I need

I am in a carb frenzy. My mind can only think of pizza.

pizza

pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza

and maybe a little salad.

Death to all incompetents

I am being driven insane by a client. My point of contact there clearly told tell me that they would give me a certain amount of work and then (after using my intellectual property and ensuring that I transfer knowledge) it was decided to go the cheaper ineffective route. Of course this involved using me in a far reduced capacity. I cannot believe I fell for it. It is the classic smash and grab of the unethical business entity.

What truly kills me is that the point-of-contact person is incompetent and does not hold himself responsible for anything even though this is his project in its entirety. Deadlines not met... not his problem. Overbudget? Incomplete briefing? What does that have to do with him? He appears to live in a world where he doesn't actually exist.

I must have serious PMS because all I can think of is creating a dartboard with his face on.

Life lessons

Will the life list ever end? aka Filing is not a swear word.
We seem to be surrounded by a gang of self-help addict gurus and life coaches. You can change the world! (I can?) You are in charge of your own destiny! (But what about my bank account?)

I think the intentions of this movement are wonderful. People need to understand how empowerment can work in their environment. However, I do think there is an enormous hole that is not being addressed. (Drum roll please.) It is administration. Admin. Add-minimal. Adamant.

How banal that sounds but I am telling you the God-given truth. We read about how we can alter our existence... if there are piles of unfiled papers cluttering our offices and destroying our minds then the only altering that will happen is the one with an f in front of it.

I want to climb Mount Everest. Not going to happen without a visa. Organising a visa means a whole lot of personal details that come to light when there is an effective filing system. You can reach for the stars when your taxes are paid and you have updated your personal file.

Life begins, not at 40, but when you become an expert filer.

Magic

'To be excited' - it changes everything. It doesn't matter if life throws wonderful experiences at you, without excitement and an awakening of some kind of passion it all becomes meaningless. The trick trying to figure out where the excitement/passion lies; then how to reawaken it. When magic returns to your life suddenly the simplest things feel beautiful.

Through the eyes of abundance

It's so easy to see our lives as lacking. What is it we don't have? There are people, adverts, various other media, the ubiquitous society that will let us know just what we don't have. Are you keeping up with the Jones? Or the Khumalos? Have you achieved everything that your classmates have achieved? Don't you feel good when you find out about someone who hasn't quite made it as 'far' as you have?

We fill our heads with a constant drive to fill our lives. Because if we don't, we will just not be good enough. The yardstick lives outside ourselves and we have little control of it. Look at the holes in your life. Look and be desperately upset at what you find.

People feel desperate and sad. There are a thousand, a million of us living our pain every day. We are not what we are supposed to be. We are not good enough. Our self image is dictated through the eyes of others.

Is it that difficult to see how ridiculous this is as a life philosophy? We surround ourselves with thinking patterns that ensure that we will never be satisfied. Welcome doom because there is so little chance of achievement. Each win is just a step to the next want. There is no understanding of satisfaction.

It is time to look at everything with the eyes of abundance. I have developed in this way; I have achieved this; I have gained this; I am. Take a deep breath and just be who you are for a moment. Perhaps tomorrow it will be two breaths.

VD - ain't that the truth?

My most intimate and loving Valentine's Day gift (the one I still keep and look at from time to time even though I have long broken up with the giver) is a poem about farting. This should go some way to explaining why I feel like a demon around Valentine's Day. So I hereby declare the day to be called by its initials.

Yay for VD.

Hip hip hooray.

So back to the life list:
1. This was about learning from your experiences. (See post before.) The overused saying that there is always a lesson to be gained is true. As simple as that.
2. Aaaah and then I made the point about looks. We are truly a visual society. Everything logical says it shouldn't matter and yet it still does.
3. Families are not prescriptive. No matter how messed up you think yours is there is another family round the corner that can beat it. If your family is wonderful there are also more wonderful families shining their light over yours. The point I am trying to make (although it seems to be taking a fair amount of time) is that you are not alone, defined by a family experience that seems to have no ending. To be in a family is to be part of life - good or bad. The crappy things will end and so will the good things. If it is possible, try to maintain family relations. There is a strange and wonderful strength in them. Blood ties connect you, are part of defining you and at times can sustain you. It is worthwhile to truly attempt an understanding of the family experience. A lot of your lessons will come from this sector.
4. Almost everything you can imagine will pass. Knowing this lets you keep your head above water during the crappy times and helps you appreciate the good times. When you are devoured by an experience that feels as if it will suffocate you, know it will pass. When you are feeling very ill and the pain is all over your body, it will pass. The state will change. It also helps keep things in perspective. I have another way of keeping perspective. I hold my wee until I am about to burst and then find a loo and release. Suddenly you realise your true priorities - number one is to wee.
5. There is a universal law at play. If you listen hard enough you can hear it whisper and you can see its machinations. The universe really does work with you. But you have to listen and you have to act. It follows the Newtonian law - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The opposite isn't negative but a counterbalance to move you forward in a certain direction.
6. There are a lot of things in life that will feel like they have no meaning. It is up to you to give them meaning or discard them. Part of life's journey is being active in creating that journey. If you are predominantly passive, don't complain about what gets handed your way.

(A glass of water is screaming my name right now. The list is at odds with my bodily desires.)

aside from the list

I have come to a major revelation. I am driven by connection. My life feels so much less when I am not part of a true connection. When I talk about connection, I don't mean a love affair or anything specific. But there is an honesty and truth about connecting on such a deep level that it then sustains one even if you don't make contact with that person daily. I know a lot of people and am friends with many but it is very rare that I have that connection. When I read about people and their relationships, it appears that connection is not a universal drive. It is not a physical sense but a metaphysical understanding of another person and an acceptance of them that overrides any petty societal or personal barriers. The strangest thing is that as I grow older, people seem less inclined to connect. We all seem lost in our own worlds where the focus is on satiating the ego.

Advice on how the world works and what it all means

I am trying to make sense of it all. (That would be me and a million others over the decades.) It is just crushing that not only do I follow the existentialist angst but also fall into the middle class pit as well. Viva stereotypes viva.

I think that life lessons only work in specific contexts. I read about people (usually the aged and wise) who pass on their sense of what it is all about... but it doesn't make sense for me as I live my life. Anyone who has read 'Tuesdays with Morrie' but who isn't part of mainstream society will connect. I hope.

If you don't fall into the classic mould of married with children and exist within a western environment, you aren't going to relate to the advice from the book. If you have chosen a different path or were even born into an alternative one then you need to create your own advice or look for different role models.

It fascinates me that there aren't a mass of role models that fall out of the norm of western christian patriarchal socety. Even with the Internet and the sense of a global village, we all still wither under the American Dream. It just must be about marrying, having children, earning a lot of money, being recognised by our peers, proving ourselves and leaving a legacy. And there has been an add on of creating a charity or giving of yourself in a way that makes a mark on the world. While many of these characteristics are shared and lauded across various lifestyles, it still isn't a one size fits all.

What we do seem to share, across all divides, is the search for happiness and fulfillment. It just means different things to different people and I don't think people are getting that. It is touched on in mass communication but there isn't enough depth so that people truly understand that they need to create their own paths and/or recognise that they must search out their own role models because we do not all follow the same path.

So I am creating my own list - my advice to me. Perhaps by detangling the confusion in my head something new will be created. (And if it doesn't, no animals were harmed in the creating of this piece. So all is good.)

What you need to know about life if you happen to be an independent-thinking woman who is single with no dependants, embraces multi-perspectives in life, works for herself, has suffered a chronic illness for a significant proportion of her adult life, is non-sexist, non-racist and anti-homophobia.... I think that about covers it.

1. As trite as it sounds, the crappy things that happen to you really do teach you about life. There really are lessons to be learnt and a lot of jokes to be made. I don't think there has been one obstacle that hasn't enriched me on some level. It makes it easier when you have to overcome the challenges... knowing that you are gaining in the process.
2. Looks really do count. No matter that you read anything different, it just isn't true. A woman's currency is still largely invested in the way she looks. You can make this work for you by playing the system and then subverting it. But, at this point in human evolution, ignoring it will only harm you and your progress both internally and externally.

(Bugger. Work beckons. The list shall continue at a later date. )

Welcome 2010

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh. Having a blog is no light undertaking. It's almost been a year since my last post. Good grief. Well here goes me trying again. Shees this is insane.

This last year has been a blur. The focus has been on surviving the Crohn's and trying to find a way to make my life work as a bigger picture. It's like my life hit pause... again. But there is good news. I recently had a colonoscopy/gastroscopy and for the first time in around four years, the specialist says there is improvement.

It is an immense thing to take in. I hadn't realised how much I had internalised the words from various doctors - especially the mutterings of death and how I was "at the end of the road". It meant putting my life on hold even if it was a subconscious decision.

Being told there is hope. Wow. It was as if this doom blanket had been lifted off my shoulders. So now I am trying to work out how to make my life work because while there has been improvement I still have to cope with low energy levels and fuzzed up head where focussing is difficult. I am still angry that half of my thirties was taken away. But that is a whole other story.

This year really is a new start for me. Here is to 2010.

Are you up for it?

So its already February and a new year. Am I worried? No. I disappeared from the virtual space because my mother caught freaking flesh-eating bacteria in her right arm. Africa is not for sissies.

Not on my watch

Today I woke up and forgot that I was not on holiday yet. Then I panicked and made ready. But I got lost and arrived as half a worker at the computer. I tried to organise. My stomach was queasy. I lay down. I stared at the pc. I sent a few emails. I lay down. I brushed my teeth. I realised it had been months and I hadn't picked up my cheque book. I walked to the mall. I waited for a long time in a line, sweating while I drowned out other people with my iPod. I got angry at the bank teller. I felt bad. I had an illicit felafel. I felt ill. I walked home. I wanted to vomit. I lay down and passed out. Later I woke up and took painkillers. I called a friend and apologised as I would not be able to go to his housewarming. I was nauseous, my body was queasy and there was blood coming out my bum. Now I am back at the pc and have nothing to say.

Pick me!

When I was young and thought about what it would like to be older, I never thought I would be someone who was nicely turned out. But I am. Chipped nail polish makes me cringe. I actually feel a little ill if I am not wearing make up. Someone recently tagged me as 'elegant' in a Facebook photo. If you threw the dictionary at me, I wouldn't have chosen that word. I have always been the dishevelled rebel but somehow mutated without realising it.

So I placed a photo of myself on my cellphone as wallpaper. It's my link to the external visual presentation. I don't think I could pick me out in a police line up. Now I am training myself to recognise myself. Not an easy journey.

you-wreck-her

I have been trying to work out what makes women want to be with a man so badly that she will change who she is. Perhaps it is validation. Ok, I am sure there are many women who only truly feel real when they are reflected in the eyes of men.

But I am not talking about them specifically. What about other women? The ones who are happy on their own. The ones who don't specifically seek a man to make them complete. What about them?

Then I realised I had the question wrong. I was focusing in too closely on the gender roles. It was about a broader social connection. Women desire to be part of a larger sense of being. We want to be connected. We want to feel as if someone 'gets us', someone cares and that there is a connection. We want to be believe that we can make a difference through our connection.

We can be solitary, crusading, homebodies, businesswomen, cavewomen but women react to how they are defined in another's eyes. Genetic or socially engineered? Does it make us better mothers? Does it ensure that we fulfil the role of society's carer? Is that what gives us that mythical sense of empathy?

What it does do, in my view, is leave us in a vulnerable position. When any object positions itself in direct relation to something else, there is no missing the impact that can have. Your position is defined with regards to something else which leaves you with little control. And without just a bit of control, women become the children of the universe - just that bit innocent and weaker.

I understand that it may make us tune into the world and that there are many positives. But I think women should acknowledge this vulnerability. Why do we, women, always want to find that which will make us more whole? Because we believe the connection will complete us. For some it is the connection with a lover, for others with a friend or children or a cause, but it is about finding ourselves within that connection.

I cannot decide if that makes us closer to God or just incredibly vulnerable. But we need to see ourselves for what we are. It will take power away from the relative positioning. Perhaps then we will start to climb out of our emotional spirals.

so here I sit

I am drinking tea and sitting at the keyboard. Today was one of those insane days where I accomplished the impossible yet remained in my pyjamas. I organised a cover photo shoot. That's 15 non-models and 50 dissenting views on what they should wear. The theme of the shoot is innovation. The sub-theme is 'kill the irritatingly little shit who went against his boss' orders and changed the dress code'. So that involved emails that never arrived plus over 30 phone calls. Fun fun fun.

Then I tackled my intern journalist's article. I am really glad he is in Cape Town at the moment because my irritation gave me enough energy to get dressed to go hunt him down. But I am in Johannesburg. At the other end of the country. Lets just call it his lucky day that I am still in said pyjamas.

I did call him. We had words. He is very considered and generally a lovely human being. This did not stop me from wanting to stick toothpicks into his fingertips. The rewrite of the article took me around four hours. That's four fucking hours I desperately needed to write my own articles.

Its 7pm now. I am sitting, like a zombie, in front of the pc. I am drinking tea. I will not watch the news. (Any reportage on Zimbabwe causes immediate high blood pressure.) I will not eat any more of the illicit pizza I had delivered because I couldn't face editing the intern's next article without carbohydrates. I will crochet my stress away and put the alarm on for some ungodly hour when my first worry is a bath and how to extricate myself without disturbing the cat pile.

The mirror shatters our perfect life

We truly believe in the ideal. All of our actions show this. People are amazed when a family doesn't contain two parents of opposite gender and two kids. If they held up a mirror, they would quickly see that their lives don't even come close to the ideal that has been created in the collective unconscious and with media's assistance. Yet there are so few people prepared to take that journey of discovery. Is my life authentic? Am I yearning for an ideal that doesn't exist? Where does the ideal come from? Why was it created?

More and more we are presented with the antithesis of the uniform world that dominates our ideal images. Yes, there are people of every colour. Yes, there are gay people. Yes, disabled people exist. Yes, people are single. Yes, many people choose other options over marriage. Yes Yes Yes. This is not a world that contains a single image. We are everything and everyone. The human race has so many facets, sociologists and psychologists spend their lives trying to note them down.

Yet still we persist in our dream world. There are people that so strongly want to believe in that ideal picket fence world, they cover their eyes and minds to any reality that shows them different. The preacher that dictates commitment, love and a higher learning. The same one that is arrested for paedophilia. Or the husband that tells the world how he painted his white fence and then goes home and beats his wife.

The world of fifty years ago is not the world today. White America is not the only existence. But people feel safe when they have clarity.
"Oh this is how it should be."
"This is what I should work towards because it is what is right."

We are fed these images as a means of control. If you want people to be sheep, you show them the ideal sheep and the imagined rewards for that ideal sheep. You teach them to make sheep noises and you point them in the right direction. You explain how being anything but white sheep is wrong. You come up with expressions like "black sheep".

People can be surrounded by a multitude of images and experiences that negate the ideal sheep
image but still they choose to believe in the imaginary. Why? Will looking at their own lives and understanding that difference is the norm destroy everything? Or does it mean they may have to think for themselves, create a reality that is individual rather than force fed?

I am still not smoking.

I have become a rabid knitter and all cool credentials are out the window but I am still not smoking.

Anti-anti-routine blues

We are all held by delicate threads that call themselves routine but are in fact the reason we are able to climb into our beds at night without anarchy destroying the fabric of our lives. This may all sound a little bit like hypochondria for the existentialist but, after living for some years on this planet, I know this to be true.

I often think about routine. And the conclusions I reach reflect my age. My resistance to routine used to be the badge of youth. I would stand up against the need to fulfill the basic step step of life because it meant buying into mediocrity. If I followed routine I would become the epitome of suburbia. I would have bought into the life that I actively disagreed with. Why would I want to be a replica of a million other subjugated women? Rebellion against routine was part of my cry for an individual voice.

But I did not know the truth. Human beings follow the basics of scientific law. Without a bit of moulding, a squidgeon of direction, we move towards lethargy. We could probably sit all day on our well-rounded little bottoms if sustenance was all sorted. To be fair, we would probably need some entertainment. A thousand books and a world of escapist visuals leave us occupied for hours... for a lifetime. But then the internal cuckoo clock juts out his head. (Maybe her head?) And we look at all we have not achieved and we sigh.

While there is drama in using the plural, I should stand up for what I am. I can waste away hours and days in a world without routine. When I am faced with no structure, I drift. If I'm lucky I am thrown into interesting situations but that means leaving it up to chance. And chance isnt always kind. Routine brings a form of much-needed structure into my life. However I only learnt this in my late thirties.

Youth was about carrying the beacon for anti-establishment. It was a small light but it belonged to me. That I could decide what time I brushed my teeth felt like a victory. While heroes were destroying injustices I was fighting my own battles in suburbia. They felt as big.

There is a cliché: sometimes you need to lose the battle to win the war. I think maybe this is a bit like that. I fought desperately against routine and truly believed I was part of the last outpost. But routine is part of commitment. Commitment is part of defining a life that transcends description. So once my pithy little brain had got round that concept I am now in the process of trying to create a routine that is part of my individuality and that allows me to move onto larger feats.

it isn't easy.

I have to retrain myself and my need to rebel. But I have learnt that without routine it is not that easy to achieve my goals, to balance my life, to steady my unquiet mind. Routine is in its own way a western meditation device.

I want to be more than I am.

Wedding tackle

My sister got married. My younger sister got married. My older married brother came up for the wedding, with his wife. I said a speech. They each brought their partner and I brought a speech. (Ok so it was my sister's wedding so I guess she had to bring her partner.) But is anyone seeing the gap here?

Usually, I feel like a benevolent observer at weddings. "How twee," I think. "Look at the fabulous couple embarking on their journey to divorce." (Ok I usually only think that if I read a newspaper that day, which only reminds me that humans are a physical embodiment of grossness, mayhem and violence.)

I almost always contemplate the nature of community celebrations; what it is to publicly declare your union; that a wedding is a torturous process that allows the different families to finally realise who they are letting into their gene pool. I also think back on all the weddings I have attended, or not attended. How weddings seem to be watershed moments in friendships. I ruminate on the cost - how a day can tally up to the same amount as a deposit on a house or a fabulous overseas trip. But this wedding was different.

I had been part of weddings where I was intricately involved in the ceremony. However I had never been part of a family where everyone was or had been married at some point except for yours truly. If you asked me six months ago if it mattered, I would have glibly said no. But when the moment arrived, it did matter. A lot.

Suddenly I was having my own little watershed moment. I was facing a truth. To be married, to have kids (the really big picture started descending at this point), to represent what I had always viewed, and in some way opposed, as the traditional face of western society was actually part of a growth process. I came to the realisation that I would never properly grow up and become a fully actualised person without committing to responsibility - be it a long-term relationship or children or something else - and these rites of passage represented those commitments.

So there I stood, amidst the festivities, facing a future of continuing post-adolescence. I saw myself, at eighty, and it worried me. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Run forward and embrace the social notion of partnership that I have always struggled with, or remain in stasis, without growth. So I did what any logical minded person would do. I drank.

Drink can blur the edges but it cannot stop the tradition of the bouquet being thrown. Although at this wedding there were two bouquets as there were two brides. One tradition stared stony faced at the other tradition. It was a show down. Would I, the stalwart non-participant, engage in what I had previously viewed as a symbol of women's acquiescence and submission to a larger patriarchal tyranny?

Yes I would.

I put down my glass. Shoved people aside. Shouted at my sister and my new sister-in-law that they must aim their bouquets at me. Missed the first one. Complained loudly to the crowd. Went for the rugby tackle approach for the second bouquet. Which I caught. And somewhere I hoped the Molecule of Destiny was listening, because the feminist had landed and she wanted commitment.

knock knock

Don't mind me. Just tiptoe-ing back to my blog. Cough. No time has passed at all. Nope. I don't have commitment issues. I mean what is err... six months in the bigger picture? It is a mere blip on this wonderful place we call the universe. (Dodging through use of optimism - excellent tool discovered by watching politicians.) I am back. I am also front, up and down. I have been taking a really expensive treatment for my Crohn's and have been a superduperbusinesswhirlpool oh-my-god-where-does-she-get-the-energy person. So I have my excuses. That and the fact a blog means commitment and I am not sure I know how to commit. Although I could probably commit myself to an insane asylum. Or I could commit hara kiri. (Leave me while I wander down the lanes of language nuance.)

I was asked if I had read 'The Satanic Verses'. (It was a relative - around eighty, wild and a Marxist. At some point I should introduce you to my family.) I told her that I don't read newspapers anymore. In my world, newspapers are the Satanic Verses. Local news? Makes you want to emigrate. International news? Makes you want to change species. I don't know if it is because communication has opened up so much that all is revealed, or because our world is galloping along to a biblical conclusion. I do know it's giving me an ulcer and I have enough of those.