Quotes Pt 1

By Neil Gamen

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

Calling People...

If there's one thing I can say about my life, it is that it never fails to keep me interested. For example, I work at a program where we call people on behalf of a certain school to a) update their contact information, b) update them on the school's latest news, and most importantly c) solicit them for donations. Now let me just say that we are not the same as telemarketers, and get much better treatment on the phone than telemarketers do. However, we get some strange calls too:

-I called a woman once, and before I could say anything she said, "You're calling from (school)! And no, I would not like to give you any money!" and hung up. I would have been offended if I hadn't been so amazed at her efficiency.

-I called a man once who let me give a 10 minute pitch, gave him ALL the relevant news to his school, asked him for money all three times ($125, $25, and $5, as per our protocol). Just before I hung up he said, "By the way, I never had any intention of giving money. I just wanted to hear your sales pitch; see, I'm in sales, so it's fun to listen to other people's pitches." I wanted to strangle him for wasting time during which I could have called 15 other people.

-I called a man who graduated 57 years ago, and told me that he hadn't been back in 50 years because "it's in a bad part of town" and "there isn't enough parking." I looked at his address; he lives 10 minutes away. Wow.

-My favorite call was to a woman who graduated, and straight out of school adopted a group of 5 children to stop them from being split up, even though it meant putting her life on hold and living with almost no surplus cash. Even so, she donated $5 to her school.

-Two days ago, after a 4 hour shift of work, I was leaving the office and walking towards the bike rack. The rack where I park my bike holds 3 or 4 bikes maximum. When I was about 20 feet away, I saw a tall black man wearing a dirty jacket and a cowboy hat stealing my bike. I ran after him, but he biked away quickly without even noticing me. I found out from the cops that crackheads often come to where my office is to steal bikes and then pawn them for easy money.

Where to begin?

I've started a couple of blogs in the past; I started a comedy blog that got a few visitors, as well as a literary blog, which, well, got me to write a lot. But both times I felt like I was pigeon-holing myself into one niche or another, without the freedom to write about what I want. That's why when I heard Richard Pryor talking about life, and specifically racism, I knew that even though we sometimes think we're alone, we're really not alone at all. This inspired this attempt at blogging.

"Racism is a bitch. I mean white people, you gotta know, it f**ks you up, but what it does to black people is a bitch, because no matter what- it's hard enough being a human being, it's really f*****g hard enough just to be that, right, just to go through everyday life without murdering a motherf****r is hard enough, just to walk through life decent as a person."

So I hope anybody who happens upon this enjoys it. Thank you.