Behind The Scenes Brotha

Let me preface this message by saying I hate Blogger! I had posted today's thoughts earlier but when attempting to publish it, the page had an error and the message I typed was lost. Screw you Blogger!

Now on to today's entry.

Another month has come and gone. I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. Before you know it, the radio stations will begin playing Yuletide holiday selections on the radio. It'll be time to dust off the old Nat King Cole Holiday album. I mean, no holiday can come and go without hearing his rendition of The Christmas Song.

Hemingway, in other news, my bowling team is currently holding on to 1st place. We solidified that lead with our wins this week. In a way, I kind of wish we weren't 1st right now. Considering we have twelve more weeks until the 1st half is complete, a lot of attention is focused on my team right now. I could see other teams coming up wanting to see how we were doing this week, secretly hoping we'd lose a couple games. *LOL*. Then again, I'd probably be doing the same thing. So let me stop being a hypocrite..:-)

My average continues to rise. My series this week was 158, 187, 170. That brings my current average to 154. I'm only 5 pins away from tying my all-time high average. Woo hoo!

I spent part of my 1st day of October doing some volunteer work at a daycare/training center on the northside of Chicago. My company (the identity of which I'm not ready to divulge at this time...*LOL*) has had a relationship with this particular center for several years and recently provided another grant in order for the director to purchase 15 PCs along with wireless internet capabilities. (I gotta get wireless technology one day..*LOL*). I helped hook up the PCs and connect them into the network. Well, the connecting to the network part was done primarily by another volunteer, but I had a role. The director couldn't express her appreciation enough. She even went and bought lunch for the volunteers at Quizno's, a submarine sandwich chain popular in several states.

It felt good contributing my time to the cause. The plan is to use the PCs to train those in the community on using different financial, productivity, and reporting tools. They're looking for trainers and asked me if I was interested. I was thinking, what the hell do I know? Then again, I'm not one that likes being in the spotlight. For that reason alone, maybe I should do it, huh?

Afterwards I spent the rest of Saturday hanging out at DeVante's crib. Who's DeVante, you ask? He's a 39 year old that I chatted with online for a couple days earlier this week. We conversed once on the phone and had a decent conversation. I was in the neighborhood while doing my good deed of the day so we decided to meet up.

We continued to have some good conversation. We talked about each other's jobs (he has his own cleaning business), histories, stuff like that. We watched a couple of Tyler Perry movies, including the theatrical release of Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which was very good. I was suprised to see another Braxton make an appearance in Meet The Browns. Toni's younger sister Trina makes an appearance playing "the slut"..her words...*LOL*.

We then half watched Denzel's flick Man on Fire. I have to admit to being surprised that kidnapping was described as being quite a lucrative industry in Mexico City to the point that it's not only affecting the rich but even the middle class. That's brutal.

Like I said, we half way watched it because by the climatic point, DeVante and I were having our own climatic experiences, if you catch my drift. It was pretty enjoyable except it took DeVante a longer time to climax due to my near silence during sex. I guess I've always been guilty of being nonexpressive sometimes. I think I get too bogged down with wondering who's listening in the next room. We've all been there. You're in the living room watching TV when you hear the springs going into triple time. Then you're like, again?

I realize that I shouldn't give a rat's ass who's listening. But it's in the back of my mind. I suppose that since I can't afford to do what Nas & Kelis did to avoid folks hearing their moans, that I'll just have to grow a pair and deal. (Kelis reportedly told Nas to rent some multi-million dollar house for a day so that they could freak in privacy.)

Hemingway I wound up staying at DeVante's until almost 2PM this afternoon. We woke up around 12:30PM or so. We chatted some more and I didn't get the sense that he was in a rush to throw me out. That was definitely cool. We chatted for a few minutes again after I got home today.

So what does the future hold for DeVante and I? I'm not even tripping about it. We did say we'd keep in touch. If we do, fine. If we don't, fine. I'm not having any unrealistic expectations this time and I'm not putting him on a pedestal. He's just a man like I am.

Oh yeah...here's a special shout-out to my boy Valentino! He hooked me up with a copy of Toni Braxton's Suddenly, one of the tracks missing from her LP. It's a nice track actually, kind of reminds me of Spanish Guitar & UnBreak My Heart. Why this isn't on the released album is beyond me? Thanks again Valentino! You're the man.

I need to call my Mom...:-)