Christmas Catastrophe

Tell me why someone came to my blog by looking up the words "daughter and mom getting fucked"? People these days...

Anyways, thank you to everyone who reads this. Lurkers, commenters, and e-mailers alike, I want to make love to you all. My blog has really come up in the last two weeks.

Aight, Charles X, what happened on Christmas? We is waitin' n shit.

Chill! OK so Christmas morning I woke up at like 4 AM (I have weird sleeping patterns), and got my daily dose of Roseanne on Nick @ Nite. Then I went to Christmas service at my mom's brokedown church.

1) Isn't there some law against ushers getting the Holy Spirit? Who the hell is supposed to control the hoodlums and jiggly bitches who wanna get the spirit and hit folk and run all around? Ushers, you got to KEEP JANET JACKSON-LIKE CONTROL! You must form a circle with your hands around the niggas speakin' in tongues; you must resist the Spirit.

2) OK since my mom made me go to this dumbass service, shouldn't she compromise a little bit? Damn, I went outside to text message for a little bit and she had to come out there yellin' at me that I'm bein disrespectful to the service. DUH, TRICK, YOU KNOW I DONT LIKE YOUR MIND-CONTROLLING CHURCH! She knows my rep as the rebel in that place, she shoulda known what my behavior would be if she dragged me back.

3) Church choirs who are fuckin' up should not be allowed to touch Kirk Franklin's Christmas album. Period. What were they thinkin' about?

Let me move on. So anyways I'm all in a funk with my mom and everything and thinkin' "damn now that I have the upper hand and I'm mad at her for a good reason, she will have to try to win me back"

WRONG!

She is in her try-to-win-Charles-back phase, when a letter arrives.

Mom: It's from your school!

My heart began thumping like Whitney Houston in an airport security checkpoint. Except I had no husband to blame it on. I stood still, like a deer in headlights, as my my mother stood in the middle of the living room, white envelope in hand.

I knew what was coming...

My heart pounded even louder...

I went into my first semester of college not taking it seriously at all. In high school, I could always rely on my charm to persuade teachers to punch in numbers or inherent knowledge to ace tests. I never studied a day in high school. I don't even know how to study. I only studied the art of manipulation.

Manipulation did serve me well this past semester. However, it wasn't enough to keep me from failing a class. Yes, me, Charles X, genius of all mankind, failed a class. The thing about me is, if I deem something pointless then I'm through with it. It's done. At the time, I planned on running off to NYC, enrolling in film school, starting my life, and saying FUCK YOU to college. Plans changed, perspectives were put into place, and panic ensued. I wasn't payin attention to my CLASSES!

Mom: I bet you know what this is! Your grades!

I lunged towards her violently, snatched the letter away, and ran like a runaway slave. I hadn't ran in years.

My mom runs 30 miles a day.

"Academic probation" it read. Heart thump. Heart pound. Heart stop.

For the past hour, I was placed under the bright lights in a dark basement. Well, it might as well have been those circumstances. My mother decided to be through with me for the day, and commissioned my stepfather to grill me. Good. He's easily manipulated and easy to please.

Come on, Charles, use those skills you learned in all those acting classes you took.

The following speech I delivered will win me my first Emmy. I talked of my spiritual loss, my mental journey, my psychological ruin as I realized that I was being forced into a college career I did not wish to pursue. This was all actual truth, because I can not tell a lie. However, it was still manipulation.

My mother yelled loudly the questions she wanted my stepfather to ask me, knowing I could hear every word and simply respond directly to her. This is a bit of her mother, Bigmama, coming out.

I did more double-talk than George W. Bush at a press conference. I was still in trouble, but my life was spared.

Every year, we record our Christmas present opening on film. They put on their fake smiles - the ones I see them put on in church or at a business meeting- and I put on nothing. I was naked under their stares of disappointment. It felt bad at first.

Until I rememebered I didn't give a shit in the first place.