Update

Sorry for not posting anything in a while.
As some of you know,
I mainly write on Facebook.
I just haven't felt like transferring them lately,
as often happens with me.
But, I'm trying to get myself together,
and soon, I'll start bringing you thr funk
for all of you who aren't friends with me on Facebook.
Til then, later.
....
Oh, and follow me at twitter.com/cgwacko
No ego. Haha

Being John Malkovich or In Their Shoes

It is to my understanding that we all wish to be someone else from time to time,
from the lowest of the low
to the highest of the high.
I mean yes,
we love ourselves,
but there's always at least the curiousity as to what it would be like to live a day in the life of someone else.

Well,
imagine there was a way to be someone else.
There's this movie called Being John Malkovich.
I really wanna see it.
Basically this guy finds this little portal
that allows him to become John Malkovich,
like literally take over his body and be him.
If you don't know who Malkovich is, google him.
Soon, he starts charging people to use the portal.
But I think if he uses it too many times,
he'll actually be stuck as John Malkovich,
not completely sure.
It sounds interesting; the weird kinda flick I'd be into.

Anyway,
I say this because I feel like we'll have the technology
to one day have people become other people,
as like a virtual reality holiday or something.
But it could be stressful.
Think about it.
Everyone has their ups,
but they also have their downs.
Their struggles may be much more than you could have ever imagined,
mostly because you probably thought you wouldn't have to encounter them.
Remember, if everyone wants to be someone else,
and you start life as someone else,
you'll just continuely want to escape to the next person you want to be,
hoping the hardships will be easier to handle.
But who's to say?
You were given your own troubles and woes for a reason;
they are yours to learn from.
Take responsibility for yourself,
and please stop wishing to be someone else.
Trust.

Blitz

You know how things can change outta nowhere?
Don't you hate that?
Well, I like to refer to it as a blitz.

This unexpected change just rushes at you,
it stuns you,
it makes you reconsider what you were about to do,
and then it hits you.
Sometimes you can adapt to it,
but other times you can only fall flat on your face.

I bring this up cause I experienced a couple blitzes this past month.
Well, for one, the line of work I was in this summer
always had a schedule subject to change.
And a week or so ago, it completely changed for the whole week.
Luckily, I hadn't made any plans yet,
but it went from half days to whole days and then some each day.
But I knew what I had signed up for.

Ah, a good one.
I signed up for this one biology class on insects to fulfill my core requirement.
Mid-August, they announced the class had been changed to forensic science.
As interesting as that sounded, I wasn't sure I was up for it.
So I add/dropped it and got into a 10am Theology on MWF.
I don't like classes before noon, but this one is okay.
Speaking of classes before noon,
I had a 11am on TTh's,
an English one,
but I had to add/drop that one too.
She was tryna go hard...like OD hard.
I could just tell I was gonna end up falling behind
with all the other things I'm tryna do this semester.
So now, I'm in this other biology class about the environment.
Seems interesting so far,
and it's at 1 MWF. :-)

Lastly,
I was in the loop,
one could say,
and was able to know what the musical for the fall might be.
At first, it was between a popular musical that would have just been wrong for the cast we have on tap currently, Rent, and one that would have been perfect for us, Reefer Madness.
Trust me, my summer roommate and I watched it and cast it ourselves. Haha.
Sometime mid-summer,
it was switched to another popular musical, A Chorus Line.
While this was great for my roommate and I,
for we once again watched and cast,
it was still not the best choice for our somewhat stiff cast of actors on tap.
You know... cause there's a lot of dancing.
So, I was prepared for A Chorus Line,
thinking I had a chance.
Then... a week or 2 ago,
the show changes to Chicago.
Turns out that was the plan all along,
just was waiting on the licensing to go through.
...I have yet to see Chicago.
I know it loosely.... but still...
Well... chorus actor, here I come again.

Life is full of Blitz,
some easier to recover from than others.
But always recover from them,
don't dwell on them,
otherwise you'll just make yourself upset.
Word.

Bar O' Soap

Okay, real serious question here...
Am I the only one that still washes with a bar of soap instead of body wash?

I mean,
I'm starting to feel as if I'm the only one
showering like a prison inmate minus the fear of dropping the soap.
If anything, I'm practicing not to just in case...
you know, cause black men like to get locked in jail for no reason. :-/

Anyway,I started to notice this freshmen year.
Outta about... 18 guys in my hallway,
I think I was the only one who used a bar,
as far as I could tell from walkin into their bathrooms.
I noticed the same last year and even this year in my room.
The shower is decked out in bottles of body wash and shampoo.
I feel so outta date with my lil bar of soap and its green soap box.

Why is body wash such a big hit with guys?
Is it because of soap scum?
Which I never really got in the first place.
Even if it is scum, it's still soap.
What's dirty about soap?
If any germs get on it, shouldn't the soap kill it?
Maybe I need a scientist to explain it to me.

I bet it won't even be long
before hotels start giving out little bottles of body wash and liquid soap
instead of soap bars.

I don't know,
I'm not too much a fan of the body wash.
I mean yeah,
it seems convienent and quick and easy,
but I feel like the smell really lingers,
which isn't always a good thing.
You ever smell something that tries too hard to smell good?
It's not very pleasing to the nose.
Also, like most black people,
I am accustomed to using a washcloth when I shower.
This is because when you share the soap at home,
you don't want to be using no soap with somebody else's body hair on it.
Ill... ick... nasty.
I feel like body wash is attempting to get rid of washclothes,
which I also am not a fan of.

Again,
maybe it's just me.
But until I'm convinced otherwise,
my Zest soap will suit me just fine.
Word.

Abs VS Flab

Okay, fun fact:
Before I came to college,
I weighed a measly 147 lbs.
Around the end of my freshmen year in college,
I was about 174 lbs, I think.
Yup, I traded my very slender physique
for a heavier one.
My abs slowly but surely developed into a gut,
one I still carry.
It can just be hard to tell because I suck it in.
I've become very good at this,
except for after I eat a lot.

Anyway,
I'm bringing this to light now
because during the summer,
I did a lot of physical labor.
Therefore, I have actually begun to develop muscles.
My biceps are starting to firm up,
and my chest is gettin bigger.
The only thing that really remains the same is my stomach.

Now, I can suck it in
so that it appears as a set of very fleshy abs...
with small love handles on the side.
What I'm tryna figure out now is do I wanna start workin out
and become a lean mean grillin machine again.
I mean, I do want to have like that nice beach bod again...
but there's something nice about a gut.
It's kinda comfortable
and fun to play with if you know what I mean.
As a skinny kid,
I had always wondered what it would be like to be fat.
I kinda know now, because I don't ever really plan on gettin "big" big.

Also,
did you know that the gut is kind of a trend now?
Yeah, not sure how this happened,
but some article I read said
a belly on guys was becoming part of this hipster uniform or something.
You know,
girth was a sign of wealth and power back in the Ye Ole days.
Maybe such is making a comeback of sorts.
Being in shape can be overrated anyway.
It's a bunch of pain and struggle,
and if you get real big and muscular,
it usually ends up turnin into fat or ugly/odd lookin muscle when you get older.

So, I'm still undecided at the moment.
But at the moment I'm leanin towards flab.
I mean ey,
it's easier to get to and maintain.
Word.

Summer Break

Uhn. Yes yes ya'll.
And it don't stop.
Back from my hiatus to give you the blog you all adore,
no ego. [Yes, I will be tryin to make that a thing. haha]

Tonight I'm talkin about summer breaks.
Not so much summer breaks themselves,
but you know how we've all been away from each other
and then we come back to college.
We ask each other how our summer went,
and we give the same overview just about:
Work, chilled. Nothin much.
If we went on a trip,
we mention it,
but of course no details.
We're much too busy for that.
You know us and our fast paced lives.
But it is what it is.
If any big details need to come up from a crazy summer,
it'll come up doin a game of kings during never have I ever.

But you know,
someone mentioned that like when we all finish our sophmore year of college,
we all work for the summer and don't do much else.
This is type true.
I found myself slavin for the most part.
I mean, I did attend some parties here and there,
but only because I was on campus.
And the parties were basically with just the people I worked with.
I'm tellin you,
college may be a great time,
but it prepares you for the multitude of boring summers that are to come.

Now, don't get me wrong.
This has been probably my best summer so far.
This seems to be true for most of the people I spent this summer with as well.
Maybe it being the last summer before we can't go oh-[insert single digit] helped.

Okay, I'll tell the high points of my summer.
This way, if someone asks me what I did this summer,
I can just be like, "Look at the blog, bitch." [no ego]
So okay:
-ended up runnin a naked lap; the one guy hit 7 in a row, hit the last cup, and then his partner hit the last cup too, so we had no rebutale. They are simply sick with theirs.
-went to PRIDE in NYC and ended up gettin redressed in super tight clothes upon my arrival; fun night though.
-roomed with an asian that exposed me to great youtube videos and repeatedly beat my ass in Scrabble
-helped the same asian make videos that were both hilarious yet meaningful for his certain someone
-worked from 11pm to 5am and started drinkin with coworkers soon after, watchin the sunrise as we did it. pure classiness.
-watch my roommate get fired and rehired in the same day.
-expanded my movie collection
-oh, found a couch while on the job and got to keep it
-made a lot of cool new friends, you all know who you all
-and last big thing was goin to Philly to visit a high school friend; good times.

Those were the high points of my summer, my dear friends [and associates].
I hope you all had an equally enjoyable summer,
and may the upcoming semester or work season treat you well.
Word.

Childhood Friends

I consider myself a fairly sentimental guy.
I latch myself onto people,
but in the most non-clinging way possible.
However, life tends to separate what they feel must be separated.
But friends, though? Come on now, that's just grimy.

Instance 1 - The First Best Friend
A classic story. Well, of sorts.
We met in kindergarten, you see.
Me black, he Portuguese,
though I thought he meant Puerto Rican for some reason.
Both smart kids.
Both terrible at sports.
Well, I was at least.
This is the kid who I hung out with in the back when we were in gym playing dodgeball pretending to be old maids in WWII attempting to avoid being bombed.
Oh, how often we made it to the end.
Such vivid imaginations we had.
We even became archeologists in 3rd grade,
digging holes in the asphalt,
attempting to find fossils,
though we only found precious rocks.
I held onto that box of rocks for a good 3 or 4 years, too.
He knew my mom and older sister.
I knew his parents and older sister.
What a fun family, very embracing.
How I adored his mother's accent.
This is the kid who introduced me to curse words in the 3rd grade
which he had learned from his sister.
Oh, the joys we had.
Oh, the times we spent together.
A glorious five years.
And then, my mom insisted on me transferring.
I suppose she didn't like St. Rose anymore.
He sent me a letter once.
It was cute. I wrote back.
That was it.
We semi-found each other again around 8th grade,
but it wasn't the same.
It seemed different.
It became even more appearant once we entered high school.
Oddly enough, the two schools were literally right next to each other.
But we never chilled with each other.
We had become too different.
I dropped by his house unannouced one day, as I do,
only to find his mother.
We had a good talk but I still missed my old best pal.
Are we to never again be as cool as we once were?
Is it really so hard to attempt a conversation on FB,
even if forced?
One can only stop themselves from producing the awkward moment.
And to think, he had a little sugar in his tank too.
What are the odds?

Instance 2 - The Friend from Forever Ago
I met this fellow when my father moved back to his mother's apartment building,
when the fellow who lived in the same building moved away,
when I hung with the friend of the friend who was the young uncle of my soon to be best friend.
I was bout 7.
He must have been bout 5 or 6.
Yet, it worked.
I don't even remember how I became his friend and not his young uncle's.
It's fuzzy.
But we spent many of those every other weekends playing video games,
little time spent with my father, obviously.
I remember this one time, he was gettin on my nerves as his family was bring in groceries,
so I slapped him upside his head. [I had always been his sidekick, in a way.]
Realizing his family was about, I proceeded to cry, fearing punishment.
But his family knew he was a little asshole, and could careless.
He never really got to know my family.
The time we spent together was always over his house,
with that house full of Jamiacians and half-Jamiacians.
MMmmm.... beef patties and plantians.
Anywho....
We grew up, and we stayed friends.
Around his freshman year in High school,
he started knockin boots.
And fie for shame, he got the scare.
You know... the scare a female can present.
Nothing came of it, luckily,
but his mom shipped him off to Florida the following year,
real sneaky too. He ain't even know he was stayin.
It was this year, my senior year,
that I figured out "who I was."
I had to tell him through text.
He was shocked but cool.
But I knew if we hadn't been homies for so long,
he woulda dropped me.
He's a typical nigga when it comes to things like that.
He returned back to the hood the year I left for college.
But we still keep in touch,
but very sparingly.
It used to be long text convos.
Now it's short little messages in between my breaks.
He's becoming more of the semi-jock, girl-havin, hood nigga.
I'm becoming more of the poetic, lookin-around, prep dude.
We're growing apart, and I feel it more each day that passes.
I've never brought it up.
But he did, kind of in passing.
"Yo, I gotta come down to see you,
we been fallin off," he said.
Hopefully this will happen
so that the day will never come
when we'll speak no more....

Instance 3 - The One That Still Remains
Have no fear, hope remains yet.
The year after I met my first best friend,
we added two more to the crew, a guy and a girl.
They were from the other kindergarten section.
Also very bright. Very close.
I happened to like the girl, and she liked me.
But she left after 2nd grade.
3rd grade, a new love interest arrived,
and she become part of the crew,
though she felt not the same about me.
We four stood at the top of our class.
Real examples. Little role models.
Everyone from K through 8th knew our names.
And then, you know what happened to me.
I saw not one of them.
Until....high school orientation rolled around.
And who do I see standing ten rows over put the other guy.
He was the same height as me in grammar school,
but he towered now.
Had put on some weight [fat] too, but it mattered not.
I was reunited with an old friend.
We talked again, but we did not hit it off again right away.
We were friends, but not tight tight, just like back in the day.
I had hit a bad patch in high school,
hung out with the wrong crowd... not really... just not totally focused.
I lost track, but around junior I remember I was a smart guy bout his paper stacks [test and essay scores in those days].
This is when we started to hang out more often.
We were great friends.
We went through our love/hate moments too.
Like the 1st one that comes to mind is when he got mad over some bullshit I did and didn't talk to me for a month.
The 2nd that comes to mind is when he left my ass at a highway McDonalds last year for spittin on his car by accident and not cleaning it up.
"That was a bitch move, _____!"
But we're past that and can laugh at it through one of the many Boondocks references we make.
Oh......... so many inside jokes, we have. Haha. A great guy.
We still talk, even though we go to different colleges.
It's kind of made us tighter, in a way yes, in a way no.
But we still hella tight.
I can see me and him bein cool well into our 30s or 40s,
long as he, or I, don't get into no more dumb ass fights.
[or make no more comments about having his ways with my momma... >.<] Haha.

But, ey. What are else are good friends for?

"See, that's why I's fucks with you.

Cause niggas know how to keep a secret." Haha.

Thanks for the good and the bad, Snuffs.