I don’t sleep.

I just sit in my car watching condensation turn into frost on the car parked next to me through semi-translucent wisps of smoke, pondering why I’m not sleeping.

Somewhere in the middle of giving advice to those with lost faith in love and continuing down this path of solitude, my thoughts dart back and forth between cursing my biological proclivity to need rest, and my psychological inclination not to sleep.

I walk wearily alone, accompanied by a powerfully paralyzing paradox.

So I don’t sleep. I just listen to the voices in my head.  Since I have an acrid distaste for arguments, I ignore those voices once they begin debating and zone out to some music. Eventually that sparks thoughts too. Usually about the same time my cigarette burns out and I start to wonder why I’m smoking again.

I’m already in the car. I figure I could either ignite it and drive to the gym, or not, and stroll back into my room and continue giving advice on love eternal. I figure I could also pen a blog or two whilst chatting the night away with the lady loveless.

She’s lovely. She really does deserve the best. Were I emotionally available, I’d probably try to give it to her. But she probably wouldn’t notice, and I would find myself with a longer list of women I should’ve just left alone.

The fact that I’m musing this concerns me because somewhere on another tectonic plate there is a woman. She would’ve been the woman I would’ve married. But circumstance drew us apart. Tradition carved a crevice so deep in the ground that holding hands as the distance grew between us would be futile unless she jumped onto my glacier so that we could float away.

But she didn’t jump. Which is probably for the better because Lord knows this little block of ice of mine will melt. Plus there are no beds on this block. Just a computer, a studio, art supplies and books.

And my car.

And this pack of cigarettes that I promise to not touch. At least for the next fortnight.

The upside to being awake though, is not dreaming. I think it was Anatole France who once rambled about how dreams liberate the lucid revolutionary mind.  Dreams also provide an escape for those looking for one.

I’m tired of running away from problems. Procrastinating and pushing things to tomorrow. When your days run into each other, tomorrow is today. It might as well have been yesterday because you’ve seen the patterns clear enough to be able to predict just how the days will unfold. You’ve watched enough people to understand just how they will react. You begin conversations knowing you can almost control the flow, and their outcomes. It’s like being an architect in a real life Matrix. Or like being a really good fortune-teller. Or mind-reader.

Yet I can’t read her mind. And I do not know what the future holds for me.

Two mysteries should not try and solve each other.

It’s almost 3am. For some reason I volunteered to work tomorrow. Or today. I forget what to call it. Anyhow, that means I should be asleep so I can wake up on time. But it’s late. For most that means get in bed and doze now.

For me, that means “Which book can I read and finish before the sun rises?”

I’ve found a book. I’m going for it.

Goodnight Earth.

A word of advise to the hesitant: there are more than 4 dimensions. 

In all practicality you are only somewhat knowledgable of 3, and vaguely aware of the fourth.

That vague awareness must stop. We all need to be very intuned to the fact that time is indeed the determining factor of what our realities will be. We have the choice between being and having what we want, or letting it pass. It is a a choice that passiveness cannot make for us.

Sitting back hoping while staring at the world on the silver platter in front of you is essentially what 99% of the world does. This is why most of them get mad when some person reaches out and grabs the world off that platter and milks it for what it’s worth.

Granted, the milking takes a little bit of viciousness, but the grabbing part is effortless. If you know what you want and it’s offered to you, not saying yes is probably worse than saying no.

Reason being when you don’t say anything, it means you meant to say yes, but couldn’t. For whatever reason, you didn’t. And now, you must sit there and watch the tray, and he who bore it vanish into the shadows in hopes that they shall return again. Not only will you be hoping, but you will be bashing yourself. If you said yes, or no, you made a decision and you can live with that a whole lot easier.

But just as that video illustrated, we only see cross-sections of the actual reality of things. If that opportunity were to be represented by a person, hand stretched out, with your dream in his palm, and time began to pass, and all you did was stare….

He would disappear. 

And looking for him would probably be one of the most futile endeavors  one can possibly conceive unless you are a time traveller.  It has nothing to do with patience or will. The world and fate want you to win, everyone, good or bad, is there to help. All you have to is receive. But then again, it is vital to remember that people have a purpose. And their purpose is not to help other people. That is an assigned role that only lasts as long as the recepient allows. All we have to do is learn when to say yes.

Denial in one sense is denial in any other. 

We all get a chance to seize everything we’ve ever wanted, at some time or another. 

It would be wise to do so before that chance passes.

Before that bearer of good deed vanishes.

I believe that, in great spite of my insurmountable skepticism, there may be some good people out there.

But I also believe that I don’t really know that many, nor do I care for the majority.

I know beyond any shadow of doubt that I’m not one of them, nor do I aspire to be one.

But in the same light, I wish them no ills or harms.

I just think that it would be in both our interests if they steered clear of me and I did the same. Ultimately pointless purpose interaction is seldom worth the stress it inevitably bears.

Besides, I’ve got shit to do.

“I don’t put my cards on the table, because I lost my Queen of Hearts.”

I miss you.  

On Sunday, it’ll be 2 years since I watched you breathe your last breaths, and left teary kisses on your cold hands.  

2 whole years since I lost my little sister.

It still hurts the same. 

Partially, it’s because I refused to address it altogether, and spent many a moment blaming myself silently for not calling you the night before, or the morning of the accident. For not being with you as much as I could’ve.

I felt responsible by my inactions. 

Yet I could never muster up the courage and strength to apologize. What consolation do words give when a life’s been lost?

It was moot.

So I said nothing. Redirected my sadness elsewhere.

With all the conversations we’d had about what would happen should one of us die, I was scared that I couldn’t live up to my end.  So I channeled my energies towards that, and built a small empire and a fortune to match. I even quit smoking, although I’ve been thinking about a cigarette for about 20 hours now. lol.

Hell, I almost bought the car you wanted. I was going to walk into the dealership and drive out with that Mazda 6. There was a black one that was just gleaming and gorgeous. I decided to calm down and get something else. Slightly cheaper. It’s a beautiful Mitsubishi. You’d enjoy it. Leather interior and all. Since I got it detailed, there’s been a weird smell in there that’s starting to concern me. But it drives like a beaut’; V6 and a couple hundred horsepower make the drive to work fun.

Yeah, I still have that job. I got about 4 raises and promotions since, so I’m now earning better money, but I make exponentially more from my companies and the real estate. I’ve been considering quitting and focussing on my art and design projects, but life is balanced right now, and I’m not going to mess that up. 

My little lab is still a mess. I’ve got a new computer in there, 2 new monitors, and relatively decent sound system. I still have the folder you created that day you and Kirsten came over. It’s still full of your pictures. It makes me tear every time I see it. That was an interesting Hallowe’en. I lost those glasses I had on that day. I loved them. They were the perfect size. I’m not comfortable with the new ones. 

Hmm. 

You were right about her. It ended in a very very messy fashion. We still talk. We didn’t for a while, but we do now. I met someone after her, but she left as well. Like I told you, I’m damned to be single.  I don’t mind it.  Less hurt. Less pain. 

Pain. I was worried how much you felt while you lay in that bed, shattered bones and all. For a brief second, all I wanted was for you to get up so I could shake you and ask you why you refused to wear your seat belt again. Kirsten wanted to do it too. She loved you. She stayed composed most of the time, but she was in such a ridiculous amount of pain that I could barely fathom. You were more than just a sister to her.

Mama wept like you can’t imagine. For as much as you argued, she did love you. Your brother was her strength. He held her up, emotionally, and literally. I stood in my little corner with K.D, Nadine, and Kirsten. Rob cried.

He loved you. As much as I questioned him before, I respected the man then. He would’ve given his life for you. He seemed interesting. It was unfortunate that we had to meet like that. He was a true gentleman. 

I never thought you wouldn’t pull through. I have never seen you fail at anything. Ever. I did not believe that a tree and a car, even combined, could stop my little Tunisian Princess. Alas. 

Save me some space up there. I’ll maintain your honor down here. 

I love you. I miss you. 

Always.

Snookie (I still hate that name.)

The title of this blog almost dictates that I should speak on this man.

Today marks the 23rd Martin Luther King Day, a national holiday in these states, united as they claim to be. For the multitude of recitations, renditions, reverberations, and regurgitations that Martin’s famous speech got, little has changed in the minds of the people. On the eve of the inauguration of the first African-American Kenyan Black President in these same states, we still experience some perversely disgusting atrocities in the name of “ignorance and racism” but under the blankets of free-speech and freedom at large.

I have countless tales to recount, and if youre interested in sharing a couple, thatkenyan@gmail.com and twitter.com/thatkenyan are all good places to contact me, however…my concern for this country, it’s people, and the world at large is the following. 

We do not practice what we preach. We never preach what we know. What we know, we never apply, so in many ways we are killing the legacies and traditions of those before us, MLK included, that should be wavelets in the pool of life by being stagnant and immobile.  

All due respect, I felt the same way about Martin. Great man that he was, he could never hold a shotgun to an assailants head and tell him to beg for mercy before turning him into nouveau-moderne art piece: brain splatters on a shag carpet medium. Martin was along the lines of Ghandi, an evolutionary more than a revolutionary. He believed we were on the path and only needed to steer ourselves correct.

In reality, as soon as missionaries landed on the banks of Africa, we had veered straight off the path and into the long blades, and soft grounds of the marsh. We have been off the path so long that we need more than a miracle, a good speech, and a Black president to rectify the ills in our souls.

Columbus Georgia was as solemn as a graveyard the day after Obama won. There are people there who still remember when a black woman getting raped was not a crime. They may have not been the masters, but they were superior. 

In their minds, they still are. In their minds a lot of blacks are still inferior

In most minds there is a giant dick of racial bias mentally fucking you into believe some stereotypical half-witted bullshit that most of us are willing to fight about.

To use the analogy of the President elect, forget a scalpel, we need chainsaws, all of us. We need to have the courage to call people out, the courage to pick a fight with those who are feeling froggy, the courage to face inward and spot our problems, and we need the strength and stamina to fight and win these battles.

Moreso than all that cliche shit, we need the minds of revolutionaries, to be able to know that we can overturn a government in a day if we speak with the same voice. We need the humility to find that voice and channel it through a speaker.

I personally do not have a dream that one day anything will happen. Partially because I don’t sleep much. Mostly because I know to a great degree of certainty that if things keep going the way they are going, we will be forced into a revolution at which point sleepers and dreamers will be devoured by the conscious and ready.

I don’t mind, I’ve got my guns under my floor boards with extra ammunition for when that day comes. 

Happy MLK Day

When both arms on the clock are dangling around the 6, the decision to forego sleep is no longer yours.

Good morning. I’d like to thank the random spike in readers I had yesterday. 4 rantss in and no publicity, I did not expect nearly that many hits. Even if you don’t return, you made me feel like punching buttons on the keyboard means something to somebody else. For a person who feeds off other people’s energies, I truly appreciate that.

But now it’s a new day, and I’m sitting here not cuddling with the angel I’d like to be keeping warm, and not smoking the cigarette I’d otherwise be toking on. In fact I just returned from the gym I didn’t want to go to and am now about to pass on sleep I desperately need.

Yes it’s a new day, but damn, it feels just like every other day before it.

Fuck it. I’m gonna get some extra black coffee and toast some honey wheat bread. I’ve got shit to do.

“At the top will be the same place you hang from.”-Nasir Jones

I was quite a few months shy of 17 when I permanently moved out of my mother’s house. For the outsiders looking in, they thought it was a perfect scenario and that I was the luckiest person in the world.  It’s funny how the glaring truth always gets refracted by human perception.  The truth was that the money everybody assumed that my mother was giving to me, did not exist. The family support I expected was also not there. I basically ended up being a lone teen in the heart of a city at it’s peak of corruption and crime.  

Yet everyday in school, I’d be the envy of all.  Kids who dreamt of being home alone, and cursed their parents from a warm bed after a hot meal, while a maid ironed their clothes for the next day. Meanwhile I was on a cigarette break, reading their texts, standing by dumpsters behind some bar, about to go in and finish cleaning the kitchen, so I could get my day’s pay and go home and rinse the stench off me. 

But I never told a soul. So when I’d say I was going to a club with my boy Alex from Tanzania on a school night, they assumed it was to party and drink. But as soon as we arrived at the venue, we put on our overalls and were the invisible slaves for the rest of the night.

Looking back now, I see that I somehow managed to walk one path and leave 2 sets of prints.  Those that follow me have not an inkling of knowledge as to what led to me being here. Mostly because I misled them. I’m a pathological liar fueled by his paranoia; so scared that people would hate me if they knew me, that I create a very elaborate clone of myself and send it to live out my relationships.

Now that clone and I both have our seperate stories to tell.

His is of succes and triumph; victory in spite of adversity, charity,  jet-setting, joy-riding, flying in private jets, going to the best schools, knowing the who’s who of who’s whos and being loved and respected by most.  It’s the calm resolve, the composed humor, the confident speeches, and the good advice, that must have something to do with that hefty library. It is set in exotic locations with a victorious orchestral fanfare and involves a lot of yatches, sun glasses and white linen pants. It’s the dream ideal that people have somewhat developped and molded around me.

My story is dark and dimly lit with an off-key organ playing long, low notes as the theme music, and an intermittent sound of what seems to be a tamborine filled with crushed glass. Really, it’s just me walking, and the shattered heart in my chest shifting back and forth. It’s a tale of suffering. It’s the story behind the scars, the sweat, the blood, the tears, the x-rays on the walls, the bullet casings on my desk, and the prayer beads in my pocket. It’s the nights spent in the worst prisons praying to get out, the days spent in the hospital praying she would get up. It’s set in an empty graveyard with long unkempt grass and monumental tombstones with gargoyles on them, and involves pistols, black leather jackets and furrowed brows.

The reality is the medium between these two stories; a successful young man, with burdens as great as his achievments, and as much hate as he has love. It’s the story of Damocles’ Sword.

Sometimes I wish I could trade places with anybody for 2 months, not just so that they could feel the fear and pain I live with, but so that I could have someone who understands that there is a reason we are born with the fear of heights: being at the top sucks. 

Yet somehow we persist. We climb. We strive. 

It’s lonely at the top because no one in their right minds stays there too long.

Keep this in mind the next time you look up to someone.

“A brief stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith proves nothing.”

Nietzsche told me 2 things when I was first introduced to him. First, the Z comes before the S. Secondly, the above quote.

It was a dark phase in my life so I loved the pessimism and almost complete desolution of hope in that statement that masked the otherwise motivational truth. The truth that faith must not helm our lives, but instead be the goal of our lives. I have seen even the most upright of religious figures stray from their path in moment of extreme pressure. We are not perfect. To assume that by embracing the faith of a perfect God, and a pure creed, we in turn cleanse and correct our ills is like assuming that jumping in water means you can swim. 

Basically, you’re getting ahead of yourself.

This applies for very many other things to. The one I choose to question today; love. I know of a couple, very close and dear to me, who have represented to many others the hope that love does indeed exist. This couple, today, find themselves apart. Actually, to put it practically, every 10 minutes for the past 2 hours, the distance between them has grown another 100 miles. This will go on for another 5 hours, and after a brief pause, resume for about the same length of time again.

She’s leaving. On a jet plane. 

And he doesn’t know when she’ll be back again. 

Oh dude. She hates to go.

And I hate to butcher John Denver lyrics. The point being, that sometimes reality needs to kick in early for people to be able to deal with situations accordingly. When you’re laying in that bed with that person you deem important, instead of wondering whether or not either of you loves each other, ask yourself this: “If he does something I really hate, that happens to be illegal, and he’s halfway accross the ocean, will I wait?” 

If you’re a guy, ask yourself this: “If I catch her cheating, will I forgive her?”

And then both of you ask yourselves this: “If we divorce, will I be ok with he/she keeping the children?”

Basically, cut out the frivolous bullshit. Don’t assume love is a factor. It isn’t. It’s not the fuel that keeps your lamp on, it’s the flame on the wick of the candle. Your goal in life, as far as relationships are concerned, is to figure out what that wick is made of, and where you’re going to find more wax.

More often than not, the ultimate definition of guaranteed disappointment involves a scene with your hands clasped, half-covering your face and the words “But…I love you” being uttered as though they were some magic spell that could undo circumstance.

Greater forces than those we can fathom exist. They are in control. Faith, religious and otherwise teaches us that.

Life proves it.

Here’s something I’ve never said outloud.

I had ambitions of law enforcement, once upon my youth. It was a very brief, very vivid, explosive dream and phase.

Then I received my first standard police issue beatdown.

The story behind it is one I choose to repress. I had just started living alone in downtown Nairobi. One stressful Wednesday night, I made my way to a bar.  After a few beers and cancer sticks, I decided to walk back to my little den and continue smoking in the privacy of my balcony. On my walk back, somewhere between The Hilton and one it’s adjacent buildings, I saw a lady dart accross the highway with complete disregard for the oncoming bus. She was so terrified and frantic, I almost didn’t realize that I recognized her. Not by name, or acquaintance, but by how gorgeous she was. She was one of those girls I’d see in every club I went to, but never approached. But that’s another story for another day.

I didn’t take time to figure out what or why she was doing what she was doing. My upbringing taught me to not meddle; she might not even be a victim after all. But because I was going through my wannabe Superhero phase, I began pacing to the direction she was headed in, halting traffic before she got there. She didnt see herself run into me, as she was looking behind her.

I grabbed her startled frame and asked if she was ok in a calm voice. She shivered, juggling words, whimpers and tears, letting neither one out of her body in its entirety. I asked her again, releasing my grip slightly so I could take off my jacket. I looked around for possible assailants, and saw no vagabonds afoot. My head spun back to her when her head touched my chest. She was now completely bawling, in tears. I wrapped my jacket around her and was about to begin leading her towards safety(my place). She muttered 2 words, 3 syllables, that I  did not discern and decipher until the next morning. Mostly because shortly thereafter, I believe I received a blow to the head that I should really not have forgetten. All I remember is the pain of trying to wake up from it. The pain ringing in my head, as well as the pain of having boots and bats swung at my ribs and limbs.

While massaging my legs and head the next morning, before heading to school, I realized what she had said.

“Ni karao.” *(“It’s police”)

I had flashes of the police rushing past me as I hit the ground, and snatching up the little lady in question. I heard their short exchange regarding me. Loosely translated, it goes something along the lines of:

Cop: (screaming to the lady)Do you know him?

(No response, only whimpers)

Cop: (To another cop) Whoever he is make sure he does not get up. (turns to girl) Give me that jacket.

For the longest time, I thought I was deluding and as a result, never spoke of it. But as time went by, it made more and more sense. About 2 weeks later, I was crossing that very street, walking through the Hilton on my way to a lunch date and subsequently to get my hair braided. Those were the days when smoking out in the open was not shunned, let alone illegal.  I finished my cigarette and flicked it a few feet forward so that I could stomp it out, but misstepped and did not put it out. I turned around to finish it off and did not see myself turn into….

That girl. 

There are situations so awkward that even the most apt and savvy conversationists falter. I stared with no words, and she looked back at me long enough for me to know that she recognized me.  She then looked down and started marching away. I hesitated between following her and extinguishing my cigarette. I looked down to realize that the wind had carried it away, and when I looked up, it seemed the wind had also carried her off with it.

After a brief shrug and sigh combo, I reached into my backpack, shuffling the contents for another cigarette. I continued my trek toward Nandos and while I lit my new cig, spotted the mystery lady somwhere on my right. She was looking around and behind her, possibly for me, so she could move the opposite direction.  I snuck up behind her and stood still, long enough for her to notice the lingering smoke.

A few witty puns later, we sat on a nearby fence and had a random conversation about lighters and bottle openers for about 10 minutes. We found out that she lived in the hood I grew up in. I got her number and promised to visit and proceeded to be late for my lunch with my then ex-girlfriend, and later with my “hair tech”(as she dubbed herself). As a point of information, I used to have long hair…really long.

Later that night, I gave my new unnamed lady friend a call to let her know that I would be drinking at Carnivore, a local club, later that night and that she should feel free to stop by. When she mentioned that she had no wheels, I mentioned that I did, and we agreed that if she had clothes, she would need to have them on by 9.30pm that night.

The music was nice, uptempo and “happifying” as she described it. We sat at the bar outside and found out that outside of our affinity for strolling dangerous streets late at night, we also had a similar brand of humor, and distaste for conformity. And that’s when it happened: the moment I decided that nobody would protect me, but me. She reached over my hand and grabbed my box of cigarettes, nodding and smiling while doing so. I nodded back as I sipped my brew, then she asked me for a lighter and I reached into my pockets and looked around in vain. Right then a hand swung over her shoulders from behind her and lit the cigarette. The man did not even stay for thanks. 

He just put my lighter back in my jacket pocket, readjusted it and continued walking past us, disappearing into the crowd as she blew a cloud into the air and asked the waiter for another drink.

I’m borderline insomniac. Definitely, I suffer from some sleep disorder, I just never bothered to find out which one. When the doc said “Chronic Secondary Insomnia”, I tilted my head and gave him a sarcastic sideways nod.

My problem is not only that I can’t sleep; it’s that when I do sleep, I struggle to wake up. I’m either floating on fatigue or drowning in my dreams.

It takes the composure and focus of a Taoist Baguazhang Artist to maintain that delicate balance of excesses and live a normal life. I 0opt to avoid tiptoeing along that fine line and instead just stay awake if it’s past a certain hour. This is what they assume to be insomnia; my decision to forego sleep for greater purpose.

I remember reading Stephen King’s Insomnia when it first released in 94, and being entirely enthralled and engulfed in a world I could understand. Ironically, I mostly read the book when my mother and brother presumed me asleep. It was the first of many things I would gain from being awake that late. Because the house was too small to sneak out of the one room we shared, to find something worthwhile to do with my time,  I read. I also began writing. Eventually, drawing.

These became my dreams; what I did when I should’ve been sleeping, how I dealt with my surreality.  It was the documentation of my reality, the visions of my future, and every random musing in between. Very much like your dreams…

…only my way.