Who am I?

Strange question to ask, right? But a meaningful one all the same. Who am I? Who are we? What defines a (wo)man, what constitutes their identity? Is it their name? Does your name determine who you are or will be? Does being called John Doe instead of Mark Adams change who you are? Is it gender that makes one who they are? Does being male rather than female affect your basic 'self'?

Does who your daddy is (or isn't ) make you the person you are? Or less than the next man or woman on the street? Is it the color of your skin? Should your heritage or place of origin determine who you are? Maybe yes or maybe it is the collectivity of all these!

We (our true 'self') are not formed or developed by one factor alone. 'No man is an island' as the saying goes and neither do we exist in a vacuum. It is all the factors above and our daily interactions that make us WE.

That said, have you ever stopped to think...how have I impacted on developing someone...good or bad.

Every day, it seems, we are bombarded by stories in the media about people waking up in the morning and deciding life sucks and everybody should be dead. Kids wake up, take a loaded gun, and kill their classmates, teachers and then themselves. Journals and diaries tell a case of bullied, teased and belittled individuals, gradually being to hate. Don't get me wrong...I don't condone the actions of these people,but I do ask this...wasn't there anyone who treated them like people and showed kindness and love? Wasn't there anyone who gave them a reason to love in return?

In your day to day activities you meet people and have an effect on the lives of those you meet. We tend not to think that our actions or inactions toward people profoundly affect their lives and actions. That smile on your face when you say hello, or the simple 'thank you' you utter could be the thing that stops the person thinking of suicide from jumping. That kind deed, done without expectation of thanks or reward, might be the very thing that restores an individual's faith in people. That kind word, that sincere compliment given might be the very thing that lifts the spirit of a downcast individual.

It may seem that you can do nothing about the way of our world today, but our actions help, in part, to make people who they are.

Take time to be kind, to be selfless, to be concerned about your fellow 'man' and you could be the one who changes the future.

DISCLAIMER: All thoughts and opinions expressed here are all mine (crazy as they might seem). All works here are my original work (unless otherwise stated)

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That Crazy Psycho Bitch!!!

Now I'm one of those people who hate when guys use the words ho, skank, bitch etc to describe women as it's just damn plain disrespectful to the entire female gender. Especially when we remember that all men are of woman born. However no better epitaph than the title given fits this particular classification of woman. I mean let's check it...crazy psycho babe, crazy psycho lady, crazy psycho woman, crazy psycho chick...none of them have quite the same ring as crazy psycho bitch, now do they?

Many of my male friends have lamented their encounters with certain daughters of Eve and have had no better name for their erstwhile love interests then 'that crazy psycho bitch'. Their stories have sent chills down my spine and made me wonder what genetic flaw could make the once loving girlfriend suddenly turn to Freddy Kruger of Nightmare on Elm Street fame. Is there something in the female gene code that triggers psychosis in us? Is there a particular chromosome that turns a relatively (cos truth told most human beings are only about 80% mentally stable on average) stable woman into the Bride of Frankenstein revisited when she enters a relationship? Or is it the men that trigger the response?

In a piece I wrote awhile back (Commitment Pt. 1) I compared a relationship to time in a psychiatric facility...(after all the word commitment could refer to exclusivity in a relationship, dedication to something, or a spell in an asylum!) and I asked whether relationships made people crazy or simply acted as a catalyst and merely triggered a latent congenital precondition. I've seen otherwise sane and intelligent women turn stalker, forgetting their own lives and careers and trailing their men's every movement (or squandering money better spent on Jimmy Choos, paying people to spy on him.)

Technology has also increased the power of the female stalker. Now she spends every available minute tracking his MySpace, DiggIt, Facebook, Twitter etc activities and posting hate-mail to every female on his list. God help him if she gets her hands on his password...she either sends insulting emails to everyone from his boss to his mother, or simply deletes all correspondence and contacts. GSM technology has also changed the path of relationships and brought psychosis to greater heights. Now she steals his phone to check his call log and (either using his phone, her phone or a business center) calls everyone warning them to stay clear. A friend of mine told me of such a case where his (now ex)girlfriend called his sister and warned her to leave her man alone. The SMS in-box and outboxes are not safe either. Messages sent even before they were an item are reacted upon immediately, the same thing as with the call log. As one US rapper lamented to his boo in a rhyme...'it's called an iPhone not a Us-Phone'. Damn girl...the privacy thing goes BOTH ways.

I've been on the receiving end of this, with strange women calling me at 2 or 3 in the morning to tell me to leave 'so and so' alone or else! When I was younger this would have proved sufficient motivation to date the guy even if I initially had no thought of the initially (I hate people threatening me or accusing me of crap I didn't do). Now (older and moderately wiser), I'd laugh, but instead I feel a slight sympathy for the woman, so insecure in her relationship that she has to spend time better spent sleeping or having sex, harassing poor women like me!!

Now...if she's not calling all his ex(?)-girlfriends (real or imagined), she's calling him! Not once in a day mind you, but 15 to 20 times in the space of 3hrs (maybe it's just me, but c'est tres beaucoup EXCESSIVE=CRAZY!!), that aside she still sends 10 or more SMS messages between calls. If, for any reason whatsoever, (none of her business if he's in the middle of a meeting to cement a multi-billion naira deal) he doesn't pick her call he's with another woman! She routinely checks his clothes for makeup smudges and lipstick stains, her nose is always on active duty for strange perfume odors. She goes as far as doing his laundry so she can check for sperm discharges on his boxers! If he's late arriving home he must be coming from his latest catches house (she's timed the journey from his office to house to the nanosecond and recruited his guard or neighbor's child to serve as watchdog). Unfortunately for her, all these actions succeed in only one thing...sending the brother running and screaming for dear life to the hills. Hell, they're not even married yet and have been dating for all of six weeks, she's acting like she owns him and has the C of O in her handbag!

Now I know there are men out there who can actually drive a woman to such madness with their underhand and damned right sneaky behaviour, but most guys are pretty straight up and involved in their relationships (I'm really being very kind with this assumption!). I don't think it's a trust issue either. It's not about whether she trusts the guy, but more about her self-esteem. I mean if you're like me and know you're fly, why would any guy cheat on you? (I know...I'm very modest). OK...so I'm just joking there, but truthfully if you know that you're a good woman and deserving of respect, and you know that you carry yourself as such, even a guy who's an absolute dog'll treat you that way i.e with respect. If he values you he'll put a damper on his gaming or at worst keep it out of your line of sight because he thinks you are special.

When a woman is the type that is independent of her relationship, and can find her happiness outside her man, and seeks her own pleasure, letting him be himself; the man tends to want to spend more time with her. Why? Because she's stress-free. She prioritizes the relationship, sure, but it isn't her only priority. Her life does not revolve around him, she realizes that he is only an addition to and not the whole of her life. And if homeboy doesn't appreciate the fact he's on to a good thing...his loss...not yours

Personally, I have a policy, it's very simple and not mind-blowing, but it's helped me from entering psycho bitch status...I follow the advice of the Three Monkeys, that is Hear no evil, See no evil and Speak no evil and evil shall be far from you. What I don't know won't kill me, and if I don't go looking for trouble I won't find it. I really don't care to know what secrets his email account holds, nor his SMS boxes. Neither do I want to know where he is or who he's with when he isn't with me. I don't want to know who he's calling or who called him. I don't care who he's kissing on the side, cos he ends up in my bed not hers. As Ashante sings in her song..."I've got the good good". And I don't listen to tale bearers, my body dey phone me when wahala dey!

Curiosity slayed the cat and he had nine lives, I only have one and have no intention wasting it worrying about any man even if he's my husband!

PS: I'd like to know for research purposes readers encounters with CPBs (please feel free to change the bitch to bastard if you need to...men are not exempt from the crazy psycho label either). And CPBs are welcome to tell what drives them to it.

DISCLAIMER: All thoughts and opinions expressed here are all mine (crazy as they might seem). All works here are my original work (unless otherwise stated)

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Week 58 Wordzzle Challenge

Another challenge is here and I feel good. I've tried to follow up on the story of General Mustard and his household as best I can and might just start a contest to see if you can guess 'whodunnit'. :-)

10 word challenge

Words:Acrobat, grocery store, ceiling fan, dandelion, bumble bee, alabaster, scissors, chartreuse, strenuously, cube.

Amy loved her kitten! It was a beautiful chartreuse given to her by, her now erstwhile French paramour, Antoine. Actually the cat was the only useful thing to come out of the affair, it kept her better company at night that was for sure! Now as much as she loved Kitty, especially when she did her little acrobat routine of chasing bumble bees through the dandelions in the backyard, Kitty could be very unruly (much like Antoine!). Last week she jumped on the sideboard and knocked over the alabaster vase that held Amy's gran's ashes, sending Grams flying in every which direction. Her mother nearly had a fit of apoplexy when she heard the news! Kitty couldn't be trusted on her own for a minute, even a 5 minute trip to the grocery store meant lugging Kitty along to forestall catastrophe. Three days ago Kitty discovered the joy of shredding and reduced Amy's favorite silk blouse to tatters more effectively and efficiently than a pair of maliciously handled scissors. As Amy sat on the veranda of her little cube of a house that the housing agent tried passing off as a charming cottage, while soaking the breeze from the ceiling fan, she calculated the best way to subdue Kitty's natural precociousness during the strenuously tasking 2 day drive she was about to embark on to see her mother!

Mini challenge

Words:iPod, poison ivy, computer, interpreter, optometrist.

"I really need to see an optometrist" wailed Sandy to herself over the music throbbing from her rather battered iPod. Her once loved friend...now nemesis, the computer monitor appeared to wink maliciously at her, as if savoring the pleasure of her dilemma. She'd been in front of the screen 14 long hours trying to put finishing touches to her play titled 'Poison Ivy and the Interpreter' that was to play in 8 weeks, but she found the ending to be too much of an anticlimax.

Mega challenge

Brigadier General Mustard sat in the gazebo now devoid of the shade once provided by his beloved birch trees, the hummingbird family twittering away unseen in an obscure branch in someone else's tree, sipping morosely on a glass of Chartreuse, the ice cube choked lemonade on the raffia table a tad too tame for his palate and thoughts. His attention was divided! He was currently trying to decide whether to focus on the little bumble bee playing acrobat amongst the dandelion clusters in the lawn (Michaels always seemed to overlook the weeds while taking care of the garden), or the simply concentrate on the oscillating ceiling fan in the gazebo that was working strenuously...and fighting a losing battle in the General's opinion... in a valiant attempt to cut the heat to an endurable level. Carrie had gone to the grocery store, or so she said, to stock up for his birthday party scheduled for the next night.

What the General really wanted to do was to take the spare keys from the alabaster vase in his study and check Carrie's room for any clues that might exclude her from the suspect list...or invariably link her to the arson!

He loved his daughter but...she'd always run with a bad crowd and had disappeared from his life for 12 years, before surfacing 6 months ago with brood in tow and very few answers.

He finally gave up the fight, grabbed the keys, and ambled to her room. The room looked very much like it had been hit with a rocket launcher...or a hurricane! Maybe it had been...Hurricane Carrie!!! She was always pristine and well put together, but she was an absolute pig when it came to housekeeping. On the bed he even spied a pair of scissors peeking through the mayhem on the bed.

A cursory recon of the room showed little to pique his curiosity. He walked over to her computer table and noted nothing of interest other than an appointment card for the optometrist and tickets for a play titled 'Poison Ivy and the Interpreter' by a playwright called Sandra Fullerton. He began to feel rather foolish and very guilty for even suspecting Carrie and headed to the door while cursing himself for being a nosey old fuddy duddy, when he noticed an iPod peeking out from under the bed. Now the Brigadier was one of those people who was best described as a gadget freak (for lack of a better word), a throwback from his 10 year stint in counterintelligence no doubt, and knew his way around technology better than the average Joe. He scrolled through the menu and saw a track with no name but the date clearly showed it was recorded the day of the fire! He pressed 'PLAY' and the first voice he heard sent a chill though his spine!

For more about Ms. Raven and instructions on how to do the Wordzzle for yourself, go to Views from Raven's Nest

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