The calm after the storm...

It's been a reflective and terrible week again. Why is it I always blog to say how crap it's been :(

The reason for the total crapness all came to a head on Tuesday Morning. I spent a grand total of 17 hours at the office on Monday, which culminated in a document being sent off to the client 5 hours before the window closed. I got back to my hotel, groggy for exhaustion at 4AM and decided they won't see me on Tuesday, especially after losing half of Sunday to work too.

Yesterday was spent suffering from a vision related migraine but was also spent with thoughts swimming through my head. Obscure, dream induced thoughts. As if my subconcious was melting into my conciousness at times. (When ever I think of melting, I think of Kerry, Lost in Japan at this very moment).

I think some much needed toursit time is due this weekend. It'll be my last weekend in London before I jet back late on the 9th... Maybe a walk around the Thames in the cold, or a visit to the Tate Modern. This canvas needs some footprint dabs.

Friday night spurred the eternal questions around being happy. How does one "look" for happiness? Can you even look for happiness? Isn't happiness like the Tao would preach: "No attachment to material things" or is it more subtle than that, a balance. I'm inclined to think the latter, and sitting here being a baker is not helping at all. I need to go out there and find my path and just follow it. I need to find out who I really am inside cos I've been getting hints of it for too long now. Some suggest finding that head-space, 3 months of absolutely nothing, no time constraints, no being tied down. Maybe that's why Tibet is the world's most popular backpacking nation in the world.

Happiness is internal appreciation, the ice floating in the fizz of your coke on a hot summer day. Happiness is sharing a smile and getting one back. Happiness is knowing you're loved and loving others just as hard and then some.

The sun is lazy today, just doing enough work to keep the chill at bay. Moderately warm they say.

Wind: a hurried messenger, fueled by the cold of the arctic waters and it's temperate-under-the-collar customer miles inland. Always running, never stopping to ask how I am.

Soft sand whisked up in the stress of the trafficking wind forms long lines across the beach. Holding hands, these strands of sand never letting go of their peers, their families, their lovers.

Tired feet massaged by the receding sandy water underneath, gurgling as each step passes. The now defunct sandals bundled together in my left hand.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Her dress seems to play with the wind, curling itself around the pressure and turning it into something graceful.

Signing off with the following: Someone special popped into the world this day, her beautiful brown eyes seen for the first time by her obviously proud parents, is it 23 years ago? *grin* Happy Birthday Carla!

A road (bad) trip

This dream happened just before 7:40AM on Monday.

Mike (my brother) and I go collect Garth and Ross Taylor. We haven't sen them in years. I'm driving mom's old Fort Cortina, the one we used to dread driving in Snobville.

We arrive in good time and they hop in. It feels like we're driving back home at this stage, and for some reason I'm incredibly nervous about my driving ability, especially having 3 peers in the car.

We stop off somewhere first, all get out, then get back in again. I feel terribly uncomfortable in my driving position. The seat feels awkward. My brother is sitting behind me yet it's Garth who's knees are digging into the back of my seat. He sarcastically remarks: "Yeah, it's uncomfortable hey?!".

We're driving through the back streets of Bryanston and Randburg. I'm driving slowly, perhaps too slow. Other road users behind me are upset, showing their disappointment in my rearview mirrors. I ignore them. My vision ahead seems obscured. As I make sense of the impairment, its a great big red model double-decker bus perched just behind my steering wheel (on the steering column). I try sit up straight and can only just see a bit further. By leaning to the left I can see much better.

I feel like I'm outside the car, but still in full control. The car is no longer mom's old Ford, but a corsa or some other hatchback. Even red in colour. I'm looking down at the car. We're dodging stationary cars, garden service bakkies and stopping for oncoming traffic. The road users behind me are getting incresingly irritated, one particular individual looks like a rough Harvey Keitel, shaggy jaw, scruffy hair. When I slip into the oncoming lane, the cars behind me surge ahead of our car in the left lane. Three cars pass, the Harvey Keitel look-alike first, another car and then an old man with thick glasses easily visible. When the old man passes he uses his hazards to say: "Thanks!", I sarcastically say to myself: "Pleasure old man" and pull a Banzaaai hand sign.

I've got an easy right turn ahead, one I've travelled many times before as it seems quite familiar. Our slow speed is actually too fast for the turn and I miss the apex. The car trips into a slide, by looking over my left shoulder I can see a house's gate approaching fast. The car stops spinning at 180 degrees but is still sliding backwards. I work the controls of the car and we stop centimetres from the gate. I knew it! I knew we'd miss it!

My passengers were obviously distressed but I blow it off, trying to act all confident, inside I feel terrible again.

As we head into the dip after resuming our course, the Harvey Keitel wannabe tries to tell me something from the side of the road. I can't tell if he's pissed off with me and wants a confrontation or if he has something to point out to me about the state of my car. (like it could have had a flat or a non-working tail light). I blow him off again and carry on with the driving. As we descend into the dip, I can see a huge sandbank on the right-hand side. Our road now has two choices, an early right turn up the embankment or continue on the left (which Garth and Ross reveal later was the better way to go).

I take the right turn up the sand bank and am outside the vehicle again, looking down at the car and the road ahead. Dodging the severe bumps and making my own road of the sand and grass. I reassure the passengers again by pointing out a dirt road ahead of us, headed in the right direction too.

I'm back inside the car again with my right arm out the window catching air. My hand touches an over-hanging power-line, I didn't feel any electrical current (thank goodness) just the cold steel. We're now at a cliff-top and there are powerlines everywhere, I grab onto another power-line and now all 4 of us are out of the car, dangling from the lines, worried about which cable to hold onto. The car feels like it's down in the water below.

A human ladder is the agreed best way off the power lines, but the powerline we're all holding onto starts to sag, we're headed for the water below. Fear overcomes me.

As we touch the water a massive surge of electricity courses through the line. I wake up.

Seventeenth of the Eleventh and a week

Looks like my trip has been extended till the 9^th of December. I'm not happy about this. It's starting to snow elsewhere in England, only a matter of time before it hits London.

Let's see, in the lsat week, I've had to work, worked and then worked some more. Saturday I was sick and still had to work, Sunday I went to see my cousin Donja and her new family. Amazing what can happen in 5 years :)

Some of you know just how much I detest contracting to this company, well, I had to chuckle at the following. Their head office is near Slough in a place called Egham. Slough is reknowned for its terrible attitude. On the BBC, they're running an experimental TV program called: "Making Slough happy". I don't think that'll help this shit company :D

On the emotional front, I got an excellent interpretation for the last dream I posted. And subsequently had another hectic dream, which I might post later.

Tuesday presented an excellent opportunity to do some ad-hoc writing, so please, pull up a seat and tell me what you think...

Sitting in a laundrette, reading my book which is open on a chapter titled "Happiness". Trying to balance a chocolate brownie and the book, totally cosumed by the book while I consume the brownie, totally. Bits of brownie spill on the pages below, rich chocolate brownie bits. My mouth pitiful for the missing pieces now strewn and smudged on the pages. The smudges have somehow avoided the text as most of the crumbs descended into the valley created by the pages. That's what it is, a fold between mountains, a fertile valley slit in two by an angry river. In the next valley, a new story is waiting to unfold.

The windows to the laundry are all steamed up, the dryers are running at full tilt after being industriously loaded by the resident physiotherapist. A man of small stature. A man with a smile and outlook to balance how he is perceived on the outside. He has a pseudo-Italian accent, it reeks of English abuse, maybe even colonialisation.

The hum of the dryers is soothing to the inmates, that is except when the loose change and plastic buttons don't knock against the glass windows. No silk shirts or expensive trousers here, this laundry is a place of worship to the meek. Tokens of gratitude will have to amuse the gods for another few minutes, the gods reacting with brewing thunderstorms and they're cleansing rain.

A cycle of life within this 25 square meter establishment. In go the vital ingredients for its existence, out goes the byproduct. The entire process bringing a sense of accomplishment to all.

Didn't finish so well, but it was still a good feeling to write it.

Seventeenth of the Eleventh

Void, Null. One can't even shake an adjective out of the mental lucky packet to describe the last week. I'm losing track of my days. Anyway, this should break the 10 day drought. Last night, around 3:30PM I woke up after another whacky dream. I had my notepad and pen at the ready so jotted it down in the semi-dark. Here...

I'm with a family, the father figure reminds me of Bill Cosby, in fact, the whole family reminds me of the Cosby family. Bill's oldest daughter has a crush on me, she's shy for an 18 year old. There is someone else with me at the Cosby residence, a small complex unit in a beautiful autumn park estate. This person feels like a guardian and observer, maybe even a friend.

We leave the Cosby house and as we walk out the front door onto the common pathway / roadway, Bill's oldest daughter runs after us so we turn and face her and her mini-entourage of younger brothers and sisters. She approaches and gives me a light kiss, then shyly recoils. Her younger siblings giggle in their innocent ways. She's blushing. I face her and step closer, and she darts inside after putting a puzzled look on her face. The younger ones chuckle and follow her into the house.

I turn for the gate again. I look down to see that all the gardens are demarcated with hundreds of those hang-up knives and forks. You know, the ones with plastic handles that you can hang on a 6-item rack. All the metal bits are shoved into the ground, acting as mini-picket fences for the gardens in the complex units. I pull one out, the fork itself is huge! Twice the normal size at least. Our curiousity fades, so we walk to the complex entrance.

The complex itself is open-air, well spaced lots with tall Oak trees, Oak trees with hardly any branches at the lower regions, just tall trunks at eye level. It's autumn, so some golden leaves are perched on the bright green grass. It feels like it's over-cast, but that could be the trees blocking the light. I don't look up, just down.

Bill's youngest son (aged 8-10) has been running after us and finally catches up. He's playing the messenger boy for his father, we're to see the old man as soon as possible. A brief walk back to the Cosby house ensues. When we meet Bill inside, he asks us what happened to the 6 chocolate muffins we bought (at Woolworths). I don't really know the answer but I say: "I gave them to the children", lying about his kids, when I really mean I gave them to the children of the world.

For the 3^rd time we leave the Cosby's. This time our walk takes us on an elevated road within the complex. High grass embankments on either side. Now I feel like I'm at a lake-side holiday resort, it feels Drakensberg-ish, but I can't see any of the mountains.

Our road out has a view over a lake-side road, within a stone's throw. To the right I hear a mighty freeflow exhaust sound, I say to my walking partner: "I know this car, it has a lot of power!". As it reveals itself from the right of my view, it looks like a bright yellow Toyota Conquest, but more "boxy". It has racing stickers all over it, with a bold navy blue 3 word phrase down the door panels, one of the words I can make out to be: "Acton". Perhaps a company name. [For some reason I'm associating this with the "Speend and Sound" livery I've seen on Subaru's.] As the car barrels down the road, I can now see that it actually has 8 wheels, 2 per axle with huge yellow rims, like tyre-less LEGO wheels. No rubber evident per wheel. The car makes a stuttering sound and the driver inside brings it to a halt right in front of us. Grating the gears, it groans as he picks up the revs. Instead of going forward, the car shunts abruptly in reverse, the driver hesitates then carries on going in reverse. Now the driver is not inside anymore and replaced with an overweight black man, dressed in a navy, sky blue and white basketball jacket and NY Yankees cap. He's sitting on top of the car as if it was a Go-Kart. What happens next really confuses me. As he's going in reverse, the car flips up onto one set of 4 wheels, with the other 4 in the air. He's driving it backwards with the car on the left side of wheels and the weight of the car on his road-bearing head.

The dream ended.

What do you think it means?

Add no infinitum please...

So anyway... that last blog was pretty sif. Sorry :/

I'm slowly plodding through the novel / handbook Nicole gave me on "The Right to Write". The book is pocket-plethora of inspiration for writing, but I just haven't committed to doing any. I'd rather read the book than break the reading-chain-of-thought by switching to the PC or paper. Watching TV is also bad for progress.

Many themes on the book touch on coincidental aspects of my own life, or how I even started looking at writing. A good example is how I used to write to myself to "show" those mean people a thing or two. Emotion fuels writing. Another example is how a simple walk on your own outdoors can open up ideas or bring clarity to those that seemed obscure. All in all let's just say Nicole is an inspired gift giver :) I love designers :)

Continuing on my theme of London, this weekend was action packed...

On Saturday, I got up early (or rather tried to :D) for breakfast and subsequently took the tube to South Kensington Station. A short walk through the subway and I emerged at the entrance to the Natural History Museum just after 11:00AM. The free entrance was a welcomed surprise, as was the content of the museum. The museum had two fancy exhibits on, the Wildlife photographer of the year as well as a massive diamond exhibit. I must have spent over an hour in the Wildlife Photography exhibit, most of the photos were truly awe inspiring. Some examples and some thoughts below...

That feeling you get when you've had a long tiring day, that nothing else can go wrong because the worst has already happened, when you step outside and it starts to rain. You laugh at yourself, getting wet like a fool but you're enjoying it. Like the freedom after a slog through the sewerage at Shawshank, stripped to the bone of your humanity, exposing the realness of you. Embrace the heavens, embrace the giver of life your soul liberated, your smile extended, your conviction exposed.

...and...

Settled, rejuvenated. Ready for the next leg of this life-journey. Your past echoing behind you, the future calling before you. Potential born in each one of us, potential to fail in the frost or ascend on the air.

I guess you could picture me smirking like an idiot when I came across the chimp reaching for the termites, in the packed exhibit area. These little captioned images do little justice for the grandeur I was presented with.

The rest of museum was good, especially the gem-stone and life-sciences areas. I intended to visit the Science museum too, but it was already 3:30PM and my back was killing me from standing all day. I got back to the hotel, chilled for a while and gathered my strength for a night out on the town.

First stop was Battersea Park for the annual Guy Fawkes Fireworks evening. 2 beers, 20 minutes of fireworks and a brandy-'n-coke later I was feeling alive. So was my bladder, I was busting for a piss. :D After a train trip back to Victoria Station I was bursting at the seams so headed off to the loo's while everyone else shot the proverbial breeze. Afterwards we headed to one of the local pubs until they kicked us out at closing time. The rest of the evening was spent having cocktails and shooters over Monopoly and Music. The Monopoly didn't go down so well, but the music, booze and the friendly banter sure did! :D I got back to the hotel just before 4:30AM, another great night in the bag!

Sunday I chilled in the hotel lounge to a cappucino and an awesome burger, completing games of Sudoku in all the provided newspapers. (I'm such an addict :D)

That's the end of another sif entry. Thanks for payin' and stayin'.

Friends take the gloom outta London

The last two nights have been spent with good friends, indulging in decent food, sharing bottles of wine.

On Wednesday, I jumped on a tube train or three and got out at Victoria Station, a short walk and a return ticket later, I was on the train to Clapham Junction. Here, I met up with Gareth and a few of his friends at a pub called "The Fine Line". One too many Grolsch's later, I found myself playing chicken with the cars whilst heading back to the train station, a spring in my step and getting weird glances from passer-bys. I blame the overly loud Queens of the Stone Age album screaming in my ears.

Last night was just as good. Its not everyday you can hook up with some old buddies and take off from where you left, as if time was immaterial. I hadn't seen Jennie for almost 5 years, and Chief for 2.

They made the move to London about 3-4 years ago and haven't looked back. It got me thinking about my time in London so far, which under the circumstances, has been quite poor. It seems job opportunities for my line of work are literally bursting at the seams. I'd be stupid to ignore them but could I really live here? Maybe I can earn pounds in SA :D

All in all, let's just say the last two days have been much better!

London itself, after a week.

Gloom, as I said earlier, has equal presence as the number of hot spanish girls. People draped in dark jackets and coats, the only bustle of colour coming from the odd tie or eccentric old bat. I've never seen so many suits in my life before.

The buildings look run-down and repeatedly restored plus rained-on for ages. Imagine mounds of dark red earth with visible erosion marks stretching from the top down. Now add a building image over the mound of earth. Get the picture?

The tree's leaves are just starting to turn red. With the office being directly opposite Green Park, it makes for a beautiful morning walk from Green Park station to the offices on Piccadilly Lane. That is, when I'm not dodging the other panic stricken pedestrians and the hell-cabs.

Tube stops are odd. The people on the trains dare not stare, smile (and therefore laugh) let alone talk to strangers. Instead, everyone is frowning at their own shoes, or trying to make it look like they're reading the paper. The busiest time I've been on the tubes has been at 6:30 and is NOT an enjoyable experience. Carrying a laptop on a crammed train left me checking my laptop bag every 10 seconds. There are ALWAYS people bumping into you. By the time you get off the tube, your nasal passages have been invaded by a black soot.

I haven't tried the buses yet and was told I should. We'll see, right now I'm happy being a creature of habit. :D

Weather has been good apparently. (Yes, Apparently!) Most of my time has been spent in the office, or sleeping, so I can't really comment :D It did rain badly the one day, which proved highly irritating. Thankfully I had my massive rain-jacket with me so avoided being totally soaked.

A few weeks in a strange place

There's nothing more disappointing than listening to one of your favourite CD's, but one that's been scratched with estrogen induced fury and fingernails. How can the best vocalists stutter like idiots? How can the best guitarists strum like 3 year olds? It just doesn't make sense. It's not the chaos of it, it's the order of the chaos of it. It's like when black and white mix and have grey mutant babies.

It's the expectation of it all, you expect your favourite music to play perfect, to satisfy, instead it disappoints to the point where you need to find something else to satisfy you. Booze? Drugs? Hermit-dom? Try writing. Once again, it's the high expectation, and we're not talking about a drug-induced high, we're talking setting your sights on something unreachable, well, not quite. Not unreachable, but just out of reach.

"KAAARRRRMAAA Police, arrested this man, he talks in math, he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a day-dream-radio."

"KAAARRRRMAAA Police, arrested this girl, her hitler hairdo, it's making me feel ill and we have crashed her party."

"This is what you get."

"This is what you get."

"This is what you get, when you meehh-ess with uuuuus."

"Foooorrrr a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself!"

... but now I'm back, damn.

I have R17k worth of holds on my credit card. Yay. Like a fool, I persist with my stay in my 140 pound per night hotel and its 15 pound breakfasts, all in the blind hope that my contract holders will pay it back, as they should.

The work is incredibly frustrating, I can't do my work, because it's too premature. It's like trying to build the scale model with no plans to work off.

It's 1AM, and I still need to get a few thoughts outta my head.