Day 32

she came over and through a translator asked if I like to wear saree.

When I said I've been considering getting one she went back to her house and brought a big plastic and handed it to me.

I looked at the purples, the blues, the browns with thick orange edges and was tongue tied. She then told me to stand up and she looked me over, then sent her granddaughter back to the house, who brought back a punjabi suit , new and crisp. She asked me to try it on and it fit perfectly. Then she remembered something and went back to her house and came back holding a purse. She removed the pearl necklace and put it on me. She said it was 15 years old.

It was like a scene from those hindi soaps I liked to watch-kyuki and kahaani- where a mother in law dresses up the new daughter in law and hands over some family jewelry. My friend's grandmother might be just slightly younger than my gran, and when she hops on the motor bike, you'd never think she was anyone's gran.

She always tries to feed me this and that whenever I'm around, using my little Malay I tell her about Kenya, she asks about my family and tells me her grand daughter is naughty I should teach her manners and proper English, I laugh and she hands me another glass of some brightly colored sugar drink.

I still don't know how to tie the saree but I'll google it.

When I think about it, I can't help wondering, where our ancestors went different ways.

I got a response from the publishers, they said they will put it on the list since they have a lot of work right now. hmm.

Anyway, a response is better than silence. I still have no computer but my friend is letting me use her's when she's not on it, but it's funny being without my laptop. This is from one of the recent popular Tamil movies.

DAY 31 :)

"After she left, Anita rang Taha  to come over to the house. He came, and brought along a girl with an obtruding burst  which wouldn’t have been so prominent if she had not kept adjusting her left bra strap  every four minutes with her right hand and distracting Anita greatly. She didn’t  get round to asking Taha if there was anything she needed to know, about Julius that is.

Although that wouldn’t have done much good anyway as Taha was completely immersed in the attention the girl was giving to him, being completely oblivious of Anita’s agitation.

Noor biked in shortly after they left through the kitchen door. He was smiling a new smile and holding  a bunch of fresh Jasmine blossoms whose scent diffused into the room to hug and wring out the apprehensive air that had been hanging since Olivia left about two hours before.

“Are those for me Noor?

He laughed and  gave Anita a slight peck on the cheek and was  gone up the flight of stairs before she could even borrow a stem.

He came back down quickly still holding the flowers.

“Where’s she?” He asked expectantly. Sublime Innocence, the novel.

Tomorrow is my deadline to send in the complete manuscript. I have a long stretchy story to tell that goes like this," My computer decided to act up and basically, for the last two weeks this editing business has been moving at the speed of a snail. Microsoft discovered I wasn't using their original O.S and since then, opening a single page takes about half an hour. At this point I'm editing from the gmail text editing option online." But I guess I'll save it, those are the kind of tales I told when I did the column in 04.
I decided to put a stop to it and spent a day at Lowyat Plaza trying to trade in my old laptop for one of those swift new things but turns out my poor mPAQ is worth just as much as a memory stick. That was an insult, especially since this computer has seen me through some very trying times, hehe. So we just looked around for a cheap external hard disk and I've been backing up my things all day, and that's all I can do at this pace.
Anyway, I'm going to the beach this weekend so I have to arrange my affairs to ensure I have a clear mind when I hit the beach with two of my best girls. Hoping there will be many dry afternoons, especially since someone gave me a costume just the right color, just the right size.
I must say it's been a long run, and I have a secret smile just thinking, I've actually written and finished a book, it's just a beginning, I'm not done collecting stories.

Day 30

Last evening, I looked at the remaining 10 pages and felt weak, I had to finish them. So I asked my friend please, can I give you five pages and she said K.I was wondering why I didn't ask before, but it has to do with the fact that I've been doing a lot of rephrasing and re-arranging and cancelling entire full pages with the last pages I typed so I sort of wanted to do it, edit it, proof it then give it to someone to read.

My friend typed 3 pages and felt sleepy but she left notes with ideas of what I should remove and add. You can imagine my relief when I typed the last page and looking back I realised, ah, that was a nice story and I like the ending too.

 I'm going to be doing a lot of things away from the house,  the coming weeks, so the raw manuscript will have to remain as it is for now. Maybe I'll pick up  next week.

Thank you for the audience always

Day 29

I have 13 more pages to go. My fingers hurt I wonder why?

The interesting thing is, I had stopped typing coz the story was getting tiring to me.  I’ve heard the voice so many times. Yeah. But I fixed one chapter, and gave it a girl’s voice, it was all about shoes. After that the story was flowing right and I’m looking forward to see what is in the next pages. Funny thing, when people ask me what the story is about I'm not sure what to say. I got like, eh, it's a love story, no wait , there are different characters, and they all meet, no wait, why don't I just give you the book when I'm done?

--------------The oven timer went off and the smell of fresh baking filled the room when Anita opened the door. The vanilla queencakes smelt really good. Anita set them on a large tray, the red and white tea cloth made the cupcakes look so delicious, like you would see in cook books. She set a sufuria on the gas stove, threw in cardamoms and sprinkled in some tea masala. The water started to boil. She then threw in tea leaves and poured in milk, set two cups on the kitchen block and strained the tea into the cups.

The fragrant tea reminded Noor of his visit to Eastleigh town in Nairobi. The Somali style restaurant, Al Kwother served a good cup of cardamom tea.

“Go on,” Anita said, sipping her tea.

“Where do you keep the sugar?” He asked, standing up.

“Pole, I don’t take sugar in mine so I never remember to serve sugar.”

“It’s alright, my mother doesn’t take any too. I’ve been trying to take less but it’s no use, I love sugar.”

Anita laughed and got up to hand him a sugar dish along with two spoons. One for scooping, one for stirring. When she sat, she suddenly stood up, “would you rather have honey, I got some.”

“No, please, I’ll have the sugar. Thanks”-----------------

I spent the day with my friend’s 6 year old daughter and I have a lot of Chinese in my head, I’m listening to some Chinese tunes now but can't upload them, so let's listen to Lemon. I love this poem.

Hey, Soul Sister - Train . day 28

Today I’ve typed an upward of 3,500 words. I have 42, A5 pages left to type. It’s just 21 leafs but with writing on both sides.

It’s a nice story, Sublime Innocence and I’m hoping the publisher will get the same feel when I finally send the whole story.

They said I needed to work on the length of my sentences. I’m glad they pointed that out because I thought I was being  stylish with my poetic lines. No no it doesn’t work in novels. I will need to make the sentences a bit longer.

I already have big dreams. I can already see myself turning out books every other year and having them read in schools, ah, the places I would go with the money earned. Way I would treat myself to some books whenever I felt like reading something different (I don’t have a book to read at the moment so it's a constant thought).

On the other hand, depending on what the publishers decide, I might continue to wear out my fingers on one dollar re-writes until I'm 55 and with those the  farthest will be a trip to Thompson falls  then be satisfied with looking at pictures from different places on the Awake!

Today my friend’s son was playing the song and I got hooked the minute I heard it, love it. The other one of their song which  I've known and liked for years is Drops Jupiter by the same guys.