I Cannot Finish Saying "I shouldve gone to art schoo.." Without Bursting Into Laughter.

CURRENT RELATIONSHIP STATUS: 

"I should've bought this extremely unflattering sweater in a large instead of a medium..."

or…

CURRENT RELATIONSHIP STATUS:

"I should've bought this extremely unflattering sweater in a color that doesnt make me look like a black smurf (like thats even a thing thats possible)."

orrr…

CURRENT RELATIONSHIP STATUS:

"This sweater makes my farts smell better than yours"

( Whatever floats your boat)

  

  Last night i had a dream that i was packing to go to college. Literally packing to go away to college. My mother all soft and subtle and quietsad and proud. The mini fridge and the cork board that matches the bedskirt all loaded onto the truck (no one in my family owns a truck btw). My brother all excited (he has ADD he kind of gets excited about everything) but sad to be losing his number one rolldawg nonetheless. And me…totally in awe of myself. 

  I mean...I mustve gotten off my ass at some point. Finished that book of "poetry" that I've been writing for the last three years. Finished that jacket i started sewing sophomore year of high school. I mean, I must have a whole collection of shit bitches be wearing. Showin off ass and titties…WITH MY NAME SEWN INTO THE INSEAMS. I must be responsible for a some brand new type of chic-hoochie! To the point where some bourgieous ass art college was like "Zamn. Get that bitch Over here." And I graciously accepted. Because thats a thing that i had in the dream…grace. Whatever the fuck that means.

   Anyway…

 Im packing up my shit. At the last minute of course. Which mean 95% of everything i own has been worn at least twice. And i come across my multicolored feather printed nightdress. And I'm like"college people will want to see my multi-colored-feather-printed-nightdress…college people will love that i HAVE nightdresses…CALL THEM nightdresses!" And am throughly prepared to rock this shit. 

  

SADLY

    In my very real life there is little time for nightdresses...Only blacking out. Orr...shit-faced-rip-my-boyfriends-clothes-off-throw-me-down-aand…the next thing i know its morning. The turtlenecks off but to Doc Martens are still on.  Or, of course, absolute butt-nekkedness. Which I am in no way opposed to. 

     

LOWFAT GANG ACTVITY

  If I had a nickel for every time some anorexic chick asked me to cut a biscotti the size of her pinky in half, id have AT LEAST two hundred dollars. "Damn, let me go put that new bentley on layaway."
  The universe is at no shortage for cruel jokes when it comes to me. Just when I thought I could sink no lower, I got a job selling fancy donuts to rich assholes....drunken...rich...assholes. Let's not even start in on the name of the joint ("F*recakes")and the fact that the owner only hires young women. No no...we wont even toe the line of the sexual implications. We will, instead, viciously attack their idiot-dickbag customer basis.
    Donuts are bad, I get it. Donuts are decidedly of the Devil, fine. But if you're going to stare at them (at me) AT LEAST come inside and do it. You've known no real terror until you've been stared down by fur-ridden botox zombies through plate glass for fifteen minutes straight, their martini dragon breathe fogging up the glass you spent all of this morning scrubbing. "fuck you...fuck you donuts. you will be my undoing." yes.yes.
   At first glance: "*GASPS* OHHHHHMYGAAAAWD! Is EVERYTHING a donut?!"
                                    (yes, you fucking idiot its a goddamn donut shop)
"yes m'am, eeeeeverythings a donut"
             "Which ones are low fat? HAHAHA(she and her posse of designer drones erupt in laughter)"
"(mother-fucking-eye-roll)"
              "They're all so huge. I think we'll just share one...(And this seems like a solid plan until one of her braindead cronies chimes in)"

"NO NO NO LETS GET ONE OF EACH SO WE CAN TRY THEM ALLLLLLL"

     And this is not so much her inability to finish a sentence, as it is the coupling of both her words and the shrill screams of her band of broads ringing in my ears.
           "*GASPS* Thats such a great idea! We'll take one of each, and would-you-mind-cutting-each-of-them-into-fourths?"
    Now this, is my most favorite part of it all. The part where I regain my dignity, and send these snot nosed bitches spiraling into the type of reality they thought they'd only see sprawled out in the pulitzer prize worthy pages of their prenuptial agreements:

"oh yes m'am! we have knives right out in front of the register...SO YOU CAN DO IT YOURSELF."

(and as their already overworked jaws hit the floor)      

                                      *A ROUND OF MOTHERFUCKING APPLAUSE*

BED BUDDIES

  He is my friend because he is the only person who understands how catastrophic an "Ashanti-with-with-a-penis" would be. (...It has just occurred to me that in 2013, all things are possible.)...
  There have been few constants in my life. Most things and/or people i drink and/or push away. Maybe its that he is the only guy I have ever actively pursued. And by actively, I mean i stared him down on the subway, but this dude is in my life like that splinter i forgot i had that calloused over and i will most likely be living with forever.
  TWO WORDS: sport fuck. "If you need to tire yourself out before bed, why don't you just go for a jog?" Because, dear sir, jogging requires pants. I mean don't get me wrong you're cute and all, and of your luscious penis, i am eternally jealous. But i think i enjoyed the jokes more than the splooge.
   I've never seen myself as the kind of person who would have the capacity or ballerific skillz required to have what i like to call a "bed-buddy", but in 2010 all of my wildest non-dreams were actualized in one shorthairyfunnyman.
    Now i toe the line between wanting to (and needing to) eradicate this succubus of a relationship, and truly believing in the preservation of such bonds. Ours is an illustrious history, with many tales of drunken phone calls and adultery, based almost entirely on insults and manipulation...but we do try.

Welcome Back

Everytime im making a latte, its like im running a little race against myself.....no...wait...
I decided that i was going to cheat on my boyfriend while we were fucking last night...there. Thats the shit I meant to say.
     I cannot be the first woman to have ever thought this. So I give myself credit for being straight up. I mean, he does not know this. He's excited about this blog. He's not going to be so excited once he actually reads it.
    I am a Loganite. Through and through. Biker, barista skills, useless pretensions and all. And I love it. My only problem is that im black. And everywhere I go (including my very own living room) I am the only black motherfucker around. Unless you count the rabbit....Chuck counts the rabbit.
    The thing about my being a barista is, every time I get hired somewhere, I know its because (as ive literally been told) I am "just black enough". Just black enough to make my employer look less-racist, just black enough to shuck and jive AND shut the fuck up, just black enough to get your average customers "Bon Qui Qui" reference...and not impale him through the eyes with my four inch acrylics. (I AM from the southside motherfuckers). These hoes also do not expect me to know plum shit about coffee. A hard head nod and a "so you used to work at starbucks right?" will do me just fine. I can make latte art and a cappuccino that could bring tears to an FOB Italian mans eye. No bitch. I am, in fact, a real boy.
   

A Book To Read

One of my favorite books is "Garden of Lies" although i have no clue who the author is. Its kinda funky to say this because its a novel about lotsa romances and mix ups and mishaps, but im telling you. its really really good. So this white lady marries this much older rich white man and she loves him and all, but the gettin' of the intimate is a little blah for her because she's much younger than he is (also he's really outta shape). anyway, she sleeps with the gardener. low key they fall in love. did i mention that he's mexican. (oh this is so stereotypical) so she gets pregnant. by the gardener of course. but she tells the husband its his. so when she goes into labor she goes to a hospital in the poor part of town where no one will notice her giving birth to this dark skinned baby. so after the delivery, the hospital catches fire and when it comes time for her to get her baby, she steals her roommates' baby. which was light skinned. (that babies mom died). so she takes the stolen baby and raises it as her own. and the other baby goes back to the family of the dead woman and then the father...dies too i think...and the puritanical grandmother raises the baby girl and calls the baby girls dead mother a whore because she looks nothing like her "sisters". the other (stolen) baby gets raised on the other side of town and her lifes all whoopdeedoo. but there's soo much that happens after that I cant say anymore. not even low key. just read it.

Pulp Ficiton

Grrrraaaawwwrrrrr! I love this movie! So Quentin Tarantino has this movie he made called Pulp Fiction and its about a bunch of kold killahs and bad muthaf$*kas, ya know? Basically, there's about a billion and one different plots that all intertwine into this one story about...wait, what was Pulp Fiction about? There's something in this case, but not everyone wanted what was in that case so...it wasn't about that. Um....Pulp Fiction is the kind of movie that you watch if you don't mind if the movie doesn't mean anything at all. It's got lotsa violence and a little bit of groovin and even a French girl (who by the way dates a guy named Butch who is played by Bruce Willis...ew). The score is pretty ingenious since it's about as random as the movie itself, and features a wide range of artists from Al Green to someone (or something) called Urge Overkill. Uma Thurman does a dope job as the wife of supa gansta Marsellus Wallace (played by the beautifully sculpted Ving Rhames), finally making sense of that line by Nas " I leave em froze like heroine in ya nose," and dragging an aging John Travolta back to his humble beginnings on the dance floor. Can you say....Saturday Night Fee-va!? Well, anyways, Pulp Fiction is an action packed movie not to be watched...witnessed by the weak at stomach for it follows in the blood bubbling tradition of all of Mr.Tarantino's films. Classic. Peace.

We Have The Right

We have the right to be who we wanna be?...to a certain extent I guess. We have the right to do anything. I can beat my wife as long as she doesn't tell anybody. Bad example but men used to think that. She's my wife; she's my property. Yuh. UM. Do you have the right to spray paint on walls? I think we should. The would we would so dopely colorful. But everybody always wants to relate "street art" to some kind of violence. And I guess to a certain extent (again) that is true but. I think that is also bull. I was looking at this fashion magagzine and they had pictures of topless women in poses were they were, like, prepraring to lick one another on the nipple. And I was like ,woah, if any other magazine did that, everyone would have an effing fit, but since its some silly fashion mag, its okay. I dont know. Its like iMc said, "the right people". You've got to have "the right people" behind you or you really don't have "the right" nah mean? Makes sense to me, but I still don't think that justifies it. Like who the hell are they? Their money and papers don't mean crap to me. But its not like art where I can decided whether or not I think its art and thats that eff everybody else. When it comes to rights you can't just decide what you do and don't have the right to do because, ultimately, the Law decides.

McCarthy's B-day

Okay. Happy birthday. Birthdays are cool. Birthdays are fun. I like Birthdays I...eat them...all..the..time...? Or something like that song that they sing on Noggin...actually, I think that ones about sandwiches. We're gonna have to take a raincheck on that one. I saw someone wrote happy birthday to you on the window. That's cool. I wish someone had done something like that for me. Feel special. I just realized that I either wasn't listening when you said or (the more likely) never asked how old you are (turning). So, heres to growing older and hopefully wiser all the time.
Do you know at what hour you were born? I always think thats cool when people know that. Like then you could probably figure out what tv show was on while your mother was giving birth. Do people even use the TV Guide anymore? I remember when we used to have crappy tv and I would turn to the guide channel and get stuck watching it because they would have some semi interesting mini show going on while they were showing the guide and i'd always get so caught up in it that I would miss the channel I was looking for and have to keep watching. This went on for years until we got Comcast, which at that time was COMPLETELY dominating the southside cable scene. Yeah. I was in The Know.
Well, Anways. Happy Birfday.

New Wave

If ever there was a song that explained the current state of the union...or dissension rather. Its Common's "New Wave" from the album Electric Circus. What initially attracted me to the song when I purchased the album so many years ago was the beats eerie - techno feel that was so beautifully incorporated with the harshness of pounding and echoing drums. However, as I recently revisited the album, I recognized the attention that was put into every detail of the track in order for it to serve its purpose as an eye-opener to the occupants of the America we live in today.
Common addresses society on every level from the reality tv wanna be to the corner hustler, warning them (us) all that we've "forgot(ten) the mission", and then forces us to listen to a chorus thats meant to empower the american but is spoken in French. My guess is because he's been saying it in English for a long time and it has yet to be recieved. He also addresses, however breifly, the subject of gentricfication as he says "this new age can't really save the ghetto".
Overall, New Wave is an excellent track and a definite contender for my favorite by this artist. Issued as both a warning for oncoming and a vivid image of what "war time" in america will be like, I would recommend this song to anyone who ever even imagined themselves taking part in anyones revloution.

Letter to Mr.McCarthy

Peace and happiness homes! Thank you for writing The Road, it was a truly beautiful piece. The idea of the world coming to an end filled with destruction and death has been throughly explored on several occasions, but your writing style completely transformed the topic into something different for me. The abrupt nature of it at times made it read to me almost like poetry. You would be short and vague and then punctuate that passage in the end with some beautiful epiphany. Those realizations would leave me with this errily wonderful feeling of seeing something for the first time. Like, how did I not notice that before...how did I not see that in myself even.There was also the way that you brought the reader into the minds of the characters through your descriptions of the settings; the way that the tone of their enviornment was projected into their individual thoughts.
 I'd never before seen the prospect of survival in a world of nothingness in such a raw and gritty ...way. It was interesting to see the ways that the father adapted to his situtation. How eventually he came to see dreaming as a sign of a weaking morale. What most surprised me about that was that I would think that anyone in that situtation would be happy to be provided with an escape, even if it only be in sleeping. I was also surprised that the father, who saw dreaming of what was as something negative, encouraged the survival of that "fire" that existed within his son. If he felt there were nothing better than what he had known his whole life...should he not prepare him to be faced with that forever?....

God in 2010

Forgot this one...forgot God? Like many other people in todays world, I let God fall to the bottom of my list of priorities as my level of responsibilty mounted. I am just recently recongizing how important it is to my quest for peace within myself, to stop denying God's place in my life. Through reading "The Spirituality of Liberation," I saw how all of this darkness and negativity had manifested itself in my life because of my disconnection with God. God is truth and reality. I began to realize that I had gotten so far off in to my own way of being, a web of lies, that I had begun to basically create my own reality around me. My truth became my lies. Those lies eventually envolped me in their darkness and consumed me. I became an angry person. I couldn't even understand why it was that I became that way...I couldn't understand myself and I didnt know where to begin. When things started to occur in my life that I could only explain through the power of God, whether they be good or bad, I could no longer deny Him. I felt the weight of all that anger and those lies lifted from me. God is my peace. Whenever I am feeling troubled or lost and weak, I call upomn Him as my source of strength. All that being said, I am non-denominational. Its like my mans Com(mon) said "I lecture how I got God but dont got religion."

Father...Son....Sister...Uncle...Baby Mommas Aunties Cousin

Developing strong relationships with members of your family is crucial to leading a fufilled and less diffucult life. This is a lesson I am presently learning myself. As I have gotten older and started to yearn for more independence, I have become more disconnected from my family. This is an important part of growing up because you have to learn things for yourself so that you will be able to function once you are on your own. However, I was trailing off so far away from my family that I was forgetting that those were the people who taught me when I wasnt able to figure the world out on my own. At the basest of all my ideals, are those of my mother...those of my father. Whether I chose to embrace or combat them, is a part of my individual journey. Still when I make decisions, when I percieve things, it is always influenced by what my parents have taught and continue to teach me. It was after I made that realization, that I began to listen again. I realized that just because I had began to formulate my own opinions, that didn't mean that my parents were devoid of all knowledge as far as I was concerned. Now I work to re-establish the bonds that once existed between myself and my parents, so that they will be willing to teach and see that I am more than willing to listen and learn.

How Do I know What I Know?

Most of what we believe is based on the physical. What we can touch, feel, hear, see. A part of the seeing aspect of that is coupled with that which we have read and been taught (hearing obviously). Reading is the way which we are taught about the vast ammount of things that we have no way of actually witnessing. Those facts that we intake are then reinforced by someone who we trust as an authority figure or educator. These things are from there, taken in as fact, and not questioned. I reason that people are often reluctant to question what they are taught because they doubt their own knoweldge of the subject or are entirely ignorant of it. It is as the saying goes, "Those who satnd for nothing fall for anything." This is not to say that those people are always easily swayed out of sloth, but also to suggest that one should not be so eager to learn, that they take everything handed to them, from whatever source, as fact. I have, on several occasion, fallen victim  to an over-eagerness to learn from those who I've encountered. This is where the pursuit of knowledge becomes dangerous. As I considered myself a student of all those around me, I was neglecting the fact that not everyone has the best intentions. Reflecting on this lead me to be more careful giving individuals the role of my educator.

Our Meaning

I believe our meaning as human beings in general is to aid and enrich each others lives through whatever gift we have been given. It is through that method of existing that one can pick up where the other leaves off and we can build as a race altogether. A part of that is also recognizing that the Earth is a member of our Universe as well. Humans have to treat the Earth with as much respect and care as they should another human being. Give back to it and replinish it as it gives to us, this is how we will be able to reach our full potential. However, I do think that because many of us have become so disconnected from one another as well as our surroundings we have stifled our own growth, and therefore forgotten our meaning.
The individuals meaning is interwined with that of our universe and the realization of this comes through the journey of life. I believe that once a person realizes that the meaning of life is to figure out what your power is...your purpose, then you take the journey to use that power to reach your full potential. However, in order to do that you must interact with others and recieve their gifts and relay to them yours. That is how you find your individual meaning and relate back to that of the race simultaneously.

Modern Socrates

Saul Williams is my modern Socrates. He is more than just a poet, I like to describe him as a painter. He has the ability to paint pictures with his words. He is the very essence of what it means to be an artist and philosopher. He dissects even the most simple of human behaviors in an effort to make us question why it is that we do what we do. The first time I sat down to listen to one of his poems, I found my beliefs shaken. The poem had beeen about victims of rape and completely transformed my view of them. He used his words to restore their innocence and virtue. Another of his pieces, "Five Senses", reminds me alot of Descartes because he tells you to questiion everything that is presented to you as fact as well as the things that you determine to be factual through the use of your senses. Saul suggests that there is no such thing as fact because of the differences brought on by perspective.
As a poet it is his job to ask questions, but what sets Saul apart from other poets is that he begins his line of questioning from the point of existence, then progresses to more complex ideas. This is why he has the ability to reach so many people, despite the fact that some of his messages are considered radical. Another reason that I look to Saul as a modern Socrates, is his belief in the importance of mans relationship with the universe as a whole. Saul recognizes that in order for us to come together, we must first connect to the Universe (or God), because it is where we all began.

The Unexamined Life

The statement that "the unexamined life is not worth living," is true in my opinion because everything in life happens for a reason. Those who dont go back and reflect on why it is that certain things happen to them or around them are allowing these things to go on in vain. In order to grow as human beings, we must learn, and the only way to learn is through listening to and observing those around you, as well as through personal experience. However, we gain the most from these situations when we take the time to analyze their relavence to our own lives. To go through life without ever gauging the importance of life itself is to have lead a life unappreciated. This is because when you take the time to understand life, you come to realize that it is not as trivial as we make it out to be. Just the facts of our conception are quite amazing if you think about it. Just ten months before, we were nothing but microscopic seeds. Never having been thought of or imagined. Then out of practically no where, comes this brand new human being...the fact that we have the ability to breed life, is amazing. However, those who fail to "examine" even the simplest facts of our existence could never be baffled by this power that we possess. This goes to say not that those who dont spend time reflecting on the purpose or meaning of life dont deserve to live. In fact, it goes to say that those who dont, should. They just might find themselves floored by the fact that the grass grows all on its own, or that their fingers have the ability to move seemlessly with little to no command.

Eulogy

  Born to children, her mother only sixteen and her father a mere fifteen at the time, Ashanti was adored by all those around her from the day she arrived home from the hospital. Rambunctious as a child,  Ashanti discovered that she had talent as a singer through her afternoons spent singing along to the radio with her mother. Music became an important part of her life during those earliest years, during which she used it as a means of communicating and bonding with both of her parents.
   As she grew, Ashanti began to abandon her strictly academic-driven goals and embraced her more artistic side. From the time she was in grade school she wrote poetry as a way to release some of her boundless energy. She would also entertain her friends and family by constantly keeping them laughing with her never-ending jokes.  Ashanti was the life of the party at many family functions.
   Upon reaching high school, however, Ashanti began to veer away from her family as she took the first steps toward self discovery. She began to act out in ways that her parents had never anticipated, as she was a well behaved child.  Again, she was forced to rely on the gift of poetry to express the feelings that drove her to misbehave, and found her voice once more on the stage. She had discovered that poetry was her way of communicating with the world.
    Ashanti had an eye for style, an ear for music, and a voice for poetry. She dedicated her life to making people feel as beautiful on the outside as they were on the inside through her sewing, and to the uplifting of the oppressed through spoken word. She was the first person her friends would call when they needed advice or cheering up, for she always fought for the elevation of those closet to her heart. Championing for freedom and love, with a smile that resonated with the desire for both, Ashanti left her mark on everything she touched.