getting my groove back

I didn’t have to fly all the way to Jamaica to get my groove back. Let me back up. I’ve been sticking my toe in the kiddie pool of painting for a year now. Holding myself back afraid of, who the hell knows. I’ve bought canvases, paints and been sketching and doing a painting every 4 months or so. Then I started to surround myself with artists and been talking to them and just about everyone about painting and stuff. After a brief but encouraging conversation with an oh so naturally talented brother, I’ve finally got my groove back! Now everything I see is a painting waiting to happen. I’m just doing what feels right, so to speak, with me and laying it on canvas. And I must say, it feels good. Any artist can tell you that once you get into your zone of creativity, you almost become possessed. You eat sleep breathe whatever project your working on. I’m skirting my zone, but when I get there, it is so nice. My escape from the madness.

In my zone there are no cell phones, no text messages, no emails, no place to be, no people to please. There is just me and my creativity and my product. Just me and my art. My art lets me do whatever I want with no judgments. My art doesn’t criticize me, not like the criticism I give to myself. My art has no expectations, except to be completed. My art doesn’t care that I make mistakes, and it gives me plenty of chances to fix them. My art believes in me so much more than I ever could believe in myself. I’m starting to think my art is my great love….

I’ve neglected my art for far too long, but it was still there when I came back. It didn’t try to make me feel guilty for being away so long; in fact, it showed me that I’m even better than I was before I left. Dang, I’m so happy that I have my art and my groove back!

*above is a painting by my all time favorite artist. I could blog heavy about my love for Salvidor Dali. This is called Impressions of Africa- Salvidor Dali

Short Story: You think too much!

The little black girl lifted her head from the table, her mouth dry, lips cracked. She had been trying not to take a sip of the water in the paper cup that was put in front of her, but she couldn’t take it anymore. She reached a weary hand across the table, grabbed the paper cup, and sipped long and hard. The water tasted faintly of cardboard and it was lukewarm. The taste was horrible, but the refreshment was to die for. She finally looked up at the two men seated across from her. She looked at the recorder perched on the edge of the table, where it had landed after she had smacked it aside.

They had been grilling her for hours about what she thought about everything. Her views on politics, politicians, the government, and her people. She couldn’t understand what they wanted her to say or to admit to. After awhile of being asked the same questions a hundred different ways, she started to make stuff up. The more she fed them, the more they wanted to hear. She was tired of the interrogation, and they wouldn’t tell her where she was or what they wanted from her. She eventually just put her head down; she was convinced that they weren’t going to let her out.

“Have I committed a crime? Why am I here?” she asked in a last effort to get some clarity.
“We are not the police.” There was a tap on the door and one of the men went to answer it. After a brief discussion, another man entered the room.
“I’m sorry ma’am, there has been a case of mistaken identity. You are not who we are looking for, you can go now.”
“What?!” she shouted as she stood up. She knocked over her chair in the process and sent the men reaching for their guns. She quickly put her hands up in surrender, knowing how quick these kinds of people were to shoot someone like herself.
“We’ll escort you out, ma’am.” The third gentleman took her by the elbow and led her out of the room. They put her in the back of an SUV, similar to the one they had snatched her in. The third man talked to the driver, the driver nodded, locked the doors, rolled up his window and sped off with her so confused in the back seat.
“Where am I?” She asked the driver, who happened to be a black man.
“Girlie, I can’t tell you that.”
“Well where are you taking me?”
“They want me to take you to the place where they drop off all of the people they want to keep away from the general population.”
“Excuse me?”
“Honey, you think too much! I don’t know what you said, or who you said it to, but they have you listed as one of those thinkers. They are afraid of what you know, and they are trying to keep you away from everyone else. They don’t want someone like you giving everyday people ideas about what’s really going on.” The little black girl sat back in a daze. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, she couldn’t believe what was happening to her.
“Look, I’ll drop you off right outside of the city. It’s up to you whether or not you go in. If I were you, I wouldn’t go in there just yet. Walk up the road a little, around the city. Don’t go up the obvious path. Seek The Truth, he’ll help you out. And please, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. These people aren’t ready for what you have going on up there.” He tapped his temple with his index finger. She looked out of the tinted window at the passing scenery. What in the hell had her big mouth gotten her into this time?

To be continued in: The Truth aka The Wandering Poet

Short Story: Kidnapped!

One night, as the little black girl threw back drink after drink with her cronies, she saw a flash of news come across the TV in the bar. CNN reported something about the upcoming election that meant absolutely nothing to any of them, but sparked fear in the mush heads just the same. In her drunken state of loose lipped liberation, the little black girl let rip, unceremoniously what she felt about the election and the people running. Once she saw that she had an audience, she began on her commentary about the government and how she felt about the entire democratic system. Many of the patrons laughed, many didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, and some cheered. To her, it felt great to be able to vent and get her opinions out there for once.

Not everyone was so pleased to hear her diatribe. The next morning, on her way to work, a black SUV skidded up to the curb in front of her building. Being half awake, she didn’t react fast enough and two big guys in suits snatched her up, leaving her dunkin donuts glazed donut on the side of the road.

To be continued in : “You think too much!”

Short Story: The Land of Hot and Heavy

In the land of Hot and Heavy the little black girl found everything she had been hoping for, and much much more. She spent a lot of her time catching up on all of the parties and socializing she thought she had been missing back in the banker’s box. She eventually found out that in the land of hot and heavy all there was was more of the same. More of the same parties, more of the same kinds of people, more of the same bs that she thought she’d left behind. That was all hot and heavy had to offer. She began to chafe under the weight of the superficial life she had bought into. She realized that her focus, back in the banker’s box, was to escape from what she couldn’t handle, what she felt she had no control over. She escaped by emerging herself into the frivolous things that people do to make themselves feel better. The parties, the drinking, the drugs, the after hours activities, were all tools of the escape. They weren’t what she needed. What she needed was a purpose, something to fulfill her, something to motivate her to become what she was supposed to be. Hot and Heavy had none of that. It was the escapist’s dream, superficial distractions for the lost and aimless. It was time for the little black girl to move on…

To be continued in: Kidnapped!

Short Story: The Bankers Box

Once upon a time in a land as hot as the fiery pits of hell, with cockroaches (waterbugs) the size of kittens, lived a little black girl. Her height, just short of the model cut off, build slight, with an ever lingering pouch around her midsection, a place to hold her stress, and hair locked as a symbol of her freedom from the chemical lie. This little black girl had escaped to the pits of hell, running from a trap that placed her so tightly in a box that she’d just about forgotten how tall she really stood. The little black girl was looking for a way out, to a place far away from the box, a place that at that time would be, just had to be, better than the cramped bankers box she had been residing in. She craved excitement, invigorating adventures, reckless abandonment and maybe a little something to appeal to her darker yearnings. What better place than hell? She had heard rent was cheaper down there, and everyone was the complexion of the sugary sweetness found in a Russell Stover’s chocolate candy box. Yes this was the place for her, hot and heavy and oh so different from where she had been. She broke out of her box, leaving no forwarding address, informing no one, and burned up the road to her next destination…
To be continued in: The Land of Hot and Heavy

Cubicle Crusaders

I’ve been asked to join an exciting new blog that will concentrate my genius into focused, organized chaos. This blog is co written by my partner in artistic exclamations, Naturally Alise.

Cubicle Crusaders: IM Revolutionaries “Penning pages of pent up pain, (and funny IM’s & sh*t too)…”

The blog is a place to discuss our day to day adventures being office workers, and our plans on how to get out. It is our playground for revolutionary thoughts and all of the things we enjoy, such as poetry and music. Our agenda is as follows:

Monday - 'The Revolution Will Be Blogged', brought to you by Tiha
Tuesday - 'Cube Speak' selections, brought to you by Naturally Alise
Wednesday - Poetry Collaboration
Thursday - ....randomness/day of peace
Friday- Hip-Hop/R & B Amber Alert w/ commentary

With randomly added blogs that we see fit to submit. Enjoy!

I need an easy button!

In this world of multitasking and corner cutting, finding the most efficient way to do something has been bred in to me. I don’t know how to do stuff the long and difficult way. However, this way of doing things is not lost onto the bureaucratic nation of working for the state and cube life. In my efforts to get something done by my always impending deadline of “yesterday”, I always feel the need to move quickly. My superiors always find a way to throw a monkey wrench in my project fast track, which leads me to respond, out loud, with negative close ended statements. These statements fly from my mouth with such speed and accuracy that if you weren’t listening closely, you would swear I’d just called the recipient an idiot or stupid. This, as you can imagine, does not endear me to the management team. So what is my salvation? A big round red button with the word EASY written in white across the front. When this miracle button is pressed a phrase is uttered “that was easy”. In my mind, the voice is laden with sarcasm, and sounds just as good as saying “you idiot”. I get a kick out of it every time I make my coworker press it. I love this button! I think if I had my own button, I wouldn’t have to say anything after management sends me on a wild goose chase to find something that a) was already on their desk, or b) no longer exists.

I just want to say thank you to the marketing geniuses at staples for perhaps preventing a lot of name calling and employee employer brawls on my behalf.

That was easy!