Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘memories’

Unbeknown to Me, I Was His Girlfriend

Posted in Everyday Shit, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 9, 2012 | 10 Comments »

1-1-2-yellow-onionsMaybe, just maybe, the shit’s that’s happened to me happened so I could share with you. I have no use for some of these events in my life. Some? things have taught me absolutely nothing. I’ve been an innocent bystander in my own life at times but when shit wants to happen to you, it shall seek you out and happen simply ’cause that’s what shit does.

You see, back in the day, I was somewhat of a party animal. Not that I was the life of any party but I went to a few parties back in my day. I was the mix and mingle type in an aloof sorta way. I came by these little social outings on account of my boy cousin, who was a year ahead of me and was my watchdog. We went to clubs and all kindsa house parties and whatnot. Good thing I was a good girl ’cause I’d seen a fair amount of things that should’ve been hidden from my innocence. Fair to give myself credit for having a fair amount of sense to some extent.

Well. I was at this little party in a real country part of Georgia. I think it was Vidalia, that little town that’s famous for onions, of all the damn places. Well, there, I found myself at this little party with my watchdog. I was probably in high school.

Okay. There I was, pretty much hanging against the wall like a pair of curtains ’cause I was trying to get a feel for these countryer-than-me folk. Time was ticking like it does and I soon got to saying to myself, “Damn Totsy, you looking this cute and nobody’s asked you to dance.” Yeah, I could’ve gotten out there and done my thing solo ?’cause I could move this way and that back then but well, I wasn’t in my part of town. So, being the Southern Belle I was, I waited patiently to be asked to the dance floor. It never happened. At one point, I went in the bathroom to check myself out. You know, to see if anything was hanging from my nose or stuck between my teeth. Everything checked out real fine. I went back out and continued to hang on that wall like a set a dusty drapes. A dance for Totsy never happened, which was highly unusual for me. I was like, “Shit, I’m only 17 and losing my touch.”

Well, it came through the grapevine that this distant cousin of my cousin who came to be associated with my family by way of a step relative, had it circulated that I was his girlfriend. Hands off, was what he’d told all the fellas. I only found this out a month after the party. The silly part of the matter was, not even this fella who was claiming me asked me to dance on account of him being shy, and really, he was too old for me but had a young way about him. Probably was that way on account of being a weed smoker, which has -never been a turn-on for me anyhow.

I can’t tear up the dance floor like I used to but it’s nice imagining I could. Then again, maybe these things happen so I can have a chuckle to myself every now and then. Either that, or one of those I-just-be-damn moments.

About these ads

Read Full Post »

Ichwhay Ayway Isway Upway?

Posted in Everyday Shit, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 20, 2012 | 48 Comments »

"New Hat" Acrylic on paper. Copyright 2012 Totsymae

I have to admit, I was a nosy child coming up. There were so many interesting things going on around me but nothing I was involved in. Like, I’d've really liked to have gone to hear Richard Pryor in concert when my mom and aunts went. I was already sneaking and listening to the recordings. I was also sneaking to read those romance magazines. I was deeply enthralled to learn about this kinda adult entertainment but what else was a twelve year old kid supposed to do on a Friday and Saturday night? Yeah, I had books but I’d read them all.

Even though my sister and me were six years apart, we found us some shenanigans to get into, aside from sniffing chair seats. Folks, we were magnets for foolishness. I took calculated risks, whereas Sister didn’t care. Trouble simply fell where it may with her. There was an ‘uncle’ who stayed with us at one time and he had the funniest shit to happen in his life. He should be blogging himself but since he’s not, I’m gonna share a little story with y’all.

This story also involved a girl cousin who spent a good deal of time with us every summer. She was five years younger than me. She and that sister of mine were little forces to be reckoned with. To this very day, I don’t think that Uncle completely knew how much.

When Cousin came over, we’d play church and record it. Oh folks, we cut up something awful in that pretend church too. Cousin was the preacher and Sister and me were the congregation. If I could share it with you today, I would. You’d so enjoy these little childhood antics ’cause we also played celebrity singers. We had no inhibitions and the more we listened over those recordings, the more encouraged we were to cut up.

One such antic we found ourselves into, we couldn’t record. Matter of fact, I was late getting into the game. Most times, I always was when it came to those two. I guess they thought I would tell, me being older and all but all I wanted was to be a part of the nonsense. That very foolishness we were trying to get into on one such occasion was watching Uncle in the bathroom.

There was a tiny hole in the bathroom door and you could see straight in there at him taking care of whatever business he was tending. Sister was the luckiest of the three of us. She got to see everything. By the time Cousin and me were up for our turn to see Uncle’s peter, he’d blocked our view by opening the linen closet inside the bathroom. Damn! We were pissed!

My mom and her sisters had a slick way of keeping us younguns outta their business too. They’d go to speaking Pig Latin. Were  good at it too but I figured out some words. They were some brain twisters and I can’t say I ever became fluent, even after checking out a book at the local library. Oh, I was ambitious, folks!

Anybody figured out the title of this post? Think Richard Pryor movies.

Read Full Post »

I Remember When…

Posted in Everyday Shit, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 11, 2011 | 35 Comments »

  • No kid I ever knew was brazen enough to talk back to grown folk and there was no such thing as negotiating with a child ’cause parents were the law of the land and that’s just the way it was.
  • The ice cream truck came to the neighborhood, we’d actually buy ice cream and had no thoughts of a child molester being inside ready to haul us off or that drugs were being sold instead of ice cream.
  • Playing outside with my friends, we had a time that was so good, we’d not want to go inside ’cause watching TV wasn’t even a thought and seldom were there any overweight kids.
  • My sister and cousin peeped inside the little door hole at our family-adopted uncle while he was in the bathroom and saw his peter and I was a pissed ’cause he closed the inside door and I wasn’t able to see it too.

    Copyright 2011Totsymae (InDesign/Photoshop)

  •  I loved reading ALL day and got SO upset to be pulled away to do some household chore.
  • Getting inside a cardboard box open on both ends with a boy and rolling downhill made me extra happy.
  • All I had to do was think about how my mom looked and it kept me out of trouble.
  • Playing church, school and store with my cousins was an all day event and we didn’t know what it meant to be bored ’cause we had the funnest times together.
  • I’d spend summers with my paternal grandmother and street race with the neighborhood boys, leaving them behind to eat my freakin’ dust!
  • My grandmother would give me the evil eye when I sprouted up like a weed from sleep to look at the ladies shout in church.
  • I would cut recess and the time I hid in the girls’ restroom, my teacher was red as fire when she swung the door open to see me crouched on the toilet in one stall and my best friend in another.
  • Standing on the armrest of the sofa in the living room and my sister and me falling backwards over and over again, so we could wake our mom up from napping for her to take us to our cousin’s houses where more fun could be had.
  • Eating boogers tasted sweet.

Aaaahh, those were the days, folks…

Read Full Post »

Living Under the Influence

Posted in Everyday Shit, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 16, 2011 | 25 Comments »

Watercolor on paper. Copyright 2011 Totsymae

Did I ever tell you about the preacher man who was eyeballing me? (siiiigh) If it ain’t one thing, it’s another, ain’t it? I hate that saying ’cause you should be able to turn your head left or right without shit coming your way. I mean, if things weren’t bad enough already. Folks upstate are flooded out, folks in Atlanta’s breaking in these beauty stores, stealing hair weave and selling it and you know Newt Gingrich says he cheated on his previous wives for the country and all. I tell ya, I love these new ways we show patriotism. I wanna show mine by taking that paddle that used to beat my ass in school and whip his for a statement like that. Remember folks, if he cheated on a wife who was sick with cancer, don’t be surprised at what he’ll do to folks he ain’t never said he loved. I ain’t saying that’s you or nothing. I’m just sayin’, you know, with the church and politics being kinda loosely tied together and all.

Now, I don’t know too much about politics or the church but I’ve somewhat mingled among political folk down here in the south. When I was younger, my mom wanted my sister and me to be busy for the summer, so she had us volunteer for Hosea Williams, who was running for congress at the time. He marched  side by side with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so it was something for us to be that close to walking history. He was a right friendly and grandfatherly figure for us that summer and every time you shook hands with him, your hands smelled like lemons. Outside of my own mom and those sassy sisters of hers, I’d never known anybody to be so brutally frank. And he used it with such diplomacy. I mean, we’d sit around in the morning meetings and folks were right glad to be insulted by him ’cause it kinda meant you were special to him.

There was this one preacher man down there, downtown Atlanta that is, who wore his hair slicked back. Oooohhh folks, be leery of a man who goes the length of pomading his hair back ’cause he’s probably slicker than two dice tossed on a buffed up floor. That’s another no-no for man material I was warned about coming up, along with one that wore lotsa jewelry. Now, what can a woman do with a man like that, I ain’t figured it out yet. But I’m gonna tell you, this preacher man spotted me and tried to throw a move on me, y’all. Yeah, he was around my step-daddy’s age but you think that stopped him?

See, we were cleaning the little kitchen in the back of the office and I suspect since I’ve always been kinda one to stare at folks to take all of them in, he took it that I was interested. I don’t know. I can’t remember my eyes lingering on him too long with that hairstyle and all. Plus, there were so many other interesting folk to stare at. Well, it’s just him and me in that little kitchen and he’s kinda managing the cleaning, I guess.  Me being the only one back there besides him, I guess I needed some supervision to sweep the floor since even back then, I wasn’t into being domestic. Well, this slickster hands me the broom and says, “You know you want me,” and had his hand shaking my head from side to side with his hand on my chin. Folks, as young as I was, I’d never thought along those lines about no preacher and least not him. I mean, I held them with such high reverence, with my granddaddy being a preacher and all. Imagine my shock and total confusion.

Ended up that I told another campaigner and he set that ole preacher man so straight, he apologized and started acting righteous by me. I was old enough to know this wasn’t right and not fall under the influence of what somebody supposedly represented but that ain’t the case for a lot of kids, nor is it an option for kids who are too young to process and ariculate that kinda confusion. I tell you though, it’s both strange and interesting, the guise folk hide behind to get into devilishment. I mean, what I’ve said here is just a snippet of what happens to undo the good that can be done. Look at John Edwards. Makes me sad to think of his wife leaving this earth in the kinda pain she must’ve been in, with cancer and her husband making that baby outside the marriage. What a mess to mend up with those children. I ain’t judging though. Just thinking, is all it amounts to really.  It makes me ponder two questions I’ve been asking myself for quite some time. Are we holding these folk in too high esteem or should we chalk it off to just being human? I mean, that is what we are when the water boils outta the pot.

Read Full Post »

What the Hell Was I Thinking?

Posted in Everyday Shit, tagged , , , , , , , on August 29, 2011 | 28 Comments »

Watercolor on paper. Copyright Totsymae 2011

Ever have those lazy days when you don’t feel like doing anything? I was that way all weekend. I was so lazy, matter of fact, I could barely think of what I’d post on this blog. You’d think I’d take a nap but I’m not a napper. I mean – oh shit, why would I even bother going into that with you?

I tell you what though, my sister and me had a ball on that phone Saturday. Oh, we kicked our southern bare feet up and laughed our asses off, talking about the shit we did back in the day. Ever sit back  and shoot the shit about what happened way back when and your folks are just finding out the truth at the moment you speak it as an adult?

Like, when my mom reads this post she’s gonna find out about those summer days when she’d call home to check on us and I stood by the answering machine listening to her go off and breathing hard into the phone. See, we stayed home and cleaned the hell outta the house during the summer. If we picked up, she’d rattle off more shit for us to do. She would be ringing the hell outta the phone, so me being the eldest of the two, I told my sister not to answer. I said, “It’s her. And she don’t need to be calling here no way. She need to be working that job.”  Oh yeah, I was running the ship ’til that bossy woman came home. Hell to the yeah! She’d just be screaming and breathing so heavy, you’d think she’d been working out. I’d just play the message over and over and laugh. I’d wonder what the devil’s wrong with her now, mean ass woman.

What I didn’t like was cooking. I’d burn shit up. Not purposely. The shit just came natural for me. It got to a point that my sister would have to do most of the cooking. That heifer swears she can cook a mean turkey burger but she ain’t hitting on shit in the kitchen either. After all that practice I let her have, the best that heifer can turn up is a dry ass turkey burger. If I ate meat, eating her shit would make me wanna be a vegetarian. No kidding, her burgers look like little ass Brillo pads without the blue shit on them.

Well, one time, around the Thanksgiving holiday, we were left to cook some green beans and collards for this big feast we were gonna throw down on. They were cooking good in the pots and I can smell them to this day. Shit, we were some green picking folks back in the day. I couldn’t stand that shit either. It didn’t help that my happy ass step-dad had a little garden and damn if we weren’t picking those bitches every Saturday for Sunday’s dinner. Folks, I hated it so much, one time, I put that shit in a plastic bag and threw them in my closet. I told my sister, after I felt what we’d picked was sufficient, “This enough right here. I’ll take care of the rest.” Damn picking some  greens every goddamn Saturday! You know my dumb ass left that bag in the closet and earned me a good ass whipping? Greens were smelling like shit all up and down the little hallway. Well hell, folks, I had sinusitis and couldn’t smell a damn thing. I needed fixing, y’all. Not even my big head sister had my back. Her ass was always walking around smelling shit any other time. Just my luck she couldn’t smell nothing this time around.

Anyhow, he came to get my sister and me during that time we were cooking , so we could go help with the little business he had. Folks, my sister and me got to riding in that truck and a little ways down the road, she goes, “I smell some collards and green beans burning.” I lie to you not folks, I was smelling the same shit. I looked at her and said, “Me too.” You know our dumb asses didn’t ask our step-dad to turn around so we could check to see if the stove was still on? I can’t tell you how long I had that burned odor in my nose. Maybe it was ’cause I’d burned so much shit in the past that I kept smelling it, I don’t know. Thankfully, it ended up that one of us had turned off the stove before leaving and the house stayed intact.

I tell you though, if I had to do it all over again, I still wouldn’t answer that phone. My thing is, if you can’t be mischievous as kid, at what point can you? Or maybe you’re an exception. You know there will always be one out there, huh (rolling my eyes and glad as hell you weren’t in my BFF circle).

Read Full Post »

A Mother’s Love

Posted in Woman in the Mirror, tagged , , , , on August 4, 2011 | 14 Comments »

Title: Mother's Adoration Size: 18 x 24 Mixed Media on Board

Featured WordPress Blog Post! (Yippee!)

For the mommies out there, ever sit and contemplate you were doing it well? Little Totsy and Mr Boy are some decent folk that came out of me. I mean, they could be better but they could be a helluva a lot worse. I have somewhat of a friend whose boy has been in and out of trouble with the law. I say she’s somewhat of a friend because we get along great for as much as what we know about each other and she’s a right nice woman.

We were at a gathering sometime last year and she expressed how much she loved doing those mommy things. Going to PTAs. Selling the most shit for her kids to win prizes for fundraisers. She  just loved doing all of that. And I couldn’t help thinking how much I don’t. I go ahead and do it with them and get folk to buy though.

When Mr Boy was in junior high, he got himself in a bit of trouble the way kids do and he wasn’t the best liar. But this one time when he came home telling me some shit about trouble he was in, to confirm, I said, “Boy, you’d better be telling the truth. Don’t have me going up to that school and making a fool of me.” He was earnest, so I went up to that school to handle business. You know, that assistant principal showed her ass on us? She took on this  disposition behind her desk, like she wanted to get down with my boy, with all her hand motions and rolling her neck and shit. I’d never seen no shit like that in my life. I had to let my son know, grown folk can be downright foolish. I let him know he was bigger in the way he handled himself. That I was proud of him.

Now, Little Totsy on the other hand, is a little slick. In elementary school,  she lied about some boy starting a fight with her cousin at the bus stop. I’m in the assistant principal’s office, a different one thankfully, and I’m trying to protect my nephew on account of her eyewitness account of the fight that broke out. This child of mine had made a believer of everyone who listened to her. About two years later, the kids are joshing around and she says, “Go on, Cousin. Admit you started that fight.” See, Little Totsy’s the youngest in the threesome, the only girl and protects Mr Boy and Cousin. I did kinda wonder why she was doing all the talking in that man’s office. Cousin was on the quiet side. Not saying much of shit. Just kinda mumbling and going on, following behind her story. The girl was good, folks.

When this friend of mine was relating these issues she was having with her girl, who’s hot in the tail, and boy, who’s in and outta jail, I cried inside for her at that moment. Every now and then, I still do ’cause all the shit I thought I should love doing and did so with a heavy and playful sigh, she did ever so happily.

No funny stuff here today, folks. I’m doing some thinking, which I do from time to time. While I’ve been painting over the weeks, I’ve been listening to music. I’ve especially been listening to Kemistry ’cause I want my younguns to be able to think on me the way this artist did on his mother when he wrote this song I wanna share with you. This is coming from a young man who went the wayward path and I have to tell you, he inspires me to be better. To keep having my kids’ backs and asking for those hugs just ’cause I feel like they could use one. I hope you don’t mind me sharing.

Read Full Post »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,550 other followers