The weekend away.

I should apologise that it’s been so long since I’ve blogged, but that would be hugely inadequate. So I’ll say pardon my absence, I was undertaking an intense period of research that concluded in... no tangible findings, but some good (and happy) stories. And getting destroyed by work, but that is a rant for a different time.

I was fortunate enough to go on a proper weekend away. When I say proper, I mean one that was organised as a surprise by the significant other (a story for another day). You see, as a girl who has always wanted to be able to say ‘I went away this weekend with ...’, I tended to do all the organising and the ... did the turning up. But this time was different. I was whisked from my abode late on a Friday evening, having packed almost everything I own and nothing I could wear (in rain, and near freezing temperatures) and taken to my rest station for the night. We departed bright and early (ish) and 2 hours of tarmac and lingala later, checked into a lovely little hotel by a lovely river, having held hands the whole way. This is a really long time when one is driving a manual car.

Then it struck me...there’s something about being away that makes you want to be exceptionally deviant. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps the idea that no one in that town knows who you are, or is likely to ever see you again, or perhaps you feel like it’s a new beginning...safe reinvention of the person even if it’s only for a weekend. Either way, the deviance began before I’d left home, and it involved buying suggestive clothing off a website adorned purely in fuscia and black. I was harbouring less than honourable thoughts and making adequate preparations to fulfil them.

This, coupled with ridiculously high heels, an extravagant candlelit dinner and a bottle of champagne should have made for a very rewarding evening for the significant other. It was going swimmingly. We were holding hands at dinner, doing that annoying ‘we’ll take up the whole pavement as we walk because we are holding hands’ thing that inspires one to commit grievous bodily harm, stealing glances over a shared dessert and rehashing intimate stories. Hearts fluttered somewhere in the distance, and the nearby church bells chimed in rehearsal for a wedding the next day. It could not have been more perfect. Except it could...

It appears that this ‘deviant behaviour’ extended into sleeping habits as well. We got back to the hotel where a rose lay near a box of chocolates on quite a large bed (we made quite an impression at check-in). I decided to test the pillows, you know, assess them for comfort. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the pillows in hotels are always obscenely comfortable. Exactly five minutes later (it could have been only two, who knows), I had passed out, mouth wide open, winter coat wrapped around me, arms flung every which way and the occasional snort intermingled with my rather heavy breathing. I have to say that even I was quite impressed by this feat. It was only midnight...that would be the starting point of most of my Saturday nights out. Needless to say, I had a lot of explaining/making up to do the next morning, especially when I woke up half falling off the bed, still in my coat and a rather distant man underneath the duvets not quite beside me. He had this pained expression suggesting I had robbed him, and to be honest, myself, of a tasty tryst. For shame. For shame. For shame.

I’ve just bought the Christmas gift that I hope will be the perfect atonement for my misdeed but it remains thin ice at the moment... I have the feeling that normal service has resumed, and I will have to organise all further 'weekends away'. So much for change.

Temptations.

I spent the last couple of weeks on holiday, back home in Nairobi, hence my blogging hiatus. True to form, the city offered up more temptations than I knew what to do with. In fact, I am still reeling and not quite back down to earth.

Temptations aren’t always a bad thing. I’ve been reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, and if ever you needed justification for any hedonistic and utterly extravagant desires, this is the book for you. At least the first few chapters are. One of the protagonists argues that the only way to rid oneself of a temptation is to yield to it. I’m not so sure that’s ridding oneself of the temptation or rather, the power it has over you. You can get back the hours you spend endlessly thinking about ‘what it would be like’. He also argues that in order to become young again, one should remember great errors of youth, and do them all over again. This will in the very least save one from death due to a creeping common sense, and aid the realisation that one never really regrets their mistakes. So in essence, give into temptation to remain young. I like it.

So this holiday, I did just that. I gave into temptation. I met new people, something that I am not particularly famed for. And guess what, I liked it. I spent time with old friends, and again, I really liked it. I allowed old flames to be re-ignited, and that my friends, along with stolen kisses, a fleeting romance, a wandering hand and a lustful eye, I really really liked. [Also, just so you know, there’s nothing quite as enticing as a 19^th century lustful quote off to start the day. Tell me something naughty in Shakespearean English and... Shakespeare and his boys were very naughty.]

It appears that the last 6 months I’d started to die of a creeping seriousness, as Oscar Wilde would put it. This break was necessary, if not to save me from my tedious self, then to remind me that sometimes, being young means being a little clueless (very occasionally reckless, within reason of course), and embracing the unknown. Hmm... now I’m not so sure reading this book again is good for me, from a moral point of view.

The anatomy of phobias.

The learning theory states that phobias become ingrained due to conditioning experiences, you know, like Pavlov’s dog. A bell was rung and the dog was given food. The dog associated the bell with food. This was continually reinforced, till the dog began to anticipate the food. Each time the bell rang, the dog began to salivate. It learnt the association. This is one of the myriad of theories that tries to explain how we develop phobias. A case in point...I am scared of spiders. When I was about 19, a spider put its little spidery leg in my mouth as I slept. It took a few seconds for me to wake up, but I never forgot the absolute horror I felt at almost swallowing a stupid spider. Oh, it wasn’t a daddy-long legs, it was one those more robust beasts, slightly hairy too. An association started to form, and what followed was a state of research...I googled all circumstances in which spiders had killed people. I re-watched arachnophobia, and then I became hyper-vigilant. I would spot spiders that were running away from me, trying to hide. I would chase them down into dark tunnels and deserted rooms, just so I could point out the spider. And then I would be scared. I would return to hiding, shaking in a corner, because I had spotted a spider. I graduated from this ‘vigilante’ state to an avoidance state. So if I had spotted a spider somewhere innocuous at any point in the past, it would be an excuse not to go to that place. I would avoid rooms in the house, certain shoes that looked like they could hide spiders (don’t ask me what that looks like; you’ll know it when you see it) and generally putting my feet on the floor. My simple fear was starting to resemble a phobia. It’s better now, though I still occasionally conjure up spidery images...and scare myself silly though there’s nothing there.

The whole point of this pre-amble is that I started to think that perhaps there are some phobias that we need to learn, for example, the phobia of the arsehole. That guy or girl that uses you for even less than your worth, and then tosses you away like a bit of 1 ply toilet paper, not even recyclable. You need to make a point to remember these people, to research their characters and whatever the hell it is that attracts you to that damage and then become hyper-vigilant, looking for said associations (character and behaviour). Then you need to develop the old avoidance techniques. Run like the plague is chasing you after lopping off Bolt’s pins and attaching them to its own body. Run very very very fast in the opposite compass direction. Keep running till the person is now a dot behind you, and then run some more.

If it works, you’ll become phobic of rubbish, and might spare yourself quite a lot of nonsense. I’ll let you know how it works for me. At first glance though, I feel its failsafe. In fact, I feel I might be able to extrapolate this to my fear of Facebook, limited intelligence, rubbish jobs etc. I am getting really excited about the prospects now...

In other news, I’ll be home in like 5 days. There is a God after all.

Life is too damn short.

What in this world can prepare you for death? I mean, what difference would it make if someone told you that you would die in the next 45 minutes?

It’s September 11^th, a day that holds a lot of memories, most of them traumatic, for a great deal of people. 10 years ago, tragedy hit New York and suddenly, people questioned the value of human life, questioned each other’s belief in the sanctity of breath, and became doubtful of anyone that bore any slight difference to themselves. A decade later, and here we are, with people in worlds far afield, still paying the price for an intangible immeasurable threat, a testament to the greatest loss of all, a tolerant society and the value of human life. But that’s a rant for another day.

Today I’m sad because someone close to me died. It’s all fuckery when someone tells you that you’ll have time to prepare for death. Hell, it’s all fuckery when I say it to my patients that are facing the end of their lives. Do I believe it? Well I’ve known my cousin was dying for 3 years, and yet every time I saw her, she looked better than the last. So I never once said goodbye, never acknowledged that I might be away and she might die, and I might never hold her once more. The warning was there, and yet, it’s not natural to prepare to deal with loss.

My mum said her kids seem to be doing fine. But she’s from a stoic generation, where emotions had their place, which was most definitely not public. I don’t know how they feel, but given that I had a much better understanding of her illness (from an emotionally detached place) and yet could not feel prepared and don’t feel fine, I’m inclined to think that is not the case.

Nothing prepares you for death. Even watching someone dying, over weeks and months, nothing prepares you for that moment of loss. Nothing prepares you for the fact that you will cry in the middle of the street when a memory comes back to you. Nothing prepares you to face not saying goodbye. Nothing. 

R.I.P. R.

365 days....minus 7

One of my biggest fears is looking back on any period of time and realising that I did nothing. This is the reason I hate being hangover, wake up at 5am, read on trains and often have lunch while at my desk. Life rushes past all of us, and we all try to stop and smell the roses blah blah, but sometimes, I think that’s just an excuse for laziness extraordinaire. The greatest link to memory is the sense of smell, which suggests that the rosy scent won’t be forgotten any time soon, ergo, no need for constant stopping and smelling.

Either way, it was my birthday last week. I woke up with the dreaded ‘what the hell will I wear’ thought. You know, the perfect outfit that says ‘year older, but still effortlessly cool’. Then I was gripped with fear that there would be a lot of time in the last year that would remain unaccounted. So I did what I do best, I made a list on the train to work:

I got me a job, so I can say on the train to work. This whole post hinged on that line (well not really, but for theatrics’ sake, we’ll pretend it did).

I learnt how to cook a good paella, a new amazing risotto, la bandiera, rare steak, and developed an appreciation for black coffee.

I have read 13 books this year. Two about India, two about Nigeria, three about heart break and love, one about the human psyche, 2 classics, 1 about politics, 1 about economics, and the one that can only be classed as putting Danielle Steele raunch in a nunnery.

I made new friends. People that I would never have met, and yet add oodles to my life (I started saying oodles, and I will stop...all within the same 12 month period). I learnt that acquaintances are alright.

I lived through riots (really really tenuously kind of).

I became an aunt. Three times. Four in fact.

I had my heart sort of broken, and put back together before it hit the ground. I’m in limbo, but it’s currently a really good place to be.

I started a blog, which while not being particularly good, made me read other people’s blogs, and that my friends, has been fantastic.

I learnt to smile, not because I had a reason to, but because once I did, the reason showed itself.

You make of life what you want it to be. I learnt to believe in the veracity of that statement, and I am so much better and wiser for it.

Riddle me this...

I was walking in a shopping mall exactly 12 hours after I had moved to the wonderful city of London, when this man walked up to me and said hi. You must understand a few things about me... I don’t have a reputation of being very patient with strangers. I took my mother’s advice to give them a wide berth, and before social networking, a boy/man/girl had to know someone I knew for us to have any chance of any sort of relationship. Yes, even I am not sure that my relationships did not have a touch of the incestuous about them (ß is not a confession). But moving on...

He introduced himself...he had a rather unmemorable name. I smiled thinking he was about to ask for directions, and I was already preparing the half-smile and dismissive ‘don’t know the area well, sorry’ line. Instead, he launched into the most heart-felt bullshit I’ve ever heard. I actually stopped and listened. He opened with ‘my friends and I were having a conversation about what we would do if we ever so a beautiful woman on the street’. Vanity is a strange bedfellow; it creeps up on you, throws out your contraceptive pill and ravages you without so much as an introduction. There I was, inflated with its child, smiling at this total stranger (who could have had a gun, a knife, been an undercover reporter. I will be dealing with my stranger danger sense, or lack thereof later), waiting for his next line. ‘We’re all in our mid-thirties, recently single and searching, and we figured that the best thing to do would be to walk up to the girl and tell her how we felt’. I took a deep breath in and waited... ‘I saw you and I thought, there’s a pretty girl I’d like to get to know, so here I am. Am I in any luck?’ I looked around and a hoard of tourists had stopped to observe this Shakespearean scene. I took on the air of a thespian and dramatically told him that were I not in a committed relationship, I would most certainly jump at the chance of having coffee with a delightful young man such as himself. He had grey eyes; I am still not sure how I resisted the urge to ask him out for dinner instead. He then asked me for a breakdown of his courtship tactics, and after about 10 minutes of hapless advice, we parted ways; me, blushing furiously and him walking very fast in the opposite direction.

I walked on to my destination, a little cafe round the corner, berating myself for perhaps being a little too dismissive. I’d even got to the point where I was muttering under my breath that this might explain why I was so very single, and occasionally lonely. I ordered a large coffee and retreated behind my computer to tweet, and illegally download F1 when I spotted the same gentleman about 2 feet away from me. For a woman he considered beautiful, I was suprisingly ‘inconspicuous’. He walked straight past me, and just as I was about to tap him on his shoulder and make a stalker joke, he stopped at a nearby table where another lonely girl sat, also on the internet, probably on twitter, and issued another corny chat up line, bits of which included ‘I don’t understand how someone quite so pretty could be sat here alone and none of the men are yet to pounce. Unless you’re with friends of course...’  She obviously wasn’t, and he sat down and they had coffee, and I presume a relationship, either of carnal or intimate nature ensued.

I sat there, very bemused and feet firmly back down to earth. I had just almost acquiesced to a date with a stranger, who also happened to be of loose morals, and God forbid, a smooth criminal. Somebody, riddle me this. Please.

[Next week, the chronicle of that very same evening shall ensue. There will be a lot to judge me for, so in your anticipation, I hope you find it within you to forgive the recent lack of tales.]

The perfect distance apart.

So apparently I don’t talk about work. This is novel for me...it’s like finding out that I am not as whiney as I sometimes think I sound. Either way, I started my new job as a doctor this week. I haven’t saved a life yet, haven’t done anything magical. In fact, all I’ve done is realised that I’m going to have to be one shit hot secretary for the next 6 months. You know...make sure everyone gets whatever it is they want when they want it, including thinking about when they’ll want to pee and informing them of the fact (my superiors are really nice, I’m just being facetious). Tomorrow will be exciting...I will see my first real patients, probably panic at the thought in the middle of dealing with them, and run squealing like the little coward I am.

Anyway, so in the midst of a very fascinating talk on the importance of governance security, and the need to vary the location of capital letters in passwords (I tried to stay awake, I really did...), my phone beeped signalling an email. I opened it expecting it to be some horrendous news, like further delay to my internet or cancellation of my credit cards. All the email said was ‘hey’. Then I scrawled back up and read the sender.  4. (link 1 link 2 ). He was the one that I ended things with (link 3) because it was the right thing to do (and because he was averse to communication and I talked too much) thought that email would suffice as an apology. I laughed a little, which lightened the mood of the seminar, then replied with a curt ‘you’re alive.’

Ten minutes later and my phone buzzed again. This time the lecturer went silent and looked around the room. I feigned a coughing fit, excused myself, and departed to find a corner in which to construct a hideously rude reply (the kind that make you blush when you’re done sending it). His email read: ‘Paris next week, cross the channel?’

[Side bar: Paris is exactly like you see on TV (if you go to the right places), and because there is free-flowing wine, chocolate, shoe shopping, cheese and pastries, endorphins run high and people really do feel in love. At least I do. My only visit had me flirting with dogs in the street, dreaming of unicorns and chipping my toenails as I tried to draw maps in concrete. My return to reality was painful and cold, but the moment....momentous]

Now, I am quite the resilient person. If I decide to be nice, I usually stick to my guns, and same goes for if I decide to be rude. But I was floundering here. How does one reply to ‘meet me in the city of love’? And anyway, what kind of intellectual compromise on his part leads to such behaviour?! This clown was selfish enough not to care that I’d graduated from university (despite my own valiant attempts at the contrary), got a house and a job. Not so much as a congratulatory message; people I barely knew had cared so much more. Why would he think that ‘meet me in Paris’ would mean ‘I’m sorry’? Surely that's what he was trying to say?! Honest truth, probably not.

So I really don't know what was the right thing to do, what with clouded emotions and revisited wounds. But I replied with ‘I think we are currently the perfect distance apart’, because really, we are.

New beginnings...

I’m sorry that I haven’t blogged in such a long time, but apparently real life desired my presence at the party. It’s been a long couple of weeks, but I’ve finally managed to set up a little home for myself, and I am really excited. I mean it’s not quite the same thing as moving out of home...did that six years ago. But living on my own? I honestly didn’t see this coming.

My first night was trying, but not in an OMG-I’m-lonely kind of way. You see, maps and I have never really got on. I have considerable difficulty deciding which way is up and where it is that I am standing. Even my phone, with which I endure a complicated and mostly disappointing relationship, can’t help: Google maps and navigation systems will have me walking in circles before figuring out that the little blue arrow needs more than 2 micro-seconds to adjust to a change in direction. And let’s face it; one looks a bit ridiculous standing on a street corner with a map that’s too large to comfortably hold, or with a phone that’s not ringing and is being held in similar fashion to a spirit level. It’s not...cool. I battled with my non-existent sense of direction till I found a shop where I could buy some food. I stocked up on a hearty liquid diet, threw a few other necessities in, and then headed back to properly say hello to the flat. Well, it turns out drinking alone really is as bad as they make out on TV. In fact, it’s worse. Most people that drink alone do so sitting down. This compounds the problem because in order to have something to stare at, you need a constant supply of beverage, but because you’re feet are disengaged you have no freaking idea how drunk you are. Imagine my surprise when I got up to do the dishes and my eyes did a drunken back flip. Unpacking was going to have to wait...

The next night was marginally more respectable as I’d planned to go out for a few drinks with friends. 3 single girls all in towering heels are bound to attract attention and it wasn’t long before we were surrounded by a group of gentlemen. I quickly established my position as the politically incorrect one when I said ‘You look a little sleepy’ to one of the gang, to which he smiled and replied, ‘I’m half Japanese’. Yes, I was going to need a lot more wine to survive that one. The evening proceeded well, till it was time for goodbyes. One of the guys lived close to me, so sharing a taxi made sense. Except, I couldn’t. I live alone, and I’d just met this person. And in that moment, I realised the enormity of my decision (did swap digits though ;-) )

The pros of living by ‘your lonesome’, as Tupac would put it, are numerous. Any level of cleanliness or ungodliness can be chosen, and people suffering from OCD traits (such as myself) can knock themselves out arranging shoes in colour and ‘frequency of use’ order, while throwing out all the psychiatrists’ numbers that their friends have passed on over the years. I am excited about doing yoga in a state of undress, singing horribly (and loudly) in the shower and learning even more wonderful things about myself. But these joys come with the frightening...like being a single female living on my own, needing an alarm, having to actually write a budget (flying by the seat of my pants will no longer cut it), and spending more than one evening alone, with nothing but my thoughts, the internet and a book. The thing that scares me most is not having someone there when you’ve had a bad day. You know, the kind where you want to be mad at the whole world, not speak to anyone, and yet, be comforted by the knowledge that someone is next door in case you need to throw something at the wall. I’ll definitely miss not having that. And I fear that if I learn to be self-sufficient in that regard, it’ll make me even more of an emotional cripple, *sips wine* and possible alcoholic. Here’s to new beginnings.

Mama Hold My Hand

I’ve been in quite a reflective mood...you know the kind that inspires corny status updates and annoying texts. So instead of thinking/reading, I’ve been drowning myself in music. Part of that has come with a few live gigs luckily, one of which was Aloe Blacc. He’s an artist I knew nothing about till recently, but I’ve fallen into deep like with because the brother has so much soul. I’ve been thinking about his track ‘Mama Hold My Hand’. This is in part because while watching the British Open on the BBC, they aired a documentary on Seve Ballesteros (Google is your friend) who was a pretty inspirational golfer; he was always smiling, but died of cancer at the age of 54. He was much younger than my parents. I’ve also had friends and family who have experienced loss recently, and yes, we all go through such things, but once in a while you stop and do the ‘look on the inside’ thing. I am fortunate enough to have a mother that I can say this to (and I did today, though explaining YouTube was absolute torture), but  that's not always the case. Even then, I would definitely love to be this person to someone one day, so here’s to an appreciative week... listen to the song here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9D_h536mU0

Mama Hold My Hand – Aloe Blacc

Cross this road...

When I was just a little boy, Well I would go out to play

And I would wander so far from home, That I would lose my way

And I’d call on my mama to help me, And she’d come right away

To help me get back home where I wanna be, And here’s what I’d say

Mama hold my hand, I don’t think I can cross this road by myself

Mama hold my hand, I don’t think I can cross this road by myself

And when I was a young man, I would go astray

Didn’t want nobody to hold my hand, Wanted to make my own way

And my mama would come out to help me, But I’d push her away

Cause I just wanted to be on my own, And here’s what I’d say

Mama leave my hand, I been waiting to cross this road by myself

Cross this road by myself

Well now that I’m a grown man, And I’ve moved away,

I got a house, a nine to five and my wife, We got a kid on the way,

Mama told me that life’s gonna get rough, Take it day by day,

But every once in a while I get scared, And I wish I could say,

Mama hold my hand, I don’t think I can cross this road by myself

Mama hold my hand, I don’t think I can cross this road by myself

Now my mama is near the end of her years, and her hair is grey

Sometimes I call to ask her if she would like to spend the day

Mama used to be strong but she ain’t now, And she can’t make her way

That’s why I’m always around when she needs help, and here’s what I say

Mama hold my hand, I don’t think you can cross this road by yourself

Mama hold my hand, I don’t think you can cross this road by yourself.

Real life?! Meh.

A lot of my friends say that I suffer from a severe lack of seriousness. This is mostly true however, I will try and disprove them in this post (i.e. I will try be serious for a few paragraphs).

So, break-ups are really hard. They are especially so if the reason for the break-up is not because you’ve wound up in ‘dislike’, but rather because KPLC told you that the light at the end of the tunnel would be suspended forthwith.

[Sidebar: KPLC are the main electricity providers in Kenya, and have a reputation of reliably supplying darkness, stolen transformers, and malfunctioning appliances].

I have been attempting this only-like-one-person thing for a few months now, and it was going brilliantly. The gentleman in question had a whole dictionary (and then some) of two word retorts that made it possible to deal with all the varieties of crazy I could conjure. As a result, I started to behave in a somewhat sane manner. A happy medium that is, until two months ago when I found out information that upset the fine balance achieved. Everyone has a past, and the point at which you delve into these stories tends to be a defining moment for a fledgling relationship. It is when you decide that this relationship isn’t the thing for me, or in fact, our collective skeletons have a beautiful poetry that will add to the story of our lives together, and blah blah. IN or OUT.

Obviously, determining the significance of any skeleton requires good knowledge of what one is capable of dealing with. Here I was, faced with information of a past life that, to be honest, I could not rival. I had no story in my little repertoire that would top this one, and I could feel the playing field become decidedly uneven. My immediate reaction was ‘that’s ok, because at least he cares and...’, and things continued as normal. This was followed by an extended period of self-reflection where I walked around talking to myself, playing Eric Roberson over and over again, and reading poetry and James Bond books, and discovered that the relationship was over. 

Now I’m faced with an even bigger problem. See, my initial reaction to the revealed skeleton was >> INSERT EXTRAORDINARILY LONG BLANK STARE HERE<<. I have missed the window by so many months that anything on my part is disingenuous. And anyway, what response is acceptable? Is it fair to begrudge someone a life that they lived before they met you?! If that was the case, I’d probably lose out every single time. How do you tell someone that ‘I found out about this, and while I’m OK with it (for you), we can’t work...?’ That entire argument seems flawed, and yet, that is exactly how I feel.

So of course I’ve reverted to the norm and done the crazy thing. I’ve ended a relationship with someone in my head, and I’m trying to find a way to have the conversation out loud. We're both aware that something has died and been buried (> like a twitter joke), but it really is quite strange not saying it out loud. I suppose we (read me) are waiting for the right time...as if such a thing exists. I’m just grateful that kind mister knows I’m crazy enough to allow me the luxury. Meh. Real life sucks. Back to unseriousness 

(I've just poured tap water out my window to scare away a pigeon, and got the tourist sitting on the front step. Now hiding...)

Sugar, Spice...Maybe, Baby?

I realised my tolerance for pet names is very limited. I received a text yesterday that only said ‘baby’. Obviously, a few things troubled me about this message.

First of all, I am not on ‘baby’ terms with this person. I am not sure what his defunct assumption was, but he had made a gross miscalculation. Anyone on pet name terms with me will know that as the youngest and only female child of my parents, my ENTIRE FAMILY still calls me ‘baby’. As a result, I have never found this term endearing in other settings. Never. Also, when you’ve previously called me ‘sweetheart, hun, angel, babe, wardrobe, shoe’ and I have not responded in kind, it means I feel nothing. Apparently, he had mistaken this passive aggression in the past as ‘shy but receptive of his advances’. Yes, he suffers from that all too familiar ailment of ‘seeing what you want to see’.

Secondly, how the hell was I supposed to respond to that? Shake my rattle, or come out with ‘ga ga ga goo goo’ (or some other lady gaga song?!)? I responded with ‘you’re more than two decades late’, and even more depressing, was the person’s lack of wit. He replied with ‘huh?! So you’re well, babe?’ I began to pull out my hair, rent my clothes and apply ash at this point. How was a brother to be helped? To be honest, a lot of people appreciate being called baby. But if you are going to use that or any other term of endearment, you should expect an unlikely response. This is called preparedness. I once called someone ‘cookie’. This was a good friend, someone I was on familiar terms with. His response was ‘what? You’re going to eat me? Why didn’t you call me pineapple?’ I now choose wisely.

Thirdly, this gentleman is actually full of bullshit. You see, I am not completely against pet names, especially when I know people mean them. For example, if I call you diabz (Origin: madiaba- a Congolese dance style that involved vigorous booty shaking...VIGOROUS), I mean it. You have a nice arse. Or if I say sweetie, it’s probably in a condescending but desperately affectionate manner. My friends and loved ones employ the same rule with their pet names for me. Unfortunately this dude, who I’d only known a few weeks, decided to call me ‘baby’. This conjured images of a composting toilet regurgitating excrement. In fact, I am inclined to think that he had sent the same message out to many females in his address book, and unfortunately B was high up on that list otherwise known as the alphabet.

I’m all for courtship, but I think after the age of 16, there are far better ways to veil crap than in pet names. Rihanna (and the angels descend trumpeting as I make an unlikely pop reference) was on to something when she said ‘make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world’. Choose your lies wisely.

Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner. And Juice.

For the last year, I’ve been acutely aware that I would be homeless at the end of this month. I was reassured that there was no need for panic, that June and July were ‘moving months’, and that I would find a house quicker than I could snap my fingers (which given I can’t snap fingers, is not exactly an achievement). It got to the end of June and I was having no luck, so I did the unthinkable and called on THE ESTATE AGENT.

Henry, that was his name, rang me up and set up our meeting. The first thing that struck me was his voice. He was so concerned, so caring, asking all these questions about what kind of place I wanted to live in, and what I did for a living. I found myself pouring my heart and soul to him right there in the street, with people walking past me and thinking, ‘sorting out a blind date’. It took me a while to realise that what had disarmed me so was his Australian accent. I was already picturing a surfer dude with unrealistically golden locks and a glistening yet surprisingly unsweaty body. Good sense had departed the building.

I had 45 min to get to our rendezvous, so I made like road runner and beeped to it. I got there, opened the door and a quick recon revealed the only non-ethnic person in the room. He was so Aussie i.e. he was HOOOT. I sat in the chair, and tried not to smile too hard, surveying the board with all the flats they needed to sell or rent. I was in an estate agent’s inner sanctum. I expected them to make me sign an Official Secrets Act document of sorts, but instead he came up to me and said something in his heavy voice. Unfortunately all I could hear was ‘that’s not a toad, it’s a fush’, a slogan on a t-shirt I had seen at 7s. I told him this but all he did was give me a blank stare, smile awkwardly and swiftly carry on. He said things that sounded important, and then led me out of the building to the flat he thought ‘would be perfect for me’. I was so engrossed in his face, that I forgot how to use my legs and my sense of direction deserted me so I lapped at his heels like a helpless dog. He talked money, he talked life...and all I came out with was ‘you’re from the southern hemisphere right? Sidney?’ Then he properly smiled! I almost collapsed. ‘How did you guess?’... Conversation continued and the little devil in my head shouted ‘progress’. Let’s be clear, I had no plan. I don’t know what I thought flirting with my estate agent, whose sole purpose in life was to milk as much money out of me as he could, would achieve. But as I’ve said time and time before, I can’t help it.

We viewed the apartment and I fell in love, though I’m not sure I’d be that enthusiastic if it wasn’t for him. He made promises like ‘we’ll do what we can to get the price down’ and ‘you tick all the boxes for an excellent tenant’. I remained mute for fear that if I spoke, I would ask him out for dinner, or say something outrageous like ‘I tick your boxes huh?’ He would then be forced to list me on a register somewhere as a predator.

Back at the office, I started the arduous task of filling out lots of paperwork as he went to get himself (and hopefully me) some lunch. One of the other estate agents came in and pointing at me asked, ‘Which apartment?’ ‘Lakeview’, his boss answered, ‘courtesy of Henry’. I looked up in time to spot the other agents in the office nodding knowingly. I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d just been had. So I casually asked how good Henry was, and ‘excellent’ was the resounding reply. ‘Especially with women?’ I probed further, and unsurprisingly, they all smiled. It appears this flirting-to-get-what-you-want thing works both ways. Estate agents were particularly good at it, but then Freakonomics showed that they’re never up to any good. I’d just been had for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but luckily it was for a house I wanted. Be on your guard...these beautiful men are up to no good after all. He did get me a juice though.

Minor rant...

Maybe I lie. Major rant. I have a thing about not blogging when I’m annoyed about something, because I think ‘foot-in-mouth’ disease is compounded greatly when you do. Today however, scratch that. I am pissed; at myself, at the world, at this lovely bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. So here’s a quickie to make me feel better (as they always do).

I got onto Twitter, and a week later, when I realised people don’t play stupid colour/fruit/country/relationship status games, I deactivated my FB account. 6 months down the line, done with my exams, I figured the only way to satisfy the faux-friends in my life was with a quick update so I reactivated said account for a week. Day 6, I logged on, and saw that a mutual friend had written a congratulatory/delayed birthday message on my ex’s wall. I thought ‘bastard’, then five minutes later, pointed at myself and said ‘idiot’, because there I was, looking at his profile.

Our last conversation was the obligatory ‘Merry Christmas to your family’ message (our families are close friends). He then informed me that he had a baby. I was past the point of caring about this particular issue, because it was a sticking point in our relationship: his wanting a child, my being ‘selfish’ with my uterus while I was still in university, and not fitting him into a five year plan. As I said, he is bastard. Of course when the pressure was non-existent, I would acquiesce to the fact that the idea of a daughter who I could name after my mother would be nice, some time in the VERY DISTANT future. I congratulated him, and forgot all about it. I didn’t even think to ask if he had a girl or boy, which is apparently the norm. I was busy with other things and other people.

So there I was, browsing his wall, snickering because he had ugly spindly legs (new profile picture). Then I saw one of his posts: ‘Her name is X’. I stopped scrolling. He was joking right?! X was my name. The little conniving son of a female dog had just stolen my name. My mother’s name is unique; she was born a few years back (trying not to be ageist), her dad worked under the colonialists, and was really old school (bless his heart), so it’s a bit on the rare side. He’d also chosen the truncated version that we had talked about. Bastard. Then I got even more annoyed, because I was pretty darn sure that despite being together for approximately 7% of our lives, it was a conversation his sorry little brain would have forgotten. Finally, I got annoyed at myself. WTH was I thinking? What was I looking for on his profile? Because let’s be honest, I went looking for shit right?! It’s like reading texts on someone’s phone. Furthermore, why do I care about something that he has done?! It’s not like there was any ambiguity regarding his status as a bastard *slapping myself furiously now*

That is how I ended up here...drinking wine and bitterly blogging. I’m annoyed at myself, for taking 20 steps back in the direction of a donkey walking in reverse...towards stupid. I feel better after this little rant, and will be grand after this bottle of wine. That is all. No. STOP. His account has been deleted. Yes. Now that is all. *HAMMER TIME*

Mojo. The end. Sort of.

So clearly I had taken the ball into my own court, whatever the hell that meant. I mulled over the issue for a few days, the number mocking me and daring me to be different. I eventually sent a nonchalant ‘want to meet for a drink today?’ not really knowing what to expect. Truth be told, I still held a grudge, but something told me that writing off a person because of my issues would be up there with the stupidest things I would ever do. I wore a nice dress to the drink, because that’s what I do when I’m nervous (and most other times as well). But then the not so slight problem of the unrelenting Nairobi sun and nervous energy meant I arrived at the rendezvous fanning myself, shining a little, swearing a lot, and desperate for a drink. I could see it in my head: MISTAKE. The moment I sat down however, order was restored. We were talking, flirting in fact, but in a friendly ‘this means little’ way, and we fell back into easy company. It had been 2 years and apparently, a lot had happened since.

Mundane conversation was dispatched with rapidly, and we began talking about the good stuff: life, and why he wouldn’t let a bet go for a pretty girl (Me people! Me). He laughed off all the little jibes that I threw his way (one assumes he felt I was justified), and was gracious in letting me ‘have one’. I felt a familiar, unwanted emotion stirring in my head, so I did the only thing I could and asked ‘so how’s the girlfriend?’ [Quick sidebar: When a girl asks ‘how is the girlfriend’ rather than ‘is there a girlfriend’, it is a thinly veiled attempt at not showing her true hand. All she really wants to know, is there a girlfriend?? Huh? Is there? Tell me now! I need to know!! It’s sort of similar to that moment as a child when you realise your friend’s toy is far superior to yours and you really want it, but instead you say ‘It’s not even that cool’. This was EXACTLY one of those moments]

I hadn’t given any thought as to how I would react to his answer, given I hadn't anticipated the question.  So when he said ‘she’s fine’, I winced. Well, I call it a wince but it was more of a wheeze that made it seem as though I had impaled my foot on a toothpick soaked in chilli. It was loud, and it sounded painful. Unfortunately, I couldn’t wallow in my wheeze any longer as I realised his girlfriend was someone I sort of knew, and I was turning blue. I tried to hide my disappointment, coughing and claiming that I was now choking (on the drink I had been gulping to camouflage my wheeze. In the words of Mr. Knightley, it was badly done). The next emotion that assaulted my now battered and bruised heart was even stranger than I thought was possible... I was happy. I was actually happy for him, no jealousy, and no dismissal. I wanted to hear more, and be even happier for him. This internal conflict was too much for little young me to bear, and made itself manifest as a grunt, followed by a snort, and then a fit of giggles.

And in that messy, protracted story, my friendship with Mojo was born. I, along with all of you dear readers (thanks for the faith in me by the way :-D), could have sworn that the moment I fell out of the car would really have ended things. Apparently though, I’m like a phoenix, I rise to live another day. Or so I’d like to think. It did make me appreciate just how fantastically different all my friendships are, and that the most valuable start with the least amount of bullshit (i.e. me making a total fool of myself). More importantly, this brilliant, somewhat emotionally crippled person that I am, would have never been had I succumbed to the silly passions of my 19 year old self. FACT.

Mojo, revisited.

I had a serious case of the bruised pride. I mean, I had just kind of thrown myself at a boy, and it had ended abysmally. I got home and my mother excitedly asked, ‘so, how did it go?’ I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth, and I fear she won’t have let it go, so I run with ‘Mojo wasn’t interesting’ (which was of course, far from the truth).

Mojo had a made a bet with a friend. A bet he had made before he met me (#novanity). A bet, that at 21, he was going to keep, to prove a point, as all 21 year olds feel the need to do (I know, I’ve been there). Mojo’s bet was that he would remain celibate for a month, which given my description of Mojo and my clearly uninhibited behaviour around him, you will understand was just ridiculous. I happened to meet Mojo on approximately day 15 of the bet. Which was also exactly 14 days till I was due to return to my little hole many miles away.

I took on the airs of a wounded cat after my rejection, and did what I do best, I deleted Mojo. I tried the assassins but naturally the laughed in my face; not only was I offering a pansy sum in remuneration, but they sided with Mojo. Apparently, a little hurt pride wasn’t such a bad thing for bringing me back to earth. So I had resorted to the manual delete: I ‘lost’ his business card, deleted all the texts on my phone, and then, on a Friday evening, in the middle of prayer, I pulled out my phone, blinked exactly 3 times and deleted his phone number. I could now pretend none of that had ever happened. My friends had other ideas and continually informed me of ‘Mojo sightings’. They really did try to make it a summer of discontent.

I wrestled thoughts of Mojo from my mind and somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that if he walked past me, slapped me in the face, and perhaps even curled my eyebrows (not that I know why he would be doing that), I would not recognise him. I was very sure of this, content that my powers of deletion had been successful. Time obliges you in that way, and gives credence to such self delusions. Two years later, while sitting in the car park of Junction waiting for my brother, I glimpsed a car at approximately 15 metres, moving at 10 km/hour, and turning AWAY from me. Imagine my utter surprise when my heart fluttered and immediately announced to my head that the passing flicker of light was Mojo. These two elements of my body were engaged in fierce battle as to which possessed the better memory, but my hand and mouth had other ideas. His car had now come to a stop, waiting for parking one assumes. I was standing out of my car. How all this happened, I don’t know. ‘Mojo!’ he turned. The ‘real’ me gave my mouth a stern look, but in that moment of distraction my hand was free to do as it wished. Therefore, it waved. Excitedly I tell you. Very very excitedly.

It was very awkward. The location was less than ideal, standing in the middle of a parking lot. These things are never as romantic as movies make out. It was far too hot to just stand there, and there were separate engagements to be attended to. I felt a small lump rise in my throat. Hurt pride. We hugged hello and hurriedly caught up on a few months worth of life, before the ‘let’s properly catch up’ line was bandied about. The problem was I did want to catch up. After all, one of the most attractive things about this man (aside from arms, smile, derriere), was the fact that he was really quite intelligent. Book smart, but more importantly for me, life smart. The kind of people I wanted to occupy a place of prominence in my life. I mumbled something about phones, and Mojo, oblivious, replied that his number was still the same. Once I had constructed a suitable explanation, he gave me his number again, and the deal was done. I skulked back to the car, wondering where we would go from here...

To be completed (after 15th...last exam).

My Reading Revolution!

I was moving house a few years ago, but because I didn’t own a car and I was only moving down the road, I enlisted the help of a cabbie. He took one look at my boxes and cases and burst out laughing, then charged me 4 times the going rate. I had, to be exact, 4 VERY large boxes of books (not school related). A few years and many donations later, including my first World Book day (2011), here I am: trying to recall how I developed my addiction to reading in the first place, and what it means to me.

According to my mother, I started reading at an early age, when I was about 2.5 years old (disclaimer: she’s obviously a little biased). My first recollection of reading though was Friday evening Bible study as a family. It was my opportunity to read in front of my much older siblings, without fear of being taunted when I couldn’t pronounce a word. It also cultivated a love of big words: thou, thine, offspring, commandment, covenant, gnashing, iniquity, redemption, revelation, ascension...and much simpler words like ‘I am’. Advancing age and an incapacity to understand my dad, who often said ‘imbecile’ and ‘uncouth’, made me seek out other books, and soon I was lost in the world of tiny fonts, illustrations and fantasy.

I waded through the Sweet Valley series, wishing for a sister, and piqued my interest for adventure while solving mysteries with Nancy Drew and Famous Five. I lived in my brothers’ shadows, and the only way to get noticed was to show them fancy words that would rid them of the pox of 3 Ns and U (innuendo) when playing Scrabble. I flirted with Mills and Boon, but my mother felt that was a little precocious, and pointed out that she’d assumed I could do better. There’s nothing like a bit of sarcasm to push one to greater heights, and so I fell in love with classics, with Mr Knightley and his loving reproach of Emma. Austen and I developed an intricate dance: I waltzed with Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice), and tangoed like Marianne did, even crying when her heart broke and falling in love with Mr. Willoughby (Sense and Sensibility). I took up poetry, reading about great loves, Shakespeare’s tragedies and Oscar Wilde’s plays. My older self began to yearn for a more African identity, something I was warned would happen, but at 13 I loathed to accept. Chinua Achebe helped me put my fractured identity back together, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o made me announce to all that would listen, how amazing it was to be Kenyan. More recently, Chimamanda Adichie embodied my desire for a deeper understanding of history and my quest for Africanism in her short stories and novels, especially Half a Yellow Sun.

Books are my best friends. Don’t get me wrong, I love people, but it’s the books that I read that often helped me meet these people. It’s hard to ignore the book that will invariably be in my hand, and it means we’ll always have something to talk about. I’ve learned about history: from the Israel 6 day war, to Somalia in 1993 and the history of Al-Qaeda. I’ve lived in 19^th Century Latin America following a family for 100 years (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), and I have seen the dark side in the Picture of Dorian Gray, and in modern day Sweden (Stieg Larsson trilogy). I have been a lady (Little Women), I have been a vagabond (Oliver Twist), I have been a slave (Maya Angelou), I have been on a mail ship (Rudyard Kipling), I’ve been naive and awkward (the Great Gatsby) and I’ve been crazy (Oliver Sacks). I now know Mussolini was a little mad (Captain Corelli’s Mandolin), and that one’s future can be in a name (Freakonomics). I experienced not knowing oneself (Middlesex), to perhaps knowing a little too much (On Chesil Beach), and I have truly seen the measure of a man (Poitier).

Books offer an adventure, a journey into a page, into someone else’s mind, and ultimately into another world. They create possibilities, and for a moment in time, make improbability a tenuous argument. They open up the hearts of children to the lives of others, allow them to relate to the imaginary, and then haul them back into reality. Reading is mental acrobatics; my brain does a back flip every morning and every evening before I drift to sleep, I absorb one ‘last’ chapter- my brain is held in a virtual tree pose as I feel my thoughts rise to another world, and the disappointments of this one become a fragment of my imagination. That is why I read, and why I wish everyone would too.

The Kenyan Reading Revolution think so too, and that’s why they’ve organised this fantastic event, which aims to get the largest number of people (25 000) reading out loud together in a single place. Details and registration here >> http://readingrevolution.co.ke/breaking-the-world-record/register-here/ If you are in Kenya on the 16^th of June or know someone that is, please get them to go to this! It will be a record well worth breaking!

Have you met Mojo?

(To all my faithful and much loved readers, sorry if I am a bit out of commission for the next few weeks...minor issue of major exams to be passed...I will still tweet crap, so feel free to engage. Oh and before I disappear...

This is a story about Mojo. Or rather, how I met Mojo.

I was 19, and vanity had smacked me in the face, and then held my hand. I thought I was alright looking, and my hair was doing things unbeknown to my younger self, bouncing every which way and swishing in the wind. Gyms had sorted out legs, and a year of pretentious debates about ‘space and place in economic Geography’ while expounding on the nuances of protein function had left me itching for smart conversation constantly.

I was back in Kenya on holiday and the sun was out, as were the sandals and the abbreviated dresses, as my mother affectionately refers to my wardrobe. I was in a supermarket buying a phone that would see me through the break. Over my shoulder, a rather commanding voice tried to sell me something. I chose not to turn around, but because it/he was well spoken, I replied with a ‘no thanks, not today’. As I waited to be served, I noticed my two friends crouched in one of the aisles pointing at something behind me. My immediate thought was ‘bastards! They left with a snake about to kill me’. Then I realised they were giggling, and making eyes at something. You know those eyes a girl makes that say ‘come hither mister, spread whatever it is boys spread’. I screwed my eyes at them and that did not deter them, so I decided this must be serious. I turned around and behold, it was Hallelujah’s understudy, because that’s all you could say when you saw that man: Hallelujah. But because that is a rather Godly term, and this post is anything but, we’ll call him Mojo.

Mojo’s arms were muscle-y. In a ‘I am a man, but I dislike steroids’ way, and his smile was disarmingly skewed, not perfect, but also just right. I literally swooned and held onto the table in front of me (tossing my hair as I did so- never one to waste an opportunity). He looked like he smelt nice and his bottom and calves, though unseen, felt like they would also look good. He was one of those beautiful people that you didn’t have children with...you’d be the least hot person in the house. Now, BWTB doesn’t like to brag, but I actually possess a genuine smile, appreciated by many people, and I find it easy to make friends. So I smiled; one of those where my eyes screwed up a little, and my lazy dimple kicked into action. In the sweetest voice I could muster (which given I am a proper alto, is rather deep...), I accepted his business card, ‘to pass on to my mother’, obviously.

Two days’ later, I sent Mojo a message, you know, totally nonchalantly. ‘Hey, it’s B, girl from X. I thought you were cute, so hi’. He waited for a perilously long time, about 2 hours, before he replied. One has to assume that he was trying to work out who I was, then trying to decide if I was a serial killer or not. He decided not, and we began to chat and text message. It turns out he was intelligent, enough to feed my pretentious brain. Of course, as is B’s nature, my intentions were so much less honourable. And because he was fascinated by my white dress and gold shoes, we met for a drink after work. Well work for him, gallivanting for me. But that’s neither here nor there. Physical attraction was definitely there- I had mentally undressed him so many times that he was running out of virtual boxers.

We kept at the tea dates, lunch dates, phone flirting...and yet, B could not get her man. My vanity was taking a serious dent. I decided that perhaps his problem was ‘poor signal reading’ (ref to ‘Old man and the sea’), so I would help a brother out. We’d been out for an evening coffee and he walked me to the car, hands around my waist and all. It was perfect. I had parked in the basement, and had a car that required a step ladder (I am not very tall) to get into, so of course he would have to give this damsel a hand. I was also wearing a dress. I figured he liked dresses. Or rather, legs. Anyway, we descended the stairs to the basement, me lamenting at how cold it was, him getting the hint and pulling me closer. $$$$$...#winning. All of the above. I opened the door, and he helped me in. It was now or never, so I said, ‘thank you for a lovely evening’. ‘You’re welcome gorgeous’. *Hug*. As he pulled away, I went in for the kiss, just as he said ‘I have a bet with...’ < I stopped listening. It sounded like something that would disappoint me, but more importantly, I was now falling out of the car. It wasn’t a dramatic fall, not in the slightest. It was simply an I-am-throwing-myself-at-you kind of motion. I would like to say *to be continued*, but after that performance, I was sure he would decline. We said our goodbyes.

Life sentence at 13.

‘Unfortunately the news is as we had expected’.

‘What?’ Lip smack...

‘Remember, we discussed this before you went in? That we were trying to exclude various serious things.’

‘Yeah, sort of,’ X replied, furiously chewing the largest piece of gum I had seen. I sat there staring at her, incredulous that someone could be so dense. Interestingly, I wasn’t allowed to chew gum as a child (I know...my dad’s old school!)- Direct correlation to stupid (her, not me)?! I wouldn’t like to say...

‘Well, the tests confirmed what we suspected, that you can never have children’.

I was sitting in the room as the doctor told X, a 13 year old, that she can never get pregnant naturally. She should have been sad, but honestly, she simply appeared not to understand a single word that had been said. You could imagine her thinking ‘Kids?! WTF are those?’ I was frustrated for her, and I’m usually pretty chilled, I don’t get frustrated on account of other people. Not often anyway.

A recent #t about childhood memories reminded me of X, and how different our lives are/were. At 13, I was starting to like people as well as books, and stop thinking of boys as ‘disgusting’. I was trying to wear slightly more feminine shoes, and I wore dresses more regularly (of course, after my father rescinded his ban because I was no longer falling all over the place and ruining my legs with scars). I was a little bothered by being ‘older’ than I was, but I didn’t pursue it relentlessly. I was most definitely NOT having sex. So you can imagine my angst with X. She had pelvic inflammatory disease, something I didn’t know about until university. Basically, she’d had an STD for so long that it had clogged up her lady bits and so she would never be able to successfully deliver an egg to her uterus. Now, most people find this out when they’re older and try to have children but can’t. And it’s devastating for them. The problem was that she didn’t understand what an STD was, let alone the disease or its implications. Which begs the question: what the hell was she doing having sex in the first place?!

Here’s a bit of a generalisation: given she was alone in the clinic, didn’t seem to have parents to speak of, chewing gum (!) and smelt heavily of cigarette smoke, I was judging her background a little bit, and blaming what I thought was a failure of parenting and lack of education. But of course this is unfair, because I didn’t find out enough about her to know why she was in that particular position. It did make me think about all the things we do, for fun, as part of life, and whether or not we think about the responsibility and the consequences. So here are a few medical truths for you, while you’re horizontal today:

• HIV is the big bad scary wolf, but its little cousins have just as big an impact on your life. At 13 you don’t know you want kids. Hell, in my tweenies I don’t know that I want kids. But I bloody well want the power to make that decision.
• Get yourself PROPERLY checked out (not once in a life time- it’s gotta be regular people!). Great, you’re HIV negative. So?! There’s Chlamydia, gonorrhoea, LGV, syphilis, HPV (àcervical cancer). My rule is if I’m going to do something, I want to know the ways in which it gets fucked up. So I can avoid them. For example, did you know STIs in pregnancy could cause miscarriages?! Educate yourself! Google is your friend...No nookie till you do.
• Why the hell do you not have a condom?! Right now, at this moment in time, in your wallet/makeup bag/bedside drawer...Seriously?! *smack yourself twice*

Forgotten toothbrush

So at some point in the last 2 weeks, #4 and I sorted out our issues, and for the duration of my holiday, were doing the ‘fling thing’. It was pleasant, exciting, and it certainly distracted from the mountain of work I had to do. I spent an evening at his house in the second week, which was excellent, for many reasons, not least because I learnt that he is a bit of a freak. I walked into his impeccably clean house (what is it with men and keeping their houses clean as bachelors? Something to hide?! Hmmm?) and found my way to his room. I took of my sweater and nonchalantly flung it across a chair, in a ‘no biggy’ way. I turned around for 10 seconds to remove my sandals, and when I turned back, my sweater was on a hanger and in the wardrobe. I kid you not. He also folded away my clothes when I was not looking...cute.

I was very careful in the morning, ensuring that I retrieved all my wares, and folded them as I packed my overnight bag. He was watching after all, and is clearly a neat freak. I got home, and as I unpacked, realised I had forgotten my toothbrush. *cow* *fudge* *ship* (and all other faux-expletives). I decided to ignore it because after all, it was unintentional, and it was only a toothbrush; my favourite one, but still. He could throw it if he even noticed it. I totally forgot (not really) about it, until I received a humorous email from #4 saying ‘you left your toothbrush. I see you have territorial tendencies J’. I laughed, because it was typical of him, using as few words as possible to try and convey as much information as he could, while asking a subtle question i.e. am I territorial? I responded in kind, assuring him that if I was territorial, I would have parked a car with my name, two photographs of myself and all my shoes (which are VERY VERY many...Imelda Marcos is my hero) inside his house. If he wanted to get rid of signs of me, he’d have to get movers.

The incident made me think that girls are going about this all wrong. If you want to put your stamp on a man’s house, forgotten toiletries and cushions are not the way to go. Things that fit into bin bags will end up exactly there. What you need is something that is immovable, for example, engraving a sweet ‘him and me’ message on his bespoke bed post, or using a candle to burn a loving message on his wall. You need something that requires him moving away from the house, possibly after burning it down, and changing all his identifying features in order to be rid of it. That’s a sure fire way to brand a man as something you would like to own. Because after all, only a freak would think that is the way to a lasting relationship. If you feel that he needs little things to remember you by, I would suggest that you have a problem. I think branding of things should be left to cows in volatile cattle rustling environments. But that’s just me...missing my favourite toothbrush. *sad eyes*

The old man and the sea

There’s a book with that title isn’t there?! I haven’t read it, but the title stuck with me because all I think of is an old man, losing a battle with a big body of water. My friend and I were out for coffee yesterday, sitting at our local, with our feet and bags resting on adjacent stools, leaning in and gossiping in a clear ‘don’t approach’ manner. Apparently signals are very poorly read in this our lovely city, so of course a considerably older gentleman saw two girls, one wearing a dress that was far too short, and decided he had arrived! He said hello to my friend, probably seen her there before, and then casually asked ‘You don’t mind if I stand with you, do you?’ as he ordered his Tusker Malt. I looked at her and pulled out my phone, twitter time. She didn’t so much as smile as grimace, but he took it as an affirmative. He walked off, probably to call his boys to say he needed a wingman, he’d found young girls here.

His boys, clearly a tad more serious than he, of course ignored his many phone calls, so a lonely old man eventually came back to join 20-something year olds. Then the bad chat began. This is the point at which even I sat up. Surely, because you’re pushing 60/70 and you have the balls to interrupt two young girls (younger than your daughters) having a private chat, one would think you are the fucking bee’s knees of conversation. Well, here were a few gems from that deathly half hour...

‘Do you drink at X as well?’ No. No we don’t. You know why?! No? Well, I’ll tell you. We are not freaking alcoholics, that’s why. And anyway, when a bar no longer has a door, it’s time it ceased to exist.

‘I took some young girls to this place and we got there and they ditched me. They were straight on the floor...’ Eeeeem.... even the crickets will be silent for this one. Therefore? Does that prove your virility? You might have wanted to dye your hair black before you started with that conversation; I STILL don’t think you’re young, even at heart. Also, I don’t how to break it down for you, but the girls had your arse for your money, and found younger boys to dance with.

‘You should come back so you can be my doctor’ WTF?! I’m not even talking to you. I’m on my phone. See??? Ignoring you.

‘I hear it’s Ladies’ Night in Nairobi’. Yes, because that would be the only reason I would ever go out, to avoid paying entrance fees into a club. Is this you saying you can make a good sugar daddy?!

‘So what are you talking about now?’ You, and how you are completely incapable of reading signals. Go awaaaaaaaaaaaay.

‘Do you watch football? Kenyans like football. I like football.’ Ay caramba!!

And finally...as we downed our drinks and threatened to sprint out of the bar....

‘We’ll see you on Friday night. I hear it gets hectic, and that day my wife doesn’t mind what time I come home’.

I think I gave him a piteous look and for his sake wished he would realise how much of a fail he was. Unfortunately he didn’t. The very next day he returned, but we’d sat in an inaccessible area, so he did the next best thing and sent a waiter to ask us to join him. Yeah fucking right.

Hairless solutions.

The sun is slowly inching out, and as such, I was doing a little personal research this weekend re: bikini waxes. First of all, in case you didn’t know, the world of wax is as tricky as they come. You must choose the right style. You know, like when you go to the barber and ask for a ‘short back and sides’ or a ‘fade’ or ‘kipara shine’ (i.e. take it all off...everything- aim for baby bottom smoothness). The options range from a regular wax, which may be large, medium or small (i.e. the standard one). Then there’s a French wax, which is a modified regular wax, where they remove a little more hair from the top (of your imaginary Y fronts). We all know about the Brazilian, though few of us from personal experience, where they take off everything and head a little (actually a lot) further back. Then there’s a landing strip, which I imagine is just that.

So is there any etiquette for bikini waxes? A quick Google search didn’t so much as prescribe etiquette as suggest a few helpful tips. For example, shave 3 weeks before so the hair is exactly the right length, because apparently, there is a wrong length for these things, including too short (the mind boggles). Another website suggested one should exfoliate the area before and after. I initially disagreed with this on account of the cost of my exfoliant, but it’s supposed to help with in-grown hairs, which I imagine are far more painful. These suggestions were helpful, but I didn’t feel they answered the right questions. So here’s my very brief list of tips before you go for a wax, some of which should be natural, but nothing wrong with a gentle reminder. Add yours down below...:-D

• Shower before your wax. No explanation needed. If you have thrush, cancel the appointment. A sick imaginery pet will do for excuses.
• When is the right time to wax? I would suggest not doing it the morning of an important meeting, especially if you’re a waxing newbie, because it IS painful, numbing cream or not, and you will walk like someone forget their stick up your arse. Weekends are ideal as you can take your bruised nether regions straight into a relieving bath. Avoid times of the month where you cry because someone left a wet towel on the floor. The wax is extra-painful, and may drive you to jump off a roof. #justsaying #PMS
• What underwear depends on your desired style: if you favour le Brazilian, or landing strips, wear a thong. For all else, wear sensible panties that you can grab and pull across. Don’t borrow your younger, slimmer sister’s pair (which doesn’t quite fit) because it’s a nicer colour. You will end up butt naked wearing a faux nappy. You can also leave the lace in its drawer because you are not trying to ‘pull’ your beautician, and the wax gets very sticky.
• Take up yoga. The wax position mimics tree pose, and if you’re good at that, your beautician will appreciate the easy access.
• When you have planted the roots and branches of your tree (i.e. spread your legs), feel free to ask about the depilating practices of your beautician. After all, you’re in a position where that topic is no longer off limits, and they often have useful tips.
• Always say you’re getting a wax because of your upcoming beach holiday. You may be lying but if you haven’t waxed for 10 years, it is a plausible reason. And anyway, the art of small talk is littered with little white lies like ‘How are you?’ ‘Fine, great, awesome. You?’
• If you would like a message such as ‘I love you my puppy sweetheart sweet pea’ written in your nether regions, don’t get a wax. Pay for a shrink instead. That goes for people wanting wands, stars and butterflies too.
• It usually takes 5-7 minutes unless you’re positively agrarian down below, or your waxist (yes, I made that up) is rubbish, so that’s how much conversation you need to plan for!

Off on holiday for a couple of weeks, Easter, repentance, people...all that jazz.

Happy holidays! x

I want it all.

My friend once told me that ‘It was strange that I always have a love interest on the go’. I denied this vehemently at the time, but a thorough examination of the last 3 years has revealed that she was in fact, stating facts. So I decided that I would cease looking for men in between my trysts and work on ‘being healthy alone’. I made a startling discovery today though. It is safer for the gene pool when I am not an active participant in it, because I am a pathological flirt. It is, in fact (yes, another one), a disease. I have flirted to get better seats on planes, served faster at restaurants, lifts home from friends, store discounts at shops I don't work at, and free coffees from Costa.

I don’t know where or how I learnt to flirt, and I must now take a moment to apologise to all those characters that were my guinea pigs in my experiential days. It does appear however, that I can now unwittingly flirt, even when I am trying not to, for the sake of a lust love interest. I was a patient model today on a course where doctors learn how to not kill people who have survived a traumatic experience. You might chuckle at that line, but it’s true. Your body is amazing at allowing you to survive things like road traffic accidents, even when your leg has been cut off- something or other to do with adrenaline. You then get to hospital where you relax (sometimes anyway), and everything in your body quietens down. Your sphincters loosen themselves, adrenaline seeps less quickly out of your body and you begin to fall apart. This is the moment where doctors should step in and save the day, but alas, it’s never that easy. Hence the course...

I was made up to look blue, which given I am black, was an interesting undertaking. I looked ashen. It was slightly scary, as I imagine that’s what I would look like when embalmed. I was wearing ‘model’ clothes, in the form of a child’s purple checked shirt (*gasp*), and a green, yes...green, linen skirt that was 55 sizes too big. I knotted it as much as I could, then eventually pinned it to my underwear. If anything came down, it was ALL coming down. So there I was, lying in fake blood, looking blue and ashen, having ‘broken’ ribs, my pelvis, and left leg. The door opened and... *cue suspense music*...the most beautiful specimen of a man walked in. He smiled then approached my neck and immobilised it, you know, to make sure I didn’t ‘fake-paralyse’ myself. If only he knew...

I smiled. I then winked. According to the instructions for the moulage, I was neither meant to smile nor wink. The fake nurse in the scenario began to laugh as well, because she could clearly see what I was doing. He carried on ‘examining’ me and I sagely nodded- the model patient helping him along. I wiggled my toes as I could not wiggle my bottom, hoping it was just as seductive. Not so much. So I arched my back a bit, because let’s face it, I don’t exactly have the largest breasts in the world so spreading of tissue while lying down did me no favours. All he said was ‘don’t move your neck, you might get paralysed’. So I froze, in a half arched position, which I can reliably report is very uncomfortable. It quickly got to the point where he was supposed to assess my pelvis fracture. He placed two hands on either side of my pelvis...and it all escaped me, in the form of a squeal and a giggle and a raising, ever so slightly, of my broken left leg (the collar prevented me from throwing my arms around him). It appears he had not only diagnosed and miraculously fixed my fractured pelvis, but he had also completely re-inflated my previously collapsed lung, and blunted my ‘pain’ enough to allow me to squeal and giggle. Even the facilitators laughed at this point. Yes, this was observed by 3 independent parties.

I quickly composed myself and re-assessed (which is what he was supposed to be doing) the situation, er..man. He was indeed beautiful. He had a beautifully square, but non-geometric jaw. Beautiful blue eyes were encased like almonds in lightly tanned sockets, held up by androgynously dimpled cheeks on either side. He had broad shoulders, good for picking up girls, and was wearing a blue sweater (which, with blue eyes, is #winning). I looked down. Unfortunately he was wearing khakis that were too large, and he appeared to have a similar knot in his trousers as I did in my skirt. A match made in heaven?! Definitely not. More like ‘BLEUUUGH’. The open akala-like slippers (Birkenstocks) topped it all off. We can’t have it all, after all. Oh, I’m also going to stop actively flirting, just in case you thought I had learnt little else. I can’t not smile though, 2 years of braces (railroad tracks) made sure of that. So...

Addendum: We might just be able to have it all. Apparently my friend said he dresses badly because maybe he doesn’t have a girlfriend. *thumbing through contacts to find this man*... JK.

Nothingness

Does anyone on this earth truly know who he/she is, in the philosophical sense of the term? Specifically, anyone under half a century old (my parents were never afflicted with this kind of angst, given their generation lived through world wars, coups, famine, and hardship)? This whole search of an identity feels a bit like a lost cause. There are few people, none of whom I know, that say ‘I know who I am, and I am content in that knowledge’. Most of us are searching for something that resonates within us as ‘our inner persons’, but the problem is we often find it just in time for it or us to change. Even Paulo Coehlo (#t) seems to be searching.

But surely that must be ok? I mean, not really knowing who you are- it can’t be that bad, can it?! It often feels like an exercise in futility; all about the chase but the destination doesn’t really happen, what on earth is the point?! I don’t know, but boys swear by this strategy when pursuing girls, so perhaps there is something to be said for being in pursuit. Hell, they made a movie about it. So we are all searching for who we think we are, a forever moving goal post, but we all revel in the chase, and it appears that that is ok. What’s the alternative? Well, I suppose it would be not knowing who you are, and not giving a flying chicken’s arse. You know those people, the ones that stand for nothing and therefore fall for everything. Even when nothing moves, they chase it and fall for it.

Case in point: BMX. BMX and I have been acquainted for many years. She spent her time not trying to be anyone in particular, so each time a boy told her to breathe differently, she would immediately cease her usual one breath every five seconds, and genuinely attempt to hold her breath for the stipulated amount of time. Of course she would never be able to, and so this would force her to go out and cry like the world was about to end, pour gin down her throat, and then spend the rest of the time on the toilet, throwing up and peeing in equal measure, while sobbing down the phone to me. I often fell asleep on the other end, but I doubt she ever noticed. Oh well. We lost contact when BMX became a stripper because a friend told her to; it would be a good way to make money that she didn’t need. She may be told to kill me and would think ‘hell yeah’ so... *DELETE*

The worst kind though, is the group that hurts others while falling for ‘nothingness’. My friend asked me to share her story, and today seems like an apt day to do so. She was dating a nice boy, you know, the kind that fitted the ideal oh so well for 9 years, the rest of us were more than a little jealous. Apparently, he was simply doing what he thought she wanted him to do. He then found someone else that wanted a wild party boy who would turn up to any and every occasion drunk; work, family gatherings, social events, hospital appointments etc. He went and paid for a seat at all the bars he could find to ensure he was ‘drunk to the max’. She wanted him to disappear from his mother’s house (while still a tenant there) without a thought to her emotional well being and so he did, for a week. When she eventually demanded he disown his unborn child that my friend was carrying, he fell for nothingness. Such people.

So I’ve now decided what I want from the people in my life. I don’t want people who fall for nothingness. I want people who desire to ‘know themselves’ (not in a FB status kinda way though, because thou shalt be deleted/blocked/unfriended), who make decisions based on what they believe, not on what every Tom, Dick and Fuckery tells them. I would rather you upset me because you disagree with me, but the fact that you are trying to stand for something, reassures me that you won’t be falling for anything and everything. #Msimamo

What did you just say?!?!

Sheesh. Three posts in 7 days. Clearly exams bring out the writer in me. Enjoy! xx

My friend was having a fight with her now ex man friend (no, not a Rottweiler). She had outlined a rather complex argument and the guy’s only response was ‘Touche’. She sent me that text message and I burst out laughing. She was seething down the phone and I could feel her anger, though I’m a few thousand miles away. I don’t know what he expected would happen, but ‘touche’ was not a good way to get laid. It did make me think of a few of the worst statements I’ve heard over my relatively short life, so I thought I’d share...please feel free to add your own in your comments!

Every guy has at some point been asked, ‘do I look fat in this?’ Everyone knows it’s a devilish question to ask. Even when girls ask it, we know it’ll do no good. What we really meant to say was, ‘I really like this dress, please say you like it too’, but it came out wrong. You don’t need experience to learn that the automatic answer is ‘no’ with no hesitation, no addendums to the opinion, no comparisons (DSTV advert with chopsticks and pasta). At least I thought you didn’t. In my second year of uni, I shared a floor with one couple that I was quite good friends with. One night I had a pan being thrown against the kitchen door, and fearing for my life, I grabbed my favourite handbag, a pair of shoes and my phone, and then peered into the kitchen. All I heard was ‘f***ing think she looks better than me in it huh?’, and saw the boy walk out, shaking his head in desperation. Three days later, I asked what happened. Apparently the girl had asked him if he liked a dress she’d bought, and his reply was that her friend probably looked better than her in it.

Married people that are intent on cheating often come out with classic lines. I went on a date with a guy who was married, but thought he could hide it (not sure how, given he got my digits from my cousin, but whatever). He was running late and said he’d be about 40 min to the rendez-vous. When he got there I was a little curious as to where ‘home’ was; few places in Nairobi are 40 minutes away on a lazy Sunday afternoon with no traffic. His reply was ‘We live in Nini’. I naturally asked who ‘we’ was, at which point he skilfully pulled out a wedding ring and put it on, hoping I wouldn’t notice. ‘Oh did I forget to mention I was married?’ Did I forget to mention?! As in?! Just wear the damn ring and throw down vibes. If I swing like that then problem solved. If not, on to the next one...

In fact, anyone caught cheating is usually in a lot of trouble. Such moments often bring out the incredible lying abilities of the human race, and catching them in the act apparently makes for good entertainment. I did meet one guy who was completely unfazed. He was accosted by his two ‘supposed’ girlfriends in the parking lot of a club, and asked who his REAL girlfriend was. He looked at them both as if weighing up his options, and came out with ‘be easy’, and walked off. While I was particularly impressed with his ability to remain calm under pressure, I wanted to point out that people have died for less.

Women quite often go through craziness when we are falling for a man. Blame the oestrogen, oxytocin, whatever. It takes a lot of effort to rein in the madness, effort that is usually enhanced by previous experience of what ‘crazy’ does to a budding relationship. I have been a victim of this, though I was only 16. I have seen people afflicted with it in more recent times though. My brother had been dating this girl for a few months when one day she told him that their wedding should really be in summer so she can wear a sleeveless dress. He ran. In fact, he fled. He fled like he’d just killed a man. *Mama, I just killed a man...put a gun against his head...* She is now referred to as ‘that crazy mama...’ in conversation. Women, keep your hormones in check. Please.

A guy’s possibly least favourite thing to hear with a lady friend he’s just getting to know and like is ‘when I used to be a man...’ Eh. No. Just No. I don’t know if I would react as badly to ‘when I used to be a woman...’ Food for thought. Everyone says telling a guy ‘you’re like my brother’ is bad but I feel that any determined man should take this as incentive to stop acting brother-like, and start acting lover-like. If a guy is likely to take a wife (i.e. straight) however, admitting you used to be a man will significantly impair his capacity to perform. It’s like telling a girl that ‘you’re sister was much better than you’ when you’re both horizontally inclined (at least it used to- girls these days seem to be a lot more tolerant).

I was once told that ‘you’re so amazing that I should set you up with one of my friends’. The full weight of this statement dawned on me 2 months’ later, and I’ve been angry about it for the last 5 years! There’s something to be said for clichés, you know, the ‘it’s me, not you’ lines. They allow room for restoration of one’s self-confidence and shifting of blame, key ingredients when trying to move on from being dumped. When someone tells you that he’ll pimp you out however, it’s a straight-up insult; it’s ‘I think you’re easy and desperate’, all in one. Of course, this line was delivered with a smile and a glass of honeyed Brandy, but my friends will attest to the magnitude of scar this sugar-coated dart left (I can still bitch about it before the proverbial dropped hat reaches the ground).