- i’m feeling seriously off today. my anemia is really bad today; i’ve slept most of the day away and now, i have the chills (in the middle of summer, seriously… which sucks). i try to eat well and take my vitamins, but half of this problem is genetic (the other half is diet, but i do like being vegan, so i don’t think that’s going to change any time soon), so i should be taking additional iron supplements. but how many pills can one girl take? i don’t, so some days, i have days like this, where i just feel miserable.
- i’m kinda done complaining in general. sure, it feels great but after awhile it just gets annoying to you and others around you and it still doesn’t solve the problem. i mean, i’m still going to complain in my head, but i feel like speaking them out loud is a waste of breath and energy. just do the dang thing and if it doesn’t work, reassess, adjust and try again. the end.
- look, i’m weird, i know: i don’t drink, i don’t wear makeup, i barely go out, i watch alot of PBS and i’m super quiet (and i don’t take vacations). but that’s me and i’m starting to accept it (anyways, i have too much other stuff to do). if i really wanted to change something that i did, i would change it. over the course of this year, i feel like i’ve been pressured to try or do things that i don’t really want to do. some, i found i could do and i was just too scared to try and others, i just plain didn’t like. i really try to make an effort not to judge people and what they choose to do with their lives (note, i said try; i’m not perfect… i do judge from time to time…); but i feel like i’m not getting alot of reciprocating on this front: the idea of living with differences. unfortunately, that usually leads to alot of faded friendships. but i’m starting to see that some friendships cannot be as close as i want them to be; that’s just the way it is. i’m seeing this alot with Y; he does things that i don’t necessarily agree with and he doesn’t understand why i do some of the things i do. and i suppose it’s because i’ve been so mired in him, it took me a minute to realize that we could never have the relationship/friendship that i wanted to have. i mean, he’s still one of my very good friends, just not one of my closest. sometimes, i feel like i’m sold to other people as this wild, crazy girl and when i get quiet and introspective on them, they get disappointed. hey, that’s just me. i don’t know; i’m seeing myself making alot of tough choices in the future pertaining to this. it’s gonna hurt and it’s gonna suck, but i gotta be me.
- crispy was doing my hair last night and we had to make a quick detour to NE for an hour. somehow, the topic of Y came up during our car ride. just going through the history of Y and i with crispy verbally, made me realize how Y truly sees me; i’m a place holder when he’s in between relationships. it kinda sucks and it’s disappointing, but it’s true. when he moved back, i thought he just liked hanging with me, even though his girl did not approve, but now through 29-year old eyes, i see he was in that relationship because he didn’t have anything familiar to come back to, not because he wanted to try again with her. he knew that ship was sinking, so i was the convenient go-to girl. and i hate, HATE being that girl; unceremoniously dumped when something better comes along. no more. i was telling crispy that i could hang with B simply because i already knew he’s a jerk and i can deal with that. i’m very disappointed with Y (and he refused my food y’all… he. REFUSED. my. spent-a-minute-in-the-kitchen. food.) because i expected alot more from him. is that unrealistic of me? is it now, realizing him for who he really is? i deserve better than this. i won’t be a jerk and cut him off (even though that’s what i really want to do), but our friendship will be severely limited.
- to end on a good note, i am super excited for maxwell’s new album. yes, i preordered it. listen to a sneak peak.
peace.
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This snapshot of digitalis purpurea was today taken in a forest next to a Roman fort near Frankfurt – with the 5mpx CMOS camera on my 2y old Nokia N95 mobile phone.
It may not be the best photo, but it clearly shows what’s already possible with a decent camera phone.
Kumekucha
]]>These were both significant events in the history of the country, one heralding a new era of openness and maturity for the Kenyan society. While the other displaying our inability to deal with an old era, and its resulting diversity. We focused our attention on the narrow prism with which every Kenyan seems to define self, by - race, tribe, ethnicity, in evaluating guilt. However, inspite of these two momentous occurrence, I was intrigued by a different phenomenon, one more apparent and obvious. I watched the central figures of authority in these branches of government. And conspicuous on each head, the Speaker, Kenneth Marende and High Court Judge, Muga Apondi, both wore these hideous blonde wigs in what appeared to be either oblivion or pride.
When I was a child, I copied and aped a lot. I pretended to be my father, a policeman, a soldier and we made costumes that allowed us to look the part. I believe we called it 'kalongo'. This throw back to my childhood was an epiphany into the state of Kenya's maturity. We have a population looking at figures in authority with real expectations of life and death, however the leaders are playing the part aping some distant colonial era, some servant of the Royal British Empire. This lack of self awareness or knowledge of self was excusable in the 1960s, but 40 years later we are still playing 'kalongo' and acting the part.
Games have no accountability and the outcomes are not real. We have had vision 1995, 2000, 2010 and now 2030. These are words on paper, a script for a well choreographed play, where all the actors go back to their real lives after the curtain falls with a fat paycheck, nothing real.
Some will site tradition, and I am the biggest fan of tradition, however we must pause and ask ourselves whose tradition. We as Kenyans run the risk of playing the baffon, the joker, the jester at every court. Parallel to a colonial tradition we have a liberation tradition and too often we have honored the colonial over the liberation tradition in Kenya and to some extent Africa. Lake Victoria, Victoria Falls are just symbols of this immaturity, an inability to take full ownership of yourself.
We need to rediscover who we are and rekindle what our true values were and here is my short list of where we should start.
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