PEACE & LOVE

I try to make time to be with the love of my life at least three times a week. Last saturday, i taught him how to read; Winnie the Poo and the Pumpkin Seed (i forget the excat title). He is a fast learner, very enthusiasitic and yeah, turned five only last month.

I just figured he needs to learn how to read consindering that for about a year and half now he has been working on cram work… you read him book two consecutive nights and the following nights he will read- from memory- the same book, page to page, with the excat words and sentences.

So any way, he is currently un happy that  this ‘great’ excersise was a one off.

Yesterday when he came from school, i had a new lesson for him; I had just watched Paper Clips- the documentary about the Middletown School 8th grade students who used Paper clips to understand the depth and realities of the holocaust.  So he comes in when it is ending and asks me what i had been watching.

“It is about people who were killed because some one didnt like them. some one hated them so much and killed them because they were not like him,” I inform him.

“Had they done anything wrong to him” he asks.

“No, they hadnt done anything wrong. He just didnt like them…. It’s like when you start to fight with some one who has done nothing wrong to you…. It is bad to hate people, it is bad to not like others. Because when you hate people or when you are not happy with those people you do very bad things to them, or you say to them things that hurt their feelings. And that is not good. It is bad manners and it makes you a bad boy,” I do the little speech.

With this ‘deeply hurt’ look in his eyes he starts;  “today at school,  Kim was drinking aple juice at break time and i wanted to say that, Kim is drinking apple Juice. So I said “Kim is…” and Kim Shouted; “Shut Up!”

Poor thing, you could see it in his eyes; The embarresment at the time. The feeling of being misunderstood and the fact that he had been hushly pre-judged.

So i hagged him and told him that Kim is not a bad boy (like the teacher to whom he reported had annouced), but what he had said was a very bad thing. And that he, little love, should never say words like those or shout at his friends especially before he hears what the have to say.

(it is likely that he might, but hey).  

Alanis Morissette. Evanascence

Currently, this is what i am listening to. this is my cry with music. Cry to, cry of…… 

The most terrible thing however is that i have to beg for this music…. down on my knees, i beg D. Please lend me your phone, okay the Ipod, okay your computer. Now it hits me; I am begging to cry. I want to cry but i cant just on my own… and this means, i have to cry as i work consindering that D ‘lives’ at my work place.

I watched, for the first time, The Pursuit of Happyness last saturday. Well, its not exactly what everyone made me imagine it was… Cold Mountainish.   I liked it, kept wondering whether Will Smith insists on the running parts… does he demand that his agent finds him only those movies where he has to run, and run and run…

I fell in love with the ending, it made me think, and feel guilty, about how i havent taken time off to be happy. I havent taken time off to celebrate, to just say wow! I got it. i pursude it and  got it. I havent gone back to the gentleman at the embassy, who, despite protocol helped get a passport- non Ugandan. every day, i am busy with this, and with that and i promise- to myself - that i will go over the following day.  But i never do. Now that i have written abt it, i hope do.

I havent taken time off to celebrate the fact that the guys in Venice Treviso, re-adjusted my contract and term, and moved from March 9th, the date that i and everybody else was supposed to be there to May 5th, so that i have the time to prepare. So that i have the time to run around, cross borders, get this and that document and finally have proper documents.

I havent taken off time to feel the happiness that the study Visa (should have) brought me. The people at the Italian Embassy were wonderful, they even helped me with the flight booking, and gave me a little briefing about the italians- general perceptions.

I havent taken time off to be happy at all.

When am not worrying about how broke this whole thing is leaving me, i wondering what i am going to do with my hair, or my nails. Other times am just stone cold scared, scared of being on my own for the first time in my entire life (i didnt even go to boarding school) and this is in a country where the people dont speak any one of the many languages i boost to know.

But many times, i am unhappy. I am unhappily detoxing, trying to emotionally disconnect myself from him. I know am going away, and i also know that going away with him is more dangerous than it might sound here.  It is self destructing even now… i am no good carrying him around in my thoughts, within my ” I love him, even when i wish i didnt”  veins.

I have tried, i have tried to wake in the morning when i have forgotten about him, everything about him… his charm, his smoothness (in the way he acts- just so we are clear), he is fun side, his dihonestly honest self… and sometimes i achieve. I forget him, forget about him. until he calls and just takes me back where i – in my mind- had gone away from.

But when did i become like this; when did become the girl who gets involved with guys like him? My strength, -and even the guys i have dated (prior to him) know and dislike this about me-, my strength is that i am always in control of my relationships. I know that the biggest gift bestowed to us as humans is the gift of choice. So i choose. I choose who to relate with, how to relate. When to make it work and when to work my way out of it.

I choose to feel the pain, to feel crushed, when the relationship is concluded, because i understand these emotions better. And i know that it is healthy for me to feel this way.

But some how, without choosing to, i let him ‘ take the wheel’. I allowed him to take control over me, even when he acts like he isnt, and would rather i run this thing, i just… let him. Maybe i wanted to be taken care of for once, maybe i am at the stage of my life where i want to just chill, losen up abit and let the guy lead. Maybe that is what happens when as a child you are a paranoid control freak… u grow to become a total….”oh, am the victim. he knew, i didnt know. i dont know what to do now. look at me. i love him. i wish a didnt”. What the fack happened to me.

Okay seriously. And i have changed so much. switched my life around, thrown out some of the things i treasured so dearly. Even when two of my aunties, and even Tumwi, assured me that this is only a growing pain. Officially i hate growing pains, especially these which come labelled as Life’s pleasures.

D says he is not excatly the person am trying to make of him; he is not a good man. that is not what good men do, that is not what people who claim to ‘love you’ do.  she says.  Yeah. I guess. But right now, i dont want to see him that way…. I started this argument at the end of January. and hoped that i would be with D, seeing from her point of view by now. But instead, i go out for movies with him, for a Black Ice, for an evening out. We play friends who love each other but arent together… because i said i cant go on with him. I talk to him, he talks to me, about everything else but ‘us’. And by the time i leave, back to my home, i am un happy. I am hating myself for this stupid little act am carrying on with. What excatly is it that i am doing. who excatly am i playing but myself.

So i am detoxing… i have been detoxing for the last three months…. I need to move on. I need to find myself again, i know am there somewhere. And i need to take time off and be happy for myself. Even if I am pennyless right now.

Social Networking Websites

I cant access blogs on Blogspot because the computers at my work place think, or rather the guys who program them think that blogspot is a porno website or whatever it is that the words “cannot access Social Networking Websites” means.  End of  Complaint

WTF

 

 

ANTIPOP ROCKS

Seriously, i need to find better subjects, better people, credible people to be inspired by. What has the world come to? Before you know it i will be watching Borat- whatever that is, and then, i will be singing along to Olonya Columbus’s latest hit ( i hope i got the name right).

Then again, this is just an expression of what my life has come to; lifeless, empty, un inspired… forget revolutionary, forget lets curb global warming and drive no Range rovers or Hummers, forget those plant a mini-mabira in the land that is now populary known as the Shimoni Land. Forget Zama Jobe, Tshilla and all those beautiful african women whose music just brings into my life that picturesque sunlight. Forget all that.

I am for Antipop. I see her worries, her tears, i get her. i get the fact that she is a closeted soul music fanatic, that she has the hugest crush on people she clearly knows are gay. I get everything about her, and i am with her.

I know it must be hard for a girl like her in this generation. I mean, from how she goes on, it is clear that she would have survived better in the generation of arranged marriages… maybe then she wouldnt have had to jump from one “loser” to another one. Crushing on one “semi-cute”, maybe gay guy to the next.  I totally get her.

And i think she rocks, because, well, she hates pop music (Britney Forever!).

 

Time After Time

what is it appropriate… what is right…what do i say or do…. in times like these.

Kony didnt sign, not like i thought he would, but like every one else, i wanted to be suprised so badly, to get something good out of some one, well, not good. aaah. he didnt and now i almost think he never will. So clearly, am not even playing that “when Kony signs game”. And still am totally confused. Confused by not his “i have diarrohea i cant sign or ooops, i think i will take rain check”. what confuses me is today’s headline in the Daily Monitor Kony kills his Deputy. Who the hell is Kony? Why would he kill his deputy? First Otti disappeared, the prefered term was death. Now Odhiambo. No, hold that; first he slaughters his own people, his tribes men. And now, his own men, his deputies… Who in the world is Joseph Kony? Are we missing something??? Is it bigger than our papers can report?

It is the month of april, Rwandans all over the world take some time off to commemorate the genocide. My four old cousin in Kigali tells me she cant celebrate her 5th birthday because it is Kyunamo (mourning period). She wasnt complaining, she actually was suggesting. she says it is inappropriate. my four old cousin told me that

I have never really attended any of the commemoration services. but i take some time off to pray (or rather think about) for my mother’s mother and my brother who were killed during the genocide. I respect this period and what it stands for—this should never happen. Never again.

And during this period, while i remember members of my family, and those who have suffered under the “Joseph Kony” regime, i have mourned the closure of my ‘up market salon’, i have dolled up and gone to the ‘red carpet premier’ of Kiwani the movie, and i have during all this been mourning the love that isnt excatly mine- My Fav. Bachelor.

Is it appropriate? What is appropriate?

Carol Mugusha is hot! Carol Mugasha is African Woman Hot! Carol Mugasha on the cover of African Woman magazine looks like a hell lot more than a million dollars. She looks like a girl i have never met, and never will meet on the cover of Elle Magazine, or American Vogue. Carol Mugasha is plain hot… on that cover…. and she plays basketball.

Is that appropriate? Should I say things like those about a fellow heterosexual woman? In times like these?

I love him, i wish i didnt, but i do. I am in love with him. and there were times when he made absolutely happy. Times when he was the best thing in my world… my muse too. We used to talk for hours… i would sit right infront of him and just look at him. for hours. seriously. he is funny, he is a guy, respectful of women and all the people he associates with. he is very considerate of people’s feelings too… probably the reason why he waited for me to truly be in love with him to announce his pending nuptials.

Is it then appropriate that even when i called it off, whatever It was, i still have all these feelings for him. I still love him. that i still wish, many times i wasnt four years too late- even when i dont think i would have been the one for him, or he for me. Is it right?

Time after time I wonder. and i worry. What is appropriate

My Common Place Book: A sneak Peak

For my fav. bachelor

True romance comes unscheduled, unruly, “a madness most discreet,”. Over time, it ripens into devotion, still it improvises,[;] a favour rendered, a sudden kiss, a private joke, flowers for no reason. Its expression is the very opposite of the fretful…

                           Nancy Gibbs (Time Magazine)

 

For my girl Carol. And Sebastian.

A considerable amount of destructive anarchy is indispensable to production. Premature tyding up kills creativity. All children are geniuses until they go to school and learn to read and write, or so many people feel.  The artist has to live in messy circumstances in order to keep his senses in play. Tidiness belongs to only one sense, the sense of sight,

          Marshall McLuhan (RIP)- the grandfather of journalism and my new best friend.

 

For Tumwi, Baz, Phantom and Angelo I.

The press has to have hot quotes and sharp points of view. Real news is bad news. Since the press lives on advertising and all advertising is good news, it takes a lot of bad news to sell all this good news. Even the good news of the gospel can only be sold by hellfire.

      Marshall McLuhan

 

For Myself. …okay; and Antipop

…because ( ) discovered long ago that the secrets of  great stories is that they have no secrets. Great stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They dont surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You knw how they end, yet you listen as though you dont. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you wont.   In the great stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesnt. And yet you want to know again… that is their mystery and their magic

                   Arundhati Roy  (in her novel The God of Small Things)

 

I read this novel, The God of Small Things, and for the first time in my reading life—fabulous life—i could swear i had met the person who might  just be my sister. a sister from a different womb, of a different egg. but my sister nonetheless. I would read and re-read a paragraph, just so i could savour it to the core.

Arundhati Roy is a beautiful woman, a beautiful soul and a beautiful writer, if i should use this book to say that i know her, which i already feel like i do. Some people might not like her style, maybe. but i think she re-affirms that doing something that has been done so many times before, by geniuses, in your own way, is not such a terrible thing. that it is a great thing actually

Reading The God of Small Things was lot like listening to a Corrine Bailey Ray CD- for me.  The two women who (now) truly inspire me… To not be more like them, but more like myself. 

Strip Tease

(like phatom’s latest post)

I when i started doing this; blogging; it wasnt because every one was doing it. Because not everyone was… at least not those i know. They were taking pictures, as many as possible to post on facebook.

 I opened this blog, mainly because i wanted to get away from my diaries. they were becoming too many, i was running out of space. I needed to let me self out, to my self. I couldnt continue seeing my therapist. i had actually stopped seeing this therapist like nine months prior. I had also stopped seeing the boyfriend, who poor guy, had taken on the un-official role of best friend, confidante, and i-dont-know, Best boyfriend in the world i gues.

I had gone over to his place… no. wait. i called him up, told him we needed to talk. those things. we met, and I told him i that i couldnt see him anymore. I just couldnt do it. i didnt feel like being in a relationship anymore. He was great. and i meant this, i still do. He was for real. one of his kind. We had been together for almost three years. That is three years with me. Not some easy something being in a relationship with some one like me. And he had done it. ready to do more. more time with me.

I broke his heart. i broke my heart. in a huge way- my heart.

So i had to find something, other than my work, other than Rouge(then), other than my cousins Jason, Zoe and Liz.

Country Boy i introduced me to blogger. i became a fan. of Iwaya’s, of Pea, of Baz, of blogger.

Then one day it came to me. in a big way. I could open my own blog; fill it in with all the crap that was currently going on in my head. it would be my let out. it would b my new diary. I would open it under an alias. no one would know who i am. so i could write anything, anything at all.

But i couldnt do it. i couldnt use a fake name. if i was to use this as an out let of my frustrations, fears, happiness, hope and dreams; i had to do it without hiding behind anyone. or anything. Something i picked from one of my therapy sessions (they help btw. but only when ur ready to b helped. and many times, people who for therapy arent ready. It was great for me, got me on the road to seek for ways of helping myself).

I opened it up. with my real names. I called it Little Jars. because i love the word little. i use it to mean small things. short things. tiny things. I love house hold items too- kitchen items especially. I have got to love something about the kitchen, after all, the kitchen is a big part of my life yada, yada, yada.  Hence the name little Jars. I chose that template because it’s more like me. many people (none bloggers) think i actually came up with it. because that girl looks excatly like me. with a wig on.

I was supposed to use this blog to help myself. but, again. i couldnt. i wasnt ready. i couldnt use it to replace my diaries. to substitute for my therapist- who i dumped because just when we’d started making progress, he asked me out. i said yes. we went out. he kissed me, i kissed him back. and i dumped him there after- as my therapist and doctor. That code of coduct is there for a reason if you think about it.

But now i think am ready. i am ready to use this blog to help myself. to self indulge. self uncover.

Strip Tease.