WATER THERAPY

I used to abhor the dry and sticky feel on the roof of my palate and tongue that was also characterized by a metallic taste which is nothing but disgusting. Of course, it came with dry and cracked lips that I tried to ebb by applying Arimis on them but reverted to Vaseline because I feel embarrassed going to ask for that in a shop or is it a ‘livestock shop’ now that it is a milking jelly. How does a guy in the city go to ask for Arimis? I cannot even think about how to start asking for it. Ladies can easily buy it and they know where to get the product. Beauty shops? The Arimis I applied was given to me by a female friend while we used to work as salespeople. Me, I don’t know where Arimis is found. So, I just enter a kiosk in the hood and ask for a small Vaseline jelly. The blue one that is odourless. It’s perfect for parched lips, I swear. This reminds me of the song ‘Napenda Vaseline’. Does it ring a bell? It does not need an explanation. Because, when I was in high school, a friend intimated about it and I was left perturbed because I failed to comprehend what he was insinuating. Given that we never had internet on our computers back then, I could not google to find the meaning of what the phrase ‘Vaseline’ meant. I guess he thought I was omniscient about such stuff, but I was green and naïve about it. I let sleeping dogs lie and I guess the bugger was also kind of disappointed and bewildered that I never knew what he was intimating. He was from Nairobi, a cool place, and I was from Eldoret, a semi-rural town that has lost its sheen over the years. I only got to know the meaning years later. Anyway….. I love the way cold water normally moves softly down my gullet, stealing the wry tissue-layer coating the surface of my oesophagus every time I have a burning sensation on my throat. Back then, I used to press a small glass rim against my lips to quench my thirst. The fact that cold water has been branded the efficient thief of heat and thirst in some quarters is not a fallacy but the gospel truth. These days, I have changed my drinking régime. By drinking, I am not insinuating the sipping of ale. No, I am talking about drinking water. Only that it cannot be compared to drinking ale. With liquor, you can down more bottles in one sitting without much ado. However, with water, I swear, it will take you more than an effort to drink the same. Which is totally healthy if you can manage to stretch yourself to drink water in quantity. Oh yes! The quality also matters man. So why water? Obviously, we all know that we need to take at least eight cups of water in a day which we forego because it is not necessary. After all, in our ‘parochial thoughts’, we think that drinking water is a thirst thing as opposed to tendency even if you are not in need of it. I know that drinking water you don’t need kills the thrill of why we drink water when we become thirsty. Plus, water is tasteless. How do you just wake up and start drinking water that you don’t need? You cannot stand it unless you train yourself to be drinking it even when you don’t have the urge. Let me liken it to peeing in as much as there is lots of correlation between the two. You only pee when the bladder is full, otherwise, you may try to release or even force, but nothing comes out. The same case applies to water among some people. You only drink it when the throat indirectly says, ‘Hey, I need some water men.’ Basically, I have changed my indulgence in the way I drink water. I remember reading that glugging water after eating had the effect of hampering the stomach’s digestive powers and interfering with digestion especially if you down more than a glass. And a macrobiotic expert even confessed that it can lead to “acid reflux and heart burn” if you are drinking lots of water immediately after a meal. I don’t subscribe to that school of thought. Me, I drink water even after I have finished eating because that is what I grew up doing. Nowadays, I drink water because I love drinking. I drink after a meal, in between meals and the result has been phenomenal. There is a woman who confessed that drinking three litres of water a day took ten years off her skin. She was right. What she never said was that it also a diuretic (a substance which promotes the production of urine). Read about her here. My journey with water as opposed to hers has been one that is erratic and lethargic. Sometimes I drink more water, sometimes I don’t. But the other day, I noticed that cysts and zits had resurfaced on my visage in full swing. Actually, they were starting to disappear, and I was loving it already. Then, I looked at the mirror and saw some infected hair  follicles on my beard and remembered that I had reneged on my word to at least be drinking two litres of water in a day. So, before I started writing this article, I decided to drink a litre just like that. Drinking a litre of water in one swoop is bad for health. I know. It was just a nice way to remind myself that I should be drinking water to reduce on the dry and scaly skin that I have been having lately. Oh! I also aim to kill the profusion of wrinkles and loss of lustre on my glistening dark skin. All in all, my kidneys got a big relieve in the flush that helped rid my skin of toxins looking at the bigger picture. You see, drinking water has never made me feel this younger than I imagined. My once shriveled lips are now fine and moist. Well, poor dehydration made me have cheilitis and unending cysts which have reduced in frequency since I started drinking water. The pores that were prominent have kind of become less visible. Now I look better than the way an old friend told me that I had aged. I bet the sagging skin is fading, and a jaw line developing. I still have blotches, but I am thinking that they will be a thing of the past once I stick to a good regimen which I have never because I normally leave the straight when I just start something. The best part is that the colour of urine also turns from dark, to light yellow because of consuming mother nature's own clear liquid in apt quantity. Again, the stench that emanates from the loo when unflushed subsides because of the reduction in urea which is broken down into soluble substance by the kidney when you hydrate the body. And when it comes to the skin, the tightness on the surface palliates and a certain kind of radiance starts to permeate on the epidermis. You start having a healthy, moist and younger-looking complexion that is enviable. You don’t become flaky, parched and rough like people of the same age as you. PS. I never intentioned to write anything. But then, the gremlins in my system told me to write something. Now I am writing about water, because water is life, right. Well, I got a scholarship to advance my finance knowledge and skills and the results have been quite remarkable. I had vowed to finish the course but here I am writing, call me a digresser. Men, writing is addictive and fun. Especially when you have no limitations. But I will complete the course someday. And when I do, I will write about it. Hasta La Vista Baby. [Photo Source: Pixabay.com]

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LET'S DO NOTHING

Ta-da. I have finally used this word.

I have resisted the urge not to give in to the demands of the flesh once more. Yes, the priest was right, I should repent. But hey, am just a man.

Procrastination. Only a thorough manager knows how to instill disciple and ensure you never succumb by constantly putting you on toes whether you pay him or he is paid to oversee you do your duty.

Digress.

 “I will tell on you.” My niece uses this phrase when she feels aggrieved and thus, will tell those nasty things to her mom when she comes back.

Me I was used to “Ntakushtaki kwa mamangu.” Well, the language gap is real. I don’t remember doing that but there was one time when I ate at the neighbours and my little sister decided that I was disobeying my mum’s directive of not eating food from the neighbour’s. You see, the traced me to where I was playing at my friend’s place and called me to go for lunch. I dilly-dallied and ate at my friend’s place. My food remained untouched.

Given that my mum had warned all of us not to eat anywhere apart from our house, she saw this as an opportunity to see what would happen to me by ‘foolowing’ me to my mum. She told me on my mum and the strokes I received though a caveat never materialized because I continued repeating the mistake clandestinely. I guess the lashing I received worked in sometimes moderating my appetite when am in a new vicinity.

I really don’t know what was wrong with our mothers during those days. To this day, I have never found a rationale for why they never wanted us to share meals with neighbours when we were around the neighbour’s house.

By the way, back then, the food that was being cooked in our house was never as sumptuous as that which was being cooked at the neighbours. Walai! It’s not that we never cooked good food in our house. But, the food outside tasted more delicious than ours when I was a kid. Hata kama ilikuwa ugali na mboga pekee.

My mum never used to store canes under her bed like some mothers used to do because being a cheeky boy I would sneak and steal the damn sticks and throw them knowing full well that I was the main target.

So, when she got wind of the fact that I had eaten “Kwa kina Steve” and she had warned me never to do that again. She resorted to her common phrase, “Thiom kedi.” And when you came back, she would then say, “Nind piny” after inspecting the cane. I don’t remember ever taking a substandard cane. As opposed to the conventional wisdom, she would beat the hell out of you asking leading questions which you had to answer while crying lugubriously vowing never to repeat the mistake again.

The last time my mum did beat me with a cane was probably when I was in class five or six. I cannot remember very well but when I officially became a teenager, she resorted to revile as opposed to the rod. But occasionally, being the terror squad in the house, she would slap the hell out of you unawares when she was feeling really irked or provoked by your behaviour. Which came once in a blue moon because during my last years in primary school, I became a boarder and that meant less stay at home. Hence, I never came into much contact with her because of the a must ‘holiday tuition’ and the normal school term.

But I appreciate her because she played her role decisively and although she spent most of her time in ‘shags’ just like she does nowadays, her role was pivotal. My old man on the other hand was this easy guy who never saw fault in stuff like eating at the neighbours. Having grown up in shags himself where eating was communal as opposed to the current state where it is capitalistic, he did not see any evil in you eating at the neighbour’s. And he probably did cane me less than three time if I can recall my childhood.

Once he caned me when I was probably six having developed tantrums by crying ludicrously but he was more of a gentleman. He would cane you not more than five strokes and then leave you there. The second time he whipped me, I had been frustrated that he was only buying my sisters clothes from Uganda and I was not being bought any. Being the only naughty boy, I decided not to take it lightly when clothes were bought three times and I was not having any. I pulled the cry card, unfortunately, it backfired. So, he did it because my mum kept pestering him to do it.

My mum was the savage type. She would cane you continuously until her arms got tired. Of course, after the act, she would be motherly and ensured you reconciled because she was not the type who liked keeping grudges. She would then sit you down and ask if what she did was right and you would answer in the affirmative. Plus, when she became endowed, she would buy you new clothes which to us was the best thing ever.

But me, I was like ‘Dennis the Menace’. I loved making trouble more than I loved sticking to norms. I was the kind who had overactive energy and loved engaging in fistfights whenever possible. Once there was a certain boy who did beat me and each time the hood boys who were at the fight saw me after the incident, they would comment, ‘Si wewe ndio ule kijana ulipigwa kama drum.’ The boy was older and bigger than me. Man ile kuchochwa nilichochwa nipigane naye, ni God tu ndio anajua ka nini nilipata kichapo cha mbwa. Normally, the little ones did face my wrath and I would beat them out of their senses when provoked. Even some unlucky bigger 'weakpoints'.

I remember going to play where I had beaten some two boys, and their mum on realizing that I was around came out with a broom stick which she used to give me several strokes because I was constantly beating her two young boys. I went back home crying thinking my mum would use her “lioness lethal force” on this neighbour but she ended up doing the opposite.

“Onyali,” she told me. I stopped crying and went to our bedroom where I did that snuffling thingy because my mum had warned me not to make any noise in her house lest she bring the cane for more dosage because she had also warned me not to go to play outside and I had sneaked.

I guess the phrase, “spare the rod, spoil the child”, was her mantra. Years later, when I interacted with my maternal grandmother, I realized she was the lenient type. She was slow to anger and never did I see her getting as irate as my mother ever does. To date, my mum still has that aura of ferocity especially to those she does not hold in high regard. Not that she does anything sinister but the way she addresses them just tells you how much she thinks of them.

I now wish that the very whips that I used to get from my mum would whip me into shape, to stick to the rote even when I am not feeling like. I err countless times I gave up on abiding by rota. I know the number of times I have departed from one in the recent past. It’s hard saying you will stick to doing some stuff because you might stray in the middle of it like I normally do. I have strayed doing many things mpaka huwa najiuliza kama ‘am serious with life’. But it’s never that serious.

Hasta La Vista Baby.

[Picture Source: My Own]

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FREE WIFI

I swear I have been battling with my discipline and am confident that I lack it. Self-discipline.

Men, it’s likely that I need enforced discipline for the consequences of violating a rote. I wish I could administer this penalty to myself where, “Forgetting means push-ups. Bowing to temptations means sit-ups. Loosing things means docked wages. Lack of respect means seriously long runs with heavy back-packs. Desertion means confinement and other punitive measures that makes one a have the regimen of a uniformed officer”

Temptations. They are like a virulent virus that attacks the body riding it of vital immunity to fight it off. If you think that struggling with disciplinary issues is thus bad, wait a minute. My crystal balls tell me that temptations and indiscipline go hand in hand. If only I was self-disciplined, chances are I would have changed my fortunes given that I would have been able to finish some of the small projects that I work on when I commit. When I don’t, I end up having hanging projects.

You are probably wondering about this indiscipline thing. Well, I promised myself that I would write at least once a week and be consistent. I have lost that war. I write only when I feel like and given that I don’t subject myself through any  pain, I end up being the regular joe who has nothing to die for other that seeing the next day.

The last time I wrote about a writer’s block which I am slowly accepting is inanity from a lazy writer like me who felt like we suffer from it at some point. Serious writers don’t suffer from this illusion. You don’t get a driver saying he is suffering from a driver’s block, ok. I think serious writers wake up and realize that, “I have to feed myself and those who depend on me for survival. And maintain a certain standard.” So, they write. They do it by wreaking havoc, chasing adventure, building castles in the air, mulling somewhere in an isolated sanctuary or even in the bed after sex.  Even if what they write does not make sense. Because there is something spiritual and emotional about penning a thought, that jiggy jiggy feeling.

Officially, I can confess that I write illegibly. Two guys can't be wrong to say the same thing in a span of one week. That they could not decipher what I did put down in black and white, telling me, “Come up again, try it in another way”, it only means that I should simplify my words. Or better still, I need an editor to offer free service till that time I will feel charitable and philanthropic enough to dish out some few shekels by advising if am going overboard.

My indiscipline has cost me. You see, I have been writing in my dreams, splendid openers, delectable bodies and edgy conclusions that are not necessarily an anticlimax. Sadly, most of my stories never see the light of day. They are decoded but never encoded (Whatever! Whichever comes first). A while back when I used to love reading, an author told his audience that in the interest of retaining those abrupt thoughts, you always need a small notebook to pen down the thought because you can easily forget if you try to recall later. It’s true because all I had mused over, contemplating to write here has failed to summon up.

Back in the days when I had a smartphone, I would do that with ease, occasionally when I felt like. Thus, the writing app that I have forgotten the name became my notebook. I would scribe down the thoughts and wait for a time they would be relevant on this blog because my social media platforms are as barren as the ideas that sometimes never see the light of day in my writing. One day, when I grow up, I will be courageous enough to introduce guys to my ‘illegible prose’. When am sure that I have come of age. When I have money, and am independent and can be able to promote the blog on two serious social media platforms with financial ease.

The worst form of indiscipline that will eventually wreck my desired career is procrastination. By now, I should have got the result of a certain application I was making online whether I was to go to the next stage or not. I procrastinated a lot never did the second stage which had a timeline of the online application having finished the first. I did simulations of what I was expected to do, failed lugubriously and got discouraged. I ended up blowing the chance, the only one that I had in probably being a better paid proletariat. Hey, it’s never that serious, right?

My current employer also invited me for training to supplement the few skills to reduce on uncertainty when there was paucity of tasks online. I am currently doing what I came to learn are called secondary skills and men, it’s a hustle. I think, I probably went low on confidence, and when I was finally assessed for the task, a primary skill that has continuous workflow, I failed to reach the pass mark. Like the job I had applied for, there was the training bit before finally doing the final assessment that is graded. I flopped and am now thing of retaking the exam. I don’t know when but I will retake it, another episode of derailing from the norm.

The worst of it all is starting to write, then, in the middle of the collating those thoughts into a seamless flow, an imp comes, tells me to visit the net to find out what others are saying about what I am writing. Obviously, I should do this before I start writing, steal a few phrases and lurid thoughts here and there before I can finally put down my rumination on paper. Folks, I swear I am the reckless type who writes and when I feel like I need a certain phrase, I switch tabs to Google, then searches till I find something I wanted or next to what I wanted.

That boils down to the fact that I rarely have all words as my own, it’s natural if you are not a fulltime pen pusher. I search and get befitting thoughts from various sites online and to be true to myself, I steel some with no reference, in a nutshell, I am a sentences thief. And that is a plausible reason why my cogency is at stake given those two guys I have intimated about earlier could not comprehend what I was annulling at. Which is bad, bad because a writer should be understood at the first glance failure of which you risk losing an audience.

Looking at my fingers, there is dirt under the fingernails and this grey gunk is making me feel like I have turned into a skunk. Some guy wrote online that those stuff are keratin debris that should not worry you because they are ‘pretty harmless’, but who knows.  Not that I am normally dirty, it’s only that I love keeping my nails short to reduce the hatred I have for crap under my fingernails. Boy, I love my nails short, but the nail cutter I have that is almost celebrating its fourth year is not doing me any justice. It has become hell of a blunt cutter but I rarely buy nail cutters, and if I do, they get stolen or go misplaced. Luckily, this one has survived that long because I normally hide it inside my hanged coat once I have finished using it.

My neighbor is one crazy chap. I have a love hate relationship with his free Wi-Fi. Browsing through the net, I realized that Wi-Fi is probably not the abbreviation for ‘wireless fidelity’ as some chap tried to argue. BS.  Apparently, this neighbor only feels like he should put the Wi-Fi on when he is feeling like and not when I need it. As opposed to a certain burger who wanted to hack into the neighbor’s free Wi-Fi on his android phone and he got a just answer on Quora, I managed to find the password to their free Wi-Fi when someone ‘accidently’ logged into a gadget that I use and I realized it saved the password. And because we have not renewed our own subscription on this end, I normally creep on it when I want to access the net. Cost cutting measures unorthodoxically, but do I say.

The other day while working, I was about to enter the submit button and when I checked down on the network signal, I saw five empty bars looking at me given that the network had shown remiss moments before, which I had overlooked. Of course, I had been saying, “I will buy airtime to counter the likelihood of lost Wi-Fi to take advantage of my modem.” That only happened happened when shit came to shove and I had to wake up very early probably being the first guy in the neighborhood kiosk. Yenyewe, kutegemea vya bure ni kutupa mbao.

Talking of free things, I have postponed finishing online courses that I should have finished by now because they are free. As such, we should hate free things  reason being they are free. And we should hate free things with the contempt it deserves because they are not worth the much. Free things more often than not abridge the quality of what we want. They also make us lazy. They induce the 'mbekho' mentality, reduce the incentive the donor affords and encourage lethargy among us. On my part, I seriously need deliverance and cure from free things. Do you?

Hasta la vista baby.

P/S: If only it was free wifey. And I will reward myself when I manage to stick to a rote for even a month.

[Picture source: Google Images]

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