Me stealing the MumBae as Dad looks on.

 Ah well! We started from the bottom, reached the top and now we here, which is somewhere in-between the top and the bottom. It isn't a good place to be, but I'm content all the same. I use too many buts these days. I don't think I can help it. Something is always one thing, then another.

Take me for instance. I'm Afam, son of Mama and Papa Afam, acquaintance of many, friend to a few, gifted by birth, and punished by life. It's all so dramatic here, but I imagine that this is why you love me. The words come so painfully tonight. It must have something to do with the fact that I'm watching Little Women on television. I'll labour on for a little while.

I hang out with all sorts these days: vagrants, creative people, designers,  industry perps and the like. To them I'm at best a content co-ordinator and at worst a hanger on. When I talk about being a blogger, they make me out to be some gossip monger. I dare not tell them that they over value their own importance, and that the readers of the good dear old blog, are far too refined to care about their daily proclivities. You care about culture - about things that are large enough to stop or start conversation; and you care about me. You do not so much care that Linsday Lohan photoshopped her buttocks on instagram, or that Seyi Shay went grey, then brown, and God knows what else. These things change too quickly for anyone in decent employment to notice.

I cannot bring many of these people home for Papa Afam would despise them the second they set foot in it. He wouldn't quite despise them, but they would be the face of his frustration with me. It's one of the weird things here, what is a successful actor to a self made man like Papa Afam. If it came to a pissing contest, he would ask them how many exams they'd written and they would fail to impress him. They would fail to impress him even if they owned the whole world, because love means seeing those you hold in your heart to better than either you or they can imagine, and Papa Afam loves me.

Last week Sunday, he made us lunch. Please note that his making us lunch isn't a sign of his love, it's a symptom of his indelible sense of duty and propriety. In Papa Afam's mind, it is customary that families sit and eat lunch together on Sundays. We had been slacking on this family tradition, so Papa Afam decided to step into the kitchen to ensure that no-one deviated from the master plan of his perfect Sunday afternoon. I could not bring myself to refuse him. To skip a Papa Afam cooked meal is to dance with disaster and misery. It's the sort of thing that leads to conversations like this,

"Good morning daddy."

"What's good about the morning?"
..............................

"Dad, I'm going to Stranger."

"Only a madman would go to a place called Stranger."
................................

"What is this blog of a thing?"

"I don't know really?"

"Why is it called the Ramblings of a Madman? Do you know that people will actually think you're crazy?"
..................................

The thing is we're all crazy. I think it's crazy that on Christmas day we had both turkey and duck, and that on New Year's day we killed a Ram. It was great, I loved it, but it's nuts. There's a shanty village not 400 metres from here! That's bonkers no? And last week Sunday, we had Pheasant. I don't even want to tell you how insularly weird that is.

With life the more things seem to change the more you realise that they never did in fact change. We hide our sameness in tales of growth and and lovely things. However the things are always just things, we remain the same underneath.

The other day I was sitting with Mama Afam in the living room upstairs, when a cockroach appeared. Mama Afam couldn't see it because she didn't have her glasses on but that didn't deter her. She walked in the direction of its scuttles and bent toward the floor with squinted eyes. When she saw it, she exclaimed,

"Ah it's a Cockroach!"

 She hobbled away to find a good slipper to finish it with but as she returned to do the deed the cockroach took flight.

 "Ah!" She screamed.

"It flew! It must be Indian!"

After she'd changed slippers - because Indian cockroaches require different slippers for the killing - and killed the roach, I said,

"Stop this! That's how people will start to suspect that I wasn't born on the Island."

And I wasn't. 

I've just got to say that some of you people are trying it. I don't mean you afamzers/famzers. You guys are lovely and wonderful and brilliant. I mean the other ones, the ex-afamzers. I mean, I know we didn't work out and stuff, but that doesn't mean I died. What kind of God awful exes are you! Jesus!

It's just like one ratty imaginary ex of mine said to me just now,

"Afam I haven't seen you around for a bit, are you dead, or ill?"

Of course the bit of my brain that thought that has been lobotomized. I do not like it when my body parts wish me ill.

In a similar vein, some of you guys have been coming up to me and asking whether I still blog or not. Dudes! Chicks! Twats! Don't ask me, read the bloody thing! And if you're genuinely not interested, fine! Don't bother me! I won't bother you! Or better yet, google the ramblings of a madman and find out. Stop making me uncomfortable in public.

And now that that's out of my system let's get to the matter for today. Yes, I'm not blogging for the sake of it today. I have a matter that I'd like to discuss. No, not discuss. You lot are not really involved. I'll take it again. I have something that I'd like to blog about.




At this juncture I feel that it is important for me to remind the lot of you that I, Afam, am not an Orphan. I have a Mama Afam and a Papa Afam. While Papa Afam is awesome - I mean the guy is just amazing. If I'm half as strong as he is, I'll move mountains, and tame devils. And if I'm anything like him I'll find a nice Isa L'Eko babe with a brilliant family and settle down. - Mama Afam is beyond. She's like the beyond in Bed, Bath and Beyond. You get a Bed, a Bath, a Laptop, Love, free advice, a rottweiller, a bull dog, a bottle of Amapola (aka what I'm drinking as I write this) and a prayer warrior all in one chocolate 35 year old body. I realise that you must realise that if Mama Afam's 35 then she had me when she was 11. And I know that this sounds unreasonable but you must learn to ACCEPT it to. What this means for you is that if you should ever run into Mama Afam, you must flirt with her. Flirting can be flattering which is why I have a couple of numbers that I'll never use. I like to think of them as souvenirs of my youth. In each of them is a future that I said no to. I like my little mementos time. In one timeline there's an Afam who's a single dad with a terrific 5 year old and in this one there's me. I'm losing the plot here.

What I really mean to say is that there's so much that's been done for me. In 2012, when things seemed particularly bleak, that woman stood by me through thick and university paper work and process. There's really nothing I could say that could possibly describe the depth of feeling that I have towards her, and the brilliant thing is that I don't need to say anything. It's all there, in every look, in every sigh of frustration, in every tear, in every shared laugh, and in every hug, that I have never loved another as I love her, and that I think, is enough.

Happy Days,
Afam

Ah!! My friends!! Life has been difficult.

First of all the stupid dog died. I was gutted.

I should probably say more about the Captain (may he rest in peace) but I won't. I can't look at a Rottweiler without wanting to kidnap it, so I'm still not fine. When will I be fine? I don't know, but I want another Rott. I've already named him. He'll be Moose. And then it'll be the Ramblings of a Madman and his burgeoning commander Moose. You see, I told you. I've already named my next animal child - The Burgeoning Commander Moose Odi. I have a knack for naming things. Yippee Kai Yay. However, as I cannot presently afford a pedigree Rott, I will appreciate a donation. He'll have a good home, and he'll be happy. Things will be amazing and more than a little bit disgusting because the love he'll receive will be stupendous. I didn't know this at the time, but the good old captain Reginald consumed a fair bit of my emotional energy. Since he's been dead I have been crushing on people like a villain. My intensity cannot be curbed. While he was alive, I was positively asexual. But now, don't stand so close to me. If you do things will get weird. You'll be overwhelmed by the pheromones in my man funk. Yeah, I don't shower as much as I used to. Actually that's a lie. I don't know why I said that.

After my dog died, I turned 24. That killed me. I was not ready. Twenty four is dangerously close to twenty five, and that's when I have to be serious with everything. I'm a little bit serious with most things already, but twenty five will be the game changer. At twenty five, I'll have to have moved out of the country, so I can get better at all of this. Nigeria's a little bit of a creativity killer. I mean how can you be creative while you're battling mosquitoes and putting on the generator, and waking up at 5am to queue for petrol and other other other other traumatising things. Lagos has not been kind to me. My tyre blew out on third mainland for christ's sake. Third Mainland bridge is the longest bridge in West Africa. It is devoid of both a speed limit and a service lane. I had to change it while cars whizzed past me at 70 miles an hour, and that took some doing.

And as if all of that wasn't enough, I got a little bit confused about who I was. You see, technically I don't exist. The guy whose body I inhabit exists, but I don't. We are not the same. We will never be the same. That guy's soft spoken, and introspective and deeper than a thousand wells, but I'm not. In my moments of weakness he was seeping into my thoughts and appearing in my words, and that was unacceptable. For those of you who do not know the story of my birth, I'll tell it.

There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy, he was going through many things, bang ups and hang ups, and he got tired. He needed an escape, and he took it, and then he ran with it. While he was running with it, I emerged from his head fully formed. I do things that he will not, and I say things that he will not.

Happy Days,
Afam

Peace out!

Ps. After looking at these pictures of me John Lennoning (there's no other name for what I was doing) Mama AFAM said that I would have made a very pretty girl. I resent that. I am a finely formed man. I am so manly that I can install a weave on my head and still look like a rugged manly dog god alien man.

Psss. I'm going to this thing today.


I know it seems like one of those (mundane, dull) things, but it'll be spectacular, because the now's spectacular.

It's been four days since my last blog and I feel terrible. Well, I don't feel that terrible, but I don't think there's another adjective that'll do the job effectively so terrible will have to do. Truth be told I only feel mildly bad. If I was a millionaire and a blogger, maybe I'd have the time to feel very very terrible, but I'm not and so I don't. Between the 70 kilometres of driving I get through every day driving to my 9 to 4 and back, and the bags under my eyes, I can't feel guilty. Guilt? For who? All my feelings at the moment are reserved for Self pity. Yes, I pity myself goddammit! I'm tired, and I want to cry, and I touch my face like a chronic masturbator touches his penis. It's a coping mechanism.

I was going to start this one by apologising for having a cook. You know how it is. In the world today, before you talk about wealth, especially your wealth or your family's wealth, you must first apologise for being wealthy. And I'm not saying that the Afam family is a wealthy one. All you need to know is that Papa Afam (may God bless his incredible soul) works hard and can afford to pay the school fees of the only child he has that's still in school, and that I, Afam also work hard but cannot afford to put petrol in the car that I drive. I'm not complaining. You would think I would hate it, but I don't. There's something about being monumentally broke when you're in your early twenties. It's a little bit of a communal experience. It's even more unifying when you're a writer of sorts. Do you know how many broke writers there are out there? No? That's because no one knows. It is possible that if my cook was as skilled as the rat in ratatouille, I would have felt guilty enough to apologise for my privilege. What privilege you wonder? It's the my parents both went to university, worked like bastards, and sacrificed like martyrs so that they and their children could live well privilege. But he isn't. I suppose that's the wrong thing to say. He is skilled in a way. He can chop and dice and fry and boil, but he's got the imagination of a boiled egg. That is to say that he is so unimaginative that I imagine that he must have been the recipient of a lobotomy at birth. He once served yam porridge, potato porridge, sweet potato porridge and plantain porridge in the same week. I was aghast. I starved. I'm incapable of coming back after my 9 to 5 to eat porridge. I'd rather eat nothing at all, and so I haven't been eating.

While all of that is quite terrible, it doesn't top what he did two days ago. I had a meeting in the morning, for some project I'm supposed to be working on quite soon and I didn't have any time for breakfast so I raced out of the house at eight with a mug of coffee, dreaming about what I would eat for supper. I usually don't eat out because I always regret it. When you're as broke as I am, you vacillate between berating yourself for your profligate ways and languishing in your perpetual lack of disposable income. My day that day ended at about eight. I dragged my feet through the door and asked Caderouse for my supper. I was famished! I was ravenous. I was on the brink of dying of hunger. Here is what Caderouse brought me.


Somebody's getting fired.

Happy Days,
Afam

My dog, the great Captain Reginald died today. I dug his grave. I didn't think 23 was old enough to be digging graves, but I was wrong. I'm wrong about a lot of things. He was a fantastic beast; as pretty in death as he ever was in life. I loved him. I love him still. I shall miss him. I fear that I shall not be half as interesting without him.

A lot's happened since I've been back and not all of it has been good. Some of it has been downright horrible. Blogging isn't convenient anymore. Or it isn't as convenient as it was, and I expect it to grow more difficult still. But there's this thing I do, that I do well. I do it so well that I'm quite certain that it's what I want to do. I'm not sure where it's going, or what I will be doing in a year, or even a month, but all of that is inconsequential. So, I shan't let anything stop me. I'll keep at it until I'm well and truly spent. I'll yell at the heavens and rant and rave until I haven't got a rant or a rave left in me.

Since it seems that the Universe is hell bent on shitting on me - God knows the untimely departure of Reggie was a step to far - I'll shit right back at it. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't tired.

Goodnight, Travel Well,
I love you
Afam

Also, for those of you that know me and know me quite well, do not be a bastard and tell my sister about this. I shall do it myself in my own time. I know this seems like an unreasonable demand to make, but I'm making it anyway. I will demand this one indulgence from you and you will give it.

It is Saturday and I am at a loss. You see, I fear that the infernal fire that possessed me to start this foolhardy endeavour has abandoned me. It's left me like a rich or not very rich old man leaves his old matron for a lithe, truly strapping example of youth and coquettish energy. But upon completing the composition of the previous four sentences, I have come to the conclusion that it hasn't. I was wrong. And now I must tell you a tale. But the thing is, I do not know what it is I should talk about. Everything is so dreadfully morbid. If I were to tell of anything, it would fill you with feelings of such ennui that you would be suicidal. And I can't have that. If you were depressed, then you would, sleep, and sleep, and not read the good, dear old blog. And if that were to happen, my dreams of quitting my parents via the powers of my talent would be dashed.

Forgive me. I cannot seem to focus. Anna Karenina's playing on the telly, and I love that film. I love it as much as I love tea - and I love tea a great deal. I love it so much that I have collected no fewer than 15 boxes of Twinings for my perusal, experimentation and amusement. Just the other day I discovered that if you add a touch of lemon juice to your Earl Gray, it becomes the most divine concoction.

Because you do not come to my blog to read about my obsession with tea, which was rekindled by my good dear friends at Stranger Lagos. I've told you of the space before haven't I? It's the one in Lekki Phase 1 that I can't do without. People call it a concept store and a magenta coffee house, but I fear that they're wrong. It is both of these things while being neither. It's a home away from home for those that would seek a home away from home. You may buy the most eccentric, unique, and fashionable items, while you drink the most enchanting brews from Gambia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Columbia, and Rwanda, but even if it did not possess those gems, it would still be just as precious as it is. And that is because the proprietors have carved out of thin air, a space so impossibly cool that those who have tasted of its waters and find themselves possessed by it. Fated to return repeatedly for N1,500 half pots of coffee they could probably do without.

I forgot myself there.

Because you do not read my blog to read about my amateurish endeavours with regards the brewing of tea, I shall refrain. And even if you did want to read about my dealings with tea, I do not wish to bleed words about tea today and so I shan't.

What I really want to talk about is my life at home.



I live with Mama Afam, Papa Afam, Grandmama Afam, my brother Gbaddy, my cousin Bibi, the maid Mary, the cook Caderrouse, the Chief of Security Captain Reginald, and my sister's dog Sabrina . This is hardly extraordinary. My understanding of African homes is that they're better suited to the accommodation of the extended family than they are the nuclear. this does not depend on how large or small the house is. If there is a member of the family - no matter how distant - that for whatever reason is in want of a room, they shall have it. And so, Bibi has kicked me out of my room overlooking the Redeemed church across the road, and beside the wi-fi thing-a-ma-bob, and I have been forced by Mama Afam's hard looks, conniving ways, and partially sympathetic wallet to room with my brother.

I am not unused to rooming with my brother, but, after very many years of sleeping alone, I sometimes forget myself and scream whenever I wake up to see his very naked manly back in front of my eyes. It's something I doubt I shall ever get used to. Furthermore the loss of the last space that was somewhat mine has left me mentally unfettered. Somewhat mine because every Nigerian son knows that their room is only an extension of their parent's goodwill, and that it may at anytime become a store for everything and the kitchen sink. This is probably also due to the fact that the Afam household is extremely partial to hoarding. As I type this there are three televisions in front of me that have not worked in years. I would throw them out, but I fear that if I dare touch them Papa Afam would perform the same service upon me, and I can't have that. I think he thinks that it is possible to extract the value of his money from them by observing them in their state of ruin daily…

Papa Afam and I are once again at loggerheads. I need more money, and he needs me to not ask him for it once a week, every week. He's told me to come up with a list of my expenses that he may dispense the cash like the good bank that he is on the first day of every month, but I haven't. I am not ready for the mental effort that the activity typically requires. It's me standing in front of his office with a flip chart showing logical calculations and estimations that prove that the vehicle I've been driving is a gas guzzling creature sent from hell to ruin me. And it's me arguing the positive relationship that exists between my Friday night excursions and my general well being. As with all negotiations I have with Papa Afam, it ends with him snickering at me, and me profoundly unhappy at being screwed over yet again.

And that's all I'm going to talk about today. I'm profoundly sorry that I've been away for ten days, but if I did not go away, how would I ever know that you missed me?

@Afam20 Chief ur last blog posting was 10 days ago.Kilode? nothing mildly amusing happening in Mr Afam's world or is it blog fatigue.
— DejiAnubi (@DejiAnubi) February 21, 2014

@Afam20 Does this explain why the 'Afamzers' have been refreshing unproductively in the last three days? (˘.˘)
— Àárínolá (@TweenyTee) February 20, 2014

Happy Days,
Afam

Oh! I forgot to say that I no longer have a laptop, which is sad. It died a few weeks ago, but life goes on. We do not expire because the tools of our profession fail.