… A note to Princess

One thing that I have learnt as a writer (and I think this is true for every artist), is that the moment you release your work to the public, you lose control over it. You have no way of controlling the way people perceive it and many times people may not even come close to what you meant to say at all. Remember how when you would read a poem as a class, many people would come up with different interpretations of what the poem meant? Some people would say that the major theme is love and yet another group would argue that the theme is death?

I remember one of my first works to be released to the public( and this is not to say that I am that much of a big deal as a writer). It was written in a journal format (therefore written in first person) and the persona was talking about how her guardian (a pastor) had been defiling her. It was purely fiction, but many people kept asking me whether I was the persona in the story. I almost vowed never to write in the first person and yet usually stories are more believable that way.

Of course everything that a writer writes has a bit of themselves- an experience, a trait they admire or loathe and bits of lessons from some of the writings that they love.

This is me saying, it is sometimes unnerving when an audience misinterpretes what you are saying, or judges you for what or how you have written and yes, there are times when the pressure from the expectations of the audience can be crippling. But who are we writing for if it isn’t for an audience? Have we written, if we haven’t been read? How do we grow if there is no audience to critique our work or to help us find the new levels we can go to?

You are a very fine writer. In my realm of heavenly writers you are nearly seated at the right hand of Scotch (and trust me, Scotch’s writings are a big damn deal to me). And so if we, bloggers aren’t your audience, do continue to write, and when you are ready, find and audience that will help you get better and better.

All the best,

-H!

P.s: thanks for leaving us the other blog posts. I have never gotten over the fact that Ishta disappeared with everything we loved. I don’t know whether you found her on blogger but child, she had a lot of incredible things to offer us.

My soul is throwing up in spurts…and other stories

1. The Lantern Meet of Poets

       It was great!I know i might really be biased cos two of my best friends put it together but you ask Carlo! The poetry, the music(there was even a guy who played a  violin) and a little dance during the interludes. It made me want to write again! Next one is in the Christmas holidays-I will let you know about it it no doubt!

2. 7 months later, i am quitting my job.

This is my last week here. Next week I will be at home babysitting and texting the whole world asking for plot! You may be one of those people that may think I am a ka spoilt brat to leave my job when some of my friends (and some people that graduated long before me)are still looking for jobs. But this”you are so lucky and therefore you should be thankful enough to kiss all arses” thing is sometimes overrated. so seven months later, i have decided that I am young enough to still chase my dreams and be happy and still talented enough to have options.

When i told someone about my resignation, they said that maybe i was being a wuss(because some of my answers to the why question is: I am very unhappy. I dread going to work. I feel drained. Too drained that i have no idea what i want to be when i grow up. And then I remember that i am up already). Then they say that that is how alot of people feel about their jobs. Well, at 22, i have refused to let my mind die slowly doing something i do not believe in. So here i am. Scared shitless about what i have decided but yet peaceful because i know I have to do it…and convincing myself that it is in staying that i will be a complete wuss.

When i sent a text to my dad about my decision, he texted back and said,” Take it easy. Iam with you. There are better days ahead.”…and yes, that is why i was wearing my happy pink and blue shirt that has inscribed on it :”MY DAD ROCKS” on Saturday. My mum is taking a while. Keeps asking so now what?

So i am collecting as many books as i can and buying some. I want to go away from the world for a while and have a cleansing ceremony of sorts. I will once in a while go and induge in my new favourite hobby, bowling and if i can get the guts, try skating. My sister-in-law is taking me for a facial, pedicure and manicure and a massage. And my lover ( who has suffered many “i am very bad company today. Bad day at work” moments) is cooking up something…so well, maybe it isn’t so bad to quit a job.

Tumwi, may i borrow “Ah, but your land is beautiful”, and “Dance with a poor man’s daughter”?….and Dee, i want to become a Salmon Rushdie fan.Anything?Please?

I might take a while without blogging. But after my disappearance, Someone please call me…I will need a job.

 

 

 

 

Now it is all up in in my boss’ face

 

That i am so stressed i fall i asleep in my specs and crack them!!i hope she’s feeling guilty enough to grant me an all expense paid trip to Jamaica!

the pics i promised.

Unfortunately, i can’t show what business i was doing there, so i can only show crowds:

Gulu crowd at Buganda Pub

 

 

 

 

 

Mubende

Don’t ask me what that woman was doing there with her child. i had to be restrained so as not to beat her…but then other people thought i was under the influence and i was having my first bar fight!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malaba

outside Club Espana in Malaba!

Yeah. the elaborately accessorised Mr Mosh(most collabos in Ugandan Industry) chills with me these days.

Drat! you can’t see the accessories: the shades, the blingy watch, the blinged up ears and a chain!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ok, the real reason i am town trotting!! This was in Club Sombreros in Jinja(where one of my colleagues dozed off and one of her shoes was stolen…Guys, don’t laugh!!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

More pics next time.

It’s that time of the year, people!!

Hey!!!

i know i haven’t been much of a blogger for a while…my bad.

anyway, am going to be away for a while…for my last semester exams!!!yeah!you heard right!!!you won’t have anybody to frown on about being in school anymore!!!

 

this is the part where you book to buy me a drink when I finish(i know.am shameless like that!!)

And Scotch…really good to have you again!!!

 

See you around end of May maybe.

-H!

 

 

I met a real man…and other stories

Friday afternoon. Very hot. Constitutional Square. In a Bugolobi bound taxi. Very hot! Seated on the seat after the kameeme seat.

Then enter a man and what surely is his family. They must be coming from a clinic or hospital where the woman must have deliverd that bundle the man is carrying. They have a basin, a jerrican and bags of clothes and the man is carrying a very small baby in his hands. The woman is in a gomesi. The man’s shirt is  not ironed and one side of the collar is turned up. He is holding the bay and you can tell he is not used to this but the wife looks tired so he is in charge. He is not going “goo goo my baby *kiss kiss*” to show mbu he is happy about being a dad but he is there.  Seemingly saying, “i don’t have a car where i could have picjked up my wife from IHK and i can’t afford a cab either but am here. Beside my wife and with our baby. Taking care of my family like a man.”

Okay may be i read alot into it. He probably has two other women some where and how will he look after that kid any way? what if he is just the brother of the chic?

 Maybe but he is there atleast.

Compare this though. when we were still new to the world of dating(which was first year cos we were in all girls schools in secondary and we hardly did any serious dating) there was a friend of mine that met this guy. this really wonderful girl. The envy of all of us. He is saved, he has a stable job as an egineer…and he looks good. She is so happy and we are all happy. They do really deep things together like meet and pray about their future. Go to functions together dressed like mummy and daddy. They even ask me whether i will be their matron. She meets his mum. I mean these guys are deep. She then starts doing kasepiki(weekends and nights at his) and we are thinking how long will this saved guy keep his hands off of you?  Any way let us say i became an auntie in November.

But that was not before i even lost my matron priviledges. You see this man that we thought was an angel walking on earth threw her out when she was 8months pregnant. Apparently just before she told him that she was expecting he was planning on breaking up with her but he had not found an appropriate way to do it.(Yeah right! some way of showing it! so if You are planning to break up, why then are you chawing?!) .Anyway he decides to keep her with the baby but later wakes up and says: “Shyaa! what if that kid is not even mine?” can you believe this shyte! i mean we used to hear of this stuff and we had high hopes and we were even prayed for that such stuff wouldn’t happen to us! now my friend is a third year single mom in medical school…and she is on private. The man? probably lurking next to some hall waiting for another girl’s life to wreck!

I will choose the first man any day. he is the real deal.

Meet my niece

  My brother and his wife have an amazing daughter that i call Sweety. she is a 14months old(Sybella taught me this thing of saying kids’ ages in months. It makes you seem like a genius as if. and those that are mathematically challenged, that is actually 1 year and 2 months). Last week we were all in the sitting room so the maid called us to the bed room. She had just showered the baby. We get to the room and Sweety had my spray and she was putting it in her arm pits. So we are all looking in awe as if my God she is a genius! Then i tell her, “i have ha’had ur kavubs(from kavubuka=B.O) Sweety. Even at night?!” Then she gives me this look of “Yeah right!”(you can tell am making this ka part up. yeah?…play along!) Any way after the ritual, she gives me  the spray as if “you need it a whole lot more than i do!” This weekend when i was putting on my lip balm i gave her and she got for herself aimed at her lips but it ended up on her cheeks. This taught me two things:

1. that this girl is just too bright

2. Am not dressing up with her in the room anymore. even the bathing together stopped. Sika having my bedroom habits brought out unto the sitting room by this ardent student.

 It is that time of year again!

I have never been a fan of school. Neyvar! when i was going to boarding school, i would lose my appetite two days before school and generally become cranky and fight and sulk at anybody that was unlucky to find me. My mum soon got used to it and she would warn the rest of the guys at home about my swinging moods. when i was about to go to campus, i told her i wanted to commute but she would not hear of it.

me: you are chasing me from home

mummy; yeah

me: what? you don’t love me any more?

mummy: no it is now time for you to leave home and see the world. you can ofcourse always come back to help me wash the clothes and utensils. you know how i hate washing utensils.

me: you really are tired of me.

So that is the story about how my mum got tired of me and chased me from home to school. To school of all places! Eons of years later, still have a school phobia. My last semester of under grad starts today and my body is rling against me again but i still have one more week at home then my mum will surely kick me out like she usually does. But to make myself happy, i have compiled the list of things i have to do before i finish campus so that i can claim that i was a real campuser at one time.

1. Date a 54 year old man. That is how old my dad is. then cross generational sex will end with me.

2. Get a coursework boyfriend, one with a ride so a i can hang with no worries and then maybe a real boyfriend

3. Become toothpick thin. Seriously. Everyone i joined campus with has lost weight.  Some of them started working on their campus figures when we were still in secondary. Now me all of them when they meet me say “Eh babange nga you have gained weight!” so i started consoling my self that it is baby fat when i get to 20 it will go but waa! it is now adult fat and no one can believe am a campuser. Campus is the time to look malnourished!

4. try and see if i can seduce my lecturer. and since i might be very busy building a career so i don’t suffer looking for a job after campus, see if he can give me free marks. then i will look at him and ask “how would you like to be paid?”

5. Party like a rock star. Neyvar to miss any event in town. even the numerous association beach bashes!!!

6.really involve myself in a strike. screaming, frothing at the mouth, throwing stones, get tear gased(although they did that already) and maybe end up in a police cell.

7. Bin my room mates!! i have just realised that we have never binned(Binning is when your roommate gets a visitor usually of the opposite sex and ask you to please stay out of the room for a while. you may have to stay out the whole night or a few minutes depending on what is happening in the room)  each other cos we just don’t do it. wait. i have actually been binned once! but they were fightiong so i really wanted to be away anyway. so i will bin them but i have to get someone i will be hanging with so when i come to the door wrapped in a towel and say “can you come back later?” it will be worth it.

7.Visit my friends in UCU(seriously) and find out why people say weekends in Nkozi are fun. Nkozi is like so in the village, right?

8. pick an expensive habit such as smoking or drinking.

9. wear things that match(although i do that sometimes)but you know take it a notch higher: lime green top, blue jaens, lime green sandals, lime green bag, limegreen bling, limegreen makeup, and have my lime green thong peeping out of my jeans.

10. enjoy rolex while i can. i hear when people graduate they chill this stuff.

what have i left out? am really intent on being a fully fledged campuser this sem!

The iggle squigs trazed wombly in the harlish goop

You guessed right. I have nothing really sensible to write. Actually i can if i want to but my mind has been under intense thinking that all i want to is to just have a moment of nothingness: no thinking, no feeling, no action…

So, how have you been?…I’ve been looking around so i know what most of you have been up to.  Can’t say i have been up to much though. Between exams and fighting with my mum over having gone to Kasese when Ebola is on rampage and being the chaperone to my sister in S.6 vac, i could only do so much. Except for this life changing decision that has taken me almost a year to make.    

 I put myself back on the shelf

I got tired of half living. I guess everybody does.  I got tired of being the wimperish clod of ailments that is begging the world to be good to me and pleading to God to tell me what to do when i knew what i had to do.

So i woke up one day and screamed against the wind, “Fuck this shit!”and quit…i guess that moment comes for everyone.Only for cowards like me, it takes much longer.

It’s liberating, what i did. and am proud that for once i chose the harder path.  I won’t lie that it’s been easy but hey, there comes a point where the only prayer you can say is “Dear God, let me wake up at 40 and stare at my lap with nothing but a kitten in my company. But help me Lord not to wake up besides this man because i will not be happy!”

 There are moments that are hard though. Like those times when everything that you look at is coupled up? …When you can swear that those two flies on the wall are not looking at you with pity but they are looking deeply into each others eyes and professing unending love for each other. Those…. Those are the hard days!

**************************

I took the one less travelled by

And that has made all the difference.

       -Robert Frost

…the one where i hit on a guy

We are in the era of emancipation,are we not?So why are you frowning at the title?

So we are at campus. The sudden downour has forced us to huddle ourselves under the veranda at the Chemistry department.These are hard times. I mean who wants to be standing stiffly in the cold at 08:46pm with the wind blowing so hard that it feels like you are under no shelter. Luckily i was with a friend of mine( we shall call him P) so i did not have to endure the cold and solitude. Somewhere in the conversation, P looks at me and nods to a certain direction.In the direction of guy hugging himself(very understandable under the circumstances)and the cHattering of his teeth makes it seem like the teeth are about to fall out. So i look at P and ask wasap.

P: Go help out a poor, cold soul

H!:Because he looks like he needs my help?

P: C’mon! He is cold and yes, you can help!

 H!:Your time.If you are that concerned, go get ‘im.

P: Well, am usually a nice person, but i have my eyes on that babe in the corner. she looks pretty cold herself.

H!:no one would notice you even if they were turning into an ice berg.

P: Ouch!

…      …   ….   …. …

But seriously H! if you lost that “am-so-feminine-i-have-to-be-pursued” crap of yours and had to vibe that guy, what would you say?

Take 1

H!: hey, would you like to share my shawl with me?

P:What? Is this kindergarten?

Take two

H!: It’s really raining mob, heh?

P: drift into elnino and stuff…geograghy lesson?

H! :hey the guy is not even holding a book or anything interesting. I could have started from there.

P: See what we have to go through.

Take 3

H!: Ummm…can we just cuddle together?My bones are rattling!(Hitch did say that you have to shock and impress, didn’t he?)

P: Coming on a little too strongly.

H!: Hey, wait…so he will be shocked. and as he tries to recover, i will give a sexy “ha!”, throw back my head, killer smile, then say, “Am just messing wit you.’tsup. My name’s H!…)

(and the story ends well, they end up together with many little H!s and little Boscos-he looked like a Bosco.)

By P’s standards, i failed miserably. so ladies, am putting the challenge to you. what would you say to a guy if you had to vibe one?Get a setting of your own. Church, bar, taxi park,…wherever.

Guys, what would be your ideal pick up line from a babe be (i know the idea of her hitting on you is just good enough but how would you like her to say it.)

Update:

From the UBBH offices, i hear there will be no BHH today. Yes, it is the last Thursday of the month but somehow, no one has prepared for it. Not the Godfather of Blogging , who also used to be The One…not even The 27th Comrade.

So the event has been moved to the first Thursday of next month. That is, 1st November which really is Thursday next week. The monthly salary will have made it’s way to many people’s bank accounts so there will be lotsa drinks to go around.

so yeah, next Thursday. Mateo’s. 6:30pm

In other developments, my impersonator(who i think did a good job of it) made an appearance at this dude’s blog…and made the place look quite nice.

’bout time this house got cleaned!

Usher: Oh no, no, no, no

If love was a bird
Then we wouldn’t have wings
If love was a sky
We’d be blue
If love was a choir
You and I could never sing
Cause love isn’t for me and you

If love was an Oscar
You and I could never win
Cause we can never act out our parts
If love is the Bible
Then we are lost in sin
Because its not in our hearts

So why don’t you go your way
And I’ll go mine
Live your life, and I’ll live mine
Baby you’ll do well, and I’ll be fine
Cause we’re better off, separated

Brandy:
Finally I walked away (yeah, yeah)
Never would’ve seen this day (oh)
Givin’ up on those things that hurt me
Made me who I am today (oh)
Finally I walked away (finally)
Never would’ve seen this day (yeah, yeah)
Givin’ up on those things that hurt me
Made me who I am today

Yo, yo, this is a champion song
Feel me?
Me and Brandy
We have rise to the occasion, c’mon
Like this, talk to ‘em, whoa

I could’ve stayed in that place too long
I would’ve made it ok for you to do me wrong
I would’ve played the role one more day
If I didn’t hear my conscious say

Stop, look around
Is this where you belong? (oh, yeah)
Look at yourself
Are you weak? Are you strong? (oh, no no)
I realize that it’s all up to me (yeah)
To make myself happy

Usher:
If love was a fire
Then we have lost the spark
Love never felt so cold
If love was a light
Then we’re lost in the dark
Left with no one to hold

If love was a sport
We’re not on the same team
You and I are destined to lose
If love was an ocean
Then we are just a stream
Cause love isn’t for me and you

Brandy
Looking back on my choices made
Thinking about the things I did to make you stay
Wonder sometimes why my love didn’t turn to hate
Then I hear the same little voice inside me say

Stop, look around (look around)
Is this where you belong? (is it where you belong)
Look at yourself
Are you weak? Are you strong?
I realize (I realize) that it’s all up to me (it’s all up to me)
To make myself happy (oh oh)

CHORUS:
Finally I walked away (walked away)
Never would’ve seen this day (giving up)
Givin’ up on those things that hurt me
Made me who I am today (oh yeah)
Finally I walked away
Never would’ve seen this day
Givin’ up on those things that hurt me (givin’ up)
Made me who I am today

Oooohhhh, ooooohhhhh, ooooohhhhh, oohh
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Oooohhhh, ooooohhhhh, ooooohhhhh, oohh (walk with us, walk with us)
Finally I’m where I’m suppose to be
Finally I’m where I’m suppose to be (c’mon)
Finally I’m where I’m suppose to be
Finally I’m where I’m suppose to be
Finally I’m where I’m suppose to be