The Quest for Silence

It seems of late, that the world is a little too loud for my liking. Between my phone trilling, buzzing, gonging, singing and alarming, landline waiting tunes, and the sound of heels on hard floor surfaces, it all seems a trifle much. My world seems to be a percussion band, being conducted and manned by preschoolers. At once overly ambitious and just downright painful.

Similarly, the online universe seems to be obnoxiously loud right now. There are far too many happy people, posting their positive thoughts and advice on how to be a better person.It’s like I woke up in the self-help aisle of social media. Correction, it’s like I woke up in the Christian self-help aisle of social media. I wonder if I had more loud and proud Muslim friends, if I would gain some balance in my social media self-help floodings. As a side note, some of the Biblical quotes I’m being assaulted with, don’t even exist. At best, the alleged quotes are poor interpretations of straight forward sentences.

Think positive (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We only live once, any single person has a fairly unique set of experiences and circumstances. The best you can do is try.

If you are happy and joyous, good for you! Now shut up. It’s annoying, obnoxious and a pain in the ass to have to tolerate your waxing poetic about how you have found the formula to success and happiness. No, you haven’t. What you have found is something that makes sense to you, and depending on how much you believe it, you will interpret your world so it confirms your theory. Reality is subjective.

Granted, having a positive outlook may give people…ok, no I lie; what good does it do having this sunshine and marigold positive outlook? Depressed people allegedly make better decisions, being more realistic than their positive counter parts. Realists are in a better position to look objectively at the world and make informed decisions. When the happy people come down, they come down like a ton of bricks. Oftentimes, and this is based on experience, these happy people are masking problems they don’t want to address head on, because going through and experiencing the bad, painful, harsh negative side of the emotion spectrum is just too bad, painful and harsh. It is easier to say things like; “if I maintain a positive outlook, good things will happen to me.”

“Get out my weathered face, with all that sunshine.” – Sage Francis, “Personal Journalist 1968-2001

Full lyrics here.

And Down the Rabbit Hole We Go

It was dark. The street lights were down again. The only light on the deserted street came from people’s houses, often obscured by tree branches, skewed by high walls. Winter was approaching, the night air was chilly and nipped at my nose.The gate chugged open, the old metal wheels slowly turning. My dog dashed out, seizing her moment of freedom. Coming out after her, I could see her rooting around in the underbrush across the street, giddy with the new scents, tail wagging, well aware that she shouldn’t be out of the yard. Next to the dog was a small white blob. It looked like a discarded plastic bag. But it moved. It had eyes. My dog was not in the least bit concerned by this white blob with eyes less than two feet away from her. I thought it might be one of theneighbors cats. But it had very long ears for a cat. It was a white rabbit. Just sitting there, watching me with its little red eyes.

Rabbit, watching, waiting (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The following night, as I drove down my street arriving home, there was a white blob across my road. And another white blob. There were two rabbits sitting opposite my gate, watching me drive into my yard. Just watching. Waiting. Over the next week, I found that there are four rabbits of varying shades of white that live on my road. We don’t know who they belong to, or what they are for, are they pets or stew waiting to happen? Monday evening, at the end of the work day, I came home to find that a metal cage had been left at the end of the road. The rabbits were in the cage, just sitting there, watching on coming traffic. Tuesday, they broke out, and were hopping up  and down the road. Yesterday, they were gone.

Of Mice and Men

During the course of the week, I was video chatting with a friend of mine. We were talking about whatever significant irrelevancies seem to plague video chatting with no pre-set agenda. Glancing over to my left and off of the side of my bed, a sudden movement caught my attention. A rodent of some kind was hopping across my bedroom floor.

Title illustration from The Tale of Two Bad Mice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was smaller than any rat I’ve seen, including the dead, disembowelled specimens that my lovely dogs leave out on the pavement. It was probably only 7cm long, excluding its tail. It had grey fur, soft and plush looking, with pert little ears that pricked up as it dashed across the floor. It’s tail however was not so attractive; a long, thick cord-like member trailing behind its body.

The Rodent scampered behind my table and was unobtrusive for the rest of the video chat. The Rodent’s current position was a stroke of tactical genius; behind my table is a narrow corridor between the wall and the table edge, which extends behind the display unit/bookshelf. The majority of the floor area under the table is littered with shoes, badminton rackets, pens and cables. The terrain is perfect for guerilla style rodent-warfare.

Besides this, the Rodent was kinda cute, not like those evil looking Spawn-of-Satan black rats that tend to lurk in the pantry eating the dog food, only to become the dog food. – My dogs for all their domestication are vicious little killers. Suffice to say, I was willing to enter into a peaceful state of co-existence with the Rodent. If it didn’t bother me, I wouldn’t bother it, and it could leave just as peacefully as it came.

The following day, during a conversation with a colleague, I was informed that rats eat shoes. Or at least damage them with their teeth. Whatever the case may be, the ceasefire and state of tense-peace was over. I bought rat pellets.

The pellets are made by a company that makes insect killer. I assumed that as my favourite brand of insect killer this company would be well versed in the way of destroying vermin through the use of chemicals.

The pellets are in themselves rather interesting. They are described as “anti-coagulants” which sounds thoroughly evil and deadly. The picture on the box is of a dead rat lying on its back, head tossed back, throat exposed. The pellets themselves are a charming shade of candy-pink; can household rodents see colour? The instructions are simple – toss and wait for consumption and death.

That evening, returning home with my package of Death and Doom, I put out a small portion of pellets along the outer frontiers of Under-Table-Space. The following day curious and eager, I investigated the poison offering. My scouting revealed that a pellet had been consumed.

Later in the evening I was video chatting again, as I hung laundry in my bathroom. As I leaned into the washing machine to pull out damp, heavy clothing I spied the Rodent scampering across my bathroom floor, to hide behind my toilet.

Clearly the war terrain had changed. By invading my toilet, I was now unable to use this toilet in the middle of the night, for fear of sitting on a rodent and/or having my rear assaulted by one. Taking a much larger dose of pellets I placed them near to the toilet, retreated and closed the toilet door. Sealed into the bathroom, the Rodent would consume the poison, and by the time I awoke the following day, I would have a corpse. The plan was made.

The following morning the pellets were all gone. There was no corpse.

Nonetheless, emboldened by this sense of victory, as the pellets were after all gone, the world moved on. It was just a matter of time before the smell of the dead rodent would alert me to its whereabouts. Apparently, I was mistaken.

That night I heard the familiar scuttling of something else in my room, dashing around in the Under-Table-Space and vicinity. In the middle of the night, sitting up and looking around the room, I spied a dark object on the floor by the toilet door. It was solid, dark and unmoving. I thought, “Ah, it is dying, that is its body lying there. All is well.” Satisfied that the Rodent merely had Shakespearean tendencies and was acting out a death scene of epic proportions, which I could hardly deny it, I consoled myself with its death and went back to sleep.

It turns out it was not the Rodent’s corpse, but rather a solid wood, and rather heavy paperweight/ash tray in the shape of an oversized smoking pipe. This ash tray is kept on top of the display unit, which is a good 6 foot tall. The ash tray had travelled down the display unit and a good 2 metres away from its original resting place.

Was the rat poison giving this Rodent super powers?!

Clearly, I was a newbie at poisoning rodents. The answer was obviously that more pellets were needed. And so more pellets were put out at the foot of the display unit. The enemy had through its actions, exposed its location. The pellets were gone in a matter of hours. Still no bodies.

The following evening, in a fit of panic and dismay at the lack of results and perhaps a little recklessly, I scattered the poison over a larger surface area, scattering them like tiny Liquorice Allsorts over the floor, tossing them without care or planning. There was no way the Rodent would be able to consume all those pellets strewn so haphazardly over the floor!  The pellets were all gone by the following morning.

There are still no bodies and I’m down to half a pack of pellets.

That’s Your Problem, Not Mine

Relationships are not my strong point. I see patterns in behaviour, I spot things and notice the details. This gives people the impression that I care, or that I’m somehow “meant” for them, because I can anticipate and speak to their concerns. It really isn’t that; it’s that I watch.

A dear one is going through an emotional crisis of sorts where, whilst I’m not the cause, I am the centre table decoration. As the scene unfolds, I have withdrawn to a position of watching, waiting, and not caring.

I am apparently a mathematical equation, and he’s trying to derive my value. Based on his side of the equation, he wants to find out how to balance me; remove, add, subtract and divide the variables. He questions my value to him, and where I sit in his grand scheme of things. His confusion means he is withdrawn and won’t speak to me as I would like, he’s chewing the pink rubber at the end of the pencil, trying to find out what X equals. In a bid to avoid getting hurt, he will most likely introduce a distraction.

Solution sighted. Problem Solved:

“X = Y + 1″

I have trust issues. Commitment issues, not so much. I usually know early on if the equation will lead to a long term relationship or not.I don’t need to do the math. I know if it will be a long haul flight or if it will be little more than a transitory flight between two life points. A brief, probably highly turbulent experience, complete with bad food, and drinks served in small glasses. There’s only a brief time in the sky, when it’s safe to remove seatbelts. For the rest of the flight, you’re tied down and in, trying to pop your ears.

Short haul relationships

Journeys brief and fiery

Too short to remove the safety signs

Your commitment issue is your problem, not mine.

People Watching

Its the weekend before everyone gets paid. The pool bar is respectably occupied. Mostly women, not a lot of mixed gender groups tonight.

The women are still suited up from work, uncomfortable heels and fake pearl earrings. Classy chic on a budget.

One group has been here since happy hour, their volume a testament to half priced alcohol. Loud, boisterous sounds,woops and cries fill the night coupled with flamboyant gestures. They are absolutely fabulous. If only their conversation was slightly more interesting than trivial talks of emotions, men, and how to play the game of “love”.

There used to be more children and teenagers here. Guests of the hotel, children of parents too busy with other adults to bother with children. Now the children have gone, or given way to young adults, filling old haunts, like me.

Two men sit in the centre of the floor. They look like they’re out for the hunt, late twenties, early thirties. Still posturing in their youth, slightly standoffish and weary in their age. There is no explanation for the cap worn backwards, at nine o’clock at night.

Its a strange watering hole. There are tvs littered around the walls, always sports channels. You don’t need volume to watch sport.

My waiter is upset about something. He’s less chatty, smiles less, does his job in measured and controlled turns. He’s snappy.

The lone male sitting under the main glare is looking around now. He’s glanced my way, seen I’m unaccompanied tonight. Eye contact is not maintained. Don’t speak to strangers.

Baby Making Factory

Mother and Child so natural, so perfect, so necessary to be a woman.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In between typing this post, and checking my Twitter, I’m having a conversation with a former school mate. Topic – children.

He thinks it’s peculiar (for lack of a more precise word) that I don’t want children, or that I don’t believe in the traditional relationship. The views on relationships are quickly dismissed and dealt with, my views on relationships being a blog post unto itself. However, having children is a whole other situation.

One of the ladies I work with, who has children of her own, has already asked me when I plan to have offspring. Its still easy to bat it off – I’m young, why would I have kids now?

But she isn’t the first one to ask me this.

It seems that by virtue of having a womb, and theoretically, the capacity to breed means that I am, at least from a societal point of view, obliged to make mini-me’s.  Any belief I may entertain about not having children is ascribed to either women around me who are older than me and don’t want children, or that I must have some lustful dog of a man in my life, who doesn’t want to be tied down by a child and is forcing me to think this way.

As a side note, how long does one, as a woman, need to argue a point in relation to one’s sexual and reproductive rights before the fuckwits of the world can accept the point as being personal choice?

Perhaps its that I’ve never had to take care of a baby, or toddler – and babysitting doesn’t count. Perhaps its that I can see all bad things of child rearing. I often wonder if people who are eager to have children think about how awkward it was being a child, how on some levels it really does suck. Children don’t have the skills or the abilities from the onset, to deal with the emotional blackmail that every parent subjects their child/children to. A child doesn’t know how to terminate the relationship with a truly bad parent. Children are so blindly trusting, and so willing to place their parents on these impossibly high pedestals, when maturity finally sets in, children no longer have these heroes, but merely pale shadows and husks of illusions. Being a child, and leaving childhood into adulthood is singularly disillusioning and parents play a very large role in that.

The famous Depression Photo. Draw your own conclusions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most likely, its that I see them for what they are – a responsibility. I see dirty diapers, screaming children, snotty noses, tiny terrors that turn shades of purple when having fits, helpless, squealing bundles of life constantly requiring and demanding attention, draining the very life out of their caretakers. I have colleagues who groan and moan constantly about difficult it is to raise children, how expensive it is now to take care of children, the woes of sending a child to school. Of course, some of this moaning is due to the fact that they want to extort money out of me – children have long been used as a money making scam.

Another friend of mine is going to have a child in a few months. His relationship with the mother is on the rocks right now. Where he had had every intention of marrying her, he now doesn’t even know if he wants to be with her, all the while entertaining notions of marrying his first baby mama. But he doesn’t want to lose this new and as yet unborn child. He barely has a secure job to take care of himself. What is he doing having this child?

I would resent having to love and nurture a creature with my bad traits, held up before me in a miniature mirror of myself, equally shared with another human. An unwanted alien in the intimate act between a man and a woman. Children are a gamble, I genuinely anticipate not liking any child that would have the misfortune of coming from my loins.

Some women just exude maternal love and affection, apparently I have a fair amount of compassion and caring in my personality, I also come with enough baggage to make the emotional bellhops of this world cringe. I’m honest enough to admit that I would traumatize any child of my own, and I would harm it.

Against my own personal failings as an individual, there is the selfish reality that I have spent my life taking care of certain people in my world. I have ‘lost’ years of my life having to mother people in my world, mostly out of a twisted sense of obligation and duty. I refuse to lose the next 20 odd years of my life taking care of another child, one who is even less capable of taking care of himself/herself than the adult-children I am obliged to look after now. Call me selfish, but I would like to have my own life, thank you. My life.

No matter how well thought out, how logical, or how witty my argument is, it will be dismissed by those who advocate having children on the basis that my biological clock hasn’t started sending me regular reminders that I have a meeting with menopause.

I understand that. I understand that I cannot predict the future of my body and what it will tell me it wants. But that, in itself, does not negate my current view. My view on having children is simple; I don’t want them.

Spoken words

Spoken words.

Freshly pressed on my wordpress home page today. Made me realise why I like poetry so much, why I appreciate spoken word, and why racial profiling, even in a romantic/sexual sense still riles me.

- Watch the video by Suheir Hammad.

“Don’t want to be your erotic, don’t want to be your exotic”

City of Files

Migraine Barbie and her drugs (Photo credit: Deborah Leigh (Migraine Chick))

Today I’m feeling rather impotent, and not in the sexual, ‘I can’t  get an erection,’ kind of way.

I get migraines. When I was initially diagnosed, I was getting them fairly regularly. My weeks were visited by shooting silver sparks across my vision. Rainstorms of silver flashes, announcing the onset of a mind numbing ache and throb that my body would jump in on, leaving me weak with pins and needles and nausea.

Having decided that I was more partial to the healing process of hiding in a dark room and sleeping, I never bothered to investigate in pills that could make a migraine manageable. Unfortunately, I’m now in the wonderful, adult world of work. The option of going home and hiding under the covers is no longer there. Pills are now my go-to position.

I have had 2 bad migraine attacks this year, the first one was whilst I was out shopping, and the migrils did the trick and kept me alive and functioning for the requisite two hours. Yesterday, the attack hit me at work.

There is nothing quite like being holed up in a cubicle styled office, with it’s peculiar furniture that is woefully pretending to be trendy, slowly disappearing behind the mountains of paperwork to make one feel a little overwhelmed. – The great danger with having any semblance of intelligence and skill, is that you are constantly required to give slightly more than you are capable of.

Being caught between the growing metropolitan city of files and the incapacitating migraine from yesterday, I am now swamped, antsy, frustrated and generally a little uptight.

It also doesn’t help that I have intense writer’s block and don’t know what to do and when to do it. I’d like to have some caffeine at this point, but genuinely fear that my colleagues will be unable to pry me off of the ceiling.

Pet Peeves : Setting the Record Straight

I will concede from the outset that I am easily annoyed.  I am a perfectionist and controlling by nature, when things don’t go according to plan; ‘I see skies of red, and red roses too.’ And at this time of the year, I am more than easily annoyed.

There are things people do that generally rub me the wrong way. Like most people, I have a few pet peeves.

• I hate when people I’m not close to just leave there stuff with/around me and expect me to keep an eye on it, out of the goodness of my heart.

• I hate how I’m at an age where people now think it’s acceptable to ask me when I plan to get married and have children. Oh joy, my pussy has an expiry date now.

• I hate driving around town during rush hour, and having to constantly drive defensively. I live in a country where people will drive like lunatics, just to stand in a queue for several hours and not be bothered about poor customer service.

But at this special, and exciting time of the year, I grow a new list of pet peeves. Most of these are pet peeves that existed last year, but after the holidays and getting away from it, having to deal with them again, all kinds of annoying.

1. The daily Bible-thumping over lunch time and shortly thereafter. I hate this. It is so loud that I can hear it through my closed door and headphones. Almost every lunch time, the office comes alive with explaining away people’s personality failings as the effects of demons and demon possession. Any and all good things to happen are the result of God’s unfailing love for that person, and anything bad to happen to someone they don’t like is God smiting them for hurting his children. God, in my office is a vengeful and petty creature, a creature to be likened to the old Greek Gods, capricious (seen as mysterious) and vengeful. I spend my one hour of ‘me’ time at work, being unwillingly regaled with tales of Nigerian pastors and their dark powers. – God help me.
2. The way everyone speaks too loud at lunch, laughing too loudly, and making those singular pulled sounds, akin to a duck’s quack, only louder. It’s as if I’ve been taken deep into the twilight zone of parties. People dance at lunch time, cavorting back and forth, trying to be social and gay. It’s work. Get over it. It annoys me.

3. At this time of year, there is additionally the pleasure of being wished a Happy New Year, over and over and over…and over again.  It annoys me because the new year is no different from the old year. Heck, its the same season for me – hot. The false sense of hope and happiness to come is like being attacked by all the cheesy bad adverts from over the decades, in 3D complete with glasses, surround sound, in HD. It’s overkill.
   
4. The other big pet peeve is in relation to blogging. I have friends who read my blog, this blog in fact. They then see fit to comment to me, in a chat, on a particular post in the blog. Below each post is a comment option. Use it. Really, use it. It annoys the bejeepers out of me to be in the middle of whatever it is I’m doing online, including chatting with the friend-reader, and then have to go and focus on the blog. In the event that the post in question is not a new post, I generally speaking, have no  idea what is going on in the post. I just don’t. Again, the comment button. Use it.

   In the absence of a legitimate reason for wanting/needing to speak to me in person – for example because your comment is one that ought to be private, there really is no reason to not use the comment box. I also have to approve all comments.

5. It also greatly annoys me when people consistently chat in rapid succession one liners. The result being a barrage of one lined comments in quick succession. Firstly, it makes my phone ring constantly, which annoys me. Secondly, it makes it difficult to comment, as just you’re about to hit the enter button, a new line comes in. And thirdly, if you must have breaks, shift + enter. SHIFT + ENTER. 

And finally, the frogs in my back yard have multiplied. There are now 4 very large and very loud frogs croaking away to their hearts content. The dogs won’t eat them. It annoys me.

Love In Space

I come from an interesting generation. I am old enough to have seen most if not all of the Star Trek’s, I am young enough to hold Star Wars in reverence, and acknowledge the value and importance of both to the world of Science Fiction.

I was introduced to the original series of Star Trek at an age when I was also watching Barney The Dinosaur. And so along with the Dinosaur Sensation, I was also watching Spock come to terms with his humanity, and Captain Kirk learning…to speak….in this…famous fashion. As I grew older, I moved on to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

My first knowledge of Sir Patrick Stewart (yes, the man has an OBE) was as Captain Jean Luc Picard, Captain of the Starship Enterprise.

And now that I am older, and more aware of the things that I watch, I have found that Star Trek is full of wonderful quotations, ideas and beliefs to think of. The Trekkies and the Star Wars fans constantly go on about how the two are about more than just saving the world (or worlds, galaxies, universe, or aliens), and brandishing fantastical weapons and technology, but it’s also about the deeper things, the philosophies and ideas. And this is the reason why the two are vastly superior to the Twilight Series.( – I don’t even think Twilight qualifies as Sci-Fi. It’s fantasy. Wrong genre, leave the sparkly vampires and overly hormonal werewolves to Buffy and Blade.)

This segways nicely into my next point. Of late, I have been assaulted with various misguided propositions from individuals for more intimate encounters. They all have something in common in their misguided approaches. They all ask me if I have a significant other.

I am at a point where I am exploring the concept and idea of polyamourous relationships. This idea is not one that is easily conveyed to individuals who genuinely believe in monogamy, and traditional marriage. I am also not at a point where I can really explain the concept and what it is that I am ultimately seeking to build. It’s easier to go with the option of – I’m not seeing anyone. Big mistake. It does appear that being single automatically means a hurdle has been overcome. Here’s the point, in the world of human relationships, the existence or otherwise of a significant other is irrelevant. If the connection is there, then the two will dally. If the connection is not there, and the enquiring party is a douche bag, “I have a boyfriend, [who is 6 feet tall, works out, is a qualified kick boxer and is very jealous]” is a standard go-to.

Part of my leaning towards polyamourous relationships is due to the belief that it is possible to love any number of people at the same time. I do not think this is wrong. I think that feelings of love, affection, lust, trust and intimacy, flow and ebb in different degrees at different stages. After all, how could they not? The way I feel about one person, in no way impacts the sincerity of my affections for another. Each relationship exists for a particular reason, it may fulfil a set need, or it may provide insights. The point is that there is no hierarchy with the dealings of the heart.

This also means that when a relationship ends, as all relationships do, the sense of loss and pain is acute for each love lost. Each love, each affair, each relationship is different. I give you Star Trek wisdom, courtesy of Star Trek.

Live long, and prosper.