Under Pressure.

I do not know now where I got the impression from, that Lawanson market was the market with highest priced goods in the whole of Surulere and Idi-Araba market which is barely 500meters away was the cheapest. I think the women who own stalls in the market are more serious than those in other markets with a wider variety of goods and that is why this morning, I took my body to Lawanson to buy the plantains and vegetables I needed to make the meal my spirit had been craving for nearly a month.

Beneath the Iroko

I’m watching cars snarl and drivers curse at Lawanson bus stop while I’m getting series loaded into my Iroko TV app. I’m the last customer of the day, well not a customer- I have an active subscription and it means Success the agent, will get no commission from me.

I am not Wife Material… And It’s ok.

This post has been sitting pretty in my drafts since June 30th, I wrote it at a time I found myself writing about marriage a whole lot. I decided to shelve it until another time and I guess that time is now…

 

Recently, I was having a conversation with a much older man about marriage and a woman’s place in the home. If you know me well- or at least read my blog regularly, you’d know that I do not believe in having specific gender roles in a marriage.

Love between onion rings.

When you told me I would miss you, I did not think it would hit me the most as I stand in the kitchen with an onion on the counter and a knife in my hand. The tears on my cheeks can be explained as the effects of the heavy sounding chemicals and reactions between the onion and those eyes that enthralled you, but I know different. I know it is you that makes my eyes wet and pulls my heart downwards.

Lauretta’s folly.

When I saw the picture accredited to Lauretta Onochie about the immediate past government forcing Prof Akunyili to work just so she could pay her medical bills, I dismissed it as a cheap shot against Lauretta, I couldn’t imagine a presidential spokesperson would be so daft as to put up such a picture.

Carlos @ 70

Yesterday, Carlos Santana turned seventy. I didn’t even know it was his birthday when I finally listened to Wild thoughts. I was a little afraid that DJ Khaled would destroy the sublime beauty of the epic “Maria Maria” in the name of sampling/homage. Bros was wise enough to know you don’t mess with perfect, you respectfully work around it and you get Rihanna to sing about crazy, untamed things- as she was born to do.

The Walker

I begin my walk at the street that’s directly opposite ‘work’ and the Coca-Cola woman says ‘good morning’ with a huge smile on seeing me, it is the same smile that greets me when I come to buy Coca-Cola from her. I do not quite like that smile and how she brings out the Coca-Cola and gets the exact change to the two-headed naira note folded in my purse, while I am still saying ‘good morning’. Accepting an addiction to Coca-Cola is one thing but it is the nonchalance about predicting my choices that annoys me. Never mind that my brothers believe they can quote my thoughts on any subject or how friends I haven’t seen in years know to have dodo and Coca-Cola when I visit, I just do not like to think that I am predictable.

Get Lucky

Get lucky by Daft Punk ft Pharell is my new favourite song, I love the disco-funk fusion and the way it makes you think dancing is easy. If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn it was by ‘Earth Wind and Fire’ or ‘The Whispers’- the smoothness of it calls them to mind. And the video! It’s so 80’s and that for me was when good music peaked and rolled over and died. I love the chorus most of all, especially the refrain ‘we’re up all night to get lucky’ that is repeated several times across the song.

Rx- Trending

I love twitter and hate it, more precisely- I hate what it does to me. I have always been a child of anger, whipping sarcasm and sass and rudeness (in my parents’ opinion, never mine) into a formidable collection of quotes and pithy sayings that people remember me by, many decades later. Years of a certain thing called home training had taken the edge and flattened my sparkly bubbles of wit and made me someone who is often described as gentle and calm and quiet by majority of the people who ‘know’ me. But on twitter, the foolishness that is unleashed on that space in 140- word spurts always makes me tear off my figurative shirt and reveal the S on my chest.

Sisi and Bobo- Part 1

Sisi in red framed glasses and tall thin bobo are sitting beside each other in a danfo descending Eko bridge into Marina, Sisi and Bobo have boarded the same danfo several times and Bobo always gives someone else his change, just before she asks. She is tired of his apologetic smiles so she makes faces at him when she sees him. This is the first time they’re sitting beside each other.