Simply sad

It’s really weird that I wrote that post yesterday morning, considering what happened yesterday afternoon. Well, actually, I guess it’s not that weird. It’s been coming. I’m too sad to talk about it though. Heart-achingly sad. And this suddenly seems too public. I’ve always had an issue with that.

Instead, I will talk about the weather. That’s what my family do. We talk about the weather. My parents both did Geography at university (although my father is a geologist, my mother a social anthropologist who actually taught extra maths mainly) and have a fascination with anything meteorological. And so do I.

I love the weather report. I love to see what weather systems are boiling about off the coast, what’s going to hit us and whether they’ll skim past, leaving a chill breeze or dry wind or smattering of rain in their wake.

Oh, really, my head’s not in this. Normal service will resume. Sometime.

Getting my bearings

I am working on my honesty pants, honestly I am. They've been washed, but they're still all crinkly and wet and needing shaking out and some good drying time on the line, in the sun. In the meantime I remain talking in metaphor. So it's honest, but not yet blatant.

I've finally realised what it is (it came in a blinding flash of insomnia-induced possibly-far-too-deep thinking)... It's the mirage. He's so busy running toward that pretty, shimmery mirage, that he doesn't see anything else, and I keep getting knocked over, even after asking not to be.

It is time for some balancing of the scales, I need to get over to the other side, my bruises are beginning to show from being knocked too many times. I need to get over there, to my village, my safe spot. Where I am sure of myself and can get my bearings. Sometimes I care too much you see and it makes me feel that other's are careless with me. I need to breathe and work out if they really are, or it's just me. I think it might be both.

Then I'll be able to not be knocked over, but to wave and smile at him (and give him juice), hurtling by toward that mirage, and can only hope he realises that it's exactly that - a mirage - and that he finds what he's looking for on the other side of it, and doesn't miss (or lose) too much on his way there.

The real fiction

I read a book this weekend. That's not really news I guess, seeing as it's something I do fairly regularly. Read, that is. It's just that it was one of those books you can't put down. Or, at least, I couldn't put down.

Whiplash, by Tracey Farren. It's a gritty story set in Muizenberg about a painkiller-addicted prostitute. So, no, it's not my normal fluffy 'chick-lit' kind of book but it's the kind of book that I love - set in a familiar place, with real characters. It's not an easy read, it is sad and violent and scary and, well, gritty. That really is the best word for it. But, overwhelmingingly, it is filled with the human spirit and beautiful, fragile, but firm relationships between people.

In one breath it made me wonder at the cruelty of the society we live in and, in the next, rejoice in the silver thread of love that runs through us all, regardless of our circumstances. Essentially, in comparison to the (very real) circumstances in which this book is set, I am a spoilt little rich kid, and I always find myself thankful that people write books like this so that I can open my eyes too. That makes me sound like I walk around blind to the world, I don't really, I sometimes think I take too much in, but that's another story.

Coincidentally I found myself in Muizenberg for dinner on Saturday with some friends. I was in another world though, my head still in the book, that I had left on my bed. As we drove through the dark streets, I saw her shadows dancing down by the beachfront, the salt air blowing through her hair, as I watched a deal go down in the car in the parking lot over the tracks.

I think I may be blurring my fiction with reality. Or is it my reality blurring with fiction?

You knock the breath out of me

Ah, how bored I have become with my whitterings on computers and the such. Indeed, I have. Although, before I relegate it all to the dusty archives, let me just ay one more thing. The BFF has some fabulous music on this thing. I'm filling my head with tummy-twisting tunes of before. The type that throw you back at such a speed, your wind gets knocked out of you, leaving you breathless and flushed.

As a child, we had a swing made out of a long length of fraying rope tied to the Plain tree on our front pavement, with an old car tyre attched to it. I spent hours in it, swinging higher and higher into the bright blue sky that I could see through the leaves, flying through the air to places in my head.

One day, however, the frayed rope finally gave in, slamming me into the pavement, knocking the wind completely out of me. I remember lying there in the dappled shade of that beautiful, big tree, trying to take in a breath and not being able to, wondering if I was going to die.

I didn't (obviously). My mother, most fortunately, happened to come out of the front door (I wonder how mothers somehow just manage to do that?) She rushed over, sat me up, and rubbed my back to calm me, coaxing the breath back in, there on that grassy pavement in small town South Africa in the '80's. Having got my breath back, I sobbed uncontrollably into her chest - my first glimpse of my own mortality.

Flittery hot Saturday musings, with a head full of music. I think this might all just be an allegory for something else that's going on.

Old-style

So I am here, in my orange kitchen (it's Friday) and I have sent off what I needed to, and have loads of other things to do, but, yes, I just don't feel like it. It's hot. I think it's that one, final, stinking hot day, before everything starts to turn, well, Autumn. I want to go out and play under the sprinkler with the Big Black Dog, but I must work. This grown-up-work thing is for the birds.

Oh, yes, I'm working old-style. On a desk-top computer. With a box and everything. It feels wierd. I did find a tiny solderer but he can only see my LLL on Monday, so The BFF set up his spare computer (some people have spare computers, can you believe?) just here, on my kitchen table (while we ate waffles, of course).

It's very cute, as desk-tops go, it's just that it seems so big and bulky. Oh, how easily we become accustomed to things. And you should've seen the tantrum I threw not being able to connect to the internet this morning! Scary.

Work? Play? Work? Play?

Tiny solderers

Oh, woe is me. The BFF came over, looked at LLL, shook his head sadly, and said: "The wire is loose". Hmm, okay, so off I sent it to the computer shop this morning who reiterated this (Thank you, Pimply Youth, yes, I know the wire needs soldering. That is why I am here). But they don't solder. Try computer shop 2, around the corner. Trudge, trudge. (Thank you, Pimply Youth 2, yes, I know the wire needs soldering. That is why I am here). They don't solder either. Try the electrican waaaay down the road. Trudge trudge.

You guessed it, they don't do such tiny soldering either. At least it wasn't a Pimply Youth that told me this time that the wire needed soldering, instead it was an adult electrician. I still, however, knew it needed soldering... that was why I was there for heaven's sake. And they had no suggestions. At least I have had quadruple opinions on what it is. And they all concur.

Where the hell does one go to find a tiny soldering person? (And by that I don't mean that the person needs to be tiny, just the solderer. The person can be any shape or size they please. They can even be not-very-nice. Just as long as they tiny solder).

In happier news, The BFF has offered me a spare one of his so I'll be able to harriedly meet my deadlines this weekend. Yey for The BFF, he is a dear.

Chaos and silent LLL's

Oh-me-oh-my. I have a problem. Really, I do. I'm not being overly-dramatic, I swear. I know I'm prone to that, but this time I'm not crying wolf, no sirree. Let me back up a little, not get ahead of myself in my panic.

So, I've been quieter than normal on this blog, purely because I have been given an awfully large amount of paid writing work. This is great from an economic point-of-view, fun from some of the writing bits point-of-view, daunting from others but, mainly, certainly now, at the beginning of it, all-consuming, timewise. I have to create timelines and themes for consumer stuff for the rest of the year, and costings (my worst) and my first deadline... Tomorrow. Which is why, typically, I am here, waffling (ooo, waffles... yum), the deadline crouched in the corner looking at me reproachfully.

And then... last night, I got home from my Real Job, to begin work on my Other Job, and my Lovely Little Laptop (LLL) blinked her laptop eyes at me, started up and then turned on that annoying battery-low red light, accompanied by it's bleepy little on/off voice. So, of course, being the logical being I am, I plugged it in. No change. In fact, the LLL's bleeps got more urgent (and more irritating) until, with a little sigh, everything went black.

Good timing? Fuck me, I think not. No amount of tinkering helped (I even tried The Pond's laptop's cable, much to the amusement of The BFF - some thing about different outputs? They're both silver, and the plug fits in so, surely, it should work? I swear, The BFF snorted in derision). Apparently not.

So I was up at dawn this morning, getting some Other Job in before Real Work. The BFF is coming over tonight and will look at it. I could see the glint in his eye, even though we were on the phone, as he said: "Open it up, blow out all the dust, reinsert the memory and give it a hug."

Oh-me-oh-my, will that work?