Stories from Twitter

I have to put my phone in a drawer sometimes because I am easily distracted. I write two lines of work and then I get some notification or decide to check if I have mail or just see if there's a follow-up tweet to some mess on Twitter...I asked myself why I am so much slower now than I used to be at finishing assignments and I realized that it's my phone.
A few years ago, I used to check twitter in the morning when I woke up and then that was it for the day. Now it's like every five minutes.
Ugh.
I need help.

That said, a lot of interesting things happen on Twitter. Why just yesterday, I saw this post a girl had written telling "Hannah from nursing school" to dump her boyfriend because he was boasting about cheating on her with multiple women, since he came to somewhere called Baylor.
Well, not too long after that, "Hannah" retweeted the tweet with a comment, "Update, I dumped him."
Now that is a fully fledged story waiting to be written.
Who is the good samaritan snitch and how did she overhear this conversation?
In my headcanon, Cheater Boyfriend and his friends are sitting in a coffee house. Talking really loudly, being all obnoxious the way boys in groups tend to be. Twitter Snitch is a waitress at the cafe and she happens to be serving them. They've gone all toxic masculinity on her more than once, commenting on the size of her boobs and one of them even slapped her ass. Furthermore, they didn't even leave a tip.
So she's like, "Okay den."
Cheater guy probably didn't even sleep with as many chicks as he claimed. Boys lie, especially to their lil' friends. All exaggerating how much p*ssy they get...it's sad.
And then Hannah read the tweet and part of her wasn't even surprised because she knows deep down that her boyfriend is an asshole. She's maybe been looking for an excuse to dump him and concentrate on her studies. and look at God, answering her prayers...

Speaking of "God" there was another tweet which just made me laugh out loud. News outlets were reporting that Mike Pence seems to think that God is calling him to be a president in waiting. Now just an aside, if he was any other color than white and said that shit they'd have him on psychiatric hold so fast...hearing voices and shit.

Anyways, so an account named "God" retweets one of the news outlets with the comment, "It was a prank call."

He he he...

No?

Tough crowd.

On a more serious note, Africa but mostly East Africa, but mostly Kenya and Uganda have been trying to get musician turned politician, Bobi Wine out of jail. He was arrested I think for winning an election; I'm not sure exactly. Something about stones and cars. I'm old enough to remember when M7 (president of Uganda) overthrew Obote (I think - former president of Uganda) in a coup. And it occurs to me that Uganda has never had a transfer of power that wasn't by a coup. 

It's 2018 and here we still are. 

Anyway, thanks to the noise made on Twitter, M7 had Bobi released on bail. The man could barely walk. He was on crutches and went straight to the hospital. 

Better M7 though because he doesn't pretend to be anything other than what he is. Meanwhile Muigai, Trump, Duterte, Putin...all cut from the same cloth but people still want to pull the wool over their own eyes and make excuses for their evil.

On a happier note, it was Michael Jackson's sixtieth (60!) birthday on August 29th and some idle twitter user decided to reimagine the Thriller video as Ola Ray going on a real date with 'werewolf guy.'

Hilarity ensued.

I wish I could post it all here but I can't. Just take it from me, it was quite hilarious. 

Happy Birthday, Michael!

Do you feel like sometimes we insist on pedestalizing some people to the extent that it isn't even the real person anymore and whatever we heard that they did, there's just this internal shrug and then the allegation is dismissed like it didn't even exist? I feel that way sometimes about people like Michael. Especially with this accusation about Asia Argento sexually abusing a seventeen-year-old boy. Many times the abused becomes an abuser. It's true for Asia and it's probably true for Michael as well. But no matter how many accusations were leveled against him, Michael still remains Michael. It's weird how the mind works. I think it's the same with Trump supporters, he's their god and nothing he does will change that. It also works with God too right? Sometimes you can be mad as fuck at him but still worship him. 

Nuance.

Have a very self-aware weekend.
                                                                                   

Oh, Are You Procrastinating Too?

I have some work to do. I'm not doing it. Instead, I just finished up writing this delectable piece of fanfiction and now I'm writing a blog post.
It's all relevant!
And I do realize that I can't push myself harder than I want to go. However, I can't let my procrastinating ass just do what it wants 24/7. So this blog post, while distracting me from my work is also reminding me to get back to it just as soon as I have vomited my unwanted opinions all over this page.

I've seen ubiquitous posts about how people post happy pictures on IG making everyone else super jealous and envious and insecure about their lives. And I just can't relate because how are you jealous of someone else's pictures?
That's not your life.
Why do you want to live it?
Maybe it's because I grew up in the eighties and nineties. In those long gone days, if someone was taking a picture showing off their clothes or their watch or whatever, guaranteed it was the maid who was wearing her boss' dress/watch/shoes. So to me, it's still a super village thing to do. Taking a pic of a watch like, "See my bling."
"Very nice Petunia, now put it back before your boss comes."
The lifestyles of the rich and famous are so contrived sometimes don't you think? You never see the really rich dudes like Richard Branson showing off their stuff, do you?
Why not?
Because doing that is just tacky. And it's all probably fake stuff anyway.
Even if it's real, so what? Use it to motivate you to get your own if you want it so badly.
All that jealousy you're wasting on them when you could be reading my fanfic for example (link above) or buying one of my books to distract you from your reality is just crazy to me. Did y'all mothers teach you nothing?

Envy is a weird thing. I want to say I've never felt it but I don't want to be a liar. I'm trying to think carefully to see whether I have actually felt such a thing so I can relate to y'all.
Nope.
Never.
I think I'm too self-contained. I live in the real reality where I understand that I can't have someone else's life even if they are not there to live it. So I can't waste time wanting their lives. I can and I have wanted the attention they get.
For example, when I see posts on my WhatsApp groups or social media where someone says, "I've heard this book is great and I'm struggling to read it. This is my sixteenth attempt but I'm determined to finish it coz everyone's reading it."
Or someone is saying, "I'm tired of reading the same old stuff, show me something new." And then proceed to keep reading the same old stuff.
I just want to push my book in front of them and say, "Have you tried this one? I guarantee you, you'll finish it on the first try. Also very unique story."


Yes, when I see that some people are given eleventy five chances because of their name or their fame and I can't because my name is strange and no one knows me, I feel frustration. But not envy. Nope. Because clearly, my books are better. I write original shit, bitch.
(looking at you Cassandra Clare).
I feel like someone might read this and go, "Cor, that Annemarie is so full of herself."
Well of course I am, who else am I supposed to be full of?
Kanye might be wrong about a lot of things but he's not wrong about one thing. You gotta love yourself like Kanye loves Kanye. You gotta believe in yourself so much that self-doubt has no place in your psyche. When you're very busy believing in yourself you seriously have no time to dwell on the superficialities of other people's lives. And so people can post their life with impunity without the danger of having to resort to the #bowwowchallenge or the #kobikiharachallenge to keep up with the imagined Joneses in their lives.
No?

My point is, don't worry, be happy.

Stream of Consciousness Blogging is Educational

I just finished a 6500-word assignment that ideally should have taken me one day to write. Instead, it took me two weeks.
It was that boring.
Writing it was literally, physically depressing. I blame myself because I never like to say no to any assignment but considering how much time this one has taken, as compared to how much I'll earn from it, it wasn't just a waste of time.
It made me go at a serious loss.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to know when an assignment is going to leach your energy and take too much out of you until you start it. Who knew writing about Car Games was so soul destroying?
So here I am; a new lesson learned. Not sure what the lesson is though. Keep away from writing inane articles? Or power through them and write faster? I think it's the former.
I think.
I'm more likely to convince myself to do the latter.
Self-awareness is so important.
I've been feeling like I'm wading underwater, trying to walk forward while the entire weight of the water is working against me. Then just the thought of being under water makes me anxious. And not finishing what I start makes me anxious.
I used to scoff at people who said they suffered from 'anxiety'. I felt like, dude, that's just a normal everyday thing that people have. And that was because I had it and didn't know it wasn't 'normal' to feel like that most of the time. I take so much for granted that is actually abnormal. For example, pain.

When I feel pain, I don't treat it. I ignore it. I assume that it'll go away. I suffer through it because it doesn't occur to me to do something about it until it's affecting my work. Then I take medicine because otherwise, I'll have to stop working. I don't even realize I'm doing it until I take medicine, feel better and wonder, "Why didn't I just do that in the first place?"
African parenting guys. It teaches you to just suffer through that shit. If you can still walk, everything's fine.
Strangely enough, if my son tells me he has a headache, I give him medicine immediately. If it comes back the next day, it's off to the hospital. So different standards; in fact, opposite standards for him and me.
It's weird how wiring works.
I came on here to blow off some 'I"m so happy I finished that damned assignment!" steam with a short story. I ended up streaming my consciousness.
How about I give you an excerpt then from Marcus Devereux? I'd like to hear what you think about me writing from the point of view of a baby.

Alexa? Play Rewind by Sauti Sol

This song has been keeping me going these last few weeks. I don't know what's happening with me.
Depression?
Hormones?
Life is a bitch and then you die?
Any of the above?
None of the above?

I don't know.
I expect a normal amount of bad things have been happening to me and in the world but my persona and my spirit seem to be dwelling a lot on the negative. Also, I'm in that situation where I have work but I haven't yet been paid for it, so I'm broke. Poverty - temporary or permanent - is always depressing.
I'm also writing sci-fi which is my least favorite genre and so I write really slowly. It's frustrating.
On top of all these micro-frustrations, Shadowhunters was canceled for no perceptible reason. I rely on Magnus Bane as an antidepressant. It's a crisis for me to think I might never see a new outfit on him again after 2019. I need for someone to step in and fucking save that show!

None of my playlists are working to lift my mood; it's affecting my ability to work, sleep, and not go off at my child for doing things that are just him.
Example? Yesterday he bought me a coke zero...and then he drank it.
Like...
This is typical behavior but yesterday it just made me so mad. Like what kind of selfish...?!?
But I recognized the overreaction of my reaction and went to bed to fume there rather than engage him. He's been side-eyeing me all day like he's waiting for an explosion, walking on eggshells and I can't even tell him that things are fine because they're not. I never just go to bed without a word. We make a point of 'good night' and 'good morning' and 'how was your days?' around here.
It's going to be okay.
I'm listening to rewind on repeat.
And transferring my thoughts to paper...or whatever we call this. Screen?
Siphoning out my frustration and sprinkling it on all of yous.

I've been seeing a lot of posts on social media about how people don't post their failures on the internet. That's because there are vultures waiting to gather around and pick at your bones if you do. There is an impulse to protect yourself. There is also a curious freedom in letting people know when life is one huge suckage, major.
Don't try this at home folks though. You gotta have world class shock absorbers and an ability not to care what people think. The genuine thing; not the whole 'look at me giving zero fucks' which is actually you giving all the fucks and fronting.
On a happier note, my favorite cousin (yeah okay, cat's out) is in town and we had a nice lunch yesterday. He's one of the few people in the world who I can talk to on a cellular level. Usually, people's walls are up and they only let you in so far and no farther. But when me and him are together, the walls are all down. We can say anything to each other. It's curiously satisfying to have that. It's rare as unicorns.
We were discussing expectations versus reality and how people have all these "shoulds" that they live within, especially when it comes to romantic relationships. People walk into relationships with expectations; they wanna know right away if 'you're serious' and 'do you see this leading to marriage?' There's no room for organic growth anymore. Nothing feels real, it's all manufactured for the consumption of whatever invisible audience we are all performing for.
Most people have forgotten what "real" even feels like.
Oh well...
Add this song to your playlist.

I Got Fired Today

To me processing my emotions is like having my eyes tested. You know at the optician's when they put those giant metal glasses over your eye and tell you to read the letters on the board? And you're squinting, trying to make out if that's an A or a D? That's me when I experience an emotion. I have to squint at it from a distant and try to make out exactly what I'm feeling.

That's what I did this morning when I got a very polite notice from one of my new jobs that they'd decided to let me go. How did I feel about it? Was I surprised? Sad? Relieved? Disappointed? All of the above? I'm not sure yet; still squinting.
See about mid-July, I got all these new gigs falling into my lap at the same time. Which was a relief to be honest because it's always better to have too many than too few. But of course, it's stressful too because you're not only concerned about meeting deadlines but remembering which deadline is which.
So this job that let me go had one of the tightest deadlines and I literally shifted everything around so I could work on it and meet the deadline. The client had a very elaborate outline which nevertheless managed to be quite vague on specifics. Lots of 'they should kiss but no intimate sex' and then 'he says from his point of view and she says from hers' and 'she discovered she's not pregnant' (what? when did they have sex?).
Anyway, so I'm writing. I'm writing. I'm writing...

I send in the first draft and the client is concerned that I'm halfway through and some things haven't happened yet. And she gives me more paragraphs that had things such as
scene
scene
scene
as instructions. (I kid you not).
Well, me wanting to do the best job I can for her, I ask her to please elaborate, maybe in point form so that I can really hone in on the problem. In short, find out what the problem is. I get no reply until 2 hours to the deadline when the project manager asks me to hold off on the project.
I mean, wow. Nine sleepless nights later man...
About a week later after I asked what was going on, the project manager informs me that they decided to let me go.
So you see why I don't know how to feel about it.
Well, being the person I am, I asked for the feedback that got me so summarily dismissed because I always have to know the why of things.
I ask too many questions.
I think that was partly the issue.
Well, according to the client, I was correcting her on her feedback and generally costing her time and money. She didn't see why I couldn't just figure it out instead of asking for more clarification. She felt strongly that I was the problem.
Fair enough.
Once I read that, I understood the problem and I politely asked the project manager to convey my apologies to the client for making her feel corrected and wished them all well.
I'm...I don't know.
Most of me has already moved on but the part of me that always needs answers wants to know how I feel about the whole thing and how I will incorporate this experience in my future endeavors.

It's weird because just after I got that dismissal, one of my other employers sent me a new project. Sometimes I watch my life from afar and try to figure out what the universe is trying to tell me that day.
I think what I'm getting is that in order for you, as an employer, to get the best work out of your employee or vice versa, honesty is key. When I read the client feedback, it was rambling and all over the place. But her complaining email about me to my project manager was clear and succinct, easy to understand. She felt more comfortable expressing herself behind my back than she did, telling me to my face what she needed.
Unfortunately, this is a very common phenomenon in the workplace and I am writing a memoir for someone who experienced the very same thing on a grander scale. It's a very immature attitude I find and one of the things that continue to shock me as an adult. When I was a child, I thought that being grown came with automatic maturity and even after twenty years of adulting, it still blindsides me that this isn't the case.

I think it comes from a place of not being able to give or take honest critique. Many people find it hard to hear the truth and they also, therefore, cannot speak it. And when I say the truth, I'm not talking about being mean. People confuse mean and honest, rude and honest.
Saying things like, "Gosh your books sucks so hard," might be the truth but is also intended to hurt. Contrast with, "Hey I didn't like your book because of A, B and C." that is a critique that is not only honest but also helps the writer to improve. It's genuine, coming from a good place rather than simply immature and mean.
So when I say, 'give an honest critique' I am talking about the latter, not the former and only in 2018 is it necessary to explain honesty.
So I think what I have learned today is, I feel...acceptance of what has happened.
That if I look at myself critically, knowing who I am and how I operate the answer to 'What would you have done differently?' is absolutely nothing. And that is not always a bad thing. Sometimes you're just a bad fit. Instead of trying to squeeze yourself into a space that is not meant for you, better to move on to find the space that is waiting for you.
Life is too short for bullshit people. Keep it moving.

Halt!
I have to a few announcements:
There are two group giveaways taking place on instafreebie this month in which I am participating.
 Summer August Hot Books featuring Child of Destiny and 224 other books and
Other Worldly Creatures - The Craved Fantasy Giveaway featuring In the Shadow of the Styx and 46 other books.
Read, enjoy and for the love of Mike, review, sign up for newsletters and spread the word.
Love you big time.
Happy Sunday!