Tag Archives: time

Disconnect: My 9/11 Story

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The relationship between our perception of the passage of time and our age is something that I’ve never been quite able to grasp. I mean, while I know that one second in 1991 and one second in 2011 are supposed to be the exact same amount of time, my mind somehow convinces me that they’re unequal, and I’m not sure why it does this.

For instance, I’m 32 years old. On Sept. 12, 2001, I was 22. 10 years before that — Sept. 12, 1991 — I was 12. When I was 22, it seemed like there was an eon of distance between my age then and me being 12. It may have only been 10 years, but being 12 or 13 or even 16  seemed so foreign and distant to me that it felt like my teens happened an entire lifetime ago.

Now, though, the distance between 22 and 32 seems much, much, much smaller. I remember everything about being 22. I remember what my apartment smelled like (Guardsman, Curve, bbq sauce, sneakers, and condoms). I remember the color of my roommate’s girlfriend’s hair, and I remember trying to find a subtle way to ask him if that was her natural color. I remember exactly how I felt when first learning I’d been betrayed by two of my closest friends. I remember riding to some party with my boy and seeing the face he made as he listened to Eminem’s verse on “Renegade” for the first time. (Any diehard hip-hop fan knows this face. It’s the exaggerated squint/”I just smelled the worst smell on Earth” combo face you make when first hearing an outstanding verse. It’s almost like you can’t believe what you’re hearing.)

I’m bringing this up because of the psychological disconnect currently going on in my head regarding the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. It doesn’t seem like it’s been 10 years already because I (think I) remember everything about that day.

I remember my roommate waking me up to tell me that a plane flew into the World Trade Center, and I remember my half-lucid response. (“N*gga, stop playin. I’m still not letting you hold my watch.“)

I remember the shared collective consciousness of everyone on campus. (People use always use “surreal” to describe this feeling, but to me the best way to explain it was that it seemed like we were all extras in the same movie.)

I remember not wanting to talk or even think about anything other than what the hell was happening.

I remember not being able to reach my parents until early in the afternoon, and manufacturing anxiety even though I knew they were probably just home, watching the news like I was.

I remember that the two or three people I knew who were actually able to get service on their cell phones became rock stars that day.

I remember wondering exactly how “big” this was going to get. How many planes were hijacked? 4? 10? 24?  How long would this continue to go on?

I remember watching CNN and trying to put myself in the shoes of a person near Ground Zero¹ to try to imagine the fear they must have been feeling. I also remember failing at this, becoming annoyed with myself for not being able to produce that level of empathy, and then wondering whether the people around me who seemed completely distraught were genuine or if they were hysterical because they felt that the moment called for hysterics.

But, despite the fact that 9/11 almost seems like it happened 10 months ago instead of 10 years ago, it doesn’t feel that way. The memories are still vivid, so you’d think that when watching a 9/11 related news story or tribute or memorial with footage from that day interspersed, the same feelings I felt that day would come back. But, although I remember how I felt, I can’t reproduce those feelings. I watch the 9/11 footage now, gripped and transfixed by the imagery and the sounds the fact that I remember seeing much of this before, but surprisingly unmoved.

It’s almost as if my heart is outsmarting my brain, convincing me that it’s useless to actually feel the feelings associated with those memories; emotionally downgrading 9/11 from “an event that left everyone shook in some way” to “an especially intense thing that happened on TV a decade or so ago” — really no different than the first 20 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan.”²

I think I understand why my mind does this. While remembering important events helps us make judgements, decisions, and predictions, continuing to go through the emotional rollercoasters associated with those events would probably make us insane. Still, while watching a few of these tributes last weekend and seeing the tears roll down the eyes of people in attendance, I wonder if I’ve gone too far, if becoming as emotionally detached as I seem to be is dangerous. Hmm. Maybe I’ll figure it out by 2021. Seems like a while to wait for an answer, but if the last ten years are any indication, it should be right around the corner.

That’s enough from me today. People of VSB.com, what are your 9/11 stories? How did it make you feel, and how much of a disconnect is there between how it made you feel then and how it makes you feel today?

¹It’s also interesting how my mind continues to think of 9/11 as just a NYC event, even though I’m very aware of what happened at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, PA — a city maybe 60 minutes away from where I’m sitting right now.
²I didn’t say this in the entry, but I do also realize that if I personally lost a loved one that day  (or even was in NYC or the Pentagon or Somerset County) my feelings about this would probably be much, much different. And, for those who did actually lose someone, I don’t mean to be flippant or minimize any pain you might be feeling.

—The Champ

Wasted

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I’ve learned a few lessons in life. For instance, I’ve learned that if you stick your tongue on some ice, it might get stuck there until somebody comes and pours hot water on your face. I’ve learned that Obama cannot save America from itself. I’ve most recently learned that two MC’s can’t occupy the same space at the same time; it’s against the laws of physics.

Here’s another oldie, but a goodie: After a certain age, men cannot just be nice to women.

It’s true. Oh yeah, it’s true.

That might seem like an odd lesson to learn and it doesn’t mean that if you’re a man you should just slap the monkey shine sh*t out of the next woman you meet, but it does mean that as a man, you have to be really careful with who you flirt with and how long you do so since it can easily be assumed that you are talking to such a woman out of genuine interest and if no numbers or information are exchanged at any point, well…

…you’ve just wasted that woman’s time.

While I disagree with this on principle (hell, she just got a chance to talk to me, no strings attached and I didn’t walk away, lucky her), I do understand the frustrations that many women could feel if they spend say, 30 minutes, jawjacking (no BJ) with some bloke about life only to find out that dude either has a girlfriend or is pretty much not interested in pursuing anything further with a woman.

I’ve had this problem. I’m a social butterfly of epic proportions. I will talk you up and down and forty-seven ways from Sunday and then say, “well, it was nice talking to you, but its time to keep it moving, pimpin’, you don’t know me!” And more than a few times I’m fairly convinced that the woman on the opposing end of my stellar and charming ways was either confused, dumbfounded, or dumbfoundedly confused that the interaction would end with no closure. Except, I got my closure. I got to a place where the convo didn’t interest me anymore and then, well, sayonara.

Thing is, you just can’t do that to women over age 27.  Fact is, women are looking for men to date and be monogamous with and all that buttery flowery stuff. And most guys do indeed suck (no Adam Lambert). So when they come across a man who they can talk to for a significant amount of and time and not want to kill, its a breath of fresh air. Who doesn’t want to keep breathing? Women are often looking for love connections. So if you spend 45 minutes talking to a woman you have no interest in pursuing outside of the short convo, knowing what MOST are looking for, it’s almost as if you’re wasting the time they could have been using on some other guy who might actually WANT to hit.

Except, clearly, with so few men out there, technically, that time NOT spent talking to a dude would be spent talking to her homegirl and not a chap with two hangin’ and one swangin’. So there’s no real opportunity cost here. But, the chick’s time is still wasted.

GUCCI!

And that’s not very nice to be out here wasting women’s time when there’s already a man shortage and then there’s a short man problem and a tall man with a short leg problem so I suppose it makes sense. And then there’s the whole no platonic friends rules.

Anyway, good people of the VSB, is it rude for a man to talk to a woman without any intention of getting her number? I don’t think so but I’ve been debated, disputed, hated and viewed in America as a tease since I’ve left a woman hanging or two.

Am I wrong?

Or am I alright like Janet Jackson?

Is women’s time being wasted?

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL, HE A 3

Love TKO.

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Today I was looking back over the years.  Because of this, I shedded some tears.

(I’m almost 98 percent sure that the plural form of “shed” is…”shed”.  Teddy P’s English wasn’t so good.  English majors and people that read feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)

Okay, so I didn’t actually shed any tears but I did start having some of those hindsight 20/20 realizations – with the most obvious one being this:

I stayed in nearly every relationship about 6 months too long.

Now I could come up with lots of reasons as to why this is the case.  Perhaps the snappy nappy dugout was too good.  Maybe ole girl cooked something fierce.  Maybe I really just liked the way she did her hair.  Or I liked the fancy clothes she weared.  Or maybe, like most people, I just held on a wee bit too long to something that I knew wasn’t going anywhere, just because.  Kind of like a jellyfish, only not at all.

Let me give you all a little Panama history.  In undergrad, this one chick had my nose so wide open I was smelling daisies in Taiwan.  I was a total goner.  She played me like a wet food stamp but eventually (nearly a year and some change later) we ended up together.  I’d broken her down to the most broken down of broken downedness.  The girl was mine.  Yes, the doggone girl was mine.

And then I met her.

Yeah, you read that right.

I’d built this chick up in mind to be this end-all be-all of nubianosity.  In my mind, she was the epitome of woman.  In reality, she was just like many other women I knew.  Which was a total blower.  And not the good kind either.

Heh heh heh.

Well, at some point, after I’d come back down to earth and realized she wasn’t Isis,  things started to go South like the reverse Industrial Revolution.  Now it wasn’t immediate, we actually had a pretty good run for a  year but our personalities started to clash.  She had trust issues and I had issues with women who have trust issues.  At some point, I realized I didn’t actually know anything about her.

True story:  My mother called me one Christmas and asked me what to get for my girlfriend.  I told her I had no idea.  My mom was like, “well what are her interests?”

Me:  Um, I have no clue.  At all.  From what I can tell, she has no interests.

Oy vey.

We’d been together a year at this point.  I was so dumbfounded by this that I called my girlfriend and said, straight up, “what are you interested in because from where I’m sitting, all you do is sit at home and wait for me to get out of class everyday.”

Tact, meet Panama Jackson.  You all clearly don’t know one another.

Anyway, that relationship tailspinned and I wasn’t happy.

Yet, I stayed more than 6 months after I’d already decided I didn’t want to be with her.  And I’m still not 100 percent sure why.  I could say that I loved her but the truth is, I developed an interest in somebody else during that final 6 month stretch (I didn’t cheat, physically…lol).  This new chick and I only talked like twice but I was interested.  As I reflect on that relationship I think that the only reason I stayed with her was because I just didn’t want to hurt her by breaking up with her.

And because I didn’t know how to break up with somebody who hadn’t done anything wrong other than being herself.

(I’m sure deep down she’s really a lovely person and hopefully she’s found love by now.)

Or maybe I thought it would somehow work itself out since I liked seeing her naked.

(That’s actually not true I just thought it was funny to write.)

When I did break up with her, it was one of those, “dude, I don’t want to be here, so I’m out. Peace” type breakups which pretty much ensures that she’ll hate me for eternity.

D’oh well.  You live, you learn.  I think I did her a favor.

I saved her from having me cheat on her.

Huzzah!

But still, I rise stayed.  And I did the same in other relationships and robbed myself of lots of prime stringless lovin introspection.  And like Micheal Jackson, I know I’m not alone.

Will you be there?

Anyway, my fellow eternal reflectionists, have you ever stayed in a relationship way past its expiration date?  If so, why?  And if you were lucky enough to get while the getting was good, how’d you know to just break it off like a Kit Kat bar?

Each one, teach on.

The Morehouse way.

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL, HE A 3

blast from the past: her two cents, revisited

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***admin note***

because of a technical difficulty (read: “really, you don’t wanna know. trust me”) last night, the champ is re-posting an entry from may, with a few ridiculous edits.

***end of admin note***

forget everything else you’ve heard.

disregard every other theory you’ve read.

ignore anything you’ve heard from any other relationship pundit.

fellas, you need to know that it’s all about money.

that’s it.

it’s not about sex, or, more specifically, which sexual acts she’s willing to do for you. she swallowed? so what. get in line. take a number. you doo-scooped her in one of the men’s dressing rooms at the banana republic? sh-t, so did clinton portis and sting in 2002. get over yourself.

it’s not about time either. women will spend time with a guy they have no intentions on ever doing anything remotely physical with, sans the hunchback hug (the teasingly platonic hug where women hunch their backs forward and stick their behind out, insuring there won’t be any type of crotch-area contact) at the end of the night when you drop her off at her f-buddy’s efficiency at her apartment.

she let you meet her girlfriends? who cares. she just wanted to prove to them that she found someone worse in spades than gem and ivy she is. plus, 45 percent of them aren’t going to be around this time next week year anyway.

she let you meet her family? so what. she’s just tired of hearing the “when are you getting married?” chorus at every family outing, and figures that being seen with your delusional ass might buy her a good 6 months of question quelling.

you’re on her top 4 on myspace? great. so is ringo starr. and tom.

she told you she loved you? love schmove. when she said it she was probably under the influence of dgp (”damn good pipe”), and that “confession” definitely ain’t admissible in any court. if you remember, that night she also called you “bucketman” repeatedly, even though your name is nate.

no, their only true tell, the one sign that’ll make you absolutely certain that a woman is definitely, without any questions, into you is if she’s willing to give you money.

not borrow. not loan. give. give, with absolutely no plans to ever get it back. this is the ultimate test…the relationship wonderlic exam. if she’s willing, she adores you…if she’s not, she doesn’t. it’s that simple

you could even make the argument that (***editors note***. the champ isn’t making this argument, just stating that the argument can be made. carry on) money is a woman’s most valuable possession which is why they’re usually terrible tippers. i’m not implying that all women are bronze excavators (”gold-diggers” is a bit too cliched for my taste), but let’s just say that, for reasons that have to do with biology and centuries of socialization, it’s much, much, much easier to separate a man interested in a woman from miscellaneous cash than vice versa, and for her to be willing to actually do this for a guy she’s seeing is the most concrete proof on the planet that she is invested in him.

you don’t believe me?

okay. tomorrow, ask a woman how many people she’s had any type of sexual relationship with. (***editors note***. don’t do this, unless you plan on getting smack repeatedly. wait, on second thought, do this and report the results)

then, ask her how many of those guys she would have given 500 dollars to if they needed it. i’d bet my obama sponsored reparations check that at least 70 percent of the time, those numbers won’t even be close to matching up.

let’s break it down again:

you met her stepmom? so what. she hates her stepmom, and she just brought you around because she knows she’ll be allergic to your cologne. she’s actually secretly hoping that it kills her

she let you make a tape? hmmm…obviously you haven’t checked the homegrown thread at bgol the contents of that shoebox underneath her bed. you’re just this month’s co-star.

your checking account is a bit short this month because you had to help pay for your aunt’s funeral, and your girl gave you $550 to help out with your mortgage? she’s already picked the names of your first three grandchildren.

so, people of vsb.com, i know i’m right, but, for the sake of discussion, i need to ask am i right…or am i right?

—the champ