Talk To Me Nicely

It’s March 5th, 2022. I’m sitting on a 737, some giant metal canister ripping through the air listening to Tee Grizzley. This giant metal box will drop me off at a place where confederate pride and hipsters run rampant. 30 minutes left to my destination.

The metro of Richmond, Virginia.

It is a place I’ve become indifferent too but always neared nostalgia to me. It’s where I spent from ages of about 4 years old to 14 running around in my off-brand Iversons and where I explored on a variety of bikes and scooters. If I had to pick a “hometown” (I lived in almost two dozen cities and lived in 4 different cities in my childhood), Richmond would be the one. Stylized with a giant red cardinal on my rib cage, to make it official,

Even after I turned 18 and had a choice to stay or leave, I always chose to leave. I know my family and I always had our differences but I always had hoped they didn’t hate me for leaving. Over and over again. Additionally I feel nauseated thinking about it because I didn’t have their feelings in mind, at all. And I knows what I was searching for, I was searching for the experience. I just wanted to feel the way I know I could feel but have never felt before.

20 minutes left until we touch down to John Tyler’s house. 

My own community, my own foundation that I chose. It’s not that I don’t value my parents impact on me, thats the paradox; I value it the most! But I know what I needed to grow and reach my fullest potential was to push myself and find a tribe that believed in me. My parents (after uncomfortable conversations) took time to support and love me even as an adult. But I’m their child, and I shrink back into that role a lot around them. And for someone who didn’t swing their arms when they walked and wet the bed until they were 14, it may be a little nerve racking at time.

My family and their family’s showed me how cool it was to have a tribe and build with one another. I loved going to reunions and being with my cousins and aunties and uncles and whoever. But they only hung out with me because their parents made them. Prime example: most never talk to me, even when I hosted our whole family reunion. It reminded we are cordial but they’re not in my ear , holding me accountable, calling and checking in with me. And they don’t have too. 

I love them dearly. Oh wait 10 minutes left, let me call Wayne Sr.  to pick me up (I would never call my dad by his name). But what am I going to do if I can’t build this thing , apart from The Whiting’s or Crawley’s or Richardson’s or whoever. They’re all in Virginia. I’m in freggin’ Texas. Even the fun fact of me having no Hispanic friends growing up until I turned 26 (now almost all of my friends are Hispanic) shows growth right? Terrible example, I know.

But if I don’t reach my full potential , especially after watching Rock Lee fight Gaara or watching Kanye West’s documentary or reading David Goggins then they’ll be the biggest regret and I’ll die a failure. That is my fear. And that’s not going to happen. 

Believe it, 

Also why do people clap after a flight is done or get up when the planes land? The door isn’t even open. Okay, I’m out!

 

Mayonnaise

I had a dream, right? Not that dream...

I had a dream Dr. Umar revoked my black card last Tuesday. Said I'm not with the times, I'm a day late and a dollar short. He told me about the new negro. Built by cornbread, BET Uncut, and non-brand double cups filled with the almighty skittles and crown royal. He told me I was built by gentrification, Zoey 101 episodes, and mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise...The white goo that goes on Arby's sandwiches? Or that one person who prays to Ben Shapiro, Gary Vee, and Joe Rogan podcasts?

But I told him I'm a proud monkey, complete with the nostrils and hog maws and Katt Williams references. 

He told me I'm whiter than Clay Aiken and Britney Spears in a snowstorm, I told him I'm blacker than Forest Whitaker and Whoopi Goldberg during a blackout in Detroit. 

Pastier than Elmer's glue more hollow than Vince Vaughn, and more unseasoned than an episode of friends.

More melanin than Fonzworth, darker than a shadow, more rhythm and flow than CL Smooth.

He told me I'm more caucasian than someone who puts sugar in grits, and I told him what's wrong with sugar in grits. 

No matter the bouts with walking home in my own neighborhood being followed by police or feeling of cocoa butter kisses from my auntie or being put in a Lil' Caesers sized cardboard box. I am done with that. Mayonaise. Underground hiphop.Murals on the side of abandoned buildings where I teach yoga. Ironic graphic shirts. Roasting people as a love language. It's the reason I'm J.O.D.Y.

I told him I'm the new-new negro because frankly, I don't give a duck.

"If It Wasn't For You" by Handsome Boy Modeling School

When My Papa Says Grace Pt.2

Love ain’t for sale, well at least not the love I’m talking about

No, Love is free

Love is giving you the big piece of fried chicken, even though I could write you a 10-page research paper with works cited in APA format on how much I wanted that big piece of fried chicken

Love is knowing you will always been there when I need you

Love is calling you every Mother’s Day even if you didn’t birth me

Love is pulling me inside your house because it’s about to rain

Love is putting me on the program as the headliner, even though you knew I shouldn’t be allowed to be around a microphone in public

Love is never, ever, never taking off your #teamcrawley wristband even though there’s green mold starting to accumulate on your wrist

Love is what Christians are supposed to do

Love is what got me and my father through the fourth quarter of 2013,

Love is embracing that one cousin or one auntie you may not know very well with hugs, with their arms as bony as Skeletor or as big as Mean Joe Green, trying to figure out how in the hell would I know you from when you changed my diaper when I was 6 months old,

Love is taking you to school when you pretend to miss the bus in the morning even if I’m not too fond of your extracurricular activities

Love is that initial slow clap of rain, hitting a lonely tin roof with a slow pitter-patter in a small town in middle Georgia.

Love is not berating your grandson because he puts sugar on his grits

Love is easy

Love is good,

Love is great

Love is God, God is great

Love is a mutual attraction on site like a covalent bond between some hydrocarbons that can be your fuel through the day

But hydrocarbons are volatile

Love is volatile

Love is hard

Love is as ubiquitous as Everybody Loves Raymond and is as meandering as Everybody hates Chris

Love is rough,

Love is lead,

Love is nasty, spits out sulfuric acid, dissolving skin and bones

Love can be Christmas in the morning and Halloween at night,

Love is bland

Like, like, like that one Auntie who does not know how to season chicken

Love is a colorless, odorless gas that may keep you in eternal slumber

But love is asking if you made it home last night.

Love is me calling you back that I made it home last night.

Love is when I’m crying because you never made it back home last night. And you probably won’t again tonight

Love is cousin Sonia still checking up on me even though I evaded her hugs for 15 years

Love is cousin Allie Mae giggling and running away whenever I try to pick her up

Love is cousin Brandon buying me a PBR even though I didn’t want another PBR

Love is Audrey interrogating me about the last time I ate

Love is throwing the ball at my brother’s head whenever we played pick-up games and still talking to each other by the time dinner is over

Now love is something I have taken for granted

Like flipping on a light switch and expecting lights to come on or my Papa taking a hour to say grace

These are things that are SUPPOSED to happen

But not everybody has electricity, not everyone has a Papa was pageantry

Not everybody knows what it’s like to be loved by some receding hairline folks from South Boston

But I do, and I hope everyone else here knows what I speak of

That’s love

Now ask me about hate?

I ain’t got time for that

I don’t need to listen to K-Dot to know that Team Crawley is gon’ be alright

Because I’ve seen love in my Papa’s eyes as well as his three big-headed children.

Love is all I got,

How to Ineffectively Solve Conflicts with Cornbread

I wouldn't consider myself a pacifist. The need for me personally to resolve conflict with physical conflict is as rare as finding a Moltres or Articuno in the wild. Let's begin, 

I know people may argue that it is what wild beasts would do, as people stand around and watch two grown adults fight at a baseball game (hold the phone sideways to be professional.) but I am not sure. I don't want anyone to touch my mother or father or niece or brother or cousin or bowl of Tostitos but there are other things to do than to actually harm someone with your body parts. Which oddly enough, ends up hurting you normally.

It's just I have other stuff to do, ya' know? Like whenever I was younger and I was being bothered or teased and things got physical, it was easy to walk away. I had an Xbox and two loving parents in a home. A dog needed to be walked. Tostitos were waiting at home. If a fight were to manifest then I would get suspended. No Xbox. Get but whooped (so technically two times I get beat). Teachers would take me out of the "Student of the Month" awards. No gift card to KB Toys.

Whenever I got older and grew into my body and played sports, obviously it popped up. But using words was even more effective versus flinging a wild haymaker at someone's temple. "Sticks and stones" blah, blah, blah; words will forever and ALWAYS hurt me. What's mightier, the pen or the sword? The silver tongue laced with poison *chefs kiss* was developed throughout my childhood, even as I managed a speech impediment (shout-out to Ms. Faye!).

But also recognizing to always defend yourself. Most people have some sort of community. Whether it be personal or professional or platonic or what have you, someone looks to a person for love and commitment and support. Sometimes the homie needs you to opt-in or square up when there is conflict. There will always be conflict. There will never not be conflict. 

And that's house this life works. There's a problem and a solution happens. It may not be pretty at the end, but an end will come. Most of the time it is within someone's self. Like maybe the kids who bullied me during grade school were mad that they didn't have a father figure. Or Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. I am sorry your family's lights went off but please stop teasing me about playing the bass clarinet. I was All-District, 4th chair.

"You gonna' let him talk to you like that?"

"No! I am going to walk away, so I won't be able to hear him talk to me like that."

Again, I am the guy who will eat the food even if my order is wrong. But also the guy who will ask for a manager because they ran out of curly fries.

#knowyourworthking

 

Do The Right Thing: Part 2

People say to always do the right thing. In any dire circumstances or consequences. Do the right thing.

Always.

It's not that I don't want to, I just don't know the know-how. It's not like there are 2 or 3 options to choose from, it is about 4,000. At least, I am just estimating. I am a scientist, ya' know. That means I can make stuff up and use fake primary sources and people believe me.

Anywho, I tend to make the wrong choices (or we shall say, not the most thought-out choices) and then get upset about why I chose something. I chose to eat-out know I will be too tired too cook and didn't want to go home hungry after a workout, but I forget my wallet at home. Too many variables and not enough equating (Algebra 1 should have prepared me better for this situation!)

Also the "right" thing and "always" sounds so absolute and I don't want to be considered a sith lord. I can "most of the time" choose the "better" option as I seemingly effortlessly glide through my life. I mean I am a human who typically, okay, more often than not can choose the correct thing but sometimes that option is also lame. Like choosing to not throw a dodgeball at a 10 year-old who can barely even though the ball back at me. If she wouldn't have tried to duck, it wouldn't have hit her in the face.

But the right thing is so subjective. Or objective. Detective? 

Anyways one of the 'tives but the right thing to do for someone will put me as clear disadvantages or vice versa. Am I supposed to look out for my neighbor if we are in a clear zombie apocalypse or do I let a possible infected zombie inside my house with my 2 and 4-year-old?

See, doing the right thing is an elective! Gotta' go my mom is calling me, 

To Grow Old in Norfolk, Virginia

I never thought about too much in the future when I was younger. But I was constantly, painstakingly reflecting on my past. My past year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second, millisecond, etc. Like how could I have done that differently being aware of every time I make some sort of mistake or a quizzical choice.

But as I grow older and my mistakes become more frequent and more costly (because remember, it's literally about me at this point in my life) I do start to ponder the bigger yet more concrete things that matter. People asking what I am going to do in my life, I'm not sure. There aren't really too many big-big plans besides getting my degree and opening up a studio. But even those two things I am not obsessed with. 

I am obsessed with being a great friend and being a great teacher and being a great student and being a great coworker and being a great partner and being a great parody dancer. But I'm not doing the things to do that right now. It's as though it's okay but not really. Because remember, I am constantly reflecting on these tasks and myself. I am past the first E, I've already identified and know how to fix the problem.

Those big goals, divided into smaller, measurable attainable goals have been what keeps me going. If one of my goals is to stay joyful, that means I need to sleep 6 hours a day or eat 3 servings of leafy green vegetables or run 3-4 miles, 3 days a week. Then the big goals slowly but surely are within my grasp and I won't even know it until it's already been passed and accomplished. Fortunately reaching my goal but unfortunately not celebrating the milestone, 

But I am tired, we all are and I sometimes just want to get through my days. And that's a huge issue, there are so many cool things that happen throughout my day and I want to enjoy them. But the days and weeks and months run together and I am not able to process anything.

If you made a pie chart of my 24 hour day, 2 hours would be spent exercising, 12 hours spent working, 6-7 hours sleeping, 1 hour school work, and then the rest hopefully is decompressing but rarely. 

I did that in a space and time a while ago and I was like poorly made grilled cheese: burnt out, melted down, broken down. Just pieces, on the ground, eaten up by street rats wings. I didn't want to grow old and die in Norfolk, Virginia or Denver, Colorado. If I can't process my days and decompress, then the repeat happens then it'll be a wrap like Saran. 

But once again, this has happened and I have been able to pick up those pieces and become the best Jon or JODY that I can be. It happened twice. But I have to slow down and provide maintenance when needed. Because honestly, I need me! Jon needs me. Jonny needs me. Jonathan needs me. JODY needs me. Hell, even Jo(h)n needs me. Hopefully this weekend I can go over everything and get it going. Wait hopefully, I mean it'll get done. I don't have a choice,

I Got You Boo

 People always talk about their “authentic self” and being in a particular space for themselves. I have no idea what that means, being honest. Sometimes I feel like going for a 12 mile run because I can. Sometimes I feel like moving to a new city to try out a different area. Sometimes I’ll put on a skirt. 

I don’t know how anyone in this world can tell me if I’m being myself or fake. It’s become a competition to become unique and innovative for social media. Yeah yeah sometimes I do it for the gram but most of the time I’m like “oh I have to try it AT LEAST once” because why not? There’s literally a ba-jillion things I don’t know how to do and everyone I’ve ever met , including my students, can teach me a skill or give me a new dataset I have never considered. Isn’t that cool? A lot of kids can speak two languages , that is so freggin’ amazing.

Anyways but I’ll pinpoint my quick entry to this point in time . I was with some friends having a chill night with wine. I spilled the wine on pants that didn’t agree with the color. They contrasted like Dame and Jay. For some reason my friends house didn’t contain replacement ones for a Shrek sized man. But apparently skirts apparently are one size fits all. 

We decided to go out that night and my friend took that picture in my super flamboyant sweater (that was mine and I still have/love it) and I wasn’t trying to be my “authentic self” as strutted down Hancock Street downtown. I was just Vivian vibin’, I felt comfortable.

I’m a science teacher and unnecessarily super reflective for a long time. I know for a fact when I’m being myself (me) being genuine to myself and I know when I’m doing it to be recognized. People yelling out “you’re so brave” or “you’re a (bad word)” was endearing but I just wanted to go dancing with poetry geeks and eat a chicken biscuit. Not a statement for myself but if someone else needs it as positive reinforcement, I got you boo. 

Plus skirts are super breathable and I can do super high kicks. Feels fabulous,