Artistes As Inspiration

Kanye West wants to be water.
I went to bed just ruminating on that. Does that mean he wants to be adaptable according to his surroundings? Solid, liquid or gas? Or maybe he wants to be fluid and fit in any space. Is that the same thing? Anyway, I haven't figured it out.
Also, he said his wife is the Marie Antoinette of our time.
Does anyone know anything flattering about Marie Antoinette?
Because I've been trying to reconcile Kanye's dedication to his wife with him comparing her to a woman who could not relate to her subjects and was ultimately beheaded by them. But then it's Kanye. Maybe he means to say Kim can't relate to her subjects.
Except...
That's not really accurate, is it?
So I'm stumped.
But in a good way. I love figuring things out and this is a puzzle.

Hey guys.
How are you doing?
I know my posts have slowed down a lot. Life comes at you fast sometimes so I've kind of been paddling frantically trying to keep my head above water. It drains your energy; leaves nothing for the writing. I'm eaten up with guilt at how much I'm neglecting my WIPs. Especially the fanfics because I have people actively waiting for updates.
I'm so sorry guys. But I gotta take care of me first.
If you have some patience though, I will get to them.
Did you see Beychella? I just watched it and that's why I got up off my ass to write this. If that almost forty-year-old woman can dance and sing for one hour without being this guy...

Well, I have no excuse for not writing a damn blog post now do I?
Oh, a fun thing happened to me, twice in the last week. I fell off a boda-boda. That's a motorbike used as a transport from place to place for those who don't speak the language. I think it was even the same guy who caused both spills. It's been rainy and wet and I think this guy wasn't that experienced at balancing. So twice this week, I been found myself on the ground.
Covered in mud.
Joints stinging from when I reached out to break my fall with my hands.
Muscle injury, leg swelled.
Not very, just slightly but my body feels so battered.
Normally I'd have tried to play through the pain, get some work done, ignore it. But the new and improved me had a hot bath, took painkillers and aspirin, put my foot up on a pillow and went to bed.
Why did I put take an aspirin and my foot up on a pillow you ask?
Blood clots.
I heard that injuries such as the one I got can cause a blood clot to form and ultimately lead to DVT. Not on my watch though. I ain't dying till I've seen at least one grandchild born and raised. *knocks on wood*

Speaking of triumph over adversity, a story just came out about my number one fave. It details the fact that the record label she was on, Def Jam, considered dropping her together with Taira Marie (sp?) because their numbers weren't doing as well as the studio would have liked. So what Rihanna's manager, named Jordan did was use her money to finance music videos. For three albums basically, Rihanna was financing her own music while her finance managers mismanaged her. She almost went broke. Received minimal support from her label and here she is, the biggest superstar on earth.
People love to say that Rihanna is a record-label-produced star. That she's a puppet whose strings are pulled by others. I'm glad this story has come out to show that that clearly isn't the case. She worked hard, used her own resources, went on tour continuously for practically two years, sued her finance managers and got her money back, did seven albums in seven years while working NON STOP and doing Mac collaborations and River Island Collaborations and Puma and Moschino and finally Fenty Beauty...she did it all.
Through controversy and hateration in the dancerie and plowing every last cent into herself...here she is. Self-belief man.
You can't succeed without it.

I need to go finish at least one of my WIPs. I am not living my full potential y'all.
Are you?
Speaking of full potential, has anyone seen the Janelle Monae video for Pynk? That video made me feel things. Like what have I been doing with my life all this time that I haven't thought to celebrate my vagina in such a way? Clearly, I'm not living my best life. Something has to change.
I'm serious. I can't die before this happens. There has to be a way. Of course it does not escape my notice that Janelle is bi. Us straight girls be singing about 'Boy Bye' and 'You Needed Me' while the queers have Pynk. Something ain't right people. We need to reevaluate. @ me.

Okay so before I go into NSFW zone, I'm gonna stop. Have you visited my author page yet? It's author page April, so do so. You get a lot more choices there than if you just click on Amazon. 

God is A Guy

I just read a post on facebook which stated that a woman who sleeps with ten men is a whore while a man who sleeps with ten women is umm...was it a ninja? Or a hero? Something implying the man is super awesome anyway. The reason being that it takes more effort to have sex with ten women than it does to have sex with ten men.

Then I skimmed through the comments and there was a general celebration from the men, stating that this person had grasped the brass ring when it came to logic and correlation.
And that is when I knew that God is indeed a guy. There is no other reason why he would create such creatures unless he was one of them. This failure in the use of logic is the final proof, the nail in the coffin, the pineapple on the pizza.
God is a man guys.

Just to break down this idiocy for the men reading this and wondering what the problem is...
The definition of a whore is a prostitute that is one who solicits sex for money. She's a streetwalker who sells her body. That's what the dictionary says with emphasis on the pronoun, she. Implying that men cannot be prostitutes although life and fanfic very much demonstrates that they can. Now according to Einstein up there, he's come up with this new equation where a whore = skills in attracting a mate. So if you as a guy attracts ten females to yourself, you are highly skilled and therefore NOT a whore, but if a girl attracts ten males to her, this is so much easier than the inverse, that it makes her a whore.
So if it's easy for you to attract a multitude of men, you're a whore. But if you attract a multitude of women well...high five?

I mean...
It's 2018 people.
If male minds are this incapable of evolution, I have to conclude that the flaw in the design was the creator's fault. He made men in his image right? Women were the afterthought, produced from a rib? They probably developed logic because as the afterthought, they weren't embedded with all original features.
It would explain a lot.
Speaking of things not making sense,  the ebook industry is suffering under the monopoly of Amazon while all other ebook sites screw the pooch. I feel like someone should call a summit. Has anyone else noticed this?

When Being Dark Skinned and Beautiful is an Oxymoron

I am dark skinned and beautiful; I just wanted to start with that disclaimer so that we can get motives and ulterior motives out of the way before we dive in. When I first started school, my kindergarten class was full of white people, Indians, and mixed-race kids. I was the only African and a dark one at that.

Naturally, I had no friends.

The white kids ignored me, the Indians bullied me and the mixed kids tried to stand up for me once in a while. Conditions I guess, were optimum for me to feel like less than nothing. Weirdly enough it had the opposite effect. See, that was when I realized certain things about myself. For example, I was smarter than the average bully. The Indians would circle me and try to poke holes in my confidence by saying things like, “That doesn’t even look like a tree.” When I was drawing a tree in the dirt.

So I’d look up at the ringleader, who did all the talking, and ask, “Who said it was a tree?”

And they’d be stymied. And I would laugh inwardly and feel superior to them.

I was alone all the time, but that just taught me that I was happy in my own company. With the advent of the World Wide Web, I would hear similar stories of bullying and, well I don’t want to call it racism because we’re dealing with preschoolers who were probably just aping their parents; but the experience seems to have traumatized them rather than being a source of empowerment.

Being bullied by people of other races is one thing.

Being put down by people who look like you though, is something else again.

I think my self-esteem didn’t take a beating because I went home to my beautiful mother and my popular sister and I knew that people who looked like me, were worthwhile. I saw myself in my mother and that was stronger than a bunch of silly insecure children trying to make themselves feel better about themselves by trying to put me down.

Later in my school life, we had a visiting white American student; we all tried to make her feel at home and everyone was friendly with her. When she was taking pictures to take back home with her, she arranged us in form of skin color. The light skins in front, and the dark skins at the back. I didn’t even realize until later that that was the criteria but again, it was an ‘other’ applying her messed up standards to my life and not something to lose sleep over.

Because as long as the people around me see me, and value me, and think I am beautiful just as I am, the attitudes and prejudices of outsiders are easier to take.

But what if it’s your own people putting you down for your skin color? Calling you things like ‘nappy-headed’ in a manner meant to imply that it’s an insult and not just a hair type. Calling you ugly because you’re dark skinned.

It not only bothers me because it’s just wrong on so many levels but it also hints at a degree of self-hatred I just can’t fathom. Will Smith said that when he did Bright (the movie) he realized that people just want to feel better about themselves and that’s why we have these divides. So I guess people who put down the dark skins are trying to imply that they’re somehow better because they have less melanin? They should probably go listen to The Story of OJ on repeat for a bit. How can we develop as a people if we are so busy trying to be crabs in a barrel?

Many times we try to find someone who is more vulnerable than we are just so we can say to ourselves that we have our foot on someone’s neck. That there’s someone who’s wig we snatched. That we are better than someone. But are we?

Look at white supremacists for example. They chose Donny to lead because they figured it would ‘show everyone’ how much better the whites do it. It was gonna be the Era Of Whites Only and White Is Right and The Might Of The Empire and all that bullshit. Instead they’ve spent that time looking for other people to blame for Donny’s failures. Trying to surpass Obama by tearing down all he’s built – the fantasy was it would be done to white cheers, the reality is that it’s white tears being shed the most. The Empire is losing because the avatar for the empire is just a petulant self-absorbed immature child who wants people to stroke his ego. It lowers the entire tone of an entire country. An entire country has been reduced to one buffoon. I guess now they know how Zimbabweans have felt for many years.

I didn't even have to look for this meme. It was among the first to show up under the Mugabe tag.

The point is, how long can these white supremacist run from the fact that they thought they would be proved superior and have been shown to be extremely incompetent? I mean who wants to know that about themselves? All that superiority based on inferiority complex has come down to this…

And what happens to the Uncle Ruckuses out there, following blindly after this White is Might philosophy? How much more do they have to bury their heads in the sand? How many mirrors do they avoid? Can you ever look yourself in the eye?

It’s not too late.

It’s not too late to start loving yourself.

It’s never too late for that.

Ask Leo.

You can meet him for free in the Swamp is Full of Mystery.

Stagnation And Fatigue: Just in Time for the Holidays

There is this girl.
She's from Brazil.
She has several Supernatural-named accounts on Tumblr.
She uses them to beg the internet for money on the daily.

Now I'm not trying to poor-shame her or nothin'. God knows I wouldn't have a leg to stand on if I did. But every day for a year or more, she asks every day for money. She outlines her story; how she has no money for food, rent, her mother's medicines, hospital bills, her own hospital bills. It all seems very hopeless. Then I think in October or something her mother died so it was money for the funeral, for the pending hospital bill, for rent...
Then she let slip that she has a sister. She mentioned her in a "Please help me pay rent because I don't want to move in with my sister, I want to do it by myself."
But you're not doing it by yourself. You're asking the internet to do it for you.

So now that we know there's a sister (and a brother-in-law) instead of just her and her poor dead mom, then I wonder, so...how much did you actually have to pay for-
No wait, that's not even it.
My actual problem with her and her relentless posts is...there's never any change in the status. There's never any reports of job interviews, applications for jobs, a future plan that doesn't involve begging the internet to pay for every single expense. That's what bothers me.
There's an African saying about how if someone is carrying you, you make yourself easy to carry. You don't sprawl about in their arms like you're sitting on your throne. You try to take as much of your own weight as you can.
For this girl, nickname gadreelsam, it's all about sitting and crying and hoping that people will feel sorry enough for her to basically become her sugar daddies online. And that's annoying because of the entitlement of it. Because she's not making an effort. She wants to just take take and take, no expiry date, no specific plan for the future. Oh and of course we get the occasional, "I'm losing hope, I want to kill myself" message.

The thing that puzzles me is that in the midst of all this poverty she continues to have an unbroken internet connection, data to spend and a device with which to spend it on. And Tumblr takes so much data, hell I can't afford to be on that site every day. But there she is like clockwork, endlessly reblogging herself...I mean I don't know about Brazil. Maybe the internet is free? Maybe she borrows a laptop from...yeah okay that theory just died an ignominious death.
Why do I continue to follow this girl you ask?
Well, it felt rude to interrupt the whining you know? I was waiting for her to say thanks, guys, I'm good for a bit now before I unfollowed. Well, then I realized it was never gonna end so I just unfollowed.
So anyway I'm not saying she's lying or conning us. I'm not. But I don't even have donor fatigue; I have reading her whining fatigue.

Life is hard.
And when you've reached the end of your rope you should ask for help.
Please.
Ask for help.
But as you ask for help, also try to come up with solutions for your problem. Demonstrate that you are actively trying to get better. I want to cheer you on; I don't want to stay with you in a stagnating pool of self-pity forever, I'm sorry.
Speaking of stagnating, I've kind of been feeling like I'm doing that myself. I feel like I complain, to myself, to people who ask how I am, about how I'm not working as hard as I should. I feel like I'm trying to resolve it, but it's not getting resolved and that makes me feel discouraged. Then I start to feel like, "What's the point anyway?"
But my son wants to go on holiday for Christmas and enter a football tournament and eat lunch at Java...those things cost money mayne.

So that's my point I guess.
Is it a good one?
It certainly gets me up in the morning.
But I'd like my passion back, please.
Somebody make it happen.

The Story That Won First Prize

This is the story which won me that Amazon gift card. The one I'm using to buy anyone who wants one, a copy of any book you want (of mine - see google form at the bottom.) What I like about winning a prize with this story is that it's one of my crazy wacko concepts and frankly I was expecting it to be thrown out without ceremony. If you know me at all you know I like to avoid the beaten path when it comes to storytelling. I'd rather beat on the poison ivy with a machete than take the pig path. Only in my head of course. Real nature has chameleons and snakes...I'm gonna take the road. 

So here it is. 

Comments are love.

Copyright © 2017 by Annemarie Musawale All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Clyde and His Bonnie

Iman wiped his shoes on the rug outside of the bar. Sure, this was some Podunk town in Texas and the way the wind was blowing dust everywhere…his gesture was probably pointless. But that wasn’t the point of wiping his shoes anyway. He wanted these small town hicks to know he was a civilized gentleman with manners. With his dusky skin and curly hair, it was necessary.

The bartender looked up as he walked in, an assessing look in his eye. He looked down again and continued dusting the counter so Iman guessed he’d passed the test. He ambled slowly up to the counter, taking in every aspect of the room.

This was a dying town, a relic of happier days before the assembly plant was outsourced overseas. Iman was probably the first stranger they’d seen in a while.

“Hey. I’ll have whatever’s on tap,” he told the bartender. The man nodded, picking up a relatively clean glass and filling it up. He placed it on the counter and then picked up his rag. He didn’t move away so Iman took it as his cue.

“I hear there’s a poker game here every Wednesday night. Any chance I can get a buy-in?”

The man raised his blue eyes narrowing them at Iman, “whose askin’?”

Iman stuck out his hand, “Name’s Cole Sprouse, looking to make some money to buy me some fuel. Got me a job in Dallas waitin’...”

The bartender looked down at his hand with suspicion before reaching out slowly to shake it. Iman had found on his travels that if a man shook your hand, he was less likely to stab you in the back.

At least, not right away.

“Game’s in the back,” he said.

“Thank you, kind sir. And you are…?” Iman held on to the bartender’s hand, widening his whiskey eyes at him.

“Dan Shumpert,” he said.

“Nice to meet you, Dan,” Iman said with one last vigorous shake. He had some money to make and no time to lose. Deadlines were looming.

∞

Iman was winning steadily and his opponents were getting steadily more upset. He figured it was time to bail and pushed his chair back to stand up.

“Uh, well fellas it’s been-” he began to say.

“One more game,” interrupted the sweaty guy on his right with five o’clock shadow and a dirty wifebeater. Iman had been keeping an eye on him because he seemed like the kind to keep a gun under his chair.

“Uh, you don’t have any collat-” he began to say.

 Wifebeater guy looked up at the beefcake looming in the doorway and said, “Bring her.” he cut in.

Iman sat up straighter. What was going on?

Before he could catch his breath, a young woman was pushed into the room. She had zip ties on her wrists, tying her hands together. Her long silky black hair hung halfway down her back in a greasy curtain and her white dress could have done with a wash. Her black eyes were wide with fear as she stared at Wifebeater guy.

“What’s-” Iman began to ask.

“Your entire stake for the girl,” Wifebeater guy said.

Iman stared at him in shock, “You want to wager…a person?”

Wifebeater guy shrugged, “She’s mine to do with whatever I please. Bet or no bet?”

There was no way he could stand up and walk away. Not when these people were…wagering humans.

“Bet,” he said.

Wifebeater nodded at the dealer who immediately began to shuffle cards. Iman could not stop staring at the girl as she stood shivering behind Wifebeater’s chair. She was tall, maybe five eight, voluptuous with her heavy breasts and ample hips, tiny waist in between. But it was the look in her eyes that drew him again and again. She looked like a trapped tiger, looking for an opening to escape. Iman resolved there and then, that he was going to help her. He looked down at his cards, knowing with even more certainty than before, that losing was not an option.

∞

Iman grabbed the girl’s hand, pulling her out of the Saloon at a run. Wifebeater guy had not been expecting to lose and it had been tricky getting out of there without a fight. He skidded to a halt in front of his Camaro, pushing her in before getting in after her before gunning the engine. He raised a lot of dust himself as put the pedal to the metal. They careened out of town, one eye on the rearview watching for a tail. Iman didn’t stop until he’d put two hundred miles between him and the Podunk town. Too tired to drive anymore, he stopped at a no-tell motel on the side of the road. Parking in the driveway, he turned to the girl.

“So…what’s your name?” he asked.

She looked at him as if she was thinking about pretending not to understand what he said. But at last she sighed and turned to face him.

“Will you untie me if I tell you?” she asked.

Iman jumped. He’d completely forgotten about the zip ties, “Of course I will damn.” He said fishing for the knife he kept in his stocking. He pulled it out holding it toward her. She held out her hands, too trustingly he thought, and let him cut through her restraints.

“So, you going to tell me your name?” he asked.

“It’s Honey,” she said.

Iman smiled at her, looking into her eyes, “It suits you,” he said looking down at her arm, “that’s the exact color of your skin.”

Honey smiled, “And what is your name? Prince Charming?”

Iman smiled, holding out his hand to be shaken, “My name is Iman Bridges. And I am here to rescue you.”

Honey shook his hand with a laugh, “Yeah right. Are you getting us a room or what?”

“Your wish is my command,” Iman said suddenly feeling like he had indeed won the lottery.

Fill in the form with a book of your choice and Merry Christmas. First come, first served.