Forgive and Forget

Firstly, if you haven't seen Avengers you should. You really should. As soon as possible. You know how people overhype a certain movie (*cough* hunger games) and it turns out to be crap (*cough* hunger games *cough*)? This isn't one of those times. That movie is mad yo! I might even go watch it again.

Now that that's out of the way, on to today's post. Honestly, I had a super exciting day. And then it rained. And I had to hustle to get home. I am exhausted. I was not built for this Lagos struggle. But, because I'm dedicated to you, and this challenge, and I'm watching revenge, I've decided to go ahead and write this. Forgive me if it's brief.

So. Forgive and forget. We've all heard it too many times to count. I'm not even going to bother going through the whole "Is it easy to forgive AND forget?" issue. I'm just going to share a few thoughts and then go to bed.

A while ago, a family (a single mom raising three kids on her own) was financially unstable. Like, they were really in the gutter. And then this man saunter's into the life of the mother. Well, not "saunter" exactly. More like rode in on a white horse, armour all aglitter. He  helped out financially, and provided moral support and all that. Weeks, months, a year passed, and it seemed like he wasn't going anywhere. Like he was the one that would stay.

Now, as life would have it, he went into business with the mum. They were to do a contract together and had an agreement on how the profits would be shared. The contract was executed and everyone was waiting to get paid. There was no problem when days stretched into weeks, cuz government always delays and all. But then when weeks stretched into months. Eventually, it was discovered that the guy had collected the payment a long time ago and disappeared with the money.

Needless to say, things got really horrible really fast. I won't stretch out the story by going into the whole, sad story.

Point is. If you were a child in that family, understanding what happened, knowing it would be tight getting the money to pay the next semester's fees, seeing your mother depressed and sinking into old bad habits, what would you do? Would it be so easy to "forgive and forget"?

I know forgiveness is really important if you want to completely get over something horrible that was done to you. Yeah, I do. But if you HAVE to forget to truly forgive. Then does anyone really ever forgive? Because I know a lot of people never really forget. Something almost always happen to bring the memory back.

I'm gonna go to bed now. Sweet dreams cupcakes :)

The Wedding Planner

Haven't been to a wedding in ages (over a year, to be precise), and I think I kinda lost interest in the whole thing. I used to love going before. Every wednesday service in church, they would announce the people getting married that weekend and encourage to congregation to "come out and show support". So, every saturday, I would wake up, do whatever I had to do around the house, bathe, put on a pretty dress, and sit in my sitting room patiently waiting. As soon as 12:30 reached, I'd start heading to the reception. Did this every saturday, for almost a year. The way people were just marrying, it was like people were rushing the thing.

Anyhu, a family around here where I currently reside has recently been preparing for an upcoming wedding. Cooking, buying gifts, animals, etc. Yesterday, they even fought over whether they were to cook the rice or make the soup first. It was not a small something. And then someone invited me to a wedding today, and I was super excited. Hadn't had wedding cake or wedding rice in a REALLY long time, so I was thrilled. Didn't matter to me whether I knew the couple or not. It didn't matter that year I attended all those weddings either.

After attending a wedding I wasn't invited to, and eating free food that was probably apportioned to someone else, I decided I was going to share my wedding plans with you guys tonight. I'm still unsure whether or not I will really get married, but if and when I decide to, consider this a rough draft of what you should expect.

Attendance: Let's get this straight. I want a SMALL wedding. I'm not really into the idea of people I don't know or particularly like being at my wedding. What do people need that large crowd for? Moral support? Validation? If you need either of those things from anyone (strangers especially) one your wedding day, of all days, then you probably shouldn't be getting married in the first place. It's supposed to be MY special day, innit? So, there will be 50 people at my wedding. A maximum of 80 (if my future husband is skilled at negotiation).

Date: To ensure that my wedding does not attract strays and an unnecessary crowd, it will be on a weekday. That way, only those who were invited and/or truly care will be there.

Venue: I haven't really settled on this yet. I've always thought it would be awesome to get married in a garden somewhere. But it kinda seems like everyone in Nigeria must marry inside church. Am I wrong? Cuz I would love to get married in a garden. Then it now makes me wonder which garden in Nigeria is even remotely close to the splendour of the one garden in my dreams. If the garden doesn't work out, then I guess I'd have to go with the church. A friend of mine also shared an idea I've decided to borrow. He said he'll get married in Obudu just so people won't come. I think that's a brilliant idea. Whatever keeps my wedding attendance below hundred is at the top of my list (•^_^•)

Reception: The idea of the reception is to have fun, so invited guests will be allowed to bring along a plus one. Haven't decided if the reception is gonna be the same day of the wedding or over the weekend though. I think the weekend will be better. Maybe. But then how sensible would it be? Oh well ¯\..(•͡.̮ •͡ )../¯

Item 12: Refreshments :D My favourite part! I love buffets, so I'm definitely gonna have mine at my reception. The walls of the building lined with tables laden with an assortment of delicacies. Food is very important to me, so rest assured there won't be a shortage at my reception. I'm not going to have people serving cuz I know how these Nigerian caterers can be. Hiding food and reducing people's rations so they can take the extra home. It's disgusting. I've fought with several of them at several weddings over this issue. Never mind that I wasn't invited in the first place.

Cake: There will be more than one cake. I got the idea from watching food network. The couple's friends designed like five different cakes for them. The cakes were positioned at different parts of the room, and they cut them all, and let the guest go round and cut slices for themselves. I want something like that. Also, there'll be mini, muffin-sized versions of the cakes packed in cute little boxes for people to take home with them.

Music: I'll most likely just get a friend to DJ. Nigerian bands annoy me, as well as Nigerian DJs. So, I'll just hook my ipod or whatever up and let the songs play from there. I have a pretty decent music collection. I've decided my first dance with my husband should be to Stranger Like Me by Phil Collins. I've always loved that song.

Dress Code: LOL! Almost forgot to talk about this. The colour scheme for my wedding will be Black & Pink. Unless, of course, I find two new favourite colours before then. I want my wedding dress to be black, and my husband's suit to be pink. I think we'll look SO adorable. I haven't decided what style of dress I want to wear, but it's definitely gonna be simple. Of people will allow me, I'll probably just wear jeans and t-shirt to the wedding sef. As for the guest, they can wear whatever they like. I don't care much for all those ankara things. It sha has to be in the colour scheme.

I think that's about it. Souvenirs and IVs and other stuff will be dependant on what's cool at the time. I feel like I'm leaving out something, but I really can't place a finger on it...

...Guess it's not important.

So, that's it. Feel free to share ideas I should probably consider, or your own little wedding plans if you're so compelled.

Pilz out (‾⌣‾)♉

The Introduction

So, yesterday I put up a post. Yayness! I know. Especially considering how dry this place has been.

Please understand it was not my intention to totally abandon this blog. I actually intended to keep putting up stuff here, but it just never happened (awwww). Which is why, to make you happy (of course), I have decided to come back to blogging here. :D My old new blog is now temporarily on hold. To those who were actually following the story there, I apologise. I have something uber special and amazing planned for you :D

I'm trying to get back in the swing of things, so I'm starting with the 30 Day Challenge thing. Fret not. This won't be all drab and boring like last year's own. It's just going to be a series of random posts. Whatever I can think to write about, really. As it turns out, I'm having a problem writing actual stories at the moment so :( Also, I intend to finish the challenge this year (clap for me).

So, I guess that's it. Feel free to chip in wherever you deem fit. I'm really just doing this as a distraction from the black hole of depression that is my life. :)

Yes, I realise this post should have gone up yesterday and yesterday's today. But I need you to ask yourself one thing: "Who really cares?"

If I Won The Lottery

Yes, I've fantasised often about winning some sort of lottery. Doesn't everyone? In these fantasies, I try to play out my reaction, but a recurring problem I face is "Who do I tell?".

I gave up on lotteries a long time ago because I never won anything. Not even those ugly face caps or oversize t-shirts they give away. I just couldn't take the heartbreak and disappointment anymore, you know? Especially because I always went above and beyond. I once bought three crates of mineral in the span of a week in an attempt to win whatever was "under the bottle cap". What are the chances of getting "TRY AGAIN" seventy-two (72) times? And then there was the time I spent almost six thousand every week on Glo airtime texting "WIN" from dawn to dusk. *sigh* Thank God those days are behind me.

Of course, I still get tempted to participate when I hear the commercials on the radio, or see ads in the newspaper, or pictures of winners accompanying the newspaper ads, and I wonder what those people did that I didn't. I adopted several coping mechanisms:

1) Pretend I don't know what's going on.
2) I convince myself the lottery is rigged.
3) I fantasize about playing and winning.

The first never works, the second has come around to bite me in the ass (my cousin won a car), and the third is why we are here today.

To properly fantasize about winning the lottery, I have to first envision myself participating fully. It's the most painful part because the memory of all my lost money haunts me still. Finally, I imagine myself winning. Now, this plays out differently for me every time because I can never quite figure out how I really want to react - get excited, play it cool/indifferent, or cuss them out for taking so much of my money - or who the first person I want to tell is. Well, yeah. The winners are usually published in the papers, or announced on the radio or whatever, but on the off chance that I'm the only one who knows about my win, who do I tell?

You'd think I'd like my family to be the first to know, yeah? LOL. Don't get me wrong, my family is awesome in its own way. But while it certainly has its charms, my family is not bereft of flaws. I've played out several scenarios in my head. The timing and outfits are different in each one, and we aren't always in the same position, but the general outline is the same - It's a hot afternoon, and I enter the house sweating, parched and giddy with excitement. My mother is in her room occupied with the game on her phone and I prance in, perfect teeth aglitter. My greeting is returned with a curt nod as she can't be bothered to look away from her phone screen, and then I blurt out that I have won the lottery. Without hesitation, she pauses the game and smiles at me. "My girl!" She says, her not-as-perfect-as-mine teeth aglitter. My sister and brother appear, seemingly out of thin air, and they proceed to share my money. I ask for a glass of water, and my mother asks why I didn't buy with my newly acquired "wealth". And then I become the family's joint bank account. Get the picture?

Telling the church first, in the name of "giving testimony", is something I'm very unlikely to do. You see, I've come to understand that running a church is a business and, like all businesses, requires financing. Which is why some end to have as many as four offerings in one service. While I'm not against giving my offering and donating when one cause/project or the other is mentioned, I don't see why I would want to go up on stage and announce to the entire church that I just won a ton of money. It's like this:
What I might say: "Praise the Lord! I won two million naira in the lottery. The Lord has been so good to me!"
What the rest of the church hears: "Prraise the Lord! I am now undertaking the financial needs of everyone in the church! The Lord has been so good to us!" And then the usual announcements won't seem so usual anymore. I'll feel like they're being directed at me, because the announcer keeps staring at me while stating how much is needed for new roofing, or the upcoming bazaar. Let's not talk about how popular I'll instantly become, people coming up to "greet" me after service and what-not.

Do I rush to my friends with the awesome news? Well, this is tricky for me, because my friends (the ones I really call my friends) are truly amazing. However, not too lang ago, I was with a friend who recently came into some wealth, and he was speaking quite frankly with me. Telling me how people approach him for a loan on a daily basis, and he feels obligated to help because "they're friends", and how getting his money back has become a problem because most of them are under the impression that there's a lot more where the money came from. He said something that made me laugh a little, but has a lot of truth in it - "Wealth is a tree everyone wants to climb, and I'm the ladder.". Now, I'm considering whether or not I want to be a ladder. Don't really fancy getting stepped on.

I may come across as being selfish or whatever, but I'm really not. I don't have a problem with lending a helping hand here and there, but I constantly try to avoid being taken advantage of. Please, I can't shout. So, in the event that I do win the lottery, I'll most likely keep the news to myself. Wouldn't you? Think about it. I'm sure you'd agree.

Summer Wind - @osisiye

This post was sent in by @osisiye. Hope you enjoy it. You can check out his blog here -> Osisiye's blog

Meanwhile, those of you "missing" me should check out Redish InkSpots I'm working on something for here as well sha, so... Be patient :) yeah. Pilz out niccurrs.

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Two sweethearts like a summer wind
In school, when she had her first period, she snuck a note to me. I’m stained. I ran to the Boys Hostel which was closer to the classes and got her a roll of toilet roll-Rose.

When she gave some teacher lip, the principal sent her out of the class and told her to go cut the lawn where we held assembly every morning. I stayed back in the class-to neatly pack her books into her locker and together we spent all day outside. We sat on old newspaper and watched the whirring of the fan in the classrooms. We ignored the busybody teachers that passed and called us nincompoops. During the night prep, she told me the experience of the afternoon made her itch and I offered to get her some dusting powder. She declined.

During our valedictory service, she introduced me to her mum who gave me a pack of jollof rice. And in the graduation party after, she had her hair in brown hair extensions that looked like the hairdresser got pissed everytime he plaited a strand halfway-Pick and Drop. She wore a brown shirt that parted to reveal her cleavage and if you peered deeper, you would see her black bra. Each time she smiled, the chandelier dimmed. I proposed to her.

She went to one of these universities, modeled on a secondary school. Don’t step out, don’t do this…don’t do them and don’t do those. I took solace in religion. Every

Sunday saw me headed to church, I was the first to get there and while others were in a rush to get out, I stayed back and gloried in her presence. Oh! The church was same as the mission establishment which founded her school, and we never missed the opportunity to see on Sundays-Akoka to Canaan land.

All summer long, we sang a song and strolled that golden sand

I was posted to Lagos. She to Ebonyi. Then she called. ‘Osisiye, I am coming to see you this weekend. I am ready’. I asked no further questions,but got a drink-Alomo.
We went to the beach, I drank some vodka, she danced some salsa. I talked to her friends, she stared into my eyes. We took a walk, down, down past the horses stamping the ground infrequently, past the beach destitutes who built their shelters with refuse bags and palm fronds, past where sand was heaped waiting for trucks that would come in the morning. Beside the sand dunes, she sat with her back on the sand dunes-a bulwark.

I lost you to a summer wind

She stared into my eyes. I kissed her deeply, she clung to my neck and grasped my buttons. When proceedings were about to begin, I encountered some difficulty-a barrier. She took no notice of it, neither did I and we together groaned to tear apart all barriers. After the proceedings, there was some blood-on her thighs. I couldn’t get some toilet roll nearby-no Rose after I hit the rose. She smiled and walked towards the waters. I protested that the salt water wouldn’t be good for her… she smiled. I stayed some distance and watched her squat to cup some sea water, she backed the water body-foreboding and throbbing. In the dark I saw it hulking-a wave. I walked toward her, opened my mouth and felt the waves on my feet drowning my ‘Come Out’. The wave went back just as it came, no squatting princess, just plain bleached sand-endless.

The Audacity To Breathe

Hello ladies and gentlemen.

Please direct your attention to this message -> The Audacity to Breathe

New Year

Happy New year :D

So, everyone did the whole end-of-year-post thing. Well, I'm doing the beginning-of-new-year post. :)

So. Yeah. :|

Sha, I have a new blog. This one will still be here, but that one's gonna be more operational.

I only have one post sha. You can check it out. It's the pilot for a new serie's Ara's Quest. I hope you like it. Please leave comments.

So, happy new year.

I hope y'all have amazing years WAY better than the last.

Peace, love & Ribena :)