From the beginning of time people have used many forms or ways to amuse themselves from gestures in medieval times to us now going to the circus. By definition entertainment is any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to occupy themselves in their leisure time. There are many methods from which people extract to fill that spot in their lives like taking up hobbies, for example; stamp collecting. Another way could be to play 3 rounds of golf in the blazing hot sun. We have always found ways to keep busy in a fun manner.
Some adults use a different form of entertainment to unwind after a long day of work. This form dates back as far as ancient Babylonian times. In the US this style started in carnivals & burlesque theatre in 1896. Regular worker like farmers or even miners would get off and go into town to these parlors, to drink, listen to live music and see ladies giving them a little shimmy then taking it back. Some even went upstairs to continue the party for a fee. A lot of people felt like this form were disrespectful and the participants were going to burn in hell, where some others who didn’t even part take in it say it’s just innocent fun. The form which I’m referring is striptease which is an erotic dance where the performer gradually undresses either partly or completely in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner to entice the viewer. Over time striptease as evolved into a 13 billion dollar industry. In our country that venue that now show striptease on a regular basis in a totally different and are called strip clubs.
I’ve worked in strip clubs where they are also common know as go-go bars or the high-scale ones which are called gentlemen’s clubs for about 10 years now. It was a friend of a friend that brought me to my first one and things just progressed from there, anyhow during this past decade I learned a lot about this type of entertainment both good and bad. What I’ve underlined about it is that this form is all about perception; you see first you must understand the concept, which is to watch or play with females while giving them money. Over time the dimensions of that concept have changed from play to have & pay which is a whole other concept in itself.
The females are called exotic dancers technically but I’ve put these females in sub- categories to fit the level of entertainment you find in the zone. The first one is the ideal name which is an erotic dancer she stays true to the definition she gives a little fantasy and that’s it’s. The second category is the performer she has a lot of tricks & visual stimulating acts and actually commands a crowd but she sometimes does thing that she’s not suppose to do to get the attention. The next category is not a nice one that is a stripper she is a female that only wants to show her body off it’s not about a fantasy or entertainment to her it’s just like bam here I am give me your money and sometimes she does whatever it takes to get it. The last category is that these females are placed in is the worst one , I call these girls UPs’- that stands for undercover prostitute she is the female that wears the uniform of a stripper but never entertains she just solicits sexual favors. Now we can not put the blame for the change of concept in this form of entertainment all on the females some of fault falls on the men also they are the customers.
I’ve composed sub-categories on them too they list is a little longer because they dictate the atmosphere of the females. The first type is the regular these men are usually married or very busy professionals that don’t have a lot of time to date so they use these clubs as places to see beautiful women and have a few drinks then they go home either to their family or an empty house. The second type is the flyer he’s usually a man that comes once and blue he spend a lot of money then disappears for a certain period of time. This kind of customer never looks for extra he just respect the original concept of entertainment. The next category of customers is the peeker this guy just drinks he sometimes isn’t even drinking alcohol never tips; he enjoys the lovely women around him but doesn’t contribute to concept of the club he’s in. The last group of customers you will encounter at a strip club is the nastiest they are the perverts these men come into the club with the intention of finding a woman to do extra stuff with, not even considering that that is not what the club is there for. Throughout my time of working in strip clubs I’ve met all these types of people their assistance to the evolution of this type of entertainment is profound and is what I feel is the essence of the change in concept. If they stayed true to the original plan the first idea, maybe there won’t be so much controversy around this venue at all.
There is a lot of argument against this form of entertainment its goes back to the bible toting missionaries of the early days in the parlors and has grown to be the right winged conservatives on Capitol Hill. To fully understand the debate we must first know the law. Federal law places strip clubs in two categories either the club is topless or all/fully nude. The first category of topless is where the proprietor is allowed to have the dancers work with their breasts exposed but not their treasure boxes. The females walk around in g-string bottoms. Some states require the females to also wear pasties. (They are bedazzled covers for the nipples) The second category is all/fully nude which is when the proprietor are allowed to have there dancers to work completely nude. Some states subject all nude bars to additional restrictions like no alcohol clause meaning these clubs are not allowed to sell or serve alcohol. Another restriction is the no touch rule. This is really self explanatory but some states adopt this natural as a way to control the entertainment. Present-day there is still an on going battle between strip club owner and state officials one example of this struggle is the court case of Barnes vs. Glen Theatre, this case was about two businesses trying to add all nude dancers to there roaster. You see the establishment’s names were the Kitty Kat Inc. which was a strip club and the Glen Theatre Inc which was an adult store the idea was for them to join forces to become one big business adding nude entertainment but the Indiana government tried to ban them. This case went all the way to the US Supreme Court in 1991 were they decided on behalf of the owner saying that a state can’t ban strip clubs because of the first amendment, which includes freedom of expression under the umbrella of freedom of speech.
On the flipside of the argument strip clubs are good places also. They allow adult to use their imaginations. They take couples to places of fantasy when a marriage is becoming stale. They permit undesirable men to feel desirable even if just for a short period of time. It allocates the fantasy union of consenting adults to have a little innocent fun. After all it is entertainment that was the concept for hard working people to be able to go to a place of good music, beautiful women and drinks. Its transition over time is just an outcry of society. But I think they serve a bigger purpose they can prevent some sexual assault. Think about if they were not here just envision all the perverts that are in the clubs out on the loose without a place to go to. Or the peekers, where would they be without some venue where they can legally peep at consenting lovely women there for their amusement. What would these men be doing? That would be a question we would be asking ourselves, so strip clubs serve a purpose.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Blog #18 Important Places
Growing up there were a few places that holds special places in my heart each place for its own reason. One of the first places I will always travel back to in my memory as an extremely important is my grandmother's house. When I was younger her house was my safe place whenever my mother & I went thru our bull---- I would escape to that place. This sanctuary was filled with unconditional love and understanding something I felt didn't live in my home. Another spot I can recall is when I used to visit my family in Baltimore, Maryland. Especially my Aunt Elsie"s house she took no shorts from anyone but she taught me a lot, going there in summer was my city/country retreat. The next place I put on my list is my cousin house in Windsor,North Carolina, they build this house from the ground up and I always used them as inspiration for my own future home. The place on my list is the bathroom, now i know this might be a little strange but its my quiet place the sound of the running water in the pipes plus the the silence of the dark when the lights are off helps me focus and gain clarity when things become foggy. the last place on my list is my first apartment it was an attic apartment with one and half bedrooms but me and my first born were comfortable. It was small but it was mine and I maintained it by myself it was myfirst milestone in my independent life.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
A Window
Have you ever had something that whenever you seen it the anger monster in your head would be calmed. Whenever you seen it the pure company of it took you to a relaxing place. Whenever life seemed unbearable that thing helped you see hope. While I have had an object like that for the most part of my life, it’s never been exactly the same you see it comes in many shapes and sizes its home is in millions of places and in every place it has a different meaning, a different purpose. But its purpose for me as always was the same. It’s given me dreams, questions, answers, basically created the determined mind I have today, shaped the inquisitive attitude people love to endure. That thing in which I am talking about has a usually square-like shape even though I have met round ones, and rectangular ones, even triangular ones , but for the most part it’s been square. It has transparent eyes that you see right through help you picture options and maintain a view into what going on around you, yet some people cannot see, it show pathways to different places and opportunities, it gives warning to unexpected guests. It gives solitude when you need to think or focus on a solution for a problem.
Yes the object I am talking about is a window. As I child I grew up in what most people refer to as the projects, technique named housing complex. These places were brick and cement tiny apartment building with about three floors some having four with three to four apartment on a floor. It had super thin walls but nice big windows. And the one I lived in was close to the highway which I could see from my window. There were many times where I looked out that window and wondered where the cars I saw were from or even where there were going. How I so wanted to go with them to see other places others things besides nosey neighbors and ignorant little boys which was what I felt like I was surrounded with. For the most part my bedroom window was my crystal ball it helped me see into the future.
One day in 1990 the year my baby sister was born, it was about the spring time because I had class the day after the event happened and it was the day she came home from the hospital I was told to clean up the house cause the new baby was coming home. Now most kids would be upset that a new sibling was on the way into their space, but I was excited to have another person to mold into my liking especially because it didn’t work with the other heffer I had to call my sister. But here’s my chance to fix my previous mistakes. Any way I cleaned from the time I got home from school until about 10 minutes before they came in the door. In which time I planted myself at the living room window filled with my mother’s I am jungle garden so I could see them come up the porch stairs, I was tired but still excited; I’d cleaned up my mother’s room so that she and the baby would be comfortable. But when my aunt saw what I did I got yelled at.” Why did you touch this and why did you touch that”, she said “I had everything where it needed to be” She went and told my mother what happened and my mother told her to leave me alone. “She tried”, my mother said so I next went and washed my hands so I could hold my baby-sister. I went back into my mother’s room sat myself firmly in a chair and looked at my aunt to hand me my baby sister, she said ,” what you think your waiting for, your too young to hold the baby now go do some homework or something”. I stood in my mother’s door way puzzled at first because before my aunt went to pick up the pair she promised me that I if I cleaned the way my mother likes it she would make sure I could hold the baby. You see in my family only adult family members are allowed to hold newborns unless or until the infant is three months old, so pre-teen I, holding the baby was a big deal. Anyway I was crashed that my aunt went back on her word so I went in my bedroom to cry. After a few minutes of boo-whoin on my bed I got up and went to my window I must have saw about a thousand cars that night and which I tried to count different state license plates that little game I played with myself distracted me from my initial problem it calmed me down to a point that was able to suck it up and still help my mother with the difficult first night home
Yes the object I am talking about is a window. As I child I grew up in what most people refer to as the projects, technique named housing complex. These places were brick and cement tiny apartment building with about three floors some having four with three to four apartment on a floor. It had super thin walls but nice big windows. And the one I lived in was close to the highway which I could see from my window. There were many times where I looked out that window and wondered where the cars I saw were from or even where there were going. How I so wanted to go with them to see other places others things besides nosey neighbors and ignorant little boys which was what I felt like I was surrounded with. For the most part my bedroom window was my crystal ball it helped me see into the future.
One day in 1990 the year my baby sister was born, it was about the spring time because I had class the day after the event happened and it was the day she came home from the hospital I was told to clean up the house cause the new baby was coming home. Now most kids would be upset that a new sibling was on the way into their space, but I was excited to have another person to mold into my liking especially because it didn’t work with the other heffer I had to call my sister. But here’s my chance to fix my previous mistakes. Any way I cleaned from the time I got home from school until about 10 minutes before they came in the door. In which time I planted myself at the living room window filled with my mother’s I am jungle garden so I could see them come up the porch stairs, I was tired but still excited; I’d cleaned up my mother’s room so that she and the baby would be comfortable. But when my aunt saw what I did I got yelled at.” Why did you touch this and why did you touch that”, she said “I had everything where it needed to be” She went and told my mother what happened and my mother told her to leave me alone. “She tried”, my mother said so I next went and washed my hands so I could hold my baby-sister. I went back into my mother’s room sat myself firmly in a chair and looked at my aunt to hand me my baby sister, she said ,” what you think your waiting for, your too young to hold the baby now go do some homework or something”. I stood in my mother’s door way puzzled at first because before my aunt went to pick up the pair she promised me that I if I cleaned the way my mother likes it she would make sure I could hold the baby. You see in my family only adult family members are allowed to hold newborns unless or until the infant is three months old, so pre-teen I, holding the baby was a big deal. Anyway I was crashed that my aunt went back on her word so I went in my bedroom to cry. After a few minutes of boo-whoin on my bed I got up and went to my window I must have saw about a thousand cars that night and which I tried to count different state license plates that little game I played with myself distracted me from my initial problem it calmed me down to a point that was able to suck it up and still help my mother with the difficult first night home
Monday, November 9, 2009
blog #16 To Interview A Window
1. What is your proposed focus + the object, place, or person you will write about to develop that focus?
A. A light bulb went off in my head after a brief writer’s block with the topic, the flash that appeared was a window write about a window, which was an object that seemed to be a special item in my life. This picture frame locate almost everywhere from a young age held a strong influence on my outlook, I used this squared looking glass as a pathway for most of my life.
2. Identify the specific descriptions or information you will present to develop your focus?
A. In this piece I intend to compare a relationship I've had with an object for the most part of my lie. From the younger years until the impact this object has on my life today.
3. Tell what each description shows about your focus?
A. The short stories I will introduce shall demonstrate the constant influence this transparent plane has had on the life of a lost soul, a developing woman, and a dreamy-eyed young girl.
4. This a specific request for feedback.
A. I myself don’t think I want Feedback about the essay but I only ask the audience to ignore my specific thoughts and show me examples of their own reflections not relating directly to tangible items
A. A light bulb went off in my head after a brief writer’s block with the topic, the flash that appeared was a window write about a window, which was an object that seemed to be a special item in my life. This picture frame locate almost everywhere from a young age held a strong influence on my outlook, I used this squared looking glass as a pathway for most of my life.
2. Identify the specific descriptions or information you will present to develop your focus?
A. In this piece I intend to compare a relationship I've had with an object for the most part of my lie. From the younger years until the impact this object has on my life today.
3. Tell what each description shows about your focus?
A. The short stories I will introduce shall demonstrate the constant influence this transparent plane has had on the life of a lost soul, a developing woman, and a dreamy-eyed young girl.
4. This a specific request for feedback.
A. I myself don’t think I want Feedback about the essay but I only ask the audience to ignore my specific thoughts and show me examples of their own reflections not relating directly to tangible items
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Day my Life became a T.V. Show (revised)
Most of my life I've grown up watching T.V., same as most people in my generation. I was never really an outside kid growing up unless it pertained to a sports activity in which I was involved in. Anyway television was my window into different types of people’s lives & problems. To me T.V. was like real life, it nothing but imitate real life experiences, it just intensifies the environment in which the originally event might have occurred. One of my favorite types of T.V. show was and still is dramas. You know the kind of show that pulls on your heart strings, dramas tend to draw a person in with the emotions of the lead character. We root them while in their conflicts and feel sad when they lose. We empathize and try to relate to their situation, the show goes off and then we move on with the day, never really knowing the feelings that character was trying to invoke.
I don't personally like drama in my own life but do really enjoy watching other people's drama on T.V. So we don’t see the actual mirror that T.V. really portrays, televisions also somehow stretches the truth of the real life situation that dramas is showing us. But one day I had the opportunity to live out my own television drama starring myself and my family.
It was the summertime almost a week after my birthday while in school I received an urgent phone call just like one of the characters would receive on one of my shows which initially gave me a déjà vu moment. The call was from my grandmother telling me I needed to return to my hometown immediately to see my mother. Before this real life T.V. drama began I was just getting close to my mother after our relationship being explosive for most of my life. During my childhood my mother Alice who I was named after was like Dr. Jekell and Ms. Hyde. Now if you know that story which was about a doctor trying to find a cure for an illness and ending giving himself an split personality, well she was kinda like that.
I mean I know my mother loved me, and was extremely proud of me she just didn't really share that information with me directly. Nothing I ever did was acceptable to her, if I received an A on a test she’d ask where’s the extra credit. If I won a track meet and got my picture in the paper she’d say why you didn’t break the record, if I cleaned the house without being told to, she’d get her gloves and try to find mistakes I had made not using her technique. I mean it never stopped, I always heard her praises from a third party to which she had told about my triumphs. But Mommy Dearest never specifically told me, for a longtime growing up I could count on one hand how many time I received the sound of her voice saying to me good job. Due to this straining relationship and a few other reasons which we can't discuss right now I left the nest at the tender age of sixteen. I had my own apartment in another part of the city just for me and my son. My mother and I‘s relationship still went on a lot of rollercoaster rides. It was only at the wise age of twenty that my mother showed me some acknowledgement she actually told me she was proud of me and that was when I met my #1 fan.
For the next few years we talked every day, whenever I felt defeated or had a situation she was right there. At this point in my life my mother was my #1 defender. So when the family was made aware that she was diagnosed with liver disease, I immediately dropped out of college and went to training school in Newark, New Jersey to become a C.N.A. (certified nurse’s assistant) I was going to be the one to take care of her which she would soon need. Back to the story so I'm in school I get that urgent page to get to Christ Hospital in Jersey City, New Jersey. The time of the dire call was 9:16a.m., why I still know that actually time is because for about five minutes time stood still and my watch was blinking 9:16, of course that didn't really happen but that's what it felt like in my mind but when I did return to reality I checked my phone's call history and I guess that was when that set time was stored in my head. By this time I was in my car driving forgetting speed limits oblivious to the law I arrived at the hospital at 9:38a.m. I parked my car anywhere and ran into the hospital. I went to the nurse's station to ask where my mother is. The nurse on duty told me she was in room 514C (yeah I remember that too) so I walked really, really fast down the hallway to room 514C.
In this beige and blue room attached to what seemed to me like 10 machines laying in this metal and white bed was my Dr. Jekell & Ms. Hyde mother. Here she was so still in this bed looking so peaceful and strained like she was tied down. So I sat down on the side of her bed first placing my head on chest, I wanted to hear her heartbeat. But then I was reminded of all those machines she was attached too, so I began to question is that her or the machine? Not being able to answer my own question I then placed her hand in mine and stared at this angelic creature that to me for so long was so strong but now looked so helpless. I stared at that angelic creature in this bed with all those machines attached for awhile she began to look like she was sleeping I think I started to imagine that she was just sleeping in her own bed snoring as usual. Then the reality hit me again and the visual that I really had came back those damn machines.
After some time my little sister arrived , she is a few years younger than me but we both were grown, there still was another sister, this teenage girl in a 5Th grade class oblivious to what was going on . Well my little sister entered room 514C, while I was still sitting at my mother bedside hand in hand, she just stood at the foot of the bed staring. Here comes the T.V. moment, as I sit on the side of the bed my mother 's hand in mine my sister started to touch my mother's leg once both of our hands were touching her at the same tie those damn machines started to beep, the alarm on the machine which tells you her heart rate and blood pressure changed color . The monitor once black with two red lines, one solid and straight the other wavy like the ocean are now both blue and straight just like on T.V. My mother had flat lined my sister and I looked up at each other and then a team of nurses and doctors swarmed in the room same as the shows I watch so often. One of the nurses told me that we had to leave the room. And in that moment which seemed like an eternity we froze and neither I nor my sister could move. I personally was stuck in amazement looking at an actual crash cart with paddle that another nurse was placing on my mother's chest, I then looked over at my sister and she was on the floor. An orderly had to carry her into the waiting room the nurse escorted me into.
While my sister and I waited in this dull beige and brown closet like room, the team attempted to revive my mother. As we waited a lifetime in that dull beige & brown room two priest walked in just like on T.V., one African American and the other Caucasian. When I saw them I guess that's when the true reality of the situation set in and I began to scream NO, NO, NO. I told the ministers to get out it not over yet, y'all came too early. But they weren't because at that moment when I was trying to get rid of them the doctor came into our closet like waiting room. The look on her face told the story but she still utter those famous T.V. words," we did all we could do but she didn't pull thru". At first I just gazed at the doctor as she then told us her official time of death which was 12:23pm. Yeah just about three hours after I arrived at Christ Hospital in Jersey City, I was instructed to say goodbye to my #1 fan. I was told to let go of my Dr. Jekell & Ms. Hyde mother and I didn't want to even thou most of my life she had a split personality she was still MOMMY.
This woman taught me mostly everything I know from paying a bill to getting men to do what you want. She was the mother all my friends wished was theirs when I was in elementary school, this was the lady I would die fro but also worked my last nerve. I felt that I had too many more lessons to learn. When that team of doctors and nurses couldn't save my mother I felt cheated like T.V. had lied to me, but I realized I wasn't on T.V. Because on the shows they scare you a little but the character always pull thru, but not MOMMY. We would love to have T.V. live our lives for us for things to go wrong but just for a little while to know that by the end of that scene everything would be alright again. But real life moments are not like T.V. moments they differ in the fact that T.V. has commercials and it shows stops after a set amount of time where as real life stops but always keeps going making up its own time line and rules never ending. My T.V. moment is forever embedded in my memory, it would also never end I live with that visual every day. For the next few days my family and I made arrangement to lay our angelic peacefully sleeping mother to rest. Ever since August 25, 2003, at 12:23pm I've felt unwhole, every day I feel like I'm forgetting something. Maybe its guilt over the fact that I wasn't able to take care of her like I now feel she took care of me. I mean how a person can get over losing their center, their defender; their #1 fan. The only peace of mind that I have is the fact that I know she's back where she belongs showing God her Dr. Jekell & Ms. Hyde personality every day until we meet again. In retrospect of my T.V. moment I learned or realized a very good point, T.V. does mirror real life but thru Rose colored glasses, and when stuff happens in the real world without your glasses it hurts. We watch events occur on the television but in life we feel things happen to us.
I don't personally like drama in my own life but do really enjoy watching other people's drama on T.V. So we don’t see the actual mirror that T.V. really portrays, televisions also somehow stretches the truth of the real life situation that dramas is showing us. But one day I had the opportunity to live out my own television drama starring myself and my family.
It was the summertime almost a week after my birthday while in school I received an urgent phone call just like one of the characters would receive on one of my shows which initially gave me a déjà vu moment. The call was from my grandmother telling me I needed to return to my hometown immediately to see my mother. Before this real life T.V. drama began I was just getting close to my mother after our relationship being explosive for most of my life. During my childhood my mother Alice who I was named after was like Dr. Jekell and Ms. Hyde. Now if you know that story which was about a doctor trying to find a cure for an illness and ending giving himself an split personality, well she was kinda like that.
I mean I know my mother loved me, and was extremely proud of me she just didn't really share that information with me directly. Nothing I ever did was acceptable to her, if I received an A on a test she’d ask where’s the extra credit. If I won a track meet and got my picture in the paper she’d say why you didn’t break the record, if I cleaned the house without being told to, she’d get her gloves and try to find mistakes I had made not using her technique. I mean it never stopped, I always heard her praises from a third party to which she had told about my triumphs. But Mommy Dearest never specifically told me, for a longtime growing up I could count on one hand how many time I received the sound of her voice saying to me good job. Due to this straining relationship and a few other reasons which we can't discuss right now I left the nest at the tender age of sixteen. I had my own apartment in another part of the city just for me and my son. My mother and I‘s relationship still went on a lot of rollercoaster rides. It was only at the wise age of twenty that my mother showed me some acknowledgement she actually told me she was proud of me and that was when I met my #1 fan.
For the next few years we talked every day, whenever I felt defeated or had a situation she was right there. At this point in my life my mother was my #1 defender. So when the family was made aware that she was diagnosed with liver disease, I immediately dropped out of college and went to training school in Newark, New Jersey to become a C.N.A. (certified nurse’s assistant) I was going to be the one to take care of her which she would soon need. Back to the story so I'm in school I get that urgent page to get to Christ Hospital in Jersey City, New Jersey. The time of the dire call was 9:16a.m., why I still know that actually time is because for about five minutes time stood still and my watch was blinking 9:16, of course that didn't really happen but that's what it felt like in my mind but when I did return to reality I checked my phone's call history and I guess that was when that set time was stored in my head. By this time I was in my car driving forgetting speed limits oblivious to the law I arrived at the hospital at 9:38a.m. I parked my car anywhere and ran into the hospital. I went to the nurse's station to ask where my mother is. The nurse on duty told me she was in room 514C (yeah I remember that too) so I walked really, really fast down the hallway to room 514C.
In this beige and blue room attached to what seemed to me like 10 machines laying in this metal and white bed was my Dr. Jekell & Ms. Hyde mother. Here she was so still in this bed looking so peaceful and strained like she was tied down. So I sat down on the side of her bed first placing my head on chest, I wanted to hear her heartbeat. But then I was reminded of all those machines she was attached too, so I began to question is that her or the machine? Not being able to answer my own question I then placed her hand in mine and stared at this angelic creature that to me for so long was so strong but now looked so helpless. I stared at that angelic creature in this bed with all those machines attached for awhile she began to look like she was sleeping I think I started to imagine that she was just sleeping in her own bed snoring as usual. Then the reality hit me again and the visual that I really had came back those damn machines.
After some time my little sister arrived , she is a few years younger than me but we both were grown, there still was another sister, this teenage girl in a 5Th grade class oblivious to what was going on . Well my little sister entered room 514C, while I was still sitting at my mother bedside hand in hand, she just stood at the foot of the bed staring. Here comes the T.V. moment, as I sit on the side of the bed my mother 's hand in mine my sister started to touch my mother's leg once both of our hands were touching her at the same tie those damn machines started to beep, the alarm on the machine which tells you her heart rate and blood pressure changed color . The monitor once black with two red lines, one solid and straight the other wavy like the ocean are now both blue and straight just like on T.V. My mother had flat lined my sister and I looked up at each other and then a team of nurses and doctors swarmed in the room same as the shows I watch so often. One of the nurses told me that we had to leave the room. And in that moment which seemed like an eternity we froze and neither I nor my sister could move. I personally was stuck in amazement looking at an actual crash cart with paddle that another nurse was placing on my mother's chest, I then looked over at my sister and she was on the floor. An orderly had to carry her into the waiting room the nurse escorted me into.
While my sister and I waited in this dull beige and brown closet like room, the team attempted to revive my mother. As we waited a lifetime in that dull beige & brown room two priest walked in just like on T.V., one African American and the other Caucasian. When I saw them I guess that's when the true reality of the situation set in and I began to scream NO, NO, NO. I told the ministers to get out it not over yet, y'all came too early. But they weren't because at that moment when I was trying to get rid of them the doctor came into our closet like waiting room. The look on her face told the story but she still utter those famous T.V. words," we did all we could do but she didn't pull thru". At first I just gazed at the doctor as she then told us her official time of death which was 12:23pm. Yeah just about three hours after I arrived at Christ Hospital in Jersey City, I was instructed to say goodbye to my #1 fan. I was told to let go of my Dr. Jekell & Ms. Hyde mother and I didn't want to even thou most of my life she had a split personality she was still MOMMY.
This woman taught me mostly everything I know from paying a bill to getting men to do what you want. She was the mother all my friends wished was theirs when I was in elementary school, this was the lady I would die fro but also worked my last nerve. I felt that I had too many more lessons to learn. When that team of doctors and nurses couldn't save my mother I felt cheated like T.V. had lied to me, but I realized I wasn't on T.V. Because on the shows they scare you a little but the character always pull thru, but not MOMMY. We would love to have T.V. live our lives for us for things to go wrong but just for a little while to know that by the end of that scene everything would be alright again. But real life moments are not like T.V. moments they differ in the fact that T.V. has commercials and it shows stops after a set amount of time where as real life stops but always keeps going making up its own time line and rules never ending. My T.V. moment is forever embedded in my memory, it would also never end I live with that visual every day. For the next few days my family and I made arrangement to lay our angelic peacefully sleeping mother to rest. Ever since August 25, 2003, at 12:23pm I've felt unwhole, every day I feel like I'm forgetting something. Maybe its guilt over the fact that I wasn't able to take care of her like I now feel she took care of me. I mean how a person can get over losing their center, their defender; their #1 fan. The only peace of mind that I have is the fact that I know she's back where she belongs showing God her Dr. Jekell & Ms. Hyde personality every day until we meet again. In retrospect of my T.V. moment I learned or realized a very good point, T.V. does mirror real life but thru Rose colored glasses, and when stuff happens in the real world without your glasses it hurts. We watch events occur on the television but in life we feel things happen to us.
Blog # 14 THE TRIO
The photograph that I am going to talk about is one that I loved the first time I looked at it and love every time I see it now. It was taken Thanksgiving day 2008. My family gathered at my little sister Ko-Ko's house, where she did all the cooking for the holiday just like my nanny(grandmother) used to do when we were younger, but she not here anymore. Anyway the picture is of all my mother's children. All three of her girls looking like charlie's angel alive and healthy plus gorgeously grown. we took that picture to remind ourselves of that very fact, we were Alice's Angels. The picture we took displayed us in age-order myself first, then Ko-Ko, then Ruddy. Looking at this picture into our eyes this is the first picture we've took in a long time that I feel we wanted to take and you see that in that moment we are happy. reflecting back we also looked a little chunky. Thank God me and Ko-Ko have slimmed down since that famous Thanksgiving day.
Blog #13 What did I find
I first looked in a purse that I haven't used for a while and in this purse I found a recite from a shopping spree that me and the kids went on during the summertime. I knew it was from the summer from the date on it, 07162009 is what was on this extremely long white faded strip of paper that I discovered. The pure thought of that fun day brings a smile to my face & heart, I saved a little piece of change from picking up shifts while people went on vacation at the bar. Finally I had about 400 dollars just to blow. And believe me that's exactly what we did, s--t we went to the mall during Old Navy's summer sale and shopped like we were royalty. I was the Queen and my sons were my princes.
The other day while was looking in my book bag for a pencil to do some Psychological Statistics homework at the very bottom of my book bag was a map. but this was not just any map, this was the one which put all this in motion, I used this very map to restart pursuing my dreams. It was a map of Kean University. The same map that helped me navigate my way around the enormous campus to apply, register, just everything. Shoot for the first couple of week of school this colored diagram of walkways and building was my lifeline to success & the next phrase of my career goals.
The other day while was looking in my book bag for a pencil to do some Psychological Statistics homework at the very bottom of my book bag was a map. but this was not just any map, this was the one which put all this in motion, I used this very map to restart pursuing my dreams. It was a map of Kean University. The same map that helped me navigate my way around the enormous campus to apply, register, just everything. Shoot for the first couple of week of school this colored diagram of walkways and building was my lifeline to success & the next phrase of my career goals.
Blog # 12 Which One?
After completing my second essay I went back to the first one. When I started to read it I realized that I could do a little more to that first essay. My second essay in my opinion has more meat to it. So a reader once finish reading it can feel full. Where as my first essay leaves you with questions and a reader I feel might even be hungry after that read. Now I did intend to leave a reader with questions but I didn't want them to starve. But, I now see things a tad differently, don't get me wrong I still want my readers to question things just trying to cut the list down. So my decision is to fill in some of the gaps that I left in my first essay's subject matter, so that now me and the reader would be happy. I get to make you think and also give you a fulling read. I hope y'all enjoy it.
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