Weathering The Storm

Whew! The past couple of days has been rough for me. Mother Nature can't seem to make up her mind with this weather. One minute it's hot, then the next, the weather drops the way Destiny's Child did in the video for Get Me Bodied (before Beyonce rolled down the staris in Orlando), and because of this, I was battling a cold for the past 3 days, but I'm doing better Thanks the support of God, Thearflu, tea, lemon flavored chicken broth, Jalopeno Peppers and Papa John's (Hey I was hungry and I was tired of depriving myself from some good ass pizza).
I also had some fun yesterday; I hung out with members of the New Edition Fan club at a rec center in Queens where we danced to their classic songs, and I was able to get the steps, though I wasn't blessed with the skills of dancing, I managed to catch on despite having problems with my knee. We did the routine to Bell-Biv-Devoe's 1991's single "She's Dope", as well as performed each of our favorite routine by the group. I chosed the routine they do while performing their classic and my second favorite song by the group; "Can You Stand The Rain." We also did a routine to their last hit "Hot2Nite" which was hot, tasteful and creative.
I heard about the club while surfing the net back in January and I saw that they were meeting at Red Lobsters for lunch, and I was like 'A great way to meet some new people and do some networking so I braved the cold weather (I don't like being weather that's too cold or too hot) and I met with Susan, the head of the group and meet up along with Jamon, who looks like group member Ricky Bell's younger twin brother, and other members who's been fans since day one. We talked about how the group's music influenced us and how they made an impact on music history despite being ripped off at a young age and being dispected by Puffy who didn't promote their album "One Love" which went gold while his release "Press Play" didn't even reach 500,000 copies (That's what he gets for fucking over NE)
I decided to be a member, but it was hard for me to attend their other events due to family events, but I made it to the BBQ at Susan's house in September and the crew I met in February was happy to see me after 8 months. Yesterday I was the only guy who showed up, and I won the trivia question that Susan asked yesterday.
Afterwards, we went to Applebee's for dinner, (I had a chicken faita platter with a lemon aide and water to fight the cold) and I engaed in some convo (normally I'm very talkative. especially when it comes to entertaiment, but when I'm under the weather and/or around people I'm seeing for the first time, I become shy and I feel them out to see if we can converse, and yesterday the people were cool but my convo was limited due to the cold.)
I arrived home and after fixing something to drink, I spoke to one of my longtime friends and Godson's mother, and we ki-ki on the phone, and after the conversation ended, I started to think about how she cared about my health more than my former church/cult mentor.
As I posted in an earlier post last month, I had mentioned that I was part of a church that was actually a cult where the leaders used the bible as a way to control members. This particular place has congregations all over the world, and they belived that they was the only true church and that the Disciples were the only true christians who were going to heaven, while people attending other demominations were going to hell and we had to save people from eternal damanation. Plus you was given a discipler partner (church mentor) who was supposed to help tend to your spiritual needs, and most of the times things had to be their way or the high way. After being converted, I was given a mentor named Kyle* who seemed like a cool person, and though I valued his advice, his age, and opinions and views of being becoming a bible talk leader caused us to clash and in the end forced me to have hatred for his ass. I recall catching a bad ear infection, and I calling him to inform him that I wouldn't be attending service. Instead of being loving and concern with my health, he was concern with having me at church. "Jesus suffered more pain than you" he said and using reverse psychology he told me "you said you wouldn't let nothing stop you from serving God and you can't miss service unless you're in the hospital with tubes inside of you." That was the first time he used guilt to control me so I went to service and got better that evening. That was the beginning of him control method.
By the end of the fall semester, our relationship began to become more business like. Especially after he met and baptized Phillpe* a Latin student who though was cool, didn't think for himself. He would do everything that Kyle and other leaders would tell him. The first time I saw Kyle's influence was in January 1997. I was home cooking breakfast, and Kyle called me asking me to meet him at school that afternoon. I said I would be there, so I ate my breakfast, got dressed and headed to Brooklyn. I had arrived about 12-15 minutes late and when I told Kyle why I was late, he told me that I wasn't glorying God and he asked Phillpe did he have anything to say? "yeah" Phillpe said. "You should have denined yourself and not ate."
I was shocked. I couldn't belive that he would say that considering the fact that I was living in Harlem, and that Kyle decided to meet with us on short notice (something alot of the leaders would do as another form of control. A year later this day to be exact) I came home from school, suffering from amother ear infection, and this time the infection had spread to both my ears, forcing the school doctor to give me a double dose of anti-biotics to prevent it from becoming worse. About ten that night, Klye called me and wanted me to call people to invite them to bible talk. I told him I would try, and he was persistant. "Come on try" he said and call me back when you done. I got out of bed, got a pad with some numbers, called one person left a message, and after I made that call, I passed out due to the medication and didn't wake up until the next morning. I managed to make it to my history class to get some notes for my upcoming midterm, then I went to the student lounge building to have lunch, and no sooner than I sat down to eat, Kyle, entered and started screaming at me. "I want you to start showing me some respect!" he screamed with Black smoke coming out his ears.
I tried to apologize for not callin him back, but the nigga wasn't hearing it
"I want you to start showing me respect!" he screamed louder.
"You said you was gonna call me back right?" he asked
"Yes, but
"Yeah you should have been a man of word!! I want you to start showing me respect!" he screamed before storming out the building.
I couldn't believe he was being so damn rude and insensitive. He knew damn well I was sick and on heavy medication, and if he didn't hear from me, he should have called and I would have explained to him that I passed out, but he wasn't concerned about that. All he was concened about was trying to please the leaders.
I waited for him to cool off and when I spoke to him 2 days later, he didn't even apologize for his childish behavior. Instead he tried to make me feel guilty by saying 'Be more disciplined."
Turn the clock ahead ten years, and I wound up catching a bad cold. A friend of mine wanted to meet for dinner and when I told him I wasn't be able to meet, he didn't get mad. In fact, he told how to beat the cold by fixing tea with ginger, lemon and honey, while my Godson's mother told to get some theraful and some chicken broth and get lots of rest which I'm still doing while working on this blog.
This past experince made me realize that people who really care about your will look out for you and your well-being. Especially when you're down, and they may not be members of any chruch, they showed me more love and concern that Kyle did 10 years ago.

Songs Playing during this post

Poison
By Bell-Biv-De Voe
Written by Elliot Strate
Produced By Dr. Freeze
# 1 R&B, # 3 Pop

Fairweather Friend
Performed by Johnny Gill
Written by Antonio "L.A." Reid, Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds & Daryl Simmons
Produced by LA Reid & Babyface for LaFace Productions
Co-Produced by Daryl Simmons and Kayo