This post is part one of a multi-part reflection on creative resistance, labor, and flow. (And that’s what we’re saying right now, from the vantage point of part one; who knows where this story will go).
Part One: Rushing, Resistance, and Creative Overflow
“You’re already that girl,” my cousin Raven says to me on a video call that began about a half an hour prior with me shouting into the phone screen “I’m pissed! I’m SO pissed.”
By this time, my big cousin Rashan had joined the call, and though I’d initiated it, I hopped off and left them on for what I thought would be two minutes to answer the phone for my boy Blake.
Blake Stanton is a businessman living in, and native to, Los Angeles that offers agent and management services to athletes and entertainers. We met during the confinement of 2020 at a social gathering hosted by his collegiate-peer-turned-client, Troy Hill of the NFL Rams.
“I’m pissed with you!” I shout at Blake.
“What I do?” He responds ever so calmly.
“Well,” I begin to explain, “it’s me, really, I messed up, but it’s easier to be pissed at someone else, so I’m putting the blame on you.”
Blake lets out a light chuckle, “okay,” and repeats, “what I do?”
Let me take y’all to the beginning, what happened last night that had me hot this morning.
“You heard yesterday morning’s press release about Michael Rubin and Michael Ratner entering a joint venture in a new sports media concept?”
[brief silence] “Yeah…” He wasn’t listening. I continue anyway.
“Well, I hadn’t.”
I was walking out of an appointment in Larchmont Village when I noticed a message on my work line about a rush gig opportunity.
VIP cocktail waitress
Intuit Dome
$35/hr
6pm
It was already after 4pm, my feet were headed in the direction of Cava, my tastebuds were set on it since before my appointment, plus I had plans a few hours from then to meet my model girlfriend Maya at some sort of comedy event that the comedian Spank Horton had posted on his page and we’d RSVP’d for weeks ago.
Even if I do consider going to the gig, I was nowhere near my house and once I’d get to my house, it’d take an hour to get down to the Clippers’ new stadium in Inglewood. My edges weren’t slicked and I didn’t have not even a lick of brow. Then I’ve been out and about all afternoon, where the lovely winter chill L.A. had going on the day prior had completely disappeared. I’d definitely need to take a shower before trying to go be cute at anybody’s event.
You think I’m about to cancel my plans to an entertaining event, where I can go relax and enjoy myself with my girl that’s going out-of-town, rush home, rush to get ready, then rush to Inglewood to go LABOR for that low a** rate?!
Girl, please.
[fingers begin typing…] Hey girl, sure!
WTF.
I make a complete about-face and begin high-tailing it home.
I’m rushing, Maya’s calling me back, we’re on the phone.
[thoughts flow] It’s not worth it. I hate rushing. That’s too stressful.
Yeah, if only I had the luxury of not taking whatever halfway decent gig opportunity that came my way… [sigh]
“Look, I don’t know, yes, yes, entrance here,” the rideshare driver budges me to get out as I hesitate, not wanting to end up having to walk all the way around the basketball arena site’s huge exterior gate.
I did.
I go back and forth between the West garage side of the property and the main game day entrance on the opposite side, where I’d entered a few weeks prior for a Patron promo model gig.
No luck.
I call the lead on the shift, she comes out of the arena to find me, we navigate towards one another, yaay… but we’re on opposite sides of a fence. A security guard from a far sees two random girls casing the place and begins coming our direction. I encourage her to go up to him first and inquire before he comes over here fussing.
I’m still pissed it’s all this for $35/hr where I don’t know a decent entity paying premium event staff under $40/hr in the 2026 tax year on a regular day (not rushing!). Say how my former co-worker from Neiman Marcus would say her mama would say when she picks up extra shifts, just thirsty! Thirsty to get whatever few dollars I could get. Ugh. Disgusting.
I digress.
I power walk back to the side of the block I’d just come from, then cut through the middle of traffic on busy a** Century Blvd in Inglewood to run up to the 2nd floor of the parking garage to run across a pedestrian bridge to get right back tf where I began.
In any of Target’s Wild Fable garments that I’ve tried on and/or own, XS is the size that makes for a proper fit on the slender size 2 frame that my mother gave me. Tell me why the girls blessed with big boobs and booties took all the XS and S get-ups the lead picked up for us. I hold up the M that they’ve left for me and instantly can see how this is about to go.
It’s 15 minutes ‘til midnight and since I don’t want to end up leaving this in my drafts indefinitely, I’m going to go ahead and hit enregistrer et publier (save and publish) and pick up with part two of this why-I-woke-up-pissed-with-myself story on tomorrow’s blog post.
It’s wild, that in the matter of two hours, all I did was introduce the story. [laughs] [cries]
I opened this draft upon logging into a Los Angeles Public Library computer. Even though I had my computer, as well as charger, in my tote bag, my method is that the session time counting down on the screen will make me move faster. It might be kinda working, hein?
When the library computer logged me out, I had everything above the line. I left the library computer cubicle and went over to a single-seater desk along the wall-to-wall, floor-to-high-ceiling windows. I pull out my computer, it’s dead. Okay, let me find a seat near an outlet. I take a walk around the library’s second floor with views of Los Angeles from the Griffith Observatory to the Bird Streets residential area in the hills just north of West Hollywood. It’s a beautiful day out. Ahhh. Thank You, Lord, for this life, for the strength in my limbs to have walked here, for the feelings of being loved that got me here.
I pull a sheet of paper from my binder to begin brainstorming on a project I’ve picked up and put down many of times. I don’t know how much time passed. The sheet of paper remained white. My mind jumped around, sometimes I let it flow, sometimes I brought it back, sometimes it had gone and come back without me even noticing to be able to direct it.
Okay, I hate relying on Internet resources to produce work on paper, I don’t want anyone giving me shit, I got this. I be damned if I fall in the trap of convenience, letting artificial intelligence do the work. Think for me?! Absolutely tf not, I’m not about to lose the ability to process. But TK… But, nothing! [side eye] Okay, what?
When a professor would distribute the syllabus for the semeter or a rubric for a particular project, was he giving the answers to you? Hm. What can I type into Google that won’t spoonfeed me, instead, will give me an outline?
What do you do after you have a podcast idea?
That question did exactly what I wanted it to do, give me questions. The bolder was pushed off the hill and we were rolling, baby. Next thing I know, the library was making its closing announcement. I’d never gotten back to telling the story about why I woke up pissed this morning. I’d opened another blog draft, AROUND, the interview series, I put in the title line, while the title line for this one was still blank.
Shit. I’m yawning.
Let it all work out, as the currently trending audio says. (Trending, or recommended to me because I’m Black and from Louisiana?)
I’m a mess. This time, however, I’m glad I’m being a mess out loud, flowing without knowing exactly where I’m going, and being okay with that uncertainty, that open ending. I could pick up with part two of why I woke up pissed, or I could hop back over to my podcast interview series idea outline. Or, my brain could throw another curve ball in there that’s currently hiding behind its back, twisting in its fingers. Oh, because did I tell you that I also flipped to another page of this notepad since I’ve been back at my place, and jotted the first term for the AROUNDwithTK glossary, along with a description for the glossary’s short-form social media content compenent?
During a video meeting with a productivity/career coach on this past Indigenous Peoples’ Day, when she mentioned how writer’s block is normal, she looked as though she wanted to roll her eyes when I said that I’ve never experienced the phenomenon of having nothing to write. Apparently, there are times when there’s nothing going on in a person’s mind. I wish I could relate. My problem isn’t ever a blank mental wall, it’s a big mental clog. There’s too much trying to come out at once and I only have ten fingers.
Even when I think I’ve decided, I’ll often end up somewhere else. Right now, for example, fck. It’s 1 o’clock in the morning. After pressing publish, I opened it to edit in a quick closing that part two of why I woke up pissed, where I actually get to the meat of the story, will pick up in the next blog post.
Aïe, aïe, aïe! How tf to function?! Or whatever Drake said. Goodnight, y’all.