er...cough

This one's a bit rich coming from a social lung-tar-er, but it was a concept I could not ignore. I'm still noobing around Photoshop so the execution is a lil shabby.

Copy on box reads: "Cigarette brands don't need health-warning labels. The message is clear enough as it stands."

5 things

As if to reiterate the incestuous cast/cast of the blogosphere posited here, I've being tagged by both dreamlife and Taz to list "5 things people don't know about you".

I've already quantified my weirdness.

But seriously, what don't you (you: the blog-hopper/the phantom commentateur/the one who googles hentai spaghetti) know about me? Are we (personal bloggers) not the over-revealers in this sphere that we'd otherwise avoid eye-contact with out there in the supra-http?
What more do you need to know?
Here I write my vices, the way my heart shatters and beats, the things I eat, the places I lose myself in, the people I can't digest, the dreams that are just that eyelash-breadth out of reach, mortal quirks that amuse and the consistencies of the polyfilla that holds me in.
I blog, ergo sum.

But despite this, I guess there'll always be 5 things more things you didn't know about me until now:

1. I can do cartwheels, and sometimes I spin down the office corridor on palms and feet when I work late.
2. I enjoy my vices.
3. I am as vain as I am insecure.
4. Once when I was around 9, I karaoked (sp?) to Jailhouse Rock in front of a crowd of strangers at the Rand Easter Show.
5. There are 7 things you'll never know about me. (because my mum reads this blog too)
   

I tag the fat kid who always gets picked last.

voices from behind

Composed: Wednesday, January 4, 2006,
Delivered: Monday, March 5, 2007

Dear FutureMe,
Unless he's in your life, he better be out of your head.

It's the feeling you get when you come across an old diary. You wonder what foreign tongue dribbled its ink in slashes and dashes here; the ascenders and descenders wiggling in sanskrit-samba on the page. You hold the paper within sticking distance of your contact lenses, as if mere proximity will decipher this marriage of rambling thought and tactility. And this for the next page and each page after.
Strange, the stranger one becomes as years tack off.
Invite a you from every year to a party, expect the room to spin with the eclectic meld of personality and characters.

And it was like this when an email from the past dropped into my gmail.
Saaleha circa early 2006.
Evidently, this chick had some issues at the time.
And when I read what "I" wrote back then, one of the voices in my head riposted, "eh?".
And the others guffawed when the memory-dam breached. "Oh. that."
(Embarrassed silence amplified in the little-monarchy-in-my-head)

And the fifty-cent epiphany:
The things we lose sleep over now, are the things we won't dream about in the future.
All will come to pass, even the issues that look set to fail us.

on the drive - opening rituals

Car door locked (knee-jerk Jozi), window rolled down an inch give or take (precautionary habit even with anti-smash & grab tint), ignition keyed, radio face popped into the console, sound turned up, clutch, first gear, accelerate, the first song of the day, every day, play...

If I Ever Feel Better - Phoenix

They say an end can be a start
Feels like I've been buried yet I'm still alive
It's like a bad day that never ends

I feel the chaos around me
A thing I don't try to deny
I'd better learn to accept that
There are things in my life that I can't control

They say love ain't nothing but a sore
I don't even know what love is
Too many tears have had to fall
Don't you know I'm so tired of it all

I have known terror dizzy spells
Finding out the secrets words won't tell
Whatever it is it can't be named
There's a part of my world that' s fading away

You know I don't want to be clever
To be brilliant or superior
True like ice, true like fire
Now I know that a breeze can blow me away

Now I know there's much more dignity
In defeat than in the brightest victory
I'm losing my balance on the tight rope

chorus:
Tell me please, tell me please, tell me please...If I ever feel better
Remind me to spend some good time with you
You can give me your number
When it's all over I'll let you know

Hang on to the good days
I can lean on my friends
They help me going through hard times

But I'm feeding the enemy
I'm in league with the foe
Blame me for what's happening
I can't try, I can't try, I can't try...

No one knows the hard times I went through
If happiness came I miss the call
The stormy days ain't over
I've tried and lost know I think that I pay the cost

Now I've watched all my castles fall
They were made of dust, after all
Someday all this mess will make me laugh
I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait...

chorus

It's like somebody took my place
I ain't even playing my own game
The rules have changed well I didn't know
There are things in my life I can't control

I feel the chaos around me
A thing I don't try to deny
I'd better learn to accept that
There's a part of my life that will go away

Dark is the night, cold is the ground
In the circular solitude of my heart
As one who strives a hill to climb
I am sure I'll come through I don't know how

They say an end can be a start
Feels like I've been buried yet I'm still alive
I'm losing my balance on the tight rope
Tell me please, tell me please, tell me please...

chorus x2

The Mandatory New Years Post

Anti-Resolutions 2007

• Drink lots of carbonated, sugary soft drinks made by multi-national corps with Zionist leanings.
• Chat on Mxit while attending social events.
• Maintain a 50km radius between myself and the gym at any given time.
• Sleep more.
• There is nothing wrong with writing “research” on your time-sheet for three hours spent online reading personal blogs.
• Ignore people in general. Especially those who smile too much. They know something you don't.
• All is fair in love and parking.
• Smoking at least 8 cigarettes a day means more jobs for little kids picking tobacco leaves in South America.
• Empower beggars by giving them a Rand for every Elton John song they know. It's a hand-up not a hand-out
  
• Litter.
• Remember that reading celebrity gossip contributes to your knowledge of Current Affairs.
• Use “lol” and “kewl” more often in daily offline conversations.
• Forward those delightful power-point kitsch presentations to everyone in my contact list, because nothing says I think you're special quite like Spam.
• Break a few hearts.

---

Acid aside, may the defining essence of 2007 be that of meaningful sacrifice; that of giving up all which lessens you by taking on those things that demand of you.

---

Clouds transgress the sun at Hartebeespoort Dam on Christmas Day 2006.