The ties that bind part 1

Most of my friends are married. Some have even begun to breed. And it’s great. Really.
The fact that they’re beginning new chapters in their lives and playing mommy and daddy for real, it’s just brilliant. They have walked their paths and have found compatible travelling companions to continue the journey.
And I’m not jealous. Not one bit. Honest. I know that a time will come when I too shall find a suitable escort on my life’s traversal.

So, seeing as I’ve made peace with that and am just doing my own thing in the meantime, why won’t people stop asking me the same retarded questions about my pending nuptials?

I’ve got three family wedding’s coming up. Female cousins, all younger than me. (can you feel my situation, people?) The schlep of deciding what to wear to whose, has been overridden by the far more pressing dilemma of how to deal with relatives who want to know when’s my big day.

Just once I’d like a really snappy answer that’ll freeze the smudgy-lipsticked smile off their M.A.C-attacked faces.

“My girlfriend just got her psychological assessment back and the doctor has green-lighted the gender-reallocation procedure. We’ll set the date as soon as the bandages come off.”

“Get married? Are you crazy, I’m having too much fun just sleeping around.”

“But I’ve already married Inzamam. We can’t get divorced just yet or else immigration will get suspicious. If they deport him, I won’t get the money his uncle promised me.”

“No one’s liked me enough to ask me. Okay. Now leave me alone.”

“But all the good ones are taken. Mmm…Is that your husband? Yummy, *wink* *wink*”


But of course, my mamma never raised me to be rude and vile. And what if Aunty has a really nice son/nephew/neighbour/dentist she’d like to introduce me to?

Tourettes anyone?

I find myself using way too many F-words these days.

I can’t help myself. They just explode out of my mouth with a force that knows not restraint.

People gasp and look away, obviously uncomfortable in my presence.

But you know what’s really twisted?

I like it.

I enjoy the shock-horror, especially when I say things like Flocculent, Flagitious, Farinaceous and Fecund.

When I’m tired of the F’s, I throw in a couple of B’s; blandishment, bipartite, beleaguer.

Recently acquired Peter Bowler’s “The Superior Person’s Second Book of Words”, and I’ve been converted.

Call me verbose and lexically-pompous, but I love big, extravagant words.

Provided, of course, they’re relevant and used in context.

A guy I barely knew once called me an “Intellectual dilettante”. It was during a conversation he was having with a friend. I was idly sitting by, not really participating, but when he mentioned what a huge fan he used to be of ‘The Matrix’ trilogy, I just had to hijack some of the exchange. I made some arb naff comment, and that’s when he labelled me. Forget the fact that his remark was somewhat disparaging, I fell in love. Well, almost. But the fact that he carried the word ‘dilettante’ in his verbal repertoire was so impressive, and that he used it in its proper context, why, I was just about ready to have him father my children. (I’m given to dramatics.)

But superior words are no fun if they’re just thrown around all willy-nilly.

They should be treated like an expensive spice. To be used parsimoniously so as not to overpower your reader/listener and detract from the message you’re trying to send out.

For in the same vein that a man tries to make up for an inadequate sense of masculinity by buying a large, expensive car, someone with a stunted intellect may over-compensate by hiding behind superior language, that is largely vacuous in its essence.

But of course that’s no excuse to allow your vocabulary to stagnate. Apparently the average person stops learning new words in their mid-twenties. Don’t be a statistic.

-word for the day:

Excoriate (v): To abrade or strip skin from; to criticize severely. Excoriation (n)

On Albinoes

My friend is phobic
about Albinos,
She cannot stand
to see them.
It defies the bases
of all reason,
yet she's quaking
and she's freezing.

What's so bad about Albinos
I never fail to ask her.

"The fact
they lack
the basic stuff
that makes us yellow, brown or buff.
Melanin,
Coloured Skin,
They're pigment free,
Unnaturally."

But they're born that way
I never fail to say.

"But it can't be right,
Are they brown, yellow or white?"

But that doesn't matter,
if they're former, middle or latter.
Sans that melanin,
that coloured skin,
they just Be,
Him, She, You, Me.
Without that troublesome little cell,
Millennia's history goes to hell,

Wars unfought,
Struggles naught,

'Twould be no sin,
Born without melanin.

talking the talk

It happens every so often (more so if you’re single and on the wrong side of 21) that you’re “doing coffee” with a relative stranger.

The sole purpose of this caffeinated collusion is to “get to know each other better”. This is based on the flawed premise that double espressos act as conversational lubricant and thus complete biographical revelation will ensue.

But after the “what’s your favourite colour” interrogations and “do you think Marilyn Manson is really the geeky kid from the Wonder Years?” you find yourself in deep reflection over how the crema at the bottom of your cup looks a lot like Solly Philander.

And you never saw it coming. Creeping up surreptitiously, the slowly weaving bind coming together and the net descending…The Awkward Silence:

that bane of many a promising acquaintanceship and the death knell of discourse.

It’s a vortex, this moment of oblivion, for the more you try to avoid thinking about the numbness that’s taken over, the more you get sucked into its vacuum.

And rather than thinking about how to break the crushing dullness, you imagine that it’s an indissoluble entity and you’ve set in its gelatinous nature…like a cherry in the jello.

Conversation used to be an art form, the finer intricacies of which had its place in charm school syllabi. Scenes from a bygone era: tea time tête-à-tête over delicate cucumber sandwiches and confidences flowing between sips of earl grey and pinky finger salutes. It’s all very Hail Britannia, but in an era where it’s more likely for one to hear God Save The Queens and GLBTs, surely there’s still lacunae for such civilities?

I blame IRC, java chat and SMS for the scourge that’s spread its canker over conversation.

>midnite_cruizer: hello

>babycakes: hi

>midnite_cruizer: asl?

>babycakes: 19 f jhb

>midnite_cruizer: kewl

>babycakes: u?

>midnite_cruizer: 23 m jhb

>babycakes: kewl

>midnite_cruizer: u got a pic?

>babycakes: yeah…

>midnite cruizer: swop?

>babycakes: ok

…dcc file transfer in progress...

…complete…

>midnite_cruizer: ur hot

>babycakes: thanks ur hot too.

>midnite_cruizer: wanna hook up?

>babycakes: sure

>midnite_cruizer: this Saturday? At the Zone? 9pm?

>babycakes: ok

>midnite_cruizer: I’ll scotch you and we can meet at the games

>babycakes: scotch? huh?

>midnite_cruizer: I’ll give you a miss call…

>babycakes: ok, my number is 085 321 5265

>midnite_cruizer: sms me later 085 223 7864

>babycakes: ok

>midnite_cruizer: laters

>babycakes: bye

…and the moronic messaging continues later, this time the cellular networks bearing the burden of transmitting insipid but febrile missives.

Of course, that’s worst case scenario.

But worse than this economical, shorthand conversational practice, would possibly be the antics of the ‘over-revealer’. Sure these types are fun material for the post-meet autopsies with the girls, but there are times where you really do not need to hear how his father ignored him for most of his childhood while his mother slept around.

Those resourceful Asians (probably the same ones who thought up life-size dolls with ‘just-like-real’ latex skin and ‘responsive’ mouths, I kid you not, do a google) have come up with a wonderful way to keep the salt of conversation free-flowing. I read about a restaurant in China that provides patrons with paper serviettes that have conversation topics pre-printed on them.

How convenient. After you’ve just about exhausted all possible avenues of chat, you pick up a serviette to demurely pat your mouth and find yourself staring at printed inspiration.

“So, what are your thoughts on the changing political economy of the emerging marketscape in the developing world? In light of neo-liberal practices, that is?”

“Well, I like long walks on the beach. My favourite color is blue. And I enjoy listening to Julio Eglesias”

Enough said.

(on the note of printed serviettes, there’s a site that offers beverage napkins printed with verses from the Bible. Great for when you’re having Ray Macauley over for inter-faith debate. My favourite- “…my cup overflows. Psalm 23:5” heh heh. Yes, we Muslims do have a sense of humour)

You don't seem to do too well with instructions, do you?

hmm… this viral marketing actually seems to work..

To those of you visiting under the explicit directive:

‘Do not visit the following URL:

http://electricspaghetti.blogspot.com ’

as indicated in an email you may have received, I must extend congratulations on your exercising of a healthy sense of curiosity.

Omnibus dubitandum (doubt everything), Marx said… I think.

No no, I’m not a commie-boetie and this is not my revolutionary manifesto.

I’m just pleased you’ve followed a golden rule so fundamental in our age of disinformation - “Don’t believe everything you read (or hear, or see, or eat…)”

What? I’m not paranoid, which of those bastards following me told you that?

Madness aside…Why are you here? Why are any of us here? Why is Patricia Lewis given permission to contest on trivia game shows? Why is Danny K allowed to dance in public? So many profound questions, so little time to explore and answer.

But here I am, Just a girl, in front of a blog, asking for the world to read it.

My apologies for bringing you here under false pretences.
As i've written in previous entries, this is an exercise in vanity.
But there is method to my mania.
In time i will post my writings to this blog, and the fact that you (yes you, the one who's wasting company bandwidth on email and surfing) made it on to my email listing, is indicative of the high ranking upon which i place your insight and opinion.
So please, leave a comment.
Tell me about all the constructive things you could have done in the time it took you to surf over here.