Me Sweatin Like A Hoe + A Persian Saying = I Gotta Get My Ish Together

“There’s a Persian poem that says ‘Don’t look up to the sky searching for Heaven; every time you have fun you’re in Heaven” is what was told to me by a Persian guy who works at Pizza Hut down the street from my apartment.

Kinda random, but hella chill at the same time.  But let me backtrack so I can begin to make sense of my lil mathematical equation for my title.

~So, I went to work today as usual and came back home.  Nothing too eventful, but preparing for a cheer-leading camp which exceeds the population of my school by almost double can be quite taxing if I do say so myself.  For the past couple of days it’s been hot and humid; not as humid as South Carolina where I’m from, but it’s getting there.  When I got home, my homie Shishir was hungry, so we decided to go to Pizza Hut because they had a special on their wings for .50 cents for each wing.

While waiting for the wings, the guy at the counter saw Shishir’s track shirt that said Soka and he asked if we went to the school.  After explaining that we were from Soka, he commented that he liked the concept of Eastern education in the OC- which was weird/cool at the same time because people rarely say anything good about my school here in the OC.  He told me that going there was better than being on the streets, getting in to trouble, having hella kids, etc. and then he told me the quote.

I appreciated the encouragement from him and I shook his hand, as you would of a man whom you respect.  After leaving, sweatin like a hoe because of the heat, we briefly walked into Yogurtland so my other homie Jesus could get some ice cream, then we went into the Smoke Shop to get some cheap drinks.

While I was in the Smoke Shop and even while I was in Yogurtland, I saw this same cop car circling the parking lot.  I thought it was suspicious, but I went on about my biz.  After walking out the Smoke Shop with our drinks, I drove out of the parking lot to go down the street to a sports shop so Shishir could get an athletic bag for his things.  After turning out the parking lot, I noticed the cop car was directly behind me….

Just to make sure I wasn’t being followed, I turned off on a random street not on the way to where I was going and sure enough he turned along with me.  That’s when I knew what was about to go down.  I pull over and as usual, I was asked to pull out my license and registration AND proof of insurance.  So, I did and I was told that my registration was expired.  But I knew that already, which is why I had a feeling back in the parking lot that he was driving around the parking lot waiting for me to drive off in the first place.

-Sidenote:  My registration has been expired for about 3 weeks, but I haven’t had any money until recently to do anything about it.  I would have paid it, but I need a smog inspection before I can get it renewed, which I was going to have done by the end of this week.

Anyways, when he checks my papers, he tells me that my insurance expired in May.  I know that it’s not expired because I payed to have it renewed, but when they sent me papers after I renewed it, it didn’t cross my mind that they sent me updated papers that I needed to put into my car to replace the old one.  I guess you live and learn, especially with your first car.  So, I’m sitting there, sweatin like a hoe, trying to find my ‘Heaven’ in this situation, all the while thinking that if I would have had my shit together, then I wouldn’t be in this shitty situation.  After explaining myself briefly, he walks off to his car for a good min….

Yeah, it always takes a long time when I get pulled over around here.  I think it’s to do a background check, especially since I was riding around in a car with an expired registration and no proof of current insurance.  So, he comes back and tells me that it will be a pretty expensive ticket for all of these charges….

Well, I think I found the “Heaven” in this situation.  By the grace of many deities I’m sure, he let me off with a warning.  Thank goodness that I was pulled over by him instead of some other racist hard-ass that would have had my ass in court.  I think if I was in SC I most definitely would have had my car towed or something to that effect.  So, we go and get Shishir’s bag and get the fuck home.

And I’ve been home since then.

I relaxed all day after the incident, but there’s a little voice in the back of my mind (the real James if you want to say) saying this:

Yo, what the fuck are you doin?  On some real shit, do you not want to go to grad school or do anything with yaself?  What are you, some poor excuse for some lame ass nigga failing at tryna be a street nigga with no future?  Nah son, you’ll be worse off than some street nigga, at least they have otha niggaz that they can walk the streets with.  If you wanted to be some lazy ass nigga that wastes peoples’ time, then you shoulda stayed yo ass in SC, with other people who don’t really progress anywhere in their lives.  Here’s where you’re goin if you don’t get ya shit together:  Study abroad to a shitty place where you will feel like a failure, lose ya scholarship so you will be payin out the ass for ya education that you are taking for granted, not get into the grad school that you want to get into because you been dickin around like some pussy ass lil boy who’s afraid to man up and do what he gotta do, and stay single for the rest of ya life.  Stop all this talkin that you doin out da hole in ya face and actually show me what you got.  You THINK that you can do everything that you need to do and people believe that you can do it to, so why don’t you do it?  What will it take to motivate you to do what you have to do?  Come on, don’t fuck it up….

Yeah, above is how I would prefer to talk at all times, but when I’m blogging or talking to people who aren’t used to me talking like that I have to put on this type of voice/speech.  I feel a bit pretentious when I speak or write properly, but hey, it’s a skill that’s necessary in life if you wanna go anywhere.

And sorry if the above passage is kinda random, let me explain what I mean.  For the summer, I had a set of goals but I haven’t really put in the time to take care of these goals as I initially planned.  And for this reason, I am upset because I rarely, if ever, achieve anything that I set out as a goal.  A lot of the time it is due to my laziness, or for a better explanation, my lack of motivation, but when I do try to achieve something, other things always come in my way and fuck it all up.  So that passage previously was just addressing my stress towards this situation.

Anways, that’s all I got for today.  But just because I always like to explain the titles of my blogs (so people won’t think I’m crazy or anything), I’ll explain what I meant by the heading of my other blog that I posted yesterday.

My Crush- Basically I was just going to talk about this one particular person that has had my interest for a lil while now.

Unstereotypable-  The activities that I liked to do defy many of the common stereotypes that exist in everyday life.  For example, I made good grades, yet I used to run around in the streets of Da Ville before me and my homies grew apart.  I was on the Track and Varsity Football team, yet I was a Band geek and was on my high school’s Robotics team.  I also love video games and reading books/manga, but I also love to party and love meeting people, chilling, going to new places, etc.  What kind of person would you stereotype me as?

The Autocrat-  Back in high school, I had to do a mid-term paper on a collection of essays compiled into book called “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table” by Oliver Wendell Holmes.  Essentially, this book was about a guy who lived in an apartment and during breakfast would talk about random things with the people that he lived with.  I brought this up because I wish I had the time to be easy and just sit and talk over a cup of coffee and breakfast with my apartment homies about various things, ranging from topics of mathematics to love.

126-  That’s my Intelligence Quotient (IQ) when I took an IQ test in a Psych class back in high school.  I was just going to briefly talk about the implications of categorizing people by scores, the different factors associated with how familiar the people taking the test are with the actual content on it (ex. minorities being exposed (or not exposed) to things that that would show up on an IQ test), etc (BTW – 126 isn’t a high enough number to separate me from normal people lol)

Well, that’s all I got for today.  Since I don’t have to work till 12 tomorrow, I’ll prob stay up a lil later tonight and crash hard so I can get at least 9 hours of sleep tonight.

Peace and Be Easy Always

James Shonin Kelly III