I had a whole avalanche of posts lined up. Then Stephen King happened. And whoever wrote and produced Fortitude, Dig and Scent of a Woman. Mind you I have never even read a Stephen King book. But Mr Mercedes was the best thriller in the Goodreads books of the year 2014. I couldn’t resist it, especially after asking for it and kinda hoping TBC didn’t have it but it was right there. I couldn’t leave it behind.
Suffice to say, Stephen King is just messed up.
I am in bed. At 9:58 am. On a Tuesday. GRINS.
I might as well revive this weekly whatnots post.
If you are like me, that is. Our friend B just joined the Android world (he finally admitted that Windows phones suck) and asked me to recommend apps. So I remembered that I have never actually written about the apps that make me sleep better at night. So here goes:
You take the painkillers and they simply don’t work. Not in the least. You get that headache again on a Friday night and you just get mad at the world. You don’t finish your supper and just shut everyone out and go to bed. To struggle to sleep. You decide to not move out of the house the next day. To stay put. To iron all the clothes that have piled up over the month and just chill out. Your hair’s a mess. The growth is just annoying. Maybe that’s why your head is aching. That growth is always painful anyways.
Have you ever had consecutive headaches for no real reason over a few days? Have you been woken up in the middle of the night by a headache? Everyone is asleep. You’re confused, wondering why the hell it’s happening to you. You try to remember what your mum says about headaches. You grope for your slippers and turn on the light. You feel very hot. The side of your head feels like it’s not yours. You want to scream. You hold the part that is aching and pray that this pain is taken far away from you.
Ever felt so at peace with yourself and with the world that you wonder what’s changed? You begin to gain weight, weight that has been elusive ever since you were aware of yourself. You still have your acne but it doesn’t bother you much. You begin to portray more girly traits, complete with a changing wardrobe since the jeans you are used to and growing too tight anyway. You begin to catch up with your girls and slowly get rid of pointless talk in your life. You tweet less, scroll down your Facebook news feed twice a week, only have Telegram and Hangouts as messaging apps and chat a total of five people in these two and watch the news in passing, because you have probably seen an alert online about the same pieces throughout the day. Every once in a while, someone will ask when you are getting married, but that’s once in a blue moon.
Let’s get one thing straight. I’m still stuck in teenage. I still delight in books written for teenagers and young adults. Why? Because teenagers in the US do things we only start doing when we’re in our 20s here. Or let me just speak for myself. They do things I am not even doing yet myself.
Why am I thinking this now, of all times? Two of the few books I couldn’t put down this year are specifically written for young adults. One was Paper Towns by John Green. I found it to be mostly stupid but I couldn’t stop reading all the same. The other is the one I just finished a few minutes ago: All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. I bought it last Sunday, while I was browsing through TBC, quite impressed at how they’d stepped up their stock-recent-books game. Why did I buy it? Because it had been rubberstamped by the Guardian as the next The Fault in Our Stars.
I’m having a mild headache. You know, those ones that you know will disappear once you get home. I was okay before I left the office. Then I got into this matatu with a drunk kange and it hit me that my head was aching. Dude was laughing the whole time, in delirium, not giving passengers change and showing them his “change-less” palm.
“Kama watu huishi kama wewe, hawawezi pata depression,” one passenger at the front quips.
Sometimes, I read books. Boring books. Books that suck the life out of me. Books that claim to be New York Times bestsellers. Books that everyone else has read. Most times, I let them sit on my headboard, waiting for a second chance. Other times I let them sit on my shelf until the day I feel they might be interesting again because my understanding of them has changed with experience. Often times, I just give them out because it’s not good to hoard stuff that someone else might enjoy. I gave away The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. I couldn’t stand it. Turns out my BFF’s mum loved it. I also gave away two John Grisham books: Sycamore Row and Gray Mountain. Honestly John bored me to death with these two. Bear in mind I’m a Grisham girl. Why would he bore me then, you ask? I have a theory.
Sometimes things happen. Inexplicable things. Mind-boggling stuff. Tear-jerking events. You stare at your screen and wonder why such wonderful things are happening suddenly to you. Why you even after all your mistakes. Why you after all the self-doubt. And then you realize this is what miracles are made of. Yes, you have given your all but no, it’s not your doing. Absolutely not. And finally it hits you it was not suddenly at all. It just looked like it was.
Sit through two sermons in a span of four hours and if you do not walk out in the middle of either of them, you should not let the day end without spreading the word. Here I am. It’s been a while since I preached anyway.
For the longest time, I’ve harboured the dream of being an author. I know, not news, Shiku. Fine. Anyway, that’s my dream job.
First of all, calm down. I am here. Still. Second of all, here is why I have been away for forever. It involves Malindi, Kibera and meetings. In other words…
Ai, kwani you thought only celebs can tell us what’s in their bag? Anyway, I didn’t know what to write and I just had to write something to keep these juices flowing.
Here goes:
It’s over. Poof! June is gone. What have you done with your life? Me? Just here taking stock.
He will text or call you just to tell you the most trivial of things, just to ensure he kept you up to date or made you laugh. He will keep calling even when you don’t pick at first because you’re stuck in a meeting. If you are stuck somewhere, say, filling NHIF forms and don’t know those weird numbers, he’ll read them out off head – both his ID number and my mum’s, and any other random number you might want.