Earlier today I had planned to come here and blast out some more stress, but something funny happened on the way home from work. The autumn’s crisp breeze refreshed me and I found myself feeling uncharacteristically giddy. It’s now 10:47 and I’m still percolatin’ up in heah. I don’t know where this mood came from but I suspect it’s courtesy of my “girl, you got to give it up and let it go with the flow” internal meter. It happens. Sometimes I just gotta come home, crank up the subwoofer, clean out these pipes and shake a tailfeather or two. It’s been a wonderful 3 hour show. I feel like maybe I could hang with Tina Turner.
Anyway, in my giddiness, I find that I cannot write about the woes that worry me tonight. I can however focus on other things … curiosities and of course, observations in the key that is oh so especially me …
Boys.
Really. Who are they? Ever so often I find myself just plain baffled … they’re like mazes (which reminds me of Labyrinth). Just when you’re like, okay, we cool, damn! Dead end – the conversation wanes, there are no calls, no hangings out, just static.
So you turn around (read: hyper-analyze what you’ve just done), try another corner (you call your girlfriends for second, third … up to seventh opinions), take another path to get to them (employ various tactics: the aloof Grace Kelly; happy, bubbly Barrymore; or the damn exhausting I-am-all-woman-Angelina-with-coyly-arched-eyebrow –and-puckered-lip)
… and it’s just an endless cycle sometimes it seems. You will never know what they are thinking and the reasons vary I think depending on the boy: the ones you deem dumb, well you won’t be able to figure it out because you just have no friggin’ clue where they’re coming from. Left field? Not my favorite place.
The ones you regard as smart are probably just that. Some of them are even slick. These boys will keep you guessing; they will have you (read: let you) think you’ve got things figured out. They answer your questions, their anticipation is great, they even listen, but at some point, you might find yourself thinking, is he two damn steps ahead of me?!
I won’t lie. I don’t regard it as fact, but it’s awfully telling sometimes how my Capricorn self is not thrilled by any loss of control.
At any rate, over the weekend, while trying really hard to not dwell on the fact that my grandmother may very well drive me plum crazy, I dove into this box of my old stuff that my mom trudged up from South Cackylack. Oh my goodness, first of all, the pictures. I’m ashamed of some of them, while others I just think I’m the cutest thing. There are newspaper clippings that I’d forgotten all about – me dribbling, me shooting, me hustling playing defense. Highlights of those glory days when I aspired to be Dawn Staley.
Then there was this old notebook, and in it I found the silliest of things, and it’s what partially inspired this post. Those damn lists (no, not the Chemistry ones) where crazily you and some other girls rank the qualities you most desire in a boy. Oh, the naïveté.
Tall. Dark. Handsome.
Well no damn wonder. What does that even mean?! I asked myself. Dark? Like dark features or mysterious personality? Tall … well no one says, I’d like him to be 5’2” and he’d be just perfect. Handsome. I have no clue where to go with that one.
Somehow funny/possesses sense of humor was fourth. Ri-dunk. Where are my priorities? Anyway, other things that appeared on this list (in no particular order because I wound up tossing it I was so full of that silly self) were just typical of some teenager who wants out of the small town she’s been stuck in … although I give myself bonus points for “worldly.” Yes, I have aspirations.
Anyway, fast forward to the present day where I’m so truly single, and despite acting rather ambivalent about it, I’m really more curious and keen than the venerably vulnerable self can sometimes show.
Don’t we all fancy the idea that our special someone, that soul mate, will be more like a diamond in the rough as opposed to a needle in a haystack? Let me wheedle away some thoughts here …
I like to think that the diamond is more or less stumbled upon. You’re going ‘bout your own business and then, he’s your a-ha moment. But that needle? You got to look for that shit, and sure, seek and ye shall find, but looking is hard, eats up too much time and sucks you into a netherworld of short-sighted focus. How do you know what you’re looking for? What do you look out for? No, the needling through haystacks just seems to be to be asking for trouble because this requires too much filtering.
Okay, so I’m done with that metaphor because in my hyper state I realize that this probably doesn’t make a lot of sense and it’s time to move on before I go way off in metaphor-land. Next up, the one, true love could be like finding a four-leaf clover …
And I never find four-leaf clovers.
But what really matters to me in a guy? I still can’t answer this question because I’m still too prone to make a list, which then means I put words on there that I need to evaluate, like if I say great sense of humor – what qualifies as great?! And humor? Do I want witty repartee, dry and snide remarks, clever quips, raucous center-of-attention, I’ve-got-a-joke humor? Does he just need to be English or something? Ugh.
All digressions aside I will talk about the one thing that today I admitted is a most alluring and stealth quality –
Confidence.
Oooh. Wee. This should be on everyone’s list. It seems so obvious doesn’t it?. Well, duh, of course it does. No one wants someone who’s the opposite. Um, yeah, I’d like him to be an incompetent bastard, indecisive and timid. This will work well for me.
No. I’m not a control freak. I like to have a grip, but I’m not freakish about it.
Besides, being black, I’m aware, my people, we’ve a history with whips, so that’s not really my style.
Today I told Rachel that I considered confidence to be stealth. She questioned that – STEALTH? Yes, stealth I said.
Stealthy, she corrected me; and while that is a word, it sounds funny to me. Whatever.
Confidence doesn’t stun you; arrogance does that. Its subtle, and I really, really like subtle. I especially like it when I find myself curious, surprised or intrigued.
I’ve been swayed (temporarily) by swagger, been blinded by bravado and assaulted by arrogance, but confidence … confidence calms me; it sometimes chides me; it’s a challenge and in flustered moments, a curse; it’s charming, cunning and come hither-y.
I like it. It reminds me that I have goals and aspirations … expectations. It reminds me of the thrill of the chase, and inspires within me a predilection for pursuit …