A Quarter Life Crisis

Back when the Best Friend was preggers with my Godson to be, I secretly hoped he would be born on my birthday. It wasn’t a selfish thought it was one of those I want to be an ultra exceptional God Mommy who shares her birthday with her special little guy…OK maybe it was selfish, whatever. Anywho it was what I wanted you know because me don’t wants little bundles. Trust my vicarious motherhood through the Best Friend and Wander has helped enough to pretty much scorch out any inkling of mom gene in me…believe it folks. Of course Fate/Mother Nature/Whatever Higher Power You Subscribe To decided it wasn’t meant to be. Instead my Godson was born 10 days after my birth making him a Libra (what kinda of jacked up sh*t…and who’s a Libra anyway no offense to the Libras in the house), I mean those Powers could have hooked me up with the same sign…bastards.

Now originally the Best Friend and Dapper Dan were having a bowling party at one of my favorite hang outs, North Bowl for the Godson but it was changed to an in the house party for the tots at Dapper Dan’s house…way low key…me likes. Well me likes besides the clean up that takes place after tons of little people run through a home all hopped up on Capri Suns and Candy. Kids are sadistic little something or others when they’re coming down off a sugar high…it is at this point I find the nearest parent and run for the hills.

When the good Lord passed out the mothering gene’s I was getting an extra dose of snarky or something…I don’t know!

While setting up the Transformer Streamers and trying to stop the Godfather from molesting me in front of the few scattered children and my Godson’s Granny I started thinking about what I was doing when I was five. Yup I had a nostalgia moment. It could have been triggered by some rather depressing news I received Friday from the Male Nurse Friend or it could have been the party itself that sparked the memories but for what it’s worth here it is.

When I was five I was on top of the world, not literally but you’re sipping my kool-aid I know you are. I lived at the time in a northern Jersey suburb…a cul-de-sac nonetheless with grass as far as my eyes could see and that space was my world so it was only right to be the princess of the castle. The Little Brother was but 1 and hadn’t quite developed that bow-legged cowboy walk that was his signature for years to come. He later outgrew the bow legged stride without braces or breaking of bones suggested by those Nazis doctors. The Man Wander Married I think was on tour in Japan but I had sweet memories of him (God how time and age change things) whisking me into his arms with brown lunch bags full of shoe strings and mary janes and any type of candy you could think of.

Yup I remember those Cabbage Patch sheets with Rainbow Brite kitchen set days with a fondness. I recall them with an air of I could do anything with my lifeness and optimism that later became active cynicism. At five no one thinks about the sadness that sometimes happens in life. It’s a good thing. It’s actually a wonderful thing. I mean of course some folk have jacked up childhoods and they’re probably not as stress-free as my early adolescence. Of course what came later wasn’t all peaches and cream but I can say that those Rainbow Brite days were fantubulously great. And really it could be because without having an adult understanding of some situations makes life a little happier as a kid.

Take for instance that only about half the folk that should have showed for the party made an appearance. Do you think this fazed my Godson…not a chance he was stoked to see all his aunts, uncles, random cousins and open gifts. Now his parent’s totally different story in particular I believe Dapper Dan yelled at his sister and told her not to come since she was over 3hrs late for a party that was only slotted for 3 hours.

If you can add you realize Dapper Dan’s sister showed after the party was scheduled to end…of course she wasn’t the only offender…damn I hate colored folk time…with a serious passion.

Anywho back to the title of this here posting…to be five again would be nice and if I could go back there I would hug the Man Wander Married one last time because he was a true dad then and I would eat a brown lunch bag full of candy with reckless abandon for my teeth.

So blog friends, blog lurkers and my faithful blog readers what would you do if you were 5 again?

If the powers that be are out there in the cyberspace listening to me rant, work sucks (I kid I kid, because momma needs her paycheck). But really work is getting to be the bane of my existence as of late (explains the week long hiatus from blogging). Not that I don’t appreciate some of the perks, frequent flyer miles and hotel points but what I don’t like, oh man what I don’t like is the complete and total interruption of my life for all things work inspired. All of Sunday and I do mean all (16 non sleep + some early Monday hours) were devoted to work!

Additionally I think Work is contributing to my all to frequent housemate Insomnia, but I could be wrong.

Yes yes I know I am a corporate ladder striver, but I am also a red blooded American chick who likes to kick off her work heels in exchange for a pair of get em girl pumps and hit the town. OK OK in Work’s defense I did have a hella good time Friday and Saturday night (thank you Vodka you always know how to make a night right) which could explain how Work kidnapped me Sunday and ruined my plan to attend the family bbq but alas, I need a rant and this here is gonna be one whether Work likes it or not.

Dramaticals…anywho I should have saved that business trip to LA for some other time considering that Model Friend came home for the Labor Day weekend (not like I really had a choice). As a result there was no tear-less, I miss you so much hug-fess (I am not a hugger by nature it really does take a lot out of me to conjure up a good one) because I’d just seen her the prior week. Of course Male Nurse Friend showed his entire a$$, this is really to be expected it’s just the kind of hand-job (excuse the vulgarities but he pissed me off this weekend) he is sometimes, and didn’t show for any of the welcome home Model Friend festivities. Of which were very few because well her trip home was about la familia, totally understandable. As the dorks we are we decided an early night bowling match and possibly a drink to say welcome home nice to see you have fun with the ‘rents yada yada yada.

Nurse Friend tagged along since well she and Model Friend get a long pretty well and I was on the outs again with the Best Friend for reasons unknown and well Nurse Friend is fun minus and we work well as wing women for each other, nuff said. Model Friend brought along her Equally Model Sister and for some reason bowling morphed into dinner when everyone realized we all skipped trying to make the 9:30ish deadline. Dinner was better because my stomach was rubbing my back by the time everyone arrived.

We ended the night at some in the courtyard type hide-out club in Northern Liberties (hipster up & coming neighborhood in Philadelphia) called PYT (Pretty young thangs, repeat after me I said Na Na Na, Na Na Na…I'll Take You There….oops digression). What I enjoyed most about this out the basement turned through the bathroom backdoor club was the DJ. Alllls yeah he played some pretty good blended music. When I say blended I mean a mix of the hip hop oldies but goodies and new school body rockers that had me and my friends on the dance floor shaking but not breaking what our momma’s gave us.

Side note both songs are equally dumb but a fun not gonna hurt no body dance song makes me smile regardless of my mood. I loves me some muzak therapy!

In any event that night Nurse Friend and I decided to meet up Saturday for service (I am not a Seven Day Adventist I am pray fo Jesus Baptist born and bred however my church offers multiple services so everyone can attend regardless the work schedule.) I personally prefer Saturday because it doesn’t involve the tomfoolery of gotta wear your best fo da lawd tomfoolery of Sunday. The message was on point and all was is well with my soul, which happened to be the hymn and one of my personal faves.

For whatever the reason we decided after service no doubt….did I mention the scruptilciousness of the security guard as we entered the house of the Lord (someone pray for me), to get some drinks. You know nothing like praying your demons away and chasing them down with Vodka. We ended up at Mixto some little Cubano/Colombiano spot in Center City where the waiter commented on the absolute perfection of my Spanish. Ah muchas gracias guapo que la práctica de vez en cuando or many thanks handsome I practice every once and a while. He wasn’t guapo but I can be a bit of a flirt or so I’m told. In any event we left there after some tasty drinks to a watering hole near UPENN’s campus called the Marbar. In deed Nurse Friend was correct. As the night wore on despite the alcohol the prospects grew shorter and uglier. Normally under the guidance of Vodka this wouldn’t be the case but ugly is definitely to the bone.

Sunday, as we know was monopolized by tons of work that I desperately needed to complete for the client by Tuesday. No thanks to my LA manager in answering my SOS e-mails begging for an extension given the IT problems I’d been plagued with for two weeks. My requests clearly fell on deaf ears. I finished the work thankfully by 5AM Monday morning but ended up missing the family bbq, grumpy tomato I think yes. The highlight or lowlight of Sunday whatever you wanna call it being accosted in the drive thru window of my local McStrokes by a cutie. This is not a good look friend…I am mangled looking like petrified WTF because I was trapped in my bat cave all damn day why in the good Lord’s name did this cute guy want my number, conclusion he must have issues. I did the double O fake out and told him to give me his instead.

Why do I take guys’ numbers that I have absolutely no intentions on calling?

When I woke Monday afternoon yes I said afternoon I loafed around the apartment doing absolutely nothing besides watching the Golden Girls marathon. It felt good for about three hours before I became restless and felt the hunger monkeys craving a greasy slice of Lorenzo’s pizza from this place on South Street. I dodged an invite from Mailroom Boy just didn’t feel like driving to his part of town plus he mentioned something about hanging with his daughter (not my preferred cup of tea) so I ended up on South Street picking up a slice. After waving hi and bye to Mr. Bengali, he still works selling clothing at a store on that strip, and taking the mental note damn he’s still hella sexy and without a doubt one of the smartest(which is sexier) men I’ve ever dated …but sadly plagued by circumstance (a little something called citizenship).

Seeing Mr. Bengali made me think of my lucky shirt and the reasons surrounding our break-up (age difference among other things). No sense in dwelling on the past, what shall be shall be but the man is hella smart and fantabulously gorgeous….hmmm rose quartz or libido…the juries out on that one!

No need for applause I have reached the infamous 100th episode of Chronicles: A Quarter Life Crisis and would like to thank everyone who stops by every once and again to read and comment on my rants with atmosphere.

Now that the bureaucratic poppycock is out of the way let me get into the “seriousness” that is this blog. Health update, MNF is finished rehabbing in his aunt’s attic and quite possibly almost back to his 6 day a week intensive gym workout. God I wish I had his dedication. Side note I gave the bike a spring overhaul (Ok the bike shop overhauled but you get what I’m saying.) and I should be up and riding any day now if good ole Mother Nature comes to her senses and stops with the damn rain showers.

And when I say bike I mean bicycle you know the kind you pedal not the ones that go vroooom.

In true friend fashion I’ve been checking in with MNF every day since his release from the ‘spital just to make sure he hadn’t killed over in a corner somewhere. You know just doing my best to be the best friend I can be. And believe you me this took a lot of extra energy on my part because as it goes, I am not a phone person.

Everyone who knows me knows that although my life seems somehow to have morphed its way into a tiny maroon box of numbers and appointment dates I can’t stand answering the damn phone let alone picking it up to call someone else. After spending hours and I do mean hours of my day listening to people talk (mostly about nothing) I find it hard to stomach additional unnecessary voices. For this reason alone I avoid phone talk at all costs. I do text a lot though, it’s so much more direct and I don’t have to listen to filler conversation.

Maybe I should talk to someone about this problem..could I have some strange socialization complex along with my host of other undiagnosed issues?

Anywho Male Nurse Friend revealed a disturbing dream while chatting the other day. Through laughs and now that I think about it maybe I should feel some type of way he said something like, OMG how about last night I had the raunchiest dream about us having sex.

WTF, might I repeat WTF?

OK back story I reminded him the other day in joke of our college pact (we were dumb and 19 at the time don’t hold it against us) that by 27 (odd age I know) if neither of us were in a serious relationship we should have a child together. At 19 I guess neither of use considered that having a child together might also include seeing each other’s man and woman parts. Not that I haven’t bore sight to the magnificent package accidently spied his loins he’s never seen the goodies. And obviously at the time MNF was deeply buried in the closet by the piles of chicks he’d bedded. To be honest he was quite the man-whore back then.

But our child, God I imagine a devilishly cute kid, not to toot our own horns or anything. I mean so cute it would be hard to look at for fear of getting sick with cutabulousness. Wander might actually be happy for me for once as I think she fears I’ll never have children. (I don’t want kids) As I age she slowly sees her grandmotherhood fade away, luckily for her the Little Brother & Sister are here to preserve what’s left of it.

In any event MNF said the dream was super real. He woke up frantic screaming for me and slightly uncomfortable. My reaction, was I good? Is this wrong and/or vain?

Seriously if you’re gonna bed your best friend at least it should be good/weird not bad/weird right?

Emergency per dictionary.com is

1. a sudden, urgent, usually unexpected occurrence or occasion requiring immediate action.


2. a state, esp. of need for help or relief, created by some unexpected event

Interesting I was under the same impression. If for some reason you have an urgent situation that requires immediate action it’s correctly labeled an emergency.

By the end this will make sense just give me a little leeway folks.

MNF (Male Nurse Friend) became unexpectedly ill two weeks ago resulting in an initial hospitalization for five days. Before dragging himself there via cab he had a temperature of 103 with severe abdominal and head pain. After it was all said and done he was diagnosed with some unknown virus causing the fever that agitated a dormant migraine condition. I am no doctor but I guess this sounds reasonable. Of course MNF doesn’t agree. He believes there’s some medical conspiracy and he truly had viral meningitis.

If he did in fact have viral meningitis, I doubt this very seriously, he would probably be in a wooden box instead of stockpiled in his aunt’s attic until he regains his strength. Did I forget to mention he lost 12lbs during the whirl wind sickness? Obviously catching a life draining virus works better than hydroxycut, some non FDA approved pill schleppers might want to consider bottling that contagion and selling it to the fat masses. Of course in the fine print they will mention may cause week long stay in hospital. To some the pro might outweigh the con.

I’ve digressed right off the reservation, ok back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Unfortunately two days after the discharge from the suburban hospital, MNF was having pain fits coupled with severe weakness and light headedness. Since I am a stupenderful friend I carted MNF to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s ER. I dropped MNF at the door figuring I could zip his little sister home and by the time I rounded back he would be in a room in the ER.

No such luck. When I returned to the hospital, 35-40 mins later (traffic) my friend was just getting triaged. Not to mention the ER was packed like the club. And when I say the club I mean just that no exaggeration. People were falling over each other and there was limited seating.

After MNF was given hazmat gear a face mask he shuffled back into the masses and we took a seat against the wall. Hours went by. Eventually my friend began to shake a bit and seemed close to passing out, which he confirmed after I asked. Being the good friend I am and considering no one had been called back since we arrived, not that you could really decipher who was a patient and who was waiting with a sick friend and/or relative, I decided to take some action.

Honestly 95% of the folks in the ER looked perfectly equipped to run a mini marathon.

Puzzling I thought ERs sole purpose was to prevent sudden and very likely death. Granted I didn’t see any gunshot or stabbing victims saunter through the ER doors so I was at a complete loss as to why this was taking so long especially since most of the folks were obviously there using the ER as a clinic and were not in need of any immediate care (I blame this on the recession). Besides my friend there were two other people there who looked close to keeling over. I kindly walked to the triage desk to get an ETA along with alerting them to MNF’s sudden shakes and concern of passing out. The man at the desk basically said that the normal ER wait is 2-4hrs and that given the additional info I just provided he would send someone over to check my friend’s vitals.

Interesting 2-4hrs debunks the whole concept of emergency but maybe it’s me.

We waited an additional half hour. No one came to check MNF’s vitals. Our total wait time before I rushed my friend to another ER, three hours and forty five minutes. I bolted to Jefferson Hospital’s ER. By the time we got there he could barely walk. After checking his vitals, pulse of 38 MNF was dispatched to a room, placed on an IV and pumped full of morphine, hmmmm I guess he truly had an emergency.

I guess we should have waited those 15 minutes, what do you think?

Male Nurse Friend (MNF) is a maniac! He calls me the eternal eighties baby always with a sweater, cardigan or some type of vest in tote with every outfit. I can’t help it; it’s my fashion equivalent security blanket.

And this weekend was no exception to my rule. MNF invited me to a citizenship party for his Ukrainian man-friend. It seemed interesting; I’d never gone to a just got your legal right to be in this country soiree so I thought why not let’s give it a whirl.

What to wear, what to wear….of course every non work and sometimes work outfit begins with a sweater, cardigan or vest of some sort. I decided on a long black number but light weight considering the nice weather coupled with a this dress black tights and knee length riding boot! Accessories were definitely very cute, a three strand black pearl necklace dropping ever so nicely into the midgets (applied a little shimmer for added effect) and a fedora.

Side note I went through the trouble of putting together such a fashion do because Male Nurse Friend dresses so well going out with him can sometimes be hurtful to your self esteem.

As always MNF was running late. He darted to the door in his bathrobe and no undies. Such a nice body, oops Freudian slip! And raced right back up before I could get out even a hello. I tramped up the two flights to his apartment in all my fantubulousness to wait for him. Once he was done getting shitty sharp, I hate and heart this man simultaneously, he told me to stand up so he could give me the once over.

Yes yes yes I approve. I love this outfit, Denise Huxtable (this is a compliment to me). I might have to change up my look for the spring based on you as my inspiration.

Ok if I could go back in time and become any one Huxtable…it would have to be Denise (which is the same as saying Lisa Bonet because I think they are one in the same) not because she was the prettiest sister but because she was fly(first definition)!

Yes I said it. I used inner city vernacular to describe my affinity for Denise Huxtable. It seems so wrong but fly is as fly does. Digressing! I am a huge pre-celestial child of the moon gods Lisa Bonet fan you know right after she married Lenny Kravitz post Cosby during A Different World. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with Liliquois Moon but I’m just not a hug a tree dirty knapsack kinda chica.

I dug her offbeat out/in-touch fashion sense. It warms my heart and to some degree it described me perfectly. I loathe trends and stick with my own personal Faith style. It probably doesn’t work for everyone but hey it’s authentic, represents my personality and at this point there is little change happening any time soon. So I guess Denise Huxtable it is. I wear the badge with honor.

So that was like a post inside of a post, I was supposed to be talking about the Citizenship party right?

Yeah so the party was an odd, cross generational thing with folks ranged from 65-16 all congregating around a karaoke machine. I mean these folks were professional karaoke-ers if such a group exists, all ready to belt out tone deaf versions of great classics. Some came armed with sheet music. All I brought was a congratulation card for the guest of honor, obviously very slackerish in hindsight. This lack of preparation put me at odds as much as walking into a formal dinner party flip flop casual. Not to mention grandpas were hawking the cleave pretty hard after a few glasses of wine while their wives called me every harlot name in the book.

Being one of the few token colored folk in the room you know minus the Mexican wait staff, I was expected to sing like Whitney and dance like Beyonce. By nature I’m a klutz. I catch the beat just fine you know I can hear two and four unlike some rhyme challenged folks who clap on one and three it’s just coupling that with simultaneous body motions. Don’t get me wrong I do a mean two step which fools non dancing professionals but I felt a little pressure. Not to mention I have the singing voice of a frog. But none the less I belted out with MNF a janky rendition of Celebration and took a seat. Some actually clapped, probably to make us feel less amateurish considering we were amongst Olympic karaoke-ers.

After hearing three just tipsy, three on my way to plastered and three totally hammered renditions of At Last I was ready to call it a night. Remind me to ignore MNF’s Saturday night calls for the next month I can’t do another night like that for awhile.