Personal

The last few months for me have been quotidian - bereft of any but the most mundane exertions of eating, sleeping and surfing the internet. Thanks to the fortuitous event of my getting a real job a few months ahead of schedule, I have convinced myself that all I should be doing at this time is to rest and prepare for the big challenge ahead. Sadly, its been a lot more of rest and ungodly amounts of sleep than any real study or preparation. Am I becoming a bum? January can’t come quickly enough for me it seems.

By the time you read this, I would have completed the penultimate item on version 6.02 of the five year plan. 26k pounds in expenses, 52k pounds in deferred lost earnings, 4 months of second guessing myself, wondering if this was the right move in retrospect…. And all I get were two short minutes of fame…. 2 minutes where I donned the cape, got the hood and took the twelve steps eastward across the stage to lose my hand in his pudgy one! ...

I hate that you are always on my mind. I tell myself I really don’t mind that we do not talk any more. The brutal truth is that I mind! And worse, that it hurts - like a deeply seated wound that no salve can reach. Only a few months ago, it seemed the world was at our feet and that the sun would shine forever. A part of me wants to believe that you still care, that you still remember - I’m not sure it matters either way. We are done. ...

I think I have never danced in my entire life - not in church, not on my solitary foray into a night club, not at all the birthday parties I attended as a kid, not ever. I don’t remember if it was a concious decision, or if it was/still is a result of a deep seated phobia even I am unaware of, or if I have always lacked that seemingly natural ability to coordinate the limbs in resonance with external tunes, or if I just plain can’t be bothered. ...

In retrospect…. Life happens.. With or without our consents…. And in its wake often comes change.. which we by default detest. Over time, we develop safe routines, coping mechanisms and default positions to deal with life - ultimately acquiring some semblance of balance. Sometimes change is subtle; imperceptibly modifying the place where we are on the continuum of life, instigating minor perturbations - little oscillations if you like - around our equilibrium positions. The pragmatic thing to do then is to try to hold the fort, to resist change and maintain the status quo. ...

Chris Abani, speaking at TED in 2008 makes a statement I largely agree with; The world is not saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of every day acts of compassion.. In the last month I, Saw a bottle of palm wine explode: The chic was taking some palm wine to her father for a traditional wedding. She failed to consult knowledgeable others and left the bottle of palm wine corked. 67.5mm Hg of pressure (that is the saturated vapour pressure of ethanol at 20 deg C) ripped the bottle to pieces, and showered us in palm wine! Met @medianemesis -- dude is really cool, smart.. and everything I imagined he was and more. Y’all need to follow him on Twitter and read his old blogs - fabulous! Attended Chill and Relax. Been a long while I chilled and listened to sublimely intelligent minds speak the language of poetry. I should attend when next I am in the vicinity. Thanks to Cerberus for sending a timely reminder. Went on a ‘date’ with my friend EC: It was her birthday, I was in town doing nothing so she dragged me along to go grab a bite and just catch up on old times. This was just old friends hanging out after a year of us both zipping around the world without actually seeing each other. Got recruited as a husband finder, so send in the resumes for your brothers, nephews, uncles and (gulp) good ex- boy friends for consideration. The chic in question is uber smart, pwreeety, focused, - world class in short….. and she needs to sort this out in 2010 unfailingly… Discovered I miss my campus bistro: My morning breakfast bun - the white bread + bacon + sausages + a hot cup of coffee has grown on me in the last 13 months.. Saw a rainbow - and it actually lifted my spirits. Was up since 2.30am, it was wet and windy, and then suddenly as my train came out of the tunnel just north of Edinburgh the sun broke out and the rainbow appeared - Priceless! Thought I liked her enough to jettison the 5-year plan, then thought it was a passing fancy and then ultimately decided to fast track certain portions of the plan as opposed to whole sale changes.. Oh, and this is not one of the usual suspects…… Was reminded of the one we lost to the genes. She would have been 29 today! Saw a different spin on love: They have been married for 55 years, she is now confined to a wheel chair, but each day, he takes her for a ‘walk’, he pushes the wheel chair and they chat as they ‘walk’. That in my mind seemed like true for better for worse. Watched Imagine That, yes it’s kinda mushy, its cheesy, it runs against belief, but I liked it. Sue me! I need me my twin daughters already

Caught up with Olu again - he and I sat down in the car, engines revving pouring our hearts out on the various issues in our lives. After being so similar for such a long time, our lives cannot be more divergent going forward. He is heading back to Nigeria semi-permanently, I am looking forward to yet another winter here. Life is good though, and the time spent chatting up has thrown up a few new directions. That is what friends are for I suspect.

I have unfinished business in this town. I had always sensed that when the time came to finally cut my ties, I would still have to come here one last time, to cast my eyes over the horizon and remind myself of all the things this town means to me. Today I lug my knapsack to the park and ask for a cab. I point in the general direction I am headed in, the dirty strip of land bordering the ocean that became my chill spot during those long arduous weekends. Unsurprisingly, the fare has doubled from the last time I was here, as it did for every one of the years I spent here. We haggle a little over the price. He retorts that there is no fuel, and that I shouldn’t be a cheap skate, after all I am a big boy. Perhaps I look the part - a knapsack that looks like it has a laptop, I wear glasses, am plugged into an iPod, and am speaking English untainted by the default accent one acquires around these parts. Truth is I might have once been one of them, but I am not now, which is why my trip to the waterside could end up being painful. I am off to eyeball UX5 for the last time. ...

Moments like these, when insomnia induced by deep thought strikes, are when the harsh reality of the things we try to suppress often come to the fore. The overwhelming desire of my heart and my hand is to pick up my phone and call long distance. But my head - ever pragmatic - intervenes, short circuiting the commands and forcing me to think. I wonder if she remembers me, or if indeed there is someone else making her laugh, hearing all her foibles and making her giggle at pointless jokes and wise cracks into the wee hours of the morning.

When I was younger, I secretly believed my mother could fly. To be honest, those heels could delude anyone into believing they could - add a full flowing boubou and you had a superman woman right there, complete with boots and a cape! She certainly was not ultra light – all us kids, and her aversion to wastage in any and every form meant she was always only just under a healthy weight. For all my reading of Essential Biology I should have known that real mothers could not fly; only fairy god mothers could - but the anecdotal evidence seemed to suggest that mine did, for the sheer number of times she caught me pants down – no pun intended. ...