Dreams of Love

I dream of her often. I've never seen this woman in real life, she's virtually nameless and faceless to me, but when I close my eyes, she awaits me. Arms extended, love in her eyes and a smile as warm and comforting as the day is long. My name is not Chris when I'm around her, I become "baby," "sweetie," "darlin'," "sugar," and "boo," even though I sometimes hate that word, it's quite positively one of the most beautiful words in the vernacular when she says it to me.

"You probably could have any guy in the world," I reason in my dream as I'm laying with her, innocently tracing her curves and texture with my broad fingertips. "But I'm here with you, aren't I," she shoots back, voice full of maple syrup sweetness. "I want to be with you and no one else baby, it's that simple."

And as quickly as she appears in my dreams, she's gone when I open my eyes. I shake my head and nurse the goose bumps that have sieged my body from the top of my ankles to the shorelines of my shoulders. Who is she? Where is she? When will I find her for real? Surely, praying to God for a love of my own when the world has bigger problems to be handled seems trivial. Yet and still, I've been told that there's no harm in praying for preparedness to meet the woman who will hopefully some day take on my last name and conceive children with me so they can take over the world.

So as I prepare to lay it down for the night, I'll definitely ask God to give me the self-love and strength to realize all the good within Chris along with the peace of mind, confidence and courage to approach women with my best intentions. That way, I'm sure that I won't have to close my eyes to feel loved and wanted.

Memorial Day Weekend Random

As I'm taking a break from cleaning up my apartment and giving my body some rest after some much needed time at the basketball court, I fully realize it's been over a week since I last posted, and I definitely want to thank the ladies for their kind words. I know it's nothing if I don't believe the good in myself, but I most certainly appreciate all the sweetness that was sent my way. Made me smile, if only for a short time. On to the random.

The bounce is back...your boy is back! Strawberries, Apples, Grapes, Fruit Juice, a morning basketball routine...needless to say my body is still doing that strange tightening thing it does when I change diets and routines, and even though it can be annoying when in turns a two second trip to the water cooler into a minute one because of the aches, lol, it's worth it. Along with keeping my appointments at the barbershop five minutes down the road from me, I feel much better about myself when I have a haircut and a sweat going at least once a day. It's virtually impossible to get that horse-racing blinder mentality and routine I had last summer, but will I try to keep it together even with a full-time job? You bet. I lost 36 pounds in three months last summer, so if I can drop about 20 or 25 this time around, I'll be satisfied, considering I have responsibilities and all.

For those curious about where I stand under the Astrological stars, my birthday is September 25th, which makes me an early early Libra, but a true one nonetheless. I was amused when a forum I visit had a nasty astrology book posted, highlighting the negatives of each Zodiac. I was hype-offended when they characterized the Libra as having the ethics of a snake and the morals of a rat. Really? In my field, the ethics of a snake will get you fired real quick, so I totally disagree with that, LOL...although the author hit the nail on the head with Libras equating sex to love. I know I feel like a woman could only prove she's into me if we had sex, but I'm trying to kick that habit, even though sex is a helluva drug (Three months, 17 days and counting since the last time. Help me, Lord.)

Speaking of my birthday:

Now wouldn't I look cool rolling in this 1979 Beetle Convertible? I think so. I saw this on that VW-only website I visit, and the owner wants 30 grand for it. The official "Chris' birthday gift" fund is now open for business. Hit me up in private for details *wink*...seriously, I'd love to start my search for a classic daily driver Beetle with gas going up. I love my Bonneville, but the gas crunch is killing me! Oh well, giving honor to God for blessing me with a reliable ride. Close to nine months of ownership, and nothing major has gone wrong *knocks on wood*

This time last year, I wasn't sure I'd ever earn a college degree, because I was missing three classes in my minor that the English department neglected to tell me about until the weekend of graduation. That said, as I started cleaning up my bedroom, my degree fell out of the closet. I just read it and ran my fingers across it for like an hour, smiling at how things work out if you exercise a little patience and a lot of faith. I prayed to God an awful lot during the summer of 2007 as I was taking those courses, walking seven miles a day, eating cold cuts and fruit.

Even though it was the loneliest summer ever, it has proven to be my most profitable. That was probably the most focused I had ever been on anything. Nothing was going to stop me from getting my degree and losing weight. That single-mindedness carried me through some rough stretches in those three months and by the middle of August, I was down to 284 from my high of 364 pounds in May of 2006 and I finished school. I've been off and running ever since. I need to get that "nothing's gonna stop me" mentality going on a permanent basis, so I can keep my weight under 300 permanently and be happy with Chris on a regular. Don't worry, I'm not trying to lose the teddy bear feeling, just want to keep myself manageable and healthy. I couldn't imagine myself under 215-220 pounds, that's just too low considering I'm carrying 315 fairly well now.

If y'all remember the false friend from a couple of entries ago, her friends have seen me around town and they look at me like I'm the devil. It amuses me, because clearly she's made me out to be the bad guy even though she called me a bitch for the duration of our argument and threatened to beat my ass. Now I know if I sneezed on this chick, I'd be doing 15 to 20 in the box, so I didn't take it seriously, but the part that boggled the mind was her claiming she was a Christian. Jesus Christ never called anyone derogatory names or threatened bodily harm to them. That's why I really don't fool with organized religion, because there are entirely too many hypocrites Bible/Torah/Koran-thumping out here. My relationship with God is a work in progress, but I'm working hard to have a good one with Him.

O.K., I think I've wasted enough time here, I hope you guys are having a solid Memorial Day weekend. Mine of course is full of solitude and quietness, but I'm surviving. Something I'm just figuring out I'm very good at.

Ask Chris: The Answers...You know we had to do a remix right?

So we have a nice list of questions from a few folks that I will answer in this post, and since everybody wants answers, I guess I have to give them. Here goes, starting with D'lee's questions:

I wanna see a photo of chris SMILING... the question is.. will I?
Well, as I've said before, I'm very self-conscious and protective of my appearance, but we'll see...

Do you know how special you are, in general that is?
That's been a question that's been asked of me a lot lately. Well I never thought (and still don't think) I'm all that, but I guess if some folks do like me, I can't be all bad. I guess I'm just learning that I am cool in a lot of ways.

As a man, what is the idea of a perfect wedding to you, or is it all about what the female wants?
Small, private, family and CLOSE friends-only kind of wedding would be great. But knowing me, I'll end up with a bridezilla and have to endure the pomp and circumstance of it all. That's IF I even get married.

Next up is Memphiz and she asks:
how do you feel about your career at the moment? Is it what you saw yourself doing say 4-6 years ago?
Yes. I'm just getting started and hopefully I'll be in this business a long time despite all the changes and things that are happening my particular section of it. These first seven months have taught me a lot about being prepared and always looking forward, so it's been a positive learning experience so far.

Now comes Mizrepresent with some pretty good questions:

How many siblings do you have?
Two sisters, the oldest was raised by my mom from age four to 18 (her mother was dating my uncle at the time and they both were pretty bad off, so my mom took care of my sis and the rest is history), and I have a sister four years younger than me.

Do you want children, if so, how many?
This all depends on if I ever have any positive interaction with a woman, but if I'm lucky enough to get married, two or three kids at the most.

Why or what convinced you to go into journalism?
My talent for writing was something I always thought about using, but it didn't occur to me that I could indeed have my cake and eat it to until college when I was sports editor of our campus newspaper. I just took it and ran with it. Despite the politics of the business, the new media boom that's killing newspapers and the like, I honestly can't see myself doing anything else, so I'm making it work.

What is your ideal woman?
I'm not sure I'll ever meet one or date one that has these characteristics, but beautiful on the inside as well as out, intelligent, has a sense of humor, self-sufficient, caring, loving, open-minded, NOT superficial/shallow/immature, and someone who actually cares for me. Yeah, I'll be waiting a helluva long time for that kind of woman to come along, lol
Where do you want to eventually live, or is MD your choice?
First step is to get the hell out of Maryland, LOL...or at least this part of it. This place is just terrible, I just want somewhere where there are black people, tall buildings, and some semblance of urban life. This backwoods living is not for me, even though I thought it was at first.

What is your favorite, color, food, scent?
Color is red, food is spaghetti and meatballs, and I honestly don't have a favorite scent...at least one suitable for typing anyway :)

What is the nicest thing you have ever done for a woman?
I haven't done anything nice for a woman in all honesty.

What is the nicest thing a woman has ever done for you?
I'm still waiting on a woman to do something nice for me.

What is your first childhood memory?
Pre-School. I just remember being cared for in a black preschool that just oozed love, self-respect, education and awareness of being black and proud even at the tender age of three. Deseg truthfully screwed everything up for black folks because there is no black community within cities anymore like it used to be back in my mom's day when they had black grocery stores, schools, doctor's offices, etc. That sense of community died with Deseg and we're worse of for it. Sorry for the rant, lol

Next up is Duck with one question:

You have a number of female friends (me being one of them) that do truly care about you and your well-being. That said... how can you still believe that no decent women exist in this world?

Because we're not dating each other. The few women that are my true friends aren't attracted to me, but at least care for me enough as a human being to engage in all the things a true friendship should be. The women that dog me out and call it friendship are not decent, and sadly, they outnumber the women who do care about me, that's how I can believe that there is at least a shortage of decent women; the good ones aren't attracted to me.

And last, but certainly not least, we have GLO's questions:

If you could date 3 blog women in real life who would they be and why?
Eb's gonna be so thrilled that I answered this one. It's actually more than three:

La because her swag is ridiculous, Brittany because I'm just curious, Eb because I do believe she'd send a brother home with the hallelujah chorus playing, Memphiz because she's just so damn cute, D'lee because she's cute and honest, Miz because I have a thing for mature and seasoned women, and you GLO because you just seem like you've got it going on. Happy Now?! *hides under Negro-league t-shirt in shame*

What’s the best part about your day during the week?
Work...when I'm out covering games or interviewing folks, I feel blessed because I'm doing what I love to do instead of taking orders at McDonald's or working in a mail room. I really don't have a social life, so my physical work is what's good right now.

What’s the first thing you think of in the morning when you wake?
Other than go to the bathroom, Thank God I'm allowed to see another morning.

If you could go anywhere tomorrow and have a lunch with someone you know but haven’t met, who would it be and why?
Probably you because it would most likely be fun to hang out and talk.

What’s your favorite song currently?
Love In The Club Pt. 2 by Ursher, Beyonce and *stops self from throwing up* Lil' Wayne. That's my jam right now for no other reason than the beat takes me back to the skating rink era in grade school and middle school.

What’s one thing that you have not shared with the blog world that you feel compelled to share currently?
I'm pretty open, so nothing comes to mind right now, honestly.

Don’t you think its time to share a picture with the blog world buddy?
*sigh*



That's me in January after taking pictures outside of the office on a snowy day. Is everybody good now? I've answered all questions, so I can't be called a fraud anymore!

Ask Chris: REEEEEEEEEEMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIX

Since I have a quite a few new readers and friends here on blogger, I figure it's safe to try the ask Chris thing again. And for those who I've known awhile, will y'all participate? For crying out loud, sheesh. O.K., enough cajoling.

Any question you have about me, life, love, whatever, feel free to ask and I will answer in the Answer post. But I've got to have questions, so get to asking :)

Open Letter To...Myself

Dear Chris,

How's it going? I know you're sitting in the house chillin' on a Saturday night. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. Damn glad you got the Fourth Season of Martin this weekend, watching In Living Color 1-through-4 was getting dull. I guess that's why we need to talk, blood. You've been on your own for just about seven months now and you're still single, still by yourself and can't find decent people worth keeping in your life. We've gotta fix that.

You seem to think there's some sort of problem with being selective of who you want to deal with and what you want out of certain things, and that's not cool. As one of all humans God created, you have a right to anything positive that you desire, so why not be selective? Yeah yeah, I know you're gonna say "but how I can be selective when I'm darkskinned and a heavyset guy?" Uh, you've been around someone who's three times your size, nowhere near as nice, intelligent and funny as you, and that person's married. Come on now.

When a friend tells you that you are damned hilarious, embrace it. Women LOVE to laugh. With all the drama going on in the world, women don't want to talk to a guy who can't liven things up. Your timing on your jokes, your impersonations, everything about your sense of humor is brilliant and best of all, natural. It's IN YOU, my dude. You don't have to work to be funny, that's a GIFT FROM GOD in itself!

You may not get physical compliments from every woman you run across, but the ones who have dropped them on you to date have been for the most part sincere. Most chicks aren't that cruel to where they'll call a guy handsome and then retract that compliment and replace it with insults. The ones you've run across that have done that? Well, they're just stupid, shallow, immature and ignorant low-class skanks that will get theirs eventually, if they haven't already. With the era of the Independent Woman in full swing, the WORST thing you can do is tell a girl how to think or take the decision out of her hands. If she's giving off a positive vibe, FEED off of that, and who knows where it'll go?

This friends thing? Your fault. Yep. Mhm. All you, sir. Only because you let yourself get roped into a situation you detest by either being way too down on yourself or being too chicken to speak up and say what you want. Hell, you do BOTH at the same time without knowing. Get over that fear of rejection and start telling women what you want. If it's sex? Fine. Knowing most women won't go for that, you'll just have to deal with the no's. Even still, you know we haven't been a virgin since the morning hours of April 6, 2001, right? O.K. then, let's act like we've been there before, shall we?

And if you want to get to know a woman, you're going to have to stop with the faux-mack mentality of not paying for a date. That whole "Why spend money on a woman that's gonna screw someone else," spiel is defeatist thinking. How about you put your best foot forward, and if you're lucky, hell, you might find the adoring, nurturing, caring, crazy about Chris love you dream of every time you lay down and close your eyes.

More importantly than all that, I have to ask this question; where is the love...for you? Come on man, we've made it through 26 years of life so far, with hopefully many more to come. We've grown up in the ghetto of Wilmington, Delaware and left without a mark on us, we've survived educational and personal disappointments to at least get started in what we want to do in life and dammit, we survived 365. Of course we're still trying to get under 300 and stay, but it doesn't seem like such a big hill to climb, now does it?

Bottom line? We're not getting any younger. With the Lord's will, we will see some more time on Earth, and I hate being alone, not when I know there are people out there who would love to know us. We have to be selective in who we want around us and devise a plan to meet people that fit our interests. Now you did get a stimulus check, which caught you caught up on an important bill. No reason not to take your black ass to the Borders in Waldorf and hang out a little bit now. You've got to kick it where like minded people are. You love to read, you love thinking, why not meet a smart woman instead of hooking up with hoodrats and batshit crazy older women? Hmmm.

You can do this, Chris. You're smart, you're focused, committed, talented, funny, aware and you've got it going on. If no one else believes that, you've got to believe it, because I do, and the Man Upstairs does too. Why not be who he created you to be?

Love Always,

Chris.

One Time For The Truth....

As crazy as the women in my family are, one thing I could always count on them for, which pretty much is in line with death and taxes; the truth.  They always told me the real, whether I liked it or not, and quite frankly, they didn't give a damn whether I did like it or not.  That I appreciate and am indebted to them for.   I say that because since I've first started dealing with females from 16 on, needless to say, I've dealt with lies, damned lies and more b.s. than the cow farm a few minutes north of the crib (yeah, I am OUT HERE y'all, LOL).

Remember that friend I was telling you guys about, the one who y'all mercilessly clowned me for not going out to places and things with?  Well now, she's an ex-friend.  Reason being that she pretty much lied to my face about how she would never date any of her male friends (least of all me, because she'd quote-unquote "run me over and eat my ass up").  So why Saturday does she hit me up talking about she's in love with one of her closest friends, and gets tight when my obvious silence tells a better story than words ever could?  So from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, I was heated.  I did myspace surveys, with a bunch of the dating questions filled out with annoyed answers alluding this situation, and I guess the final straw was when I changed my yahoo messenger status to "no more female friends for me, thanks.  All they do is lie."

All of a sudden, I get an IM from ex-friend talking about how I'm crazy and that I threw away a friendship with someone who really cares just because I wanted to smash, blahzay blahzay.   My response was simple, "you lied about dating friends, you played me for a fool, I don't need the dumb shit in my life."  Then we argued back and forth for like an hour before I simply told her don't bring her son into this (she asked me to still speak to him if they happened to see me out in public) and that was that.

My problem in all of this?  Don't lie to me.  I remember how it felt when a female first lied to me about how she felt about me and how I found the hard way by watching her kiss another dude on Valentine's Day my senior year of high school.  The only thing that has hurt me worse to date is when my grandmother died 07/04/06.  Lying and platonic friendships tie together in my case because it seems like that's all my friendships with women have been; one big, cruel, discouraging and unnecessary lie.  And I can't deal with it anymore.

The truth hurts a lot of people, but that's because they aren't prepared to deal with the initial shock, which quite frankly isn't as bad as one would think.  I'd much rather a woman let me know ahead of time how things are going to.  For example;

Potential friend:  Chris, now listen.  We can be cool, we can hang out, we can talk, but I'll end up having sex with 20-25 dudes during our friendship.  No chance in hell you're one of them.

Chris:  Fair enough.

Woman:  Sorry, but I don't think you're the kind of guy I'm looking for, and I don't think it'd be cool to string you along and call you a friend.

Chris:  GLORY HALLELUJAH!  PLEASE TO BE THANKING YOU FOR BEING HONEST!

That said, I guess I can see why women fail to be honest in dealing with me, because I do seem so doggone fragile that anything less than victory would crush me, and that's my fault.  If I've survived not marching across my high school and college stages, my weight ballooning to 365 pounds and struggling to find a job in the field I earned my degree in, then why can't I hold it together when a woman isn't interested in me?  Instead I go through these periods of self-hatred and misery that carry over into any kind of interaction with a female to where they're like "Jesus Christ, I better at least keep him around as a friend or he's liable to off himself."

Like I said, totally my fault, totally up to me to change it.

Still that doesn't absolve the out and out lies that I've been told over the years.  I just wish that for once in my life, a woman would tell me the real instead of telling me what they think I want to hear.  Because the word "friend?"  Is not it.

Ne-Yo Syndrome

Earlier this week, a new reader of my blog had a post about a cat she went to high school with that chose another chick over her because the other chick seemed "purer." Talk about judging a book by its cover, sheesh. Turns out the girl he chose who would eventually become his wife is a stripper and such nowadays. So what does Mr. Man do? Hit up said blog friend through e-mail and declare his love for her, how he was all wrong and that her man better be on his A-game. Weak negroes, I swear.

It actually got me to thinking about a couple of "Do You" situations in my life that actually were never like Ne-Yo's song describes, but were more of a "what if" nature. I think my biggest "What If" definitely was with a girl at DSU who I had a ridiculous crush on, I mean it was so damn obvious, and she really genuinely liked me and cared for me as a friend, and not in that patronizing, annoying, brother-sister frame of mind either. Let's call her "D" to keep it discreet. D was from CT, 5'9, kind of a shade short of caramel, bedroom eyes and one bangin' body...Amazingly, her personality was even more beautiful than her appearance.

We met halfway through my second freshman year, which was her first and only freshman year (I spent six years at Del State, gotta break it down properly, LOL) when we had a PoliSci class together. Apparently my awkwardness wasn't too much of a problem for her as we talked and became cool over the course of the spring semester. She and her roommate came to visit me on a couple of occasions in Warren-Franklin and we just kicked it, talking, laughing, having a good time. She originally wanted to hook me up with said roommate, but roomie was stuck on some dude she was on and off seeing, so that didn't go very far, but D and I remained friends the rest of our time together on campus.

Sadly, that fear that has gripped me for most of my life definitely took hold, and I don't think I hung out with her very often after Spring '03. She pledged SGRho that fall, but didn't let Greek Life change her like most folks do; She still spoke to me when she saw me, would carry on decent conversations and tell me to call her whenever. Did I do it? Of course not. I haven't seen her since she graduated in May of '06, and needless to say if I run into her at homecoming, all those feelings are going to come back. Like, "What if I actually tried to pursue her? What if she liked me on more than a friendship level?" Well Pinky, the world may never know.

What I do know is that missed opportunities, regardless of whether it's dating, professional, educational, whatever, WILL haunt you whether you believe or not. And although I don't think it's cool to wait forever to tell someone how you feel about them, there will always be that nagging question in the back of your mind, no matter how hard you try to play it off.

"What If?"