Out of Sight

My baby is back. She's got a fresh pair of wheels and a new seat courtesy of DUMBO's Recycle-A-Bike, a bike shop that recycles old parts and builds bikes from the same. My replacement parts cost me half of what I might have paid at my usual shop. But I've got to get some new racing tires though. The off-road joints I have now are...awkward. Most importantly I'll be keep my girl inside of buildings overnight and closest to the cop patrols during the day. Four bikes in three years is just a little excessive now. Isn't it?

So I passed on the MJ vs. Prince party at Crash Mansion. This was a little awkward for me as I've only missed a few in the years since I've known about it. But between the guaranteed line (equipped with a need to finagle at the door), the hotbox atmosphere and the endless game of trying to say hey to all the folks that wave with familiar faces, I just wasn't in the mood. I think I'm increasingly becoming one of those people who only goes to things they've been personally invited to. The lure of free food can only go so far when you just know that your bound to run into that friend of a a friend of an old girlfriend who want to do the idle chatter with you thing just to say that they did, just so they know what you're doing next, or because the last thing they'd rather talk about out in public is themselves.

Let me make it crystal clear that I'm just as guilty of such offenses. We've come to call it "networking". But as the food chain is rearranging itself in an entertainment business where hip hop is far less of the cat's pajamas that it used to be, those who remain in the gates are willing to chase electronic rabbits around the track until the whole damn thing blows a fuse. And I don't want to keep up anymore. I should have gone into marketing or graphic design. There seems to be a lot more room to operate in those rackets these days.

My declaration of independence from the herd doesn't mean that I won't be out and about in the warm season, but that I'm no longer pressed to hop on the bike whenever I get a text about the opening, barbecue, house party, etc. that I didn't already know about. I'm not chasing after the pack anymore. I'm turning left when they veer right. I'm returning to my road less traveled for what I hope to be a permanent stint.

Everything has been breaking in my house for the last few years. It started with the coffee pot and the classes I bought from Ikea. When it was the folding chairs and the one in my office, then the DVD player, then the home theater. The bottom of the line Ibook I got is running out of memory and the moment, the work I do isn't economically viable enough for the publishers in the given marketplace. My family's been going through it and I've been working any and every job I can get just to keep the fires going. But there has been a point to it all: God needed my attention. And he's got it now.

If there's one thing I've taught myself is active meditation. Whether I'm biking or cleaning or sitting still before my alter with legs folded and eyes closed, I can feel when things are out of whack on the underneath. So I try to tighten the nuts and bolts when I can, replacing parts once they've grown weary. The more energized I am the more I call them like I see them, a tendency of mine that has gotten me in trouble both with this blog and in my own personal and professional investigations. And the way I see things now affords an understanding as to why some of my best efforts didn't work. I always wanted to live in places where I didn't belong.

There had been things that I'd been avoiding in my own development, things that the breakneck speed of my old days couldn't allow to be fixed. Ringing phones, deadlines and after-work sessions with substances tend to numb the subsconscious. The comfort of nightly company under the covers can make you open to attack if she isn't keeping one eye open with you. It was in rooms full of folks who said they were my friends where I felt least safe. People caught me slipping because I wasn't fully awake in the first place, the eyes in the back of my head blinded by a countless number of pats on the back, hands that didn't move to help the minute I got into my bind. That war is over. Now I'm trying to get ready for the next one.

So I'm moving from the barracks to a sacred temple, a metaphorical space where I can assemble the foundation for my next big thing. I'm cooking three big dinners in the next three months. I'm claiming the award I applied for last fall. I look forward to seeing my sister play her viola in front of a packed house and for the live ass dinner party I'll cook once I move into my first house, preferably one amongst these blocks that have become my second home in the last nine years. But as it's the first real day of my vacation now if the time for me to get to chillin'. Out.