Reflexion

On Saturday I have been invited to a wedding by a friend who is visiting from Accra/London. This is her very first trip to Lagos and so she is staying with me for part of her time here, which I am looking forward to. Because she knows very few people in Lagos apart from the couple, she has asked me to go along with her to the wedding. Now, my first instinct was one of dread. I didn’t really feel like going to a wedding but now, after a few days of deep breathing, I think I’m good to go. You’re probably wondering what I have against weddings. The answer is nothing. I have nothing against weddings.

In fact, I really like weddings, and this year, since moving back to Lagos, I have had a robust introduction to Naija-style weddings. I have fallen in love with that heady combination of Veuve Cliquot and small chops - it is a recipe for sheer joy. Most, I have actually been invited to, and others I have been dragged along to by friends as their +1 only to find that one half of the couple is someone I went to primary school with aged 6 but then lost touch with, for example. You might call that wedding crashing, but please, everyone in Lagos inadvertently does it at one time or another, so hold your judgement. But you are probably still wondering why I initially balked at the idea of going to this wedding. I’ll tell you why.

It is because I had a bit of a panicky moment on Tuesday. When I woke up on Tuesday morning, the enormity of what a huge year it has been for me suddenly hit me. In May last year when I still lived in London, I got engaged to the guy I had been dating for 4 years. In November, while I was in South Africa looking after my mother after her treatment for breast cancer, after a tumultuous 6 month engagement, I broke off the relationship, returned the Tiffany, and exactly a month later, relocated to Lagos, having moved out of our flat and quit my job, and sold off all my earthly possessions. My whole life changed in the space of 4 weeks.

In the aftermath of the break up, my strategy was to put one foot in front of the other and to keep going. I did not really have the capacity or the inclination to wallow in feeling anything because I was dealing with the turmoil of how close we came to losing my mum again, the stress of what was actually a very trying engagement, the logistics of the resultant break up, and the prospect of starting a new life in my own country, Nigeria, where I have not lived in 17 years. When it rains it pours, right?

There was so much going on that I couldn’t afford to stop and indulge my feelings because I knew that I might not be able to cope. The last thing I needed was to collapse into a blubbering mess. So I put my practical, no-nonsense problem-solving hat on and just got on with it. I have been in this zone pretty much all year, just going at 100 mph and not really stopping to take stock. Obviously, some amount of healing has been happening in the background because there have been those quiet moments of reflection and so on, but the true weight I have been carrying all year, and the true magnitude of the dimensions of what I have been dealing with suddenly broke over my head on Tuesday morning. It knocked me for six, I can tell you that now.

I think it’s a similar feeling to when you’re for example, running a marathon, and you suddenly catch sight of the finish line. That feeling of relief that washes over you because you didn’t think you’d make it and you suddenly become aware of the fact that your feet hurt or you grazed your knee and you didn’t know you were bleeding. That’s how I felt on Tuesday morning. I was like whaaaat? How do I process all that? It dawned on me, and I couldn’t believe that this might have been my first married Christmas, because on the 25th of September 2012, at about 1pm, if I had not decided to leave, I might have been at that very moment, marrying the wrong man, saying the wrong vows, smiling in the wrong pictures, creating the wrong memories, throwing the wrong bouquet, getting dressed with the wrong bridesmaids, clinking glasses to the wrong toast, going on the wrong honeymoon, planning the wrong children, beginning the wrong life, living the wrong destiny.

On Tuesday morning, I was so stunned, I couldn’t even cry. I just lay here gasping, trying to breathe and thanking God that everything worked out the way it did. At the time everything was happening, I just kept saying to God, I don’t know how this is going to work out or why this is happening, but please make me OK. I hate this, but please don’t let me be damaged. I still have this dream of my married life and my family and my kids and I know it doesn’t come from nowhere. Please take care of me and make this all good. That was all I could do. Internally, I was braced to crash through whatever barriers I needed to crash through to breakout of that disastrous time in my life, but I also felt drained and limp. I just did not have the energy for high emotion and drama. It was all I could do to keep it together and keep smiling. So I outsourced my feelings, disconnected my tear ducts, poured myself a cocktail and checked out of emotional-ville for a while.

I don’t think this is the forum in which to get into the whys and wherefores of why my engagement went tits up – that is maybe a post for another day, or maybe for never; I don’t know yet. But because of what happened, I have an even greater respect for relationships and marriage and family. They were pretty damn high up on my list anyway, but if it is possible, they have gone higher. My family saved me from that disastrous situation - they literally fought for my life and I don’t say that lightly.

But now, having come back from the brink of almost making the biggest mistake of my life, and having ventured out of my 100 mph aloof, damage control mode, I am particularly fascinated by the relationships around me and by weddings. There are so many people getting married these days. If you aren’t careful, having your ears pinned back and stinging from wearing a gele will become an every Saturday occurrence. I look at the marriages in my parents’ generation, and in subsequent generations – some of which have worked and some of which haven’t – and I am reminded again and again what a big deal it is. It is a huge freaking deal. But people are still just waltzing into it anyhow. I mean, once you’ve met the right person, and you know they are right, I can see how it’s quite simple in that the plan is to get married and live happily ever after. But I wonder about people who are getting married, hoping the fact that they are married will change the man or change the woman into what they want them to be.

So in the light of everything, you can imagine why the thought of going to a wedding this week presented a challenge for me. All the other weddings I’ve been to this year, I attended in my carefully detached state if mind. I did not engage with the couple’s love or lack of love, period. Because I was in a phase where I wasn’t even downloading my feelings, I could breeze in and breeze out and studiously avoid noticing all the minute details - reading the couple’s gaze, observing their body language, trying to decipher what those things meant for good or for ill; or overhearing stories from the next table about how the bride’s sugar daddy paid for the red velvet cupcakes or the groom’s jump-off had wangled her way onto the bridal train unbeknown to the bride, disguised as a distant cousin. There is so much nonsense going on with marriages in Lagos these days, that no story shocks me anymore.

See, I cannot be dealing with that crap, I just can’t take it. Because if how I felt in those 6 horrendous months of being engaged to the wrong person was just a little taster of what life might be like when you’re married to the wrong person or for the wrong reasons, then man oh man, I don’t even want to know what that’s like. I want nothing to do with any of that. It’s not that I am skeptical of marriage. Quite the opposite – I told y’all I still have a dream – but I think there are far too many people getting married and not enough people thinking. People are so desperate to carry the Mr and Mrs title that they take leave of their senses and just jump into it. I have heard of people getting married this month, December 2012 who as at June 2012 were very single with no prospects on the scene and then boom, they are suddenly entering into wedded bliss. OK, I get that a rare few people have whirlwind romances… I get that and I even know a few people who after 25 years are still married after dating for just 3 months.

But how many people does that happen for really? Let’s be honest. How are you going to bet your forever on some chick or some guy you’ve known 5 minutes? And then when it goes tits up, there’ll be deafening prayers and petitions and all this long-suffering discourse about how God should help you. I don’t mean to sound insensitive, and some people may not like this, but people need to think. And some families don’t help either. I mentioned before how I am grateful to my family for supporting me all the way when I decided to walk away. I have heard stories of people expressing concerns and their families being like meh, invitations have been printed already so it’s too late. Or you are marrying the child of Big Man XYZ so you better suck it up and get on with it and don’t let us hear any nonsense. That’s the most cruel thing in the world. You are effectively handing your child their death sentence because they will not be their best or their fullest self, married to the wrong person.

If it is not right, then WALK THE HELL AWAY. We need to encourage people close to us to walk away if it’s not the right match. I feel so strongly about this now and I didn’t understand the enormity of my decision until I realised what a HAPPY and PEACEFUL year I’ve had over all because I escaped from all the toxicity. I have been honest with some of my girlfriends who are in similar situations to those that contributed to my own problems and I am always shocked when it emerges that in some ways, like me in the early naïve days, they thought the issues would go away and would sort themselves out over time. No honey they won’t. Some issues are resolvable and some aren’t. WALK AWAY.

You will heal. You won’t die, and one day, you will feel normal again. I didn’t think so before but now I know for sure that it is true. And having come full circle, almost a year later, I feel like my life has been enriched. My knowledge of myself has grown, and my understanding of what I need, where I need to work on myself, and the value proposition I might hope to offer to someone some day have become clearer and clearer.

I never usually share personal details like this on my blog and I didn’t do it because I suddenly feel like putting my business out there. This kind of outpouring is usually reserved for my journal. But I did it because it is natural as a year draws to a close, to be caught up in a bit of sombre reflection. It is normal to review the year and try to chart how far you’ve come and try to forge an idea of where you want to go next. My little freak out on Tuesday reminded me of just how much has happened in the last year and how much has changed. I felt that apart from my usual ranting and raving about extraneous material on this blog, I would like to do a meaty post that meant something and that would be useful.

The main thing I learned from my various episodes this year was this: If you are in a situation and you need to make a change in your life, don’t set yourself a date like oh next year or oh next month, blah, blah blah. DO IT NOW. Because your life take a different course at the snap of your fingers and you have the power to change your situation if you are willing. Also, you may not have the strength or the focus or the resources or the energy next month or next year to do what you know you need to do today, and you will allow yourself to remain in that situation when you deserve to be free and happy. I feel it is important to say this now, as people being to think up their resolutions for next year etc. I have never really been one for resolutions and all that but if you are, then one of your resolutions should be to start acting immediately to change the things you don’t like.

Because this post was inspired by my little freak out earlier on in the week, I would like to appropriate what I said above for relationships especially. If you are a good man or woman and you are reading this, and you know that you are in a rubbish relationship that is really only going to drain your spirit and ruin your life, please don’t go into 2013 carrying that baggage. Leave him or her now and you will both be happier for it. You can still each have a shot at a happy life. If you are a bad man or a bad woman and you know that your behaviour is causing your loved one pain and anguish and you have been giving empty promises to be better but have not yet bothered to do so, please don’t wait until 2013 to change your ways. Do it now. And if you can’t then be honest with all of mankind and cut your person loose so as not to be unfair to them.

We have no idea whether our lives will be long or short. We hope for them to be long, but in any case, we should not shackle ourselves to the wrong partner and then expect the three legged race through life to mysteriously be fun. Look after yourself and do what you need to do. So as I go to this wedding on Saturday, I will be praying for the couple and wishing them well. I hope that they are right for each other and that they find the happiness they are looking for. I pray that they have asked themselves those tough questions and found the right answers. This is what I fervently pray when I hear couples are getting married.

Oh no, I have become one of THEM

When I lived in London, I spent a lot of my time explaining to people why I thought it was ridiculous that they were always asking for random stuff to be brought for them to Lagos. I could not for the life of me understand why I was always being asked to take this, carry that, pack this, buy that. And these requests seemed to come to a crescendo at times like Christmas and Easter when I was coming home.

I am now 10 months into my Lagos life and I am finally running low on all the stocks I brought out with me. I have found various little treasure troves around the place that carry alright products, but there are some things which you just cannot get here and I am longing for a walk down the high street and a little shopping spree.

Over this long weekend, I have an Aunt going to the UK and a work colleague going to the U. S. And I am ashamed to say that I have become one of those people. I have resisted sending anyone for anything or asking anyone for anything for the last few months, but this week, I became alarmingly aware that I am scraping the bottom of my little jar of night cream, and I am just running low on all my little treats, so they were both duly packed off with the appropriate currencies, showered with profuse thanks in advance, and given detailed lists on what to get, where to get it, and substitutes if my first choice wasn't available.

Just for laughs, I thought I'd share what I've asked for. It is so sad, that my happiness for the next month is attached to this list. Well, partially. I have a list of books I want from Waterstones and Amazon but I just haven't found a mule way of getting them here yet. So for now, this is it...


MAC Morange Lipstick
Nars Semi-Matte Morocco Lipstick
Kiehl's Creme de Corps Soy Milk & Honey Whipped Body Butter
Kiehl's Superbly Restorative Argan Body Lotion
Karl Lagerfeld for Shu Umuera Red Nail Polish
Illamasqua Libido Blusher
Essie Ridge Filler and Base Coat
Muji Scented Candles
Rimmel 3-in-1 Base & Top Coat
Superdrug Natural High Night Cream


So I am trying to deal with my excitement, because come Monday, I will be united with my new friends. I can't believe I have become one of those people. Lord help me! But I know I'm not the only one. What's on your wish list? What have you got recently?

Bright Lights, Big City

I decided that today I would share a poem I wrote a few months ago. I plead with you not to be alarmed. I am not considering popping myself off. I wrote it in July, about 6 months after I moved back to Lagos and I was struggling with the constant noise and general stress. All I wanted was a moments peace and quiet but I couldn't get it so I decided to write a poem instead and this is what came out. It is actually meant to be funny, might I add. It is dark humour, so laugh!



Bright lights big city
Sad life, grief, pity

Lagos, unexpectedly
Saves us from tragedy
Gnarled souls who hanker
For a high speed train
Under which to end the pain

Damfoes not fast enough
No bona fide fast lanes
Butt to butt traffic,
Never ending pedestrian campaign

Third mainland is not guaranteed
The chicken driver may brake
Sapele boatmen beneath may break your fall
From a "minor slip, a mistake"

The emzor may be chalk,
And bring you round to rescue
Having dreamt of having died
Waking dry eyed to your mother's cries.

Prayer warriors loom large
Ready to do battle on your behalf
Arise arise arise!
Interrupting your peaceful demise.

*

Damn the lack of infrastructure
So restrictive in its absence
Forcing the tired to keep on trucking

In stressful, unfruitful yearning
For that last beautiful deer in the headlights terror
That finally signals the end

Bright lights, big city
Not a hope of suicide in Las Gidi.


Minjiba Cookey
3rd July 2012

How Arranged Marriage Can Go Very Wrong

Before you all go of on one, telling me how wrong I am for making such a blanket statement, allow me to finish, please. I have always been skeptical of arranged marriages. I plan to live long, and I just cannot bear the thought of having to spend the rest of my days with some random stranger that someone picked for me. I’m sorry. I know that in some parts of the world it is the norm, but no bueno. I need to size the guy up for myself and see whether I can deal with his wahala forever; and indeed whether he will be able to deal with mine.


For the last few months, by Grandmother (bless her cotton socks) has been on my case about this amazing young gentleman who lives in her building. She has been waxing lyrical to me about him, how respectful he is, how he always comes to greet her, how he is from a good family, how she went to school with his mother or aunty or someone, how he is ambitious, how he is well turned out, and how all his business interests are going well. She is constantly on my case, trying to get us to meet, and so far I have managed to avoid all her attempts to introduce us.

Eugh.

Shudder.

Luckily, every time I go and see her, he is out of the compound or not visiting at that time, or whatever. News has broken that recently, my poor Grandma and everyone else in her block of flats was rudely awoken at about 2am by loud banging on the gate. The generator was on, so of course it took a while for the noise to register, but once it did, it was all anyone could hear. Who comes banging on your gate at 2 o’clock in the morning, screaming, brandishing a steel rod and threatening to kill the gateman? The answer you’re thinking is what they were all thinking – armed robbers! So of course, calls started flying around and valuables were stashed away as fear and bile rose.

But how wrong you are. How wrong they were. It was not armed robbers. It was this guy – the one who appeared to be such a catch and who my Grandma thought might make a good guy for me. He had forgotten his keys, got locked out, and arrived home off his face on goodness knows what. My issue is not that he was off his face. Most people coming back home on a Friday night after a party are a little happy. No problem there. My issue is that this guy is obviously a little deranged. OK so you get locked out of your house, is that reason to threaten to kill people? He actually had to be restrained and escorted to his flat, or he would have done the poor gateman serious harm.

I don’t even want to know whether the crow bar was an impromptu tool he found on the road outside the gate, or one he keeps in his car for those choice moments when he feels like killing. I know it’s a quantum leap, but this incident got me thinking… If we lived in a society where arranged marriages were de rigeur, then I may have been signed over to this fellow by my dear Granny in a smooth little transaction. She had no reason to doubt his normalcy, but now, after this incident, it has become clear that he is very, very, unsuitable.

Can you imagine hitching your wagon to such a guy, with all his good credentials and what not. And then one day, inevitably, unintentionally you annoy him, and then you’re in a dark corner pleading for your life. Imagine you blindly married this guy because people in your family know his family from way back and he seems like a good bet. And then you wake up one day to find you’ve been beaten to a pulp with a mallet. God actually forbid.

This here is why I don’t believe in or agree with arranged marriage – the potential for too many alarming surprises. No matter how much you love me or how well you know me, you cannot instruct me to marry some dude I don’t know because you have vetted him. I will vet him myself, thank you very much. And then family and friends can chip in on why or why not. I will always listen to advice, because marriages go wrong sometimes, even when you choose your own guy, but to marry Mr X because you said so? Hahahahahah. Erm, no.

On Chest Hair

A few months ago, we hired a new house girl. Let's call her Houdini, because apart from her ability to disappear in no time flat when she thinks no one is looking, she's a nice girl. She's bubbly and enthusiastic and helpful and if you show her something complex a couple of times, she by and large gets it. On Saturday night, we had a few people round convivially polishing off a bottle of red wine. I had told her she could close, and thanked her for her work that day, but when she caught sight of my pulling out my Magnolia Bakery Cookbook and ingredients to make a chocolate cake, she changed her mind about going to bed; she loves mixing cake batter. It was hilarious and I wasn't about to say no to someone offering to help, so I let her. Plus, I have been teaching her to bake, so that one day I'll be able to call her up from work and say 'I want Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes for dinner' and when I come home, they'll be there waiting. As she creamed the batter, I became fixated by the hairs on her chest. Now, I have seen them a thousand times. In fact I see them everyday. So ubiquitous have they become, because of her penchant for decolletage revealing tops, that I barely even notice them anymore. But it was one of those moments when you suddenly are able to go past the quotidian fact of something (i. e. the chick has a chest full of hair that some men would be proud of) to the more symbolic (the fact that she doesn't care). That's right people. This lady has a veritable patch of hair on her chest that looks like a carpet. If you were blindfolded and rubbed up against that, you'd swear it was a man. Very occasionally, she shaves it, sometimes she leaves it - but there's no running away from the fact that she is well endowed with the short and curlies. Standing there in the kitchen, looking at those hairs, I was suddenly reminded of the whole body image discourse in a different way. I thought about the bits of my body that I'm not particularly fond of and how I go to great lengths to craftily play them down, and accentuate my better features. For example, I've never been a great fan of my nose, so I play up my eyes and my lips when I'm wearing make up, so my honker is (hopefully) the last thing anyone is looking at. I thought of all my friends, and each of their body issues. There are those who hate their broad shoulders and so never wear strapless clothes, those who have been waxing their moustaches faithfully for the last 8 years, those who have such narrow hips that they have to wear cleverly tailored clothes, those whose feet are so big that they keep their toes scrunched up so they don't cantilever over the front of their dainty sandals, those who sweat so much that they have to use men's deodorant, those who are a bit bigger and have an arsenal of secret scaffolding to bear up their contours - the list is endless. Typing out these body concerns, you would imagine these ladies are a bunch of gimps and misfits, but they aren't. They are hot chicks with exciting social lives, great careers, and interesting hobbies, and on meeting them you would never ever guess that they had any serious bodily concerns to contend with. The thing is, even when one knows that no one really cares, the reason we all take such pains to hide our little bodily failures is that somehow, having them in full view of the world makes us feel a little insecure in some way. Those flaws do not fit in with how we want to present ourselves, so we mask them. But Houdini is obviously not as concerned as we are about masking her flaws. If she were, she would never wear the plunge neck, cleavage showing tops she wears because it is completely within her power to wear normal t-shirts that aren't cut so low. In any given week, she wears a normal t-shirt or top about once a week, but apart from that, she likes to wear low cut v-necks or tank tops. She rocks her chest hair like its the new in thing. On Saturday night, I learnt a lesson from her - that sometimes, it really is a drain on your energy to worry about the things you can't change. Sometimes, she shaves her chest, but more often than not, she doesn't and she doesn't stress herself out trying to hide it, even though she gets stared at. I can't say that this revelation is going to cure me of my bodily concerns overnight, but it has shown me a different way of dealing with them; a way perhaps to downgrade them from their prominence in my daily thought life. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, what difference has my nose made to the outcome of my life? None! So why stress about it? I am still sorely tempted to haul her with me to Barazahi and introduce her to every girls' best friend - a good hot wax - but while I ponder that - do you have any bodily secrets you hide? Or are you like Houdini and let them hang out? Do share...

Eugh...

If men have ceased to be men, do we blame the state of society as a whole, or do we blame modern parenting skills (or evidently, the lack thereof).



About three Saturday’s ago, we had a house warming party to break in my new flat. We invited 30 people and ended up with just over 60. The poor little flat was packed tight. I can’t complain though. It turned out to be a damn good party; our party ROCKED! Of course we asked people to arrive for 8pm, so they would turn up sometime before midnight. We had the small chops laid out nicely, a clear punch and a dark punch, and neat little cubes of Tanqueray jelly.



How does my house-warming relate to parenting, gallantry and men? It goes like this: a friend of mine, proving to be a weak man of the worst kind, removed himself from the party and sat on the staircase shaking his head. He said he was exhausted and reeling slightly and that he just needed to breathe a while. He refused my offers of coffee, tea, ginger ale, water, anything that would re-hydrate him and flush out the alcohol. He didn’t look very bad, and we were even chatting/catching up on old times. I asked if he felt better, and he said slightly, so I said OK, come inside and rest for a sec, then wake up and join the party.



He lay himself down on my nice, new white linen, which I splashed out on just that week as a present to myself, and went to sleep. About half an hour later, I went in to check on him and he sat up and said, ‘Emz, I puked.’



Just like that. Emz I puked. As though he were a baby, reporting himself with glee: Mummy, I poo-pooed in my nappy!



Then I lost it. He didn’t even try to get to the toilet and puke there. Nooooo. What did he do? He lay there, wallowing in his own bile, like a freak. Needless to say, it soaked through the bedclothes to the mattress, dripped onto the carpet, splattered on my chest of drawers, and studded my sister and her flatmates' pull-along cases. Can you imagine? When I went to the window to get some air and calm down, his friends tried to get dramatic, like “ooh, don’t jump out of the window because you’re angry, calm down”. I was thinking, jump ke? Why would I dream of jumping, when all I can think of is pushing you out of it right here and right now?



I was like, oh boy, can’t you hold yourself? Haba! All the rice he ate that day, was spread out on my beige carpet and the room smelled putrid. With all the cleaning we did, we still need professional cleaners to come in and get rid of the stain. The quote: £50. Not the end of the world...



Can you imagine, I didn’t get an apology until the Wednesday, and even that was a text. You desecrate my room, and all you can do is text? Then on Friday I got an apologetic phone call, in which he presumed to tell me that he knew I had already found space in my heart to forgive him, and that he was too embarrassed to phone on Weds, which is why he texted. Whatever.



Now, here’s a question for you. Do I blame his upbringing for not teaching him that when you ruin something in someone’s house, you fix it? Or do I blame him, for allowing the laissez-faire approach to modern manners to emasculate his sense of duty?



If I puked all over your carpet a) I’d clean it up myself, out of sheer shame and b) I’d handle the cleaning and new linen linen bill so fast, you wouldn't know what happened. If you break a worthless, I dunno, side plate you say sorry and let it fly. If you break crystal or special china, you get on the phone and order up a replacement, even after you've apologised profusely! If you borrow a friend's top and burn cigarette holes in it, you buy her a new one, if you puke on the carpet, you get it cleaned. Basically if you wreak havoc on someone's house/belongings, you go ahead and get it fixed, unless you're specifically asked not to sweat it. But really, it wouldn't bug me if he broke something. I really wouldn't care. The reason I'm so upset is that this is vomit we're talking about. Gut juice. Vomit. Eugh. Of all the yucky fluids capable of leaving the human body, vomit is the one that grosses me out the most, and it's hard to accept that my space has been tainted with it.



The puke-maester said he’d come round on Sunday to sort things out. Have I heard from him since? No.



Without wanting to seem like a mean person, he's taking the piss. What bugs me, on principle, is his lack of remorse, his lack of awareness, that he has a social obligation to make things right. If he offered to handle it, he would have given me the opportunity to say you know what, it’s alright, don’t worry about it, but don’t you EVER do that again. But his brazen “I know you’ve already forgiven me” line…Brother, which oracle are you consulting? I haven’t forgiven nuttin’!



What annoys me the most I think, is there I am, being Little Miss Nurturing and Benevolent again, and what do I get for it? I get puked on. Insult of the highest order! And I haven’t been able to sleep in my room since…

Blogging in a Hurry

I've had a very busy two weeks. Not only have I not had time to blog, but I haven't had time to do anything worth blogging about. Anyway, inspired by feelings of guilt, I've decided to post something quickly. This is something I wrote back in April. It's not new material, but it's material, and after my lofty promises of renewing commitment to the blog, I figure old is beter than nothing, so see what you think. Another reason for the rush is that I need to catch some shut eye, otherwise I'll be a zombie at work tomorrow.

Actually, that's a lie.

The reason I'm blogging in a hurry is that Grey's Anatomy Season 4 is out, and the sun rises and sets out of that show, as I'm sure y'all understand. So, toodles for now. Enjoy the little poem!

Smooches,
Emz



Charades

Who is in full possession of their own heart
Should let me know
That it doesn’t skip for a love of the past
Or a dashing prospect that’s refusing to show.

In what direction does a mind move
Within the tremours of an ache
Defiant smiling pictures can not quite prove
That all your daydreams aren’t at stake.

An inbuilt governance of statstics
Multiplies your desire to get out there
Creating an image, manipulating logistics
You swear there’s luck in the atmosphere

On the smokey web and in steamy clubs
You keenly play charades
Looking for love is openly snubbed
Til the night sky begins to change shades

True Friendship: None of tha Sissy Crap!

I ABHOR FORWARDS. I DO. BUT THIS ONE CRACKED ME UP. AND I'M GENEROUS. SO HERE YOU GO.



"True" Friendship: None of that Sissy Crap

Are you tired of those sissy "friendship" poems that always sound good, But never actually come close to reality? Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of true

1. When you are sad –
I will help you get drunk and
plot revenge against
the fu*king bastard who made you sad.

2. When you are blue -- I will try to
dislodge whatever is choking you.

3. When you smile -- I will know you
got laid.

4. When you are scared -- I will take
the piss out of you about it, every
chance I get.

5. When you are worried -- I will tell
you horrible stories about how
much worse it could be until you
quit whinging.

6. When you are confused -- I will
use little words.

7. When you are sick -- Stay away
from me until you are well again. I
don't want whatever you have.

8. When you fall -- I will point and
laugh at your clumsy ass.

9. This is my oath.... I pledge it to
the end. "Why?" you may ask;
"because you are my friend".

Friendship is like peeing
your pants, everyone
can see it, but only you
can feel the true
warmth.

Send this to 10 of your closest friends, then get depressed because you can only think of 4…

Overcoming Boredom!

As I walked into work, I phoned my parents as per usual. It’s now part of my routine – phone them when I get off the train, and talk to them until I get to the office. It’s a feat that corroborates the commonly known fact that only women can multi task. I can’t imagine a guy trying to balance the phone in the crook of his neck, and negotiate the self service check out at Tesco, scroll through menus, bag items, count out change, or enter pin numbers, all at the same time.

Anyway, I told them about how I’ve been planning to delete my blog. Bad idea... ‘WHY?’ they screamed, ‘But it’s brilliant, we love your blog!’ and I gave them my quintessential answer: ‘Because I’m bored, it’s so over, this era has come to an end!’

Luckily, my parents know me well, and they knew what to say to stop me from deleting The Half Inch Fount for good. Bargaining didn’t work: ‘OK fine, I won’t delete it, I’ll just take it off the public domain for a while until I figure out what to do’ fell completely flat. My mother has now threatened to get on a plane and come all the way over here because she thinks I’m having a pre-quarter life crisis! My father is on the phone to the travel agents. Calm down mes parents, I’m good.

But seriously, like my old folks said, you gotta learn to deal with boredom sometimes, I suppose. It just means you need to think more laterally, more creatively, about the task at hand. If they abandoned their business every time they got bored, where would we be?

So the good news is, The Half Inch Fount isn’t going anywhere. Plus, I went on the site meter and was absolutely blown away by the number of people who visit here. People from The States, Peru, Ireland, Nigeria, Argentina, Columbia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Ghana, France, Australia, Mexico, Turkey, Canada and here in the UK. Thank you to everyone who visits regularly. It’s lovely to have such an exotic, eclectic readership. In the light of all the support…Boredom? Never heard the word!

Big kisses to everyone!

Involuntary Voyeurism

It’s been five days in the new place. So far so good. Anyway, you know how they say each house has its own night time sounds? Usually, its things like creaking floorboards or dripping taps or trees scraping against a window. In this new place however, it’s not so much the sounds as the sights that are proving to be a startling experience.

The other day, America and I were having a glass of wine and a chat in the kitchen. When I looked up, I found that I had a clear long view into the kitchen across the street. I think there is an unwritten rule that blinds aren’t allowed on kitchen windows on our street or something. So anyway, you can imagine how shocked I was to find that the man in the kitchen across the street, was standing there cooking in his altogether. Yes, he was cooking…naked. Heaven help us! For modesty’s sake (ours not his) we picked up our glasses and went into the living room where thankfully, the blinds were drawn.

Similarly, the day after that, another guy in another window in another flat decided to do his washing up in a stripey blue apron, and nothing else underneath. Of course, we only found out there was nothing underneath, when he turned round to open his fridge and his clenched bare rump glared back at us from across the street. Have we unknowingly moved into nudist territory? Is stripping down to basics some sort of weekend therapy for overworked yuppy alpha males? Why must they be naked in the only blind-less room in their house, the kitchen, for crying out loud? Is there some male perspective to this that I don’t get? Surely they know they can be seen…Thank goodness for the wholesome view of the park on the other side of the house – at least we have other viewing options when these men decide to expose themselves.

My mum is hilarious. The only comment she made concerning these exhibitionists when I complained to her, was that they should be very careful, lest they sit down to tuck into a fry up one Sunday morning, and discover they have extra protein, as it were, on their plate. She has since gone catatonic on the subject, and America and I are trying to master the art of averting our gaze…

Moving House

Forgive me, blog, for I have sinned and fallen short. I have abandoned thee.



Now that’s over with…



I moved house last weekend. Bloody nightmare, you say? Yes, I know. I swore I was going to make this painless – pack way in advance, move things gradually, and all that jazz. Of course, no such thing happened. I was up until 6 am on Saturday night, shoving things into boxes, and alternating between shame and pride. It took two massive daddy cartons to pack my shoes. I spent half the time loving every single pair as I packed, and the other half cussing myself for being such a cliché – the girl with lots of shoes – how boring! It didn’t help that by the time I got to packing laundry, I had run out of boxes, and I had to stuff my grubby clothes into black garbage bags. Somehow, I’m sure they’ll never forgive me for the indignity of it.



So…the movers turned up on my doorstep at 7am as planned, one blonde Johnny Depp and his Bald Friend with large calves and hairy legs. It was the most random experience ever, driving round London on a quiet Sunday morning, sandwiched between two Polish guys in the front seat of their Luton truck, listening to them slagging off their manager, and wondering what the Carrot & Strawberry juice they were drinking tasted like. I really must have ‘Agony Aunt’ emblazoned on my forehead. On one hour’s sleep, my good manners were facing some measure of challenge. It was all I could do not to say, ‘Do I look like I care about your manager?’ I stuck my sunglasses on and tried to smile. They were alright, I was just really tired and emotional. You know, leaving behind my old familiar space and going to inhabit a new one…



They carried my stuff up the three flights of stairs in the new place, while I lounged in the sofa and told them where to put stuff. Seeing the new place again cheered me up. My new flatmate (let’s call her America) and I decided we’d give them something to eat and drink as they’d done a brilliant job. While I warmed the patties and poured the juice, she headed off to the bathroom where she had been changing the toilet seat when I arrived – God forbid that we should sit on a seat that some unknown couple had warmed before us.



Just as she took the old seat off and began to screw the new one on, blonde Johnny decided he had to use the toilet. He was in there for ages, and we felt like revoking our offers of goodwill. He was obviously making doo-doo. In our toilet. Some random stranger with manky dreads and spittle in the corner of his mouth was doo-dooing in our toilet. It might be no big deal to you, but bear in mind that we are a pair of obsessive compulsives – completely anal about cleaning and germs and dirt. We were there from 6pm on Friday night when we got the keys, till nearly 3am on Saturday morning, wiping down every conceivable surface with anti-bacterial potions and scrubbing. So what if the estate agents had it professionally cleaned? If you want something really clean, clean it yourself – bleach is a rhema word.



Luckily, America hadn’t screwed on our new seat when blonde Johnny’s bowels broke loose, so when he was done, she went back in (surgically gloved) to continue her seat replacement mission.



Meanwhile, upstairs, I sat down with them to do the figures and give them their cheque. After they thanked me profusely for the tip, blonde Johnny proffered his hand to say thank you. I shook his hand, because I couldn’t not, even though I hate shaking hands, and all I wondered was whether he’d washed his hands after his doo-doo. It sounds terrible, now that I’m reading what I’ve written, but I really do hate shaking hands. Refer to Terror on Tuesday Morning if you’re looking for an example of why…



Turns out he did wash them. I consulted with America later, and she confirmed that when she entered the bathroom after his stint there, she sniffed the air to see whether she’d catch a whiff of lingering handwash, and she did. Phew. Oh no, we sound terrible but we’re really friendly, promise!



Anyway, I’ve nearly finished unpacking, and I’ve decided on a bedroom décor theme. Yaay! How does Sound of Music meets Brick Lane sound? Brilliant, in my estimation – a perfect marriage between old school splendour and new school edge. Let’s see if I have the dedication to follow it through…


Any moving dramas you'd like to share, anyone?


P. S. I fear for the day my sister reads this. She already thinks I need cognitive behavioural therapy.

Happy Birthday to Me

I was sitting at my desk minding my own business when reception called to say I had a package. Turned out to be a massive bunch of flowers, those lovely long necked lillies, no less, which I happen to love. They always make the room smell so good! You naughty people that sent em, you know who you are, thank you, thank you, thank you. You really what-did-you-doed-me (inside joke, never mind if you don't get it...). I forgive you for the embarassment of staggering all the way from reception with flowers eclipsing my face and all the curious stares.


And then, an email went round, announcing that I've been upgraded from intern to actual employee. Am I happy or what? I guess it doesn't suck so much to have to work on your birthday when good stuff just keeps pouring in. Now I really have something to celebrate this weekend. Woo hoo!

Losing my Nerve and Feeling Melancholy

So I'm taking a break from being an agony aunt for a while. I get to be the moany one, and you guys get to rub my back and tell me it'll be alright. I have the first three chapters of my novel ready to send off. It's sitting on my desk with my CV and coverletter, waiting to be sent to an agent who's curently accepting new submissions. I've spent countless hours poring over the pages, making both major and minor adjustments. I almost know all 100+ pages by heart, I think it's ready. The other God-knows-how-many-pages are mooching around my hard drive, waiting for that special attention that will make it a completed book. My profs at uni have seen it and think it's great. They gave me a first for it for goodness sake. I've had one agent look at it, and even though it's not even the sort of thing she takes on, she's said that she can definately see it doing well if I send it off to a more relevant agent. Sounds great right? Except I don't feel so great. I'm shit scared. What if I don't get a deal? But worse...what if I do? I've always been a private/shy writer. I hardly ever show any work to anyone, so you can see that there's a massive dichotomy there. How do I become the published writer I want to be, and remain able to keep all my work to myself? That's like eating my cheesecake and having it, right?


Maybe I could use a pen name. You know, make up a name for myself. But then I can't, because that would make mockery of Mummy and Daddy and Grandpa C and Grandma O and all the other literary/artistic/creative people in my family. What would all their hard work mean if I just discredited it by attributing my work, on recognition, to names that bear no relation to theirs? In case you haven't noticed, I hold legacy and family values in very high esteem.


Another problem. If I used a pen name, I'd feel like an incredible fraud. I'd feel like I never really wrote any of it, that I found an old manuscript somewhere written by this other anonymos person with the strange name and tried to pass it off as mine. A pen name wouldn't match up with the name on my phone bill, my bank account, my passport - it wouldn't be congruent with the name I've written carefully on every text book and exercise book throughout my school career. It would have no context and no history. The work wouldn't be something I created so I wouldn't be able to take ownership of it.


So I can't use a pen name, you see. But I still don't want to show my work to anyone. Why the hell can't I have my cake and eat it. I don't like this grown up world where you have to rationalise things and make concessions for your ambitions. I feel like throwing the mother of all tantrums and perhaps I will. Then when I'm done, I'll suck it up, stick on some massive sunshades so that no one will see me, then go and post the damn thing. (This is the part where frustration with myself is directed at the work itself).


On the flipside, I have the book launch all planned - the guest list, the venue, the concept, everything, and I can assure you it's FABULOUS. I even know what I'm going to wear and how the photos of the event look. I have a whole marketing plan for the book mapped out. I know what the competition prizes will be. I've had long, stimulating conversations with the people at the book signings. Told you I'm a weirdo.


Jeez, oh man, I have problems!

Terror on Tuesday Morning!

Images from Google Images

Early on Tuesday morning I was at the airport, seeing my sister off. Online check in made it such that we didn’t have to queue for hours and hours, so after baggage drop off, we went in search of something to eat. We ended up in Café Italia (or something – it was too early to be fully conscious) and had very nice croissants and teas.

So it came time to say goodbye. I was struggling not to cry, being the pathetic cry baby that I am. Just to delay the final moment a bit longer, we went to the loo. Funny how even at that time of the morning, you still have to queue for the women’s loos…I swear, we spend to much time in there, it’s embarrassing. Anyhow, while I was standing there thinking of how I really shouldn’t give in and cry, this woman walked out of one of the cubicles. I recognised her uniform to be a Wetherspoons one.

To my near heart attack shock, she walked out of the cubicle, after I had heard various forms of scraping and groaning, and just sauntered out of the bathroom. SHE DIDN’T WASH HER HANDS!!! Oh my goodness, I was instantly awake. I thought I would faint. I thought of all the meals I’d eaten at various Wetherspoons pubs, and all the future meals I was likely to have there, and then I felt sick because clearly, they could very well have been handled by an urban savage who doesn’t know that it’s UNACCEPTABLE not to wash your hands after you’ve been to the loo.

You don’t expect that I swallowed my shock did you? As soon as I had finished (and washed my hands twice to make up for her lack of personal hygiene) I marched straight into the Wetherspoons and reported her to her manager. I also reported her to the bathroom cleaning lady who tut-tutted. I was being stroppy, you say? I beg to differ. There are very few things more disgusting/repulsive/unforgivable/offensive/torture-worthy than a fully grown woman who has poor standards of hygiene. Eww. I feel sick just recounting this. This is how it went:

Me: Err, hi, are you the manager?
Manager: That’s me!
Me: Hi, sorry, this is going to sound weird, but I was just in the bathroom, and one of your staff – that lady wiping tables over there – she didn’t wash her hands when she finished in there.
Manager: Well I can safely tell you that the first thing she did when she got behind the bar was wash her hands; it’s part of our staff policy to wash hands as soon as we get behind the bar.
Me: That’s fair enough, I appreciate that, but you have to understand that for your customers, it doesn’t inspire confidence in your company to see such poor standards of personal hygiene from the staff of a food serving establishment. I’m now having convulsions thinking of the number of times I could have been served a pint or a steak or a chocolate cake by someone who went to the loo, amid gurgly noises, and didn’t wash her hands…I feel defiled!
Manager: Yeah, I understand, but she definitely washed her hands.
Me: Well, I just thought you should know.
Manager: Thanks, I’ll still speak to her about it, though.
Me: Thanks!

And I left. Guess who’s not going to Wetherspoons anytime soon? One because, I’ve been to Wetherspoons countless times, and the staff don’t always wash their hands once they get behind the bar, whatever the company thinks its policy is. I’d know if they did; it’s the sort of thing I notice. Two, because last time my sister and I had their breakfast, the eggs were flaming orange and I’m now inclined to think (in retrospect) it’s because they were contaminated. So what makes this time any different? Why should I believe that she washed her hands when she got behind the bar. After all, the poor manager had to say that, it was his get out of jail free card.

Notice to people out there – if I catch you being a dirty urban savage, I will report you! You can’t poison the rest of us who enjoy eating out, just because you can’t be bothered to do the right thing. And rinsing your finger tips under a cold tap isn’t enough either. You need to WASH those hands under a HOT tap with SOAP! And then you have to hold your hands up and not touch anything, like surgeons when they’re scrubbing in for surgery. Any questions on how to do this can be answered by watching a few episodes of Grey’s Anatomy or any other medical dramas. Parents, please teach your kids these things, or else, they’ll be judged for being lax and germ-ridden.

Uuuuugh. I am so grossed out. I shall stop typing now because I feel myself getting meaner and more disparaging….Maybe I’ll put together an alternative guide to dining in London. It’ll be called Where Not to Eat Because You Are Likely To Get Popped Off By Malicious Pathogens, and the list will be the names of restaurants where I’ve spied on the staff and discovered their appalling habits. Any establishment that doesn’t appear on the list, people will know it’s safe to eat at (for the time being, at least, or until I catch them trying to kill off their clientele with toilet bacteria). Good idea, don’t you think?