People-&-Social

Sometime last week, I found myself waiting in what was wet, grey and windy weather - typical summer fare for this part of the world - waiting for a taxi I had requested. As I had arrived downstairs a few minutes after 8.30 am when I had ordered the taxi for, I was a little uncertain as to if he had been and left or was yet to arrive. He turned up at 8.40 am, by which time I had come close to phoning the taxi company to confirm if I had missed my ride. The cab ride which followed - all 45 minutes of it - was spent in a gloomy silence, the tension in the taxi palpable. I’m sure he meant no ill, much as I didn’t either but something about the circumstances under which we met seemed to have soured our taxi driver-passenger relationship. That he had all sorts of weird tattoos on his arms, drove with only one hand on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead didn’t help break the ice either, I suspect. ...

The quote above had only been posted to a Whatsapp group I’m part of for all of an hour before it set off a firestorm. The bone of contention was Anais Nin’s body of work, (probably rightly) deemed inappropriate for the context in which it was posted (it’s a group filled with the super spiritual folk I serve alongside on my church’s tech and media team). I made a spirited attempt at defending the value of her body of work - risque subject and bohemian lifestyle notwithstanding - a position which left me just short of getting my knuckles rapped. I started typing a lengthy response in the group but did the sensible thing and backed off, taking the time to ponder what I felt was a wider philosophical question: can an artist’s lifestyle be decoupled from their body of work? Or even certain elements of that body work? ...

Image Source The conversation - when it happened - happened on a whim; as unplanned as could have been. The intent - to set up a face to face meeting later in the week - quickly snowballed into a full-on conversation about the direction the whole L thing was headed. As it turned out, it was headed nowhere. It, the culmination of months of chasing, was about as anti-climactic as could be, worsened perhaps by how sure I thought I was that this was it. A lot of things sucked about it - not least the fact that the reasons offered; the uncertainty around work and the pressure from family all felt like convenient cop-outs. That my interest, made known clearly and consistently over the past few months ultimately counted for nothing felt like a slap in my face. The alternative too felt inferior. True he was probably a lot more heeled than I was, but there was baggage which I didn’t have which - given the seriousness with which L had seemed to chase this - should have counted for a lot more than it. ...

The somewhat impromptu trip to Lagos was designed around three main objectives; making an appearance at a (self-proclaimed) protege’s wedding, dinner with the Lagos based elements of my old work crew and appeasing my father, who as early as New Year’s Day had begun to sound his dissatisfaction at my conspiring to avoid making what used to be an annual trip to Nigeria last year. For the wedding, the plan was to arrive at 10.00 am, 9.00 am invitation notwithstanding. That decision was one I rationalised away by assuming that as with all things Nigerian, a certain element of tardiness was expected. By the time I arrived at 10.30 am - sweating profusely following my ill thought out attempt to walk till I found a yellow cab - I was as undressed as I could be, my tie slackened to let what precious little fresh air there was get to my skin and my suit dispensed with. That meant I had to find somewhere to cool off for a few extra minutes and get my outfit put together again before popping into the venue. In the end I had to settle for the wing mirror on a parked car, studiously avoiding the gaze of the soldiers sat on the bench only a few feet away. Once in the building proper, I managed to find a seat next to a rotating fan to ease my pain. ...

Gate crashed. The perfect response to the wet, windy zero degree April weather. Bonus was getting to hang with the cousin and his family. #Should.Do.More

If someone pops into your mind and then a few days later they email you out of the blue… Is the universe speaking, or are you - like all confused people - calling a coincidence an omen? #Pondering

Waiting for O to appear, twenty minutes after I arrive even though she had a seven minute heads up… I guess I’ll chalk that up as a learning experience… #Learning

To not get ahead of oneself, to not be so swept up by the exhilaration of the moment that one loses sight of the bigger picture; that there is still a whole lot of knowing to yet do… #HeartsOnSleeves

We meet up - at the third time of trying - at the only place there is of note, Union Square. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, we settle for TGIF, the steak, rib and shrimp meal the perfect counterpoint to the 46 days of minimal feeding we have gotten through. There is a lot to catch up on - work, women and all the other things single, semi-bored Aberdonian chaps whine about. When we agree to head our separate ways at 9.30pm, it is having been fully sated, all caught up on nine month worth of life, and with an agreement in principle to make this a monthly affair.. ...

When you run into the someone you swore you’d gotten out of your system, but you find that months after the fact there is still that twinge of jealousy… #NotYetUhuru