Frostbite

Good week everybody! Honestly ehn, one of the worst things to do is to give birth to your own baby and labour and strive to see it grow. Your whole heart’s in it, you worry endlessly about its future and whether it will make it in life to be able to look after you and your spouse when you grow old and fragile. And just so you don’t put all your eggs in one basket you produce other babies just so if the first one, on whom all hopes lie, fails, the others, with some prayer, hard work and dedication, keep running and by God’s infinite grace carry on the baton to provide for you and your spouse when you still grow old and fragile. Yes my dear friends and readers, I am talking about enterprise or business as people are wont to call it. I am co producing a movie here in the States, one I also co wrote and I find myself worrying about things I never bothered myself with before; marketing, target audience, what title to give it, numerous and endless meetings about any and everything; whom to hire, whom to fire etc. I have the better end of the stick; the other producers are the ones who worry about the money and believe me those robes are3 thorny and heavy. I still have a lot of ideas that I will execute in the course of my partnership with Nkem so if this baby falls by the wayside, the others will keep running.

Okay, enough philosophizing about my secure future, now to the scarier present or should I say immediate past. I just finished my morning jog with not a little relief. I have also learnt to always check the weather conditions before venturing out of the comfort of your home.

I had routinely donned my light track suit bottoms and a slightly heavier sweat shirt with my head warmer tucked in my pocket and run out of the building for my early morning jog only to be run back in by the icy wind that lashed into my face and body through my sparse clothing. I wisely went into my room and put on a much heavier fleece jacket, put on my head warmer and went out again. I had two miles to cover and intended to make short work of them with the aid of the music I was listening to on my phone. I cruised comfortably for about a mile, the wind buffeting my unguarded face with a million icicles when I became aware of a numbness in my legs. Alarmed, I realized I had made another error; I had neglected to protect the lower half of my body by wearing summer track suit bottoms in the hope that the frequent pumping of my legs would generate enough heat to insulate them against the cold which in this case wasn’t seeming to happen. With an even colder dread spreading across my heart, I realized I had I had not protected the lower half of my body, where my crown jewels and best friend junior were housed! Quickly I grabbed at them, fearing the worst – I was not wearing even boxer shorts – and was relieved to find they were still intact, even though they were not quite the size I was used to. The sac in which my future generations were housed had shrunk to the size and hardness of a walnut while junior… Well let’s just say he would not have complimented my masculinity were I to be strip searched in front of prospective female officers. I was suddenly taken back to the days when I was eight, standing at the toilet bowl, struggling to get the pee out from my morning wooded peepee – there was little difference.

Everything is much calmer now. All my bits are intact and in working order, I’m sure, but I have learnt the most important lesson of the day; to always check the weather and dress appropriately before venturing from home. To everyone else, have a great Thanksgiving, To Frieda, happy birthday darling! Your birthday present’s still intact with just a little warming up to thaw out the last of the deeply embedded frostbite! Mwah!

Sampling Tour

Good week everybody! Yes I’m okay and yes , I am still in the good ole US of A. I’m back to Minnesota. Ha ha ha! I’ve been stalling for time regarding what to write. This is actually exactly two hours since I wrote the second sentence of this post. I was contemplating whether to write about my trip, alongside some friends, to a strip club last week. Yep, the girls were lovely and yes, I did get a lap dance but that is a story for another day. I know my beloved brother Obasi and my darling sis-in-law Nkiru will probably read this and roll their eyes at this black sheep of the family – and I really am! I have done things that the rest of my family would keel over if they heard but an iota of what I’ve done - but hey, I am what I am.;I love adventure. Best part of it was that Frieda was right there beside me watching my leering grin as I ogled the bare necessities of the chocolate siren writhing all over me smelling so nice even though she wore little or no perfume… but, that’s a story for another day. Come to think of it, she has never really told me what she thought of my being entertained by such vivacious ladies apart from the curious amused wonder I caught in her eyes when I momentarily flashed a glance in her direction just in case a missile came hurtling my way from that angle. I feel I may have clinched a deal for a boys’ night out, but I fear it may just be wishful thinking yet.

The Damage premiere tour is finally over here in the US and it’s been such a relief that it has gone very well. It has been a nerve wracking three weeks for me especially since it has been one of the few projects I have truly believed in. I want to thank everyone for their support during this tour, especially Nkem, of course, Nollywoodreinvented, CHI_SOM and every one of my readers. You have been fantastic all you! Now I’m embarking on another one here which I am having to write and act in as well. It is about another social issue; dealing with betrayal and HIV. That is the most I will talk about the project for now until I see it talking shape in the direction I want it to go – make I no go fall my hand. What I will talk about is my newfound freedom; the freedom to jog where I please!

I now have the luxury to jog where I please; nice pavements on which I can jog without being knocked down by veering danfos (commercial mini buses) and snarling okadas (commercial motorcycles). I don’t get stopped by passersby who demand to know why I am being so mean to ‘Angela’. Can’t I just go and die somewhere in peace? Or why I have to act the role of a debauched reverend father and besmirch the image of the Catholic Church, do I want to go to hell? Or well meaning citizens who, never mind that that I’m jogging to burn fat, ask me to kindly tell them what happened in the sequel of a movie of mine they’d just watched. Here I jogged with free abandon, almost too free. Yesterday I happened to discover a jogging trail not too far from my hotel and enthusiastically went down to try it out. It is already deep autumn here, you in America prefer to call it fall, but the bite of winter is already setting in as is clearly evident in the trees already being stripped of their leaves giving the area a very somber look. I had not gone far down the slope I was jogging before I realized I was well alone on a lonely trail with desolate woods and brackish marshy ponds on either side of me. Images of the Crime & Investigation television network I love watching in Nigeria came flooding back to me. Glancing wildly around me, I half expected a hooded figure streaking out of the woods at me armed with a hatchet or a hammer, or a kindly middle aged man asking if I could assist him with his broken leg, and a kindly prick in the back of my neck, or some nutter taking a pot shot at me from the sanctity of the woods. Prejudiced or not, I quickly unlocked my usually secure phone, ready to dial 911 the second I noticed any funny movement around me and dashed furiously through the grove until I saw with much relief some buildings two minutes later. Suffice it to say I did not go back that way.

Well that is my tale for this week. Fill you up with more later. Have a great week ahead mes amis!