About comments boxes and speaking to brick walls

I recently considered turning off the comments box on this page. My reasons were noble -

Lately I've been struggling to respond individually to comments. Often times, i use the comments log as the first instance of blogs i visit when doing blog rounds. And when I'm done with that, i often find the contentment i am selfishly searching for,  and I'm happy to go to bed often forgetting that i have not replied comments on mine.

So the problem was not really about being too anal to do the needful replies. i'm often just more curious to read the other person's thoughts than to maintain a conversation on mine.

So i reasoned that if i couldn't be disciplined enough to complete blog duties, then just disable comments box. Simples.

I had pretty much made up my mind until i visited two particular blogs who have turned off comments lately and i found myself really genuinely and royally pissed off about that situation.  Yes there's an email which i could have kindly sent my thoughts into, but i just couldn't be arsed to. I felt like an intruder in a private space stupidly trying to speak to a giant brick wall that would never reply me anyways.

Like seriously, who turns off blog comments?! I'm certain it must be against some constitutional law to disable my right to comment on your blog! It's just not right. Particularly because that post hit the nail right on the head, and it was awesome, and I thought this person's mind must belong to the gods! And you had me furiously searching all over the place like an addict pinning for a fix. Comment comment comments give me comments, i need to comment now nooooow!

But alas, the hypocrisy in my rant.

P.S. I was going to include a descriptive image of someone talking to a brick wall. Pictures are amazing to drive home a point quickly, and they're easy on the eyes too. Then as i downloaded the image,  i noticed some copyright declarations linked to the image,  and i got doubly pissed! What is it with this world, everybody trying to make money off every thing! People should calm down! Calm down people!!!!

And i should probably calm down too.

P.P.S: Duru&Janyl.B....I'm watching you two....and this love thang that's seemingly brewing.

14:14 - Lazy conclusions...

And there you go, it's a wrap! The very last of 14 posts maintained all through the year. Surprisingly not an easy task! Left to my own laziness these days, I'd be lucky to have three posts in total throughout the year.

I must say i did enjoy the theme of finding new blogs, rediscovering old favourites, and had quite a few charmed conversations along the way. For me, that's the beauty of a writing community - finding shared interests and common ground, with a little less effort than in real life.

So if you asked me what I've learnt from this effort of reviewing blogs, I'd summarise it into this- you'll find what you're looking for on blogsville, and hey why not?!

So this last post is a dedicated "Thank you" to the incredible Janyl.B for putting me through this disciplined torture of creating 14 themed posts in 2014 and at the same time easily resuscitating this page14 times at the least throughout the year!

Best wishes for 2015 folks!

A beautiful mind (two minutes rant)

The curse of the creative mind is in failing to realize, that real life is entirely dissimilar to the talents we flaunt over blank canvases and writing pads.
That the heavens have not given to us the same liberties to recreate realities that we fancy at the ingenious stroke of our impulsive pen.

So we would oft contend with deep disatisfactions, as the world refuses to submit to our own story lines.
Blustering back and forth erratic emotions of the real scripts of life's unapologetic  realities.
And real people that are just people without the expected edges and artistic depths that you would have penned into this tale, this day.

I mean who imagines this setting, and characters that could be so much more classier, and perfect, if she'd given those responses with a certain flair and turned her nose up just a tard inch higher.
That was not the way the story was supposed to end, no it was not.
So you trash yet another script failing to realize that that was another real person and a real situation and real emotions and  real lives beneath penny worth of hapless conversations....

But you didn't write the story, if only you'd written the story. It would have been so much more perfect in my own words.

Two minutes!
Stop!
Breathe!
Dance!

Image:http://stepheneusebio.blogspot

14:14 - Grumpy monday mornings and Tuke's saxy quest

I am not a morning person. I'm a 5pm Friday person :) 

This is me when i wake up on a weekday.

My typical morning routine is to wake at 7.30, snooze till 8, and literally drag my ditzy self to the expresso machine. Then I sit by a high chair looking out the window and slowly induce myself awake with idle daydreams about receiving a random offer to head-up GeeTee Bank in Lagos. All- inclusive with a castle in lekki, a bad a$$ 4x4, and all the perky teller girls lighting up the mornings with sunny-side up smiles. But that is not my reality (at least not just yet), so instead i would dutifully don on five layers of protective clothing, brace myself for the smattering cold and lob along into another day at the office. *Joy*.

All that notwithstanding, this is usually me when I step into the office.

Somewhere in between that two minutes elevator *shoki*, which I totally recommend, a transformation usually occurs wherein I become incredibly awesome. I would step into that office space, own the environment and then it’s all about the Joey Tribbiana “how u doing”, enthusiastic winks and cheerful hi-5’s whilst i grab a fat cup of coffee and settle down for work

You see, it’s been all about that magic two minute attitude transformation in between the elevator and the doorway. But the problem is that these days, I seem to have run out of fairy dust. I would dance myself into a quick frenzy, rocking that elevator shoki, azonto, etighi the whole works, and nothing happens! Instead, I enter the office and find that I’m just another black immigrant, hustling for the dollar. Does anybody else get those days, or is it just me?

So all through the week, i have entertained my office with the un-graceful dramatisation of a disgruntled, discontent Nigerian man. I know and I'm not proud of it, but i just couldn't be asked. All that need to be constantly chirpy and cheerful, is draining, so I simply let the frown linger. The tipping point was when I raised my voice and told this certain self-nominated office class-captain to get the &*# away from the desk, and everyone went quiet. I know. It's been bad. I need to get my act back together. Talk about grumpy old men.

But sticking to the positives and about breathes of fresh air, I recently discovered Tuke’s-Quest’s, which is my quick blog review for this month. Tuke is a saxophonist and a writer, and her blog is ooh yessss very easy to conclude that, if she only posted pictures of zany smiles without any worded expressions, that would be enough to make it an amazing blog page. So I’ll be calling this one, the Happy place. Check out her blog here and thank me later. Tuke’s blog reminds me of Kiah, before she left…and that line from Cab rides and the Morning after, about still beautiful people who are all elsewhere doing impossibly beautiful things. 

And this is what I’ve come to appreciate from doing these new-blog reviews. The fact that blogsville never really did die. Instead, after the sexy ones had become middle aged, in their 12hour life spans*, the magic rightly rolled along into the hands of a fresh generation of amazing people who are telling their own stories in their own way. And it only takes a few seconds to either blink and miss it, or jump right in like...

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Intro: The 14-for-14 challange by Janyl. (Click here to familiarize yourelf with the '14 for 14 challenge'). This is my tenth post into that journey.

Images:

http://imgarcade.com/1/grumpy-morning-people/

*Ref: Cab rides and the morning after - Alysia Harris.

14:14: The #HusbandHustle and the incredible Funmi Reese

Monday 7:30am, my good friend Funmi sauntered into the office, flopped into her desk space, and flashed a gobsmackingly huge, shimmering rock in my face - with a toothy grin that declared: ‘Mission accomplished!’ And I concluded with earnest awe, never to doubt a black woman on a mission.

Three months ago, just before heading home, and after slaving her twenty-ninth birthday away amidst frustrating spreadsheets and financial reports, Funmi had calmly said to me. ‘T.Notes, I’m ready for an upgrade’. She dragged my chair into her own work area and within ten minutes, drafted out an insane life-planner with the end product of acquiring a boyfriend within one month, getting engaged within three months, and getting married before the end of this year. "Ambitious much?" That was my sarcastic response.

Now, my friend Funmi is an incredible person. She is super smart and an amazing office-space buddy - a pure breath of fresh air. She is also a nerd - which is why we get along so well. Funmi’s head holds daily updates of interest rates across trading hubs in five major cities - that is how bad-ass Funmi is. But I will be honest, that’s all I saw in Funmi - my super-reliable desk mate with the brains of a financial encyclopaedia. So, as far as I was concerned, unless all of the hosts of heaven had some curious interest in the need for Funmi to get hitched within three months, her ambitious life planner had no chance. So i only indulged her that day out of friendly courtesy and finished with a cheerful but very casual amen to her tall ambitions.

In fact, I remember going home that night with a brief thought of how annoying the odds must be for someone like Funmi. She deserved the best, but would have to do battle against the odds in a world that has become a crazed man-hunt with contenders that were clearly above her league. I have female friends and family who are typically everything a sensible man would want in a woman, but for whatever reason none was biting bait. As i thought of Funmi's plan, i considered also the social media twerkers and the red nose’rs doing critical damage to the righteous expectations of a good man. In conclusion, I wished Funmi well, with a lot of scepticism.

But I started to doubt my own cynicism when Funmi showed up to work the next day and her manager spilled coffee all over his desk. It was like Funmi had crawled away into her financial spreadsheets and had somehow morphed into this…this…somebody that caused religious indian bosses to completely loose their composure. Funmi had ditched the usual flat soles for six-inch high-heeled, patent-black striking boots that demanded attention with every step she took. It appeared that something must have also gone wrong (or very right), with her dry-cleaning, because somehow her usual conservative skirts had shrunk to such lengths that reminded me of my grandmother’s fervent declarations of Psalms 24 - lift up your heads on ye gates, oh be lifted up ye ancient doors!

Hold on sef! For emphasis, let’s do that properly like how mama used to do it in Yoruba "E gbe ori yin soke, eyin enu-ona. Ki a si gbe yin soke eyin ileku aye-raye." Come on!!! You may pause for google translate but you get the point. And so whilst Funmi's manager had been reduced to fumbling mess that morning, trying to unglue his eyes from Funmi’s very distracting and revealing thighs, I maintained a more distinguished focus on Funmi’s hair which was now glossy and bouncy like some Coco-sheen commercial. And her low neckline shoulder-stringed camisole with transparent detail…no one should even be dressed like that in a professional environment. In summary, Funmi was not messing around.

Funmi is a case study, because I entirely agreed that her transformation had caused her intended ripple, or tidal wave to be precise. Her work space suddenly got very busy. By midday, her outlook calendar was booked full with raunchy old men suddenly needing to have one-to-one meetings with her. It was all very unbelievable. This was afterall, Funmi - nerdy encyclopaedia Funmi! So l stepped in to do the rightful big-brotherly job of pointing out to her that she was going about things the wrong way! *All wrong, wrong, wrong*! I gathered all my wisdom together and gave her a sharp lecture about how the sorts of men taking this sudden interest in her were clearly only interested in her…external motivations. *All wrong, wrong, wrong, I said to her*! Because there was certainly a whole lot more to Funmi than an easy pair of distracting cleavage. I told her she was selling herself short! She listened to me quietly, then calmly told me to shut up, mind my business and face my Quants.

To sum things up, this is how the things went down. I soon stopped asking if Funmi was free for our usual lunch hangouts at the local jazz hole. On Mondays, Funmi was meeting up with some random James, Kunle or Otis. On Tuesdays, her whatsapp was already buzzing by 11am; on Wednesdays, she was receiving confirmations for weekend dinner dates. Random strangers were now chatting her up in the canteen and on the trains, and exchanging phone numbers. Such was the transformation. And all of this happened within a couple of weeks. The transformation was otherworldly but the #husbandhustle was real, and I almost started to detest this very intentional stranger.

But they say the end justifies the means yeah? And that’s how Funmi has always been. She’s a go-getter, a strategist, an unyielding hothead. Funmi is the kind of analyst who presents a single view recommendation, unlike the rest of us mortals who provide options 1,2,3 and 4 and try to convince the world that either option 1...or...2 may be the best option. But not Funmi. Funmi does her research, aligns her steps towards her intentions and gets the singular result she was after from the very beginning. #NoWastingTime. But that’s always been all good and dandy from the professional stand-point. You shouldn’t approach serious matters such as marriage like any other Funmi-firebrand project, right yeah?! Or, why not?

How did it all end? With her new found confidence, Funmi told me on a random Friday that she had booked a short weekend holiday to Lagos. I asked what the urgency was about and she casually laughed about how she was going to seal a deal and pick up a husband. And she did. She f&%ing did. 

I never got the full details. All i know is, Funmi returned to work on the monday, sauntered into the office, flopped into her desk space, and flashed a gobsmacking shimmering rock in my face, with a toothy grin that declared: ‘Mission accomplished!’ and with that massive engagement ring literally blinding me and my jaw in the floor, i watched my friend calmly refresh her life-planner spreadsheet and start re-working it into a wedding plan.

I do not underatand it. But nonetheless, I take back my previously ignorant words and bite my own tongue here to publicly acknowledge that people like Funmi, are beyond any doubt, simply legends. Yes, there i said it. Satisfied?

All that said, my blog review for this month is the incredible Funmi Reese, whom you should zippy over to check out her page, particularly if you might be interested in the full details of how to snag an engagement ring in three months. Here is my subtle disclaimer. Given that Funmi is quite a popular name, if you happen to know the one I have referred to here, and she stylishly denies your questions, just wink three times and tell her T.Notes sent you.

*P.S: This is a long post, so I have not done my edit due-diligence, so excuse any errors. I am not likely to be correcting them any time soon. Lol!*

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Intro: The 14-for-14 challange by Janyl. (Click here to familiarize yourelf with the '14 for 14 challenge'). I recently accepted this challenge to go on a quest searching for brand new blogs...with the bull-headed conviction that all creativty is not lost within the nigeria-blogsphere. And also desperate to prove that, contrary to recently popular opinion, not all of the new blog pages are uninteresting (to put it mildly). This is my ninth post into that journey.

Sugarbelly

This post is wrong on many levels - I know.

I was having lunch today with two other Nigerian mates,
And conversations briefly veered into @sugarbelly's mildly controversial tweet.
The one about the minimum take-home she would consider from a man living and working in Nig, (in view of the costs of living in Nig).

So we decided a do a simple exercise.
We worked out the minimum monthly pay on that lunch table,
Whipped out a calculator, converted it to Naira and compared the result to the 'controversial' amount being tweeted about.

Somebody on the table coughed.
Another person asked me to pass the ketchup,
Then we moved on to talk about the weather.

Father forgive me.

In a different life...

He knew that this day would come. They had discussed it countless times, yet it seemed now that none of all that rehearsal prepared him for the pain that was searing through his heart. She had promised to find his eyes amongst the congregation and pitch a smile his way, just to let him know that she remembered his pain, and was feeling the same too. But her eyes were all lit up and focused only on the man who held her into a warm embrace…and kissed her...with such tenderness.

The congregation cheered as the priest announced the newly married couple. But he didn’t clap; instead he stretched out slightly, so she could catch his eyes, and smile at him. She didn’t. She didn't...and the palpitations in his heart seemed to drown out everything else, as the stark reality of the events unfolding finally struck hard. His hand found its way involuntarily to clutch at the dulling ache in his chest. 

“Are you ok dear?” His own wife who stood next to him, enquired with concern.

He stifled the wretched lump in his throat, dropped his hand and lied, “Yes…yes love. I’m fine.”

*****
Edit:
HD's question: Why is he waiting for a smile?

Image Source: Etsy