How to Successfully Excel in Mediocracy

 A step-by-step guide to accomplishing everyday tasks in the most mediocre style.

You will also learn how to set up your own achievable mediocre worksheet,

and how to ensure mediocrity in every aspect of your life.

We will also learn how to bake salted brownies. 

Embracing Vulnerability: Knowing my worth

Have you ever felt like you have been waiting your whole life to be picked?

I know I have.

No Sorry, I don't mean being picked by a guy.

I mean by life.

Like you are just over here behind everyone standing on tiptoe trying to see the front while frantically waving

your arms  saying 'Pick me! Pick me!' But your turn never comes?

As last year was coming to a close I started to think about how life picks us to show us off on a platform.

I also thought about how people pick each other to be present in their lives . And things that determine how the picking will be done.

By default, sometimes there is a pecking order.

But in my life I have noticed a pattern.

I confessed to a friend that while I was busy trying to be picked by some people I expected to be in flow with, Kumbe I had been picked elsewhere.

Kumbe there was a whole Ciss clan surrounding me, speaking my language and having the same taste in stirfried spinach as I have.

And this has brought a huge positive enthusiasm into my life.

I have been thinking about this since I finished reading 'The Joy Luck Club' by Amy Lee. 

Then when my friend posted this picture on her status and asked people to say something nice about me, it got clearer.

@himbz took the picture

 

When I started  to see the comments  it hit me that:

This is profound so listen carefully.

It hit me that:

1.  I may have been spreading myself  out too thinly.

2. I really really need to know my worth.

In the search for solid relationships with people, I have often ended up spending just a little time with too many different people that I don't spend enough time with those who have picked me as well.

How do you know someone has picked you?

They ring you up and ask if you managed to make anyone's hair this week.

They send you memes

They respond to invitations to have chips mwitu by making definite plans.

They respond to your texts and not leave you hanging for two weeks wondering - did I say something dumb?

They tell you they are praying for you.

They see your status and send you a laughing emoji.

They come to your house and wash vyombos after eating rice ndengu.

They meet you in town to pick up their deliveries so you don't have to spend extra cash.

And I did more thinking and thought that maybe oh well life picked me but maybe by my breeches.

But now how do I know my worth?

In the book, whats-her-name- is given a jade pendant by her mother and she's told, know your worth. But her mother dies without explaining what that means.

She thinks it probably means she needs to try harder in life because she has it in her.

When she was young her mother made her learn how to play the piano but she hated it, and when her mother stopped forcing her to practice and told her' you could do it if only your would try.' I felt like I know exactly what the mum meant.

Not to give up too easily.

I know I have. And my Shush once told me the same.

I had got a big writing gig and put my heart and soul into it then in the middle of it my laptop crushed and I cried for a few hours.

'The problem with you is you give up quickly.'

It's  true. I crush with all my disappointments.

But I also get up again and again and I bet that's where my strength lays.

That's where my worth is.

That no matter how many disappointments come along. I get up again. As soon as I stop crying.

Maybe my worth is in how many times I am willing to try.

I have the attractive option of crawling under my bed to die. But I fear I would get hungry and gnaw on the wood.

So it's  better to just keep getting up.

Keep discovering what is my true worth.

How many carats I am.

And I will keep picking those who pick me.

Those who drive to my house on an early morning to check why there is fire coming out of my computer cables, those black ones over there. Mimi sijui nini mbaya nimeona tu zimeanza kutoa moshi.

Those who let me record my experiments using their expensive gadgets.

Those who don't let me dismiss the question 

How are you?

Because they want to hear the answer.

Perhaps I am not waiting for life to pick me.

Perhaps I got a better deal.

To choose the life that works for me

This chic: I don't think I'm ready to get back into Society.

I've been thinking that may be I'm not ready to get back into society.

That things are fine as they are. No house calls no parties and no socialization pressure.

That if we really need to be together in future we can just do a video call or something  without the videos because I have to think about my background and my resident cat's tail swishing across the screen randomly.

I know he knows exactly what he's  doing. 

Just as he exactly knows that he is winking at me when he does.

I always wink back 

Then he winks again

So I wink back 

And then I think

Oh gosh if someone was watching they would be really spooked by this.

So I say in a loud unnatural matronly voice.

'Cat didn't you just wink at me or do you have something in you eye?'

And then I go off to do something else.

The reason I am hesitant to get back to society is because I know people I used to know before corona will say.

'Oh my gosh you are so thin you haven't been eating!'

And then I will go on to defend myself that I am eating it's just that it's going to the wrong places.

"Just look at my Mluhya Legs."

And the person will ignore that and completely ignore my strong Mluhya Legs and say how I should eat more and how the bones below my neck are protruding.

I will by then be feeling a little worked up and in my heard I will have different retorts. 

'You missed my Adam's apple too, it's much more pronounced since I lost weight around my neck.'

'How much food have you fed me this corona and I threw up after eating it?'

' Do you want to run from here to that kibanda over there and see who needs to be healthier?'

I don't get humans

“Whhhrrrr . . .” said Arthur Dent. He opened his eyes. “It’s dark,” he said.

“Yes,” said Ford Prefect, “it’s dark.”

“No light,” said Arthur Dent. “Dark, no light.”

The recliner stars by @Paul Ngummi.

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and repeating the obvious, as in It’s a nice day, or You’re very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have  fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months’ consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don’t keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained desperately worried about the terrible number of things they didn’t know about.

“Yes,” he agreed with Arthur, “no light.” He helped Arthur to some peanuts. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like a military academy,” said Arthur, “bits of me keep on passing out.”

-The hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Thin people are people too. 

#surfboardprofile.

I know I was born in the wrong continent where having a little more meat especially on the backside and on the thorax area (@Markreen calls it thorax so let's go with that) eclipses everything else.

Personality, positivity, clear Brown skin, agility, shinny nails, even eyebrows,shapely knees.

I would like for once someone to come and do a Jane Austen on me like 'oh, what shapely ankles you have miss.' I will appreciate that very much.

Or ask me about my nutrition, my exercise habits.

It's not always about lemon and starving yourself you know?

As me about the books I'm reading, the plants I'm growing. 

I do think I'm ready to go back into society though.I still got my aunty acid sarcasm intact.Although I never really need to use it at such instances because I've come to know that people will jab at you to try and cover up their own insecurities.

And I don't want to be the one that breaks them. 

I am a nice woman.

As long as we talk about things that really matter.

Like being alive, still.

My aunt told me I've even grown shorter.

'What's  wrong? Are you not eating? Now and the way Kikuyu you can get fresh food why are you not eating?'

So I googled.

'Is it possible to grow shorter?'

Yes you can, because of loss of bone mass, but when you hit 70. 

Not because of not eating enough.

I don't go round telling people 'you are fat, are you eating too much? ' 

'Look at all the meat falling out of your waist'.

Coz it's rude. 

It's rude both ways.

Permission to take off?

I'm an alien. A thin alien. Happy to be alive in whatever body I have.

This is my body shaming rant.

Aliens on planet Africa. 

Y'all wanna be thin anyways.

Romain Virgo - Who Feels It Knows It | Official Music Video

This song makes so much sense to me this year.

Who Feels It Knows It

Romain Virgo

This one is fi all a di hard working people

Jamaican people

Some nuh know what it feels like

Fi a work from six inna the morning straight up to midnight (midnight)

A me fi tell yuh

You think it easy fi Barba stand up inna di shop whole day

And nuttin nah gwaan

You think it easy fi farma stay up inna di sun whole day

A plough the farm

It no easy being offender nor a taxi man noo

You think it easy fi stand up and watch di youth a cry fi food fi nyam

But a Who Feels It Knows It

We a feel it from we likkle and a grow

A Who Feels It Knows It

Sometimes you feel like fi let go

A Who Feels It Knows It

We a feel it from we likkle and a grow

A Who Feels It Knows It

A only Jah Jah know (only Jah Jah know)

You think it easy fi know seh early a morning that you a come fi the rent

When deep dung inna yourself you know seh

You dont have a cent

You know mi feel it fi di youths dem wey haffi sleep on the street

Dem no care fi di youths dem

And a long time mi seet

So a Who Feels It Knows It

We a feel it from we likkle and a grow

A Who Feels It Knows It

Sometimes you feel like fi let go

A Who Feels It Knows It

We a feel it from we likkle and a grow

A Who Feels It Knows It

A only Jah Jah know (only Jah Jah know)

Yeah

The way di system set up

No help poor people no way

But poor people nah go give up(nooo)

No matter how it stay

We still hustle and fight it (hustle and fight it)

All when we no like it (when we no like it)

Still working on an on

From dust till dawn

Sooo

But a Who Feels It Knows It

We a feel it from we likkle and a grow

A Who Feels It Knows It

Sometimes you feel like fi let go

A Who Feels It Knows It

We a feel it from we likkle and a grow

A Who Feels It Knows It

A only Jah Jah know (only Jah Jah know)

Yeah

You think it easy fi know seh early a morning that you a come fi the rent

When deep dung inna yourself you know seh

You dont have a cent

You know mi feel it fi di youths dem wey haffi sleep on the street

Dem no care fi di youths dem

And a long time mi seet

But a Who Feels It Knows It

We a feel it from we likkle and a grow

A Who Feels It Knows It

Sometimes you feel like fi let go

A Who Feels It Knows It

We a feel it from we likkle and a grow

A Who Feels It Knows It

A only Jah Jah know (only Jah Jah know)

Yeah.

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Donovan Germain / Romain Virgo / Shuana Kensie / Bunny Fletcher

Pandemic Fatigue catches up with a cowardly courageous woman.

My second last roll of tissue rolled and fell into the toilet this morning.

Great.

Now, on top of calculating how much nutrients my body can absorb from sorghum porridge I have to watch how many boxes of toilet paper I use per visit.

I should have paid attention in Tanzania maybe I could have figured that water in a jerrycan hack.

Else, not being a newspaper buyer I have to start thinking about which of my many notebooks have the softer paper.

It's like that time primary school when my two last tissue rolls fell into the bucket of water I was keeping at the bottom side of the bed. 

I went to the assistant matron with the dump toilet papers and told her I was out. Bless her heart because she managed to get me a roll from the ones they kept for the younger children.

I have ran out tights as well. I have basically been doing rounds in tights and many months down 2020 I am now left with one decent pair which I can't really go out in because it's really a man's tights. It has open pockets in front . That's  how I figure it is men's wear. This is really a strange year, it's long since I wore out clothes. Five pairs to be exact, or maybe I didn't notice because when it was normal to roam I'd come across tights wherever and buy, discarding the faded ones. these ones have holes and lost elasticity and can't even be used as rags.

I've started showing up at the salon in my Sunday dresses that I almost look fresh.

Like I just moved to Nairobi from Kamwakwa where I was working at a timber sales or co-owned a printing shop.

Anyway corona will show us.

I have been wondering what's wrong with me.

Now I know I have pandemic fatigue.

I am trying my best to stay safe but  I am becoming complacent I no longer kick and bite when the conductor tells me to songea huyu kuna wenye wanashuka pale mbele.

Move a little, some people are getting off in the next stage.

I am using the 10bob masks even though I know they are one ply.

I don't wipe down everything quite as vigorously as before.

It's  hard to get into bed

It's  hard to get out of bed

Sometimes I feel a sense of dread so strong It feels physical.

I've stayed awake praying

I've stayed awake sobbing

I've despaired

I have called down hell and damnation to several annoying people

I've spent a whole day in bed, waking from one dream to another because, I just couldn't face the day.

 So I spent the night googling depression symptoms.

But.

I've got up 30 days in a month, sometimes 31 and lived.

In the Samurai's garden, there is a quote. 'It takes more courage to live.'

So I guess, in spite of things I am courageous. 

A cowardly courageous woman.

Battle Fatigue

I feel like I crossed the threshold of something significant today.

It feel like all the weight from the past and for the future has finally settled into a comfortable home within me where I no longer need to haul it along but to simply let it be wherever it wants to  be.

I feel like I've stopped fighting against the goads.

I'm cowardly but very courageous while doing it.

It reminds me of the time my uncle started teaching me self defence.

He had just got out of jail and was trying to fill in the time before he got his ID processed.

While he wasn't flirting with every single girl to woman between 25-50,

he hang around the back of his brother's kitchen singing scandalous lyrics to songs he obviously made up in his time in 'college' as he called it.

He made me do each move over and over .

I lifted weights 

I did squats and kicked and punched and when I felt I couldn't do another single burpie he'd say, 'if you do two more, those are the one's that count.'

Then he told my me to tell my mother to get me a sports bra.

My mother said 'ndigithiai-niī

And then schools opened and I continued to do the exercises and it's true, the ones you do after you feel you can't do anymore are the ones that matter.

(I really miss his, he was the realist relative that lived.)

I feel like I am beyond the two extra workouts.

In life.

I feel like I've been training and training and done the extra rounds and now I am just plain exhausted.

I could do it all again, with less agitation but I really would prefer rest, and probably automation.

In her book, Daring Greatly Brène Says that

'often the result of daring greatly isn’t a victory march as much as it is a quiet sense of freedom mixed with a little battle fatigue.'

I have battle fatigue.

Paper kites- Halcyon 

Writing Challenge: A favourite movie

In my work as a hustler I get shouted at a lot.

It's just the way things are. In this field, communication styles developed then mutated and  mostly what is left is raw truth said in 

raw anger, lots of raw blame and finger pointing

And many times you find yourself doubting if you don't really live in a tree. The way people will address you.

Writing Challenge Day 7

My Favourite Movie.

I couldn't decide which one it is , so I will go with the two movies I watch when the world stops making sense.

Which is often.

The Princess Diaries 1

The Devil Wears Prada.

In the Devil Wears Prada, Andrea is a writer who gets hired for a PA job in a fashion magazine. 

Her boss is a rude editor who only believes in one thing:Success.

-Wait wait,

The boss Miranda is played by Merly Streep.And so of course it's a good movie. Clare(Miranda calls her Clare even though her name is Andrea)is played by Anne Hathaway who is brilliant. 

I love the intro music, and all the clothes that Andrea get's to wear. Including the black and white bra in the opening song because I once had a bra like that until it lost all of it's elasticity so I just kept it on as a suveniour.

But what I love is how Andrea keeps bouncing back.

When you work under someone that is constantly making you feel small and worthless it's possible to just say- si ikae. But she doesn't let it work on her insecurities.she succeeds in the job, then leaves at her own will. She leaves the glamour behind, because that is not all there is to life. And flies back home to her very very yummy boyfriend.

I like the Princess Diaries because they live in a refurbished firehouse and when the girl needs to come down she slides down the pole. A house doesn't get cooler than that, plus they have a cat, Fat Louie.

(I just googled who played the girl in this movie. Wait for it...Anne Hathaway. So it might see I am her fan too.) I like The movies the limo driver has played too. He is called Hector Lizondo.

When a past she didn't know about resurfaces, Mia has to man up and face up both the past, the future and her present life which has suddenly taken a spin.

The question of why now? Arises when she has to decide whether to forgive or cut her paternal grandmother completely off for not showing up early enough.

She also had to be honest and tell her friend the truth that now she is no longer the ordinary bestie she has been but royalty. Her bestie is way stocked  for her new status more than even herself. Beasties like that are precious.

I like this sub story because it shows how relationships are not a fairytale.

 They have ups and downs but you have to be completely honest with each other.

I watch the Devil Wears Prada when I have an interview that's  scaring me.

And I watch Princess Diaries when I need to remind myself the past can be whatever it please itself to be,  I cannot do anything about the past. I can only have a positive perspective about the future, and live as best as I can for the present.

and everything will be okay, because Anne Hathaway.