4 Things I learned during a Power Outage

If the events of a couple of weeks ago proved anything to me its that you never stop learning things about yourself. After dictating my innermost feelings on this blog for the last 5 years: The nonexistent relationship with my father that I'll be regretting well into the winter of my life. My penchant for gratuitous violence that's only rivaled by my ravenous appetite for putting low self esteem having women on the business end of my catalog of perversions. My randomly reluctant admissions that the career asshole who once sodomized a woman in a church does indeed have a heart at times. The catharsis that this blog has provoked had me thinking that I've pretty much figured myself out, the same way one masters a rubix cube or the game pattern to Pac-Man. But the Nor'easter that hit Virginia recently where I was one of the 100,000 that went powerless(for two days), taught me some truly revealing things about yours truly.

I'm an authority on old sitcoms: Besides the binge drinking. Forget about my sordid history of unflinching womanizing. Take away the fact that a handful of women that I've dated would probably characterize me as an "emotional cripple" based on the glory hole in my house that I pressured them to pleasure me through. One of the main reasons why I firmly believe that I'm single is because I'm extraordinarily quirky. I'm a 36 year old black guy who likes skateboarding, Kevin Smith movies, shooting high powered weapons at gun ranges, collecting comic books, has an eternal crush on Janeane Garofalo, and more times than not has purposely made love while Public Enemy's "Welcome to the Terrordome" was playing. But as I found myself in the dark, bored, staring up at a ceiling that was barely visible thanks to the cheap candles that I had just lit after the power cut off - another nerdy trait of mine was thrown into the mix as I spent the next 2 hours singing/humming theme-songs to sitcoms that stopped airing years before I was born. See I was a latchkey kid, so most of my afternoons were spent watching "Hazel", "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis", "Bewitched", "My Three Sons", 'Leave it to Beaver", "The Andy Griffith Show", "The Flying Nun", "Green Acres" "Hogan's Heroes" "The Munsters", "McHale's Navy" "The Courtship Of Eddie's Father", and a shitload of others that I'm purposely excluding for the sole purpose of saving what shred of street credibility that I have left. Shit, no wonder I've been reduced to craigslist companionship.

I admit, talking to myself is pretty creepy: I'm not a bloody savage for Christs sakes, I always make sure that any dialogue that escapes my hairy mandible directed at myself is always done in complete privacy. Its actually a habit that started when I was a kid, talking to yourself is nothing but self preservation when spending inordinate amounts of time alone in your formative years. My mother believes that my penchant for turning an internal dialog into an external one is what has turned me into a somewhat serviceable writer. That said, I never thought it was that much of a problem until I actually heard myself babble on when complete silence served as the backdrop. What turned into a harmless habit that I simply felt was me actively organizing my thoughts became a rather sad display of loneliness from a childless 30-something.

I'm not the human hard-on that I thought I was: Ladies, I may not leave you walking funny come morning time, I may not reach your personal top 5 as far as sexual endurance goes - but rain, sleet, or snow I will be there whenever you need me on some postal carrier shit. I've been deathly ill with the flu, sporting a fever on the verge of putting me into a coma, and I've always found a way to desperately attempt to share my unimpressive black penis with my significant other. One time I had a nasty case of food poisoning where I was throwing up every five minutes and had the audacity to tell my girlfriend, "I just threw up so we have plenty of time to fuck, I'll brush my teeth if you want me to!" A few years ago I got jumped, mercilessly pounded into hamburger meat because I had previously beaten up one of their friends. Later that night with my eyes swollen shut, looking completely unrecognizable, I told my then girlfriend, "You'd better ride me because I'll bleed on you otherwise." I said all of that because during the power outage a young lady that is an acquaintance of mine(local stripper) wanted to come over and get to know me in the biblical sense.(I guess she likes her pre-ejaculation to dollar store candlelight) When I informed her via text message that my street was severely flooded, she quickly responded that she could drive her brother's jacked up truck to thwart said problem - also mentioning that she had some fly fishing boots to help her brave the rest of the way. I was flattered, but too dejected and irritable to even think about sex. I know, me refusing to get my unadulterated fuck on must be a sign of the apocalypse.

I'd commit suicide if I worked in radio: I always knew that listening to the radio was a particularly soul crushing experience, especially if you are a Hip Hop fan - even pedestrian aficionados of two turntables and a microphone can unfortunately hear artists desecrate the artform in Real time. New millennium minstrel acts, monosyllabic wordsmiths satisfied with their unimpressive station in life, sub par artistry of that magnitude had successfully kept me far away from the radio for the better part of a decade. But as I was forced to wade through the proverbial muck and mire of urban radio as I searched for weather updates due to the power outage, I was shocked to find out that it was actually much worse than I imagined. I felt myself losing I.Q points by the moment, so much in fact that I sincerely thought that my motor skills would be lost forever if I listened to the radio for one solitary hour. But I didn't know what was sadder, the state of affairs that music is in nowadays or the radio personalities who I know love real Hip Hop who are being forced to play such monstrosities? Suicide should never be an option, but if I worked at a radio station I'd make sure that they collected my shoe strings and kept me away from sharp items at all times.