Posted on by crystal · 19 Comments

Free to be … free!

I’ve been in session with depression for a while now, and this weekend, things got really bad. I won’t go into details, but I’ll say that I got yelled at by the one I love most. He was totally right of course, and I learned some very important things.

Depression has a trigger. Sometimes it’s big, sometimes it’s small. Sometimes it snowballs and spirals out of control. But there’s always a root behind it, and sometimes the root is hard to find.

Today I found what my root is: I don’t think I’m good enough. And it doesn’t matter how much I get praised, loved, or admired, I’ve just never been worthy in my own eyes. That’s why I set the bar so high and cry when I don’t reach it. In my mind, I’m never going to reach it.

My Love says it’s all in my head, and he’s right. Only I can believe that I’m good enough, only I can convince myself I’m worthy.

Every time I fail, it proves my thoughts that I’m undeserving. But like my life coach says, I have to believe that the good things I do beat the bad things I am.

I wanted a reason to get up in the morning, and here it is. Every day when I wake up, I’ll strive to do something good. If I do enough good things, they will make up for the bad, and I’ll be cool in my eyes again. Or maybe I’ll be cool in my eyes, period. Then maybe I won’t have to sing so much about the purple hair *cheeky grin*

Posted on by crystal · 122 Comments

I’m a hus-tler!

I’ve always wanted to say that.

A few days ago, I met an artist. We’d spoken on phone and email, but we didn’t recognize each other until introductions were made. The usual pleasantries were followed by…

‘So, what do you do?’

He explained that he mostly does murals, and that he could avail a DVD with his portfolio. A jack of many trades I see. He bounced the question back to me.

‘I’m a freelance writer.’

He smiled cheekily and said, ‘Why didn’t you use the standard reply?’

‘Well, when a guy says he’s a hustler, it’s generally a good thing. When a girl says she’s hustler, people glance around for her pimp.’

I’ve always admired hustlers. They don’t seem to have an actual job, but they float everywhere, do everything, and always have money. I suppose it all comes down to male vs female. I read on Copyblogger that men accept all jobs, while women consider their expertise and only take the task if they’re fully qualified to do it. To quote Chris Brogan of  Third Tribe:

There’s a really fascinating gender thing where women worry that they’re not qualified. And men [on the other hand] always just blatantly rush in and say ‘yeah sure I could do that’ — even if they have no real related skill. If they think they have a sense of the skill, they’ll do it.

Ask a guy if he can do ABC and he’ll be like, ‘Yeah sure!’ Then after receiving the deposit, he’ll figure out some way to get it done, mostly through outsourcing. A woman, on the other hand, will tell you she can’t handle it and forward you to somebody that can. Or at least, she’ll show enough doubt for you to think twice and move on.  Hence, men make better hustlers. Thus speaketh ‘they’.

To some extent, every teenage boy is a hustler, because they rarely ask their folks for money, but never seem to be broke. I asked my kid bro where he gets his money once, and he said, ‘You make deals.’

‘What kind of deals?’

‘Anything really. I once used the computer to take still shots while watching 8 Mile, printed them out, and sold them as Eminem posters. Sometimes I burn music from my hard drive and sell those, or I rent out my iPod to a pal on a bus trip. Anything really.’

It’s what the guys in TZ call diradira, and I was amused when my taxi guy in Dar said he thinks I’m a hustler. He decided that while I was working in Dar, I must have some office in Nairobi somewhere where people work for me and mint money. God knows where he got that idea. Probably because I told him I was leaving Dar to come back home yet I had no job prospects at the time.

[Note to self: I need to get a ‘taxi guy’ in nairobi. preferably one who works cheap.]

A few months ago, I told a friend I’d like to be a hustler – without the pimp of course, and he said,

‘You already are! You pay your own rent, nobody knows exactly what you do, and your neighbours think you’re a housewife.’

Heehee.

I suppose in some ways I am a hustler. But my kind of hustle needs discipline, and I’m slowly learning to develop that. My life coach helps. Freelancing means being your own boss – sort of – but I haven’t been much of a boss lately. I let myself take breaks for Twitter, and movies, and email, and I don’t pay for overtime. I work during my lunch break, and stay up much later than I should. My baby calls me ‘working head’ because she sleeps when I’m at the computer and wakes up to find me still sitting there.

If my hustle is going to be successful, I need to set up a 9 to 5, so I’ll have time to work and time to play. I should try to keep email for lunchtime, and spend a lot less time on Twitter. I need to leave movies for after hours, and sleep when I need to sleep. Unless I work hard on my discipline, I’m going to keep seeing pink pills, and have 99 problems with no relation to Jay Z, Beyoncé, or Linkin Park.

There’s a really fascinating gender thing where women worry that they’re not qualified. And men [on the other hand] always just blatantly rush in and say ‘yeah sure I could do that’ — even if they have no real related skill. If they think they have a sense of the skill, they’ll do it.
Posted on by crystal · 111 Comments

My baby is not a barbie

I don’t know the exact origin [or spelling] of this word, but ‘barbie’ – as used in Sheng – has very little to do with blonde dolls. It’s actually a mildly derogatory word for black people who are … you know … white. It’s loosely applied to people who grew up in the suburbs, speak English more than Swahili, and listen to Capital FM.

Of course, that was in the 80s, and I’m not sure what defines a barbie now. Last time I checked, the term had morphed into ‘odinari’ though again, I can’t tell why. It used to be that everyone born in LA was a barbie. That’s Lang’ata, by the way. I grew up here, and moved back in January, so I definitely qualify.

But the LA of 2010 [Wessaaa-iiiiiiid!!] looks more like Zimmerman, with flats sprouting everywhere and mad traffic despite the dual carriageway. The double road helped, but with all the houses going up left and right, and just one road to find your way out, traffic is back to 1989.

When we were little, we had this place called Picture House. It was a video library in Hurlingham, and we’d take 10 videos a week. That was just for the kids. The teens in the house would get 5, mum would get 3, and dad would get 2. Mum’s choices were classed as bestsellers, and were usually ‘based on a  true story’. The teens would pick Top of the Pops and Danielle Steels, while dad would pick old westerns. So despite being born in 81, I know the lyrics to Rick Asley, I can quote lines from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and I have a brother nicknamed Blondie. He doesn’t like reggae or have yellow hair.

The 10 movies we picked were mostly cartoons, and there were hundreds to choose from. We always got the latest releases, so by the time anything animated showed up on TV, we’d watched it decades before. We also got children’s movies, and occasionally picked films for random reasons like, ‘It has Crystal in the title’.

We didn’t watch Dallas, ABC Moonlighting, or Remington Steel, because we had to be in bed by 7, but we spent hours watching movies, and reading books by Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, so we ended knowing a lot more about western culture than the average Kenyan kid. We knew about Halloween, The Easter Bunny, Summer Camp, Tap dancing, Piano recitals, Thanksgiving – stuff no ordinary kid would care about. . And we became … barbies. Also, we really suck at Sheng.

Barbies of the 80s were more likely to say spleng than supuu, and would ask for a sock or a red instead of soo moja anchwani mbee. Years later, I still don’t know what that means. It might be two hundred and fifty … ?

I knew that we don’t celebrate Halloween, but I knew what I’d wear to a costume party – if we ever had one. We sometimes had duck and stuffed turkey for dinner, with custard and vermicelli for dessert. To the regular kid, that’s just really thin spaghetti with sugar.

Princess was born here, in a house about 500 metres from the flat where we live now. She likes to dress [and undress] her dolls, and she’s a big fan of Hannah Montana. But she’s anything but barbie, and I realised this because she had no clue what Halloween is. Also, she’d rather watch Papa Shirandula than Myth Quest, she knows the entire rap to Machachari, and she doesn’t like pizza. Oh the sacrilege!

I suppose I should be disappointed, or at least surprised, but I’m not really. Princess learns a lot from TV too, and from pretty early on, she didn’t like the same shows that I did. I like Japan topics, she likes Jumong. I watch BBC dockis, she watches Tahidi High. I get excited over Laughing Octopus and Jo Frost, she wants an autograph from Miss Morgan. And … gasp … she understands Sheng!

I’m actually glad she’s not a barbie. She can survive anywhere from Lavington to Jeri, and she has mad negotiation skills. She can play kalongo with her friends, bake mud cakes in her plastic gas cooker, and improvise toys out of broomsticks. She can make a paper bag ball for kati … I couldn’t even play kati. I think these skills are immensely more useful than knowing what to wear on Halloween.