Author: mathdreads

Originally I’d planned to join other hikers/walkers from a Meetup group at the tail end of the Green belt.  Then, out of nowhere, a filmmaker friend came along with the SXSW swell.  Just so happen that the only mutual free time we had was the hours before my planned hike. Of course, I invited him along.

Since I didn’t want to be late for the hike, I messaged my out-of-town friend that I’d pick him up at 3 PM. Then I texted him that I was on my way. So, when I arrived and he announced, “Oh, I forgot you were coming,” in a hazy, post inebriation fog, I wasn’t the least bit surprised. I parked myself on his friend’s sofa as he got himself together, which required showering away the partying- until-6-AM funk.

Miraculously, he didn’t take as long as I thought and traffic wasn’t as heavy as I’d suspected. Even after stopping so he could get two bottles of water for the hike, we were still an hour early for the group hike. I made the executive decision to send a message to the organizer that I’d started an hour early with a friend. Then we descended into the Greenbelt.

Gravity pulled us down the loose gravel and jutting rock trail. After about 15 minutes, we heard the ambient sound of rushing water even though we couldn’t see a body of water yet. Once the sound became louder, we veered off to the right on a side path  and came upon a small waterfall.

With my hiking Meetup group, we would’ve continued for two miles and trekked back two miles.  Instead, I posed for a few pictures and we parked ourselves on a rock and just enjoyed nature and caught up for a while until I was ready for dinner. As I suspected, the walk back took twice as long although it’s always safer to walk uphill than downhill.

We came across the Meetup group who hadn’t descended yet and I greeted the organizer. He hadn’t read my message yet, but at least I was accounted for. We dashed down the street to my car and off to eat brisket and creamed corn.

Since barbecue varies with every region, even within Texas, my friend thoroughly enjoyed the brisket. For a change of pace, I’d also ordered spicy chopped barbecue since I’d never tried it in all the time I’d gone to that restaurant. That turned out to be his favorite.

Definitely time well spent since I hung out with him, hiked in a beautiful park, ate delicious barbecue and took home the leftovers!

It’s convenient to be an artist when you’re strapped for cash. Not to live up to the cliché of the poor, starving artist, but because it’s a bonus to be creative when dollars don’t stretch to the end of the month. Nothing gets me in hustle mode like nearly running out of money.

Only people with money can afford to say that money doesn’t buy happiness. The peace of mind that comes with a great night’s sleep in a warm bed, in a home where there’s food in the fridge—all those things cost money and contribute to happiness.

One thing you have to do to remain on the right side of natural selection is expand your money-making skill. You have to possess a skill for which someone, somewhere will compensate you.

Wait, did I say “skill”? I meant to say “skills”! You don’t want to be a one-trick pony. Just like a species can only survive a drastic environmental change if there’s genetic diversity across the population, an individual must be able to adapt and respond to changing circumstances. Taking too long to learn a new skill is tantamount to being the weak one in the herd that a predator picks off. Having a varied range of hobbies and reading across disciplines are the best ways to make sure you’re always exploring new things because you never know when your main money-making avenue will be blocked. As we Black Baptists are fond of saying, “When life closes a door, God opens a window.”

Regardless of your religious background, you’ve got to be ready to exit out of the window in a moment’s notice. Preferably with a plan. If you don’t have a plan, then you’d better have a range of skills. If you claim, like some of my adult Korean ELS students claimed, that your part of your skill set is drinking or sleeping, you’re going extinct.

What we call “safe zones” are illusions, based on mutually agreed upon set of circumstances that we thrive to live under. Even when we find ourselves among people who have common interests, we don’t really know where those landmines and agendas are until we’ve stumbled onto them. We navigate through those interactions as part of our survival because we never know when such occasions will escalate into a “stand your ground” moment.

You have to be vigilant. If you’re not paying attention, you’re never going see shit coming. And don’t dismiss the weird vibe you get from another person. That’s your primitive instincts kicking in. I’m all for civilization and civilized ways of doing things, but people will let you know who they are even if they don’t announce it in a common tongue.

Speaking of civilization, places where you can always count on a breakdown of civility are in a parking garages, parking lots, and rush hour traffic. Fairly intelligent people walk right in front of moving cars as if they’re made of bumpers. Drivers furiously compete for parking spaces or a faster lane as if they were scarce life-or-death resources. Cars are driven around as if they are weapons-grade hummers or jet fighters. How many times have we wished we had missiles to blast the slow-moving-for-no-apparent-reason asshole out of our way? Or suddenly flip a switch and transform our vehicle into a flying machine to break out of the stagnant chain of traffic?

In general, it’s best to avoid stagnation, especially when all you have to do is learn a new trick. After all, no one wants to be that old dog who can’t be taught a new trick. A new trick worth learning, that is! Not all tricks are created equal; so, another way to stay on the winning side is to prioritize which new tricks you’re going to learn. After all, why put any effort into accelerating your own demise, providing it’s survival you’re after.

The under resourced only have but two choices: A or Not A.  There is no B. Those lacking resources only have Not A. They are the Have Nots. When the thing you have in abundance is nothing, then you’re desperate for anything. For the prepared survivalist, the situation represents a chance to jump out of the window of opportunity.

Superstition dictates that bad things come in threes, but that count is just arbitrary–until living through three bad or at least very inconvenient things. My latest three: car accident, laptop incident and recent job performance.

So, the seemingly never-ending drama started one fine Saturday, nearly three weeks ago when some jackass rear ended me.  I’m absolutely amazed how many drivers watch traffic rather than the car in front of them. The ironic thing was, I was pulling out onto the service road when he hit me.

Apparently, I was too discombobulated from that fender bender because I didn’t take a picture of his license’s plate nor the car, but I took pictures of his insurance card, driver’s license and the damage to my car. To make matters worse, it was his girlfriend’s car, yet her name didn’t appear on the insurance card.

Her insurance acknowledged that a claim was owed, but have dragged their feet about the estimate. In the meantime, I’ve already dropped off my car, picked up a rental and now playing the waiting game for everything to resolve itself.

I’m somewhat annoyed with the rental car situation. Since her insurance agency closed at 4:30 PM (Who does that? Only a business that doesn’t want to help!), I had to put down my credit card for $200 instead of $50.  I plan to get that $150 reimbursed. Then the rental car agent lead me to a bright, shiny red car, which used no keys but remote signals for everything–even to start the car if I wanted! I chose to hit the “start” button instead. The whole time he pointed out features, I just fussed, “Brode, I didn’t want all this fancy shit! I just wanted a basic, small rental car.”

He assured me that everything was going to be all right and that things change.  In that precise moment, I’d fully entered middle adulthood.  I’ve been saying for a few years that I was middle aged, but in that slick, shiny, curvaceous car, I truly felt ever bit of the middle aged woman I’d purported to be.

A few days after my accident, I had training for work.  Training always involved a 2-hour round trip commute to the office, which added to my 8-hour work shift. Thankfully, my car was operable, so I didn’t have to hassle with the car rental place and collision shop sooner.  As a matter of fact, the commute allowed me to hear a rattle that had not existed prior to the accident,  which prompted me to get it checked out despite the minimum visible damage.

Then, two days prior to dropping off my car to be repaired and rolling back with the high-tech rental, I accidentally splashed water onto my laptop when I knocked my glass off the end table. I’d been gambling with that dangerous habit for years.  I’d never heard a laptop sizzle before.  I pretty much did everything they tell you not to do: tried to shake the water out; turned it off and on; plugged it in. I instinctively knew not to put it in rice nor use a blow dryer, which were two other bad ideas that people try. I dropped off the laptop the day before I dropped off the car.

So, they retrieved the data off the hard drive, but a refurbish would cost $850! I bought a new laptop, using my tax refund. I’d had the lofty idea to use all of that refund for getting out of debt quicker, but I was getting behind in nearly every other endeavor without my almighty laptop.  Unfortunately, my work computer has limited capabilities or else, I’d not replace my personal one for months.

In the meantime, I’ve recently learned how to sell a new insurance product. It’s rather humbling to go from being a little badass with one insurance product and essentially starting from ground zero with a new one. Additionally, there are other aspects beyond my control, such as the dramatically lower call volume.

I got one of my wishes to have a tighter script, but it’s so much longer than the old one. Even when I get a call, the conversations take much longer. Seems as if the keys to selling this insurance are sticking to the script as much as possible while infusing my personality into it. Only today, I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. Just in time for them to raise our target from 2 sales to 3, despite the fact that half of us have been getting either 0 or 1 sale a day. In the spirit of staying on the right side of natural selection, I must step up my game and show improvement.

With the triumvirate of challenges, only the laptop situation has been remedied. I still have a couple of hours worth of work to do to organize things since, although my data was saved, all the folders were saved empt and their contents were saved in a huge file, labelled “All My Files.” Now, I just take a deep breath and sort that content into the appropriate file and remain grateful that all had not been lost.

(Oh, and I now keep my beverage on a saucer on the floor versus on the end table beside the couch!)

I’ve known since my early 20s that I didn’t want to have kids. Yet I wasn’t turned off by marriage. As a matter of fact, there’s a part of me who visualizes myself married—as long as I don’t have to live with my husband. When I told my married sister that last part, her response was, “What’s the point of getting married?”

Considering the fact that Christian marriage began as a way to guarantee a man that his children were his, I actually don’t see much need for it. I know there are men who also don’t want to father children, or at this point in life, don’t want to father any more children; so that’s really a nonissue for me.

My biggest stopper is I don’t want to be a bang maid. I don’t want to be that woman who fills a significant part of her time with the domestic duties of attending to a man every day, having very little time to read, do art or just otherwise relax after the work day.

At any given time, I’m working on at least two different writing projects, putting together at least one on-going creative project, and reading at least four different books in rotation. In the meantime, I work a full-time job and occasionally two different freelance jobs. And did I mention that I exercise every day?

I’m not as selfish as I come across. I really do care about people, but from a distance, where it easily fits into my already busy schedule. For example, for the past seven years, I’ve made Christmas cards–very stylishly decorated, complete with a unique message, written in longhand. This takes me a lot of time to do. One might walk away with the impression that I’m some warm individual who always does such thoughtful things. Yes and no. As long as warm and fuzzy fits neatly into the master schedule, I’ll do it. Besides, since I’m not on social media, again another thing that would drain my creative schedule, my Christmas cards are a way to give a yearly update to out-of-town friends.

Now, some people think, if I just had a man, I could quit working and have all that extra time to pursue my creative projects. Yet I’m not going to base my financial stability on whether or not some man still loves me. Let’s face it: I have a strong personality, which sometimes gets on my own nerves. I can imagine how it affects other people.

However, I need my financial obligations to be met every day, not just those sunny times when I’m loved by someone else. Plus, being an adult means attending to one’s own financial responsibilities. Am I to believe that some man for whom I perform domestic duties and sex should meet my financial responsibilities? I know—you gotta give some to get some, but it just seems less complicated and time-consuming to separate money from romance.

I have a sinking suspicion that some men mistake cooking and cleaning with love since their mothers did that for them, without realizing she only did those things because he was a child. No one in the world loves you like your mama. No one. You can be loved by others, but you’ll only have one mama.

When the romantic curtain is pulled back, a woman being financially dependent on a man puts her in a precarious position. Women, who have their own, independent source of money, tend to have more control of their own life. Moreover, women have far more to contribute to society than a myriad of menial tasks.

I like setting that tone from the very beginning. When I go out on a date, I genuinely don’t expect a guy to pay. I know that all money comes with strings attached—apron strings and G-strings. Not to say that I don’t don those strings occasionally, but they’re not tied to a man’s money, but rather my own necessity.

The first Black actress to win an Oscar was Hattie McDaniel for her role as the maid, “Mammy,” in Gone with the Wind in 1940. Throughout her acting career, McDaniel played a maid in 74 movies. She once said, “I’d rather play a maid than to be one!”

Amen, Big Mama Hattie!