Author Archives: crystal
I love to read articles about understanding men, mostly from the home page on MSN. Every time I discover some delicious new fact about our Martians, I try it out on my better half. His response is always something like, ‘The trouble with women is that they take all their man-talk from other women.’ I always want to yell, ‘Men don’t talk about their feelings, so we have to discover them through other women … or gay friends!’ And somehow I don’t think man advice from a gay pal counts for much, because their thought… Continue reading →
I’m not a big believer in internet dating, even though I’ve met a lot of loved ones that way. The whole concept just seems contrived and artificial. Though, for the record, I’m not big on offline dating agencies either. It’s a bit different when you’re not going online specifically to find a mate. I found the love of my life on a website for writers, and what started out as an exchange of style and prose ended up in a beautiful relationship. This story – the one I’m about to tell – started with a… Continue reading →
I’ve been trying to get my hair coloured for a while, and I finally gave up after four tries and three thousand shillings. I didn’t want to pour more money down the sink. Plus, I was afraid my hair would fall off. Hair colour can do that sometimes. The saga began with a mix of two colours – ultraviolet black and aubergine. This was followed by some food colour, more aubergine, and some wailing with mirrors. The first time I dyed it, the hairdresser said it was coloured, but my baby girl said otherwise. I… Continue reading →
So … I haven’t been to the gym in two weeks. I have a perfectly legitimate excuse. The first week, I had workshops, so I had to leave the house earlier. The second week, my cheques hadn’t cleared and the gym subscription had run out. I bumped into the gym instructor three days into the ‘wallet-fast’ and he told me I could come in anyway. I didn’t take him up on it. It was partly guilty conscience, but mostly oversleeping. Somewhere amid my hiatus, I had to go to a clinic for a routine tune-up…. Continue reading →
A few days ago, I was at a workshop, and we had to set up a DVD player. I was in charge of logistics, so I got the machine then asked for some boy in the know to come hook it up. My statement offended some ladies in the audience, who felt I was stereotyping. I hadn’t given it much thought, so I revised the statement and asked anyone who could get it working to come do so. Three girls huddled around the machine, trying to match the red wire to the white wire. Two… Continue reading →
I’ve always had weight issues. In high school, I went as high as 80 kg … and yes … I have heavy bones. But my optimum weight is 60. It looks good, it feels great, and at 5 foot almost-six-inches, its BMI is 22. I think. Right now, I weigh 70. It’s very distressing, since even while pregnant, I didn’t go over 65. Somewhere between sun, sand, and Morocco burgers, I gained ten kilos. Luckily, the excess weight doesn’t show unless you look very closely. It’s mostly centred around the middle, and corsets do wonders… Continue reading →
For a while now, I’ve wanted to dye my hair purple. I got the idea from a close pal, who also got me enrolled in a gym. I’d always known that if I had caucasian hair, I’d wear it spiky and tinted, but I’d never seriously thought of colouring my dreads. Once I settled on the idea, I had to find the right shade. Most shops have brown, black, Burgundy, blonde, and – believe it or not – grey. I did manage to find ulraviolet-black, blue-black, and something called aubergine. At first, I thought I… Continue reading →
As a freelance writer and editor, I mostly work from home. However, one of my clients requires me to be in their offices for a few hours every day. Their office is situated near a funeral home, which makes it really hard to work on Thursdays. Some time last week, I was walking by the funeral home when I saw this guy. He was cuddling a little girl who looked 4 or 5 years old. I noticed her because she wore a bright orange jacket and had beads in her hair. I had my earpones… Continue reading →
I have a nasty temper. I usually display this temper by throwing things at people; often, very expensive things. This is why I love Nokia. Whenever I smash it on a wall, rock, floor, or annoying-person’s-head, the phone dismantles into six distinct pieces; and once I hunt them down and ‘remantle’ them, the phone works fine. For this reason, I always buy Nokia. And given my jinx for all things electr[on]ic, I’m strictly basic. No smartphones for me. So my Nokias are usually mulika mwizi – phones whose most advanced feature is a flashlight-torch. I… Continue reading →
There’s a popular joke that if you want to know how your wife will look in twenty years, just study your mother-in-law. It’s all very well if your wife’s mum is Njoki Ndung’u, less cool if she is, say, someone else. I don’t know about boys, but girls seem to go through various ‘mummy stages’. Initially, you want to be like mum. You want to dress like her, wear your hair like her. You spend hours flossing her heels, wearing her make-up and begging her for matching outfits. At some point, for some reason, you… Continue reading →