the ghetto test i scored 154

Ghetto Test
If the statement is true add the points in parenthesis to your score.
Scoring is given at the bottom of the test.

1. You've ever used an album cover or old envelope for a dustpan. (5 points)
2. You've ever put foil on your TV antennas to get better reception. (8 points)
3. You've ever had to use pliers to turn your TV on. (7points)
4. You had to come in the house when the street lights came on. (6 points)
5. You had a candy lady in your neighborhood. (5 + 5 extra points if your house was the candy lady)
6. If you can count more than five police cars in your neighborhood on a daily basis. (3 points)
7. If you ever had to pick your own switch or belt. (3 points for each)
8. If you've ever been beaten with an extension cord. (15 points)
9. If you have ever had to walk to or home from school. (2 points)
10. If you've ever passed someone a note asking "Do you like me?" or "Can I have a chance?" check _yes, _no or _maybe. (7 points)
11. If you have ever used dish washing liquid for bubble bath. (9points)
12. If you have ever mixed up some Kool-Aid and the found that you didn't have any sugar. (4 points & add 4 if you put the pitcher in the refrigerator until you got some sugar)
13. If you have ever played any of the following games. (2 points each): (hide and go seek, freeze tag, captain or momma may I?, or red light..yellow light..green light 123!)
14. If your neighborhood had an ice cream man. (2 points + 2 if he rang a bell + 5 if he played R&B)
15. If you remember any of the following candies. (1 point each): cherry clans, lemon heads, Alexander the grape, ring pops, Chico sticks, baked beans, candy cigarettes, powder packs with the white dip stick, big league chew, "Wine" Candy (jolly ranchers), jaw breakers, and candy necklaces.
16. If you refer to Now and Laters candies as "Nighladers". (6 points)
17. If you've ever ran from the police on foot. (5 points + 5 if you got away)
18. If you remember underoos or the Wonder Woman bra and panty set. (6 points + 4 if you owned some)
19. If you've ever had reusable grease in a container on your stove. (5 points)
20. The batteries in your remote control are held in by a piece of tape. (5 points)
21. If you've ever used any of the following for drinking glasses. (3 points each): jelly jars, mayonnaise jars, mason jars, or peanut butter jars.
22. You've ever covered your furniture in plastic. (2 points)
23. The heels of your feet have ever looked like you had been kicking flour. (1point)
24. If you have ever worn any of the following fragrances. (1 point each): Brute, Hai Karate, Jean Nate, Old Spice, Chloe, English Leather, Stetson, Charlie, or Faberge'.
25. You've ever used Tussy. (9 points)
26. You've never been to the dentist. (10 points + 10 if you've never been to the doctor.)
27. You've ever wore clothes with the tag still on them. (4 points)
28. If you're acquainted with someone with a name as follows. (3 points): Kay-Kay, Lee-Lee, Ree-Ree, Ray-Ray, etc.
29. You have ever paged yourself for any reason. (3 points)
30. You've ever worn house shoes outside of the house. (2 points)
31. You add "ED" or "T" to the end of words already in the past tense (for example, Tooked, Light-Skinneded, kilt, ruint, etc). (3 points)
32. You pronounce words like this (1 point for each example you can think of skrimps or strimps, skreet, axe (ask), member (remember), frigerator, etc.
33. You use nem' to describe a certain group of people (for example Craig and nem' or momma and nem'). (6 points)
34. You've ever had a crack across your windshield and never bothered to get it fixed. (3 points)
35. You've ever driven on a donut more than 2 weeks after your flat. (4 points)
36. You've ever asked a perfect stranger to take a picture with you and told your friends it was someone you dated. (3 points)
37. Your child drops his/her pacifier and you sanitize it by sucking it. (7 points)
38. If you've ever ran a race barefoot in the middle of the street at approximately 11 at night. (10 points)
39. You've ever left a social gathering with a plate. (1 point)
40. You leave a restaurant with silverware, sugar, and/or jelly. (8 points)
41. You think "red" is a flavor of Kool-Aid. (4 points)
42. You can't hold a glass because of the length of your nails. (3 points)
43. The gold teeth in your mouth spell words. (8 points)
44. You don't have your own place but your child has a leather coat and a pair of Jordan's. (5 points)
45. If you've ever had to get to the driver's side of the car through the passenger side door. (8 points)
46. You have ever slept in a chair to avoid messing up your hair. (7 points)
47. You constantly hit *69 and ask, "Did you just call here?" (10 points)
48. You won't answer the phone if you don't recognize the number on the caller id box. (7 points)
49. You know a child who can't speak, but can do the "bank-head bounce." (15 points)
50. You think Tupac is still alive. (20 points)

Scoring
0 - 30 - You have enjoyed a nice sheltered life in the suburbs.
31 - 60 - Hood movies have given you a little exposure.
61 - 100 - You may have visited the hood a few times or on weekends.
101 - 130 - You probably spent a few years in the hood, and moved to the suburbs.
131 - 160 - You're the genuine article. You are no stranger to hood life.
161 - 200 - You are definitely, without a doubt an expert on life in the hood.
201+ - Congratulations! You are Ghetto Fabulous!

my cool day

I did a very strange thing today. I returned to the faith I left for dead twenty years ago. I testified to my reasons why I have returned. I stood in front of friends, family, and the faithful and proclaimed my belief in Jesus Christ. I feel surprisingly the same, yet humbled and honored to have professed so much love and trust in front of a room full of people. I hope my story of rebirth helped people grow and get closer to the light I have strived to connect with my entire life. I truly mean that.

My spiritual quest began as a small child when I was three. My grandfather passed away, and my mother told me that he was in heaven. The questions began. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to feel God's grace in everything. And I did for many years to come. Through thick and thin, up and down, God was there for me. Through physical and sexual abuse, God was there for me. Through the chaos of an alcoholic household, God's grace was in me. I pushed through the cold barrier of a terrible pastor to still connect with God.

But the loss of my dear friend Gregory changed everything. I suddenly hated the God that had been in my life all those years. That same God that shielded me from the will of a sick man and a distant, woman suddenly was out to get me.

It was not God. It was never God. I walked away. I chose to depart from the light of God's grace. I chose to make myself the center of the universe, and by doing that, I thought that all of this pain from Gregory's passing was God raining pain on me alone.

Life exists as a kind of kindergarten. No matter how old our souls are, we are still children; governed by emotions that remain disjointed and too powerful to reign in. We can create such beauty, but we can also destroy with nothing more than a thought.

This is why life has a limit. If we were eternal, we would not learn. We would not clear the way for the next crop of souls to make the journey. We would not sense any urgency and rest on our laurels, as unchanging as barnacles. Life is short, as the saying goes. But, just think of how many mistakes we have made so far. Now imagine just ten of those years. How many mistakes? One year. How many? How about a month, a week, or a day? In one day, we make more mistakes than we can count. So the meaning of life, although not written across the sky, must have something to do with learning. We must be gathering knowledge and processing out the dross to make ourselves wise in the way of things. Then, we pass on, hopefully ready for the next step in things.

I have recoiled from the next phase out of a sense of detachment. I am terrified of being alone in a place that is not familiar. I seriously doubt that life has no meaning and that we evaporate, shut down like a computer, and blink out. So then, I ask, what is next? Eternity? Ugh. Who wants to live forever? But we have to realize this: We are not going to be “Alive”. We will be dead, transformed into the spirit. We will not be tied to the maladies of the physical. Our minds will be clear, devoid of the horribly inefficient brain. We will know no fear, no boredom, no want. It will not be an opiate to more easily wharehouse old souls. There will be construction. It is our purpose. Humans build as much as we destroy. We are not just destructive predators. We are amazing artists, poets, scientists, architects, philosophers, mechanics. We are communal and group-oriented. So I know that I will not be alone, and I will be loved by my fellow souls. In a place without the emotions of fear, doubt, anger, and jealousy, how can there be anything but love?

So I sifted through this decades-long existential crisis with rotating bouts of terror and anger. I numbed myself with chemicals to hide away from God. I hid under the rocks of alcohol, but we all know that the rock cried out no hiding place. There is no escape from the inevitable. Kings have imbued mercury to escape death, but we all end up going there in the end. Today, and maybe just for today, I am not afraid. I am honored to be called home to this wonderful place, this warm house full of love and fellowship.

Today is all there is. The past is gone and tomorrow isn't here yet. Cliches exist for a reason. Overuse means that they are accepted as truthful. I must strive to live just for today and do my Lord's will. I am but a humble servant, not the center of it all. I will fail. Miserably. I will be angry, I will be calloused, I will be jealous, gluttonous; I will be all that I strive not to be. But that's the beauty of it. Christ died so I can afford the mistakes. I can make errors without the end of all that I am. I can move through a charmed existence and through the years of my life I can bathe in the light of God's grace. It's free, there for the taking, and oh so wonderful.

I am home. Finally. I have wandered through the wilderness for too long. I am so tired, so worn out, and so very much in need of a respite. I have this respite in Christ. At last, I am free. Thank you for your time and I hope this helped you with your faith. I mean this sincerely: As I try to better myself, I do it not so much for me, I do it so I can help others. This doesn’t' make me a great person or a holy man. This only makes me what I always should have been. I am a human soul that is here to help my brethren achieve the grace that I feel in God's eternal glory.

-sean

se7en days

seven more days and i will be clean for two years.  amazing.  i feel like a new person.  William S. Burroughs said that "Desperation is the raw material of drastic change.  Only those who leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape."  Poor guy.  he went through a hell of a change. he shot his wife in the head while reenacting William Tell.  He was a desperate man that was haunted by Joan's death for the rest of his days.

I seriously feel like i am at a crossroads.  i am SO close to finishing my now-albatross novel.  I am fitting in quickly at work.  i am happy and content with my life on a professional, spiritual, and creative level.  but, i am alone.  i feel alone when i come home at night to a house that a sick woman lives in.  Her needs go before mine, and i fight about it like a spoiled bitch.  i am nasty and cut-throat with her.  i say things to her that no son has a right to say.  but i am resentful that my life is on pause, chained to a distant, cold bitch that has little concern for anything but herself.  I am not married with kids and living in a place of my choosing.  i am stuck here, on the precipice of 40 with nothing but a mom that sucks the life of of me daily.

so how much have i really changed?  how much of the old me is still in here?  maybe it's just hiding.  maybe all this smiling is just a diversion.  how do i know?  most people seem to like me, but they don't know what goes on in my head.  guilt and shame, although no longer a driving force in my life thanks to the steps, still haunt me.  God is much more present in my life now, but i still have those existential fears and the desire to either sleep or hide my life away. 

it takes a lot of energy for me to live through a day.  i have to push all these random thoughts aside and concentrate.  have you ever tried to talk to someone in a wind tunnel?  that's me and the outside world.  then, i have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  that causes anxiety and panic attacks.  i hate driving long distances.  i don't like crowds.  i don't like situations i can't get out of.  i don't like people pointing me out, even if it's good stuff.  attention in the form of conversation is one thing, but i hate being singled out for anything.

then, i have physical pain.  its always there.  i really don't bitch about it much, and i have friends and family with much more, but i was really hurt in that car accident.  i'll never walk right again.  I cant bend down without pain, i can't lift much with my right arm.  so, i have that to navigate through.

ahh, fuck it. i can whine sometimes.   i guess it's just the jitters.  new job, new life.  more to come.  all is good for a change and my dumb addict mind wants to ruin it.  and to think in my teens i romanticized addiction.  that's funny.

is there anybody out there for me?  maybe i blew it when i left Gina.  It was my choice, and it was probably the right thing to do, but it wasn't the most comfortable thing to do.  i have been cast out, all alone in this universe.  i have no one else to distract me from me.  and "Me" is a handful.  i am a cargo cult of Sean.  I am too Sean for Sean.  i have whittled down my ego and i am still left with a forest.  why did i end up this way?  do any of you see how utterly self-centered this whole rant is?  who the fuck am I?  does planet earth revolve around me?  does elmer fudd hunt me?  does don king promote me?  does ellen DeGeneres have straight fantasies about me?  does tom cruise.. never mind that one, does king kong got nothin on me?  do i play goalie for the Devils?  do i pitch for the Yankees?  did i inherit the wind?  no.  i have done nothing of the sort.  i am me and you are you, and since i cannot see the world fully through your eyes, i will only have mine as the default setting of perception.

I want to be better.  in fact, i want to be better than you.  i want to be smarter, more pure, faster, stronger, deadlier, ect.  i want to win every deathmatch, cure every cancer, kill every beiber.  i hate my fat, my bumps, my eyes, my everything.  then i love my everything when you act stupid.  Damn, this is hard.  i would love to part the clouds and call down heaven's lightning on the unjust. but i fear it would hit me too.

but i do hope for the best and i want the best for my fellow humans.  i think we are a good bunch mostly.  i think that most tragedy comes from madness and ignorance.  i know most of my bad stuff has.  well, see you on the other side of 2.  i love you all.  thanks for hearing me rant and may all your brightest wishes come true.

-sean

 

Chords still play for Jackaroo- A poem by Emma

 

Chords still play for Jackaroo;


Though interplanetary fortitude,
Is no consequence of this corral of men,
Who bade goodnight in soft acoustic, as a Carolina wren
Blew smoky harmonies across the glen-
Bidding him fortuity for winter once again.

Now the surliness had left the eyes of every farmhand here,
As they slumped about the fireside, their facelines glinted tears-
Brooding over eerie chimney drifts,
Condemning the irreverence of the European swift,
Who particularly loudly perched November's graveyard shift.

Except,
Perhaps, it's cry sent thrice
Reached Jackaroo, who was enticed
To then postpone his dancing on the stars and suns and spice-
To recur within the cornfield, come to counteract their vice.

By now the anguished farmers with the moonlight overhead
Had sought to drown what they heard as the cry of living dead.
But Jackaroo still laughing flew across the field with mirth,
And passed right through the fire that had blasted him from Earth.

He sucked the bagpipe's wind out, knowing no reason to mourn,
And his trumpets played triumphantly to render him reborn.
The casks of stillborn grape juice playing three sheets to the wind
Broke apart and took off dancing to rejoice the Christ within.

While the Salmonberry Smokehouse will forever be in flames
And the season of Remembering laments a life once claimed,
Jackaroo will still implore you, play no melancholy song,
For as long as flames spit ember, he'll have stars to race along.