No, Not Dolly!

"f.d.a. says food from cloned animals is safe"

okay, okay, wait, wait, wait. last i knew we had a sheep and a cat. and now there is a whole discussion about to label or not to label meat from cloned livestock? f.d.a. says no but survey says the people want to know. good lord, we have all kinds of folk who are probably planning on making loads of money from cloned milk and meat talking about how there is only need to label if the food is significantly altered by how it is produced. ummm, hello, it's a clone!!! i am thinking somewhere in there somehow there is some significant alteration of something. but they are doing it for us. apparently they don't want to " misinform consumers with some sort of implied message of difference". that translates to, we don't want to lose a whole lot of money when people just won't touch the meat labelled "cloned". blah blah blah goes the rest of the article and for some reason i am deeply disturbed by it all.

am i going to have to become vegetarian?

I'm Signing Up For Classes Tomorrow!

tonight i went to watch an alvin ailey dance theater performance. well i watched most of it, except for the parts that were blocked by some woman's head, bopping back and forth. i almost knocked her in the back of the head. then i thought to myself, i need to be more like her. she obviously doesn't care whether or not those behind her see what is going on, as long as she catches every move (including those in the wings). and of course that head would appear just when things got interesting. one moment i am watching the most incredible physique ever ever, did i say ever? and then next thing i know all i see is fuzzy silhouette.

at a moment like this, i wish i wish i wish i could draw like oscar because not even my thousand words will come close. but you know that's not going to stop me from blabbing...

honestly, i didn't get the first piece - the music had my mind drifting but when pas de duke started, i was all there. from 'such sweet thunder' through 'old man's blues' i was wishing i was in a club, dancing with a partner and looking like i actually know what i am doing on the dance floor. then we were taken to an enchanted forest in existence without form. i was thinking druids (maybe because i had just done a puzzle and 10 across was droid). as the blurb in the playbill said, it really did fuse classical elegance with contemporary action and poetic lyricism.

finally the piece that made me pick that night. i had read about it and convinced my friend to pick tonight because if it. she leaned over and said "this better not disappoint" and, whew, i didn't. the golden section totally rocked, or should i say disco'd? lovely lovely lovely. uplifting (with lots of lifts - i did say disco, right?). gyrations. and, naturally, lots of fuzzy silhouette.

i tell you this, fuzzy silhouette better be on its knees thanking god that it is still connected to neck and body.

They Dodged A Bullet

you know what i am doing right now? of course you don't. i am listening to my ipod. and the big deal is? i have speakers on my computer and loads of music but i am listening to my ipod right now because i can. i have not listened to an ipod since two weekends ago when my trusty ipod quit on me. i guess she didn't like her xmas bonus and decided to go and work for someone else or perhaps not... the replacement i received did not work either. was my old ipod spreading horrid stories about me? and apple help was not really helping.

maybe this is why my fuse was particularly short. and cnn really pushed my buttons while it was at it. some reporter referred to zimbabwe as a rat-infested nation of beggars. i mean, if we are going to be comparing rodent populations, i think new york has zimbabwe beat by a mile. so i sat down and wrote a lengthy missive to cnn that, let's be real, probably no one has read yet. so i wrote a second - to increase my odds. i had to. the piece was recorded for anderson cooper 360 - thankfully not by coop himself (i would hate to have to choose between my principles and my future best friend). but that reporter needs to learn, first, the difference between a rat and a field mouse and, second, that, if you are going to claim rat infestation, you need to show us more than one field mouse on screen (one fieldmouse, a rat infestation doth not make). i mean, a million little pieces, the people are not as gullible as they were at the beginning of 2006!

so, i was fired up when i approached the genius bar in the apple store. i made a conscious effort to wear no black and of course today everyone in the apple store was wearing xmas red. my zen genius took the sluggish ipod and said nothing to me. so i did the crossword. and still he moved back and forth, pausing only to tell me that my ipod did not seem anything but supremely happy and perky. so i told him to try to load more files. and i did the sudoku. and still nothing. i said, please try a larger lot of data. and started plotting my attack on apple. and then he came back.

okay, the ipod seems a little sluggish and maybe if we give you another ipod we will be able to tell if the problem is with the ipod or your pc (i could see what he thought was to blame). i took my ipod and you know what?

right now, i am listening to my ipod. norah jones. don't know why.

Thank You! I Couldn't Have Done It Alone

now that i have calmed down a little from my wild celebrations, i can share my fantastic news with you. i picked up my copy of time magazine - the most highly anticipated copy - and was amazed to see me staring back at myself. granted the picture was a tad distorted, but i have seen me at my worst, i could recognise myself. and time, just in case i thought i had a long lost twin out there, made sure to write "You are the Time's Person of the Year"! wow! i mean, i knew this was coming but i never expected it would be this year. though every day i wake up thinking, yes, i am going to change the world, leave my mark, do what i gotta do, i must say i really thought the world was taking more notice of ahmadinejad and folk in iraq. well, ha to you both! i may not have been in the news like every day but i'm person of the year! are you?

Monday Blues

oh man, such great plans for today...
notes for the best blog ever!
i plug in my replacement ipod, speedily sent compliments of applecare.
and i think, that doesn't sound healthy. then i think, oh you are just being paranoid.

then...

the blue screen of death.

and i think, oh, it's just a glitch. i was in the kitchen when it happened, maybe i knocked something on my way out of the room.

i try again...

unexplained error, followed by numbers. and then, just in case i missed it...

the blue screen of death.

and now, my great day of blog glory,
that blog, so great, the devil would give me back my soul in exchange for it,
lost forever...

trumped, yet again, by those awesome computer gods

When Selling Your Soul...

as i was leafing through my morning paper, during this season to be jolly, and i am greeted with these figures:
new york city's capital budget for 2007 $52.9 billion
total wall street bonuses $36 billion
bonuses at goldman sachs $16.5 billion

thanks newspaper. way to make me feel better about the bonus i am going to receive this year... or not.

no worries, what i lack in billions of bonus dollars, i make up for in mad lurve!!!
fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la!!!

Oooh Oooh, Let Me Guess!!!

yay to anderson cooper for asking the questions that burn in our hearts but for which we just cannot find the words:

how many blood diamonds will be sitting under christmas trees this year?

What's The 419?

having failed to find my metaphor...
i tuned into 20/20 which had a segment on the infamous nigerian internet scams, known as 419s in nigeria, after the law that bans them. and boy are there ever many, beyond the usual emails asking for help accessing millions in frozen bank account funds, in exchange for a reward of a couple of million (some even come with photos!) to "black money" scams. a lot of thought goes into tapping into greed. i guess that is why it is one of the seven deadly sins.

i was stunned. it goes to show why folk need to watch 60 minutes. it would save a lot of people their life savings. i mean, people sent their bank details, gave over briefcases full of money or plain old wired money to, basically, emails. it's hard enough for me to lend money to a relative. i am a horrible horrible person.

20/20 even took us all the way to lagos, nigeria, a "crime-ridden disgrace of a city" where "the average wage is $1 a week". seriously lagos, your peeps need to use that $1 a week to clean up your disgraceful city. forget that, according to sally struthers, it takes a dollar a day to feed a child. no food. we want crime-ridden city of pride, gosh darn it! and in lagos, we watched the special task force bust internet cafes full of young men searching for that one person who fall for that email plea that offers riches beyond belief.

i'm thinking sacha baron cohen needs to get in touch with these guys. together they can find those who are left to fool.

And I Am The Children... Sha Dee Day!

You are the World

Completion, Good Reward.

The World is the final card of the Major Arcana, and as such represents saturnian energies, time, and completion.

The World card pictures a dancer in a Yoni (sometimes made of laurel leaves). The Yoni symbolizes the great Mother, the cervix through which everything is born, and also the doorway to the next life after death. It is indicative of a complete circle. Everything is finally coming together, successfully and at last. You will get that Ph.D. you've been working for years to complete, graduate at long last, marry after a long engagement, or finish that huge project. This card is not for little ends, but for big ones, important ones, ones that come with well earned cheers and acknowledgements. Your hard work, knowledge, wisdom, patience, etc, will absolutely pay-off; you've done everything right.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

And So It Continues...

yesterday i got home from work to this question from my houseguest:
"i couldn't switch on the tv"
for a second i was confused but then i realised...

a few weeks ago, a good friend of mine bought a new house and decided that the house and television did not go together. so i gained a new tv as a great birthday gift, since my old tv was tottering on the brink of usability. the television came with not one but three instructions manuals - one in english, one in spanish and one in french. so i did what was right. i piled all three on top of the microwave, plugged in the television and worked out the system.

i use the universal remote to turn the television on. i pick up the television remote control to switch off the guide that, for some reason, always pops up when the tv is turned on using a remote control. i make sure the tv is on channel 3 (or else the screen is blank with an 'unusable signal' message floating around). then i have to switch off the vcr and dvd players (or else the screen is blue). and make sure that the cable box is on. if ALL of that is done, voila tv!

houseguest looked at me and said - "what?"

okay, okay, so maybe i should try reading at least one of those manuals but as long as the batteries in my four remote controls are working, i got my system and i don't need no stinking manual!

Le Roi Est Mort... Vive Le Roi!!

it seems the gods have not yet been appeased.

almost two years ago i got an ipod - a gift from my poetic friend. i took it to a friend to fill with much music. a few minutes into the whole deal, the ipod stalled. so, i took it back and dude took the thing to the back. he came back and said it was fixed. i said, are you sure and he he looked at me like i was stupid. since he works for apple and i just buy product, i took the ipod home and connected it to my computer, crossed my fingers and made some tea (i couldn't watch). two gig into the deal, just as i was relaxing, sputter, sputter, death.

back in the store, the haughty woman dressed in black took my ipod and loaded test data on it. of course nothing happened. so she asked - mac or pc? she rolled her eyes - well, i can't really help you if you use a pc, there is nothing wrong with the ipod, the problem must be with your pc or your connector cables. buy new cables and try again or, even better, you might want to think about getting a mac. she looks behind me to help the next customer but i am not moving. i said to her, i am not a techie but i do know that today is the last day i can get an exchange on my ipod. i also know that there is nothing wrong with my pc and that the thing was fine for a while but then it died. so she repeated herself - nice and slowly, just in case my pc brain couldn't quite get the intricacies of inferior computing. to which i responded, if you can't help me then why does the ipod claim to be for mac AND pc? and, no matter how many times you say it, or how many more of your dressed-in-black coworkers you bring to back you up, i am still convinced that there is something wrong with this ipod that i am bringing in for the second time for being faulty. frustrated and perhaps made nervous by the lengthening line that i am completely ignoring, she calls the manager. he is friendlier and seems to be listening as i speak to him of doofies and thingies. he then explains that the test data that they generally use is about half a gig but, from what he has heard, he will try to load a larger file onto my ipod and see what happens.

10 minutes later he is back. apparently my totally irrelevant because i use a pc and am dressed in pink opinion is spot on. at 2 gig, the ipod crashed. so i got a new one and, yesterday, the ghost of the black outfit came to haunt me. the hard drive was spinning loudly and clicking away and i got a sad face on my display. well, ghost, haunt me all you like cos the joke's on you! i have apple care. 30 minutes and one apple care call later, they are going to replace my ipod. and i am going to wear my rainbow-hued dress as i plug it into my pc. so... take that!!!

and, um, yes, that is a macbook on my wishlist...

And This Is How It All Begins

so i check the weather report before i leave home - how many layers do i need and how heavy does my coat have to be. this is what i get. All in degrees farenheit:
high - 34
low - 26
current temp - 19.

and somehow, in between exclaiming about how cold it is, my mind has to get around how 19 falls between the high and low temperatures for the day.

Fool Him Once...

on sunday, i was supposed to be making dinner - chicken alfredo (i have never made this before but i am craving it like crazy). instead i found myself on the couch, icing my knee and watching 60 minutes. a piece about a survivor of the rwandan genocide. how she survived? she and 6 other women were crammed into the toilet of a local reverend. a tiny room that they fit into by piling themselves on top of each other. for close to 90 days. a room where they could only flush the toilet if someone else in the house was flushing the toilet (the reverend was the only one in on their secret, apparently). a room where they lived without ever bathing or changing their clothing. a room from which they could hear their fellow countrymen searching for them so they could cut them up with machetes.

but that wasn't even the interesting part of this piece. 60 minutes interviewed one of the survivor's neighbours. seems he served 11 years for killing six people (i need to put his lawyer in my cellphone. the guy is cheap AND effective). and so they asked him - how did you kill the people that you killed?
very matter of fact, he tells us how many he killed with his machete and how many with his studded club.
then the question - why?
again, as though it all makes sense - they promised us land and sugarcane (or something equally offer you can't refusable).
then he adds.
but we never got the land.
i think he is a little bitter about the short end of the stick that he got.
i'm thinking that if they ask him to do the whole killing spree again in the future, he'll make sure he gets his land and sugarcane upfront.

i remembered something today. i have a loud laugh. not as loud as my father's laugh, but pretty darn close. once when i was younger, i was watching a football match on television and i swear i heard my father, that is how loud it was. tonight, office holiday party and i realised that i have become very free with my laugh. there was a time when i tried the silent laugh, the cute and demure titter. i don't know what happened because now my loud laugh is back and it's proud.

maybe i should stick to serious conversation from here on out.

Miracle On Ninth Street

friday i trudged up the subway stairs, on my way home. and as i stepped into the artificial street lamp light, like a beacon in the night, there he was. anderson cooper. larger than life. gazing intently back into my eyes. in his favourite lucky out in the field blue shirt (that i guess goes very well with his eyes). sleeves rolled up - a man ready for work. sitting among common folk - giving me hope that one day i will be his best friend, tagging along on his awesomely important international assignments. granted those he was sitting among were dressed in camouflage fatigues and were holding menacing big guns, but that could easily be me. it could. being a part of that intense, earnest edutainment that is the most trusted news source.

but until then, every evening as i drag myself up those subway stairs, i shall hit the outside world, look up and smile... and dream... and hope. if i'm lucky this will last through the winter. fingers crossed.

1 December

world aids day. the day to stop for a moment and think. about the more than 25 million who have died since 1981. the more than 12 million aids orphans. 6,000 new infections every day. numbers to large to imagine. statistics too overwhelming to stomach.

smaller numbers. those with fewer degrees of separation remember smaller numbers. parents, siblings, friends. struggles to try to afford retroviral drugs. daring to even dream that suffering and death can be postponed. wondering how economics determine the right to life. wishing the six degrees of separation doctrine applied to them. mind-boggling.

so today. december 1. wear a red ribbon. be fashion fowa(red). keep a child alive. watch my man, bill clinton, being passionate about positively HIV negative future. or just watch bill and smile. go out and buy and paint by numbers set so you too can be african. rah rah. i am off to grab my pom poms! (red) of course.

Life's Little Miracles

early this year, i visited the bronx zoo, for the first time. i had the day off - a miserably cold, damp day to boot, and i got on some train and travelled a long way to get to the zoo. a friend gave me the abbreviated tour and then handed me a plant. a plant from the zoo - chinese something was all i caught. i tried to ask him how i was supposed to take care of this special zoo plant. do i water every day or once a week? do i do sunlight or shade? do i...? it's just a plant, it's not that complicated.

well i took her home (they are always girls. even oscar, my car, was a girl - i had to explain to everyone). and i did what i knew i could do. i talked to her and tried to figure out who she was. and then it came to me - chimoto. a flame. like the song. long story but it boils down to all we need is a flame. so i sang the song. and she thrived. until she drowned. i came home and found water in her saucer and chimoto looking rather sick and sad. i drained the water but she got worse. so i moved her and went looking for a friend.

i found the friend in philly. wholefoods. with little yellow flowers so i called her zuva. sunshine. i put zuva on the window sill, next to chimoto and went to to kitchen. boom! crash! i know i live alone so i spend a minute or two in the kitchen having a law & order moment. i head back into the living room and zuva is nowhere to be seen. i look behind the couch and there she is, pot turned over, soil everywhere. the girls, they weren't getting along. so i had to separate them and still i would come home to find, mostly zuva, lying on the ground. pieces of zuva broke off and the yellow flowers shrivelled up and died. i thought of putting zuva in the trash, but i couldn't bring myself to do that. i couldn't give up on her. what kind of barbarian would that make me? in the meantime, chimoto was alive but sickly. i would sing to her every night but she just wasn't happy. i moved her around and reorganised my space and still, blah.

so i went out and got new soil. i repotted the girls and this felt like a richer soil. both pots felt more grounded (knock on wood, the girls have stayed put since). i sprayed the girls with something for plant vermin and, of course, i sang. zuva doesn't really have a song so she had to suffer through chimoto's.

and yesterday - the miracle. i was washing the dishes and i happened to glance over at the top of the fridge (chimoto's home since the repotting) and she was glowing! brand new shiny leaves. i had to look her over again and again. and sing:

tipeiwo chimoto
huni tichazo dziwonera
ikoko kuzimbabwe

give us a flame
we will find the firewood
in zimbabwe

liberation struggle song. zuva had to suffer through it. but her time is coming soon. i have that most dangerous emotion in me. hope. she has new buds and i can feel flowers in her future. i just have to find her song. but it's coming.

the guy at the zoo... he gave me a flame. that's all i need.

No Justice, No Peace!!!

now, if you ask me, this has gender discrimination written all over it. i mean, a man is out sick from work for seven days and he has a doctor's note and all and all of a sudden he finds himself in court. what's up with that? i mean, if the doctor says he's pregnant, who are we to dispute it? who are we to assume that he must have stolen the certificate from the ob-gyn's office while visiting with his girlfriend and inserted his own information. just because a man has never officially given birth, does that make it so impossible? i mean, come on south africa, you are the land of no discrimination; who are you to say that a man cannot see a gynaecologist? if the man says he's pregnant... well then!

Why You Wanna Play Me Like Nintendo?

computer... we were doing so well. i treated you with the respect you command and, in turn you let me run programmes seamlessly. what has happened? what did i do wrong? so many times you have shown me that you are in charge and never have i tried to cross the line between computer master and mere human.

in college when, two weeks before the end of the semester, you crashed, taking semester statistics projects about discrimination at a&p supermarket and lynching somewhere in america, you brought me close to hysterical tears and forced me to spend another semester building everything up again. i learnt - save, save and make many backups.

in 2002, i bought an external hard drive to backup backup and save. but the new hard drive, it crashed. thankfully it had not fallen off the back of a truck so it went back to be replaced. in the meantime, your warranty expired and a week later, so did you. and yes, the backup hard drive had still not come back. customer service was anything but a service. my letter to the ceo served to repair my cd-rom but nothing else. and then - because if it doesn't kill you, it will apparently make you stronger - my pda fried and well, my cellphone felt left out and joined the party. every number, email, document ever saved... gone.

no one would let me touch their machines. sometimes i was not even allowed in the room. what had i ever done to you that was so wrong? when did i become arrogant?

and now... there are 5 dvd-rw discs in my dustbin and programmes are hanging. it is 35 minutes past my bedtime and my stressed shoulders are hunched right up to my ears. i have begged and pleaded. what i am supposed to do?

is it time to get mad? time for me to tell you who is boss? time to switch to a, gasp, mac? what up yo? cos if you need attitude, i can give you attitude. hell, i can roll my eyes while doing the chicken-head neck thing and snapping my fingers. if i have to, i can bring it on!

but, ahem, it's all up to you...

This One's For You, Sophie!

what was this? holiday of the million downers? do television stations assumed that we are all semi-comatose from the turkey so this is the time to inundate us with as much depressing news as possible? on cnn, we took breaks from coverage on the forgotten injured soldiers, returning from iraq and afghanistan, to watch a special about the dude who escaped from an atlanta courtroom, shooting people as he went. you know the guy - he ended up turning himself in after taking refuge at a woman's house who claimed she convinced him to give himself in after feeding him pancakes and praying (turned out that she fed him meth, but i know i get the two confused ALL the time). so then i thought i would take a break from tv and watch a movie - a documentary about suicide off the golden gate bridge. i know what you're thinking but my friend swore that despite the subject matter the film was totally not depressing at all. and somehow i believed that documentary and suicide could come together in an uplifting way...

so this morning, i woke up at the crack of dawn to google - suicide and the golden gate bridge and then suddenly it was 12:26 pm. jumped up, grabbed my wraps, gym bag and dashed out the house. ran ALL the way to the gym, and made it in time for my 12:30 boxing class. rebekit, look out. i am totally acing the skipping rope. i am crossing and i almost have the double jump down. did a headstand and then went home, disconnected the smoke detector and baked a cake -chocolate, from scratch (around here, you have to specify). you see.. that's yin and yang.

And Why Am I Up Anyway?

4:00 am. that is what the alarm clock next to my bed says. every other timepiece in my apartment says it's 2:55am. it has been weeks. the clock next to my bed is about an hour ahead of probably every other clock in new york. you would not believe the number of mornings i have jumped out of bed in a panic, convinced that i am late for work only to realise, halfway to the bathroom, that it is not even 8am, let alone the 9:06 that is blinking away on the alarm clock next to my bed.

which all begs the obvious question - why the hell haven't i fallen this clock backwards? every other clock in the house does it automatically and perhaps i am subconsciously unimpressed with clock next to my bed. maybe i am thinking that if i punish it for long enough, it will fall in step with the other time pieces. maybe it has its months wrong and doesn't realise that daylight savings time is over.

it would never be because i am too lazy to do it my damn self...

Well Done!!

today someone i know called me and said "happy birthday" that was good. then he said "33, well done."

not sure why. i just got older. let me tell you, it is not that difficult to do.
learn from my mistakes - now that is a feat worth congratulating me over. the only reason i don't keep buying as seen on tv products is cos i have run out of money.

but you know i am not going to dwell on my achievements. nope. i am using this forum to put forward a proposal.

november 22. national holiday. what do you think?

personally, i think it is one of my best ideas ever.

Because We All Love Our Country

yay to the draft. bring it on dude! because if we bring back the draft for everyone - men and women alike - rich old men will think twice before sending some people's children to war. they will only ever ever do it for a really excellent reason (like to get back at the guy they caught in bed with his wife)
but wait a minute, these old men were young during a war that had the whole draft thing going on and somehow all these old men never had to go to war. they all seemed to luck out and their numbers never came up.
but that would never happen in modern times. n-uh-uh. there is no way these men's children would be able to avoid the draft. the draft is the equaliser and knowing that will force these old men to think hard about the value of life vs really important things like oil and pride and weapons of mass destruction (as long as they are not nukes).
so, yay to the draft!!!

Why My Brain May Explode...

why are so many news outlets giving oj simpson and his new book "if i did it" the time of day? but you know, i think we had already established that he has issues. but why is everyone entertaining him? why is he on every cable channel's big news stories? why is his book selling so well when apparently we are all so outraged? why does the publisher have to explain herself? apparently she knew that there was a world of outraged people with money they needed to donate to oj simpson's cause - if only they could find a way. but this is the way of capitalism - nothing for nothing. so go ahead oj and sell your story. we are all dying to hear the story of an innocent man telling us what he would have done - if he were guilty.

Look Up... Yep, It Is A Flying Pig

marriage. the real deal. none of this civil union nonsense. marriage... if you want it... regardless. same sex. different sexes. whatever floats your boat. or a civil union , if you so wish. can you believe it?i swear i had to pinch myself. and this is the final step. the courts ruled last year, now parliament just has to sign a bill into law. a bill that is all about "voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnised and registered by either a marriage or civil union"

and all this just a week after same sex marriage was being banned left right and center in mid-term elections in the usa.

what's the deal? is south africa trying to make america look bad? or extra wholesome? first they give up on the whole death penalty thing - but that apparently was not a hard enough slap in the face. i mean, thou shalt not kill is in the bible and everything. but this? equal rights for all? trying to take the whole no discrimination thing seriously - well that's just crazy talk.

i tell you, south africa, you better be careful. i heard some pastor or politician (it's hard to tell the difference these days) say that this is just the first step. you allow same sex marriage today; tomorrow a man will be wanting to marry an animal. and i tell you, i can believe it. it's not such a big stretch - i do and moo do kinda sound alike.

How Sweet It Must Be...

my great quest in life, no my obsession, what keeps me awake at night. the search for the perfect pouffy pillow. growing up, i had this super-fantastic pillow that my mother assigned to my bed. like a cloud, it was, sleeping on it. for all the sleepless nights i went through, haunted by yet another episode of 'quincy' i had been forbidden to watch, i enjoyed many a night of floating in a wonderful dreamworld.

can it be so difficult to find that perfect pillow? instead i get things like, firm, soft,back-sleeper, side-sleeper, feather, memory foam. who understands all of that? what about pouffy, super-pouffy, will-never-flatten, feels-like-your-head-is-on-a-cloud? instead, i have bought perhaps 12 pillows in the last 4 years, all come with promises of heaven and end up in insomniac hell. sometimes i get lucky and the pillow is good for a week or two then everything falls flat. literally.then i spend the night punching the damn thing, trying to get air and miracles into the pillow. i wake up with pain in my neck, head and mostly in my heart.

i just want to sleep with my head on a cloud. is that asking for too much?

And I'm The President

so on monday, i came across this AP piece:

"china and africa showed the potential of their burgeoning partnership yesterday, closing out a landmark summit by announcing hefty business deals whike shirking criticism that their relationship soft-pedals human rights concerns.

the two NATIONS signed more than a dozen trade deals worth $1.9 billion"

so, AP, you can come up with huge impressive words like burgeoning and shirking and you can't tell the difference between a country and a continent?

Yes Indeedy

check out my bleached out manhand! don't matter though, i voted and i got proof! yeah, i know i need a manicure.

so yesterday i worked my didyavote like a pro. i ambled around philadelphia's center city and told people that they had an exciting election going on and they needed to get out there and well, be a part of cnn's breaking news. new york's election - we have known the results of that one for at least a year now, but pulling that lever is totally worth having no surprises. and the election support staff - priceless icing.

my co-worker's machine broke while she was using it. a bunch of people in various states were lined up for hours trying to vote and then some judge wouldn't keep the voting centres open so that those people could vote. that's what democrazy is about - judge's decisions. okay so the machines weren't working but if you can't fix it by 7 pm then your vote doesn't count for diddly. my neighbour asked me first "didyavote?" and i smiled, knowing that i was not alone in my campaign.

massachusetts elected its first african american governor - 30 years after a white man stabbed a black man with an american flag. it takes time to learn how to use the american flag - it's not like it comes with an instruction book.

and coop was on all night long. he was running things - going from "so black and so poor" wolf to immigration expert lou dobbs, from republican pundits to democratic pundits, all the while in a fetching red and blue tie(because coop says he doesn't take sides. he tells the whole story... all three hundred and sixty degrees of it). and today the one race that is too close to call is the senate race in virginia involving george "macaca" allen and jim webb - the people of virginia appear to be torn between an alleged racist and an alleged sexist (you gotta love campaign ads). i don't blame them i too would be wondering what part of me would be more offended.

but finally i had to call it quits. me and my purple finger hit the sack and woke up to, wow, a surpise. i knew the democrats had won a majority in the house but 33 seats? just well, yesterday, the republicans had a 23 seat advantage. how quickly things change. you think the people were trying to say something?

i am not sure, i can't hear anything over the sound of another electronic voting screen being shattered.

Vote Vote VOTE!!!!

yes, today is the day of purple fingers and electronic touch screens. i had grand plans to take the day off and spend it calling people up to remind them to vote but, i'm sorry people, my boss has meetings scheduled for me in philadelphia. so i shall spend the day asking everyone i meet - didyavotetoday? and we shall see how long it remains the city of brotherly love.

It Doesn't Get Easier

i read it in the metro paper
i read it in am new york
i read it on the beeb
i saw it on cnn

every time, my stomach turned and my lady bits shrank into my body.

scissors? seriously? to a two year-old? and not just a random one on the street... uh-uh. your daughter. with a pair of scissors, you cut off her clitoris. and she was two! i guess you felt you needed to nip things in the bud before the boys came a knocking... anything to keep your daughter good and pure i suppose.

and that must have been one advanced and totally silent 2 year old girl. her mother did not notice anything was wrong for two years. she didn't notice her daughter walking kinda funny for a bit? she didn't think something was amiss when she gave her baby a bath? the first days the baby girl did not scream bloody murder whenever anything came near her "private part"?

the khalid adem, the father, was weeping on the stand and denying he did it. who knows, maybe the little girl grabbed the scissors and did it herself - you know how crazy an unsupervised two year-old can get. one moment she is running around chasing butterflies the next she is grabbing a pair of super-sharp scissors and just cutting anything she can get her hands on - hair, paper, clitoris. crazy kids!

so he has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in this groundbreaking first genital mutilation case to be tried in america. i was thinking giving his daughter a pair of rusty blunt scissors (don't want her hurting herself now) and letting her play to her heart's content. i'm sure she knows how to use a pair of scissors by now. there must be something she gets from her dad.

2 November... You Better Ask Somebody!

happy birthday rebekit!

totally awesome artist of incredible talent. today 2 november hails you as the demi-goddess that you are. the am new york horoscope says of you:

this year is about discovering and using the power of love. there's no trick involved; in fact, sincerity is required. anticipate miracles.

well... i could not have said it better myself. all hail great one!

and, um, please save me a slice of cake... you know chokolit is my weakness...

NaNoWriMo... WaWoWeWo!

today is the first day of the most awesome month in the year! yeah, okay i have just started drinking my winter morning coffee but this is not just first-hit-of-caffeine talking. uh-uh.

this is national novel writing month. my roommate is writing a book this month. i have put it in writing so that she is too ashamed to drop out because now everyone knows that she has committed. and i will be giving you regular updates of her progress. yes, kai, i said it. i put it out there. and i ain't scared of you!

a month when some of the brightest and the best were born and, yes, killed. it has been my obsession, for the last couple of years (that is when i actually started buying calendars) to fill every day in november with a birthday. 1 november? anyone? anyone?

new york marathon on sunday! i roll out of bed onto the street and watch them run by. i get to be the crazy one they stare at as i scream louder than the little kids and give anyone i can i high five, low five any five you like. last year an italian runner stopped to kiss me on the cheek and yell ciao! i get to lose my voice and sound all husky at work on monday.

elections on tuesday. still working on the purple finger dye issue. i may decide to take the day off to call middle america and see if we can add a little blue and white to those red states.

the beginning of november marks the end of october - known in certain parts of zimbabwe as suicide month. the hottest month of the year and in the victoria falls, hwange, kariba parts of the country, it really is can't think straight kinda hot. november means those cheating spouses can get to it without worrying about overreaction from their not so significant others.

turkey day - you can eat and drink until you forget the native americans. guy fawkes. awesome scorpio birthday parties. it's all a bit too exciting for me right now... i may even kinda sorta not notice it getting colder...

Happy Happy Joy Joy

so i dashed home from work and i was worried i wouldn't make it on time. however, the gods were smiling on me today - they knew what i needed today. train arrived as i hit the platform and the transfer was pulling in as i arrived at that station. now that is what i call the stars aligning. burst into the house at 9:48 pm and switched on the television before even taking my coat off. not sure why, i had 12 minutes but who knows. i sat down and watched larry king talking to some alleged pundits about voting machines and lack of paper trails. one dude called for the purple ink - i hope they take him seriously. i want to wave a purple finger along with the rest of the world (i wonder how long it takes to wash that off). come on larry, what's on next? nothing, no hint. instead i see some george bush impresonator who so does not look like dubya. i can barely sit still - i am not sure what i'll do if things don't work out. i look at the clock 9:59. come on... come on....
10:00
we tune into the new york studio and there he is - resplendent in red and blue tie and full makeup. ah... COOP!!!! he's back.
today... i love monday.

he better NOT mention oprah. i have almost forgiven him for going away.

I'm On The Market

thank you kai, for the sketch...


i'm looking for a wife. not one of those new-fangled latest model types. uh-uh.. i want me a good old-fashioned wife. you know - the kind that will have a hot breakfast at the table as i zip out of the house, in too much of a hurry to do more than grab a glass of orange juice. the kind that will offer me the three massages i need as i stagger through the front door (yes, i will have a back door too) after a gruelling day at the office - back, foot and ego. i won't have to worry about wasting my weekends running errands, cleaning house or doing laundry - i'll have a wife. you know when you have one of those, somehow these things are miraculously done. and if they are not, you can say things like -i can't believe that i work so hard and have to come home to a messy house! where is my favourite shirt? don't tell me you didn't pick it up from the cleaners.

my nearest and dearest know that i have been wanting a wife (i am willing to settle for a girlfriend who performs wifely duties) for a while now. lack of success in finding one has led me to this public appeal for assistance. i want my weekends open. i want my personal masseuse waiting for me when i get home. i want to roll out of bed, get in a round of golf, read the paper, watch the game, in a spotless home, surrounded by my two and a half kids as my wife rubs my shoulders. i work damn hard, it's the least i could get back.

this is an equal opportunity position, i will not discriminate based on gender, race or religion - only on how well you cook, clean and can cater to my every desire.
so, um, send in your applications. this laundry isn't going to fold itself.

I Got The Shakes Real Bad Man...

so i have been descending in a deeper and deeper funk and i was trying to figure out why. it wasn't work, that has always been there. it couldn't be the weather - it ain't that cold yet. yesterday, as i dragged myself into the house and switched on the telly to cnn i realised what it was - 2 weeks no coop! last week, everytime i switched to cnn, the programme information said anderson cooper 360 but i could swear the guy looked just like lou dobbs. i thought, nah, you're just tired, tha's all. but as the week stretched on i knew there was something wrong - town meeting after town meeting with "middle america" and lou dobbs and no coop! what the heck was going on. then my visiting cousin told me that anderson cooper has a shorter slot (i fear until elections). so i think, well maybe i'll just get up at 5am to watch him (yes, i did think that - i got withdrawal, real bad). but i hear that anderson is not on - someone is filling in for him. it gets worse. anderson is off doing something for oprah!

why coop, why??? why oprah? haven't we had the oprah talk? how can you - fraternising with shell-shocked congolese orphans, wearing bullet proof vests in cluster-bombed lebanon, wading in the post-katrina waters be hanging out with you-get-a-car oprah? first bono went shopping and he got a t-shirt and now you? what are you trying to do to me? you're forcing me to use ever last ounce of faith into believing that this will all turn out well. why do you test me so, coop? and to oprah's people, i know you probably know where i live, but i ain't scared. you better send back cooper. i need him to make me feel good about being depressed by news. the clock is ticking. oprah maybe be all-powerful, but i'm an addict in withdrawal...

yeah, and the daily show and colbert report is in reruns this week. so where am i supposed to get the news?

Nope, No Naked Women Here...

the other day i was taking a brain break and decided to google a musician (i had watched him perform the night before). when i went to the tab for images, out popped out a lot of cleavage (i suppose a lot of half-naked women are associated with him - and no it was not moby). well, i thought to myself, i wonder if i too am associated with a lot of cleavage (wouldn't you? don't you?). so i google my last name and instead i see that, apparently, my surname is somehow associated with "turning shakespearean wisdom upside down." hmmm...

it turns out that the article is about my mother (as a woman of substance) proving that shakespeare's doctrine "frailty, thy name is woman!" is untrue. well two snaps in a circle to you girl! represent!! then i read on to find out that my dairy farmer (since 2002) mother is 50 - which makes me ecstatic because it means that i am 24 and my sister is over the moon because now she is 20. all those extra years to make all those mistakes all over again. i also discovered that my father's name is james - something that really surprised me because the man i have known all my life as my father has the initials o.k. i am trying to find the words to broach the subject with my 50 year-old mother. but the article was about more than youth and new dads.

there were all kinds of things in there about women and farming and rights and land ownership and hard work and confidence. and when i called my mother and mentioned that i had come across the piece online she went back in to interview mode:
- oh, i just think that if those women farmers out there who have big and successful projects read about the little that i have done, then they may really value their achievements. they will look and say, well, if mrs b can get recognition for her little things, what more these great things that i do.

well, i for one am constantly amazed my mother and my sister do it. i spent a couple of months in zimbabwe in 2003, "helping out" on the farm. on the days that i could see clearly past my allergy-swollen eyes, in between the hayfever-induced wild sneezing, i was able to look helpful as i romped in the mud in my completely inappropriate pumas. i know my mother was relieved that it was my sister, not me, who decided to stay home with her to help her out on the farm.

otherwise, that article might have been talking about how on point that wise shakespeare was.

While We're On A Roll

"man accused of having relations with dog"
that was a top headline on yahoo news.
relations? seriously? relations. so i thought, this can't be what it looks like.
but it was.
a man in washington state has been accused of having sex with the family dog - the female dog, people, before you start thinking he's gay or something. his wife came out and found him "having intercourse" with the dog. it brings new meaning to "i can't believe you slept with that bitch!" (i'm sorry, i couldn't resist).

seriously, though, the dog was allegedly squealing and crying, a clear sign to the man that, even though they had connected over dinner and even though the dog had been licking him under the table, she had clearly, as is a woman's prerogative, changed her mind. i know there are people out there who may take offense to the wording that makes it sound as though there was some kind of sexual relationship and rapport between this man and the family dog but you weren't there. you didn't see how that pit bull nuzzled the man and rubbed herself suggestively against him. it was clearly seduction. that bitch knew what she was doing. all these silly rules about bestiality and rape and no consent are just laws created by people who don't understand - just ask nambla.

but this is the clincher folks. the law making bestiality a law was only recently enacted in june, after another man in washington state died after having sex with a horse. and this after the horse promised to be gentle. you see, you can't trust those animals, but it also now clear that we need more than just laws to protect us from their dangerously amourous advances. even those stuffed animals above my bed are giving me funny looks. i pray i am strong enough to resist.

Daddy, I Swear I Tried To Close My Eyes

what is this - the spice channel for nambla? i read something about a priest talking about foley, so i am thinking - a man of the cloth, this could be interesting. interesting , yes. but this?

"we were just fondling" and then talk of massages, skinny-dipping and just hanging about naked in hotel rooms. hotel rooms?! how does a 12 year-old boy end up in a hotel room with anyone but his parents? for a second i wonder where his parents thought mark fol was during his overnight trips to washington dc and new york city. and then i think - what the gooney goo goo is up with this priest. first he said they loved each other "like brothers". well, let me tell you something, mr supposed-to-be-unnaturally-celibate priest dude - i have two brothers and this naked massage, skinny dipping hanging out naked thing, that's not their idea of brotherly bonding.

and hey, you can't tell this priest that he did wrong, nope he says, "See abuse, it's a bad word, you know, because abuse, you abuse someone against his will. But it involved just spontaneousness, you know?"
because you know what equal standing a 12 year-old boy and an adult in a position of power and authority are on. but it's okay, guys, nothing bad happened. the priest said it himself - yeah, they fondled and got all spontaneous but they never had sex. at least none that he can remember (but, he adds that he was on drugs at the time). and you can trust this priest - still a priest.

and those news outlets must be wondering what they did to deserve this bumper crop of oh my god i can't believe this sound bites. seriously, you couldn't make this stuff up if you tried. let me tell you what i have learnt from all of this - i am going to become a drunk drug addict. and whatever i may do next week, i'll be sure to take a camcorder and email ready cellphone with me to provide the press with lurid quotes and pulitzer worthy footage. and i'll be sure to hang my head in shame as my lawyer announces that my parents never let me have a pet and, well i was drunk and i am going to rehab. see you soon, mark!

And This Wrinkle Is For...

i should not even be allowed to blog about my work day. i am in the second most uninteresting field in the world - second only to being an actuary (yeah, i said it) and no one should have to hear about the things i do all day. just thinking about it gives me the yawns. but i just have to let it out today.

yesterday, my email started acting up. there were delays and little warning exclamation marks at the lower right-hand corner of my screen. and i mean, who even notices those things? i just thought, well, the server is old and will be upgraded next week and my machine should last that long - our it folk have been warning us for 6 months and we've been okay. what is a few more days anyway? yeah... famous last words.

today i get to work and try to save a document - error message, something about debugging and excel crashes. i decide to install internet explorer while trying to figure out what to do with excel. everything looks good and i go into blogger (still trying to figure out what to do with excel - i brainstorm best, apparently, while doing anything and everything unrelated to work). then i try to leave a comment for someone and web page won't load. damn it! i decide to try to do a system restore (does that ever work?) computer restarts and oh, man... my LAN connectivity is limited (whatever that means) and i have zero internet, outlook is down and my tcp/ip settings are all blank. didn't i just sound all intelligent and knowledgeable right there? i have no clue what all that is about. all i know is the machine was all wonky - couldn't connect to the server and i couldn't connect to the internet.

so i call our IT consultants - and someone calls me back. we go through a process, killing my keyboard in the process. i put her on hold to get a spare keyboard (only because we have so many crises, we have things like that in the office) and we carry on. she tells me to restart my machine and, boom, now i can't even log onto windows. do this and do that she says. i am wondering why i still listen to her but i do it anyway and then, like magic, i am all hooked up again. i mentally take back all the evil thoughts i had been having. i thank her profusely, wish her a fantastic weekend and hang up as i am restarting my machine.

this is when i start laughing hysterically. i can't log on to windows. i have to call back the IT consultants and this time someone new calls me. he doesn't believe that i am doing what he is tell me to do (i don't trust him one bit but i still have been doing everything he tells me to). he remotely logs into my machine and takes over control of my mouse. click click click - can you restart your machine. which i do and NOW the nothing works. username, password, nothing. we stick in a bootable disk and i end up with a black screen with a little white cursor blinking in the upper left-hand corner. it is 4:30 pm and tech tells me that he is going to have to escalate my issue and someone will call me right back to tell me when a human body will come in to fix my machine. i hang up and pick up new york magazine to read about stephen colbert.

of course, no one calls me back and so i have to call them. 1:30pm monday is the earliest that they can squeeze me in. so sorry i can't do any work until someone sorts out my problem but this is the best that they can do and they even had to cancel appointments with other clients to fit me in. so.. what? is this when i am supposed to be grateful? now i know why they work primarily offsite.

i pack and go home. the earliest i have gone home all year. woo hoo! the most exciting work day i have had in months and guess what? absolutely no work done. go figure.

Priorities... Priorities...

i should have been getting organised to move to an orphanage in malawi (madonna's looking for a girl now, i hear) but instead i went off with rebekit to watch moby... i just don't know what is good for me. the zimbabwean life expectancy is 37.8. becoming a ritchie would double it, just like that. no more aids, malaria or tb - it is too much for my doddery old mind (i just have a few more years, you think i could qualify for the seniors' rate at the movies?) i won't even have to worry about clean water - kabbalah water all the way. but no, i was practising my dance moves so that i can stand out when she makes her rounds. make no mistake, i'll be ready.

and if i doesn't work out with madonna, i know there will be others. others with big hearts and big wallets who know now that they can bend those rules archaically set to protect children. you have these rights groups shouting about child slavery and abuse and nonsense like that - it's all fiction. and anyone heading out to poverty-stricken nations has nothing but love and the desire to do great things like double life expectancies. we all know that government officials cannot be bought and always act in the interests of their citizens. so what? these groups wanted child services to be able to monitor the child and potential adopters for a whole 180 days, as is the law in malawi? you know no ones serious about adoption should have to go through all that. just the fact that one wants a desperate and ignored child is more than enough.

i am going back to practising my solo for when madonna visits my orphanage:
oh lordy my troubles so hard
oh lordy my troubles so hard
don't nobody know my troubles but god
don't nobody know my troubles but god...
and you moby!

Of Course, Random Internet Guy...

the email subject read:
CAN I TRUST YOU U$15,000,000.00 TO YOUR ACCOUNT

i was totally touched to the core. here is this guy who claims he found my contact address from the south african chambers of commerce and industry and so i know that even though i have never heard of this chamber, the guy must be totally legit. with such an impressive title, i am sure the chamber did its research and could totally vouch for my trustworthiness.

poor paulson benson, son of the late james benson of zimbabwe who was one of the biggest farmers in zimbabwe. his father, despite being a 'black indegene', did not support the president's ideology. as a result, the president's supporters invaded james benson's farm, burned it to the ground, killed him and confiscated all his investments. fortunately for the family, mrs benson kept "FIFTEEN MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS" cash in a safe and was able to take this money to south africa. how did this man know that zimbabwe has my heart. i was barely able to read the rest of the email i was crying at this poor man's family's fate.

well, as refugees, the bensons are only allowed to take $2,000 out of their account to transfer anywhere and this is where i, highly recommended by the chamber of commerce and industry, come in. all i have to do is fly to south africa (i need a vacation anyway) and give these guys all my information and pay a bunch of processing fees that are nothing compared to the good i'll be doing for this family. i mean i may be shelling out all this money up front, but paulson will be entrusting me with US$15 million!!! the account will be in my name and he doesn't know if i will take the money and run. he is taking my word for it that i can be trusted - well mine and the chamber's. and in return i will receive 20% of the $15 million. that is not all. to cover all my upfront expenses on these frozen funds, i will receive a further 5% of the 15 million. that's a whopping $750,000, just for upfront expenses. and i am sure i won't be expected to outlay that much money. and then for my kindness the family unanimously agreed to offer me that 20% or 3 million dollars. wow. just for trusting me. and just because they didn't know me by name and instead referred to me as managing director/ceo (perhaps that is how i am listed by the chamber) that doesn't mean this guy is off. i am off to do good for the disenfranchised.

so, i've put in for vacation time and i am about to give this guy a call so he can take down all my personal information and get the ball rolling. and all this, paulson promises, is 100% risk free. philanthropy really pays... i mean in a purely spiritual way. i am already feeling all warm and tingly all over.

woops... seems i am supposed to have kept this absolutely confidential and secret (they have promised to do the same) or it may jeopardise their asylum in south africa and they may be sent back to face unknown danger. and then who will take care of their US$15,000,000. darn!

It's The New Black

forget the miniature dog, skinny jeans or retro-eighties gig and get with the programme.

africa. it's the new black. you didn't know? you better ask somebody!

the best way to work it. first, find a country that no one has heard of - not difficult when it comes to africa (who has heard of anywhere, really?). but madonna's done malawi, brangelina have done namibia and, hell, everyone and their best friend has done kenya. equatorial guinea (which is neither on the equator or nextdoor to guinea) is a great unknown place. lots of oil wealth, a would-be-evil-dictator president if he wasn't sending most of the oil wealth to the us, and a whole lot of poor people needing saving. and they speak spanish - the novelty touch. togo, could work to. short, easy name that just screams punchline. mali, is also an option; granted, matthew mccoonaughey has already been there but, who wouldn't want to say they've been to timbuktu?

then, you gotta work your photo ops to the max. and the options? more than the number of untapped nations. for example - a village and, as the background, lush green hills with a rare mountain gorilla beating his impressive chest somewhere in there - look carefully or you'll miss him. then, in the village, children dressed in ragged american t-shirts - the kind we put in those drop-off boxes, thinking they are going to charity when in fact they are off to destroy the local textile industry (when its free, its easy to undercut without losing profit). and the mothers are wearing traditional garb in stunning jewel-tones. throw in teeth so white and straight you wonder how much they spend on dental care, even though they have no running water (maybe that's where all the money goes). then kneel down next to a child or bend over to listen to a woman you can't understand, pretend you don't notice the cameras - even though the kids won't stop staryign and pointing at them - and there you have it. you are a with-it icon.

lindsay lohan is threatening to go out there and once she's done it, it will be too late. you better get on it asap, you don't want to miss the latest hot fashion accessory before it is so last season.

Six Degrees of Separation

last night my good friend called me and said, "oh my god, i have to tell you," which is generally how our conversations begin.
she was listening to the tom joyner show and his guest yesterday morning was anderson cooper. "do you know him?" yes, she asked me if i knew coop. moving on..

turns out coop was sharing his love of the continent of africa with tom joyner. and not only that, apparently coop dropped some serious knowledge on that show. so she has now joined the anderson cooper fan club. conversation:

"did you know that when he started out, he didn't want to be an intern so he got a friend to make a fake press card for him, took his camcorder and went to africa?"

- yes, he went to niger and was covering people who were affected by a famine there. there was a kid he filmed who died a few days later.

"well, when he was talking to tom, they were acting like africa was so far away and anderson said well do you have cellphone? and everyone was like year. and anderson was all - well you know the material for the chips is found in the congo."

- remember i told you anderson was in the congo last week and his friend was in sudan.

"in the congo! can you believe it and everyone on the show was all - oh. i'm so impressed; listen, we have to find him a good girlfriend."

yes, people, this is how the passionate and informed are rewarded. for there is no greater reward than a good woman.

Long Time No...

today an old friend i had not heard from in a while said hello to me. and you think to youself, what clever things can i say to him that will stick with him for the long periods of silence between the hellos? well, turns out i had nothing clever to say, but you see i keep him as a friend cos he is dead smart.

Kine se Ansi

BY Everton Matambanadzo


Down slope try eke out or puffin ,
sanitated apartheid !
“Alundum” creed like Hollingsworth
to clip the December afternoon
In a meetinghouse cultivated
through excelling in a squirt yard
With Beardsley we’ll be western most
tried Donald but pendant , infallible and tumult
Drove an Oldsmobile for the Bantu
To try, Rena? Some wally with a dragonhead
In an ecosystem not for earthmovers
seemed Edwardian at best and a little trite!
Buy a hut and Lionel see the nettle?
It's pound dry, penny foolish“Kine se ansi” try to collaborate theinsect we ingest it’s antipodes seensplat dry. humors’ demand ,but on the riverbank;
with the upperclassman

so... um, does it rub off?

Don't Forget To Stretch Afterwards

i was so excited that anderson cooper went to the congo and had reporting from sudan. and yet that week of coverage got me, oh so sad. night after night, i sat on my couch and cried because everything seems so hopeless and so so ugly. death. rape. inaction.

and so i focused on the inane. whenever coop travels, he seems to wear the same blue safari-style shirt. does he have twenty of them or is that his lucky travel shirt that kept him alive in a war zone? was he shot at and lose his crew, emerging with his pants shredded but his blue shirt completely intact. pristine even. maybe they dress him up the same so that we can focus on the story and are not distratcted by what he wears.

so, i got up saturday morning, a little in the dumps, my shallow yet so meaningful existence threatened by thoughts of the sudanese. stories of women being regularly raped on water runs. it seems that if the men go out they get killed. so those are the choices - do we send people out to die or to be raped? pictures of two year-olds shot and beaten. it was saturday morning and i was thinking of congolese war orphans and i thought, enough!

i got out of bed and slathered my body in hydrocortisone cream (my body is not always a friend of nature. i then took two puffs from the asthma inhaler, tugged the sneakers on and headed out to the park. about five miles later, all i could think about was whether my knees would hold out for the 4 flights up to my apartment.

i'm thinking that is what those un folk must be doing. they spend their days recovering from gruelling morning runs (yes, five miles IS gruelling) and thus have no energy to deal with world problems.

Basic Economics

the killing fields: africa's misery; the world's shame.
i think someone spent a lot of time coming up with this title as the theme for coop's trip to the democratic republic of congo, well, i mean sorry, africa.
so, if no one wanted a baby gorilla - for what i am not sure but apparently one is worth US$100,000, would they be hunted to near extinction?
if tyra didn't have to wear jewellery worth $5 million on the red carpet, what would a blood diamond be?
if cars ran on electricity, air or water, would the janjaweed be decimating darfur?
if cars ran on electricity, air or water, would the world be dragging its feet over whether or not to try to save those being decimated?
how much of the drc's resources do you think are owned by the congolese?
i do know this:
king leopold's ghost still lives large in the congo. and laughs himself to sleep every night.

Bedtime Cuppa...

a whole week of special editions of anderson cooper 360! you thought i had stopped watching. nah, was just distracted by my man bill, but coop is in africa this week! well in the congo really, but that's africa right? he is there with his earnest questions moving me and depressing me with his coverage of life in the democratic (lol!) republic of congo. and just in case i am not depressed enough by the drc, we also are following stories in sudan. and for those of you who don't give a damn about the people, we have a segment on the animals (mostly the rare mountain gorilla) that are being threatened by the crisis in the congo. something for everyone.

No Salad For Me, Thanks

ignorance is bliss. yeah, yeah, so in college i had a t-shirt that read 'ignorance is bondage'. i only wore that so that people would think that i already knew stuff and wouldn't try to load the knowledge on me. ignorance. such bliss. i know i felt a lot better when i stopped watching the news shows after the 2004 presidential elections. so what was i thinking when i decided to read the story about global sludge in ivory coast ending in tragedy? well i certainly wasn't thinking that i was about to learn something, i tell you that. except maybe the the name of a remote village, if i was lucky. i mean it was a small story. i had not seen it breaking anywhere. if it were anything important, well, it would have been on the news everywhere. that is what happens with important stories.

but, no. i got me a whole lot of graphic and unwelcome knowledge - about 400 tons of it. all about a greek-owned tanker, flying a panamanian flag, leased by the london branch of a swiss trading corporation which has its fiscal headquarters in the netherlands. first lesson - globalisation. turns out this tanker was carrying a whole lot of petrochemical waste and caustic soda and a whole bunch of other things we are not being told about. the tanker first went to safely dispose of this waste in europe but were told that it would cost about half a million dollars (apparently this was waste, the likes of which had never been seen before). understandably, this company that had revenues of $28 billion were like - oh hell no, that's too much money! are you trying to impoverish us. we're going to take our waste; we won't let you fleece us.

and the tanker chugged over to ivory coast where in the dead of night, trucks lugged the raw, untreated waste to various dumps around abidjan (because if you are doing something legal with harmless waste, the only reason you dump it in the dead of the night is to avoid the morning traffic rush). the inhabitants of the ivory coast's capital city woke up to noxious fumes and black sludge. at least 8 people have died, more have been hospitalised and scores more have sought medical attention - nosebleeds, stomach aches, headaches. six month-old salam oudrawogol's body is covered in sores and looks as though he is recovering from burns.

trafigura, the company of the tanker, released a statement to let the people of abidjan know that all this sickness was purely in their heads or maybe due to bad spinach because they had run tests on the waste and found that the material that was dumped was of "little or no toxicity". and regarding all the death and sickness doing the rounds "it is still unclear exactly what caused the tragedy."

but it wasn't the waste that they dumped, that was just a coincidence. come on, people, these companies are run by fellow human beings who value life over money. if they had any idea at all that the waste was in any way dangerous, they would have shelled over the half a million dollars for safe disposal. there is no way they would have sent trucks, in the middle of the night, to dump toxic waste at at least 18 sites in well populated city. it is all a big misunderstanding. we all know that you can't just dump on a nation of peoples and cause death and illness and get away with it.

well, i might if i weren't so busy being blissfully ignorant. aaahhh. i feel better already.

Better Jolt to the System than Caffeine

on friday, i needed a brain break. numbers were swimming in front of my eyes; eyes that were open only because of the caffeine, but nothing was going on in the brain back office. boss was asking me questions but i am staring blankly back and unable to even form the sentence - let me get back to you on that. i decide i need a brain break so i mosey on down to see the headlines on msnbc. i read that a congressman has resigned over emails. i am thinking - abramoff - wow, that guy was really free with the emails. rolling my eyes and shaking my head, i keep on reading, expecting the usual campaign finance reform, lobbyist yada yada. instead i get hit with this - congressman foley resigned suddenly over news that he had sent emails to a 16 year-old page.

a page? what is this? buckingham palace? a page? what, do we now have a king george??

and then i am just floored - it wasn't the first time. apparently this 52 year-old representative has in the past sent "sexually suggestive" instant messages to other pages.

examples of messages include:
"you in your boxers, too? ... well, strip down and get naked." and
"do i make you a little horny" (i guess he has been watching austin powers movies).
so i am reading all of this catching flies with my jaw-dropped face. i am thinking, wow, this is awful. but i am only half way through the article. what more is there to say?

congressman foley was chairman of the missing and exploited children's caucus and, get this, introduced legislation in july to protect children from exploitation by adults over the internet (do you think he voted against it?). he is quoted as saying "we track library books better than we do sexual predators."

apparently.

Beyond Axel Rose...

i saw the most amazing thing today. never seen anything like it. in feeble attempt to pretend i have a shadow of a social life, i went to watch a musician who found me on myspace music. i planned on getting early, of course i was late. i got to the subway just as the train was leaving and then i transferred onto the express train. ha, bad joke. there is a dude on the train with his face in the seat in front of him. not moving. and i guess since a few weeks ago some dude lay on the train for about 24 hours before folk figured out that he was dead, a passenger reported this guy to the conductor. so we were delayed while the conductor went to get a metal stick to bang right next to could-be-dead dude who turned out to be merely semi-comatose dude. so i was late, but that wasn't the amazing thing.

the show starts and i look up from my drink to watch the musicians and the man straight ahead is the base guitarist. sounding very good. looking, well, quite awful. but in all of this i was deeply inspired. i am thinking the man hears the music in his head, feels the rhythm and follows the beat and plays the bass guitar for all it's worth. but this same man moves to something else completely. dancing his heart away as he strummed away on his guitar. musically schizophrenic i tell you. i would be bopping away (and i believe i have rhythm) but as soon as i looked his way i would lose it. i never thought it possible - but there it was. how can a person have no rhythm and yet have it. and why was i inspired?

because it means that maybe i can have no drawing ability and yet have it. like this, i am thinking perhaps i can find that i may fail as an artist and yet succeed. possible? well heck, i saw a man bopping away to some techno beat in his head (looked like) yet playing stevie wonder's superstition, excellently. apparently, anything is possible.

"yes, even you can draw" here i come!! mom may just have to find something else to laugh at me about... watch this space!

A Toast

this morning as i was drafting this post, rebekit sent me an email about her posting today:
Dedicated to the happenings in life that make us smile. scary!

on my way to work this morning (late) i bumped into a neighbour at the front door. he held the door open and i smiled (thanks, nice to see you). he was off to a modelling gig and i was, well, late. i popped into the corner store to get seltzer water and he went across the street to get coffee and i smiled hello at the guy behind the counter. i grabbed the water and asked him how he is and he said, with a smile, better (cos last week he was bad - even though he was still smiling). i said well i hope you feel even better, have a great day.
as i was about to cross the street, a truck came round the corner and got the end of my goodbye smile. he smiled and waved and so i smiled back.
as i crossed the street, the guy driving the yellow school bus, he caught the end of my truck driver smile and smiled and said something. all i could hear was the melissa etheridge (i'm the only one) on my ipod. but i smiled back and mouthed hello. i am thinking about sophie and her inspirational smile post
i walked into the subway station and smiled and mouthed good morning at the lady in the booth. i walked down the platform, still with a ghost of a smile. a man looked up and nodded good morning. i smiled and nodded back as i walked past him. and suddenly a tap on my shoulder. i turned around and there was a woman. "excuse me, sorry to bother you but..."

now i am thinking, what what? all this bouncing about smiling at everyone and feeling fantastic - do i have a big-ass stain on the back of my skirt? is my shirt ripped? what what what??

she says - i just love your shoes.

well, whew. a woman close by, i think she can tell that i was expecting something else. she is giggling.

i say - oh, thank you. and smile.

then she asks - i have to ask; where did you get them.

i tell her and secretly hope that i will cuter in the shoes than she will, or at least just as cute. woman close by is really laughing now. i think she can read my mind.

shoe woman says - i saw you wearing those shoes the other day

i say - yeah, i guess i must wear the same shoes everyday (damn you imelda marcos) but they are really comfortable.

closeby woman sniggers. yeah, okay, so i wear the same pair of shoes more than once in a week. at least they are cute!

shoe woman continues - but i wasn't sure i could come over and ask. but today i just had to. thank you so much.

the train arrives. she thanks me again. i smile and wish her a great day and step onto the train.

woman on the train catches the end of that smile. smiles back and moves over so i can grab onto the pole.
so much nicer than the guy on monday with the gold-capped brown teeth who leered at me and said, "i'm watching you."

Just Another Bad Day...

maher arar. so there you are just hanging about at jfk airport. in transit. baggage already checked through all the way to canada - your home for the last 20 years. then as you are going through the tedium of check-in they ask you into a room. oh, it must be that random super check they do every once in a while. next thing you know you are in jail. in syria. being tortured. for a year. telling them everything and anything you want me to stay, just make it stop. i want to go home to my wife and two kids. and then, after that year, you drop me off in canada and, well, oops we made a mistake. wow, that's gotta suck.

It's The Red Edition, Silly!

i don't get it. but, apparently, it's art so i don't have to. apparently the photographer painted the model black and then adjusted the light so that the skin is actually the true colour of the model. silly me, here i was thinking that she looked as though she had been frolicking in a coal bin. it's the africa issue. next week, i hear, they are going to toss alec wek in a vat of flour for the european issue. i can't wait.

on a serious note, though i must say that the cover is really well done. at first glance i could have sworn that iwas my cousin mxoloqina from the african village. if they had not said so, i would NEVER have thought it was a kate moss in blackbody (which, since it is not blackface is in no way offensive).

carrying on, there was a great article in there full of fantastic statistics that compared the united kingdom to africa. and even though the united kingdom fits into less than two thirds of zimbabwe, it is not about space or numbers, it is about comparability. and, since the united kingdom is made up of england, ireland, scotland and wales, plus, plus, it is very comparable to the continent of africa which, we have already established is the most homogenous place on the planet.

so, it turns out that female literacy in the uk is 99.9% while that in africa is 53.2% (who cares that in nigeria it is about 91% and in sierra leone below 35%, it's all the same - it's a crisis everywhere!). oh, and then - shock, horror, dismay - only 13% of women in africa use contraceptives, compared to 84% in the uk. i almost missed the two little stars in the corner and the note that told me that this was actually not even the average of the continent of over 50 countries and 900 million inhabitants, but actually of ivory coast, population 19 million. but, we're smart people, we can extrapolate and expand and, you know, homogenise.

but look at me, i am missing the big picture. the independen africa issue is donating 50% of the proceeds from its sale to an aids charity. and i just know that people out there will see the cover of the waif-like brit blonde, covered in soot and think - africa, aids, orphans, widows and hopelessness. i know i did!

p.s. did you notice the bonus? a free poster of the 'africanised' kate moss!

At Least He Used Vaseline...

i'll tell you how it all began. it was a cool night, back in 1992. i was in someone's room (cos i didn't have my own television) and the arsenio hall show was on. and he introduced his special guest. i must have heard his name before, i don't know, apparently he was a little famous.

then he came out. in a suit. and shades (not sunglasses, baby, shades). and playing the saxophone. how did he know my achilles heel? how could i not fall in love? who knows what he played (i read later that it was heartbreak hotel -appropriate), all i know is that is when he took my heart. i am still waiting for him to give it back. bill clinton. i have loved him ever since.

oh yeah, sorry. politics. he was a politician (is that ever past tense) and a good one at that. to paraphrase a friend, at least when he screwed you up the ass, he used vaseline. all i know he was dead sexy - with his sax, his shades and smooth talk. and when i heard he was coming to zimbabwe, i had to tell my parents: if he is working the crowd, shaking hands and he says to me, 'round the corner, 10 minutes,' don't look for me because i WILL be round the corner in 5. hillary must have gotten wind of my intentions because all of a sudden she was the one who came to visit. but he feels my energy and he can't resist my pull. and i am patient. i have waited over 10 years and can wait longer. they moved to long island, then he got an office in harlem. i will wait. he'll be in brooklyn soon enough.

Meanwhile In Thailand...

so much for dreary talk that goes nowhere and is forgotten seconds after the traffic jams have gone. this week we had drama at the un! forget all the season premieres and new television shows, we had drama translated by a bland translator chick. i know i could never work as a translator at the un. i would be all - what? hugo, you did not just go there. woo!

"the devil was here"? and then you crossed yourself AND looked heavenward (we assume heaven is up). at that point i would have been pulling out my phone to frantically text a friend while still trying to translate the next bit. girl, you watching the live coverage of the un? you don't have that channel? no worries, i know it's gonna be on tv later, over and over and over again, like maybe every 15 minutes, cos you know that's how the news do. the president of venezuela just called george bush the devil. and he repeated himself, just in case you missed it. then he crossed himself (protection or in case he was blaspheming?) then he explained that he was talking about the president of the usa (in case you thought he meant ahmadinejad). apparently the podium still smelt of sulphur and, thus, he could not control himself. he had to speak.

well that chavez he has a problem cos he seems to think that george bush acts like he's the president of the world. pfft! where would he get that dumb idea from?

Shhh....

sudan has been weighing heavily on my mind for a while now. such a heavy weight on my mind. but i have decided to take the lead of, it seems, pretty much the rest of the world and say nothing, do nothing. i mean, if we wait long enough there will be no one left to help and then we can just carry on as we pretty much always have. and since we never got involved, we will bear no responsibility, right? hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil and soon there will... be no evil?

Don't Ever Wonder...

when i was a kid - after black became my favourite colour and before pink was the colour of my prison, i decided to make my mother a birthday gift. i did this partly because i made no money and thus had no money (no i just have no money), and partly because i had been told that making a gift showed i cared. now, what could i make now that i had just started learning how to sew but was still not allowed to use the sewing machine? i could not ask my mother to buy supplies because then the surprise would be blown. i had to use what was already there. fortunately, i found a rectangle of sturdy pink fabric and a ball of black yarn. i smuggled a darning needle into my room and set about creating my masterpiece.

on 12 september, i presented my mother with a pink pincushion, embroidered (that word is used very loosely) with her initials (P on one side and B on the other) in black and with a black embroidered border. "oh, this is beautiful, thank you!" is what she must have said, because that is the kind of thing she tends to say. but i have to tell you, the thing was hideous. as i have grown, i have looked at that thing and wondered what was going on in my head. and i have been able to wonder because my mother discarded her rather fancy store-bought pincushion and has used that pink and black monstrosity since. i have offered to replace it and she has always gracefully declined, informing me that it doesn't matter how i feel about it because it is not mine.

so, when we disagree or she straight up pisses me off and i wonder what kind of a mother she is and if she really loves me, i think upon that pincusion (now, i think, decades old) and realise that she, at the very least, can pretend very well.

Ahmadine..wha?

on saturday i was hanging out with my roommate's mom, who was in town for a meeting on migration at the united nations. since it had been all over the news, i asked her if she had seen ahmadinejad - the prime minster of iran. "oh! i was at the u.n. until 10pm yesterday. things got very exciting!"

the story begins with the iranian delegation presenting itself. this was apparently followed by the cuban delegation making a statement which turned into a criticism of the usa (big surprise) and a declaration that the usa has no right to accuse other nations of human rights abuses since they are abusers themselves. the cuban delegate referred to the travel ban that has been in effect for about 40 years.

of course the usa asked for the right to rebut cuba's statements. iran long forgotten, the usa delegate launched a verbal attack on cuba and so on until about 10pm.

and i'll tell you what i don't get. so we have the usa, champion of democrazy, land of the free, and home of the brave and yet they can decide whether or not we go to cuba. well okay, we can go but if we so much as, without government permission, spend a dollar or receive a gift, well, we just get fined. big brother, what? if cuba is such a terrible place, why not let us go and check it out and come back inspired to work towards the freedom of the cuban people (cigars in hand, naturally)? why not let us decide, on our own, not to travel to this awful tyrannical land. do you not trust the judgement of the american people - they voted for the current administration, didn't they?

It Can't Be Natural

how do people wake up feeling "refreshed"? it's a mystery to me. i wake up feeling totally groggy or less groggy. i am never cheerfully stretching my way into the day. and yet i am surrounded by these so-called morning people - my sister, my roommate, guests who swear up and down that they are not morning people (all a ruse to getinto my house, i tell you). and so invariably i find someone bouncing up and down on my bed, at some ungodly hour of the day, begging me to get up and do something. the only thing i really want to do then is strangle them but that would involve opening my eyes and that would mean i have conceded defeat. "go watch some tv or read a book," i mumble (i try to keep many distractions for the unnaturally chipper in the morning). "give me an hour, please." sister and roommate don't fall for this. they settle down and tickle my ear, stroke my arm, and "sweet-talking" me into madness. broken, i open my eyes and wonder what i did to deserve such suffering. then i wonder what the hell is wrong with these perky people. and these are the same people who will get into bed at 10pm and be asleep in two minutes. nothing will get them up (i have tried). they sleep so easily, they way too annoyingly. i'm just saying - HELP!

Maybe Next Time

i am thinking maybe they didn't think i was coming in today. i mean it was only the primaries. so no purple ink for my finger to celebrate this, my first time ever ever voting. the machines were so totally old school - levers and knobs and everything looked about 40 years old. it did absolutely nothing for my confidence that my voice will count. but i'm going back in november; i gotta give them one more chance to give me the ink.

Once They Learn English, That Is...

i know that many were saddened by the sudden passing of steve irwin - the crocodile hunter - and some have decided to do only what is right. these days, as we have seen, grief is best expressed as anger and anger is best expressed in the form of retaliation against anyone, usually the innocent and totally unaware. somehow this is supposed to punish the guilty. to hell with this propaganda about the nature of the stingray and how it probably felt threatened and only reacted as it is meant to. some steve irwin fans are avenging their hero's death and i tell you soon the world's sting rays will realise they decided to mess with the wrong man. so far it is 10 sting rays but those who love steve and love freedom will not stop until they can fly a mission accomplished banner from every australian beach. yes siree bob, until every last terrorist stingray has surrendered or lies dead and mutilated, they will not stop. and any so-called conservationists who condemn this killing only serve to validate the strategy of the terrorists. i am fully confident, in no time stingrays will be waving the white flag.

You Are EIther WIth Us Or...

today at night president bush addressed "the nation" on this 5th anniversary of the tragedy simply known as 9/11. i took that moment to wash my dishes. yesterday there were several specials about that day. i did homework and this morning the papers discussed who got the highest ratings - american football, apparently. and still it seems the best way for anyone to get ratings, sales or votes.

this morning i also had awful dreams involving planes being shot down by fighter jets and crashing into the ocean. and at work and talking to my neighbours (which i do on occasion) i got the sense that many were trying not to think about it yet couldn't forget. a metlife blimp floated by and a coworker commented on how inappropriate that seemed, on this day, in lower manhattan.

i thought about a story a friend shared with us about his ex-wife. she was lucky to escape the twin towers and took off, walking uptown. and walking. and walking. she kept telling herself - don't look back, don't look back - as though she was afraid she would turn into a pillar of salt if she did. when she was asked why she didn't look back she replied - i don't know. it just felt as though everything would be okay if i just didn't look back.

so today, as i was walking home from the subway station, i bumped into a neighbour who said, look at that, isn't that beautiful? i looked. two pillars of light, stretching into the night sky. and i thought, wow, a lot of people who had nothing to do with anything die needlessly.

when and how do grief and loss become so political?

You Can Ring My Bell

but the whole anonymous heavy breathing thing? that you have to quit. i don't get it. what is the whole deal with dialing someone's number to inhale and exhale for a good minute and then hang up without a hello, how are you doing? what? were you raised in cave? or that guy in the gym who is leering at you and taking obvious pleasure at your discomfort. but if i come over and kick you in the gonads then all of a sudden i am the one with the problem. i just wanted to get an idea of how it is to feel uncomfortable. if you feel that you love me or hate me, you just come over and let's talk it over. you may find out that i am a messed up bitch who is not worth your time and energy. alternatively, we may find out that we are meant to be together forever. either way, your gonads will still be intact.

What Are You Going To Do?

"want something interesting for your blog?"
so i am thinking her book is being published next week or she got a major scoop for her magazine. my roommate (the one who currently lives in nigeria and is chasing her dreams) had come online and sent me an instant message. of course i said, "yes please."
"i got jacked at gunpoint this evening"
"WHAT???"
and now i am feeling powerless. is this a conversation to be had online? really? but our fabulous global economy has us on opposite sides of the planet and talking to each other as though we are sitting next to each other. until it really matters. we are online now and there are time lags between the questions and answers and oen is always lagging.
me: oh man kai, are you okay
me:(again) what happened?
kai: shaken up a lot but okay
me: and your car?
me: (again) what did they take
me: (again!) what happened (yes, i do ask many many questions.
kai: mine and the one of staff's bag with everything in it
kai: and we those kinds of people who carry big bags with everything in it.

you get the drift. i am asking lots of questions and trying somehow to convey my panic and strength but yahoo's emoticons aren't quite cutting it. and she is about two or three questions behind, traumatised and exhausted and yet unable to sleep.

and this is what happened. kai was driving home. she usually drives alone but, luckily for her, one of her employees had asked for a ride home. so she is in her jalopy (a little red car with no air conditioning and a reserved spot in the repair shop) and she gets to an intersection. the windows are wound down (no aircon, remember)and a man with a gun runs up to them and demands their bags. and when he did all they were doing was "jsut begging for him not to shoot while we were reaching for our bags."

i am terribly relieved that she is alive to tell the tale but made as hell and feeling totally impotent. what can i do from brooklyn? she tells me that everything was in her bag so all her credit cards, keys, wallet, the works all gone. i tell her that she is a tough nut - cos i would probably be a shaking crying mess right now. she tells me "just had a terrible stomach ache while i was at the police station from the tension prolly".

i am glad she was not alone (though i am sure the employee was wishing she hadn't asked for a ride). but this guy picks a day when kai's cousin is out of town so she had no one to pick her up and take her home and make sure she was okay. just me, feeling all silly and kinda meaningless at my desk.

but folks, it gets better! they used her cellphone to call her cousin and demand a ransom for her cheque book and other contents of the bag! the nerve of it all. i mean, you ran up to my car, stuck a gun in my face and took my stuff. you are going to take all my cash, my cellphones and you have violated my space and sensibilities. and now you demand ransom? because the money you are making off me is not enough? and you know that i am feeling relieved to be alive because you know i have either heard the stories or know someone who has lost someone during one of these armed robberies gone bad.

and what makes me feel like a man in sore need of viagara (yeah, i'll even take the 4 hour erection) - they took her cellphones (all three of them) so i can't call her. so i have to sit on my hands and wonder how she is doing, if she got any sleep and if any of this has finally hit her. i am pissed off! and i shake my fist at those bastards! yeah, that'll really show them!