Who Are You?

I think each one of us has DID (Double Identity) a good side and an evil twin. What amazes me is how unexpectedly evil some people can be. I mean it's one thing to know it theoretically and quite another to experience it first hand especially if you're at the receiving end. At 12pm they call you mah luv, my darling and at 12 am they throw you out of their house. At 12 pm they apologize and bitterly regret their actions at 12 am they justify it and tell you that you deserve it. At 12 pm you call them baby or some made up sweet name, at 12 am you call the police on them and they're sent to jail. At 12 pm you sent them to therapy and at 12 am you're willing to go to therapy with them. At 12 pm they're entertaining the idea of getting a restraining order against you and 12 am they're allowing you back in their life with phone calls and secret rendez-vous.
This world is so messed up, to the point that I truly believe I've seen it all and I've lived (and keep living) my life the best way I possibly could (can) given my circumstances.
As Plautus used to say "There is no perfect woman, it's a matter of comparative badness, bro", yeah or, there is no perfect guy, it's a matter of comparative evilness.

She's an Onion: You need to peel her

I use onions for almost all of my cooking: spinach, stew, peanut soup, broiled fish, beans and more. It's a thing I got from my growing up and I would always get assigned the task to cut the onion. The process will bring tears to my eyes but with perseverance the end result will be amazing. There are people who are like onions, you have to peel them, tear them out piece by piece in order to discover their inner self. And sometimes depending of the type of onions (there are red, white, yellow and green onions), you have to peel more layers to get to the good, sweet and delicious part. But you ought to be patient and sometimes the process may bring tears, and smell on your hands. And if it's too much to handle, you can take a little break, wash your face and come back to finish peeling and cutting them. Or you can just abandon the task and decide it is not worth it. Isn't how we often react in the face of adversity whether it is with our career, school or relationships with our significant other? Sometimes we hear of a good career opportunity, the pay is very attractive then we decide to give it a shot and we realize the amount of work, the sacrifice, the whole training process we have to go through and we ask ourselves, is it really worth it? Some of us get discouraged and give up. We give ourselves all kinds of reasons why we shouldn't follow through. We decide our prior condition was better than before we even got involved in the whole process.

Others, however, are persistent. They keep in mind the price, the benefits they're going to reap. One big benefit that onions bring is its effectiveness to fight against conditions such as heart disease. Onions contain chemical compounds believed to have anti-inflammatory, anticholesterol, anticancer, and antioxidant properties such as quercetin. If you know you'll get so much more in return in exchange of a few tears that a peeling process may bring, would you give up easily on that opportunity, on that child, on that love one? Would you stop at the first, second or third tear? Or would you go all the way through?
"She's an Onion, you need to peel her" it's a phrase used by a husband to describe his wife. The wife had this tendency to never show her feelings, she would put over this mask and then run to hide. You had to give her a proper hug for her to open up. The wife was a tough woman, she could stand up to thugs, yell at football coaches (nobody yells louder than these folks!) but when it came to show and express her feelings, that was her black beast and you had to peel her. Just peel her and she would crack open.

Advices of A Mother to Her Daughter

Life is zero and you need to learn how to simplify things that happen.
Why would you stop eating because of a man? On the contrary, you should be taking care of yourself even more.
Cook something that you really like, mix some tomatoes with meat and onions and it'll be ready in five min.
Remember if a man is for you, he won't go anywhere. He'll wait for you. You won't have to do anything, just be yourself and stay nice after all it's a woman characters that are more attractive.
Go out, people who stay inside nobody sees them.
If a guy talks to you, just reply with the utmost kindness without showing much interest.
As you know, here in Africa, it's the man who should go towards a woman not the other way around.
You know marriage is not an end in itself, you see all those couples you think there's grand happiness?
Besides, if there's no husband you can still have your child.
Be careful not to embrace that country culture.
Know that you're still young and have nothing to worry about.
Un de perdu dix de retrouves (advice from a father to his daughter)

Thank you mom, I love you!

From Jesus [De]Generation to Jesus Realization

We were a bunch of Jesus freak as would i have said someone i knew in my past life. So full of zeal, preaching the gospel, dancing, praying, singing, we loved and liked giving our love back to anybody who wanted some. We had committees to organize agapes, our favorite singers where Don Moen and Ron Kenoly among others. We believed God was bigger than us and could take off any obstacle on our path, we believe our faith would move mountain (it had in some cases). If someone insulted us because of our faith, we were happy because we knew were getting persecuted for Jesus. We were young, we were happy, we were innocent. We were smart too, getting our homeworks done, our chores and passing our exams. We were Jesus Generation.
Today, some of us have become doctors, engineers, bankers, programmers, researchers, even preachers. Some got married, got divorced, others got married but couldn't have babies pleaded with God to finally find "answers" from a marabout. Some thought their own husband were useless and found solace in someone's else husband. Others left church once they realized they didn't need God to make it. Some left church because the church did not approve of their fiancée, others stayed in church in spite of everything. Some have developed their own philosophy about God and others have chosen to ignore the bible and live on their own terms. We have become Jesus Degeneration.
Some of us got so beaten up, inside and out, up and down but are still there, we're there hoping for better days, we're there praising for what we have and that will never be taken away from us, we're there praying for wisdom not to repeat the same mistakes, we're there picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off, we're there standing proud of who we are and we still have joy. We're aspiring to be Jesus REALIZATION!!

Happy Endings

I couldn't concentrate at work, having had little to no sleep the nights before and I needed something to cheer me up. I opened up the NYTimes and found this rather misleading title: "Happy Endings" and after a quick read, here was I, sinking even further down than I already was.
I started reviewing my life and I came to the conclusion that I have lived the best life I could have possibly lived given my circumstances and that I was ready to pass away. I mean I've known sadness at its deepest level, I've been through hell and back, I've known joy and great happiness. I've made my parents proud, very proud. I've taken care of my family, I've done charity work, I've preached the gospel, so somewhere somehow I must have impacted someone's life in a positive way. I've watched all kinds of movies: trashy, dramatic, thriller, comedy, suspense, horror, silent, I've even watched porn (lol, Lord forgive me if I have sinned against you.). I've fallen in love, then gotten up, fallen out of love. I've given shelter to people who didn't deserve it. I've accepted and been accepted, I've rejected and been rejected. I've tithed, still do. My life has taken some type of existence. There's nothing new under the sun
Yesterday someone expressed their undying love for me. While all I wanted to do was to express my undying impatience with a homework I couldn't seem to complete. At the end, life has no meaning so does my mom tell me. We must take life as simple as it comes. Easy said than done. Yes, life has no meaning in itself, but mine has taken some type of existence and now I'm ready, ready to go, ready to leave.

Am I guilty?

I think I was born with an older soul than my young body. I have a weakness for oldies: soul, funk, blues and some good modern jazz. I heard this song on the radio not long ago and it just frizzled my hair all over my body (in a good way) and as soon as I got my laptop I had to YouTube it (Thank God for YouTube!) and there it was! A very soul smothering song about an affair between him and Mrs Jones. Now my peeps know how I feel about affairs, infidelity and the like. But this song has something to it that gets me to a point that I really enjoy it and can even picture myself karaokeing it. So my question is, although I'm viral anti-cheating activist, but still savor this funky song along with the lyrics, does that make me guilty of infidelity?

Let's Make Love Before We Say Farewell

My dad and I have this thing that we pull when we visit each other, we steal one another's CDs. I often joke with him that he should bequeath his CDs to me. On my recent trip to the motherland, I got this fantastic collection of oldies French songs. And the other day as I was driving to work, I turned my player and this song came on, sending me way back in the days when I was between 10 and 12 years old. As the words was distilling in the air, I paid attention to their meaning and it cracked me up. Here's an example by Jeanne Manson, who surprisingly is American but has spent so many years in France that she had come to espouse the French way of "coloring" love, the title is (literally translated):

Let's make love before we say farewell

Let's make love before we say farewell
[before we say farewell]
Let's make love since it's over between us
[since it's over between us]
Let's make love as if it was the first time
One more time you and I since love is leaving
[x2]
I can forgive you for everything and pretend to forget
I would like to close my eyes and do everything you want
I can share you and even plead with you but don't leave
I'll make myself so small that you won't see me
I'll be so tender that tomorrow you'll love me
I'll be all love and all to you but don't leave
[chorus] x2