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Somehow, my increasingly regular Friday evening/night conversations with Mlle.M had an interesting segue. We had been catching up on weekend plans at the time I believe when we somehow got into the dodgy waters of traditional gender roles, and how they are expressed in modern (Nigerian) marriages and relationships. [The overwhelming feedback I get from the women I talk to is the Nigerian man out there at the moment, irrespective of how learned he is, is one who expects a certain domestication in his women, often with a big dollop of subservience. My experience doesn’t fit that narrative though.] ...

A few days ago, mid way through a telephone conversation with one of the lads I used to work with in my UX5 days, the delectable lass who joined a few months before I was due to leave overheard our conversation and asked to speak with me. Even back then, in those early days of 2008, I was the bloke with a 5 year rolling plan complete with milestones, leading and lagging indicators and a roadmap. Her question had an air of inevitability to it; it had to do with the current iteration of the plan. Sadly, I could not give her the reassurances she was seeking – namely that the plan was still on track, and that an invite – amongst other things – would be winging it’s way to her Nigerian post box in the not too distant future. ...

Since the end of Q1 edition, quite a few changes have occurred. It turned out that in addition to the worldview issues Q and I had, she was also a carrier of the haemoglobin S trait (like I am). Given the family history I have got with losing the sister Gracie all those many years ago to sickle cell disease, that effectively put an end to any further involvement. Interestingly, all the other potentials from the last update have more or less slipped off the front burner. AJ effectively broke contact, and I quite frankly made no effort to keep in touch, Ify’s proximity (and the fact that she lives close by) probably means that there are no real opportunities to progress in that direction anymore; and as for TheB, I suspect I am well and truly over her. Liz got back in touch after quite a few months, and we had a frank conversation, however I think we may have crossed the rubicon here. ...

in the space above your head I see his face- And the memory of The us that once was Floods back, In a moment. I see his eyes And the glee And I recognise Like the inevitable cold sweat of a bad night’s dream that we have leapt across the edge of the river of no return If I had the chance To tell you one last thing I might tell a tale Of a thousand parts Or sing a song To cast a spell so Time would stand still Or maybe silence May be all there is To see and be.

I have spent the last few days offsite attending the SPE’s Oilfield Corrosion Conference in Aberdeen. When the email invite first came through, I knew I had to be part of it. The one main gripe I have about my job is the lack of real technical content in it on an ongoing basis. I tend to get sucked into the fire fighting, reactive mode that prevents me from applying my specialist Corrosion & Materials engineering knowledge. ...

For the prompt Strange Bedfellows at Sunday Scribblings: Stuck in the middle, Between the Me I used to be, And the Me I want to be, Is the Me I am now. And like perfect strangers - Waking up in the same bed After a liquor doused night and debauchery to forget, They can’t relate To just how different They really are.

Thankful for: Work mentors, again For blokes who care enough to stake their reputations on my success. I wish I could do more to ‘deserve’ these wonderful people in my life.

Eight years ago, I was a wee lad, barely 23, fresh off my year of serving the nation in the foothills of Sango; with the mellifluous, if unintelligible, sounds of the music that consistently wafted upwards from the traders that surrounded my very modest lodgings at Maraba still ringing in my ears. I was none the wiser of the ways of the world at the time – like the good son of my Mother that I still was, in addition to being the pitifully shy, introspective bloke, I still greeted older males and females as ‘Sir’ and’Ma’ - a predisposition which perhaps made me fall prey to the shenanigans of a couple of police men on my first day at work. ...

Thankful for: Courteous road users: The final crossing before I make the right turn up the tiny road to my apartment is about as busy as it gets by the time I drag myself home. There are people turning left into the big housing complex just down the road from me, people going to see movies at the beach and all that. I often spend five or more minutes waiting for the traffic to lighten up enough for me to make a dash across the road. This week, I have had the delight of having a couple of drivers stop to allow me cross, even when they have not had to. Resolution: How I managed to get sucked into a spat at work beats me, but I ended up exchanging almost seven emails trying to defend a technical call I made on a work item. The downside of being the Asset Integrity guy is I often have to insist on cutting back production to allow safe operation of the asset I support, and that doesn’t really sit well with the production guys. Thankfully, I took a break from the to-ing and fro-ing and allowed a day pass before sending my final reply. That and common sense prevailed in allowing us reach a compromise. Good starts: From time to time opportunities arise at work where I get to demonstrate my technical depth. This week, I had to respond to a technical question from one of the older colleagues. Being able to provide detailed answer made my smile inwardly to myself - thankful for the grounding in Corrosion and Materials I got from my first gig at XOM.

The morning after the evening when I finally decided I had had enough - of playing second fiddle to all the lasses who were or were not in my life, of being the simple nice guy whose remit was providing the shoulder to cry on and all, and seeking unilateral closure via radical surgery, I got a text message from MmeK. Apparently, she’d not been feeling very well, which was the driver for the extended period of silence. That turned out to merely be the first salvo in what would be a barrage, seemingly orchestrated by whoever runs the world, to test my staying-away-from-women resolve. ...