Random Thoughts Of The Lady Next Door

So I've had a long day sitting at a desk and crouched over my laptop in a rented workspace. I'm a freelance writer and I have a client's job to deliver with hardly any time on my side.  (I don't have any picture from today, but trust me, I look something like this every day. Casually dressed because I don't make enough money to slay like I work for the New York Times.😅) At past 7, I reluctantly shut down my laptop and left the office for home. Remembering that my granny had asked me for some cash and I didn't have up to that amount on me, I stopped by an ATM gallery to make a withdrawal. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other from time to time, struggling under the weight of my backpack, and when I caught a figure approaching the queue from a corner of my eye, I looked up and beheld one of the finest middle-aged men I've ever seen in a long time.  I couldn't help but steal a few more glances and although it all happened so quickly, I...

If I ever tell you I'm not beautiful, pay me no mind. I'm only being modest. No, I'm not drop-dead gorgeous, but neither am I ugly or unattractive by any standard. This acute awareness of my own beauty is why, to a large extent, I stopped posting my pictures on my social media pages ( Facebook and Instagram especially). I don't need the validation of strangers on the internet to feel attractive. It's also why I never feel pressured to dress up to the standard of other young ladies of my ilk. I only baff up on my own terms.  Maybe I would have put more effort into my physical appearance if I were lacking in other areas, like intellectually. But the fact that this is not so worsens my conceitedness. I'm perfectly cool with showing up anywhere in a basic outfit and zero makeup, knowing that the moment I open my mouth to speak, most wrong assumptions about me are corrected. I think that these liberties I and others like me take is what has, for a long...

Another set of men to watch out for during this rape saga: the ones who sieze the opportunity to engage in virtue signalling.  Oh, you men don't spare a moment to remind us how good you are by virtue of having never raped a woman. You get angry for not being praised for your 'magnanimity,' so you throw tantrums when we come down hard on rape apologists without acknowledging your very basic decency As a matter of fact, you are so twisted in your misogyny that you actually believe that not raping females is a favour you are doing them. After all, your fellow men do the same. But what happens when someone falls out of favour with another (especially a vindictive person)? They lose all the privileges that came with the estranged relationship.  Isn't this enough reason to even castrate you who expect to be praised for not taking women forcefully, before you, with your warped mindset, get a situation to demonstrate your covert rapey tendencies?  Your sense of dec...

I don't know which is more painful: Uwa's rape and murder, or the reactions of some depraved humans that I share the same society with. I have seen so many screenshots of responses (of various internet users) to the crime that I am both angry and sad. I wonder if there is any winning against this evil. UNIBEN's authorities have, without recourse to emotional intelligence, made a soapbox of Uwa's tragic murder to sermonize on how to not get raped. Absolutely galling, especially considering the fact the official statement by the VC, a woman, was released by the PRO, also a woman. And then there are the authorities of the church where the victim met her death, while addressing the crime, calling it everything but its name. It is unsettling to see that in the 155-word statement issued by the church, the word "Rape" was conveniently and conspicuously left out. I'm struggling to not see this gesture as the church shunning its moral sensib...

RATED 15+ I think one day of my adult life I want to continue to remember as significant is the first time I rocked a dress to an event, braless. Like a typical church girl would, I squirmed when I first stepped out in the dress (I felt naked 😅). But as the day progressed, I began to enjoy the comfort of not having my chest constricted by metal underwires and hooks.  Society might never immediately understand why the contemporary woman attaches so much significance to bras—or the freedom from having to wear them, especially when she has no real need to (I'm speaking for small-breasted women here, please).  I'm thinking back to every single time I have felt the pressure to present myself in the image of an ideal woman: with perfectly round, sizeable mounds on the chest, when all of my breasts could easily be cupped in one palm. How did this do-or-die affair of mine with padded bras begin? Why did I feel indecent for not wearing a bra? Social conditioning? I have ce...

Yesterday morning I uploaded (on my WhatsApp status) a goofy 10-sec video of me dancing and winding my waist to Ladipoe's "Know You." It would have passed for twerking if I had any noticeable bum and my waist weren't so stiff. While having a casual discussion with my granny later in the evening, the conversation somehow veered towards conservative people who suddenly "open-eye." I then told her about this prudish female cousin of mine who has lately begun to adopt a new lifestyle. She now wears trousers (tight-fitting ones, even), makeup and generally seems to be more liberal about life. For an average Christian, nothing she did was out of the ordinary. But it seemed more provocative when she did it because she was raised by a mother who permitted neither earrings, makeup nor even tights (undergarment. They, according to her, are no different from trousers).  As if to further confound me, she uploaded videos of herself half-dancing and half-twerking today. S...

Today being Mother's Day, I'll be sharing these words by Joy Isi Bewaji with you. They resonate so deeply with me that I could have as well written them.  The niggaa is sick, so one of her hands has a wet towel on his forehead. Her second hand is washing clothes manually. Third hand is cooking. Fourth hand is grinding pepper. Fifth handing, hoeing. Sixth hand, sorting out firewood. Seventh hand, giving a child a bath, while the younger one sleeps soundly on her back. There usually would be an eight hand sweeping, and a ninth hand doing the dishes, and the tenth hand flipping through a third child's homework. Cute. . Remind your daughters, when they become women, they have only two hands. TWO HANDS. Nothing more. . The rule for the New Woman is: If two hands and a smart brain cannot get the work done, then it is toil you can do without. Structure your life early enough to make sure you do not become a slave in institutions that promised you happiness.  Capeesh? ....