Dear October (Wake Me Up When September Ends)

"Wake me up when September ends." Title of a song by Green Day. A rock band I sort of like. Good music.
That song, was my mantra towards the end of the A-level part of my high school. It is just so...sad. Nothing particularly gut-wrenching sad in the lyrics, but sad. That sad that creeps up on you, finds a comfortable corner in the centre of your already-bruised heart and curls it's lukewarm self in there. The sort of sad which doesn't have you doubling over in inexplicable pain. No.
The sort of sad Meredith faces when she asks McDreamy to choose her over Allison. And he doesn't.
The sad that does not prod or pinch, this sad is maddeningly polite. It just settles over you in a manner so complete and total...and subtle but entirely felt...it clouds and doesn't bring forth tears.
But sighs, yes. Deep, inner sighs that take the life in you and....make it one huge, burden of a sigh. This sadness doesn't present in form of wails, no. It has the ability to hide behind a good number of cocktails or a good book.

Then the morning comes. And the movie ends. And the book runs out of words.

September was bad. September was slow. Tediously slow. September was horrible. September brought no creativity, zilch inspiration and plenty melancholy. September was cold, and rainy. And awesomely ass-holey.

I fought dread. Yes, most of the past 30 days were filled with dread. Of the unknown. The horrible fear that doom and gloom were in the neighbourhood. I prayed.
Dear Lord, I prayed. And prayed. And run to Melanie. And Sara. And we prayed. But doom and gloom were just happy keeping around me.
So, in that manner of easy vulgarity I had mastered in my O-Level, I flipped them off. I flipped gloom, doom, despair, writer's block, inability to read any of the several amazing books that stood by my bed side.
I flipped them all, called their fucking bluff and told them I would be just fine.
At the right time. The fight to be gleeful and joyous...do you get the irony in that phrase? "The fight to be gleeful and joyous...?"  We are NOT meant to fight for joy. We fight to recover our waspy waist lines after child birth. We DO NOT FIGHT FOR JOY.

Screw Eve and her lack of self-control. A fruit? Come on.
Screw death. Death that went and took the mommy of 6 beautiful, intelligent babies.
Death that took away the mommy of my insanely gifted friend.
Fuck death that attempted to break the spirit of a vibrant, spiritual and God-loving man.
Screw death that made us sit in that church and try especially hard not to curse the God that is supposedly harboured in it.
Fuck death for reminding us all of our immortality. Our fragility. Our short spanned life times.
Fucking screw death for the unwanted, unnecessary and uncalled for reminder that, we are on borrowed time.

You gotta give it to death. We plan. And dream. And hope.
While the arse snickers. And then grabs. Steals. Tears apart.

We, the word bearers, we the writers, the grammatically and lyrically gifted. We who somehow manage to convey any message with a couple of well articulated paragraphs. We who always have the sharpest responses to the queries, errors and ineptitude of others. We...who make our living from stringing words together.
We were helpless. And speechless.
I sat with some of the most gifted writers in this town and all we could do was hold hands. And lean on shoulders. And cry. Silent, endless streams of tears as we watched the hearts of our friend and her family get ripped out.

Let me tell you about grief. The words to describe it have not been invented yet. You pray, and hope that you are dreaming. Or, night-maring. That you will wake up. That you will hug your broken friend and drain the hurt from her soul.
That she will stop crying, because you are getting bloody teary-eyed and she doesn't need you crying.
You want to hold her head on your laps and try to soothe away the pain you know without a doubt, will never really go away.
Our mommies are supposed to be with us forever. Oh, we scream at them, and yell, and bang doors in their faces and try to explain our excessive love of alcohol to them, but our mommies are not supposed to die.
Because our mommies are the rocks, the walls, the cooks, the doctors, the cleaners, the huggers, the embarrassing ululaters when our names are called out on graduation.

Our mommies are the grandmothers of our unborn babies. Our mommies should see us first dance with our husbands on our wedding days. They are supposed to tell you why your colour schemes are "too much" or why you do not need a wedding planner, "you lazy children of these days" and guilt you into inviting all their friends to the wedding.

And then break into sobs as she watches her gorgeous girl redefine bridal dazzle(ness.)
My mommy is supposed to walk me down the aisle. Because while she has broken my heart in various and callous ways, she is my mommy.
Mommies are our angels. They are not meant to have a shelf-life.

Dear October.
Today is my brother's birthday. Arnold is my favourite man. He is growing into the man that will make God change His mind about annihilating all male species.
Dear October, come laden with blessings. And joy. And inspiration. And friends. And love.
September took the life out of us.

I came close to self-destruction.
I do not know how my usually perceptive friends were not able to see it.
The alcohol I was drowning in wasn't meant for recreational purposes at all.
The intention was to forget. But I couldn't. You cannot forget the despair that resides in the depths of your soul.
I lost alot of me to September. Creativity. Love-that came a tad too late, joy, passion, hope, sleep.
I lost the will to be alive. September. You hit me hard.

October...
I am a recovering life -and-it's stupid happenings-patient.
Be gentle.
On us all.
Rest In Perfect Peace, Mildred's mama.

"Wake Me Up When September Ends"

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when September ends

like my father's come to pass
seven years has gone so fast
wake me up when September ends

here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are

as my memory rests
but never forgets what I lost
wake me up when September ends

summer has come and passed
the innocent can never last
wake me up when September ends

ring out the bells again
like we did when spring began
wake me up when September ends

here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are

as my memory rests
but never forgets what I lost
wake me up when September ends

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when September ends

like my father's come to pass
twenty years has gone so fast
wake me up when September ends
wake me up when September ends
wake me up when September ends 


                                     Green Day.
                                                   

Susanna, Book Exchanges and New-lady-love.

Last evening was spent at Isha's.
The lovely, warm and exotic looking place two streets below my work place. The lady who runs it makes me think of Latin American soap actresses in their flowing dresses and head wraps. She is black, though. And as cool as hell. That doesn't sound quite right.
And her lamps...I want. All of them. I just couldn't figure out how I'd explain the sudden darkness and tusk-shaped bulges in my bag if I'd given in to temptation and packed them.
So I let them be. And kept throwing them come-to-me-looks.
But yes, we went to watch poetry recitals. We, the deep, well-read and gifted of this my town, went down to Isha's so we could bond, throw well-worded insults at the rest of Kampala's not-so-deep population. In true snobbish fashion, I sat there and felt extremely air-ish because I am part of this magnificent few. The few persons who understand and get words as much as I do.
It helped that I was seated smugly between some of the coolest girls I know. And got to know. Mildred, Darlyne and Kampire, I met last night(more on Mildred later).

Mildred and Liz had arranged a book exchange. We are all part of the coolest ever book club/page and due to endless links, posts, quotes from incredible books and lately, joint chagrin at this so-full-of-himself-pompous and widely unread author, we have developed an over the internet and social network bond. After the introductions and gin and coke orders, we got down to business. Recitals. Singing.

APWICDBWPW(H)GT

Jason Ntaro, if I have never said this, allow me to do so today. I absolutely, thoroughly love you. That your poems are spur of the moment mobile text section creations only makes my blood rush faster.
You have a way with words. A way that makes me gape in awe each single time you do a recital. My mind is a poem away from stalking you.
Please allow?

Lyric me away please...?

Susanna. The Lusoga poem( that was written in a complete Kisoga accent). By a man in shades at 9pm. That irked me. Shades in the pm. But then he went on about wiggling bottoms, wasp-sized waist and doing unmentionable deeds to this Susanna epitome of female glory.
And Susanna supposedly responds by knighting him with tiltles such as Kyabazinga and giving him free pass and own tickets to endless acres of land. Pause.
I thought that was only done by the Tooro women?
And he got a thunderous applause. We ululated. With  spur-of-the-moment Kisoga-ish tunes.

Call it the poetry in the air. Call it the gin in my system. Call it what lust. Call it what you will.
But last night, I fell.
I was enamoured. Deeply, giddily and gin-assisted into falling in love. First time love. Hasn't happened to me since Clooney in ER.
Then Mildred happened. It helped that unlike most first dates who are massively loaded with poor jokes, next-to-zilch ability for deep yet witty conversation, Mildred came bearing books. For me. For me?? TWO BOOKS.

Ring My Bell...

Her deep blue dress with the cute red belt and pretty hair band did not slow down my palpitating heart.
Thank you Di Ncy-for starting the book group. How else would I have had a second shot at instant love with this amazing awesomeness of well-read, well-spoken and  book bearing woman?

Hoping the love will be requited.
Will find out at our second date.
Yes. Second date. We have one.
Be still my heart.

This has all the looks of dark and intense...
(In my Oxytocin infused mind)

TUKOOYE!!!...Continued.

URGGGHHH....

And ends like this.....

Paedophiles.
The statistics are painful. The law is failing the very people it's meant to protect. The attention is turned to suspiciously-dead gay activists. And I have no issues with people's sexual preferences. When they are consenting adults. Not young boys& girls that have their worlds darkened forever by these beasts.

I am all for mental illnesses. I myself are a narcissist. I understand vanity, and greed, and selfishness, and pride..anger is one of my bosom flaws. But to go& damage the physical, mental& spiritual privacy of a child that you should otherwise be protecting is beyond me.

Let us stop this pain..

And I get a lot of sins. Not this one.
That the law does nothing major to cause this evil to stop is incomprehensible. When they dare to look up from their wigs of hypocrisy& corruption, they sentence the pests to 16 years imprisonment. Really. Really????We need Miria Matembe back to active politics. Then we need to have a referendum on how to deal with these creatures. She always favored castration. I second that.
Followed by death. Preferably by slicing off individual body parts. Head goes last.
But the guillotine will do.
Humans have the amazing ability to worsen a problem that is already overflowing with pain. Here's how;

Tacky Tabloids.
I consider myself to be highly cultured. But a juicy piece of gossip will get me. Yes, am not above lugambo. But that doesn't diminish my magnificence. I am the ISH.
But banange, these silly, thick headed and dim witted people who bring buckets of shame upon the writers community need to be quarantined. They are hazardous. Aside kuswazaring us, they pollute the minds of our population. And judging by Episode one of "Who wants to be a millionaire?"-the Ugandan version, the general population is already doing bubbi in matters of the brain. IE, they are not very clever. Popeye lived at Neverland?? MJ must have done a moon-walk in his grave. But forwards. In protest.
Now a tabloid should have nonsensical gossip, we all get that. But if you dare to branch into serious news coverage within the same print, please, please, be serious about it.
Or, hire s.6 literature students to write the stories. Or primary students. If they still have the"News, news" part of class. But do have titles that read,"Horny Jajja, 70, Enters Girl 4."
For the love of God, please be a tad literate. Or humane. But the literate part you clearly missed. Let's try humane.I shall refer to a popular novelist here. Maybe you've heard of him?
John Grisham; "A Time To Kill."
A black man shoots& kills the white men that defile his daughter& leave her for dead. Black man is taken to court. He wins the case. No, it is not obvious that he won. This was in early Mississippi; blacks were not liked very much. Some of the jury had wanted to convict him for murder.
Then this white female juror tells them to close their eyes, and imagine that it was their precious, white,pony-tailed daughters. Being raped by two black men. And they know these men.
What would they do? To the black men?
They voted unanimously, to acquit the man of all charges.
So really, next time that small demon of ill humor, inhumanity& rotten writing makes an appearance on your left shoulder, bind him away.
And go for Bebe Cool. He is good game, he can handle.
After all, he is munene.

OKUKOOWA.
This should read," Tukooye okukoowa." For the cool-generation-mates of mine, this translates to"We are sick and tired of being sick& tired." High5s all around.
Seeing the line this piece has followed, we are clearly all worn out. We are a nation suffering from sun burn, constant thirst& unending perspiration. We are sore from endless bumping, thanks to the pot-holed things they call roads. Then those dwanzis of engineers play with the power sockets. They prefer leaving them turned off. We are an over-heated, dry throated people that is being subjected to endless hours of idleness when the lights go out. Frustrations tend to build at such hours, ideas get a hold& start to grow. Evil ideas nourished by the dark.The part of me that loves mystery would like to think that there is a conspiracy against us the lower peoples.
But we know they're not that bright. So, they are blindly breeding one major monster.
And we shall try to not take the revolutionary lead of our Egyptian comrades. But that might not last long.
We are tired. Patience& all other virtues are out with the heat.

So, from one of the afflicted to whom ever it may concern, 

TUKOOYE!!!