Ayyyyeeeeee. I hope you all are out there staying safe in all of this Covid madness. Stay safe. Stay indoors. All that jazz. Here I am back at you with another blog post. Since I'm working from home now, I got all this time in the world while I'm not at work to write. Because, hell, I've done everything else I wanted to do. I've painted a room. Made a man cave. Taught my kids gambling (shameless last blog post, go back and read it PLEASE!!!). And I have played a ton of Xbox lately. Again don't judge me. I'm bored. You probably are too. Which is why you're probably reading my blog post. You ain't got shit else to do. Thanks!
As some of you all know, I went to a prep boarding school for nerd kids in Indiana when I was a junior and senior in high school. The Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities. Shout out to the Academy! Love that school! Please support Gifted Education. And well, your boy was a very shy nerd child. And since I was such, I didn't have much swag at all. Like none. I had very few friends and I definitely didn't have any girlfriends before I got to the Academy.
However when I was 16, I had my first girlfriend. She was a white girl named Lisa. And well, let's just say Moms wasn't feeling it. My Dad never really cared who I dated. His only line to me about dating was, "Don't get no one pregnant." Words to live by. However, my Mom though had a few more opinions. I mean, this is the same woman that told me when I was in college that I needed to date and marry a woman from Gary/ NW Indiana. Because women in southern Indiana (and to her, anything south of Valpo was southern Indiana) were slow and stupid. Exact quote.
Anywho. After she found out that I had a white girlfriend. My Mom didn't snap on me. Nah, she ACTED like she was happy for me. She said that of course that little girls would find me attractive because I was her son. I was smart, cute, and funny. I love my Mom. And I miss that woman with every fiber of my being. However...
...my Mom was a a closet asshole.
For Christmas of my junior year. I asked my Mom for (I'm about to date myself real bad here. I'm old. I know.) a VCR for my dorm room. And of course, I wanted some movies to go along with it. When she asked me what I wanted for movies, I told her I wanted some of my favorites. Like Scarface, Goodfellas, Star Wars, etc. And I got the VCR I wanted. And she handed me a box which she had put the movies into and I went back to school.
When I got back to school, I opened the box up and I got the movies I asked for. However, I also got one more movie...
Spike Lee's 1991 movie. Jungle Fever.
Wow Mom. Wow.
For those of you that haven't seen it, Jungle Fever is a good movie. It's not Spike Lee's best movie (that dog fight belongs to Do The Right Thing and/or X, fight me if you wanna name another). However, it is a decent enough tale. But (spoiler alert) it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of interracial dating. I mean a movie made by Spike Lee in 1991 about interracial dating in NYC. Yeah, of course. What can go wrong???
Welp, while I kept doing my thing. I knew that my Mom felt some type of way about it. And I knew that when I had kids, I would probably have to fight the same battles with my kids as well. I've dated Black, White, Hispanic, all kind of women. And I would say that I'm a pretty open minded person. However, it's all fun and games until your daughter starts showing up with Thrasher hoodies.
Which is what happened to Ayanna. And at first, I was like, "Ummm where did these hoodies come from?" I didn't buy them. And she said, "Ummm my friends got them for me and traded me." Fair enough. Spidey Sense going off, but not like real real bad. We had just fought a whole war last year over a boy (Again, another shameless blog post plug. For real, go back and read my old shit.) And I really didn't want to fight another war about another boy. Ugh.
But low and behold I found out that she was talking to another boy. So we had a heart to heart conversation about it. And she told me that she was in a better head space than she was last year. She wasn't going to let another boy encourage her to make bad decisions. And she didn't want to tell me about the boy, because, well...he was White.
Even though I felt some type of way, I asked her what his name was. I asked her what school he went to. About his parents. Etc. I reiterated that, while I didn't think that boys were a great venture to be into right now, I wanted her to talk to me if she had any questions or issues. I told her that I didn't care what color the boy was, that all I cared about was that she didn't make the same mistakes that she made last year. She told me that he really was into her. And he even bought her McDonald's and had it delivered by Door Dash. Wow.
We hugged. Then I had a shot of Crown Apple.
I'm trying to keep the door of communication open because I know that she's getting older. And I want her to be able to know that I'm here for her. And I really really don't care what color the boy is. I told her that my wasn't feeling the fact that I was dating White women back in the day. And why she felt like that. That this can be an ugly world with a lot of judgmental and nutty people out there. And dammit, I want to be the umbrella that covers her from the rain of ignorance out there. Sometimes she may get wet, but at least she got me.
My little girl is growing up. And as much as it sucks sometimes, I know she is still my little girl. And after all, I still have my Amanyi who is ten years old and she's not boy crazy yet. And I'll run with that. I still have one little girl in my house who still is my little little girl. And then...
...the last thing Ayanna said was...
"Daddy, Amanyi is too scared to tell you, but...she needs sports bras."
Fuck.
Read and discuss.
P.S.---Shout out to Nick. I want to some McDonald's via Door Dash too playa!