Fresh Starts and November Winds

“So, November is here, and you haven’t started your blog. WHY?!”

When I heard myself ask me this question, I felt terrible. You know, like one of those moments when a child puts you on the spot with a question like “what is sex?” and you have no idea what to say, or not say, whether to cower away or grow some balls (or an extra “something else”, just to be gender sensitive) to drop it as it is. That question to me, by me, was much worse, especially considering that I registered anaalescribes over two months ago, and yet had not posted a word or at the very least, a single letter of the alphabet.

Interestingly, my lack of posting was not because nothing eventful happened in the last two months; indeed, events spanning making top five in a writing competition to totally crushing on a very young science whiz kid (sigh), who I would describe no further, to meeting a mysterious yet intriguing Nigerian male novelist nineteen years older than I am among others (trust me, I have more stories swimming in my mind than I’m willing to share) were all good candidates for "bloggable" posts. And there even came the month of October, breast cancer awareness month, when we all went pink for the cause. I shared a few related memes on my Facebook page and promised myself to write a piece or two or three but no, thirty days passed and my lazy bottom (and do pardon my French), didn’t. But before my fellow feminists judge, let me say that I did have good intentions, really, I did.

So, why haven’t I written?

There’s no simple answer. In fact, there’s no answer at all.  This is a question as difficult to answer as the question of why people cheat, or why Adam named the hippopotamus a hippopotamus. So, I messed up big time for no apparent reason and I totally didn’t live up to the expectations I had for myself regarding writing a lot more.

I, however, am a strong believer in fresh starts. So, what other time to launch my blog than in Academic writing month? Yes! For my colleagues in Academia, and pretty much anyone else who cares to know, November is the month to look into the tall shelves of unpublished work and pull out those great discoveries gathering dust because, it is the month for Academic writing! You can read more about it here or on Facebook and follow discussions at #AcWriMo.

My blog however is not going to be about academic writing, hopefully. I’ll try my possible best to make it fun; no theories from Einstein, if I can help it; no draggy science jokes, except for the ones that can elicit and sustain laughter from me for up to 30 seconds, and definitely no politics! Okay, that last one may be a lie, you may see an occasional rant about what I think could be done, how and why; its only normal for a social commentator to talk about these from time to time. So as my blog is rightly named, I’ll be blogging about everything, and nothing. Food, friendship, heartbreaks, food again, short stories, poetry, and food once more (I don’t eat half as much as I’ve portrayed though I LOVE good food). I will however, try to limit posts about nutrition on this blog as you can find these articles at the Ghana Health Nest's website.

Therefore, borrowing the words of the clichéd phrase, “fasten your seat belts, sit back and relax as you ride with anaalescribes from now till well, forever, so help her God”.

And oh, I forgot to mention, 3^rd November, which happens to be two days away, is “Men Make Dinner Day” so I wish to throw the challenge to all my male friends and acquaintances, especially those who believe they can’t cook anything to save their lives, to cook at least one of their meals each day from today till the end of the week. If you plan to have just one meal a day (which I totally don’t approve of), then it should be cooked by you! It doesn’t matter if it’s only a sandwich, just fix one of the meals you would have each day for the rest of the week, take a picture of it and tag me on Facebook with the hastag #CookingForAnaale. And if you consider this little challenge a chore and are pitying yourself, remember that your situation is not half as bad as the man called Anthony, who fathered this hot headed impossible Amazonian woman, and lives in the same abode as she does.

Daddy, where are you? This Thursday is “Men Make Dinner” day!!!