Self Soothing... Yes... Black Men....No

Where does the time go? It's November already and Thursday I will be headed to Boston to take the MTEL. I'll be stopping at Filene's Basement first. Have I studied? No. I have no excuse. Well maybe a couple but still I could have done better. First the back went and that took forever to feel better and then Death came knocking. Maybe not literally. But it's been so long since I had a cold, that it feels like death. I was sick for a week. Denial is a strong tonic and I was in denial that I actually had a cold and that just prolonged the inevitable. The symptoms hit me like a hurricane after the eye of the storm has passed, on Thursday. I worked all week, existing mostly on Alka Seltzer Plus, Lemon tea and a jigger of vodka, Vitamin C and Zinc tabs. All of that usually does the trick in about three days but not this time. So by Friday my head felt like a water baloon suspended on a toothpick. As I drove home, my hands reached to my face which literally was hurting. I heard myself groan incredulously, "My face hurts?" I tend to turn up the drama button when I'm sick. This time, I didn't even have the energy. My last stop before retiring to bed for the week-end was the Garden Cheng. Thank Gawd for those conveniently located Chinese restaurants in every Black neighborhood. Won Ton soup is what I always eat when I'm sick with flu or just back from the dentist. This was major so I got two quarts. I figured I'd be down for the count for quite a while. Saturday, I took advil round the clock and pulled out the "serious" herbs; mullien (which resembles green dust balls) and nettle. I made a tea with the stuff, added honey and lemon and munched toast with raspberry fluff. I've gotten real good at 'self soothing.' I lay on a hot pad and watched movies all day long and most of the night. I went to sleep at 1 a.m. and only got up twice to barf in the toilet, which I recently dressed up with a pink 'soft seat.' More self soothing.

Heard from my friend Kay in the UK yesterday. That was a treat. I wish we could have connected on her last visit to the States. Kay is attracted to African American men and recently got burned. She also adopts stray animals. There is some significance to that in my mind. I didn't even need to hear the details. He was also from one of the Southern backwards states fer chrissakes. Been there. Done that. I got off the train where Black men are concerned years ago and won't ever be going back. I am a raging heterosexual and have intentionally narrowed my chanced of ever finding true love by taking Black men off my list of possible choices. The agony (so to speak) isn't worth the ecstasy.
As far as I am concerned, the Amerikan 'experience,' hundreds of years of oppression, has left us all twisted and damaged. Black on Black relationships are a casualty, bruised beyond repair. Hopeless. I include my own thinking as a casualty of the experience as well. It is after all somewhat 'twisted' to feel as I do. However I accept it as a trade off for emotional survival. Black men are toxic.

Well that dear Bloggers is where Barbie's at this fine Sunday morning. Cough Cough. Where's that dam 'Tussin!