My best friends
I have done away with my old definition of best friends, which allowed only one person to occupy that position. I have two best friends (and one almost best friend who is male) and they all bring something different to our friendship. I am happy with that. I have such different relationships with my two female best friends, because they are so different from each other.

Ves knows pretty much everything that’s happening in my life at any given time. I see her at least once a week and she’s always willing to do something at the last minute. She has a good memory (she’s also so very smart that it sickens me), so she’s always asking me to follow up on things I mentioned the last time I saw her. Since I don’t have as good a memory of her life, I used to feel like I was shortchanging her as a friend, but I know I’m not. I’m a good friend to her in a different way than she is to me and that’s fine because we have different needs. Ves is very supportive but she will also call me on things too. She lets be who I am, which is a good thing (others—like my sister—may disagree). Ves’s husband Rich one of my best friends too but our friendship is so much different than mine with Ves or even my other bestie, Jov. I totally blame it on him being a boy: I’m closer to Ves than to him and in most cases I’ll tell her something before telling him. But Rich is there for me too in a lot of ways that Ves is and if I was ever in a bind they are the first people I’d call.

Jov is my other female best friend, and she has been my bestie for the longest time. She does not often do things at the last minute and she’s a more structured person in all aspects of her life. She has been there for me and my family in difficult times as an emotional support. She always makes time for special events in my life. Her family has adopted me as a family member and they’re such a social and friendly bunch. I look up to Jov as an example of a hardworking person who has her priorities straight. Jov can read or sense things about me without seeing me, which is uncanny at times. She always makes me feel like an important part of her life. We don’t see each other more often than monthly or even less frequently than that, but it doesn’t seem to affect our closeness.

These two women, along with my sister, will be my bridesmaids when that day comes (fingers crossed).

My good friends
I met Allison over six years ago through a friend I have now drifted apart from. Allison’s an exuberant and very real person, and I love the simplicity of our friendship. More than any of my friends she loves talking on the phone so we talk on the phone regularly and when we get together we talk up a storm too. She became a mother last month and it amazed me when I saw her less than 24 hours after she give birth and she was walking around and talking like her usual self. She’s fun and I can talk to her about anything. I never feel like she’s pretending to be anything other than herself.

I have several colleagues that I am close to, but I’ve formed a trio with two in particular, Wendy and Pascale. We hang out together (or in some combination of the three of us) on a regular basis and hash out relationship woes and discuss health and weight and other things. Wendy and I usually talk or text every day, and the three of us usually visit each other in our offices. They’re both great in different ways, but one thing they have in common is they give good advice. Pascale is so comfortable in her own skin and Wendy is very chill and easy going, up for anything. I often feel inferior to both of them because they’re a lot more put together than I am.

My hangout pals
You know how I mentioned that I see Ves once a week? I also see Rich, Eli and Jen at the same time because we have a standing weekly date. Eli is married to Jen and Eli, Rich, Ves and I have been hanging out for a really long time, nearly a decade. I don’t have the same depth of friendship with Eli, maybe because he’s a guy. I can definitely call on him if I need something; he’s helpful like that (but only if you ask). Jen is new to our group and she’s a nice person. I don’t know if we’ll ever have a deep friendship because at the point we met we both had already long-established friendships.

One area where I differ from the boys especially is I think seeing one another once a week is plenty. For example, this past week, Ves was away on a business trip so the boys, Jen and I hung out on Friday night. While hanging out, the guys made plans to hang out on Saturday too but I was supposed to have a meeting so I said I couldn’t make it. Even if I hadn’t had a meeting planned I would have probably told them I’m going to stay home because I don’t get as much “me” time as I’d like, since I spend Sundays at my parents’ place. Over the years I’ve learned that Eli and Rich don’t need as much “me” time as I do.

Other friends
Sheri is my Nigerian friend, though I hate to make it sound like I only became friends with her because we share a culture. Even so, it’s been great to have someone who understands how things work in our culture, what we can and cannot do, and also our close relationships to our parents. We met as a result of my Nigerian blog but Nigerian or not, she’s a great person. She’s a good listener and advice-giver and she’s real.

Nora is a friend that I have drifted away from. Our friendship has changed over the years…although we can relate to each other with regard to upbringing, and even though I was one of her bridesmaids, we aren’t so close anymore. For obvious reasons I won’t get into any more detail here but we usually see each other every other month and very recently I saw some improvements to our friendship, in response, I think, to me stepping back a bit.

So we reconnected after literal years of not talking like that and it felt great. She’s very easy to talk to and it was fun to try and remember snippets from each other’s lives to ask about. It helps that we’re Facebook friends though we don’t talk on there except for our birthdays and her wedding and birth of her baby girl. This entry is triggered by my usual feeling after reconnecting with people I admire and swapping info about our lives: I always feel like I’m not moving fast enough. She’s married, her husband relocated from halfway across the world to be with her, she’s a mother now, she’s got her job, her little family seem so sweet. I’ve done things too but not enough for me to be content. I am not where I wanted to be at this stage of life. I want to buy that car (the one I’ve moaned about for ages), travel all around the country and into the USA, marry a man who loves me, make a baby or three. I feel these things will happen but my 32nd birthday and whatever’s triggered this evening’s sense of wistfulness makes me feel like it needs to happen very soon or I’ll burst into tears.

This feeling will pass and I will once again focus on what I have been blessed with. In fact I intend to share a post on the things I am grateful for on my other blog.

*My girl crushes aren’t at romantic: they’re people whose personality, life, or story I totally love. If they inspire me in some way I officially crush on them.

I went camping with my friends and sister (who happens to also be my friend) this past weekend and it was both relaxing but not without the usual tensions, the kind of tensions that arise from spending too much time in a short period of time with people you’re close to. We went to bed at the dismally early hour of 10:30pm on the first night; the following evening we didn’t make it to midnight before surrendering to sleep. We are officially old (though thanks to behind-the-scenes work on the NBA site I only got three hours’ sleep the night before we left for camping).

Camping was the usual: we lounged on the beach, logged many hours around the campfire and ate as much junk as our hearts desired. Every year we pack too much food, and this year was no exception. We refined our meals though: in previous years we planned high maintenance (but delicious) meals: chicken cooked over the fire, accompanied by steamed broccoli and cheese, pancakes, eggs and bacon for breakfast, all cooked from scratch, but this year we stuck to hotdogs for one dinner, cereal for breakfast and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. On the second night we indulged in really yummy pork chops over the fire with boiled corn. SO good!

While on the beach we witnessed a beachside wedding! That was kind of fun…the romantics in the group got as close tot he wedding as possible without intruding (it helped that some water separated us and them).

One thing my sister and I finally did this year that made camping SO much more comfortable was investing in air mattresses! I always sleep like a baby but this time I woke up like a baby too: happy and without body aches. Of course this means I can no longer claim to be roughing it whatsoever when I go camping (though when I think of all those creeping and crawling bugs that caused me to squeal several times, I think until bugs are eradicated from this earth, camping outdoors will forever count as “roughing it”!).

We have to be off the site by 2pm on the day we’re leaving, but I’ve learned that my pals like to leave as soon as possible, likely so they can prepare for their week ahead. I’d prefer to have a more leisurely Sunday spent lounging on the beach (the weather is always the best on the day we’re leaving…why is that?); one day I’ll see if I can convince them to do that.

One of our traditions is to take a picture of the group, on the site. Here is this year’s picture:

The Ontario park that we go to (Sandbanks) is really beautiful: soft as silk sand and not too many mosquitoes (which means less than 10 bites on my entire body). Our site this year was a smidge far from the comfort station (where the flushing toilets and hot showers are) so we’ve scoped out site 92 for next year. And as we always do, we will plan to bring less food and stay an extra day. One year we’ll get it all perfect.

Next year we might be a bigger group if all goes as planned so there might be some changes (we may need to spread out over two sites since there is a six person/three shelter limit per site). I’m looking forward to it already!

I got a call on Friday afternoon while I was at work, letting me know that my blood test results were in. To say that I was anxious about the results would be an understatement. The clinic was open until 8pm so I left work late (past 7pm) and rushed to the clinic (well, as fast as you can rush when you’re on a bus that stops at every stop along the way) and arrived at the clinic at 7:45pm, only to see that the clinic had their “closed” sign up. I pushed on the door and it opened so I went in. Nobody was there. I was practically in tears (remember…it was one of those weeks) and after calling out “hello?” a few times I turned to leave. A receptionist showed up right then and told me they were closed. I told her that someone had called me to inform me that my results were in and there was no way I could wait until after the weekend to find out what was going on. I was almost teary so she said they’d see me.

The results were just okay, though one of the results wasn’t yet available. There was a wakeup call attached to these results so I think I’ve been sufficiently scared into being more mindful of how I care for my body (I know, I know: “but for how long?” right?).

I liked this doctor: he was very thorough, a leftie (!) and conscientious. He asked how I snuck in and I started explaining that I was worried because the results were ready the day after the test and I couldn’t wait until next week to find out and he laughed and told me it was ok. He took the time to explain all the results, which I really appreciated. He said he’d make sure to call me if the last results came in, that I probably wouldn’t hear from him unless the results raised some questions.

For years now, with few exceptions, I’ve spent Friday nights with my besties at their house but this past Friday I opted out because I was walking the last bit of the way home at past 9:00pm and all I wanted to do was sit on my couch and just chill without having to be anything other than what I was: tired, worried and drained. I got nearly 8 hours of sleep on Friday evening and woke up ready to do a few things. On Saturday I didn’t do much (housecleaning, pantry sorting, shopping for veggies) and then went for dinner with a couple of friends. On Sunday I went to church. After almost 20 years at one church we switched churches last year. I am enjoying this new church so far…I feel more emotional at this church, more connected or something. I don’t doubt that my former church had a hand in bringing me to this point though. And my lovely walk-in clinic doctor called…well the receptionist did…to let me know that the results of the test we were waiting for were fine. I never expected him to call on a Sunday so it made my weekend.

It’s the end of the month, so it’s time to see how I did with regard to accomplishing my monthly goals:

DAILY GOALS – JANUARY 2011

• pray: I’d say I did this at least 90% of the time
• brush and floss at night: I didn’t it do this every day, not by a longshot. I need to make up a spreadsheet so I can tell you how well I did with cold hard figures to back it up

WEEKLY GOALS

• read my bible: I failed. I think I only did this twice this month (if we exclude church, which I do)

BI-WEEKLY GOALS

• call 5 specific people: I called 4/5 people twice in January. Not bad! I only called the last person once.

MONTHLY GOALS

• read 2 books per month: I tried so hard but I am still reading Men are from Mars Women are from Venus. The book is long and repetitive, not in a bad way, just in a long way. I don’t see myself catching up on my reading in February but who knows!
• not incur overdue library charges: I’m still on track with this one. I thought I had incurred $.50 in charges but my balance for this year so far is z-e-r-o!
• watch 1 non-romantic comedy movie: I watched The Town with my sister last weekend and we both enjoyed it.
• entertain someone or some people at my place: A fail, unless new year’s eve counts. I mean my guests were still at my house in the wee hours of January 1!
• maximum one non-birthday or other special event dinner: Fail: I went for wings with friends at least once and I went out for dinner with friends this past weekend.

I currently use post it notes and make daily to do lists to keep me on track but you only have to take one look at my largely incomplete 30 by 30 list to know that lists don’t work well for me. I wish someone could observe my work habits for a day (unbeknownst to me) and from those observations, tell me where I can improve.

My personal life has been suffering a bit: I am not seeing some of my friends as regularly as I used to, nor are we communicating by phone or email regularly. I’ve written before about not enjoying talking on the phone anymore; this feeling continues. I would rather send a quick text message or email than make conversation on the phone. I don’t know what this is about but it needs to change. I hate that whenever I say several times over the course of a week that I need to call someone, they end up calling me. Of course the solution to that is to just call them when the thought comes to mind.

After I finally quit my part time gig at the clothing store (I don’t think I ever blogged about crossing that item off my 30 by 30 list..boo!), I pondered working at the local St@rbucks, more for the socializing aspect and the discount on slices of lemon poppyseed loaf than anything. Lately I’ve been so tired that the thought of doing anything more strenuous than pouring myself a glass of water and sitting on my couch exhausts me. I can’t imagine working a second job…well, if I could create a lucrative blogging gig for myself that would bring in some money, I’d like that.

And finally, I haven’t cooked an entire meal from scratch for most of the summer. I want to perfect my ability to prepare Nigerian food, but my aversion to exerting myself means that I can’t say I can cook a single thing that I couldn’t cook a year and a half ago. That’s sad!

As expected, I danced like a fool when the music changed to my kind of music.

* * *

I have always enjoyed observing couples, and weddings give me ample opportunity to do that. I like watching interactions between couples in all stages of their relationship, especially because weddings usually bring out the tender side of couples , either from remembering their own special day years ago or anticipating the future. When a slow song like Unchained Melody comes on and I don’t have anyone’s arms to melt into, it kind of sucks but I’m hopeful that that won’t always be my reality and I try not to think of all the things that a 31 year old woman who has been waiting f-o-r-e-v-e-r to fall in love, get married and have kids will think of at weddings.

All of that to say that I had a good time at the wedding. I regret not taking a full length photo of my outfit; hopefully the photographer (who was also quite handsome) did!

Not surprisingly I want some fun adventures this year, and I want to do things I haven’t gotten around to doing. Things like:

A road trip where I’m the main driver
The furthest away I’ve driven is two hours or about 200 km away but my youngest brother mentioned going to the USA for shopping before September, so I suggested we make it a sibling thing and rent a car. I’ll never say no to outlet shopping so I’m looking forward to this.

Getting a hair cut and colour
I’ve gotten trims and very simple hair cuts before but this time I want a real cut, something sassy. I’ve never coloured my hair so that’ll be something. The cut I’m thinking of (which one of my friends was sporting when I ran into her this past weekend, funny enough) requires me to grow my hair a bit more so I’ll colour first.

Learning to run
So two years ago, I did a walk/run to raise money for a cause dear to my heart. My time was slower than I hoped, and I had grossly underestimated how far five kilometres is by foot. I haven’t run since.

But a crazy colleague has convinced me that a learn to run program is what we need in our lives and she simultaneously convinced me that it won’t kill us (me). We start in two weeks.

I decided to go out and try what we’ll be doing the first week: run for one minute, walk for two minutes, repeat a trillion (or maybe 6-8) times. The good news is I managed to run for a minute without stopping (yes, I am that out of shape); the bad news is I could only do four sets before I switched to walking alone. The worst news is today, the day after, I feel like I tried a new form of exercise that showed me who’s boss; either that or I was doing squats in my sleep. I feel it in my (fl)abs too.

Eating yogurt
I’m a very picky eater. I have never knowingly ingested salad dressing, dips, cottage cheese, sour cream and yogurt. My crazy colleague (yeah, the same one) made me try a dessert yogurt (120 calories, 3.5% milk fat) and it was pretty good! I wonder if I can try a non-dessert yogurt without gagging; I’ve bought some and I’ll let you know how that goes.

I want to end this with a challenge: can you think of something that you don’t think I’ve done that I really should do? All reasonable suggestions will be considered, and by “reasonable” I mean any suggestion that won’t bankrupt or embarrass me. I’m not looking for thrills so much as things that will shake my life up a bit and provide me with great memories.

Updated to add:

A trip to Europe in 2011 or 2012
This is another sibling plan. I don’t know where we’ll go, but England (well, London more than anything), France or Italy are sounding good so far.

We were last here in November, when I almost became the proud owner of a Coach bag, but resisted because I wasn’t ready to plunk down that kind of cash. Tonight I was not so wishy-washy: we arrived in the city around 8pm and the only outlet store we decided to visit tonight was Coach. The kind lady at the entry handed V and I each a coupon giving us 20% off all purchases and 30% off purchases over $250. By pooling our purchases (we each got a purse), we were able to save 30% off our bags, which was actually a better deal than what they were offering on Black Friday! My bag came to $84 before taxes.

I’m thrilled. My bag isn’t half as cute as V’s, but the bag she got didn’t pass my arm test: any shoulder bag I buy must be able to be smoothly maneuvered from my hand to my shoulder without getting caught on a beefy arm along the way. The bag I bought was the only one that passed.

I’m tempted to take a closer look at Coach’s offerings tomorrow; especially if the coupon is still valid!

*title refers to my friends for allowing me to sucker them into taking me along, and to me for falling prey to Coach’s advertising and hype regarding their products

Something that never fails to get me riled up is seeing what I perceive as less than ideal relationships. If I see a couple where one seems to be taking advantage of the other, or where there seems to be little affection, talk less love, I become disturbed and feel obligated to discuss the situation with R and V ad nauseum, and my mother and sister will eventually hear of it too. Particularly dear to my heart are women who, due in some cases to past relationships or experiences, forget that by simply being a human, they are worthy of respect. I’m not talking about grand gestures of adoration or anything but just being treated nicely. Women who sacrifice their true feelings and desires on the altar of “I don’t want to rock the boat”, “I want him to think I’m easy-going”, “It’s not a big deal in the long-run” every time upset me, and I can spend long hours discussing this with anyone who is awakearound, even people I’m meeting for the first time, as evidenced by the dinner conversation I launched into last night.

While R and V will let me rant, and offer some advice on not letting it get to me, my mother’s reaction has always been to tell me to focus on myself and let others deal with their own situations (as they will do anyway, with or without my commentary or intervention). Instead of worrying about whether a friend’s guy loves her the way she loves him, rather than wondering when another friend’s boyfriend of three years will propose, or how my big-spending friend will pay next month’s bills, I should be fixing my attention on me and the realization of my own dreams. In Nigeria they have an expression that says something equivalent to “Don’t take tylenol for someone else’s headache” and I’ve been wanting to work that into an entry for a while now and isn’t this just perfect? I am constantly medicating myself for other people’s ailments!

I don’t really have a point other than I have to stop getting so worked up over other people’s lives. Yes, people I care about will do things that I don’t advise, but that doesn’t always mean it’s my job to leap in, guns blazing, ready to show them the error of their ways (a temptation I face regularly). I still prefer my personality in this respect to that of people who can so easily divorce themselves from difficult, touchy or tense situations the people they are closest to are going through. Although I think I know so much about everything, including things I’ve never personally experienced, observing a situation and being in one are two completely different things.

A couple of commenters were surprised that a guy I hadn’t met in person would invite me to his wedding but now that I have had time to think about it, I should tell you that we had been “getting to know each other” for a while. I feel horrid that I don’t remember exactly how long we talked for but to say it was around a year (I don’t think it was longer than that), and we spoke on the phone at least weekly. He was sweet: he sent me roses twice, once with a cute stuffed bear and once with chocolates, and there is little bad that I can say about him except that I didn’t think we were well suited because I was fat (and taller) than his super slim self (I know, it’s me, allllll me, because he wasn’t bothered by it), and I wanted him to ask me more questions about me and get to know me in the way I wanted him to get to know me, and I felt he wasn’t delivering on that front. Oh the coolest part was we had the same last name! I actually came across him online, thought he was related and contacted him and that’s how we met in the first place. Although we don’t think we’re related, he thought it would be cool if I came to represent the people with our last name.

Also, it’s not uncommon for a Nigerian bride or groom getting married to have complete strangers show up at their wedding (sort of like wedding crashing), so I might have more of a claim of knowing the couple than others who might attend the wedding (not that I have made plans to attend the wedding).

Anyway, I felt bad about the way I portrayed him, so I wanted to clear that up. I still am not sure about the motive of the phone call though; perhaps I have grown suspicious of perfectly pure motives in my 30s.

In that last entry I also mentioned that I seem to collect young Nigerian men like I used to collect coupons to the Michaels craft store. It’s really strange but Nigerian men between the ages of 19 and 27 seem to be drawn to me, not as that sexy older woman who fuels all of their fantasies but as a friend.

Of the following five young Nigerian men I am friends with, I met two through an online forum and three through my “Nigerian” blog. We just clicked, and developed a rapport that is effortless, falling into a teasing older sister-younger brother thing with ease. I am the girl they can tell anything to it seems, or seek advice from or bounce things off of. I’m not saying I’m the only person they can do this with but it seems to be the role I’m destined to play in their life.

J is 26 or 27, lives in Nigeria and I’ve known him for almost five years. A few years ago I sent him a wee care package, inconveniencing one of my cousins to get it to him. She was probably wondering why she had never received anything from me yet this guy was getting something. There’s something very sweet about this guy and I just have the softest spot for him. Gone are the days when I’d tell him to focus on school and his career and save running after women for a while longer, because he has a girlfriend now and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of his engagement soon.

A is in the US and reminds me the most of my relationship with my brothers, especially Brother #1. I sometimes get frustrated talking to him, but he’s gone through some things and he’s someone I’ll always want the best for. He has a tough guy exterior that hides a good person with a good heart full of good intentions. In some ways he’s the perfect blend of my two brothers.

S is also in Nigeria and is in the 25-27 year range. He charmed me with his enthusiastic first email saying that he wanted us to be friends. I misread his genuine enthusiasm and thought he wanted a piece of me and responded in a way that indicated that. I laugh now at my misguided self confidence, with me being all “You can’t have the Jummy” and he being all “I don’t want the Jummy; get over yourself woman!” His candor in explaining that he had a girlfriend and truly just wanted to be friends made me think he was so cool and I developed an instant crush on his soul. I was charmed by the way he communicated. He’s a computer geek which only increases his appeal.

T is in the 19-22 age range and he’s charming. He lives in France so I practice written French with him. We’ve discussed some pretty serious things and he has a fantastic memory which means I have to be honest with him, lest he catch me in a white lie!

K is a day away from turning 24 and he’s in Bulgaria studying medicine. He contacted me regarding a blog entry I had written elsewhere and wanted some advice for his own situation and now we’re buddies. He’s the one that I have the most teasing, lowkey, effortless rapport with; he’s such a kid.

And this week, another young Nigerian guy contacted me regarding something I had blogged about elsewhere and it’s looking like this will go in the direction the others have gone. I think I need a seventh guy who gives me that playful vibe I can’t get enough of, has the ability to charm me and who doesn’t give me that “older sister” vibe!