Thursday, January 24, 2008

bOy mEt gIRl

Skiving off work today, I watched this really useless movie called ‘Wedding Wars’ (worryingly, I’m watching a lot of useless movies of late!!); such an attractive title, and so even more of a let down for it! It is about a guy whose only brother is openly gay, and is about to marry the only daughter of a conservative governor during election year. The straight brother asks the gay brother to be his wedding planner and during the course of events the governor is forced to make his stand against gay marriage, which he is NOT for, which stand the straight brother comes out and admits he shares; the gay brother lays down his wedding planning tools (so to speak) and goes on strike by picketing outside the governor’s house, blah, blah, the brothers reconcile, the day is somehow saved the movie ends!! Lame beyond words.

Anyway, turns out it was not a complete waste of time as I fell to day dreaming after it was over. This was the continuation of a daydream that I drew my sister into one hot afternoon during the Christmas holidays to kill time.. (interesting expression - kill time!! Would't that literally be like burning money? Anyway) In this daydream, we were going to be organising my future wedding. Since I am not dating at the moment, I thought this would also be a good exercise in visualisation and creation. My sister interns with an architect and they have this client who wants to develop 10 acres of land beside the River Nile. We are told there are masses of land on sale around this place as well so it had occurred to me to go and check it out while it was still cheap.

Any how, I decided to have this riverside place as the venue of my daydream. Lazily, we floated off on our day dream – quite a pleasant way to spend a lazy afternoon I’ll tell you. At the end of it all, I wondered if I couldn’t look for land specifically to set up a wedding venue for people – especially for those who want to hold garden ceremonies! I would have the place permanently gazetted, build a gazebo right out by the river, build an open walled tented structure with a floor where one could set tables or dance, a place to store food and beverages, enough sockets for all the lighting, video, music, refrigerators… Two or three bandas for the bride and their party to stay over on the wedding night (bed and floor of bridal suite littered with flower petals as an extra), the works!!! Anyway, watching this movie really helped me visualise this!! It may have been weak on coherent storytelling, but it did not hold back on the colour!! I could have chairs and tables for hire, I could put guys in touch with decorators, photographers, transporters, caterers, name it! Heck, I could get them a wedding planner if they wanted!! My business would be called: bOy mEt gIRl - cool eh?

Ahhh, what a nice daydream!! I went back the office eventually but the better part of the afternoon was spent - killed? Gosh, I won't let myself even enjoy a day dream!!

HE GOES OR I GO - AND WHY I HAVE TO GO

I have spent the last few hours in my house watching a movie and drinking coffee. Life is too slow for me! I cannot concentrate on work, and earlier I tried to post but couldn’t find any inspiration!! Is this how people get completely fed up with their lives they have to force a change??

This week it became clearer why I want out of my current job!! It’s an old song I know, but everyone has sang it at one point! Anyway, mine goes like this:

A while back, we were taken over by one of those copy cat types, who has somehow perfected the art of covering up his inadequacies and sound like a pioneer. This is a guy who took our workplace and turned it on its head, then sat by like the rest of us waiting to see what would follow.. You know when you are going along happily enough (sure, things could be better) when some guy comes along and shouts

‘God, how can you guys take this? '

You think ‘How dare he? Who does he think he is??!!?’

‘You are really not serious!!’ Is he sneering??

You think ‘Now look here a minute...’

’Infact, if I were you, I would never stand for this!!’ he interrupts

You are stunned into silence. This guy is too obnoxious for words. Where does he get off?

Weeks and weeks and many replays later:

‘I know a better way’

Resigned. Worn down. Cowed.

‘Fine… What do you suggest’ you mumble.

Enough encouragement!

In he sweeps with changes, reforms, overturnings, turnarounds, can he pull it off? Wait for it – waiiit, stalling, stalling, revs, revving, can he do it, can he??

WAIIIT

AAAND

HE DOES!! Ululating!! Loud cheering. Applause all around.. Was that a cat call? Wow. The entire staff united as one undulating organism behind him. The man of the moment! What a visionary! What a guy!!

Ohhhhhh...

So, the morning after.

Still trying to recover from the triumph of the day before, we all slowly get back to work. We step into a new life. The students turn to us. We turn to the man. Expectant.

Wait. Rewind and come again.

We turn to the man. We wait. We expect. We -

Where is he?

He has left me a little note:

Hi, have to dash to Austria, then I’ll be on to Australia. You can handle things while I’m away can’t you? I am looking so forward to my trip. 10 WHOLE days!! (I hear gushing) Do you know that I am booked into one of the oldest hotels in Vienna – TOOO cool.

Anyway, see you! :-)

HUH? HUH??

But what shall I do?? I don’t know what your plan was!! You didn’t tell me. YOU were going to do it. To finish it. To see it through!! To -

The students look to us. We look to ME!

‘Why are you looking at me???’

Well, he left you in charge!!

You are the one with the fancy education degree!!

You always know what to do…

Ok, Ok, hang on, wait.. I rifle through all the papers on his desk; I try his cell phone. I run around the building.

They wait. They expect.

Noooooo!!!

ANYWAY,

When my voice was hoarse from shouting no, no, no, no, I found myself whimpering why, why, why, and then finally whispering, ok. fine. Louder. Fine. Chin squared. Fine! Eye gleaming. FINE! Back straightened – anyway, you get the picture.

Cut to present, things haven’t gotten any better. Later I found out the guy had basically cut and paste some programme from his previous school, simply because he felt it (and by extension he) was better than ours. us. No effort to contextualise, no effort to even re-word!! Anyway, this might not have been such a disaster, if only he'd had a plan! But NO! The guy's song (which is also tired by the way) is that we should all innovate, own the progamme (own the programme??? Is this when he tells us??) In short, this is a guy that does not know how to spell ‘follow through’. He has basically disengaged, any attempts to get him to specify what he planned to do next produces waffling and longwinded treatises and circular arguments, accompanied by pseudo intellectual chin stroking and far away looks interupted by sudden eye narrowing (which is how he walks away from you mid-sentence - like he has been struck by some brilliant idea!)

You probably hear the bitterness in my voice, well, you hear right. But anyway, I can’t blame all my woes on the man. It is up to me to live in this day dream of his and struggle with all the details while he floats off to wherever, or to up and leave...

Why am I even wasting all this energy on him?

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

MOTHERHOOD- AAHA!

I saw my mother cry this weekend. Her grown child of thirty-two stole a car from home, went out drinking and returned the next day with the lights bashed and the fellow out of his head! My mother’s first reaction was relief that he was alive - she had already woken me that morning, at what felt like dawn to me, to inform me that my brother was not yet back! It was probably much later than dawn but I had slept very late and very tired the night before after hosting a farewell party for my best friend... At any rate, her announcement did not cause me any alarm because the previous weekend, two cousins of mine had gone out with him and returned the next morning at 8am without him; they had left him at a club called ‘Oxygen’ which closes at noon and he had told them he saw no reason to leave the club one minute before that!

On this particular morning, I woke up at around 10am something told me to part the curtains at the door leading out to my balcony where I could see the main gate to my parents', only to see someone’s hand sticking in to pull the bolt open – lo and behold it was my brother. When he pushed the gate open to admit the car, I was not the least bit surprised to see that the indicator and parking lights on the left side of the car were smashed and the wiring hanging out. I just let the curtain drop and made my way to the kitchen where my mother sat eating porridge with my sister and cousins.

‘Your son’s back’ I say. My mother looked up at me questioningly ‘He crashed the car though’ I finish.

My brother walked in just then and speechlessly led me outside to view the damage. 'I can’t believe it!!' he muttered 'this happened only five minutes ago!!’ …

‘What happened?' I ask resignedly.

He just looks mutely back at me with blood shot eyes:

‘I don’t know..’ he says

‘You don’t know??' keep your voice level I think to myself 'You don't know?? Did you knock another car? Were you knocked?? Didn’t you stop??’

‘I don’t know what happened’ he crosses his arms, stands back with lips pursed and stares helplessly up at the sky. The bumper was torn too so I could tell it had been quite an impact. I could not believe that he could not remember something that had just happened 5minutes ago!

‘Look,’ I say ‘just go and sleep it off’.

‘I know I have to pay of course’ he mutters ‘I have to pay for the repair’

‘Yes, yes,’ I say impatiently as I push him around the car and towards the house ‘we’ll decide what to do when you wake up’

I walked back into the kitchen feeling completely numb. I had completely expected this. My brother has the habit of taking other people’s things without telling them, and he and I had quarrelled about it many times. I remembered the last time we’d quarrelled about it I had told him that if he did not drop this habit he would do something one day from which we wouldn’t recover! Maybe this was it!!


The most annoying thing is his inability to see how many people some of his actions affect. For instance, in this case he had crashed my sister and brother-in-law’s car. They'd left it with me for 10 days while they went shopping ang holidaying in Honk Kong, and I was due to pick them up from the airport the following day. I had planned to send some one else to pick them up as I had to be at work, but now that was going to be impossible because I couldn’t send their car back to them in this state and not be there to explain, meaning I had to miss a day of work. What was more, my dad had to ring up his mechanic on a Sunday and have him come and take the car away, and then we had to look for cash to pay him.. My brother had already told me he had no money but that he’d look for it… Fat chance of that happening in his current state. As if that was not enough, the man had completely emptied the fuel tank and yet my sister and her husband left it almost half full, meaning I had to refuel it as well!! In the middle of a fuel crisis too!! Anyway, I knew I had to take care of business because the car had been left with me, but the fact that this was merely enabling my brother's misbehaviour was not lost on my Dad and I. We just decided we would totally stick him with the bill later, but could do nothing more in the circumstances!


When I came back into the kitchen after surveying the damage, my mother said:

‘You may think this is crazy but I am just glad he is alive!’

I just shook my head, what could I say? I certainly could not admit that I had hoped he had broken a leg or something, anything to snap him out of this downhill spiral that he’d been in the last two years. I have heard of mothers who let their sons spend a night or two in jail in an attempt to practice some tough love, but I wondered if my mother was capable of that. On my part, I really felt like completely cutting my brother off. My cousins told me later that the fact that I hadn’t screamed at him as I usually do had really shaken him. The following day when I had to drive to the airport with a white bumper on a grey car because the mechanic hadn’t had time to spray it, I just decided that I couldn't do this anymore, I had to cut him off! If the others still had hope of him changing, they were welcome to wasting some more of their energy and hope but they could count me out! Riding with me in the car to the airport was a cousin of mine who was quite close to him, but who was also a much more empathetic person that I am. She told me that although his actions were annoying and irritating, there was no denying that deep down he was obviously in deep pain; what he needed was help not censure.


A few days on, I have to agree with her, albeit reluctantly. Truly he hasn’t been the same since his break up with his girlfriend of 4 years (it’s been two years since and she's since married). For that matter, one can probably trace his troubles to high school, when his grades suddenly dipped and even after re-sitting his A-levels, he hadn’t made it into any higher education institution. No one really knows what hapoened to him in those years.


Anyway, on the day he crashed the car, my mother’s sister came calling and my mother led her outside to show her the car. We were listening to them in the kitchen when we heard my mother break down into tears before she could even get one word out. I remember that made me so mad at my brother that I stormed out of the kitchen and went up to his room to wake him up! This was too much!! Now he was making his mother cry; I wanted him to come out and see this!! I banged and banged on his door, shouted his name, kicked the door, banged some more but eventually had to give up because he was clearly passed out!!


Anyway, the parents are now talking of carrying out some sort of intervention.

Monday, January 07, 2008

To WRITE (for me) is to PRAY

Seven days into the new year, and I still have no clue what is going on with me!! I cannot even collect myself enough to pray... This fills me with an unbearable amount of grave concern! The main thing is - I feel pulled in all directions at once! I am dazzled by the opportunities available to me and I cannot make a choice upon which to concentrate my creative energy!! On one hand, I had made up my mind last year to leave my current job and get my company on the road, on the other I got interviewed for what promises to be a more decent job than the one I hold now (still haven't heard from them though), and on yet another hand, I wonder if I should hold out for this job in the Sudan (though they haven't even invited me to interview with them!). As if ALL that is not enough, I have to make ready for what I call: Edinburgh 2008! (As of this morning, there may also be a Barcelona 2008 but we'll see)

The main problem is this: I suddenly feel I can have whatever I want, and this is too much power and with it comes too much responsibility! Who said it -


'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us' (Apparently this quote is often mistakenly credited to Nelson Mandela but it is by a woman known as Marianne Williamson - looked this up)


I mean even when I speak something that I don’t completely believe it still comes true! For instance, work was supposed to start today, but there has been a fuel crisis in my country since the year begun, and the University where I work is about 80km from the city where my parents live (and where I spent the Christmas break). Public transport fares have gone through the roof but despite knowing this, I kept saying that I would be at the Uni on Sunday.. By yesterday morning, I had decided to face reality and give it up, since I had even heard from our Administrator that the opening of the University had been postponed by a few days owing to the same fuel crisis. When I went to the shops for some milk and bread yesterday morning, I got an impulse to grocery shop anyway but I ignored it, figuring that it would be too early to shop for a departure that would take place mid week – plenty of time to shop till then. All the same, I was still making half-hearted attempts to find out exactly how high the fare to the university had gone, and a colleague of mine that I had asked by sms informed me that they had basically quadrupled. At that point I gave up properly but a few minutes later the same colleague calls me and says another colleague of ours was driving down and did I want a lift? Naturally I run around throwing my stuff into a back pack and hightailed it to the supermarket where they picked me up about 45 minutes later!!

Then there is the issue of my love life… (among the the things pulling me in directions) Especially in relation to the philosophy of surrendering; I learnt something very valuable yesterday: I was chatting with a casual friend of mine on sms and his first response had a :-) and a :-x. The sms that drew this response was completely innocuous so the smileys seemed kind of out of place. I was on the verge of writing to ask him what the high moods were for and what was with all the smiles and kisses, when I remembered something a Senga of mine once told me – she said that I gave guys the impression that I was the kind of girl who could laugh in a guy’s face if he so much as assumed to kiss me at the end of a date. I denied this hotly by the way, but maybe there was a grain of truth there (not that I have ever laughed or could even conceive laughing in a guy's face while he tried to kiss me) – I discussed the sms with a surrendered cousin of mine and surely enough she told me mine was to receive!

(A Senga is traditionally the Aunt with the responsibility of initiating a girl into marriage – usually one’s paternal aunt; in my case, both of those are dead so the wives of my paternal uncles would be next in line. That notwithstanding, I decided (and she decided) to give one of my maternal aunts first go..)

Truly I have great difficulty receiving!! I judge people instantly, and not always positively, so I give them little chance to get close! I have said it here before I think, but I always think if I open myself up to everyone, I will attract a lot of creeps right away.. But surely I can always tell the creeps to take a hike?? Only after I have established their creepiness of course!! If nothing else, I would have more dates than I currently pull.. (And why do I believe I will only attract creeps anyway?) My cousin suggested we start a contest and see who can get most dates – I think putting it to the challenge like that might motivate me; might make me feel silly, but it would motivate me!

ANYWAY.

As I write, I think I am clarifying the situation. I should really follow my passion, and try and create something of my own. Maybe writing is to me is what prayer is to others. I definitely should pursue getting my company on the road – God knows I have visualised it enough!! And this week I even have a car to do the rounds, and I have some money to print the info packs to get me started. I think I even got the perfect photo image!


SO WHAT'S KEEPING ME THEN??