(in my Atlanta accent) You Got Me Mixed Up!!

The other night I was sitting in the window of Patty’s Boom Boom, looking out on the U Street Corridor, enjoying good company & choking on a very dryyyyyy patty chock full of vegetables. If only it had a lil gravy... I sipped on ginger beer, choppin’ it up about the value of tweed in a man’s wardrobe, how much better everyone’s meat patty was than the veggie 1, & the hilariousness of seeing Kurtis Blow break dance--live, no less--moments before. Don’t ask; just trust you had to be there.

Lots of faces strolled by caught in our little glass moving picture frame. 1 face was about to change frames when we simultaneously recognized each other. Jay-rome came inside & began chattin’ up the crew, 1 of which was my younger sister. We went through how obvious it was that I intro’d her as a sib since “y’all look just alike.” That was only the 18th time in 2 days I’d heard that, after she made a guest appearance at work & got all my students in a tizzy. Seeing parts of your life outside of work only makes you real weird to the children.

Blah blah blah, yackety schmakety.

A little further into the conversation Jay-rome manages to slide 1 of my quotes in on me. “Ahhhhh….he reads me,” is what I thought out loud. A brief discussion ensued concerning my posts before he got to having to balance out his reading material cuz I don’t ever “say nothin’ good about the brothas.” I had to process for a hot second whether he’d just made me the Tyler Perry of blogs, a woman whose sole purpose is to take out her issues with black men out on them via rich text edit on a semi-daily basis. I don’t know if it’s obvious, & maybe his conversation was the wake-up call that it isn’t, but I actually try to steer very clear of male bashing.

In my opinion I am not someone who qualifies as a male basher. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE black men. You know how babies love the ninny? How cholesterol loves arteries? How Oprah loves food on days that end in d-a-y? Yeah, I love black men that much!! From time to time I have occasion to shed light on an incident with a black man that I didn’t take kindly to. Mostly, I just poke fun at some of the exchanges I’ve had, such as the Summa Holla. There are times I’m working through the residual feelings that creep up when some of the ashes from my cremated relationship spill over onto the carpet. Even when I’m doing that, I think my own personal guilt seeps through & I wind up unable to completely GO IN on the The X. The situation still boggles my mind, a little disbelief lingers, but I will forever love that man. I can’t help myself.

I have written poems to beautiful black men in my life like I did here. I have sung the praises of very specific men in my life here. I have outlined the joys of a beautiful friendship here. I’ve even broken down my willingness to flirt openly with a man, not necessarily waiting for or assuming he does or will find me attractive, for the sole purpose of just lettin’ a cat know I appreciate what he’s putting down. I did that here.

So, Jay-Wade, I resent you tryna make me out to be a villain set out to destroy the manhood of brothas everywhere. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE y’all! Wait, I said that already. You get the point. Jay-Wade, in case you didn’t get the not so subtle hint, if you click where it says “here” you’ll be able to find a “couple, 2, 3” places where I’ve bigged y’all up. & in case I wasn’t all the way clear the other night, ya sweat suit was fresh to death. Way to step ya game up casually & on the low. I see you.

Watch me move.