The Gender Binary Lot

I stumbled on a blogger earlier today. He identifies as being gender binary and shows off a lot of dress sense and fashion tips too. He/she (?) is a certified fashion blogger for the gender binary lot, you can find him here: http://houseofalexzander.com/

I haven't read much of what he writes. I just ran amok (I meant amok here as 'frenzy', not the other meaning dear. I had no urges to do harm:-) ) his page looking at pictures and his style advice on where to shop for what shoe/dress or accessories. He looked like he knows his cloths.

Just before I thought to post this, I was thinking a little bit about the gender binary question and whether it will ever get to the point where society everywhere will accept a third gender of people, the binary lot, who decides to be legally known for not being a woman or a man?

Could this be possible in a distant world?

Assuming this happens, will there then be laws instituted to accommodate them then? How about their born sexes? will they maybe get bored with this gender neutrality and opt for some consensual nomenclature later?

Thinking about the gender binary lot, is this maybe the equalizer that ensures gender equality, ie, when society decides that there is indeed a third gender set made up of both sexes, hence the idea that one gender is superior to the other is, well, stupid?

Oh well! I am back to book-work. Have quite a bit to finish by tomorrow.
Till my next post,
Ciao!

Photo credits: House of Alexander

Fiction, Fac-tion and Ex-Dreads

21/09/14

However civilly a relationship ends, there is always the brooding fear that the events of how your relationship (or affair) panned out will be dreadful when exposed by a single narrative.
Worse still, if the parties in the relationship are (where) writers or love(d) telling stories.

Writing is therapeutic for some people, and the only way they heal a hurt is by telling a story about it, usually with a twist when the author makes it fiction. For failed relationships, the story could go from being a comedy to a gory tragedy depending on whether the author still loves you, wants you back, held you blameless during the relationship or really hates you now.You are never sure whether you will be sensually explored, if you will be made out to be the villain or if you will be killed off. 

If the author really hates you now, chances are that it will end as a tragedy culminating in the death of the villain or the happening of a terrible event to that character. Being killed off with a sudden illness is usually considered good. You know the written-about ex is being let off lightly in the narrative.

Some exes are not that merciful. Walahi! You will suffer in that story. Even the supposedly sensual bits of your relationship may be explored with animalistic symbolism.

So, when I received a notification earlier today with snippets of a story I was promised by an ex from years ago, a fac-tion* he promised I would find 'interesting' , I felt cold all over. I am sure the villain will not be mercifully killed off in that story. She will probably be a ball-snipping monster with a speaking/learning disorder, or worse. 

Why do I feel this dread? Well, our breakup wasn't really that amicable. I just left the relationship without explaining myself or even discussing my reasons. It was almost 2 years after the fact that he realized why I left and apologized for it.

Yes, I am slightly anxious and waiting for this story. Fiction (Fac-tion) is a beautiful thing. It allows you vent in a way that saves you a trip to the hospital (or puts you there.)

(c) 2014.

*Fac-tion; A hydrid between a fiction and a non fiction. A fac-tion tells a story inspired by real events but allowing for an inaccurate narration of those events with some imaginative flair for dramatic or literary effects.

Plotting Tragedies

I just thought up a story plot for a short story or webisode.

Wait for it...

Ok. A woman living in a hostel/house or apartment with men (add that they are related to her for a more twisted effect) gets pregnant, only, she never had sex  but sat on a toilet seat that was freshly used by her flatmate/a stranger/or (ad preferred character), who had accidentally spilled sperm on the toilet seat while masturbating or sleep walking. Yes! the sleep walking bit will read better in a story as the potential Daddy will never know his culpability in the events that led to the pregnancy.
Now weave all the tragedy and the strange accusations around this plot. Add that the actual father  responsible will do the most in persecuting the woman when the pregnancy surfaces...add a bit of the Junno effect by making the woman so religiously or morally responsible that she will never abort the baby. A birth follows and;

 Boom! A tight story plot right there!

I think it will make a great story. I will read such a story if someone wrote something with a plot like this. Wont you?

For When We Mourn Our Loses.

This is for all the times we stood alone in the dark. 

This is for being unsure of goodness, of being alive, wanted or loved. 

This is for feeling the weight of the darkness that is now us, for the darkness that comes with loosing a light from just a flicker.

This is for how we feel when we mourn our losses.

(c) 2014
All rights Reserved

Of Death, Fetuses and Reliving our tragedies

I watched this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvanNDQhlYI complete recreation of the of the birth process of fetuses and I am thinking;


What if fetuses live full lives in the wombs of their mother?
What if there is an alternate universe created inside the woman's body with a whole life process in there for fetuses, that they had a whole different universe in there.

Really think. Think hard.

What if fetuses had full lives while they where in their mother's wombs. That they faced the same amount of troubles and battles and pain that we do, that they did everything we do in this life (earth)?

What if they married and had kids and owned jobs and fought wars in there?
What if everything that happens in our (current) lives recreates itself in that world with them (or that we are the ones reliving it now?).
That when a woman/girl commits an abortion and kills an undeveloped/fully developed fetus before it is born, that it is kind of like murdered in that universe, kind of like how we kill each other in this life, on this earth?

What if fetuses really lived full lives in an alternative universe called womb, and that their births or abortions signified a death in that life? What if that is why they cry as though in mourning, when they are born...Do people mourn their demise in that universe? Do they go back when they die in this universe? Do we all go back?

What if this means that we are all really dead (in that universe) but are alive now, here, in this one?

Do you think about these things sometimes?
These things we can not explain or even prove?

(c) 2014.
All rights reserved.

Of Mutant Sperms and Thigh Gaps

I am having the weirdest laugh just thinking about this.
Have you ever wandered how creepy some of the 'romantic' or 'sexy' things you say to your spouses or lovers sounds like to someone that is not in a sexual relationship with you?

Example
That time she snaps and sends a photo of her thigh gap to him and writes;
'Baby, see these hot-dog thighs? They'll eat you up when we see' *Cough*

Wait. Hot dogs eat people?

Or that time he says;
'Come here baby, let me give you mutant sperm babies and fill you up like a virus...'

Wait, what?! You where a demon all this while?

The things people do for love ehn.
Here is a traverse though. I never, never, ever! say those things. LOL!

The 'Igali Princesses' Recollection

Parenting is a tricky thing when your kids gets to a certain age, old enough for certain subjects to be covered.
It is usually easier when they are in their pre teens, before the noticeable sexual developments starts. Parents, especially (African) Nigerian parents are cautious when talking sexual education with their kids. I do not blame them. Sex is a hard subject when the person you are speaking to is related to you, especially when it is a kid, and the kid is yours.
Some parents are better at it than others. Everybody approaches the sex education subject differently too. For example, my mom started my sex education talks with me after she had made me read the complete EVERY WOMAN book.
I am thinking about this subject now because I just remembered a message I mistakenly wrote to my Uncle and Father figure 3 years ago while intending to send it to my boyfriend at the time. I was all romantic and explicit in the text, slightly dominant too. I wrote how I will have his kids and keep him in my bed forever. When I realized I had miss-sent the text and had received a summons seconds later from my Uncle I sincerely thought I would be murdered. 

 Even though I was 24 at the time, had finished from Law school and was living in a huge 3 bedroom flat in Abuja all by myself, I thought my outing myself as having a boyfriend and being in a (promising) sexual relationship equaled a death certificate, I was so scared.

When I arrived at my uncle's, he asked (without any small talk whatsoever);

'So, who is this kid you want to have kids for?!'

I was shaking so hard I didn't have a response. It was probably the best time for me to tell him about my relationship and arrange a greet-meeting but I was so scared. After asking a second time and having me close to tears, he let me go with a stern advice and said;

'You are not a kid and I wont beat you for this but this is what you should always remember. You are an Igali. You are a Princess. The Igali Princesses do not beg men!'.

Some parents are not as good at these situations than others.

I wander though. My (daughter) Merit is already 19 month old now. When she gets old enough, will I be good at lecturing her on what/how to have relationships like my mother did or will I pass on the classic 'Igali Princesses' advice like the Igali men would do?

I just got a mild panic attack just thinking about this now.

Like

Of Unfinished Painted Lines

***
But 
Again I remember; 
I chose this life, this colorlessness of being. 
For 
Nothing is really truly beyond my reach.
For, 
if I wanted to, 
I could flood the world with the color of me.
                                                                  ***

'Color'.

2/8/14
All rights reserved

The Prosthetic Flashes

''My prosthetist assumed I would like to have a cosmetic hand, one that has no real function but looks like the real thing, and so he made a mold of my remaining hand. An artist who produces fake wounds in Hollywood created a clear silicone mirror image. Then she sat with me for six hours, painting it, even embedding bits of hair snipped from my right arm. The result is haunting, and I don’t like looking at it. I’m not sure whom I would be wearing it for. I don’t feel the need to pretend or to make my presence easier on others...'' Miles O'Brien wrote.

Flashback:
May, 2014.
My flatmate, Ama, had come to print a document in my room. I was watching a documentary on BBC about a medical procedure that 'corrects' adults who where born with hearing and speech impairments. It made sense really, but I was outraged. She Didn't understand why. 

I tried to explain what i was feeling to her though;

Society is somewhat just uneasy with every kind of difference or 'unnaturality'. 
A child born with a physical disability is an embarrassment to the parents, family and the community. 
Instead of building an institution for those who are different to have them assimilate in their own abilities, society would try hard to 'correct' you. And yes, a man's congenital deformity or accidental deformity is his shame too. His difference makes people uncomfortable, embarrasses them for the most part, so he will take that option (of correcting it) when he finds it.

What I was really outraged about was totally different from the program being shown then. I had called my GP about surgery options earlier that day and asked about prosthetic limbs too for my right hand, all the while brooding, is a prosthetic arm worth the trouble? For who would I be wearing it for? should I care if people are uncomfortable with my difference? If it is just for aesthetics, isn't it a sort of deceit, some form of living in denial that I would make a counterfeit?
...

Guest appearance: What a YES vote at the Scottish Referendum means to the Niger Delta

Here is why  this Nigerian Post Graduate Student living in Aberdeen, Scotland, Ozah Azubuike, will vote YES during the Referendum: He tells me what a yes vote may mean to the Niger Delta in Nigeria and similar jurisdictions.
Enjoy!

  Photo: Ozah Azubuike is a Barrister and Solicitor of the Nigerian Supreme Court. He recently graduated from the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland with a distinction in LLM, Oil and Gas Law.

Blurred Day

*Aberdeen

The day breaks with a blur. you can tell the night wanted to stay a little bit longer.
At midday, the confidence with which every darkness asserts its depression on lightness [This is an actual word btw] is still evident. 

Nightfall looms and my tea bags are begging to rest now. The bathroom's flush handle too. Wet days gives me an obvious restlessness always translating to lethargy towards the end.

I feel like I am loosing something important today.
I don't know.
It will pass. It always does.

15/09/2014

Of Primal Feelings

It is simply primal, this thing.

Every man feels unloved when another human, offspring or not, takes his mate's attention and care.

It is just how we are wired.

                                                         Photo credits; Mic.com

Splashing Dreams

Splash your dreams on the waves of life. Watch them tumble about with the current, then settle in nicely with the rest of the elements when the tides ebb.

@ 2014. Igali Tukokumo Conquer. All rights reserved.

The Selfie Run

There are some times I do not have ANYTHING left to do with myself.
When that happens, I let myself OUT!

Run free lady, run!

10/09/2014

On Being 'Distinctly Exotic' ( Or Not)

Aberdeen. 8/9/14
I wore fake hair for 5 days last week.I didn't enjoy it as much, my scalp itched throughout the duration of that adventure.

 I took it out early this morning, had a quick wash and left for my old flat around 11 am to check on a delivery I was expecting. It hadn't arrived. I walked to the city center from Mealmarket Street to catch the First bus by Primark. Seconds later, this conversation ensued.

***
K: Hello Love!
Me: Hi.
K: You are very pretty. I am sure you have heard that countless times?
Me: Oh? Thank you. That is a nice thing to say to a stranger.
K: My name is K******. I am from here. Hopefully, I am not a stranger anymore?
Me: My name is Conquer. I am from Nigeria. Nice to meet you.
K: Lovely to meet you too Conquer. I have a confession to make. I have been following you for some minutes now. Saw you when you stopped by M&S, I waited outside the Body shop for you. Gladly, you came out soon enough. I was wandering if you have a few minutes to spare? Can we grab coffee sometime? I think you are really beautiful, actually, you are distinctly exotic. I just had to meet you...
Me: Oh...
***
Distinctly EXOTIC.
Distinctly exotic?
My mind was throwing around his words in slow mo. I knew exotic meant something non-native, unique or unusual. I am thinking he meant it as a compliment but all I was thinking about, the imagery in my head, was strippers and dancers in clubs. I looked down on my over flowing black gown. I knew I was wearing no makeup or 'exotic' things. Where was that 'compliment' coming from? Should I act offended or surprised? Give him more time to throw me more 'flattery'?

The bus arrives. I tell him I'd been waiting for it all the while, wished him a pleasant day and got on it. He follows, seating just a row behind me. This will be a long trip, I thought.

****

Home. I was still worrying about being called exotic. I should  take photos, I thought. So I snap me a couple to see what he saw.

8/9/2014

Musing: Merit, Maurice and Secondary Life Plans

I am thinking about Maurice now. Before Merit was born, months before, Des and I decided on her name. We had always known she was going to be a girl, almost before she was conceived.
So Des said she was his Merit. I agreed she was my Merit too. There was chance for only a Merit but I told Des we should probably prepare slightly for a boy too so I called him Maurice, if ever Merit decided she was going to be a Maurice at birth.

She was a Merit.

I was stuck with Maurice then, so, when I bought teddies for Merit, one of them became him. A brown cuddly bear. She loved him so much she would only sleep when I I put him beside her or lie her in such a way that she is cuddled by him.

 I have been away from her for over 6 months now. I don't know if Maurice is still in her cot, if she still dots on him like she did when she was only months old. Des says there were too many toys and teddies around, that the Reverend's study (her grandfather) is now a sort of storage converted to keep Merit's excesses.

Excesses. That does sound like she did something wrong. She didn't. :-)

I am thinking about what happens to the things, people and ideas that we just kept close just in case what we really wanted to have, what we where set to achieving or the people we decide to stick with, left us or didn't work out. For me, every secondary plan, idea or back-up relationships people keep 'just in case' is a sort of Maurice. A Maurice gives you a less desired pathway but is not what you had initially wanted. It is kind of like applying to the university to study Law or medicine but only succeeding at securing admission to study Sociology or dentistry.

I am thinking Maurices all over the world must really feel sad about themselves sometimes, you know, because they'll always know they weren't the first choice for you. People always tell you how, sometimes, the rejected stone becomes the chief corner stone. Some Maurices are lucky like that, but It does not always work out that way most of the time.

That stone sometimes becomes a Maurice, lifeless, cuddly and feels good but always never the first choice when dreams count.

I am planning on putting my eggs in several buckets soon too.

I am planning to create several Maurices, just in case my original life plan never pans out. :-)

                                           Merit, Maurice and some of her other favorite toys.
                                       

The MacDonald Banter

I come here everyday. I know the food is hardly healthy, I have put on more pounds since I started eating this junk but I still come.'

'Why don't you just make healthy meals by yourself then?'

Because I'll have to wash up if I cooked. I hate dirty plates, especially the ones I have to clean up by self.

The Five-head Penance

Des had gone to get a haircut and returned. I asked to see how it looks like and he is hesitant. 
It is a regular haircut, you know, just low, he tells me. I am having none of that. I want a photo I tell him. He sends one.
'That is one impressive five-head!' I write in response to his haircut photo and his shiny forehead. I can feel him laughing. Seconds later his response appears and reads;
1 : 0!
I am panicking now. I remember the last time I threw a first punch at him. It did not end well. I bathed with shit-soap for a whole week and he had the best time during the pain that was my karma. I need to fix this, I am thinking. I take photos of my face, trying out angles that can show my impressive five-head too. This one will do I think,and sends it. He is laughing again and responds;
'That is an own goal baby. Why are you beating yourself up?'

Penance. An own goal is still a goal if I remember my football rules correctly. I hope this serves as my official forehead shot.

P.s, you can read my Shit-Soap here:http://conquerigali.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/shit-soap.html

A Memoir Is A Status Update

I just read Dani Shapiro's article on the New yorker titled 'A memoir is not a status update' and I am thinking this writer gives little merit to the social evolution that is the emergence of the impulsive, seldom edited and filtered narrative that updated statuses are made of and how just important they can be to writers and memoirists, if put to good use.
In the article the author bemoans the effects of social media on writing thus;
 '...In an essay on Emily Dickinson, the poet Adrienne Rich once wrote, “It is always what is under pressure in us, especially under pressure of concealment—that explodes in poetry.” We live in a time in which little is concealed, and that pressure valve—the one that every writer is intimate with—rarely has a chance to fill and fill to the point of explosion. Literary memoir is born of this explosion. It is born of the powerful need to craft a story out of the chaos of one’s own history. One of literary memoir’s greatest satisfactions—both for writer and reader—is the slow, deliberate making of a story, of making sense, out of randomness and pain...'' http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/memoir-status-update
This quote from Shapiro's article  is beautiful. I think it is kind of true to some extent too. For some writers,writing is a tortuous, slow process that marinates into something beautiful and complete, a process that is only perfected during a long period of incubation and birth. The very first time I read it,although I liked it, I saw the gaps in her brilliant lines. I think  Emily Dickinson's is sheer perfection and can do no wrong but Adrienne Rich's words do not fully encapsulate the genius that is the social media status-updating writer.

This reminds me of an encounter I had earlier.

Some months back, a Facebook friend and former Alma matter colleague invited me for dinner on her birthday. Our meeting that day was the first time we were ever talking face to face with each other but she knew quite a lot about me. She remembered an ex from Law school. She knew my current relationship, fun facts about my  daughter Merit and so much more. From Facebook statuses and photos, I knew just enough about her as well and the result of our evening together was just fantastic. At the end of our evening out I was thinking, this woman I thought rarely knows me can almost write a short memoir about me and be very correct in her narrative too! I have been told this and after that evening, i realized  some of it is true too. I am a sort valve and I tend to explode all around my friends and followers in some way or the other. I share a lot about some parts of me on Facebook and the other social media outlets that I frequent. Instead of dropping small quotes of sages like some people do, I write long status updates and sometimes blogs about events that I have had. The effect of this is that people get to know me and even form opinions about me, whether they are all positive or negative, I do not know.

From Shapiro's article, It does appear that some people underestimate the effect of the chronicling of events that social media provides but in the years to come, memoirs and books will be written from/about the tweets and updates that people have posted on their statuses. The chronicling of events that social media provides is the stuff that memoirs are made of. Anyone that trivializes this import of their daily spoken words on their pages may just have missed/is missing out on the gold that they are sitting on.

Oh! By the way, did you hear Kim Kadashian is working on a 'book' that only contains selfies of her? I read it will be called 'Selfish' or something. If people are already 'writing books' from impulsive photos taken with their iPhone's,   isn't it possible then that daily status posts of a writer's coinages and thoughts are a waste of writer-ly space?
Think again.
Seriously, wont it be pure genius if you wrote a book with just the status updates from the important moments of your life or those updates that caused the most storm on your timeline? You could title your book 'Status'. Did I just give you the greatest idea ever? Ah! Thank me later. I wont mind receiving an autographed copy when this book comes out though.

:-)

Awkward Questions

Pre brunch.
The flat-viewing I was returning from was unsuccessful. It sounded like this Nigerian man I had called to see about the extra room he was renting preferred 'white girls because they are very respectful'. I am angry and hungry from not eating since morning. It is 3pm already.
Brunch.
The restaurant carries a scant supply of hungry midday eaters. I have just settled in on the window-seat-with-the-view to munch. The pretty girl I had the small talk with comes to seat beside me with her order.
Do you have a girlfriend? She asks, almost shyly.
A girlfriend? I heard her clearly but I repeated the question to be sure.
I mean, are you seeing someone? She asked this time.
I wasn't wrong to ask her to clarify. This postgraduate Kurdish girl I had met at this Burger King while ordering for a beef burger, fries and coffee thinks I prefer women. I was on the phone with Des the entire time I stood in line to order. She must have heard me end the call with 'I love you too'. How she reckons I was talking to another woman, I do not know.
I prefer men, I answer after a long pause.
Oh right! My mistake, she says and asks where I bought my boots from. I tell her they where Roberto Vianni's and returned to my food. I am strangely full now.

Home.
I am thinking about lesbian relationships, transgender people and what makes them decide they did not sexually prefer the opposite gender. Was it bad sexual encounters? Was it only the medical/ spiritual explanation that everyone gives to justify or oppose the gay debate?

I am looking at the photos I took after she left and I am thinking; Tutma! You look awfully masculine today. It is probably the hair or maybe the no makeup look I am wearing today.
The hair... No thanks to all the African male students in Aberdeen who have all decided to be Soyinka's by rocking clean Afros. Now even women think I am gay!

19/8/2014