When the chips are done!

My dear Friends,

It look like the whole world gone dramatical. 

I don't think it is because of covid itself. Disasters generally bring out the worst in many people, and some just plain love drama. Who need Hollywood, Bollywood, Nollywood, Pollywood? Real life is one big soap opera and everybody trying to steal the show. 

You know what the problem is?

All them dramatical people never had plantain chips. Or those who love it, run out of it.

I am telling you the good, hornest truth! This is what happen for sure.

Plantain chips does smooth the furrowed brow. It calm the heaving breast, soothe the sorry spirit, make the haggledy-paggledy traffic in my lovely native land seem like a nice, fuzzy-wuzzy trip. You stop at the red light and snack on P.C. and! No mo' woes! That minibus driver going vrooom vrooom, paste-ing-up on you' car bumper? Two crunches on a mouthful o' P.C. and you suddenly feel as if the oasis of tranquility flood into you' being, and you begin to believe that that wild beast behind you only want to be bestie.

The other day, I tell my plantain chips loving friends that we should form a club. If other folks can have wine tasting clubs, and whine fiestas, why not a plantain chips club?

Friends, I am now craving P.C.

I can taste it in me mouth, feel it in me belly.

When I get rich and buy me yacht (look, I know to spell it now), I gon have a room devoted to plantain chips from all over the world. Every type and flavour. (Except P.C. sweetened with sugar. I never in me whole born life hear of such a' aberration 'til I visit America. My first big brother complain bitterly about it too. "Who the hell would put sugar on plantain chips?")

All are welcome to join in my salty P.C. fiesta. But not if you want sugar added. If that is you' preference, we gon tell you, very nicely, to go back to where you come from, let the rest of we enjoy we P.C. in peace.

Wishing you peace and love and plenty P.C., my beloved friends. Stay safe, neena xx.

Feeling thankful that I wasn't no snack for the 'gator.

My dear friends and lovers of sunshine, 

I did make a promise to my mother that, if I did only break, woulda cause she heart to bruks more bad than the promise.

"We gon go to SoFlo for Christmas and New Year."

South Florider, where she son, me second big brother, live with he family.

Where sun flow, and alligators crawl. 

I don't know what I woulda do if we did encounter any 'gator on we walks. My mother does travel with...that is to say, suffer from...chronic pain, and I can't see she tackling that creature with the fervour of Irwin or Dundee to save me, she precious child. I woulda have to pile she on to she roller-stroller like she in a wheel barrow, and bolt outta there mo' fast than Usain.

In the mornings, while everybody been at work, I sit with Ma in the living-room, she watching tv, me doing creative work, soaking up the sun that pour like warm wine, crunching on the best snack in the whole wide world.

Plantain chips!!!

Ow, me belly bawling, I better cook lunch. No, it ain't 'gator burger.

Have a great day, love, neena xx.

Heeeeelloooowww!

Hello my dear friends and curious cats, 

I'm experimenting with posting my own seeeellly videos. 

Can you guess what this is?

Toodleoooo for naowwww, neena, xxx.

Come join me on my yacht.

My Dear Friends, Book Lovers, Nature Lovers, Food Lovers, Culture Lovers, Travel Lovers, Language Lovers,

December 16 2020, I launch me 1st book in the Guyana series: Big Ole Home By De Sea.

I suspect de book baffle some people.

Here is a li'l truth about de book (with more like it to come).

I like to stretch rules creatively. To experiment. 

I didn't want to write a book that, as they say in the writing world, is "plot driven". 

I want you to feel as if you wander off the beaten track, get lost, and I invite you in to gyaff...talk...whole day and night. Kill mosquitoes. Eat (not necessarily mosquitoes). Drink (not necessarily maskita blood. Or human blood - we ain't old huiges).

I serve you slices o' life - salty, sweet, vile. 

I throw snap shots at you. Show you skits. "Mind videos". You hear mutterings, musings, laughter. 

You watch we dreaming. Lounging. Longing. You witness mother and daughter learning to live in harmony, and grassroots-people mingling with money-people. 

In de book, you "hear" we raw, unedited (even though I work me tail off to sculpt the words).

De book is still a' e-book. Starting Friday, December 17, to the end of New Year's Day, it is on a Smashwords sale binge. 

If y'all buy this book, y'all can join me on me yacht...which I plan to buy from sales of this book. (Read about the yacht in de book).

Well, even if you don't like to read e-books, you can get 2, 3 e-books for friends. Tell them how much you love them, and you know this book gon warm them and keep them happy in the freezing cold winter months.

You can get it for them right here:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1000769

Look on the right hand side. See the "Give as a gift" link?

All aboard.

Much love, neena xxx.

P.S. I got plenty life-jackets, don't worry.

Bed Talk.

My dear Friends,

Y'all ever hear about the gyal who take photos of she sad bed-life? And the next thing you know, the pikcha of the bed, or the bed itself, I ain't know which one, sell for a million or more.

I did laugh until I enlightened meself further, because, you know, that is the reason why creatives do what they do...they talk to we in different ways, open we eyes and mind to aspects about life we tend to ignore.

The installation bring to light depression, women private life, and it break the stereotypes of how women live. What could make a woman fall this hard that she can't get up?

As some of you know, I got a deep fascination for bed. 

I can't see a bed without thinking how privileged we are to have a safe place to lay weself down when we sick and tired or just want to relax. 

I think about them broken human beings on cold concrete, a cardboard for they bed. 

And refugees. I think about refugees every single day. The old folks and children, women and men, in tents, in the freezing cold.

Every morning, if I grumble to meself that I got to tidy up the mess I create when I shed blankets, tee-shirts, pyjamas, that I use during the night to keep warm, I remember those who would long for this again, this soft, warm chaos that they can smooth out to make a haven. I promise meself to find a way to help them, one day.

So many pillows!!

This weekend, I been staying in bed because I feeling the effects of vaccine number three.

I want to sleep so bad.

Take care, stay safe, and count your beautiful blessings, neena xx.

Bathroom News.

My Dear Friends,

Good morning from De Home Front.

Weather warming up nice-nice, like civilised people.

Speaking of people...ever notice how some people can stay ten hours in de baat'room? What they got that is so dirty, to bathe so long? How much dirt a body can have if they ain't a farmer, any kinda outdoor worker?

T'ree (3) people in my fam'ily is very guilty. I ain't calling names. One nephew does read newspaper cartoons. Another nephew does have he phone-radio on; whenever I pass by outside, I do a li'l jig to them tinny-tinny songs blaring out. 

Then there is one brother who does sing Rolling Stones at the top o' he lungs. To this day, I can't see a red door without thinking that somebody, counting colours and dreaming about brown sugar, want to paint the door black.

Another Person...oh, that is four in all...she who name I ain't calling but we know she as Mummy...say that she does take long 'cause she old and slow. Well, that mean she been old and slow from the day I born.

Anyway, the baat'room news. 

Every week, I scrub the baat'room shine like glass, step outside to admire it. But, this week, I decide that scrubbing take up too much precious time. I could be writing instead. The only solution to keep it clean is to not use it.

"Don't use de baat'room," I announce to Mummy.

"What I must use then?" she ask.

"De hose in de garden to bathe. And dig a hole for de toilet!"

Speaking of holes. Last night, I poke the baat'room snake down the sink hole.

I don't know if you know about the baat'room snake, Dear Friends.

It is the most wonderfullous invention in The Whole Wide World. Better than sliced bread. The only thing it ain't better than is the Internet, but it sure come close to.

The Baat'room Snake (which deserve capital letters to the name, come to think of it) is a flat, long, tough plastic strip with jagged edges. 

Last night, I shuuve it down the pipe of the sink.

My Dear Friends!

If y'all see what I haul out like treasures from the deep blue!

All the things that Mauby Dick ever did swaller. Y'know Mauby Dick, that whale that Ahab the Arab been hunting? Funny how they name the whale Mauby Dick. Mauby is a delicious bitter-sweet drink from my lovely native land. 

Anyway, I got two skeletons dripping with confusion and conspiracy; a ship, dark with age and algae; and hanging on the the jagged edges of the Snake was all the muck and chaos and pandemonium of the east and west.

Ohhhhh, Me Dear Friends.

If y'all only know how I quiver with delight when the sink let the water down and then belch. It was a beautiful belch. Loud with satisfaction, like a man after he done eat daal and rice and curry.

Anyway, daz all for today. I planning a newsletter about Books.

I gone to do the laundry. Goodness knows what fanstastical things I gon find.

Have fun, stay safe, plenty love, neena. xx

Reviving Time.

Dearest Friends,

This road we call Life is much like some o' them city roads in me lovely native land. 

Clatta-bonk.

We drop to the bottom o' the world. (That is how I know the earth ain't flat...but that is a story for another day).

Drag weself up, cussing the hole, sighing, relieve we only got a couple o' bruises.

Me, like a proper 3rd world person, understand that this is how Life go. I know too that I am far mo' lucky than many, many, many of me dear country people.

One-one time though, something in me does break. Lawd, it gon cost money to fix.

Spirit get like wet stick. Not a spark.

It is then, me dear Friends, I remember, full force, why creative people was put along the way, on this road. When that song, that music, float to we; when we stop to peer at books, to gaze at the art and listen to poetry; when we take time to watch them dance, we feel the spark rekindle in we.  

That is what this Walcott poem, which a Trini friend send to me some time back, do for me.

Walcott, from the Caribbean, does make me heart sing.

Despite all we problems, (which he capture in he writing), he find ways to celebrate we.

I love the Caribbean, the sounds, the sights, the smell o' food cooking, we resilience, the kindness I experience.

As a writer, I want to show you, dear readers, lovers of books and songs and art, who we are as women in me part o' the world. I want to show you the ludicrous, the playful, the broken, the happy, the poetry in we daily, mundane lives.

I want to fling open we windows, we doors, we hearts. I want to show you things them newspapers and magasines in Big Countries would hardly tell you about we (they tend to mostly describe we as poor, needy, suffering). I want to show you that we is people of hope, longing, with beautiful dreams too.

Welcome, my dear beloved Friends. Much love, neena. xx

P.S. Listening to the queen of music from South Africa right now:

MAKHADZI featuring Prince Benza - Ma Yellowbone.