Friday, June 17

:|

Desire! Desire! I have too dearly bought,
With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware

Thursday, June 16

thursday hurrah

I have failed as a woman.

Today I had to throw out 5 cucumbers that had been completely consumed by fungus, to the extent that they'd become practically liquid; a jar of beautiful olives stuffed with feta cheese that I'd ambitiously opened and not consumed for a while. I've thrown tomatoes, some really beautiful red grapes, an onion, an orange, a yellow capsicum, an opened and forgotten tin of cooked and salted broad beans (rajma) and just had my brother cut up about 6 musambis (what are they called in English?) because I was worried they might not get consumed otherwise. My enthusiasm for grocery shopping does me in, every time I'm in the fresh produce / vegetables section I'm rushing around with this image of me in my head, cooking nutritious, delicious, simple meals. This week my dinners on different occasions have been:
- doritos
- cup noodles
- a red velvet cupcake
- a cheese omelette and toast
- twizzlers
And the beautiful vegetables I keep buying keep dying. I could buy smaller quantities but at the time of my purchases I'm Julia Child in my head. I need 9 cucumbers. I am a conglomerate heap of trash, and not one that burns with a bright flame.

Every Thursday night, my sense of triumph on having simply lived through the week is incredible. I like to think that my weekend ahead of me will be productive in ways that I want them to be. The paintings I got from India remain unframed, the mess on my dressing table that I keep meaning to clean stays where it is. I consider my weekend successful if I manage to have a successful nap. By Saturday night, I've sort of acquiesced, and I sit in my quiet defeat waiting for the new week to start, so I can constantly dodge whatever comes my way, and just make it through to another weekend. I remain concerned that on having to actually spend time with the very old man, and I mean spend time in real, normal people, human terms and not in some escapist lost weekend way; I will be completely horrible to him. Worse, I will remorselessly be horrible to him. As my brother pointed out, I'm horrible to every one. I have a vicious temper and am often driven by the need to ensure that the other person in the room has fully understood the depths of my irritation. This is my week. I am made to understand that other women somehow find the time (from their versions of living through the week and living with rotting vegetables) to be pretty and vibrant and interesting. And they are not jerks either.

It's the weekend, internet, it's the weekend.

Sunday, June 12

deficit of darkness

My week’s started by waking up at 6 AM to come in to work on a slide (note erstwhile colleagues, I said ‘slide’, singular, not 60 slides). I can only marvel over the degree of ineptitude that allows three women to cluck over one slide, and get lost in a mire of version control and lost changes. Over a single slide, with three tables. Universe, give me the strength to arrange my facial features into an expression of adequate concern and interest, and to keep them sufficiently grave.
You might want to think about my tendency to belittle everything I do at work, future potential employers. I’m an asset to any team!


It’s the start of my week and thanks to my brother and to a hectic yet chilled out weekend I’m coveting all careers where I can work from home. I also want to wake up in a leisurely manner, have coffee and pad thai for breakfast and not spend 60 minutes on one slide. I want afternoon delights and one of those pedicure / massage ladies who come home (but not for the purpose of nooners). There is a deficit of darkness in this city. There are a hundred odd sky scrapers in my neighbourhood, I’m on the 15th floor. The city is constantly lit up like a slot machine, I have to draw my curtains to get some semblance of darkness, but there’s still enough light for me to see outlines of everything. There’s a lovely mezzanine floor with trees and plants and a family of cats that I feed. I’m usually there around 10 PM and there are halogen lamps, burning brightly, everywhere. I can’t remember the last time I saw darkness.


I saw all of Bored to Death over the weekend. I wish I’d spend my time reading, rather than compulsively watching TV shows and movies. I’ve bought a few more books, after getting my hands on a billion e books (kindle books?) and carting some of mine all the way over. It’s strange but I’ve already started looking at everything in my apartment from the perspective of how difficult it will be to pack it all up and take it with me, to wherever I’m going. As a person I feel defined by my purchases, and I will need to take all my new plates and cushions and plants with me, if I were to leave the country. I just got here, why am I already worrying about how I’ll pack everything up? But how will I, the weight of everything will be a couple of hundred odd kilos. I’m not going anywhere, I just got here.


I’m embarking on an experiment that makes me a little uncomfortable but also sounds very right. I get the impression I might be jumping the shark (fonz reference, cuz I’m cool like that). I can’t tell if I’m forcing developments onto my life or if I’m fixing something that ought to have been fixed a while back. I know I thought I was going to die a while back and that I think I’ve got this new calm perspective but I sincerely hope I’m not fucking around here. You open up your life to such a large input / variable only if you can’t perceive an alternative. I don’t know if I have alternatives. I recently overdid the cigarette smoking and now I feel like I can’t take inhale deeply. If you’re slowly coming unhinged and can’t take deep breaths what do you do.

It bothers me that I can’t quite express the sense of danger here. I’m a chain smoking fool whose lungs can’t take complete breaths any more, but it’s the man who I think is dangerous.

Monday, June 6

the sun is so bright that if i go driving in the morning without my dark glasses on i can't see clearly for the rest of the day. i have to keep squinting and feel like my glasses are inadequate (btw, i'm kinda almost blind). i spent a weekend where i was out in the sun for about half an hour on two separate days. today i can see the tiny, microscopic lines its leaving on my forehead. could it be that and the new smoking all you want, when you want lifestyle? its really unbelievably bright here.

working for a friend is very hard. i'm not as professional as i thought i was and i need an attitude change. or a new job. i also need to not smack my driving instructor, despite her racist prattle and poorly disguised threats pertaining to my imminent assessment.

i just got here. i really like my flat, it's taken a lot of work. i'm very happy here at the moment, because my brother's staying with me for a while. those of you paying attention will remember he's my second favourite person in the world (after the Cat). so my flat is morphing into something that looks and feels a lot like home, as much as a place without my babies can be. i miss home but this place gives me space. though most of the time i don't need or want any space, living in a desert in a room so you can do a job that has already begun to increasingly irritate you doesn't make a lot of sense. i smoke too much, i can feel a tightness in my chest already. i shouldn't write this like this, half asleep, leaning against my pillows completely slanted, partly sullen.

the only people i like at work are already leaving. everyone else is boring. their lives (which i know nothing about) astound me, their trivial concerns, their self absorbed, limited world view makes me sick. working with women is a horrible experience if you're also female. it's incredible the depths they will fall to, the things they will do to make themselves feel the slightest bit better about themselves, their completely limited and short term vision and their appalling managerial skills. i wish i didn't know so many pathetic women. i wish i didn't hate myself for thinking that they're like this because maybe beyond a point, beyond a certain age if you're single it becomes a crippling / overwhelming / debilitating force in your life, unconsciously affecting everything you do. i wish i didn't hate myself for thinking that this constant need for approval, for being the superfunsuperenergetic person you're not wouldn't be around if you were getting laid more often.

i know that some of you reading this will be surprised / mad at me for this corrosive nastiness. i can't help it, i couldn't write for ages and every time i stop saying what i'm thinking here i can't say anything at all. this is my opinion and i stand by it, unfortunately.

maybe i'll utilise this time the way bukowski did for post office. maybe i'll eventually figure out how to correctly apply weights to the weighted average that is my happiness. my flat, my absence of cats, my brother, my lack of clarity and absence of plans, my non existent driving skills.

bone-dead sorrows
like starfish washed ashore

Wednesday, June 1

Battling with mortality Murphy

Today I woke up with the distinct feeling that I’m going to die.

I normally wake up very slowly, and remain sleepy for a while after. I have to get out of bed quickly if I want to make sure I’m getting a move on my day. Today I woke up and it felt like I’d been awake for a while. The thought came to me that today might be the day. My first reaction was that I should walk carefully, particularly on roads. I’m notoriously, sometimes life – threateningly uncoordinated. I immediately texted all the important people something sappy; my mother (who I was fighting with as of yesterday) since for me the parents are a unit, and texting her is like texting both of them; Listo, who I’d been having a semi bummer conversation with last night. My brother was sleeping in the next room, so I asked him about his work. I think he’s questioning whether sticking to doing his own thing is sensible and I want him to know that he can’t possibly quit now after coming so far. And the most important one, who I can’t text, who’s always the wallpaper of my phone and computer.

So yeah, dying. It didn’t make me feel sad or anything. Everything felt very still and muted and irrelevant around me, it still does, and I’m so aware of my beating heart. And even though I’m aware how stupid this post is making me sound, I feel very chilled out. I might die today and who wants to die stressed out or sullen or convinced they’re obese? It’s going to happen eventually and this is the first time I’ve actually thought about it. I’m such a lame cliché, a month after turning 25 I’m dealing with the realization of my own mortality. Interestingly enough it doesn’t make me feel like being a better person or anything. I’m only very aware of what an astounding feat the human body, my body is. Beating heart, moving around, seeing, breathing, alive alive alive, with life being held inside by my toes and fingers.

Internet, we’re all alive. What do we do about it?