Men's things - I

Keeping an eye on it

When you get within a certain age range, you need to pay more attention to a few things, especially your health. I have attended talks, groups, discussions, seminars, and conversations about men’s health and ageing, these things interest me enough even if I do not seem to act on the much I have learnt.

I guess because I have usually had blood work done twice a year, I seem to be a bit conversant with health issues, my kidneys, my liver, bone health, and other indicators in the blood results that I chase up with medical personnel to have a handle on the issues when a result falls out of range.

One month on prescription folic acid and the folic acid deficiency anaemia is now a thing of the past, the last reading put it at borderline high when it was well below the minimum range hardly 7 weeks ago. The other things as red blood cell counts and thyroid activity we need to monitor over a longer time.

That erogenous zone of life

The elephant in the room, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, that I have ignored and done nothing about for years. Friends report their experiences and I sometimes pretend not to be in the affected cohort. My GP even sent me messages inviting me to assess this facility, it is one of the more intimate men’s things that we find ourselves too coy to talk about.

Two blood tests later, in early February and late March, my GP called to have a chat and then immediately scheduled an appointment to have me felt up in a funny place. I duly attended and before I could draw a sharp breath, it was over.

Well, it is slightly enlarged but smooth, and a scan is needed just to be sure. This matter is important but we rarely want to attend to it, either out of fear or embarrassment, both of which can kill you if a situation could have been caught early, but left too late.

Deal with it early

After my many encounters with the medical establishment for all sorts of life-threatening conditions, this should be the easiest of matters to assess, review, and understand, and hopefully, after the scan, I might just lay my mind to rest, absent of any worry or anxiety.

You have to know, to know, that once you are over 45 and black, the statistics can be scary, but do not become a tragic statistic, make that appointment, have those checkups, know the situation or at least have the knowledge to face up to it and have it dealt with promptly.

“1 in 4 Black men will get prostate cancer in their lifetime. Black men are more likely to get prostate cancer than other men, who have a 1 in 8 chance of getting prostate cancer.” Prostate Cancer UK

Men’s things are also about life and well-being, better the finger now than a scalpel blade later.

Reference

Prostate Cancer UK: Black men and prostate cancer

Men's Things Blogs

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Blog - Men's things - XV

I found the mug

Grandad ever watching

The mug, that mug, my mug has the inscription, “If at first you don’t succeed… call grandad.” I wish I could, he died many, many years ago, though I doubt he would have been able to give me the advice I needed to find my mug. Then what is to say his spirit was not with me aiding me in the quest for that missing artefact.

Blog - Now, where's the mug?

Then paranoia set in, having looked everywhere I thought the mug could be, I decided to take pictures of my office desk, the coffee table, and the kitchen, including the bin. Just in case the mug reappeared in any of those places, and I could reference pictures to see what I was missing.

Upending everything again

I checked my door, it was locked, went over my apartment again and then repaired to bed to sleep, but this thing still bothered me, where could be the mug be? As Brian knows, I would unlikely go to bed without satisfactorily resolving this riddle.

Back in the living room, looking under settees, behind the seats and every nook and cranny, but it just did not make sense. I even looked in the fridge and the freezer, just in case, in a moment of silliness that sometimes finds an excuse for my actions, I might just have, well really?

Back in the kitchen, I opened every cupboard, looked again in the dishwasher and then finally, I pulled open the door of the microwave oven, and there was the mug, full of the tea that I had tried to rewarm. I made tea in the afternoon then got distracted after a few sips.

How it happened

Normally, I would boil water and fill up the mug to warm up the tea, but instead, I poured lukewarm water out of the kettle into the mug and set it in the microwave oven for 90 seconds, where I forgot the mug all that while until I wanted to have some ginger tea before going to bed and hence, the search high and low for the mug.

Rather than get agitated about it, I could have just calmed myself down and eventually found the mug. I am sure this same thing happened sometime last year too. What I need to do next time if the mug is not in the sink, on my office desk or in the dishwasher is to check the microwave oven before having wild ideas about where the mug might have scampered off to without letting me know.

If at first, I don’t succeed in finding the mug, I just relax, use another mug because it is somewhere in my apartment, I just can’t find it yet. 

The mug.

Now, where's the mug?

Only me or others too?

Nothing can be as maddening, the thought that you might not be the only resident of your own apartment as a single occupant, for I cannot for the life of me find the mug that I had a cup of coffee out of this morning and then tea this afternoon.

After use, it should be in the sink filled with water ready for a rinse, it is not there and not on either my office desk or the coffee table. And this upset me no end because it starts the perambulation around my apartment seeking where it might be.

O sweet muggy

The bedroom, but why? The bathroom? Surely not! Maybe I forgetfully dumped it in the bin, now, that is crazy. Could it have slipped under the sofa? It has a handle, that can’t be the case. Now, if my door is locked, there is only one other possibility, Ratatouille, and that would have been when I had a nap in the bedroom. O sweet muggy, where are you? I cry.

It is not in the dishwasher, so, I am left wondering, where this mug could be, and it is not amongst the other mugs in the cupboard which brings me to an uneasy situation about things that have suddenly disappeared and then appeared again. My tendency is to discard them on the premise that they did really disappear at the machination of someone.

Believe yourself first

The other day, it was a straw hat, and I might have left it somehwre, but that is unlikely and maybe it is, I have done silly things before, some I cannot bring myself to recount at the sense of embarrassment that someone might take the opportunity to mock me about. Brian, my eyes are on you as I roll them at you.

Maybe, just maybe, for some reason or another, I cannot see the mug where it is because in the confusion, I have temporary blindness and unawareness to perceive where I did put it absentmindedly. What bothers me is as I go to bed, the thought that the mug is missing might just get me up in the middle of the night to assure myself that I am not thinking silly things. If there is a story after this, it would continue elsewhere.

Thought Picnic: Being humanly human in my humanness

Many little things

Even as stoic as one might appear to be, appearances can quite easily be deceptive; mental capacity can so soon be depleted by the confluence of situations and events that are outside one’s control, yet impactful because of one’s attachment or affinity to those things.

It is a situation one cannot put into words to explain to any coherence, the what, the who, the when or the how, it’s like a faucet dripping, nothing of note as it drips, but significant it is collects and makes a sound for each drip. If dripping into a container, it soon fills up and you can be driven to distraction just hearing that interminable dripping.

Let it drain away

It is a kind of fluster that sleep will not cure and that is if you can find that kind of restful sleep that can make you relax and awake with a sense and feeling of strength and readiness for the day. From experience, you just give it time to dissipate, treat it like a form of intoxication that eventually wears off for the return of your sobriety. Then I am too much of a control freak that intoxication is not a lived experience.

A type of frustration seems to loom making you quite irritable and showing up in a lot that you do, decisions that come to the fore that with hindsight will have you nodding to yourself that you have allowed yourself through circumstance to be a fool. You just cannot deceive yourself even if you choose to ignore the obvious.

Every bit human

Vulnerability and naivety are dangerous condiments in a time of apparent mental weakness. You know you are in it and hope it is over before it becomes a harbinger of rue. Obviously, this is where companionship matters, we are far apart and planning on a rendezvous soon as we have not been together since mid-January.

I appreciate his helplessness because he wants to do so much that cannot be bridged by our separation, his soothing and wise words are a great comfort, a tower of strength he is and so quickly notices when I am not particularly there and now, he understands to give me the space to sort my head out. If we were together, the human touch, the hug, that feeling of time collapsed, love expressed, and tenderness experienced would have made all the difference.

It would get better, I can do this much as I acknowledge, I am only being human, my strength will return, and the wonder of hope will refresh me for what is ahead. All towards the healing of being with and the comfort of seeing Brian, keeps me going.

Forgiving my own faults

Thoughts to do

Sometimes, I don’t do the things I meant to do,
Not that I could not the things I thought I could,
In the times I wonder of doing the ones I would,
It just seems the will and strength not just there,
And it is not that I really do not even care,
When the longing comes to fulfil what I could just do,
I could beat myself into regret and damning rue,
Then as each day comes, I feel better with me.

My home is a strange place

My method, my madness

To many, I could appear as disorganised, yet there is some order within the disorder, a method to the madness of scattered and misplaced. The cocoon of my apartment could be hermetically sealed from the perspective that as long as whatever I am looking for is in the apartment, I will find it, even when I have things reordered by my friend who visits every so often.

What upsets me more is when things are taken from the apartment without informing me. I just have a keen awareness of where everything is, and it only takes being notified to appreciate that things can change. Sharing keys and giving access should not portend a carte blanche lack of courtesy and respect for space.

Upsetting my disorder

For instance, I went to bed around 11:00 PM and at least I did not expect I will have visitors before I woke up in the morning, but I am left astounded at the apparent poltergeist activity that has occurred in my home whilst I was in slumber.

• I left a tumbler in the sink, full of water as a pre-rinse and it was not there, I do remember that clearly.
• Having done some handwashing in the sink before I went to bed, the sink you would expect to be clean, but there were filter coffee grains in the sink and over a glass in the slightly opened dishwasher.
• A pack of M&S Belgian Curls had gone.
• Half a pack of Sainsbury’s Shortbread biscuits had been eaten.
• The kitchen towel which I had not exhausted the night before had been replaced on the holder the wrong way round. I know, I like the roll coming off anti-clockwise.
• A coffee mug that I washed and left to drain on the dish drainer had been put in the cupboard.
• A drinking straw was left on the kitchen worktop.
• A tea towel had been dislodged from the holder and fallen to the floor.
• The remainder of the wine in the fridge, about a fifth of the bottle had been drunk and the bottle disposed of.
• One of the two M&S pork pies had been taken.

A cry I miss?

These are all the things I noticed within the hour of getting up. It is quite disconcerting, and the honest truth is if I had been asked, informed, or notified, all this would count for nothing, it is when it seems something is creeping around my home with no consideration of my being in occupancy that leans towards untenable.

I am quite unhappy and unimpressed, there probably is another issue that I have not been made aware of or is difficult to discuss because of privations in status and means. Am I missing a cry for help? I am not clairvoyant. I was missing my hat the other day, I can’t have left it somewhere, but I have made peace with that loss. What I would hate more is to miss more than I am ready to excuse, if things were to deteriorate to that situation.

Deep in thought, I do wonder how much more I can endure before it is just enough.

The shop of things

The spices of people

Out shopping at the new ethnic shop up in sprawling Salford passing through the potpourri of the world of South-East Asia and just before we get to the conurbation of those of the scroll, I veer right to a place that is a magnet for Africans, the sounds and phonetics getting ever so familiar if you stop to listen.

People in chariots of fancy, none horse-drawn, the bit on the bridle is a pedal, and the carriage yields to the turn of the steering and the stirrups are more commanding of posture; the seat belt is soon undone as they come to a halt at the stables behind the shop, I guess that would be the car park.

Lost in the aisles

Two men, probably husbands, as they looked out of place, sent on an errand completely oblivious of what they were to purchase, the questions they asked the staff did not carry them any further until they had to set up a video conference and the instructions became clearer, they left before I did and may not have to return having fulfilled what they were sent to do.

The commander was probably twice the size of his friend, what I tried not to notice was too obvious to ignore. If he ever kept a doctor’s appointment, there is some advice he has not heeded to that he desperately needs to consider for life and wellbeing.

A lady who tried to draw their attention was ignored, she had mistaken one bottle for another, and as she was already at the till, I exchanged the drinks, taking the fermented from her for the unfermented that she required.

The things we eat

The Jafro Foods coconut-flavoured chin-chin was back on the shelves and even in a bigger container, I fetched 2 off the shelf, some moin-moin in leaves, and I even ventured frozen fish for which the French lady behind me offered a good recipe tip. A mother of 4 boys with appetites insatiable, I was not going to pretend I wanted to know what her monthly shopping bill was.

Meanwhile, someone had bought snails for a princely sum that he decided he could not afford and brought them back for a refund. I could not be bothered telling him off for jumping the queue, I obliged him and felt the better for it. Checked through my stuff and took another route back home exploring parts of Salford and Manchester I might have been before but never considered could be reached down those ways.

Thought Picnic: Many things

Letting it go

Many things, things being many, many of those things, things of which are many, many of the manner of things, things that make you wonder of the many.

Indeed, that is the mind, a nebulous centre of thought and process churning and turbulent, even in your quiet time appears to distance you from a needed peace of mind. Then you relax, let go of the things that occupied the mind in an uncomfortable way.

Calm comes, sleep enters, peace enfolds, dreams appear, hope alights, love awakens, many issues become things resolved.

Thought Picnic: Losing things is not fun

Losing the plot

For a while, it never really bothered me, I was used to losing things from when I was a kid and the number of times I was told off for it did not make me a better keeper of my things for a long time.

When I was shipped off to boarding school, a good 500 miles or more away from home, I was literally equipped with the wrong things. My shorts were grey instead of green, I do not know if it was my mother or the school that got it wrong, my cutlass was not fit for purpose, neither light nor sharp, I never completed any of my grass cutting chores with that thing.

Losing my pail

All my things were scrawled over with Kandahar indelible ink and the first thing I lost was my water pail. Unbeknownst to me, you had to secure your pail at all times or it ended up in the hands of someone else and basically, you had no rights of claim except with an exchange – meaning you stole someone else’s pail to get your back.

Suffice it to say, I did not see my pail for years, it had somehow been sequestered in the hallowed temple of the girl’s hostel, the grounds of which were verboten to all males until one summer school season in my penultimate year when some of my class mates raided the place in search of fun and that was the end of boarding school for us in the last year.

Losing my jimjams

Yet, now, I seem to keep things for much longer that I can even remember and with that has come a keener sense of loss when I inadvertently lose things.

In the past two days, I am at a loss as to where have I left my night wear; the top and trousers which I thought I had packed for a weekend trip. It was not as if I did not check every drawer and top in that hotel room before leaving and yet, somewhere between my home and my sojourn, I seem to have lost my pyjamas. I am baffled.

This morning, I could have sworn I left home with my brown Roeckl leather gloves, they are usually in the pocket of my coat when I am not wearing them.

Losing the trail

This evening, I suddenly realised I did not have them and I am left wondering if I left them on the train to work, in the cab between the station and the office or at the office.

The taxing thing about this realisation is how I try to playback my day as if it were some closed-circuit television recording in my mind. I can say this has sometimes worked for me because I am literally able to remember as far as it appears I subconsciously had things with me before I lost sight of them.

Losing the mind

Then the mental disputing begins; as I start to question whether I am sure of what I have remembered. After a while, I can probably settle down to knowing exactly what happened, and then I have to decide if I can get the lost items back or consider replacing them.

In all this, one must not forget that there might be other things at play; a gripping fear of the possibility of losing essential parts of memory and recollection. I desperately try to put the thought far from me as one hopes that a track record of losing things is not a precursor to losing one’s mind.

I guess I have to phone the hotel, the train operator and the cab company, just to put this matter to rest, and at least rest my mind until I have the time for the self-flagellation that comes with having been careless.

Postscript:

This morning as I made for work, I picked up my bowler hat and as I checked my coat pockets I realised the coat I thought I wore yesterday was a different one.

So, it transpired, my gloves were still in my other coat’s pocket and my memory was more to do with the day before yesterday, rather than yesterday.

That sums up the kind of disputing that goes on in my mind as I challenge my recollection of events to be sure that I know what really happened. Yet, I could have sworn I always wore the same coat to work.

The jimjams however, are somewhere I still need to determine.

Simplicity in the bric-a-brac house

Not exactly true

The cost of simplicity is sometimes not evident. You find yourself weighing options at the point of entry hoping that having others bear the cost would save you lots in the long run.

The lesson, hard as it might be is that one should be ready to face certain costs so as to avoid other incidental and unexpected costs.

It came fully furnished, at least that is what gave it the premium rate and the inventory looked like an easy task of view, count and note.

Things falling apart

Nothing could be further from the truth, first it was the scales that could not be reset to zero; it was broken. Bread out of the bag for toast and the toaster fell apart, the warning being don’t plug this in.

The dawn broke and the thirst for tea had Polly reaching out to put the kettle on, there was no point waiting for Sooty to put it off again, the screws holding the lid were out, the attachment broken and the handle far from handling the jug. Water in this would be the difference between the finesse of elocution and the suddenness of electrocution. Time for replacements.

Up the stairs, three steps in all, a rumpled shirt needed ironing. With the choice of one of four irons, you wondered which one was wired to blow the fuse, but before that, reach out for the ironing table and notice that it is a paraplegic, the legs broken off.

Suction lost

Looking down from that is the vacuum cleaner, parts everywhere and none fitting together, it might have gone to war, lost a limb and an eye, maybe more, but there was nothing to walk with this kit.

Welcome to the house of bric-a-brac, it has everything, yet nothing you can use and that list does not end there, but the quest for simplicity continues.

Their fault will cost you

What about a television? Let’s get one delivered in 1:45 hours, the offer says, and so an order goes in and money goes out. 12 hours later, you learn that you were on the unfortunate side of a computer error or technical problem.

No anger, no frustration, just perplexity as a new time is arranged for the delivery and an email lands in your inbox with all the details, only that it appears you are being changed an extra 60% for a service they did not deliver, in the first place.

The time for a torrent of expletives is nigh and no opprobrium should ensue, but calmly after 8 phone calls all before 10:30AM, everything seems to have been sorted out, or so it seems.

The cost of simplicity is simply the fact that many things are not as simple as they seem at first sight.

Decade Blogs - Chioma Agwuegbo (Chuka) - 10 Years

Decade Blogs

After Twitter we seem to run into each other in all sorts of places around London, from meetings to parties and two Sundays ago, it was after Church.

Chioma is everything you can wish for in a fairy god-sister, friendly, funny, happy and bringing life into any gathering.

Even though she was running her own #31Days31Writers Series on her blog through December she willingly accepted my request to write a blog for my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Chioma Agwuegbo brings perspective to what one might have done in 10 years in comparison to my 10 years of blogging and finishes it off with 10 things, 10 things that come as good as advice and lessons. Since it is New Year's Day, some read like resolutions too. Please read and enjoy.

Chioma is a social media strategist who loves God, her family, and dogs, as The Fairy GodSister she blogs at http://fairygodsister.wordpress.com/, is a partner in a media outfit hosted at http://www.chiomachuka.com and waves her magic wand on Twitter with the handle @ChiomaChuka.

10 Years

10 years of blogging? Wow. Means Akin started blogging when I was…never mind. I’m in my 5^th year, and totally looking forward to my 10^th – wonder how it feels, to have stuck with this for a whole decade.

When Akin asked me to write for his 10^th anniversary as a blogger, I was excited for him, honored to have been considered, and then I became stumped because I couldn’t agree within myself on a topic. Somehow I started thinking about stuff I’ve been up to, and voila! What you have below.

Everyday in the last 10 years I have groomed myself, eaten a meal or two (or three or four or none – depending on the diet or religious circumstance). Everyday for all of those years I have had a nap during the day or at night, or not at all, dependent on the severity of the insomnia.

Everyday I have tried to improve myself a little bit, reading a paper or book, watching a talk/sermon/presentation; I have met and exchanged experiences with people, in the quest to sharpen iron with iron.

Never mind that while some people rubbed me till I was splitting hairs while others were soaked planks of old wood each day I tried.

In the last 10 years I have loved. Not really 10 years though, 9 is a bit closer to the truth (shame on you if you feel you are a step closer to uncovering my age). I have loved and been loved, burned, and been burned, even scarred in one instance.

In the last 10 years I have owned three dogs: German Shepherd - Sir B, Italian Shepherd - Izzie, and Alsatian - Waffles. Losing all three of them at different times has made me appreciate animals, and convinced me that I won’t get another pet until I’m 100% convinced I won’t have to entrust their care to the hands of another.

In the last ten years I have learned ten things I want to share

1. Procrastination is the thief of time. And friendships, and ultimately, success.
2. If you work at something hard enough, you will either succeed or you’ll satisfy yourself that there is nothing there for you.
3. Half justice is just as bad as injustice. Maybe even worse. Same thing as one half of any story.
4. You are addressed the way you dress. And paid as you price yourself.
5. 10 friends will not play together for 10 years.
6. I love cooking, reading, sleeping. There are 10 other things before watching TV.
7. Garbage in, garbage out applies to everything, including your body, your work, relationship, etc.
8. Music is underrated. It is spiritual, magical; sometimes it works as a panacea.
9. It’s ok to be selfish. Do stuff for yourself every now and then.
10. You are your biggest fan, except you have my mom, and then she’s your biggest fan.

I’m thankful I know you Akin; you’re a perfect gentleman. And I hope that I’m on your blog again when you hit twenty; simply means you can’t ever stop writing! Congratulations dear, well done!

Hugs,

The Fairy GodSister.

Decade Blogs - Dupe Killa - The Broken Ones

Decade Blogs

Dupe Killa runs a familial posse of sisterly and maternal oversight on Twitter, and I first encountered her in one of those affectionate exchanges with her wards, I could not help but be engaged.

Besides, there are many times I have written blogs that pertain to the deepest things of the heart that she has commented on to commiserate, comfort and empathise.

It is on the basis of this that I asked her to contribute to my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging which she willingly acceded to.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Dupe Killa in The Broken Ones laments how we have lost our way, to pursuits of the ephemeral, in incessant self-aggrandisement and selfish acquisition of material things at the expense of purposeful and useful lives.

On Twitter, she is friend, sister, mum, follower and followed by the handle @dupekilla – Enjoy …

The Broken Ones…

How does one start to calibrate the damage of materialism and the emptiness it brings in the multitude of acquired ‘stuff’? Is it by the darkness of the void created by the blind pursuit of ‘things’? Or is it by measuring the reverberation of the sound of emptiness where reason (cold, deep and track-able) should have been loud, clear and objective?

Before our eyes, the pursuit of happiness has been blatantly reduced to nothingness. Nowadays, if you cannot touch it, use it, spend it, then it cannot be contributory to happiness. Under our watch, we eroded the time-tested methods of self-improvement and the uplift of humanity. We did not only move backwards, we stepped away entirely from the tracks of human progression.

We are broken.

The Sea and Broken Wings by LuneBleu

Maybe it is just me but run a system check on yourself too, please. How many people in your circle can build a car? Or a phone? How many can fix a broken device…any device? How many have created something new? Something different? Do you have anyone in your orbit who can create a flying object? Do you know anyone that still flies kites? Does anyone collect anything? Stones, shells, anything? Is anyone in your network a gardener? Do they dream of creating flower hybrids or new plants? Do they ponder with you, the quandary of creating seedless fruits? No?

Okay, turn the other cheek. Are your families and friends big shoppers? Label and brand hunters? Are you all ‘early arrivals’ to the latest gadgets’ markets? Do you find yourself gasping for the ‘next thing’ just after acquiring the current best thing? Do you keep questing, thirsting for more? Are you beset by a feeling of inexplicable dissatisfaction with your life as you know it even after ‘counting all your blessings’? Do you ponder for long moments the question: ‘what is this life’ and yet have no answers?

Are we not broken?

When technology over-dosed, we gorged and are now suffering the consequences. The world shrunk, everything became available without notice or manual. The choices we had were endless and it was always going to be tough making the right call. We inevitably made the wrong calls no thanks to Sod’s law. The simple life was too mainstream, so off that went. Why fix things when you can get a new one? So off went incremental knowledge too. What we forgot is that in fixing, we learn the whys, the hows and the ‘never-agains’

The biggest tragedy however has to be the wholesale monetisation of emotions. We want it and we want it now, flunk delayed gratification. We are broke… and broken. Saliently or otherwise, we have tacitly agreed that ‘everyone has a price tag’. The evidence of that lies in the fact that the very best of us simply asks that the price be high. What a tragedy that we all can actually be bought. What a degree of brokenness…

If perchance you find some recognition or truth in any of the above and want to make an effort to fix it, it is possible. You can try and fix yourself and then focus on ensuring the next generation are not beset by your ‘brokenness’ either genetically or socially. Focus on the little things: eat and drink sensibly… give rather than receive where possible… fix it if it is broken, don’t bin it… find some simple, yet special endeavour and dedicate yourself to it.

Ask how stuff works and see if you can replicate or improve it however crude your tools and methods. Create your tools. Consciously be at one with nature from time to time. Question everything in a progressive way. Pledge on behalf of the next generation: Never Again.

Life broke us. Can you fix you?

Broken pieces by www.JaqueWatkins.com

Why Ask Why Do Poor People 'Waste' Money On Luxury Goods?

A very good question

From Facebook, I came upon this controversial headline, Why Do Poor People 'Waste' Money On Luxury Goods? It is in my view one of the best-written commentaries on the sociology of hedonism and consumption.

I will not attempt to rewrite the article here, I suggest you click on the link and read; however, there some interesting points that the person raised that are good for discourse.

Respecting others in how we present ourselves

The issue of balancing means with acquisition in pursuit of keeping up with the Joneses or putting up a façade is something I have opined about that I think plagues one of the cultures of my ancestry.

Besides, a very robust exchange on Twitter about appearance and respect went along the lines of a lady taking offence at being approached by a man in sagging trousers.

I could understand what she meant, I opined about how appearance is a function of comportment, and the way people might react to us.

Presentable is not exactly acceptable

In this, I see the conflict or the confusion between presentable and acceptable. The article takes a stab at it with this, “Presentable is the bare minimum of social civility. It means being clean, not smelling, wearing shirts and shoes for service and the like. Presentable as a sufficient condition for gainful, dignified work or successful social interactions is a privilege.”

“In contrast, ‘acceptable’ is about gaining access to a limited set of rewards granted upon group membership. I cannot know exactly how often my presentation of acceptable has helped me but I have enough feedback to know it is not inconsequential.”

I have found that there are elements of presentable that ease the way for being acceptable, but one should know the difference between sophisticated and ostentatious, just as the subtlety of understated compares to the vulgar to the Englishman in me.

I believe these matters of presentable and acceptable reach beyond goods and things to personality, the names we bear or the ones we dare to give our children, the way we engage friends and strangers, and it is a function of comportment.

Keeping up with the Joneses

However, we return to the question that highlights another aspect of character, the earn-and-spend culture that means we have nothing in store for the future and exemplified in the immediate gratification of acquiring for status instead of status being the determinant of acquisition.

None of which is entirely healthy regardless of status, if the need to have is to satisfy a vacuous want to be seen having something to be able to belong or show-off.

Yet, there is a market for this type of person because the virtue of contentment and the wisdom that informs better choices for deciding what is presentable and hopefully acceptable is different from what drives the acquisition of things.

What our presentable should do

What we do in striving for the presentable is to allow the gatekeepers open the doors to where we can be acceptable, it requires we either know the defaults of presentable or acquire the Shibboleth of acceptable.

This is quite different from self-aggrandisement, the luxury good from underwear through designer wear, accessories and expensive toys in the quest to belong. Thereby presenting a public face of plenty underpinned by a private penury.

Penny-wise, pound-foolish

We all have our stories, but I tried to sum it up in this tweet that I posted earlier, “The context of presentable and acceptable in terms of the decisions we make and how we spend can be the difference between foolish and wise.”

Back to the article, if you have not yet read it, Why Do Poor People 'Waste' Money On Luxury Goods? – A very good question with a long backstory.

Thought Picnic: Coming to terms with my stupidity

My stupid scars

Sometimes I wonder about the stupid things that I have done that has left deep and enduring scars.

Stitched up and left to heal, I tinker with the freshness of the wounds preventing its prompt healing whilst enduring the pain and itch as if they have become comforts of my existence.

Then I come to myself. The scars will remain but they must become stories, having their own long tales of how I acquired them, but having my body recover, recuperate, regenerated and restored.

Constantly, I have to alert myself to what is good for me and what militates against my health and welfare.

Scars of beauty and hope

Time to nurse my scars to health and deal with the things that so easily distract me, the quest to please myself, the need for approbation in attempting to please people and understanding that from a spiritual standpoint, my God is pleased with me; I just need to understand, honour and become more aware of that truth.

Loved, blessed and favoured beyond what I can find words to express, a rediscovery of spirituality brings grounding without which one is distracted, uninspired and listless.

I am learning new things, and this is offering opportunity and expectations. The story continues; we are on the up.

Thought Picnic: Appreciating The Need For Therapy

Knowing yourself to others

It has taken quite a while for me to begin to realise to any appreciable extent the consequences of serious illness.

I am 3 years away from a life-threatening diagnosis that I survived and have continued to recover from in other aspects of my life.

Somehow, the force of my personality was not helpful for the additional support I should have received from the outset. It transpired that people who had suffered as I once did are usually offered therapy as part of the holistic treatment regimen just to ensure that other issues do not complicate the medical situation.

Demand help either way

Apparently, I seemed to project the idea that all was fine, especially because I was not exhibiting any of the classic signs of depression that professionals could easily address.

There was no doubt in my mind that things had changed about my personality and confidence but those were difficult to assess using any of the conventional measures that all I ever got was the opportunity to chat to a stranger after struggling for 3 sessions to convince them I needed help.

Losses and keeps

Meanwhile, what I have termed the long tail of illness was waging war against my ability to get a job and I was losing things like my confidence, my purpose, my possessions and literally all that I had acquired in a lifetime

I could not explain the feeling that hit me when I realised that literally all my worldly possessions were given away when I thought something will be obtained in exchange for the stuff, I had trusted people with a responsibility they did not assume properly you just had to walk away and be thankful for life.

I gained my health whilst everything else was lost except the will to live and hope that change for the better was on its way.

Keeping sane

My lesson is with the onset of serious illness, get treatment for the body and well as for the mind, for the greater battle is always in the mind and it will determine how well you come out at the end of that experience.

Therapy is good for the soul and it is not about going mad, it is about keeping sane.

Thought Picnic: The Little Things

Too means more

The question I seem to hear frequently pertains to how I am settling in back in London. I decided when I tweeted a few days ago about returning home to England that there was no point explaining to people why home could by ancestry be Nigeria and home by reason of birth and many factors of my upbringing and outlook could be England too.

The operative word being too to indicate a shared allegiance rather than an abandoned one, as one person engaged me during the closing ceremony of the Olympics – I had tweeted that I was proud to be British too even though I identify more as English and rarely if I could help it as Black British – my race whilst it is used for identification purposes to help others is hardly a function of my expression or projection – I rarely see it until someone points it out.

Missing the little thing

The little things in their subtlety are quite significant in their import; too implicitly meant I was not only British but I had another which my almost too smart assailant missed in his determination to denigrate my person, it presented an opportunity for giving an education but I doubt he had the competence to assimilate the fundamentals.

Leaving the Netherlands has literally closed one chapter in my life and offered me the opportunity to open a new chapter. The return offers a new beginning and prospects are coming in just as I have seemingly gotten a new lease of life.

The little effects

The little thing is a just a SIM card, a number in the UK, a temporary address in the UK and the CV looks like freshly baked bread still warm hardly minutes out of the oven; a perspective realigned is an opportunity within grasp – who knows what might come of this?

Two days ago, it was a little pin connector on my laptop AC adaptor and that was the end of its useful life an urgent replacement was sought and by happenstance a call came in and my good friend of 26 years replaced it. The replacement died within 30 minutes and there wasn’t too much little talk at the shop for it to be replaced without quibbles.

A little touch

With that came the other little bit of knowledge about the smartcard travel-cards known as the Oyster card, I have been overcharged a few times because the system assumes I have not completed my journey which is crazy else I would have been marooned within the transport network rather than getting to my many destinations – each entry and exit point is gated and I have not taken a leap of fatality bounding over any gates.

No one will for now admit that some of the algorithmic logic encoded in the system is bilking us but it is a gathering storm. I dare say when the system fails there is not automatic reset mechanism to restore the overcharge, for all the technology at play we are back to filling forms – it is so much an inconvenience, no one bothers.

Many little ends

Yet, the little things are remarkably wonderful, a little detour and you bump into a friend, a little sideways glance and you see something that has always been there but you never noticed, a little spice and you break out in sweats, a little more and the scales are tipping that you cover your eyes in horror and why is it that I can read the littlest print without my glasses and cannot make out the features of a face hardly 2 metres away?

A little spot of bother for eyeing the bigger picture.

Thought Picnic: The things I cherish of friends now departed

Things sorted

As I gathered the things I could take away in the weekend past, two things became stuff I could not part with.

In my move, I cannot afford to recollect the things I have parted with, memories of work I have done decades ago, some documents that chart my history to times that have long gone into the recesses, too many.

The oldest document I found was my hospital card from as far back as in the 1960s, I kept that, then pictures, and I fear that some despite those I kept might have been lost forever and much else.

That was Dick

Beyond those, was a card with a name and a telephone number, I was in Paris in 1996 and we met, became friends and he was more than a helper when I first moved to the Netherlands, as he helped me settle in then offered much help over the years as I settled in the Netherlands.

The last time I saw him, he came to visit me just 5 days after I left hospital, we were to go for dinner, but I had no strength for that activity, we had tea at my home and talked. If I had the strength, I would have been there to attend the day he defended his PhD.

Friends said, they could see and hear his strength fade as he gave a spirited performance; he had phoned me a few weeks before that he was about to undergo treatment for a type of lymphoma that I did not ascertain in our conversation. We apparently shared the same oncologist and consultant.

Twelve days after that defence, he died just 8 days short of his 58^th birthday, the card on which he wrote his details on the first day of our meeting will remain with me.

When I was a midwife

My uncle visiting me years ago just could not understand why I had so many towels, it is not like I determined to have that many but I did. After much talk about it, I found what would take that off his mind completely, I told him I was a closet midwife, the effect was immediate, funny and terminal – not another word was mentioned about the towels again.

However, there was one nicely embroidered towel that was given to me as a Christmas present and it could well have been a birthday present to.

We met attending the same church over 10 years ago; by amazing coincidence, she shared the same birthday with her wonderful husband and that was my birthday which we shared with another also wonderful lady.

A gift from Marie

I have an affinity for the colour blue and this particularly shade of blue formed the embroidery of a windmill and my name on a white towel; it was such a beautifully personalised gift to cherish.

Sadly, a few years ago, I heard after it had happened that she was ill with cancer and had died two weeks before. The towel, I kept in fond memory of a lady whose kindness, patience, love and concern was a great example to me even when I drifted away.

They remembered the birthday we shared fondly and kept contact but more still, the good they brought into my life cannot be quantified.

Death can only take people away; it does not have the power to take away the memories of how they touched our lives.

Thought Picnic: When Things Don't Matter Any More

The things went

After I decided that things and those many things that have represented material prosperity will be given away what was like a great burden was been lifted off my shoulders and I was about to be liberated.

My attachment to the things had been loosened to the point that it allowed me to embrace a generosity of spirit to any and many who might find interest.

The things fell into groups of things I did not need, things of value that I wanted to give away, things I could do without, things others found useful, things I could throw away and things that were essential to my well-being.

The thing of the bed

By the time I saw those things fall into their different categories, I never felt a tinge of resignation or disappointment, things come and go but a man living in hope endures to give things their place – they should have no hold over you that your heart fails, your soul is sad and your body begins to respond to the stresses of misfortune and catastrophe.

However, one thing eventually stood out that I never thought had that significance until this evening – my bed – my bed, sturdy, strong with a good deal of engineering to put together has followed me that I have even though if I were to be suspended in air, it will be held up for me to take my rest.

As a man of faith, as I read through the gospels, I see the many places where a man with his illness is identified with their beds and their miracle always seemed to come with the bed attached from the man lowered in his bed into a crowded meeting place through to the many who Jesus Christ told to take up their beds and walk.

The battle over things

That fact that in my homelessness I still have my own bed to sleep in and none other is indescribable but ahead of me lays hope that life will get better and friends whose selfless ness just means I am not alone in the midst of these struggles.

When you have won the battle over things, you are ready to rise, take up your bed and walk.

Homeless! My exciting life takes a new chapter

A roof

And so I read the story of a homeless man who had helped keep crime out of a neighbourhood cemetery who had now been rewarded with a trailer, the first roof over his head in three years.

I have been blessed beyond measure by the generosity of many who have since I lost possession of my home given me shelter, succour, space and sustenance.

However, what does it really mean to have a roof over your head? It means you can and do pay the rent or mortgage, you can and do pay the bills and most importantly you are not under the duress of situations that require that you vacate a place for more economically viable persons. I forgot, you’ll have an address too.

Friends beyond need

What would I have ever been able to do without friends, friends near and far who have poured kindly into my bosom to help me back to a semblance of life lived in independence.

Homes opened, hearts opened, hands opened and much more, I have not had enough time for a pity party or for a day to cry because they overwhelm me to a point that I worry that my reality is far from my discovery – I am in fact a homeless man at the mercy of lots and in the kindness of innumerable people who have been too wonderful for words.

Things

Then a decision came just over a week ago, the power of things and what things do to your ability to move on, many things that I have I do not need for the things have no place to be things I could cherish anymore. Those things I have to let go of to allow me do other things and hopefully as things look up those things lost can be replaced.

So, as the week runs out, I find myself with a bag and arriving at a place after a long journey that started three years ago with the onset of cancer, the recovery of health and the seemingly long and sometimes impossible recovery of wealth.

Homeless!

Yes, the truth of the matter is, I am indeed a homeless man. There are probably many we see on the streets today who long before they ended up there have stories to tell but never get heard because we see them in the state they are in rather than on the journey they have travelled.

Somewhere in our hearts and minds we hope we will get to tell a different story altogether with these chapters fully detailed with what some people will call experience.

Note: I have received some messages with regards to this blog and some have asked how they can help, amongst other things, you can use the Paypal Donate button to the top right of my blog. I have also realised that some countries do not have access to Paypal, in which case using a Money Transfer agency or a Bank Transfer might suffice - you can contact me on forakin (at) gmail (dot) com for details or for address to send gifts in kind. Thanks.

Thanks for your help and concerns, I am grateful for all your kindness.