Don't Worry About A Thing

Who is –AThing?

Some guy.

Dresses very badly, don’t mind him

Sweaters and cowboy boots

A big hat like a fisherman’s

And he likes to eat boiled carrots

Oh yeah, carries them in a small polythene bag in his pocket

And when you touch they feel like worms

If I were you, I’d never worry about AThing, not worth it.

(20th Jan 09)

I'm an embarrassment. Well,just 88% of the time

In standard two, when we went out for PE{Physical Exercise} we’d sing game songs and most of them must have been composed by a mad teacher. Some were about saluting the teacher, and another about an old black petticoat that got torn cha.
One day we were singing one song ,girls on one side, boys one the other, and whichever name was called first, if a boy, he’d go to the girl’s side and pick the girl he liked and brought her back to his side. This was a lot of stress in our young minds because the person you chose was free to reject you and then the entire class would laugh at you and swing you from side to side on your back.
My turn came, and when I stepped forward to choose one boy , he bolted, took off, and I was hot on his heels after him, got hold of him and brought him back.{I’m not getting a swinging today} I never lived that down, even now when I meet my old classmates, they remind me of that, even though later, when we were adolescents the boy bought me a few chocolates and said he loved me like chapati and karanga, {I actually have never found out what karanga is}.This went on for about a term , then he told my deskmate the same and that marked my second dumping.

I always take the bus, even when I’m late for class, the taxi culture hasn’t really got me, and anyway if I took the cab, It’d throw my budget of course seriously. Sometimes, when I go to the supermarket, I will wait one hour, one and half hours for the bus and I will be so dehydrated form the sun, I ‘ll collapse into a seat and only wake up at the next station, to wait for another bus. As I wait, often, I make friends and we’ll be talking and chatting and bemoaning the hard life of a commuter, or how hot the sun is, even at 6p.m, how they should make air conditioned bus stops …
So you can picture how excited the other day when my friend drove close to the bus stop and waved me to get into the car{I should say my friend’s friend, I don’t have that many friends who drive around} In a second I was at the door with the biggest grin, and frantically waving goodbye to my classmate, and he was saying hey you left your notes, and I was saying you can keep them. So the driving friend asks, hey your friend going the same way? He beckons my classmate to come in too and the latter comes at the proper pace and we drive off.{All the while, I’m thinking ok, what's wrong with me now?}
I was looking through my old pictures and I saw this picture from my aunt’s wedding. It was after high-school and I had just moved into the city, we’ve already covered the issue of dressing, so it’s agreed that it’s not that I can’t dress properly, I got my own style.Looking at that picture, there isn’t much difference from what I’d chose now for a wedding. Even though my aunt commented how that shade of blue and purple could never go together.
I have a few dishes I can order all by myself now, and When we go out to eat with my friends, the Chinese counter wins most of the time. I find no inspiration battling a plate of fire down my throat. So regardless of the place or setting, I will order plain rice and roast pork, and eat all of it, then finish before everyone else, and you’d think with such a diet I’d have some hip.
Last week, me and my two nurse friends were in a meeting and before it began, one of them was explaining to me how she was vomiting at the hospital the previous day for many reasons, and the other one was saying- that’s nothing I had to watch a pipe being passed through the backside of a patient, man it’s painful, she didn't say backside, she used the medical term anus and the people in-front of us turned, reminded me of the first time I heard my friend say bitch in a conversation- that bitch needs some training, she was explaining to her cousin, a man of about 40. She works at a veterinary so she was talking about some female dog. So to some extent, iwould it be fair to say that it's the crowd I hang out that has to blame for the way sometimes my mouth goes off by itself?

SHORT STORY {CONTINUATION............}



Let’s paint her. Angelica is one of those women who take on the stature of a wife immediately they turn fifteen. They know how to dress up in fitting pencil skirts and are not afraid to wear see through blouses, sometimes in yellow, sometimes in bright pink. They can cook a proper meal, iron shirt corners and black pants without leaving a ridiculous shine, and later in life will have well watered house plants
She has, among her contacts, a plumber, an electrician, a wash lady and another who comes in when the first can’t come because she has to attend a parents’ meeting or has period cramps. Angelica does not spend her money on Sydney Sheldon novels or second hand magazines at Mfangano street. She buys cook books , new from MPH.
In her house the curtains match the carpet, she bought two sets from IKEA, and even in the bedroom, you will not catch an artsy secondhand cotton hand stitched curtain.
There is always a fresh supply of towels in the house; stripped, quite formal and appropriately so.She doesn’t want to cause anyone pain by issuing a plain towel, or white, which after use might have dark spots here and there and the user will wonder whether to wash it, wash the dark spots, soak it or pretend that’s the normal order of things, while in their heart they swear never to sleep over again. For her nieces, she will provide sleeping shirts and flip-flops , extra panties, and a toothbrush for a nephew.
She has two friends. Mary is single, well, not exactly, she has been dating Farshid for the past 5 years and even though she is 27 years old her parents will not let her marry him. So they just hang out and hope situations will change. Angelica thinks Mary is giving her parents too much leeway. Then there is Alice Tee. Married and well settled. She’s a wife, raising Chung and Ji Wen. ‘Too strict with the children, pushing them too much, piano lessons, volleyball, French,’ Angelica once mentioned it and Alice shrug and said- they need to know all they can-

short story

It struck him the same way some people are stricken by madness, deeply, slowly, deniably. Until your thoughts betray your thoughts until your perception changes, you become wiser, and everyone around you becomes a blithering fool.
It came like the first symptoms of polio in your legs. The un-reachable itchiness in the bone, the periodical numbness that denies the existence of living cells..When your pace eventually falls, and despite the repeated attempts and fervent kicks that do no more than sprain your hip and do not contribute in any way to your forward motion.
His wife, Angelica thought the sleepless nights had to do with something he had done and was having trouble confessing to her, or even the power to deal with it. But this soon changed when he started to come home late, tired, falling beside her with just a goodnight honey. While his dinner grew colder in the microwave.


(I started this some weeks ago, today one of classmates gave me his assignment to read, it was really good, like Moby Dick. It gave me the vroom I needed to continue with this story}

Slam poetry

Why, like still waters do you,

Palm under chin sit silent?

Why does your face carry the reflection of indifference,

Even as my love I openly display

Why? Do you pass this expression of my honest feeling

You, are like green leaves covered in dew,

River pebbles dark, smooth round

Your smile, makes me feel as if the world is alright

For no reason, I look for you, follow you

For no reason at all, I feel happy when you’re around

For no reason, I, am invisible to my friends

I’m running away but getting closer,

I’m cursing you but loving you

For loving you, but restraining myself,

Wet green cider leaves,

Dark blue and orange sunsets,

Children’s laughter

A puppy licking his owner’s face

I’m thinking of that every day.

So lift up you face, look at me

Listen to the words my eyes say

Respond to the request of my touch

Let me give it a shot.

pic(http://i142.photobucket.com)

I am the independent self reliant all round woman.
I think with my mind, not my heart, I feel nothing
Strutting about aware of my surroundings,
High fives and swinging hips, I know what I want,
And I want it to remain-this way

Shhh
But here he comes, all sure of himself
A man, with a man’s gait, man’s sure ways
He, takes his time speak, to look, to touch
Yeah, his look, he,
With one glance makes my inner woman
Break into a dance, bending and twisting
And I stutter and,
This feeling,
This cottony, weighty, feeling rises from within
My heart beat,
My brain,
My independence
My self reliant heart,
My unfeeling me, begins to feel in ways I never imagined
I, follow his every desire, his every blink,
I, am ready to say yes to everything he says
When I see him, music plays and my mouth curves into a smile
His smile, makes me trace all the small joys I’ve known
All the feelings of love I know
All the nerves that support love awake .

And when I look at his eyes
I’m no longer the independent self reliant all round woman.
I think with my mind, and my heart too, feel a lot of things
Strutting about aware of my surroundings, and of him,
And I want it to remain-this way, his left or right hand, I don’t care,
As long as I’m with him
Close to him
Loving him, with every last bit of love remaining inside
With every last bit of feeling un-accessed.
Loving.

Slam Poetry.


pic{pro.corbis.com}