At random

So I watched ‘Ice loves Coco’ [a reality TV show] and saw Coco working out. That woman looks so in shape even though she is voluptuous. One particular routine caught my eye. Okay, while most of us work out in ‘canvass’ or sports shoes, she works out in high heels. And she was doing squats in them! Now, some Hollywood starlets with beautiful behinds like Kim Kardashian and Jessica Biel have sworn that they got that not by injecting fat from their thighs into their behinds or butt implants but by doing the squat routine regularly. That particular exercise looked.. weird and I thought okay, let me try this because it looked really challenging and I love that kinda stuff. Not because I wanted [or needed a bigger derrière. Why am I laughing?]

So I wore these babies and did the squat thingy. They aint exactly stripper shoes but as we would say in this part of the world, 'Who send me message?'

 After exactly 25 squats, this dear girl was exhausted and breathing like crazy. That exercise targets your thighs and hips. After squatting thrice without holding anything, I felt it was for the best to hold a chair. Believe me; Coco makes this thing look easy. It took everything I had in me to get to 25. So there, I tried it and I think I would exercise like that once in a while. If I remember. Or totally forgot how errr..’really exercised’ my waist was.

Speaking off Kim K, a week ago, a particular young woman on twitter and a group of people were sort of bashing Tyler Perry for casting the reality TV star in his new movie. I know lots of people just don’t like Kim K. Yeah, I know she has a sex tape, posed for PlayBoy and all that. But what is wrong with Tyler casting her in his movie? I really don’t understand what that was all about.

I really don’t like how some Lagosians stress these poor boys that sell stuff on the roads. Like it’s just too much to bear sometimes. So this overly made up, gum chewing, loud young woman calls on a guy selling drinks and took Lacasera from his plastic basket while the boy was running as usual to catch up the bus driver that kept switching lanes. Then she starts looking for money in her purse, pauses to answer a call and talked utter gibberish for a few minutes while this young man was still running! And after a while, she brought out a thousand naira note. The young man still doing the semi marathon struggled to give her the balance while holding the basket and enduring her chanting ‘Don’t give me tattered money o! Ehen!’

Can you imagine? The money she gave the guy wasn’t exactly fresh out of the printing machine. In fact, it was old. I know it seems like I’m being a bit sentimental here after all, it’s what they do some people might think. But hey, it is hard enough for them that they have to do this for a living so I think it is fair that you have your money in your hand before you call them so that you guys would finish your exchange business without the poor guy having to run from Ojota to Maryland.

What first came to mind when I saw Tonto Dike’s tattoo on Linda’s blog was Wow! Till now, I still cant get past the words ‘Wow!’, and ‘Way out of the ordinary’. Tonto Dike is a Nigerian actress

Or what do you think?

Have a wonderful weekend y’all!

Lily Johnson

Pictures from Lindaikeji.blogspot.com

                     Mycolumbusmagic.com

                     Hollyscoop.com
                     Cocosworld.com

                     News.softpedia.com

This is who I am...

I am Lily Johnson

I am a Nigerian woman

I am against all forms of sexual violence.

I am against child abuse and neglect.

I am against human trafficking and slavery.

I am against terrorism. I am against jungle justice because it should be a crime to take laws into your hands.

I am against tribalism.

I am against all kinds of fraudulent practices.

I am against racism.

I am against the violation of basic human rights.

I am against the oppression of the poor and helpless.

I am all for supporting noble causes.

I am all for National and World peace.

I am all for empowering, educating and motivating women and the youth.

I am all for the true practice of democracy.

I am all for fairness, equity and justice.

I just woke up this morning and found myself writing this. I don’t know if it is because of the gist a friend gave me last night about a Chinese site that blocked his IP after sending them emails about a product or the not so recent travel warnings issued by the US [Click here][And who would blame them for wanting to protect their citizens] or the fact that so many things have been happening in recent times that beg the question ‘What is going on?’

One thing is for sure though, a lot of Nigerians would stand up for what is right and I am one of them.

Hope your week is going well? God bless you.

Lily Johnson

The Versatile Blogger Awards!

I was given the Versatile Blogger Award by two wonderful bloggers ; Coy Introvert and Relentless builder. Thank you sweethearts! Now if you haven’t checked out their blogs, do so and you won't be disappointed.

I believe I have said a lot about myself in the past when I was given an award like this or something. Click here to read it. Though I haven’t changed much, I’m going to add to stuff to the ones you guys already know.

7 things about me...Here we go!

• I love perfume!  Why is this the first thing I am saying about myself? Well, I don’t know. Or maybe it's because Christmas is almost here and I want to open gift boxes and find nice perfumes in them. My favorite brand is Chanel but I can use any other good one. People around me think it is an obsession especially when I once decided to join the FM Group just to acquire perfumes and samples for personal use! (Hiding behind a tree and laughing like hell).

• I love cooking and eating pasta. I’m always looking for new pasta recipes to cook. I don’t get tired of doing that.

• I don’t like it when people brag about stuff they know they cant achieve and run away when it is time for ‘action’. Even if you thought you could achieve it but somehow you couldn’t, brace yourself and tell the person especially if you are sure the person isn’t going to kill you or something. Keeping quiet or staying away makes it worse.

• All of a sudden, I am this writer that can’t pen down a romantic story. In 2004, Hints Thrills and Boom published five of my romantic stories. These days, all I write is fantasy, thriller, crime and weird stuff. And it is not like I have any personal problems or anything. I just don’t know how that happened.  Myne Whitman however, can definitely write a romantic story!

• I write songs too and I hope to be able to sing them someday soon.

• I would love to visit Hong Kong! I just watched a documentary on the place and totally fell in love with it.  I would have to ask them to tell me every ingredient they used to prepare whatever I’m going to eat though as I also discovered that their palate isn’t errr.. exactly selective.

• I love reading full color, glossy lifestyle magazines that talk about fashion, relationships and stuff like that. So Genevieve, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and the like, I love! Lol.

Okay! I’m done and I’m supposed to pass it on to 15 recently discovered blogs. Errrm.. that’s hard because I haven’t discovered a lot of blogs since I haven’t been here in a while. Besides, this award must have been received by everyone in blogsville. So if you are yet to get it and you are reading this, *giving you the award with a Close up smile*

Much love!

Lily Johnson

From the East, with pictures and a weird gist..

On the 27th of September, I and my large family buried our 90 year old grannie who had passed away a few months earlier. We had gotten past the sadness and all so we just celebrated the life of the matriarch.


Here are some pictures from the event which took place in Akama Oghe in Ezeagu Local government of Enugu state, Nigeria.



Mum, Berl, Lily, Dami[my bestie] and Ursula[at the back] Berl and Ursula're my younger sisters.



In my room after dressing up for the ceremony



'Abacha'. African salad. Yummy!




A cousin, Ursula, Berl, Lily and Andre[younger bro]



Dancing!!





The 'udu'




'Ogene' [Metal gong] and a drum




The 'Ichaka'





This guy can dance!




A sort of local gun or something called 'Nkpo na ani'



A Fulani woman turned Igbo



She danced vigourously with that calabash on her head and it didnt even shake!





Masquerades. I and Dami werent allowed to take this picture because we were women so we got Andre to do it.



The guy in the Tee shirt and brown trousers is the 'rainmaker'

However, I witnessed something really weird and thought I should share it with you guys. One of my uncles called a ‘rain maker’ to make sure that it doesn’t rain on the day of the ceremony. On the day before the ceremony, the man staggered into the compound like he was very drunk. My dad had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with anyone playing ‘god’ so the man came to see my uncle. When I saw him, I tweeted ‘The rain maker is here’. The tweet to my surprise, didn’t post. This continued for a while. Then I tweeted ‘Rainmaker’. It appeared on my TL. So anytime, I added ‘the’ before ‘rainmaker’ , the tweet would disappear somehow. Twitter might have had problems then but it was weird that it happened only when the man was around and I did tweet about other things and they didn’t ‘disappear like those tweets had.


The rainmaker’s name[let’s see you disappear here] was Romanus. On the day of the ceremony, it was drizzling a bit. He brought out some herbs, put them inside water and started ‘chasing away’ the rain. It did stop raining a few minutes later. Throughout our stay, it only rained at night. According to the villagers, it was the ‘rain’ in his stomach was what was making him stagger all over the place and not alcohol. And when he sleeps at night, the rain would be released.

Dear reader, isn’t that one of the weirdest things you have ever heard?

We didn’t even know what to think about the whole things but allowed ourselves to be puzzled for a while. Like really? This guy is not a herbalist but he could stop the rain from ruining this day? Okay!



The man in sunglasses is my dear father.





Set for church service on Sunday




Monday morning. Waiting for the bus. Wearing hairnets, no make up whatsoever and as tired as hell!



We did have a great time anyway. And drank a lot of fresh palm wine too.

Hope you guys are okay.

Lily Johnson





I Am ....Lily Johnson.: Preview "From the East, with pictures and a weird gist.."

I Am ....Lily Johnson.: Preview "From the East, with pictures and a weird gist.."