achtung! this blog may induce labour...

...or you may just pee yourself.
Either way, the ramifications are substantial.

Here's to Aadi, whose water broke after she surfed over here last night.
Congrats to you and Hardy on your little Nanabhai.
A mommy! You're a mommy! Can't freaking believe it.
No fear little one, you're momsie's gonna be so cool.
Ah, the stories Aunty Saaleha will tell you when you're older and start asking the fun questions.

:)

The blog of Small Things

*Been stewing for a while. and no, I'm not about to go buy a Kenny G music-to-slit-your-wrists-by Special Holiday edition. This is pure self-indulgence. Insert disclaimer of choice here.*

“Welcome to the pity party. So pleased you could join us. We have trays of masochism and punch so good you’ll cry. Should you be so inclined, a selection of razors and blades are laid out on a table near the DJ box, individually wrapped for your protection. Please enjoy yourselves, but not too much. Hope you have a wretched evening.”

I left the park last weekend. Packed the accumulation of a year into stackable cardboard boxes and took the highway to the East Rand, where I will now spend most of my weekends.

*mandatory benoni girl joke*

Q. What do you call a Benoni girl in a white tracksuit

A. The bride

Moving’s never easy. When you’re strapped for space, you suddenly realize just how much of all that you value is clutter. Books get heavier, cds stack up awkwardly, jackets bulk up, hard-drives hulk like museum dinosaurs.

One of those weekends too, where tragedy laid a pall over my family when my uncle and aunt met with an accident on their way to Port Shepstone. My aunt lost the baby she’d been carrying for the last 7 months. Both her and my uncle had to have one of their hands amputated. I’ve never been good with grief. Losing the people you care about around you makes you no expert. I never know what to say, except when I think of my own bereavement and all I can say is, “`it’s hard, and you will feel self-pity. You will bargain with your God, and you will be angry. That is what it was like for me until the resolve to accept sets in. You’ll become too tired to be angry. Its time to resign yourself, because ‘Why’ sometimes remains one of those questions to which the answers will not leave you satisfied.” I stopped asking ‘Why’ a long time ago.

--

I feel like-

I’m being strained through a colander.

Like I’m being forced to spread and separate, until I’m only reconstituted Saaleha.

With Work, with Home, with Study and Family issues, I’m being stretched.

I’m walking around; static mess, this field of scratchy unintelligible sound drowning out my clarity, slaving me to disorganization, inefficiency, procrastination.

My eyeballs are lubricated with seeded strawberry juice, the insides of my eyelids lined with a fine grade of sandpaper.

It doesn’t help that I haven’t been to gym in two/three months. The monthly bank debit glares at me disapprovingly, judging me, poking breadsticks at the extra-Saal.

I also had a pimple on my chin, so large it deserved a christening and its own facebook profile.

I was heavy inside. The kind of heavy that has you choked up. The kind of heavy that makes you a gut bag of lachrymal fluid filled up till the skin stretches and shimmies. One muscle twitch and you’re bleeding salt all over yourself.

And I sat there looking at my phone, scrolling through my phonebook and not knowing who to call.

So many friends. So many big-hearted, kind, beautiful people. So many I love, so many I would die for. Why, when I fill up with heavy, am I so uncomfortable and reluctant to ask them for their ears?

And when I do choose to share, I’m left feeling like someone sneaked up behind me and pulled down my pants.

--

ok. all done now.

Beeg deranged smile. :)

I didn't break it!

<----

I'm annoyed.
At Facebook.
No, its not the random poking. I quite like getting poked. Sometimes, I even poke back.
But that's a whole other blog.
I'm annoyed at Facebook for passing a groundless diagnosis about the state of my ticker.
If you're Facebooked - here's an exercise. Fiddle around with your relationship status on the edit profile page. Switch from 'single' to 'in a relationship' and back.
Pay careful attention to the little icon that appears next to your profile news-feed item.
If you're listed as single, the little heart goes achey-breaky.
Remove your single status for whatever reason, and suddenly, miraculously, Facebook channels the power of whatever Holy Spirit to 'heal' your shattered vital organ.
WTF is that? This warped normative construct of emotional balance, that if you're not with someone, you're obviously damaged.