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...