Ten: Fifty-Seven

Ten: Fifty Seven
Is there anything quite as annoying as going out of town and seeing people you know? Anything quite as, "...ugh" as seeing a person you know and don't particularly care for when you're out of town?
How about having the person you know and don't particularly--hell, especially don't-- like see you and initiate a borderline racially insensitive conversation?
Yeah. All bad.
After working for three caffeine deprived hours straight, I found myself standing bleary eyed in the line at Biggby. While waiting to place my order I felt my phone vibrate. Without looking down, I reached into my pocket, extracted my cell and silently cursed the fools that invented the chain letter and it's modern day equivalent, the forwarded message. Without bothering to tell the sender that if God was really testing me I was too tired to care about failing, I silently took a step forward as the line advanced.
I felt someone tap my shoulder. "Excuse me," they said as I turned around. "I think you dropped your mo--LauRen?"
Oh, fuck. Not this bitch, I thought to myself.
Plastering my fakest, "It's so nice to see you! Won't you please go play in traffic now?" smile on my face, I thanked her for telling me that I had dropped my money. She handed it to me and gave me an unwelcome and very much unwanted hug.
"So how are you? What are you doing up here in Grand Rap--do you live here now?"
I awkwardly patted her on the back while trying to disengage from her embrace. "I'm alright, thanks. No. I'm just visiting for a few hours before I head back to Lansing."
I noticed the line had moved out of corner of my eye so, with what I hoped would be one last forced smile, I turned and took a step forward. There was only one person standing in the way of my coffee and my hasty exit from the shop when I felt her hand in my hair.
"Oh, my God, LauRen. Your hair is so soft! It looks like it'd be...well, y'know. Rough."
The needle on the imaginary record playing in my head dragged across its surface and the music stopped as I turned to face her. "...Excuse me?" My internal DJ changed the song from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 to Lil Scrappy's "Head Bussa" as she blushed at her gaffe.
"Oh, I didn't mean it like that! It's a good thing. I like the 'natural' look on you! Makes you seem...ethnic. You look like you could be on your way to a Black Cat--Lion? Panther?--meeting in your leather jacket."
Oh. My. God. This bitch--this bitch tried it.
With my hands balled into tightly clenched fists at my side, I was about to whirl around and deliver a spinning kick to the side of her head when I saw the barista motion for me to come forward and place my order out of the corner of my eye.
I don't think she realizes or appreciates the fact that my Wild Zebra latte saved her reproductive organs from being introduced to my fists.

Confessions of a CATA Commuter

I feel as though I'm spending way too much time here at the bus station.
Just this week, I've witnessed a gaggle of bird brained, basic bitches almost come to blows over lawd knows what and tried to figure out how in the hell the old man sitting next to me wet his Depends and managed to smell like caramelized onions and apple cider vinegar with a hint of lemongrass. Who has gourmet urine? Ugh... I also feel as though I'm about to smack this ol' no eyebrow havin', nekkid mole rat lookin' bitch for lookin' at me like I'm the one who made her ugly. She better check her parents before she throws another side eye at me. I'll smack her wit' a tube of Carmex and a bottle of Japanese Cherry Blossom lotion and leave her doin' the "Naked Mole Rap." Eff she thought this was?!
But I digress.
So anyway, I'm sure that by now you've noticed that I've slacked off and loafed by neglecting my baby, The (Infamous) Life, and, to a lesser extent, the randoms who stop by or stalk it. Ooops, my bad, many apologies and all that. I'd excuse myself by saying, "I've been busy," but I don't feel like it. Which isn't to say I haven't been  busy or whatever because I have been, I've just been letting life stand in the way of most things (infamous) which, unfortunately, includes this here blog of mine.
Before you roll your eyes, mutter "nobody cares, b" and hit CTRL + W to close the tab, finish reading, I promise to keep this one short...er than a lot of my old posts. Walk wit' me for a minute.
During the latter portion of the year, things here in the Wonderful Realm of Ren turned painfully reckless in the most literal of senses. I was this close to committing patricide with a Wiimote long story; don't ask after Christmas dinner at Nana's and I found out that a really good friend of mine passed away after I got a friend request from "him" on Facebook. Things at home have gotten...lawd, this shit just a mess. Fights on the daily, raised voices, thrown shoes, slammed doors and stony silences just scream "home sweet home," right? And then, of course, there's this whole non-situation with He Who Must Not be Named...yeah, that nigga.
There's so much to say on this shit that I wouldn't even know where to begin so guess what? I won't. I'll just say that I'm preparing myself for when next month falls through--as it inevitably will--shake my head, curse my relentlessly rotten luck, keep it pushin' and hop my ass on the bus.
Here's to another year filled with inconsistent infamy, y'all.
♥

Meh…

I hate it when saints people use prayer as a saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost way of cursing at or threatening others. Hardly anything irritates me more about today’s “Christians” in fact. 

Well, there’s that whole crusade against homosexuality, but I’m choosing not to speak on that for the time being. I might find myself excommunicated from the Church of God in Christ and I personally do not want to spend an entire day in church with the Baptists. 

They do have a tendency to make it to the buffet before the Methodists though… 

There is unspeakable power in prayer and I seriously doubt that the Lord, our God appreciates you abusing that power by telling someone that you’ll pray for them when what you really mean is “Bitch, shut yo’ ass all the way up before I Spartan-kick yo’ ass down a flight of steps!” 

Yeah. Pretty sure He frowns upon that. I dunno; I could be wrong. 

*shrugs*

In. Tolerance.

Jesus be an electric, razor wired, ten foot fence.
Why must you insist on beating the dead horse that is Homosexuality, Black Church? Why? Don’t you realize that all you’re doing is spreading seeds of intolerance? How can you say that you stand for and represent a God who stands for love when what you’re preaching from the pulpits in your various houses of worship is hate?
Yes, homosexuality may very well be a sin, but hasn’t it been said that our God hates the sin and not the sinner? Stop trying to use God to further your misguided missions in life and learn to embrace all of His people.
After all; that is the Christian thing to do, right?
♥

I Wanna Be Where You Are(n’t)

“Y’all can’t fade me; y’all need Ambi”

This is gonna sound hella random—even to my standards and y’all know how I do—but I have a question: am I the only one who’s ever wanted to light a match near someone who smells like they’ve bathed in their cologne/body spray/perfume/etc.? Ya know, just to see if they might catch on fire or spark or somethin’ to that effect?
Oh…you haven’t? I guess it’s just another one of those “No LauRen/Elle/Ren, it’s just you, sweetie” type things then, huh?
Oh. Well.
The person that was sitting behind me when I went to go see Iron Man 2 yesterday smelled like the inside of a knock-off perfume factory was lucky that I didn’t have my lighter on me. Would’ve left her as a mound of imitation Chanel no. 5 scented ashes. Fxckin’ wit’ my olfactory senses for two hours, bish…
I’m jokin’; sheesh. Lighten up.
But I digress.
Ya girl is currently chillin’ out, maxin’, relaxin’ all bored like on the couch, watching an episode of Criminal Minds and vibin’ to QuESt’s “Where’s My Rhymebook?” mixtape, takin’ a break from doing something mildly pathetic. Which I’m not going into at the moment, but, if you care—and I strongly doubt you do—the details will emerge over the course of the next six months so…yep.
I'm gonna keep this one short because I have other writing to do so, let’s get it.
♥
I hate…
BET
I’m sure that Robert L. Johnson’s intentions were good to better than great when he founded Black Entertainment Television. Positive of that in fact. However, his dream has turned into a nightmare for the Black community. The stereotypes that are portrayed on the network are shameful at best and among the most degrading insults that we as a culture have to deal with. This network and its parent company Antichrist and Illumanati, LLC Viacom delight in showing our people in both a stereotypical and negative light and honestly? The fact that there are people who delight in the coonish—oh yes, I did say coonish—antics and gimmicks that have become synonymous with all things BET irritates and, on a deeper level, saddens me.

See, I told you it would be short.
♥