Blue suede shoes

My Kate Kanzier shoes arrived in the post today. Weeeeeeeeeee!

They've brought a ray of sunshine into a life filled with impossible deadlines. This week I have to:
- Finish a story by the end of today (to be submitted tomorrow morning)
- Read and workshop four stories for tomorrow's class
- Finish Invisible Man before 1pm on Thursday
- Read through twenty-six stories for the first rounds of editing for our MA anthology
- Redraft stories for my portfolio submissions
- Write new stories for my portfolio submissions
- Outline the essay for my portfolio submissions
- Meet with two editing groups for the first round of editing for the MA anthology

I'm glad I at least have those shoes, eh? You can pick up a pair here, if you're into smurf-coloured fashion.

And with that title you knew I had to share this: [It used to be a YouTube video of Elvis Presley singing "Blue Suede Shoes" but in 2023 it was flagged for copyright... so I guess you'll have to use your imaginations to fill in the blanks. Or just click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1Ond-OwgU8.]

I'm falling. And it's so high, it's taking forever. So halfway through I close my eyes and stop screaming and I pretend I'm dreaming. The wind feels like a soft breeze as my body plummets through it. I can't fall asleep, so I try to turn around but there's nothing there. My hands touch nothing. I can't run. I can't press pause. I can only cut the air with my flesh and my bones until I hit the ground and die.

Words of wisdom:

Another tumblr-style update, brought to you by Carrie's Bra Strap™

Don't mind if I do! Image Source

order of the hair matrons

Does dreaming about shoulder-length hair give you bone-chilling nightmares?
Do you often find whole locks of hair tangled in the zipper of your pants?
Can you tell the age, nationality and middle-name of a woman based on the pack of hair that's fallen off her head and into your hands?

Do you often find yourself unrecognisable in pictures taken from the back, distant side or sepia-effect top? (In effect, any angle other than full-frontal or passport-style)
Is your self confidence measured in grams and inches?
Is choosing between a trip to ghana and a shipment of temple hair a no brainer for you?

Do you watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians for the hair stylist's name in the credits, or just to fawn over the waist-length locks of the lovely ladies? (Either/or questions carry equal weight.)
Have you become best friends with your indian classmate?
Is your blackberry messenger grouped according to hair prices?

Do you often pair your hair with body con dresses, red lipstick and false lashes?
Do you invest more into bendy rollers than any other hair accessory?
Do you dream of one day being able to trip over your own hair? Is rapunzel's nightmare just a few inches away from your biggest fantasy?

Then the Order is for YOU!

The Order of the Hair Matrons is made up of like-minded individuals who put hair above all else. And not just any hair - certainly least of all their own.
The Order prioritises length, foreign ethnicity and cost in its consideration of beauty and self.

The Order holds itself to a very specific, very high standard of beauty. Red is the colour of perfection, and as such members of the Order are rarely seen with neutral-coloured lips. Occasionally, the Order may allow a very pink shade in its place, but this is rare, and may only be worn with red-soled shoes, figure-compressing bodycon-esque dresses and false eye flutters.

Some may refer to this standard as limited, but such are the likes that adorn their heads with braids, their own hair, or - God forbid - weaves that are priced primarily in Naira.

The Order is an exclusive club, and like all other exclusive clubs (e.g. Scientology) membership is regulated by strict, financial rules. The Order does not engage in vulgar discussions or declarations of wealth in public, and as such the above questionnaire has been designed to ensure compliance to the most basic monetary criteria.

If you are able to answer any of the above questions as a result of having been gifted some of our treasured tresses, then you must explicitly say so, after which you will be wait-listed for another two-to-three months (that is, until a sufficient time has elapsed during which you must have made a self-sponsored contribution to your capillary development). Further to this, subsequent rounds of screening will ensue. The Order will need to ascertain that your response is yes to at least three more questions on the list than before the initial wait-listing period.

The Order's exclusivity is closely linked with the nature of aspiration that is a necessary characteristic of all its members. You will observe on our emblem the motto, "Length is wealth," inscribed across an elegant depiction of an ethnically darkened Rapunzel. Our collective mission is to be able to join our weaves together in a long enough trail to make a tower-length rope. Failing this, and as we have as yet been unable to attain this dream (and yet we hope, and we strive hard toward its fulfilment), members are strongly encouraged to attain wedding-train length hair, trip-over length hair (members under five feet are held to stricter rules regarding this stage. Please contact your personal Patron for guidance.), or zipper-catching length hair. At these three stages members will be awarded various recognitions from the Order, which are valued highly across the globe.

Please note: As this hair is not expected to grow naturally out of the scalp, members are encouraged to acquire as many inches of hair as possible in the shortest amount of time, to ensure swift vertical movement within the Order.
Also, a member may ascend directly to the position of Patron simply by answering yes to all the questions in the questionnaire.

The benefits of joining the Order are endless!* What are you waiting for? Your hair is never going to grow as long as anything you can buy!

Welcome to the Order of the Hair Matrons. We hope to hair from you soon.
*You must be an inducted member to be made privy to the wonderful benefits. Please contact Patrons for more information. 

Oh my God I'm getting distracted.

"I should move to London. There's hot guys there."

More YouTube thingsies. (What is this, tumblr???!)

Here is "Shit Single Girls Say," featuring quotable quotes like, "Are there gonna be any hot guys there?", "If I met Ryan Gosling at a bar? I'd hook up with him." and, "I'm just too picky. So...that's that."

This is an evolving post. If you are subscribed via a reader you would have seen about five versions of it. 

This is because I have stumbled on more youtube funnies in the three or so minutes since I clicked "Publish Post".

For your continuous enjoyment here is "What Girls Do On The Internet".

 

Disclaimer: I don't do the butt hole thing.

Enjoy :)

poison

     Someone once told me to eat the seeds along with the apple. As I watched, she ate it all and left only the short stem behind. It was fascinating, so I did it too.
     I used to hold the fruit with my thumb at the top and my middle finger at the bottom but this new system meant that I now cradled it in my palm and chomped from the top - or bottom I suppose -, with the stem facing downward.

     Halfway through eating an apple today I got terribly bored with it, the seeds, the stem, the entire fruit. But I made myself finish it because otherwise, that would be wasteful. Yesterday I threw away half a green apple and gave away an orange and a red apple, and another fruit but I forget what. I was bored of the tangy sweetness, the crunchy flesh, the nutritional benefits, the feel of it between my teeth. But I am not bored of cereal yet.

     Being bored keeps me from having to acknowledge things that are sensible. I can just say, "It's boring" and bury my head in the sand. I do not have to eat well because cooking is boring (and my flatmates are massive slobs who have destroyed the kitchen for me. Who stacks empty pizza cartons ON TOP OF THE BIN for days?!), and I do not have to finish my work because it gets boring halfway through. Boring might also mean lazy, which may or may not mean that I'm scared of doing something and failing at it.
     I guess this means I'm scared of apples now.

>>http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/apples.asp

Related: I didn't find any pictures of a half-eaten apple that looked the way my half-eaten apples do.
Related: Since Apple seeds contain cyanide then it could be argued that Sleeping Beauty was just a greedy little girl who took too large a bite of a stranger's apple. Therefore the wicked stepmother wasn't really trying to poison her and she should sue for defamation.
(Which begs the question, am I slowly trying to kill myself?)

home

When I was at home, I could get up on any random day and decide that it would rock.
I could dust off my melancholy, wash off my slobber and put on a pair of too-high heels.
I could text a bunch of friends, find out where they'd be and just show up.
I could drive anywhere and in any direction, as long as I had enough money for petrol.

It could be twelve am, right smack in the middle of nothing and possibility and decide to go to Marquee if it was a Friday, or a late movie if it was a Monday, or Bogobiri if it was a Tuesday. Well, maybe not quite midnight.
And if I was bored today I would know without a shadow of doubt that the weekend - oh the weekend! - would come packed with layers and layers of activity.

When I was home, I could call up my friends and have a sleepover. I could go out for drinks with any random admirer. I could design a dress for a random wedding. I could take my hair out without having to think it through.

When I was home...
I would have been crippled if I'd been at home today. I would have died and not gone anywhere for days.
Then I would have called my darlings and said, "I must rock this weekend! Will you sleep in my house?"
And we would have rocked.

Who's your favourite?

This is my favourite video in the world right now. This baby makes my uterus weep in loneliness and despair. Me. Want. Baby!

Enjoy :)

Salvagepunk

  a heuristic and aesthetic of radicalized junk bricolage

If heuristic means "involving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially trial-and-error methods"and bricolage means "construction achieved by whatever comes to hand", then even if they had put that in a simpler way it wouldn't have made an interpretation any easier.

I spent the whole of Wednesday listening to a bunch of serious academics talk about Salvagepunk, and what I understood from it in the end was something along the lines of: if we, like, respect the trash, and shit, we could totally use it to upset the evil capitalist government and make the world cool again, like.

Between the hours of twelve and four pm I was not only exposed to the most academic presentations of junk-related theories ever heard, but also to the other side of the dictionary that I do not often visit. 

In my new vocabulary are:

-Telos

-Heuristic

-Bricolage (of course)

-Rejectamenta (also used with suffixes -list and -lism)

-Predatory entropic rubbish

-Recusant

-Trash-swaggerer

-Mawkishly tragedian

-Ludicrously hubristic (used in the phrase, "...ludicrously hubristic of our own geek fascinations.")

-Territologised

I also learned to use the word 'specificity' in very many new contexts, all of which are directly relatable to trash and politics. And it seems Robinson Crusoe can be said to be the fictional father of salvagepunk? I don't know, I heard his name once. 

China Miéville's brows were studiously furrowed as he passionately railed against The Blue Dress(link is of a different painting of the same subject), a post-apartheid trash-couture piece created in honour of a woman that was beaten to death in South Africa. Evan Calder Williams read out the longest letter in the world - which was also very funny - and Joyelle McSweeney talked very very fast and played us some P.J. Harvey. 

Stephen Shapiro and Nick Lawrence also spoke, but by then my brain was just about fried. I only remember Giovanni Tiso speaking against ebooks via the internet (in response China spoke about a "knee-jerk fetishistic defence of books" whilst playing with four elegant pens that had their very own leather case). He was also hilarious, but at that point I remember doodling this:

The fight against capitalism is boring.

People asked about hacking, living off trash, the occupy movements and garbage fiction ("I'm quite purist about my garbage monsters"- China) and Evan brought out these really cool rubber rats that went splat! and came back together again. I still do not understand why they were on display or why there were three of them (in white, gold and black), but the gold rat would later make its home on the ceiling of the Warwick Arts Center conference room. 

Everyone wore black. (And had tattoos.)

We had three hours to regroup before the next slurry of salvagepunk. It was pretty tame, just a bunch of writers sitting around bemoaning their inadequate vocabulary over beer and potatoes.

The reading that followed was where Evan Calder Williams threw his rubber rat at the ceiling. Mister Mieville read from a children's book that possibly only his children would understand, and Joyelle McSweeney read out her beautiful poetry - super fast, of course. That was for me the best part of the evening. Well, apart from the video projections of a seventies punk scene (where the biker formation made an M for ___?) and a cute video of a train and a donkey.

"This is some salvagepunk, you know, for kids." China Mieville reading from his children's book. 

Look, it's our donkey!

Evan Calder Williams and Louis Vuitton guns. You watch that trash talk now...

In case you still cannot make out what he looks like, here's a visual:

My picture of Joyelle is even worse than these ones, and she didn't have enough facial hair to inspire a doodle, so unfortunately there are no images of her on here. She read a poem (or play) called The Warm Mouth, where she read the different characters herself, and another one called King Prion. She was amazing.

I ran off at about eight thirty pre-disco, just before all the real crazy fun kicked off (boooo). Just my luck, I hear I missed out on seeing my MA convenor and her fellow tutors, friends and necropastoralists do some damage to the dance floor. There was also something about crotch theater and a DJ catastrophe, but I think my course mates were just trying to make me jealous.

all that glitters isn't snow

I crawled out of my hole at about eight thirty last night. I had to see the world outside the cream-coloured walls that I'd come to meld with; had to peel myself off my sheets and go out, smell the icy chill of life after dark.

As I walked I saw the frozen drops of dew glint off parked cars and dustbins, saw the blades of grass as they sat glued to their roots in the wind, and as I walked further I saw chunks of white, beautiful ice spread out gradually over the earth around the naked trees. 

It was beautiful.

The air smelled beautiful, the night felt beautiful, the frost looked beautiful.

I took a few pictures with my phone; stopped in the middle of the path to take blurry pictures of what couldn't qualify as snow, or even hail, and stopped short of bending down to touch it, rolling around in it, and breaking out in hysterical laughter in the light of the street lamps.

I have seen snow. I have touched it. And yes, even then, I stopped to take pictures - and I will again, if it ever snows while I am here. What the ice was to me was new, clean, and so fresh I wanted to be it, but no matter how hard I tried to pretend, it wasn't what I really wanted it to be. It wasn't snow.

Yesterday I lost someone I had already lost before, but for what I hope is finally the last time. It had all the makings of something special - last year - and it took months to accept that something can look like love and not mean anything. It appears he had been living by the words of Sara Goodman as performed by Blair Waldorf, "The fact that we can't be together doesn't mean I won't love you". I used to think that was more my sorta thing. 

I used to think a lot of things about myself, like the fact that I was patient (lie), level-headed (only in public) and only believed in love in absolute terms (recently re-thinking that one). In the last year I have learnt that I can have feelings for more than one person at the same time (shocker), that rules - specifically mine - need to be smashed to bits before they can hold true, that, in the words of my mother, you can choose to stop loving someone if you have good enough reasons, because while love is a powerful feeling it is also, more than anything else, a choice.

I love that right in the middle of 'the last goodbye' I paused long enough to say (to myself), "It hurts, there's a physical ache in my chest." It's good to know that despite all my self development I have remained fundamentally overdramatic.

Sometimes it is easier to pretend that something is real just because it has all the trimmings of your dream. 

Things that are real rarely have any trimmings at all. I miss my friend, but not him.

Soundbite :)

Re-discovering Sara Bareilles. Now Playing "Gonna Get Over You".

How can you not be happy with such an up-tempo beat?

Enjoy. x

Love! her Single Ladies cover. 

Straight outta Compton

The University of Warwick grounds are substantial. Everyday - or every week - I find something or someplace new. While this mostly reflects my hermitude (yes.) it doesn't take away from the validity of that statement.

Compton Residences, Westwood Campus

Today I found out:

1. I do not wear size 32 pants. 

    I cannot for the life of me convert a standard size 10 measurement into inches. So, when I bought a pair of jeans online I ... guessed. Turns out they are too big. (This is a good thing.)

2. Grass frosts over at minus three degrees.

3. There are people in the world who still need to ask me if I'm sure I'm over eighteen. 

This makes me squee uncontrollably in my mind.

4. You can open a bottle of wine by hitting the bottom against a shoe. 

Related: I am unable to use this method, so it is a good thing one of my flatmates owns a corkscrew.

5. I spend more money when I don't have enough of it.

Not in actual fact, because that would be impossible. But. Considering how prudent I mostly am with money I make bad decisions when I'm broke. Or hormonal. Or both.

spilt milk and related stories

Selected reading for Modernism and Psychoanalysis.

Today started off great. The Reds had arrived but I didn't care. I even did crunches to show 'em; contract that, uterine muscles! etc. I was pumped. It was the first day of my new class, Modernism and Psychoanalysis. I was going to meet new people, sit in a new classroom, and be forced to contemplate things relating to literature that Writing didn't require me to do. I was pumped.

I got to class okay. I listened and followed most of what was said. And then an hour in my thighs started to throb and my stomach started to cramp. I felt the familiar rush of nausea threaten and choked it back. My pen started to shake when I picked it up to write and the ink came out in unintelligible squiggly lines on the page.

What was I to do? Here I was in a brand new place, strangers all around and a completely new subject being discussed. My tutor kept throwing questions back at us but by then my brain was unable to compute what was going on. The arms of the clock stayed in one position for ten minutes and my insides writhed in pain. 

I kept wondering how exactly one goes about walking out of a seminar. Do you ask permission or do you just walk out? Do you show the extent of your discomfort or do you just deliver the information brusquely? Do you whine a little or do you burst into tears? Do you raise your hands or do you stand up?

After the world started to blur I raised my hand and I stood up. I didn't double over or whine, I just packed my things and walked out as quietly as I could. If anyone asks, I was never here...

Hours later, still writhing, still on my bed, still fighting back nausea, I got really angry and had a word with God. Not because I deserve it or because I have earned it, but because He loves me. I got all, "It's not too small for You. You can't be happy to see me in all this pain. You've answered much smaller prayers. If I can stub my toe and not fall because You held me up, email China Mieville weeks late and get a reply, decide I'm going to be a writer and get into a good school, then this cannot be Your plan for me."

The protest continued, "You can't say I don't have enough faith. I have loads of faith. Loads! I know I can do with more; can never have too much etc, but the mustard seed can move mountains so loads must be sufficient for cramp alleviation!" And I cried and silently yelled and it subsided enough for me to sit up. And then enough for me to stand. And then enough for me to make some dinner. And then enough for me to go to the library to fetch myself a truckload of Freud and friends. And back, where I saw the spilt milk on the floor and laughed to myself because it gave me hope somehow.

Spilt milk a la Heronbank residences

My dad called me and we had a nice chat about the subsidy issue. He's at home where it's all happening, and I am feeling the effects of it directly because the banks are shut, but I was glad that we could also just talk. I find that being away from home has made me appreciate my family - specifically the 'rents - a lot more.

In the background of all this was Blood by The Middle East, a defunct Australian indie-rock-etc band. It has been the soundtrack of my day, being both broody and simultaneously uplifting.

So beautiful, I hope it touches you too, somehow.

X

Potataway

This is probably the funniest picture I have seen today.

Getting that on my blackberry a few hours ago was the perfect way to end (yes I know it's only three) the already good day I was (am) having. 

First day of class (which it was, today) in the new year was amazing. For several reasons, including of course the fact that I was excited to get off my bum and do some work. It was also great to see all my classmates again. For some reason we didn't all keep in touch over the holidays, and so when I walked down the corridor - almost late - to see a group of familiar faces with fresh new haircuts and bright smiles it really warmed my heart, so much so that I gave everyone a big hug - which I've never done with my new friends.

My new tutor got things off to a very good start (after a few minutes hunting for chairs) and I am completely excited about the quality of writing I just know (knock on wood) I'm going to churn out this year under her tutelage.

And then, one of my classmates asked me about haircare tips and I didn't even know what to say! I felt like explaining how different our hair textures are with the increasingly unpopular hair typing system but it just seemed too complicated. She'd read the blog feature and kept asking about shea butter... Anyway, as a result of her interest I will do some research about it. It can't do any harm, right?

One day I'll put up a post about hugs, how much I love them and how little I give them, but for now just a few wise words from my tuberous friend:

Haters gonna hate; Potatoes gonna potate.

x

Naturalista :)

I was featured on a blog for the first time ever!

I met blogger, medical student and fellow naturalista Yemisi Adesida while ranting on a mutual friend's facebook wall about the guardian article on hair fads in Nigeria. I had a lot to say!

"It's not that simple... or that complicated. There's more natural hair awareness these days - less than ideal, but it's not hopeless. Extensions don't have the same racial/ethnic implications back home as I imagine they have elsewhere, simply because we do not have issues of racism - not directly, in any case. It's just a case of following the international trends for us. (In the more 'artistic' circle natural hair has become a trend in its own right; not because people understand it or know how to handle it, but because it is the look that 'creatives' in the 'industry' have. A trip to bogobiri for instance, will clarify.) I also hesitate to agree with the suggestion that ridiculously expensive extensions are a particularly Nigerian indulgence, because it is a fact that most of the celebrities on the covers of magazines/in movies/etc are styled with equally expensive hair, and in a variety of colours and lengths too!

So much to say! Lol. I'm natural, but I wear natural looking weaves, or braids, or flat out false hair. Is one more acceptable than the other? Is it an issue of identity or is it an issue of choice? Or is it the economical implications of the indulgence that we are discussing? As a natural I have friends who flat out treat my hair as some brave, exotic adventure, as well as others who have been 'inspired' to go natural as well. But for Nigerian women in Nigeria, what does it matter really? I haven't decided. I don't think there can be one 'answer' because every woman has a right to make her own choices... "

She asked to quote me on a post responding to this, and when she does i'll put up a link to it here.
In the mean time she asked me to be the 'Hairlight of the Day' on her blog, and I of course said yes.

An excerpt from the feature:

Why did you choose to go natural? 

While relaxed I had worn my hair in short styles off and on as I was mildly obsessed with the idea of split ends. One day I realised that because my edges never really grew, they had never been trimmed! I had this image of split ends going all the way down into my scalp and decided to do something about it. I think the answer to your question is that I didn’t really make a conscious decision to go natural, even after I did.

Read it all here!

♫ Me I love my country...

The funniest thing about the subsidy protests in Nigeria right now is the one thing that most Nigerians probably did not until now realise about themselves: We love our country.
If we didn't, we wouldn't march out into the streets, rich, poor, buttie and paki.
I am so proud.
You are not likely to encounter many Nigerians that would come out, chin up, and admit something so foolish.
Love? What does love have to do with anything? Man must chop, and they can not kill us!
Love? My guy where do you think you are? OYO l'o wa oh, all that love nonsense na jand yarns.
And yet.

Wasn't it only days ago that the same computer-literate, blackberry-toting elite were side-talking each other for sitting in their comfortable houses protesting via satellite communication? And yet.

The subsidy removal is just one manifestation of the argument that constitutes the core of the protests: Corruption. Odd how, one seemingly little thing, the one government move that probably has the most sound economical case to support it is the straw that broke the pure-water seller's back. This is a fight against corruption, against subsidising the governments excessive spending, looting, and misappropriation of funds. There, in one short sentence.

I grew up hearing about Vision 2000... oh it seemed so far away! The government was making plans to steal all they could before they had to shape up, in 2000.
In the year two thousand suddenly arose visions for 2010. Two thousand and ten! I had to lick all my fingers and bend down to touch my toes to calculate how old I would be in the year two thousand and ten! Wow. It is two thousand and twelve now, and the government has visions for my children. I'm not interested.

The only thing the government does provide for its citizens is cheap fuel. Affordable petrol. That is the only social security that we have, the confidence to boast about our counterparts abroad paying hundreds of naira for a litre while we complain about a few tens of naira. That's it.
Our roads are murderous, our buildings are falling down on us, and our government is looting our contribution to our economy. Taxpayers money is used to buy private jets, to fund brand new Range Rovers, and our senators receive the money meant for their constituencies as personal allowances.

And now they say the country is going broke. No! Not broke, certainly? The bottomless pit of the country's GDP is suddenly a shallow little stream, and they need us to fill it back up.
"We will provide jobs..."
We heard that in 1990.
What else, good roads? Poverty alleviation? How about, you promise to the the utmost best that is within your capabilities as [insert public office] to make sure that the masses... what? What??

The one thing we have is the subsidy, because they have taken everything else away. If they're going to take this away they need to give us something in return.
Like maybe, electricity, running water, or safe roads to drive on. We could live with that.

Helloooooo??

Carrie's bra strap started out as a foray into fashion, but twenty-twelve has a few changes under it's young sleeve.

Since two thousand and eight or so, when this blog started, I have had two jobs, an ex boyfriend, a different hair texture and moved to another country. That's a lot of change, and growth, and hopefully the upward movement continues.

From wanting to be a fashion designer to wanting to be a stylist - and actually trying my hands at the two -, working at an art foundation as every available position (i'm talking accountant, curator, project manager, receptionist, usher, PA almost!) and deciding that I will be a writer, I've had my share of emotional and 'artistic' meltdowns.

All this valuable life experience (snort) has led me to start to call myself an all-round creative.
Please try to hold back your lunch, it is simply my pretentious way of saying I like everything. Plus, hyphenated titles are all the rage these days. And so, carrie's bra strap has/will become a much needed online space for me to put all my experiments down in writing.

There'll probably be some creative writing, style commentary, and random blabbering on here, and I will also be pouring my carefully edited heart out onto these revamped pages.

The last post on this blog was in two thousand and nine. Here's hoping the next one will be much sooner.

warm memories of the sun in the night

My hair itches and I should wash it. I pause to think for a minute and
then I feel a tingly sensation at the back of my head, or side, or
middle, and then I stop to scratch.

In that pause I allow myself to fret, to focus on everything I can not do.
I cannot wash my hair right now because I have to wait until I take
a bath. I cannot go outside because I am in my torn pyjamas. I cannot
write about him because I am scared. And so I scratch.

My legs are itching now, as I suppose they must. The fear is crawling
underneath my skin and must be expunged. You see, I want to write
about him, scribble his name all over the walls if my heart, until all
I see is him, his beautiful smile, and his butt-chin.

When he walked into the restaurant that day I only noticed a little.
When he sat two seats away from me I noticed a little bit more, and
then I forgot again. When we were leaving in the same taxi, squished
against each other in the stuffed back seat, I started to get just a
tad nervous. I was excited.

But I didn't see him again, even though I thought about him, a little.
Oh sweet sigh, the hot Dr guy who was hiding in the 'overseas.' Oh what
a delicious waste of sweet-smiling manhood... Hmmm.

So, when my cousins called me from his phone days later I was only a
little excited. I was leaving the next day anyway, and would probably
not get a chance to do more than talk to him from a distance, maybe as he
dropped them off or something. But then he came inside, and he sat
down, and he talked. To me.

Everyone else was there, but he was looking at me. Everyone else had
opinions, but he was responding to me. And I was very aware that my
breasts were slightly exposed every time I bent over to fold something
else into the overstuffed suitcase. Score!

He invited me to watch the game with him and my nerves attacked, so I
went into whiny diva mode - I don't care about sports! But then, they
all said to go with him, and I didn't want to make a fuss; I would be
bored alone anyway.

Then we were alone.

He looked at me and smiled, and asked me what I wanted to do. We could
watch the game or a movie or just listen to music and talk. We could
go visit this beautiful place or go to that interesting place, but we
just continued talking and he put on some music and we talked some
more.

My jaw hurt when we paused for breath - from talking - and then he
took me to dinner.

Famished, we ordered, and talked between mouthfuls. He asked me to
taste out of his plate; Pad Thai, I will probably never forget. It was
delicious.

When the waiter brought two spoons with my dessert I realised we were
on a date, and that everyone knew it but me, and I was shy, and I was
glad. I periodically thought about how surreal it was that we were
there, in the same place, in such close proximity of each other, him
not getting any less attractive with his wide, beautiful smile.

We walked back to his place for the second time that day, because I
was too cold to walk to the beach. The beach! I love the beach. But thank
goodness I was cold, because I don't know what might have happened on
the beautiful beach just a short walk away, alone with him.

Inside, we talked some more, and he made me some tea, and then he put
on a movie of my choosing. As I sat, clicking through his netflix for
the right movie to jump out at me, I remember feeling his heat flowing
out to me. Deliciously close quarters. Nothing with sex in it, please.
And no romances, dear Lord no. I would not be held responsible.

Watching him laugh, and watching him watch me every time he laughed,
and watching him move toward me instinctively, and offer me a sip of
his tea, and break some chocolate for me with his hands...I wanted to
stare at him for hours on end, and trace his lips with my eyes, and
just be there.

My heart has found the beat it skipped from that same day, and is
trying to fit it in between its rhythm right now.

The phone just rang, now - today - and I am distracted; it was him.
Last night he said he missed me, and right now I know I'm falling. I
do not understand it, but I'm not afraid anymore.

My hair has stopped itching.

*also posted here in June 2011*

once I wrote a story...

Once upon a time a dear friend I met on twitter invited me to write a story.
As part of a project called 'Decades', the idea was for different women to each write a story that encapsulated a decade of a woman's life - any woman's - from birth to the age of eighty when she was killed (by the writer).
I chose the third decade rather lazily, as I happen to be right smack in the middle of mine.

The series was posted to very mixed reviews on the widely popular Afrosays blog in September, and here's an excerpt from my story:

Emeka was the first person to tell me I had no bum. “The hips of a white woman”, he’d said. Then he’d walked over to where I stood, kissed me, and placed his hand on my backside, squeezing my cheeks playfully. With every increasing dent I felt my self esteem pass out of me. So, at the party, I didn’t shake my booty. I raised my hands high above my head and wiggled my shoulders. I couldn’t komole so I fosoke’d, I moved my knees where I could no longer justify moving my hips, and all my friends said I danced like a white girl. ... 

Please click here to read the rest of it. Ooh, and I came up with the tagline "I, woman" too! Granted it was something of a rip off, but still. :)