#UgBloggers7Days Blog Post Numero Cinq: Dear Miss Rhimes.

Dear Miss Rhimes,

Sher here, avid (more like slightly obsessed) watcher of your shows ; Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder (Chile, that title is a mouthful! Why not something super short and sexy like Murder Inc?! No? Moving on then). I just finished watching the 3rd episode of that last one and now that my blood pressure has returned to normal, I have questions! Ohh so many! But you're a busy woman, producing 3 primetime shows is no mean feat so  I'mma let you finish but I have 3 questions that I gotta ask. (See what I did there?) Then I can live.


Question one: The HAIR. Olivia Pope and Michaela Pratt hair (Annalise is wearing a wig. Nobody got time for that). How do they get that hair? It is not fair for you to send  perfectly laid hair our way without telling us how it got that way. Yet you are fully aware that the black woman's number one struggle is hair! Miss Rhimes,Where is the Olivia Pope hair blog? We need tutorials. We need product reviews. We need Olivia Pope and Michaela Pratt hair!! Perfectly layed like goddess hair.

I need this magic spell! I have suspicions that the secret ingredient is newborn tears. That hair is coiffed!! Damn!!

Question two:Side Piece Activity! Why Miss Rhimes?! Why this bad behaviour?! Miss Pope is a side chick and Ms.Analisse has nookie on the side. Why? We black women are not about that life, are we? That can't be the co-curricular activity that the ONLY black female leads in a primetime show can do. How about psycho serial killer? I see Annalise pulling that off superbly. She's the pro at getting away with murder. Something for you to think about.

Annalise,Ms.Pope,Enough!

Question three: The Oreo Situation. Miss Rhimes,I love that you are bringing diversity to our screens daily. Love it. Absolutely. But (very big but) there's such a thing as diversity overkill *side eye at Glee*

Olivia's first love interest was white. We said OK, lovely, how cute, very fresh. Then you threw in a black dude who didn't last 2 seconds (Poor Edison. Didn't have chance with his big Ole ring. Olivia's a fool.) Then came another white dude. Ahh more diversity. We're cool. It's alright. Then came Annalise and you gave her a white husband?! Why Shonda?! Why?! Is this a theme? Am I missing something here? 

Hmmmnn

And then you went and made Michaela's fiance a down-low dude! Why Miss Rhimes?Why don't you let these women prosper in the love Olympics struggle? We can't win in real life and you're taking it away on TV too. No. We can't have this. Look into your heart and have a storyline where a black woman is happily married. She may kill people for fun in her spare time, have a gambling addiction, be a pimp. But for God's sake let her win at love!  

Miss Rhimes

Bisous.

#UgBloggers7Days Blog Post Numero Quatre: On Sex and the City...

I met (let's call him Jake)a couple of months back and  we'd been doing the should we, shouldn't we dance for awhile. You know, you like a guy but it's still very murky waters in terms of where this "thing" is so your hot for him and you'd let him do anything and everything except it. "It" is for people who you're dating. Exclusively.

So I go out with Jake, New Years night. See, so undefined! I don't even know whether it's a date or not. He just says, "hey come lets hang" and there I go. Short skirt, red lipstick and that delicious strawberry mist he loves. Tottering on heels that'll break my legs if I miss a
step.

But I really like Jake and it's New Years. We kiss at midnight. Ring in 2014. We drive around,  house party one is a bust. We leave. Club Amoeba. His friends are here. We have a little competition at the entrance; who has the best Fred Astaire jump. I win. The one wearing heels. One drink and we're gone. House party two, how come there so many house parties on new years? More drinks, we dance. We dance alot. Intoxicated. High off each other,liquid happiness and prospects of a new year,a clean slate.Hopes of prosperity. It's a good high. Everyone's leaving now.

Jake goes to the car. Lights a J, calls me. I'm still dancing. Gosh,I love dancing. I go to the car. All the windows up, he's hotboxed the car. I get in. A waft of the good herb hits me. He passes the J over and starts the car. He thinks its good night to show me the hand brake turn. See this is when you deliberately  turn sharply reversing the direction of a vehicle by speedily applying the handbrake while turning the steering wheel. I think to myself, we are
going to die. But I don't care. Live fast , die young right. That's the thing about Jake, my demons are friends with his. They dance and call this chaos we create home. I really should not like Jake. But I do.

Jake is driving to his apartment, windows up and we're singing(more like shouting) along to Power Trip-J.Cole and suddenly the car is spinning and I'm screaming on top of my voice,this feels like an orgasm. He spins the car again, I throw my hands in the air cause I see it coming this time and it feels like floating . I turn to look at him and he's looking at me, smiling, awed. We just died.

We get to his apartment. He turns on his big TV and sits, smoking a cigarette. Time to serenade the king.

Disclaimer: This is fiction. New style of writing meant for a commercial project I'm working on. Yay/Nay?! Let me know in the comments.

#UgBloggers7Days Blog Post Numero Trois : On "Free" work!

Ola Dolls,

An acquaintance called me up this morning talking bout some work they'd like me to do. I say; "cool, aight. I'll swing by and see what you've got. Am a tad busy but if the pay is right, am good." She says OK.  I get there and she's talking about a really exciting project. She's re-launching her fabulous urban fashion store and she needed to gain a legit social media and web presence for her brand. I am about that life! I love fashion. I love social media. Bring the two together and we have a winner.

Yass! Bring that work here. Momma's gonna do it.

So we sit down to discuss strategy; I was supposed to cover five sites, twitter, Facebook, instagram, pinterest and her website. It's a fashion store, a lot of images to be taken and edited but I wasn't fazed. I love my work, I do it wholeheartedly and it shows.

So at the end of this, she gets up as if to leave. And I'm like, wait. Wait a minute, we haven't discussed my fee. She looks at me like all of a sudden I'd started speaking in tongues.

Seriously. This was the look!

So she settles back into her chair and goes on about how she thought I do this for free. FOR FREE!

What!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where and when did I say that. Free! Am I the UN? RedCross? Bono? Who pays for my internet? Are the pictures going to take and edit themselves? This  *insert expletives* woman wanted to pay me in air and gratitude. Gratitude don't buy food. I cannot go to emirates and book a ticket to Dubai with oohh so much gratitude! Jesus, take the wheel. This b***h cray! What part of: "if the pay is right" did she not understand?! No No No. I was having none of that. You want to make money off the exposure that my hard work (And it is hard HARD work I assure you) is going to garner but you want to pay me in feels. Of Gratitude!

Damn right!

Got up. Gathered my bags and was out of there like the air currency I was going to be paid in.

I know my profile is not big. I have not done work for any major brands but for those that I have, they are happy and have seen returns. Unless it's for charity, am done past the free work. I have 2 mouths to feed! It is not much but I do charge a nominal fee for my services. I can't waste (yes, it's a waste) any time on freebies cause it takes away time from my essential nation building projects , from my family time, from my social time all of which I hold very dear. So for anyone hoping to suggest such nasty things to my face again;

Bisous.

#UgBloggers7Days Blog Post Numero Deux: On Unemployement....

Ola dolls,

So yesterday was my first Monday of unemployment! One would think since I have been brimming with energy, project ideas coming out of my ears in alarming amounts, I'd be beside myself. Alive with the promise of unlimited opportunity. I was supposed to get out of bed like this;

Hells Yeah! Am the issh! Am about this business!

That did not happen. My feels would not let me prosper! See, I've been gainfully employed for 5 years and I have been receiving some type of allowance from the man (read government) for the 3 years preceding that. I've been getting paid my friend! I was making money. My bank is one of my bestfriends, what, with the timely deposits they've been receiving on time. Chile, I was in that dough.

Making it rain on them disloyal people. I kid. Not!

And now am not! 

Me. In quiet contemplation of the 7-figure salary I just gave up.

I dragged my tiny bottom out of bed to get my laptop and turned it on to work on my projects (am currently deeply engrossed in 2, how I get time to be idle and disorderly and then mop is beside me. The ancestors must be mad). Anyhow, looking at unfinished, income bringing work didn't help. I thought of pending plans and how I have no way of funding them unless I work. That trip to Dubai;Not gonna happen unless I move some product and I move that product NOW. Nope, didn't work. The brain had received a catastrophic dose of cortisol and was not having any chills.

Meh! Meh! Meh!

I went back to bed. Laptop in tow to watch movies. All work relegated to Tuesday,Monday was professional IDAF day. Just I was settling in to Maleficent (Do not judge me for turning to Disney whilst depressed. I live with a toddler!), I got an email notification. A customer was inquiring where she could find one of OUR stores. Wait what? Say that again "one of our stores"! Bless her. I was truthfully in awe. It appears that I have created a corporate enough image of the baby store that people think it's a  proper retail chain (pats self on the back). That didn't get me out of bed though.

I called my own Olivia Pope to read to me and get Sherry's groove back. 

Her words; Get up heifer! You will sleep when rich.

Did not work! As soon as I got off the phone, my brain went back to it's misery loves me state. It was cooing to Sam Smith's lonely hour. It was like I had lost a dearly beloved friend. I was ashamed of myself. I have looked down upon salary dependents all my life, I have striven to fight this dependency since God knows when and here I was, finally free but sad! Pitiful! What is wrong with me! Where is my value system?!

Katniss.Weeping for the loss of my purpose!

Thankfully, after many many hours of moping (I weep at the thought of time lost! Time I will not get back!) I received email from one of my team mates. She'd designed a beautiful logo in record time for our project. And here I was in bed, idling the time away. I got up. If I was going to disappoint anyone, it would not be other people who have chosen to believe in my vision and my dream. I was going to work dammit! And work I did. There's been a lot of traction in just 2 days.

Will I go to Dubai? That is yet to be seen. 

Come to mama!

PS:This was supposed to be submitted yesterday but as you can see, I was busy solidifying the relationship with my bed in the time allocated to blogging.

Bisous.