‘Good Ol Boy’ police officers that showed up in Kyle, TX didn’t know what to do with a lesbian fight. I’ve tried to get it dropped. She still owes money to her lawyer, so the case is still open but that caused her not to be able to rent. She put in her notice here, because she lived in a small apartment behind me that she hated. It was $750 a month and her grandma paid for her rent and all her bills. I think she sent her about $1400 a month, She insisted on moving to Austin near Sarah. She needed a 3 bedroom place and ended up finding one for $1500. Her grandma pays the rent but nothing else.
She couldn’t qualify for that with her charge or no job – so she conned me into renting it for her in my name. I started to realize that I could get in a lot of trouble for it and decided to refuse when it started coming time. This bitch actually said, “If you don’t rent this house for me and my kids, we will end up homeless and they will probably get taken away. If you want my kids to end up like your brother, growing up in foster care and dying with a needle in their arm then don’t rent the house but you will have to deal with that for the rest of your life.” Now I am sure that is not an exact quote because I did not record it but I can say it meant just that. She then walked out of my house, because she used to just walk in whenever she wanted to. I was left staring in silence when couch boy, who was just in the living room, came in to apologize for her. He just looked at me and said, “I don’t even know what to say to that. You know she is mentally unstable but here is no excuse to ever say that.” She says “Well I apologized for it later.” I’m sorry, I have PTSD because of my mother and things she has said and done in front of me, you can’t erase that – but my dumb fucking self rented the damn house for her. This was in August.
Fast forward to yesterday. so they haven’t even been there 3 months yet and she called me last night to ask me to take her to go dry her clothes because her dryer is broken again. To start with – I told her that if she moved to Austin, she would need to ask all her Austin friends for help and not me because I don’t want to be driving to Austin all the damn time – but here we are. I know that she doesn’t really have other friends. She may think she does but in the end no one will help her but Jenn and I. Jenn is her best friend from who knows when and basically her only friend. Well I agree like a dumb ass to go help her once again. I drive my ass up there and because of traffic it took an hour. I get there and the garage that was nicely emptied on Thursday when I had to go pick her up from the hospital because she totaled her car while it was on my insurance – but that’s another story that I don’t even know what will happen now. Point of that is, the garage is filled with someone else’s shit and it’s not hard to tell that it’s a bunch of mechanic shit with lesbian stickers all over it. I ask the 9 year old whose stuff it is and he tells me “No one’s” so that’s cool. Now I am stuck taking Madd to whatever princess laundry mat she wants to go to (She took me 12 minutes away – way too far in my opinion) and you bet I complained about her moving Sarah into the house that is in my name. She seems to think I am immature and out of line but fuck a whole lot of that. I knew that she was going to take advantage of this somehow, but I really did not expect her to move Sarah into a house that is in my name. I am still scanning my brain for solutions. I am more than pissed and she doesn’t give a fuck.
