So on Monday, I called up RDB, who amazingly has been working non-stop since his, ummm, release from rehab. So I'z been gettin my child support. And I told him that if I was getting my money, then this year I would give him some school pictures. As opposed to just sending a 5x7 to the one family member that I still do like in his family, his grandmother.

So I call about 11:30am and ask if he's working today. He says no, its his day off. I told him to take the train and come downtown. Without hesitation or a second thought, he's like, "When? Now? I'm putting on my clothes now!!!"

I told him after 12, to which the fool calls me at 1:30 and says that he's downtown, now what?! I told him I'd meet him on the corner of 12th and F Streets and when he wasn't there, I called him up and started buckin. Then I realized that he was directly in front of me. ROTFL!!!

Exactly how long does it take for you to not recognize a person you had slept with for almost 3 years? Ah, for the sake of this blog...I have no real answers. Its been so long since we seen each other, the first thing that he said to me was, "I see your letting your hair grow out." Uh, yeah...that's right, I just CUT 10 inches off about a month or so ago...

It HAS been a long time. I mean, the last time he saw the child was in March. I know for a fact he hasn't seen me for at least a year and my intuition tells me its been more like, 2 years.

So anyway, we head down to ESPN Zone for a late lunch. If lunch was 90 minutes, we argued about 75 of them. About what went wrong 7 years ago. Isn't that funny? I'm married. He's got another kid. We're talking about the reason we broke up. He even goes so far as to call a friend we both know to have HIM co-sign via Nextel two-way:

RDB: *BEEP BEEP* Hey! Guess what I'm doing? *BEEP BEEP*
FRIEND: *BEEP BEEP* Sitting in your basement, lookin at your daughter's picture and missin yo baby momma? *BEEP BEEP*
RDB: *BEEP BEEP* Nope. Better. Sitting downtown having LUNCH with my baby momma! *BEEP BEEP*
FRIEND: *BEEP BEEP* Fer real?! Ya'll getting back together? Ya'll should get back together and go ahead and get married!!! *BEEP BEEP
ME: *BEEP BEEP* Uh, a day late and a dollar short friend, I'm already married...*BEEP BEEP*
FRIEND: *BEEP BEEP* Oh, that...that's okay. We all make mistakes..." *BEEP BEEP*
ME: *BEEP BEEP* Uh, well, if my marriage is a mistake, I can get a divorce...your man here has other children, whatchu gonna say about that? *BEEP BEEP*

silence.
FRIEND: *BEEP BEEP* Man, just let me know when you going to get back together man. You remember...you remember the way you used to look at my man. Shooooo...I remember. *BEEP BEEP*

At that point, I was laughing so hard, I passed the phone back to RDB and said I was done.

While the conversation was highly animated and a little hostile, it was by no means conventional arguing. I mean, like WE argue. Funny how the things he chose to bring up were all bad. He was like, you remember you did this? You did that?! And for every instance, I had a reply for dat ass.

Oh, yeah - and he thinks I'm pregnant! That was the funniest shit of all!!!! He wanted to touch me and I was like, "IF YOU TOUCH ME, I'M GOING TO BEAT THE HELL OUT OF YOU ON F STREET." So that was pretty hilarious.

But when we parted, I came away feeling a couple of ways. One, he seems to be doing alright. Substance abuse wise. He wasn't high. He wasn't drunk. He looked like he mighta put on a few pounds (which is good) and you know, he looked...sober.

On the flip side, the reunion completely reinforces many things: One, my marriage is the best thing that ever happened to me and my child. Two, even if I was single, I'd be crazier than hell to go back to that. And three, RDB, deep deep down is still an alright person. I found myself looking at him in a way that only an ex-girlfriend that bore his firstborn child could look at him. Obnoxious? Completely! Annoying as hell? Without a doubt! But I saw shades of the person I remember and it made me feel alright about letting my child be around him. So maybe the child WILL get to know her biological father. And it won't be through bullet-proof glass or in a room with padded walls!

Folks, we mighta had a breakthrough...

"Court is for uptown people with suits, money, lawyers with three names. If you got cash you can buy court justice. But on the street, justice has no price. She's blind where the judge sits but she's not blind out here. Out here the bitch got eyes." -from the 1996 movie, Sleepers.

So many things have happened since the last time I blogged. Where to begin? Well, if you've been reading up, you'll remember a post in July that paid tribute to two of my friends who passed away. I am pleased to have an update on Barbara's case.

"They got him". Yes, Barbara's murder has been solved. Her killer was convicted last week. I have so many raw feelings about the whole thing, I just don't want to get into it right now. Maybe one day. I will say this though: After 14 years, I had resigned myself to maybe never knowing what happened. With that said, when the details and the who, when and why came out...it just seemed to not matter. Why? Because nothing brings her back. Not a conviction, not the death penalty, and certainly not LWOP. Don't misunderstand me - catching this bastard made me feel like justice was served (and after so many years, I never thought it would be) but I didn't feel joy or happiness. I just felt robbed. I felt like, "Why did it have to be MY friend?"

But life is...(fill-in-the-blank)...

I'll be back with the low down on lunch with RDB...you know you got to tune in for dat one!!!

I am completely sad right now. About 10 minutes ago, as I was sitting down to man the receptionist desk at lunch time, I opened the Metro section and read it from cover to cover. When I got to the obituaries, I scanned the section and damn! Don't you know I knew someone in there today? A guy I used to work with. So sad.


This is not the first time that this has happened. Its actually happened a few times before. People I knew or was acquainted with, pass away and there would have been no other way to know, besides reading the paper. It doesn't make it any less devastating, let me tell you.


So, my friend, Eric, was a really good guy. Eclectic and artsy, he was a kind soul. There should be more of him in this world and I shall miss him.

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I talk about death quite a bit, huh? Hey, its been a part of who I am. A reoccurring guest on the soap opera that is my life. But this...this is nothing. I used to be obsessed with death and dying like BIGGIE. I am surprised that being a parent hasn't magnified my obsession. Yes, I worry about my children and what they do, where they go and who they do shit with. But thats part of the kids package. My mother says that it never goes away, the worry. Hence, the reason she wanted me to call her when I would be coming in the house after 1 am, when I lived with her. Ummmm..I was 30. But anyways, thats another post.


I guess a lot of my fixation with death is that I've just seen so much of it. When I was younger, I remember crying because my grandmother and mother were leaving me with some strange babysitter. I remember them getting into a black limousine and hootin and hollering like a crazy child cuz they said I couldn't go with them. They were going to my great-grandmother's funeral.

As a teenager, I saw a few guys from high school die unexpectedly. Sometimes violently. Sometime tragically.


As a young woman in my twenty's , I had a standard black funeral dress. I wore it about 20 times in the course of about 8 years. That of course, was the byproduct of being in the streets. Still, you never get used to it. Rather, I never did. Every funeral was sad. Every single one.

And when I finally got out of the streets, I found myself not having to attend funerals for 19 year olds anymore.

This leads me to my bizarre behavior this past weekend. I was running errands and riding alone (which doesn't happen often) and I figured I would relive my youth via a PA go-go tape. I can't listen to it with my hubby riding shotgun, he's from NY and HATES go-go. Can't listen to it with the kids cuz of the cussin and sexual references. So, solo it is!

Man, I got to ruffin it off and lost my damn mind! I love me some old school go-go. But then I get to thinkin about that past life, the fun we all had and how I should just go to the old neighborhood and hang...just for a sec..."I'll only say hi and roll out"...I....

I took my monkey ass home.

Reality sets in. I ain't 21 no got-damn more!! I got kids, a husband, a mortgage, a gigantic fuckin car note!

I battle with wanting to revisit the "old me" all the time. I don't know why really, since I got a really good life now. Maybe its the idea of flirting with what once was? I don't fuckin know.