Thee Trip....

Yo, Japan is unbelievable. I've traveled nationally and internationally all my life and know every geograhic region or international city has it's own unique style and flare but I was not fully prepared for the cultural exposure I would encounter in Japan.

The plane-ride over:
I was complaining to MM why I had to spend almost a thousand dollars for business class tickets. Lets just say I'll never question her again. I parked at my office at JFK then began what turned out to be a 18 hr trip. I've flown to Europe many times so I was use to 7-8 hour flights, but after you pass the 10-hour mark I was starting to feel like ugghh...enuff already. You can only sleep so much, listen to an ipod so much, read so much after a while you just get antsy....and this was in business class. Man, I can't imagine doing this trip in coach. I did find it fascinated though to actually cross the international date line which separates today from tomorrow. We left JFK Monday morning and all of a sudden (well not really all of a sudden) it was Tuesday afternoon. We landed in Tokyo that evening then took another flight for an hour to Osaka. By the time we arrived at her folks house it was Tuesday night and 18 hrs later after leaving JFK. After all the pleasantries I crashed immediately. I woke up in the morning and realized it was Wednesday. I was just Monday morning, it bugged me out a lil bit.


The trip:
Her parents were very nice and spoke surprisingly good English. They have a fairly large home compared to Japanese standards, they also hosted a foreign exchange student from Vegas named Max so that made me feel a lil better. All the things you hear and connect with Japanese culture is for the most part....true, the constantly bowing, immediately taking your shoes off in the vestibule.

I couldn't get past one thing though initially. I saw NO black people...NONE. While we was in Osaka for the first 4-5 days I teased MM and started a daily watch for anyone with dark skin. Day 2...no blacks seen. Day 4...no blacks seen. Thank god when we arrived back in Tokyo there were plenty of blacks....even a couple Jamaican cats which made me smile, LOL...We stayed in a very upscale hotel for the last 4-5 days and it seemed like there were more blacks in the hotel than whites. Yes, it seemed like we were all looking or searching for each other, LOL. That definitely put me in a better comfort zone for the rest of the trip.

Overall Japan is amazing. We get so caught up with America and its short history, one can really forget about the rest of the world. Tokyo is so advanced even beyond NY, so fast moving almost supersonic speed, yet you travel like a half hour away you can be at a Shrine or a Temple thats like 2,000 years old. You feel like your in an atmosphere like 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' or 'The Last Samurai' when you explore the old ruins and temples. When you add that with the language, climate, the fact the they drive on the other side of the street and their steering wheels are on the right side of the car it takes some getting adjusted to. I loved it none the less though. I don't know if I'll ever be back in Japan but I'm so glad MM convinced me to go. She was a wonderful host and made me feel like a champ. Shoo, that just had me thinking... My 3rd day there I had two 80 yr old something Japanese women wanting to touch me and feel me like they had never seen a black person before. Someone said she hadn't seen more than 5 black people in person in her town since the war. Folks we're talking WWII.....Wow!

Today is the day!

It's 4:48am and I am struggling to stay awake but I must. I have a 9:00am flight to Tokyo in a few hours and intentionally wanted to stay awake and by doing so I can hopefully sleep away a good chunk of my upcoming 14 hr flight trip. I haven't blogged in damn near a month so this is a good reason as ever to jot down a few words prior to my departure.

I have been off from work most of last week like everyone else, shoo I even cheated Tuesday and Weds by working from home (hardly working). Man, I love that. My Thanksgiving was quiet but really nice. MM cooked and we invited 2 of my boys and their significant other's over then my cousin came through. It was very relaxing. Good food, drink conversation and an overall good look just laying around watching football and movies on the plasma all day. So much stuff has been happening but it's so far removed by now its not even worth writing about.

Umm, so last night MM calls me and says she wants to asking me something. She's rambling a lil bit and kinda dancing around the question she wants to ask, then finally spits it out. "When we get to Japan how should I introduce you?" she asks. I say "Uh, what you mean?" She says "Ya' know when my friends and people back home ask who you are what should I say?" I know EXACTLY what she means but play dumb, I say "just introduce me how you've always introduced me up to now, what's the problem?" She says "Okay". Me being the sucker that I am can't let it stay that way and say I understand. I know what your concern is and I what your trying to say. It's her hometown, her friends, her family and colleagues. I tell her whatever suits her best is good with me. I tell her her I want her comfort level to be good (I'm NOT trying to alienate this woman or have her annoyed at me over semantics about what my title will or should be. I ask if she would be comfortable with me saying I'm her boyfriend (I can see the grin through the dayum phone) she says of course, of course, LOL. So good its settled, we'll discuss if the title will stick when we get home I say with a chuckle, LOL. Well, I thought it was funny, but not sure if she did. In all seriousness I've been thinking about it for a good month now. Considering the amount of time we spend together and our conversation frequency I do owe this woman sometype of clarification of where we are and just what the hell we're doing. We say that we'll wait until we get home to clear the air (she's afraid I'll be very unhappy there there and it'll be a disaster). You know me...anything to push that conversation off, so I said okay.

I must say I am very happy with my conversational Japanese (dare I say, LOL). She bought me one of those small pocket size cheat sheet books of Japanese phrases/words for tourists. It's actually pretty good and I've gotten a handle on it and at least understand the premise and the guidelines of the Japanese language. I called my mother to remind her I'm leaving the country today and of course she asks why I'm going so far and the motherly be careful. MM and I go up to Westchester to drop off a plate of food on Friday so she couldn't say too much then but did call me later on Friday night so find out whets really going on with me and MM. Mom even asks about NYL and of course I rush her onto the next topic. She still doesn't know to what extent this woman resorted to in order to have me or keep me to herself....NYL is completely looney if you ask me.

Well, its time to start getting dressed. I'm already packed and almost ready to start my 10 day journey to the Far East. A lil nervous about what lays ahead but definitely looking forward to it.

Time is whinding down...

I'm really just enjoying the morning today; I have always loved Sunday mornings especially today when we got an extra hour worth of sleep. MM and I watched our favorite show, CBS Sunday Morning, walked down to our local fruit/veg grocer to pick up some breakfast items and now she is in the kitchen making us a big ole breakfast and I'm in the living room lounging around just being lazy. I have so much job-related work to do but I don't want to even think about that right now, just wanna enjoy the beautiful vibe, morning and weather. When it comes to both work and leisure things are getting closer.

I'm my line of work this is always the busiest time of year for HR. All the changes, adjustments, implementations for the following year are always rolled out around this time leading up to the end of the year. So right now I'm dealing with 2007 medical benefits, contractual changes and pay increases for the union workers, region-wide employee survey results (how the employees feel about the yellow & red) and last and most important year end bonuses. Since my area is the largest in the country (headcount/population) you know who has the most work as usual. I have been so buried with work that I've unconsciously let other prospective and more lucrative opportunities go by the wayside.

I don't really know how these headhunters/agencies actually get peoples names and contacts but I've been getting flooded for the last 4-6 months now. During my all important thinking and meditation time while driving and in the shower I've come to terms in what my dilemma is, which was always obvious. I want the money all these other companies are willing to offer me but I don't want to leave the job I have now. I enjoy my job, my company and all the convenience and perks it provides. I love the freedom and the fact that as long as I don't have to have a face to face meeting or conferences with anyone I can work from anywhere including my own bed. It's not even about the proverbial punching a clock but the freedom to what I want, when I want and how I want as long as the work gets done. My brother says I'm an idiot for leaving $30-40K on the table and a better title so he asks (which is a good question) "at what dollar amount would you be considered reckless not to take an offer?". I say I want the money badly but don't want to leave to get it and I've never cared about a title. I believe that a person's lifestyle isn't truly change until its at least a immediate $40K+ increase. Being in HR, I've at times, offered to adjust a person's salary in lieu of a hefty salary increase so titles are bogus to me. I know some of you find out a co-worker's title and say "this person is a ???", odds are they're probably not; they just have a bloated title. So that HR Director position in Los Angeles, I'm probably not gonna follow through, shit I ain't even following through on local offers much less one across the country even though it's definitely the money I wanted and needed. My mother always asks me what the hell am I doing with my money and why I am always complaining with a six-figure salary-stop wasting your money. I tell her it's not like you think but she knows me like a book as I'm sure all mothers do. Even though I have a mortgage, child support and the other regular bills like everyone else I'm sure its my lifestyle that does me in the most.

Now with that said, what I'm I excited about the most right now? My trip to Japan later this month. A $900 dollar ticket (I can hear my mama now, LOL) but I think it'll be well worth it. Since the trip is right around Thanksgiving I'll have about two weeks straight off from work with about 9-10 days of it in Tokyo. That's all MM and I talk about lately our plans and daily activities once we arrive. I know once the time does arrive I'll be super burnt out so I'll be more than ready.

My breakfast is ready so I'm off one and all......

Yo, I love The Bronx

The Boogie Down, the BX, The Boogie or the plain ole X, I realized on this last trip that I really love this goddamn borough. It's just like a sibling, you can beat up on them all you want or call them a piece of shit, but.....let somebody else try to pull that mess. It's on! The Bronx is the same way for me, yeah it maybe a dump sometimes but only people who live here can say that shit......No outsiders!

Anyways, I was in Chicago all week on business and just came back tonight. Fascinating city Chicago is and I always enjoy going there especially this time of year. Fall is my favorite time of year anyway so where ever I go Imma be happy. Well some fellow HR employees of the Yellow & Red was also in Chicago like I was for an intensive labor training session to go over what the company is planning to do strategically in late 2007 in regards to the entire country's union workforce. The company tried to beat us in the head talking bout "we were specially chosen for this session....yeah right". But you can't beat going to Chicago with all expenses paid therefore I was in. So we are pretty much all hanging out getting to know each other, we've always spoken and e-mailed each other before but have never actually meet in person until this trip. Over dinner and drinks we all go into our individual backgrounds (none work backgrounds) so one guy's from Cleveland, another's from Baltimore/DC area, the third person who is a woman is from So. Florida and of course me, I'm from NY, the BX.

Well as I talk about my non-work background faces start to crunch up and make faces when I talk about my neighborhood. Since we all make approximately the same money which is decent(actually I make more than all of them) they all wonder WHY I chose to live in The Bronx. "Is it like we hear on TV? Isn't it rough there?". I respond "SE DC is still in 2006 a crack infested dump". "Half of Cleveland looks like it needs to be blown up. There is a reason why people call Cleveland the "mistake by the lake" and depending on where you go in Miami trust me everything ain't all what it's cracked up to be. My folks live in the suburbs of the NY City, but more importantly I've always loved the Bronx and its proximity to the city and everything else that's important to me commute-wise. These people and most outsiders probably still think of The Bronx in the 'South Bronx' concept of the mid-70's, graffiti on subways cars like its still 'Fort Apache' or 'The Warriors' era or something. Them days been gone! I begin to tell them about The Bronx since I'm an amateur history buff and ironically they seem fascinated or at least enlightened. Ft. Triyon Park, City Island, NY Botanical Gardens, Orchard Beach, Bronx Zoo and of course Yankee Stadium. All these locations are internationally known forget about just here in the US. Although its only one borough of NYC and probably looked at as the stepchild of the city, The Bronx still adds a lot of value to the big picture landscape of NYC.

My fellow co-workers never actually took time to realize that although the borough is in the name the 'Bronx Zoo' is actually in The Bronx and..... that the reason why people call the NY Yankees "The Bronx Bombers" is because Yankee Stadium is located in The Bronx.....Duh!!
Shoo, between me telling them about Harlem and The Bronx, now they wanna come visit. Now after my lil speech lil Ms. Miami wants me to take her to "the barrio" in Spanish Harlem when/if she ever comes with her Cuban ass, LOL. Can't front though she look good but too petite for me. Overall it was cool getting together with co-workers that you only have phone and e-mail relationships with. I enjoyed it.

Jeez, listening to goddamn LA last week, I put my name out there and just as quick this head hunter already has an interview set up for me in Anaheim, CA next week for an HR Directors position with "Limited Brands" for the So. California, Nevada and Arizona territory. I never knew this was the parent company of Victoria Secret, Yankee Candle, The Limited, Henry Bendel, Express and Bath & Body Works. The position is nice and the money is even better. This LA chick is floating right now, she thinks I might move out there....

I just spent an entire blog expressing how much I love The Boogie....how can I leave it?

My better half's arrival from Californ-i-a!

My 'wife' was with me all weekend. We were joined at the hip until she left me again. Damn, I love that woman. I don't use the word stunning often in describing women but I must reserve that word for her. Since the day I met her she's been in my top 3 all-time in regards to quality of women I have been involved with over my lifetime. She may have slipped up to top two this weekend.

So Friday night I'm waiting patiently at JFK for her to arrive in from Long Beach on Jetblue. She arrives a half hour late. I'm looking at her looking up and down the pick-up area outside for me probably wondering where the hell I am. I think to myself, man she is definitely worth the wait. I get out, stand there and look at her. She stops and looks at me. Neither of us says a word, we just grin like crazy at each other, LOL...

Wow, I've missed her a lot and didn't even realize quite how much until we are catching up as we driving in to Harlem to get some food and drinks. Although absolutely gorgeous, Mica's (LA) a typical black chick from Los Angeles who does not want to waste a Friday night in NYC even though she just flew 6 hours from California. LA wants to go to 'Bayou' for dinner but I tell her its not there anymore. X-ray happens to call and tells me he's at Melba's so I take her there instead. The food is great as usual, she has the salmon and I have the shrimp scampi with linguini. As we're catching up and she's giving me my usual tongue lashings for selling her dreams all the time I spend the entire dinner looking at her and thinking to myself how I treating this beautiful woman so badly sometimes.

I worked from home on Thursday so I can clean my place from top to bottom and for once my cleaning skills were recognized when we got home, LOL...She asks if Im finally ready to stop this bullshit once and for all and move to LA or move her here. I've known this woman for years and I am still in awe of her, her beauty and sometimes nervous about how shesays she truly feels about me which can get kind of intense. We fought like an old married couple and made up just as fast. Our Saturday was spend at my mom for a few, Target, Macy's, Home Depot and my usual weekend errands. Saturday night we went to a comedy show off Broadway downtown after dinner; so far everything was going along great. Sunday we went to 'The Den' for brunch and she must of had 8 or 9 mimosa's. They changed up the menu from the last time I was there and it was pretty good. We stuff our bellies and came back to the crib and just got lazy for the rest of the day watching movies and channel surfing.

She made me dinner Sunday night before we watched 'Flavor of Love' and I just basked in her presence for the short time left I had remaining with her. LA was flying out Monday morning back to Cali so of course from the time we woke up Monday we both had that happy/sad feeling. I miss her now that she's gone. I need to re-think what I'm gonna do with her. Her and the other top two candidate 'Cali' I know Im prolly gonna marry one of them and head to the left coast.....but when is the question!

While I was at work Monday, MM asked me if I wanted to see Talib Kweli at the 'Blue Note'... of course I said hell yeah! The last time she took me to the Blue Note we were treated like VIP's and I'm happy to say this time was no different. A quartet was performing that was actually quite good. I'm always happy to see young black men in their 20's doing something really creative. They were really good. Talib comes out towards the end and does 4 songs which I really enjoyed, I'm a huge fan. He did all the songs that I expected him to do and the quartet backed him perfectly.

It's already mid-week and I'm having a great week already. Between MM and LA I'm happy for now and things are coming together on my side venture which seems to be breeming with possibilities and money making potential.

As I said to LA all weekend...."You gotta be in a NY state of mind when you making money"

A good night/bad night all in the same night!

This past work week's been crazy. I had conferences and meetings with my new HR boss along with my other colleagues who report to him also. To make matters worse I've been firing a lot of people lately so this entire week I've doing termination hearings to determine whether I'll let them return to work. People lose their job for the most idiotic reasons but anyway....I was glad it was Friday for obvious reasons. Since last week I've been trying to catch up with my friend...no strike that. For the last month or so I've been trying to do drinks or dinner. We decided to meet in Harlem last night since I was coming from deep in Brooklyn and she was in Westchester.

When she finally did arrive she was looking very nice, definitely easy on the eyes which was a plus. It's always nice to have dinner or drinks with an attractive woman regardless if its sexual or not, even if it's to just enjoy the view. We embraced, greeted each other, had drinks at the bar then after a few moved to a table so she could eat. All very nice, definitely an enjoyable way to spend a Friday evening right after work. We started early so it ended early. My day was long and tense at times considering my schedule for the day and I just wanted to get outta my suit and tie. Ugh...I couldn't have asked this woman for a massage could I?...LOL. Gotta remember, next time we have to start it later so it can go later...LOL

So we kiss and hug goodbye and my blackberry is buzzing like crazy. My boy X-ray is asking where I am because he's been getting calls from yesterday up to just then from a chick I use to deal with NYL. Umm, I actually joked about this in The Den but I'm actually being "stalked" fo real and I don't like it at all. He's telling me she gotta talk to me, it's important, she's sorry, she misses me, she'll do anything, yada, yada, yada...Ugh, instead of thinking bout my friend I just left to contemplate whether I could actually try and make something happen or not I'm dealing with this nonsense. It continues all the way home with him telling me how unstable this chick is since I cut off all ties with her. I get off the elevator and go down the hallway, as I approach my door and I see something stuck on it, a piece of paper. She says I've been home from Pittsburgh for a week yet we haven't spoken and she has to speak to me. There is something I must know about why I left her that I don't know. Ugh!! Bullshit man, but I realize I'll have to speak to her.

Now I'm a lil worried. Mica is finally flying out to see me finally on Friday. Due to my crazy travel schedule for the past month or so since BG left, I've pushed back her trip twice since her original date. After all that I cannot have this chick just popping up when Mica's here from California and creating a scene. She'll be here til Tuesday too so what are the odds? Just my luck that NYL will pop up and get let into the building then start some craziness at my doorstep. So Imma have to see what the hell she wants just to put a stop to this before Friday. I end up calling her and the first thing she wanna do is drive back down and see me face to face. I say no, but spend 30 mins on the phone hearing what she has to say over this whole fiasco we are now in and basically threaten her if she comes to my doorstep again. Damn, how do I get myself in such bullshit anyway. I guess I don't know people as well as I thought I did. I'd never think someone that grown who is attractive and makes over triple what a 'normal' makes with a successful career would resort to such childish behavior when a relationship/situation or whatever you wanna call it goes bad.

My gut is telling me there maybe some fireworks next weekend. Boy I hope I'm wrong.

Thinking about my 9/11/06 travel day!

My mom was making me nervous all weekend. See, I'm in Pittsburgh and have been here all week. I flew in on Monday. When Alex, my admin made my travel plans weeks ago it never even registered what day it happened to be on and mentioned it to my mom in passing as I do when I tell her I'll be outta town for a few days. But as her and Im sure all mothers do, she immediately realized what day it was and basically begged me to drive to Pittsburgh instead of flying for damn near the entire weekend. So by the time Monday morning came I was very edgy, pre-occupied and uncomfortable. Since I know MM loves "Flavor of Love" I had her come over Sunday night to stay with me just for company, it wasn't even about the sex. Actually I'm glad she did come because we consolidated our plans to go to Japan next month. She is bringing me "home" to hangout with her for a week and to stay at her parents house. Although I'm very excited about the trip, this plan unnerves me a lil but it'll probably be fine. She says her parents are not only comfortable with her lifestyle of dating a black man but since she's well over 30, not married with no kids they're just happy a man would still has strong interest to be with her (can you imagine that?...jeez Asian culture is something else).

So I my mom wakes me up at 6am 9/11/06 to remind me to be careful. While driving to the airport I spend the entire time thinking about my own mortality. Thinking about my life insurance policy I told my mother about the night before and what to do.....god forbid. So I go to my office at the airport, drop my car off and get a ride over to US Airways departure by my security buddy. We don't say two words during the 5 min ride over. LGA is eerily quiet, nobody was in there.....just a handful of people traveling like me. As I went through the check-in process I just kept thinking "what are the odds Imma die today?". NYL, MM, Mica, Erica and a few others calling out of concern didn't help either, but I just kept blocking it out. I am happy to report that I arrived in Pittsburgh at 10:45am on-time and safe. More importantly for my own peace of mind, I did not see even 1 A-rab within the airport limits. They gotta know they'd be idiots to travel Monday of all days.

So I'm in Pittsburgh all week working like a madman. Myself and 3 colleagues had to interview 200 candidates over the course of the week for a brand new hub/facility in PA. Thank god we're almost done now. I'm very excited to be going home tomorrow. I haven't been home much and just enjoy spending time at home even if its doing nothing. I'm meeting my buddies Just and X-ray then we're going to some wine tasting meet & greet in Harlem. I hope I enjoy it. I wanna meet my buddy up in Mt. Vernon, maybe I'll call her when I get back to get that drink.