I’m not sure why it rings so true. Speaking for myself, it’s pretty straightforward. I turn 30 in a few days, so my bio-clock should be roaring as I’m nearer to my sell-by-date. Luckily for me, I had my daughter almost ten years ago, which cured that particular bug. Another issue for women today is marriage, but I lived with my baby’s dad long enough to know that’s not for me.

Over the years, I’ve become rather skeptical cynical  comfortable in my lifestyle, and I’m not too keen to alter it for anyone. I realize that relationships can be a beautiful thing, but they require a lot of sacrifice, compromise, and … well … work. I don’t really have the energy for that. I’m a born romantic, so I have no problem with love – for other people. I do, however, have a lot of problems with love when it comes to me.

There’s another category of women, the type that think men are only after one thing. Possibly because they’ve only been with men who were after that one thing. So anytime someone shows the slightest bit of interest, it’s hackles out! Now, assuming the man in question is keen enough, smart enough, and patient enough to prove he’s out for more, that creates an entirely different scenario.

I suppose it goes back to the reasons why women want to get married: kids, legitimacy, companionship, social standing, nagging relatives, and yes, love. A friend of mine was once advised by her banker that she should get married to qualify for a mortgage, so finance comes into it as well. In the world today, pooling financial resources seems like a pretty good idea, even if you’re not the type that expects your taller half to pay for all the bills.

I consider myself a modern woman. I live in a flat with my daughter, and manage our bills with both difficulty and efficiency. I come and go as I please, except for calling up my little one when I have to stay late at work. I have financial plans, both short-term and long-term, and I have a fairly rigid map of where I plan to be in ten years time.

Given all that, there isn’t really room in my life for a man.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not any kind of feminist. I admit that I sometimes need a man to get a rat out of my house. But my brothers live five minutes away, and they do that for me gladly. I also have a lot more … shall we say … base desires. But it’s sometimes easier to get those needs met outside a marriage than inside it.

And here lies the problem. I have my baby, so I don’t need a sperm donor. I pay my bills, so I don’t need a financial partner. I need male company and advice sometimes, but I have friends, cousins, and brothers who provide that gladly. I have no immense desire for a mum-in-law, and I can get my horizontal needs without a ring. So, for me, marriage is not a necessity.

But if I don’t want him to marry me, what exactly do I need him for?

See, if I meet a man who’s after my … um … assets, then all I have to do is analyze my options. I can look at him, size him up, and decide whether or not he can ‘gerrit’. Simple. But if a man comes looking for more than a one-night stand, then what? I don’t want to marry him, because I don’t want to marry anyone. I don’t want to date him, because dating is a lot of work, and is rather pointless if there’s nowhere it’s going.

I suppose dating is about spending time [and money] together, getting to know each other, doing things you both enjoy, finding out whether you’re compatible. The key difference between dating and hanging out with male friends is that dates get horizontal at some point, and ideally, progress into long-term arrangements. But if I can get horizontal without the small talk, the wining and the dining, then why date? And if you’ve been labelled as ‘ungerritable’ then why not just spend time with you as a friend?

This for me, is the problem. The boy appears, we go out a few times, we have fun, maybe we even get horizontal, but he wants more. He is ‘genuinely interested’ in me. What do I do with him now?

There are still women who are looking for the happily ever after, who long for a man like this, a man who genuinely wants to be with them for more than just one night. But there’s also a large group of smart ‘independent’ progressive women who just want to have fun and live. Maybe when this group turns 35, they’ll be ready to settle down with guys that are genuinely interested in them. I don’t know what the odds are, and I won’t get into statistics. In the west, it’s perfectly natural for a woman of 40 or even 45 to settle down and start a family, but here, you still get strange looks if you’re on the wrong side of 30 and you’re not yet a Mrs.

My brother always says the world has a way of righting itself, so maybe by the time these independent women turn 35, it will be more acceptable to slow down and join the league of ball and chains. But until then, we will have some attending seminars like these, others complaining there are no good men left, and others being overwhelmed by good men that they don’t know what to do with.

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I was talking to a good friend this week. He’s married, and I assume he’s happy. But he says marriages aren’t meant to be happy. They’re intended to be functional. A good marriage is one that works, where the partners are solid and complement each other. Each partner does what they have to do to keep the union solid. Lovey-dovey couples are a myth that only exists in female heads, he says. It made me ask a question on Twitter. I wondered how a guy picks a bride, since it’s clearly not about love.

I didn’t get many answers, so I tried to analyse and theorize. I think the girl a man marries depends on his reasons. If he’s marrying to meet the demand for grandchildren, he’ll marry a girl who’s wifely, motherly, and gets along with his mother. That’s her primary function, so she may not necessarily be the type of girl he likes. That’s why he may continue to fool around with – you know – the type of girl he likes. It’s also why a guy could date a girl for years then break up with her and marry someone else.

A guy like that will likely have a mistress who is just the type he likes, the one he actually loves, the one he is genuinely attracted to. And that girl will probably never become a wife, because clearly, under this theory, the girl a man loves is not the one he marries.

The theory makes sense to some extent. Ancient civilisations didn’t have marriages ‘for love’ and even in the King Arthur days, the knights were always in love with married women who were not – you know – their wives. They would be the ‘champion’ of some married woman while the woman’s husband was the champion of some other girl. The relationships weren’t necessarily sexual, but there was love involved. Hence Lancelot and Guinevere.

The kind of woman who is a wife is raised to know her place. She doesn’t question her man’s cheating or shenanigans, because, well, a wife doesn’t do that. Just listen to the women on Matatu FM. Women – like me – who would question and fight and make demands are generally kept as mistresses or girlfriends, mpango wa kando. We may be hot, confident and great in bed, but we have way too much drama to be wives.

This explains why some klandes have the guts to attack wives. The wife is the well-behaved, quiet, humble type who lets her man do what he wants. She’ll take a lot of crap to maintain her married status. Sometimes she’s just as pretty and confident as the mistress, but she knows enough not to cause chaos, and she knows he’ll always come back home. That’s why she’s the wife. The mistress is the drama queen. She assumes that because the man prefers her, she has the authority and clout to push his wife around. Of course, it’s that exact quality that keeps her safely in the mistress bracket.

When a woman like that finally chooses to be a wife, she adjusts herself accordingly. Either that or she fakes it long enough to get a ring, or manipulates the boy into marriage. Months later, she’s nagging and he’s cheating because the gloves are off. Sigh.

Some men marry for money, though this is rare.  This guy is likely to cheat too, because in many ways, his wife is ‘above’ him, so he needs some outside women he can subjugate.

Genuine church types marry for love. By genuine I mean the traditional types who really feel that marriage is a holy sacrament. I don’t know how well those marriages work for two reasons. One, divorce is unacceptable, so a lot gets swept under the carpet to keep the marriage intact. Two, maintaining appearances is important, so many marital problems stay hidden.

Some guys marry for social standing, to be taken seriously at work or in the community. A guy like that will probably marry a trophy wife, one that is appropriate for the situation, one that can be shown off at office/family functions without embarrassing him, one that can fit in with social groups WAG and company wives. Then he will continue to play with the type of women who interest him.

I think the mistake that women make is that we pick a guy and make him marry us, then we wonder why we end up miserable. If you tricked or pressured the guy into marrying you, things are bound to go crazy once you stop pretending, especially if he wasn’t ready to marry in the first place.

I read a letter in yesterday’s Nation. This guy said he’d been faithful to his wife for 4 years, but he was drawn to other women. He wanted to know if it was normal. The columnist told him it was. Thing is – we get attracted to people every day, but we have to choose not to act on it. When you force a man to marry you, he has less motivation to fight his lust.

When a man decides it’s time to marry, he will. But he will only take a girl that meets his needs. The old quote is true – a man won’t marry a girl, he’ll marry a wife. So if you want to catch a husband, you need to become a wife.

Of course some girls are simply not wife material, and I’m one of them. If I want a ring on it, I know what I need to develop. And I can do it too – any girl can. The thing is … I don’t want to.

Us girls have to realize we can’t have it both ways. We either stay as we are – strong, independent, no nonsense … and single, or we acquire wifely virtues and a ring, and accept that our men will probably spend their time playing with strong, independent, single women. Of course we could go for western men who can accept this kind of woman, but there’s a reason why divorce is so common there. There’s also a reason why some western men look for ‘submissive’ Asian and African women to marry.

In African society, a wife’s job is to care for the children, and a husband’s job is to provide for them. Many men don’t understand why you’re complaining if the children are schooled, clothed, and fed.  Your best bet as an aspiring wife is to find out what he wants in wife, be that girl, then wait until he’s ready. If it’s the man’s decision to marry, he’ll be a lot more likely to put in the effort needed to make it work. Of course it would help if you naturally have those traits, because if you pretend, then you’ll lose him the moment you go back to ‘normal’.

There’s one other thing that girls don’t consider. We have a generation of women that were raised to do anything they want. They’re educated and self reliant. They can have jobs, cars, and houses without men. But what we forget is that there are men who grew up around us too. The opportunities that made us what we are have changed the men as well. The women grew up to do stuff on their own, but so did the men. So while us girls don’t need a man to buy us pretty things, our brothers don’t need a woman to cook and clean. They don’t have their father’s urge to settle down, procreate, and care for extended families. They want to enjoy their youth and have fun with their money.

This man may not feel the urge to settle down until he’s in his 40s. Meanwhile, the strong woman starts to tick in her late twenties, when her ovaries are whining. So you have 28 year old woman thinking of settling down while her partner still wants to play, and by the time he’s 40, she’s over the hill and intimidating, so he prefers a nice 18 year old that’s young, unambitious, and unspoiled, preferably someone groomed for the job by his mother.

Of course there are exceptions to every rule, and I’m not trying to kill anyone’s marital hopes. There are men who marry for affection and companionship. But these men usually have grown children and a few ex-wives, and if not, they may not want kids at all. You’re unlikely to get a man like that while your bio-clock is ticking. My theory only tries to explain why we have so many singles and unhappy couples, and my solution is to stay out of the fray. What’s yours?

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So Mum announced that church is between us and God, and that we should only go if we want to. We boycotted church for about three weeks before we found ourselves back there with pinched ears and sore bottoms. There has been no mention of personal faith or free will since.

At age 10, I got saved. I had no idea what it meant, and I did it because my cousin said I should. We said a little prayer, my heart felt buoyed, and when I got home, I prayed about a headache and was cured. Hurray for faith healing!! Two days later, I got a bigger headache, but this time faith healing didn’t work. I concluded that I didn’t have enough [faith], and my belief quickly dwindled.

By Class 6, I would walk into a church and quickly doze off. My eyes were always open, but my mind was miles away. Still, I woke up for Praise & Worship and Communion. The youth pastor was hot, the altar wine was sweet, and the Praise Team played guitar. But after a while, my conscience caught up with me. I realized I was going to church for alcohol and music, and that I hadn’t heard a sermon in three years, so I stopped going. I later attended a Catholic High School, and SDA campus, a Muslim workplace, and several Hindu festivals, so I know a bit about religion.

My dad thinks that’s why I hate church. He thinks mixed doctrine disillusions. That’s not really why though. All religions leave me with questions. They all think they’re right, so which one of them is wrong?

In the end, I settled for New Age because it makes me feel at peace. Granted, it has some strange ideas like reincarnation, and it has no place for heaven or hell. But it makes me happy, and that’s all I need in life.

New Age allows for belief in a higher being, but like all belief systems, it doesn’t say where the being came from or how it got there. It’s like the scientific principle of energy. It can’t be created or destroyed blah blah blah. My mind has issues accepting the concept of anything ‘just being there’ even if that thing is God.

Anyway, whether you’re religious or not, if you’re a thinking being, you’ve wondered why you’re here. Granted there are people in life who are content to work, eat, and sleep, and sometimes I envy their lives for being so simple. But most of us wonder why we’re here and what our purpose is. Maybe it’s to get ready for eternity, to take a journey and learn lessons, to join with the ultimate life force, to discover and remember who we are.

We spend lifetimes trying to find that reason. Even in sacrilegious movies like Dogma, the Scion asks God why she put us here. That’s a really good movie by the way. It stars Alanis Morissete as God and Chris Rock as the 13th Disciple. He allegedly got left out of the gospels because he’s black.

Matt Damon stars as The Angel of Death, Penelope Cruz as Muse, and George Carlin as a golfing cardinal. Ben Affleck is in it too, and it’s the only role in which I actually like him. It’s an awesome movie, but you probably won’t like it if you enjoy going to church.

I may not have found all my answers, but I’ve found a life philosophy via Mike Dooley. He’s written a book called Manifesting change and I listen to the audio quite regularly. As part of the programme, he gives an exercise called Three Things. In the exercise, you write down:

1. Three things you like about life
2. Three things you like about yourself
3. Three lessons you’d like to learn before you die

It’s a pretty basic exercise, and it’s also pretty telling, because usually, when you’re asked to list things, you’ll automatically pick the most important things first. That way, you end up with your favourite items and priorities.

My list looks a little like this:

1. Food, laughter, music
2. My looks, my mind, my world view as a dreamer
3. To stop being jealous, to be more secure, to be a good mum

That’s all pretty basic, but when I look at that list, I realize the key goals in my life. I notice that I have consistently placed myself where I am. I’m happiest when I’m doing things that make me laugh, and I gravitate towards people that amuse me. I’m blissful when I eat something I enjoy. [One of my happiest memories is eating an entire Hawaiian pizza all by myself. *Sigh*] I like how I look, so diet and exercise is a challenge. In default mode, I sit alone, staring at walls and thinking, yet I don’t even know that I’m doing it.

I passively chose to raise my baby on my own, because I want to be a good mum with no interference or influence. I subconsciously ward off relationships and marriage by loving the wrong guys. I’m plagued by jealousy and insecurity, and the day that I shall conquer this, I’ll settle with the man that I love. But it’s unlikely before princess is 18, because to me, that would mess with being a fruitful independent mum. When I look at things like that, my life begins to make sense, and I can’t help smiling about it.

I’m sure you have other priorities like money, good health, prosperity, beauty pageants, and world peace. But when you break your mind down into Three Things, you’ll realize what’s important to you, you’ll see that you’ve been on it all along, and you’ll begin to do it and enjoy it.

So that, ladies and gents, is the purpose life, broken into nine simple items by Mike Dooley. Try it. You’d be surprised how much your mind can change you.

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That’s why we have all those breakdowns in communication. Girl meets boy, boy gets girl’s number, boy takes 3 days to use number. Sometimes it’s because he’s watched the playa movies, so he wants to keep her guessing and make sure he won’t look desperate. But most times, it’s that he took that long to realise he should probably call her.

Here’s the thing. When you’ve been seeing a girl for six months, you probably start to realize how much you like her. When she’s been seeing you for six months, she’s mentally trying on wedding dresses.

Of course, I’m the exception to every rule, but we’re talking on principle here.

I’m the kind of girl who asks guys out, and after doing it disastrously for over ten years, I’m ready to admit defeat. And it’s not for the usual reasons either. It’s not about scaring them away or being too assertive or even fear of looking desperate. It’s plain common sense. You could call it maths even.

Look. If it takes a girl six minutes to like a guy, and it takes a guy six months to like a girl, then think what would happen if they coupled.

Here’s Scenario One. Girl meets boy. Six minutes later, girl likes boy, so girl asks boy out. Assuming boy is brave enough not to run screamng for the cops, he susses out girl, decides she has nice assets, maybe likes her balls, decides to say yes. Boy then takes girls number … and waits three days before asking her out.

Now, assuming this is an ideal situation, and that the guy isn’t a weirdo, stalker, beach boy, or sugar-mummy-hunter, the dating goes well. After the first week, she’s still making the effort, texting, calling, proposing dates. After the first month, she wants to meet his boys, and he doesn’t see why she should. After the second month, she’s hunting out his sisters … and his exes … on facebook.

By month three, she’s hinting about anniversaries, family outings, and exclusivity. The boy knows he likes her vaguely, and he hasn’t asked anyone else out. Month four, she’s starting to hog his phone, and he doesn’t mind so much, even though he still occasionally flirts with the barmaid.

Six months down the line, he finally knows he likes her, and willingy mentions her to mum and sisters. By now he sees her regularly, texts without prompting, and actually factors her into his plans. If she’s still around.

In the prior five months, the girl was probably doing all the work, calling him all the time, making plans, showing up at his house unannounced, practising borderline stalker behaviour. By month 2, her pride started beating her up for hankering after this man, By month three, her girls started beating her up for hankering after this man. By month four, she decided he wasn’t interested and walked away.

Now, let’s take Scenario 2. Let’s assume the average guy goes quietly through the first few weeks. He spots a girl he likes, watches her for a while, determines she doesn’t have a boyfriend, a husband, or a bill. That could take anything from 3 minutes to 3 weeks. He catches her eye, watches for signals that he won’t be shot down. The average guy won’t hit on you if he knows he has no chance, so in that sense, girls always make the first move.

Anyway, you give him the go-ahead and he starts a conversation. A month on, he asks her out. They go out, they have fun. He doesn’t call again for 3 weeks because … well … because guys do that.

Okay, let’s give him some benefit of the doubt. He calls after one week. He asks you out on a  group date. Nothing too cosy or personal. You’ll get maybe 2 minutes of alone time. He waits another couple of weeks before asking again, this time, maybe a double date, a party, or drinks and a ball game. By the end of month 2, he’s finally ready to be alone with you, though he’s probably thinking sex, not bonding.

Remember, we’re talking about a guy who likes you here. A guy who just finds you attractive will be hinting halfway through the first date. The ‘rule’ says to wait till the third date, though I don’t know how many guys use that.

Anyway, by month three [assuming you're not chips funga] he begins to like you, and so on, and so forth.

Now here’s the thing. In Scenario One, you’ll be constantly second guessing, wondering why he doesn’t call, wondering why he won’t commit, trying to get him to commit, asking your girls why he won’t reply your texts, asking him why he won’t reply your texts, feeling like you’re doing things all on your own.

In Scenario 2, you’ll still be wondering and second guessing, but there’ll be no effort on your part. All you do is *cough*cough* patiently sit and wait. You’re allowed to be asked out by other guys, and it’s cheaper too.

My argument here is this. If you chase a guy, he has no wiggle room or challenge. If you let him chase you, he has six stress free months to decide he really likes you. Then you’re free to play your mind games, try out mental wedding dresses, and nag him to death. It’s entirely your choice.

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♫ Mama had a chicken, Mama had a cow ♫

♫ Daddy was proud, he didn’t care how! ♫

I stared through the rest of the song. It was anything but a loving gaze.

See, I hate this cartoon. And when I say hate, I mean detest. It’s silly, tasteless, and utterly pointless. It’s also alarmingly popular. So when I was sang along, it was habit. I’ve heard the theme song so often I can hum the instrumentals. Sure, I like Cousin Boneless, and some jokes are hilarious, but mostly, the show is just annoying.

I pointed out all the dumb things in the show, and Princess ignored me, because she likes it. Mr 3CB just smiled his adorable smile and said, ‘It’s awesome. Cow’s voice is so soothing.’

[That made me blush - of course - because I have the one man on earth who likes a baby voice. You would have to hear me speak to know how much of a comfort that is.]

Here’s the moral of my story. I’ve known him for more than a year, but at no point did I ask:

“So, what’s your favourite cartoon? Any thoughts on I Are Baboon?”

It just doesn’t come up in conversations.You ask about favourite colours, preferred foods, maybe even ex-girlfriends, but you would never ask something as random as Cartoon Network.

Some people have a ‘first date list’ of all their deal breakers, and they will include questions like:

1. Are you married?
2. Have a girlfriend?
3. A boyfriend?
4. A deranged half-sibling with claws?
5. Clubbed toes?
6. Artificial hair?

That kind of thing. Cartoon preferences don’t come into that. Of course there are things that you should know before you marry. Stuff like how many big heads children she’s willing to push, how deeply he’s sunk into soft loans, or whether he’d root for you or your mum-in-law. Unfortunately, stuff like that doesn’t come up in conversation either, so you might be shocked that he wants to keep going after your sixth baby, or that she’s spent your entire marriage on the pill.

You could know someone for years – even centuries – and you wouldn’t know how they love Pingu until it shows up on TV. You could have sleepovers for months and never know he has halitosis, because he brushes his teeth while you’re asleep. You could date a girl for decades and never know she sleeps in stockings, because she does her hair when you come over.

In the good old days, marriage was forever, and you couldn’t divorce over smelly feet. You could get your sister as a co-wife and make him sleep in her hut instead of yours, but that was about it. But now we have ‘irreconcilable differences’ and we can claim we’re no longer compatible.

Here’s the thing: you will never know anyone well enough to find all their faults. If you do, they’ll just find new ones. And you’ll never really know someone till you’re married. Come-we-stay is a whole different ball game, because subconsciously, you’re still hiding stuff to get that ring on your finger.

Lengthy courtships only help if you want illegitimate children. They won’t show you that you’re suited for each other. Pre-marital counselling helps, but I don’t know any couple that stopped the wedding for issues in counselling. Most likely, they just found another priest.

All you can do is find someone suitable to marry. Your reasons are your own. Could be he has beautiful eyes that you hope he’ll pass on to your baby, or a big healthy pay cheque, or childbearing hips for the ladies. Once you find them appropriate, get on with it. You could find she’s an ogre by night or that he has an extra nipple, but dating him longer wouldn’t help you with that. You could marry him sober, then he ends up being a drunk … mostly because you turn into an ogre by night. Or you could find a guy that ‘chills’ only to reach the wedding night and learn you both hate sex. Scary.

Marriage – like love – is a decision. It’s your choice if you go or stay, but dating time [or strange acquired habit] has little to do with it. The best way to know a person is to be with them, and to be at ease enough to sing along to Cow and Chicken, even as she gives you laser eyes that beg you to stop.

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I was having a random moment yesterday and wondering if anyone is confident enough to not be jealous. I realize that’s bad grammar, but there’s no other way to put it.

I mean, think about the Shakira-Beyoncé video. They both looked pretty awesome and danced pretty well. They sounded great too. But when they both got home, and saw their men staring at the video, did they ask their men, ‘Are you watching her or watching me?’

Do you think these girls are so sure of themselves that they’d let their guy make eyes at other women? After all, he’s just looking, right? And you know he’ll always bring it home to you, right?

I have no issue with my man liking Mila Jovovich or Zoe Saldana, mostly because I beat them on cup side. But I do have an urge to slap Katy Perry since I heard him have words about her. He said it to his boys, of course, and I’m not supposed to know about it, but still, have you seen the Ds on that woman?

When he said he loved Jovovich, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s nice. But isn’t she awfully small for the perfect woman?’ He was smart enough not to answer. Mila Jovovich is on The Fifth Element, where she is touted as, you know, the perfect human … that just happens to be a girl. Men in the show keep bumping into her … unclothed … and their response is always, ‘She really is perfect.’ Meh.

She’s also in the first Resident Evil, where she’s famous for carrying an axe, sexy flashback scenes, and wearing an ugly red dress. The dress is the only reason I didn’t slap him – I wouldn’t be caught dead in that dress. I kept hoping she’d get stuck in a doorway or something. The guns were cool though.

When I heard his of crush on Katy Perry, my first question was, ‘So, if she showed up and offered to … you know … would you?’ Of course, I didn’t ask it out loud. Never ask a question if you can’t handle the answer. For now, I’ll just hope her and Russel Brand stay far away from 3CB-land.

But I still wonder if certified goddesses like Rihanna and Eva Longoria look at their men and wonder just which girl is on their minds.

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For a month, I felt my house wasn’t homely, and I wanted to fix that, but I didn’t know how. I looked at cosy houses and tried to see what they had that I didn’t, and I decided it was a sofa – and a carpet. But a carpet needs a vacuum cleaner.

These items were expensive weren’t essential, so I ignored them until my house flooded one day, soaking my floor cushions through. I tried to dry them for a month before I finally gave up and threw them away. Then I splurged on a two-seater sofa. It was gorgeous. I had wanted a cream one, but the carpenter designed it in reddish orange. I was pissed off at first, but after my baby decorated it with uji and tomato paste, I figured orange isn’t such a bad thing.

After a few days, I threw in a carpet. It was a small piece – 210 by 180, and it was a pretty pale yellow. It matches with everything, and is gentle and girly. I was shocked at what a difference the carpet made. My house instantly changed from bachelor to family space. I was jazzed. For a while.

After three days of babies playing kalongo on my carpet, it looked closer to brown. Its talent for catching dirt is amazing. I bought the vacuum cleaner, but with cream-yellow carpet, vacuums can only do so much. So I gathered some psyche and worked on it with Carpet Glo. It cleans beautifully, and you scrub with the foam, so there’s minimal moisture involved. This means I can clean it indoors and dry it with a hair dryer and vacuum cleaner. There are probably some footage somewhere of me standing in shorts and a spaghetti top, attacking a semi-dry carpet with a blow dryer, because princess likes to videotape these things on her phone. Luckily, she hasn’t discovered cables and Youtube. As for the blow dryer it’s a small, chubby, hand-held device, and it looks a little like a fat black gun.

My house now has all the trappings of a home. What it needs is a home maker. It needs a girl that mops the floor daily, vacuums the carpet, scrubs it twice a week, and leaves dishes in the sink for 3 hours maximum. Right now, I’m the freelancing mum who spends 18 hours at the computer, does dishes when there’s nothing left to use, washes uniform just in time for them to dry, cleans just enough sufurias to cook, and don’t even get me started on jeans, tracksuit bottoms, and sneakers.

On the upside, I earn a good living, I get paid for what I love, I’m pretty motivated most days, princess thinks I’m super cool, and my man loves me just the way I am. He deserves an award for that. A big one, and I give him one every chance I can.

When I feel like an underachiever because I suck at being a house-mum, I console myself with this; none of Princess’ buddies’ mothers have nose rings [actually it's just a piercing - I lost the gold stud] or purple hair. And with her mum being so crazy, my baby can only rebel by being nice, neat, and normal, which is not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.

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• Urban Pastoralist

Most people think I’m cheerful, bubbly, completely irrepressible, and possibly bipolar, but I do that more for their benefit. It’s not about pretending or putting on a brave face. It’s about focussing on others. I want them to be happy, so I giggle and laugh and make jokes to keep them smiling, even though inside I’m an massive hole. Sometimes, while I’m playing the game, I get caught in the spirit, and I actually feel the way I look. But it doesn’t last long.

It’s been 10 years since my last attempt, and I still get frightening thoughts sometimes. But having my daughter cured any serious plans I had of hanging myself. When the urge gets really bad, I stop, look at her face, and wonder who’ll look after her when I’m gone. That generally snaps me out of it. But I still have some really bad days, when I hide in the bathroom and cry until my chest aches. I have to do it in the bathroom, because my princess hates to see me cry.

I love rock music, and sometimes, shutting my eyes, slipping on my headphones, and playing my favourite song at full volume is enough to cheer me up. Sadly though, my favourite songs are pretty angsty, so that’s not always a good-pick-me-up. Still, rock is full of rage, and sometimes yelling along to the music will get rid of major feelings.

I’ve been using The Secret for over a year now, and it works well for me. It helped me move back to Kenya, started my freelance business, and joined me to the love of my life. It even got my baby a good school and fixed my hair! I manifest small things like a wristwatch or a Subzone sandwich, because they’re not important. It’s harder to manifest big things, because I want them so badly, and that pushes them away.

One of the things I want most is to finally conquer depression. People say a person hangs themselves because they don’t want to go on living. I don’t know if it’s like that for everyone, but I’ll tell you how it is for me. I get tired. Tired of the cycle of depression. You feel bad, you cheer up, you move on, you feel bad, you cheer up, you move on, over and over and over. Every time you think it can’t get worse, it does. Every time you hit rock bottom and bounce off, you think it’s the last time. And then it comes back again. It’s like PMS, except it isn’t just once a month.

Some people survive on medication, but I once OD’d on mine. I remember sitting on the bed shaking and thinking, ‘Well, the worst that can happen is I’ll get ridiculously happy.’ It didn’t work, I just got hungry instead. And then I got dizzy and threw up. I’m glad about that.

Last night, I read The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. It’s mentioned in The Secret, and it’s a pretty cool book. I’d like to use the principles in there to stop being depressed all the time.

The thing with depression is it’s a disease. It isn’t about the world around you. A sad incident may trigger an episode, but mostly it’s something that’s always with you, just below the surface. Mine started when I was little, and it’s like a shadow that follows me. Sometimes it’s hit by floodlights of happiness, then it waits for the glare to fade or the battery to die so it can show up again.

I’m living well. I love a man that loves me, I have my dream job, I have a beautiful little girl, I live in a pretty flat. I have every reason to be happy, but I still get depressed. It could be because my dream job is boring so there’s nothing left to look forward to career-wise. If you get to the top and you don’t like it there, it can get … well … depressing.

I know I should just focus on working in pyjamas, staying out of traffic jams, and being here when my baby gets home from school. Those parts are pretty cool. But I’m tired of the routine. The Secret says, ‘If it’s not fun, don’t do it’ and I’m upset because it’s not fun. Also, my X6 and my dream home are really far away.

But I know it’s more than that. It’s a sickness in my mind, and it’s a sickness that only I can cure. I have taught myself to think sad thoughts, and as long as I hug them, these thoughts overwhelm me and snuff me out. I could be doing my spazzy dance one minute and crying the next, because I saw a Korean kid hurt in Jumong and allowed the feeling to drown my joy.

I know the solution is to simply think positive, to grab the happy thoughts and refuse to let go. But it’s not as easy as it sounds, at least not for me. Still, I’m going to try.

The key is to forgive myself for failing. I need to not beat myself up when I’m overwhelmed. I need to stand up when I fall, and keep going. I need to lay off and not be so hard on myself. But most of all, I need to accept that it will take time to change, so that I’m not mad at myself when I slip and don’t want to get up.

There’s a line in Wattles’ book that speaks to me. It goes something like, ‘Change is cumulative.’ That means every piece counts. So my primary challenge is to not get discouraged by the little steps. I would rather fly to the end of the rainbow, but I have to accept that toddling along is the only way to go. The first steps are the hardest but I know I’ll get there.

One day soon, I will tell a joke and smile, and it won’t be for anyone else. It will be  joy from inside. One day soon, I’ll be so used to thinking happy thoughts that it will be effortless. And when that happens, then I’ll throw a party and join my loves as they sing and do their spazzy dance. Amen

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I’m so enamoured with that bike that every time he rolls it by, I give a compliment. To the bike, not the guy. He parks it outside my door, so I’ve seen him move it a dozen times, but I have not once looked at his face. And no, it’s not the helmet. One time, I was so jazzed that I made an extremely inappropriate comment about cows. I’m not sure if he heard me, and no, he didn’t laugh.

Yesterday, I heard my baby in conversation with the Biker Guy. They were actually talking, and I realised that if I met the guy in the corridor, I’d have no idea who he was. For me, all he is is a random guy with a hot bike.

I’ve lived in my house for almost a year now. It’s a pretty block of flats with 24 houses, so that’s at least 30 tenants, assuming a third of us have roommates. And I don’t know any of my neighbours.

Well, I do know one neighbour, but that’s because we’re the only two people in the building with kids. They play in each other’s houses, so we couldn’t help getting acquainted.

It doesn’t bother me so much that I don’t know my neighbours, because I’m an extreme introvert. Besides, my brothers live five minutes away, so I can always run there if I need to borrow sugar.

But I couldn’t help thinking how westernized society has become. There’s no camaraderie, no sense of community. I share a space with 30 or 40 people and none of us is aware of it. It’s a little bit frightening.

Some time back, a carjacked couple knocked on my door at midnight and asked for help. I couldn’t drive them to the station because I didn’t have a car. The guy asked, ‘Couldn’t you ask one of your neighbours?’ I could have explained how I didn’t know or talk to any of them, but I just said, ‘We’re new here,’ and loaned them a phone and an umbrella.

After tea and some phone calls, they managed to get a friend of a friend of a cop to come tow their car to the station. The umbrella and phone never came back.

The next day, I considered walking to the top of the building, knocking on each door, and introducing myself, just so I knew who was who. The notion didn’t last very long.

The only people I talk to in my neighbourhood are those related to food or my baby – the kiosks, Mama Mboga, the hairdresser, the chips guy, and the samosa guy. Everyone else just sees my purple hair as I walk distractedly by. I’m not saying this is a good thing. I’m saying that’s the way it is.

I’m lucky that I’ve lived here all my life, so I can navigate with my eyes closed. It makes me feel safe, even though I don’t know who my neighbours are. I grew up here, so every five minutes I’ll bump into someone from my childhood. It makes me feel less like a stranger. But it’s still interesting to note that the only reason adults talk to each other at home is because of their kids.

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But then over the weekend, I heard about this event at KICC. Apparently, a Nigerian Broda was giving a sermon on how to catch a husband in six seconds or less. He preached for four hours, and promised the women up to four proposals by the end of the night. I don’t know which woman – if any – got a proposal that night, but it would be interesting to find out.

The man also gave tips on how to stay married, and I suppose the tips were a little more detailed than, ‘Don’t get divorced.’

I’m not particularly curious about what went on in there, but I was quite amused to hear women mobbing the building and scaring the security guards.

One guy’s take on the situation left me literally in stitches, especially after this other guy offered up his … um … services. I guess I shouldn’t really speak, because I’m almost 30, work all the time, have purple hair, have my own baby, and am barely searching, so I don’t really understand the tock of the bio-clock. But it must be pretty loud if the women were wiling to face police raids just to get it sated. I understand the cops had to hold back the crowds of women, and it got quite amusing ugly.

Lots of people are wondering why there are so many single women, and why they seem so desperate. One of my friends blames it on Hollywood. We all want Alejandros, Ridge Forresters, Ding Dong Ramos-es and *insert-name-of-current-soap-hottie* so we ignore the regular folks. I know at least one guy who got dumped for not mimicking Edward Cullen.

[FYI, Ding Dong Ramos is the guy from Marimar. I hear he was Number 4 on E! list of 25 sexiest men. Not that I follow that kind of thing, but David Beckham was Number 1.]

I was walking in town one day and I happened to see a guy. Usually when I walk, I look straight ahead. I’m so lost in my own thoughts that if it’s not a car threatening to kill me, I won’t notice. Friends and siblings often have to physically yank me or knock me over to get me to recognise them, so if I ever lengad you on the street, si kwa ubaya, it’s just that I suck at multitasking.

Anyway, for some reason, I was looking right at the guy, and I noticed that he maintained eye contact for a few seconds. But I kept staring, so he walked past.

I decided to do a little experiment, so I closely watched the next five guys who walked by. Each of them stared for a few seconds to see my reaction. If I looked away, they walked on. If I stared back, they got intimidated, and one almost tripped. If I frowned, they walked faster, and if I looked down, they hesitated to confirm it was a flirt. One guy had nice eyes, so I smiled. But he looked like he was going to say hi, so I crossed the street. I wasn’t looking for attention just then.

Example 2. On an average day, a girl is approached by five guys. It could be the kiosk owner making conversation, the makanga saying more than, ‘Pesa mbele’, the dude calling you Mama Africa [it's the dreads], the workmate saying hi in the corridor, or the pal cracking a random joke.

Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once. Every one of those men is a potential partner.

I’m not saying every male in your radius is looking to put you in a ring and jump your bones, I’m saying that some of them are. But because you’re pre-conditioned for the Alejandro approach, you just don’t recognise it. Then you say there are no good men on the planet.

A man doesn’t have to come up to you and say, ‘Hi beautiful. You look ravishing today. Can I buy you dinner?’ It would be nice if he did, but regular guys don’t talk like that unless their favourite bedtime story is How To Be A Playa. Actually, if a man says, ‘Hi Beautiful’, what he means is, ‘I’m not looking at your clothes.’ Seriously. Normal guys don’t say the word beautiful unless they’re looking at a car or reading from a script. They might say you’re hot, sexy, pretty, or even manzi ameiva, but they don’t generally say it to your face.

The average guy shows his interest by glancing your way to see if you’re a viable target. And if you respond with a back-off stare, that’s exactly what he’ll do. Unless he’s a construction worker. Some baser guys may even abuse you for ‘feeling sweet’.

Half the time a man approaches you, you complain that he’s bugging or stalking you, because he didn’t use words like beautiful and dinner. You think he’s a pest, or an annoying little boy. You don’t even notice that he’s trying to get attention.

It’s like [some] of the boys in primary school who showed affection by pulling your hair. Some of them actually liked you, though others were masochistic brats. It the same with men. Sometimes, when a guy talks to you, he’s being friendly to know you, to see if maybe you can be more than friends. And even if it’s not a conscious effort, if you talk nicely for more than five minutes, he might see how cool you are and follow that avenue. Especially if you don’t use the words ‘wedding show’.

A neighbour who routinely gives you a lift just might be saying he enjoys talking to you, and if you would shut up about Paloma for five minutes, he might even ask you out. If a dude casually invites you for lunch or nyamchom, he just might be interested, even if he doesn’t think your eyes look like the sequined stars on Princess Diana’s wedding dress.

And for the record, marriage proposals in the real world rarely include candlelit dinners, shiny diamonds, or bended knees. Ask a few married couples and you’d be surprised how they ended up as Mr and Mrs.

Here’s an idea. The next time a guy tries to spend time with you,  whether it’s sitting next to you in a bus or reminding you about the staff meeting, at least consider the option that he finds you appealing. It doesn’t mean every guy who meets you wants to take you out, but a lot of marriages have grown from casual friendships that were let to develop. If nothing else, you’ll get to hang out with an actual man who can – you know – teach you about other men. I mean, he has friends right? And some of them are date-able, right?

If a random guy smiles at you, smile back – as long as he isn’t looking at your chest. Chances are he just might ask you out. Before you decide there are no men to marry, open your eyes and see who’s glancing your way. You never know who wants to change your last name.

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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 process is painfully close to mine.

Unless of course he’s a guy-gay, in which case he probably knows nothing about women.

When the movie first came out in 2003, I swore I wouldn’t watch it. My swearing didn’t have any particular motive. It wasn’t about being macho and resisting chick flicks, even though I had just watched that traumatising movie with Renée Zellwegger. I don’t remember what it’s called, but it had a lot of pink, and one scene had a simulated split screen lap dance dry humping thing … which some people found funny, but I found incredibly sad.

The real reason I avoided 10 days is because from what I could see in the preview, I was definitely a 10 days kind of girl, and nobody needs that kind of affirmation.

The thing is, some girls do strange things. We get clingy and possessive in ways that the average man finds unattractive. We get jealous and start cat fights with no justification. Now, I know guys can fight over a woman and call it noble. Many wars have started this way. But when the fight is between two cats, well, that’s just stupid.

I bumped into the 10 days movie on UTV over the weekend, and I actually liked it. It was sweet. I liked that the girl made the first move, but the guy was convinced it was his idea. She left tickets in his house, yet he was sure he had convinced her to ask him to a ballgame. That was cool. I also like that in the end, the guy comes after the girl, not the other way around.

Best of all though, was that he fell for her despite her acting insane. Of course by the time he came after her, he knew the insanity was fake, which counts for something. Chances are he liked the sexy, sporty girl he watched ball with on their second date – before all the craziness began.

The way I see it, some girls can’t help being crazy. I’m speaking for myself here. I’m just wired that way. I’m clingy and jealous and sometimes insecure, and it’s enough to make a guy hang himself. I’d like to think my man loves the craziness in me, but I think he mostly puts up with it because of other … skills … that I may or may not possess.

Truth is though, that guys don’t know what they love in a woman. They aren’t like us who can analyse every affection and say we love his humour, or his height, or that look he gets in his eyes when you … cook. Guys love you because they love you, period. And once they say those words, assuming they’re not players who say it 20 times a day, then they’re pretty much sold.

A straight male friend told me that people are afraid to get what they want. You love man or woman, you get together with them, then instead of being happy and enjoying the experience, you start to think you’ll lose them and freak out. In his words, you start doing stuff like losing weight or gaining weight or learning a sport to make him love you more, or to make sure his love will never stop. According to him, at some point you just have to accept that this person loves you, period. Stop fighting and just live.

It’s a lot easier to say than it is to do. In my case, I have a man that loves me despite all my insanity, and I try to accept that. It just makes life easier.

Of course, it also helps to avoid doing crazy 10-day things like photo-shopping baby pictures or calling up his mother. Unless she calls you first.

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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 pretty girl looking for a dance partner. The reason she couldn’t find one offline is that she’s tall. Really, really tall. Naomi Campbell in spiked heels is a dwarf to her kind of tall.

The girl’s name is Keisha, and she’s 6 foot 5.

Keisha wanted to find someone to dance with for … whatever reason. The online stories don’t say. She went on a site for tall people, and a guy named Wilco responded to her question with ‘I’m 7 feet tall, is that enough?’

Years later, the couple are happily married with two beautiful [and  extremely tall] multicoloured babies.

What I like about this story is that it reminds me of My Love, who’s 6 foot 3 of pure vanilla. It also shows me that it’s possible to beat the odds if you just take a risk.

Lots of supermodels end up marrying short pudgy men because the tall guys are busy hooking up with tiny girls. [And also because short pudgy men have lots of money. It's all in the Napoleon complex.]

I like the story because Keisha took a chance and put herself out there, and by taking a risk, she nabbed herself one of the few guys outside NBA that’s taller than her.

I’m sure that their fairytale wasn’t without black spots. But the tabloids found nothing to hate on, so the couple must be very discreet, a key thing in any successful marriage.

I’m also sure they had to learn to blend, to get along, to curl into one another’s lives. They couldn’t be the perfect couple just because they’re both tall! They had to put together different backgrounds, lifestyles, families, in-laws, not to mention race issues. But somehow, they made it work.

And their happy ending became even happier when they made into the Guiness book of records. That comes with a cash prize, doesn’t it?

The morals of this story are many:

1. Take a chance. Put yourself out there. Let potential lovers see you. You don’t have to chase them, but you have a better shot if they don’t have to crawl under rocks to find you. After they’ve spotted you – then you can make them jump hoops and crawl rocks.
2. There’s someone for everyone who’s looking. Granted the male-female ratio is worrying, and in places like China, it’s the other way around. But the ratio is resolved by nuns, celibate priests, and polygamists. Plus, some hot singles just don’t want to be married. So for those who want one-spouse relationships, the men are out there. If a girl could find a mate at 6 foot 5, sembuse wewe?
3. It’s possible to find love on the internet. Keisha did, and so did I
4. Being tall is good for more than just the NBA.
5. You can find absolutely anything on the internet, and that’s not always a bad thing.

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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 couldn’t see purple either.

The second time, it started out purple, but darkened with the food colouring. And the third time, they let it stay on too long, so the effect was fade to black.

After each session, the hair-people swore that my hair had turned, but I was dissatisfied. They told me to be patient, and that the colour would ‘shout’ after a few weeks.

Some days later, my baby finally admitted my hair was a little tinted. I didn’t believe her.

Even when some random dude using roller blades on the road to Kibera made a comment, I wasn’t having it. He said my hair was really pretty, and asked if I’d bathed it in Kiwi.

Well, not in those words exactly, but that was the idea.

Later, I discovered the hair looks purple in certain lights [and on certain mirrors. Specifically, flourescent light and teeny weeny bathroom glass. Also, bank-queue reflections]. There are moments when it screams violet, other times it looks a little off-black, which is a pretty good colour for me.

Yesterday, I was in Eastleigh shopping for a buibui. I walked into several stalls and had all sorts of people staring at my head – including one guy who was selling by translation. He didn’t speak a word of English or Swahili … which made bargaining rather difficult.

Maybe that was the point.

I figured the reason they were staring is that my head was exposed. Women in that neighbourhood are generally covered. I didn’t discover the problem until someone said, ‘Your hair is really purple!’  The comment was promptly followed by, ‘It really works for you.’

I’ve been thinking of growing my hair longer and turning it black, or maybe burgundy. I want to grow it so that I can style it and do things with it, now  that I actually want to. I’ll mostly want to coil it up in those spirally curls  and then pile it up in dread-ful version of that tousled up crumpled-sheet hairdo.

But I got so many comments on my tiny purple hair that I’m reconsidering. Plus, you can’t have long hair that’s purple … that would just be weird. And I’m not even sure I can still get aubergine at Tuskys. Oh well.

In other news, I’ve been slacking off at the gym. I decided to sleep in for one morning and somehow it stretched to a week! I didn’t think it made much difference, especially since I was sweating much more during workouts, so I figured I was doing something right. But during the post-skiving stretch session, I was screaming like a pregnant cow. Apparently a few days skipped equal a whole lot of pain. *sulk*

I was watching Dr Phil. [Yes, I occasionally watch Dr Phil. I didn't say I was proud of it.]  He was talking about weight loss and weight gain, and he said to lose weight, you have to figure out why you eat. Some people use food as a crutch, so no matter how many diets or fads they use, they stay plus-sized.

I eat to make me happy. I’m naturally depressive, so I use food as a pick-me-up. It’s the one thing that consistently makes me smile. So after a long day, or a fight, or a sad movie, or some good news, or even a bout of PMS, I grab a plate. I’ll usually pick cookies or chocolate or ugali, blue-banded rice, sweet potatoes, and thick savoury stew. Yum. And because I’m eating to be happy, the portions increase. It isn’t enough to just taste.

To help my ‘diet’ along, I need to be conscious of when I eat. I should feed when I’m hungry – and only when I’m hungry. Otherwise I’m piling on more  calories than I work off, and all the gymming on the planet will do nothing for my kilo-count … or my aspiring hair.

I should drink lots of water, and when I get sad, instead of hunting for Dairy Milk or Maryland cookies, I should write a poem, dance to  rock song, or find me some salsa.

Yeah. That’s gonna happen.

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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. As usual, they checked my temperature and BP, then asked me to be weighed.

I’d gained 1.5 kilos!

Either those two weeks really did something bad, or the hospital scales were wrong. Because on my home scale, I still weigh exactly the same as I did six months ago. Weird.

Maybe it’s my home scales that are broken.

Anyway, I hit the gym today. It wasn’t as hard as I expected.  I actually worked up a sweat on the bike, which I never do. I’m not sure if that’s a sign or progress.

And I felt my body warm up on the treadmaster, literally, which is another new thing.

When doing my arm work, the sweat was dripping down, which was freaky. I mean, who sweats while lifting weights? They’re only like 1.5 kilos a piece. And they’re pink!

I did manage to do 100 reps on the skipping rope, so that made me smile. On day 1, I could only do 30 reps per set, which slowly moved up to 50 per set. So when today In easily made 100, I was pretty pleased with myself.

Now I just have to move up to several sets instead of just one. I barely make it to 500 now.

I think the best way to stay motivated in workouts is to set small targets. Like, instead of looking for drastic weight loss, focus on little things.

I don’t feel any lighter, but my clothes fit better, and my blouse buttons don’t pop as much. I can skip longer without breaking, crunch mostly without whining, and the stretches and don’t hurt as much.

Even the scissor leg workouts are easier. Except my instructor has noticed it, so he made them more complex by adding depth and variation. Bloody masochist.

My next mini target is for the tummy-thigh stretches to work. I’m usually worked on while lying on my back – no gutter intended. They pull and twist the legs for a while, then they have you sit up and stretch your thigh muscles, before they eventually lay you on your tummy and pull moves uncomfortably similar an inverted submission suplex.

I’m used to all the other sessions, and my gym people are starting to wonder if they’re doing anything at all, because I don’t scream as much as I used to. But when I lie on my tummy and pull my front thigh, I cry like a little girl.

When I can handle a lying quad stretch without whining, then I’ll know I’m well on my way to true fitness. Until then, I’ll try to stay away from the scales until my dress size drops.

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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 of us, me included, spent a few seconds asking why it didn’t have a yellow wire.

In the end, one of the guys came and set it up. Oh ouch.

Even the staunchest feminist admits to having a guy to fix her light bulbs. I’ve always been really proud of changing my own, until today.

See, I have had many, many, many adventures with light bulbs, but I always blamed the glass. When I used three bulbs for every change in Dar, I assumed it was because the bulbs cost two bob Kenyan. And the house had faulty wiring. Why else would the first two bulbs I replace blow within seconds – every single time?!

When I broke the bulb fixture thingie – I think it’s called a holder – I played innocent with the landlord while he replaced it, and spent the time trying to get the black plastic out of my eye.

When I snapped the fixture on the balcony at my brother’s house, I discreetly tried masking tape … should have used superglue. Super glue can fix anything!

We left that house years ago, but the balcony still has no light.

When I plugged another bulb loosely and it came crashing down three seconds after I left the room … well … how can that possibly be my fault? I wasn’t even in the room!

So a few weeks ago, my kitchen bulb blew. It was one of those energy-saving types that cost 250, so I got a new one and replaced it. A few days later, I noticed it making this squeaking sound, like a rat was chewing on its wires. The light would brighten and dim too, and fridge was acting funny.

I figured the power had fluctuated and started thinking of getting a fridge guard. But after a while, I asked my brother to come look at it. He said the bulb was probably loose, and I should try unscrewing it and then screwing it back again.

Didn’t work.

Then I had both my brothers look at it – separately – and they told me the metal holder thingie had warped, and that I needed a new one. Fair enough. So I walked around town all day arguing with vendors because what they tried to sell me was the wrong colour, the wrong size, the wrong shape … or the wrong price.

I eventually got the right thing for fifty bob, and my brother tried to fix it for me. Only the broken fixture was too tight and neither pliers nor towels and man-force could pluck it out. We thought about breaking it … but nah.

It was pretty late, so we decided to call it a night and fix the bulb tomorrow. Only … the fridge wouldn’t go on. Good Lord.

My brother asked me to switch the fuse box off and on again. I did. Twice. It didn’t work.

Let me first explain that all the wiring in my house is crossed. When you press the cooker switch, the fridge lights up, and vice versa. And a second explanation is that we were trying to sort our own bulb wiring instead of calling the caretaker. So my mind was already in panic mode about how I was going to explain this to the landlord.

But then little brother walks up to the fuse box, switches it off, switches it on, and voila! It works! The fridge switch still lights up the cooker, but at least they both work.

And I thought that off-and-on thing only fixes computers.

I don’t know what that child has in his blood, but all my machines work when he’s around … and promptly die when he leaves.

Either way, from now on, I think I leave all lighting matters to the men.

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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 to hide that. But corsets can’t stop heart disease, fit under bathing suits, or solve bedroom shyness. So now, my target is to lose 10 kg.

I’ve been hoping to do it through sheer will-power like The Secret says. After all, wisdom claims that all weight is gained by thinking fat thoughts. I don’t know about that, but considering I’ve had four years of coastal cuisine and no exercise [I lived five minutes from my office], I should be a lot heavier than I am.

Despite thinking thin thoughts, gorging on chocolate, and watching UK’s Biggest Loser for three months, I haven’t lost [or gained] an inch.

Enter my good pal, who talked me into joining the neighbourhood gym. It’s right next door to my flat, they open at 5.30 a.m., and they throw in free stretches after each workout. I’m not talking hands-in-the-air-and-reach-for-the-sky here. I’m talking actual stretches. They grab your limbs and yank them till you squeal. Then they pound on your back and massage it. It’s heavenly! When they’re done, your skin feels like jelly. I work out from 6.00 to 7.00 each morning, sometimes 7.30. Then I get stretched and rubbed, no gutter intended. After that, a protein drink, a nice hot shower, and off to work.

To help me along, I enlisted some GR2, which is a weight-loss health kit. It contains a protein shake [which mostly tastes like chalk], a fibrous appetite reducer, and a metabolic catalyser. There’s also a toning shaper that works while I sleep. In total, I take two drinks and 12 pills a day – all herbal.

The kit is organic, and it’s meant to make me burn more and eat less. I don’t know how it works on other people, but all it does is make me hungry. Plus, I hate pills. Still, I got a two week dose, so let’s see how things look after that.

I start my workout on the treadmill; 20 minutes: walking, not running. Then I either use the bike or skip to 600. This number increases by week. Next comes abdominals and arm work under my instructors, then stretch and massage.

Whoever said crunches are the worst tummy exercise lied. Crunches are easy. But those other things, where you put your legs in the air then swing, bend, cycle, scissor and sway them, those are pure torture. They work the abs like a roller – I’m not kidding! I didn’t feel it the first day, but by day three I could barely walk! It gets easier with time though, especially if you whine a lot and get the gym guy to give you less leg and more crunch.

My gym has five guys who work in three-day shifts, which means I get to work with each one of them. The upside of this is that I get lots of different training styles. There’s the soft-spoken guy whose hands are oh so gentle come massage time. There’s the torturous one who’s all fun and friendly but yells like a drill sergeant. There’s the masochist who stretches me till I scream and looks at me funny. There’s the quiet one who mostly talks in grunts if he has to talk at all. Some guys go easy on me, some push me past toleration and make me want to smack them. But they’re all great with the stretches and the back rub.

In training yesterday, I saw my reflection and got depressed. Surely after two weeks, I should look less chubby! The guys on Biggest Loser shed 10 kilos a week! But this morning I looked considerably better. Lesson learnt: never train in a white t-shirt; black is more slimming.

I don’t know how much weight I’ve lost so far. The scale in the gym claims I’ve gained five, and I almost had a stroke before the gym guy told me it was broken. It’s some kind of motivation tactic to make you work harder. Fail !! Good thing I have my own scales at home.

In one month’s time, I hope to have purple hair and a slightly flatter tummy. It’d be great to have bikini-worthy washboards, but I’m taking it in baby steps, and I’ll be glad just to have  smaller love handles.

In the meantime, I’m bonding with my girl, becoming much more lithe, and having a lot of fun for just over two thousand bob. All is well with the world.

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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 could go ultra-violet with highlights of aubergine. The latter looks like a maroon shade of purple. But the salonist said if you shampoo between colours, the second colour is nullified.

I started out with ultraviolet and planned to add the aubergine two weeks later. But by day 2 I was impatient and decided to try it anyway. The ultra-black was just, well, black! I wanted something more … colourful.

Sunday morning, after almost an hour with purple on my head, we rinsed it off and saw … black. The colour didn’t catch! At least, it  didn’t catch the hair. But for the next one week, everything my head touched turned to purple. I had towels, windows and gym mats in that hue. Stress!

After a week of un-purple misery, I tried aubergine again. It caught on great, but my head was too bright, and closer to maroon. On a shop assistant’s advice, I added some food colouring.

Here’s the thing. The food colour comes in a plastic box of powder, and every box carries a slightly different shade, even though they’re all labelled purple. We decided to test them on paper, and one turned out blue. The other was safely violet.

Except once they’d been in the sink, the blue tinted purple, and the purple … well, it just tinted. Creepy. We took a chance and added the blue-looking purple to my now maroon head. The end result? Black.

So today, after three sets of colouring, my hair is still … black. How annoying. next week, I’m retrying aubergine, undiluted. I don’ care if it ends up maroon – it’s better than three doses of black. Wish me luck!

PS: It didn’t work **irritable frown** The hair’s still black … but my scalp has turned the strangest shade of maroon. Go figure. Oh well. I give up for now, but better luck to me next time.

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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 on [X FM Baby!] so I couldn’t hear what they were saying, and she had covered his face, so I couldn’t see if he was crying. They stood a bit far from the proceedings, and I wondered if he was protecting her from the corpse.

But as I watched them, I realized that maybe she was protecting him. As long as he held that baby, as long as he shielded her from pain, he didn’t have to deal with his own. He could stand there all stoic and be a man about everything.

They were swaying, like they were slow dancing to some song that only they could hear. And when a lady came by and picked up the child, I saw the man’s face change. His barrier was gone, and the weight of the moment seized him. It was painful to watch.

People have different ways of dealing with death. I’ve never been afraid of it, probably because I always had a strong faith, so I knew where I was going. Lately my mind-frame has changed, but I still have a set image on the afterlife, so it doesn’t really scare me.

What does frighten me is thinking of the ones I will leave behind. I wonder who will look after my baby, and whether they will love her as much as I do. I wonder what will happen to my books, and to my yet-to-bt-purchased fish tank. I wonder about the man that I love – whether he’ll be fine without me, or how much I’ll miss him when I’m gone.

I wonder, sometimes, whether crossing into death will hurt.

I don’t enjoy funerals because I never know what to say to the mourners. It doesn’t seem enough to just hug them and let them cry, which is all I know how to do. I hate the viewing because they always seem so strangely detached and unrecognisable, like someone else’s body is sitting in that box.

Plus, dead things freak me out.

It’s strange, I suppose, for me – a depressive – to have such odd feelings about death. It’s why I buy reincarnation. As long as I know that I’ll come back, that I’ll recognize my loved ones, that at some deep internal level they’ll know where I am and I’ll know that they’re okay, the the Grim Reaper doesn’t seem so bad.

But … political correctness aside … dead things still really, really, really freak me out.

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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 am currently sporting three 1200s a 1680, and a 1202, though recently, I had to cave in and get an LG. I think it has radio.

The reason I have so many handsets is a story for another day – but I walk with three at any one time. So when my Zain handset started acting up, I was more than a little annoyed. For two days, my phone kept going off despite charging. And on the third day, when I finally got it to stay on, it asked me for a security code.

Security code? I never use security codes!

Since my phone had been on a communal office charger for two days, I thought some prankster had played a practical joke and programmed the secret code, especially when the standard 1234 and 0000 didn’t work. Nobody at work fessed up, so I spent two more days punching in random numbers to get my phone open. I tried 6-digit, 8-digit, 9-digit and even 10-digit combinations with no luck. Eventually, I called a pal who suggested I try 5, as in 12345. It worked!

Then the trouble began.

My phone was on alright, but the keypad was noisy, and the clock was off. I always set these features, so I started to think this wasn’t my phone, especially since I had left it on the desk all weekend. It crossed my mind that some genius had forgotten their security code, and had simply switched my uncoded handset for theirs, but that seemed paranoid, even for me. Plus, no one at the office has a 1200. Yet now here I was with wrong settings and a timeless phone.

I went into settings to check the ringtone, just to be sure. It was blank, and everytime I pressed ‘select ringtone’, the phone went off. How weird! I tried to set a calling tone for text messages, but again, when I hit ‘select ringtone’ the phone went off. I was quite amused by then. I tried calling the number from another handset, and it wouldn’t vibrate or ring at all, even though the call was going through. What I had was not a cell phone, it was a simcard-holding-text-store.

Once I was done giggling, I showed the handset to my little brother, he of the engineering degree. He idly wondered why a mulika mwizi would have two extra holes and a possible virus. We both thought the Nokia 1200 is too basic to have a data port or handsfree option. Maybe it’s from China.

He flipped the phone over a few times, pressed a few buttons, then gave it back to me in perfect working order.

“What did you do?!”

“Restore factory settings.”

If I had held that phone 5 years I wouldn’t have thought of that. Thank heavens for little brothers with engineering degrees!

P.S: According to Google, the Nokia 1200 apparently has polyphonic ringtones [hence the data port], 4MB of memory, and an in-built handsfree. Also, it should be blue. Who knew?

P.P.S: If you own a Nokia 1680, look past the pretty camera [great resolution!], turn the phone off, turn it on again, and observe. Specifically, note the Nokia ‘handshake’. Did someone change the Nokia logo or is there some [other] reason why this phone is being redeemed for Bonga Points?

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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 rebel. You turn tomboy, shave the hair and burn all your dresses. The girly things get progressively shorter [or for supermodel progeny, progressively longer]. I don’t know if it’s teen angst or a desire to be different, but at that point, sura ka madhako becomes a very deep insult.

Then, years later, with no conscious effort, you become Mum. It could be some latent gene that’s activated by childbirth, or it could be an age thing, but you suddenly notice that you cook, clean, and discipline your children just like your mother did. You style your house in the same way, say the same things, buy the same products, and even pick the same [previously] annoying habits.

You may not notice it at all until a sibling points it out, usually at the worst possible time. Days like that, your husband really wishes his mum-in-law was a mild-mannered Jebii Kilimo rather than … someone else

I suppose my case was a little different. I am an only daughter, and I have bad, bad hair, just like my mum. Hence dreads. I’ve always thought my mum was really pretty and that I was … not. Throughout my teenage, despite endless compliments, I was resentful that my mum’s good looks had gone to the boys. They were all cute to the point of being almost pretty, while I was rather plain.

Relatives often said I looked just like mum, and some of the older ones even break into tears when they see me, claiming they’ve seen her ‘ghost’. Her brothers claim I am a carbon copy, albeit in a darker hue. But in my teens, I didn’t see it. After all, she was gorgeous and I was a dark, shapeless blimp.

With time, I learned to accept me for me, and while I still don’t consider myself a true beauty, I am happy with my looks. So it was quite a compliment when a few days ago, I put up an old picture of my mum. It was taken when she was about my age, and is my second-favourite photo of her. My own daughter looked up at the picture of her grandmother and said ‘Mummy, is that you?’

I laughed and corrected her, but she said ‘Mum, just say the truth. That’s you. I know that’s you.’

I studied the picture for ages afterwards, and even though I still don’t see the resemblance, I can’t doubt my seven-year-old child. So I suppose I am, apparently, just as pretty as my mum.

Talking to mum a few days ago, I confessed how I’ve never thought myself pretty, even though she always said I was. After all, she’s my mother – it’s her duty to call me gorgeous. I told her how I’d always wished I looked more like her.

Then came a surprising admission. My mother, one of the most gorgeous women I know, has esteem issues as well. She admits she looks ‘ok’ but she has never considered herself beautiful!

I guess I’m a lot more like my mum than I realise. And maybe that’s not such a bad things after all.

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In my case, it’s the only do that works on my head. But I still like the idea of rebelling a little, which is why I try to keep them short. Try, because hair growth is very tempting. It’s like diamonds, but with shampoo.

As much as we dislike it, we are judged by how we look, what we wear, how we dress our hair. I think that’s partly why I’ve never replaced my nose ring. I’ve worn one since I was sixteen – partly for rebellion, partly for Tushauriane’s Esther, but mostly to look Nubian. Dark girls were hot back then; they still are. Plus, I was at the Plain Jane stage of growth; I thought the bling made me look pretty.

When I lost my nose ring at the pool some months back, I considered getting another one, but then I realised it wasn’t really necessary. I’m no longer the wild sixteen-year-old. Actually, I was never a wild sixteen-year-old, hence the nose ring; I needed some ruse to look crazy. And it wasn’t actually a ring, more like a microscopic gold stud. It looked more like glitter on my nose.

Anyway, I didn’t replace it because I’m allergic to other metals and gold is really expensive – the stud cost 900 bob in 1996! Plus, I’d gotten over my esteem issues, and I no longer needed to look crazy. Also, the stud had the worst habit of slipping off my nose during showers, beach trips, colds, and really humid days.

I suppose you could say I grew out of it, and the litty bitty hole in my nose still ups my ‘cool-and-crazy’ ante. There’s a funny thing about growing old that helps us grow up. I met this guy once, during blind date week… Let me explain. I spend a lot of time online, and meet a lot of people. One week, I decided to see all my online friends, so for seven days, I had three or four meetings a day with people I’d never physically met. It was quite … interesting.

This one guy stood out, and for a long time, I didn’t know why. I noticed later that it’s because he wasn’t trying. All my other dates had been self conscious, nervous, trying to make an impression. They wanted me to like them, so they showed me what they thought I wanted to see. And that can be exhausting, for both.

But this guy, he was comfy, easy, not tensed in any way. He was himself, or at least, he made a very good pretense of it. Either he didn’t care what I thought of him or…

I pointed this out to him, curious to find what the ‘…or…’ could be. He smiled and said, “It’s because I’m older.” I’m 28. He was 36.

I’ve hung out with guys as old as sixty, and they were just as nervous as any teenager. And I’ve spent time with boys who are twelve but have the wisdom of an octogenarian. So clearly, not all presence comes with age.

But there are some things that get easier when you’re older. You learn to accept yourself, to focus your strengths and weaken your … weaknesses. You learn to approach people with style and to deal with different sorts. You learn that you don’t have to break down a door to get into a locked building.

And in my case, you learn that 20 carrats of bling in your nose just might get you noticed, but it does not make you pretty.

I suppose I still could get that stud for my nose, but I’m glad that I’ve matured enough to know that I don’t have to.

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Hairdressers are artists, and a good beautician is one who makes you happy. You may not like their dress sense, you may not like their attitude, you may not even like their name.

You may not like the way they yank your head back and forth, or the way they talk about clients, or how they patronise you and your salon-mates, or their dismissive tone when they tell your sister ‘Please stop distracting her, I’m trying to work here’ [and swiftly banish said sister to the corner with a two-year-old Cosmo right in the middle of some juicy family gossip].

But when they are finished with your hair, you will be grinning ear to ear.

Now, salon-ing, like all other arts, requires talent. Some coiffeurs have it naturally, others learn by aping, others went to Pivot Point, others plaited grass, bought a blow-drier and rented a room.

But the true hair expert is the one that can think. They can look at your head and decide what suits it best. And even better, they can take your ridiculous suggestion, tweak it here and there, and make it work.

For a while now, I’ve wanted to cut my hair. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea; most girls would kill for what grows on my head.

Let me explain. I have seven-year-old dreads.

First, they aren’t quite seven years old, because somewhere around year three, I had to shave them clean for a KQ interview. And second, my hair is very springy, so instead, it looks four years long. Two years actually, since it is four years long. A neighbour started growing hers in my second year, and … well … hers are now twice as long as mine, so yeah.

Also, my hair is coarse and thick, which means it’s useless for anything else. I caused hairdressers grief for years  spending four hours with TCB, World of Curls, Dark and Lovely and Revlon on my head … with no visible results. But when I grow my dreads, they matt in three weeks or less.

So anyway, I decided to cut my dreads. I missed the punkish boy look from the days they were starting out.

Three successive salon-ists refused to shave me. The first claimed to be a nazirite and could not touch razors. The second stood at the back of my head and snipped a little, then tucked the hair into a bob to make it look short. The third simply refused to cut such luxurious hair.

But yesterday I tried a new salon on a friend’s recommendation, and even though she was mortified, the lady agreed to cut my hair.

I expected it to be a long, tedious process as she made a layered cut or whatever they call that hairdo.

Instead she looked at my head, viewed the different angles, then grabbed five tufts of hair and snipped it. I was a bit confused … it didn’t seem very … professional. Plus, she placed the bits of hair in front of me saying ‘Imagine, that’s your hair! Yaani I feel pain cutting it.’

I closed my eyes for a few seconds and only opened them when she was done.

Then I smiled.

In just two minutes, she had produced the exact look I wanted! All I had said was ‘I want it as short as possible’. That’s it, no further instructions. And she had made it look so easy! She wasn’t happy about it, but I was ecstatic! I couldn’t stop grinning.

Of course the cut was done before retwisting, and it produced an entirely different look once the hair was done. The salonists seemed a little worried because it looked so … different. They were half afraid  would cry, or throw a bitchfit, or worse.

Instead, I let her fold the hair into a Beatles cut. Then I tugged it with my fingers to change the shape and tucked a few behind my ears. I could see their faces light up as the hair took form.

I left that salon a very happy girl, with my hair all tiny, frazzled and tomboyish; and the hairdressers were pleased that I spoke so highly of them. Frankly, I was just glad they’d taken my bad idea and made it look so pretty.

Two lessons I have learnt today. One, I will always, always, always go to Exposé.

And two, I will never, ever, ever cut my hair again.

I think.

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I rarely check my spam folder, but lately I’ve noticed it has mails from ‘me’. I didn’t pay much attention, since lots of people sign their mails with ‘Love, me’, including, well, me!

But I got curious today and clicked on one of the me-mails. In the From box, it had my own address! How weird is that?

I immediately went into panic mode thinking my account had been hacked and that I needed to change my password. A depressing thought in itself because I have fifteen fairly complicated ones an it’s all I can do to keep them straight in my head!

But then good old google came to the rescue. At the top of the mail, there was this red banner that said :

‘This mail probably did not originate from your inbox. For details click here’

I clicked and got this:

If you receive bounce messages for mail that appears to originate from your account, you find messages in Spam from ‘me,’ or you receive a reply to a message you never sent, you may be the victim of a ‘spoofing’ attack. Spoofing means faking the return address on outgoing mail to hide the true origin of the message.

When you send a letter through the post, you generally write a return address on the envelope so the recipient can identify the sender, and so the post office can return the mail to the sender in the event of a problem. But nothing prevents you from writing a different return address than your own; in fact, someone else could send a letter and put your return address on the envelope. Email works the same way. When a server sends an email message, it specifies the sender, but this sender field can be forged. If there is a problem with delivery and someone forged your address on the message, then the message will be returned to you, even if you weren’t the actual sender.

If you’ve received a reply to a message that wasn’t sent from your address, there are two possibilities:
1. The message was spoofed, forging your address as the sender.
2. The original sender used your address as a reply-to address so that responses would be sent to you.

Neither of these possibilities indicates that your account was compromised, but if you’re concerned that your account may have been compromised, you can check recent access to your account. Just scroll to the very bottom of your inbox and click the Details link next to ‘Last account activity.’

One common tactic used by spammers is to send a message to a recipient, and fake the ‘From:’ field to contain the same address. Spammers hope that because the mail is sent ‘from’ your address, it will slip past our spam filters. But not so fast! Gmail authenticates all of our mail, so we know when a message wasn’t actually sent by you. We do our best to place these forged messages in your Spam folder.

Because Gmail replaces your email address with ‘me’ when you look at lists of messages, you may see spam mail from ‘me’ in your Spam folder. All this indicates is that someone forged the return address on your messages to be your own email address.

For the technobofs among us, this simply means somebody sends you spam then puts your own address in both the ‘from’ and ‘to’ boxes. They can get your address off any form you filled online, or from forward lists, but may not necessarily have access to you account or passwords.

This did rather set my mind at ease, at least I don’t have to re-change my passwords now. Though it helps to check the ‘last account activity’ to be sure. Good ol’ gmail! Maybe them controlling my world isn’t so bad after all.

I have to admit though, these online words are pretty nifty. I wonder what they’ll come up with next.

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Granted, ever since I started writing online, my spelling has gone to the … well … let’s just it stands to improve. Something about working online just seems to multiply the typos. That, and I hardly ever use the spell checkers. But I always scored full marks in my spelling tests at school, so I still get mad if someone corrects work I’ve done.

Time-keeping is another pet peeve. I used to be the kind of girl who carried a book everywhere, you know, just in case I had to wait for anything. I still carry a novel and notebook to most places, but only if it fits in my handbag. And these days, I’m far more likely to spend time on the queue daydreaming than reading.

That said, I have a hard time sitting still. Really. Ask me to wait five minutes to see someone, and I’ll more likely take a lap and come back later. And since I’m very good at finding things to do, the laps generally take longer than expected. Case in point.

I was to meet my uncle at his office at 10. But he got stuck in traffic, so he pushed the meeting to 11. Now, I was already in his neighbourhood, so the logical thing would have been to find a bench, grab my book, and read for an hour or so.

But no. Instead, I decided to drop into town and window-shop. I needed some curios from maasai market anyway. Half an hour later, he got a puncture, which bought me even more time. Yay!

By the time I was done shopping, it was 12.15, and my uncle was fuming at me for messing his schedule. After all, he was two hours late, which had given me plenty of time to be in his office when he arrived.

This happened twice. The second time, I used the half-hour gap to dash to a bookshop a few minutes away. That didn’t work out too well, and now Uncle Dearest thinks I am always late.

Scenario 2, I had meetings at 9, 11, 1, 3, and 5. My 1 and 5 were with the same person though – and he’s family. But the 3 o’clock was with one of my favourite boys, and he’s always late. Still, I had to be perfectly en temps for each one or I’d have a massive ‘cassanova’ moment…

[Remember that song from the 80s that has this guy in jericurls; he has a lunch, tea and drinks date with three different girls at the same venue, and he has them all neatly choreographed. But he loses his notepad at the petrol station and forgets who is on when, so he keeps showing up at the wrong one.]

As expected, my three o’clock pushed to 4 [though he did get brownie points for calling in advance] so I had to find some way to kill the time. So I extended my one o’clock [which was also my 5 o'clock] by having drinks and then pushing the 5 o’clock to 7.

The drinks turned out to be a lot of fun, and by 3.30, my date was unwilling to release me! I ended up arriving at 4.30, much to the annoyance of my second date. In retaliation, he kept me an extra hour, which made me late for my 7 o’clock – the same 7 o’clock that had delayed me in the first place. Le sigh.

A third incident involved a 5 o’clock meeting at Java. I arrived half an hour early, and should simply have sat down and ordered a coffee, but noooooo. I felt a sudden itch to either go shopping for blouses or look for a windchime. I assumed my date would be at least ten minutes late, which gave me plenty of time.

Unfortunately, he keeps time.

I got back to Java at 5.13 to find he had been waiting long enough to twiddle his thumbs, order a mocha, and check out the girl at the next table. Meh.

I hear iron supplements are good for impatience. So next time I have a date, I’m just going to order a big bowl of sukuma with some liver on the side and open a book.

They serve sukuma wiki at java, right?

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And it can’t be entirely blamed on the glass distortion factor.

An issue that bothers girls a lot is the hitching skirt. You leave the house in a pretty little dress that sits nicely on your knees. Then you get into a matatu and realise that when you sit, the skirt rides uncomfortably high. You then look for anything from handbags to scarfs to newspapers to protect the bare … um … legs. The rest of the day is spent in relative discomfort trying to pull your stray skirt down, while ‘people’ laugh and tease your false modesty. After all, they say, you knew how short the skirt was when you wore it.

Except you didn’t. Really.

My trouble yesterday was a little different. See, I’ve always liked the gypsy look. The pretty spanish tops with a billowing a-line skirt and matching boots has always done it for me. So when a few days ago I found the cutest red checked top at Tusky’s, I was somewhere above cloud nine. Yesterday I paired it with my khaki skirt and industrial leather boots and totally rocked the look.

Except for one teeny tiny problem.

You see, the top can be worn on the shoulders or off. I prefer to wear it off. Except that when your shoulders are well oiled and smooth and soft and supple, clothing tends to, well, to slip. But not in the way you’d imagine.

The image that comes to mind is of the blouse slipping seductively down to reveal a little too much cleavage, yes?

No.

You see, my blouse wasn’t slipping down. It was slipping up.

Instead of lying snugly on my chest and revealing a little bit of shoulder, the blouse kept riding back up around my neck.

If you think it’s funny seeing a girl trying to tug her skirt down, picture one trying discreetly to pull her puff sleeves off her shoulders and down her arms and … chest.

It’s a wonder I didn’t get arrested for stripping in public.

All in a day’s walk. Pun fully intended.

I still rocked the look though…

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The thrill, apparently, is in the chase. So, logically, if you want to keep enjoying the attention, chocolate, late night calls and general adoration, well girls, don’t get caught. Which goes back to playing hard to get. This is a classic case of FCT – Fox Chasing Tail.

Now mind you, here I refer to the average man. There are a few men out there who don’t mind having girls chase them. And there a lots of above-average women who are actually willing to chase! But until we can consistently get these exceptional people in the same time frame, we have to play by everyone else’s (average) rules. Guys chase, gilrs run, guys catch girls, guys get bored and chase other girls.

Unless of course we 21st century girls can pull a rabbit out of our hats. Theoretically, if we can find a way to chase without chasing, we’re set. What if a girl can get a guy to ask her out without him knowing it’s her idea? Theoretically sound, but how? And I don’t mean the dropping handkerchiefs – licking lips – casual conversation routine. It has to be subtle. He shouldn’t recognize what you’re doing.

There’s a movie with Mandy Moore (I forget the name) where a guy says
“When I ask you out, you’ll think you’re asking me out.”
“You want to go out with me?”
“See, what did I tell you?”

I want to meet the guy who wrote that script. But seriously ladies, if we could just figure out how to pull that on guys, we’re one step closer to the prize. If any of you figures out how, help me!!

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The actual wedding is done at a church, mosque, or government office, followed by a photo session. Wedding ceremonies are usually performed after midday, while the late afternoon is dedicated to photos, leaving the evening free for the wedding reception, which is also hosted by the man’s family, and also comes with the champagne, speeches, and wedding cake. And gifts.

Generally, the budget for a marriage is met by … the guests. When an acquaintance is getting married, they will give you a wedding invitation. If your friend is the groom, you will receive a invite to the wedding and reception, while friends of the bride will receive invites to the Kitchen Party and Send-off.

The card requests that you contribute towards the cost of the wedding, and sometimes [but not always] suggests the minimum amount that you are expected to contribute. This figure is decided during vikao – wedding committee meetings where the budget and other matters are decided. As a general rule, if you do not meet the minimum contribution, you may not attend the festivities.

Contributing to the cost, however, does not exempt you from bringing gifts.

In addition, since there are four ceremonies, the line-up generally needs four separate sets of outfits, transportation, and beautification regimes. The bride and her entourage will therefore need a dress each for the Kitchen Party, Send-off, and Wedding. Usually she will wear the same dress to the reception. Every wedding therefore takes a minimum of three days.

Guests bring separate sets of gifts, one for each ceremony they attend.

In addition, there are dowry ceremonies, though I have not been privvy to these, but I imagine they are quite elaborate and only partially cultural.

Also, no wedding is complete without a brass band.

I have attended one wedding on the groom’s side and another on the bride’s side. Both were elaborate and beautiful.

At the bridal wedding, I was still fresh and green, so I fussed about the ‘payment’, provided no presents, showed up in jeans, arrived without a proof-of-contribution-invitation-card [and was subsequently frozen at the gate]. Also, never-ending trauma re: mduara dance.

The groomal wedding was a good year later, and I knew enough to have a painful facial and got prettified. I skipped the church since I was busy getting dolled up, and I arrived at the reception at 7.00 p.m. [the card said 6.30] even though the ceremony didn’t start till 8 and I was *cough*cough*forced* to find comfort in my book.

Yes, I carried a book to a wedding.

The ceremony was beautiful. The card had a red ribbon on it, which made everyone in attendance wear … you know … red. Which was weird, because all that red in one place was a little freaky. Fortunately, I had ditched my red dress for purple at the last minute. Phew!

The line-up was large: five pre-teen flower girls in red, shoulderless dresses with a white rose; 8 late-teen bridesmaids in the same red dress, but with a white sash; and 8 groomsmen with white shirts and pants and red waistcoats. There were also a couple of little girls in white and red dresses, and a page boy or two.

The groom’s father and uncles wore black suits with red shirts and red ties, while his elder sisters wore white dresses with red sashes.  The groom and best man wore white suits and shirts with a red waistcoat and red tie, while the bride and matron [best maid] wore white dresses with red detail. The girls danced in to P-squares ‘No one like you’ while the maids did a funky routine to some song that I can’t quite remember.

Everyone else, and I do mean everyone else, wore varying shades of white and red. Mostly red. The brass band wore white suits with red shirts and trimming, and the only female in the band wore pants and played a tambourine. Hmph.

Marriages here are certainly colourful, and are generally a family affair. Even after the wedding, in-laws have a big say in all matters, and extended families are very close-knit. I’m not sure not if the fanfair is all good or bad, but they certainly give you something to watch.

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And I should explain a little something about Tanzanian weddings. They’re not like the ones at home.

The typical +255 wedding comes in four parts. There are two ceremonies hosted by the bride’s family, and two ceremonies hosted by the groom’s family.

The first ceremony is the Kitchen Party, hosted by the bride and her people. It is an evening party, and is generally a strictly-girls affair, so in areas like Dar that are predominantly Muslim, the ladies have a chance to let down their hair … and other things.

The only male at this ceremony is the DJ and the cameraman. I can only imagine they enjoy the view, because even I was busy drooling at females whom I had only ever seen in amorphous black, and I’m a girl!

During the Kitchen Party, there is usually an MC-slash-shenga who teaches the bride [and her cohorts] how to take care of a man. The advise is sometimes quite benign, but more often, painfully raunchy.

The playlist consists largely of  taarab, and at several points, the ladies will get on the dance floor and perform renditions of mduara, usually with the help of pillars and chairs.

The trauma!

It can be enlightening though, to see mild-mannered madames in their fifties putting nubile ‘little girls’ to shame in the humble art of *cough*cough* pole-dancing.

There is good food, and at some point the gift-giving starts. The gifts are kitchen utensils and household items, and by the end of the ceremony, the bride has a fully furnished house. She gets everything from rice-makers to electric cookers and gas cylinders.

The second ceremony is the send-off, also hosted by the bride’s family. It is a wedding-reception style shindig complete with a high table, full video, MC, microphones, embarrassing speeches, champagne and a wedding cake. It is, in principle, the bride’s family saying goodbye to her, and is quite elaborate.

It is held at night as well, on a separate date from the Kitchen Party, and usually at a separate venue. It has all the pomp and colour of a full wedding reception, and yes, again, you are expected to bring gifts.

The bride and her party require separate dresses and beauty treatments for each ceremony, and they cost [at my local salon] 250,000 a piece for the bride, negotiably less for the rest of the bridal party, since they generally do a budget version of what the bride gets.  Agony is getting your hair done at a salon while a bridal party is getting prettified.

Hell is three bridal parties at the same salon on your day off.

At the Send-off itself [and also at the groom-hosted reception] there is a pretty ceremony where the bride and groom come to the front of the crowd and dance a salsa while shaking champagne bottles. For some strange reason, said salsa is usually danced to the theme song of whatever latino soap is in vogue at the time.

The bride and groom each have a bottle, and it’s a light-hearted competition where the MC eggs on the couple to pop the cork, teasing whichever one fails to do the deed correctly. The champagne is usually alcohol-free, but many shy guests still refuse to partake.

Once the salsa and the popping is done, the bride and groom [and sometimes the bridal party] fill the glasses of those near the high table and everyone toasts the couple.

On one occasion, the bottle literally flew out of the groom’s hand. I can’t be sure where it landed, but I can bet the resultant innuendo will be a standing joke for years to come.

…to be continued…

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I had re-used the for-oily-skin gel wash because it was in a pretty bottle, felt deliciously cool on my skin, smelt fabulous … and because I wasn’t about to throw out a perfectly good tube of facial wash. My reasoning was ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’

I used it one morning, just once. By lunch time, my face was stinging and ‘sunburnt’. It took me a week of mild exfoliant and soothing Neem wash to get rid of the burn effect.

Yeah, I’m not ever trying that again.

Then I went a-googling and found out a few things. Apparently, getting burnt by clay masks is more common than you’d think. Yahoo answers claimed it was a sign of allergy, at which point I decided that I have sensitive skin, since I am ‘allergic’ to mud masks and cinammon exfoliant, and since my skin is shiny and  patchy, and is both dry and sticky after cleansing.

I found further information suggesting that perhaps I have combination skin, since both times, it was only my T-zone that took a burning. That theory fell flat because combination skin has an oily T-zone and dry sides, not the other way around. My pimply bits are usually on the side, and are, as I know realise, prompted by hormones and stress.

I then started some deduction. I figured perhaps I was allergic to Himalaya, or that being a Malaysian product, it was more formulated for … Malaysian skin. Or that perhaps my skin was once oily but had been dried out by coastal climate, and would return to oily once back in 254.

Eventually, I found a conclusive, straightforward skin-type test. Cleanse your face, rinse and pat dry. Check for tightness immediately after cleansing – does your face feel like the skin is too small for the face? Wait an hour, then get some Kleenex or soft tissue. Pat the tissue or lightly wipe various parts of your face – chin, cheeks, nose, forehead.

If the tissue has some oil on it, you have oily skin. If the  t-zone [forehead, cheeks and chin] tissues are oily but the other tissues are not, you have combination skin. If the tissue has little flakes on it, your skin is dry.

Now, for ungirly me, the ‘flakes’ are about as confusing as the pores. But I suppose the teeny black dots on the white tissue, when combined with the skin-too-small-for-face component suggest my skin is dry.

Crud. That means I’m going to wrinkle.

Of course once I accepted that my skin was dry, then I started to notice the whiteheads. Usually, I would feel like my skin is rough to the touch when I oil it, but I couldn’t really tell why. Whiteheads, allegedly, are often invisible to the naked eye.

I also suddenly noticed that my skin does look dull sometimes, and tired and patchy. I don’t know if it’s always been that way, or if it is only because I read that in descriptions of dry skin. I also read in more than one place that dry skin is usually pimple free throughout teenage. No info on how it behaves after teenage.

Oh, and dry skin also, allegedly, stings when you use a toner. Hmph.

And all this for a wedding.

In conclusion, I am now sticking with the Neem-for-all-skin-types gel wash, and Bio oil or Himalaya day and night creams – also suitable for all skin types. I have a beauty tub full of mud and fruit packs, and I’m using the fruit pack. Partly because it says ‘for dry skin’ and is less messy, but mostly because it stings less.

Also, since local December weather is loaded with heat rash, it may be a while before I exfoliate.

I suppose I should tell you about the wedding now…

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I decided, based on the burning, that perhaps my skin is dry. After all, I had had a facial once, for an interview at KQ, and the lady insisted my skin was dry. I ignored her of course, on account of being so shiny.

However, I am a bit of a DIY fanatic, so I laid off the toner and bought some Himalaya dry skin products. That seems to work fine. The cream wash is gentler on my skin, even though it smells annoyingly flowery and tastes like pins.

The for-dry-skin fruit mask stung, but it stung considerably less than the mud mask. So I stuck to milk masks and exfoliated the burned areas every two days, and that seemed to help. For about a month, my skin looked and felt great.

I had read on the net that oily skin feels sticky, though it sometimes feels itchy and dry. It is prone to pimples, and, of course, it wrinkles less, so a part of me was still uneasy. Oily skin is shiny in the mornings, but that’s a bit hard to tell when you live in an oven. Shiny sweat and oil can be a bit confusing. It also appears that oily skin gets blackheads and has large pores.

Now here is where the problem begins.

I’m not quite sure what sticky is, since I live at the coast, and so my skin is always sticky. And pores … allegedly, can be seen in a magnifying mirror. But what exactly am I supposed to see, holes on my face? Coz I can see these little dimplish dots around my nose, that are either pin-sized craters or clear-coloured freckles. And the black spots on my face which only I seem to see, are those not blackheads?

Dry skin allegedly feels dry after cleansing. The moment I read that, my face felt tight every time I washed it. I can’t tell whether it was always the case, or whether I ‘noticed’ it after reading it. This happens often when you read about a disease, so perhaps it applies for skin care too.

I also did some reading on acne, and realised that my ‘blackheads’ were really whiteheads, and that they only left black scars when I scratched them. They are whiteheads, because they start out very small, almost unseen, and sometimes get larger during my time of month. And because their appearance is, well, white. At least before I burst them and initiate the scarring.

Armed with my complete and utter confusion, I went to a local salon where I was convinced to have a facial at the cost of 25,000 local monies  [that's about 1,500 Kenyan].

Fair enough.

First, the lady suggested my face was bumpy due to stress. True, I have been rather tense lately.

Then she suggested I use a cinammon and honey exfoliant, which was disturbing, because I had read that you shouldn’t exfoliate during a breakout, since you will only spread the bacteria and increase the pimples. Also, it hurts. A lot.

But she’s a professional, so I let her do her job and tried not to squeal when my face started to burn. After all, she had just given me a ginger palm and foot scrub, and that stung as well, so maybe it’s just me.

When she concluded, as I had, that my skin-type is oily [due to my pimples] I didn’t comment. But when she put the Himalaya clay mask on my face and it burnt like a paper-thin iron box, I started to wonder what was up. Finally, she steamed my face and … gasp … popped my pimples! Are they allowed to do that?

Her own skin looks fabulous though, so she must know what she’s doing. And the clay mask burned far more intensely than it did at home, even though the stinging duration was shorter than it had been at home.

The immediate effect of the facial was negligible. My face – the part of it that wasn’t bumpy – looked delicate and fresh.  But for days after that, every time I rinsed my face or felt some sweat, my skin would make like a blow torch. Agony, thy name is cinammon-honey-and -himalaya-mud-mask-facial.

…to be continued…

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