Out of tune like my guitar

Nearly every time I played it because I’m tone deaf

Out of tune like my singing for pretty much the same reason

When I say I’m playing things by ear

I can only mean that figuratively

With either an inner wince of pain

Since organization is my superpower

Or with a total sense of I don’t give a damn

Like the time when I worked at a private school in Mexico

One head honcho left

Leaving the remaining honchos to vie for position

All emailed a cacophony of top priorities

I contacted all four of them in a group email

Copied and pasted all four different first priorities

Questioning whether the top directive would be

The first request, the last request, the request of the senior most or the most logical request

Then I concluded my electromissive

Quoting from the good book of Otis Redding

I can’t do what ten people tell me to do

So, I guess I’ll remain the same

That was the most professional way I could say

Look you upper and middle management bastards

Tighten this shit up or go fuck yourselves

Here’s something that has recently become out of tune for me:

Complimenting White people on their tans

Call it an adverse political side effect

Discovered in a bikram yoga class

When the instructor gave a shout out

To a guy with a tan

I wrestled with distracted thoughts

While in yoga positions

Nice tan! And you’re still treated like a 1^stclass citizen

Wow, you’re so dark! And you won’t be racially profiled

You look so tan! And no one doubts your intellectual capacity

Look at that beautiful brown skin! You wear it better than a Black person

I love that bronze glow! And no one will call 911 because you’re doing some everyday activity

Yeah, best for me to leave tan-praising compliments

To White people

One of my most discordant realizations

Money, not necessarily

Truth

Will set us free

Especially given our legal system

The bigger the economic gap

The more prone the haves

Want to turn the have nots

Into house niggers

Can we have a sense of freedom

If everyone’s free, respected and has agency?

Is there ever

A happily ever after

Without a zero-sum conclusion?

Truthfully

As we gain resources

We expect to deliver ourselves

From uncomfortable, inconvenient and unsafe situations

Even the most enlightened among us

Compete for finite resources

When did empathy become scarce commodity?

I generally consider myself an outgoing sociable person despite the fact I love living alone and rarely go out on, what would be considered, an official date. Yet, my ego was very flattered when a handsome guy at the end of a Bikram yoga class introduced himself, asked if I was single, then asked for my phone number and if we could have dinner some time.

Since we were both avid yogis, I suggested brunch after a Saturday morning yoga class at the restaurant just next door. A little number I often referred to as a “detox/retox,” given that the weekend brunch buffet included two mimosas.

We talked later that night after I’d attended a happy hour event with the regional recruiter from the insurance company that I’d recently joined.  We had such a lively conversation as I drove home, which continued well after I arrived home.  We talked so much that my ol’ ass iPhone 5 died.  I had to plug it in and  call him back.  Of course he clowned me about that.

Turns out that we had a lot in common.  In addition to being avid Bikram yogis and alpha personalities, we’d both published our first books in 2011. So, we agreed to bring a copy of our book to exchange at the restaurant.

I thought this date would be a slam dunk, starting with a HIIT yoga fusion class to work up an appetite, then eating at my favorite restaurant.  I arrived at the restaurant first. I thought he was doing a “pretty boy” number, taking longer than the average woman to get ready. Turns out, he’d reentered the hot room to talk with the instructor after he’d already showered and changed, which was a curious choice given the fact that he broke out into another sweat!

Meanwhile, I sat in the waiting area and texted him that I’d put our name on the list for a table for two. A few minutes later, he came and apologized since he hadn’t seen me leave. Mildly irritated, I gave him a pass.

When the hostess led us to our booth, which was the last one in the row, closest to the kitchen, he shot past me, exclaiming, “I’m the alpha male! I gotta see everything,” before I could take that seat.  I was shocked, but since he hadn’t actually tackled me, I sat in the spot facing the blank white tiled wall.

Know how I know that last detail? Because I stared at that blank white tiled wall and fumed while cursing in my head every time he fucked around with his phone. Every. Five. Minutes. Definite deal breaker. Who doesn’t know in this day and age that if you’re not referencing your phone as an integrated part of the conversation, then it’s rude.

Throughout our brunch, I replayed in my head how this man across from me seemed so enthusiastic to have a meal with me to get to know me. How he insisted that he have the seat with the view just in case “something happened” and he had to save me, which how in the hell would THAT happen when constantly bowed his head to his all-mighty electronic device?

I would have been far more entertained doing my usual thing of eating in front of the TV, then logging on to sell insurance, but no, I’d agreed to a date. So I could stare at a wall.  Some people see the writing on the proverbial wall. I envisioned writing this piece.

I played it cool. I didn’t want to bring up any of the arguments that were going through my head because I didn’t want to run the risk of him showing his ass in public.  After all, this was one of my favorite restaurants. I knew one of the owners.  The long term strategy was to bide my time and not leave any publicly memorable bullshit involving me in the minds of the staff.

During one brief interlude when he directed his attention away from his electronic master, I explained that I’d recently switched insurance jobs because I wanted an easier, more profitable job since I was saving up money to move.  I told him about how the last time I’d renewed my lease, the leasing agent had been so condescending toward me that I knew I wouldn’t renew it again.

His eyes lit up. “What you can do is move into one of my properties, then we’ll secretly rent your apartment and split the profits.”

“Secretly” must be the new word for “illegally.”

Either I had a poker face or his attention diverted to his phone before he could witness my expression change.  Did this fool just provide yet another stopper? As if his phone addiction wasn’t enough.

So, he really expected me to commit a crime with a man I’d just met, and for which I’d be the sole one going down or at least getting the brunt of the consequences since my name was on the lease.

I couldn’t end that date fast enough. Normally, I’d hang out eating and talking for nearly two hours.  I was outta there in record time.

I asked for the check while he was on the phone, setting up a massage appointment.  I laid down my credit card and he threw down some cash. At least Alpha Male knew he should pay for himself. While he was still on the phone, he whispered across the table to me, “I included tip,” when he saw me signing my credit card receipt. I glared at him and said, “I know how to calculate 20%,” then finished filling it out.

He managed to finish his conversation with the massage therapist as we walked to our cars.  I gave him a quick hug and hopped into my car without a lot of parting words.

And still.

He texted me about getting together the next day! I truthfully told him that I had plans, but added that we both needed to find betas. He couldn’t believe that after one date that I didn’t want seconds. Younger me would have pointed out the stoppers, but middle aged me knows that’s what you do when you want to work things out.

Please.

There are easier starts to relationships and why kick the can down the road as our two dominating personalities battle it out?

My philosophy is that every potential boyfriend will be a fixer upper, but I still envision that as “tweaks” and not major personality/bad habit reconstruction. I’ve already got many other things to do.

#8: Nobody really likes you when you’re poor, especially the government. They blame you for your financial situation as if you were able to control the zip code where you were schooled, or call you lazy despite the fact you may work several shitty part-time jobs or long hours at one shitty low-paying job just to be poor. And isn’t ironic that

#7:  You pay more for everything. You’ll pay the highest interest rates for loans. You cannot afford to buy things in bulk because you spend at least half your pay in rent, provided you have a place to rent, which leads to…

#6: You’re always at risk of being priced out of your run-down apartment or being harassed for parking somewhere to sleep in your car, or sleeping in some public place because

#5: It’s illegal to be poor. Even when it’s not. There’s not supposed to be a debtor’s jail here in Texas, but still some poor people find themselves in jail for unpaid parking tickets or unofficially serving time because they cannot post bail or making some other shortcut in life because they’ve fallen between society’s cracks, so

#4: You must constantly come up with survival strategies, not merely life hacks to exist. Everything takes more time and energy to achieve without the lubricant of money or credit to grease the gears of the great production machine of life, which instead grind you up with the speed of crushing obstacles along your path. At least middle-class people can hide their lack of money in socially acceptable credit card debit, but not you since

#3: You lose your agency when you’re poor. You either have to convince many people who are in the same condition to speak out or wait until someone rich or otherwise privileged speaks out about conditions you’ve been raising the alarm about for much longer than you thought you should have to. You live with constant stress that you cannot put your finger on the exact thing since it’s all the things until the proverbial last straw boils over and a mental/physical sickness manifests, but

#2: You can’t afford to be sick, not physically and most definitely not mentally. You can get some remedy for physical illness, but you’re totally screwed if you have some on-going mental illness. It’s easier for you to access a gun than adequate mental health treatment. Unless you’re so poor you qualify for Medicaid, but as soon as you make a mere dollar over the limit because you’re more productive with reasonable health services, you’re immediately cut off. Too bad your ailments don’t know that. You may lose pay or even your job if you take time off due to illness; so you drag your ass to work. You trudge along in life not quite well, but certainly in no fucking mood to hear someone repeat that saccharine sweet phrase about how money can’t buy happiness, which you know is bullshit because

#1: Poverty sucks.

Despite my newfound motivation to make more money, I have less motivation to put up with bullshit along the way. I refer to this phenomenon as The Evolution of Middle Aging. Part of that evolution is waking up with mysterious pain that exists without any backstory of why it hurts other than the collection of nearly five decades of living. But that’s another story.

At a certain point in life, and you’ll know when you get there, you reach your burning-the-candle at both ends quota, which eventually leads to being burnt out. It’ll no longer be a temporary burnt out condition where a little vacation or a catnap clears it up.  All the hustling you’re doing to make money, save the world, and everything in between sewn up in the pursuit of happiness turns into “meh, I’ll just let someone else handle that.”

In the beginning of the Middle Ages somewhere around your 40s, that quick turnaround of working like a dog during the day just to regroup and party all night long just fades out. There’s an intermediate step where you power nap in between working and partying, which evolves into power napping after work with no intention of going out. It’s just a part of dessert. Black people refer to it as “the itis,” but that has such a negative connation. I consider it part of work/life balance that people claim doesn’t exist, but that denial of balance is a measure of how toxic someone’s current lifestyle is.

Instead of partying until the wee hours of the morning and returning home, looking like something the cat dragged in, “the wee hours” will accurately describe your automatic wake up time.

Oh, but in my clubbing days…

In college, I danced in clubs where you didn’t need a partner. It was so free, dancing in a group out on the floor until near exhaustion. As often as I went out, I never had a problem with anyone until I was outside of the States. (Side bar: There was an occasion when one of my college friends had pinched me and given me the stink eye because she mistook my talkative nature with flirting with the guy she liked, but she later “forgave” me when she found out he was gay.)

After graduation, I went straight into Peace Corps to teach biology and math at an all-girls high school in Tanzania, which is a part of East Africa for the geographically challenged. We Peace Corps trainees had two and a half months of training before we set out to our final destinations where we’d serve. For those of us who were fresh out of college, it was like College 2.0. Some trainees were drinking pretty much every day, but I, on the other hand, was a good little Southern Baptist girl. I would’ve loved to drink some sweet tea like Mom used to make when I was growing up, but Tanzanian tea wasn’t quite the same; so I ended up drinking more sodas than I ever had in life and even since.

A group of us Peace Corps trainees would go out dancing some weekends. To say that the DJ played an interesting mix would lead one to believe that there was a mix. It was more like a jumble of music without any flow from one song to the next.

I’m not sure, but I think the club owners periodically turned off the ceiling fans just to make everyone hotter and motivated to buy drinks. Whatever the case, this one night, I had my requisite amount of sodas, had danced until my underwear was soggy, adrenaline was at an all-time high and when a prostitute slinked by too slowly for my temperament, I pushed her aside and feigned a straight face as if I were watching the dance floor.  I saw her out of my peripheral vision give a hard look at the group of us, then continue slinking by.

Can’t really say what had gotten into me. Wasn’t the alcohol. Couldn’t blame it on the boogie. The best I can describe it was that mistaken belief that nothing really bad could happen to me since I was on an extended vacation at that point. Even in middle school, where secondary hormones bring out the cattiness in young women, I’d never gotten into a fight. Not even after one of my best friends and I parted ways dramatically because she spread lies about me and just itched for a fight. I managed to take the high road and ignore her and her new best friend who tried her damnedest to instigate a fight. I’d just talked my way out of it.

Fast forward ten years from Tanzania to a club in Monterrey, Mexico. I was still a math and science teacher, but not with The Peace Corps. I was no longer living at the volunteer level, but the expat level, so this next confrontation took place in a swanky club in a tony part of town. This was the kind of club that played all the latest songs in English and Spanish with their accompanying videos, stylishly playing out on screens around the interior.

Again, I can’t remember what trigged the other woman to start talking shit to me. I couldn’t even hear what she was saying over the blaring music, but just the way she tossed her head from side to side in that internationally understood woman-with-an-attitude fashion while making direct eye contact with me. I knew it was shit talk.

I stepped closer. “¿Que dijiste?” I asked too loudly. You see, at this point in time, I’d been taking capoeira, a dancing Brazilian martial art; so I knew how to travel a surprisingly long distance in one step and I had very well-defined biceps. The kind of biceps other straight women took notice of.

“¡Disculpa!” she responded with a smile and danced away.

So I guess you could say I talked my way out of that one, albeit aggressively.

But those cat nights are over. When I venture out these days, I don’t want a bunch of foolishness. Whatever I set out to do, even if it’s a social event, I plan to accomplish the mission, return home and that’s that.

Besides, people are crazy. Or on drugs. Did you hear that? Those last two comments were brought to you by slowly turning into my mother. Yet another Middle Aging phenomenon. After nearly five decades of listening to that line of reasoning to explain the bullshit of the world, I figure why not? It’ll be so much easier to file away bullshit into two neat little categories as I ride that wave into Senior Citizen Land while eating dinner during lunch time, going to bed at dinner time, and waking up at midnight to use the bathroom during party time.