Happy New Year!!!!!!

 This has been an amazing/strange year!  I wish you all a happy holiday season (hell, I will just say it....Merry Christmas) and a Happy New Year!

Best wishes as we breathe in 2007... Grab it by the horns and make it yours.

 

For the geek in us all

Being in IT I have to love this..

 

 

 

I am prejudiced

I am going to admit something I have never admitted before.  I am prejudice! Yep me. Who'd a' thunk it. I know this because in the last 2 weeks I have caught myself being so twice. Let's start with the first instance. I was getting on a the subway train when I heard someone running behind me. This being New York City, I continued to get on the train but glanced back to make sure that no one was running after me with a knife, bat golf club bucause this is the big city I am sure that someone has been beaten to death with with a flip-flop. And there he was, a homeless man, disheveled and unclean and carrying loads of bags. By the rustling sound in the bags, I assumed they were filled with homeless mans gold.  To you and me, that's cans with a 5 cent return on each. But for him, it is kind of like black gold or Texas T,  found money in garbage cans. Now this is the part where my prejudices show: I caught myself wondering why was he running. I mean really where the hell does he have to go in a hurry. It's not like he is going to be late getting HOME or to a BUSINESS MEETING! I know that this was just wrong but I thought it. Do I not know something about the homeless? Are they on a tight schedule?  Do they have to be at the park bench at a certin time lest they get the bad bench? I know, I know; I'm going to hell for being observant. I am obviously not privy to the life of a homeless person but I would think it goes like this. Wake up late... beg for cash.. rummage though garbage cans for cans to return, take nap (any place will do), take bottles to the drop off spot, get cash, either do drugs with it or eat - homeless persons choice, take a nap (once again anywhere will do), either from the "itis" or the drugs, catch the people coming home from work and beg for more cash, find place to sleep, and start all over again in the morning. This does not seem like this is a very regimented day to me. It does not lseem like there is anything that can not be done later. So why was he running to get on the train???

Ok.  On the my next prejudice thought. I live in the ghetto and while walking home I saw a gay couple. I know what you are going to say: "Kwaku how could you dislike gays?" But let me finish with the story. I saw this gay couple and I was happy. That's right happy; but not for the reasons you think. I saw this couple and all I could think about was that I was going to get a star-bucks in my neighborhood. I know there is no logic in this association, but I feel that there is some magical unwritten law, held secret by the wizards at StarBucks you know the same ones that will put two stores facing each other. According to these sages more than two openly gay couples in a neighborhood is followed, immediately, by the appearance of a Starbucks .. like over night (tomorrow I am not even making coffee.. I am just going to have a 5 buck Latte). I told myself this is wrong and you should be ashamed of yourself.  But still I am excited about the new Starbucks opening soon.

So there you have it . We all have these preconceived notions about race, sexuality and class. These are normal, even to be expected.  Mine are just a little straner then most.

Ghetto Chicken

yes I call Shenanigans

Alive and Kicking

Hey folks. You probably thought I was dead. I'm not. I just lost my muse. I used to work with a guy who hardly did any work. You all have someone like this at your job. Here’s an example. During the summer, we had early dismissal on Fridays. We were allowed to leave at 2:00 p.m. One day he showed up at 1:45 p.m. NO, REALLY!! That's a whole 15 minute day. Sometimes he would even fall asleep at his desk. Now being a team player I would never bust him to management--but I would let the interns take pictures of him with their camera phones. Children can be so cruel-- the interns ... not me. Why have you never heard about this before? I never blog about people I work with.

When I get upset I get sarcastic ( somewhere an ex-girlfriend is nodding her head). I channeled this negative energy by writing blog entries. But on with my story.

I'm not dead, I'm alive. Although, right now I wish for the former rather than the latter. I'm standing as I write this because I don't want to touch anything in this emergency room. What has befallen your old friend Kwaku? Nothing, folks. I’m not sick; I brought my girlfriend here. She was not feeling well.

I hate this place. The ER is some level of hell yet undiscovered by Dante or mortal man. I have no idea how these hospital shows stay on the air. There is nothing dramatic or remotely funny about the ER. It is a nasty, dirty, and filthy place. Did I say nasty?  Let’s start with the woman coughing and coughing. The kind of cough I have never heard before (and I used to have TB). She coughs so deeply I can hear her soul make the sound of rustling leaves in her chest. Am I supposed to believe that the thin curtain (that does not even go all the way up to the ceiling) separating us is supposed to protect me from her germs? If she has something that is making her cough like this, her germs are going to treat that curtain like the Kool-Aid man treats walls.

This sound becomes the base of a tragic hospital symphony. The rhythm is kept by a man visiting his friend. He sits next to his stretcher eating food from McDonald's and rhythmically sucking his teeth. I have one question: HOW THE HELL IS HE EATING NOW? I’m not even sure I want to be breathing now. He places his fries on a sink ledge so that he can open a package of ketchup. I swear I saw a nurse test a urine sample on that sink less than 10 minutes ago. This is a whole  different kind of golden fries than the man is expecting. Then there is a man who looks like he finished 10 rounds with Mike Tyson AFTER he went man eater. I have never seen an eye swollen shut in real life. I want to ask him how it happened but that would be rude. I have a 50-50 chance it is either a way awesome story or a totally lame one like he tried to stiff his friend on drugs. (We’ve all seen “The Wire.”)  And then there is the beeping, the beeping, the BEEPING. I understand that doctors want to be sure that the patients are alive but the beeping makes me want to kill them. I think nurses who pull the plug on patients really just want a little quiet. I have been here less than three hours and I want to pull the plug. Maybe I can scare them all at once so that their hearts stop and restart in unison. I think shooting a 12 gauge in the air would be too much--but I know it would work.

My favorite musician in this symphony of infections is the soloist three beds down throwing up from his toenails. It slowly builds to a staccato set of heaves (unn, unn , aargh, splosh, aurgh, splosh, aargh). After 20 minutes I would have made the doctors knock me out. Five hours later he is still on his Grateful Dead-length solo (ahhh the dedication to your craft). All this is nothing without the high-pitched wails of  “Ay Dios mio” from an elderly Hispanic woman. They almost begin to sound like Gregorian chants. It’s like a chile cook off. Each woman tries to outdo the other with the exact same ingredients. One emphasizes the "ay" while the other emphasizes the "Dios." And my favorite--she holds the mi in MIO for like 10 minutes.

To make matters worse, It's also free-clinic night. We’ve all heard the free-clinic jokes. Now let me tell you there are people here who need medical help but don't have the money (and that's not funny) and those who clearly look like they're the reason for the free-clinic jokes. Wait, there has just been an announcement that all relatives of patients in section A must leave immediately. OK, where is section A ?  Am I in it? How close is it to me? What the hell is on the loose in section A and can a brother get a hazmat suit? I would settle for the bubble they put John Travolta in (The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, 1976). Man, I must be in love because every fiber of my being is saying, "Get the hell out of this room. You can always get another girlfriend--some of the stuff these people have you can never get rid of."  Am I going to hell for thinking that?

Then a lady that was just wheeled next to me tells her friend that she is done with crack. CRACK…Are there still crack heads? It’s 2006, people. I thought Whitney and Bobby were the last. They put this lady on a nebulizer (a doohickey that helps you breathe). She is comfortably holding it like a crack pipe (once again, The Wire.) I wonder if she is going to use her new lung capacity to do something healthy like jogging. (Stop laughing. It could happen.) Nope, we all know she will just be able to take bigger hits off the crack pipe (it’s puff, puff, give. You're messing up the rotation).

I have just been asked to leave the area after a nurse accompanied by three other hospital workers walks in. The nurse points at the woman on the gurney next to my girlfriend and says proudly in her outside voice that this patient has had constant vaginal bleeding for the last month. After hearing that I think my ears are going to bleed for at least that length of time. As I wait in another part of the ER I see a girl give me the eye. I am not quite sure this has really happened so I look again. Yep, she is giving me the eye. Eww. First of all, I am here with someone. Second, this is the most unromantic place on the planet. Third, she could be here for the free clinic. Keep it movin' sister. Man I just want to go home and wash my eyeballs with Brillo and take a bath in Listerine and bleach. Folks, the moral here is take care of yourself and be careful--not for your health but for no other reason than to stay out of the emergency room.