A month gone.

I blame work.
I’ve been chained to it.
It has taken upon itself the task of making me a better person. It swings at me every morning−forcing me out of bed−Drawing from me moans which, given the early hours of the morning, might be mistaken as erotic moans of protest against a continuance of coital activity. It goes with me when I go to the bathroom watching as I struggle not to pass out on the loo. I take a cold bath in the shivering cold of the morning praying that come sunrise, my day will be a lot easier. It’s usually too early because most of the time God is asleep and doesn’t hear my prayer.
Lately I have been considering the annoying possibility that maybe he does hear my prayer. Maybe he just reads my prayer and then tosses it aside with an unconcerned chuckle as he moves over to attend to prayers from his current favorite son−Some big eared humanoid that goes by the unimpressive name of Obama.
If God does have a hand with the workings of my last month then I hope he realizes that, unlike Job, a couple of hundred sheep will do nothing to soothe me. It probably will take a thousand of sheep. Each with an attending and obedient shepherd girl (preferably dressed in French maid outfits) and an accompanying secretary.
The 100 cars are a given.

So yes.
My ranting aside, there lies the reason behind my month long silence. I have been working. In the last one month I have visited 4 different states. Some for only a night and some for more than a week. The two most important of these visits would be Abuja (The source of my last month's headache) and Bayelsa, home of the only other thing that takes residence in my mind aside from work. Andromeda.

Two weeks ago I was in the Nigerian Senate. In retelling this tale it has come to my attention that whenever I mention the fact that the last one month I have being doing some work for a Senator, people gasp with delight, roll their eyes and proceed to peek out the window in search of the flashiest car--which no doubt ( Nigerian logic dictates ) would be mine.
I hope I won’t have to put up with that here.
Yes I did do a bit of work for a Senator, but sadly (so says my mum) my life is pretty much the same. I was given none of those insane payments that NTA seems to talk about so much. In fact, if anything I was actually underpaid. A fact that didn’t bother me then because I was counting on the fact that work for a Senator would look pretty impressive on my resume not to mention open further avenues to more lucrative ( think high profile) work.
The Jury is still out on whether that was a smart idea on my part.

By far the most interesting part of my senate sojourn was sitting with a Senator’s Aide and some other important people and listen to them groan about how lazy some Senators were. It amazed me because their irritation and concern was genuine. They really wanted to do some honest work to help Nigeria. It greatly helped repaint the image I had of our Nigerian senate. One that involved parties behind closed doors and nonstop wild bacchanal orgies. Hope it appeared still floated in the halls of Epimetheus. She was just taking to bloody long to get things done.

The second part of my interstate travel involved Andromeda.
There are three reasons why I hadn’t blogged about her much.
1.) I was worried about jinxing what we had. Call me old fashioned but I have come to experience that when something is too good to be true, talking about it will probably make it disappear. I am yet to get over the shock of Santa Claus. You don’t want to get me started on Santa Claus.

2) Probably even more worrying was the fact that I really didn’t know what we had.
True; we like each other.
True. We had spent the last 4 months hanging out every weekend (save two weekends when she had to travel).
True. We had become very good friends.
True. We had broken the MTN texting record 7 times (our current record stands at 253 messages sent in one day).
And yet despite all this established truth I was uncertain as to where exactly our relationship stood. Or where it was headed too.

3) I hadn’t blogged much about her because--well-- I hadn’t blogged much.

And so it was that three weeks ago I took a trip to Bayelsa to see Andromeda. My intentions varied but chief on the list was a determination to have some sort of definition given to our relationship. I had to figure what exactly the last 4 months between us was. What it had been. And what it was going to be. A month of being prodded by work had thought me the merits of efficiency. I was going to Bayelsa to see Andromeda. I was going to do something about our relationship status. It just didn’t make sense that I would wake up in the morning only to spend the rest of it in a dream involving her. My friends had stopped answering my calls because (they claimed) I was no longer fun.
One way or another something had to change.

I spent 4 days in Bayelsa.
IN retelling this tale it worries me that whenever I get to this part the listener gives out a gasp (something between shock, delight and surprise) and immediately looks at my fingers in search of some glittering ring. Romance it seems lurks in the hearts of most Nigerians and nothing makes better gossip than a hasty engagement.
Really! It’s so ridiculous at times I wonder at the sanity of most Nigerians. I blame Nollywood. Fortunately I will not have to put up the same with the Blog folk. There is something to be said for anonymity. Gasp might be uttered out there in cyberspace but I am not obliged to hear it. If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it. Has it fallen?
Rhetorical.
SO yes. I spent 4 days in Bayelsa. Yes we came to some sort of understanding. Yes I did not work those lovely 4 days. Yes it is an interesting story.
I see your eyes all widened with interest. What was the nature of our compromise you wonder? How did my four day sojourn end?
Well I’ll tell you.
Or rather. I would tell you. Except I don’t want to have it jinxed.
Yes Jinxed!
Haven’t you been reading?
You really don’t want to get me started on Santa Claus.