What the funk?
Yes… I know. It’s the night before Thanksgiving. If I am going to write and publish anything on my website, it should really be about gratitude. Well… or the fact that the American Thanksgiving tradition ultimately glosses over betrayed hospitality, Western colonialism/entitlement/manifest destiny, the genocide of Indigenous Peoples, and racialized historical revisionism… Or I could write about my own family’s holiday practices. Actually, no I can’t. We’re boring. You’re better off going here.
No. Instead… I’m writing because I’m in a funk. Not just a light funk. A pretty major funk. Parliament Funkadelic level funk. Only without the actual band. Or the music. (Yes. I know that I’m from Dayton, Ohio and should really use our hometown legends aka the Ohio Players, but they really shouldn’t be pulled into my madness.)
To be clear, my “funk” has nothing to do whatsoever with the holiday season. This isn’t the “It’s too painful/mixed bag to be around family” bit. The “funk” didn’t hit overnight at the stroke of November. This is something that gradually onset.
I got sloppy about going to Crossfit. (Yes… I know I don’t look like it, but I had actually been doing Crossfit.) I completely gave up any attempt at eating anything remotely healthy. Even now, there is a half-eaten pecan pie from Costco staring at me. No, I didn’t eat the ENTIRE half. Yes, I know Thanksgiving isn’t until tomorrow. Still… It’s there. My practice time at the piano cycled downward. Just working on an arrangement is like pulling teeth. If you look at my social media channels, you probably think I do nothing but take Mom to lunch, buy her yarn, and take her to church. Well… I suppose that isn’t too far off. These days, simple things that should take a few minutes can take hours to get done. It’s not that they are extraordinarily difficult. “Throw away paper cluttering my desk.” Not difficult. The waste basket is within arm’s reach. Still not done.
The most constructive thing I’ve managed to accomplish is to sweep my office floor weekly. I’d show you a picture, but I really need to sweep it. Hmmmm… I guess that kind of negates the “Yeah, I did something!!!” line.
The only things I’ve done with any regularity have been for other folk and I’m even sliding on that one. Granted, most of my current non-productivity has to do with the upper respiratory infection I’ve had for the past week. I feel semi-human now, but I dread going to sleep because I’ll feel terrible waking up… especially when I’m going to begin the day by cooking Thanksgiving dinner.
(Yeah… So to my cousin who listed “Kareem is cooking dinner” in my thread of how to ruin Thanksgiving dinner in four words: Screw you, Asshole. You ain’t brought no mac-and-cheese to the crib.)
(Not that I want your lukewarm runny mac-and-cheese with the overdone pasta. I make some mean mac and cheese myself.)
(And you ain’t getting any of my turkey tetrazzini next week, Bitch.)
(But we still cool, a’ight? Nah… F*** that. I’m ebonically-impaired. It should be “We are still cool. All right?” And “crib” should be “house.” I’m not going to correct the non-word “ain’t” because it is an entrenched part of my hillbilly lexicon.)
(Yeah. I usually reserve the trash talk for my brothers and occasionally my Cousin Keith who is not the cousin who insulted my mad cooking skillz.)
(That “Z” makes me cutting edge, doesn’t it?)
(For the record, I have never actually partaken of my cousin’s mac-and-cheese, so it may actually be decent. It doesn’t change the fact HE AIN’T BROUGHT NONE OVER HERE!!!)
(Any. I meant “any.”)
(Wasn’t I talking about my “funk”?)
If I had to guess, my “funk” is more of an energy crash following my father’s passing. Call it the grieving process. Call it depression. I’m pretty sure I was already depressed to begin with, but even so… For a few months I think I was using everything I was doing to kind of mute the pain. Only… It doesn’t go away. It’s still there. And yeah, I have to deal with it, just like I have to deal with the fallout coming from it. I’m not saying I haven’t been dealing with it. Maybe it is the huge change I haven’t dealt with… or the reality that I really haven’t been “living” for some time.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m just tired of there being a two-thirds-eaten half-eaten pecan pie in the room and not being able to eat it.
Actually, I should really be making healthier food choices than pecan pie, especially given the lack of vanilla ice cream in the house. Whipped cream is okay, but that scoop is the stuff, especially when that pecan pie is warmed up just enough.
Yes. I know. Funk.
Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone.
-TKP
11/22/17