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I'm leaving tonight on a 5 day business trip to Uganda.
This will be is a quickie (mmmmmmmm quickie. Havent had one of those in yonks.) coz my flight leaves in like 3 hours and i still have shit to do before I leave and still need to pack as well and blogging was not supposed to be part of the 'shit to do'.
Hope the trip is cool, coz to tell you the truth I'm getting sick & tired of hotels. Well not really, coz i'd rather go than not go. Lesser of two evils, you know? No? Yeah well i don't know what i'm talking about either.
Plus its for a bi-annual meeting with the superboss (my boss' leash yanker) so i'm not looking forward to it because I would need to account for some suspect underpressure decisions I made during the past week (which by the way was the most horrible and pressure-filled week of my relatively short career) and if i did indeed succumb to a gross miscalculation that would mean i just lost my company a wee bundle to the order of about 5 mil. And i don't mean Yens or New Guinea dollars.

Anwayz i will try not to think the worst and hope I will come out of this smelling like roses and perhaps even get presented with a badge of honour for my brilliant decision making in a time of great personal strife. Oh wait, thats the army. Well a nice pack of paper clips and a shiny new stapler will have to do then.

Must run. See ya'll on the flip side.

Beeeeeeeep

the withdrawal sets in

Its 3:30.
I feel like shit.
I'm stressed and hungry.
Real bad time to quit.
No its not an excuse. I'm just sayin.

I'd be fine now if i'd deliberately opted to not go out on a ciggie break. But when you CANT - hell hath no fury like a scorned lung. I feel so....empty. Bereft of my PREEECIOUSSS. I feel like i could use just one more before i quit. Just one more! Would i blamed if i snagged 1? Just to get me through the rest of this tough day... just one teeny weeeny ciggie? Not even a whole one...how about just one drag? huh? Half a drag?

Looks like its going to be a long long day.

The dawn of a new era

Nah. Nothing that dramatic.
Same ol' me will be doing the same ol' shit.
Unless Monday is considered a 'new era'.
Nevertheless, there will be one or two improvements around here.

For one:

Drumroll please, coz:

TODAY IS THE DAY I QUIT SMOKING.

Yup. Rip off the gas mask and take huge whiff of me as you hum to Kool & the Gang's "she's fresh she's so fresh..."

My fingers WILL twitch, I WILL develop a nervous jerk in withdrawal, but I WILL resist.

To the 'quit somking' industry: if you think you're getting a penny off me with your pills, patches, sprays, gums etc, etc...you can pucker up coz you'll be meeting my ass. There's only 1 drug i need, and thats Determination.

The reason I'm really driven to quit is i can see how its affecting my health. I used to be so active. I was an athlete. Ok i was 10 and won the potato sack race, but still, I was an athlete dammit. And now i can't even bend over to pick up something i dropped without feeling out of breath and hurting like i dislocated my pelvis.

So I'll rejoin the gym tonight.
And throw out the rest of the ice-cream.

I guess this IS a new era afterall.

Still here. Still queer.

I spent the weekend with my mom who lives about an hour's drive away from me. Apparently some woman recently came to see her to negotiate the terms of my betrothal to her son. Yip, I also thought shit like that faded with the dinosaurs. Thankfully mom was simply bemused by the whole affair, especially since I’ve never seen the guy and the woman doesn’t know me from Adam. Good thing my dad is not around coz he’d have taken the whole thing way too seriously.

I would never consider coming out to my mom, much less my dad. They just wouldn’t understand. Hell, I barely understand it myself.

I have nightmares of the two families gathered in the living room, debating my worth in cows and goats as we (the hubby-to-be and I) sit meekly in the corner and watch as the drama unfolds.

Needless to say, my long overdue nervous breakdown looms ever closer. And when I crack, the proverbial shit is bound to hit the fan.

Waaaaay too much info

Happy New Year everyone!

Whoohooooo!
weeeeeeeeee!
wooooooo!
Yeah!
Okay i'm done.

Vac’s over.
Hello mind-numbing daily grind.

Grad
Was exactly as I thought it would be: Zzzzzzzzzzz.
I heard some varsities have choirs and performances and stuff. Nope. Not mine. Just an endless string of names periodically interrupted by the shrieking of a neurotic-but-proud mom because apparently cheering loudly just doesn’t cut it. You’ll find it’s not uncommon during grads in SA. Don’t ask - it’s a cultural thing. My dad even signed up one of ‘em moms to screech when my name was called.

Christmas
Spent Christmas with the family (dad and both brothers) at a friend of my dad’s. Turned out to be even more tedious than grad. I ended up watching soccer on TV the whole time which considerably brightened up my day until one nut job decided the time was ripe to interrupt my viewing in order to show off his musician-wannabe nephew’s homemade music video. At that point I thought maybe I could drink the day into oblivion but my dad made sure I knew he was counting and felt 2 drinks was already 1 too many.

Seems the days when merely mentioning the word ‘Christmas’ around me would erect the tiny hairs on the back of my neck are long gone. The prospect of a mysterious present under my bed hand-delivered by Santa himself and more presents under the Christmas tree from my parents and every one of their friends would unfailingly sprout goose bumps on my arms….ahhh the good ol’ days when Christmas was magical and gifts aplenty. I’m not asking for much, I’d settle for a home cooked family lunch with the entire family playing games and cracking jokes like when we were kids. But I can’t remember the last time the whole family was together for Christmas, and these days even if we are, things are just not the same. Over the last couple of years it has lost its appeal and become a drab affair I have to be subjected to every year.

New Years
Well, judge for yourselves.
On that Eve I was home alone with a bottle of Amarula (SA version of Bailey’s) and a bucket full of weed. I’ve already established I’m a loner but even for me that was a whole new level of lonesomeness. With no friends around and my sortof-girlfriend unreachable, I could either tag along with my dad or hang out with the teenage brothers. Both options were completely unacceptable to I opted to stay in an entertain myself.

However, something quite peculiar did happen earlier that afternoon. Take a seat and lean back coz this one’s a biggie. Before I confess allow me to set the stage to soften the blow in a desperate attempt to regain what was once my dignity:

I was bored.
I had gone through every readable material in the house including the shampoo bottle ingredient label and 'Pippi goes to school' in my little sister's collection. My mind was desperate for some stimulation - any sign that it still had the capacity for activity.
That’s when I decided to touch it - the only book left unread in the entire house. My dad had bought it for my 14-year-old sister a couple months back when she was in SA for holidays. I glanced around furtively to make sure no one was looking before tentatively picking it up and quickly retreating to the depths of my room, bolting the door to conceal my crime.

I confess that from page 2 (after my first audible giggle) I was hooked, and I knew there was no putting it down.
I confess that I now will have to re-watch the flick (which I initially thought was a waste of money even though it was from a cheap video store).
I confess that I will now have to 'accidentally purchase' the others in the series.

Its no use trying.
I have lost all self respect and become one those people I love to hate - Harry Potties.
1 down (Chamber of Secrets). 5 to go.

So my new years eve was spent getting stoned, wasted, reading Harry Potter in the garden while fireworks lit up the sky around me. Alone, while my bros got their freak on in town and my dad and a buddy of his decided to hit an underground club. Rock on daddy! My dad is one those stereotypically British-y formal types, always suited up. The kind of guy you can’t help but call 'Sir' or ‘Mr’. Well I shouldn’t be surprised. I suppose even the pope jams to a little Linkin Park on New Year’s Eve right after his evening Hail Mary recital.

Inbetween

I did get some on my trip though. Got quite a lot of some actually.
She asked me not to blog about her (she's been reading this blog for a while now) but I can't help it. Liv, I’m sorry but you will just have to sue me. We have one of those ‘open’ relationships because I don’t feel the need to commit. We used fight a lot about all kinds of little irrelevant things but I think we really connected on this trip and reached a point where I’m beginning to reconsider our non-exclusivity clause. But even if I decided to go full throttle there's always the distance - Cameroon isn’t exactly a bus ride from SA. Unless I relocate?
Dear Dr Ruth,
How do you know when you are in love? I miss her. I enjoy her company. She makes me laugh. She makes me happy. But the thought of her with someone else does not make me jealous.
So how do you know?
Do you just ‘know’?
Grrrrrr.

Ok nuff of that

In other news

Spent the morning appreciating the ‘new and improved’ Acrobat Reader 7.0. It kicks major butt. No more 5-minute waits for the app to load like in the 5.0 series while every person who has ever contributed to any aspect of the project has their name displayed.

I need to quit smoking man. Really. I just cannot have it on next year’s resolution list.

Got to lose the love handles. I swear I will impale the next fucker who talks about my waistline. Fuck off already.

And that concludes my litany.
Au revoir.