there is a lady that works with me that is very dedicated to ger husband. I think it's bondage. like he says jump and she does it. i don't think i like that type of relationship.

I've got a new hobby!

Since I started riding the bus, I have recently taken an interest in trying to guess the ages of riders. People watching has always been a hobby of mine but this bus thing has only heightened it. The thing about guessing peoples ages though, is that it's kinda hard to tell with some people. Also, in the end, you never really know if you are right. I mean, it's not like I am about to ask that lovely older woman just how old she is to see if I won the game.

like I said, it's really hard to do with some people. What I have noticed is that white people look way older than their years while black people look younger. I guess that old adage about black not cracking is true. There is one guy that really intrigues me. He walks with a cane and his body tells the story of a man that has seen many years but his face says something totally different. This man is painfully attractive! I have often found myself staring at this man wondering what he must have been like in his youth. I would like to take his picture so that I could show it to people so they can see the epitome of "growing old gracefully". Trying to figure his age always frustrates me because I always struggle with the what I come up with. Most guesses I think are too old and are contradicted by his face while the others are too young according to his body. No matter what his age, it's nice to look at him.

My relationshit

I love you, I think. I have actually never been here before so I am really not sure how it's supposed to be. You say you love me too but for some reason I still doubt it. I think this is due to my insecurities. It's sad but yes, at 27 years old I am still dealing with not liking myself. Seems that through this whole situation I have just been waiting for you to finally come to your senses and drop me because you and I both know that you can do better than me. I hate to make you suffer because of what's wrong with me but truth be told, I really don't know how to act. On one hand I don't want to loose you but then again I feel like I should push you away in order to save myself the heartache. I keep trying to prove to myself that you don't want me because then I can say to myself "I told you so". It scares me to just give myself up completely to you/this because again, I don't want to be hurt. If I keep you at a distance and always act as if I am on the verge of letting you go, I can protect myself. Drop you before you drop me.
How can a person ever really know another's true feelings? You can't and that is part of the problem. I need to be sure that I am not making a fool of myself but I am learning that life is not like that. You have to take chances and hope for the best. This is my main problem because I like, too much, to be in control. I need to know that specific actions bring specific outcomes but this whole situation is not logical. Actions are often made and there is no rhyme or reason that can me applied to the equation to make it make sense.
Yes, you make me jealous when you talk to him. I am still scared that he has the power to take you away from me. He still has a part of you that I can never get to. No matter what you tell me I still feel as if I have not made it to the place that he has. I am second best and the one you settled for.
You are right when you say that I listen to my friends a lot. I know that their advice is sketchy at best but what else do I have? The alternative is to just listen and believe what you say and I can't do that. You have to understand that the advice that comes from them is given because they don't want me to be foolish. I know that according to them, I have already crossed the line.
"I love you" is a statement that I say to you often but what does it prove when the meaning of these words are unclear? I love you as much as I know about love but my understanding could be wrong. I am still trying to find the romantic movie love but maybe that just doesn't exist. I think that I am wasting my time looking for you to act like the movies. Maybe it's not practical to look for romance from you all the time and I need to just settle for what you do offer.

Time to get serious.

I just haven't been feeling writing as of late. Seems like nothing is really going on or at least nothing to write about. I want to be consistent with this tho so I will force myself to put down something interesting or not.

Last night my friend Monty hung up the phone on me. We had an argument, I guess. See, I have to question weather or not it was a true argument because if it was, I was not an active participant. I know arguments! When I am in an argument, the bottom line is for me to show the other person where they are wrong and how ignorant they are for thinking that they are right. In an argument I tend to be cut throat and feelings of the opponent are not spared. I did none of this last night. In this conversation I was only trying to give my friend some helpful advice and the only reason that I assume it had to be an argument is because he hung up the phone on me. That is what people in arguments do.

It really does not matter what the argument was about because that is not what is important. The most important thing is that he hung up the phone on me. In my humble opinion, hanging up the phone while having a conversation or an argument is a immature thing. It's childish! What this action says about the person who does it is that their brain has not yet developed the skills to communicate an idea or an opinion if another party disagrees with them. This means that their skills only allow them to participate in conversation only if everyone agrees with them. That's silly!

At any rate, my friend Monty is now upset with me for trying to give him a little advice. Hopefully he will think about his actions and call me up and I will still be cool with him cause like I said, he is my boy. And even when he finally decides to call me back, I will still finish giving him the advice that I started. He needs to hear it.

God is Good

In all that I go through he is good. And I hesitate to say "all that I go through" cause I actually don't go through a lot. Sure right now I have no car and that forces me to depend on the bus and friends to get around but this situation makes me loose some of the pride that I have. Not the kind of pride that makes me think that I am better than someone else. It's the type of pride that would make me walk a couple of miles to a gas station instead of calling someone to help me out(true story). The fact of the matter is we sometimes need people to help us and it is a big person that can humble themselves and ask for it.

This whole looking for a car thing is kinda tough. I can't decide if I should go for what I want or go for what I can afford. Well, I know that I will have to go for what I can afford but what I mean is should I just get any car for the money that I have or should I look for the car I want at the price that I have. If I focus on the car I want this bus thing may be a while but if I just get what I can get then I will feel like I wasted the money. I just don't know what to do. I have given myself until May(maybe June) to do this bus thing. All I know is that I cannot go into the winter this way. Too cold to be waiting for the bus.

Man....i'm walking again

Yup, I am rolling with the public transportation once again. The car that my grandma let me use is finally gone so I am forced to use the bus and cabs and my feet. It's really not that bad tho. I mean, my boy Kendrick does it everyday in the ATL. It is also a chance for me to work in a little more exercise in my day too so it's a win win. Pretty soon ya boy is gonna be buff.

I am really really bummed out about my boy passing last week. It really just made me look at the other relationships that I have in my life. I have a lot of friends all over the country and now I want to make sure that I get a chance to fellowship with them, in person, before I or they leave the earth. I mean, Rob was like my brother and everytime I think about it I get a little choked up. I was really not there for him in his last days. All in all it makes me value the people that I have left.

Also, on the relationship front, things are going pretty well. I mean, I think that we are at a place where we are just used to each other. I mean, we are comfortable. We can even order for one another at resteraunts. That type of stuff is priceless! I mean, people who know exactly what you like and don't like! I love it.

You will be missed..

I believe that there are some people in the world that have a special connection. Kindred spirits, if you will. It's as if the two people grew up as siblings because of the similar experiences and and issues they share but the truth is they were raised miles apart. In early times, I imagine that many people went their whole lives without really meeting a person like this. I mean, in those days, people were limited to only coming in contact with those that were in their immediate vicinity but in modern times we have the convenience of the online chats, emails, and message boards. This allows us to speak to people that live many miles away from us and enables us a better chance to find people that really get us. This was the situation with my man Rob.

Okp was the place we started our journey. The fact that we both were there meant that we already had music in common. We would discover that we had so much more that we shared. Eventually we graduated from emails and in boxes to phone conversations. Religion to relationships had us talking til we lost the time.

One day he shared with me. He thought it would change my friendship but It made me stand in his corner even more. Then he fell on bad times and me, like an idiot, helped financially. I gave to someone that I never even met in person. I knew that God was in it. He was my brother and I wanted to do all that I could to make his situation better.

As it got worse, our friendship started slipping. It was me. I was not able to handle this side of it. As I look back now, I think I could have done more. I would call and his brother would say he was sleeping. Sometimes no one would answer the phone. I would let weeks go between my attempts. I think...I know I was scared to face this. I didn't want to let my friend go and I knew that it was approaching.

He was me! Older and wiser but he was me. We were the same and had fallen into the same traps. Why him and not me? Who am I that this did not befall me? We constantly talked of the goodness of God and even in his state he praised. God is good no matter what you are in. If I make my bed in hell, he is there..... It makes me ask myself why one and not the other. Why him and not me.

So now it is done and I praise God that I was allowed to meet such a wonderful person as this. Knowing him has definitely made me wiser and more careful and I know that his life was not in vain. Rob man, I love you. Wish I could have said it to you before you left this plain but to be absent from the body....

It's been a minute....

But I just wasn't interested in writhing for a while. I mean, I really didn't have anything to talk about but now, ya boy is back.

First things first, I had a little trouble with a debt collection agency last week. I mean these cats tried to play me hard. I don't even feel like getting into it again because I have told this story a million times this weekend but rest assured, I did get it handled.

Late Valentines Post

I U

Valentines is over and it's a good thing. I spent a grip for my homeboy and I am really just glad that it is over. All in all a good time was had by all tho.

I have not been to the gym in about a week. Not because I am being lazy mind you. I have just been really really busy. Times like these I wish my gym was 24hrs cause then I could just swing over there anytime. Next week I am gonna have to do better.

Looks like I am gonna have to get some braces back on. I broke my retainer about 6mths ago and failed to get another one and my teeth have shifted. Seems that they have shifted so much that a retainer is no longer gonna help. I will have to get a few more braces put on for a few more months but it will be ok. My boy D said that it is stupid for me to waste money on that but I say that I already invested 4000+ into my mouth and I don't want that to be wasted money. I will be more careful the next time.

Doing what I have to do now in order to do what I want to do later.....

This is what I am forcing myself to live by. I mean, I am not getting any younger so I must start to think about the future. I see my Grandma and even my mom just barely making it and I really don't want to turn out that way. And for this reason I am regrettably not going to be able to purchase an ipod at this time. I mean, I could but it just would not be a good look seeing that there are other things that I need to be doing with my income tax. I really want one tho! Now it is time to be grown.

Last night while watching TV I happened to catch the Dateline special "To Catch a predator" and I thought that it was very interesting. In case someone reading this does not know what it was about, it is when Dateline puts together a sting operation to catch sexual predators. They actually get these adults to pose as children on the internet and then lure people to a house thinking that they may engage in some kind of sexual...something with these minors. The whole thing was really pretty sad to me and probably not because of the reason that people might think. I was pretty sad for the guys who got caught. Yeah, I know that is not a popular stance to take but seems my whole life, I have always been on the team of the underdog. Let me explain myself.

I think that most people would watch something like that and immediately start to pass judgment on the guys that were caught. Most people start to think thoughts about how sick these people must be to try something like that. Even the reporter was type judgmental and it seems that everybody is alright with that. Most people in the world think it's ok to hate murderers and rapist and child molesters. On the surface all we see are these "sick bastards" that just want to molest and rape our kids but I know it goes much deeper than that. If someone were to study this, I think that they would find that most if not all of these guys had some kind of trouble in their own youth. No, this is by no means an excuse for their actions but just an attempt to show that these people are not the one dimensional monsters that we are more comfortable with them being.

If we were to examine one of these "predators" closely and find out that they were in fact molested and raped as a youth, it makes one look at them differently. It now means that this person is not just a monster but only continuing a cycle of abuse that was placed on them. It is not so easy to just write them off as a "sick bastard". We are now forced to humanize this animal and maybe even feel compassion for them and that is the way it should be. Most of the guys that were seen last night knew that they were wrong and even knew that they should not engage in what they were trying to do but they just couldn't help themselves. Again, I am not saying that these people aren't wrong for their actions but what I am saying is that they need to be understood and not just disregarded.

Just throwing people in jail and humiliating them on TV is not enough to stop these people from doing what they do. As was shown on the show last night, many of the guys were second time offenders and had already been caught once before. As everyone knows, I am a strong advocate of living in the truth. People need to come to terms with their issues and face them head on and even share them with people so that they don't have to face them alone. I think peoples inner turmoil thrive in secrecy and that is one reason that we need to live in the truth. If we tell someone what our struggle is then we have someone in the fight to help us. When we keep it inside we have to try to deal with it by ourselves and the flesh is sometimes so weak.

anyway, I need to stop here and pick topic up on a later date.

Truth often hurts the people who receive it but sets the truth teller free.

"if you live in the truth, no one can blackmail you" © Lauryn

simple words but they have resonated in my mind since the first time I heard ms hill say them on her mtv unplugged. So powerful is that statement. It means I can break out of all the bondage that people have placed me in by simply being who I am and not who they feel comfortable with me being. Break out of the box ! I can only be who God has allowed me to be and I am sorry if my being me does not fit into another's ideas of life and religion and all that stuff. Freedom is priceless and I struggle everyday to make sure I stay free despite the people and things that would rather I stay in their box.

Of course this is about my religion struggle. I hate it that people will read these blogg entries and think that I am just a one dimensional character that is always talking about gay stuff. That couldn't be further from the truth but at this time in my life, that is the only thing on my mind. I am just so sick of the way Satan(with the help of people) has contorted and distorted what I believe God really wants for his children. We live in a world right now where people who call themselves Christians can ostracize and ridicule people who have issues and they think they are doing the work of the lord.

I think it is my purpose(yes Ant, my purpose) in life to find the real God past all the images and false God's that people have built up. I think that we have not seen nor do we know the real God. I want to experience that and I want to share that with people.

on another note, in case you didn't know, the fight between good and evil is not taking place in the heavens or in the bowels of the earth. That fight takes place everyday in the mind. Your mind is the battle ground where Good and evil struggle to gain ground all the time. The battle is taking place when you see that co-worker that you know hates your guts stranded on the side of the road.Youu can either stop to help or continue on your way and the decision you make determines what side wins that round.

Niggs don't know but

I am really struggling with my religion right now. I don't know if I would want to use the word struggling....well, maybe I will use the word struggle but not with my religion. What I am really struggling with are the false faces of my religion. At 27 years old, I feel like I am discovering that a lot of the "facts" about God that were given to me don't stand up at all.

I guess what I am trying to say is, the image that I have had for so long of God, the one that I got from parents and grandparents just won't hold up in my life. Let me offer an example: All my life I have been told that all homos are on their way to hell. I mean, the bible, in black and white tells us this. How can I argue with that? Given this "fact" one could imagine that it would be an awful struggle for a gay boy growing up in the church, trying to follow god but feeling in the back of my mind that all my effort was useless. In the end, I only had hell to look forward to. Having gone through a little more life I now see that life is just not as cut and dry as some would want to believe.

Now I am at the point where I really want a real experience with God. I just think that there is more to it than most people are getting in their churches. God is so much bigger than us getting to go to heaven. What about loving your brother and sister while you are here on earth and when I speak of loving, I mean sticking your life on the line for the rapeist. Going to the wire for the prostitute. Laying down everything you have for a person that you don't even know. I have such a passion for the underdog. I think it is because for much of my life I have felt that I was one.

So now I am on a mission to seek God earnestly. I want him to show me what this whole thing is really about. I want to find my purpose and I want to help others do the same thing and in my mind that has nothing to do with God blessing me with a fancy house of a new car. I am cool with what I have and if that is all I ever have I must be content. God is Good.

Financial Woes

So it seems that I find myself in a financial situation again. I said at the end of 2005 that I would not be in this again. I now have about 120 dollars to last me until the next time I get paid. I think I can do it. I hope I can.

Bilal is coming back and I am really feeling the little bit that I have heard. I love this dude. He is what I call a real singer. A nigg that seems to not give a F--k about what the people want to hear. He would rather push his vision than conform into the silliness that r&b has become as of late. I love him for that. Once I had a dream that I met him. I was so disappointed when I woke up and realized that it was a dream.



I used to love Little Brother. I mean, I guess I still love them but reading Phonte's blogg the other day really messed me up. I don't know why I am so surprised cause it seems that the whole world is homophobic but somehow, I thought he was different. I still think he is one of the hottest out there today but now, I just feel funny when I listen to his shit. Like, if he knew that I was indeed attracted to men would he want me to be a fan. That Minstrel Show used to get a nigg going at the gym. Since I read that blogg, I took it out of rotation. You know what the sad part is tho, as we speak I am trying to get some tickets to their show in Atl on 3/21.

What role does Satan play?

Now I am starting to think that a lot of the things that we put on the devil should really be on us. I do believe that Satan is something real but we put way too much on him/that and not enough on ourselves.

Take for example my homeboy D. He is not what I would call a devout Christian but he does call on the lord in a jam. This is not a judgment call, I am just stating a fact. Anyway, he will be the first person to cry devil if he has a flat tire, or his hair is messing up. This is funny to me. People think that the devil is sitting around plotting ways to make you late for church or miss a meeting. Some of this stuff that the devil is blamed for is really just a part of life. We are spiritual beings having a human experience and in that human experience, things happen. Sometimes your car won't start or sometimes you can't find that tie you like. These things I would argue are not the devil but in fact are just a side effect of life. Things are gonna happen.

Another group of people are like me grandma. She is a holy roller in every since of the word. To her, the devil is also out to mess you up. In her mind tho, he mostly messes with finances. Like, he will "make" you overdraw your banking account or he will have your phone turned off. She likes to take herself out of the equation so the fact that the account is overdrawn has nothing to do with the fact that she didn't balance her check book. Oh no, this is a trick of the enemy! And the phone getting cut off has nothing to do with the fact that she didn't pay her bill on time. She would rather shout things like, "The devil is a liah(liar)!" In this case again, people fail to take responsibility for the situations that they put themselves in. It is much easier to blame it on the devil. Sometimes I imagine the devil sitting on a corner with his head in his hands. Sad that the whole world is blaming him for things that he has nothing to do with.

Now, don't get me wrong, I do believe that Satan is real. He's just not involved in he things that we think he is. I would much rather imagine that he devil is busy manipulating power structures to keep one group of people down while elevating another. He has his hand in the worlds governments oppressing anybody that is trying to liberate people with the word of God. He is setting things up for the eventual rise of the antichrist. With all that on his plate, I just don't think he has time to put a run in your stocking.

And then it gets a little deeper for me. Now I am even wondering if some of the thoughts that come into our very brains are the devil or are they our own evil? I mean, the bible says that we are sinful. Born into it even, so some of the things that we try to place on the devil are really our true selves. I think that the evil that is already in us can be capitalized on by the devil...or his imps, if you will, but the base is already in us. For example, I like to have sex. When I see somebody that I think looks good, sexual thoughts will come. Now many Christians would say that that is just the devil but I argue that it is just me. I am a human and a sexual being so when I see something that looks good, nature will start to take it's course. Now, I think that we can allow evil to take that natural thing and build upon it. When I take that attraction and then start to fantasize about what I would do if I had that, I am leaning into lust. That is from the evil one but the attraction is just natural.

Anyway, the whole point of this is to just discuss the idea that the devil is not as involved as we think. Some of the things that we place on him just possibly could be our own evil and irresponsibility.

Just a ramble

The battle between God and Satan is taking place everyday. Not in the heavens or underground but instead it happens everyday in our minds. It is won and lost in the way we think. Let's say you are a person with cancer and the doctor has just given you six months to live. With this information, you are now faced with a decision. You can choose to just give up hope and resign yourself to die or, you can take the information that was given and still believe that God is in control no matter what report you receive. The mind where the battle is won and lost.

I have known about this battle in my own mind since I was a child. I can remember reading in the bible and hearing in service about who I was supposed to be and then looking at my life and becoming painfully aware of how far I was from that. I wanted to be that so bad. In those days I thought that the walk with Christ was about being perfect and doing everything right. I now believe that this thinking is very dangerous because Satan(or maybe your own mind...I am still not sure where I stand on this) will capitalize on it and make one feel bad when they don't measure up to the standard they have built in their brain. I am now of the thinking that it is not only about the action of "living right" but about the way one thinks about the action of sin.

It seems to me that a lot of Christians are under the illusion that one day, in this mortal existence, that a person could actually be perfect or without sin. The fact is, there was only one perfect man and he died so that we don't have to be. Now don't take this as me saying that you have a pass to sin. Only an immature Christian would take on that thinking. One who really understands what Christ did for us would steer clear of sin because they love him and not just for the sake of not sinning. What I am saying is that you are going to sin and the thing that separates a Christian from the world is one's thinking about sin.

Yes....I have herpes and I am fat

I could feel the cold sore forming last night as I was in class. I haven't had one in a long time but I always know when one is about to form. And there was nothing that I could do to stop it. Usually, I bombard my lips with blisstex as soon as I get the slightest tingle but I had none last night and this morning I can see the blister forming. As soon as I get a chance I am running to cvs to get plenty of lip stuff to form a counter attack. There may still be hope left in the fight against herpes simplex.

....I am fat. It was made painfully obvious to me this morning by the mother of a chick that I used to talk to. I mean...the way she looked at me and then took a double take and asked "are you sure you are Quadrus?" I think that a lot of times, people will syke themselves up into believing things aren't as bad as they really are. People will actually go out of their way not to find out the truth about their situation so that they can continue to live in ignorant bliss. In my case, I know that I made sure for a long time that I didn't really know exactly how much I weighed. I went out of my way to stay away from full length mirrors and I think I even fooled myself into believing that it really was not that bad. But it is that bad.

so yeah....God is good

You know ya boy was on the verge of being fired but I have a second chance. Actually, this will be more like a 7th chance. I been getting fired for being late every since I've been working here and that's been 5yrs. Well, I knew that the powers that be were on the verge of talking to me about my problem so I decided to talk to them before they had a chance to get me. I set up a meeting with my supervisor and she is giving me one more chance for vast improvement. It is now time for operation: cant be late.

Carlton Pearson declared a heretic.

I just have a few thoughts to put down on this issue after listening to an interview he did.

Personally, I believe that Bishop Pearson is on the right path with some of the things that he is pushing. I mean, I can clap to the thinking that the bible just may not be all that infallible. I feel guilty even putting that down. I believe that the bible may have some error because it has been written and re written by men. But in saying this, I must also say that I believe that God, in all his infinite wisdom, knew that this would be the case therefore he only holds us to the glimpse of truth that we can gain from the bible. It may not be the whole truth but it is the only truth we know. I am positive that when we finally do see him, we will get the whole story and some of the things that we have held so dear will be put in proper perspective.

One place that Bishop Pearson is going that I cannot follow is this idea of inclusion. I mean, some of what he is saying I can mos def ride with. Stating that Jesus did die for the entire world is a given and I think all followers of Christ have to agree with that. The place that I have to get off the bus with Bishop Pearson is the idea that salvation is yours and all the rewards that come with it even if you don't accept it. Basically he is saying you are saved even if you don't get saved.......by default.

Sounds like a great idea and obviously there are places in the bible that Bishop is using to support his theory. I mean he is not a dummy and would not just come up with this unless he truly believed that this is what God was telling him and he hadscriptual support. The only problem is that there are a lot of areas that will also cast down his ideas and simply pointing out that the bible is not totally true when opposition comes will not really work in this situation. I mean, doing that will put you in an odd position and then you have to wonder, where do you draw the line? Who is the person that decides what is true in the bible and what is made up? Slippery slope.

Seems to me that both sides in this situation are just on extreme opposite ends. It would be nice for people to try to meet somewhere in the middle. It almost made me cry to hear about how Bishop Pearson is now opening his church to the gays and lesbians while on the other end, we are still have a hard time finding a place in the church without denying who we really are(I'll talk about this on a later date).

Christmas is over.

Christmas has gone and things are kinda back to normal. This year I didn't get anybody anything for Christmas. Not because I am just being mean or cheap. The reason is because I don't have any money. The number one thing that I plan to do in the new year is get a better handle on my money.

Talked to one of my old homeboys last night. We used to kick it about 2 yrs ago but turns out that we are much better being friends than we ever were being anything else. Anyway, dude has decided to get serious about his spiritual life and that involves him getting baptized into the j-dubs. Anybody who knows anything about Jehovah's Witnesses knows that getting baptized is a big thing. I know a little because 3 of my past flings have been j-dub's. Shit is way surprising because...well, lets just say that we both used to be wild but he was real wild. We had a real nice convo last night speaking on all types of spiritual things and it was crazy. Crazy because I never imagined that he would ever be in a position to talk to me on this level and also because he is a j-dub and we were talking real talk without a lot of barriers. I have tried to have talks with witnesses before and they usually never turn out good. Maybe it was the fact that I have grown spiritually or maybe it was the fact that he is my homeboy even beside all the religion. Who knows? I plan on going to see "Rent" later this week with him.