I am my own worst enemy. I’m good for placing a land mine and then stepping into it!

My apartment is almost back to 100%….all I need now is the blinds replaced in the living room.

Yesterday was good, not great. I suck at these type things, you have to know. But I’m giving it the old college try…well maybe not the “old college try”, but I’m making an effort. And I’m going to step it up as well! I’m going to win this thing yet! For whatever it’s worth.

K-Ci and Jo Jo have been making the rounds on the laugh circuit. Because I can’t access youtube here at school I won’t post the video’s but rest assured it’s funny especially given the words of the song at the time of the fall.

That said, I still got love for K-Ci and JoJo and even the DeGrate brothers. Jodeci is still my favorite 90’s group and that probably won’t ever change no matter how many times it’s members pass out on stage or get arrested for cocaine abuse!

Anyway, as you can probably tell, there is so much I want to say, but I’m biting my tongue. For now….

Yesterday I was feeling like Miss Sophia when she saw Celie that one time in the grocery store. I was feeling mighty down, mighty low.

I happened upon a guy I know in the second year class who told me that they were doing something to celebrate the end of their block of exams. I figured the odds were pretty good I’d see this one certain someone. As luck would have it, I ran into her after her exam and talked to her briefly. I told her I was feeling down because of Danny’s death and all and she offered condolences and all, and said she might come out later that night.

As time went on I played a little Rock Band with the homie Jabril and drank some vodka gimlets. I called the homie D. Hall to see if he wanted to roll to the thing, and he decided to take a chance with the Killa. Man I’m glad he did.

We went to Bailey’s first and shortly thereafter walked up to the little karaoke spot in Printer’s Alley. Sure enough she was there. We talked and shit. She let me know in no uncertain terms that she knew I was feeling her…and she kept talking to me anyway. We left that spot and had some Waffle House. Last night I actually had fun.

It was just what I needed! Thanks D. Hall and…well I’ll think of a name for her….right now I’m thinking maybe a certain Mint Condition song….we’ll see…..

I’m still all messed up over Danny’s death. It still hasn’t really hit me, but I fear for when it does. I keep trying to make sense of it, even though my logic, training, and good sense tells me that I can’t! I try to see it as God’s will, and that’s fine, but I’ve got to be honest, it does nothing for me.

This year has just been absolute hell on Earth, with one thing after another occuring. Despite protests from those who love me, I can’t help the ever present feeling I feel right now of “what next?” I’m not sure what else can happen, but I don’t want to test God’s will, so I don’t dwell for too long on it.

I don’t want to count or ennumerate my blessings for fear of them being snatched away. I’m not Job, my faith is not so strong, my will is weak….

I should shut up now….

Dear Danny a.k.a. Giles

You had been on my mind the past few weeks. Something, I guess it was God was telling me to just call you and check up on you, and like usual I ignored the voice and kept plugging along with my own selfish activities, because hey, the wedding was coming up and I’d be able to talk to you then.

And then, I get that text and make that call, and like that, the bottom falls out.

I’m not a good friend man….that’s just the bottom line. I wasn’t a good friend to you and now it’s too late to make amends. You’re gone.

I am sitting here thinking about the great times we had in college man. The Emory parties, every single one, I rolled with you! You were one of the wildest cats I knew! You weren’t afraid of anything or anybody and I knew you always had my back! The parties we almost got thrown out of!

I remember when we first met in the summer of 1997. I had no idea at the time I’d be meeting one of the people who would make college so memorable for me!

You were truly one of the nicest, most genuine people I knew.

I wish I had told you these things!

I love you man…and I can’t ever tell you that…and it hurts!

We aren’t supposed to cry and so I’m fighting back tears…I can’t believe you are gone…..

I’ll see you again Danny and the FIRST thing I’ll do is tell you these things!

Rest in peace my friend,

Calvin a.k.a. C. Miles

Right now, the best analogy I can make about how most of the aspects of my life are going right now is a whirlpool. I feel like I’m being sucked downward and I’m spiralling out of control. I’m completely out of control, it’s completely out of my hands.

Oh the occassional raft gets thrown out there, but then the air gets let out. The occassional lifejacket falls near me but then that tears apart. I get a lifebuoy thrown in my general direction and then it breaks.

And then at the bottom of the whirlpool….there is a big fan waiting to chop me up into a million pieces and all I want is for someone to turn the fan off! Just let me mill about aimlessly in the ocean of life for a bit longer. Let me and my friends find some nice island paradise where we can be happy and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

You know sometimes you just have to write when you feel like it….

- I think sometimes I can be a real asshole, like walking around with headphones on to avoid conversations with people that I don’t feel like talking to….sometimes I’m not even listening to anything….

- I think there is no better sound than Chaka Khan on Through The Fire…except maybe Whitney Houston in the last 40 seconds or so of I’m Every Woman….

- I think I’m going to utterly dominate at least 2 of the 4 yahoo fantasy leagues I’m a part of this year….

- I think I’m not lacking for self confidence lately….

- I think these dark times me and the homies are going through right now are a precursor to some fucking fantastic shit….just you wait!

- I think if you are missing my musical notes on Facebook you are missing some of my best writing in a long time….

- I think I need to figure out how to import those bad boys to the home base here….

- I think Facebook needs to stop showing me these former crushes on the “people you might know” list….I don’t wanna see her…or her…or her!!

- I think Usain Bolt is kind of scary….

- I think our gymnasts got robbed….

- I think I watched WAAAAAAAAAY more olympics than I planned….

- I think Jo Fenn and Jade Johnson are my two favorite discoveries of the Olympics….to borrow from the late Bernie Mac….CLAUDE have mercy!

- I think I HATE corny dudes….

- I think Twitter is officially my new addiction….

- I think I shouldn’t get my hopes up too high….

- I think it’s hard not to though….my nose is so wide open….

- I think this is a good place to stop….

I write all these things on here, fully aware that one day at some point it’ll all be held against me. I’m brutally honest and I know that there are some out there who only read it for that purpose and maliciously at that. It’s fine. I sort of see it as stealing their thunder a bit.

I realize my candor probably hurts me most in the realm of my personal relationships, because people know “oh he’s gonna blog about this or that for sure”. Partly, they are correct, I do blog when I’m at my most emotional, I’m trying to get out of that. At first it was a good outlet for me, until…well the bad started to outweigh the good.

Now it seems worse, because like, the stats say people come by, but the comments belie that. At least before I knew who was out there, now it seems like I’m playing to a crowd that’s laughing at me as opposed to with me, like Petey Greene on the Tonight Show in Talk To Me (yeah I just saw that yesterday so it’s on my mind).

I feel like that dream where I go to school naked. How did I even get myself into this situation?

Yesterday was probably the most depressing day in a long time and for once it wasn’t all about me. The Meharry “Family” lost a member but it was more than that.

The 800 pound gorilla in the room was awoken in a big way, and yet, I think he remains unnoticed by those who desperately need to see him. To borrow from another parable, it’s like the blind man and the elephant, the problem is alot bigger than they think it is, they just can’t see it.

Depression is real, and medical students get depressed, I speak from experience. I’ve been lucky enough to have had a few lucky breaks along the way, and still, I’ve had my moments where I’ve wanted to just drop everything and create a whole new life for myself. Suicide was never an option for me, but it is one for others. We need to stop acting like our problems are simple and we should just “man up” and get over them. It’s not that simple, we are talking about people who are locked into a career, people who have invested time at the peak of their lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are some who treat that investment like a whim, who distribute grades and recommendations as if there is not a human being affected by it.

Some people say that a physician should “have tougher skin” and “if they can’t handle rejection/failure they are in the wrong field”. Nothing could be further from the truth. A physician SHOULD be a gentle and sensitive soul. Who else can deal with people at their weakest and lowest points with the compassion and empathy they deserve. Who would want a cold, calculating, and callous doctor working on their case? Surely not me. How can we then say that we should be able to cope with potentially life altering situations like failing classes and major exams by ourselves, to just work them through? This is not to say there are not empathetic individuals here at the college because there are, and I have relied on them in the past, but systematically we have been shown in the most egregious manner that they are not the norm!

On another note, I want to talk about the foolhardy notion that black men don’t kill themselves. I’ve seen first hand in the past 4 years that the myth of suicide being a white person’s phenomenon couldn’t be further from the truth. Suicide is a HUMAN problem. We have to get over the taboo and talk about it. We have got to swallow our pride and learn to TALK to people about our problems. We need to learn not to put up with inferiority because it’s what we are used to. We need to complain more and more importantly act on our complaints.

We all hurt….I thought it was ironic when I came home yesterday from that draining ordeal, that the R.E.M. song I referenced in the title was playing. We’re all hurting right now, but now more than ever we need to hold on.

Today was officially the longest day ever. Just when I thought it was over it kept going and going and going. By the time I got home I was ready to put my foot through a window. I felt like Barry Egan in Punch-Drunk Love.

I need a fucking drink….