I thought I had common sense,

I've seen him around the city every now and again.  He's the one that always catches your glance even if it's from the corner of your eye.  It's his presence.  Everyone knows that there is something different about him, but no one can say exactly what it is.  It's not his hair 'cause thousands of black men wear their hair in cornrows.  It could be his height or the total package in general because ... damn ... mmm ... MMM ... he is fine! 

Fine like 'slap yourself' fine!  Fine like D'Angelo's daddy met up with LL Cool J's momma and the DNA they produced can make a sista walk absent mindedly into a tree just to see it.  Carmel skin that's been tanned into a deep red tone, lips who's smile seems to lighten the room, muscles that flex underneath his too-tight shirts, a butt that's round and firm and give way to hard muscular thighs, long slightly bowed legs and two really big feet.  All of this on what looks like a 6' 4" frame.  Shit, now that's a man!  Definitely a ten!

Am I good enough?

I just finished watching the movie "Adaptation" with Nicolas Cage on HBO.  It was like watching myself as a writer, grasping for the words that eloquently describe the conditions of the story I'm supposed to write.  Like the character Charlie, played by Nicolas Cage, I'm not where I want to be in my life.  I'm struggling to find meaning inside the humdrum existence I wake up to daily.  Charlie has a brother Daniel, also played by Cage, and Daniel is everything that Charlie wishes he could be.  Daniel is the type of person who sees the up side of every situation, and we all know how hard it is to have those type of people around when you're feeling sorry for yourself.  I have a Daniel in my life too, her name is Paula.  She's a person who always sees an up side to every situation.  Daily and for years, she has listened to me bitch and moan about how my life isn't what is was supposed to be.  I tell her, "How did I get here?" Almost like singing the Talking Heads song, "Same as it ever was", I wonder about my life.  The first thirty-nine years have flown by.  I still haven't finished my degree.  I'm divorced with kids that have more problems than I do. And, I ask that stupid question every day, "How did I get here?"  Paula just listens.  She's good at that now.  We used to argue about opinions but, college has helped us to not step on each others words or feelings anymore. 

Seeing myself in the character Charlie, I felt an affinity to the self loathing he constantly spoke into his tape recorder and wrote down on paper.  I do that sometimes; talk into my tape recorder wishing that the images flowed fluidly from my brain down to my lips the way that they did ten years ago.  I've lost that edge as a writer I used to have.  I could paint images of seduction that left my readers begging me for more chapters. "Hurry and finish the next chapter" emails would flood my inbox.  It felt so good know that someone somewhere was getting off to the stories I had written.  Connections, tenses, personifications, metaphors, synonyms, antonyms, they all used to come easy to me.  Now, I write the same words over and over and over until they become a low hum in my head like a tune you heard on the radio this morning and just can't seem to drown out. 

I suppose that I'm suffering from depression but this used to be the energy to fuel the stories.  Maybe I'm not mad enough.  Maybe, I am just a pitiful version of my younger self.  What is a lack of self esteem when you don't know who self is and you're as old as I am.  The worst part is that I'm not a 'using' sort of person.  I won't depend on who or what I know rather, I chose to wallow in self pity. Why this pitiful display of womanhood.  Because I didn't know.