Humpty Dumpty

i've been making a lot of lists lately - to do lists, to buy lists, for me, for my family, for my co-workers, for my friends. i have lost half the lists and yet i continue to list. why? well, because it turns out that my slow summer wasn't just due to the super-humid stagnant days and the general madness of society. apparently the powers that be decided to try to destroy my god complex and cure me of my world leader tendencies. apparently i am not infallible, like the pope. i can get a little under the weather. but to the powers, i stick out my tongue because i can get fixed and that is what i am about to do. so on wednesday i go into hospital to have my tummy cut open and the defective bits taken out. WOO HOO!!! i'm about to be fixed. and for this i have a list of all the great things about this:

1. six weeks off work!
2. i have been told that, despite not having done a crunch in ages, i still have abs, that might hurt a little in the near future.
3. i shall conquer the alien invasion of my body.
4. i get to be spoiled by my mother. i wonder if i could convince her to make carrot soup. i wonder if i still like carrot soup.
5. did i mention the six weeks off work? the thought apparently still boggles the brain.
6. if i ever get arrested i'll have a scar to prove my street cred. not everyone is intimidated by my vampire bite marks.
7. no more meds and that means, hopefully, no frightful mood swings and general madness. of course that means i'll have less defence should i commit a "crime of passion". darn.
8. i get to test the effective range of my cordless keyboard and mouse. oh and the effective range of my eyesight... now i wonder why i got a desktop.
9. i get to sleep all i want for a little bit. and my mother may even encourage me to sleep. that i would pay to see.
10. i may even be perky this winter to make up for the sluggish summer.

the sad bit is that i will be unable to blog for a little bit. not until i can sneak past my mom. and that woman sees everything. it is an uncanny gift. my undercover buddy tu...07 suggested i recruit guest bloggers to wax lyrical about me in my absence. i'm thinking i'll make a list.

Mamma Mia!

yesterday i danced and danced and danced. it all started when oscar and el editor got me going. today still in my mind over and over again "i don't care if the sun don't shine..." it kept me from strangling the dude on speakerphone in my office. and then after work i packed my bags and headed uptown to dance and dance and dance some more. the most awesomely fabulous dance class ever. top notch teacher and drummers. six of them yesterday and on fire. almost 2 hours of this. there is nothing like it. all you think about is the music and the dance and both make you joyful. it soothes and moves and renews the soul. it makes you believe again. and just before you have a chance to get jaded, you fall into a deep and peaceful sleep.

i must have still been buzzing this morning because as i waited to get a banana and seltzer water, a man told me his life story and how great his job is. and then as he left the store and i wished him a good day, he responded "oh, i'll be alright."

that made me smile and as i walked the half block to work and thought about this nice man who just wanted to let it out (because sometimes that is what you want, no need, to do and it is most fortunate if you can) i passed to fellas on their way to work (i assume). "what a great smile" one commented. "thanks!" responded, thinking - this is how to pay it forward, right? and we wished each other good day. perky perky.

and then i called zimbabwe to make sure that my mother was ready to go to the airport. cos she's coming to town! i pick her up tomorrow night. i convinced her to take a break from her phenomenal farming - seriously, don't those cabbages look like they're on steroids? i am so mega-psyched. i got a coffee maker. i think i'm ready. and until tomorrow... i'll keep on dancing, dancing, dancing! i'm a dancing machine

Only Dancing Makes Sense...

so my first alarm went off somewhere around 6am and i got up and turned on my second alarm. i then lay down and began my morning stretches. i'm sure you can imagine how well that went. yeah... after some totally weird semi-dreams i wake up with a start. 8:15 and work starts at nine. hurry hurry dash out the front door (like my apartment has a back door).

the headlines on the papers. "the evil has landed", "bad man on campus", "here i come". a welcome break from o.j., isiah and brangelina, i suppose but i am wondering we we have our k-nickers in a k-not. i mean new york's council speaker was trying to tell columbia university that they shouldn't have him speak at the university. really, speaker quinn? really? i thought new york was legendary for its let folk express themselves attitude. perhaps i am still bitter about not being allowed to go to cuba but i mean he goes and he says what he has to say and we shake our heads or we clap in support or we just go off and do one of the million and one other things one can do in new york (hallelujah) and remain clueless.

i mean he either is on another planet, has gonads of steel or is completely batty because, i'm telling you that i would really have to believe in something phenomenal to take that stage at columbia. i mean all that booing and the risk of having rotten eggs thrown my way. i don't think i could do that (i hate the smell of eggs). and that stuff is hell to wash out of your hair - if the water gets too hot you run the risk of semi-cooking the egg and... so yeah, eggs. and you never know, instead of going for the heckler, the cops might taser me. jeez loueez! he's like britney spears in his let me just go someplace where the results can only be disastrous. we let britney do it AND we had to put up with awful wardrobe, atrocious lipsynching and i won't even discuss the "dancing".

and he still hasn't faced his biggest challenge. i mean after the chavez drama of last year's meeting. he's really going to have to pull all the stops. hey... you think maybe he'll flash some ahmadinej-abs?

A Dream Deferred

for a long time i have been wondering why i am not a politician. years ago i listened to the tips and worked on them. when talking don't distract the masses with excessive hand movements - unless you actually don't want them to get what you're saying. look people in the eye and make them feel they're important. i learnt about the various handshakes and what each meant - one hand, two hands, one hand while the other is on your shoulder... the whole deal. and yet, not even a mayor of a town of 1,000. why, i asked myself, why???
where did i go wrong.
my answer came the other day as i paged through my morning paper.
i need to work harder on the skeletons in my closet.
a councilman in queens was indicted on charges of raping a 52-year-old grandmother (if she had no grandkids would that have lessened the horrific nature of the crime, i wonder? but i digress). but he's just one among many. just in new york in the last 10 years a councilman was censured for alleged sexual harrassment. i say alleged because the councilman declared that none of the women making allegations was attractive enough to warrant his advances. you see. alleged. others are accused of sending condoms to the daughters of ex-mistresses. and well, just in the last year, politicians are trying to outdo each with the skeletons. i see your instant messages to underage boys and i raise you an invasion of privacy in a public bathroom (and then i'll distract people by stating i am not gay though i may totally be a peeping tom).

and i won't even tell you about my totally unpolitician behaviour if i were ever in a bathroom stall and looked up to find someone's beady eye ogling me from the stall next door. i would be be screaming and trying to make a hasty getaway before my stall neighbour had the opportunity to flash hand signals under the partition.

and i see that the longer i loiter on the sidelines, the more difficult it is going to become to find some attention grabbing outrage that somehow i'll be able to parlay into meaning that i am just like you. i mean, being caught doing crack with a prostitute has been taken. i can't try to be homophobic only to have my male prostitute out me not only as a regular client but also as a meth-head. hmmm? bad behaviour with an intern? done and played out.

i'm stumped. what to do.... what to do??

Swingin' On The Porch...

i know that i am not the only one with nothing really going on. here i was thinking - work work work, i am jack, the dull boy who just has no play in their life. but i tell you this, nothing loves company like misery or dullery, come to think of it. and i know this because?
front page of the paper on monday - isiah washington who thinks it is okay to say, in company, that while calling a white woman a bitch is an insult, somehow calling a black woman a bitch might even border on, if not a compliment, then a statement of solidarity.
tuesday front page - o.j. simpson was allegedly involved in an armed robbery (but he was only trying to get his stuff back). is there a photo of this man since roots or that hertz commercial, where he doesn't look totally off his rocker?
today's paper? brad pitt and angelina jolie - and the burning question is "more babies for brangelina?"
it's excellent to know that i am missing out on almost absolutely nothing in this world. it is almost as though the world is revolving around me and when i pause, it does too.
spooky.

Summer's End...

oh how i hate my lazy ways. as i sit on my couch i think - get up! do something. i think it hard. i think it strong. i stay on the couch. and promise myself; tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow again...

ask me why, i have no answer. for when something takes me off my couch i am pretty much always glad i came. i head home promising myself that i'll do better in the future. so much to do and so little time and can't i appreciate how lucky i am to live in a place with more to do than i know what to do with?

tonight it was a series of short films from filmmakers from london. tell me again, why i don't do better? the first film, blood, was about a boxer with a friend no one approves of and a father who states, "i know who you are and i know what you are" and he doesn't like it. i thought to myself - i miss my boxing class.

you ever heard of darkie day? yeah, me neither. hello google and wikipedia. i know the filmmaker and i shared the same expression throughout the documentary. uh-huh... wow.

after the intermission, things totally lightened up with mOrally speaking - where a couple argues "about an uspoken taboo among black men." i thought, taboo? really? and laughed so hard, i didn't feel so bad about having to miss yoga class.

of course, the one film that i wasn't so excited about had the director available for a q&a session. riding home on the train, laughing with my friend, folk are looking at us, probably wondering if we're drunk - that's how hard we're laughing. i get home and i think - wasn't that fun? aren't i so lucky? i swear i'm going to do better. i unlock the door, drop my bag and collapse onto my couch.

Milestones

we were massive. and it was our moment to show the world. third form entertainment (the fundraiser for our fourth form dance) and we were going to be major. we were the coolest thing that had happened to our high school. who could have imagned that so many talented and creative people could end up in one year group at one school? and we had grand plans. we had been planning since the year before, perhaps since first form.

so many of us were triple threats - dancers, actors and, at the very least, excellent lip-synchers (if not straight up singers) - and full of creative culture. we were going to put on a show that would be spoken of for years. every free moment was spent planning and working on the show. it was not an easy job - everyone had to be involved and every piece had to be top notch. the theme? award show. it was brilliant! somehow everyone's talent could be incorporated into a fake music video, fake tv show or fake commercial. and through it all we were given free range. yes about 124 fourteen and fifteen year-olds were left to their own devices.

they should have known what they were in for. the year before our form two play, jonahman jazz, included rap and awesomely choreographed routines (i'm not going to get into why all the black girls were cast as thieves and criminals - nineveh city, after all, was a city of sin). but we were given free periods to rehearse and plan and market. posters at every cool boys' school we could think of and invitations to everyone we knew - my mother came in from out of town (this was our big moment, there was no way she was missing it).

the place was packed. standing room only. our third form entertainment was the place to be that night. we used music from fame for our opening number. salt n pepa's push it followed it. yes, we were diverse like that. the beatles' when i'm 64 was mixed all in there. but some missed it as a few upset parents walked out during push it and went home to compose letters of outrage. we had a fashion show where my fabulous outfit fell apart just before i hit the stage and our masterpiece. a fake commercial for acne cream:

one day i was walking
looking at the sky
then i saw a rainbow
and it was so high

it was a fountain of love
it was a fountain of love

looking in the mirror
staring at my spots
then it dawned upon me
there were lots and lots

it was a fountain of love
it was a fountain of love

the concept was pure abbaesque disco - images with warm images. women with big hair floating through parks with beautiful fountains. and at the end of it all? flawless skin.

and so the show went on. and on. and on. people drifted out but we had to get all 100 plus of us in a piece or three. finally we puttered to an end and still, out in the almost empty hall, my mother sat. waiting for me to be done. i did mention that she flew in just for this. to support her daughter. as i walked her to the car and she left after congratulating me. it was monday morning before i discovered that night was a shameful disaster. that we were out of control and sans mores for including salt n pepa in our programme. our embrace of contemporary culture and dance was criticised and yet when i told my mother that apparently our big night was a black mark on the reputation of our esteemed high school for girls, all she had to say was:

i could see you put a lot of work into this. it was very interesting. i'm proud of you.

and she is surprised that i remember a small thing like calling to say happy birthday. and she's mumble-mumble and looks fabulous for that age.

oh yes... never allowed to put on a big show. ever. again. but we remained. legendary. i repeat. legend-ary.

Heroes II

then i was sitting on my couch, watching tv and it ambled out of the kitchen... like it owned the place. my feet were off the floor, quicker than lightning. across the neighbour had said i was okay but now i wasn't. i was in peril and it stood between me and my front door.



i called across the hall neighbour. voicemail. very friendly voicemail at that. though i didn't know him as well, i called my neighbour to the left and he was in. but i would have to open the door to let him in. i ran, didn't look into the kitchen, just opened the door and he came in. and found nothing.

check again

there's nothing here.

what am i supposed to do?

just call me when it comes back and i'll come back.



i didn't know him so well, so i pretended to be brave. but the traps came out (the exterminator had left me a supply.) and again i came home to one in a trap (sounds like great odds but you would have to see how many traps i put out then) and called my neighbour to the left. i'm out but i'll be back in a few hours. a few hours? but i can't get into the apartment. but isn't it stuck on a trap? but what if it breaks free? i mean i can hear it. i can't go in. wait a second he says.

knock on my door.

his girlfriend. holding a broom. i hear you have a problem.

and though she was almost as scared as me, she got rid of it.



i ask my roommate - still in nigeria - what is going on. oh so casually, like it's no big deal - well they come up when it gets cold and you know the building is old you just have to put out traps. that is exactly what the exterminator said but that was unacceptable. my heart could only take so much. i was reaching my breaking point.



two nights later it was back (and they say it is cats that have nine lives), trying to join me in the living room. i squeaked out something that let it know that i didn't want the company and grabbed my phone. ring... ring... voicemail. and i start

sorry to bother you but it's back and i don't know what to do. it keeps coming back and i don't know how to stop it and...

my voice broke.

i can't believe i'm crying i'm so sorry.

i hung up. i did tell you that i didn't know him that well

and now he had witnessed me break.

and still he treated me as thought it all made sense (which it does, despite what you say) and helped me get the landlord send someone to try to fill in all the holes. and then he laughed. very hard. my hero

Heroes I

the weather was getting cooler - winter was coming. the landlord had turned the heat on in the building so the cold outside was not yet such a big deal. i was asleep and then suddenly i was awake and terrified. though i had never heard it before i knew what it was, that scratching entered my dreams and i lay in bed terrified. the lights were off but i had to see if i really had heard it or imagined it.

i lay, silently debating - should i chance stepping on the ground to reach the light switch or should i write it off as an over-active imagination and try to get back to sleep? who was i kidding? i wasn't about to sleep! if you gauged my heart, i was about to have a heartattack. i thought about it a little. new york apartment, i could try to reach the switch. so i did. and almost immediately we were looking at each other... eye to eye.

me and that rodent. rat, mouse, i don't care, it wasn't paying rent, it wasn't welcome. and yet it was staring me down and standing between me and the door. i thought, what now? my roommate was in nigeria and i was being held prisoner by this animal. i know, i know. you laugh and you say to me - oh, that little thing! it's more scared of you than you are of it. well, let me tell you something. as we gazed unblinking at each other one of us was petrified, the other had fur.

i stood on my futon and thought, this thing is very close to the ground; i can't stay in this room. i have to take my chances. and what? the only weapon i thought i might have was a can of pledge. and i would only have one chance to make that pledge effective. if i didn't aim accurately and get that rodent dead in the eye, all it would have is a shiny coat and it would attack me and... i couldn't think about it. i leapt for the door, screaming as i went. i slammed the door and ran through the living room into my roommate's empty room and slammed that door shut. then i sealed the bottom of the door with clothes and lay down. i tried to convince myself that i was safe but all i did was watch the clock until the stores were open. i got the glue traps and put them around the apartment and dashed off to work.

i came home to the sound of squeaking and stood, trapped, near the entrance wondering what to do. i knocked on the door of my neighbour across the hall. his mother fears rodents as i do so i didn't even have to finish my sentence. he went in. for a second i wondered if i should be polite and show him in. sensing my hesitation he ordered me out so i wouldn't have to see.

two minutes later. okay, it's gone he says. are you sure? yes. and i believed.

Tutu True

bishop desmond tutu, patron of south africa's national barbeque (braai) day, says that braaing is a unifying force and i say, amen to that. unless they forgot to order enough t-bone steaks for the event, nothing brings people together like meat and fire. and so today i begin the campaign for an international barbeque day.

for, what can be more wonderful than greasy hands and faces and lethargic bellies? no drama, just a touch of salad and starch so that you can call it a meal and lots of humidity-free sunshine. oh, and someone who doesn't mind getting smoke in their eyes... the braai-master to make sure that, as the wise archbishop says, "ordinary activities like eating can unite people of different races, religions, sexes... short people, tall people, fat people, lean people."

such a prestigious and important position this archbishop holds and this is a chance for an unprecedented second nobel peace prize. i'm going to write to him now. he needs to spread the word, we all need to get our hands tasty dirty, turn the music up and all you'll be able to do is love, laugh and pass the salt.

In Sight Of Chaos

i was just a girl. not even twelve yet. so how can you blame me? how could i resist those strong, wide shoulders as he stepped out of that car. diplomatic plates. CD 47. tinted windows. how these things stay with us.

we hoped that he would notice us yet prayed he wouldn't see us as we tailed him around the librbary. he remained seemingly oblivious; taking books off shelves as we swooned around the corner, every move a magnificent miracle. was it possible that a physique that perfect existed beyond the confines of the covers of those historical novels that sat in the adult section - where we were allowed to look but could not touch. i knew his name for he went to school with my brother. i had gotten that information without letting on my intentions. my brother may have felt it was his duty to defend my honour against a man who knew nothing of my existence.

herman hesse. how familiar that name sounded but i had no time to figure out why. i was too busy picking the two books closest to me for he was headed towards the library and i had to beat the other girls and get as close to herman hesse as possible. not too close as to be obvious but close enough to maybe feel his essence, to smell his aura (or at the very least his cologne). i would mumble, hopefully, the right responses to the librarian stamping my book - recognising me from the week before - barely able to hold myself back as he exited the library. grabbing my books i would casually hurry out the door to catch that magnificent back disappearing behind the tinted glass of that black car.

and at that moment i would take flight from the self. perhaps brush the edges of nirvana. but, all too soon, the black car would disappear around the corner and i would be jerked back to the reality of how i was going to explain my book choices to my father. and to make plans for next week.

Awesome Chocolate Cake Recipe!!!

i couldn't resist the teaser "a golden boy becomes a killer, possibly because of a brain defect". i don't know what i expected but a the end of the show i was thinking that perhaps i am the one with the brain defect. so here the story goes:

so, there is a man named stephen stanko and he grew up in south carolina and his life was pretty unremarkable. no mention of him being prom king, captain of the football team or even head of the debate team (and you know the media would have been all over that, if it had been so). there were no clips of old high school girlfriends going on about how popular he had been. none of that. we did learn, however, that his father had been in the navy and was a strict disciplinarian. oh and he did well in class - somewhere in the top twenty - so perhaps that is where the golden came in.

senior year comes along and it is time to decide what to do. stephen claims that he turns down a whole bunch of scholarships (can you smell the skepticism?) because he wants to be some kind of engineer in the navy. but he doesn't get in. perhaps the navy admisson process sniffed out the brain defect.

so then he goes to community college for a little bit and runs minor scams a lot. i guess this is where we should have started to suspect that maybe his mother dropped him on his head - i blame her because he NEVER talks about her.... issues. then he gets a girlfriend and moves in with her. but he can't stop stealing from her and pawning her stuff on the streets. finally she is all - hey, before i don't even have a couch to sit on, you need to go. now he's not ready to live in a homeless shelter so he comes to her with a cloth soaked in chlorox and 409 and tries to suffocate her.

she's all why are you doing this (like she forgot that she was trying to kick him out on the streets)

and he's all - damn, why aren't you dying, it worked on tv (no joke)

he ties her up and does all kinds of things, including singing as he washes his hands.

for this he gets sentenced to ten years in prison - he serves 8 and a half and authors a book (there he goes, golden boy).

soon after getting out of prison he meets a new woman and, in no time, he has moved in. and started with the fraud schemes. so i'm not sure what happened this time but he killed this girlfriend (strangulation), raped the daughter and slashed the daughter's throat, twice. leaving daughter for dead, he moseyed on over to 74 year-old's friend's place where he shot the guy and took his truck. i don't know but since they were friends i think if he had just asked the guy would have let him take the truck.

former golden boy (i am thinking at this point he was no longer considered golden) ended up in augusta georgia where he met a woman in a bar on a saturday, went home with her and was at church with her on sunday morning. a couple of days later, this woman's friend calls her at work and is all - well, you know i'm not one to gossip but i think you better turn to page 5b of the paper, gurl.

and there she finds a photo of her new fabulous boyfriend, as one of america's most wanted. so, she calls the cops and they arrest him and his defence?

his brain is smaller than average and he has a brain defect (they had diagrams and everything) and thus has no impulse control and so he can't be held responsible for his actions. thought it seems that his small brain was able to control his impulses when surrounded by a bunch of big men during his 8 and a half years in prison. i don't know about you but i think anyone who did any of the above is one sick bastard and i really don't need diagrams to be convinced that there's something wrong with them.

but, what was i talking about again? i kinda lost track of the plot but, don't you get so mad when you watch a totally cool preview/teaser and then the movie is nowhere near as cool and has almost absolutely nothing to do with the preview/teaser? i am beginning to understand why elvis threw things at the television.

Lazy Sunday...

i was up and about today at 8:45. finally i could kick my workout slump in the butt. i couldn't remember the last time i went running. i want to say june but it could have been late may. i have been taking yoga on thursdays but it hasn't been every thursday, sometimes work gets in the way. for a few weeks now i have been promising myself that i'll get up and get out and do something. so i go through the routine - warm up, stretch (not a very good one, i am ashamed to say), inhaler, cellphone on the arm (in case i have to call 911) and keys.

so, you know i said i had not run in a few months? well it was some evil demon that got me to go on a five mile course. and once you're out there, you're out there and it is not like anyone is going to send a car to pick you up. so i thought, well, i have to stretch out the muscles so i don't hurt so much. followed run up with a yoga workout. so how do i feel? ouch.

switched on my tv with the volume on really low. there were a lot of politicians on tv and i know there are some reports on iraq due and some senator resigned so i kept the volume off until the tennis started. i didn't want to hear something that would make me want to throw something at the tv - yoga had left my arms rather lifeless. monday always seems like a good day to reconnect with reality.

i did find drapes to use as room dividers that will be long enough. i completed a couple of chores for my mother - how is it that i have not lived with her in over ten years and still i have chores? i called a friend to ask for a big, huge favour - so lucky i am to have friends who say, yes i shall do that for you and even say that it's not a problem.

i tell you... nothing like kicking back on a sunday and just letting the day float over you. i am off to stretch the hams...

Super Saturday!!!

i woke up in the dead of night because my head was killing me. i thought if i lay there until the sun came up, maybe the pain would have gone by then. but my mother's voice kept me from even trying to fall back asleep - be proactive with the headache. if you treat it early then it won't get worse. i dragged myself out of bed to take sudafed (i was congested so i figured it must be a sinus headache). it was almost 5 am. and then i realised that my shoulders were really tight. so i stuck a pain pad on the back of each shoulder. smelling of menthol, i crawled back into bed and groaned back to sleep.

but when i woke up, my head still hurt. so i ate a little fruit - melons and a couple of grapes. and some rooibos tea - caffeine free. and took a couple more sudafed. and i started watching tennis - the us open is on, have you heard? still pound pound pound. but i was a woman on a mission. i had some home improvement planned - i was to put up some gauzy curtains as a room divider between my kitchen, hallway and living room. so i took my backpack and walked over to the hardware store. i walked the aisles and finally found a cute little rod to put up (i got the curtains the day before) and then i headed over to dunkin donuts. coffee - caffeine - my head was still killing me.

a cup of coffee later, head was still driving me nuts. so i took a couple aleve and then started getting my tools together. i had to charge up the cordless drill but i finally got the brackets in the wall and was ready to put the rod up. just a little too short. and the curtains? just a little too short. apparently i went shopping at chez baby bear. turns out the curtain are also a little too gauzy - they are blowing all over the place and i don't even have all the windows open.

it's all up, but it ain't that pretty. so back to the drawing board. i had everything measured out but my accuracy must have been a tad compromised because there was no one holding the other end of the tape measure. excuses, excuses... a growing experience. if the drilling hadn't been so much fun, i might have decided to rethink the whole home improvement gig.

headache is gone though.