the smell of wet earth, kissing in the rain, ice cream, barefoot walks on the beach, cuddling on the couch, sexual tension, freedom, sleek cars, beautiful eyes, independence, intelligence, fresh air, wind through my hair, wit, assertiveness, computers, falling in love, music, foreign places, the unbeaten track, city life, debates, self confidence, the free spirited, women. Make of this list what you will.

Friday, July 29, 2005

Bride of Chucky

Does marriage mean abandoning your friends? Does it mean giving up your independence and individuality? Is it a license for you to be a psycho bitch to those who care about you and your social life? And what's the deal with all the WE….We this, we that…how about just I….just one fucking I.
As in I went to the toilet.

One of my closest friends just got hitched.
And I’m not liking it.
Not one bit.

Suddenly its Phil this and Phil that and Phil doesn’t think we should go out tonight…

Well, PHIL:

I used to see her about twice a week when we would go on our lunch break together, or catch a movie or a drink or two after work. She’s been married a month but I haven’t seen her once since the blessed event. Understandably they may still be honeymooning and between the marathon sexcapades and working to pay the bills there isn’t much time for anything else.

I’m an understanding person and “I was having sex” is indeed a valid excuse for absolutely everything under the sun. It would be okay if that’s what is keeping her away. But it isn’t.

I called her up and suggested that after work we go sample the beverages on display at a new lounge I discovered the other day. She said she had to ask for permission (??!!!). Apparently Phil is a little grumpy today so when Phil saw the SMS she sent and called her back he didn’t mention anything about her request.
Her analysis was that: (a) Phil deliberately ignored it because he doesn’t want her to go out or (b) he forgot about it.

Oh, now it all makes sense! But of course. He forgot. Excellent excuse, especially considering how much of a strain it is on your vocal cords to BRING IT UP. How about option (c)- your husband is a fucking asshole.

I’m sitting here trying to understand why Phil’s bad mood is our problem. He can stay at home and be miserable while we spend an enjoyable evening together or he can tag along. But to prevent her from going out with an old friend on account of his foul mood is disgusting. But even worse is that fact that she lets herself get completely controlled like that. Her only defence for this is “uh, you know how it is when you’re married….”
No, I'm sorry but I don’t.
Maybe someone can enlighten me here, but I’m having a little trouble understanding this arrangement. Maybe these restrictions make her feel secure and loved. This scenario reminds me of those women who get repeatedly beaten up by their husbands but are so emotionally insecure that you couldn’t pay them to leave the bastards.
Life is fucked up.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Help!!!

STRESSSSSSS!!
Fuck i'm stressed.
I'm on my third ciggie (that means going down a million stairs and outside into the rain and gale force winds) and third cup of black coffee.
My phone is ringing off the hook and i'm having double vision.
Our client has left everything till the last minute and now they are stressing me out big time to come up with a million reports, proposals and the rest of that crap. BEFORE 5pm. WTF?? !???
They are our only client. They call, we run.

But i got bigger fish whales to fry.
They owe us loads of money so we cant pay our debts and the tax officers are knocking on our door. In addition, big bloopers from our sister/mother company in South Africa means we owe customs millions of $$$ in fines because we didnt follow the rules of importation. if we dont pay by Friday they are SHUTTING US DOWN even though its SAs fault. We are a tiny subsidiary office, a few million in debt and we are going under.

Right now I'm just going to chill out at my desk and watch my nails grow for a while. Around me people are running around like headless chickens bumping into each other in the corridor as they talk to whoever on their phones trying to solve their respective problems. So in this kind of situation the best thing to do is blog, ride the tide and chase the fly my office.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Home Alone

I woke up fresh and perky this morning after a weekend of blissful nothingness. My aunt, her hubby and their kids spent the weekend away (yay!) at her mom's. There was no "you really need to stop smoking" every single time I lit up, with me thinking why is this conversation so familiar? Oh yeah, that’s right, we had it 5 minutes ago. No having to sit though their new shared passion: kicking back and watching golf all weekend - BOooooring! They're only in their mid-thirties but they've obviously been slapped in the ass by the Old Married Couple Syndrome. Ah, nothing like a weekend left to my own devises. I just stayed in, did my long overdue laundry (i was already deep into my reserve of stringy and seam-less 20 year old undies), I preened, cut my nails and watched a gazillion DVDs.
I particularly enjoyed Hitch. 2 words for you: Eva Mendez.
Need I say more? YUMMAY! Especially in those glasses.

When you have your own place, personal space is something you take for granted. It's an alien feeling to have the remote all to myself and not have to bribe my little cousin to catch a glimpse of MTV Cribs before succumbing to the whining, biting and fighting to switch back for another 10 hours of Cartoon Network. Don't get me wrong - I love cartoons, especially those that make it onto the big screen (I've seen every single feature length cartoon ever made) I love Cow and Chicken, Rugrats etc but you can only have so much of Dexter and I'll definitely pass on the Powerpuff fluff or the Teletubbies.

Teletubbies!
Fuck, I cannot even begin to express into words how I feel about the Teletubbies. Every time I hear "uh-oh" I want to find gun, shove it in my mouth and quietly blow my brains out. Why oh why is the sun a baby's face?? I'm sorry, but that’s just weird and creepy: a disembodied baby’s head prancing around giggling at nothing. And just when you think the agony is over, that you have somehow managed to escape the literally mind numbing torture that no mortal man should have to endure without going totally PVS like poor old Terri: they say "buh-bye" like a billion times and you’re thinking please pretty please JUST FUCKING GO ALREADY! It is worse than fingernails on chalkboard. But the most irritating part is when they pick some utterly pointless task and do it over and over and over again like falling over and then getting up painfully slowly and going “uh-oh!” accompanied by a stupid cackling sound masquerading as a giggle. And I’ m thinking ‘oh no!” coz I know the next fat Tubby is going to do exactly the same thing and that’s when I run screaming out of the room clutching my head before lose all activity in my brain. In short, I really don't like the Teletubbies very much. Unless they’re beheaded, sliced, diced and incorporated into a nice soup a la Inky Dinky fucking Winky…

I’m glad my baby cousin has outgrown them at the ripe old age of 12 months. He cant talk yet but now that he can wobble about if you put on a show he doesn’t like and you fail to notice his deep disappointment in your poor judgement from the face he makes, he’ll let you know just how incredibly irked he is by getting right up and switching off the TV. Teletubbies gets the off treatment too. There's a God afterall.

Anyway.
This post wasn’t supposed to go down like this.
It was supposed to be about my weekend of serenity and tranquillity - listening to birds chirping, the beautiful earthy smell of wet soil after the rain on Saturday, about how much I like soccer and…But when my TeleTubbyPhobic alter ego takes over my body I can’t help it. Its all Dr Jekyll up in here now so I’ll go make some coffee, tar my lungs a little more then wear a straight jacket and try to think happy thoughts.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

F-Art sucks

I got coerced into attending an acquaintance’s friend’s dinner party last night. Normally I would decline such an invitation because – well because I’m a hapless loner who loves to grovel in self-pity eating ice cream in my bathtub and wondering why I have no real friends and then turn down any invitations to go out. No not really, getting hammered with near-strangers is one thing…trying to have a meaningful conversation at a dinner table amongst a group of friends who all know each other and have an assortment of insider jokes is a ridicule I refuse to endure. Again. But I suppose the lack of social contact outside the hair pulling from my “charming” cousins and the fact that I haven’t strayed from the work-home routine for 2 weeks now was enough to let me tempt fate.

To my relief this time it was different. Even though I barely know the person who invited me to the party not to mention the host, after a couple glasses of wine that was all academic because the host proclaimed mi casa su casa and everyone was hugging and kissing and the world was a jolly good place.

Somewhere along this orgy of love I discovered the host, Idan, is an artist. As in singer. And dancer, and songwriter/composer, and novelist, and painter. No wonder I have no talent - someone has them all. Or so thought. At one point he started singing and playing the piano about a painting of his. Singing about a painting? Who are these people??? Anyway, I didn’t say so at the time but his work, I mean ALL his work sucked. The songs, the paintings, the chapter of his novel I read, I didn’t get an opportunity to sample his dancing but maybe that is for the best because it probably sucked worse than his other ”talents”.

He described his paintings as “abstract expressionism”. A kind of abstract art form which from all indications is synonymous with “I don’t have the slightest vestige of talent but kindly sponsor my doodles”. Abstract art is something that has always intrigued me. Sometimes you can really appreciate the textures, the palette, the intersecting patterns and you can even sense the emotion the artist is trying to evoke in you as you clear you mind and let the painting envelope your consciousness…but a lot of the time however it just looks like a kindergarden kid was left alone with paint in the dark. If that kid scratch was placed in a gallery under some famous name, suddenly all kinds of meaning and symbolisms would be extracted from the squiggles. Idan’s art was even worse because it looked like he’d sucked some paint into a straw then projected it onto a canvas using air blow out from his nostril. Absolutely no discernable method in his madness. Or perhaps he's actually a paying member of the art movement characterised by spewing paint from a tube coming out of your butt. I think it is called fart. F-Art. Or at least, it should be.

Anyway, the point of all this is I think I may have found my calling. My one elusive talent. I’m harbouring a lingering suspicion that I'm a really good abstract artist yet to be discovered. How hard could it be? If you watched the movie Mona Lisa smile, it featured a huge canvas of seemingly randomly splashed paint (called “Lavender Mist”?) which Julia Roberts made the students “consider”. I reckon if I apply myself (something my grade school teachers used to say: “Lyn is a highly intelligent little girl, only if she would apply herself…”) I could come up with something similar and guarantee myself a nice little handprint on the Artists’ version of Hollywood Boulevard’s Starwalk.

Well, I applied myself alright. Picasso has nothing on me. Neither does ...whatyoumacallhim... the other artist dude. Before I showcase my magnum opus, my masterpiece that will wow the crowds and send the world into a mad frenzy just to touch me...No. Just to even live vicariously from a distance in envy of those fortunate enough to touch me, before I expose my greatness in plain sight for all the world to witness, I must warn you, it is not for simple minds. If you find that you don’t like it - You Are An Uncultured Individual With No Taste.

Without further ado. world, I present to you “Blogoshere”:




It is the embodiment of a mindless materialistic and bureaucratic society consisting of way too many bloggers with way too much time on their hands talking way too much crap. Notice how all the colours of the spectrum bounce off the canvas creating White and giving it a semblance of emptiness. This represents the possibility of being surrounded with all these blogging people and yet, being completely alone. Take a moment to contemplate the intricate detail showcased in this particular Work of Art. Allow it to capture your imagination and take you where it may.

For a nominal fee, I will provide autographed copies.
With a little pecuniary compensation, I may even be tempted to pose for a photograph.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Slacking off

I'm slacking off here big time.
How do people do it?
BLOG EVERY SINGLE DAY.
I've got shit to say but no time to say it.
Yet some people do this consistently, every single day for years with only the occasional sick leave.

Anyway.
I haven't been out in weeks.
I mean out out.
I'm even experiencing withdrawal symtoms now.
I don't think my body can handle these unprecedented levels of alcohol.
They havent been so low since i got off the bottle.
I think that's the cause of this rash on my hand.
so.....
I'm off to fix my situation.

Friday, July 15, 2005

This is ridiculous!

My boss just walked into my office and demanded that "we" (meaning me) go over some extremely complicated proposal he would like for "us" (still only me) to formulate and submit today. This is for a huge deal we are trying to secure....Its 5:30pm ON FRIDAY. Just after I miraculously survived a 4 hour seminar from hell, with an instructor that must have been speaking in tongues for all I heard. Please tell me, do i have SLAVE DRIVER on my face? No? Look closely, because there is no other explanation for this insanity.

I looked like i was going to fall off my chair and start spewing out my lunch with deadly precision onto his neatly parted thining hair so he's agreed to meet on Monday.
Why thank you kind sir.
Your kindness knows no bounds.
Jerk.

Now my Firewall is clearly deadset on ensuring that when i go online, I stay within the confines of sleep inducing coporate propaganda by denying me access to this website which according to them contains "Sexual Materials or Gruesome Content". I'm willing to bet my grandma's left lung it doesn't. I think the content filter guy over at my company HQ had a very traumatic childhood... probably an abusive past compounded by a severe oidipus complex....to him, everything is porn.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Yanked out of the closet

I've exposed my dirty laundry before. Online, in virtual obscurity, is one thing, but I can’t think of any friends who know more than 2 of my confessions and definitely no family. Over the last 4 months, living with my aunt has made us bosom buddies – the one person I can talk to about anything. Well, almost anything. She makes me want to spill my guts and reveal all the skeletons and putrefying corpses I’m hiding in my closet. I suppose this can be attributed to the fact that in our frequent midnight chitchats she has discovered many of my eccentricities and has already concluded I'm a regular freakazoid, the unfortunate offspring of a Martian family scarred by generations of inbreeding.

Last night we were discussing why I have such a negative attitude towards marriage. So I thought, well, at this juncture nothing I said would make her lift an eyebrow in the slightest bit of surprise or concern. After much ado, multiple delay tactics, furious blushing and dramatizing to soapyficular proportions, I decided to reveal that - ta da dum da dum - I dig chicks. And by that I don’t mean the young edible variety. Wait, double entendre - when I think about it now that’s exactly what I mean. As I anticipated and to my relief, there was no rolling around on the floor in distress, no calling the extended family for an intense prayer session involving the local exorcist, but instead a mere "uh huh". *Pause*. *Shrug*. "Don't worry, I already knew".
"What!?! You knew? How? When? What?!?!?!?!?. Who else knows?" was my reaction. I was pretty confident she would not go stark raving psychotic on my ass but I was still a little stunned that she had me so figured out.

Perhaps it’s because she knows me extremely well. Perhaps I'm one those obvious dykes - you know, a walking, talking compilation of lesbo clichés.
But one thing's for sure though:
It’s great to have it out.
It’s great to be out.
Even if only to one person.

*****************

Random Unrelated Question:
Does anyone else have something happen as you go about your daily life and immediately start thinking of blogging about it?

Monday, July 11, 2005

ZZZZZzzzzzzz

I have this irrepressible urge to go out and actively seek and destroy the asswipe who invented the alarm clock. If he's dead, my wrath will be passed on to his children and their children's children ad infinitum.

At the moment of his brainwave he didn't realise he would be irreversibly ruining perfectly decent excuses for coming to work late: “The dog was supposed to lick me awake and he didn’t! Blame the dog.” or "What? It was raining! How could I wake up when it was raining!".

This morning, like every morning, my extremely rude awakening consisted of an earpopping screeching alarm sound resulting in an involuntary groan interjected by a few choice words and a flying object now a pile of unrecognizable grit on the floor, all serving as a daily reminder of why I have “sleep early, dumbass” on my To Do lists.

I need 6 full hours of sleep to operate in any capacity remotely qualifying as normal. A minute less and I'm a zombie ready to star in a Michael Jackson thriller remake or just one hell of a Bitch. Well, more of a bitch than usual anyway.

Waking me up before my daily sleep quota is up is a full time job not for the fainthearted (cue in Mission Impossible soundtrack). I've slept through my bro sneaking onto the top bunk and falling off when he was a little kid and through the commotion as he was rushed to the hospital; I've slept through my Aunt’s room burning down, the fire brigade rushing in and the only reason I realised any of it happened was because I got accidentally splashed with water from the hose as I was whisked out of the house hanging off someone's shoulder still fast asleep; I've slept through fire drills at university although the fire alarm was just outside my dorm room. I nearly got KICKED out of my forth year for excessive bunking.

If I know I'm going to get less than 6 hours my bedtime routine involves setting my Once Off phone alarm, my Recurring phone alarm, my radio alarm clock and depending on how late it is, I sleep in front of the TV with the TV on. Sometimes that makes me sleep a little lighter. Usually though, I still manage to turn off everyone one of the alarms with frightening dexterity with my eyes barely open. I have tried selotaping the ‘off’ button on my alarm clock, but clearly that was just plain dumb. It reminds me off my fat friend who used to selotape the chips in the kitchen she shared with her roommate to discourage herself from pigging out on her roommate's goodies. Not much good that did her.

I've slept on a hard cold tiled floor thinking that would help me sleep lighter when I'm desperate not to be late for something, although I crept in from the clubs at 3 am. All I get for my troubles is a back pain from hell in the morning and still find out someone had turned off the alarm while I was sleeping. And even though I was alone in the house, I could swear it wasnt me.

Ideally I need 6 hours. After 6 hours a single frighteningly loud, irritating and unreachable - without getting out of bed - alarm clock will do the job. It takes about 8 hrs for me to wake up without any obvious external influences.

I want to have a full and active social life, going to bed at whatever hour it pleases me and waking up as bright and bushy tailed as the people I go out with. I'm sick and tired of my perpetual tardiness. I'm fed up of responding to "you look so tired" in the morning.

So, I’ve decided I’m getting my comatose ass professionally checked out. But I have a feeling the verdict will be: "You just need to make sure you get enough sleep".
No shit. Gimme my money back.

Friday, July 08, 2005

ROFL!

Stumbled across This Blog. This guy is so funny he put me in stitches. Shame it rarely gets updated, but its worth a read.

Came late to work today, so I have to pretend to be busy for at least another 30 minutes. Trying to perfect my pensive pose...I'm certainly deserving of an Oscar right about now.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Blah blah blah the sequel

I’m going through a dry spell here. My life is so dull right now, there’s absolutely NOTHING to blog about. I’ll post anyway, but I cannot guarantee your sanity by the time you are done with this mind numbing brain fart. Warning: Reading this post may lead to foaming at the mouth and/or reddened swollen eyes with throbbing veins in prominence, out of complete and utter boredom. Proceed at your own risk.

I had croissants and a yogi sip (drinkable yoghurt) for lunch today.
Tasted real yummy. But my tummy is now acting funny. I feel so crummy. It had probably expired on me. I'm such a dummy. I think I need my mummy.

My baby cousin took his first steps yesterday. They’ll be his last for a while. Fell flat on his face and lost a quarter of his teeth. Well, one tooth - he only had four.

Oooh ooh ooh since we are suing for fun: the USA doesn't want to sign the Kyoto protocol YET is probably responsible for 1/4 of the world's greenhouse gas emmisions. They are messing with MY ozone layer, hence making my scorching hot shithole town a lot hotter than usual. I want ONE TRILLION BILLION dollars in compensation thank you very much (clearly, unlike the crazy woman in the article, I couldn't careless about astrology or the lining of the planets or the rest of that New Age mumbo jumbo).

That time of the month again. The onset of PMS draweth nigh.
I wanna go to bed and wake up a guy. Minus the hair in every orifice, the adams apple, the morning stiffy, the responsibilities, the shaving every morning, the attention span of a goldfish, the one-track mind.....hmm....on second thoughts: I think I'll just stay a girl. I just wish that time of the month didnt have to come every single fucking month.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Blah blah blah

I'm in the market for new friends.
I'm not picky. All I’m looking for is someone who knows how to have a great time and most importantly, someone who can afford to take me out to dinner. I don’t mean an extravagant upmarket restaurant with a different wine and fork and knife for every food group, just a regular steak and chips supper washed down with a can of coke. I'm sick and tired of hanging around with a bunch of broke-ass douche bags just cluttering up the surface of the earth.

This weekend a new friend of mine (oozing potential for being more than just friends) invited me over to her town about 3 hrs drive away. After early evening pre-drinks, her friends and I hit the clubs to let loose on the dance floor. After about 10 mins I noticed everyone was still lounging around like a bunch of old ladies so I got a drink order from everyone to get the damn party started already. I must be suffering from a major culture gap because I was under the impression that we were going to 'go Dutch' and split the bill six ways. However, unbeknownst to me, in these parts of the world it seems the asker assumes responsibility for the drinks because when it was time to pay everyone just sorta stared at me with this blank look that left me no doubt that I was being ditched with the whole bill. Four able-bodied guys in the mix and the out-of-town girl is left to deal with the results of their debauchery. It seems to me chivalry is lost and the world has gone to hell since the emancipation of women. At the very least a warning would have been nice. Good thing I had a wad of cash or we'd have been bussing tables for the rest of the evening.

So that’s why I'm looking for new friends. I'm ridding myself of leeching freeloaders and raising my standards. At the risk of sounding shallow (which is probably justified): on your application just write your name, your poison and your net worth. Hell, don’t even bother with formalities like your name. With the fun we'll be having I'll be too zoned out to remember it, so irrespective of your gender, you'll just have to answer to George.

Friday, July 01, 2005

Friday Randomness

Google-Search-Term-Leading-to-this-Blog of the Day:

"Cameroonian pu$$ies"

Hmm.

Very disturbing if thats what my blog has been reduced to.
Note the use of dollar signs to prevent further misrepresentation.

***********
I tried to set up my voicemail today.
I dialled 123, spent 5 minutes on hold, then finally got a REAL person on the line.
Total waste of a chunk of my life.
"I'm sorry, that service is not currently available, but please try again in 2 months".
2 months????????? Like...for real?!?!
I had this idea that the 3rd world sucked, but boy was I clueless of just how much.

(Context: Lived in Geneva for the larger part of my life, then lived in SA which is one of the better 3rd world nations and I'm now in Cameroon - having major adjustment issues here!)

I'm not asking for 3G or WAP or even GPRS, just , you know, your regular run-of-the-mill mail retrieval system. "Hi, please leave a message at the beep" type thing. But nooooo - that's just way too high tech for these guys.

*******
But its Friday. No room for bitching and wining about things you cannot change. The weekend beckons - filled with promise and opportunities for many an indiscretion. And once again I'm faced with the remote possiblity that as I leave the office this afternoon, this may just be the weekend I win the lottery and never have to come back.
Fat chance.
Especially since I don't play.