What I’ve been up to lately…

 

Since my last post (haven’t bothered to check when) some good and bad things have happened to me. And there they are, in no particular order of importance.

1. I got a new haircut ( Didn’t take pictures of my last haircut) and trimmed my beard

I hate being bored or be left doing the same over and over again. So every so often I like to change things up in my life and includes growing a beard after getting tired of my babby-bottom-smooth look or shaving it all off and going for a quazi Buddhist monk look.

Off topic: Some studies have shown that growing a beard shields your face, at least some part of it, from UV rays (I’m assuming these UV rays are bad for men alone).

And the reason I don’t take many photos of me looking scruffy is because most of the time I know I don’t look good but I do it all the same just for the fun of it. It’s different from what I’m used to and that’s all that matters. But by limiting the amount of photographic evidence of my grooming misfires, I also limit the number of  what-the-fuck-where-you-thinking moments when I’m going through my photos as an old man.

2. Got a new crush…Well not exactly a crush but read on

First of I don’t know if calling my feelings for her a crush is appropriate. I’m too old for one , I think. At 28 I know what I want and what I don’t want. Yes, I do 🙂

Crushes are for pre-pubescent and pubescent kids (with their accompanying scent) who don’t know what to call what they’re feeling for this girl or boy in particular. Why her, why does she make my stomach grumble even though I just ate? Why does my heartbeat go funny anytime I see him?

Some people say that at thirty you’re decided on which course to take in life. You become set in your ways, until you make a cozy bed for yourself with the earthworms and bugs in your casket. I feel this at 28 so I know exactly what I’m feeling for her.

I told her that I liked her when I should have told her I am in love. But I think I made the right decision of revealing dial number six on the scale of feelings since I told her this over the phone.

I hate talking about weighty issues that should be talked about in person, on the phone. And my friends it doesn’t get any weightier than this believe me.

But the good thing is the ice is broken. Part of the chill of starting up conversations has dissipated. And this I like a lot so we’ll see how things progress.

3. Tackling my stutter head on

I have spent so much of my life shackled and paralyzed by my stutter. And so for the past couple of weeks I have decided to finally face it head on like a fearless bull fighter or a drunk Liverpudlian facing this same bull.

Stuttering has shaped my life for better or worse.

For better because, it’s  shaped and molded me into one hell of a tough bastard. At least inside. Outside I’m still a wimp. But don’t test me 😉

For worse because it’s retarded, or more accurately I’ve allowed it to retard my growth from boyhood to manhood. Proper manhood.

So what I’ve been doing is paying closer attention to my speech and not neglect it like I’ve always done and only kick myself for failing to work on my fluency when I start stuttering badly in some tense situation or other.

 

PS: I apologize if you were expecting me to have climbed Everest, gotten married, had a son , speed-read my way through 300 books, cycled around Ghana or learned tap dancing or Alkayida or accomplished some other great feat.

I live a boring life.

But it’s mine 😉

 

– Steve.

On Mortality

There are a couple of things I fear in my life. I fear losing a loved one, I fear ridicule for ridicule sake especially one without justification, I fear not being as good as I think I am and I fear growing up a failure and poor. All of these though pale in comparison to my fear of death.

The reaper must be rubbing his hands together with glee if he can read English.

I think I read somewhere that most men think more about sex within the course of the day, than anything else. Thoughts of my mortality come a close second for. Third is how I’m going to die. Would I have any last words and if I did who would hear them and what impact would it make on their lives or on that of my family. Would I say anything worthwhile other than “FUCK!” ? Would I die slowly, alone, or in the company of incompetent surgeons? List goes on and on

The whole notion of leaving this plane of existence, that’s if there is another plane, and having all bodily remains of yourself eviscerated with time bothers me. I matter. Goddammit I matter. I didn’t come into this world after nine months of conception, which was a product of some months of courtship  then marital consummation, to then vanish from it like vapour.  Even if my contributions to the world at age 27 might not be as solid as that of my peers, I do matter.

I suspect my fear of dying is a product of my fear of dying unfulfilled. Dying without accomplishing even half of the things I have planned for myself and the world. I mean I live in a country with a shit movie industry and I have plans to change that. I grew up with some money, big house and a car, then lost it all when dad died. So I want to taste the good life all over again. That’s not too much to ask is it?

I want to see the eyes of my unborn children swimming around in my ball sack. See if they inherit my nasty smoking habit, hair colour, nose, size and shape of head, intelligence without the depression, see if they turn out to be mostly girls or boys, gay or straight or transgender.

This kind of shit matters goddamit and the thought not seeing them because I could have a fatal heart attack, or stroke, or get stabbed or shot dead without warning, really pains me.

Don’t you all wish the universe in its infinite mysterious ways tattooed our foreheads, or somewhere most obscure, with our expiry dates the moment we’re pushed from vagina or cut out from womb? For example, at birth this would be my tag/stamp/tattoo on my butt cheek

Name: Stephen Nelson

Expiry date: so and so

Side Note: Better get a move on son, clock’s ticking

Yeah so what if something like this would take out mystery from life? So what, who cares? Some of us need surety to make us function.

May be the whole idea of mortality should never have been discovered or identified by human beings. It should just have been one of those things that just happen and we let it. Without any lengthy philosophical questions or discourse. We just accept it and move on with our lives.

Animals die all the time. I’ve never seen any kind of them gather round each other to mourn their dead.

Who has ever heard of funeral rites being held for a rat, by fellow rats?

Anyway… In the words of AL Kennedy, Onwards!

Been Thinking ’bout…

Been thinking about…

1. Multi-coloured socks that don’t match any colour on their owners
2. Gregorian chants
3. Cars painted black without air conditioning  in them with their owners fanning themselves with their palms.
4. Being biased on purpose.
5. Lack of a litigious spirit and mind set in Ghanaians, at least the ones that grew up here.
6. One hit wonders in all artistic discipline.
7. What God’s plans are for the human race. Just a second’s peek into his daily planner would do.
8. Whether there was, is and ever will be a God with all the misery in this world.
9. Why a supernatural being would create a human being then send him to earth to be tested by the pleasures of this world and when he fails he is then condemned to eternal damnation? How can this be true if He is supposed to be a  loving and caring supernatural being ?
10. Organized religion being one big, gigantically-enormous and  ridiculously well-executed con!

[dUkE]

Been Thinking ’bout…

Been thinking...

Been thinking about…

1. Losing all inhibitions except the ones that keep you out of the crazy-house.
2. Suffering fools when you could be killing them.
3. Girls that come with instruction manuals.
4. Where to find one. (refer to 3)
5. Students who would remain terrible actors even after graduation.
6. Bags with tricky contents in them.
7. Tough chicks with a soft interior.
8. Funny looking and sounding names.
9. Chewing gum until it chews you.
10. Pregnant women performing on stage (culprits are M.I.A and our very own Sherifa Gunu)

[dUkE]

The ups of growing up

At 25 I find myself caught between a bygone phase of careless foolishness and the coming one of responsibilities that proper adulthood demands.

I feel like the septuagenarian of the 20s not quite the centinarian 30 but getting there. Instead of probably limping around with a walking stick I have noticed that my left tendon aches after long walks. But that might just be a my body’s way of telling me to get off my butt in the mornings and workout instead of devouring my ‘koko and kose’ right out of bed, sometimes without brushing my teeth.

Doing an early morning walk or jogging is out of the question since like most people I’m sure, I love my sleep too much to be panting around the streets of Accra at 4am with the risk of getting ‘kwasheed’ to boot.

Another thing that is completely out of the question is a gym membership. Two things. Can’t afford it, yet and I would hate the look of walking around with man boobs just to prove you can take on the average guy in a fight or that you’re a stallion in bed.

Again at 25 I feel less pressure to do things that are not important. This might sound a tad trivial but you can’t imagine the pressure that my youth put on me to be generous with my stupidity. I have a suspicion this might have something to do with this fucked up part of our genetic code that we can’t get rid of even after millions of year of evolution.

By the laws of evolution, you HAVE to fuck up when growing up so you know that you ARE growing up.

Some would say it is a sign of independence and that it is a good thing but I disagree. Looking back with 20/20 vision I would have been a millionaire or been more successful in life had I not wasted time and resources on the ‘other stuff’.Nevertheless I would at the same time take the plunge and say without being overly self contradictory that I wouldn’t trade that youthful stupidity for all the salt in the ocean. I am a better man, a tougher-minded man,a smarter man, an even wiser man as a result.

dUkE_

Where have all the dead gone?

This is me thinking aloud.

Are all human beings made up of what the major religions call the body soul and spirit? Are some human beings more human than others because of their imperfections caused by say mutation, a freak accident in the arrangement of their genetic code? Do I have to treat tall people with the same respect, fear, love and hate as I would short people ( politically correct term is vertically challenged I believe) ?

Where do babies come from? I mean really come from. I dont mean the womb or from a man and a woman’s moment of intense sexual pleasure or bought from the babies’ factory down the road to the supermarket or from the hospital or delivered by storks in the dead of night like santaclaus.No.Where do they really come from? Anyone?

Where have all the dead people gone to? May be hiding under your mattress, or in that tiniest of spaces between your bathroom mirror and the wall supporting it, or remind you of their presence with an unexplained cold chill down your spine every now and then, or paying you a courtesy visit in your dream to see how quickly they’ve been forgotten? Or may be dead people are transformed into beings I call ‘body replacement characters’, replacing our old bodies with slightly bigger ones when we’re asleep? Where do we go when we sleep anyway?

-dUkE-

Count your blessings

Sometimes I feel that I should be grateful for the things I have and for those things I didn’t have, because I would have been miserable if I had them or worse, be dead. I should learn to thank God,yes the one with the big G, the universe and any other elements, unknown to me for a pretty damn good reason I’m sure, that are responsible for my being here. The only thing I could accuse ‘them’ of is being careless with my comfort, or lack there of, on this planet. I could have been born to the same parents, but richer. I could have lived in a stress-free, loving but not perfect family. That would make me more uncomfortable; perfection that is. I could have developed into someone who could fearlessly back up his radical thoughts with the needed action. Instead I’ve grown up to be a wuss of sorts. A pansy. A grown ass boy who can’t defend himself with speed in a heated argument but would rather settle it by his fists…

But then again, I think I should be grateful for having a marvelously inventive brain and a functioning body devoid of any terminal diseases, that I know of. May be, I might be six feet under with all these things I crave for, who knows.

Extract from my personal offline Diary/Journal
-dUkE-

Can’t keep me down

I find it hard to stay miserable even if I had a good reason to be miserable in the first place. My brain just cant handle prolonged periods of uninterrupted funk.

Whatever it is that gets me down goes away after a while. Wherever that place is I don’t know. I wish I did though, so I could invade it and destroy it, permanently.

I read somewhere that human beings are not designed to be happy for a long time. We are built to enjoy our happiness at short intense burst of emotional episodes. This might explain why some people just cant handle it all when they are overjoyed about something and just let their tears handle the rest of the excitement.

Yesterday ,for lack of a better word was, completely fucked up. I was partly doped up by hanging around my pothead buddies smoking some weed. I helped myself to half a pack of PAL MALL (menthol. I know I should quit :-p). I blew an opportunity to get laid, AGAIN (don’t want to talk about it. But then again does a girl want to fuck you just because she casually invites you into her room? Personally I think not).

I felt tired for no reason, apart from my regular morning exercise which is actually my early morning energy booster and not my Kryptonite , I did nothing other than sit around making small talk. May be I was thinking too hard. I have a formula for thinking. I start with the urgent stuff in my life that need immediate attention, then to dirty stuff, then to plans of  finding the girl of my dreams, then to the mundane, to the cryptic and downright weird, then to more dirty stuff, then back to the beginning. A vicious cycle.

After everything that happened in that one day, I just shut down to reboot my brains to function properly again. I was tetchy and very edgy. Unfortunately I am too passionate a man to keep things bottled up. Unfortunate, because the ones who are closest to me bare the brunt of my nastiness.

Anyway, today wasn’t completely different but much better. I woke up with a clearer and more purposeful outlook on life. I have more ”Vim” as we say over here. Nothing is as bad as you think it is, once you think of all the people who died withing the time you were sulking. Things will and do get better, eventually. I am living proof.

Ps: Sleep is my drug of choice to forget about all my problems; not alcohol or class A drugs 😉

dUkE