Oh boy!

Tis a strange strange world

The world turned on its head for a moment last night. Or at least for the duration of an intriguing movie on telly: Africa Paradis - meaning Africa Paradise in English. Set in a future where Europe has fallen to poverty while Africa has successfully merged to form a powerful United States of Africa, it centers around a computer programmer, Olivier and his girlfriend school teacher, Pauline.

They try to get a visa legally, and wait outside the African embassy in France. The queue is long and the French are desperate. Sadly for them, their visa is rejected whereby they decide to get into Africa illegally, and even work the menial jobs on offer, even though they are young, in the peak of their lives and very much so educated professionals.

Call me conditioned by society but I felt weird, to say the least, to see an influx of Europeans into Africa, even if it was in a movie....Our reality is the reverse. Most, if not all people from the developing world dream of the 'better' life they can get in the First World.

And here in South Africa, people immigrate in droves for different reasons: the crime, the unemployment and Lord knows what else. I mean, even S.O and I have had fleetingly discussions about leaving the country. Somehow the oodles of optimism just post 1994 seemed to have dwindled and I too, a self confessed patriotic, have been having second thoughts seep into the edges of my mind.

There are signs that things are not looking good, but I sometimes wonder if people are seeing a hurricane in a tea cup. Or am I being naive? Will I change my mind about this country if I have to experience how it is to live in distant shores, and not feel scared all the bloody time about becoming a statistic to crime. Yes, I admit, I am so cautious to a point of paranoia. I mean, you know you are losing it when you do not feel safe in your own bed and think every noise is someone trying to break into the house. Or that every stranger on the street has malicious intent. Or when you are scared of stopping at a red robot because there is a chance you may get hijacked. Yes, paranoia is now my constant companion.

And what is even a further dampener on the situation is the book I am reading: Swahili for the Broken Hearted: Cape Town to Cairo By Any Means Possible written by Peter Moore. Yes, Africa is beautiful but there are the things like corruption and crime that has a way of seeping into the story. And his experience in Johannesburg in particular, was distressing. And when you see it in black and white and in a book, it's hard to deny the reality of they way we live.

So all of this just got me pondering about my love for Africa, being an African (even though I have been told numerous times that just because I am not of a certain hue I am not African)where I belong, if I do actually belong and where to from here.

As yet, there are no easy answers, but then again are there ever?

WWW - World Without Writers :(

So, the American Guild of Writers are on strike...and have been for the past few weeks. Call me biased, but I am glad they are on strike.

They are the creative force behind the shows we have come to love, characters that have become like family and plots that are intertwined in our lives.

There are even those shows that have sentimental value....when we look back at ones like Knight Rider, Air Wolf and even Friends, it helps defines eras of our life. Whether we were teenagers, students or even in our 20s, it added pizazz to make that certain part of our lives all the more memorable.

And since I am on a soapbox, let me express my hate for reality television. Just the way news has been dumbed down thanks to trashy tabloids, so has television been tarnished with reality television. How much of reality is actually involved? For instance Big Brother is taped 24 hours a day, right? But the show just airs for an hour, what happens to the rest of it? Obviously, the mundane reality is edited out to make it more sensational so ratings sore.

And that what it comes down to - ratings and money. It sucks.

Viva the writers, viva!

I can't even think of a heading

I think my muse is AWOL. Uh huh, I do not even have an inkling of inspiration to write, read, take pictures and just share the mundaneness of this thing called my Life. Sigh...

I've been glued to the TV couch like a stain that won't go away. Another sigh...

So as I grind the pace of My Life to a near halt, things are happening around me: people get up and go to work, there are world changing events and dammit, the grass has turned green (ALREADY?).

It's almost as if I've jumped off this spinning blue, green and brown sphere. Triple sigh...

Choco mania hits

The Sister Person bought this for the female parental unit...needless to say I hijacked it on sight.
More important - what's in the box: every sort of yummy chocolate biscuit. Naturally it took every last ounce of my willpower not to wolf it down as if it was my last day on earth.

Tim Tam Tarts and cup cakes

Skanky is getting back into the rat race ...but only for a while. Just as well we spent a girlie week together.

The POA (Plan of Action) was to watch Rent, bake cup cakes topped with brightly coloured icing (according to the Sister Person, they look like cup cakes for Barbie), watch V for Vendetta and chat... a lot. And indeed we did, minus the numerous occasions I passed out into the world of dreams. Me suspects the Sandman was working over time.


And after all I heard about Tim Tams, I finally got to eat it...even if I could not do it "the correct way." I could feel the disappointment emitting from Skanky's pores, but I promise to try harder next time.

Some days, even chocolate is not enough

Insomnia has a bad habit of keeping you awake. Instead of tossing and turning fruitlessly in my bed, or playing don't-stop-pressing-the-buttons on the TV remote, I decided to delete unnecessary mail from my inbox.

I found the following e-mail (and did not delete it) and though it is a bit of a read, I reckon it is worth every second of your time:

from
skanky _ _

to
priya and snaffy
(addresses omitted for the sake of keeping weirdos away)

date
6 Jun 2007 14:06

subject
The origins of love and madness...

A long time ago, before the world was created and humans set foot on it for the first time, vices & virtues floated around and were bored, not knowing what to do.

One day, all the vices and virtues were gathered together and were more bored than ever. Suddenly, Ingenious came up with an idea: "Let's play hide and seek!"All of them liked the idea and immediately Madness shouted: "I want to count, I want to count!" And since nobody was crazy enough to want to seek Madness, all the others agreed.
Madness leaned against a tree and started to count: "One, two, three.." As Madness counted, the vices and virtues went hiding.

Tenderness hung itself on the horn of the moon... Treason hid in a pile of garbage... Fondness curled up between the clouds...and Passion went to the centre of the earth.... Lie said that it would hide under a stone, but hid at the bottom of the lake... whilst Avarice entered a sack that he ended up breaking.

And Madness continued to count: .... "seventy nine, eighty, eighty one..." By this time, all the vices and virtues were already hidden - except Love. For undecided as Love is, he could not decide where to hide. And this should not surprise us, because we all know how difficult it is to hide Love. Madness: "...ninety five, ninety six, ninety seven..."

Just when Madness got to one hundred.........Love jumped into a rosebush where he hid. And Madness turned around and shouted: "I'm coming, I'm coming!" As Madness turned around, Laziness was the first to be found, because Laziness had no energy to hide. Then he spotted Tenderness in the horn of the moon, Lie at the bottom of the lake and Passion at the centre of the earth. One by one, Madness found them all - except Love.

Madness was getting desperate, unable to find Love. Envious of Love, Envy whispered to Madness: "You only need to find Love and Love is hiding in the rose bush."Madness grabbed a wooden pitch fork and stabbed wildly at the rosebush.Madness stabbed and stabbed until a heartbreaking cry made him stop.

Love appeared from the rose bush, covering his face with his hands. Between his fingers ran two trickles of blood from his eyes. Madness, so anxious to find Love, had stabbed out Love's eyes with a pitch fork. "What have I done! What have I done!" Madness shouted. "I have left you blind! How can I repair it?" And Love answered:"You cannot repair my eyes. But if you want to do something for me, you can be my guide." And so it came about that from that day on, Love is blind and is always accompanied by Madness.

And it made me realise a helluva lot, especially after the day S.O and I had...because there is no better way to describe Love than sheer madness.

Disappointment is a bitter pill to swallow

Two people - myself and S.O.

An uber luxurious car - a caddi.

Destination - Port Elizabeth, a ten hour drive, give or take, from Johannesburg.

By hour five I want to see the ocean, bask in the warm sun and dip my feet in the cool water.

Only to reach a couple of hours later to cold winds and a volatile ocean.

Freaking bloody hell!

At least I still had choccies with me...my only salvation.

We are the champions

Golly gosh, India must be the biggest party as I write this. After all they just won the first 20/20 World Cup Cricket .

CONGRATULATIONS!

Just stuff

I bought this suit case recently. With my imagination, I can almost hear the steam engine getting ready to take off, hear the flutter of people rushing to get into heir carriages, see how elegant the women of the 1920s/1930s dressed and how gentlemanly the gentlemen were.

A chocolate candle...smells delectable! I feel like a druggie getting a hit whenever I go near it. S.O's Sister Person got it as a wedding gift. It's begging me to eat it!

Jo'burg Day

Picnic Basket - check.
Cooler Bag with sandwiches and drinks - check.
Blanket and pillows - check.
Eager to see various South African bands and musicians- check.
My skin roasting under the scorching sun - snag. (The question that boggles my mind is what happened to spring? It seems the weather here in Johannesburg jumped straight from winter to summer.)
Constant back and stomach ache for the day - snag.
Merciful cool bed sheets at the end of the day - seemingly my only reprieve.

Now why the hell is Blogger not letting me upload photos? Grrr.....

I yen for discipline

I reckon it is alright to indulge oneself every now and then..whether it be with a bar of chocolate, a long bath or even a new game.

On the other hand, indulging in laziness makes me feel guilty. Take last week - 6 days of pure nothingness. It was one of those weeks where I cannot really say I accomplished much. Er, maybe just a face mask, a manicure and pedicure, lots of telly watching and reading.

Gosh, I just got to make it up this week and drag my sorry self to do some work. To keep myself motivated, let me just imagine hordes of people cheering me on when I do eventually do something.

Sparkling and squeaky

Who would have ever thought that one person could collect such copious amounts of clutter? Erm, maybe not all clutter, but stuff!

You see, in the spirit of spring, I have decided to clean my room, pack my cupboards (yes, cupboards with an S), bring out my summer clothes as my winter ones go into hiding, sort out my book shelf and PC desktop, amongst other things. To those of you who are familiar with my ordered chaos method, you may now pick your jaws up from the floor.

In me doing this, hopefully the clutter in my mind will be easier to sort. You know, when I have room to breath then maybe I am able think better - but that is just my half baked theory. Here's to keeping my fingers (and toes) crossed on that.

In the mean time I will delight in being able to find my hairbrush without sifting through the war fare that was my room.

Happy Spring Day

Okay, so it is a day late, but what the heck?

That means soon enough it is going to be time for regular ice cream, enjoying the warm sun outside, booking holidays, wearing skirts, and braais! (SA term for BBQs - I braai strictly veggies though)

And may my boots not gather too much dust in the furthest corner of my cupboard.

Let the goods times start rolling.