All or Nothing

Undoubtedly you've seen the new episode of Red Table Talk. Its probably gonna be the most watched episode of the series simply because people love mucene (gossip). Any chance to get into people's business right?

I wasn't intending on watching it because there is such a thing as knowing too much about a bunch of essentially strangers. But my friend texted me about it and I saw that Colton Haynes tweeted about it; how helpful it was to him etc and the cat of my curiosity was definitely dead.

So I watched it.

And then I read the comments because I am addicted to reading how brain dead people can be. I long ago gave up on ever seeing a comment I could nod at and say 'how insightful.' People are just so caught up in their own heads and their worldview that they can't see in an objective way; they can only subjectively twist what they see to fit their own fears and issues. 

For me, what I saw, was that it is possible.

I have long harbored this concept of what I would like in a relationship. The kind of communion and honesty and total giving and acceptance. I called it all or nothing. 

I have long been resigned to nothing because finding 'all' has seemed all but impossible beyond fictional characters like Jamie and Claire.

But Will and Jada found it.

Granted it took twenty years and a whole hell of a lot of pain and suffering but they did it. And even with those twenty years it took, there was still a commitment to and value for the relationship.

In my experience, I can't even date someone without them already trying to change who I am.

"Oh, Annemarie you read too much."

"Stop working so much and cook me food."

"You can keep your dreadlocks but only because they look nice."

"You shouldn't dress like that at your age."

And on. and on. and on. 

I just want to be free to be me and accepted as such. No, not just accepted, loved for it.

Even my son who should know better tries to tell me to tone it down, make other people comfortable in my presence. I told him to take me or leave me, I'm not changing for him or anybody.

You see, I scare people sometimes. Too bold, too blunt, too outspoken. I tried for many years to cover up that part of me. To only show the amiable, smiling, harmless me. But then as the fucks I gave slowly dissipated and my need to be liked disappeared, I found that I was not ready to give up any part of me. 

I think this is the beginning of self-actualization.

The relationships that I write about, all have some aspect of this idea - take me as I am. And that's why the characters are flawed and yet the love is true. I'm a secret romantic.

So what I learned from that episode is what I already knew; the only way to be happy in a relationship is to know and accept yourself and be willing to know and accept the other person, just as they are. And if you know you can't do it, just say so and leave.

So if there is someone out there, who relates to this message and feels ready to embark on that journey with me...well...

Just remember its all or nothing.

Oh So You WRITING Writing?

Heyyy!
It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you...
Sorry, sorry. I have my own mirror bitch. She sneaks into my writing sometimes.
Undoubtedly this sounds like gibberish to you if you don't watch Insecure. So let me explain; mirror bitch is your reflection with whom you share all sorts of affirmations including rapping if that's your thing. Usually, mine consists of lectures and dancing.

Well, anyway...
I haven't just been ignoring you out of laziness or meanness or neglect. I have actually been super-focused on several kinds of writing; which made finding the mental energy to write you the kind of blog posts you deserve, hard. I'm gonna tell you all about them and maybe they will help you on your own writing journeys if you have one, or your life journeys as well. Those are important too.
First of all, it was my birthday last week. I'm now officially forty-four.
Yes.
You read right.
I'm 44.
I'm writing it many times so I can begin to believe it.
I don't know what I thought 44 would feel like but I know this ain't it. For one thing, aside from the maybe increase in aches, pains, and that I can actually see grey hairs on my head; I feel just the same as I did when I was 24. And by just the same, I mean I don't feel like an adult yet...
Yeah, it's true. I'm middle-aged and still struggling to adult. I was going to write that my outlook is the same, and I don't feel wiser but that's not true. I can look back and see my journey and it's progression.
When I was younger, I was in a lot of pain, all the time.
Emotional pain, not the annoying, inexplicable physical pains I experience now.
I was angry at how 'the world had treated me'. All I wanted to do was be left alone and just get on with it and raise my child. I didn't understand why bad things kept happening to me. A lot of that is chronicled in Single Motherhood Unplugged and if you read that you know it's a river of pain and horror.
I read it the other day/year/whatever when I was transferring my titles to a new home and I was so glad that I didn't even recognize that girl that used to be me. I'm grateful to her though. Without her, I would not be.
So yeah, there has been growth.
There has been development.
Yet I still feel that I am just on the cusp of understanding who I am. Of getting to know who is the real me.
Do you watch Red Table Talk? Jada Pinkett Smith has become my guru on how to listen to yourself and navigate this thing called life. And as I listen to her realize things, I, in turn, come to realize that I am in a better place than even she is in some ways. Not all mind you, she's taught me a lot that I still hadn't grasped. Especially when it comes to sons and their mothers and their stepmothers.
It's a bit mind-boggling to tell you the truth. I read through the comments after each episode and come to realize how much a lot of people are still in that place that I have put behind me. It makes me so thankful...and also a bit smug.

Gratitude, honesty and not suffering fools gladly is the mantra that I live by.
Moving on swiftly...
I've been looking more and more into other markets for writing. It's great, putting out your work on ebook retail sites and waiting for readers to find them.
Really great.
Especially with Amazon's ever-changing algorithms and other shady practices that keep being exposed. In spite of how great it is, I thought that I would expand my out-of-the-box thinking to include things inside-the-box such as answering calls for submission. From flash fiction to niche stories, I've been compiling and submitting to magazines et al, because getting an entity to pay for your story is good for your street cred. It's also another source of income which I never sneeze at. Having good street cred is good for ALL your stories and so that's what I'm cultivating now.
I actually finished Cinderella By Any Other Name.
Yeah! Imagine.
It's so good. It made me cry. I was triggeredT. I submitted it to a magazine so we'll see how that goes. Fingers crossed for me?
A blog named Worthing is going to publish Sixes of One next month. I will be sure to link you on the day.
I also participated in this year's Wincest Big Bang for the Supernatural fandom for the first time. It was a weird experience in that I was probably the only black person there and very definitely the only African. I could see how different they treated me like maybe I was a lost chimpanzee that needed to be protected but obviously had no clue what was for its own good. I don't even think they realized their little patronizings.
The mod was very nice to me. Nice like you treat the 'special' kid in class. I thought that I just might be seeing what I expected to see - given twitter - but I was also doing a Malec Big Bang and a Malec Xmas anthology at the same time. The Shadowhunters fandom is a little more multifaceted, with people really from everywhere on earth.
There was such a hugely tangible difference in the dynamic.
I was just another person in the group. One or two were interested in coming to Kenya and asked me some questions but otherwise, just...general camaraderie. Anyway, I rolled my eyes and kept it moving.
Both of my Big Bangs are now up. You can read the Wincest here and Malec here.

I also entered my book In Search of Paradise for a novel contest on inkitt. You can read the story here and then leave a review. Honeypies, darlings, sweethearts, I'm asking, in honor of me birfday and turning FORTY-FOUR, please go leave me a review?
Thank you, here's a chocolate.
Muah.

Lastly, I want to end this post with gratitude. Thank you for reading all the way to the end, you're truly the best and I appreciate you. Have a good day.

May I Have Some More?

People can compliment you on your cooking, your writing; whatever creations you make. They can say things like:
"Wow, you're talented."
"That was really good."
"I really enjoyed that."
And they mean it, and they're sincere and you probably believe them half the time. But you know what the greatest compliment a person can give your work is?
"Can I have more?"
It's true for food, movie sequels, and sex. It is most definitely true for stories.
And because a lovely young lady on Facebook asked me this week if I have more of the Ben and Zawadi story (that's what she called it) here is an outtake.
Enjoy.

"Zawadiiii!"
Anders startled awake at the sound of their mother shouting. He blinked a few times, trying to acclimatize to the brightness of the sun, shining through his yellow curtains. There was no response from Zawadi's room, just across from his, and he sighed, slipping out of bed to go shake her awake before their mother decided to do it.
If their mother had to come and find Zawadi, the day would not begin well. He trudged across the darkened hallway and banged on his sister's door.
"Z! Unaitwa," he shouted, telling her she was being called.
He heard some muffled groaning from the other side of the door but not much else.
"Zawadi eh!" his mother called sounding much nearer, "Kuja unisaidie." (come help me)
Anders sighed, deciding to just go down himself and help his mother before everybody's day was ruined. Ever since her father had left, Zawadi had been cold and distant with both of them.
But especially Anders.
She blamed him for their mother throwing her father out.
Thirteen years of doing nothing but drinking mnazi and spending their mother's hard earned money all the while insulting her first born child could not be it. Oh no, it was Anders who made mama chase her baba away!
Anders sighed, shaking his head as dismissed those thoughts. He took a step out the front door to find his mother with her basket of curios, ready to go to the market. He picked up a bag and put it on his head, and gripped another in his hand.
He walked slowly and silently behind his mother as they made their way to the matatu stage. She didn't ask where Zawadi was and he didn't volunteer. They both knew that only time could heal that wound.
They reached the bus stop, Anders' arms aching from the weight of the baskets. He put them both down, standing with his mother as they waited for a matatu to come.
"When you grow up and have your own children," his mother said suddenly, "make sure you will stay with their mother and support her until they grow up."
Anders nodded, his face troubled. He knew his father had gone back to Scandinavia long ago. Now Zawadi's father had left. But...he didn't think he could stay with a woman forever. His eyes slid to his right, where the Akasha boys were hanging out outside their shop like they did every day. There was one, in particular, he was tall and lanky, with light brown eyes and curly soft hair. Anders couldn't help staring every time he passed them. He didn't think he had ever seen anyone so beautiful.
He looked up at his mother, brow furrowed, wondering what she would think if she knew.
Not that he would ever tell her.
Never in a million years.

So in this book, I try to capture the local flavor of life as a Kenyan; although that is not a homogenous experience at all so it's just my interpretation. So there's some Kiswahili mixed in (all of which gets translated if only in the footnotes) and Kenyanisms that other people might wonder at (also check footnotes. My beta was an American so she was really helpful in pointing things out other people might not understand). Yeah, so do get back to me and tell me how I did. I would love to know.
Also, I entered this book in a book contest on inkitt if you wanna like go there and show In Search of Paradise some love.

Trust

A few weeks ago, I decided I needed a new carpet because my old one was getting a little raggedy. I thought about various strategies to get one including fundraising. In fact, that's how I came across the idea of starting a ko-fi page. Nobody wants to give something for nothing huh?
Anyway today, I got a new carpet. Well, not new, new. Just new to me - and all I paid for it was transportation costs.
I put something out there into the universe, believed that I had already received it, and then let it go. Yesterday my sister writes in the group chat, "Anyone who wants a carpet, come collect it."
And I have a carpet.
My next project is, I need a new sofa.
I've followed a few furniture accounts on Instagram, spend some time every day looking at the sofa I want (yeah, it looks like the picture below) and believing that I have already received it. I also updated my ko-fi with my new goal.
I have faith that sooner or later, I shall have my sofa.

Remember that I told you about how things unfold the way they should if you're paying attention? Today was that kind of day. I decided to use a bus instead of a minivan to go to town and they turned into Mbagathi road, the direction I was going, instead of going down Nairobi West like they usually do. It's rare for transport to turn into Mbagathi road after 11am in the morning and it was going on 3pm. So that really made me feel like I should update my bio to Maker of Good Decisions.
Then after I got the carpet, my sister called me a taxify (which is like Uber but allegedly cheaper) but it broke down somewhere along the way so the driver put me in a matatu (PSV) with my carpet and I just like propped it in front of me. My seatmates were very accommodating of me (which is kind of par for the course in my neighborhood but still).
The matatu dropped us off at a petrol station rather than the bus stage and so I dragged my carpet over to the adjoining Pizza Inn and had myself some lunch while I pondered my next move. Just as I was done and searching, a motorcycle (known as a boda-boda) drove in and was filling up his tank. I asked him if he was working and he said yeah. I was thinking that I would ask him to take me to the bus stage but he asked where I live and told me the rate for taking me all the way. Now I've been spilled by a motorbike twice this year but for some reason, I was like, "he looks competent enough."
So I let him take me all the way and we rode up and down these hills with the sun going down and got to witness the most magnificent sunset, with the wind whipping past at speed and nothing between me and the view. Scary and beautiful to say the least.
So I got home, minimal expenditure (except for lunch - but it was clearly part of the process) and a new carpet!

The main point of taking you through my tedious ass story about a carpet is to show you how the universe works to guide you if you let it. We work so hard sometimes, overthinking everything and not really getting anywhere. Worrying ourselves into high blood pressure or ulcers, maybe worse. Yet if we just let go and trust the process, we might find that we get where we need to be by the most scenic, interesting route that can be devised for us. At the end of the day, we would have to declare that, "That was quite a ride!"
It's difficult I know, to let go and let God. It mostly feels like stupidity to trust that all will be well when there's no evidence that this is the case. Hell, my own son has made fun of me for having this attitude. My sisters tell me I live on the edge.
I really don't.
I have come to a place where I have seen over and again that the universe comes through. I have come to a place of trust. I trust myself, I trust that my belief is not misplaced, I trust the process. It seems easy but it's the most difficult thing I've ever learned.

My son is eighteen this year and I can say with utmost truthfulness that he is alive, healthy and well because the universe has watched out for him. So many times I was without recourse; I had no way out. But a way was found. And my work is almost done. So when people ask me, "How can you just trust with no evidence that the universe will come through?"

I point to my living breathing child.

There's the evidence.

This post has been uncommonly heavy I know but I wanted you to know that even when everyone abandons you, you are not alone. So reach out, help is just waiting to take your hand and lead you home. 

Trust and believe my brothers and sisters.

This sermon has been brought to you by Pastor Annamaria. The collection box is to your right. 

Keep that Same Energy, September

September is wildin' out! It's not even a quarter done and already so much shit has happened it's hard to keep track.
I mean not for me personally. My life is puttering along in the most mundane fashion. If I wasn't addicted to Twitter, I would be having a fairly boring existence right now.
Or maybe work-productive. I might have finished my current 4.5k assignment on Perfect Exposure by now. I might have finished part three of my sci-fi story assignment (doubtful). I might have finished editing the Harlequin Romance I'm writing. Or even the wincest big bang...
Social Media is the devil.

So first things first, Cardi B threw a shoe at Nicki Minaj during a fashion week party. It all started long ago when Cardi started breaking records Nicki has never touched and Nicki began subbing her on twitter, liking tweets shading Cardi B and her family, even her daughter (I am always bemused that someone who's brother is a convicted pedophile rapist can have anything bad to say about anyone else's children but here we are).
Now Nicki is a talented rapper but her personality is all passive aggressive, negative, small-minded bullshit. Cardi B is an okay rapper, but her personality is big-hearted, genuine, shoot from the hip type of person. What you see is what you get. So when she saw Nicki at this party, all the resentment she'd been holding back, all the little stings...well, let's say all the chickens came home to roost. Her shiny red heel came off and went flying across the room...at Nicki.

I see posts on twitter from minds still colonized wondering what 'all those white designers will think' now.
Who cares?
It really upsets me when people miss the pertinent things about a story and just go straight to the bullshit. Nicki Minaj has a history of harassment and bullying of anyone she considers to be competition. She and Safaree were truly a match made in heaven with their subbing and passive aggression and underhanded tactics.
Soulmates.
Cardi B is just out here trying to live.
Bullying is not okay. Worrying about 'what people - especially white people - will think is so 1958. Vilifying someone for fighting back when they are bullied is not okay. I don't agree with how she decided to fight back, but I do acknowledge that for Americans, violence is the go-to solution for all their problems.
If it was me and I intended to do physical bodily harm to someone, I would not broadcast it by coming in all brandishing my shoe. Nope, slow and careful, smiling. Then when I'm up close, bitch slap.

Of course, I much prefer to solve my problems with words. Lotsa words. I know a lot of them. And I'm good at using them. But we all play to our strengths right?
Speaking of playing your strengths, the legend that is Serena Williams lost the US Open finals today. It was a fraught time for us all. I didn't watch the match but by all accounts, Naomi Osaka played well.
She might have won anyway, I don't know.
But thanks to a stupid ass umpire, the focus is all on the controversy rather than the match. I don't usually approve of trolling but if I had Carlos Ramos' twitter name, I would so write him a think piece thread about how not to umpire a match.
Just with everything that's been happening in Tennis lately - with the Serena catsuit situation, the French chick penalized for turning her shirt the right way round, and now this - I think the sport is long overdue for an overhaul. Women need to take over management positions, umpires, the works.
The game is biased.
Biased against women.
Biased against women of color.
Biased against Serena Williams specifically...
Fair.
Fairness.
Equity.
Men do not seem to understand the meanings of these words!
Gosh, I am so irked.

Also happening in September, Mac Miller OD'd - may he rest in peace - and people are blaming Ariana for it. I think we have reached a point in society where when something happens we immediately just look for the nearest person to get angry at.
Except for that umpire at the USopen, because that was totally his fault.
It isn't Ariana's fault that Mac Miller is dead. He was taking life-threatening drugs before Ariana met him and she left him because of his addiction. You cannot save people. The only person who can save you is you. So blaming Ariana is not only stupid, it's ignorant and sexist. I don't see y'all trolling Bobby Brown because Whitney died.
Oh, also Bobby Brown's life story came out. I haven't seen it. I watched it on twitter which I suspect was far more entertaining than watching the actual program. Apparently, he was Janet Jackson's side piece. And he married the woman who talked him out of chickening out of marrying Whitney.
oops.
Did I forget to say spoilers?

On the local front, our most revered and wise president decided to add 16% VAT on fuel to pay for all his Chinese loans, and now nothing is affordable. Hustling has consequently been revved up times a thousand since we still have needs. So in addition to everything else, you'll see a blue widget inviting you to buy me a ko-fi on this site. If you enjoy my writing and wish to say "thanks for brightening my day Annemarie," that's how you can do it. No pressure though. I still love you all for reading.

I almost forgot the most important thing that happened this September!
Colin Kaepernick was announced as the face of Nike.
Now I've been with Kap from day one but many of you can only jump on the bandwagon because of corporate endorsement - or is it white people endorsement?
Anyways, this news fills me with so much happiness I can't even tell you. The ad is so inspiring I downloaded it to my phone so I can watch it anytime I'm feeling uninspired or the world becomes particularly ugly.
And y'all do get ugly.
I saw a post reporting that a whole entire Mayor had banned the employees of his local parks and rec from buying or wearing Nike products. It's difficult for me to comprehend that level of...just wrong. So I tried to equate it to the dark days before the post-election crisis and what lengths Kikuyus would go to, to run from the poison of their stance vis a vis the rest of the country. It starts with leadership.
It's people like Colin who shine a little light and provide a direction for anyone seeking not to drown in malevolence.
I salute him.
I salute all you keepers of the light.

Kamikaze

First of all, I loved Revival. Let's just start there. I don't care how many albums it sold. Sometimes people don't appreciate greatness. Doesn't make it any less great.
The thing with Eminem though, you can't listen to him when you have a stick up your ass. You gotta extract that stick, sit back, relax and just...listen.
This is a review of Eminem's surprise album, Kamikaze.

I've been reading some reviews on the blogs versus Twitter. The latter are clearly fans while the former are the stick-up-the-ass people. Imagine complaining about Eminem using non-politically correct language. When has he ever been politically correct?
Never.
That's the correct answer.
But it's 2018 and we're searching desperately every day for something to get upset about. Because that's who we are now.
Eminem is very freeing. He doesn't care about your feelings. Fuck your feelings.

The whole Eminem brand is about being disrespectful.
But that's not all it is. No, not by a long shot. Eminem is about saying it like he sees it. It's about uncomfortable truth. Noone is safe. Not even Eminem.
You might know that I have a hard-on for honesty so naturally, Eminem is really up there in my top five faves. I cannot recommend this album enough. It's classic Eminem. Slim Shady in the house. If you're old enough to understand the jokes, it's also really funny. So you can listen to it for the music, or the lyrics, or the sheer entertainment value of shading everyone.
I like to multitask so I listen for all of the above.
Also, that DYSFUNCTIONAL relationship he has with his wife/girlfriend is always fun to hear/scary as fuck. They are so white trash. No other rapper goes there, just lets you into how crazy a girl can make a guy. But Eminem does - he gives a window into the crazy of what relationships are REALLY like out here in these skreets.
"I love you but I hope you fucking die though," is a lyric that I think we can all relate to.

I had to write this because...well I had to. If you haven't yet listened to Kamikaze, I cannot recommend it enough. Especially if you have some mental health challenge like I do. It's made for us crazies. Hit play and find out that you're not alone.
Have you visited my author page yet?
Why not?
There's the link, click on it.

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.