Monday, November 2, 2009

Rant.

I'm feeling frustrated.

There are always a lot of people in my house.
Always. 
And a lot of people create a lot of noise.

Conveniently, my desk and laptop lie between the two loudest rooms in my house; the living and dining rooms. So while I am punching away at the keypad, trying to get fifteen hundred words up onto my screen, I am hearing my mother in the kitchen talking on the phone, my sister at the dining table telling me every detail of her day, my cousin from a few streets away abusing the doorbell, my brother throwing a football against the wall, and my dad's phone ringing, all with the Simpsons running in the background.

I need a new workspace.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Love Story

We spread out a pink blanket - not the picnic type, just one from a bed that I had found in the boot of my car. I lay on my front and you on your back, by the red, blue and yellow of the playground. Running fingers through your hair, it felt as if the only two in the world were we. And I wondered how it could ever be any other way. 



Monday, October 19, 2009

Quotes by the Master




Blunt. Uncompromising. Gutsy. Sharp. Difficult. Extraordinary.

Oriana Fallaci



'On every professional experience, I leave shreds of my heart and soul.'

When covering the Vietnam War, she was asked where she would like her body sent if killed in action. She answered, 'The White House.'

'I am sick and tired of wars. Wars are always the same.'

'Writing is a despicable thing to do. It's an unbearable thing. I hate writing. It's such a masochism that I become a masochist.

'They're gone [my family], so who is going to hold my hand? It's okay, it's okay. I'm ready. I'm going to hold my own hand.'

'Happiness is a lady I never really met.'

'I never gave a damn about a successful life, I wanted an adventurous life, an interesting life, a life in which I would write...success is something that deprives you from freedom and the most important thing for me is freedom. If you deprive me of freedom I'm dead.

'I sat at the typewriter for the first time and fell in love with the words that emerged like drops, one by one, and remained on the white sheet of paper... every drop became something that if spoken would have flown away, but on the sheets as words, became solidified, whether they were good or bad...'

Monday, October 12, 2009

Flashes in Time

On the weekend, a friend asked me 'If I can't remember things that I experience, what's the point of them even happening? If I just forget these things, do they even really happen?' I thought this to be a...well, profound question. It took me a minute to process. Eventually i told her if a moment evokes a certain emotion, does that not give it significance? If this forgotten moment has at one point created happiness, agnst or anger (etc.) it has to mean something.

...Days later i'm sitting at my computer, still thinking of this question. Thinking of the weight of memory and time. The memory is hardly infallible; things are lost through the holes of consciousness all the time - I mean, i'll often walk into a room, look around and think 'now why am I in here again?' But to question the purpose of those many forgotten instances - that is unsettling. All the kisses, the touches, the tears, the moments of laughter, the moments of agony that have been left in the past, they cannot be completely worthless...can they?

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

A Little Birdie.

I have a little birdie friend, he is small, and black, with a face the colour of summer skies.
I watch from my desk as he taps on my window, flirting with his reflection. He momentarily flits about my mandarin tree, before taking off for wherever he so chooses.
He is a pretty little birdie, of a breed I am unsure. I wish to take his picture, but his visits are short and spontaneous.
I like that my birdie friend always keeps me guessing; our relationship shall never be a monotonous one. He comes and goes as he so decides - days are brightened by his sporadic visits.
One day I know he won't return, and a sad day that will be - but remember him I always will, my small, black and blue birdie.


Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Fishing tales.

As a child , nothing excited me more than our family fishing trips - I'd grab my red rod and set out, determined to catch myself a new pet, or something equally as exciting. My sister and I would spend hours, bruising backsides against rocks, and screaming out over the slightest tug on the ends of our fishing lines. I always secretly wished someone would bring up a boot – just to see the cliché’ realised I guess… All I ever caught on my hook was the skin of my fingertips.



My sister once caught a crab and managed to smuggle it back home with us. We were determined to keep Sebastian as our pet. We fed him bread and made him a home in a sand-bucket filled with tap water and collected shells. My cousin thought it fitting to add table salt to Sebastian’s home. He didn’t last the night. Our mothers tried to tell us he ran back to the beach, but I knew better.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Le Femme.

In only catching a glimpse of the show Dexter this evening, I was shown enough to anger the fiery feminist in me. The scene I speak of included Dexter and his female partner/hot sidekick. Little miss was weeping over her tormented soul - she felt badly about some action of hers blah blah. Dexter pats the fragile woman on the shoulder, as his 'voice of god' comentary narrates the situation at hand. It is a sad convention of these cop shows that the female cop (always singular) puts up a tough-no b/s-professional front, only to break down every so often like the meek little girl she really is.