*Sniff sniff*

That is all.

♫ Cavatina ♫ Stanley Myers ♫

This is how I feel today

♫ Pinky and the Brain, Pinky and The Brain ♫

♫ One is a genius, the other’s insane ♫

♫ They’re laboratory mice, their genes are filled with spice ♫

♫ They’re dinky, they’re Pinky and The Brain, brain, brain, brain ♫

♫ Pinky and The Brain, Pinky and The Brain ♫

♫ Their midnight campaign is easy to explain ♫

♫ To prove their mousely worth, they have to rule the earth ♫

♫ They’re dinky, they’re Pinky and the Brain, brain, brain, brain ♫

♫ Te-re-re-re-ren, ten-ten ♫

Pinky: So, what shall we do tonight Brain? NARF!

Brain: Same thing we do every night Pinky: Try to take over the WORLD

**cue thunder and lightning, or lab-lights short-circuit blackout**

I love the animaniacs. Hellooooooo Nurse!

Also, there’s this bajaji driver in my hood who likes to hit on mboches.  I saw him hitting on mine and wanted to smack him backwards. As soon as she ducked indoors, he was hitting on another mboch. And when I came back later he was hitting on a  third mboch, and then a fourth.

His strategy is simple; he hits on them at the kiosk, and soon as one goes back to their workplace, he picks another one. So each of the girl thinks she’s the only one.

I just hope those girls are using Salama.

Another of the neighbourhood lotharios has been on my case, pleading for my name and asking to get to know me. I generally ignore him, poor lost boy. Yesterday I caught him skirt-handed with some local girl drawing maps and giggling. Poor lost girl.

Anyway. It’s Friday, smile. It could be much worse!

♫ Necessary Noize ♫ At the altar ♫

Wow!

In the words of Loco, Milo and Archer, I have just been shot dead, burnt alive, and scared half to death. In that order. And it’s only Thursday!

A friend whose opinion I value, and who knows me pretty well, said something to me today. He says that maybe some people find me two-faced. They feel like I try too hard to be liked. They think I project an image that is popular, but that eventually, the real me peeks out, leaving people disappointed.

Le sigh.

Perhaps this is why people who start out thinking I am intelligent, mature and mysterious end up comparing me to unseasoned breakfast. Or why people who think I am liberated, strong, a regular Mustang, end up thinking I am an illegitimate…

Le double sigh.

With the amount of TMI on this url, I don’t see how people can possibly get the wrong idea about me. I’m worse in person and on chat. I am frightfully honest in all things. It’s unhealthy!

I have such an obsession with being ‘real’ and being ‘true to myself’ that anyone thinking I am not hurts pretty bad. Worse still is the idea that maybe I’m not real at all, that maybe I’m even lying to myself!

I think people will draw their own conclusions no matter what I do. They will think I am fabulous, or mean, or cold, or bitchy, or prudish, or loose – the blind men and the elephant – all partly right, yet all partly wrong.

And they will share their opinions, just like I do.

Another friend said it doesn’t matter what people think of you, only what you think of yourself. Right now, that isn’t a whole lot

So much for being happy. Le big sigh.

The truth hurts, but usually, I am on the other side of the hurting. Usually, I am the one being brutally honest and watching people crumble at the result. I am not angry, I am grateful to my friend for sharing the truth.

But damn, it stings!

Off to meditate my crown now. Maybe I can open it without chasing Jack and Jill down a hill or getting wet.

♫ Linkin park ♫ From the inside ♫

Socially blonde

Kinda speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

A dear friend said something to me a few days ago. He said my naïvete must be a front, because I am too smart to be that dumb.

Well, he didn’t use those words exactly, and don’t worry hun, I didn’t take offense. But you know me, any little thing I see or hear gets churned through my mind, bounced around, analysed, echoed, overthinked [doesn't that just sound so much better than 'overthought'?]  and massacred until there’s nothing left but beetlejuice [beetlejuice beetlejuice ** cue carry-me-banana song**]

Sorry, just had to throw that in there *cheeky grin*

♫ Gnarls Barkely ♫ Crazy ♫

I made a similar comment to another friend, though that time, I wasn’t referring to myself. I was talking about someone I know, and wondering how he can be so smart about some things yet so dense about others. Hehehe looks like kharma has come for payback. Which reminds me of my niece dissing me once ‘Auntie, you’re so dim mpaka you’re dark.’ Ouch!

And did you know that in Dar, the equivalent of mchongoano is ‘tangazo tangazo’? As in ‘tangazo tangazo, kuna mmoja hapa, kichwa chake gololi’  Tsk tsk.

Back to the point. My friend responded that we’re all like that really. We all have one area where we’re gurus and another area where we’re pre-schoolers, Ask any Doctor or PhD professor.

Thing is, I know a lot of stuff in theory. It’s my intuitive side, my reasonable side. But I haven’t actually practised half the stuff I harp on about. This is especially true when it comes to social pretense, corporate culture … and boys. So I’m still at the place where I believe that if I just speak my mind, open my heart, and always tell the truth, especially to the boss, or on the first date, then the sun will shine again.

Probably because I’ve never actually dated boys before. Yeah, I know, that one of Baba Princess wasn’t exactly dating, it was default *cheeky grin*.

I’ve never had the ‘waiting for the call’ experience, or the ‘wondering if I should ask him in for a nightcap’ moment or the ‘drawing maps and hovering with my hand on the doorknob-thingie wondering whether he will kiss me’.

I’ve read about all those, and giggled about it, and said ‘if he likes you, he will call you, duh!’ But before now, I have never been the girl who sits with my friends analysing the conversation and walking around with my phone just in case he calls, panicking if the battery runs low or if the boss asks me to switch off the phone during a meeting.

So, things that are obvious to most people, things that they picked up in high school, things like that are rocket science to me. I am just now learning that girls are actually meant to play  hard-to-get. But not too hard, or else he’ll give up and walk away. You’re supposed to be all rare and mysterious. Give too much information too soon and you become, well, boring.

I am learning that girls are not supposed to consistently look a boy in the eye, because … well, lots of different reasons really. I am learning that girls are supposed to let the guy pay for things if he wants to, because if you insist on paying all the time, he will think you’re a dume-jike … or worse, a feminist!

I am learning that you are supposed to be the gazelle and run way, even if you really want to be caught, and that at the exact right moment, you are supposed to inconspicuously slow down and let him catch you, just like in chobo-na-ua-kamata-dame.

It’s like the child in the story who smiles at lightning because God is taking her picture. It’s cute in a kid, but in an adult, it inspires snide remarks and ngotos. Throw in my trait of  being overly emotional, my sense of drama, and my  tendency to throw tantrums, and things don’t turn out so good.

The thing with me  is that my blonde areas are rather … disadvantageous. I know of people, girls mostly, who are dumb as a rock when it comes to schoolwork, but boy, can they run the rat race! Doesn’t matter how they do it, they know how to get their way, And it doesn’t matter to them that they’re still, you know, rats. I sometimes think world smarts are worth so much more than book-smarts.

I’m not ashamed of the way I am, not really. I like the child that I am. It’s just that I am finally starting to recognise it as a weakness, and starting to do something about it. I’m starting to see that to survive in the big bad world, I have to learn some big bad tricks.  I am learning how to play the game. Slowly and painfully yes, but I am learning. And that makes me really really sad.

I suppose on the upside, I am evolving into a higher … thing. One that can function better in the real world. But I have to say, my fantasy world is so much more fun, and I’m not entirely sure I want to leave it

I had a conversation yesterday, a sort of introduction to a new friend. I’ve had this conversation a few times before, but never like this. This time I was conscious, wary, weighing my words. Which is the ‘right’ thing to do, the ’smart’ thing to do. But I couldn’t help feeling like I was conning my new friend, not giving him the full CB experience. I felt like I wasn’t being true to myself, I wasn’t being me. For the first time in my life, I put in a conscious mask.

And it sucked raw eggs.

I don’t know why that bothers me – I’m only doing what everyone else does.

But then again, I’m not everyone else.

The reason I wore that mask is that I don’t want my new friend to react the way everyone else reacts. I want him to see me as me, and to like me for me. Which is lame I guess, but there you are.

Of course, how my new friend reacts is not really my call, now is it.

And I don’t want to do all those things. I don’t want to wear this mask.

I am glad that I have K2, the one special boy in my life who takes me as I am, does not think I am completely loopy [partly yes, but not completely], and who thinks that ‘boys in my part of the world must be crazy to be frightened by my honesty’. Yay!

I’d like to have a few more friends who are like my K2, even just half of him really, or a quarter, coz I know he’s one of a kind. K7 comes close though *wink*

I do have some hope. Just as I am stepping out into this bold new … eh … world, I see traces of my Cb-niverse that say what the heck, you don’t have to adapt. Or conform. What I really need to do is find a few people that like it in my universe, some pseudo-K2’s and mini-CBs. Then we can go around in our own little bubble.

I can  interact with the world at world level, but interact with my world at my-world level.

Before, I tried to drag the world into my world, kicking and screaming. Which of course did a lot of damage to my interior decor. Especially the windows.

But now I see that I can have it both ways. I can chill out on the balcony, vet my neighbours, figure out which of them would like it inside, and invite them in. I’ve got a few candidates already **cough*cough*K7*cough*K13*cheeky grin**

The rest can stay in the garden smelling the butterflies and playing with the flowers.

It would involve masking, but only for a little while, and when the mask gets tiresome, I just pop indoors, grab a good book,  and dive into a bubblebath. Beats adjusting my nature to suit the world.

Also, you know how in those old stories there’s always some old lady in a rocking chair, sitting on the verandah and knitting a sweater? I could do that.

Not the knitting, I don’t knit very well. But I could stitch myself a nice world-proof dungaree to wear when I go out into the world. One that has an urban camouflage feature woven into it. And  I can leave it at the door when I get home, you know, just hang it on a pretty little coat rack.

I think I’ll make it burgundy.

♫ Fix you ♫  Coldplay ♫

In this moment I am happy. Yay!

The first key to the law of attraction is to follow your bliss. i.e. find things that make you happy. Many many many things. Feel good and good things will come to you.

Right now, I feel good.

Come here you good things you *cheeky grin*

This could probably have gone on twitter, yes? Looks about 140 characters long. Oh well

Why can’t I stop grinning?

♫ Haiya ♫ Harry Kimani ♫

My blessing, my curse?

I consider myself a loner. I do my own thing and rarely follow the crowd. Except during Princess’ five-month check -up when I realised that all the other kids had shaved off their baby hair, and figured maybe it’s a health thing, so I promptly got a pair of scissors and snipped off the pretty curly locks. Le sigh. It grew back though, less curly, and more red than black, but still pretty.

Anyway, point is, I’m lucky in the sense that I don’t feel the need to ‘fit in’, so I’m pretty safe from peer pressure, negative or otherwise. Granted I occasionally get an attack of the Joneses, where I look at what my friends have achieved, and begin to question why I haven’t done XYZ, but that’s once-once … mara moja-moja tu.

I do have a weaknesses that covers that, so to speak. Sort of like my chakra.

What.

A few days a go I had no idea what chakra was, except that it involved a skeleton and coloured balls. But I now know that my sacral chakra is healthy, my navel chakra is under-used, and that as a result my throat chakra has overcompensated. In other words, I’m cold and I talk too much, but my sex drive is just right.

What.

Also, my third-eye and root chakra readings suggest I spend too much time inside my own head, and that I over-fantasize and am prone to hallucinations, and possibly paranoia. Interesting.

My heart and crown chakras are almost fine, so I am allegedly semi-friendly and partly-wise, but very in-assertive, and quite possibly passive aggressive.

Where do these people get these things … and how can they be so uncannily accurate? Creepy.

But I digress. My point was that while I don’t generally flow with the current, there are certain people that I like and  whose company I enjoy. It is important to me that these people like me, so I sometimes contort myself to ridiculous proportions to maintain their idea of me. And contortion can be a very difficult and painful experience. Especially when you’re a dunce at yoga.

Le double sigh.

Now why did I get into chakras again? Oh, right. I realise that in line with my … um … contortioning, and my overactive throat thingie, I tend to let slip things that I should not let slip. And by the time the throat is exhausted, the damage is done. Words, unlike legos, are not things you can take back.

So I’m thinking maybe my likéd ones should just stop telling me things. At least until I learn to shut my big trap…

In the meantime, please don’t be mad. I didn’t mean any harm. Honest.

Off to do some meditating to fix my chakra. It even shows me how to hum. Yay!

♫ The first cut is the deepest ♫ Sheryl Crow ♫

Que’est-ce que c’est?

Or as Hugo would say:

Ma Victor, what is it that it is that is it?

That’s what I think anyway!

Disclaimer : This here has banned me from incomprehensible incontextual tweets, and this other one refutes similar facebook status updates, but nobody said anything about blog posts *cheeky grin*

Alors [clearly, I aim to exhaust my French vocabulary today] is it possible for two people to do … or say … the exact same thing and have completely different meanings?

Take this in the context of a typical CB-uation, where I analyse everything from the air you breathe to the angle of your nose when taking said breath.

Now, I know two people can go into the same Nakumatt with the same stated aim of buying Omo and end up with two different soaps – powerfoam and new blue omo with powerfoam extra to the power of ten  herbal…

I don’t mean that.

I mean two guys standing at a stop sign staring at the green light and … wait bad example.

I mean like when two boys say ‘let’s just be friends’, and one means ‘Really, let’s be friends’, while the other one means ‘girl, will you please stop stalking me?!’ That type of thing.

Is that possible?

This would make a lot more sense given in context **puzzled frown**

Okay, supposing two guys give you a flower.

A yellow rose.

Folklorically, [no, that's not a real word] yellow roses mean ‘let’s just be friends’. In the Dolly Parton song [yes, I admit, i know an annoyingly unhealthy number of Dolly Parton songs] the dude gave her a yellow rose the day he met her, the day he left her, and pretty much every day inbetween. Could mean she liked yellow. Could mean he liked yellow. Could also mean he was yellow. Or maybe yellow-yellow … oh never mind.

So, is it possible that one guy’s yellows rose means he digs you while another guy’s yellow rose means he dumped you?

Example two, chocolate. A boy gives you chocolate because he likes you, right? Or because his dad works at the chocolate factory and he likes you, right? Or because he’s lactose intolerant … and he likes you, right? Right? Or because he just really hates chocolate and he likes you, right?

So … chocolate = he likes you, right?

Or … a girl calls you because she has airtime, yes? Or because there’s an offer or free calls from zain to zain, so she has airtime, yes? Or because she has an urgent message for you and she has airtime, yes? Or because her boss told her to call you and she has airtime, yes?

So … a girl calling you means she has airtime, yes?

No, I still can’t find a way to put it in context **more puzzled frowns**

Oh well. I’ll be back…

4 twighaps and a fu … facial: A rant in four parts

Firstly, yes, I love Hugh Grant. It’s the hair. And the little-boy-lost look. But mostly, it’s the hair.

Secondly, all ye who … well … this could take a while.

Thirdly, this is not going to make a lot of sense so … yeah.

So. It is no secret that I am now into the secret. Yes, I know, a lot of people think it’s silly crazy hoopla, but it works. Really. At least, it works for me. Sometimes it works so well that it’s scary.

I have, since reading the book, manifested a dress, green eyes, and 2012.

Yes, I realise that sounds *slightly* insane, so I shall move along swiftly to less loopy matters. Bear with me, I am going somewhere with this. Though in all honesty, I don’t know where that is yet.

Incidentally, they say ‘tell me what a man [or woman] laughs at and I will tell you who he/she is.’ There’s a rather nasty joke going round twitter. Something about Chinese phones. It’s really mean … but it’s also really funny. Almost as funny as – don’t kanye me. So, I wonder what that says about me. Hm.

Oh ok, four twighaps and a facial. A twighap is not something connected to twitter. It’s something connected to a twigget. Or rather to my desire to be a twigget.

A twigget, btw, is anybody who works with computers. I picked the term off K2. I have a fetish for twiggets generally, though I have particular issues with one particular twigget, whom I have **cough*cough*affectionately*cough** named … Twiggy.

So, back to my twighaps. They’re actually a lot more than three, but the key ones for today are three. So I shall perhaps name the sub-haps a,b,c … or 1,2,3 … or maybe αβγ?

Twighap number αlpha

So Sasha Black got sick. I went galivanting on Limewire and grabbed a few Worms while I was there. Squiggly little things. As a result, I had to format Sasha. But the CD that I have was missing two files: shell sth sth and RM. Cast. No, it’s not a conscious pun; it’s pretty good though.

Anyway, thanks to the missing files, installation couldn’t be completed. Since I have no friends here and Twiggy blew me off twice, I asked K1 to mail me a CD from Nairobi. He did, but the couriers lost it, denied losing it, talked mbaya, put off their phones, and eventually found my CD … 7 days later.

So I formatted. Initiated password and … forgot password. So I formatted again. Then I got on Limewire to find my Ally Mcbeal soundtrack and … heard the familiar neighing sound. So I formatted again. And this time I went hunting in torrent but … wait, that’s the next twighap. This one at ends at 3.00 a.m after formatting three times, then accidentally losing my itunes and…

Twighap number β: How I lost my itunes

It was a dark and stormy night and Little CB was walking drowsily in twitterland, typing in her sleep and trying to install lost programmes. Suddenly, she stumbled on a folder called Realplayer. It was really pretty with this great big S on it’s shirt, just like Superman. She tapped it. Nothing happened. So she tapped it twice.

This realplayer wasn’t a realplayer at all, it was a Storm Codec. A very mean one at that. The Storm Codec promptly messed with her Itunes 9 by downgrading Quicktime to a 6. CB didn’t realise this, and wondered why her Itunes gave an error message every time she turned it on.

Eventually, after 7 different install-uninstall sagas, she realised her mistake and decided to uninstall the Storm. But alas, it was not over, for the Storm took with it Quicktime, and now Itunes wouldn’t work at all. So Little CB went hunting for another Quicktime, or at least for another Itunes. But the net was too slow and the Apples on the page had nothing but pips and cores. Kinda like a webpage that’s pure html…text.

Several hours later, little CB is downloading Itunes 9 and Quicktime on the same slow connection. It has been two hours. Progress is at 62.3%…

Twighap number γ: At the office

So a good friend of mine is trying to introduce me to the classics. Or more specifically, to the gymnastic power of the classics. My dabbling is restricted to Vivaldi, SSQ and Water Music. The Messiah is good too, I sang those in school.

Also, I have difficulty listening to extended sessions of wordless music. It’s like meditation – the mind drifts. So while I enjoyed singing ‘All we like sheep’ and I adore the canon and Vivaldi’s 3-minute piece in A minor, it’s excruciatingly … well … excruciating, to have to listen to an entire Concerto. I mean an entire concerto! That’s like two hours of nothing but strings!

That said, my week has been spent fighting with torrents and skiving the inevitable *cough*cough*candy* that comes on the homepages … **shudder** … Which attests to the affection I have for my good friend The Introducer aka K6.

For days the file wouldn’t torrent. At first I thought it was blocked ports, but I realised it was blocked brains, specifically, mine:

You are about to start a torrent … *gibberish gibberish* … will continue to upload … **more gibberish ** … to other users … **pretty html text** … stop manually. Are you sure you want to do this?

Yes.

Use default utorrent or Opera?

Opera.

**blink blink**

For we the unitiated, when you’re starting a torrent, it is generally a good idea to use default utorrent, coz, you know, it has the word ‘torrent’ in it. And yes, it is blonde to stare at the resultant Opera download transfer page and wonder why it isn’t doing anything.

Long story short, I got my Rachmaninov. Piano Concert No. 3 in D Minor, op 30 – III Finale Alla Breve [3^rd Movement] has some funky bits, notably the first two minutes, and similar motifs between minutes 3 and 5, 9 and 11, and somewhere around minute 13. Plus, I have to say, its last two minutes is some good baby-making music. Fast, racy, authentic buildup, the perfect soundtrack to *almost there* Me like.

The rest belongs in a TCM movie. Or maybe that’s where I heard it. Now generally, I like TCM movies, but music that belongs in a TCM movie, to me, is like a musical. I love music, I love dancers, I love movies. But I don’t like them together. I have major issues with people dancing when they should be walking, singing when they should be talking, and using words in the one place you’d rather hear melody. Like, say, in the shower.

Hence, I don’t much like opera except on CD or radio. Or on my PC. That goes double for Bollywood. Except for the Indian Fist Jig. Rules, exceptions, whatwhat.

Also, I totally dig Michael Nyman. Especially the 69 different versions of the piano theme [The promise, The sacrifice, sth to do with talking hearts ... same motif, different expression]

Oh wait, I forgot the office part.

Well, I discovered Microsoft Office 2007. Preeeetty!

And Twiggy forgot to reinstate my password when the domain crashed, leaving me with missing t’s, crossed IPs, and a PC that can only log in as admin.

On the upside, I have partial admin privileges … mwehehehehe. And he even gave me permission, so yay!

And why are my neighbours listening to Carmen sounding like Miley Cyrus?!