Post Another Secret...

After reading The Reason, aren't you ready to share some memories and secrets? Post Secret, Part II!

The rules are as follows:

1. Only anonymous comments are allowed... if you post under a name, it will be deleted.

2. Anything goes, but please avoid anything that would result in a warning from blogger.

3. Don't comment on anyone elses secret- just confess your secret.

4. One secret per comment. Feel free to post multiple comments though.

Shirley Franklin helped ruin this city...

The Atlanta Convention and Visitors bureau announced last month that declines in tourism were so drastic that they were cutting major contributions to employee retirement benefits. This affected one of my friends and made me think about why so many people had stopped flocking to the ATL. While the economy is a fool, the girls still drop coins at the drop of a dime. There is more to it than simply hard times and that something more is Shirley Franklin.

Yep. Shirley Franklin ruined the city of Atlanta. There, I said it. I have been thinking it for a month and I finally got that out.

I know you girls out there love this ole girl and honestly, I do as well (she’s like a big brother or an old uncle). She and those flowers are beat, but she really has a lot to do with our city’s current economic decline.

Franklin and the Atlanta City Council bet the future of our city on condos and real-estate. Beloved clubs and nightlife staples like Club Visions (formerly Club Khia) and Backstreet were forced to shut down so that condos and retail properties could be built. The thinking was that taxes and the revenue generated from the retail shift would take the city to the next level. Instead, it took the city down, and I mean way down.

The lack of sell-out crowds for the ACC championship game two weeks ago was blamed on the economy, but the blame lies with Franklin and elected Atlanta city councilmen.
Why would any spring-breaker have come here? Honestly, why would anyone want to come to a major US city that provides nothing to do in terms of nightlife? We have no French Quarter, no magnificent mile, no Times Square. Atlanta lacks anything even remotely resembling night life.

So thanks, Shirley! Thanks for ruining the downtown of the city I love so dearly.

Get into...

The new bookclub selection- Basketball Jones!

March madness is all around us and you need to indulge it with the brothas well read March book club selection, E. Lynn Harris’ Basketball Jones. The meeting will be held on Saturday, at 4:00 p.m. at a member’s home. Cocktails will be included with discussion so why not make it an afternoon stop as you enjoy the unusually pleasant spring weather? Meetings usually last about an hour.

Email me at foreveratlanta06@yahoo.com if you are interested in this great read and fun chat.

Today Parker and I celebrate two complete years. And while you may not realize it, you guys have been there each blog of the way. I appreciate your time and your support.

We both had long days but ended things with quesadillas and Queer as Folk (what a great show… we got it for Valentine’s Day and watch it together).

The Reason, The Conclusion

When we started 12th grade, Chanel and B.J. had been dating for four years. As crazy as it sounds, they had been a couple since 8th grade. I was often the third wheel or along as a double date (I had girlfriends throughout high school and college).

I realized in 12th grade that I loved B.J. in an inappropriate way and that I was making myself miserable by pining over him. He was spending more and more time with Chanel, leaving me alone and jealous. And that’s when I meet Michael (http://coreyisamess.blogspot.com/2008/09/you-will-always-be-my-first-love.html). As Michael and I started spending time together, I noticed B.J. was the one getting jealous. He did not understand why I was spending so much time with a freshman.

We drifted apart. We graduated. Before we all left for college, a group of us got together and went out. There, at our last time together before going our separate ways, B.J. punched me in the face and gave me a black-eye. He had been picking a fight with me the entire outing and it ended with me punched in the face. I did not hit him back. I remember sitting in our friend’s Sasha’s car, holding my eye, looking out of the window, crying tears that hurt my face and my heart. I promised myself that I would never speak to him again.

And I kept my promise. I started college with a black eye that lasted weeks. I was embarrassed and hurt.

B.J. and Chanel went to college at one of our state’s HBCU’s and I went to our state’s biggest university. We rarely ever saw each other. He never came home (he and his aunt also had some problems) and when he did, I avoided him.

When B.J. was a sophomore in college, he had a mental breakdown. He was actually diagnosed as being bi-polar. I was sad for him. I was hurt when I found out, but in some ways, it made sense considering his behavior during our junior and senior year of high school.

He was institutionalized for six months and during this time, he wrote me several letters. He apologized and asked me to be in his life, to be his friend again. He told me that I had helped his faith and that God had placed us in each other’s lives for life. I did not respond to his letter. I ignored him.

This is hard to admit and this is hard to write.

Chanel asked me to forgive him, to visit him. I told her I would. She and I had remained friends, but I did not keep my word to her. My promise to myself meant more to me then.

B.J. was released and returned to school. He had several other episodes and did not finish college. He did finish barber school. He married Chanel and they have two beautiful children.

And this takes us to the reason for the entries. B.J. and Chanel’s divorce became final on Friday and B.J. called my mother to tell her about the divorce. He cheated and has two other children. They talked about everything and in the course of their conversation he told her why he hit me. He had heard that I was gay and was dating Michael. He told her that the thought of me being gay all those years had made him really mad.

Why he was telling my mother this is beyond me and really made us both angry. My mother knows I am gay and she supports me and my relationship with Parker. We both wonder who else he has told this too. Michael is married now with kids of his own, after all.

I thought about what could motivate him to call my mother and tell her this and I think it is because he needs a friend now. I am sure losing Chanel is hard for him. And I want so badly to make amends for not being there for him years ago when he asked for my forgiveness but I know I will never call him or speak to him. And while it might be the right thing to do, it is not the thing I am going to do and I have to live with this (the fact that I am this kind of person) for the rest of my life.

The Reason, Part Three

B.J. was not gay.

Often, while walking to the lake, we held hands.
Many nights, we would fall asleep on each other or in each other’s arms. Hard and sticky with sweat, we would just be together on the couch on in the bed or on the floor, wrapped inside of each other. Usually when we fell asleep, we would have on gym shorts and no shirts.

B.J. was not gay.

He always smelled sweet, strong, comfortable. He radiated masculinity and sex. He was taller than me, slightly over six feet in high school. He was lighter than me, a reddish brown complexion. He had a square jaw, strong neck, broad shoulders. His hair was reddish, blondish on his body and abdomen. His dick was thick and long when soft. I never saw it any other way. That is how I know.

B.J. was not gay.

While my dick was always hard as a rock whenever I smelled him, saw him, touched him, thought of him, his never was. Not when I laid on him, wrestled him, skinny dipped with him, his dick was never hard.

B.J. was not gay. And he had fallen in love with Chanel the way I had fallen in love with him.

The Reason, Part Two

During the summer before High School, I wrote B.J. every week. He wrote me back twice, but it did not matter. He had beautiful handwriting but did not have beautiful words (he barely made it out of middle school). My mother allowed us to talk on the phone once a week and his father did the same.

In retrospect, those letters and those calls should have sounded so many alarms. However, my mother claims, even to this day, that she never thought I was gay.

Two days before ninth grade started, we got the news that B.J. was coming back to start high school with us.

I was elated.

Throughout high school, we were inseparable. We were leaders in our church’s youth group and choir. We were active in sports (I played football, he excelled at basketball, we both ran track), in extracurricular (SGA) and one could not be seen without the other.

We even worked at the local grocery store together. We shared everything, including underwear (um… I know… but I am going to be honest here… I am sure that is where my underwear fetish started.)

I loved him deeply, in a way that I cannot describe. It was familial but more- a lot more.

And with love comes pain- sometimes as deep and as mad as the love I felt for him. There was a dark side to our friendship. We fought- a lot. We were jealous of each other. We both vied for attention from other people. He knew how to hurt me (emotionally, mentally) more than anyone else. He knew just the right time and just the right way to make me lose it.

Once, in 11th grade, in front of everyone we hung out with, he asked me if I was gay and stopped me cold in my tracks. He had never done that before and it hurt me to my core. I could not believe it. And the fact that he was saying it in front of our friends made it worse in the eyes of others because we were always together.

The problems we had always blew over, though. No fight could keep us apart because we were more than friends- we were brothers.

But I did not want a brother in him. I wanted a lover.

And that is where it all went wrong.

The Reason- Part One

Some stories are really hard to tell. Sometimes its because the story, how it started or ended, makes you ashamed of yourself and what you have done. Sometimes it’s because you want to let the past remain in the past. This is a story that definitely fits all of the above criteria. I am going to tell this, or attempt to, as coherently as possible. I am writing this in one sitting, beginning at 12:21, because I cannot sleep until I get this off my chest, and shared with you- because I owe this part of my life to you. I am going to break the blog entry up into multiple entries so as not to overwhelm you because I want the story read… I think.

Should I begin with the most recent end or the beginning? I think the beginning would be best.

It’s 1992 and I am in middle school. I knew I liked boys because I jerked off to some “boy friend” each night. I had long term crushes and usually was faithful to only one boy at a time. Sometimes it was the tallest, biggest boy in my grade, Gary, or the cutest, prettiest boy in my grade, Devon. It was never, ever Benjamin, or B.J. as everyone called him. B.J. had moved to our small town at the beginning to seventh grade and smelled like old people. He reaked of mothballs, wore lame-tired clothes, and always looked unkempt. His hair was knotty, his skin was an oily disaster, and no one, especially me, wanted to be his friend.

Somehow B.J. managed to weasel his way into every (and I mean every) aspect of my adolescent life.

B.J. attended my church and my mother took an interest in him immediately. She asked me to be his friend (I refused) and told me that he had moved to our town to live with his aunt because his father had just been awarded custody of him. Apparently he was coming from a very bad home life in Detroit. But being the Corey that I was, I felt no sympathy.

A year went on and he and my mother continued to bond and I continued to ignore him. I did this until it became almost impossible to ignore him. He started “liking” my best friend, Chanel. Chanel and I had been best friends since second grade. I loved her. I was the focus of her life and she mine. Suddenly, that all changed because of B.J. This troll had taken the two most important women in my life- my mother and now my best friend. I did not like this guy, not one bit.

Until the summer after eighth grade when I learned he was moving back to Detroit.

He spent the weekend at my house because his Aunt was going out of town. It was his last weekend in town and it was the best weekend of my life (well, it seemed that way.) We stayed up late talking about his life- about being abused and seeing drug deals and seeing people get shot in drive bys. We woke up early and walked to the lake (my family lives by a large lake that is not heavily visited most of the year). We swam and played basketball and wrestled.

When he left, I felt like my world was coming to an end. I had fallen hopelessly, madly in love with the troll who was not a troll any longer. He had learned how to cut his hair (later he would cut mine every weekend- sometimes because I needed it, but most times because it was an excuse for me to see him), had purchased new clothes and Noxzema (with my mother’s help), and had become more popular than me (he was the start guard of our middle school basketball team).

I realized that I would never jerk off to any other boy besides B.J.

Only in Atlanta...

ATLANTA -- Brandon Young of Norcross says he will never forget what happened to him last Tuesday inside a room at the Georgia World Congress Center.
Young, a former convention center employee, told Channel 2 Action News reporter Eric Philips that an officer with the Georgia World Congress Center Police Department crossed the line by inquiring about his sexuality and forcing Young to perform sexual acts while Young was being questioned on suspicion of having a stolen cell phone in his possession.

“I really didn't know what to think, because for one, I was never prepped on anything like that as far as an officer coming on to me,” said Young, who told the officer he was bisexual when questioned.

Young said the officer indicated that if he complied, he would not go to jail.

"It happened so fast it was like very disturbing, going to jail over something you didn't know about," said Young.

Young's attorney, Michael Harper, said his client has DNA evidence and text messages that implicate the officer. Harper also said medical tests showed Young tested positive for oral gonorrhea from the incident.

“The question is if you say no, what will happen, and that's a result he [Young] didn't want to take, so he complied with the officer's request,” said Harper.
Young is set to file a $5 million lawsuit against the state because of the alleged sexual assault.

The officer in question has resigned from the Georgia World Congress Center. Convention center officials said they will not comment, nor would officials with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office because the investigation is ongoing.
“It plays, it constantly plays over again in my head,” said Young.

Some hot smurf action...

So are you missing the 80's?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LArVQOr-vGU

I wish I knew how to upload youtube links.

Where is my Gatorade?

The week was long, my workout was longer and all I wanted was an ice cold bottle of Gatorade. When I went into the store, I could not find my Gatorade. It did not matter what flavor. I would have enjoyed orange or fruit punch or the blue one equally. I just wanted Gatorades. What I got instead was a mini-bottle of Gator piss!

What did they do with my Gatorade?

There are two new brands of Gatorade, G2 and Tiger and they both taste similar to vitamin water. Supposedly the original Gatorade is still in stores although the logo and packaging has changed. I could not find the original in the QuickTrip by the track. All they carried was the Gator Piss.

What was wrong with the original Gatorade? If I wanted Vitamin Water, I would get Vitamin Water. I should not have to play guessing games with my Gatorade.

Why can’t things just stay the way they are supposed to be?

Happy Endings?

Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood

A.

John and Mary fall in love and get married. They both have worthwhile and remunerative jobs which they find stimulating and challenging. They buy a charming house. Real estate values go up. Eventually, when they can afford live-in help, they have two children, to whom they are devoted. The children turn out well. John and Mary have a stimulating and challenging sex life and worthwhile friends. They go on fun vacations together. They retire. They both have hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging. Eventually they die. This is the end of the story.

Snow Day!

Snow day! Finally, I had a full three day weekend to catch up on my work. It felt like the world was getting away from.

I started reading E. Lynn Harris’s newest book, Basketball Jones. Read it with me and my book club… check out www.brothaswellread.com and get ready for a great discussion.

Has anyone heard the Adele CD? It’s not that great. I am a little disappointed, actually. While Chasing Pavements is a great single, the rest of the CD leaves a lot to be desired

Recession means that I also need to recede, especially with new familial demands on my finances. I am DVR’d Oprah today. Hopefully I can gain some new tips on saving. I have already eliminated several of my favorite splurges (Starbucks, Whole Foods, Atlanta Cupcake Factory)… Well, I am in the process of eliminating.

I hate my iphone 3g. It constantly drops calls and freezes.

My grandmother’s cancer is as bad as I feared but I have faith that this will pass (the cancer, not my grandmother). She’s unbelievably strong and I believe in God’s grace. What is meant to be will be. The cancer will never be cured, but it can give us a little vacation with radiation. Again, I have faith.

I made lasagna on Sunday. Last week Thirsty took me to the DeKalb Farmer’s Market and now I am in absolute love.

For Valentine’s Day, I bought Parker the first season of Queer as Folk. We are enjoying each episode.