The back story

According to y'all, these are the posts you loved the most. Being the nice guy I like to believe I am, I will take the liberty of explaining to you the genesis of the genius and idiocy in these posts, from the most loved, and through the top five of your all-time favorite posts. To be honest, there is a couple of posts I believed y'all would have loved a tad bit more, but I don't know you as well as I thought I did. Anyway, here goes.....

When I wrote In Arsene we trust, I was going through the emotions of love and lies, the trust in a great team that makes me weak on my knees, the hope of re-living through the era of the invincibles, and fighting the knowledge that our past is just that, our past. I talk of how beautiful our football is, I protect the nakedness of my favorite team with it's glory days with tales of grandiosity of it's past but my excuses for them were sounding more and more like broken records. I guess I needed to convince myself that we can go back to the days when Arsenal used to give me that fuzzy warm feeling more than I needed to convince y'all. By the number of hits it's got, I can confidently say, am not the only one who needs reassurance.

Good girls magnet.........so I've heard,  wasn't me thinking out loud. It was the thinking of this cool dude I met when I moved to Molo,  who used to roll with my cousin. After he moved into my neighborhood, every once in a while, we'd hang out, light a joint and bounce ideas of each other or just try to figure out women, love, and life in general. One evening, in between sessions, he told me he had finally figured the whole "girls and bad boys" mystery.  According to him, every time he had tried to play nice, he always ended up single with dry spells running into months but as soon as he unleashed the dogs, women flocked. I know the post sounds kinda feminist, but he swore on personal experiences, those of friends and relatives, and to be honest, he truly believed women like a man they can take care off. I think their (the girls) logic is if they can take care of him long enough, he'll become dependent on her and she'll be in full control, but that's just one of my flawed logic....

Moving on,Don't send me to hell, I mind if you forget me was one of those "in hind-sight" moments. It was more of me wondering if it was within my power to control social cause and effect than it was an "in hindsight moment" when I think about it. It was the couple of things in my house that I can't seem to throw away because of the memories they carry. At the same time, losing religion had me trying to figure out what some of the religious concepts symbolized, especially the heaven and hell control. I guess my minimal understanding of death still haunts my sorry ass. Then there was the call from an old friend who called to say hi, after listening to a an old cd I made her for her birthday.

This was more of an out of the blue kind of story. We were rolling some at the beach with Mr. Lee and he was telling me of his history with drugs, the good, the bad and the ugly. At 70, he had tried almost everything, natural and synthetic. They lived in a small town where people always passed through, they never stayed, rarely stopped. When they did, on the rare occasion, venture into the local gas mart to ask for directions, they were met with kind smiles but not much conversation. It was a good place to raise children. One day after school, he was hanging out with this girl, the kind of girl that gets your name whispered around town, but she was the only pretty girl who'd talk to him. In an effort to please, he had his first cigarette. The first time he smoked a cigarette, at 16, he did it to please a girl. This was one of Mr. Lees' many stories. Retracing was my version of the stories of Mr. Lee.     

Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult. Spin, Run and Choose, I have no idea where this came from, but the direction it took reflects some of the fears I live with.  The fear of living a half baked life, the uncertainty of death both in timing and afterlife possibilities drummed in my skull and the possible outcomes of choosing either of the extreme uncertainties. Without religion, this is supposed to be an easy decision but it isn't. It is the choice between walking away from societal norms which enhances survival or be a lone back packer and live a full life. I know am not supposed to blow my own trumpet (please don't misinterpreting this ^^^), but I believe this is one of the best pieces I have ever written.

 PS: I,ve heard word on some awesome folks with some awesome stuff .You can swing by Kilimanjaro Art | Facebook  on your way from here and see for yourself.

PPS: The photos have nothing to do with the story.....

Write all that you can write

 I've come to realize that I love telling stories; sometimes I like a story so much that I tell it over and over again. That's me, I think am interesting or rather my stories are. This isn’t entirely false considering that a few people believe that I should chase for a column which although sounding like the right thing to do, I don't feel it. Most people who read my blog and a few more who love or pretend to love my blog keep telling me that am wasting my time in the professional am currently making acquaintances with. Maybe it would be a good thing to try; maybe writing is what I was supposed to do with my life, born to write, write all that you can write.

On the other hand, I like small crowds. Small crowds do not demand much. They are content with the few stories that I can come up with. They are not judgmental; they do not tear your humble pieces into shreds for their entertainment. I know I shouldn't be too comfortable because even though it feels like they approve of all my words, they're probably too afraid to crush me a little bit with a pinch of truth because they think it will crush my simulated ego. They won't tell me that my writing sucks when it does if only but to protect me from myself and others, neither do they share it to avoid someone out there reading it and being shocked that someone can write this bad and actually expect to be published. Worse still, they might share and someone out there who doesn't have the same kind of affection for me, who doesn't feel the need not to puncture my belief in self, points out that my writing should be made private as it may cause harm to others and to self especially if, god forbid, someone takes is to heart. But then again, it could be me being paranoid.

It could be the fear of rejection that keeps me away from the big crowds. I know it sounds pathetic but in a way, I don't take rejection very well, never have. I don't scream it on rooftops or insult the other person before other people of interest, or do anything dramatic primarily because flaunting my weaknesses isn't really my thing. It however doesn't mean rejection doesn't cut through me. It feels like a chapter torn in my book or a forever severed by a sharp knife, a story I'll never get to tell, a heartbreak I will never get to go through. I've never being able to handle rejection very well, I just don't go showing it off. I think the fear of rejection would be bad for me on a large scale, if I tried to write for a bigger crowd, with diverse opinions who do not give a rats' ass about how I will take their opinion will crush me. I have read these columns about handling fears and all, but all I see is people who haven't being on the other side who think because they have read a couple of books and watched those motivational movies or listened to those motivational speeches, they can actually relate. I see it differently, like a guy riding around in a Benz and preaching ''kazi ni kazi'' (loosely translated as don't choose a job); while in real sense there are things they wouldn't do to make money even if their life depended on it. Their whole, ''the first step is acceptance'' speech sometimes gets to me and almost makes me want to give em' a congratulatory tap on the back of their head with a sledge hammer for their great service in patronizing and shit monging. I digress.

There is the aspect of time too. The one thing I actually believe is writing more often will improve the quality of my posts. I don't yearn for perfection because am not a fan of anything perfect, because to me perfection equals boring. A perfect piece leaves no room for improvement, no different interpretations from a reader, no a lesson or a story query, no entendres, nothing but a piece that should either be accepted or rejected in whole. A perfect piece does not warm my cuckoos, because it goes against my policy of throwing words out there and waiting for the pieces to fall as they may. Perfection to me is an illness that should be crashed before it destroys us, as it crashes those who yearn and toil to get it. It forces us to create a life based on it while it's absent, societal perfection, moral perfection, perfection, perfection, perfection, in absence but alive and kicking in misplaced facades. Imperfection I prefer because it allows me room to make something better or worse and in this moments of imperfection, once in a while, a masterpiece is born. Time is however a luxury I do not boast, which makes it difficult to improve my little imperfections in search for that elusive masterpiece, something that will be at least go one better than my favorite imperfect pieces (Yes I do, or Love, loyalty and blood.). Time albeit free comes with other costs, opportunity costs, what I'll sacrifice to create time to write more with work, social life, my intention of going back to school and hours flying like they're running from the General Service Unit (for those not in the know, the GSU is a paramilitary unit in Kenya which the government unleashes when they do not agree with the public. Tales of their brutality are so scary such that when they were unleashed on an unruly crowd in one of the slums, even the dogs turned into snitches. One particular dog, let's call him ''Simba'' found himself displaced from his place of residence by a group of fleeing youths. When the GSU arrived kicking and terrorizing anything that moved, one of the askaris whacked Simba a good deal, he stood with his hind limbs and with his fore limbs pointed out where the 'rowdy' youths were taking refuge, Simbas' place of residence).  And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total? I think Harvey McKay was right when he said “Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.”, but I don't think he understood that even though we claim to be killing time, it's time that slowly kills us. Time is a luxury most of us can’t afford, a luxury I can’t afford.

Maybe I have just enough time, just enough words, just enough courage to wean myself from my fear of rejection, just enough of everything to chase for a column on a daily, or a magazine. Maybe I should just write without expecting accolades, tell my stories like I tell them on bar stools as if everyone relates. Write as if I was born to write and everything else is just a distraction rather than looking at writing as a distraction or a flight risk with a fear of falling, failing. As I once read in one of the columns, write all you can write and whatever comes out of it, let it be. Write and let the pieces fall as they may.

  

Good girls magnet.........so I've heard

''How many times am I going to forgive you? Huh?''

You just sit there and take it, nod and accept all the charges and promise to change your ways. I don't know if y'all have noticed but women seem happier when they are mad at you. When she's screaming at you, insulting your manhood, fighting to feel superior over you for that particular high-tempered moment, she feels great. And thus my conclusion, women love bad boys because they give them a reason to scream at them very so often.

My friend Mutinda thinks a little different. He likes women around him, and he feels he knows them better, not that am denying this or anything but hey, every man at some point think they've figured women out until the day they find out that they don't. Every man has gone through this stage, some of us for a short period and most of us a little bit longer a period, I fall on the ''some of us'' group. My boy Mutinda falls on the ''most of us'' who still believe that they have ''figured'' women. His theory about women and bad boys is that women love to correct mistakes, they don't feel at ease if they are not cleaning up after someone, they feel that they need to take care of someone. The harder the job, the longer the will stay because apparently, they are not in the business of leaving unfinished works.

You gotta understand that men are extremely simple beings, we don't trust ourselves which means we don't give too much information because in too much information we get ourselves in trouble. We therefore say exactly what we mean to avoid speculation. Women on the hand, although we get it wrong all the time, we try all the best to understand our lovely primates from Venus. Most of us do try, at least those that I know do try. I know most of us are still trying to learn the ''read between the lines'' language, the ''silent language'' and the ''sign language'' but even the Professors are yet to decipher these Venus dialects. We do try, but Mars taught us different, we don't ask for direction. We will try to fix everything without a manual, go everywhere without maps, we don't ask for direction because Mars taught us we only learn by losing our way. We will not ask our lovely ladies to teach us their language, and as soon as we think we've learnt, down goes we.

Mutinda, ''an expert'' in this subject of women believes that they love bad boys because bad boys are a challenge, they give them something Or someone to fix. They feel that if they can fix him, they can have a trophy of their own. If they can take a rugged man, polish him or rather upgrade him, they feel that they have accomplished something.

Good guys seem to have gotten their shit together, they can easily walk without a guide and they clean up after themselves. For a woman, this is child play for her, she needs someone who will give her a headache, whose polishing is going to take some thinking, they like to be challenged.

Lesson of the day, good girls like bad boys. What about the fuss with the bad girls? I will let you know when I know.

A few explanations

Sometimes when you're high, worlds seem to crash a lot although in a nice way, our ideal worlds depending on the virtue of the moment. Whenever you feel the need to be powerful, you create a world where you dispense power the way you think is right, sometimes its dictatorship, sometimes its democracy, deepening on how you feel about the government of the day.

That's the ideal world of the moment. Sometimes the ideal moment is playing mini rugby with your two sons and a hot wife in a good neighborhood, others include war heroes, great lovers, prince charming, bad boys, great musicians, famous writers, and others that make your ego bloat.

When these worlds collide, it changes the direction of the flow. Whenever your worlds start closing in on each other, you try to evade a crash. Normally, you try to navigate the world that you are in to fit into this other world, a little to the left, a little more to the left to get at least an almost fitting merger. Sometimes the worlds match, sometimes they just don't.

I had to explain the change of flows before I walked into this world with my favorite girl. I might put us in a beach, around 8:03 pm on a starry night and Mary Jane teaching us astrology. She'd explain the Leos that don't act like Leos, and why I am not much of an Aries. My favorite girl would play with waters at her feet and her yellow lasso would be slightly soaked. You see this world although a great one and probably my favorite one isn’t my only world. I have worlds that make a better world, sometimes by starting a children’s home, sometimes an NGO reaching out to talented youth. Sometimes my worlds are affluent, sometimes powerful, playful and so forth.

With all these virtual worlds, simple triggers into these worlds can sometimes cause a collision of flows. I might even completely lose a flow when I try too hard to fit two worlds which don't much. Sometimes the balancing works, sometimes works not, and sometimes the crash create an extremely different thought. A total diversion from the world, a hypothetical.

Normally, this occurs when there is a distraction. Somewhere trying to merge the world of Emo girl in the beach and the war hero, yours truly, someone knocks the door. You try to concentrate on whatever the person on the door is explaining to you, try having a decent conversation with the other person and at the same time hold on to the world you're at, or rather pause (ever talked to someone and then they just giggled and asked what you were saying). When you're done dealing with the distraction, you try going back to the world, you were in, fast forward it in your head, rewind a little, look for triggers, but it's gone.

This is where the hypothetical start, like almost learning hypothetical. If you've done something wrong, or rather un-societal as per yours and you think you are about to get caught and in your head you are thinking of the lesson you are supposed to learn. If you're not caught, it means you almost learnt a lesson.

At this point the hypothetical becomes a line of thought. One may decide to break down this line of thought, the almost learning a lesson. If you are almost caught, it means you haven't made a mistake, at least in my book (one may be compelled to explain a little about the book, maybe explain how many cancellations and additions it has had depending on certain situations, and so forth if your catch my drift). It may go on to what culminates to a mistake, how good it feels to make a mistake and so on. Eventually, this hypothetical breaks down an own creation, more like solving a problem that you have created, although a hypothetical one. The good thing is, if you become famous, a hypothetical solution will be used to treat a real problem.

And now, due to the collision of worlds, am not in a position to go back to the world where my favorite girl is lying at the beach. I am also unaware of the world I've collided with and am out of hypothetical. I would kindly ask you to allow me a couple of minutes to recollect my thoughts and get back to you as soon as possible or as soon as my mind come back from Uranus.

Peace.

PS: The photos in this piece have no relation to the post, although I do like the Emo girl and the laughing monkey. They remind me of my favorite girl and the monkeys in  Freethinkers, humanists and just people wanting 2 know more.

Chosing words

The first time she broke his little heart, he wrapped it real nice, placed a ribbon on it and sent it to heaven. He had heard that's where broken hearts go. For healing that is. After a couple of months, a year or so, he got his heart back. He locked it up and threw away the key.

He was bored one Monday afternoon. He wrote a note. She saw the note and talked to him. He didn't know what to say. It was a good piece of writing she said. You should write.He makes mistakes when he's a lil' on the rocks. He bears out his heart, his soul, his entire being. He tells her things. She tells him things. She gives him hope. He don't like hope. It's for the hopeless. But he's hopelessly in love with her. She's not, at least that's what she says.She should have tried to make it work. That's what she said. That makes it better she thinks. He wishes it did. It doesn't.

He writes about her. The first time he saw her. At 18, the most beautiful virgin on the green. No age could furnish this nymph so graceful, wise and fair; with half the lustre of her eyes, half her wit. He had hit the bottle a little early, but still, the adrenaline, excitement and slight anxiety raced. Perfectly curved, walking around, he noticed. She probably didn't. She was the desire that fulfilled his ultimate fantasy. Her face almost angelic. It was lust eating him up. He schemed, took another shot of whiskey and talked to her. A beautiful young thing is what he needed.

She didn't give it up. A few months down the line, he took his eyes off the goal and got carried away by this being. It was not sexual anymore. He had felt this before. A long time ago. Maybe it's,no,it's different this time. He told her about it. She felt it, he knew she felt it. She freaked. She was afraid. She ran.
She thought about him, probably a lot. She called him. They talked about it, they tried again. They were both cautious, sometimes careless with words, but mostly cautious. A bit too cautious. She liked to bite his lower lip and look into his eyes. He couldn't hide anything from her. She probably knew that. They were now moving in circles. On for a couple of months, then off for a couple of months. They were afraid to invest emotions. She wanted it. He wanted it. They acted like two little kids who didn't know what they wanted. But he wanted it more than she did. He worked harder than she did on it. Until eventually he couldn't no more.
She told him she wanted out. He was too drained to fight anymore. He reluctantly said yes. He said he understood and it was okay. But it was not okay and he didn't understand. He could feel his heart crashing but he put on a brave face. She kissed him goodbye. He walked away.

He told his friends about it. They didn't understand what he was going through. Disappointments in his past had taught him to take a blow with a smile. He hurt alone. He drunk his beer. He might sleep alright tonight and hurt tomorrow. His liqour does that for him.

He's met a few nice girls since then. He likes them a lot sometimes. He can't give his heart to them though. He doesn't have the key. He thinks about her when he's with them. He compares her with them. Some almost do compare but always fall short. Others just, well, they just don't.

They talk sometimes. Sometimes for long on the phone. She seems happy. She met someone else. He's happy for her. He just wants her to be happy. It's being a while now, pretty long while and he knows she couldn't wait. As long as she's happy, he's happy.

He never got over her. He however learn't to live without her. She taught her a lot of things, but living without her,he had to learn the hard way.
They were different when they were;
He writes, she reads
He likes the outdoors, she's into indoors
He likes his liqour, she's not much of a fan
He likes all music, she's a rock lover
He spends, she saves
He's a wild one, she's a nice girl
They were a little different but they did okay. They differed in opinion sometimes but didn't really fight. They should have fought at least a few times, but that's not important now.

He might be seeing her soon. She says she wants them to be friends. He's got to be cautious with his words when he sees her. She's going to too. Choose words carefully. Probably talk about everything except what they feel. He knows and she knows. It's time to start choosing words.