Me and my hangups...

Just like many or you all out there, I, LadyLee have some crazy hangups (idiosyncracies), things that completely irk me about myself, other people, etc. Things that just bother me to no end.

Now, one of the most consistent hangups I have is that I hate calling people. I mean, I hate bothering people. I really have to gear myself up to call people. And it takes a lot to do that. If I call you up, I've probably have been thinking about it for several hours, sometimes a couple of days.

So I get in much trouble with my friends for not calling them. They usually have to call me. This is understand.

That's bad, I know. I may not call you often, but know that I'm thinking of you.

I often think of the root of any of my issues, where it all started or came from.

And it all started a LONG time ago with my best friend LadyTee.

Even though she's been my best friend for over 25 years, I do NOT call her too late at night after she's gone to bed.

But this idiosyncracy I have started with her. It is deeply rooted in something that went down between myself and LadyTee over 25 years ago...

~wavy, wavy fuzzy lines, yanking your behind back to the days of old~

I'm not sure how old we were, and what year it was. LadyTee is 2 years older than me, so I would think that I was 12 and she was 14 years-old. We'd gotten into the habit of spending the night at each other's house at least once a month on the weekends. And one thing the two of us would do was fight sleep to stay up and watch late night videos and music shows. (That's when music videos were really getting popular).

Anyway, something special was going down this one Saturday night.

Michael Jackson was gonna be on Solid Gold.

You remember Solid Gold. It was the awfully cheesy music show that use to come on on Saturday nights in the eighties, hosted by Dionne Warrick, Marylin McCoo, and other folks. You remember the Solid Gold Dancers, don't you?




Well, me and LadyTee lived for that. We loved ourselves some Solid Gold.

The bad thing was that the show came on at 11:30 pm. We had to make ourselves stay up to watch it.

That night that Michael Jackson was to be on, LadyTee's Mama dropped her off at my house to spend the night. We usually watched the shows on TV together, but not that night.

This was IMPORTANT. We loved ourselves some Michael Jackson. We were some insane MJ fans back in the day. We had all the posters, the same jheri curls (LOL!)... We were DOWN for some Michael. (LadyTee later had her son ON Michael Jackson's birthday. If that ain't a fan, I don't know what is).

But LadyTee was sleepy. I was fighting sleep, too. Around 10:oo p.m., LadyTee said.

"Lee, I'ma lay down and take a nap. Wake me up when the show comes on."

"Okay," I said.

"I'm for real, girl, you betta wake me up."

"I'll wake you up. I ain't all that sleepy."

"Alright, now," she said. She was still mumbling how I better wake her up as she got under the covers and finally went to sleep. I remember sitting on the bed next to her, indian style, watching the boring news and trying to stay awake. I remember peering at her curiously. LadyTee sleeps with her eyes half open, and it had always creeped me out.

Finally, the time had come. Solid gold was on. The Solid dancers had come sprinting out onto the stage.

I nudged her with my hand. Then I grabbed her shoulder and shook her hard.

"Tee, wake up, the show is on!"

LadyTee sat up and cussed me out. All I rememeber is:

"You mutha*****, I can't believe you woke me up. Blah, blah,blah, bleep, bleep, bleep."

Man... she went on and on. I just started crying. Right there as she unloaded a string of cuss words on me, calling me every name in the book. She was SO mad at me. I thought you was gonna hit me or something.

She turned over and went back to sleep.

I was distraught. TRAUMITIZED. I think I just turned the television off and went to bed too. I was just too upset to watch Michael Jackson.

The next morning, we sat at the kitchen table, eating breakfast. She acted like nothing happened.

I was still upset. "Why you cuss me out, Tee?" I asked. "You told me to wake you up! Why you go off on me?"

"Lee, I was sleep. Don't mess with me when I'm sleep."

I was still upset. She laughed it off.

And we still discuss this, all these years later. She laughs real hard about it. I give her the hard eye squint, and tell her how wrong she was.

"I'm sorry, Lee! Calm down!"

Funny how we still discuss crazy stuff like that.

And to this day, I don't like waking people up. And that has extrapolated into calling people late at night. I feel HORRIBLE if I call you, and you were asleep. Just HORRIBLE.

Now, LadyTee knows if I call late at night, it is important. I have called crying in the middle of the night over my heart being broken, things like that. She knows if I call late in the midnight hour something is VERY wrong. But otherwise, I have that 10:00 rule.

Don't call peeps past 10 at night. I don't care if you tell me to, I ain't calling.

But I tell you...

That don't keep LadyTee from calling ME up REAL late. I'm talking midnight. Waaay past midnight. I am NOT a night owl, and I'm usually knocked out by 11 o'clock.

But LadyTee loves calling me, as late as possible...

And it is about the most strangest things.

I've had some crazy convos lately. . . one of which was with her, at damn near one o'clock in the morning. . .

To be continued.