Its one of those Wednesdays.

Shirley is busy packing her numerous belongings into her hand bag while bidding her colleagues good evening. She often thinks of quitting this Bank Teller job, but some days stand out more than most. Like today for instance. It takes 4 days for a cheque to mature! Simple and Clear. So why would a grown up man, bring his ugly face to the bank two days later!? As if that’s not enough, claim that the bank is too slow, and try to debate bank policy with her, a mere bank Teller!?

Anyway, thank God the day is over. Hopefully Becky will have some juicy stories to cheer her up with when they meet up in 15 minutes. “Oops!” she exclaims, glancing at her watch. She’s already late. She bends down to trace her high heels. She finds one, squeezes her right foot into it while scanning her booth for the other. It’s nowhere to be found, again! She knows who the culprit is.

She limps into James’s booth and there it is. “Not funny Jaymo!” She hisses, while painfully putting it on. Seriously, is her left foot bigger than her right? She wonders for the hundredth time. No way, it must be these damn shoes. Why can’t Jaymo just grow a pair and ask her out instead of playing these stupid games? Read the rest of this entry →

“This is just moving too fast! I mean, don’t get me wrong…I am glad I met you Lawrence…you are amazing…you have all these great qualities that I always wanted to have in my man…we have a lot of fun together…but…can we just take this a little slower?…”

Then she pulls one of those girlish ‘woiiishee’ smiles that she knows drives me crazy.

I’m not sure what to say to her. So I just sit there, feign an its-ok smile, tell her I understand, and keep stroking her stubborn hair strand.

Truth is, I don’t understand a thing!

We had been seeing each other quite regularly for almost 2 months. Lunch/Coffee/Juice Dates, Ice Cream Marathons (we both loved those) and lots of evening walks across the city (its beautiful at night in Nairobi).

In vintage Lawrence style I had pulled a couple of surprises on her that simply blew her friends’ minds off. She also loved them, told me no guy had ever done those to her before. She called me crazy a number of times, and I told her she inspired madness in me because of how I felt about her.

As far as I was concerned, I was simply doing what any man who truly was attracted to a girl that he didn’t encounter on a daily basis would do, in an attempt to get her into the proverbial box. Read the rest of this entry →

Kamau is attracted to a woman named Diana. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they’re driving home, a thought occurs to Diana, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: “Do you realize that, as of tonight, we’ve been seeing each other for exactly six months?”

“Really!?” exclaims Kamau.

And then there is silence in the car. To Diana, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: “I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he thinks I’m trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he isn’t ready for, or isn’t sure of yet.”

And Kamau is thinking: “Gosh. Six months!”

And Diana is thinking: “But, hey, I’m not so sure what kind of relationship this is, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I’d have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward . . . I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know Kamau that well?”

And Kamau is thinking: . . . “so that means it was . . . let’s see . …February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer’s, which means . . . let me check the odometer . . .Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here!” Read the rest of this entry →

A man gets so agitated by the insolent behavior of other beings whom he considers to be his subjects and hence lesser beings, that in a fit of rage he bursts a blood vessel and dies. That, for those of you who are paupers of history is a true story, twice true actually.

A question pops up in my mind, what is the highest degree of anger that a person can be driven to? Another one follows suit, between men and women, which side  possesses a higher capacity for rage? What ticks a woman’s anger valves to palpitate at their most vigorous? How about a man’s?

A few weeks back I embarked on an odyssey that would culminate in women taking their proper place in this fiber that is the society we live in. That article sparked controversy in my wee bit of a fan base, with an ‘it-cant-be’ kind of admiration from the women and a ‘what-the-#@$&’ kind of reaction from the men. The men are of no concern to me as these articles are meant for the ladies. Given the reaction from the ladies, I felt obliged to write this equally sublime follow-up, so if you are a man, read on at your own peril. Read the rest of this entry →